The questions only mounted.
Perhaps I would understand the events of the past few days better once I met Mariye in person. I would have to wait. True, things might be no clearer even after we talked. Mariye might recall nothing. Or she might remember, but (like me) be unwilling to share her story.
At any rate, I had to see her once more in this real world, and have a good long talk. We needed to share our stories about what had happened to us. If at all possible.
But was this the real world?
I looked around. So much was familiar. The breeze through the window carried a familiar smell, the sounds outside were familiar sounds.
Just because it looked like the real world at first glance, however, didn’t mean that was necessarily the case. It might be no more than my assumption. I might well have descended through one hole in Izu and traveled the underworld only to be spit out three days later through the wrong hole in the mountains of Odawara. There was no guarantee that the world I had left and the world I had returned to were one and the same.
I rose from the sofa, stripped off my clothes, and stepped into the bathroom. Once again, I soaped and scrubbed every inch of my body. I thoroughly washed my hair. I brushed my teeth, swabbed my ears with cotton, trimmed my nails. I shaved (though there wasn’t much beard to shave). I put on another set of clean underwear. A freshly ironed white cotton shirt and a pair of khaki pants with a sharp crease. I strove to make myself look as acceptable as I could to the real world. But the night still hadn’t ended. Outside was pitch black. So black I felt morning might never arrive, not for all eternity.
But morning did come. I brewed some fresh coffee and made some buttered toast. The fridge was almost bare. Two eggs, some sour milk, and a few limp vegetables. I made a mental note to go shopping later.
I was washing the coffee cup when it struck me that I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in some time. How long had it been? I couldn’t count the exact number of days without checking my calendar. But I knew quite a while had passed. So many things had been going on—a number of them literally not in this world—that I hadn’t noticed her failure to contact me.
Why was that? She called me at least twice every week. “How’s it going?” she would say. I couldn’t call her, though. She couldn’t give me her cell phone number, and I didn’t use email. When I wanted to see her, I had to wait for her call.
* * *
—
Sure enough, my girlfriend did call around nine that morning, when she was still in the back of my mind.
“I’ve got to talk to you about something,” she said, skipping the pleasantries.
“Fine, let’s talk,” I said.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, phone to my ear. The clouds outside were starting to break up, and the early-winter sun was peeking through the gaps. The weather at least was improving. From the sound of it, though, what she had to say wasn’t going to be all that pleasant.
“I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again,” she said. “It’s too bad, but…”
Her tone was flat and dispassionate. I couldn’t tell if she really felt it was too bad or not.
“There are a number of reasons,” she said.
“A number of reasons,” I echoed.
“To begin with, I think my husband is catching on. He’s noticed some signs.”
“Signs,” I repeated.
“Women leave certain signs in situations like this. Like they start paying more attention to their makeup and their clothes, or change their perfume, or start a serious diet. I’ve tried to be careful, but even so.”
“I see.”
“The main thing is, we can’t go on like this.”
“Like this,” I repeated.
“With no future. No hope of resolution.”
She had it there. Our relationship had no “future,” no “hope of resolution.” The risks were too large if we continued as we were. I didn’t have all that much to lose, but she had a family and two teenage daughters attending private school.
“There’s more,” she went on. “I’m having a serious problem with my daughter. The older one.”
Her elder daughter. If I remembered correctly, she was the obedient child who never talked back to her parents and got good grades.
“A serious problem?”
“She can’t get out of bed in the morning.”
“Can’t get out of bed?”
“Hey, will you please stop repeating everything I say?”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “But what is her specific problem? She can’t get out of bed?”
“That’s right. It’s been going on for about two weeks. She doesn’t try to get up. She doesn’t go to school. She just lies in bed in her pajamas all day. Doesn’t answer when spoken to. I take food to her, but she barely touches it.”
“Has she seen a counselor?”
“Of course,” she said. “There’s a school counselor. No help at all.”
I thought for a minute. But there was nothing I could say. I’d never even met the girl.
“So that’s why I can’t see you,” she said.
“Because you have to stay home and look after her?”
“There’s that. But that’s not all.”
She didn’t go on, but I understood how she felt. She was terrified, and blaming herself as a mother for our affair.
“It’s really too bad,” I said.
“It’s fine for you to say that, but it’s even worse for me.”
She could be right, I thought.
“There’s one last thing I wanted to tell you,” she said. She took a quick, deep breath.
“What’s that?”
“I think you can become a really good artist. Even better than now.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That gives me some confidence.”
“Goodbye.”
“Take care,” I said.
* * *
—
When our phone call ended, I went to the living room, stretched out on the sofa, and thought about her as I looked at the ceiling. We had been together so many times, yet never had I thought of painting her portrait. Somehow, that feeling had never arisen. Instead I had sketched her over and over again. In a small sketchbook with a thick pencil, so quickly I hardly removed pencil from paper. In most she was naked, and posing lewdly. Spreading her legs to show her vagina, for example. Or I sketched her in the act of making love. Simple drawings but still very real. And very vulgar. She loved looking at them.
“You’re really good at drawing naughty pictures, huh? You toss them off, but they’re super dirty.”
“It’s just for fun,” I said.
I drew her again and again, then threw the drawings away. Someone might see them, and it didn’t make sense to keep them. Still, maybe I should have secretly held on to at least one. To prove to myself she had really existed.
* * *
—
I got up slowly from the sofa. The day was only beginning. There were many conversations ahead.
58
LIKE HEARING ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL CANALS OF MARS
I called Shoko Akikawa. It was just after nine thirty. A time when most people are already up and about. But no one picked up the phone. It rang on and on until the answering machine kicked in. We’re sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your message after the tone…I left no message. She must be scrambling to deal with her niece’s disappearance and sudden return. I kept calling at intervals, but no one answered.
I thought of calling Yuzu after that, but I didn’t want to bother her while she was working. I could call during her lunch break. With luck, I would get to have a brief talk with her. It wasn’t like our conversation would be a long one. I would simply ask if we could meet sometime soon—that was the gist of it. A yes-
or-no question. If the answer was yes, we would set a date and a place to meet. If it was no, that was that.
Then, with a heavy heart, I called Masahiko. He picked up right away. He let out a huge sigh when he heard my voice.
“Are you home now?” he asked.
I told him I was.
“Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”
Sure, I said. He called fifteen minutes later. He seemed to be using his cell phone on the roof of an office building, or someplace like that.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You disappeared from my father’s room without a word—no one knew where you were. I drove all the way to Odawara looking for you.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“When did you get home?”
“Last night.”
“So you were traipsing around from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night? Where did you go?”
“To be honest, I have no memory of where I was or what I was doing,” I lied.
“So you just woke up and found yourself back home—is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“For real? Are you serious?”
“There’s no other way to explain it.”
“Sorry, man. I can’t buy it. Sounds fake to me.”
“Come on, you’ve seen this sort of thing in movies and novels.”
“Give me a break. Whenever they pull that amnesia bit I turn off the TV. It’s so contrived.”
“Alfred Hitchcock used it.”
“You mean Spellbound? That’s one of his second-rate films,” Masahiko said. “So tell me what really happened.”
“I don’t know myself at this point. Like there are these fragments floating around, and I can’t figure out how to piece them together. Maybe my memory will return in stages. I’ll let you know if that happens. But I can’t tell you anything right now. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.”
Masahiko paused to digest what I had just said. “All right then, let’s call it amnesia for now,” he said in a resigned voice. “I gather your story doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or a mental breakdown or a femme fatale or abduction by aliens or anything along those lines.”
“No. Nothing illegal or contrary to public morals.”
“Public morals be damned,” Masahiko said. “But clue me in on one thing, would you?”
“What’s that?”
“How did you manage to slip out of the nursing home Saturday afternoon? They keep a really strict eye on who comes and goes. A number of famous people are staying there, so they’re paranoid about leaks. They’ve got a receptionist stationed at the entrance, a guard on-site twenty-four seven, and security cameras. All the same, you managed to vanish in broad daylight without being spotted or caught on film. How?”
“There’s a secret passage,” I said.
“Secret passage?”
“An exit no one knows about.”
“How did you find that? It was your first time there.”
“Your father let me know. Or I should say, he gave me a hint. In a very indirect way.”
“My father?” Masahiko said. “You must be kidding. His mind’s as mushy as boiled cauliflower these days.”
“That’s one of the things I can’t explain.”
“What to do,” Masahiko said with a sigh. “If it were anyone else I’d say, ‘Cut the crap.’ But it’s you, so I guess I have to put up with it. Put up with this crazy, no-good bum who spends his whole life painting.”
“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, how’s your father doing?”
“When I got back to the room after my phone call, you were nowhere to be seen and Dad was unconscious and barely breathing. I panicked, man. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t help blaming you anyway.”
“I really am sorry,” I said. I wasn’t kidding, either. Still, I felt a wave of relief that there was no trace of the Commendatore’s body, or of the pool of blood on the floor.
“Yeah, you should be sorry. Anyway, I rented a room nearby to be with him, but his breathing stabilized and his condition improved slightly, so I came back to Tokyo the next afternoon. Work was piling up. I’m heading back this weekend, though.”
“It’s hard on you.”
“There’s nothing to be done. Like I told you, dying is a major undertaking. It’s the person dying who has it hardest, though, so I really can’t complain.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“No, there’s nothing,” Masahiko said. “But it would help if you didn’t dump any more problems on me…Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When I was at your house on my way back to Tokyo your friend Menshiki stopped by. The handsome, white-haired guy in the snazzy silver Jaguar.”
“Yes, I met him after that. He said you were there, and that you and he had talked.”
“Just a few words at your doorstep. He seemed like an interesting guy.”
“A very interesting guy,” I said, putting it mildly.
“What does he do?”
“Not much of anything. He’s so loaded he doesn’t have to work. He trades stocks and plays the currency market online, but it’s more like a hobby for him, a profitable way to kill time.”
“That’s really cool,” Masahiko said, impressed. “It’s like hearing about the beautiful canals of Mars. Where Martians row gondolas with golden oars. While imbibing honeyed tobacco through their ears. Warms my heart just hearing about it…Oh yeah, while we’re at it, did you ever find the knife I left at your place?”
“Sorry, but no, I haven’t come across it,” I said. “I don’t have a clue where it went. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Don’t sweat it. It probably had a bout of amnesia, just like you. It’ll wander back before too long.”
“Probably,” I said. So the knife hadn’t remained in Tomohiko Amada’s room either. It had vanished somewhere, just like the Commendatore’s corpse and the pool of blood. It might show up here, though, as Masahiko had said.
Our conversation ended there. We vowed to get together again soon and hung up.
* * *
—
After that, I drove my dusty old Corolla station wagon down the mountain to the shopping plaza. I went to the supermarket, where I toured the aisles with the neighborhood housewives. From the looks on their faces, they weren’t thrilled by their morning shopping. Not a whole lot of excitement in their lives. No ferryboat rides in the Land of Metaphor, that’s for sure.
I tossed what I needed—meat, fish, vegetables, milk, tofu, the whole lot—into my shopping cart and paid at the register. I saved five yen by bringing my own bag. Then I went to a discount liquor store and bought a twenty-four pack of Sapporo. Back home, I arranged most of what I had purchased in the fridge, including six cans of beer. I wrapped what needed to be frozen in plastic and stuck it in the freezer. I set a big pot of water on the stove and parboiled the asparagus and broccoli for salads. I boiled a few eggs, too. In the process, I managed to kill most of the morning. Nevertheless, there was still time to spare. I considered following Menshiki’s example and washing my car, then realized it would get dirty again in no time flat, and tossed the idea. Parboiling vegetables was much more productive.
* * *
—
I called Yuzu’s architectural firm shortly after noon. Actually, I wanted to wait until my feelings had settled down before talking to her, but at the same time I didn’t want to delay acting on what I had decided in the darkness of the pit, even for a single day. Otherwise, something might cause my feelings to change. Yet the receiver weighed a ton in my hand. A cheerful-sounding young woman answered. I gave her my name, and asked to talk to Yuzu.
“Are you her husband?” she chirped.
&n
bsp; Yes, I replied. To be precise I wasn’t, of course, but there was no reason to go into details over the phone.
“Please hold on,” she said.
I waited for quite a long time. I had nothing in particular to do, so I stood there leaning on the kitchen counter, receiver to my ear, biding my time until Yuzu came to the phone. A big black crow passed right in front of the window. Its glossy feathers gleamed in the sunlight.
“Hello,” said Yuzu.
We exchanged a simple greeting. I had no idea how a just-divorced couple was supposed to address each other, how much distance was appropriate. So I kept it as brief and conventional as possible. How have you been? I’ve been fine. And you? Like a summer shower, our words were sucked up the moment they struck the parched soil of reality.
I mustered my courage. “I thought we should get together and talk about a number of things face-to-face,” I said.
“What sorts of things are you talking about?” Yuzu asked. I hadn’t expected that response (why hadn’t I?), so I was at a loss for words. What did I mean by “things”?
“I…I haven’t thought it through that far,” I stammered.
“But you want to talk about a number of things, correct?”
“That’s right. It occurred to me that we ended up like this without ever having talked.”
She thought for a moment. “To tell the truth,” she said, “I’m pregnant. I’m happy to see you, but don’t be shocked to see how big my belly’s grown.”
“I know. Masahiko told me. He said you asked him to.”
“That I did,” she said.
“I don’t know how big you’ve gotten, but I’d like to see you in any case. If it’s not too much of an imposition.”
“Can you wait a moment?” she asked.
I waited. She appeared to be leafing through her appointment book. Meanwhile, I tried hard to remember what kind of songs the Go-Go’s sang. I doubted they were as good as Masahiko had claimed, but then maybe he was right, and my view was perverse.
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