The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl

by Tomihiko Morimi

  In that way, November ended and December began.

  I spent my days attending university lectures and also sometimes spacing out.

  The leaves painting the mountains just to the east with warm colors eventually fell, and winter deepened further. Looking up at the treetops along the street, exhaling puffs of white, no one could deny that frigid winter had reached every last corner of Kyoto.

  One day in about the middle of December when I was scarfing down a soft-boiled egg, wilted spinach, and miso soup with rice for lunch at the central cafeteria, Mr. Higuchi showed up and sat across from me. He was wearing a navy yukata and a beat-up jacket like a character in an old detective drama would wear. “Hey, I found you,” he declared with a smile. He looked a tad haggard.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t look so good.”

  “Lately, neither Hanuki nor my disciples have come to see me, and I didn’t have any food. I’m so hungry, I have a splitting headache.”

  “That’s no good!”

  When I hurriedly lent him two hundred yen, he stood up and eventually came back with a soft-boiled egg, miso soup, and some rice on a tray. Then he dug in like a starving stray dog.

  “How is Ms. Hanuki?”

  “Well, the thing is, she’s sick in bed with a horrible cold. With my source of meals out of commission, I nearly died of hunger myself.”

  She’d had a nagging cough for a few days. Then two days ago, her fever went up, so she’d taken off from her work at the dental office to sleep in her apartment. When the image came to mind of that beautiful, noble woman racked by coughs in her futon, unable to drink her beloved alcohol like a fish the way she usually did, she seemed so pitiful, I couldn’t sit still. My afternoon lectures? They were of no consequence. I needed to go visit Ms. Hanuki even if I lost my credits. Why? Because she and Mr. Higuchi were the people who’d broadened the horizons of my life at university.

  “If you’re going, then I’ll go, too. Luckily, I’m not starving anymore.”

  Mr. Higuchi and I excited the central cafeteria to campus where fallen leaves were rustling. Heavy clouds hung in the sky, and a cold wind was blowing.

  On our way to Ms. Hanuki’s apartment complex, we stopped at the grocery store on Higashi Oji and bought a ton of cold-fighting fruits and yogurt. All those nutritious foods would surely banish the God of Colds from Ms. Hanuki’s body. Mr. Higuchi and I carried the stuffed plastic bags and walked down Higashi Kuramaguchi Street toward the Takano River.

  Ms. Hanuki’s apartment was one room in a newish building along the Takano River.

  When we called her on the intercom, Ms. Hanuki, wearing a cardigan over her pink pajamas, opened the door for us. Her hair, disheveled from staying in bed, drooped thinly over her face, and she looked under the weather. She smiled, but it didn’t have the energy of the one she wore the night we walked together down an alcohol-steeped Ponto-cho.

  “Aw, you came to visit me?”

  “I heard from Mr. Higuchi. I couldn’t bear to do nothing. You look like you have quite a fever. Please rest in your futon.”

  The small room was styled charmingly, and white steam puffed peacefully out of a white, square humidifier. While I put the food we’d bought in the fridge, Ms. Hanuki wrapped up in her egg yolk–colored futon so just her face was peeking out. She had some sake, so I put in some sugar and an egg to make egg sake.

  “I take my egg sake minus the egg and the sugar,” she mumbled from her futon.

  “No, that won’t do,” I objected.

  Mr. Higuchi sat up straight on his knees next to Ms. Hanuki and put his hand to her forehead. “You could fry an egg on there! What are you trying to do by cranking your temp up so high?”

  “It’s not like I got a fever on purpose.”

  “You catch colds when you neglect your soul. Just look at me.”

  “Higuchi, you don’t catch colds, because you have no stress. And because you’re too stupid.”

  “If you don’t pipe down, your cold will get worse. C’mon, now,” he cautioned and went about trying to put one of those blue, soft gel sheets on her head. That was all he did.

  When the egg sake was ready, Ms. Hanuki sat up in her futon to drink it. “I was cracking jokes earlier, but this is actually pretty tasty.” I was glad to have impressed her. “So you made her buy all the stuff, huh, Higuchi? I can’t believe you’d visit someone’s sickbed empty-handed.”

  “Hey now, don’t go expecting anything out of me.”

  “But I’m sure surprised you even came to visit. I wasn’t expecting it, so I’m honestly a little happy.”

  “It’s ’cause I just happened to run into this one here.”

  There was something so adorable about the smile Ms. Hanuki gave me when he said that. She was very pretty with her eyes all distant and gleaming from the fever. Mr. Higuchi was polishing off the pudding I bought for her.

  When Ms. Hanuki finished the egg sake, she lay down in her futon and told us about a dream she had while delirious. “You have such weird dreams when you have a fever,” she murmured.

  But eventually, I learned that her cold was a special one.

  My room was in Higashi Ogura-cho in Kitashirakawa. The decrepit wooden apartment building was ruining the atmosphere of that quiet residential district. Something about it resembled the Crackpot Castle of Wind and Clouds. My room was on the western side of the second floor, and when I opened the window, I could practically reach out and touch the trees along the canal they were so close. Now their leaves had fallen, and I could see straight through to the empty university playing field on the other side.

  Every day, I came home from the university long after the sun had gone down. I parked my bicycle on the gravel out front, and when I stepped into the entryway, the lamp illuminated a pile of scattered shoes. Looking up at that light bulb shining in the darkness, I was seized by a lonely feeling. Sometime after winter started, someone had stolen my slippers. As I walked along the hardwood hallway, the bottoms of my feet absorbed the frigidity of the season.

  Since my labmates were all out with colds, the only thing I did was make busy laps between home and school as time passed in vain. Rumor had it that a nasty cold was going around that winter. The club that the girl and I were in couldn’t escape the wicked hand of the God of Colds, either, and members were dropping like flies. When I heard she was going to visit everyone, briskly dispensing ginger rice porridge and egg sake, I thought, Maybe I’ll catch a little cold, too. But though I was in the mood, the God of Colds didn’t come for me. When you’re thinking of only your own schedule, things don’t go as planned.

  The director of the School Festival Office is always hip to the latest trends, so he was out with a cold. I went for a visit, half to tease him, bearing honey ginger tea and vitamin drinks. He was sitting in bed surrounded by school festival papers, books on one-man Japanese comedy shows, his guitar, and a whole bunch of junk, impatient for his long-distance girlfriend to come visit him from Nagoya. Apparently, the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s Youth Division had invited him to a smutty-book viewing, and when he wandered over there, he brought the cold back. It’s well-known that obscene books lower the immunity of idiot students. There’s nothing else to say besides “You reap what you sow.”

  As I spent my dreary days in this manner, I developed lovesickness.

  Yes, lovesickness—that is, becoming ill because your feelings aren’t reaching the object of your affections. Lovesickness isn’t one of the 404 recognized diseases and thus cannot be cured by drinking traditional herbal medicine. It’s the result of my soul spending half a year in long-distance love while I focused only on busily filling in the moat around her. With nowhere to go, my passion stagnated in my body until it formed a whirlpool. That’s why I feel so feverish now. That must be it.

  I got back to my room after dark and felt so spacey; I had no motivation to do anything. My body was horribly heavy. As usual, the moment I turned the heater on, I burrowed into my futon.

  The
forest of Kyoto Imperial Palace lies west of the Kamo River and south of Imadegawa Street. Exiting through the Seiwain Gate onto Teramachi Street and heading east into a quiet neighborhood, you’ll find the Uchida Internal Medicine Clinic. The wooden clinic is surrounded by a wooden fence, and the lush green pine branches peeking over the top of the fence are a rare sight these days. Dr. Uchida of the Uchida Internal Medicine Clinic is a former member of the Sophistry Debate Team, and ever since we met him last spring, Ms. Hanuki and Mr. Higuchi have been going drinking on occasion with him and another former Sophistry Debate Team member, the president.

  After a few days, Ms. Hanuki’s symptoms still hadn’t improved, so Mr. Higuchi said he was going to take her to the doctor.

  “I hate big clinics. You get even sicker in those places,” Ms. Hanuki whined. While Mr. Higuchi and I were trying to think of where to go, she remarked, “I wanna go to Dr. Uchida’s.”

  Mr. Higuchi gave her a piggyback ride, and the three of us visited Dr. Uchida’s clinic.

  While she was being examined, Mr. Higuchi and I warmed up in a waiting room that had a space heater going. Nothing fazed him, but even he had a pensive look on his face, his brow furrowed. The small waiting room was full of people waiting their turn, so we huddled together near the shoe cubbies. The afternoon sun shining through the fogged-up window made a faint, hazy puddle of light on the hardwood floor. I didn’t get sick very often as a child, but I remembered the few times my dad did take me to the family doctor. I had the feeling I’d looked into the same sort of pool of light on a hardwood floor back then, too.

  “If we had Junpairo, we could cure a cold in no time,” Mr. Higuchi said as if he had just remembered.

  “What’s Junpairo?”

  “It’s an illusory miracle drug once used to treat tuberculosis, a mixture of multiple expensive Chinese medicines with the consistency of a syrup. Supposedly, twirling the dipper and giving it one lick will bring down a fever and fill your whole body with energy. It’s said one drop is all it takes to make a person captive of that sweetness that melts on your tongue and the rich fragrance that rushes through your mouth and nose. It was so delicious, people kept licking it even when they weren’t sick—which always resulted in nosebleeds.”

  “It was like an awesome medicine. Too bad it doesn’t actually exist.”

  “You can’t get it anymore. It’s really a shame.”

  Before long, Ms. Hanuki came out. While she was getting her medicine, Dr. Uchida came to the window in his lab coat. “Well if it isn’t the girl who challenged Rihaku to a drinking contest.” He smiled. I was grateful he remembered me after all those months since that night in Ponto-cho. Dr. Uchida seemed to want to chat more, but the waiting room was full of people. He went back to his exam room, and we left the clinic.

  Walking along Imadegawa Street with Ms. Hanuki on his back, Mr. Higuchi said, “Business sure is booming over there. It seems like Dr. Uchida doesn’t have a moment’s rest.”

  “I heard there’s a nasty cold going around. And apparently, that’s what I have.” Ms. Hanuki gasped with her cheek resting on Mr. Higuchi’s shoulder. “I probably got it when I was drinking with the president last week.”

  “Oh, the president has a cold, too?”

  “I guess he’s moaning and groaning about his high fever… Got it from the newlyweds.”

  “Everyone’s so careless. Take a look at me. Just look! You think I’m going to catch a cold?”

  “You just don’t have any stress, Higuchi.”

  As they bantered back and forth, we walked along the bank of the Kamo River. Ms. Hanuki coughed on Mr. Higuchi’s back, gazing at the silvery sparkling water. Then she started singing, “Kittakazeeee, kozo-o no, Kaaantarooo!”

  As it started to get colder, I tended to spend most of my time at home in my futon. I watched TV in my futon, I ate in my futon, I studied in my futon, I fell deep into thought in my futon, I soothed my dear willy under my futon. The futon I never put away was truly the battlefield of my despicable youth.

  That day, too, I burrowed under the covers straightaway and stared up at the dingy ceiling. When I breathed, the air turned white. My joints felt floaty and soft; my body, heavy; it was almost as if I were melting into my futon.

  I faded in and out and descended into incoherence.

  I’d tucked my memories of the school festival into the treasure chest of my heart. I tried to remember how it felt to embrace her small shoulders. But each time I returned to that memory, the sensation of her body faded. Her face looking up at me from inside my arms looked hazy, too. It all seemed like a lie. Did that even really happen? Or was it just a personal fantasy of mine?

  The Daruma doll I’d picked up at the festival was by my pillow.

  As I gazed at it absentmindedly, the twilight that had surrounded me then enveloped me once more. Beneath a clear indigo night, I was chasing her. Looking up, I could see the black shapes of the school buildings slicing into the sky. What am I doing here? I knew I needed to catch up to her quickly, but I didn’t know where to go.

  Just then, I saw the School Festival Office director and his staff charge into an engineering department building. I went after them in a panic. Throngs of students were going up the stairs. The office staffers ahead of me shoved the spectators aside and raced up.

  The roof, when I reached it, was filled with people there to watch the show. The Crackpot Castle of Wind and Clouds towered beyond the crowd, its unreasonable number of chimneys spouting white steam into the dusk. The office staffers trying to halt the performance were in a shoving match with the crowd. I saw her, in the lead role, escaping the crowd under the protection of some audience members. It was too late. The curtain had gone up for the final act before I could reach the castle.

  Crazed spectators blocked my path as I tried to follow her. “Let me through!” I cried, but my efforts were in vain. I reached out with all my might, but the dark mass of people came between us, and I couldn’t even see her final performance. Had she gotten up on the stage? In that case, would she leave me behind and get embraced by the Crackpot of Monte Cristo when he appeared? Who was back there getting ready to hold her? Who the hell could it be? Why isn’t it me?

  Unable to stand the frustration, I picked up the Daruma at my feet and threw it. It flew in a huge arc through the twilight. The nearby audience members glared disapprovingly and surrounded me. I stood there alone.

  Through the debris of my heart, burned by jealousy, roared winds of passion.

  Since the God of Colds usually avoids me as it passes, I’m great at visiting sick people. That winter, beginning with Ms. Hanuki, pretty much everyone came down with a cold, and I was extremely busy. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I made a barrel of egg sake.

  I’m sorry—yes it would.

  But anyway, I went around to visit all sorts of people.

  About the time Ms. Hanuki seemed to be doing a bit better, I went to go visit the retired School Festival Office director at Ms. Noriko’s invitation. Ms. Noriko and I have remained close friends even after the festival ended, and we even went to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in Okazaki together.

  The day of the visit, we met in front of the Ginkakuji police box. The cherry trees along the Philosopher’s Walk had lost all their leaves, and the winter scene was so melancholic, it was hard to even imagine the flowers in full bloom like sugary sweets. The whistling wind whipped past so hard I felt as if it might rip my hair out. I’m cold—I’m so cold, I thought, looking up at Mount Daimonji and humming that song about the boy of the north wind, “Kitakaze kozo no Kantaro.” But before long, Ms. Noriko and the former Chief-in-Chief Underpants showed up. They had lots of gifts for the director.

  “Hey, how have you been?” the former Chief-in-Chief Underpants asked, looking refreshed. Since he’d achieved his goal of reuniting with Ms. Noriko, he was finished with the harsh austerities of not changing his underwear, had said good-bye to maladies of the lower body, and seemed to be in a great mood.
I was very glad to see that things were going well.

  “The director’s mad. He said the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s Youth Division gave him the cold.”

  “What’s the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s Youth Division?”

  “It’s, uh, well. You know. I can’t really say it in front of you ladies.”

  The festival office director’s house was about a five-minute walk from there, a big gray apartment building on the Lake Biwa Canal. The room was so full of get-well-soon gifts, there was nowhere to stand, and the director himself had been driven into a corner. This spoke to the popularity of someone who filled the important post of director of the School Festival Office; one earthquake would’ve been enough to bury him alive in that popularity. “I wish,” he mumbled into his futon.

  “I actually feel bad we brought you so much stuff,” remarked Chief-in-Chief Underpants, smiling awkwardly. “Pretty soon you won’t have anywhere to sleep.”

  “No, it’s fine. I appreciate it.” The director carefully set the items from Chief-in-Chief Underpants atop the giant white tower of get-well-soon gifts.

  “An awful lot of people have come to visit you, huh?” I commented.

  “The Keifuku Electric Railway Research Society came, the Sophistry Debate Club came, the film club Ablutions came… Every single club came, but I can’t remember all of them. That guy from your club came the other day, too.”

  “Which guy do you mean?”