The faster the sun began to sink, his shadow grew longer over the sand garden even more. It looked like a paper doll hung from the eaves to which we pray for fine weather. And the doll seemed to reach out for me.
I didn’t remember how long I had been watching his shadow moving toward the shadow of my head cast on the sand. They never came in touch with each other, for both shadows lengthened parallel. Several crows cawed warningly somewhere and I lost consciousness again, and when I opened my eyes the next time, there was a pendant light right above me. It was a bright glaring light. I gradually became aware that I seemed to have been lying on my back on a futon in a tatami-floored room. That night I had a high fever and it was quite difficult for me to toss and turn because my limbs were all sunburned terribly.
My little brother Akira was already dead when a postman found the body hanging down from the eaves. Akira slipped off the roof and his cape had got hooked on a single bolt jutting out of the base of the dish antenna. That was what I overheard the next morning. I don’t think that I had killed him; only I repent having unluckily survived. Akira was frisky and I lethargic. He has died young and I am still here.
Genotype is unsentimental and works in a funny way.
Instead of Batman’s costume, Akira should have worn Spiderman’s. Then he could have been able to survive the accident. Akira should have recalled that Batman would never go with the Sun nicely.
The accident didn’t change the way I was but drastically transformed my parents. They became statues made out of surgical-grade stainless steel with a benevolent smile engraved on each polished face. And its surface reflected me, their only son, which was, unfortunately, a distorted one.
But I was lucky, in a sense, since their transformation didn’t last long. Two years after the incident, as you must have already known, my parents were both killed by that newsworthy bus accident in which a sightseeing bus had fallen, by a violent landslide, over a cliff into a muddy torrent a hundred feet down below. It was September 7th. That night the typhoon 27 suddenly turned its course southward and assaulted on the mountainous region in the Izu Peninsula where popular hot-spring resorts were interspersed with valleys.
What I want to emphasize here is this: I have never shed a single droplet of tears at any funeral service including my brother’s and my parents’. I had already cried hard in my head days before the funeral ceremony began. So all I could do is to observe how the funeral party would perform in front of Buddhist priests, my grandparents, and me: and I enjoyed their performance very much especially when they were off their guard toward me. Being a child had been ironically advantageous, at least, to me. They exposed rather casually their true faces which had been hidden behind those socially proper Noh masks. I could sense that they were curious how this bereaved family, that is, my grandparents and me, would outlive and how much this abandoned and miserable child would be grateful to their words of condolence and encouragement.
But life still didn’t come to a halt. You have to eat, excrete, and sleep. Birds on an electric wire offered a silent prayer neither to my little brother nor to my parents. They gave me droppings instead. As had been always before, there were bottomless autumn sky, usual earth tremor, the bright traffic light on streets in twilight, and the packed commuter trains coming exactly on schedule. To me, they were only few examples of familiar things the world displayed after I had lost my family. I think it is true that life doesn’t come to a halt unless your turn comes. Death is not Nemesis. It is only the absolute absence. It’s like a broken communication. A strange silence…and this is also the end of my story.
Now you can talk anything if you like to. I am not here to judge you. I am here only to listen to your story whatever it will be. I promise not to reveal your secret to anyone else but me. Our closest friends are no exceptions. This is a one-on-one deal. Let us share with each other some deep secrets other people would dare not even try to.
Stalker
With her eyes closed, Maya throws a variety of things at each car that is coming on the tree-lined road down below. I am leaning forward against the handrail of a pedestrian bridge to see if a cube of a milk chocolate she has just thrown away hits the windshield of a black sedan that is about to pass under. We are both being shadowed by thick branches extended from Japanese zelkova that are planted in knolls on both sides of the road so that drivers are unable to spot us even as they approach right under this pedestrian bridge.
The polished roofs of cars are being lit up by the colors of the sunset. Most cars already have their headlights on and on the opposite lane are streaming vivid taillights. We can see the skyline of the megalopolis and her alluring Neon Forest decorated with costly illuminations, here and there, through dark branches, like some ghostly images projected on a dark wall by a revolving lantern. I wonder if what Yukio might have seen in his last moments would be something similar to this phantasmagoria I am watching right now.
Maya throws crumbs of a English muffin away, chanting in a thin voice, “Too many people…too many dreams…we’ll all be in the ruins of dreamland.”
“Do you do this often, Maya?” I ask.
“When I’m in a right mood, yes.”
“But you’re not going to spill your orange juice, are you?”
“Why not?” Maya says with her characteristic lisp and opens her eyes and continues, “You’d probably like to do it yourself, Luna.”
And she turns a can of orange juice upside down and shakes it to empty.
I am afraid that some driver might be so stunned even as to try to put on the break at this dangerous spot. The road bends to the left in a tight curve soon after it goes under this bridge.
It may cause a multiple pileup.
The image of a little girl covering her face with her tiny hands emerges the moment I have heard the incessant sound of a horn.
Maya chuckles as I make a grimace at the hysterical sound of warning.
“Don’t worry. They can’t see us. We are safe. Drivers can’t stop their cars here, either, you know, however offended they are. There is a certain kind of beauty in this game. The aesthetics of the unpredictable, you see?”
And Maya closes her eyes again.
Maya drops a floral handkerchief.
Maya drops a ball of a greenish chewing gum.
Maya drops a piece of pineapple taste candy.
Maya drops a quarter of a French baguette she has left over at school lunchtime.
Maya drops a half-inch-square white eraser she has found in school library.
Then she is about to throw the empty can of orange juice when I grab her by the wrist.
“Shall we go, Maya?”
“Please don’t get nervous. It was merely meant to be a performance art.”
“A performance art?”
“Look at me.”
And she takes a snapshot of me and then, after having put the empty can on the handrail, walks away from this pedestrian bridge.
I quickly remove the can from the handrail and, on the way for catching her up in a small park, throw it into a garbage can, and feel embarrassed about my good-girl behavior.
The park is bleak and empty.
Having a muffler around her neck, Maya takes a backward glance at my duffle bag.
“Did you skip your practice for the field and track club today?”
“I didn’t feel like running.”
“I’m not criticizing you,” she says with a shrug.
“Maybe I was born to be defensive.”
“By the way, I have second thoughts about what you said of that incident, Luna. I now believe that it was a suicide.”
“What do you think is the reason for Yukio to have done it then?”
“I don’t know. I think no one will ever be able to tell the reason except Yukio himself.”
“Okay. You’ve changed your view. What happened?”
“Nothing. Why don’t you think it over again? My daddy often tells me, ‘You can’t drive a car, staring at the room m
irror all the time. You must face where you’re heading for.’”
“Maya, I just need you to help me out with this puzzle I got.”
“I want to, but my Mobile is vibrating,” she says and bites her lower lip.
I walk apart from her and sit on a concrete bench I found near the exit of this small park. The concrete feels cold as if I had soaked my buttocks in an icy puddle.
I watch an elderly couple with a dachshund taking a walk. The twilight is gone. The couple walk past by a swing in the park which is now dimly lit only by surrounding orange-colored streetlights. I can hear a biting wind rustle dead leaves around the swing, a slide, and a jangle gym, all of which are unoccupied. The dachshund dejectedly looks back at me as the elderly couple approach the pedestrian bridge. It reminds me of someone.
Hi, daddy, what are you doing over there? When have you transformed yourself into a dachshund? Are you on your way home? No, I don’t think so. You rarely have time to eat at the same table with us. Even over the weekend. You have to play golf socially with superiors in your company. I’m really sorry to say this, daddy, but you’ve been actually acting like a dog. All I can see is you being kept on a leash all the time.
Maya is now walking absentmindedly around an old cherry tree that has been stripped of leaves. She has been talking to someone, nodding knowingly.
*
Few minutes later, Maya and I said good-bye to each other, but I didn’t head for home.
I started following her.
In my duffle bag were stuffed a baseball cap and a dark anorak. These were my secret shadow gears to disguise myself as someone else, hopefully a boy on the street. And this is not the first time to put tail on her. I have done this three times already since I heard from Reiko that she had been sharing many things with Maya. I suspect that they might see each other at some quiet place and talk over how to deal with their secret and me. If I were lucky, I would be able to catch them on the spot.
*
At Shibuya railroad station Maya steps off an absurdly packed train as she plugs up her ears with a pair of earphones. Hiding in the swarms of crowd, I keep following her. For the last three occasions, Maya has done nothing unusual. She went back home directly without stopping or seeing anyone. But this time, she has stopped over at Shibuya railroad station. It means that there should be someone who is waiting for her. It would be why her Mobile started to vibrate back in that small park.
I keep watching her back weaving through the crowd. The streets are all illuminated with wild dances of neon signs. Unlike that of Shinjuku, the night view of Shibuya doesn’t try to grab me by the arm to draw my attention. It lets me be an explorer.
Maya walks with steady steps, indistinctive and almost mechanical. She seems to know her destination quite well.
There are smells of vinegar from a sushi restaurant, garlic and sesame-seed oil from a Chinese restaurant, pork bouillon from a Ramen stand, and soy sauce from a Japanese udon noodle restaurant. There are few homeless people who are sleeping on cardboards in a dimly-lit alley just behind a newly redecorated department store.
I cut through busy shopping quarters and then the red-light district. In this part of the city it becomes hard to take hold of Maya in sight. There are bars, clubs, massage parlors, and, above all, the steaming packed crowd around me. Up to this point, I have watched five men making advances to her. Wearing dark business suit, they all appeared to be in their thirties. Three of them were in glasses and other two not.
I know that some grown-up males seem to have strong fixation on schoolgirls dressed in sailor middy top and short pleated skirt. There are several Net-savvy girls in gakko, who seem to know everything and tell me anything.
When a man in his thirties asked Maya to join him, she looked annoyed with her face being hardened like a victim of Medusa. All she could do was, as had been in the case of other men, to calmly disregard the man and quicken her pace. What else could she do? Maya is only half of their age. We can hardly trust men over twenty and boys without school uniform.
Maya turns to the left at the corner where a Thai curry bar is open, and then goes into a dirty four-story building containing four independent shops. I sneak into its entrance hall and see to which floor the elevator she has just taken goes up. The position indicator stops at the third floor. I quickly turn around and cross a street to take a long look at the building from the opposite sidewalk.
There is a pink neon sign shaped into the word MEMORABILIA flashing right inside of the frosted window of the third floor. Maya should have been in there by now, but I have no idea what kind of shop that is. The first floor is a pawnshop, the second an adult DVD rental shop, and the fourth a massage parlor. All shops except MEMORABILIA are posting No one under eighteen is admitted sign on window.
Twenty minutes have passed. I have been hiding myself in an alley where I can smell of pizza, hamburger, and noodle in soup. It is getting colder. Finally Maya comes out with her downcast eyes. I watch her breathing softly in a winter air.
On her way up to the Shibuya railroad station, Maya stops in an accessory shop and, when she comes out, she looks quite happy. You can spot a new stuffed animal character being added to her collection, hanging from her school bag, swinging helplessly. Maya goes up a wide stairs of the station and disappears out of my sight.
After all, Maya didn’t seem to have seen anyone this evening.
I call my mother. My excuse for having missed dinner is that I had to go into field and track training for a coming long-distance race.
(Well, you should do whatever you have to do as long as what you are doing has something to do with improving your grade. And remember to rewarm your dinner with the microwave oven. I’m already in bed now.)
I think I have become skillful in telling a lie recently.
Panties
What is engraved on its jet-black door is MEMORABILIA in silver and nothing else. I am choked with nervousness when a middle-aged man dashes out of that black door. He wears a dark beret low over his eyes with his salt-and-pepper hair stuck out. The man looks me up and down and grins knowingly.
“Ah, you wear a sweet sailor middy top and a skirt,” he says and runs downstairs in a hurry.
Amazed, I just stand there in silence for a while.
It has been passed four days since I found Maya coming to this place.
After taking a deep breath, I open the jet-black door of MEMORABILIA and slide my umbrella into one of holes of an umbrella stand placed by the entrance.
Behind a cramped service counter, there is what seems to be the owner of MEMORABILIA. He wears a gaudy kimono for women with a ten-gallon hat on and appears to be in his fifties.
“Welcome to my shop, Miss.”
I am at a loss for words with downcast eyes.
“Feel free to ask any question.”
Then he searches my face for a sign of something.
I look away from him and let my eyes wander inside the shop and showcases.
“Go ahead. Take your time,” the owner says, making a gesture of invitation.
There are what look like unwashed panties that are bottled and then sealed carefully as if to keep their freshness intact.
The shop is also selling used school uniforms and many other items that used to be girls’ daily necessities such as white sox, comb, handkerchief, lipstick, and pocket-sized vibrator, all of which appear to be unwashed without exception. Based on the information I collected from the Mobile, this mysterious shop named MEMORABILIA deals mainly in underwear worn by girls who are currently in well-known high school.
Listening to my heartbeat, I look around carefully.
Girl’s urine in an airtight container is also for sale. Used tampons and sanitary napkins are no exception, although bloodstain on both items has been already discolored into black. It feels as if I were looking at unknown specimens preserved in alcohol in school laboratory. Strangely, there can be found no brassiere on sale.
“Is there something you’re lookin
g for?”
“Umm, I’m just wondering what to look for.”
“If so, let me offer you words of the day: The one who doesn’t know one’s own taste finds no pleasure in one’s life”
“What a wise saying. I like it.”
“That’s what I expected to hear.”
And he rubs the brim of his ten-gallon hat, smiling contentedly.
There is an electronic bulletin board on this shop’s web site where you can browse various requests from customers; for instance, they would ask if the owner has been able to obtain used panties that are still fresh and bloodstained on its crotch or a handkerchief stained with sweat. As a matter of fact, the shop MEMORABILIA is a delicatessen for some of Japanese fetishists. The owner of a related blog even declared that only the perverted had a beautiful soul. Another fetishist wrote as follows: Imagine how boring it would be to take a view of a pine wood near a sandy beach if all pine trees were straight. ‘To begin with we give nobody any trouble whatsoever,’ the blogger states, ‘We are simply the provider of goods by which so-called decent people might find secret pleasure when no one else is around.’
I wander a narrow aisle sandwiched between the shelves of samples.
The owner calls me out, “Miss, I’m afraid if I might offend you, but you unmistakably look like a girl who had better sell hers than buy theirs here.”
I say in a small voice, “Well, maybe it’s true because I cannot afford even a single undies displayed on this shelf.”
“Of course, they’re expensive. They are treasures from girls in a highly prestigious private high school, like yours. They are the first class items. That’s why.”
A Japanese Schoolgirl Page 9