When I pushed open the door to the coffee shop, two customers were already there. Two mid-thirties women, probably settling in for a nice chat after dropping off their kids at elementary school or preschool. They were seated at a small table by the window, whispering to each other, serious looks on their faces.
I sat at the counter, ordered my usual black coffee, and ate a blueberry muffin. The muffin was still slightly warm, moist and soft. In this way the coffee became my blood, the muffin part of my flesh. A precious source of nutrition.
I loved to watch her, nimbly at work behind the counter. As always her hair was pulled tight behind her and she had on a red gingham apron.
“So are those brothers still handing out the boy’s photo in front of the station?”
“I would guess so,” she said as she washed dishes.
“But they haven’t found any clues yet.”
“They haven’t found anyone who’s seen the boy. From what I heard, the way he disappeared was very odd. They can’t explain how he got out of the house in the middle of the night by himself.”
“It’s a mystery.”
“He seemed to me to be a pretty mysterious child from the start.”
I nodded. “He had some strange abilities. Not your ordinary child, for sure. He saw the world differently from us.”
She stopped washing, looked up, and gazed at me.
“Are you free to talk this evening after I close up? If you have the time, I mean.”
“Of course I have the time,” I said. After the sun set, my only plan was to listen to a classical music program on FM radio while reading.
“Okay, I’ll close up shop at six as always, so could you come a little after that?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be here a little after six.”
“Thanks.”
The shop got crowded around lunchtime, so I decided to make my exit. She put a blueberry muffin in a paper bag to take with me.
Back home the first thing I did was wash a week’s worth of laundry that had piled up. As the washing machine did its thing I vacuumed and gave the bathroom a good scrub. I cleaned the windows and made my bed. When the laundry was done, I hung it out on the frame outside to dry. Then I listened to the FM radio broadcast of an Alexander Borodin string quartet while ironing some shirts and sheets. Ironing sheets took time.
The radio announcer said that at the time Borodin was better known, and more respected, as a chemist than as a musician. At least to me, though, nothing about the string quartet seemed like the work of a chemist. Smooth melodies, gentle harmonies—who knows, maybe there was an element of chemistry to it after all.
Finished ironing, I grabbed my tote bag and went out shopping. I bought food I needed at the supermarket, then, back home, prepped some meals. Washed and sorted out the vegetables, wrapped up the meat and fish in plastic wrap, and put the ones that needed to be frozen in the freezer. I made some soup with chicken bones and parboiled pumpkin and carrots. Doing these household tasks one by one I felt, bit by bit, my usual self again.
Based on my less than stellar knowledge of classical music, Alexander Borodin was one of the so-called Russian Five. Who were the others? Mussorgsky, then Rimsky-Korsakov…but I couldn’t recall the others. As I arranged things in the fridge, I did my best to recall, but it was a no-go. Not remembering them didn’t cause any problems or anything, though.
I left home at five thirty. During the day the gentle sunshine had brought a promise of spring to come, but come sundown a cold wind suddenly blew up, as if winter had won back its lost territory. I buried my hands in my coat pockets and headed toward the station. For no special reason the mental picture came to me of Borodin doing some complex chemical experiment while lovely melodies played in his head.
After six there were no customers left in the coffee shop, and she was straightening up. She had loosened the hair she’d had tied up, taken off her gingham apron, and was dressed in a white blouse and slim jeans. Her lean figure looked wonderful. Well proportioned overall, and her movements were supple.
“Can I help with anything?” I asked.
“Thanks, but I’m good. I’m used to doing it by myself, and it doesn’t take long. Just take a seat and relax.”
I did as she said, sat on a stool at the counter, and watched her briskly wrap up for the day. It seemed that there was a set order she did things in. She dried the washed dishes and placed them on a shelf, switched off all the various devices, totaled up the register, and lastly lowered the blind at the window.
After closing, a hush fell over the shop. A silence deeper than necessary. The shop looked like a totally different place from when it was open during the day. All her tasks done, she meticulously washed her hands, wiped each finger with a towel, and came over and sat down on the stool beside me.
“Do you mind if I smoke a cigarette?” she asked.
“Not at all. I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Only one cigarette a day,” she said. “After I close up shop, I sit here at the counter and smoke just one. It’s like a little ceremony.”
“The other day you didn’t smoke.”
“I hesitated to. I thought you might not like it.”
She took a pack of long-sized menthol cigarettes out of the cash register, extracted one, and stuck it between her lips, struck a match from a matchbook, and lit it. She narrowed her eyes, enjoyed inhaling and then exhaling the smoke. The cigarette seemed mild, and as long as she didn’t smoke too many, I figured it wasn’t that harmful.
“Would you come to my place for dinner, like last time?” I asked.
She gave a small shake of the head. “I think I’ll pass today. I’m not hungry. I might have a bite later, but I’m fine now. If you don’t mind, could we just sit and talk for a while?”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Do you drink whiskey?”
“When I’m in the mood.”
“I have a really nice single malt. Will you have some with me?”
“Of course,” I said.
She went behind the counter and pulled down a bottle of Bowmore twelve-year-old whiskey. The bottle was half empty.
“That’s a great whiskey,” I said.
“It’s a gift from someone.”
“Is this also one of your little ceremonies?”
“Sort of,” she said. “My own secret ceremony. Each day one menthol cigarette and one glass of single malt. Or sometimes wine.”
“Single people need those kind of modest rituals in their lives. To get through each day.”
“Do you have those too?”
“Several,” I said.
“For instance?”
“Ironing. Making soup stock. Doing ab training.”
She seemed to want to give an opinion on this but held off.
“With whiskey,” she said, “I don’t use ice, just a little water. What about you? If you want some ice, I can put some in.”
“I’ll have the same as you.”
She poured a double into each glass, added a splash of mineral water, and gently stirred them with a swizzle stick. She set both glasses on the counter and came back to sit beside me. We clinked glasses together and each took a sip.
“A very aromatic flavor,” I said.
“People say that Islay whiskies have the fragrance of peat and sea breeze.”
“Could be. Though I couldn’t tell you what peat smells like.”
She laughed. “Me neither.”
“Do you always drink it this way? With just a bit of water?” I asked.
“Sometimes I drink it straight, or on the rocks. But most of the time like this. It’s expensive whiskey, and this doesn’t ruin the aroma.”
“And you always drink just one glass?”
“Yes, just the one. Depending on the day I might have another just before bed, but never any more than that. Otherwise, it could get out of hand. Living alone, I’m scared of that. I’m still just a beginner.”
Silence continued for a time. The silence of the closed-up shop lay heavy on my shoulders. To break the silence I asked, “Um, do you know the Russian Five?”
She shook her head a fraction, and quietly, slowly, crushed out the menthol cigarette in the ashtray, as if rubbing it out. “No, can’t say that I do. It is something to do with politics? An anarchist group maybe?”
“No, no connection with politics. It was a group of five Russian composers active in the nineteenth century.”
She looked at me curiously. “So…what about them? The group of five Russian composers.”
“Nothing. I’m just asking. I can remember the names of three of them, but the other two escape me. I used to know them all. It’s been bothering me most of the day.”
“The Russian Five,” she said, and laughed happily. “You’re a strange one.”
“I think you told me you had something you wanted to talk with me about?”
“Ah, that’s right,” she said. She brought the glass of whiskey to her lips and took a small sip. “But as time’s gone by, I don’t know if I should tell you.”
I likewise took a sip of whiskey. I savored the sensation as it slowly made its way down my throat, and waited, silently, for her to go on.
“Because if I tell you this you might be disappointed and not want to see me anymore.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to tell me, but if there’s a good opportunity to say it, I think it’s best to go right ahead. My own rather limited experience tells me that if you let the right opportunity slip by things usually get kind of messy.”
“But is now the right opportunity?”
“You’ve finished work for the day, have had a slim menthol cigarette and a couple of sips of an excellent single malt, so I’d say, yes, this might be the right opportunity.”
A faint smile rose at the corners of her mouth, like the moon rising over the ridge of a mountain. She brushed the hair back from her forehead. Her long, slim fingers were shapely.
“If you put it that way, I guess I’ll do my best. You might be disappointed when you hear it. Or maybe not disappointed at all, and I’ll have embarrassed myself and afterward find myself left all alone.”
Afterward find myself left all alone?
No comment from me on this. Since I knew she was about to launch into whatever she had to say.
“I’ve never told anybody this before.”
The thermostat of the AC unit on the ceiling clicked on loudly. I kept silent.
“Can I ask you a direct question?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not sure how to put this, but are you—interested in me as a woman?”
I nodded. “I guess I am. Now that you ask me, I’d say I definitely am.”
“And that includes a sexual component.”
“To some extent.”
She frowned ever so slightly. “To some extent, meaning how much, actually? If you don’t mind telling me, I’d like to know.”
“Well, specifically…Let me see. Earlier today I changed the sheets on my bed, and as I was smoothing out the wrinkles, I thought about you lying on the bed. It was just a supposition, a possibility and nothing more, but it was a wonderful possibility.”
She swirled the glass of whiskey in her hand. Then she said, “I think that makes me very happy you said that.”
“I think that makes me pretty happy to hear that makes you happy. Though I’m sensing a however here.”
“However…,” she said. She took her time choosing the words. “However, unfortunately I can’t respond to that hope of yours, or the possibility there. Though I wish I could.”
“You have somebody else?”
She shook her head decisively. “No, no one like that. That’s not it.”
I silently waited for her to continue. She slowly swirled her glass again and sighed lightly. “The problem is the act of sex itself.” She sounded resigned. “I can’t do it. I’ve never wanted to do it, and never have been able.”
“Even when you were married?”
She nodded. “I never had sex until I got married. I went out with a few men, but never took it that far. I tried several times, but it never worked. It was too painful. I was optimistic, though, that after I got married and settled down things would work out, and I’d gradually get used to it. Sadly, nothing changed, even after I got married. I did what my husband wanted, regular marital relations. I tried all kinds of things, but all I felt was pain. And finally, I refused to do those things. Needless to say, that was one of the reasons we got divorced.”
“Do you know why this happens to you?”
“No. Not really. I never had any shocking experience as a child that became a psychological burden or anything. Never had any experience like that at all. I don’t think I have lesbian tendencies either, or have any bias toward sexual experiences. I was raised in a normal home, and was your normal girl. My parents got along well, I had good friends, and got decent grades in school. My life was completely ordinary, typical. Though not being able to have sex—that alone was atypical.”
I nodded. She lifted her glass of whiskey and took a small sip.
“Have you seen a specialist about this?”
“Yeah, when I was in Sapporo my husband asked me to see someone, so I went twice to see doctors at a department of psychosomatic medicine. First as a couple, and then by myself. It didn’t help. I mean it didn’t change anything. Frankly it was painful to talk to someone else about such private things, even if the other person is a specialist.”
I suddenly remembered that sixteen-year-old girl. I remembered exactly what she told me that May morning. I was seventeen then. I can still clearly hear her voice, her breathing.
“I want to be yours,” the girl said. “In every way there is. Yours from top to bottom. I want to be one with you. I mean it.”
“Are you disappointed?” she asked me.
I quickly sorted out my muddled thoughts and somehow came back to reality.
“Are you asking if I’m disappointed that you aren’t interested in male-female sex?”
“That’s right.”
“Hm, I guess I am, a little,” I said honestly. “But I’m glad you told me about it beforehand.”
“So, will you still see me, even without that?”
“Of course,” I said. “I enjoy seeing you and having nice talks like this. There’s nobody else like this for me in town.”
“Same for me,” she said. “But I think I can’t do anything for you. In that area, I mean.”
“I’ll do my best to try to forget about that area, then, for now.”
“You know,” she said, as if confiding in me, “I deeply regret it, too. More than you might think.”
“But don’t rush things, okay? My heart and my body are apart from each other. In slightly different places. So I’d like you to wait a while. Until I’m ready. Does that make sense? A lot of things take time.”
I shut my eyes and thought about time. In the past—for instance, back when I was seventeen—there was literally an inexhaustible amount of time. Like a huge reservoir, filled to the very brim. So there was no need to consider time. But now was different. Time, I knew, was limited. And as I aged, considering time had even greater implications. Time, no matter what, ticked away, ceaselessly.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked me from the seat next to me.
“About the Russian Five,” I said, almost reflexively, without hesitation. “Why can’t I remember all their names? I used to be able to list all five right away. They taught us that in music class at school.”
“You are a strange one,” she said. “Why do you care about that right now?”
“It bothers me that I can’t remember what I should remember. Doesn’t that happen to you?”
“I’m more concerned about things I can’t forget but want to.”
“To each his own,” I said.
“Is Tchaikovsky in that group of the Russian Five?”
“No, he isn’t. They formed the group in opposition to the Western-style music that Tchaikovsky composed.”
We maintained silence for a time. Then she broke it.
“It’s like something’s stuck inside me. Because of that, nothing works out.”
“Maybe so. But later on, you won’t be left alone.”
She thought over what I said. And then spoke.
“So you’ll continue to see me?”
“Of course.”
“Of course seems to be your pet phrase, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe so.”
She rested her hand on top of mine on the counter, her five smooth fingers intertwining with mine. Different sorts of time overlapped there, mixed into one. From deep within my chest an emotion much like sadness, yet somehow different, reached out its tentacles, like a thriving plant. I’d missed that sensation. A part of my heart remained still not fully known to me. A realm that even time cannot reach.
Balakirev, someone whispered in my ear. Like a kind friend seated next to me at an exam secretly telling me the answers. That’s right—Balakirev. That makes four. Four of the five-member group. One left.
“Balakirev,” I said aloud, as if clearly inscribing the word in the air. I glanced at her, but she seemed not to have heard. Her face was covered with both hands, and she was silently weeping. Tears dripped down between her fingers.
I quietly laid a hand on her shoulder and let it rest there a long while. Until the tears stopped.