‘… I’m sorry about all this.’
Shōko nodded hastily in return. She was pale. ‘It’s all right. Listen, stay here tonight. That’s the best idea. Tomorrow you can go with Kayako to the school opening. Don’t worry, I’ll lend you a kimono. Do stay, please. Kaya would be glad, too. We’re always saying so – if you’d only come back here. Mother used to say so, often. It has to be too much for you, trying to do everything by yourself. You must be tired out. Don’t think I don’t understand how you feel, wanting to cope on your own, but it’s no good waiting till something disastrous happens and then changing your mind, is it? There’s still time … You can come here for a while, have a nice rest, and think things over. You’ve had enough troubles already. This is your home, too, you know, you can just march in as if you owned the place. Really, I wish you would. It would make Kaya so happy. Wouldn’t it, Kaya?’
Kayako merely blinked her reddened eyes without answering. Smiling vaguely, her aunt went on: ‘… Yes, people go a little strange with no one to talk to. Too much loneliness can make you do all sorts of things. It’s like an illness. So … no one will think the worse of you. The main thing is to get over this …’
‘I’m not ill,’ Kōko put in quickly, watching Kayako’s face. Kayako had parted her lips as if to say something. Kōko could hardly wait for those lips to start moving. Don’t be shy, she thought, if there’s something you want to say – anything at all – go ahead and say it. She suspected she knew what it was.
‘… Of course you’re not really ill, but it’s like an illness. If you come here and take it easy, you’ll soon get better. You could keep up your piano if you wanted to, and just leave your apartment, you’ll find a use for it later, for giving lessons or something. But start by having a rest here for a week, anyway, or a month, and don’t worry about a thing. And then we’ll be able to talk properly, too …’
Her sister turned in mid-sentence toward the table, and at that moment they heard Kayako’s voice, with a hoarse, pained ring to it. ‘I – don’t want her to come. I – I hate people like her. I can’t stand the sight of her.’
And she ran from the room, footsteps clattering. Shōko took two or three steps in pursuit, then shrilled at her own children who hadn’t budged from the TV: ‘What are you lot doing? Quick, go and see if Kaya’s all right.’
Miho leaped up and switched off the set, and Takashi hauled himself out of his chair.
‘Not you, Takashi, you get on with your homework. In your second year and all you ever do is watch TV! Oh, Miho, wait, you needn’t go either. Go to your room. I’m sure you can find something to do. We’d better leave Kaya on her own for a while.’
The children withdrew to their bedrooms without so much as a look in Kōko’s direction. Kōko surveyed the now quiet room with a curious satisfaction: so that’s how they protect their world and keep it undisturbed, peaceful, and clean. Her heart went out to Kayako, who had cared enough to fling such vehemence at her.
When her sister turned back again Kōko finally saw her chance. ‘I ought to be going, today,’ she said. ‘I’d like to go to the school opening, for Kayako’s sake, but I don’t know yet. She doesn’t particularly want me to, and …’
‘As if that mattered at a time like this! Why couldn’t you have had an abortion before now? How could you leave it till you got like that! It’s a nightmare.’ And Shōko actually began to rub her eyes hard with the fingers of one hand, as if awakening from sleep.
There was a red thread, quite a long piece, against the gray of the rug. Kōko stared at it as she spoke. ‘It’s due in September. Kayako was born in August, so my children are summer babies all the way, aren’t they?’
‘What?’
Kōko raised her head and almost collided with a look of frank amazement. Her sister had rubbed her eyes until they watered.
‘… The most important part of a child’s experience is being involved in the mother’s life. She can’t be allowed just to run off when it suits her.’
‘Kōko, stop, stop talking this nonsense.’
Her sister tottered over and sank onto the sofa. Kōko followed, to pick up her shoulder bag and cardigan. She would very much have liked to sit down, but she suspected she’d never make it home if she did. She knew the old sofa well: its dark-blue depths were almost treacherously soft. Hatanaka used to sit there, once. And Kōko had taken midsummer naps there in her student days, lying drenched with sweat.
‘… Well, then, I’ll be on my way … We still have to talk about Kayako, so I’ll come again another time.’
Kōko hurried to the hallway before her sister could muster a reply. When she saw her down-at-heel shoes lined up neatly just inside the door, she let out a deep breath that was almost a sigh. Before her sister could appear from the living room she put them on, opened the door, and went out.
In the chill air she felt as though she were standing on a quiet beach. The shrubbery, which formed dark-blue silhouettes, made watery rustling sounds. The gravel at her feet seemed to give off a bluish-white phosphorescence. No cars passed along the residential street. A faint sound rumbled in the distance, like faraway thunder.
Kōko took a single breath, filling her lungs, and started to run, determined to make it to the main road. But her lumpish body wasn’t up to it. She tried to keep running all the same from plain stubbornness. At the back of her mind she could see the figure of a child scampering along a broad seashore. It was her, aged ten, looking just like Kayako. Far ahead was the running figure of her brother. Kōko watched, light at heart, as the quiet shore spread out in a monotone before her. The scene opened out rapidly to the sides, like CinemaScope; the little point in the very middle was herself. A crisp, chilly breeze. Her brother, far away. The sound of waves, and their footsteps. Two sets of footsteps. No, there was another: someone was behind her. She looked back as she ran. Kayako – six years old – was running, yelling something. She was black from head to foot – coated, probably, with sand that had stuck to her wet skin. Wait, Mommy, wait: Kayako’s voice came through the lulls between waves. Kōko faced ahead again and put on speed. Her brother was looking back and waving. But it wasn’t him. It seemed to be Doi. Doi was waving. No, it was a boy she’d never seen before. Or perhaps she had met him somewhere, but she couldn’t think where. And they were careering along, the boy and her, so fast that everything became a blur. They might have been in tiny vacuum tubes skimming horizontally along the shore. The three of them gradually drew further apart … Kayako’s voice trailed away … And Kayako had faded into the sand. But Kayako is me, she thought. Yes, I am Kayako … yet I’ve abandoned her.
Kōko picked up a taxi on the main street.
As it moved off there was a sharp pain in her abdomen and a film of gold dust bleared her eyes. She stopped the taxi and got out. Unable to see anything for the haze, she groped to the guardrail and crouched, gripping it with both hands. She wondered briefly what had caused the pain – well, what do you expect, she thought, dashing around like that – yet her body mattered less than the seaside scene. She could have sworn she’d actually been there. Was it with her mother and brother? But they’d never gone on holiday as a family, so how could she have run with him beside the sea? Had she forgotten some day at the beach with Doi and Kayako? Or was she mixing it up with an outing that Hatanaka had taken them on?
Hatanaka came from a small town by the Sea of Japan, and they had gone on a trip there when Kayako was still a baby. But there had been no sandy beach. It was an utterly bleak fishing port, squarely concreted over. They had left the seafront after five minutes because the wind was too strong for the baby, though Hatanaka had specially wanted to take them there. The sea was dark, without motion, giving no sense of space.
She waited patiently for the cramps to subside, searching her memory in the meantime for some other beach – and before she knew it she had dozed off.
When she came to, both the pain and the gold dust were gone.
Kōko set off on foot throug
h a part of town she had never visited. The stores were still open: when she peered into one and checked a clock, she found that it wasn’t fifteen minutes since she left her sister’s house.
5
While the opening ceremony was in progress at Kayako’s school, Kōko was asleep in her apartment. Sounds echoed about her ears: the pounding of mattresses hung out to air, car horns in the street below, patriotic music blaring from a sound truck. She felt she was sleeping inside a tiny box perched atop a streetlight. Its clear glass sides reflected the morning light in such a golden sheen that the bed where Kōko lay was invisible to people passing in the street.
In a half-waking dream, she pursued the image of herself – busy day and night – once the baby was born. This time next year he’d be seven months old and beginning to crawl. He’d be teething, too. That’s when they always squirm and fret having their diapers changed, she thought. I’ll grab his legs as he tries to crawl away, smack his little buttocks with their bluish birthmark, and tell him firmly: no, come on, hold still.
Kayako – I’ll call – bring a clean diaper.
Here … Goodness, what a row! Crybaby! Ooh, what a horrid face!
But he looks just like you when he does that, Kayako. There, doesn’t that feel better? … Look, he’s laughing now.
Now, take Baby off to bed and I’ll bring his bottle right away.
I’m not sleepy yet. I want to play some more.
Oh, no, you don’t. If you stay up late the bogeyman will get you.
No, he won’t. When I’m in bed you’ll both have nice things to eat. I’ve seen you.
What have you seen?
The baby gives a resounding yell.
What’s the matter with him?
Nothing – he probably hasn’t had enough milk.
Kōko takes up the baby in her arms, and finds herself in a park at night. Doi, looking strangely old, comes up and speaks to her.
My, hasn’t he grown! He looks exactly like Kayako.
Kayako has climbed to the top of the jungle gym, where she’s singing Brahms’s ‘Lullaby’.
Of course. They’re both my children, after all.
Half yours. There is a strong likeness, for two kids who are only half yours, but I didn’t really mean ‘exactly’, I was just being polite. Don’t let it go to your head.
They’re both mine and mine only.
Come off it!
I’m not causing anyone else any trouble.
You’re causing the children a pack of trouble just by keeping them alive.
No, I’m not … How can you talk like that when you’re alive yourself? The children are grateful to me, really.
You’re very sure of yourself.
I have to be.
Are you having a good time, cuddling him and all that?
You’re full of snide remarks these days, aren’t you?
I’m not as young as I was. But how is it working out? Has it been a compensation, like you thought?
Just look at him and you can see for yourself.
He’s scrawny.
Yes, he never sleeps. His eyes are always open.
That figures.
Why do you say that?
My kid – you remember when we had him – he’s just the same. Kids aren’t something you want to have for special reasons. Even I finally came to realize that. And you, why did you decide to have one now?
I waited and waited and no one turned up, so I thought, well, in that case, the only thing to do is to have a child myself.
What are you talking about? You walked out on me. Why did you take off for so little reason?
But, there was your child …
What of it? Do you really think kids count for all that much?
But they’re so lovable.
Well, even I can see that, with my kid being so strange. But where does that leave you? No matter how many kids you have, parents are still on their own. Everyone knows that. All you’re doing, in the end, is clinging to them as something easier to handle, and trying to forget how ugly it can get – isn’t that so? How do you manage without a man? Did having a baby like this do you any good at all? Well?
No. None. But he’s so sweet. Look, he’s smiling at you.
He’s repulsive.
What a thing to say!
But it’s true, and I can tell you because I think of him as my child, too.
He’s not your child.
Come on, hand him over, it’s about time. His mother’s waiting at home.
No! I won’t let him go!
In a panic Kōko tries to escape with the baby. At the same time Kayako comes running toward her from the jungle gym, a streak of silver – an old-fashioned scimitar – held aloft in her right hand and her face flaming with anger.
Kayako would destroy the baby, too, if she had a chance. Why is everyone after him?
Because he’s a fake. Doi’s booming voice follows Kōko as she turns and runs.
Have mercy! she cries. He’s such a dear little thing. Let him alone! Over her own voice she hears Kayako’s, but deeper now – an adult’s voice very like Hatanaka’s.
As she flees, Kōko thinks: the baby hasn’t a chance like this. I should ditch it. But now I’ve gone and had it, it’s too late to cancel that. Too late …
She was suddenly afraid of the infant in her arms. She wanted to let go. It was so dreadful she couldn’t bear to look. But her hands had melted into the baby’s flesh as if squeezing an overripe banana.
All the strength left Kōko’s body in one rush of despair. She heaved herself up, gasping for breath, as though crawling out of a swamp. Seeing the familiar layout of her own room she breathed more easily: she was safe. Then she rubbed the curve of her belly with both hands.
She got out of bed, went into the kitchen in her nightgown, and opened the window. The sky was high and clear. She was about to turn on the faucet when she discovered a small brown bug lying on its back where it must have fallen from the stack of dishes, waving its legs in a desperate effort to right itself. The dishes had been sitting in the sink for two days. Curry was caked hard on the dinner plate. Kōko turned the tap full on with her eyes on the insect. The water cascaded over it and flushed it, still wriggling, down the drain. Kōko stayed watching the stream of water.
That afternoon she reached the music store half an hour early. It was lunchtime, and the office was empty. She unlocked the practice room labeled ‘A’ and went in. After surveying the inside of the store through the window she sat down at the piano. She opened the lid, took a sheet of music from the rack at her elbow, and set it up on the piano. It was a Handel minuet. She began to play: the simple melody suggested a child skipping barefoot over gentle spring meadows. Her touch was light enough, but she kept making mistakes. Why did just one wrong note make the whole effect so disturbing? Kōko took her hands from the keyboard and laid them in her lap, but continued to follow the written music with her eyes. The minuet played on peacefully in her head.
The family’s old piano had stood in the sitting room near a bay window that opened onto a vine-covered trellis, and she and her brother used to hang out of the window to pick handfuls of small grapes and pop them in their mouths. The grapes were all caught up in spiders’ webs that gave a dusty, gritty feel to the inside of her mouth – she took it for their flavor. Her brother gobbled them down, skin, seeds, and all. There was a dog kennel under the trellis, and the dog was always barking at the children.
A while later the door opened to admit her first pupil of the day.
After stopping for a meal on the way home, she arrived at her door to find it unlocked. She went in, wondering if she’d forgotten again to lock up, and there was her sister installed in the kitchen.
‘I was just about to leave, you took so long to get here,’ she said. ‘Do you always get home about now?’
Kōko nodded and dropped her shoulder bag onto the table. The TV was on.
‘Did you get the key from Kayako?’
‘Yes. Do
n’t be upset. I knew you wouldn’t agree to see me, anyway, if I asked you.’
‘Oh? … Why should you think that?’ With a stiff smile Kōko walked around the table to the refrigerator.
‘You were looking daggers at me yesterday … I went to Kaya’s opening. You know, she did seem lonely, after all …’
‘Oh, thanks … Do you realize, this is the first time you’ve ever been to see me here.’ Kōko took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator.
‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I’ve got you to thank for that. Will you have a beer?’
‘Oh – no, it’s all right. I can’t stay long.’
‘Just one won’t hurt.’ She put a glass in front of her and filled it. After pouring another for herself she poked about in the refrigerator till she found an unopened package of blue cheese, which she put on the table.
‘I’m afraid that’s all there is … But you and I have always liked strong-smelling things, haven’t we? – dried squid, and even that stinking dried mackerel, kusaya. I was amazed, when I grew up, to learn that most people detest the stuff.’
‘It was Mother’s example. Funny she should’ve had a taste for that sort of thing, when she wasn’t a drinker. I hardly ever have it myself, these days … But, listen …’ Shōko lowered her voice.
Kōko spoke quickly: ‘I wonder if everyone thinks childhood was the best time of their lives? Even though I desperately wanted to escape, I knew so little of the outside world that I took Mother’s word for it when she called kusaya a special treat. Those were happy times, you know – the thought of those “treats” is enough to make me nostalgic. It makes me realize that for all my thinking and acting big I was really a child all along. An ordinary, childish child … Don’t you think there’s something endearing about a kid with one parent liking exactly the same sort of food?’
‘I think it’s horrible …’ Shōko spoke in a murmur, staring at her glass. Kōko fixed her eyes on her sister and continued.
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