Two years after his wife died, Tony Takitani’s father died of liver cancer. Shozaburo Takitani suffered little for someone with cancer, and his time in the hospital was short. He died almost as if falling asleep. In that sense he lived a charmed life to the end. Aside from a little cash and some stock certificates, Shozaburo Takitani left nothing that could be called property. There was only his instrument, and a gigantic collection of old jazz records. Tony Takitani left the records in the cartons supplied by the moving company, and stacked them up on the floor of the empty room. Because the records smelled of mold, Tony Takitani had to open the windows in the room at regular intervals to change the air. Otherwise, he never set foot in the place.
A year went by this way, but having the mountain of records in the house began to bother him more and more. Often the mere thought of them sitting in there made it difficult for him to breathe. Sometimes, too, he would wake in the middle of the night and be unable to get back to sleep. His memories had grown indistinct, but they were still there, where they had always been, with all the weight that memories can have.
He called a used-record dealer and had him make an offer for the collection. Because it contained many valuable discs that had long been out of print, he received a remarkably high payment—enough to buy a small car. To him, however, the money meant nothing.
Once the mountain of records had disappeared from his house, Tony Takitani was really alone.
—TRANSLATED BY JAY RUBIN
THE RISE AND FALL OF SHARPIE CAKES
Half awake, I was reading the morning paper when an ad down in one corner caught my eye: “Celebrated Sharpie Cakes, Manufacturer Seeking New Products. Major Informational Seminar.” I had never heard of Sharpie Cakes before; they were obviously some kind of cake. I am especially demanding where confections are concerned, and I had plenty of time on my hands. I decided to go see what this “major informational seminar” was all about.
It took place in a hotel ballroom, and tea and cakes were served. The cakes, of course, were Sharpies. I tried one, but I couldn’t say I liked it very much. It had a sticky-sweet texture, and the crust was too dry. I couldn’t believe that hip young people would enjoy a sweet like this.
Still, everyone attending the informational meeting was either my age or younger. I was given ticket number 952, and at least a hundred people came after me, which meant there were upward of a thousand people at this meeting. Pretty impressive.
Sitting next to me was a girl around twenty wearing thick glasses. She was no beauty, but she seemed to have a nice personality.
“Say, have you ever eaten these Sharpie things before?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she said. “They’re famous.”
“Yeah, but they’re not very—” I started to say, when she gave me a kick in the foot. The people around us were throwing angry glances my way. The mood turned nasty, but I got through it with my most innocent Winnie-the-Pooh look.
“Are you crazy?” the girl whispered to me afterward. “Coming to a place like this and bad-mouthing Sharpies? The Sharpie Crows could get you. You’d never make it home alive.”
“The Sharpie Crows?” I exclaimed. “What the—”
“Shhhh!” the girl stopped me. The meeting was about to start.
The president of the Sharpie Cake Company opened the proceedings with a brief history of Sharpies. It was one of those dubious “factual” accounts about how somebody-or-other way back in the eighth century whipped together some ingredients to make the very first Sharpie. He claimed there was a poem about Sharpies in the Kokinshu imperial anthology of 905. I was ready to laugh out loud at that one, but everybody was listening so intently, I stopped myself. Besides, I was worried about the Sharpie Crows.
The president’s speech went on for an hour. It was incredibly boring. All he wanted to say was that Sharpies are a confection with a long tradition behind it, which he could have just said in so many words.
The managing director appeared next to explain the call for new Sharpie Cake products. Sharpies were a great national confection boasting a long history, he said, but even an outstanding product such as this needed new blood to go on growing and developing dialectically in ways suited to each new age. This may have sounded good, but basically he was just saying that the taste of Sharpies was too old-fashioned now and sales were dropping, so they needed new ideas from young people. He could have said that in so many words.
On the way out I got a copy of the Rules for Submission. You had to make a confection based on Sharpies and deliver it to the company one month later. Prize money: two million yen. If I had two million yen I could marry my girlfriend and move into a new apartment. I decided to make a new Sharpie Cake.
As I said before, I can be rather demanding where confections are concerned. And I can make just about anything myself in just about any style: bean jam, cream fillings, pie crusts. It would be easy for me to create a contemporary version of Sharpies in a month. On the due date, I baked two dozen new Sharpie Cakes and brought them to the reception desk at the Sharpie Cake Company.
“They look good,” said the girl at the counter.
“They are good,” I said.
One month later I received a call from the Sharpie company asking me to come to their offices the following day. I went there with a tie on and was met in the reception room by the managing director.
“The new Sharpie Cake you submitted has been very well received by the staff,” he said. “Especially the, uh, younger members of the staff.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” I said.
“On the other hand, however, there are those among the older employees who—how shall I put this?—who say that what you have made is not a Sharpie Cake. We have a real debate going.”
“I see,” I said, wondering what he was getting at.
“And so, the, uh, board of directors has decided to leave the decision up to Their Holinesses the Sharpie Crows.”
“The Sharpie Crows?” I exclaimed. “What are the Sharpie Crows?”
The managing director gave me a confused look. “Do you mean to say you entered this competition without knowing anything about the Sharpie Crows?”
“I’m sorry. I lead a kind of sheltered life.”
“This is terrible,” he said. “If you don’t know about the Sharpie Crows, then…” He stopped himself. “Oh, well, never mind. Please come with me.”
I followed the director out of the room, down the hall, up an elevator to the sixth floor, then down another hall, at the end of which was a large iron door. The director pushed a buzzer, and a heavyset guard appeared. Once he had confirmed that it was the managing director, he opened the massive door. Security was tight.
“Their Holinesses the Sharpie Crows live in here,” said the director. “They are a special family of birds. For centuries they have eaten nothing but Sharpie Cakes to stay alive.”
No further explanation was necessary. There were over a hundred crows in the cavernous room, which was like a storehouse with fifteen-foot ceilings and long poles stretching from wall to wall. In tightly packed rows on each pole were perched the Sharpie Crows. They were far larger than ordinary crows, a good three feet in length. Even the smaller ones were at least two feet long. They had no eyes, I realized. Where their eyes should have been, they had globs of white fat. Their bodies were swollen to the point of bursting.
When the crows heard us come in, they started flapping their wings and raising a cry. At first, it sounded like a formless roar to me, but as my ears became accustomed to it, I realized they seemed to be screaming, “Sharpies! Sharpies!” They were horrifying creatures to behold.
From a box in his hands, the director scattered Sharpie Cakes on the floor, in response to which all hundred-plus birds leaped down upon the cakes. In their fever to reach the Sharpie Cakes, the crows pecked at each other’s feet and eyes. No wonder they had lost their eyes!
Next the director took something resembling Sharpie Cakes from another box, an
d scattered those on the floor. “Watch this,” he said to me. “This is a recipe that was eliminated from the competition.”
The birds thronged down as they had earlier, but as soon as they realized the cakes were not true Sharpies, they spit them out and raised angry squawks:
Sharpies!
Sharpies!
Sharpies!
Their cries echoed off the ceiling until my ears began to hurt.
“You see? They will only eat genuine Sharpies,” smirked the director. “They won’t touch an imitation.”
Sharpies!
Sharpies!
Sharpies!
“Now, let’s try it with your new Sharpie Cakes. If they eat them, you win. If not, you lose.”
Uh-oh, something told me this was not going to work. They should never have let a bunch of stupid birds decide the results of the competition. Unaware of my misgivings, the director vigorously scattered my “New Sharpies” on the floor. Again the crows pounced, and then all hell broke loose. Some of the birds ate my Sharpies with gusto, but others spit them out and screamed, “Sharpies! Sharpies!” And still others, unable to reach the cakes, went into a frenzy and started pecking at the throats of the birds that were eating. Blood flew everywhere. One crow pounced on a cake that another had spit out, but yet another gigantic crow latched on to this one and, with a cry of “Sharpies!” ripped the first one’s stomach open. From then on it was a total free-for-all, blood calling forth more blood, rage leading to rage. This was all happening over some ridiculous sweets, but to the birds the cakes were everything. Whether a cake was a Sharpie or a non-Sharpie was a matter of life and death to them.
“Now look what you’ve done!” I said to the director. “You just threw the cakes in front of them like that all of a sudden. The stimulus was too strong.”
Then I exited the room by myself, took the elevator down, and left the Sharpie Cakes building. I hated to lose the two million yen in prize money, but I was not going to live the rest of my long life connected with these damned crows.
From now on I would make and eat the food that I wanted to eat. The damned Sharpie Crows could peck each other to death for all I cared.
—TRANSLATED BY JAY RUBIN
THE ICE MAN
My husband’s an Ice Man.
The first time I met him was at a hotel at a ski resort. It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate place to meet an Ice Man. He was in the lobby of the hotel, noisy and crowded with hordes of young people, seated in a corner as far as possible from the fireplace, quietly absorbed in a book. It was nearly noon, but the clear, cold morning light seemed to shine on him alone. “That’s an Ice Man,” one of my friends whispered. At the time I had no idea what sort of person an Ice Man was, and my friend couldn’t help me out. All she knew was that he was the sort of person who went by the name of Ice Man. “They must call him that because he’s made out of ice,” she added, a serious look on her face. As serious as if the topic wasn’t an Ice Man but a ghost, or someone with a contagious disease.
The Ice Man looked young, though that was offset by the white strands, like patches of leftover snow, mixed in among his stiff, wiry head of hair. He was tall, his cheeks were sharply chiseled, like frozen crags, his fingers covered with frost that looked like it would never, ever melt. Other than this, he looked perfectly normal. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, though some would find him quite appealing. There was something about him that pierced right through you. Especially his eyes, and that silent, transparent look that gleamed like an icicle on a winter’s morning—the sole glint of life in an otherwise provisional body. I stood there for a while, gazing at the Ice Man from across the lobby. He was absorbed in his book, never once moving or looking up, as if trying to convince himself that he was utterly alone.
The next afternoon he was in the same spot, as before, reading his book. When I went to the dining room for lunch, and when I came back with my friends from skiing in the evening, he was always there, seated in the same chair, the same look in his eyes as he scanned the pages of the same book as before. And the next day was exactly the same. Dawn to dusk found him seated alone, quietly reading, for all the world like part of the frozen winter scene outside.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, I made up an excuse and didn’t join everyone on the slopes. Instead, I stayed behind in the hotel, wandering around the lobby. With everyone out skiing, the lobby was like an abandoned city. The air there was sticky and hot, filled with a strangely depressing odor—the smell of snow that had clung to the soles of people’s boots and had slowly melted in front of the fireplace. I gazed out the windows, leafed through a newspaper. Finally I worked up my courage, went over to the Ice Man, and spoke to him. I’m pretty shy, and hardly ever strike up a conversation with a stranger, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to talk to him. This was my last night in the hotel and if I let this chance pass I probably would never have another.
You’re not skiing? I asked, trying to sound casual. The Ice Man slowly raised his head, looking like he was carefully listening to the wind blowing far away. He gazed intently at me and then quietly shook his head. I don’t ski, he said. I’m fine just reading and looking out at the snow. His words floated up in the air, a white comic-book bubble of dialogue, every word visible before me. He gently wiped away some of the frost from his fingers.
I had no idea what to say next. I blushed and stood there, rooted to the spot. The Ice Man gazed into my eyes and gave what looked like a faint smile. Or was it? Had he really smiled? Maybe I was just imagining it. Would you like to sit down? he said. I know you’re curious about me, so let’s talk for a while. You want to know what an Ice Man is like, right? He chuckled. It’s all right, he added. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re not going to catch a cold just talking to me.
We sat on a sofa in a corner of the lobby, hesitantly talking as we watched the swirling snow outside. I ordered a cup of hot cocoa, but the Ice Man didn’t drink anything. He was just as shy as I was. On top of which, we had little in common to talk about. We talked about the weather at first, then the hotel. Did you come here alone? I asked him. I did, he responded. Do you like skiing? he asked. Not particularly, I replied. Some of my girlfriends dragged me here. I can barely ski. I was dying to find out more about what an Ice Man was all about. Was he really made out of ice? What did he eat? Where did he live in the summer? Did he have a family? Those sorts of questions. Unfortunately, the Ice Man didn’t talk about himself at all, and I didn’t dare ask the questions that whirled around in my head. I figured he didn’t feel like talking about those things.
Instead he talked about me, who I am. It’s hard to believe, but he knew everything there was to know about me. Who was in my family, my age, interests, my health, what school I was attending, my friends. He knew it all. Even things I’d long forgotten, he knew everything about.
I don’t get it, I blushed. I felt like I had been stripped naked in front of people. How do you know so much about me? I asked. Are you a mind reader?
No, the Ice Man said, I can’t read minds. I just know these things. Like I’m looking deep into a clear block of ice. When I gaze at you like this, I can see everything about you.
Can you see my future? I asked.
No, not the future, he replied blankly, slowly shaking his head. I’m not interested in the future. I have no concept of the future. Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they’re alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way—cleanly, clearly. That’s the essence of ice, the role it plays.
I’m glad, I replied, and smiled. I was relieved—there was no way I wanted to hear about my future.
We got together a few times after we returned to Tokyo, eventually dating every weekend. We didn’t go on typical dates, to see movies, or spend time in coffee shops. We didn’t even go out to eat. The Ice Man hardly ever ate. Instead we’d spend time on a park bench, side by side, talking. We discussed all kinds of s
ubjects, yet not once did the Ice Man talk about himself. Why is this? I asked one day. Why don’t you ever talk about yourself? I want to know more about you—where you were born, what kind of parents you had, how you came to be an Ice Man. The Ice Man gazed at me for a while, then slowly shook his head. I don’t know the answer to those things, he responded quietly and decisively, exhaling his hard white breath. I have no past. I know the past of everything else, and preserve it. But I have no past myself. I have no idea where I was born. I don’t know what my parents looked like, or whether I even had any. I don’t know how old I am, or if I even have an age.
The Ice Man was as isolated and alone as an iceberg floating in the darkness.
I fell deeply in love with him, and he came to love me, the present me, apart from any past or future. And I came to love the Ice Man for who he is now, apart from any past or future. It was a wonderful thing. We began to talk about getting married. I had just turned twenty, and the Ice Man was the first person I’d ever truly loved. What loving him really meant was, at the time, beyond me. But that would have been true even if it hadn’t been the Ice Man I was in love with then.
My mother and older sister were totally opposed to our marriage. You’re too young to get married, they argued. You don’t know the man’s background—even where or when he was born. How are we supposed to explain that to our relatives? And listen, they went on, he’s an Ice Man, so what happens if he melts? You don’t seem to understand this, but when you get married you take on certain responsibilities. How can an Ice Man possibly fulfill his duties as a husband?
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Page 22