I was reshelving books when a teenager came up and spoke to me. It was after eleven in the morning. I had on a beige crew neck sweater, olive-green chinos, and a library ID hanging from a lanyard around my neck. I was removing damaged books from the shelves and replacing them with new ones.
The boy was sixteen or seventeen but small for his age, and was wearing a green parka, faded jeans, and black basketball shoes. All were well worn and looked to be the wrong size. Somebody’s hand-me-downs, perhaps. There was a picture of a yellow submarine on the front of the parka. The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. The boy had on the kind of round, metal-frame glasses John Lennon used to wear, and they tilted a bit to one side as if too big for him. It felt like someone from the 1960s had mistakenly time-slipped into the present.
I’d seen the boy often in the reading room. Always at the same seat by the window, a solemn look on his face as he was lost in reading. Other than when he turned a page, he never moved. He must really love to read, I’d thought. But I found it odd that he would hang out in the library every day, from morning on. Didn’t he go to school?
I asked Mrs. Soeda once about him, whether it was okay that he didn’t attend school.
Mrs. Soeda shook her head. “There are reasons behind it, but he doesn’t go to school. In a way, the library’s his school. His parents are okay with it.”
A boy refusing to go to school, I figured. I asked no more. I didn’t see any problem with him coming to the library every day and spending his time reading.
But on that day, he didn’t have a book in hand but instead was wandering back and forth in front of the shelves, as if lost in thought.
“Excuse me,” the boy said, coming to a halt.
“How can I help you?” I replied, books clasped to my chest.
“Would you please tell me your date of birth—day, month, and year?” the boy asked. For a boy his age he sounded too polite, too precise. And toneless. Like he was reading, in a monotone, sentences printed on a page.
With a few books clutched to me, I turned to face him. He looked like he’d been well raised, and had nice features. His ears were bit too big, though. His hair looked to be recently cut, was neatly trimmed, the skin above his ears shaved close. He was short, pale, his neck and arms lanky. No trace of any tan, and I doubted he ever played sports. A strange sort of light was present in his eyes as he gazed at me. A sharp, clearly focused light, as if he were gazing intently at something at the bottom of a deep hole…and maybe I was that something at the bottom of a deep hole.
“Date of birth?” I repeated.
“Yes, day, month, and year you were born.”
I was a little confused, but went ahead and told him. I didn’t know what he was after, but I figured there was no harm done in telling him.
“A Wednesday,” the boy immediately declared.
Not knowing what he meant, I screwed up my face a fraction. I seemed to have disturbed him a little.
“The day you were born was a Wednesday,” the boy said. He said this curtly, as if not wanting to explain the details. And as soon as he got this out, he headed back to the reading room, sat down in his window seat, and went back to the thick book he’d been reading.
It took me a while to figure out what had happened. And then it struck me. The boy was one of the so-called Calendar Boys, who can come up with the day of the week for any date you give them, past or future. He had that special ability. Savant syndrome was the accepted term for the condition, like the character in the movie Rain Man. In many cases they have mental disabilities yet display an uncanny ability in areas like mathematics and art.
I wanted to check the internet to see if my birth date really was a Wednesday but couldn’t since the library had no computers. (I checked my own computer after going home that day, and, sure enough, he was right.)
I called Mrs. Soeda, at the counter, over near the office, and quietly pointed out the boy.
“I wanted to ask about him.”
“Did he do something?”
“Is he sort of a savant or something?”
Mrs. Soeda looked at me. “Did he, by chance, ask you your date of birth?”
I explained it all to her.
When I finished she said, blankly, “Yes, he often asks people their date of birth. And tells them right away what day of the week it was. But that’s all. He doesn’t bother anyone and doesn’t cause any trouble. And he never asks anyone a second time.”
“Does he ask everyone he comes across?”
“No, not everyone. He seems selective. It depends on the person whether he asks them or not. How he decides, though, I have no idea.”
“I see,” I said. Unusual, but as she said, it didn’t cause any problems. It was just dates of birth and days of the week.
“So what day of the week were you born?”
“Wednesday,” I said.
“Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” Mrs. Soeda said. “Do you know the rhyme?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a line from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme. ‘Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe…’ ”
“I don’t think I’ve heard it,” I said.
“It’s just for kids. I was born on Monday but don’t have a particularly pretty face,” Mrs. Soeda said, her face typically serious.
“Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” I repeated.
“Just a line from a nursery rhyme. Wordplay, that’s all.”
“Why doesn’t he go to school? Was he bullied or something?”
“No, that’s not it. He couldn’t get into high school.”
Mrs. Soeda put down the ballpoint pen she was holding, readjusted her glasses, and then went on.
“Two years ago he managed to graduate from the public junior high in this town, but didn’t go on to the nearby high school. Because his grades were all over the place. In subjects he was good at he’d get a nearly perfect score, but in ones he wasn’t good at his grades were close to zero. He’d memorize books he read, with a photographic memory, absorbing so much information, so many details, that it was hard for him to connect it all in some practical way. Most of the information was too specialized to be of any use on the high school entrance exam. On top of which, he totally refused to participate in PE. There was no way he could attend a regular high school.”
“I see,” I said. “He really does enjoy reading, doesn’t he.”
“He certainly does, and he comes here about every day, reading books at a furious pace. At this pace he’ll have finished most of the books we have by the end of the year.”
“What kind of books does he read?”
“You name it. He’s not choosy and will read basically anything. He absorbs all the information there like it’s a vitamin drink. As long as it’s information, he takes it all in.”
“That’s wonderful, but some information can be dangerous. If you can’t make the right choices.”
“You’re right. So I make it a point to examine every book before he takes it out. I’ll take it away if I feel it’s information that could cause trouble. For instance, books with depictions of sex or violence that go too far…”
“Doesn’t that cause problems, forcibly taking away books from him?”
“It’s quite alright. He does what I say,” Mrs. Soeda said. “Actually, when he was in elementary school, my husband was his homeroom teacher for two years. So I’ve known him since he was little. My husband really cares about him. Though the boy wasn’t always easy for him.”
“What kind of family is he from?”
“His parents run a private kindergarten in town, as well as a few juku prep schools. It’s a well-respected family. They have three sons, and this boy is the youngest. The other two are real prodigies, graduating from the local high school with top grades and going on to universities in Tokyo. One became a civil defense lawyer after graduating. The other is still in university. In med school, as I recall. But the youngest brother couldn’t go on to high school and instead comes to the library, reading one book after another. As I said before, this is his school.”
“And he memorizes the books he reads?”
“To give you an example, he read Toson Shimazaki’s novel Before the Dawn. And once he did, he could recite it all from beginning to end. It’s quite a lengthy novel, but he memorized it all. He can quote every word, every line, verbatim. Though I think he probably doesn’t understand what this novel is trying to convey to readers, or its significance in Japanese literary history.”
I had heard about people with this kind of ability, but it was the first time I’d ever met one.
Mrs. Soeda said, “Some people find his special ability kind of creepy. Especially in a small conservative town, anyone who doesn’t fit in or is out of the ordinary is excluded, and most people avoid getting to know the boy. Like avoiding someone with a contagious disease. At least, no one goes out of their way to know him. It’s sad, really. He’s a very quiet boy, and other than going around asking people their date of birth he never bothers anyone.”
“So instead of going to school he comes to this library every day and reads whatever he can lay his hands on. But what’s the point of taking in such a huge amount of information?”
“I can’t help you there. Maybe no one knows. All I can say is it may be an insatiable intellectual curiosity that drives him on. I can’t say whether cramming in all that knowledge will, in the end, be good for him or not. It’s unclear whether there’s a limit to storage capacity for knowledge. There’s so much I don’t know about it. But at least I can say that the thirst for knowledge itself is important and meaningful, and libraries exist, after all, to satisfy that.”
I nodded. She was right. Libraries existed to satisfy people’s thirst for knowledge. No matter what they want to do with it.
“But there must be a school somewhere that would take in a boy like him,” I said.
“Yes, there are several specialized schools like that, but none in this vicinity, unfortunately. If he wanted to attend one of those schools, he’d need to move away from this town and live in a dorm. His mother, though, adores him, dotes on him, and would never let him leave her side.”
“Which is why this library became a substitute school.”
“Right. His mother knew Mr. Koyasu from long ago and asked him to help. The boy’s an unparalleled reader, and as long as he can read books, he’s quiet and well behaved, she said. Could you please mentor him here in the library? And after discussing it in detail with the mother, Mr. Koyasu fundamentally agreed to take on the role.”
“And after Mr. Koyasu passed away you took over that dying wish and took care of the boy?”
“I wouldn’t say I take care of him, but I do try to keep an eye on him. I keep a record of every book he reads. I’m very fond of the boy. I know he’s a bit odd, and can be stubborn at times, but he doesn’t require that much of me. He comes every day, sits in the same chair, and is totally absorbed in reading. His ability to concentrate is astounding. His eyes never leave the pages. As long as you don’t bother him, he’s quiet and well behaved. He’s never once caused any trouble here at the library.”
“Doesn’t he have any friends the same age?”
Mrs. Soeda shook her head. “As far as I know, there’s no one he’s close to. For one thing, none of the kids his same age have anything in common they could talk about. Plus in junior high he caused some trouble involving a girl in his class.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He was interested in a girl in his class and followed her around everywhere. She wasn’t so pretty and didn’t stand out or anything, but something about her really attracted him. And though he followed her, he never did anything strange. Never spoke to her. He just silently followed her around. And not right next to her but at a distance. The girl found it all pretty creepy, of course, her parents complained to the principal, and there was a bit of a to-do about it. Everyone in town knows about it. So no parents are happy about him getting near their children.”
After this I was more aware of this boy in his window seat, lost in a book—always keeping my distance so he wouldn’t notice.
As far as I could tell, he invariably wore the same green parka with the Yellow Submarine picture on it (he must have really liked it). Until then I’d never particularly paid attention to him, but after hearing Mrs. Soeda’s explanation, I sensed something out of the ordinary in his figure sitting there, intently reading. Once he opened a book and began reading, he’d sit there, completely still, for hours at a time (I doubt he’d even notice if a horsefly, for instance, had landed on his cheek). His eyes as he followed the words were flat, expressionless, a thin film of sweat forming sometimes on his forehead.
But these were all things I was aware of and observed only after Mrs. Soeda told me about his background. If she hadn’t told me and I just saw him sitting there I probably wouldn’t have thought anything was different. I’d have merely noted a smallish young boy fixedly reading a book—that’s all. I was like that myself as a boy, so lost reading that I’d almost forget to eat or sleep.
And after asking me my date of birth, the boy didn’t come to speak to me again. Once he’d asked a person’s date of birth (and instantly figured the day of the week), the boy’s curiosity about that person seemed satisfied.
It was on a Monday, the day the library was closed, that I saw Yellow Submarine Boy somewhere other than in the library reading room.