Fracture

by Andres Neuman

  As he walks toward the water’s edge, for once he is unconcerned about his shoes. The sun spreads a sail over the waves. Mr. Watanabe half closes his eyes and extends his arms. What exactly he is trying to embrace, he isn’t quite sure.

  Then he recalls the divers of Mie, in the Kansai region, who would plunge underwater bare-chested in search of mollusks and algae. He would like nothing more than to see one of those legendary figures emerge in this instant.

  By chance, a silhouette glitters at the water’s edge. He runs toward it.

  It is neither a young diver nor a mysterious mermaid. It is a small elderly man with a slight paunch, who declares how pleased he is to meet a stranger at last. He says he is Dr. Nagai, a retired radiologist, at his service. A pen and a thermometer protrude from his shirt pocket.

  They converse without looking at each other, facing the lightened sea, as though reading subtitles on its watery screen.

  Watanabe isn’t surprised to hear that Dr. Nagai is the only remaining medic in town. For that reason he cannot leave. If he went, he argues, who would look after the locals? His grandchildren live far away and he has convinced his wife to visit them. He is spending some time alone, as alone as one can be beside the sea, he adds. Even the authorities, after advising people to evacuate the village, have left. The council offices have relocated to the southwest, away from the danger zones.

  So we are now a zombie community, he says.

  The two men exchange lighthearted comments about the eccentricities of some of the locals. Dr. Nagai relates various anecdotes. When he mentions Yuma and her compulsive housebreaking, Watanabe interrupts him. He asks if he is referring to the old lady who was forcing open the door to her neighbor’s house. The doctor says he doesn’t know which door it was this time, but that she does the same to all of them. She’s been behaving like this ever since the evacuation. Watanabe suggests she may simply be hungry.

  Yuma, hungry? says the doctor. I doubt it. At first, my wife and I used to invite her over for lunch. As soon as the meal was finished, she would rise from the table and thank us very politely. Shortly after, we’d see her breaking into other houses.

  They continue to chat as they stroll along the beach. Mr. Watanabe notices that his shoes are sodden. He takes them off and walks with them hooked on his fingers. The bag on his other shoulder is starting to feel heavy and he switches the items around. Observing his gesture, Dr. Nagai inquires about the state of his scapulae and its customary stiffness. Watanabe describes his aches and pains. The doctor nods with the vehemence of one who is a sufferer as well as an expert.

  After a certain age, he says, we don’t know whether to complain more about engine failure or the holes in the bodywork.

  Watanabe asks him if he has noticed any changes in the health of his neighbors since March. The doctor observes that, in strictly physical terms, no one appears worse than they were. In fact, he admits, some patients seem healthier than before, or at least a little more active.

  It’s not easy to tell one thing from the other, he says. My patients have to struggle now to meet their daily needs. Perhaps that effort keeps them alert. Maybe they feel they are surviving danger. In short, they’ve had no choice but to start again from scratch.

  You can’t imagine how much I sympathize with them, replies Mr. Watanabe.

  They walk back up the beach and stop next to a black car. The doctor tells him that his previous cars had all been white, the color of ambulances. And that he thought a change would do him good.

  Exhausted from the walk, his shoes still soaking and his shoulder throbbing, Watanabe accepts the doctor’s offer to return together.

  On the way back, Dr. Nagai proposes to examine him. A routine checkup, he explains, just to be on the safe side. Watanabe replies that there’s no need, that he feels fine. Accelerating slightly, the doctor asks—implores, almost—if he’s sure.

  Just an examination with the stethoscope, he insists as he parks in the town center. A blood pressure check. An eye scan, at least.

  Watanabe thanks the doctor, tells him perhaps tomorrow, and escapes from the car.

  * * *

  Close to the hostel, in an alleyway he has not walked down before, he passes the entrance to a kindergarten. He turns around and walks back. He rereads the sign: NAGAE’S GARDEN.

  He knocks on the door. Tries unsuccessfully to push it open. He peers in through the windows. He can just make out some toys lined up along the edge of a table, nearly leaping into the void.

  He goes to ask for help from Mr. Satō, who doesn’t understand why he is so interested in the nursery school. Apart from the obvious coincidence with his little sister’s name, Watanabe finds it hard to explain even to himself. All he knows is that he wants to go inside.

  Always ready to please his customers, or in this case his only customer, the guesthouse owner ends up calling Mrs. Takahoshi, an old friend who worked for many years as a teacher at Nagae’s Garden.

  From what Watanabe can glean from his tone, Mr. Satō and she seem to enjoy something more than friendship. The final, melodious whispers appear to confirm his theory.

  Mr. Satō informs him that his friend still possesses a set of keys and that the kindergarten principal, who has left town, had asked that she pop in from time to time to look after the plants in the playground.

  You’re in luck, says Mr. Satō.

  That depends, he replies.

  With a speed almost verging on the impossible (which makes Watanabe suspect she was already in the guesthouse), Mrs. Takahoshi appears in reception.

  Without asking any questions or waiting for any explanation, she leads him to Nagae’s Garden. She walks ahead of him, as if she were on her own. The swiftness and detachment of her gait make her seem taller than she is. Mr. Watanabe thinks to himself that under different circumstances, he would have liked to ask her out to dinner. That he would even have liked to hear her refusal.

  The door creaks as it opens, like wood that has lost the habit. She opens the shutters and switches on several lights.

  Nothing is out of place and yet somehow this orderliness merely underlines the desolation: everything is there, but no one is there.

  There’s a distinctive sound, he thinks, a kind of hum where people ought to be but aren’t. In places meant for children it is even more deafening. An empty cot can be more terrifying than an occupied coffin.

  They walk through classrooms papered with drawings. They weave around desks covered in a fine skin of dust. They brush past colorful, alien objects.

  Mrs. Takahoshi steps out into the playground to examine the state of the plants. With a disapproving look, she goes off to fetch a trowel and some scissors. Then she bends down, tugging the hem of her dress, partly so as not to crease it and possibly because she feels observed.

  Mr. Watanabe follows her movements carefully, and then decides to speak.

  Who is Nagae? he asks.

  She turns around, looks at him in surprise, and immediately recovers her air of aloofness.

  The name was the former principal’s idea, says Mrs. Takahoshi. We worked here together until she retired. It was her first granddaughter’s name.

  Watanabe stoops and passes her the scissors.

  And how is Nagae? he asks, smiling. What is she doing now?

  She takes the scissors and cuts off a leaf.

  The girl was never born, Mrs. Takahoshi replies. That’s why she named the kindergarten after her. She said that this way her granddaughter, wherever she might be, would be able to play.

  They finish seeing to the plants and wash their hands.

  Watanabe hasn’t spoken again. Mrs. Takahoshi appears to sense the effect her last reply has had on him and, in an attempt at conversation so forced it seems like ventriloquism, she begins to tell him stories about the school.

  He is moved by his guide’s sudden exertions and friendliness. He is tempted to misinterpret them.

  In my day, she says, we taught forty children or more. By the time I
retired there were twenty at most. More recently I think this dwindled to fifteen. After Fukushima, only five were left. They didn’t go onto the playground and they brought their own water. The authorities told us that it wasn’t a problem for the children to go outside, but that it was better they didn’t. That it was all right for the children to drink running water. But better that they didn’t.

  Recovering his voice, and with it his attention to Mrs. Takahoshi’s ankles, he asks whether they still drink the water at her house.

  I do, she replies. I’m a widow.

  Like Mr. Satō, he says, unable to repress his impertinence.

  Like half the town, she corrects him.

  Watanabe nods, lowers his head, and retreats into silence.

  Mrs. Takahoshi perches on a desk. The posture takes years off her: it’s easy to imagine her among children. She asks if he is from Tokyo. He falters in his reply. He says yes, then no, and then partly. At last he finds an answer that satisfies him.

  I’m partly from many parts, he replies.

  Mrs. Takahoshi slaps her thighs, perhaps a common gesture in her days as a teacher.

  They install the power plants here, she says, sighing, and the electricity and the money go to Tokyo. As soon as there’s a disaster, the problem is ours, of course. I used to think that at least it would create jobs, but look at this place.

  I’m not much of a Tokyoite either, he says, perusing the shelves.

  Did you know that in this area they charge us less for electricity? she goes on. That discount is an insult. It’s as if they’re admitting there are reasons for them to compensate us.

  Suddenly, on one of the shelves, forgotten among the toys, Watanabe discovers a lithium battery shining like a coin. He slides it out with one finger and lets it drop into his other hand. Without quite knowing why, he slips it into his leather bag.

  Mrs. Takahoshi starts to close the shutters. He asks her permission to use the bathroom.

  When he comes out, he notices she has switched off all the lights except for the one at the entrance. He gives a deep bow (which strains his back slightly) and thanks her for the tour. She replies that it has been a pleasure talking to him. Then, as her hand grasps the handle of the front door (a broad, firm hand that seems to belong to someone else), she asks him his opinion of salvation.

  Caught off guard, Mr. Watanabe clumsily articulates a couple of ideas. He has always thought there are certain kinds of deeply held convictions that are impossible to express. To allay her disappointment, he adds a phrase that sounds sincere as he improvises it.

  As we get older, we lose opinions about things. That is to say, we gain ideas.

  Mrs. Takahoshi relaxes her grip, lets go of the door handle, and looks at him.

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, she says. I still change my opinions. Regarding salvation, for example. It’s been a long time since I lost hope in any external power. And lately, I’m not even sure about our inner powers. I’d be happy now with a tiny light inside my head.

  He can’t help but look up at the old lantern spreading a halo around her hair.

  I think people are too keen to control their departure, she continues. To decide how, where, who with. To me, all that seems pointless. I’d go so far as to say it’s counterproductive. The circumstances are random. The only thing that we can control is what goes on inside our heads, before the moment comes.

  Watanabe can feel his eyes growing moist. He feels an urge to ask Mrs. Takahoshi to fly to Tokyo with him. He contemplates her worn face, the wrinkles on her brow, her dry lips.

  We should go, she says, yanking the door open.

  The dusk weaves among the alleyways.

  Mrs. Takahoshi smiles at him, blinks a few times, and vanishes amid an echo of footsteps.

  It takes a while for Watanabe to move. Something besides his legs is weighing him down.

  Instead of returning to the guesthouse, he heads in the opposite direction. He notices a slight burning sensation in his throat. He rummages in his bag for a piece of spearmint chewing gum, and instead feels the battery. Without thinking, he raises it to his mouth and licks it. He doesn’t stop when he realizes what he’s doing. He licks the lithium battery as if it were a frozen caramel, rolls the tip of his tongue around its smooth curves, imagines its energy awakening in the warmth of his mouth, connecting the dormant voltage with all the words yet to be said.

  Then he slowly spits it out into the palm of his hand.

  HE CROSSES A SMALL PARK, where, he assumes, kids used to play with their parents after kindergarten. There’s a bare patch of lawn and children’s paintings on a yellow wall. He observes the still swings. The frames where only shadows climb. The merry-go-rounds that don’t go around. The slides growing old.

  Mr. Watanabe sits on a swing to rest. A few last rays of the sun doodle on his face in color. He lets his bag drop to the ground. Staring straight ahead, he pushes off, tentatively at first, then harder.

  Slowly he rises into the air, at once trapped and liberated by the swinging motion, these movements forward and back that increase in speed.

  Out of nowhere, a cool breeze rises. Watanabe is astonished to feel cold.

  He hears the sound of something moving through the leaves. He puts one foot on the ground and looks up. His sole leaves a groove.

  Then he thinks he sees Walsh, the cat.

  * * *

  By the time he returns to the guesthouse, it’s pitch-black outside. He finds Mr. Satō hunched over the table, working on a sudoku puzzle. He stands up to greet his guest.

  Sudoku puzzles calm me, he says, because they make time stop. The exact opposite of kintsugi, don’t you think?

  In that outpouring of affection that has less to do with the recipient than one’s own emotions, Watanabe embraces him. His host remains as stiff as a board. Then he announces that he is steaming some vegetables. He mentions dinnertime.

  Watanabe tells him later perhaps. Now he needs to rest.

  In his room, lying on his back, shoes off, he becomes engrossed in deciphering the stains on the ceiling. His vision dims. He closes his eyes and breathes out. A jisei verse comes to his mind. He can’t recall who wrote it:

  One final wish:

  to be able to seize

  the air.

  He remembers Chekhov instead. He opens his eyes, alarmed. He notices once more his difficulty breathing and calls reception. Asks if there is any champagne.

  With great regret, the owner informs him that his stock of alcohol ran out weeks ago, except for canned beer.

  Mr. Watanabe thinks that for certain rituals, a can of beer would be in very poor taste. Nothing would vex him more than to pull the tab and see the froth rise, swell like a wave, and spill over.

  And so he sits up energetically. He splashes water on his face. Puts on his shoes and goes out to take another stroll through the quiet town. At his age, he reflects, eating dinner is the least of his concerns. Spring evenings are so pleasurable.

  Outside once more, he walks toward the night and feels, for the first time in a long while, that he has time.

  Far off, among the mountains, clouds gather.

  11

  AND THE WATER

  THE WATER RIPS THE SACK OF CLOUDS, slits it with its blade, runs through the thunder’s drumrolls and the lightning’s circuits, sews its stitches across the night sky, and dives headfirst into the sea like an acrobat from his trampoline.

  The water punctures the ocean, probes it, turning small into big and narrow into boundless, flows among underwater tensions, Patagonian extremes, fractured channels, echoes around voiceless islands and bays, navigates the remotest capes, quenches the frozen fire scaling the heights, explores the Strait of Magellan, melts the borders uniting the Pacific and the Atlantic.

  The water bursts against the surface, widening every circle of the River Plate, perforates its cloudy skin, churns the mud, disperses the residues and the toxic soup, merges with the current, splits into forces fighting one another, tests
whirlpools, black weeds, and injurious fish, stirs up sediments, slime, clay, sand, with sewage waste and blood, the liquid from the sky doesn’t clean the river away, it simply rouses its memory.

  The water lives, unfolding its wrinkles like an old sheet, swims toward the coast, slips between reeds, reaches the shore, makes land, impregnates the plain, advances toward the lights, those lights that ripple with an aquatic pulse, connects to the tips of fishing rods, trickles down anglers’ hoods, contributes to the sweat of a runner oblivious to the storm, to the fluid of lovers driving along the Costanera, to the plow of the tire, the sowing of brakes.

  The water works the city, eroding its profile, slowly catches the sickness of Buenos Aires, drips its insomnia, is diluted in its glitter and its grime, resounds at the wrong moment above Luna Park stadium, sends a message from the former Central Post Office, marches around the Plaza de Armas, lays siege to the Casa Rosada, spins around the Plaza de Mayo, is deposited in the Banco de la Nación, bounces off terraces that never stop broadcasting rehashed news and laundered linen, floods the drainpipes, slides down walls, scrapes off the mold, filters through windows, invades homes and the lung of the bedroom, laps at every doorway, sits on the thresholds stained by footsteps, leaflets that sell nothing, and penultimate cigarettes.

  The water lands, crashes into the pavement, spreads in countless directions, shatters like a succession of microscopic vases, gropes the ground, becomes elastic, picks up speed, circulates around the disorderly asphalt, bathes the network of streets, pumps its torrent, alters the beat of traffic, occupies avenues at widemouthed traffic lights, swamps the corners with their kiosks, their cats, and their mythologies, accumulates at the edge of curbs, and finally finds its course.

  The water flows urgently along the gutters, pushes the column of fury, the decisive wave, reproduces both shipwreck and rescue, drags along garbage, broken shapes, scattered particles, traces of energy, takes with it the remains of the night, sweeps them to the mouth of the drains, those drains where all things end up, in the depths, the farthest depths, where the fragments reunite.