I rest my hand on the bug-eaten gate, and pull. A hinge pops free, and the gate screeches, falling. The garden is not so overgrown. Light, short grasses nod in the wind, that is all.
I keep going, reach the front door, I had assumed it would be locked, but when I pull on the handle, it gives, just like that, and I go inside without removing my shoes.
The odor of mold envelops me. Holding my breath, I push the frame of a shōji divider, the paper torn, slide it on its track. Three photographs are hung over the lintel, a woman with her hair done up, on the right, then a man in formal attire, then a small baby lying on his futon, each in a narrow frame, hung at an angle so that the person gazes down, protectively, over those who walk below.
You must have died, still a baby, I think, looking at the picture on the left.
The sparkle in his goggling eyes reminds me of Momo. In a separate, square corner of the room, in the back, a Buddhist altar sits dully. The gold leaf has tarnished over the years. Though the baby is no one I know, tears fill my eyes.
HOW LONG, I wonder, have these houses been so dark?
The nameplates are decayed, illegible. From house to house, from room to room, I walk, leaving footprints on the dusty tatami, in the halls of buildings that looked as if they were abandoned only after every trace of the lives lived there had been expunged.
The woman does not come and follow. Even though, on the beach, she had a form.
At some point, more herons came, there is one, now, on the roof of each house. Plodding through the houses, I think of the herons, beyond the ceilings, above the attics and crawl spaces, perched. The herons, unmoving, white, isolated lights in a dark, still scene.
I called, and Rei came.
“I’m lonely,” I said, and Rei smiled faintly.
“Hold me.”
Rei did not hold me. Instead, he peered into my eyes. His gaze had always been so strong, but when he looked at me, now, it was thin and weak.
“Do you want to come, here?” he asked.
I want to be together, I think. But what if, in order to be with you, I must give up being? It is not easy to decide. To give up being, with you. To give up being with you.
“Will you come?” he asked, again.
“I don’t want it to end.”
Which is it? Rei smiled, again, faintly.
“That’s not the sort of thing you can decide on your own, I guess,” he whispered, very low. The sound of him, whispering, is so familiar, so dear.
“How did you decide, Rei?”
You know me, Rei says, peering once more into my eyes. It is stronger than before. Light shines on his irises. I knew them, all along. These eyes. I liked to hold my face close to his, gaze into them. I tried not to forget what it was like, then, that instant, looking, or the next one, or the next after that, each moment, gazing so earnestly it was like a prayer. I held his cheeks between my palms, pleading, please, don’t go away, please, be mine?
What are you talking about, we’re married, right? Rei answered, baffled.
Even being together, it’s not enough. Even together, it aches.
It’s not enough, just being here, together? he said, slightly irritated.
It’s you, your being you, that makes me this way.
You’re very passionate about me, I see that, Kei, he said, laughing, pressing my face back as I moved closer. Not to be mean, very gently.
His gentleness sent me the other way, jerked me back, I felt, beyond.
The thoughts that held me. Like sinking into a lake, its depths unfathomed, down through the clear water, deeper and deeper, until, as your body mingles with the bubbles that surge up, past it, your body, too, smoothes out, becomes round, takes the form of a bubble, and finally arrives at the very bottom, where it is spherical, and does not move.
Rei knew nothing of those thoughts. But then, neither did I. Know anything of Rei’s thoughts. Or of Mother’s. Or Father’s. Or Seiji’s.
I know nothing. How far have I come, in ignorance.
I TOOK REI’S hand, and walked on.
Left the field behind, dove through the water, dissolved into the void, returned to the field, walked on, without end.
Rei came quietly, led by the hand, my hand.
It’s a long way, we’ve come.
I’m tired.
I sit down, heavily, on a bench at the end of the field. Rei sits down beside me. I wrap my arms around his body, lean against him. He runs his hand through my hair. You’ve aged, he says. What do you mean, are you telling me you haven’t, since then? I ask.
I couldn’t say. I can’t see myself.
Filled with tenderness, I squeeze him harder. Herons fly. A flock of dozens, spreading their wide wings, over the field, so smooth it is as if they are sliding on ice, flying away.
Did I kill you, Rei?
There is no answer.
I strangled him. And yet, he did not die. I’m not so frail that you could choke me, Kei, that a woman’s hands could do me in. Rei was chuckling. I slapped his cheek. The quiet smack did not echo, it simply faded, uselessly. That didn’t even hurt. Try again, Rei chuckled.
I wanted to kill him. For him to die, not by another’s hand, but by my own.
Why, loving, do I break through, beyond? I thought I had a true sense of the weight of his body, but then, somewhere along the way, his body lost its form, it was clear, the hand I stretched out passed, helplessly, through, beyond, a place that had been body before.
As Rei sits beside me on the bench, I probe his body. From his hips to his ribs, from his chest to his neck, along his chin to his mouth nose forehead, I am unable to hold back, I kiss him, saliva dribbles down, I devour him, wrap my arms, strongly, around his back, squeeze him, speak his name, I miss him, even sitting here, next to him, no gap between us, my missing him does not thin, I am sad, I feel sad, I feel as if my body will vanish, utterly vanish, leaving only the feelings, the feelings scatter, there will be nothing there, and even then this missing him will not be extinguished, there is no end, the herons, they are flying away.
I pulled my body back, stared at Rei, intently.
A man with jet black hair, breathing, warm, indifferent.
Oh, darling, our baby, who was so little, she has grown up now, so big. She’s moved away from me, she’s headed somewhere else, alone. Her eyes, that reckless look, she has your eyes, and soon, I know, she’ll begin, hating and loving, fiercely.
Rei grinned.
Mo-mo.
He spoke her name, rolled it on his tongue.
The herons descended. One, then a second, waving, to the field.
I FELT THE urge to put my arms around Rei, again, and reached for him.
The body I expected to be there, was not.
I tighten my embrace. My arms form a ring, overlap, I am holding myself.
Have you gone?
I call.
No, I’m here.
The woman comes.
It’s not you, I’m calling. It’s Rei.
Rei, he was never here, she says, and it seems to me that she is probably right. I check the schedule hanging at the bus stop by the bench, there are still ten minutes until the bus, there is nothing but herons flocking in the field.
“I’m so tired.”
More tired, even, than before, I say plaintively to the woman. I am looking to her for help. The humor of it strikes me. I have been tired before, many, many times. So tired I want to burst out screaming, I want to break into a moan, I want to rage, that is how tired I am, and yet my heart, alone, quickens, my body cannot keep up, and so, evermore, it is quickening, I feel, in my heart, I am about to burst forth, out of myself, so weary I have felt.
But, at some point, I learned how to soothe the weariness.
“It’s true, most of the time, these things can be fixed,” the woman agrees.
All around the woman, people gather, the men and women she is tied to. An old woman. A young woman. An old man. A man who is not so young. A young man. A child. A second
child. All her relatives, every one, coming to touch her. One holds her foot. Another her arm. One rides her shoulders. One is wrapped around her neck.
“They weigh on you, these things,” the woman says, lightly shaking them off.
Most of them fall from her. But soon they come back, clinging. Some hold fast even when she shakes, refusing to leave her. There is no end to it.
“I’m used to it, though.”
The child on her knee is the most tenacious. She has entwined herself around the woman’s knee, tightly, squeezing with both arms and legs. Gradually the woman’s lower leg turns purple.
It’s frustrating, the woman clicks her tongue. My leg is getting cold. The blood can’t circulate. But I’m used to it, you know. It’s always like this, endlessly.
I can’t take it any longer, this place, I think.
I hope the bus gets here soon.
Checking my watch, I see that the second hand is still moving, jerkily. Like a living thing, stuttering across the white face of the watch, jerkily, moving.
I’ve been here too long, in this place.
I think, closing my eyes. The moment the thought occurred, I should have been able to go back, to the place I was, in Manazuru.
But I couldn’t. There is no sign of the bus. The woman stands, unperturbed, her relatives hanging heavily from her.
LEAVING THE WOMAN standing there, I ran looking for Rei, but the woman blocked my way.
The woman with the mole on her neck.
She gestures with her chin. Looking, I see Rei lying, covered by a summer blanket.
The woman slid in next to Rei, whispered in his ear. Rei opened his eyes, embraced the woman. He did not stop at embracing her, he opened her legs, eased himself in and out.
It was not as bad as when they sat facing each other, talking. I was not surprised.
Bodies are harder to distinguish than feelings.
Gazing at a body, you lose track of whose body it is. Is that Rei, is that really the woman with the mole on her neck, her body, seeing them, it only becomes harder to tell.
It is less remarkable, the act of love, in reality, than when it is imagined. It is sticky, noisy, and however lewd the act may be, in the end, it all comes down to more or less the same thing. However extraordinary the position, however fiercely we hurl ourselves together, it comes to seem that we are only mimicking forms that we have seen before, somewhere.
There is more complexity in our feelings.
In there, no leverage, it is all there. Everything since you came into the world, all you have seen, even the things you believed you had forgotten. It is, how it really is.
And more, what you have never seen, too, the unimaginable, is in there.
Rei presses the woman down, turns her at an angle, rolls her over, keeps going in, and out. It is uninteresting.
“Have you had enough?” I hear a voice, it is the woman from Manazuru.
“I don’t feel angry,” I tell her. Always turning to her for help.
“It’s been a long time.”
“Even though I still love him.”
“Even though you forgot him, ages ago?”
I never forgot Rei, I tell the woman, and she snickers.
You forgot. You don’t come to Manazuru for Rei, it’s for yourself.
The woman moans. The one loving Rei. It is a lovely, dirty gasp. Did I cry out like that? Rei keeps moving, saying nothing, intent.
I don’t recognize this man, I think.
See, what did I tell you, you’ve forgotten him. Again the woman snickers.
All at once, the herons take flight. Rei and the woman glance up, startled by the commotion of their wings. They remain joined. I am not even interested, I think again.
I HAVE THE sense, lately, of something catching at the base of my throat, at the place where you feel it when you swallow.
The bus came, and I have gotten on. The woman sits beside me. The field recedes into the distance. Rei and the woman with a mole on her neck remain entangled. Soon, I can no longer see the forms, like shadows, wavering in the dusk.
The sky is dark. The houses, the stores, are all decaying. We are past the rows of buildings, driving through the forest. The woman and I are the only passengers. An oily smell rises from the floor of the bus.
The woman presses her nose against the window, gazes out at the scenery. Just like a child. I think, and suddenly she assumes Momo’s form.
“No, not that,” I say, and she returns.
“Soft on your daughter, aren’t you.”
“Is it true? Could I have forgotten Rei?” I mutter, without replying. I feel my attachment, my love, they overflow in me, but maybe, could it be, that those feelings were not for him?
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” the woman says.
Am I dying, I wonder? I mutter, again, touching my throat. Is it because I am close to death, that I come, so often, to Manazuru?
“Manazuru isn’t a deathbed,” the woman snaps, still gazing out the window.
I’m sorry, I say quietly, and she lets go of her anger. Once again, she focuses on the scenery. The bus drives on through the great woods, as the woman calls the protected forest. See, look, that’s where I used to gather firewood. And in there, I was with a man for the first time. Over there is where I had the children. That’s where they buried me, after I died. And there, there isn’t anything there, but I liked it, very much.
Pointing, cheerful, she gives me the tour.
Is it too late, for me to go back? I ask the woman.
No, no. You have a place there, to be.
A place, to be?
It’s only when you can’t be there, any longer, that you can’t get back.
So Rei, I guess, couldn’t be?
Maybe. That has nothing to do with me, she says bluntly, and begins, again, to point out the sights. I lived over there. And up there, that’s where I collapsed. That’s where I stayed, after I got better. That’s the place I grew old in. That’s the place where I was born.
The bus slows. Each time the woman points, the place shimmers, dully. It’s very beautiful, isn’t it? I say, pressing my cheek against hers. Yes, it is, she replies.
Rays of light stream down on the forest, from above. There is no trace of the rain that was falling. I want to be with Momo, I think.
I don’t want to die, I think, strongly.
I would pity her, if I died. She may have gone away from me, but she would cry if I died. Mother, too, would cry.
Something hard, foreign, hangs in my throat. Pain seizes my chest. The bus drives on, the woman, cheerful, keeps giving me the tour.
FINALLY, THE BUS stopped.
I got out, found myself at the tip of the peninsula.
I came here once. The white building, the restaurant that crumbled, then appeared again, after I stopped for coffee, has utterly decayed, leaving no trace of what it was.
The woman sets off ahead of me, down the stairway that leads from the cape to the shore. From time to time, the stairway breaks off, a sloping concrete walkway appears. A little later, the walkway becomes a stairway again.
There is no wind. The tide is out, the reef that leads out to the huge rock formation in the offing stands exposed.
“Do you want to go out?” the woman asks.
She leads me by the hand, leaping from rock to rock. The rock soars up, too steep to climb. We walk back, gaze out at the horizon from the shore. We keep watching until the sun has set.
“Have you had enough?” the woman asks.
Yes, I reply, like a child to her mother.
Yes. This time, I can go back, really.
“It’s best that way.” The woman says gently, then sets off ahead of me, climbing the stairs. Her legs are so thin. I want to cling to her, fiercely, the way that child clung to her knees.
“I feel lonely,” I say.
“You feel lonely, but it can’t be helped.”
“I know, but still, this loneliness.”
Go on, the wom
an says, shooing me onto the bus. When I look back, she is waving.
The bus goes, once more, through the forest, and descends the hill. At the bottom of the hill is the town. It will not be in that state of decay, anymore, I know. Lights will be burning, brightly, in the houses, and in the stores.
Sensing a presence, I looked over, and Seiji was there.
“Seiji!” I called.
“Seiji!” A second time.
Seiji turned to face me, an inscrutable expression on his face. His lips parted, and he spoke. I couldn’t make out what it was he said.
Then Seiji vanished, we entered the town. The windows of all the houses, all the way down to the sea, brimmed with light, white and yellow. I got off at the last stop, Manazuru Station, and bought a train ticket. It’s cheaper to buy a ticket for the reserved Green Car if you get it at the window, did you know that, not on the train? A group of women stood chatting by the ticket gate. The train pulled in, stirring up the air. Turning back, I watched two herons flying toward the mountains, deep in the peninsula. Flying together, white wings dissolving into the darkness.
Ma-na-zu-ru. I whisper, to see how it feels. I feel myself missing it. Here, in Manazuru, I begin to miss Manazuru. Ma-na-zu-ru. The pain comes again, in my chest.
eight
“I’LL BE SEVENTEEN soon,” Momo says.
I So Momo is sixteen.
I had stopped keeping track of my daughter’s age. When was the last time I counted, calculated how old she was, in years, in months? One year and eleven months. Two years and eight months. Three years and two months.
Rei and I met when I was twenty-six. Ten years older than Momo is now.
After Rei disappeared, I stopped heeding the passing, the piling up, of time.
“Sure goes fast, doesn’t it?” I said, and Momo laughed.
“It’s not so fast.”
“So, is it slow, then?” Mother asks.
“No, it isn’t slow, either. It’s just right.”
“Ah, just right. The way it should be, I see,” Mother says, pleased. “I may have felt that way, too, once, I think. Nowadays, it all seems to go by so fast.”
Manazuru Page 15