Black Fairy Tale

by Otsuichi

  The raven had perched in a tree with a clear view of the inside of the house. The old woman was wearing glasses, knitting in a rocking chair. A canary chirped in a birdcage next to the window. After a time, the woman’s hands stopped their work and she set her glasses down atop a side table, rubbing the bridge of her nose to relieve her tired eyes. Soon she fell asleep.

  The raven came in through the window, landing softly upon the arm of her rocking chair. His weight rocked the chair slightly, but the old woman kept on dreaming a pleasant dream. As the canary in the birdcage began to stir, the raven had gently slipped his beak around the woman’s eye—

  The girl said, “What a gorgeous blue field of flowers! And this stopper has me knitting too! Even though I’ve never knit before in my life!”

  More! More! thought the raven. I want to find more eyes. I want to show her the world! I’ll fly everywhere and bring her the eyes of people near and far, just to see her happy like this.

  And as the raven watched the girl crying tears of happiness he swore, I’m going to fill that jar she keeps under her bed. I’m going to fill it to the brim.

  Part 1

  1

  I’ve had to piece together the events of that day from the recollections of other people. I don’t remember it myself.

  Snow had been falling from the dark gray sky since morning. The snowflakes drifted lazily between the tall buildings; below pedestrians scurried along with their umbrellas.

  Within the crowd I was on my hands and knees, my face inches from the ground. I was searching for something. My umbrella lay near me where I had discarded it.

  The sidewalk was teeming with people and as they passed by, they glanced down at me for just a moment before looking away. Nobody wanted anything to do with me.

  But after some time, one kind man—a businessman on his way home from work—took pity on me and approached. In one hand he held a black briefcase, in the other a black umbrella. He spoke to me. Young miss, are you looking for something?

  I seemed not to have heard him and made no response.

  You lost a contact lens, did you? Could I help you look?

  Still focused on my search, I responded despairingly, on the verge of tears, No, not my contact. Something else.

  That was when the man finally noticed something was wrong with me.

  I wasn’t wearing any gloves and I was pressing my palms into the snow. My fingers were turning red from the cold, but I wasn’t showing the slightest concern for frostbite.

  I don’t know how long I had knelt there, but snow had begun to pile up on my back. I was oblivious to my surroundings, focused only on my search.

  My voice was shrill with panic. Where could I have dropped it?

  Then, he noticed it. Specks of red were on the snow all around me. Blood.

  Are you all right? he asked me and I raised my head to look at him with what I was later told was a dumbstruck expression.

  No matter how long I look, I can’t seem to find it. My left eye should be somewhere around here . . .

  Blood ran all the way down to my chin from where my eye should have been. I collapsed, unconscious.

  My left eye was found a little way down the street, a grotesque blob mixed with snow and mud. It had been crushed beneath the shoes of the passersby and no longer held its original shape.

  The city was white with snow that had been falling since the day before and the crowds with their umbrellas had jostled about. I had been among them when by chance one of the umbrellas jabbed my face. Its tip had pushed around the edge of my eyeball and severed my optic nerve. My eye was torn from its socket and fell to the ground. I’d panicked, dropping to my knees to search for it.

  I learned all of this afterward, from the reports.

  I was taken straight to the hospital, where I received treatment.

  A high school ID in my wallet gave my name: Nami Shiraki.

  And that’s the story of how, in the middle of the month of January, I lost my memory.

  *

  When I first opened my eyes, my vision was blurry. I was in a room with a white ceiling and white walls. I lay in a bed with a blanket over my body.

  Next to me a woman sat in a chair, reading a magazine. I looked at her for a while. I didn’t say anything or move aside from opening my eyes to see.

  After a while, the woman looked at me as she turned the page of her magazine. She leapt to her feet, dropped the magazine to the floor, and cried out, “Someone, come quick! Nami’s awake!”

  A doctor came to ask me questions, along with a nurse. The woman who had called for them stayed to listen.

  “What’s wrong, Nami?” the woman asked. “Stop looking around and pay attention to the doctor.”

  I looked down at my hands and saw them wrapped in bandages. Another bandage slashed a diagonal across my face and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I tried to remove the bandage from my face, but the doctor and nurse pulled my hand back.

  The woman inclined her head and said, “Nami?”

  I understood that Nami was a name, but I had to explain that I didn’t know who that was.

  “Your name is Nami,” the doctor said. He pointed at the woman next to me. “Do you recognize this woman?”

  I studied her face, then shook my head no.

  “This woman,” he said, “is your mother.”

  I looked at her again. She raised her hand to her mouth and drew back.

  The doctor told me that I had hurt my left eye and that I had lost my memory from the shock.

  *

  I was taken to a car. I sat in the back seat, next to my mother. A man was behind the wheel. He told me he was my father.

  My mother tried to talk to me about various things, expectantly awaiting my replies. But when I had none—because I didn’t know what she was talking about—she looked disappointed.

  “You’ve become so quiet,” my father said.

  I didn’t remember my house. A nameplate by the door said SHIRAKI, which I had been told was my last name. I took off my shoes and went into the foyer, but I didn’t know where to go from there.

  My mother took my hand and led me to the living room and then to the kitchen. “You remember here, right?”

  I shook my head.

  She took me to a room on the second floor. There was a piano.

  It was a girl’s room.

  “What do you think?” asked my mother.

  I thought it was a nice room. I said so, and she told me that it was my room and had been my room since I was a little girl.

  I was tired and asked if I could lie down.

  “It’s your room,” she said, “so do what you like.”

  I hadn’t noticed until then that she was crying.

  Later my father came to my room with photo albums and trophies. The bases of the trophies had plaques commemorating victories at various piano competitions.

  “Don’t you remember anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  In one of the photo albums there was a picture of a little girl sitting in a sandbox with a plastic scoop in her hand and tears in her eyes. I pointed to the picture and asked if I had been teased a lot as a child.

  “That girl was a really close friend of yours. You’re the one laughing behind her.”

  After that, he showed me several more objects, but I didn’t remember any of them. He brought me a flower vase I had made, but it was the first time I’d seen it. I had forgotten the name of my favorite stuffed animal, one my mother had given me. I had forgotten the title of my favorite movie.

  *

  At first I had to ask my parents all sorts of detailed questions just to get through day-to-day life at home. I didn’t know where anything was. Initially I asked permission before doing anything, but my father told me this wasn’t necessary.

  I got confused every time I tried to do something. One night I tried to turn on the lights to go upstairs, but I couldn’t remember where the light switch was. Even when I’d found the
panel, it held a number of switches and I didn’t know which to flip. Finally I went to my mother in the living room and asked her which switch lit up the stairway.

  She snapped at me, “Come on! It’s this one, of course!”

  I’m sorry, I apologized.

  *

  My mother worked harder than my father at trying to bring back my memory. Every day she told me stories of how I was before the accident. Most were stories about me and her.

  “Do you remember when you caught a cold and had to stay in bed?”

  I don’t remember.

  “Don’t you remember how I cared for you, how I grated that apple so you could eat?”

  I’m sorry. I don’t remember.

  “Why don’t you remember?”

  I don’t know. I’m sorry.

  “Why are you apologizing? You used to be such a cheerful girl. When you were in preschool, we’d go shopping together. You carried the bags of bread home for me, remember?”

  I shook my head. I don’t remember.

  “Why are you crying? It’s not something to cry over!”

  Whenever I forgot my manners or did something wrong, my mother would mutter, “Nami would never have done that. Nami was better than that.”

  For a while I just stayed at home, but eventually I started taking walks into town. Sometimes the neighbors would say something to me.

  One day at dinner, my father said to me, “Yesterday Mr. Saitou said hi to you. Why didn’t you greet him back?”

  I was trying to remember his face.

  “People are starting to talk about you, how it’s creepy the way you just stare at them. You could at least bow.”

  “It’s embarrassing me,” my mother said, displeased. “The people around here know you lost your memory in an accident, so they should understand. But people are watching you and you need to be on your best behavior. You really stand out with that bandage wrapped around your face. I hope you get your memories back soon. But until then you could at least act like the old Nami.”

  *

  In the middle of the night I heard my parents talking:

  “Don’t you think you’re being too hard on her?” my father said. “It’s just too much.” My mother was crying. “It’s like she’s not even our child.”

  *

  One night after dinner my father said, “You were in a public high school. You probably don’t remember what your classmates look like.”

  I shook my head.

  “I spoke with your teacher on the phone. She said that she’s ready to have you back in your same class and you’re welcome to come at any time.”

  He decided that I would go to school on Monday, in two days. He told me I was in eleventh grade.

  I went to my room and tried on my school uniform. I opened my notebook and my textbooks. I didn’t remember any of it.

  Small notes were written in the textbooks, words I had written in the past. For all they meant to me, they could have been written by a stranger.

  *

  Monday came.

  I put my schoolbooks into a white tote bag I found in my room. When my mother saw me leaving for school with the bag, she raised her eyebrows and said, “Nami always took her black backpack to school. You should too.”

  I apologized and she took the bag out of my hands.

  Since I didn’t know how to get to school, my father walked with me.

  The school was large. My father led me to the school office, where the teachers prepared their work for the day’s classes. I had to walk quickly to keep up with him.

  In the office I met my homeroom teacher, a man named Mr. Iwata.

  “It’s good to see you back,” he said, then closed his mouth, remembering something. “Well, I guess for you it might as well be your first time here.”

  My father bowed to Mr. Iwata, then left for work. All the teachers in the office were looking at me.

  “I know all this attention must be awkward for you,” Mr. Iwata said between furtive glances at where my left eye would have been if there were anything but emptiness beneath the bandages.

  “But please forgive us. We’ve all heard about how you’ve lost your memory.”

  I asked, What kind of student was I?

  “You were a determined student, and you did well in both your studies and at sports. You were the heart and soul of your class. So don’t look so worried. Now come on, morning homeroom is about to start.”

  I followed him out the office and down the hallway. Afraid that I might get lost, I walked closely behind him. He stopped outside a classroom marked 2ND YEAR, CLASS 1, and turned to me and asked, “Are you all right?”

  I nodded my head.

  As I entered the bustling classroom it fell silent. All of their eyes were on me. Mr. Iwata pointed to a single empty desk in the center of the room. I sat at it.

  The teacher explained my situation to the class—the accident and the condition it had left me in—but everyone already seemed to know.

  When the homeroom period was over, my classmates circled around me. They had faces I didn’t recognize but were talking to me as if we were friends. I didn’t know their names, but they knew more about me than I did myself.

  “Nami!” said one. “We were so worried about you!”

  “Are you okay?” asked another.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. It didn’t take long for their enthusiasm to turn to disappointment.

  “Why aren’t you joking around? Where’s your laugh, Nami?

  Why do you look so gloomy?”

  I’m sorry.

  A girl sitting in the desk in front of me asked, “Do you really not remember anything?”

  No, nothing.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll fill you in. I owe you for letting me copy your homework. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I don’t know your name.

  “Get out! We’re best friends!”

  I’m sorry.

  “Okay, whatever. I’m Yuri Katsura. Just hurry up and remember, okay?”

  Thanks.

  She told me about myself. The girl she talked about could have been an entirely different person. Yuri told me how wonderful I was, and I could tell she had a lot of respect for who I had been.

  “It was like you were the center of everything. When you smiled, everyone relaxed. Do you remember Mr. Kamata? That horrible English teacher?”

  I shook my head.

  “You beat him in an argument—in English! It felt so good seeing him put in his place.”

  I went to the rest of my classes that day, but I didn’t understand any of them. My teachers all came up to me, beaming, talking about how good a student I’d been. Then they’d give me a question and I wouldn’t know the answer. I’d hear them mutter something like, “She even forgot how to solve that.”

  I rode the train home. I had to use notes I’d been given—I couldn’t remeber the names of the stations or the address of my own home.

  *

  I had a grandfather on my mother’s side whom, I was told, had once held an important position in some major company and knew a lot of people in a lot of places.

  He adored me like no other, and he was distraught over my condition.

  One day, my father was talking to him on the phone. Lowering the cordless receiver, my dad said to me, “Nami, your grandfather says he’s going to do something about your left eye. He’s going to find a donor eye.”

  If I had a left eye, I’d look like the normal me again. My father explained that they could repair the optic nerve and I’d even be able to see with the eye.

  *

  “Nami, you’ve become so moody. You should talk more.”

  That was what everyone said to me at school. As the days passed, fewer and fewer of my classmates tried to talk to me.

  One came up to me, saying something about some TV show she’d watched the night before. Another girl took her hand and pulled her away from me and, thinking I couldn’t hear her, whisp
ered,

  “Nami isn’t the old Nami anymore. She’s a bore.”

  Soon Yuri was the only one who would still talk to me. She wistfully told me stories of my past self. No, not of myself, but of some person I didn’t know. When Yuri looked at me, she wasn’t seeing me.

  And not just Yuri, but also my teachers. I could tell, whenever I failed to answer another simple question, that they missed Nami Shiraki, model student.

  “Unlike you now,” Yuri said once, “the old Nami could do anything.”

  Really?

  “And she was just so cute. I mean, your face is the same, but your expression is lacking something. Even talking with you, you’re just not interesting at all. It’s like talking to the air.”

  I’m sorry.

  *

  Everyone saw the current inept me and the past adept Nami as two entirely separate beings.

  I noticed that the warmth had gone out of my mother’s eyes when she looked at me. My father told me that my mother and I used to be close, like sisters.

  I was studying in my room when he came to see me.

  “I’ve never seen you studying before,” he said. “And yet your grades were excellent.”

  If I study hard and become like I was before, will Mother .love me?

  My father answered uncertainly, “Well, I wonder. Now wipe those tears away.”

  *

  The day before the surgery my grandfather came to visit.

  “Nami,” he said, “would you play the piano for me? Even if your memory is gone your body should still remember how.”

  He sat me down in front of the piano. Everyone—my parents, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncle, and my cousin— circled around me. Their stares were fixed upon me, their expectant faces waiting for my performance.

  But even with the piano keys spread out before me, no music sprang forth. I sat motionless; soon I could sense their disappointment.