Feeling as though I were seasick, I started to stammer out a question, but she interrupted me: “Let me finish. I still fear that you’ll simply drift into lethargy, but I realize now that I was wrong in thinking that merely having work would prevent that. It was a mistake for me not to give you any time to pick up the pieces, and so, feeling cornered in your own home, you had no choice but to leave. I take responsibility. I’ve been wanting to tell you that. I’m not demanding that you return home or anything like that. All I want to say is that I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching. But you’ve never been back, so I haven’t had the chance . . . When I heard that you landed the job in the camera shop, I was so happy . . . Well, I’ve said my piece and feel much better now.”
She stopped speaking and blew her nose. As for me, I was bowled over. I headed to the bathroom and squatted down over the bowl, closed my eyes, grit my teeth, and clenched my fists. With nothing to hold on to, I would fade away. The “me” of me was taking leave; I was on the verge of being snatched away from the reality in which I had spent my entire life. What could I latch onto that would save me? I had no idea. I kept my eyes tightly shut, resisting the force that would tear me away. Breathe from your abdomen, I told myself. I inhaled deeply and held my breath for ten seconds, then exhaled slowly. Yes, this would do the trick.
Feeling somewhat relieved, I exited the bathroom, stood in front of the sink, and stared into the mirror. Again my heart seemed to stop, for even there what I saw was me!
Then I realized that it was only natural for my reflection to be there. I was looking at myself, except that I wasn’t used to myself. I splashed water on my face, as if to wash away the feeling. The smile on her face appeared to have been glued in place with honey.
I returned to the living room. Mother was still leafing through the album, sitting with one knee raised. She turned her head toward me and asked: “Stomach trouble?” She smiled broadly.
This is bad, very bad, I thought to myself. “Oh, my cell phone!” I exclaimed, pretending that it had rung. I looked at the time: it was almost two. “I wonder who’s calling,” I muttered darkly before speaking into the phone. “What! Really? Please understand, I’m in Saitama at the moment . . . Well, that’s a bit inhumane, don’t you think? . . . All right. But in exchange I want a day off some other time. I won’t forget this . . .”
After putting on my one-man show, I reported to Mother that someone on the late shift had called in sick, leaving no one to man the counter. I would have to pinch-hit.
“You’re going to wreck your health if you give in so quickly. An easy mark like you will simply be used, and then when you keel over, that’ll be it. And you’ll get no gratitude.”
In the end I ignored her warning and left the Hiyama residence.
* * *
With noise-canceling headphones in my ears, I withdrew into the primitive world of Argentinian acoustic guitar music and hastened toward the station. I should have been able to remember the way but somehow managed to get lost: after failing to locate the supermarket, I eventually came to a broad river. I crossed the bridge and continued walking uncertainly.
Some ninety minutes later I reached Warabi Station. There, I inexplicably went the wrong way again, this time on a train headed toward Ōmiya. On the brink of tears, I suddenly realized that I was within two stations of Kita-Urawa.
I nearly tripped down the stairs after disembarking there. Pausing on the landing to get my bearings, I grew terribly hungry and I went into the McDonald’s in front of the station and gobbled down a Quarter Pounder with cheese, a Teriyaki Burger, and a salad. Sipping my vegetable juice, I imagined my old lady stiffening at the sight of me. I thought about her personality and further imagined that rather than receive a warm welcome, I was more likely to be on the receiving end of her wrath. (What would it be like if you paid a visit to your family home? Don’t you want to see it, the real thing? Head there and you’ll finally be back to normal, won’t you?)
Once I started this soliloquy, there was nothing else to do. I couldn’t help myself. Instead of getting off at Minami-Urawa, I continued on.
I hadn’t been home in quite some time, and that was because I didn’t want to see my father. At first that had been out of pride and stubbornness; now it was simply ingrained habit. My mother had pleaded with me to visit during the week, when he was out of the house, but for the last two years I had relied on various excuses to put her off. Somehow it had simply become too much trouble.
It occurred to me that I shouldn’t just show up without any warning, so I tried calling my mother’s cell phone. I got the answering machine and hung up without a word. Then I decided that sending a text message would merely pour oil on the fire.
I was vacillating, fretting about what to do. What would happen if I showed up to apologize and found my father there? Disgusted with myself, I let my head fall to the table.
It seemed that lack of sleep was catching up with me, for I quickly nodded off. When I awoke, I glanced down at my cell phone and saw that it was nearly six—dinnertime. My father was bound to be at home. My timing was completely off.
What a fool I was! I didn’t even have the guts to visit my own home . . . So this is what your life’s become, I told myself.
Churning over bitter thoughts, I resolved to go back to my apartment. As I disposed of my meal, I remembered when I had stolen Daiki’s cell phone and considered his phrase, holding back on a big turd. I went to the toilet, took a shit, washed my hands, looked in the mirror, and then immediately regretted having done so. I was so sick of that face. It was me and yet had nothing to do with me. I ran my wet hands roughly through my hair, stepped out of the restroom, and left the McDonald’s. Instead of crossing the street and heading to the station, I turned toward my parents’ residence.
With each step as I drew closer to my own home, I grew ever more tense, surrounded by others leaving work. I barely paid attention to the changes in the shops and houses that had happened during my absence.
At the house, three doors down from a famous and prestigious high school, the lights were on. I looked at the nameplate: Nagano. In the garage was our reliable old white Toyota Mark II. There were always quinces in front of the entrance this time of year, with red and pink blossoms. Still visible on the front door was the character for Hitoshi, which as a child I had scratched in with a nail. I felt some sort of toxin draining from me. My nerves were recovering from their paralysis. My goodness, I said to myself with a beaming smile on my face as I rang the bell, what sort of nonsense has all this been?
“Yes, who is it?” came the bold voice of my old lady.
“It’s meee, Hitoooshi,” I said with as much cheeriness as I could muster, putting my face right up to the intercom camera.
“You again! Look! Enough is enough!”
I was flummoxed by her reaction. “Are you being serious? All right, fine, so I haven’t been back for a while—I’m sorry. I trust you’ll forgive me.”
I was trying to brush off what had just occurred. I moved my face even nearer to the camera but then stepped back, realizing that I might be too close for her to recognize me.
“Please leave! Go home! If you don’t, you’ll face the consequences, the same as last time.” The tone of her voice clearly suggested she meant business.
“But I have come home. Where else am I supposed to go? I can understand if you’re angry that I’ve been out of touch for ages, and that I’ve shown up without calling ahead of time. And I apologize for that. I’m genuinely sorry.”
I bowed my head in front of the security camera with utmost seriousness.
“Just go away, whoever you are!”
“What are you saying? Are you disowning me? Is that what you’re doing? You could at least speak to me.”
“You really haven’t learned your lesson, have you?”
“I have learned my lesson. And I’ve said I’m sorry. Anyway, open the door, I’m begging you!”
The door opened and I stepped back
slightly.
“Hey,” a young man said, “you must know that stalking is a crime, don’t you?”
I froze. It was the man I’d been seeing no end of all day. That is, it was a ME.
Chapter 2
Realization
The instant the ME saw me, the two of us staring at each other, his face grew suspicious.
The ME, dressed in a dark silver suit, appeared to have just returned from work. He looked somber and tired, with faint shadows under his eyes. He had short, lightly waxed hair and wore fashionable black-framed spectacles. Slightly off to the side of his left eye was a black beauty mark—a feature that this me was lacking. All in all he was quite a hunk. And yet my gut feeling remained that this was still me. Yes, it was. There wasn’t any doubt about it.
Recovering from the initial shock, the other ME now closed in, angrily roaring: “Get lost! You’re a total nuisance!”
“Who are you?” I asked. I knew it was a foolish question but I felt compelled to pose it anyway.
“I’ll ask the same of you!”
“I’m Hitoshi Nagano, of course!”
The other ME gave me a doleful look and a faint smile as he shook his head. “Do you really want a repeat of last week? This is totally absurd. What do you think you’re doing by trying to impersonate me?”
“What? Last week? I wasn’t even here last week!”
“I told you to drop this farce.”
“It’s no farce. I haven’t been here in two years!”
“Then who was here last week?”
“How the hell should I know?”
The other ME fell silent, gave me a once-over with pouted lips and tilted head, and then muttered: “Hmmm . . . Not quite the same . . . The last two weeks, someone resembling you came barging in here, claiming to be a university student and insisting that this was his home.”
In the shadow of the door Mother was looking on. She nudged ME and said, “Why are you letting him put you on like this? Get a grip! It’s the same guy, with same trick! There couldn’t be anyone else. He’s just playing dumb.”
Looking displeased, the other ME restrained her. “Let me handle this!”
She nodded but then turned to me and added: “If you don’t scram this instant, we’re really going to call the police.” With a contorted expression of loathing on his face, the other ME offered an outstretched palm and said, “Your card.”
“What?”
“You’ve got at least a card, haven’t you? If you give it to me and leave, I won’t call the police.”
“Why should I present a card in my own—” I stopped myself, as I saw the other ME give me a knowing wink, as though attempting to convey a message. I did not understand but was somehow persuaded. I vaguely grasped that he was trying to get me to play along with this charade in order to dupe Mother.
And so I acquiesced, taking out a Megaton card from my wallet. It was my last one. On it was unmistakably printed: Hitoshi Nagano. I handed it over with a bit of a flourish.
The other ME examined it carefully, then thrust it back. “Write down your cell phone number too.”
I looked at ME and glimpsed another silent appeal; he nodded slightly. Taking a pen from Mother, I did as requested.
As I raised my eyes to return the pen, I was momentarily blinded by a flash of light. Mother had snapped a photo of me with a digital camera—a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35, no less.
“Photographic evidence, just in case . . .” she said.
“All right. Go now!” The other ME shooed me away with one hand, but his left hand, hidden from Mother’s view, now mimicked a cell phone with thumb and pinkie. Again I nodded slightly, while making a show of disgust. I headed out the door without looking back.
* * *
I had not quite reached the station when, less than ten minutes later, the other ME called, saying that he was close on my heels and would meet me anywhere in the area. I suggested the nearby McDonald’s.
I had just checked the time—7:13 p.m.—when he appeared. I was sitting upstairs at a counter by the windows, sipping oolong tea I had no desire to drink, my eyes glued to the street. I had nevertheless managed to miss him, so that when he suddenly sat down next to me on my left, saying, “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” I was given quite a scare.
I struggled to meet his determined gaze, then instead lowered my eyes. On his tray as well was a cup of oolong tea.
“So explain it all to me,” I said softly, as if in a packed elevator. I had no desire to quarrel with him, but the mere fact that we were having this tête-à-tête was causing me enormous shame.
He took his eyes off of me and glanced toward the front window. “Just as I said before, there was a guy like you who came around twice, claiming that he was back for spring break. Again, like you, he had unkempt hair parted in the middle, narrow eyes, uneven eyebrows, a thin voice, boringly conventional clothes . . .” The other ME pointed to my Uniqlo flannel shirt. “But his hair was dyed brown, and he had stubble on his chin and a slightly protruding jaw. He was slightly taller and also had a dimple—here.” He motioned to his right cheek.
“So it wasn’t me.”
“I understand that.”
We both fell silent, and I fiddled with my cell phone, which was lying on the tray. The other ME was likewise opening and closing his own phone. Yasokichi had the same popular Docomo model. When a call came in, the entire body flashed red. Attached to it was blue whale-shark strap. Yasokichi’s was again the same, and so was mine. Minami-san had brought the straps back as souvenirs from a trip he and his wife had taken to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.
I prodded him for details: “So what was with that student?”
“At first I just turned him away. And when he tried to barge in, I wouldn’t let him. He was making quite a fuss, and that brought down Masae-san, who ranted and raved about calling the police. And so when the neighbors came out, he took off.”
“Masae-san . . .” I involuntarily grimaced. The other ME now had the exact same expression, as he realized how he had just referred to Mother. We both dropped our eyes, unwilling to look at each other.
I was in middle school when, on her fortieth birthday, she declared that she was renouncing her title as “Mother,” that she was commencing a second life—not as Mother but rather as “Masae Nagano”—and would insist on having everyone in household, including her son, call her Masae-san.
“Every time I’m addressed as ‘Mother,’ I feel like I’m becoming a grannie. I don’t feel that my life ends with being a mother. I’m still young and so wish to be addressed as Masae-san, as though I were, say, an upperclassman in a school club. And, if possible, I think Father should be called Toshio-san.”
My father thought the idea was totally absurd and adamantly refused, but eventually I gave in to her demand. For a while I put up some resistance and went on calling her Mother, but when she either ignored me or gave me a tongue-lashing (“Don’t treat me like an old lady!”), I threw in the towel. Once I became independent, I stopped calling her anything at all and so now had no form of address or reference.
“The guy who came around the other day frantically called her Maasa: Hey, Maasa, look me in the eye! That really set her off: Who are you? How dare you talk to me like that! But I couldn’t deny that I knew him. I suppose you know why . . .” The ME paused and again stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the window. I looked in the same direction and saw ME gazing at my reflection. I nodded. It seemed we were both resisting the urge to get up and run.
“At first I thought that my older brother had come back. I wondered whether he was being diffident and putting on some weird show. But judging from his height and age, I knew that couldn’t be . . . You know what I mean? Anyway, the first time it was like grabbing a snake while weeding the garden and then flinging it away. And so that’s what I did: I drove him off. The second time I wanted to hear more from him, but Mother wouldn’t have it. She was convinced he was some sort of scam artist and carried on abo
ut calling the police. She took a photo, just as she did today, but no matter how much I pointed to how strangely similar we looked, she would respond that two people can resemble each other—say, like Keisuke Kuwata and Hiroyuki Nagato—without being related and that there is nothing creepy about it. But what does it mean if a parent can’t recognize her own two sons when they’re standing right in front of her? She was just that kind of parent, one who never understood her children . . . And then that older brother of mine . . .”
“Wait, who’s this older brother you’re talking about? Mother only had one child,” I said.
“You don’t have an older brother?”
I shook my head, as the other ME groaned and sank into thought.
“Did you think she’d recognize your brother as her own son?”
The other ME gave me a blank look. “She should. But then, he took off about ten years ago. He drifted around and never came back.”
“So she might not even recognize him after all that time.”
The other ME nodded. “That’s why when I saw you today, I thought maybe—”
“Is it possible that you’re just an only child and that you’ve simply imagined that you have an older brother?”
“No, he’s real. I still hear from him sometimes.” The other ME reached for his cell phone, pushed a few buttons, and showed me a list of messages. “Here’s a message from December 8.” The sender was indicated with the character for “large.” “His name is Hiroshi.”
“How much older is he?”
“Two years older.”
I read the text. “It’s a pretty bleak message.”
“Yeah, he’s a pretty bleak sort of guy. He was a bad student and could never get his act together. He had, like me, the personality to become a civil servant, but our parents constantly told him from when he was small to do his own thing. He decided to become a hairdresser and got as far as vocational school, but then he couldn’t get through his apprenticeship, and the salon owner finally told him that he wasn’t cut out for the job and ought to quit. And that’s when he disappeared.”
ME Page 4