I Haven't Dreamed of Flying for a While

by Taichi Yamada

  ‘You’re still being somewhat hesitant,’ she said. ‘Are you afraid to touch my breasts?’

  ‘I want to, but it’s my hands that are hesitant.’

  ‘Coward.’

  She took my right hand and placed it against her breast.

  ‘And the other one,’ she followed, grabbing my left hand and placing it on her other breast.

  ‘They’re warm,’ she said, taking a deep breath.

  ‘I’m surprised. I didn’t think they’d be this soft.’

  ‘Well they wouldn’t be hard, would they?’

  ‘It’s just that, considering the firmness of your skin, I thought they would be firmer too. But instead, they feel like cotton.’

  ‘Maybe they do, but not for long.’

  ‘I’ve… never touched a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl this way. Or in any way for that matter.’

  ‘You see, now they’re getting a little harder.’

  Perhaps my touch tickled her as she leaned away from me slightly.

  ‘You let a man get away with this and he might get carried away.’

  ‘Get carried away then.’

  ‘I want to take your clothes off.’

  ‘So take them off.’

  As I felt myself losing control, some words came to mind from R. P. Warren’s novel All the Kings Men: ‘Can you figure out a single thing you really please-God like to do you can do and keep your dignity? The human frame just ain’t built that way.’

  ‘Photograph me,’ said Mutsuko, naked.

  ‘I don’t have the camera with me.’

  ‘Then photograph me tomorrow.’

  ‘You won’t leave, will you?’

  ‘I won’t leave.’

  ‘You’ve said that before and left anyway.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Let’s take a shower.’

  ‘Why? Do I smell of sweat?’

  ‘Actually, it’s myself I’m concerned about.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  I frantically kissed her lips. And her neck and her breasts. It felt strange. Although it was a body I had already kissed every corner of, and done everything I could to, as I caressed her belly button and moved my hand down, I felt hesitant, as if I were committing a crime. My hand felt like something dirty and vulgar. I hesitantly reached down, past where her hair was still soft and thin, down to where I could feel the heat of her sex.

  ‘It’s so hot.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So wet.’

  ‘Don’t feel you have to comment on everything.’ She giggled.

  ‘I wonder if it’s all right for me to continue.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘You might be a virgin.’

  ‘Then be the first.’

  ‘But I wonder if it’s all right for an over-the-hill middle-aged man to be doing this.’

  ‘Then bring me a young man you think would be appropriate.’

  ‘I don’t want to do that.’

  Mutsuko moved her hips.

  ‘It’s just that… seeing our naked bodies next to each other, I’m shocked by how unsightly I am.’

  ‘Do you like saying that kind of thing?’

  ‘Perhaps I’m a bit of a masochist.’

  ‘Then I’ll play along… Use your tongue. Move your fingers away and give me your tongue.’

  And taking my time, savouring every moment, I took her virginity.

  After we were done, Mutsuko became sentimental and she told me she wanted to hear some poetry.

  And how old is the Mutsuko that wants to hear it?’

  ‘Sixty-seven… and sixteen… and seventeen.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can’t choose one or the other.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t think of anything. It’s not like that time before, when the words just came streaming out of my mouth.’

  ‘That’s because you were hospitalised back then. Now, once again, your mind is filled with the things of this world.’

  ‘There’s also the difficulty of having to satisfy two generations.’

  ‘Not two generations. Just me.’

  Words came forth from my mouth:

  Me

  You

  Cannot be reduced to me and you

  That’s why it’s

  Me

  You

  ‘Us’

  ‘Why that poem?

  ‘I want to believe that we will survive, even if we are separated.’

  ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘Taeko Tomioka.’

  ‘I didn’t know men read poetry by women.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’m not normal.’

  ‘Do you know it from when you were a student?’

  ‘No. Which means I was reading this kind of thing even back when I had confidence in my abilities. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I didn’t get promoted at work.’

  ‘Is that the end? Even that by itself is beautiful.’

  ‘It’s not the end.’

  I continued:

  Me

  You

  Place our hands in each other’s mouths

  Touch our throats

  Touch our windpipes

  Touch our stomachs

  Touch our lungs

  Touch our hearts

  Our diaphragms

  Livers, pancreas, ribs, intestines

  Muscles, arteries, veins, capillaries

  We touch all kinds of things

  All kinds of abstract names

  What we can never touch

  Is you

  Is me

  Mutsuko dozed off. I pulled the covers over her naked shoulders and felt like a father fixing the blankets of his child — even though I, only moments before, had been pushing myself inside her painfully thin body. I wondered to myself what would hap pen. What on earth would happen now?

  6

  There’s a dusty road lined with shops in front of Ebisu station. It leads to a hilly residential area blending old houses with new concrete homes. Here and there it reminds you of twenty, thirty years ago, and you’d never think you were only a twelve- or thirteen-minute walk from Shibuya. In a forgotten corner of this area comprising old wooden homes, there was a dirty concrete apartment building. And in there was a small, two-bedroom apartment facing east on the second floor. That was the place that became our home.

  Mutsuko still had the apartment she had been staying at before, but she said that she was ‘keeping it for the next time I get that sluggish feeling again’. A middle-aged man can’t say anything when a girl says that. As for me, I’d sent my company a letter requesting a leave of absence ‘for a while, for personal reasons’. It was an incomprehensible letter, though I do say so myself, and I resigned myself to losing my job.

  I couldn’t say anything to my family. I went home to pick up the camera and a few belongings. I thought about leaving a note but left the house without doing so. It would have been different if I were going to write the truth, but I felt that anything other than the truth would simply be an attempt to leave open the possibility of returning. I probably had two months with Mutsuko at the most, at which point her ‘sluggishness’ would return and I would be left alone. I didn’t want to keep the possibility of returning to my job and my family in anticipation of that day. I felt like I’d somehow be betraying Mutsuko if I did that.

  I knew I shouldn’t have left home without even leaving a simple note saying ‘Don’t worry’ or ‘Don’t look for me’. But, selfishly, I figured that Mutsuko was much more alone than my wife at that moment, and I didn’t want to betray her — not even behind her back. ‘We’re okay for money,’ Mutsuko had said. ‘There’s enough for two years, even if we live a little luxuriously. I probably can’t live that long, so don’t worry about it. All you have to do is keep me in your arms.’

  We spent our entire days naked. At times we’d turn the air conditioner to really cold, then rub each other warm once we felt like we were freezing. Other times we turne
d the air conditioner off and opened the window on the side where people couldn’t look in. But there was no breeze from the window and we both got covered in sweat. So we pressed our bodies together, rubbing our sweat against each other.

  Everything we did was accompanied by the thought that this wouldn’t last. And although I didn’t want to think that worked as a stimulus, it was true that our passion was intensified by our desire to make the maximum use of limited time. My sexual prowess didn’t let me down — though this may have been due to some mysterious and whimsical power endowed upon me. In fact, I could come over and over again in the same day and still want Mutsuko just as badly the next.

  ‘It’s just the way you can be, if you don’t have any worries on your mind.’ Mutsuko said between breaths, while we were in the heat of the moment. ‘Even forty-eight-year-olds — have — strength. Thinking — about — the next day — and being bound by — responsibilities — and obligations — makes them weak — Yes!’

  ‘Let’s keep it down a little.’

  ‘I just forget.’

  ‘Should we go ahead and buy that potted morning glory we saw on the way back from the baths?

  ‘Buy a darkroom.’

  ‘A darkroom?’

  ‘You said — that there was — a DIY darkroom.’

  ‘We can develop the pictures — without going to all that trouble.’

  ‘Then, you do it — the way you want.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘In the afternoon — let’s go — buy it.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘What kinds of things — do you need?’

  ‘Measuring cup — stirring stick — funnel — timer — thermometer — developing tank — sponge — tongs.’

  * * *

  Mutsuko naked and in her twenties, and Mutsuko naked as a sixteen-, seventeen-year-old; her smile, her sex, all appear as negatives in the developer. White pubic hair on a black naked body. Mutsuko with white hair and black teeth. I hung the rolls of film up, wiped them off with a sponge and hung weighted clips on them as they dried. We opened the window and lay down on the bed together.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mutsuko. ‘There isn’t a single photo of you.’

  ‘It can’t be helped. I was the photographer.’

  ‘I can’t believe that I didn’t once think to photograph you.’

  ‘That’s how it is.’

  ‘How what is?’

  ‘Well, everyone has that side to them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you say, “Take a picture of me”?’

  ‘I was happy taking photos of you.’

  ‘Were you going to tell me afterwards? That I’m always thinking about myself?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

  ‘I’m going to photograph you.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘Well I’m going to. Get naked.’

  ‘It will only be grotesque.’

  ‘If you won’t do it, I’ll take your clothes off myself.’

  We joked around in a way that I would have normally found silly or tiresome. But there, with her, I wasn’t getting fed up of it at all.

  In the photographs from her twenties, Mutsuko’s breasts were much larger, her body more voluptuous, and I hesitated in complimenting them.

  ‘I’m all skin and bones now, aren’t I?’ she said.

  ‘No, that’s not true. Your backside is surprisingly soft and large.’

  ‘But my breasts now, compared to those then.’

  ‘Don’t you worry; a dirty-minded middle-aged man like me finds your body even more stimulating now.’

  ‘But I’ve become so young,’ she lamented, rubbing her breasts and arms. Unable to find any words to console her, I held her to me.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said. ‘I want to do whatever you want, but I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Take my nipples in your mouth.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Just like nobody can console a person who is getting old — a person who is getting closer and closer to death — nobody can console me as I get younger and disappear. It’s not your fault. This nipple next.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘This is all you have to do. If I wasn’t sixty-seven, I might not have been able to stand this cruel twist of fate. But being the old person that I am, I’m able to enjoy this transformation. I even want to thank this freak of nature for letting me experience such happiness before I die. All you have to do is be here. Just by doing that, you are already sacrificing many things, like your company and family. I’ve been acting like I haven’t been taking notice, but I’ve been so grateful. Now it’s my turn. This time I’m going to eat you up. Let me go. Now you lie down. Oh, you’ve gone all limp, poor thing. You’re thinking about my future too, are you? It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Become big inside me. Inside my mouth.’

  And there, amid the photographs of Mutsuko in her twenties, the sixteen-, seventeen-year-old Mutsuko and I lost track of time and revelled in being as obscene as we pleased.

  On the tenth night, Mutsuko came running back home. I got a terrible sense of foreboding as I heard her footsteps rushing up the stairs outside the apartment, and my hands — which were about to slice a cucumber — stopped moving. I could feel her fumbling to unlock the door, so I ran over, unlocked it and opened it. Mutsuko looked up at me surprised. Her face was pale.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They were out of tofu.’

  ‘Something happened, didn’t it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Something unpleasant.’

  ‘What was it?’

  Mutsuko slipped off her sandals, walked past me towards the window and looked down. I quickly shut the door and locked it, then went over next to her and looked down out of the window. Through the screen I could see the street lamps on the narrow asphalt road. The shutters of the old shop across the way were down as always. And painted on the grey shutters in peeling black paint were the words ‘Interior decoration — wallpaper, carpets, chair covers’. There was nobody on the street.

  ‘The police,’ said Mutsuko, closing the window and turning the air conditioning on.

  ‘They were on patrol?’

  She nodded. ‘Two of them.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘They asked what year I was born.’

  ‘Knowing that you live here?’

  ‘Yes. I told them I just graduated. That way it won’t be a problem that I’m not in school.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘“Did you really?” they said. They said I looked like I was still a schoolgirl.’

  ‘Well, it’s none of their business.’

  ‘Then they asked me who I live with. I told them you were my uncle. But they kept asking me if you were really a relative. I asked them why they would think otherwise, but instead of answering they just asked me where my home was. And what my father’s name was. And what the name of the school I graduated from was. The two of them asked me one question after the other. I told them I hadn’t done anything wrong and tried to run away, but one of them grabbed me by the arm and said, “We’re not saying you did anything wrong. We got a phone call from someone and we’re just worried. Are you sure you’re not being forced to stay with your uncle?”‘

  ‘It’s the guy next door,’ I said.

  ‘I told them I wasn’t being forced to do anything and that there was nothing to be worried about and shrugged them off.’

  ‘That young guy,’ I continued, ‘he must have been listening in on us. I got that feeling when I bumped into him in the hallway two, three days ago. I can understand if a single guy like him listens in, but he didn’t need to call the police.’

  ‘But it’s true that I only look like I’m in school, so if a girl that age was living with you and having sex with you, I can understand why he might worry that it’s a kidnapping.’

  ‘I think we’re both getting
the picture.’

  ‘We are. What should we do?’

  ‘What do you mean, “What should we do?”‘

  ‘Well, they might question you next.’

  ‘I’ll brush them off,’ I told her.

  ‘The police might decide to take the minor into their custody,’ she countered.

  ‘I’ll make them go away.’

  ‘That’ll only make them more suspicious.’

  ‘But what kind of explanation can I give them?’ I asked her.

  ‘The person who called the police knows we’re not family. Knows that we’re having sex. And that you are the age you are.’

  ‘I’ll find something to tell them.’

  ‘What? That you’re actually sixty-seven?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, what other explanation could you give them? We can’t tell them your place of birth, the name of your parents, or your school. All we can do is lie. They’ll see through the lies easily. You’ll be taken into custody, we’ll be separated and precious time will be wasted.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean we can get away with not opening the door and just telling them to go away.’ she said.

  ‘They might not come anyway.’ I replied.

  ‘But they might.’

  ‘What’s most important is that you’re free. You should go to your other apartment; the one I don’t know the location of.’

  ‘We can look for another apartment together.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s do that. At any rate, let’s pack up our things so we’re ready to leave at any time.’

  ‘I don’t want people to see the photographs.’ she added.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I can’t believe that we’re getting disturbed like this.’ I moaned to myself.

  ‘Someone’s coming up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.’ she hissed. ‘There are two of them. It must be the police.’

  ‘You don’t have the pistol on you, do you?’

  ‘It’s at the other apartment.’

  ‘Not that we could use it, even if it were here.’

  I could hear the footsteps coming down the hallway.

  ‘You get out of here. I don’t want you to waste your precious time with this.’

  ‘But I don’t want to leave you.’

  There was a loud knock on the door.