“My dream was to save up money and buy a Porsche. A Boxter.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Huh?”
“Don’t you know what a Porsche is? It’s a German car.”
“No. I ain’t even got a license.”
“You’re joking! You were a college student, weren’t you?”
“Nagoyan, are ye some sorta car nerd?”
“I don’t think so, but a Porsche-less world is for me unimaginable.”
“Yer bloody loony to be findin’ that so ‘unimaginable’ when y’aint even got one!”
“Don’t call me loony!”
“Nagoyan, how much cash did ye get from the bank?”
It was a question that had been on my mind for some time, but Nagoyan answered with nonchalance, “A million yen.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter. A hundred thousand, a million… It’s all the same.”
I thought I saw some roadside fruit stands. Amagi was the first real community we’d seen since leaving Fukuoka City. But it was small.
“We need to eat something.”
“Already?”
“Oh, but I just remembered. You’re never hungry, are you?”
In the hospital, I would always leave food uneaten. About the only thing I could eat was yogurt. Even I thought it strange that I had no appetite. In my manic phase, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, and I didn’t tire. And so I shrank.
“I dunno if it was because o’ my illness or because o’ the food.”
“I had thought that the bad image of ‘hospital food’ was just that, an image, and that recently it had improved, but it really was horrible, wasn’t it?”
“A hundered times worse than school-caf fare.”
“Tuesday’s ‘noodle day’ was really the pits, wasn’t it? Wheat-flour, buckwheat, whatever… It would suck up the liquid, so there was no broth left.”
“And that chicken sauté was really dreadful! It stank like a chicken coop. It was so oily that I couldna finish it.”
Nagoyan pulled the car in at an outlet of the Hamakatsu chain restaurant. Inured as we were to barnyard feed, it seemed a shame simply to gobble up the piping hot, scrumptious pork cutlet.
Even the miso soup had the taste of real stock, unlike anything we had had in the hospital. It occurred to me that I had quite a healthy appetite when the food was good and I could truly enjoy the taste. I had a second helping of the glistening white rice. Nagoyan too was eating like a horse. All through the meal, until our coffee arrived, we exchanged not a word. For the first time in a long while, a sense of satisfaction was permeating my entire being. I felt like a ruminating cow.
“Since we’ve come this far,” I suggested, “let’s go on to Akizuki!”
“What is there to see there?”
Akizuki was where Tsuyoshi and I had our last date. I needed to wipe Tsuyoshi from my mind like chalk from a blackboard, but that wasn’t why we had made our escape, so I merely said, “Nothin’ really… I jus’ wanna go there.”
I had absolutely no desire to go by myself, but I had the feeling that unless I went, taking someone else along, I’d never be able to manage it again. There was really nothing there, but I loved its quiet, intimate atmosphere and didn’t want to give it all up.
The area was already enveloped in the twilight as we arrived. I said I wanted to walk through the cherry trees in Suginobaba. Though the foliage was darkly luxuriant, there was something both sad and nostalgic about the dried-up moat. A middle school had been built on the castle ruins. The buildings had a rather dapper appearance, in Japanese style.
Gazing at the facility, I remarked to Nagoyan, “Ye’d ’ave memories for a lifetime if ye’d gone to a school like this.”
“I have no memories of my time in middle school,” he rebuffed me.
We climbed the magnificent stone steps just across the way to a small, ancient shrine. I prayed that I might recover from my illness – and that we might not be caught. Nagoyan was long at his own prayers, no doubt beseeching the gods to make him a Tokyoite or to put him in a Porsche.
I thought that by this time the hospital might already be in an uproar. Would my parents be scurrying about to find me? If a missing persons search request were issued, would the police be set in motion too? Were we now really in some sort of Howling at the Sun episode? Would there be a mushrooming slew of cop cars on the chase, with us being cornered at the end of some wharf, Nagoyan brandishing a knife as he held me hostage, the police coaxing him over a loudspeaker to give himself up and his mother finally coming out in tears and falling in dejection at our knees?
It was all quite inconceivable. Here it was so peaceful.
“They’ve surely gone to Itoshima!”
“What?”
“I love the sea, ye know, so they’re sure t’ go lookin’ fer us in Itoshima and Kanesaki.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied listlessly.
“I’ve always wanted to see Hirado.”
“Hirado… That’s in Nagasaki, right?”
“Uh-huh. An’ here they won’t be lookin’ fer us right away.”
“I wonder… What lies down the road from here?”
“Beppu, I s’pose. Then maybe Yufuin, and then to the south, Aso.”
“So we wind up in Aso after all.”
“Haven’t ye been there?”
To my amazement, it turned out that Nagoyan had not been to any of the fun places in Kyushu.
“What did ye do on holidays?”
“I usually slept. For Golden Week, I’d go to Tokyo.”
Aw, Tokyo again, I thought wearily.
On the way back from Akizuki to Amaki, I suddenly felt a chill. Going only on intuition, I told Nagoyan that we should turn left. I somehow wanted to get away from highways and towns, even if only for a short distance. The way would presumably take us toward the village of Koishiwara. Dusk fell as we found ourselves following a pitch-black mountain road.
“Shimada-san must be fuming. I suppose she’ll be worried about me.”
Shimada-san was a pretty nurse in Ward C who would be turning twenty-seven; she was three years older than Nagoyan. I had no way of knowing, but I thought that she might have a boyfriend.
“Ye like ’er then, do ye, Nagoyan?”
“I wouldn’t say I have a crush on her or anything, but I suppose she’s my type.”
“No, really? She jus’ loves to give enemas!”
The side effects of the medicine, inexperience with old-fashioned squat toilets, and lack of exercise meant that many patients were constipated. After three days without relief, enemas were the prescribed procedure. In a sweet voice, Nurse Shimada would smilingly say to me, “If you’ve still had no luck today…”
The frightening mental image of it was indelible.
“It’s not that she enjoys doing it. It’s just part of her job.”
“Whenever she had me in ’er clutches, she seemed giddy with it all, before and after. Her eyes’d sparkle.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I suppose ye’d be delighted to be back in hospital, havin’ it dun to ye by yer beloved Shimada.”
“How can you talk like that?” he huffed. “Don’t go spoiling my image of her!”
We parked the car in the remotest corner of the Koishiwara rest area parking lot.
“This is it for the day.”
“What? We’re gonna sleep in the car?”
“What else can we do?”
We downed our sleeping medicine with the help of the Volvic mineral water we had bought at the convenience store. Nagoyan then took out a cigarette from his rucksack and lit it. It was a Salem Light.
“Do ye smoke, Nagoyan? I’d no idea.”
“Just one before bedtime. It works magic.”
I had him give me one. I choked on the fumes.
In the darkness, with the engine turned off, I was, as one might well expect, a bit frightened. I was on friendly terms with Nagoyan, but he was nonetheless an unrelated male. Fortunately, there was no auditory hallucination. We had leaned the seats back and were resting next to each other. I told myself that once the medicine kicked in, it wouldn’t matter where I was and that it would soon be morning. I couldn’t see Nagoyan, but sensed that he too was wide awake.
“Ten thirty, eh?” he muttered.
“It were always lights out at nine.”
“Everybody must be asleep by now.”
“Wonder whit they’re sayin’ ’bout our escape.”
“Stop it. No use thinking about it now.”
I hated the silence. Neither he nor I nor anyone else knew why we were here in such a place.
“Nagoyan, tomorrow ye need to teach me t’ drive.”
“No way, absolutely no way!”
“If ye do all the drivin’, ye’ll wear yerself out.”
“You’ve said yourself you don’t have a license.”
“But if they catch us, aw they’ll do is send us back to hospital. We jus’ need to lie low here in the countryside. I’ll be able t’ manage.”
In low voices we talked a bit more and then fell asleep.
I woke up as it was starting to get light, about three, and couldn’t doze off again. It was bright and chilly outside. I went to the toilet, bought a can of coffee, and returned to the car. After that and until Nagoyan woke up, I heard the voice saying over and over again:
Twenty yards of linen are worth one coat.
Twenty yards of linen are worth one coat.
Twenty yards of linen are worth one coat.
I had the unbearable and terrifying sensation of my hijacked brain starting to go on the rampage. The sight and sound of Nagoyan’s peaceful slumber filled me with spite.