I Called Him Necktie

by Milena Michiko Flašar

  Father and Mother were in agreement: Name and reputation must be preserved at all costs. They argued a lot over who was to blame for my retreat and who was more guilty. They argued quietly, just quietly enough that the neighbors could not hear them. You spoiled him, was the implication. Or: You were never there for him. But regarding name and reputation, they were in agreement, and their agreement was to my advantage, for it allowed me to retreat further and further.

  Only once did they try to get me out. At the highpoint of their despair they broke down the door with a crowbar. Father stormed in, he was beside himself. And if I have to beat you out! He raised his hand. Kumamoto’s. For seconds in the air. I recoiled. It whistled down. Struck the void. Sank ineffectually towards the floor. I said: I can no longer. Said it rather to myself. From then on I was left quite alone.

  40

  Were you listening?

  Hmm.

  Then he was silent. His silence did not validate what I said, or how. It was hmm, nothing more, and with the hmm the sun moved right across the sky. When we began to talk again, we spent time making small talk. The weekend. The weather. If it stays nice out we’ll drive to the sea tomorrow. Kyōko loves that. To drive somewhere.

  Another hmm.

  Then he fell asleep.

  It occurred to me that I’d left out a lot. For example, I’d left out that Kumamoto sometimes called me his twin. More accurately: his soul mate. I’d left out that I missed him. I’d left out that Mother often cried about me. And that Father never forgot to push my pocket money under the door. I left out that it was really these omissions which lent my story its shape. Kumamoto had been right: You could write requiems, millions, about one and the same death, and yet each one said something different, according to what it omitted.

  41

  Saturday and Sunday slipped wearily by. Our parting was light-hearted. Well. Take care. See you. No embarrassment had arisen between us. And so I waited all the more impatiently for Monday morning. Would he come again? The question obsessed me. It rang like the clatter of the rails. Like a Now! Now! Now! And a bland announcement: traffic has been delayed. We thank you for your patience. Somebody whispers into his cell phone: Another one’s had it.

  For the first time in ages I wanted some diversion. My parents had gone out, I saw the lights of their car as it pulled away from our home. As soon as they were gone I crept, even now still on tiptoe, out into the living room. I turned on the television. A cooking program. Again. A baseball game. I left it on while I went, now walking more firmly, from the living room to the bedroom, from bedroom to bathroom, from bathroom to guest room. A forlorn bed surrounded by boxes. Well-thumbed books. A teddy bear. Old toys. The familiar smell of things you once valued. The guest room had become a storage room. The last guest to sleep there was Mother’s friend, Aunt Sachiko. Visitors came less often and then only for a word at the door. The whole house seemed to be waiting for someone to arrive, to fill it with life. It was a sad house. To cheer it up I walked again from the guestroom to the bathroom, from bathroom to bedroom, from bedroom to living room and everywhere, wherever I wanted to, I left a mark, to tell it that there was a little bit of life in it yet. I shifted objects. By half a centimeter. Pressed an indentation into cushions and pillows. Exchanged one hand towel for another. And turned back the clocks by a minute. From the walls in the foyer photos from a distant past smiled down. I stopped by one of them. It showed the three of us in front of a fake backdrop. The Golden Gate Bridge. Above it a huge inflated moon. We had never been to San Francisco. I turned the photo around so it faced the wall.

  42

  And? Did you drive to the sea?

  No. He tried to laugh, it failed. Kyōko thought I looked exhausted and should just sit and rest. She thought: Otherwise I would work myself to death. Typical of Kyōko, she knows me too well. She knows I am a man who finds it difficult to do nothing. Anyway I was like that once. But that was quite a while back.

  Two months?

  Yes. Approximately. Since I was let go, time is approximate. Yet I really don’t know how I spent it. It seems to me, I only worked, nothing but work, and in contrast to some others: gladly.

  But then why are you here?

  Towards the end, I couldn’t keep up. He spoke without looking at me, his face slightly turned to the side. In the firm I had begun to attract attention. Ten young heads. Among them mine, gray. Twenty hands. Among them mine, too slow. I was noticed as someone who was faltering. Even drinking after work, I’d slowed down. While the others drank until they fell over, I drank only half and still fell over. No pleasure when you’re lying there and don’t know how you’ll get up the following day. You begin to ask yourself all sorts of questions. You glance in the mirror and look away quickly. You avoid mentioning the word old. Yet it slips out, just when it doesn’t fit in. And you yourself are unfit, somehow you don’t fit in any more.

  43

  I stumbled, once. It was an accident. I was carrying a pile of papers into a colleague’s office. As if in slow motion. There was a cable. I saw it. Had one foot already safely over it. Caught the other one. The papers flew everywhere. I was surrounded by black numbers. One in red: Fifty-eight. They laughed at me. Ten neckties as my witnesses. Twenty eyes, one look. He’s a goner, whispered one, a goner.

  My accident, the only big one that occurred in the thirty-five years I worked, set off a chain of mistakes and insecurity. I had stumbled in the truest sense of the word, and what slid away from me was far, far more than just a pile of papers. I watched myself. Something was wrong with me. I felt along my arms and legs. Ran tentatively up and down the corridors. Tried walking at one pace, then another. Bought shoes with non-slip soles. Only to discover: What I had lost was not the ability to walk in a straight line, but a kind of sprightly energy I used to take for granted. I couldn’t catch up with myself. I was limping along behind myself.

  44

  And this tiredness.

  It came like the first snow in winter. Everything used to be yellow and red and blue, now it was white. And once everything had been a house, a tree or a dog, now it was a shapeless pile, and I didn’t know what lay underneath. The tiredness overwhelmed me. A lead weight. I would sit in the subway, on the way to work, and consider how I would manage to get up again. I stopped sitting down. One hand in the strap, I would stand upright, so that it wouldn’t defeat me. It was a battle against gravity. My eyelids would close. The darkness, after they closed, gained more and more power over me.

  This treacherous tiredness.

  Soon it invaded not only my limbs but also, could it really be, my brain. I understood what I had been assigned to do, and yet I did not. With a weight on my neck I balanced along a narrow line, and a typing error or a mark on my shirt was enough to tip me head over heels into the abyss. But I did not fall any more. I went to sleep. After thirty-five years, I must stress that, after thirty-five years, I fell asleep one Monday morning at my desk. It was not a brief sleep. No. No wading in gentle waters. More a dive into a fathomless sea. I was a shipwreck, eaten up by algae, and the fish swam in glittering shoals through my stomach.

  45

  When I was shaken awake, I knew: Now I am gone. In my mouth was the stale taste of a dream I couldn’t recall, and I almost wished I hadn’t been awakened from it.

  Shortly afterwards I was let go.

  Not efficient enough, they said.

  I packed my things and threw them in the nearest garbage can. A weight was removed from me. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that for a delicious moment I experienced nothing but relief. I wasn’t needed. I didn’t have to prove anything anymore. The feeling of having finally failed intoxicated me. It was the wild flare of a candle, its flame fed only by a vanishing remnant of wax. It knows it will soon fade away. And so it glows for one last time, brighter than ever before.

  Where to go? Not home. I sat myself down in a bar not far from here, still feeling relieved, and staggered out five beers later. Mild spring air. Drifting clouds. At o
ne of the corners I passed, a drunk was giving a speech on the state of the nation. A moist coughing and then he spat. As our eyes met he cried: My brother, where have you been? Revolted, I turned aside. He came after me. I was aware of his gaze on my back. He came closer to me. I sensed his hand. With all my strength I pushed him over, kicked at him as if I had lost my senses. He did not defend himself, and that infuriated me. He did not swear back at me. A baby, blabbering: Where have you been? I bent over him. He was blue in the face. My dear brother. His blabbering pursued me.

  Only when I got home did the tiredness return. The knotty root in the driveway. Broken asphalt all around. I barely made it through the garden gate. Kyōko’s flower pots. A glove. Misshapen fingers. The key grated wearily in the lock. Tender echo: Where have you been? I stammered: The nicest part about working is the coming home.

  You stupid fool, you.

  It smelled of mushrooms and onions.

  46

  I have never betrayed Kyōko with another woman. I can state that honestly. No temptation was as strong as the promise I had given her.

  Hashimoto, a friend from my student days, used to mock me, saying I was a coward. He himself, a married man, missed no opportunity, and there were plenty of opportunities, for he was good-looking and also well paid. I marveled at his ability to cruise from one body to the next. He said it like that: I’m cruising. How do you do that, not let it show? To which he said: It’s no big deal. It starts with the first lie. You plant it. Into the system. It puts down roots. In this first stage of its growth a tug would be enough to pull it up. There follows the second lie. The roots grip deeper. The third, the fourth, the fifth lie. Now it would need a shovel. The sixth. The seventh. It would take an excavator. The root system has branched widely. An underground web. You don’t see it. Only if you tried to lift it out, you would see it from the hole left behind. The eighth, the ninth, the tenth lie. At some point the system is completely undermined. If you attempted to dig the roots out of the ground, the whole surface would crack open.

  Hashimoto is still cruising. Just recently I ran into him in a store. I asked: How are you? He said: No cracks! His laugh was unworried. He had preserved his youthful vigor. And your wife? There she is, over there. He pointed to a group of women rummaging through items on a table. The one with the scarf. I was shocked. A face destroyed. She was a hundred, no, several hundred years old. What happened? He laughed, showing his white teeth: Life! Man! Life! A fraction too loud. I watched them as they disappeared up the escalator, he upright, she bent, a mismatched pair. Their backs turned to each other, each in their own world.

  47

  What I’d like to say. The lie takes its toll. Once you’ve lied you find yourself in a different place. You live under one roof, stay in the same rooms, sleep in the same bed, turn over under one blanket. Yet the lie eats right through the middle. It’s a moat. Unbridgeable. It causes one home to break into two. And who knows whether it does the same to the truth?

  I, who have never betrayed Kyōko, feel as though I have a lover. Her name is Pretense. She is not beautiful, but she’s pretty enough. Long legs. Red lips. Wavy hair. I’m crazy about her. Although I don’t want to start a new life with her, I am building castles in the air with her. I take her to the most expensive restaurants in town. I feed her. I rent an apartment. I support her. No matter the cost. She satisfies me and my masculinity. By her side I am young and strong again. She murmurs: The world is at your feet. She believes in me and my abilities, and I believe in her belief and allow myself to be surrounded by this flattery. I am a contented adventurer.

  At home I float in a bubble. It is so thin that one touch would puncture it. So I take care not to be touched. I sit in front of the television and watch the news. If Kyōko asks me what it was like at work, or why I haven’t done any overtime recently, or whether I have spoken to the boss about this or that, I say: Shh. Not now. She repeats the question. Fainter now. I say: Later. Please. She shrugs her shoulders. I dare to breathe out. The bubble in which I float barely vibrates with the expulsion of breath.

  It is a decision.

  And with that he unpacks his bento box. Rice with salmon and pickled vegetables again. I had resolved to behave as if. For that was my promise: That everyday life, our everyday life, would become our refuge. It has to be preserved. To the end.

  Finally he looked at me. Winked: Kyōko’s bento boxes simply taste too good for me to miss.

  48

  Do you have any children?

  No. He slumped a little. No. Why?

  I was just thinking, you would be a good father.

  Me?

  Yes, you.

  What makes you think that?

  Because you sometimes look like a child yourself. When you eat, for instance. You do it like a child who is not aware of anything but what he is doing at the time.

  And that would make me a good father?

  Well, let’s say: a real father.

  He bit back a word.

  That girl there, for instance. Do you see her? She’s moving her finger through the puddle all the time. She’s drawing something in it. Sees the picture, how it disappears. Starts again from the beginning. Paints nothing but pictures that disappear. An aimless game, yet a happy one. The girl is constantly laughing. I often ask myself why we can’t do that anymore, be aimlessly happy. Why, when you are big, you sit in narrow, low-ceilinged rooms, wherever you are, at most you go from one room to another, but as a child you were in a room without walls. For that’s how I remember it: When I was small, I took refuge in life in the moment. Neither the past nor the present could affect me in any way, and how lovely if that were so now. If you could work, not for the sake of the result, but work as an offering, without effort.

  Again he bit his lips white.

  I sighed, anticipating his sigh.

  He agreed and said: That would be really lovely.

  49

  For me the train has left anyway, and I’m glad it has set off without me. As far back as I can think, I never had a desire to achieve any particular aim. Not for myself, I mean. The good grades were not for me but for my parents, who thought I would become something respectable one day. It was their ambition, not mine. It was their image of a life of advancement.

  I’ve still got the school uniform. It’s hanging in the darkest corner of my room, a garment without content. It looks like one of those figures you encounter in a dream. You don’t know them but are aware of a strange relationship. On closer examination it emerges that it’s your shadow.

  If I put on the uniform today I would hardly fill it. It would be an absurd sight, as absurd as I felt then, when I wore it. A person dressed as a schoolboy, who pretends to be learning something, but in reality is forgetting what’s important. That’s also a reason why I am a hikikomori. Because I want to learn how to look at things again. From my bed I look at the crack I punched into the wall out of rage at myself. I’ve looked at it so long I’ve almost disappeared into it. Time has wrinkles, this is one of them. I look into it, to remind myself of the many moments when I looked away.

  50

  I was fourteen. An average student. My grades were good, but not too good, and my survival depended on maintaining this averageness, this much I had already learned. The thing was to be normal. Under no circumstances anything other than normal. For whoever stands out attracts the ill will of those who, bored by their own normality, have nothing better to do than torment him, the one who is different. And who wants that? Who exposes himself willingly to torture? So you fit in and are grateful that you’re among the inconspicuous.

  Takeshi, though. He stood out. Kobayashi Takeshi.

  He had grown up in America, just come back. When he said New York or Chicago or San Francisco, he said it as if it were just over there, around the corner. His English flowed, I couldn’t hear enough of it. He said Hi. And Thank you. And Bye. The words came from his mouth in a whirlwind. Too fast thought some, and were ready to pounce on him. The next day he w
as missing a tooth. He lisped: I fell. The tooth was replaced, the lisp remained. And worse still. He began to make mistakes. When the teacher asked him to pronounce something, he mispronounced it. If he was asked to read out loud, he misread it. Bit by bit he lost the ability to get the words out of his mouth, the language he had grown up with, which had once been his home. He even went so far as to imitate our accent. He said San Furanshisuko and it was gone, far far away. It was ghastly to listen to it. How he forced himself to do it. Before each word he spoke, he paused and mourned to see it go.

  The dreadful thing was: I could have been him. But I was spared. Nevertheless I was the observer, and it took someone like me, who looked and then looked away. I remained average simply by behaving as if I hadn’t seen anything. And the paradox was: I was a master at it. At fourteen I was already achieved mastery in studiously ignoring the pain of others. My sympathy was limited to being the silent witness.

  Hm.

  And Hm again.

  He hummed a song. Took a puff of his cigarette. Hummed some more. A little pile of ash fell on his chest, a gentle breeze wafted it away. A bicycle bell rang. I would like to have cried. Pale yellow blossoms fell from the bushes.

  Takeshi wasn’t the only one, was he.

  No. There was Yukiko too.

  Hm.

  Miyajima Yukiko.

  The lump in my throat thickened. That Monday I could say no more than her name.