We, the Children of Cats (Found in Translation)

by Hoshino, Tomoyuki

  Telling myself I couldn’t fail, I peered into the darkness and hesitantly started to speak to my father made of air. There was no answer, but still I launched myself into conversation. At first I was afraid of the silence and devoted myself to filling the air with words, most of them about Kurumi.

  After a while, I started to get into the rhythm of the conversation, and suddenly my father began to talk back. The things he said caught me by surprise.

  So this Mr. Kunugibayashi, I think I know him. He manages the Maruhan supermarket in Yoshino-ga-oka, right?

  Uh-huh … I muttered, and left it at that, his words leaving me otherwise speechless.

  I’ve never dealt directly with him, so we’ve never talked, but I’ve seen him around. I might have seen his daughter, too.

  Now that I thought of it, they were in industries that would bring them into contact. Of course, that was before they both di—I put a lid firmly on the doubts that started to boil to the surface, and told myself that I could do this.

  So, do you want to come with me to visit the Kunugibayashis? I squeezed the words out.

  I do.

  ‘Cause you want to meet my girlfriend?

  You’re being childish, Jōji. I know what’s going on here. Kurumi looks at her father and sees that men our age don’t have very many true friends. A man preoccupied with his work mistakes the other men he works with for friends, but in truth he has no one he can really rely on. It’s actually easier to work that way. But no one wants to face such a lonely truth, so everyone acts like they’re buddies. It’s sad, but what can you do?

  So Kurumi’s trying to give you and her dad a chance to make a real friend?

  Isn’t she?

  And you don’t have that many friends either?

  What do you think, Jōji?

  Well. I don’t know.

  I wouldn’t think you would.

  Am I too much of a child?

  Do you have many friends, Jōji?

  You’ve gotten rather talkative all of a sudden, haven’t you, Dad?

  It’s just because I’m looking forward to meeting Kunugibayashi and his daughter. Set it up, would you? I’m asking you seriously.

  I don’t know how dependable I am, but I’ll try.

  Good. Well, good night, then.

  Good night.

  As I fell asleep, I was absently aware of my father’s presence receding before it finally faded from the room completely.

  I didn’t have a chance to talk with my father again before the big get-together, but my excitement continued to build, a ceaseless fluttering in my chest like blades of grass shivering in the breeze. Confidence suffused my body from head to toe.

  When the big day arrived, I bought a cake large enough for four people to share and went to the Kunugibayashis’ house accompanied by my father. Kurumi’s dad was quite a bit taller than mine, and he welcomed us into the house with a booming voice and a hearty shake of his firm, thick-skinned hand.

  Just as Kurumi had predicted, our fathers got along swimmingly. They began by talking about work, but, sensing that they were squandering their opportunity to get to know each other, they began talking about us instead, and then my father asked, Is it true you like soccer? Soon we were all swept up in hotly debating which J-League team was better, JEF Chiba or the Urawa Reds, and then the discussion jumped to Hong Kong movies after someone brought up Shaolin Soccer, and before we knew it we were planning a four-person trip to Hong Kong for the beginning of the new year. Soon there was less and less room for Kurumi and me in the conversation, and our presence became unnecessary to keep it going. Kurumi, smiling ear-to-ear, refilled our teacups again and again. My father started visiting the bathroom frequently, probably from drinking too much tea. When he did, Kurumi’s father would turn to me and say things like, Your father’s a nice guy, or, What a jolly sort. I’d reply, No, no, you’re the one who’s a cheerful soul, things like that. And I’d mean them.

  Kurumi’s mother was about to get home, so that day we left the Kunugibayashi household before dinnertime.

  My relationship with my father grew ever more profound. It was probably for just that reason that we had our first big fight.

  It was over something little. I was talking to him about how I wanted to live my life on my own terms, and then it suddenly came to me that a student’s life was not for me, so I made up my mind not to continue on in school. I said as much to my father: I think my boredom with life comes from always being at school, and I think I’d be more fulfilled if I worked in the real world. So I’m not going to apply for college, I’m going to look for a job instead. My father erupted like a volcano.

  Don’t be naïve! You don’t know what you’re saying, you just like the way the words sound! That’s the worst. You’re just being gutless, using “getting a job” as some kind of out. Whether you go to school or go on the job market, I don’t really care, but you have to take your decision seriously. You think your parents will just give you money if you decide to go to school, right? How can you hope to succeed in the real world with an attitude like that?

  With these last words came a slap across my face. The span of Dad’s palm was the width of a fan, and I flew back and hit the wall behind me. I cracked the back of my head hard and things went black for a second, and after I came to, my father was nowhere to be found.

  I was shaken. I ran my fingers again and again across my cheek where it was hot and tingling painfully and cried as I drank the blood from my split lip that filled my mouth with the taste of iron. So this was how substantial my father’s presence had gotten? He was able not only to converse with me face to face, but could even slap me around?

  I wanted to share my excitement at this development with Kurumi, but for some reason I hesitated. I had the feeling Kurumi would do something to dampen my mood. So I never mentioned it. But it seemed impossible to have a secret just between my father and me. Kurumi and I could have secrets, but how could I with him? And yet, now I had one, and I felt guilty about keeping it.

  In return for the previous invitation to their house, this time we had the Kunugibayashis over at our house in the middle of the winter, right when JEF Chiba became first-time J-League champions. We gathered around the clay nabe stewpot and started drinking at noon. Though Kurumi and I were only allowed one glass of beer each.

  After a while, Kurumi’s father, still in high sprits from JEF Chiba’s win, started telling the story of his bungled, premature attempts at sex education with his daughter, making us all laugh.

  Sure it’s a funny story now, but at the time I thought I’d never be close to you again, Dad. It was really hard.

  These days, I’d probably be accused of sexual harassment, or child abuse. It sounds weird to say it, but when I met Joe here, I was relieved from the bottom of my heart. I could die without regrets, I thought.

  I laughed, a bit unnerved.

  We’re only sophomores, Dad.

  Age is hardly a factor in these matters.

  Kurumi’s dad really was a pure soul. Compared to him, my father seemed positively lewd.

  You two seem as close as if you’ve been together for decades. Doesn’t it seem like we’ve been friends that long, too?

  It does, it does. We’re blessed as fathers, aren’t we?

  We sure are. Want another, Nobuo?

  Sure, sure, Hisashi. Here.

  …. …. …. …… .

  …. …. …. …… . aaaah.

  You know, it took a lot of courage to do that as a father, Nobuo. A lot of confidence. That’s what I thought when you told that story, anyway.

  Ha ha. Well, thanks, but let’s not talk about that anymore. How to be a good father, things like that. You just try to be the best parent you can, you know?

  When I opened my eyes, the room was pitch dark. I felt like I’d been sleeping for a long time, tucked under the kotatsu’s heated blankets, but when I looked at the clock it was only five in the afternoon. I turned on the light, woke Kurumi, and turned on the
gas heater.

  “Where are our fathers?”

  “They went out for a walk to clear their heads.”

  They were nowhere to be found. The food in the cold nabe looked almost completely untouched. The beer was about half empty. Kurumi and I exchanged a sheepish, somewhat awkward look.

  “Well, we should …”

  “Yeah.”

  It was almost time for my mom and younger sister to come home, so Kurumi jumped to her feet even before I finished my sentence and pulled on her coat.

  “Sorry for leaving you to clean up.”

  Kurumi said this at the doorway, looking at me with a lost expression on her face. Say hi to your dad for me, I almost said, but stopped myself. I just stood in the doorway for a while instead. I heard a sound like a walnut cracking somewhere in my chest.

  The four of us never got together again after that. Kurumi and I decided that our fathers were getting along so well that there was hardly room for us in the equation, and they spent all their time out drinking or going on little trips together. Our fathers wouldn’t talk about things like that with their son or daughter.

  “So that’s true friendship, I guess. I think it’s great. That’s what I wanted to have happen.” Kurumi’s face was expressionless as she said this to me.

  “Yeah. I don’t talk much to him about what I talk about with you, or what we do together anymore.”

  “I do, a little. Just enough to be polite.”

  I wondered if Kurumi was talking less and less to her father as well. Or, not just talking less, but finding it impossible to talk to him even when she wanted to. Because he wasn’t there anymore. The sight of the cold, untouched nabe appeared behind my eyelids once more. It seemed that day we’d gone as far as we could go with this.

  “The Hong Kong trip looks like it’ll be put off, too. Well, they’re both busy men, so what can you do? Besides, we have our entrance exams starting then. Maybe we can go during spring break, though.”

  Irritated at Kurumi’s refusal to accept the end of things gracefully, I told her about the incident I’d told myself I’d keep secret.

  “Dad’s grown pretty independent of us, so I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you this. He hit me once, you know. Split my lip on the inside, the blood really gushed out. Here, look.”

  I folded back my lip so she could see the inside of my right cheek.

  “I kind of get what you mean, but I also kind of don’t …” “It was swollen up all that night, like I had the mumps. I said I didn’t want to go to college, that I wanted to get a job instead, and he was like, ‘Don’t be naïve! How’s a kid as immature as you going to hack it in the real world?!’ And then, WHAM! It really opened my eyes. Dad’s trying to show me what it means to stand on my own two feet, so he’s ignoring me on purpose and paying more attention to your father.”

  “I think your father was right,” said Kurumi with a sigh, looking at me with a mix of sadness and irritation. “So did you decide to take the entrance exams?”

  “Well, you know …”

  “Let’s both promise to take them, for the sake of each other’s independence.”

  I groaned. “Isn’t it kind of early for that?” I protested weakly.

  “I’ve already signed up for the spring training course.” The No Fathers Club, already down to just Kurumi and me, fell apart completely. But I was satisfied it had served its purpose well: our fathers had come back and attained an independent existence, and we’d filled our free time with rich, rewarding days together.

  It was after school on the first day we’d come back from spring break to start our junior year. I decided to accompany Kurumi on her way home. We made small talk about little things like the entrance exams and such, and then I asked her a question.

  “Do you still talk to you father?”

  Kurumi shook her head.

  “Don’t you think that’s a good thing?”

  Kurumi drew a deep breath, and then let it out.

  “Our connection was always through our fathers, wasn’t it? If they disappear, we don’t have anything in common anymore, do we? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Joe.”

  “But if our fathers disappear, doesn’t that just give us room to get that much closer to each other? We can’t always relate to each other through our fathers, can we?”

  “The idea was always to be a foursome, though. Remember? We were going to stay together to take care of our fathers when they got too old to take care of themselves.”

  “Take care of who? I’m going to have to care for my mom, but other than that … “

  “All you ever really wanted was to say goodbye to your father. He disappeared before you could do that, so you forced him to come back and let you perform some sort of farewell ceremony with him. Now that’s done, so you don’t have any use for him anymore and you feel like you’re your ‘own man.’”

  “It didn’t matter to either of us if we had fathers or not! We were just trying to pass the time, so we wouldn’t go crazy with boredom! But what’s gone is gone, there’s no denying that.”

  “So you were spending all that time with someone who didn’t matter enough to you to even care whether or not he really existed? You really are a shallow one, Joe. Is that what you think building a deep relationship with someone is? I promised a bunch of things to my dad. Like if I met someone more wonderful than him, that’s who I’d spend the rest of my life with.”

  “Then you’ll spend the rest of your life alone, Kurumi! Your father’s just some ideal man you’ve made up in your head!”

  “Maybe so. But I’d rather have it that way. It beats putting up with someone with passion as thin as yours for the rest of my life, that’s for sure.”

  “If your father really was still alive, maybe we could have met as two self-sufficient individuals.”

  Kurumi looked at me with a scornful look on her face. “And what, exactly, is a self-sufficient individual?” she snorted.

  “If our fathers had been alive, there wouldn’t have been anything to bring us together. It’s ridiculous to think we’d have gotten together without them.”

  I sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” I agreed. And as a parting shot, I said the line I’d forbidden myself from uttering: “Say hi to your dad for me.” Kurumi’s final words to me were, “I’ll pray for your father’s health and happiness.” It was like attending my own funeral.

  Chino (2000)

  Translated by Lucy Fraser (Town and village names in this story are fictionalized)

  The trip down was good. I was still thinking it would be one-way. It had been about a month since I’d come to this small country below Mexico. I’d knuckled down to some intensive Spanish study, gotten to know the ways of the people, and learned to handle the spicy food.

  Preparations complete, I boarded the bus, filled with the excitement of a man about to blast off the face of the earth. Here I was, about to plunge into infinite space!

  Well, infinite space was pretty cramped. Just as we were about to depart, a chubby, greasy-looking man with a turkey dangling from his arm barged on board and sat down next to me. Our vehicle was an old yellow school bus bought cheap from some foreign country, with patched-up seats that were meant to fit two people each. A Mamá the size of a small mountain, with a kid on her lap, was already sitting to my left, so no matter how skinny I might be, this guy deciding to join us was like a sumo wrestler plopping down into a brimming bathtub. Something had to give.

  I smiled and let them crush me.

  Most of the bus windows were stuck shut, so it was hot and muggy inside. The combination of corn-tinged body odors and animal smells was nearly overpowering. The brat next to me squirmed constantly, shouting and singing and laughing hysterically. The turkey, both legs tied so it couldn’t move, lifted its gangly head like a cobra and squawked. The driver was playing Latin music, all trumpets and drums, so loud the sound was breaking up. Meanwhile, rolls of fat came weighing down on me from both sides; breathing was b
ecoming a challenge.

  This, I told myself happily, was culture. The spice-scented flesh and heat clinging to my thighs and arms—all of it was culture. The important thing was, here and now in infinite space I was in immediate contact with people from a culture very different to my own.

  Half just wanting to breathe more easily, I turned and asked the guy next to me, in my newly memorized Spanish, “How much for that turkey?” He shifted and mumbled something, but I didn’t get it. I couldn’t even tell if he’d understood my Spanish.

  I gave up on my conversation with Señor Turkey, who was shyer than he looked, and turned my attention to Mamá. Her skin was brown, but the shape of her cheekbones, her flat nose, and her straight, thick black hair were all similar to my features. She must be, like half the population, mestizo—of mixed Spanish and native Indio blood. The kid on her knees, who suddenly shut up the minute I looked at him, had eyes like marbles, but his flat nose and thick lips were identical to his mother’s. I grinned at Mamá and she nodded back without smiling. I pointed to the kid and tried to say he was a nice child—”Niño, bien”—which launched her into a flood of explanation. I could understand a few words here and there, but all in all it was gibberish to me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that, yes, although I had initiated the conversation, I was unable to understand a word she was saying. So I pasted a friendly smile on my face and nodded, though actually I was gazing out the window beyond her, at some vultures.

  The vultures were perched in a scrawny tree, seemingly doing nothing. Who knows, there might have been a dead body under that tree. For nearly thirty years, the country had been at civil war, with guerrillas—many of them indigenous Maya—battling the government. Vast numbers of people went missing, or were forcibly “disappeared.” I wondered if the vultures ate their corpses. Just like in Tokyo, where the number of large black jungle crows increases with the amount of food scraps and garbage set out on the curbs, maybe over here the number of vultures swelled along with the number of missing persons.