The day of the trip, I woke in the morning and headed to the Morisaki Bookshop, bringing a bag with two days of clothes. My aunt and uncle were leaving straight from home, so I would be taking over for my uncle and running the bookshop right from the morning through the evening. Just thinking of it made my heart beat faster.
That may be one reason why I ended up leaving my place almost an hour early, which meant I ran right into the morning rush hour. I normally didn’t have to be at work until ten, which meant I missed rush hour by a bit. So this was my first time back in those crowded trains since the days I was working at my old job. I ought to have mastered then how to fight my way onto a packed train, but it had been such a long time that I’d completely forgotten how to do it. As I steamed in the heat of the train, swaying to and fro in the throng of bodies, and got carried off by the current, I must’ve screamed to myself about thirty times.
Back when I used to spend every morning rocking back and forth in crowded trains, I encountered some strange people. People who muttered to themselves, or screamed in rage, people who threw themselves into you with clear malice. There was always some kind of trouble, and the whole train car would get drawn into it whenever someone was accused of groping or a fight broke out. Seeing something like that so early in the morning would leave me feeling profoundly exhausted. Now that I found myself back in a train car in that menacing environment for the first time in a while, that response didn’t seem unreasonable. Being locked in with such misery every morning could definitely take a toll on your mind.
After enduring fifteen minutes in hell, I got off the train in Jimbocho and headed to the bookshop. It was still just a little after nine. The shop didn’t open until ten so I was too early.
With nothing else to do, I went around inside cleaning every nook and cranny. I ended up becoming so focused on cleaning that before I knew it, it was time to open.
“All right, let’s do this,” I said, getting myself fired up as I raised the shutter and started my first day. Open up in the morning, tend the shop all day, and then at night, put the day’s proceeds into the safe and lower the shutter. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to give prices to any valuable books, so if customers came in wanting to sell them, I would tell them the situation and hold on to the books for them. As long as it was only for two or three days, I figured I ought to be able to do a decent job running the shop by myself.
Looking around the street, I saw that the other shops were preparing to open too. The heady scent of a sweet olive tree came drifting in from somewhere nearby. I made eye contact with Mr. Ījima, the owner of the closest bookshop, diagonally across the street, so I wished him good morning.
“Where’s Satoru today?”
“He left on a trip.”
“Oh my!” the owner said, his eyes wide with surprise. “That’s pretty unusual. It’s going to rain today, isn’t it?”
“I’m so sorry about that,” I said, apologizing for the weather in advance.
As usual, hardly any customers came by in the morning. That’s how it always was, and I was used to it. I was content to sit back, relax, and wait for the customers to arrive. To be honest, I was happy just being surrounded by all the books, and I would’ve been content even if no one had come in.
Still, the fact that my uncle had already called three times that morning was more than I could take. It seemed like it made him terribly worried to be far away from the bookshop. I got tired of dealing with him, so I made an effort to reassure him and quickly hung up.
The time went by very slowly. I spent the period before noon dealing with the customers who trickled in, few and far between, dusting and organizing the books piled up along the wall, and stopping to flip through any that caught my eye.
I also picked up Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows to give it a try since my uncle had been so enthusiastic about it. The book is a profound examination of the meaning of shadows, which emerges from Tanizaki’s account of his own experiences. It’s an argument to be skeptical about the brightness of Japan’s cities. His writing was so powerful, I felt like he was right beside me, speaking to me. The book had such an irresistible pull that before I knew it, I was completely sucked in.
When the afternoon finally came, it actually did end up raining. At first it was only drizzling, but it became gradually more intense, and before I knew it, the whole of Sakura Street had turned black with rain.
In this neighborhood of used bookshops, there is no greater enemy than rain. It’s a serious problem if the books get wet, plus the number of people coming in instantly drops. As I rushed outside to bring in the carts of books, I saw that in front of all the other bookshops on the street, people were racing to bring their merchandise inside too.
Even Mr. Ījima, who had been cracking jokes about it raining earlier, was now battling the rain.
We laughed bitterly as we both pulled our carts under the roof.
“It’s really coming down,” he said.
“It really is, isn’t it?”
Massive clouds covered the sky, bringing stronger rain showers. Maybe it was a mistake after all to force my uncle to go on a trip. I hoped it wasn’t raining over there. “Hmmm,” I muttered to myself. “It looks like I won’t have anything to do till the end of the day.” I went back inside.
Once I pulled the door shut, the fierce sound of rain became a gentle whisper. The faint scent of the road wet with rain drifted into the shop, where it blended with the smell of old books.
The flow of customers came to a halt.
For a long moment, I sat in my usual spot behind the counter with my eyes closed. It was quiet, so very quiet. If I concentrated, I could make out faint sounds—the patter of raindrops hitting the window, the low hum of cars splashing through the rain. I had the peculiar feeling then that I had become one with the bookshop. I could feel my sense of self begin to dissolve and my consciousness expand.
No, no, I can’t fall asleep, I thought. I’m the person they trusted to take care of the shop. No matter how much free time I have at the moment.
But being surrounded by books that had been around for so many years seemed to change the way I experienced the passing of time itself. I had a clear sense of myself as existing within it. If there are some professions that require stillness and others that call for action, running a secondhand bookshop falls into the first category. Of course, one can’t just divide jobs into simple binaries like that. But it’s true that the entire image one has in one’s head of these bookshops comes down to a feeling of stillness and calm. I felt like I fit here perfectly, like I had come to rest in a spot that was just my shape and size. And I wanted to remain this way forever.
Had my uncle ever felt like this? The feeling must have been even more intense for him. The shop had been passed on to him from my grandfather and my great-grandfather. One of the reasons my uncle was proud of running the bookshop lay in the respect he held for those who had looked after it before him.
These were the thoughts that drifted through my head as I stared out a window misty from the rain.
After four o’clock, just as the rain lightened up, I suddenly heard the sound of the door clattering open.
“Hey, sorry to barge in.”
It had been so long since I’d had a customer that I jumped off my stool. But when I realized it was Sabu, I sat back down, mumbling, “Ooh boy,” just like my uncle. Apparently Sabu had come to check in on me just to kill time. His face bore a perfectly mischievous smile.
“How’s it going today?” Sabu asked, sounding the way he always did when he asked my uncle that same question.
“It’s not,” I replied.
Sabu gave his usual giggle. The sound of his laughter reverberated inside the shop. Given how quiet it had been up until a moment ago, it all seemed a little strange to me. The atmosphere of the shop felt completely different when it was filled with the sound of people’s voices. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“You’re a curious person, aren’t you?” he said. “You come every week to this shop that no one ever comes to.”
“You’re the curious one. You show up at this shop every day.”
“Oh stop, you’re embarrassing me.”
“You mustn’t be so modest.”
“I give up. You win.”
“Once again. And remember you said you didn’t mind.”
While we sipped our tea, we went back and forth like this, talking nonsense with a straight face. Sabu left without buying anything, as usual. Eventually the sun went down, and the rain, which had eased off, stopped completely. The clock on the wall marked off the minutes, and when I looked up, it was already seven o’clock—time to close. The day had seemed long, but it was over before I knew it. I slowly rose to my feet and prepared to close the shop.
At exactly that moment, my uncle called again, as if he’d timed it precisely. I told him that I’d closed the shop without any issues, and I asked him to please only call me once the next day.
“Okay, let’s split the difference. Three times!” my uncle yelled over the phone. Good grief, what exactly were we splitting the difference of?
The room on the second floor was even more comfortable than before. Momoko, who had stayed here for a time, was now living with my uncle in Kunitachi, so no one was using it. Nevertheless, the room had been kept clean, and books were all neatly in order, probably thanks to Momoko. Pots of geraniums and gerbera daisies adorned the bay window, and there was a note Momoko had written, affixed to the window frame with instructions for watering them. I got the impression that if I forgot to water them somehow, it would be a major disaster. And there, nicely enshrined in the center of the room, was that well-used low dining table.
I opened the sliding door a bit to peek into the small connecting room and saw something frightening. In the dim light, I could see the room was packed tight with books from my uncle’s collection. The dark silhouette of all those books, looming silently behind the door, was awfully creepy. I shut the door gently, pretending I hadn’t seen anything.
Right at that moment, my cell phone started ringing on the dining table, and it startled me. When I looked at the screen, I saw the call was from Wada. I’d told him that today was going to be my first day tending the shop, so he was probably concerned about me.
“How’d it turn out?”
“Perfect. How about you? Things busy at work?”
“I’ve got my hands full.”
“Take it easy. Sounds like you’re too busy to write your novel.”
“I’m taking my time, so it’s not a problem. Hey, I should get back to work though.”
“Okay. Don’t work too hard. Thanks for calling. I know you’re busy.”
Afterward, I finished my simple dinner, took a shower, and then I was basically done with everything I needed to do. I lay on my futon, took a book from the shelves nearby, and flipped through it, but I was too sleepy to concentrate. Still, it seemed a shame to go to sleep like this. A tiny spider was crawling slowly across the ceiling above me. I followed him with my eyes for a while absent-mindedly.
Before long, I got up suddenly and opened the window. The chilly autumn wind rushed in. I could see the silver light of the moon shining in the sky in the distance. The noise and bustle of the neighborhood sounded far away. There was the low rumble of passing cars, the sound of people talking as they went down the street. Then came the sudden clatter of someone closing a shutter. After the sound faded, the silence deepened.
In Praise of Shadows.
I wasn’t sure if this was the right situation for it, but I found myself murmuring those words. Then I turned off the lights in the room, sat by the window, and closed my eyes.
I had spent so many long nights this way. Back then, I couldn’t conceive of the idea that that time in my life would ever end. But those days have passed. That period of my life has receded into the distance. There’s no going back to the past. As I told myself this, I felt a sweet sorrow spread through my chest.
But there was no point in dwelling on that, I thought. I’m much happier now.
My life till this point had been simple, but that didn’t mean it was trouble-free. I’d had my share of suffering and setbacks along the way. I sank to the bottom of a deep, dark sea, and for a time, I believed I didn’t want to come back up. But on a quiet night like this, I could feel keenly how blessed I’d been, how all the wonderful people I have met along the way had lifted me up. I really had met some wonderful people. I opened my eyes a little and saw moonlight shining in through the window. Sitting in the gentle light, I could feel happiness slowly welling up within me.
Then, for some reason, memories from my childhood came back to me, one after another. It was like a door that had been closed had suddenly been thrown open.
In my own way, I was an unhappy child. Or rather, maybe I should say I was far more troubled in childhood than I was after I became an adult. I think it’s partly because I was an only child and an introvert, and I didn’t get to spend much time with my parents since they were both busy working. It’s also because I wasn’t able to properly deal with the anxiety and sadness I felt.
Since I couldn’t talk to anyone about this, I couldn’t find a way out of my problems, and little by little the sadness inside me grew until it felt like a massive balloon pressing down on me every night when I got into bed. Of course, it was always about childish things. They all seem trivial when I look back on them now. Like when I got depressed thinking about having to take a test in gym class right after summer break to see whether I could spin backward over the playground bars. Or when I heard a rumor that people buried dead bodies under cherry trees, and became afraid of the cherry tree in my backyard. Or when I became despondent after the boys in my class gave me the nickname “Bones” (because I was tall and kind of skinny).
There was nothing I looked forward to more in those days than going back to my grandfather’s house every long vacation. My uncle Satoru would be there, waiting to see me. It was a huge help. For me, being with my uncle in his room was like a bulwark against the world. Once I’d made it there, I could relax. There was nothing more to worry about.
In his room, my uncle would listen sweetly as I rambled about all kinds of things. When I finally got tired of talking so much, he would pull out the right record from his collection, and the two of us would sing along at full volume. We were awfully noisy, and sometimes we would even get yelled at by my grandfather, who would come rushing up from the hall where all our relatives had gathered, his face bright red with rage. My uncle and I would put on meek expressions and pretend to be sorry, but as soon it was just the two of us, we would break out giggling. At school, I was always so timid, but with my uncle I felt so brave that it was like I wasn’t my normal self.
The anxiety that I had trouble putting into words seemed to diminish a little bit. The rest of the world that up till then had seemed to be wasting away, now, with my uncle, was suddenly thrown open wide.
Looking back, I realized all of my memories of my uncle from that time made me feel like I was in some warm, sun-dappled spot. Was it nostalgia? Did I wish I could go back in time? I wasn’t sure, but somehow I was on the verge of tears.
In that room lit only by moonlight, I revisited those sweet memories that had lain dormant behind a door within me, and it was like I was opening up one book after another, turning the pages until I finally fell asleep.