by Yoko Ogawa
“Of course! A hat!” I was suddenly able to remember. “The man who lives across the street used to make them, but they disappeared years ago. You wore them on your head—the way she did—didn’t you?”
I looked up at the old man, but he just seemed puzzled.
At that moment someone moved out of the crowd, picked up the hat, and, without a word, tossed it into the fire. It spun as it flew and then fell among the flames.
“Well then, we should be getting on with it,” the old man said.
“You’re right,” I said, looking up from the spot where the hat lay burning.
We left the cart near the fountain and walked toward the fire, our arms filled with books. But as we approached, the heat grew more fierce and sparks threatened to burn our clothes and hair, so we could not get very close.
“You should keep back,” the old man said, as always worried for my safety. “I can manage.”
“No, it’s fine. We can’t get closer anyway. Why don’t we just throw them from here?”
I took a book with a pea-green cover decorated with a picture of fruit and tossed it toward the fire. I’d thrown it as hard as I could, but it barely reached the edge of the pile. The next one, thrown by the old man, made it a little farther up the side. The people around us glanced in our direction, but they said nothing and their faces remained expressionless.
We continued throwing the books, one after the other, without flipping through the pages or so much as glancing at the covers. We repeated the movements almost automatically, as if performing some solemn duty. Still, as each volume left my hand, I felt a slight twinge, as though the hollow place in my memory were being enlarged book by book.
“I had no idea books burned so well,” I said.
“I suppose it’s because they pack so much paper into such a small object,” said the old man, as he continued tossing them into the fire.
“It may take a long time for every word to disappear.”
“I wouldn’t worry, they’ll be nothing but ashes by tomorrow morning,” he said. Pulling a towel from his pocket, he wiped the sweat and soot from his face.
When we’d burned about half the books, we left the park and once again began wheeling the cart through the town. Working so close to the heat of the enormous blaze had tired us out, so we were looking for a smaller fire to finish the job.
The town was quiet. I could sense the roughness in the air that I’d felt after other disappearances, but somehow people seemed calmer. There were almost no cars on the streets, with the exception of the Memory Police trucks, and though the crowds were thick, no one seemed to be stopping to talk. The only sound was that of burning books.
We walked aimlessly, and the cart was easier to pull now that our load was lighter. We turned north, along the street where the streetcar ran, cut through the parking lot at city hall, and made our way along a street lined with houses. From time to time we came upon a vacant lot where a small fire was burning.
“Would you mind if we joined you?” the old man asked the people standing around, and we would stop to warm our hands and burn an armful of books. We might have burned the rest of the cartload at any of these fires, but we worried about the danger of the fires spreading, so we repeated the process: burning some books, pulling the cart farther along, finding another fire. The night was deepening but fires continued to burn. I would have thought the number of novels on the island was relatively small, but pillars of smoke rose in many places with no sign of stopping.
We passed the community center, a gas station, the cannery, a company dormitory, and arrived at last at the sea. Following the coast road, we came upon groups of people gathered around fires on the sand. The sea had dissolved into the darkness. No more than a few books remained in the cart, but we walked on.
The hill came into view. A fire was raging halfway up the slope.
“The library,” I murmured.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said the old man, holding up his hands to shade his eyes and squinting at the flames.
The road up the hill was steep and narrow, so we left the cart and decided to carry the rest of the books in our arms. Under normal circumstances, it would have been too dark to walk this way at night, but thanks to the fire above us, it was nearly as light as day. Partway up, we came upon the garden, though there were no longer any flowers to be seen. Just the occasional bare, withering stalk, above which sparks danced like glittering flower petals.
The library was completely engulfed in flames. Never before had I seen anything burn as brightly or as beautifully, and the intense light and heat chased away all traces of the fear and sadness I had been feeling. The things about which R had been trying to persuade me, the words the woman had screamed into the fire—everything seemed to recede into the distance.
People had gathered to watch the fire, and we could hear them talking.
“I don’t know why they had to burn the whole building.”
“But there’s nothing but books inside, so it’s simpler to just do it all at once.”
“I wonder what they’ll do with the land when it’s gone.”
“I suppose they’ll leave it, the way they did with the garden. But I heard they’ll build a headquarters for the Memory Police someday.”
* * *
. . .
We climbed a bit farther up the hill to the observatory and found it deserted. The last time I had stopped in on a walk during the day, I had thought it seemed largely unchanged, but now, at night, I realized that it was practically in ruins. The windows were broken and covered with cobwebs. Cabinets and desks had been overturned. And the floor was strewn with trash of all sorts—old mugs, pencil holders, blankets, shredded documents. We made our way across the room, and I set the remaining books by the window where my father and I had watched the birds through his binoculars.
“There could be broken glass, be careful,” said the old man. I nodded as I leaned against the window frame.
The library was visible down the slope, through a thick tangle of underbrush. It seemed so close you could reach out and touch it and, at the same time unreal, like an image on a movie screen. In the darkness, only the flames appeared to move. We held our breath, just as the trees below us and the sea beyond seemed to, as though fearful of disturbing this beautiful scene.
“I remember hearing a saying long ago: ‘Men who start by burning books end by burning other men,’ ” I said.
“Who said that?” asked the old man, speaking softly and bringing his hand to his chin.
“I’ve forgotten, though I’m sure it was someone important. But I wonder if that’s where we’re headed.”
“I wonder,” echoed the old man. “It’s hard to say.” He looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and rubbed his chin again. “But there’s nothing to be done. It’s not as though they’re burning every printed word. It’s just the novels, so there’s no reason to think they’ll go further anytime soon.”
“But what if human beings themselves disappear?” I asked. This was the question that had been on my mind. The old man swallowed and blinked again.
“You have to stop worrying about things like that. The disappearances are beyond our control. They have nothing to do with us. We’re all going to die anyway, someday, so what’s the difference? We simply have to leave things to fate.”
* * *
. . .
The library continued to burn. I picked up one of the books from the pile at my feet and threw it out the window. It opened as it flew through the air, cleared the underbrush, and fell gently into the flames. The pages had caught the breeze, and it fluttered as it flew, as if dancing on air.
Next it was the old man’s turn. He chose a thinner, lighter volume, so it floated even more gracefully before vanishing in the flames.
We repeated this ritual over and over, handling each book with great
care.
When the wind changed, a current of warm air came blowing in the window. Our feet were frozen from walking the snowy streets, but our cheeks were warm.
“How did it feel when the ferry was disappeared?” I asked him.
“It’s so long ago I don’t really remember.”
“Did you worry about how you would make a living?” I picked up a thick, heavy book with a brown paper cover.
“I suppose I did. It was upsetting at first. But don’t worry. You’ll find something else to do, and eventually you won’t even remember that you used to write novels.” He stared out the window into the distance.
“But I’m going to go on writing them in secret,” I told him.
He let out a little gasp and turned to look at me. I threw the thick volume into the air with both hands. The paper wrapper made a sound that was almost a sob.
“Do you think you’ll be able to?”
“I don’t know, but R told me that I had to, that my soul would die if I didn’t.”
“He did, did he?…” The old man’s chin came to rest on his hand again, and a thoughtful look settled over his wrinkled face. “I’ve been doing what he told me to do,” he said. “I’ve been listening to the music box every day, but I don’t feel any different. My lost memories aren’t coming back, and I don’t feel any stronger. All I hear is a lot of strange sounds.”
“I know it may not do any good, but I’ve hidden the manuscript I’m working on. I know it’s dangerous, but I don’t want to disappoint R. I don’t know that I’ll feel any different if my soul withers away, but I don’t think I could stand to see him looking so sad.”
“And I’ll keep listening to the music box. What else would I do with such a wonderful present?” As he spoke, the old man brushed away some ash that had landed on my hair. “You should take care not to tire yourself, and you must tell me if there’s ever anything I can do to help.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The last book had finally been tossed out the window. The library building was beginning to collapse in upon itself. From time to time, a portion of the roof or a section of wall would come down with a crash. The circulation desk and the chairs in the reading room could be seen burning in the ruins.
I followed the arc of the last book as it tumbled through the air—and suddenly I realized that, long ago, I had stood at this same window with my father and looked out at a similar sight. I took a deep breath and felt a slight pain, as though a spark had found its way into the bottomless swamp of my heart.
“A bird.”
I remembered. The pages of the book had opened and fluttered through the air just the way birds had once spread their wings and flown off to distant places. But this memory, too, was soon erased by the flames, leaving behind nothing but the burning night.
As the old man had predicted, I soon found another job. The head of the neighborhood association made an introduction for me at a trading company run by an acquaintance.
“They sell spices in bulk. It’s not a large firm, but the owner is an interesting man and the offices are nice enough. He’s apparently looking for a typist.”
“A typist?” I said.
“That doesn’t interest you?”
“I don’t have much experience, just a bit when I was at school. I’m not sure I’d be good enough…”
I repeated the word “typist” silently to myself several times. It seemed to have a special significance.
“Not to worry,” he said. “You can learn as you go. The owner said as much. At any rate, I’m sure you’ll have various other duties to start.”
“I’m very grateful, and I apologize for putting you to so much trouble.” I bowed, but all the while the word “typist” repeated itself in my head. I tried to recover my faded memory, but it remained distant and vague.
“Not at all! Don’t mention it. I was just connecting the dots. We all have to pull together after a disappearance.” He smiled with satisfaction.
And so I came to work at a spice company, and the rhythm of my days changed drastically. I woke early in the morning, prepared the food, water, and other things R would need during the day, and carried them all to the hidden room. In the evening, when I got home from work, I would check to see that R was all right before taking Don for a walk. After that, I would start making dinner. At first, it bothered me to be away from the house for ten hours a day. Inevitably, I imagined the worst happening while I was gone, a fire or a robbery or R suddenly falling ill—or another visit from the Memory Police—and besides that, I was much busier now than I’d been before. It proved to be fairly difficult to juggle my job, watching over R, caring for Don, and managing the house, and I rarely had time to visit the old man on the boat. But the days passed without any major problems.
The spice company was a pleasant, almost homey place. My duties included dusting, answering the phone, and some basic filing. And I was lent a portable typewriter and a typing manual and asked to practice at home. It was the first time I had worked outside the house, but it seemed as though I would manage well enough. The one thing that bothered me, however, was the strong smell of the spices that came from the warehouse behind the office. The bitter, medicinal odor clung to me like the stench of rotting fruit.
On the other hand, one of the perks of the job was that I received gifts of food from some of our clients, like sausage and cheese and corned beef, which had long since vanished from the markets and were an enormous treat for the old man, R, and me.
* * *
. . .
I understood why I had reacted so strongly to the word “typist” when I reread the manuscript I’d given to R for safekeeping, though in point of fact I was no longer capable of reading a novel, much less writing one. I could read the words out loud, but I could no longer understand them as parts of a coherent story with a plot to connect them. They were just characters on the manuscript page, and they evoked in me no feeling or atmosphere, no recognizable scene.
As I traced the words one by one and came at last to that word, I remembered that my novel was about a typist. But the discovery only made it clearer that writing the rest would not be as easy as R had suggested.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, I sat down at my desk. Putting aside the paperweight, I carefully examined the manuscript, beginning from the first page. But the work never went smoothly. I tried various strategies—reading the same line several times, staring at a single word, running my eyes over the words at a steady speed—but nothing seemed to help. By the fifth or sixth page, I had invariably lost the will to continue. Then I would flip through the pages until I came upon a section that looked promising and try the same thing again, but the results were always the same. In the end, I was so weary that the mere sight of the lines on the paper made me dizzy.
But if continuing what I’d already written was impossible, it occurred to me that perhaps I could write something new, and so I took out a fresh sheet of paper. To warm up my fingers, I tried writing a, i, u, e, o. Then, taking care to match the size of the characters to the lines on the paper, I continued with ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. And as I wrote these meaningless characters, I began to feel a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that I was fulfilling R’s hopes for me, even in the tiniest way. But when I erased the characters and the blank lines spread out in front of me, my fingers grew numb and my anxiety returned with the realization that I had no idea what to write.
What had I written? I asked myself. At night, I would try to recall anything at all about those moments, seated at my desk, when I had been searching for words. The typewriter had sat at the edge of the desk, watching me in silence. Fortunately, my coworkers at the spice company had not said much about my typing practice, since I was making little progress. I would tap the keys at random, producing a stream of metallic clicks. In these moments, I would suddenly have the feeling that a story was coming bac
k to me and I would reach out instinctively to seize it. But there was nothing for me to hold. When I could no longer stand to stare at the blank page, I would type a, i, u, e, o, and then, imagining that I would now be able to write something, I would erase them again. But of course nothing came to me, and I would return to a, i, u, e, o. And the process would repeat itself. In the end, all that was left was a torn page, from the many times I’d erased what I’d written.
* * *
. . .
“You shouldn’t force the memories. Just try to untangle them slowly,” R told me. I had apologized for handing him a blank sheet of paper, but his response was encouraging and showed no sign of disappointment.
“I’ve tried, but I’m afraid it’s useless.”
“You shouldn’t say that. You’re the same person now that you were when you wrote novels. The only thing that’s changed is that the books have been burned. But even if paper itself disappears, words will remain. It will be all right, you’ll see. We haven’t lost the stories.”
He took me in his arms, as he always did now. The bed was soft and warm. His skin was growing whiter and whiter, and his muscles seemed more visible than ever. His hair had grown out and hung down over his eyes.
“The flames burned all night. So long that I thought the night itself might never end. And everyone stayed on to stare at the fire, even after they’d burned all their books. The sound of burning paper filled the air, and yet, for some reason, I felt as though I were surrounded by total silence. As though my eardrums were frozen. This was the first time a disappearance seemed like a solemn ceremony. The old man and I just stood there holding hands, because it felt as though I would be sucked into the flames if someone didn’t hold me back.”