The Diving Pool

by Yoko Ogawa

  "Yes," I said, "but it was a long way from the station, and the rooms were old and small even back then." I made a point of listing the drawbacks first.

  "That wouldn't bother me," he said, as if he'd already made up his mind. "I just need something cheap." This was natural enough, since his father, my uncle, had died when he was still little—in fact, that was one of the reasons we'd been out of touch all this time.

  "I understand," I said. "In that case, it might suit you."

  "Really?" he said, sounding delighted.

  "I'll give them a call. It was never very popular and there were always empty rooms. I doubt you'd have trouble getting in—if it hasn't gone under since then. At any rate, you're welcome to stay with us until you find a place—you can come whenever you like."

  "Thank you," he said. I could tell that he was smiling on the other end of the line.

  That was how I came to renew my ties with the dormitory. The first thing I had to do was call the Manager, but I had completely forgotten the number. I tried looking in the yellow pages. I wasn't sure a tiny place like that would even have a listing, but there it was, flowery advertising copy and all: "Heat and air-conditioning, security system, fitness center, soundproof music room. All rooms with private bath, phone, and ample closet space. A green oasis in the heart of the city." And the telephone number tucked in almost as an afterthought.

  The Manager himself answered. He lived on the premises and served as both landlord and building superintendent, but to the residents he was always "the Manager."

  "I graduated six years ago, but I was there for four years. . . ." He remembered me as soon as I mentioned my maiden name.

  He sounded exactly as he always had. My memory of him was closely tied to his peculiar way of speaking, so there was something reassuring about hearing it again, completely unchanged after all these years. His voice was hoarse, and he seemed to be exhaling each word very slowly, as if he were doing deep-breathing exercises. It was an ephemeral sort of voice that seemed on the verge of being lost in the depths of those long, slow breaths.

  "I'm calling because I have a cousin who'll be starting college this spring. He's looking for a place to live, and I was wondering whether you might have room."

  "Is that so?" he stammered, sounding hesitant.

  "Then you won't be able to take him?"

  "No, I didn't say that," he muttered, but his voice trailed off again.

  "Has the dormitory closed down?" I asked.

  "No, we're still open. I have nowhere else to go, so as long as I'm around we'll be in business." There was something particularly emphatic in the way he said the word "business." "But things have changed since your time."

  "What sorts of things?"

  "Well, it's a bit difficult to explain, and I'm not quite sure I understand myself. But things are more complicated now, more difficult, you might say." As he coughed quietly at the other end of the line, I found myself wondering what sort of "complicated" or "difficult" circumstances a dormitory could fall into. "Actually," he continued, "we have very few residents now. I know there were some empty rooms in your day, but there are a lot more now. We can't serve meals anymore. Do you remember the cook who ran the dining hall?"

  "Yes," I said, recalling the silent man who had labored away in the long, narrow kitchen.

  "Well, I had to let him go. It was a shame, really— he was a fine cook. And we're only heating the large bath every other day. The deliverymen from the dry cleaner and the liquor store leave us off their route now, and we've given up all the dormitory events, even the cherry blossom picnic and the Christmas party." His voice seemed to be gradually fading away.

  "That doesn't matter," I said. "That doesn't sound so 'difficult' or 'complicated.' " Something made me want to try to cheer him up.

  "You're right," he said. "The changes mean nothing in themselves. They're just an outer manifestation, the skull housing the brain, and what I really mean to say is hidden somewhere in the pineal gland, deep in the cerebellum at the heart of the brain." He spoke cautiously, as if weighing every word. An illustration of the human brain in my elementary school science book came back to me as I tried to imagine what sorts of difficulties the dorm was facing, but I was still drawing a blank. "I can't tell you any more than that," he said. "But in some peculiar way the dormitory seems to be disintegrating. Still, it's not the sort of thing that forces us to turn away people like your cousin. So tell him he's welcome, by all means. I'm so happy you remembered your old dormitory. Have him come around to see me, and ask him to bring a copy of his family registry and the letter of acceptance from his university—oh, and a copy of his guarantor's signature."

  "I'll tell him," I said, and hung up, feeling a bit confused.

  Spring was cloudy that year, as if the sky were covered with a sheet of cold, frosted glass. Everything—the seesaws in the park, the clock-shaped flower bed in front of the station, the bicycles in the garage—was sealed in a dull, leaden light, and the city seemed unable to throw off the last vestiges of winter.

  My life, too, seemed to be drifting in circles, as if caught in the listless season. In the morning, I would lie in bed, looking for any excuse to avoid getting up. When I finally did, I would make a simple breakfast and then spend most of the day doing patchwork. It was the most basic kind of occupation: I would lay scraps of fabric out on the table and sew them together one by one. In the evening, I made an equally simple dinner and then watched television. I never went out to meet people and had no deadlines or projects of any sort. Formless days passed one after the other, as if swollen into an indistinguishable mass by the damp weather.

  It was a period of reprieve from all the usual concerns of daily life. My husband was away in Sweden, working on the construction of an undersea oil pipeline, and I was waiting until he was sufficiently settled to have me join him. Thus, I found myself rattling around in the empty days, like a silkworm in a cocoon.

  Sometimes I would get anxious wondering about Sweden. I knew nothing about the country—what the people looked like, what they ate, what sorts of TV shows they watched. When I thought about the prospect of moving to a place that was, for me, so completely abstract, I wanted this reprieve to go on for as long as possible.

  On one of these spring nights, a storm blew through the city. It was louder and more furious than anything I'd ever heard, and at first I thought I was having a nightmare. Lightning flashed in the midnight blue sky, followed by enormous crashes of thunder, as if huge dishes were being smashed into a million pieces. A wave would roll across the city and explode right over the roof of our house, and before the echo had died away, the next one would come. It was so loud and close, I felt I could reach out and catch it in my hand.

  The storm went on and on. The shadows around my bed were so dark and deep that they might have come from the bottom of the ocean. When I held my breath, I could see them trembling slightly, as if the darkness itself were quaking with fear. But somehow, even though I was alone, I wasn't afraid. In the middle of the storm, I felt quite calm—the sort of peace that comes from being far away from everyday life. The storm had carried me off to a distant place that I could never have reached on my own. I had no idea where it was, but I knew that it was peaceful. I lay in the darkness listening to the storm, trying to see this far-off place.

  The next day, my cousin arrived.

  "I'm glad you came," I said. But it had been so long since I'd talked with someone his age that I had no idea what else to say.

  "I hope I'm not putting you out," he answered, bowing slowly.

  He had grown a great deal since I'd seen him last, and I was quiet for a time, studying the young man standing before me. The relaxed lines of his neck and arms were brought together neatly around his muscular frame. But it was the way he smiled that made the greatest impression. He did it discreetly, his head slightly bowed, as the index finger of his left hand played over the silver frames of his glasses. A soft breath escaped between his fingers, and you migh
t almost have imagined you'd heard a melancholy sigh. But there was no doubt that he had smiled. I found myself watching him closely to avoid missing the slightest change of expression.

  The conversation proceeded fitfully. I asked about his mother. He gave me a quick update on his life from age four to the present. I told him why my husband was away. At first, there were painfully long silences between each new topic, and I would cough or mutter meaningless pleasantries to fill them. But when we moved on to the topic of the times we'd spent together at our grandmother's house when we were children, the conversation flowed more easily. My cousin had a surprisingly clear memory of that time. He had little sense of the context of the events, but he could clearly recall specific moments in vivid detail.

  "Do you remember how the river crabs used to come into the garden while we were sitting on the porch helping Grandmother clean string beans?" He seemed to be wandering back to a summer afternoon in the country.

  "Of course," I said.

  "Every time I found one, I'd yell for you to come catch it."

  "I'll never forget the look you gave me when I told you that you could eat them. You'd never heard of catching something and eating it." He laughed out loud at this.

  "When you put them in the pot to boil, they struggled for a while, trying to catch the edge with their pinchers, but then they'd get very still. Their shells turned bright orange. I loved to stand in the kitchen and watch them cook."

  We went on for some time like this, comparing our versions of memorable moments, and each time I caught a glimpse of his remarkable smile, I felt myself opening up to him.

  He had brought almost nothing with him to Tokyo, so we had to get the things he needed for the dorm. We made a shopping list on a sheet of notebook paper, numbering the items in order of importance. Then we discussed how to get as much as possible on his limited budget. We were forced to eliminate a number of things and try to make up for them in other ways. We gathered as much information as we could and then combed the city to find the best quality merchandise at the cheapest price. For example, a bicycle was at the top of his list, so we spent half a day going to five different shops to find a good, sturdy used bike. Then, we took an old bookshelf I had in storage and put a new coat of paint on it. I decided to buy his textbooks and some reference books as my gift to celebrate his entrance into the university.

  The shopping took me back to my own student days, and it seemed to bring us closer together. As we gathered the items on the list, we felt the pleasure of accomplishing our task; and perhaps because it was such a modest goal to begin with, success left us with a sense of peace and contentment.

  As a result of all this activity, I began to break out of my quiet cocoon existence. I made elaborate meals for my cousin and went with him on all his shopping trips. I even took him out to see the sights of Tokyo. The half-finished quilt lay balled up in the sewing basket, and a week passed in no time.

  The day came for filing the official registration at the dormitory. It took an hour and a half and three transfers, but we finally arrived at the tiny station on the outskirts of the city. I hadn't been there since graduation, but it seemed that very little had changed in six years. The road outside the ticket gate sloped gradually up the hill. A young policeman stood in the door of the police box, while high school students on bicycles threaded their way through the shoppers in the arcade. In other words, it was much the same as every other sleepy Tokyo suburb.

  "What's the Manager like?" my cousin asked as the noise of the station died away and we entered streets lined with houses.

  "I'm not sure I know myself," I answered truthfully. "He's something of a mystery. He runs the dormitory, but I don't know exactly what that involves. It's hard to believe he makes any money from it, but at the same time it doesn't seem to be a front for a religious group or anything like that. It's on a fairly large piece of land, so it's a bit odd they haven't torn it down and built something more lucrative."

  "It's lucky for me they haven't," my cousin said. "Maybe he runs it as a kind of public service."

  "Could be," I said.

  Twin girls, about elementary school age, played badminton at the side of the road. They were absolutely identical and were quite good at their game. The shuttlecock went back and forth in perfectly symmetrical arcs. A woman on the balcony of an apartment building was airing out a child's futon, and the faint ping of an aluminum bat came from the baseball diamond at the technical high school. All in all, an ordinary spring afternoon.

  "The Manager lives in the dorm. His room is no bigger than the student rooms and not much more luxurious. He lives alone, and it seems he has no family. I never saw pictures of relatives, and I don't remember anyone ever coming to visit."

  "About how old is he?" my cousin asked, and I suddenly realized that I'd never given any thought to the question. I tried to recall the Manager's face, but I had only the vague impression of a man who was no longer young. This was perhaps because he had cut himself off from so many things in life: from family and social status—perhaps even from something as mundane as age itself. He'd had no connection to anyone and had not seemed to belong anywhere.

  "I suppose he's middle-aged," I said, for want of a better answer. "But I don't really know much about him. Even when you're living there, you won't see him very often. Maybe when you go to pay your rent, or report a burned-out lightbulb or a broken washing machine. Not often. But don't worry, he's nice enough."

  "I'm sure he is," my cousin said.

  Spring had arrived suddenly after the night of the storm. The clouds remained, but warmth in the air seemed to announce the change of seasons. My cousin clasped the envelope that held his registration materials firmly under his arm. Somewhere in the distance, a bird was singing.

  "There's one thing I forgot to mention," I said, finally bringing up the subject that had been on my mind all day. My cousin turned to look at me, waiting expectantly for me to continue. "The Manager is missing one leg and both arms." There was a short silence.

  "One leg and both arms," he repeated at last.

  "His left leg, to be precise."

  "What happened to him?"

  "I'm not sure. An accident, I suppose. There were rumors—that he'd been caught in some machine or was in a car wreck. No one could ever manage to ask him, but it must have been something awful."

  "That's for sure," my cousin said, looking down as he kicked a pebble.

  "But he can do everything for himself—cook, get dressed, get around. He can use a can opener, a sewing machine, anything, so you won't even notice after a while. When you've been around him, it somehow doesn't seem to be very important. I just didn't want you to be shocked when you meet him."

  "I see what you mean," my cousin said, kicking another pebble.

  We made several turns and then crossed the street and began climbing a hill. We passed a beauty salon with old-fashioned wigs lined up in the window, a large house with a hand-lettered sign offering violin lessons, and a field of garden plots rented out by the city. These smelled wonderfully like soil. Everything seemed familiar to me, and yet it seemed almost miraculous that I should be walking here in this place from my past with this cousin whom I'd thought I would never see again. The memories of him as a small boy and memories from my days at the dormitory seemed to bleed together like the shades in a watercolor painting.

  "I wonder what it's like living alone," my cousin said, as if talking to himself.

  "Are you worried?" I asked.

  "Not at all," he said, shaking his head. "Just a bit nervous perhaps, the way I always am when something changes. I had the same feeling when my father died, or when a girl I liked moved to a different school—even when the chicken I was raising was eaten by a stray cat."

  "Well, I suppose living alone does feel a bit like losing something." I looked up at him. His profile was framed by the clouds as he stared off into the distance. It occurred to me that he was young to have lost so many important things: his chicken, his gir
l, his father. "Still, being alone doesn't mean you have to be miserable. In that sense it's different from losing something. You've still got yourself, even if you lose everything else. You've got to have faith in yourself and not get down just because you're on your own."