Misaki was taking the Yurakucho Line so we said goodbye at the ticket machines. She’s living now in a high-rise condo her middle-aged boyfriend bought in Harumi. I’ve never seen the condo, of course, but I can’t imagine what sort of place a single guy who, if you round up, is pushing fifty, would possibly buy. Mirai’s been there a few times, though, and reported back that, ‘That place and ours are like night and day. If that place is Elizabeth Taylor, then ours is Divine.’ I can’t say I totally followed her explanation.
I arrived at Chidori Karasuyama Station and walked down the shopping district, the fragrance of summer, getting stronger by the day, wafting up on the night wind. I’d gone to work on a weekend so I wasn’t wearing a suit, and the breeze wafted in the neck of my polo shirt and gently stroked my chest.
On the way home I stopped by a video rental store. A little place in front of the station, it didn’t have Dust in the Wind in stock. I wandered around the store, not really looking for any particular title, and when I came to the corner where videos were lined up according to director, a couple about Satoru’s age were looking at a copy of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and wondering aloud if it featured any aliens. Finding it funny, I must have been unconsciously staring at them, for the man, noticing me watching them, glared at me with this What the hell do you want? kind of look.
As I left there I told them, silently and to myself, That film doesn’t have any aliens, but something much scarier.
I saw A Space Odyssey in a cinema when I was in elementary school – a revival showing, of course. I’d gone to the cinema with my dad many times before then, and compared to my friends watched many more films on TV. I was only a child, but cried at the scene in the Italian film Sunflower when Sophia Loren said goodbye to her lover and leapt onto the train, and saw my future self reflected in Lawrence of Arabia, which made me feel an oppressive tightness in my chest. But this oppressive feeling was nothing compared to when I saw A Space Odyssey. The Exorcist hadn’t even fazed me, but this was beyond an oppressive feeling – I felt terrified. When I saw that famous last scene where the guy is racing towards eternity, my childish intuition told me there was – well, something in this world that we can never understand, some vastly huge foreign substance, something before which we humans are blown away like so much dust.
As my dad led me by the hand out of the cinema it felt like every single bone in my body had been removed. My body was like a soft lump of flesh, and I couldn’t even reply when he asked, ‘Did you like it? Was it kind of hard to follow?’ The film made me both angry and sad. But was it really me who was feeling angry and sad? I had no idea whose emotions these were, even though they felt so close to me.
In the end I went home without renting a video. When I went inside, the living room was pitch black and nobody was in either the girls’ or the guys’ room. I hadn’t been back to such a dark apartment in a long time, and I reached behind me to shut the front door and stood there for a while in the dark entrance. Standing still in the dark, I started to feel my aching gums again. The deserted apartment was hushed, the only sound the traffic filtering in from outside.
I took off my shoes and walked into the dark living room, and though I wasn’t necessarily conscious of it, I could hear my own breathing loud and clear. And then it happened.
‘It wasn’t you, was it?’ Mirai’s voice suddenly rose up out of the darkness.
‘Woah!’ I screamed out. ‘Wh-what are you doing? If you need the lights, turn them on!’ I yelled this out in a too-loud voice, trying to drown out my pitiful cry, and reached out for the light switch on the wall. The fluorescent light blinked a few times and then came on, revealing a pale-looking Mirai sitting on the floor, her legs formally tucked up underneath her.
‘What the heck are you doing?’ It was obvious she wasn’t just playing a trick, trying to scare me.
‘It wasn’t you, was it?’ she slowly repeated. For some reason she was clutching a video tape.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You didn’t rummage around in my stuff in my wardrobe, did you?’ Mirai stared at a fixed spot on the floor, her gaze never wavering.
‘Your stuff? Why would I do that?’ With her seated so formally in front of me, I couldn’t approach her yet.
‘Ryosuke and Koto didn’t do it. If you didn’t, then Satoru has to be the guilty one . . . I want you to get him out of here! Right now!’
As she screamed this, she threw the video tape against the wall. The tape hit the wall with a crack and rolled over by my feet. I had no idea what she was talking about.
5.3
I spent the whole day at work sorting through expense receipts. Since we have so few employees I end up doing most of the accounting whenever I have a spare moment. In the afternoon the woman from the tax accountant office came to collect the receipts and told me the same thing she’d said last month: ‘Don’t try to do it all in one day. Do a little bit each day and then it’s simple.’
The boss had apparently already called and stopped the ad for a part-time worker we were set to place in the temp magazine.
‘You remember Satoru,’ I told her, ‘the guy who pasted labels for us the other day?’
‘I remember,’ she said. ‘If part-time work is okay with him, he can start right away.’
After the woman from the accounting office left, the boss and I went out for a late lunch. ‘I want to eat something really good for a change,’ she said, and we set off for the Sekishintei restaurant in the New Otani Hotel. On the way she started to tell me about an NHK programme she saw recently.
It was a documentary about a young man who was doing Muslim missionary work among the very poor in New York. I wasn’t sure how far to trust the boss’s memory of the show, but according to her, this young man was talking to a middle-aged black woman, a drug addict, telling her that if she believed, she could make a ‘fresh start in life’. A few days later the woman converted to Islam, and as she received a copy of the Koran from him she said, her bloodshot eyes welling up with tears, ‘Now I can make a fresh start in life.’
‘So what do you think?’ the boss asked me.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I replied.
At Sekishintei there was a choice of two main courses for lunch – Akamatsu snapper or a beef fillet. My boss ordered the snapper so I went with the fillet.
After lunch we left the hotel and were leisurely strolling up Kioizaka slope. At the end of the slope was an embankment with a path along it. In front of us were the sports grounds of Sophia University, and far off we could glimpse the roof of the governmental guesthouse for state visitors. The boss wanted to take a break so I sat down next to her on a bench. The sky was pure blue, the sunlight already holding a hint of summer. As we sat there blankly, kids with matching jerseys, pupils from Kojimachi Junior High, jogged towards us along the path, their pace plodding. Their faces were flushed, their foreheads beaded with sweat in the early summer sun. The dry smell of dust rose up as they jogged by.
‘I meant to tell you – I have a girl I want to introduce you to,’ the boss suddenly said.
‘Um, thanks, but it’s okay. I’ll find one on my own,’ I said, quickly refusing her.
‘Are you still moping over the girl you broke up with?’ she laughed.
‘Isn’t moping like this the real thrill of love?’
‘Are you serious?’
The boss was turning forty-one this year but somehow she had a boyfriend who was a college student the same age as Ryosuke. One time when we were out drinking, I asked her what type of man she liked. By her tone of voice it was hard to tell if she was serious or joking, but she replied, ‘The type of man I go for is like the motto of the Franciscans.’ Which, by the way, is poverty, chastity, and obedience.
In the evening I attended a meeting of the production team for the pamphlet for a film preview. As always, I had to select the out-of-date design and concept proposed by the director of the company that had made the biggest investment. As w
e were leaving the conference room I patted Momochi – none of whose designs had been selected – gently on the shoulder and said to him, in an almost desperate tone, ‘It’s the content of the film that matters! The content of the film!’
Afterwards I didn’t return to the office but instead went for a drink by myself at the Halcyon in Aoyama. ‘Mirai should be here pretty soon,’ the barman told me. I knew that if she got hold of me I’d have to go drinking with her till morning, so I hurriedly got up and was about to leave when Mirai showed up with Shinji, the owner of the imported goods store she worked at. Mirai had clearly already had a few. She spied me at the counter and came right over.
‘Did you tell Satoru?’ she asked, her breath stinking of alcohol.
‘Tell him what?’ I said, playing dumb.
‘What do you mean, what? I asked you to kick him out!’
‘But what did he do? Unless I know the reason, I can’t just tell him to get out.’ I was eating some of the strawberries the owner had put out for me, washing them down with white wine.
‘He looked through my belongings! So I want him gone – now!’ Mirai said.
I hadn’t been able to ask Satoru directly what the problem was, since for the last few days he’d stayed away from our place, afraid of Mirai’s temper. He apparently slipped back in during the day when Mirai and I were at work, and when Koto asked him what he’d done to upset Mirai so much he’d simply replied, ‘I didn’t mean any harm. Tell her that if I hurt her feelings, I’m sorry,’ but he didn’t say anything about the main point – what he’d done in the first place to upset her. My theory was that he’d looked through Mirai’s diary, but Koto shot that idea down in no uncertain terms: ‘Diary? She doesn’t keep one.’
I remembered I had a meeting the next morning so I told her I had to get home and stood up. ‘W-wait a sec,’ Mirai said, grabbing my arm.
‘Then you’d better tell me. What did Satoru do?’ I asked again.
‘Okay, I get it. I’ll tell you. If I tell you, you’ll do it, right? You have to kick him out.’
Prefacing her remarks with this, she started to relate the awful thing Satoru had done. In the end I brushed her aside and left the bar. He recorded The Pink Panther over an important video tape of mine, she’d explained. Not much worse than breaking a nail, if you ask me. Plus this so-called important video was a series of rape scenes from films. Anybody would have wanted to erase that – not just Satoru.
As I exited the bar I could hear Mirai’s calling out to me from behind – Hold on!
Mirai has the habit, when she’s wasted, of falling asleep anywhere she happens to be. One time everybody got up, ready to leave, but we couldn’t find Mirai, who’d been carrying on until a few minutes earlier. Figuring she must have left before us, we didn’t look for her and started tugging on our coats, which had been piled up on the sofa. And there we found Mirai – asleep under the mound of coats. She was breathing softly and had such a happy smile on her face it made you wonder what sort of dream she was having. It’s amazing that she didn’t suffocate. Sometimes I feel like asking her what is it that makes her so sad she has to drink so much.
I bought some ice cream at the Baskin Robbins in front of the Chitose Karasuyama Station and went home. Koto was the only one in the living room, Ryosuke was at his part-time job, and was going to stay over at Kiwako’s afterwards, and Satoru, still afraid of Mirai, hadn’t come back.
Koto was looking a little sad, so I let her choose what kind of ice cream she wanted, then scooped it out for her into a pretty cut-glass bowl, and handed it to her. Koto has a certain presence when it comes to the living room, since she occupies it every single day. Nobody has decided this or anything, but recently, if Koto happens not to be here, nobody sits down in the spot she usually occupies. And Koto’s the only one who can tell you right away where the coupons are for pizza, and where the extra boxes of tissues are kept.
Koto was staring, vacantly, not transferring the ice cream in her spoon to her mouth, so I asked her what was wrong. I left the question hanging and went into the guys’ room and took off my suit. I was standing in front of the dresser, taking off my tie when I saw Koto, reflected in the mirror, standing in the doorway. Startled, I turned around. Spoon still clutched in her hand, she was staring at my back. I had a bad feeling about this and, trying to pre-empt anything she might say, I said, ‘You know, I ran across Mirai today in Halycon, and she was pretty wasted.’
‘Naoki? . . . There’s something I need to ask you.’
Here we go, I thought, but tried not to let my thoughts show. ‘What is it?’ I asked. Anything Koto wanted to ask about had to do with Tomohiko Maruyama, I was positive. I’m sorry, but when I come home, tired, that’s the last thing I want to talk about.
‘What’s up? Things aren’t going well?’ I asked as I took off my shirt, trying not to look her in the eye. Koto, still reflected in the mirror, was looking down.
‘I haven’t told anybody this yet . . .’
‘Um. What is it?’
If you’re not telling anybody, then don’t tell me, either, okay? I said to myself.
‘I tried to be careful, of course . . .’
I could imagine the rest. I tossed my shirt aside and managed to mumble out another Um.
‘I haven’t been able to tell Tomohiko yet . . .’
After I changed into my Adidas tracksuit, I gently nudged her out of the room and into the living room, where we sat down on the sofa.
If, for instance, the baby Koto’s carrying were mine, things would be a lot simpler. Anyway, let’s talk about it tomorrow, I could say, turn off the light and climb into bed. That would itself be an excellent reply. Unfortunately, her baby isn’t mine, but that of an actor I’ve only seen on TV. Plus, though we’ve lived together these last few months, Koto isn’t really one of my close friends. Actually, the sense of distance between us is a difficult thing. I’m not close enough to be hard-hearted with her, but I’m also not far enough removed to pretend to be all warm and kind.
‘Doesn’t it make sense to first talk with Tomohiko about this?’ I said, trying to lay the groundwork for my escape.
‘I know, but I just couldn’t tell him.’
‘Just explain it like you did to me, that was perfect,’ I thought. On the table, the ice cream was slowly melting in the bowl.
‘Still, you need to talk it over with him.’
‘Yeah . . . I know . . . Hey, if you don’t want to, that’s okay, but could you ask him instead of me?’
The idea had me rattled. Naturally there was this voice, like a basso continuo, droning through me saying No way, No way, but – either through timidity or a desire for a quick fix – I found my voice coming out with a pretty half-baked question: ‘Huh? Ask him what?’
‘What he would do if I were to get pregnant.’
‘If you were to get pregnant? But you already are, aren’t you?’
‘True . . . but I think he’d be able to think more calmly if you made it hypothetical – make it if I were pregnant, rather than I am.’
Was Koto taking Tomohiko for a fool, or was she herself a fool? I licked the chocolate peppermint ice cream without responding. The sweet ice cream melted around my tongue, already numb from the dry wine I’d drunk.
‘Have you already been to see a doctor?’
‘Not yet. But I did do a home pregnancy test . . . You want to see it?’
‘No – I’m good.’
It was pretty clear from her words and attitude that she wasn’t planning to keep the baby. But she hesitated to have an abortion without saying anything to Tomohiko, and likewise it would be distressing to face him and hear him say Get rid of it. It seemed like she wanted to overcome the problem, and not have any later repercussions, by having a third party like me get involved – and have it come down to a simple It’s okay, right? Right?
Even after we finished the ice cream Koto didn’t budge from the sofa, and the whole situation was feeling so stifling I couldn’t even get
up to use the loo. Finally – wanting to escape this unbearable moment – I said, ‘Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll talk with Tomohiko. But I should do it soon. The baby won’t wait.’ I already regretted speaking so agreeably about it, afraid she would start consulting me about one thing after another.
‘I – I suppose so,’ Koto said, standing up and trotting into the girls’ room. She emerged clutching a notebook that apparently had Tomohiko’s schedule in it.
‘Let’s see – if it’s next week, how about Tuesday night? Or Thursday morning?’
Koto’s tone was so oddly cheery, in no way the voice of someone deciding which day to announce she was getting an abortion.
The last few years it seems like things always go in a different direction from the way I think they will. What I mean is, the things that I do entirely for my own benefit are often misinterpreted by those around me as being done out of concern for others. One example would be when Misaki said she’d bring Mirai to live with us, I agreed simply for the selfish reason that I thought that if Mirai joined us, Misaki and I wouldn’t have our usual fights every night. Still, Misaki and Mirai, and even the owner of Halycon, praised me for being so generous and open-minded. The same thing happened when Ryosuke was brought in. When Umezaki, who was below me at high school, said there was a younger guy at his college who was disappointed in love and might kill himself, I did tell him, ‘In that case, you’d better bring him on over.’ But again this was only out of a kind of sordid spite, since I was envious of Misaki and Mirai, who were enjoying themselves so much and ignoring me, and I figured I could force them to have to deal with a guy on the verge of suicide. Ryosuke was supposedly so depressed that he was near suicidal, but once he started living here, he perked up, and later Umezaki said to me, with obvious respect, that he ‘knew I could do it’. And letting Koto live with us came about because, after Misaki moved out, the place had turned into a pigsty. If Koto didn’t like cleaning as much as she did, who would ever want to live with her – no matter how pretty she is – since all she does is sit there in the living room all day long, waiting for a guy to call.
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