“Rei.”
The woman’s voice echoed through the room. It didn’t, but I felt as if it had.
“SO WHAT DID you do?” the woman asks.
I forget, I reply. We are in the midst of the commotion, in Manazuru. Funny, the festival should be over by now, I say to the woman, and she shakes her head, amused. It takes very little to send us back.
A moveable shrine passes by. Men in happi, headbands twisted around their heads, sending beads of sweat flying every which way. The shrine bobs up and down with their movement. Several shrines, each from a different part of town, go up and down the street, competing.
There is a band of musicians on a truck, playing flutes and drums. They are in time, in tune, they keep playing on and on, over and over, the same melody, it seems it will continue forever, and the woman is at my shoulder, eyes closed, entranced.
“You haven’t forgotten,” the woman whispers. Her voice is so quiet it should be drowned out by the noise, but I hear her perfectly clearly.
Did I, not forget? Rei, and the woman, stepping side by side into the hotel elevator, I was unable to follow them where they went, the two of them, alone, together, so I simply stared at the number marking the floor they ascended to, it wasn’t one of the top floors where the bars and restaurants are, neither was it one of the lower floors where all the banquet halls are, the number where it stopped was in the middle, where the guest rooms are, it stayed lit up for a while before it moved again, is it possible, could I really have seen all that?
“Maybe you did,” the woman whispers, looking me in the eye.
I turn away, and think of Momo.
I never saw it. I never saw anything like that. It was just something I imagined. Something that took root in me, ballooned in me, like a summer cloud tearing, changing shape, becoming round, and then, before you know it, growing long and thin at one end, tearing again into little shreds, it was like that, a sort of obsession that filtered through a gap in my thoughts, that kept shifting, expanding, shrinking, assuming the most frightening forms, then suddenly becoming a brightly shining thing, that’s all it was, really, I’m sure of it.
Next year, I’ll bring Momo for the festival, I think. How much of that memory is real, how much isn’t, perhaps all that was something that never was, right from the start, and yet I’ve committed it all to memory, so clearly, from beginning to end, maybe that’s all this is, the festival keeps moving on, shining, next year, definitely, Momo and I, standing side by side, drinking in the power of the festival around us—
“Don’t get carried away.” The woman bars my way.
Blocked, I feel myself tumbling to the bottom of a hole.
It strikes me, suddenly, that my body is growing faint. Just like this woman, following me. There is sadness in the woman’s voice. Momo, I think. Momo is, adorable. Momo is, adorable, to me. I think, growing fainter. The posts decked out with paper flowers, and the men around them, fan out in a wide circle partway up the hill, and dance.
I WENT ON like that, following the woman’s lead, deeper in.
I found myself, not knowing how, at the end of the path I had climbed, in the open space, leaning on the pillar of the abandoned house. The ocean visible through the gap.
“No sound, again,” I say, and the woman nods.
When the sound ceases, it seems a space has opened up around me. Any number of them come to follow, no one I recognize. They have a slight heaviness, more than the fainter ones that gather in department stores, but their forms, innumerable, remain unclear.
“Leave them alone, they’ll go,” the woman says.
I nod. Yes, I know. I know that very well.
There was another time, too, when I saw Rei and the woman together.
At night. There’s a farewell party tonight, so I’ll be late, Rei said. Momo and I ate dinner early. We bathed together, and I put Momo to bed. The next morning we were going to field day at the kindergarten Momo would be attending in the spring, so she needed to get to sleep.
We get a lunchbox! Momo was excited at dinner. Again and again, she repeated the words. Lunchbox. Field day.
I want to take a banana, she told me. And a backpack.
You’re too young for a backpack. You get a backpack in elementary school, I told her. Momo got mad. Backpacks and lunchboxes, field day, the sandbox, her stuffed rabbit Kiiko, it was all mixed up in her mind. She was very excited.
I want a banana! I want to take a banana! she screamed, at last, in her excitement.
To quiet her, I promised her a banana. After I tucked her in, I ran to a supermarket that was open late. My hair, freshly washed, had not yet fully dried. The late summer breeze caressed my skin, faintly warm.
I saw them in the shadows outside. Rei and the woman. Huddled, whispering.
“Ah,” I said, aloud.
Why, in a place like that. I peered into the darkness. I could see their silhouettes. But as I kept looking, I no longer felt sure that it was him, or her.
I grabbed some bananas. Then a box of tissues. And an apple.
They’ll be gone, I thought, if I do some shopping. But when I went back outside, the two figures were still there.
“Hey,” I called. It was too hard, as always, to say, Rei.
The larger shadow turned. The light from a streetlamp put his face in darkness. The face, alone, a blind spot. I felt the weight, in my hand, of the bananas and the apple in their white supermarket bag.
The two silhouettes stayed there, unmoving.
“WAS IT NICE out, for field day?” the woman asks.
What? I respond.
You went with your daughter, right? To field day?
Well, yes. I guess we did. Momo and I, a banana and the apple in a Tupperware container, a sheet to spread on the ground, we went to the kindergarten, to get a sense of what field day was like, flags of all nations flapping in the wind, around the playground. Yes, I guess we did.
“And Rei. He was there, too.” I remember.
It was Sunday. When I woke up, Rei lay asleep beside me, like always.
“Good morning,” Rei said brightly.
Momo was still asleep, breathing deeply. We all slept in the same room. Momo to my left, Rei to my right, three futons aligned on the floor like the three vertical strokes of the graph for “river,” except the shortest stroke was at the left, not in the middle.
Shhh, I put a finger to my lips, lay my head on Rei’s chest. He was about to get up, but he settled back again. I told him, sighing, not speaking, Hold me.
Rei hesitated.
What are you waiting for? I looked him straight in the eye. My face was reflected in his irises. I placed my hand on his pajama pants.
I slipped my hand inside.
Momo sputtered. Her voice and her breathing mixed. Rei remained unmoving, accepting my touch. I lay down on him, my face to his. Like a cover on a futon, two layers, flat. And then I lifted my upper body, moved onto the place where I had set my hand.
Oh, you’re inside me, I whispered, and, ever so faintly, Rei frowned.
A pained expression, I thought, moving. It was smooth. Rei shut his eyes, as if he were enduring me. But he was not enduring. Our movements locked right away. Together, like co-conspirators, we moved. Secretly, deeply, without Momo knowing, we achieved our climax.
Momo would get up soon.
I smelled Rei. Tightening myself, I went to the bathroom, I showered. It flowed with the water. I tightened myself again, to keep it from flowing. I wanted him to come inside, deep in my body. To enter the dark, innermost place, to become the form that a person is, originally, this was what I wanted. To make me sick, terribly sick, in the mornings.
Maw-m-my! Momo said, opening the door to the bathing area. I’m going to take a banana, okay? It’s nice weather out today, Maw-m-my!
She was still practically a baby, with an adorable, baby voice that made me want to scoop her up, clasp her to me, bury my face in her skin.
AT THE KINDERGARTEN, Rei was distracted
. The sunlight burned.
I’m just so tired, I’ve been so busy lately.
Rei talked, flopping down on the silver-colored sheet we had brought to sit on. He covered his face with his hat, folded his arms behind his head, raised his knees. I could not tell, anymore, whether he was Rei, or some other man.
“Next year, huh,” Rei said through his hat, voice muffled. “Kindergarten already.”
Momo would be running in a race for incoming students. Hey, I go next, I’m gonna wun! Momo informed Rei, pushing the hat off his face.
Okay, okay, Rei said, and sat up. He lifted Momo onto his lap, slipped his hands under her arms, bounced her a few times. Momo giggled, like bubbles bursting. Mister, me too! Me too! A boy the same age as Momo called nearby, walking over.
No! Momo told him. Hey, Daddy, only me, wight? Only me!
Suddenly I feel uneasy. The sun beats down, strong. I bore Rei a child, we live comfortably together, three peas in a pod, we should be relaxed, settled in our drowsiness, yet the sun is so strong, unpleasantly so, yet it is not the sun that makes me sweat.
A cluster of children, smaller even than the kindergarteners, has gathered for the race. They look lost, unsure of themselves. They grip their mother’s or father’s hands tightly in their own, their bodies rigid. Momo does not let go of my hand, either, not for a moment.
“Wun with me?” she says forlornly, looking up.
You want me to run with you? Let’s try it by yourself, okay? You’re a big girl, right?
Momo looks as if she might cry. Rei saunters over. He bends to look at her, smiles. Here we go, he says, lifting her onto his shoulders. On your mark, go! The gun goes off, and still he carries her, surrounded by the bewildered, milling children, walking on.
Perched on Rei’s shoulders, Momo’s expression is grave. She glances down at the running children, then faces forward again, squeezes her legs tightly around Rei’s shoulders, which bob as he walks, and fixes her gaze on a point in the distance.
Well, it looks as though we’ve got a dad running with us, too! the voice on the loudspeaker says. The director of the kindergarten is providing live commentary. That’s it, give it your best, everyone! Let me see each one of you doing your best! He has a gentle voice.
The children run. They move ahead much faster than Rei, as he walks, and arrive in quick succession at the finish line. Rei, unhurried, keeps ambling on, Momo perched on his shoulders.
Don’t take Momo from me! I think. Or is it, maybe, Don’t take Rei from me!
My heart pounds at our not being, all three of us, together. I break into a cold sweat. It is this sunlight, so strong. Momo comes running. Now that Rei has lowered her from his shoulders, now that they have reached the finish line.
Maw-m-my! Momo yells. Kei, what’s wrong? Rei says. I realize, then, that I am crumbling. I lay my body, exhausted, on the sheet, and close my eyes.
“WEAK, AREN’T YOU,” the woman said.
Am I? Weak? I asked.
I was still in Manazuru. My body was fainter, the landscape gone, but I could tell, even so, that this was Manazuru.
“Think how lucky you are, you’re still alive.”
Am I? I guess I am, still alive?
“At least, you’re not dead yet, and what a luxury that is.”
A luxury, I think vaguely. So is Rei dead, after all?
“You’ll never see him again, not if you can’t remember.”
What’s that? I ask. Is he, then, alive?
“Either way, you’ve got to remember.”
She said, that was all, and vanished. Always, always at the crucial moment, she goes.
I begin walking again, utterly exhausted. To the shore, taking a very long time. Stalls line both sides of the road, one after the other. Their lamps flicker.
There is a man. Pressing up against a woman. On the beach, in the shadows. The woman throttles him. The man does not resist. So, the woman says, Does it hurt? Is it painful?
It hurts, the man replies. It is Rei’s voice. The voice asking, Does it hurt? is mine.
When could I have killed Rei?
The couple in the shadows is soon gone. Next a baby appears. I gave birth to the baby. No, I did not. Rei poured it into me, this child. But then, just after, he disappeared, so I aborted it.
I wavered. He may come back. Just like that. Rei. Half despairing, I had hope.
The heat of summer had not abated when he went. The last cicadas were still chirring, and toward dawn, Momo’s forehead was always covered with a film of sweat. Field day was in early September, Rei disappeared in the middle of the month. Without knowing I was pregnant, he was gone.
This child was never born. And yet, there on the beach, distinctly, I see him crawling. The line where his hair meets his forehead reminds me of Rei, his voice is full of strength when he cries, more energetic by far than those late-summer cicadas, there he is, crawling.
There’s no baby like that there, I say, imitating the woman’s voice. But he does not vanish. My voice resembles the woman’s. Inside my ear, it is her voice. Outside, it is my own.
I never killed Rei.
Like a taut string, snapping at the middle, I fling my voice into the darkness.
I am back at the hotel, at the pool. Inside, slowly, the ceiling fan stirs the faintly warm air.
I PRESS MY cheek to the window of the stationary train.
The summer is still at its height, but in another month and a half, autumn breezes will blow, and the stuttering of the insects will have changed beyond recognition. The shrill whine of the cicadas will be gone; the air will fill with the sorrowful chirping of crickets.
Manazuru, I say, aloud.
We glide past the platform, beyond it. I sit in a seat on the ocean side, follow the scenery as it begins to stream away. The rows of houses end, trees appear, the woodland thickens. After a time, we enter a tunnel.
When we leave the tunnel, it is no longer Manazuru. The ocean waves are choppy. A pair of station wagons pass, together, along the road that traces the shore. It seems the waves will wash over their roofs, but they do not. As Manazuru grows more distant, so too do my illusions.
In Manazuru, the two cars would be carried off by the waves as I watched, dragged down to the bottom of the ocean.
Ma-na-zu-ru, I say, and then continue, To-o-kyo-o.
The train is a container that ties Manazuru to Tokyo. A container that takes my body from vision to reality, or the other way around, from this world, to the other.
I let myself think of Seiji.
Seiji is in Tokyo. I’ll call him when I get to the station. Maybe we can meet, even if it is only for a little while. Within my body, what Rei’s body spewed into me, in the vision I had earlier, slowly rocks, back and forth. My fingers remember how they felt closed around his neck. But by the time we reach Kōzu, that, too, will start to fade.
Shuddering, the train speeds on, carrying me, into our world and its time.
six
I OPEN THE SHUTTERS quietly. No one, except me, is awake. The leaves of the aralia in our small garden grow thick and vivid; tiny green fruit, very hard, has begun to form on our single persimmon tree.
I sit down and stare.
I wanted to see Seiji, but he said no.
Too busy.
Two words, and he hung up.
Time passes quickly in Tokyo. After the Culture Festival at school, Momo had two days’ vacation. Would you like to go out for dinner? I asked her, but she shook her head. I don’t want to. I have stuff to do.
Stuff to do, she said, but most of the time she stayed in her room. She went out for a while during the day and came back with a small bag. A book or a CD, I suppose, some such thing. I watched, without asking, as she went to her room.
Tell me, who was it, the person you were with that day, by the river?
A few times I almost asked, but gradually the memory has faded.
Momo has not been back to the library since that day. She stays in her room, faint signs
of her presence emanating through her door.
A brown-eared bulbul alights on the persimmon tree. Its call is shrill. Another bulbul comes to join it. The second lands on a branch diagonal to the first, sits for a moment, then drops to a lower branch; soon, the first bird hops down as well, to another branch diagonal to the second bird. They begin flitting up and down, side to side, chirping to one another. Then a third bird comes, and I can no longer tell which bird is where, which bird chirps.
The light is new. Because it is morning. As yet unaged, fresh. I smell something cooking, and I remember the dried sardines that I am boiling. I hurry back inside, lower the flame. The fish float to the surface. And with them, small bubbles.
I turn off the stove, scoop the sardines with a wire ladle. A breeze blows in; a piece of paper, fixed with a magnet to the refrigerator, flutters. I have left the kitchen door open.
The paper rustles, flapping as though it might break free of the magnet, but it stays. Several bulbuls begin chirping, and the breeze blows.
MOMO’S HEAD IS lowered, light shines in the fine hairs on her neck.
She hates it when I touch her, so I merely look.
“I won’t need a lunchbox tomorrow, Grandma. I’ve got cooking class.”
Momo does not speak to me, only to Mother. She tries not to face me, either.
“Was I that way?” I ask mother.
“No, Kei, you weren’t so even.”
Even? I ask.
“That’s right. You’d be stubborn one moment, then suddenly relax. One moment you were a child, and then, the very next moment, you were an adult.”
“It’s that age, I guess?”
That age. It’s easier, I guess, to brush it aside, if you put it that way, my mother said hesitantly, squinting slightly, feeling her way. It’s not that age, it’s just, well, the beginning, I think.
“The beginning?”
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