The Great Passage

by Shion Miura

  “I couldn’t keep up my end of the conversation too well, so I was afraid she might have been bored.”

  He spoke with humility, aiming to stay on Také’s good side. Finding his emotions hard to control, he crunched the pickled cabbage rapidly. Little noises like those made by a hamster nibbling leaves filled the room.

  “She’s turned chicken,” said Také with a sigh.

  “Chicken?”

  Majime swallowed and tilted his head, considering this. The Kaguya he knew was always in command of herself. The adjective chicken struck him as inappropriate.

  “Yes, ever since she broke up with her old boyfriend. He wanted to marry her, but she turned him down. Wouldn’t go with him on an overseas assignment. Said she wanted to devote herself to becoming a chef.”

  “Well, I’ve got no plans to go overseas.” He half-rose from his seat. The statement ended in a yelp when Tora scratched him in protest.

  “She’s got such a one-track mind. I don’t suppose many men would find her appealing.” Také sighed again. “And she’s not in the market for anyone, either. All she wants to do is focus on her career. She was seeing someone else in Kyoto, but that didn’t last.”

  Kaguya had come to Tokyo to live with Také probably because she’d reached a certain stage in her training in Kyoto, but Také seemed to feel responsible for her happiness.

  “Being a chef means lifelong training and discipline,” said Majime, trying to cheer her up. “The person she almost got engaged to wasn’t going to be posted overseas permanently, was he? If he’d really wanted to marry her, they could have lived apart for a while, or they could have put off the marriage until the time was right. There are any number of ways around that problem.”

  He was getting heated. He felt jealous and riled. Here he couldn’t even get a relationship going with Kaguya, and some other guy had let slip a chance to marry her? And that made her turn chicken? His blood boiled.

  “You know,” mused Také, “someone like you might be just the ticket for her.”

  He looked up eagerly. “You really think so?”

  “I do. Someone who’s a bit fuzzy on top and has his own world, I mean. Someone who wouldn’t be in a hurry to interfere with her world and what she wants to do. I think it’s better if two people don’t expect too much of each other. Live and let live.”

  This struck him as a rather lonely prospect, but maybe she was praising him? He hesitated a little, but remembering Také’s previous advice about relying on people, he decided to go ahead and rely on her.

  “Then put in a good word for me, would you, without making too much of it?”

  “What? But I don’t know how she feels, and it’s not easy to be casual about a thing like that.”

  Majime jumped up, flew downstairs, and came racing back with an armful of Nupporo Number One. All he owned was books. Instant noodles were the only incentive he could come up with. He didn’t care how ridiculous he might seem.

  “Please reconsider. Please help me out.”

  Looking at the heap of instant noodle packets on the tabletop, Také sighed yet again. “Well, if it means that much to you, I’ll see what I can do.”

  She seemed to be stifling laughter.

  The next day, for once Nishioka was already at his desk when Majime arrived.

  “Well, Majime, I read your love letter.”

  “And? What’s the verdict?”

  “It’s fine! Go right ahead and give it to her.” He also seemed to be stifling laughter.

  How come people laugh when I’m dead earnest? Confused and wretched, Majime took back the fifteen sheets of stationery and filed them in his briefcase. “What did Araki say yesterday?” he asked.

  “Oh, that.” Nishioka started up his computer and began checking his e-mail. “Nothing.”

  “But . . . he must have wanted to tell you the other condition for continuing with The Great Passage.”

  “Nah. He just wanted to gripe about the board, let off some steam. I had to go out drinking with him till late. It was kind of a pain.”

  Majime studied Nishioka’s profile dubiously. He was pretty sure he’d heard Araki say, “Second . . .” Had he misheard? If all Araki wanted to do was gripe about work in some bar, why had he asked only Nishioka to come along? Maybe it’s because I haven’t been here very long yet. Maybe with me around he wouldn’t feel free to say what was on his mind.

  Here he was worrying about feeling distanced from his friends, like a junior high school girl. Of course he’d never been a junior high school girl, so this was pure supposition. He was aware that his personality made people generally uncomfortable, which was a major reason why he never seemed to fit in. Yet he had thought the atmosphere at work was becoming more relaxed, that lately even he and Nishioka were getting along. He was quietly disappointed.

  As he skimmed his e-mail, Nishioka was humming to himself and saying things like, “Oh, boy, Professor Saijo, the historian, responded right away.” If only he, Majime, were more like Nishioka, cheerful and outgoing, and didn’t put up fences to keep others out. Then everything would go more smoothly—his work and his love life, too. He was well aware that Nishioka, though he might sometimes come across as unfeeling, would never deliberately set out to hurt another person.

  “All right.” Nishioka stood up, jacket in hand. “I’m off. I’m going to go give a little nudge to the contributors we haven’t heard from yet.”

  He must’ve only just arrived. This seemed hasty.

  “There’s still time,” Majime said. “Why the rush?”

  “You never know. They may not be exactly sure how to write what we asked them to. It’s important to be on top of potential problems before they arise . . . Check this out!”

  Proudly he spread out a piece of paper showing the teaching schedule of every university professor they had invited to be a contributor. Majime had to admit that this certainly would make it easier to visit them efficiently, during their office hours. How had Nishioka found time? The prospect of calling on contributors seemed to energize him.

  “That’s amazing,” Majime said. It crossed his mind that there was plenty of work to be done right there in the office, but he didn’t say so. He didn’t want to undermine Nishioka’s newfound enthusiasm.

  “When I get back, let’s go over the schedule for Gembu Student’s Dictionary.”

  “Sure.”

  Majime put on black sleeve protectors and pulled up the file cards he’d been assigned for the day.

  “Majime.”

  Hearing his name called, he looked up. He’d thought Nishioka was gone, but he was standing in the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “Have more confidence. Anyone who’s as serious and diligent as you are is bound to succeed in whatever he does.”

  Majime set down his pencil in amazement.

  “I’m behind you one hundred percent,” Nishioka blurted and then disappeared out the door.

  Something must have happened. Even Majime, who Také had said was “fuzzy on top,” could tell. Either Nishioka had come down with a sudden fever or Araki had said or done something to him. It had to be one or the other.

  When Kaguya came home late that night and found Majime crouching at the foot of the stairs, she seemed surprised, falling back against the front door she had just closed.

  “What are you doing there?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” As she stood in the tiled entryway with her shoes still on, Majime knelt down on the wooden floor in front of her and handed her the bulky love letter. “Please read this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just a token.” Realizing he was beet red to the tips of his ears, Majime hurriedly stood up. “Anyway, good night.”

  He flew back to his room, closed the door, and burrowed under the covers. He heard her continue upstairs. Once she read the letter, she might come right away with her answer. His heart pounded; his temples felt like they’d turned to stone. He had poured his soul into those p
ages. Whatever her answer, he would accept it calmly. He lay in his futon and stared up at the ceiling, waiting. Outside on the clothes-drying platform, Tora meowed. He heard Kaguya’s window open and shut. All was quiet. A fish jumped, or perhaps a twig fell, making a tiny splash in the canal.

  He waited until his cold feet were warm, but she never came.

  He watched as the window slowly filled with the bright light of morning.

  A week went by with no response. Just as before, they scarcely saw each other. On Sunday she went to take in a demonstration by a famous chef at a hotel, or some such event, and was out the door early in the morning. Was she avoiding him? He never should have resorted to a form of communication as maddeningly slow as a letter.

  He moped the time away. Yet even though he was moping, he didn’t let up at work; being able to stay focused was one of his strengths. He talked with Professor Matsumoto about how to proceed with a revision of Gembu Student’s Dictionary of Japanese in tandem with the work on The Great Passage.

  “Any time you edit a big new dictionary, there are bound to be setbacks along the way.” Professor Matsumoto took the company’s decision calmly. “But regrettably, there are not enough hands on deck. This could mean years before The Great Passage is finished.”

  “Are they serious about our dictionary or not?” Mrs. Sasaki usually kept her feelings to herself, but for once she let her frustration show. “They don’t give us the staff we need, and now on top of everything we have to revise another book, too? They’re just waiting for us to abandon ship.”

  Araki and Nishioka exchanged looks, Majime couldn’t help noticing. More than Kaguya’s failure to reply had been weighing on Majime this past week. There was something strange about Nishioka.

  He’d told him about handing the letter to Kaguya, and also that he had yet to receive any response. Since Nishioka had reviewed the letter for him, he felt he owed him a report. But whenever he brought it up, Nishioka either just grinned or offered cold comfort: “Give it time. She’s not going to ignore a love letter, now, is she?” He was busy revising the work schedule for the dictionary, calling on contributors, and so on. Under normal circumstances he’d have been all over Majime with questions, clamoring to hear the latest developments. Something was definitely up. Majime found Nishioka’s newfound diligence somehow ominous.

  He tried to lift the general mood by saying something positive. “Think of our predecessors, pioneers who compiled great dictionaries single-handedly. At least we have each other. Let’s not give up, let’s carry on.”

  “Well said.” Professor Matsumoto nodded, looking at Majime approvingly.

  “Uh, this is hard to bring up, but . . . ,” Nishioka began gingerly. “It looks like this spring I’m being transferred to advertising.”

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  Professor Matsumoto and Mrs. Sasaki raised their voices in astonishment. Nishioka gave a small laugh and looked down.

  Gloomily, Araki explained. “Company policy. They don’t want to spare people for our department.”

  “This is a calamity.” Professor Matsumoto clutched the knot on a cloth-wrapped package on the desk. “Then The Great Passage may not be finished in my lifetime.”

  “And I was just saying how understaffed we are!” Mrs. Sasaki shook her head irately, and, perhaps from built-up stress, her neck made a loud cracking noise.

  Nishioka was being transferred? Majime was speechless. Araki worked part-time, Professor Matsumoto was a consulting editor, and Mrs. Sasaki was a contract worker. So the only one in a position to negotiate with the company and head the project was now him, Majime!

  This was no time to be going on about predecessors who’d made dictionaries single-handedly and how noble they were. Responsibility for the entire Dictionary Editorial Department at Gembu was about to land on Majime’s shoulders.

  Reeling from shock and loneliness, Majime finished work and returned home. He slurped down some Nupporo Number One and then retreated to his inner sanctum and his books. He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t own a television set. He had no hobbies. The only way he knew to calm himself was by reading.

  He sat upright in the dusty night air and took a deep breath. His hand reached toward the shelf and took down the four-volume Sea of Words. A pioneering dictionary compiled single-handedly in the Meiji era by Fumihiko Otsuki. The man had poured all his assets and time—indeed, his whole life—into completing Sea of Words.

  Have I got that much drive and determination?

  He laid a volume, purchased in a secondhand bookstore, in his lap and carefully turned the musty pages. His eyes fell on the entry ryorinin (cook), written in old-fashioned orthography. The definition read: “One whose occupation is cooking. A chujin.” Chujin was an old-fashioned word for “chef,” one you hardly came across anymore. Any dictionary, no matter how well made, was destined to go out of date. Words were living things. If someone asked him whether Sea of Words was of practical use in the present age, in all honesty he would have to say it had grown outdated. And yet, the principles and passion that informed Sea of Words would never be old. They remained vibrantly alive, in other beloved dictionaries and in the hearts of lexicographers.

  The entry ryorinin naturally made him think of Kaguya. The definition used the word waza, which could mean “occupation or job” but also went far deeper; it was closer to “a calling.” A ryorinin was someone called to cook; someone who felt compelled to prepare food to satisfy the stomach and the heart; someone chosen to do so. The character for waza could also be read go, a Buddhist term meaning “a karmic bond.” Kaguya, Fumihiko Otsuki, and probably Majime himself were each possessed by nothing less than a bond from past lives.

  Majime indulged in a reverie. If Kaguya returned his feelings, how deliriously happy he would be. If she even so much as smiled at him, he would be thrilled to death. This was no mere figure of speech: having never gotten much exercise, Majime had little faith in his cardiovascular system and was not sure that his heart could withstand the impact of a Kaguya smile.

  He never should have given her a love letter. She was immersed in her chef’s training, possessed by it. He didn’t want to stand in her way. He himself was bound to the editing of The Great Passage. He knew what it meant to be caught up in work, to be possessed. Her failure to answer his love letter was a sign of confusion. He shouldn’t have done anything to cause her a moment’s uneasiness. He should have kept his feelings—his love—tucked away in his heart.

  He heard the quiet sound of the front door opening. She was home. Despite his best intentions, he jerked to his feet like a puppet on strings. His feet traveled of their own accord out of the room and into the hallway.

  “Kaguya.” His voice was hoarse.

  Midway up the stairs, she turned and looked back. She was wearing a black coat and her hair was down. Perhaps she was tired; her eyes, always dancing, looked sleepy for once.

  “Give me your answer.”

  “My answer?” She slowly blinked.

  “Yes. If the answer is no, just tell me. I can take it.”

  “Wait. Are you by any chance talking about that letter you gave me the other day?”

  “Yes, I’m talking about the l-l-l—” Majime choked, his nervousness at a peak, but managed to get the words out. “Love letter.”

  She froze, looking back at him, and made a sound somewhere between “mwa” and “nha.” Her cheeks reddened, she said softly, “I’m sorry,” then she turned and went up the stairs.

  An apology. Was that a rejection? Then why blush? Why not break his heart with gut-wrenching words and actions?

  She’d looked adorable.

  Perversely, he couldn’t stop thinking of the look on her face when she’d said she was sorry. Sad, anguished, adorable. Maddeningly adorable. Flooded with emotion, he stood stock-still in the hallway, oblivious to the cold.

  Considerable time went by. Clad only in pajamas, he was chilled through, but when she came back down carrying a bath tow
el and a change of clothes, he was still there. Seeing him standing frozen at the bottom of the stairs, she looked surprised.

  “I’m sorry, I have to take a bath,” she said quickly and slipped past him.

  That made two apologies. Majime finally began to recover his power of movement. Slowly he went back to the stacks, picked up Sea of Words from the floor, and returned it to the shelf. Then he retreated to his room, opened the window, and slid onto his futon, under the covers. He pulled the lazycord and turned off the light. The wind coming through the window rapidly lowered the room temperature.

  “Tora,” he called.

  No answering meow.

  He’d been staring up at the dark ceiling. Now, overcome, he closed his eyes. Even that wasn’t enough, so he covered his eyes with an arm. No darkness, however black and dense, could blot out the way he felt now.

  “Tora, Tora.” He gave a sigh ending in a little sob. The name he really wanted to call out was different.

  The bell at the end of the lazycord tinkled. He must have dozed off. So many things at work and at home had shaken him emotionally that, without his realizing it, fatigue had built up inside him, and he’d let go of consciousness as if to escape.

  Through the comforter he felt a faint pressure and warmth. Tora. He reached out to stroke the cat’s fur, groping with the arm that had lain across his eyes.

  “So you came.”

  His fingertips sensed something quite different from cat fur.

  “Yes, I came.”

  Majime made a strangled sound of surprise and hurriedly tried to get up, but could not. Kaguya was actually lying across his stomach. She crawled forward, brought her face near his. Letting his fingers stroke her hair, damp from the bath, she smiled in the dim light.

  “After getting a letter so carefully written and so heartfelt, how could I not come?”

  Shot through the heart, Majime was incapable of coherent speech. Was he dreaming? He swallowed several times and finally managed to work the muscles of his throat. “I gave it to you a pretty long time ago.”