After purchasing chestnut weevil larvae at the fishing gear section of a department store, Tetsuyuki took the subway to Honmachi. Ever since having heard from Yōko’s own lips that there was another man in her life, he had confined himself to his apartment, missing work at the hotel. He had no idea how many times he had tossed about on the floor, groaning. After twenty days of that he began to run out of money for food, not to mention rent. He called Nakazawa Masami to ask for a loan, lying that he had come down with such a severe summer cold that he had not been able to work. Nakazawa reluctantly agreed.
As he walked down the street lined with office buildings, it began to rain and thunder rumbled in the distance. The momentum of the rain picked up quickly and in no time it was a downpour, roaring as it pelted the road. Walking slumped over, Tetsuyuki became soaked. This rain seemed to herald the end of summer. He longed for autumn to arrive, and resolved that until then—until fleecy clouds again appeared in the sky—he would not see Yōko. By then she would probably have reached some conclusion.
As soon as Nakazawa saw Tetsuyuki soaked to the bone, he switched off his tape deck. “You said you’ve been fighting a cold. You get soaked like this, and you’ll have a relapse.” Then, handing over the money he had prepared, he added, “Instead of borrowing from me, you have a devoted lady friend, don’t you?”
Tetsuyuki made no reply. Taking off his wet clothing, he borrowed a towel and dried himself off, then asked Nakazawa to put on “Lady Jane.”
“You really like that song, don’t you? I’ve gotten so sick of it that I can’t even stand to look at the record jacket anymore. Go ahead and put it on if you like.” Lying faceup on the bed, Nakazawa pointed to the shelf of LPs, mentioning that it should be the fourth one from the right. Tetsuyuki did not know how many times he had heard “Lady Jane,” but listening intently to the saxophone, he thought of his mother, whose life was getting shorter day by day. He glanced over to see a copy of Lamenting the Deviations by Nakazawa’s pillow, and thought it unsurprising that he would read such a book.
“To you, these hundreds of LPs and that copy of Lamenting the Deviations are all the same thing, aren’t they?”
“Have you read Lamenting the Deviations?”
“I had to read it for my class in Eastern philosophy. If I wrote and submitted a report on it, I could get credit without taking the exam. So I read it.”
“Shinran was extraordinary. I’ve gradually come to realize how amazing he was.”
“What was so amazing about him?”
Flipping through the pages of Lamenting the Deviations, Nakazawa found and read aloud the following line:
“‘Since I could never succeed in any austerities, hell will surely be my final abode.’”
“What’s so amazing about that? Reading Lamenting the Deviations made me sick of living. It’s a collection of words that rob people of their vitality. Shinran was just a loser himself, and his legacy to humanity was that sort of resignation. So the pampered son of a rich guy who will one day inherit this building says ‘hell will surely be my final abode.’ How ridiculous!”
“You really like taking a dig at me, don’t you?” Unusually for him, a hurt expression appeared on Nakazawa’s face. The figure of Kin, nailed to a pillar but still alive, suddenly cast a strange glow in Tetsuyuki’s mind.
“Did Shinran really even exist?”
At Tetsuyuki’s query, Nakazawa sat up. “Are you some kind of idiot? Haven’t you read Japanese history? Lamenting the Deviations is a collection of Shinran’s words, compiled later by his disciple Yuien. Shinran was a priest in the early Kamakura period. He was born in 1173 and died in 1262. As a child, he went by the name Matsuwaka-maru. He studied under Jien, and later became a disciple to Hōnen. Isn’t all of that clear enough in the history books?”
“‘History,’ huh? That can all be fabricated later to suit someone.”
“What? So then you’re saying that Shinran was just a figment of someone’s imagination? I’d like to hear what basis you have for thinking so.”
“Since I reject Lamenting the Deviations, I find it strange that this Shinran is so lionized among the half-baked intelligentsia. I mean, isn’t he all too human, warts and all? Hōnen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism, had his ashes strewn in the Kamo River, leaving a command that no prayers be recited. The Pure Land sect desperately needed to create a charismatic symbol. But when you think of how Hōnen died, he couldn’t be of use that way.”
“There was no need to create a fictional character as a symbol. There was always Rennyo, wasn’t there?”
“Exactly! It was Rennyo who invented that fictional character Shinran. Rennyo was a bright guy. He didn’t need to be charismatic himself, just invent this Shinran and make an idol of him, and then bask in the charisma himself. That makes Rennyo a politician as well.”
“That’s an interesting piece of inference. But don’t go around saying that to people with a straight face. You’ll be laughed at.”
“Well, in any case, it’s a defeatist religion. In that age someone born a peasant would be a peasant for life with no recourse to anything but a miserable existence and unable to hope for any happiness in this life. Words like ‘hell will surely be my final abode’ were probably persuasive. So then the idea was popular that if you chant prayers, after death you’ll achieve happiness in the Pure Land, which lies innumerable leagues to the west. When I see people who are leading ordinary lives reverencing Lamenting the Deviations and acting as if they really understand it, it makes me angry. It is a hellish book cobbled together from the defiant words of a defeatist with a generous admixture of beautiful passages gushing melancholy. For you it’s just a substitute for records and booze. It’s a mental ornament, one that allows you to be pleased with yourself. And that’s about all that Pure Land thought amounts to.”
Nakazawa approached Tetsuyuki and extended his hand. Tetsuyuki immediately understood what was meant, and returned the money he had borrowed.
“Get out! That doesn’t seem like any way to talk to someone who has just lent you money. So, I’m a loser . . . For a malnourished guy who looks like death warmed over, your mouth is in good shape, isn’t it? At that rate, you should be able to go another four or five days without eating.”
Tetsuyuki put on his wet clothes, picked up the box of larvae, and left Nakazawa’s room. The rain was still coming down hard. He stood for a while in the entrance to the Nakazawa Second Building, but at length set out, with head bowed, walking toward the subway station. As he walked, he fixed his gaze on the Rolex watch he had borrowed from Yōko. Nothing had entered his stomach since the glass of milk he had drunk that morning, and now it was nearly dusk. Pawning the watch without her permission would make him a thief.
Without hesitating, he dialed Yōko’s number from a pay phone by the ticket gate in the subway station. The moment he heard her voice, he felt as if he might collapse then and there. Promising that he would definitely return it, he asked if he could pawn the Rolex for a short time.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you have any money?” Tetsuyuki responded that he was short on cash to pay rent.
“Tetsuyuki, you’re hungry, aren’t you? This is how you talk when you’re hungry.”
He remained silent as he tried to think of how to explain it away, but he had never once been able to lie convincingly to her.
“They give you dinner at the hotel, don’t they?”
“I’ve been missing work for a long time.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Honmachi. I came here to borrow some money from Nakazawa, but ended up offending him and wasn’t able to get a loan.”
She said that she would leave right away, and told him to wait at the east gate of the National Railways station.
“No, I don’t want to see you anymore.” Saying the opposite of what he felt, he listened intently for her response.
“I’m heading out now . . . The east gate, got it?” Then she hung up. The very thought that he would see Yōko revived him. But in his mind’s eye, the figure of a man he had never seen before appeared next to her. Also he did not wish to appear before her all drenched like a stray dog, pale and unprepossessing. She’ll probably treat me to a meal, and press me to take half—or even all—of her pocket money. But she’ll never come back to me. She’s still distressed about the choice she has to make. Tetsuyuki went to the ticket-vending machine and felt in his pocket for coins. From Honmachi to Umeda was only one fare sector, but after searching all his pockets, he was still 10 yen short. He unconsciously scanned the area, thinking perhaps he might find a 10-yen coin.
Exiting onto Midōsuji Avenue in the rain, he walked toward Umeda. He purposely walked slowly. If Yōko hurried, she would arrive at the east gate in half an hour, and if he were not there she would no doubt take seriously his words “I don’t want to meet with you anymore,” and just return home. With that thought in mind, Tetsuyuki walked ever so slowly. “In that case, there’s no point in walking from Honmachi to Osaka Station.”
Rain was dripping from his earlobes, from the end of his nose and from his chin, and his handkerchief was as soaked as the rest of his clothing. After he had passed Yodoya Bridge and was close to Umeda, a young office worker approached from behind.
“Won’t you share my umbrella?”
“Since I’m already this wet, it wouldn’t make any difference,” Tetsuyuki said with a smile and a nod, thanking the man.
He smiled back, as if in agreement, and passed on ahead. If he walked at a normal pace, it would take about thirty minutes from Honmachi to Osaka Station, but an hour had passed before Tetsuyuki arrived at the east gate. He peered through the rush-hour crowd thronging the ticket gate, and saw Yōko standing there. She quickly espied him and came running.
“What happened? You look as if you fell into a river.”
“I walked here from Honmachi, without an umbrella.”
“Why didn’t you take the subway?”
“I wanted to see what it would be like to walk in the rain.”
“If you don’t get out of those wet clothes, you’ll catch a cold.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
Yōko took a handkerchief out of her purse and wiped Tetsuyuki’s head and face. Several people walked past casting suspicious glances at the two of them.
“Will you come to our house? You could put on my dad’s underwear and clothes.”
Tetsuyuki shook his head. “If I went there, even your mother would not be pleased.”
Yōko cast her eyes down, then, as if suddenly hitting on a brilliant idea, leaned over and whispered into Tetsuyuki’s ear, blushing: “We could go to a hotel, like the last time. And we could stay there until your clothes dry.”
“What the hell are you thinking?” He looked at her with both sorrow and agony. “You want to make a fool of me? There’s another man you’re fond of, but you can still go to a hotel with me? You’ve come to a conclusion, have you? You’ll take me over him? That’s not it, is it? You’re still dithering. Or no, you’re not dithering. You’ve pretty much made up your mind. You’ve decided on that architect guy. But you’ll still go to a hotel with me? What kind of woman are you, anyway?”
“I just wanted to go there to get your clothes dry, that’s all.” Looking as if she were about to burst into tears, she turned an upward glance at him, like a small child being scolded by an adult. Of all the expressions she assumed when arguing with him, that was by far the most endearing. “I wouldn’t let you do anything else . . . just dry your clothes. I’d bite you if you made any moves on me.”
The hot air in the station made his wet clothing feel heavy. It seemed as if he were coming apart, like overripe fruit, but at the same time he felt a chill in the core of his body.
“How many times have you let that guy touch you?”
“I’ve only met him once since then, and not at all for over two weeks now.”
“Why?”
“His parents came to visit and said they wanted me for their son. It seems that starting next year he’ll be studying for about five years in America. He wants to take me with him, so apparently his parents want to hurry things. I haven’t been able to make up my mind and I think he must have consulted them about the situation.”
“Does he know about us?”
Yōko nodded. “He says he wants to meet with you and talk.”
“Fine. I’ll meet with him. I’m interested in knowing what kind of guy he is. Go call him.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now. He might still be in his office now. Where is his office?”
“At Sakurabashi . . .”
“Hey, that’s just a stone’s throw from here, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to. I really don’t. I’m the one who’s got to decide, right? And I’m free to decide. What difference will it make if the two of you meet and talk?” Unusually for her, Yōko spoke rapidly and passionately, then grabbed Tetsuyuki’s wrist and began walking. His eyes fixed on the nape of her neck, he put up no resistance as he was drawn into the crowd.
“I don’t want to go with you into one of those seedy places.”
“We could go to a proper hotel, couldn’t we?”
It was only when they had arrived in front of a newly opened high-rise hotel that was a business competitor with Tetsuyuki’s place of employment that she finally let go of his wrist. Through a large, thick glass panel he watched Yōko as she went inside and spoke with a clerk at the front desk. At length, she motioned for him to come inside. Glancing at him, the clerk handed a room key to the bellboy and said to Yōko: “After you’ve entered the room, dial number six and a laundry maid will come. Since it’s only to dry the clothes, it shouldn’t take even twenty minutes.”
After they had been shown to the room Yōko sat on the bed and dialed for laundry. Tetsuyuki asked: “Hotels like this won’t usually rent rooms by the hour. How did you put your request?” Yōko did not answer. After conveying her order to the laundry service, she hung up and began unbuttoning Tetsuyuki’s shirt. In that spontaneous action he sensed unmistakably her love for him. She removed his shirt, undid his belt, and even pulled off his trousers. Yielding to her movements, he gripped her shoulders and obeyed her every command, raising his right foot, then his left. Kneeling in front of him on the carpet, she took off his shoes. Looking at his torso after his attire had been reduced to undershorts, she asked: “Why have you become so thin?”
“Even Nakazawa says that I look like a malnourished Grim Reaper.”
“Your face is so lean . . .”
“That’s because my heart is lean.”
There was a knock at the door. Yōko hurriedly gathered up his clothing and, opening the door only slightly, handed the bundle to the laundry maid. Then she entered the bathroom and began filling the tub.
“Ah, I forgot to hand you my underpants,” Tetsuyuki said to her as she came out of the bathroom. She thought for a moment, but answered that if she wrung them out thoroughly and hung them in front of the air conditioner, they would dry in no time.
“Have a good soak in the hot water.” After pushing Tetsuyuki into the bathroom, Yōko again picked up the phone and dialed room service, ordering corn soup, minute steak, salad, and coffee.
Warming himself leisurely by soaking in the bathtub as Yōko had told him to do, it suddenly occurred to Tetsuyuki to force her out of her indecision. “That way, I’ll either end up losing something that I’ll never again have in my lifetime, or I might gain something even more precious.” As he sat in the hot water, Kin immediately came to his mind, and he called out, “Kin-chan! I hear that ‘Since I could never succeed in any austerities, hell will surely be my final abode.’ I’d like to have the author of these words take a look at you, Kin-chan. I’d like him to see you surviving. I’d like to teach him that hell and paradise aren’t separate places. You and I . . . everyone—we all bear hell and paradise within ourselves, and we go through life treading a razor-thin line, easily making false steps one way or the other. If he could just watch you for one hour, that would be clear to him.”
Then it occurred to him that it depended on how one looked at things; perhaps if Nakazawa were to look at Kin, he would only cling all the more devotedly to every word and phrase in Lamenting the Deviations. He was not sure why, but somehow Tetsuyuki sensed that he understood the human mind. And he had come to understand Yōko’s mind. With a bath towel around his waist he walked out of the bathroom, changed into a bathrobe, and confronted Yōko.
“I’ve come to a decision. Today is the last day I’ll see you. I surrender. And since I’m the one who has surrendered, you won’t have to remain torn any longer. I’m not going to sulk and miss work any longer. I’m going back to work tomorrow. I can live well enough by myself, but what a woman is depends on what a man is. If the husband is wealthy, then the wife is wealthy. If he’s a robber, then she is too, whether she likes it or not. It’s really like setting stakes in gambling when a woman decides which man to marry, but she ought to have some criteria to see ahead. If you consider those criteria with a cool head and compare me with that other guy, the conclusion should be obvious. I’ll make this easy for you and throw in the towel.”
Yōko was about to respond but then clammed up, her vacant stare remaining on Tetsuyuki’s shoulder.
Room service brought the food Yōko had ordered, and at almost the same time, the dried and folded clothing was also delivered.
“Leave half the coffee, okay? I want to drink some too,” Yōko mumbled to Tetsuyuki, who was devouring the meat and salad voraciously. After informing him that the pot contained two cups of coffee, Yōko bit her lower lip.
“You have an eye for people, don’t you, Tetsuyuki? You once said of Akagi: ‘He looks serious and mature, but he’s really like a thieving dog.’”
“I did. And I said things about others, too.”
“I used to think it was a bad habit of yours to make such immediate, biting judgments about people, but you turned out to be right. And it wasn’t only Akagi; you guessed right all the faults I had never noticed in Akita, Mie, and Mitsuko, too.”
“When my dad’s business failed and we were left penniless, those who had always called me ‘sonny’ were suddenly referring to me as ‘that idiot Iryō kid.’ While there were those kinds of turncoats, there were also some who treated us the same even after we ended up in poverty. People in each of these two types share indescribable facial features, and so when I meet people, the first thing I do is read their faces to determine whether they would turn on me if things went bad, or continue to associate with me regardless. Strangely enough, I turn out to be right. But it’s a pathetic ability to have,” Tetsuyuki explained after having wolfed down the heap of food and wiping his mouth. Yōko poured him a cup of coffee, then one for herself. After sipping leisurely, she stood up and opened the curtain. The rain had stopped. She looked at a section of the buildings along the street dyed by the faint residue of a sunset glow.
“He’s still at work.” Tetsuyuki stood up and went to stand next to Yōko, who pointed to a street extending due west from Umeda. “You see that newspaper office on the corner by the traffic light? In the Ōkita Building, right next to it, on the third floor, the room closest to us . . . that’s his office.” No people could be seen, but the light was on in the room she mentioned. “I’ll call him now, so you can go meet him.”
Tetsuyuki changed back into his clothing. “Let’s forget this idiotic nonsense.” The moment he looked at her facing away from him as he answered, he was overcome by an almost insane jealousy. Seen from behind, Yōko looked to him like an unbearably sad statue as she fixed her gaze on the lighted corner of the distant building.
“If you say that he’s a fraud, then I’ll . . .”
“I’m sure to say you shouldn’t marry him, that he’s showy but worthless. Even if he’s not, that’s what I’ll say. And if that’s what I say, then will you come back to me without any reservation? It’s up to you to discern what kind of person he is.”
“I’m only twenty-one years old. I can’t make such a judgment . . .” Yōko was obstinate, and though Tetsuyuki firmly refused, she picked up the phone and dialed the man’s office. In a small voice she conveyed to the other party that she wished to meet Ishihama, and that she would be accompanied by another person. With that, she hung up and said: “He’s with a client right now, and it will be about another hour before their consultation ends. He’ll come to the tea lounge in this hotel at eight o’clock . . .” It was the first time Tetsuyuki had heard the man’s name from Yōko’s lips.
“I’m going home. I’ve already decided that I’m throwing in the towel. Looking like Death warmed over, I don’t feel like setting myself against an architectural designer who has his own practice. This seems like some kind of attempt to set this Ishihama guy off to an advantage against me.”
As he was about to go out, Yōko clutched at him from behind, sobbing and begging him not to leave. Tetsuyuki reluctantly closed the door and returned to the room, remonstrating with Yōko.
“By now, you should already understand your own feelings, shouldn’t you? You’re ninety percent in favor of this Ishihama, and reserve ten percent for me. And that ten percent consists of a bit of a guilty conscience, along with some sympathy for me. Do you want to marry out of sympathy and spend the rest of your life feeling that you’ve made a rotten choice?”
Yōko then buried her face in Tetsuyuki’s chest and wrapped her arms tightly around him, sobbing. “I love you.”
“Enough! You love that other guy too. I don’t want to hear it anymore.” Even as he spoke, Tetsuyuki could feel that Yōko’s nipples pressed against him had become hard, and he pulled away. In that instant, an idea emerged in his mind, a crude whim that filled even himself with disgust. He told Yōko to get naked. She seemed unable to grasp immediately what he meant, but when he closed the curtains, quickly shed his own clothes, and advanced toward her, she shouted, “You fool!” Grabbing a pillow from the bed, she threw it at him, and then fell into his embrace.
While Yōko was in his arms, Kin occupied a corner of his mind. As if nailed to his heart rather than to a pillar, the lizard goaded his lust into rougher action than ever before, overturning his resolution.
Throw in the towel . . . You think I’ll throw in the towel? You think I’ll give up? I’ll have this woman I’ve just embraced sit down in front of that Ishihama guy. As poor as I am, as much as I might look like a wretched stray dog, no one knows how I might be transformed a few years or a few decades from now. Not even I can predict that. Will hell . . . surely be my final abode? No doubt, there’s a half truth in that. But there’s a bigger truth in the other half that remains unknown. On the other side of the ravine, just a hairsbreadth from hell, everything is charged with bliss and limitless joy.
In both body and mind, Tetsuyuki had turned into Kin. You think I’ll give in? I’ll show him that I can take Yōko back. The Kin inside Tetsuyuki was shedding forth dazzling light, enticing the emptiness he had felt toward an apex of joy that was hidden and awaiting.
Tetsuyuki listened intently for Yōko’s breathing to subside. When it appeared to have eased off, she moved her lips toward him, then away again. “You fool!”
“Are you really angry?”
“Yes, I am really angry.”
“I’m not going to give up on you. I’m going to have it out with that Ishihama.”
Yōko smiled. It was a smile like a mother’s. Worried about the time, she tried to glance at the clock, but was held in his powerful lock. He was again about to transform into Kin.
Ishihama, smartly dressed in a well-tailored, showy blue suit, stood up from his seat as soon as he saw them enter the tea lounge, bowing politely to Tetsuyuki, who was six years his junior. There was nothing diffident about his manners, but neither did he display any condescension toward the younger man. Following Yōko’s introduction, he produced a business card and, handing it to Tetsuyuki, said, “How do you do? I am Ishihama Tokurō.” His countenance, telling of a strong intellectuality, barely offset his dandyish attire—which in any other person might be taken as too calculated—from appearing as affectation, instead turning it into elaborate refinement. His tiepin bore a gem—definitely genuine—of the same hue as his suit, and together with the matching cuff links would have cost a few years’ worth of Tetsuyuki’s income.
“If I wanted to have what you’re wearing, on my part-time income I’d have to live like a church mouse for five or six years to afford it.”
Ishihama responded impassively to Tetsuyuki’s comment. “These things are tools of my trade. If I let my clients detect even a shred of vulgarity in me, they’ll soon imagine the same crudeness in my blueprints.”
Tetsuyuki became aware of the extent to which Ishihama Tokurō was being considerate toward him. In a case like this, Ishihama was unaware of how offensive his insincere smile was, in spite of his seeming adeptness at care and consideration for others. Not looking at either man’s face, Yōko fixed her gaze on the orange juice before her.
“I hear you’ll be going to America next year. When, exactly, will that be?”
“I haven’t yet set an exact date, but I need to be there no later than the first part of February.”
“And you want to take Yōko with you?”
“I’d like to. But she hasn’t yet given me an answer.” Ishihama kept his eyes fixed on Tetsuyuki, not even so much as glancing at Yōko. Somewhere in the tone of his words “she hasn’t yet given me an answer,” Tetsuyuki sensed the betrayal of a slight chink in the careful armor of this man’s confidence, and determined to strip him naked.
“When I heard about you from Yōko, I thought the odds were hopelessly stacked against me. An up-and-coming architectural designer with a brilliant future against a malnourished student who is hounded by his dead father’s debts and who works part-time as a bellboy at a hotel. When I look at myself in the mirror, I’m amazed at how bedraggled I look.”
“Not at all. Your eyes have a very striking aspect about them.” The tone of Ishihama’s interjection definitely did not suggest an idle compliment. But what did he mean by “striking”? Eyes can be “striking” in various ways. But without giving it further thought, Tetsuyuki continued.
“There’s no question which of us would be of more benefit to Yōko, and at one point I had given up. But just moments ago, I retracted that decision to give up.” After ascertaining that he possessed a degree of poise that surprised even himself, he went on. “For rather a long time now, Yōko and I have had a physical relationship. Even today, until just before meeting with you, we were in bed together naked in a sixth-floor room in this hotel, and even as she was in my arms I gloated to myself as I imagined you walking here triumphantly. If you’re the kind of man who doesn’t mind that and who will marry Yōko anyway and take her to America, then I’ll give her to you with a laugh. But I wouldn’t expect a man to be that big-hearted. Such a man would either be a fool or a coward, and though he’d have robbed me of Yōko, yet in the end I’d still be the winner. I’d never forget such a foolish, cowardly man, and he’d never forget my words. No matter how magnanimous he’d be right now—no matter how confident he might be that he’s won—the thought would never vanish from his mind that his wife had slept with some guy named Iryō. Mr. Ishihama, if, in spite of all that, you insist on taking Yōko with you to America, I’ll bow out of your lives right now, and never again show my face to Yōko. So, what do you say, Mr. Ishihama? Can your intellectuality trump my baseness? Wouldn’t you end up always tormenting Yōko about this?”
Ishihama lit a cigarette, then for a long time fiddled with the matchbox on the table, setting it upright and laying it down as he was lost in thought. Yōko remained motionless, her gaze still on the orange juice.
“Mr. Iryō, when I was twenty-two years old I would certainly not have been able to pull off a tactic like this or produce the kind of look in my eyes that I see in yours. I probably couldn’t do it even now.” With that, he glanced for the first time at Yōko. “But I still can’t very well apologize and surrender, because I haven’t yet heard Yōko’s reply.”
“Then why don’t you ask her now?”
Ishihama reproved Tetsuyuki’s follow-up attack with a smile. “Let us suppose that Yōko expresses a desire to marry me now. In that case, I might answer that I consider my proposal to have been broken, and then she would be the one to be pitied.”
Tetsuyuki thought: At last I have stripped him of his expensive clothing and accessories, and he thought he’d win, and win big. Then he said: “But you’re in a hurry, aren’t you, Mr. Ishihama? Since you have to be in America early in February, you can’t afford to take your time.”
A look of weariness appeared in Ishihama’s face. Sensing that a mere few minutes of exchange with him had rendered his rival exhausted, Tetsuyuki pressed Yōko. “Why don’t you just give an answer? Such wishy-washiness isn’t good in a woman.”
At that, Ishihama turned to him with a look of unconcealed indignation. “If you please, that’s no way to talk. You sound just like a gangster pimp.”
“Well, even if she’s a gangster pimp’s woman, I’m sure that as long as Yōko accepts, you’d be magnanimous enough to marry her and take her to America.”
Yōko suddenly shook her head violently, and both men turned their gaze toward her almost simultaneously. Still staring at the orange juice, she said in a barely audible voice: “I . . . love Tetsuyuki after all.”
Ishihama heaved a sigh that could be taken as expressing either disappointment or relief. “That’s regrettable. Well then, I’ll withdraw.” With that, he stood up. But Tetsuyuki was no longer looking at him; his eyes were intently fixed on Yōko’s profile as he tried to fathom what she was feeling. He was not at all certain he had won her back.
“So, tell me, you with your uncanny powers of discerning people’s characters . . . Tell me how Mr. Ishihama appeared to you. That was my purpose in having you meet with him. Well, then? If I had married him, do you think I could have been happy?”
“I can’t say. Maybe you could have. At least he’s not trashy. He’s intelligent, he’s clean, he has many qualities that ought to be attractive to young women, he’s not given to affectation, and he’s in good shape. But he’s weak against adversity. He tries to live and act too stylishly. Such guys can’t handle hardships. Their range of feelings is narrow. I can’t say how things will turn out for him ten or twenty years from now, but life doesn’t always go smoothly.”
“He told me that during hard times I’d be the one he’d depend on for emotional support.”
“Having been put in a position where you had to say ‘I love Tetsuyuki after all’ made you hate me, didn’t it?”
“I don’t hate you, but I’ve become afraid . . .”
“In time, that will turn into hatred.” With that pronouncement, he left the tea lounge, but then realized he had left the box containing the chestnut weevil larvae on the table. When he returned, Yōko grabbed his arm as he went to pick it up, staring at him intently.
“Do you have enough for train fare back?”
“I have a commuter pass from Osaka to Suminodō, so it’s no problem.”
“Do you have anything for breakfast tomorrow?”
“No, I don’t.”
Pulling her wallet out of her purse, Yōko set several 1,000-yen bills on the box of larvae.
“I’ll go back to work tomorrow, so I don’t need this much.”
He put just one bill in his pocket, and when he tried to return the rest, she stuffed the bills into his pocket with her peculiar endearing smile. “Give it back when you’ve gained some weight.”
As he left the lobby, he looked back to see Yōko still sitting in the tea lounge. She had removed her tiny earrings and was staring at them as they lay in the palm of her hand. It occurred to him that in time another Ishihama would probably appear before her, but he felt no sorrow at parting. A strange vitality that had grown out of the lingering aftertaste of the victorious battle caused him to push the heavy glass doors of the hotel open with energy.
But as he walked along, he began to feel shame and asked himself: What’s this “powers of discerning people’s characters”? He’s “weak against adversity,” or his “range of feelings is narrow”? I had my nerve speaking of someone that way. “Weak against adversity” or “range of feelings is narrow” describes me better than anyone. And what will happen to Yōko now that she’s been left alone? If we part like this, nothing will be recoverable.
Tetsuyuki wheeled around and ran back to the hotel. His mind full of a premonition that Yōko had just disappeared forever from his life, he looked into the tea lounge with apprehension. Yōko was sitting there. She looked at Tetsuyuki and her face flushed a bright red, a reaction he was unable to understand.
“If you had kept me waiting another ten minutes for you to come back, I think I’d really have begun to hate you. I thought for sure you’d come back, but my heart was pounding and I wondered what I’d do if you didn’t show up.”
“Why did you think for sure that I’d come back?”
“Because you love me.”
“It’s already over between you and Ishihama, isn’t it?”
“Who was it that pulled a dirty trick to end it?”
“That was the only ‘trick’ I had left to pull.”
“There was no need to do that.” Waiting until Tetsuyuki took a seat, she continued. “Didn’t you understand that I’d made up my mind while you were in the bathtub?”
“How should I have understood that? The night you first told me that you liked another guy, you went with me to a hotel, didn’t you?” Yōko’s face again flushed a bright red. Bracing himself, Tetsuyuki said: “Tell me that you want me to marry you!”
“No! I’d die before I’d say that. Instead, I’ll have you bow your head before me and ask me to marry you.” Yōko snickered. Putting his forehead down on the table, Tetsuyuki said in a small voice, “Please marry me.” He could feel that he was bleeding from a small but deep wound in the depths of his joy. “I’ve been writhing in agony these twenty days.”
He raised his head and noticed that Yōko’s smile was somehow melancholy, and he worried that even after his exchange with Ishihama, perhaps she really had come to love the guy even more.
“I’m sure you won’t be able to forget this, Tetsuyuki. And I have a feeling that after we’re married, you’ll be the one who’ll keep dredging up the past. That’s because you’re never willing to take a back seat to anyone, you have a strong sense of self-esteem, you’re given over to jealousy, you’re obsessive, and you’re intelligent . . .”
“When it comes to intelligence, you have me beat. I’m an idiot. But you’re right about everything else. The most that can become of a guy like me is to be a thief or a swindler, the typical sort who make their wives suffer.”
The smile disappeared from Yōko’s face and was replaced by an expression of obvious sorrow.
“I never imagined that you’d fall in love with another guy. So, to your analysis of my character you’d have to add: narcissist.”
“I’m only twenty-one. And I like it when a man makes a fuss over me. Is there anything wrong with that?”
Tetsuyuki realized that this was turning into a serious argument between them, and clammed up. Whenever it seemed that he was about to lose an argument with her, he had until now always kicked her in the shins. Though he thought he was taking care not to go too far, there were two or three times when he raised a blue welt on her, making her refuse to talk to him for an entire day. By trying to kick her lightly in the shins under the table, he was attempting to show his affection for her, but before he could do so, tears welled up in her eyes.
“I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid, but I’ll say how I feel anyway.”
He expected to hear from her a renewed confession of love for Ishihama, or words to that effect. But that is not what she said.
“You’re special to me. I really did develop a fondness for Ishihama, but compared to what I felt for you, I knew from the start that it was of a completely different nature. And I calculated: who will be of greater benefit to me . . . And that calculation gradually caused me to be in love with Ishihama. I’m a woman who can fall in love with a man that way. I’m not the pure and innocent woman you think I am. Now you’ll get angry and kick me in the shins, won’t you? Well, go ahead and kick. I don’t care.”
Tetsuyuki could not bear to look at Yōko’s weeping face, and dropped his gaze to the table. He felt both chill and exhaustion. The face of the collector, Kobori, flickered before his eyes, as did the double chin of the portly former geisha who was his mother’s employer. The debt his father had left behind formed a pitch-black wall in his path. Yōko asked what time it was.
“Ten after nine.” Tetsuyuki rose from his seat, and Yōko grabbed her purse and stood up, walking wordlessly across the lobby and exiting the hotel. Thinking that she would probably never return to him, he watched the form of that lovely, graceful creature as she stood at the Hankyū ticket gate and then ascended the stairs to the platform.
As he sat in the dirty train car on the Katamachi Line he bowed his head and with folded arms and tightly shut eyes mustered strength in an attempt to suppress the chills that continuously assaulted him. He wanted money. As he walked shivering along the long dark path from the station to his apartment, the thought never left his mind: I want money. I want money.
Climbing the stairs to his apartment, he realized that he did not have the box containing the larvae; he could not recall whether he had left it on the table in the tea lounge or on the rack in the train car. He went up to Kin. “Sorry, but you’ll have to go without dinner today. Try to make do with just water.” As was his custom, he talked to Kin as the lizard lapped water from the spoon with its long tongue. Like recording the day’s events in a diary, Tetsuyuki had kept up this nightly practice for several months. And, much the same as in a diary, untruths were mixed in among the words.
“Kin-chan, I don’t care about myself anymore. I’m so exhausted that I’m just hanging on to life by a thread. I don’t have the energy to work, and I don’t have the courage to be a thief. And just so that I could claim some kind of victory over that Ishihama guy, I ended up ruining Yōko’s entire life. When he walked out of the hotel, I felt as if I knew how to defeat an enemy; it was as if my body were on fire. ‘This is how you beat them, one by one.’ And courage welled up in me. But you know, Kin-chan, a solitary victory is no victory at all. What’ll become of Yōko? It stands to reason that she wanted to marry him more than me. But I interfered, and if my interference results in her unhappiness, then it was no victory for me. It was defeat. I talked big when it came to putting down Lamenting the Deviations, but I feel a fascination for that book of cheerless grieving.”
The moment he said that, he realized that a thoroughgoing nihilism was linked to a certain kind of courage, but that it was not the sort of courage that could elevate a human being. What exactly was this courage that offered no uplift? Tetsuyuki fell into a dull pensiveness as he looked at Kin’s motionless body and taut limbs.
He dived into the quilts, which had been left out. Intense chills left his teeth chattering. He fell asleep, listening closely to his own rough breathing. At about three a.m. he awoke in great discomfort. The shivering had stopped, but his head ached and he could tell that he had a high fever. With the light left on, Kin was writhing. Thinking that Kin could not sleep with the light on, he tried to get up but was unable to move. The slightest movement set off intense shivering. His vision was too clouded for him to focus on the nail piercing Kin, and he succumbed momentarily to the illusion that the lizard had regained its freedom and was crawling down the wall, escaping from this cramped apartment to the spacious world beyond. Something irreplaceable was leaving. Goaded by his own sadness, he finally roused himself to get up and turn off the fluorescent light. His entire body again shivered.
Hearing footsteps and feeling a pleasant coolness on his forehead, Tetsuyuki awoke and glanced around. The fluorescent light was on, and the only thing he understood was that it was nighttime. But he had no idea how many hours he had slept. Kin was still nailed to the pillar. A washbowl filled with ice water had been placed next to his pillow. He reached his hand to his forehead to find a chilled towel placed on it, then twisted around to look into the kitchen. Yōko, her back toward him, was peering into a pot. He gazed at her intently. She turned around, shut off the gas, and sat down at his bedside.
“Is it night now?”
Yōko nodded in reply, and said as she turned the towel over, “You still have a high fever.”
“Was it yesterday, or the day before, that we met?”
“Yesterday. What time did you go to bed?”
“Before eleven, I think. I woke up once in the middle of the night, but I’ve been asleep ever since.”
Counting on her fingers, Yōko said with a smile, “Then you’ve slept twenty hours.”
“Why did you come to my apartment?”
“You left something in the hotel yesterday, didn’t you? A little box in department store wrapping. When we parted I forgot to hand it to you and ended up taking it home with me. I wondered what was in it, and can you imagine how I screamed when I opened it?” Tetsuyuki laughed. “So, this evening I went to the hotel where you work in order to hand this disgusting package to you. When they told me you were still off and hadn’t contacted them I got a bit worried. You said, didn’t you, that you were going to return to work today?” Tetsuyuki extended his hand and stroked Yōko’s hair. “I borrowed a key from your landlady and . . . didn’t you hear my scream when I came in?”
Together they looked at Kin. Yōko explained that when she saw the lizard nailed to the pillar her feet began to shake and did not stop for a long time, and that since Tetsuyuki’s breathing was so rough it seemed he might die any moment, she lay down beside him and felt with her hand that he had a high fever. When Tetsuyuki complained of thirst, she brought him some water.
“Can you get up?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“There’s a clinic just a seven- or eight-minute walk from here.” At Yōko’s adamant insistence, Tetsuyuki let himself be taken to the small clinic with only one elderly doctor, who told him that it was a case of influenza and gave him an injection and medicine to take, adding that he would need complete rest for two or three days. When they returned to his apartment, Yōko told him to change into his pajamas, and it was only then that he realized he had been sleeping all that time in his street clothes.
As he was undressing, Yōko sighed. “It’s because you got so drenched in the rain.”
“But I soaked for a long time in the tub at the hotel . . .”
He had no appetite at all but, sitting upright on the futon, sipped the rice porridge and nibbled at the fried egg she had prepared for him. As he ate, it occurred to him that, while he hadn’t swallowed any food for an entire day, Kin had gone even longer without anything. In fits and starts, he described how the lizard came to be nailed to a pillar in his room. After hearing everything, Yōko was lost in thought for a while.
“Tetsuyuki, why don’t you get out of this place and move somewhere else?” She mentioned that there was a vacancy in a tidy apartment complex near her home.
“The deposit and rent for a place in your neighborhood would be three or four times what it is here. I don’t yet have that kind of money.”
“You and your mother could live there together, couldn’t you?”
Tetsuyuki shook his head. He was haunted by the thought of not knowing when an accomplice of that collector might show up. He never wanted his mother to go through that kind of bitter experience again. If she were to be threatened by collectors daily the way she was, then she would surely lose her mind. He was about to explain all of that to Yōko, but when he opened his mouth, words unrelated to his thoughts came out instead.
“Just forget about me. Let’s agree never to meet again.” He was surprised at his own words. His hand, as if of its own accord, took the Rolex off his wrist and placed it in Yōko’s lap.
“Why?”
“I’ve gotten so that I don’t care about anything. Not about you, not about this lizard, not about school or graduating . . . I don’t care about anything.” As he spoke, he gradually came to feel that way. Even if only for a moment, he felt hatred toward Yōko for having shifted her affections to another man. And he harbored anger toward Kin for stubbornly clinging to life as if in some sort of vengeance against him. He wanted money and hated his poverty. Inside of himself, Tetsuyuki shouted all of these things.
“Those are all lies. When your fever goes down, you’ll be sure to apologize to me. After all, you love me . . .”
Tetsuyuki looked her in the eyes. No words could have calmed his agitated mind more than those, and the fact that Yōko could deliver them without the slightest pretentiousness or perturbation filled him with immeasurable joy. She had him take his medicine and lie down, then covered him with the quilt.
“It isn’t safe around here at night. And a lot of country thugs and small-time gangsters hang out in the shopping arcade near the station. You ought to borrow the landlady’s phone and call a cab to take you back.”
Yōko carried the pot and dishes to the kitchen and ran some water.
“I’ll stay here tonight. Before you woke up, I called home from the pay phone over there at the general store.”
“You told your mom that you’d be staying in my room?”
Yōko nodded as she wiped her hands. “My mom was furious, and screamed, ‘You get back here!’ But when I told her that a guy with that high a fever wasn’t going to turn into a ravenous wolf, she reluctantly gave in. When I asked her to tell Dad some suitable lie, she said, ‘You’re a fool. An intelligent woman thinks of love and marriage separately.’ That was her sermon, but she seems to know everything that’s going on.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” Yōko’s eyes sparkled as she sat down beside him. Tetsuyuki reached his hand from under the quilt, groping his way to the innermost recess under her skirt. Pinching his arm, she said with a look of exasperation as she fell against him, “You won’t turn into a wolf, but you will turn into a snake, huh?”
But the raging fever prevented Tetsuyuki from turning into either a wolf or a snake. The weight of her body made it difficult for him to breathe.
“I won’t touch you anymore, so please, get back a bit. I can’t breathe.”
Giggling, Yōko leaned on top of him all the more.
“Give that lizard some larvae and water.”
Flustered at Tetsuyuki’s request, Yōko pulled away. Straightening her disheveled hair, she cast a look at Kin. “I couldn’t . . . do something like that.”
“But Kin hasn’t eaten for two days.”
“No, I couldn’t bring myself to touch those things.”
“Just grab them with tweezers and hold them up to his nose. He’ll eat them by himself. And you can give him water with a spoon.”
“You should be able to do that much yourself.”
“With a fever like this I don’t have the energy to get up.”
“And yet you were able to walk to the clinic.”
At Tetsuyuki’s repeated urging and with an expression as if she had just been sobbing, Yōko put some water in a spoon and, standing as far away as possible, held it out to Kin. The lizard appeared to be very thirsty and lapped it up greedily. During all of this, a thin sound like a scream leaked out of her mouth. Tetsuyuki closed his eyes, and in his ears that voice took on a sort of sensual beauty. And as he listened, Kin seemed like some kind of extraordinary being. At the same time, he realized that Yōko was also an extraordinary creature.