I Haven't Dreamed of Flying for a While

by Taichi Yamada

  ‘It’s not so smart to be carrying on like that in Shinjuku where anyone could see you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Because if you keep doing that, Mom’s going to find out.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re right.’

  ‘That’s all l wanted to say. You can go now.’

  He picked up an FM radio guide off the floor, placed it on his desk and began cutting his nails with his back to me. The guitar music was still playing quietly in the background.

  You can go now, huh? He really turned the tables on me then. But this isn’t just the hopeless affair of an over-the-hill father. It’s a truly incredible experience. I so much wanted to tell him all about this and make him understand. But there was no way I could ever make him believe or prove it. The closest thing I had to proof was the film, but that meant nothing to someone who hadn’t seen the Mutsuko of the past. So I simply stood up, took a glance at Shinichi’s back, walked out and closed the door behind me.

  The film. I thought about the film. As for the photos I’d taken outside, I could get those developed anywhere. But the photos I’d taken in the room, they were much more intimate. I’d photographed her naked young body in detail. Her toned shoulders. The peach fuzz on her arms. I’d drunk in the faint odour of her armpits. Captured the single mole on her smooth back. Recorded her milk-white buttocks. The mark left on one by the grip of my hand. Noted the redness of it and the speed with which it faded away. I recalled the unexpected weight and softness of her breasts when I laid her on her back, the soft blush of her nipples and the way they reacted to my touch. Her delicate navel. The glorious contrast between her porcelain-white skin and her jet-black pubic hair that was neither thick nor thin. I’d guided her legs apart to explore her sex. Its youth. Its colour. Its pulse. I’d placed my head between her thighs. Feeling their fullness, feeling their warmth and shutting myself off entirely from the world outside.

  A sudden desire fired up inside me and brought me to a standstill halfway down the stairs. Was it okay to feel like this so soon after talking to my child? Did this mean I was feeling less like a father? Or remind me that I’d never really felt like a father at all?

  ‘Something the matter?’ asked my wife, looking up at me.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘l heard your footsteps stop and wondered what had happened.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I said with a little too much feeling, hinting at the aftereffects of my mental breakdown.

  I went into the kitchen, sat down and ate ice cream.

  ‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘it’s not true that I’ve become busier at work.’

  ‘Yes?’

  She was sitting across from me reading the evening paper and eating ice cream.

  ‘I stayed in a hotel by myself and I bought an expensive camera, too. I was in the mood to do something crazy like that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call that crazy.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you have enough money?’

  ‘Just enough.’

  ‘It’s all right if you splurge 20, 30,000 yen once in a while.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  And that was the end of her inquiry. A simple exchange of words that came quickly to a close as she flipped to the next page of the newspaper. Was she showing consideration to the ill? Or was she simply not interested? I had no idea what I may have just started and as I continued to eat my ice cream I couldn’t help but feel that, whatever it was, this couldn’t be the end of it. Something between us was unresolved.

  * * *

  On Sunday I walked around Yokohama. I had no idea where to find Mutsuko, but I felt that I would at least be closer to her than if I’d stayed at home. The Kizuki family home was located in an old residential area on the mountain side of Tanmachi station on the Toyoko Line. It was a two-storey house built on a plot of about 230 square metres surrounded by a concrete brick wall. To the east of the house was a four-metre-wide street. The front entrance faced south-east and the general wooden structure of the house was about twenty years old. The front entrance did seem as if it had been newly extended, however, and other renovations included new sashes in the first-floor windows and the addition of an extra room on the north side. I got the impression that it was a house that was well looked after. Considering that I worked at a construction company, I probably should have felt that such a house be demolished and replaced with a prefabricated one, but such thoughts were in the past for me now.

  I buzzed the intercom and a middle-aged woman answered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello. I’m from Tokyo House Construction. We’re conducting a survey on extensions and renovations.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something,’ she said, and cut me off. I pressed the button again.

  ‘I told you I was busy,’ said the woman, clearly annoyed.

  ‘I’m sorry, but can I just ask one brief question? Do you have an elderly person living with you?’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ I was cut off again.

  Mutsuko’s sister-in-law was an old woman, and as far as I knew she was living with them, but I could understand why she might not tell the truth. But it didn’t really matter. Mutsuko wasn’t an old woman anyway, so the question was meaningless.

  There was no way Mutsuko would be there, I thought, and I began walking down the gentle hill towards Tanmachi station. It did occur to me that perhaps what I should have been doing at that moment was to try and to pull myself together instead. To try and regain my professional competence and motivation. But then again, there was probably no way I could shake my questionable reputation before retirement. And even if I could, what would it mean?

  But before the balloons.

  A strange voice spoke in my mind. Balloons? What are you talking about?

  Are you sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits as there.

  I recognised the words. They were from a book by H. G. Wells that I hadn’t read since I’d been at school. The Time Machine. That’s where the words were from.

  Man can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?

  I stopped in my tracks and turned round. There were no people walking or cars driving down the street and these words that had remained long forgotten, yet returned so vividly, made me feel Mutsuko must be somewhere nearby. But there was no one around. Not a man, not a woman, not a cat or a dog. So I continued down the sloping path on the side of the street that wasn’t draped in shadow.

  When I had been with Mutsuko, I had been able to speak French, although there had been some words I wasn’t able to understand. Maybe she’d enabled me to retrieve anything that had ever been in my memory. So I wasn’t endowed with an entirely new ability but reacquainted with a long-forgotten one instead.

  Then again, it couldn’t really be caused by Mutsuko, as strange things had begun to happen before I had even met her. At least the premonition about the train accident had, anyway. We’d been on opposite ends of the ward at that time, but we hadn’t actually met. Could it be that we had both come under the influence of some great, invisible force — one which had had an even stronger effect on Mutsuko? Maybe it was this force that was enabling me to recall Wells, and maybe this meant that Mutsuko wasn’t necessarily nearby. I walked down the hill towards the station, turning round several times along the way. But I didn’t come across Mutsuko.

  That day, I felt Mutsuko’s presence on two more occasions, caused by the reading of newspaper articles both times. The first was in a paper I’d picked up at Yamashita Park in Yokohama. I never usually pick up discarded newspapers, but this one came flying towards the bench I was sitting at and got tangled round my legs. I felt something radiating from the paper (sorry to put it in a way
that sounds, well… paranormal, but I don’t know how else to put it) and I picked it up.

  From the Kyodo News Service in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

  Shandong Province, Yanggu County: Veterinary Hospital Director Wang Tzu-Hsien (64) aged rapidly between his mid forties and mid fifties, losing his two front teeth, his hair turning grey and his eyesight deteriorating to the point that he could no longer read without eyeglasses. But as soon as he turned fifty-eight, his hair turned black again, he grew two new front teeth, his eyesight recovered and his mobility and memory returned to that of someone in his twenties. No scientific explanation for this phenomenon has yet been offered.

  Then there was the article in the Asahi Shimbun that I picked up from the rack on the train back to Tokyo.

  Professor S. Hawking of Cambridge University, England — renowned for his theories on black holes — explained at a Kyoto University lecture organised by the Institute of Theoretical Physics that, ‘If the universe, which is currently expanding, reaches its contraction stage, the flow of time will be reversed.’

  * * *

  This lecture, entitled ‘The Arrow of Time’, began with footage of a coffee cup breaking, then coming back together as the film is run in reverse. This smashing of the cup illustrated the tendency for time to move from a state of order to disorder, there by alluding to the second law of thermodynamics. The professor claimed that this thermodynamic arrow of time is pointing in its current direction as the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. He then went on to state that there is no guarantee that this will continue to be the case in the future. Professor Hawking then said that, if we presume that the universe and time are closed four-dimensionally, then ‘If the universe begins to recollapse, the thermodynamic direction of time will be reversed, and head from disorder to order.’

  It could, of course, be the case that there was nothing magical at all about my encounter with the two articles. I might have simply felt that way owing to the youthful energy that was flowing within me that made everything appear linked to one special woman. I began to analyse my life. Was I doing any real work? No. But so what? I had a son at university. Again, so what? It wasn’t as if I had an unbearable wife. But so what? And I didn’t go home for dinner. So what? Wanting to escape the trappings of my middle-aged life, I allowed myself to regress. So what if I chose to walk the streets at night in search of Mutsuko? Confirming that she wasn’t in one part of town, I’d wonder if she might be found in an alleyway somewhere else. Then, after checking there in vain, I’d be sure I might find her if I’d only search the next street along. In this way I kept checking and checking, following unlimited mirages in my mind. And as I did so, I began to give up, waking up to the reality as I walked sober past the drunkards of the night. Out of nowhere, a Baudelaire quote came to mind:

  They get drunk so that they don’t have their bodies changed to beasts.

  I recognised myself partially becoming a beast without alcohol and, enjoying this change in me, I walked the streets until midnight.

  On the way to work the next day, another Baudelaire quote sprang to mind.

  The filthy metropolis.

  It was a line I recognised from a poetry anthology I hadn’t read since my university years.

  I was reminded of something my boss had said to me.

  ‘I’m not saying this because I’m the director of the rehabilitation department, but to show symptoms of maladaptation is, in a sense, and by sense I mean the natural way for humans to be… What I’m saying is that in that sense it can be taken as a healthy reaction. You could even say that there is a lot more wrong with guys who rapidly adapt to one streamlining initiative after another adopted by the company and improve their performance. They may be the ones without emotions, personalities, opinions, or desires. But saying these things isn’t going to convince the company to raise your salary. As long as you are working at the company, in the end all you can do to regain your manhood is to become someone who is useful to the company. There’s nothing to be gained by running away from this. What’s the matter? You’re not yourself these days. You’re the deputy director. You have to take the responsibilities that come with that more seriously. I can only do so much to cover for you.’

  * * *

  I can’t quite explain why I stopped by Shibuya on the way home. I’d been experiencing one premonition after another since the previous day, so I could no longer be sure if I was acting on one or not. I simply felt guided by something and allowed myself to go along with buying a ticket, boarding a train, then heading over there.

  I stepped out of the station and headed for the busy crossing and suddenly there she was. Mutsuko walked passed me, heading to my right. A pulse of joy shot through me before I could properly even register what I’d seen, then I turned and watched her as she strode away under the railway bridge. Emerging from under the bridge, she scurried past the crowds towards Miyamasuzaka and, needless to say, I chased after her. As I followed, part of me was surprised to be thinking that this woman in front of me was Mutsuko. After all, her hairstyle was different and she was wearing a white jacket that was too wide for her at the shoulders. She also had on a red shirt that hung loose from the jacket, baggy trousers and flat, yellow shoes. The red belt of a handbag hung from her shoulder. And the moment she’d flitted past me, I’d noticed she was wearing heavy make-up. She was even walking differently from the Mutsuko of three days earlier — moving briskly ahead with long, confident strides.

  The traffic lights were about to turn red and Mutsuko began to run. So I ran too. But when she’d reached the other side of the crossing, she didn’t slow back down to a walk. It was like she was running away. Like she was running from me. Could she really be running from me? I had to know, so I caught up with her and called her name softly.

  ‘Mutsuko.’

  Without answering, she made a sharp left turn into a street that was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. I noticed her back sway as she swiftly turned another corner onto a sloping street too narrow for even a single car. Then she stopped and turned round.

  It was Mutsuko all right. But I was amazed by the way she’d changed. It was nothing, of course, compared to her change from an old woman, but a change made more dramatic by heavy use of make-up. She still looked like she was in her mid twenties. But unlike last time, her eyes appeared sharper, as if she were reproaching me for something.

  ‘It looks like I upset you by chasing after you,’ I said, trying in vain to stop my voice quaking.

  She dropped her gaze and said, ‘Come.’ Then she turned round and took a few steps up the hill before climbing three small stone steps on the left and opening the battered steel door of an old building. I followed her down a narrow hallway, then up a staircase of similar dimensions. I looked at the movement in her baggy blue trousers as she climbed before my eyes. Watched the sway of her hips. But this time no feelings of desire arose. As she neared the top of a flight of stairs, she unzipped her red handbag and I saw her take out a key. Then, when we reached the fourth floor, she put the key in a door. I stopped in the middle of the staircase and looked up to see her angry profile, and I felt scared that this might be the end. She opened the door and looked at me. ‘Come in.’

  I quickly followed after her, worried that she might disappear — finding her standing by the window at the end of the room with her back to me, though the only view from the window was a dirty concrete wall. I closed the door.

  Immediately to my right-hand side was a gas cooker and a sink, both of which looked as if they’d hardly been used. And in the adjacent room where Mutsuko was standing, I could see the simple concrete shell of the building, with only worn-out tiles to cover thirty or so square metres of floor. In the middle of the floor was a leather sofa that had definitely seen better days. There was also a queen-size bed, which seemed to be the only new thing in the place. Nothing was on the bed except for a light brown, crumpled-up blanket. On the floor were a few containers holding clothing and fiv
e or six cardboard boxes. Mutsuko was standing still with her back to me.

  ‘I won’t ask any questions if you don’t want me to,’ I said.

  She remained still, unreactive.

  ‘I’m glad I was able to see you again.’

  I stood still, making a point not to approach her. Afraid she might start shouting at me at any moment. I noticed her shoulder drop ever so slightly.

  ‘I don’t have time.’

  It was the familiar voice of Mutsuko. Her gentle voice giving the impression that she was choosing her words. It’s all right, I thought. You don’t have to try and speak like a young person. You can talk to me in your natural, sixty-seven-year-old way. But perhaps, as young as she was now, that manner of speech no longer felt natural to her.

  ‘I guess I became impatient. Wanting to experience all kinds of things in life. There are so many things I’ve never done in all my sixty-seven years and now I have such a short time to experience all I can. No matter what I’m doing, I worry that I should be doing something better, more important. Because I really don’t have much time at all.’

  l looked at her small back in that baggy jacket and felt it a touching sight.

  ‘What makes you say you don’t have time?’

  ‘Do you think I do?’ she asked, turning to face me.

  Her outfit was very unusual, even by the standards of the young women walking around Shibuya. In the first place, young women these days probably didn’t wear so much make up. But having said that, her white foundation and deep red lip stick made her look beautiful. They just didn’t match the maturity you could still sense in her eyes.

  ‘I think you do,’ I said. ‘You’re young.’

  I could see anger appear in her eyes.

  ‘You’re the only one who knows my situation. You’re the only person who can understand how I’m feeling. And you say I’m young. How can you give me such a blind response?’

  ‘What do you expect me to say? I’ve only spent one day with you in March, then another two days and nights more recently.’