The New Year arrived. Many families were spending the holiday in the hotel, and both the full-time and the part-time bellboys were on duty, lodging in the napping room between December 30 and January 3. There were no vacancies, and the grill, the coffee shop, the bar, and the room service staff were all frenetically taking orders and working longer hours than usual.
In the early afternoon of January 3, Tetsuyuki finished carrying all the luggage of the guests who checked out en masse. Returning to the bellboy room, he found Tsuruta indicating by the way he held the cigarette in his mouth how impatiently he had been waiting. Motioning for him to come closer, Tsuruta’s eyes glinted as he whispered in Tetsuyuki’s ear. “They’ve decided to fire that bastard Nakaoka.”
Taken aback, Tetsuyuki gave Tsuruta a hard look. He grabbed him by the sleeve of his uniform and pulled him to the passageway between the kitchen and the laundry room.
“Did you blab? You promised to keep it a secret, didn’t you?” Tetsuyuki was suppressing his anger. It was, after all, only his personal inference that Nakaoka was the probable culprit, and he had reminded Tsuruta never to tell anyone about it.
“Yeah, but there was no way I could avoid talking about it, was there? You’ll be all right, because you had nothing to do with it. But I was under suspicion. The only way I could defend my innocence was to have them check the attendance record once more. Your suspicions turned out to be right. My name was cleared, and Nakaoka’s was the only one remaining. It was a lifesaver. Without that, I’d have remained under suspicion and would’ve lost my job here. That idiot Nakaoka! He got what he had coming.”
To be sure, Tsuruta’s excuse was reasonable, but Tetsuyuki somehow felt like a criminal as he leaned against the overheated concrete wall of the passageway. His forehead was perspiring. Tsuruta continued.
“That bastard Nakaoka was cocky at first. Even when he was being grilled by the head of personnel and the manager and had the attendance book shoved in his face, he was cool as a cucumber. I suppose he thought the fatso party would come to his aid.”
Of the company president’s two sons, the elder was corpulent while the younger was tall and lean, and so in private the employees referred to the two factions as the “fatso party” and the “beanpole party.”
“The beanpole party pulled off a major stunt while Nakaoka was in a situation where he couldn’t get in touch with anyone in the fatso party. The beanpole phoned the fat guy’s home, and placed the call directly himself. They had pressed the beanpole, saying that Nakaoka had confessed that the fatso put him up to it, and asked, ‘Is that true?’ But he replied that his older brother couldn’t possibly do anything like that, and if it were true, the hotel would have no choice but to request that the police conduct a thorough investigation, and brace itself for the disgrace to its reputation. And this was the fat guy’s measured response.”
Rivulets of sweat were running down Tsuruta’s forehead. As if he were a cop who had busted a criminal, he continued. “‘We can’t very well keep a thief like that. Let’s sack him. What possible reason would exist for me to have an employee enter my own hotel and steal goods from a shop? Nakaoka’s not only a thief, but appears to be insane as well.’ And so that was the end of the Nakaoka affair.”
“You’re really in on all the details, aren’t you? How is it that a bellboy like you knows all the dealings of the top brass in this company?”
Looking up at Tetsuyuki, Tsuruta twisted his lips in a laugh. “Since you helped me out, I’ll tell you, but don’t mention this to anyone.” Thus prefacing his remarks, he proceeded slowly. “I have a very surprising source of information.”
“Who?”
“Yuriko, the grill girl.”
“Yuriko!”
“I’ve slept with her many times,” Tsuruta said with a note of pride, then added, “but she’s this to the head of the business office, who’s with the fatso party.” Tsuruta extended and retracted several times the pinkie he thrust in front of Tetsuyuki’s face—a suggestive gesture. “You pretty much get what I mean, don’t you?”
“Get what?” Tetsuyuki asked indifferently. He no longer cared. He just wanted to get out of that hot passageway as soon as possible.
“That the head of the business office only pretends to be with the fatso party, but is really a spy for the beanpole party.”
Tetsuyuki thought to himself as he smiled at Tsuruta: This guy may look like a dope, but he’s pretty shrewd. So then it was Miyake Minoru, the good-looking head of the business office, who deserved the greatest credit for getting the idiots of the fatso party to approve of the execution of this childish plot, using roundabout means to make Nakaoka into his stooge and putting the beanpole party in control to determine the next company president. Even this guy is able to understand that much.
Tsuruta was puzzled by Tetsuyuki’s silent smile. “What’s so funny?”
“No matter which way this turns out, there’s no more hope for your career advancement.”
“Why’s that?”
“Yuriko’s the kind of woman who’ll sleep with anyone: with Nakaoka, with you . . . and with the head of the business office, who knew a long time ago that she was sleeping with Nakaoka and you. And that’s why he devised this tactic of turning Nakaoka into a thief and then casting suspicion on you. Even if Yuriko was nothing more than a convenient receptacle for his physiological discharge, she’s a cute and charming receptacle. Miyake is human and male, so there’s no way he could be free of jealousy toward you and Nakaoka. The whole scenario has become clear to me. At this year’s stockholders’ meeting, the beanpole will become company president, and in time Miyake will be promoted to a suitable position. But you’ll be a bellboy until you retire.”
As he watched Tsuruta’s face gradually grow rigid, a strategy came to Tetsuyuki’s mind, though he had no idea whether it would work.
“Miyake’s a fool too. A guy who has a wife and children yet gets involved with an employee of his own company—a young unmarried woman at that—and then at the end of this bed talk blabs about the beanpole party’s game plan . . . Doesn’t he understand that if this were to get out, no matter how he had distinguished himself as victor in the factional warfare, he wouldn’t be able to remain in this company? If the fatso party got wind of this, in spite of its confidence about winning, the beanpole party would be tossed out of the ring at the last minute.”
His inchoate rage turned into a malevolence that wished to see both of them—Tsuruta, who was right in front of him, and Miyake, who was no doubt gleeful about the success of his tactic—vanish from this hotel. Tetsuyuki did not stay to see the effects of his words, but proceeded down the dimly lit passageway.
His anger gradually came to be tinged with a bit of sorrow. When for the first time in five days he changed from his uniform into his own trousers and sweater, he found himself feeling pity for Yuriko, whose peculiar “feminine aspect” could only be described as pathological. Nevertheless, he set off to meet Yōko, who was waiting at the ticket gate of Osaka Station, with a strange cheerfulness of heart.
“You’ve never been on time, have you?” Unusually for her, Yōko kept on sulking. In the train car on the Kanjō Line, she took a registered-mail envelope out of her purse and held it out.
“Your portion is in here too, but I’m not going to give it to you anymore.”
“What’s that? What do you mean ‘my portion’?”
“Who knows?”
“I was only ten minutes late. Don’t get so bent out of shape.”
“If I keep you waiting ten minutes, you go on sulking for about an hour.”
In order to humor her, as he grasped the strap in the railcar, Tetsuyuki pressed his elbow against her breast through her coat and put on a pleased expression. “You’ll be staying tonight, won’t you?”
“Don’t do such obscene things in public!” But the end of that reproof was mixed with some laughter. Once again she took the registered-mail envelope out of her purse and handed it to him. The sender was Sawamura Chiyono. “It’s New Year’s gift money, for both of us. It came this morning, and I immediately phoned to thank her. But no matter how many times I called, the line was busy. As soon as we get to Suminodō I’ll try again.”
Enclosed were two gift envelopes each containing 20,000 yen, and a letter written in brush calligraphy:
Lately I have been finding it very troublesome to see people, and even when guests come by I pretend to be out. Are both of you well? Even though I’ve become misanthropic, I’ve wanted to do something for people, and have been giving away things that have been valuable to me. Please accept this without reservation. I tried to think of what would be good to send to you, but was unable to come up with any ideas. Please use this to enjoy some good food or something.
“Wow, that’s forty thousand yen between the two of us! Hey, tomorrow when we go to Osaka, let’s have Matsuzaka beef at the grill in the hotel. We could order some expensive wine too . . .”
“No.” Yōko snatched the envelope from Tetsuyuki’s hand. “We’re going to put this in savings. We need to pay back your father’s debts as soon as possible, don’t we?”
Tetsuyuki could not say anything in response. With pursed lips he gazed at the passing scenery outside the window. After some time an idea occurred to him.
“Maybe we should consult with someone versed in legal matters. I got absolutely nothing from my father as inheritance. Am I really obligated to pay back money I never borrowed? Just because I’m his child, I shouldn’t have to cover his losses. I inherited no property, just debt. Could there be a dumber idea?”
He had decided that after winter break, he would try asking a professor in the Law Department. As soon as they arrived at Suminodō, Yōko went into a phone booth. In the meantime, Tetsuyuki purchased the grocery items she had scribbled on a note: two cuts of steak, salad oil, butter, potatoes, cabbage, onions, mayonnaise, carrots, coffee beans and a stand for drip filters. Though his shopping took a rather long time, Yōko had still not come out of the phone booth.
Just as he was approaching the booth with a large bag of groceries she came out and stood still, a blank expression on her face.
“They said Mrs. Sawamura died last night.”
“Died?”
“The wake will be held tonight.” She took the registered-mail envelope out of her purse and inspected the postmark: it was stamped December 30. “They said she suddenly began to be in pain last evening and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but passed away around ten o’clock.”
For a long time, the two of them stood still on the street in front of the station, a place brimming with sunlight but swept by chilly winds. As if by tacit agreement, they both started walking, passing through the shopping arcade and crossing the railroad tracks.
“She was well along in years . . .” Tetsuyuki felt a certain disappointment that Sawamura Chiyono did not die in the tea hut she had erected in the middle of that spacious garden. He had perceived from her manner of speaking that she wanted to die there, and had a premonition that her wish would probably be fulfilled. “I think that tea is a ritual for gazing on life and death.” Tetsuyuki was strangely able to recall clearly phrases from her unsolicited life story. “While in the tearoom, both host and guest are dead. When they leave the tearoom, they are alive . . . I take naps in the tea hut. That way, I come to understand more fully. When I’m asleep, that’s death. When I’m awake, that’s life. But both are my same self. Life and death, life and death, life and death . . .”
Upon entering the apartment and locking the door, Tetsuyuki and Yōko embraced and locked their lips in a seemingly endless kiss.
“How is Kin?” Yōko asked in hoarse voice.
“Still alive.”
“For a while at least, huh?”
“I’ll pull the nail out of him on April twelfth.” Though he was not conscious of it, that was a year and a day after Tetsuyuki had, in this room where darkness had slipped in, unwittingly driven a nail through Kin’s back. It was also the day he had embraced Yōko’s naked body for the first time in the spring light.
“Why April twelfth?”
Tetsuyuki did not respond to Yōko’s question. He himself did not understand why he had chosen that day. Instead, he said, “We ought to go to the wake tonight.”
Yōko wordlessly slipped off her coat and began preparing dinner in the kitchen. Tetsuyuki lit the heater, then glanced at Kin’s motionless body. In that instant, an unforeseen notion took on the form of words, casting a strange illumination in his mind.
“Over the two days of April eleventh and twelfth last year, I drove a nail into two living creatures.” He turned around and looked intently at Yōko’s back, and she seemed small, helpless, yet at the same time presented a vivid image. He felt a deep love that transcended lust and mere attraction, but in which there was also a glint of anxiety.
He quietly approached her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rubbed his cheek against hers.
“Let’s go to the wake. If we leave here before six, we’ll be right on time. And after we’ve left Mrs. Sawamura’s house, let’s stay in the ‘You’ve Come Again’ Hotel. I can pull the nail out of Kin, but I can’t pull it out of you.” Yōko turned to face him, a redness in her eyes. She tapped his neck lightly with the handle of the knife. Apparently she had taken his words in an obscene sense.
After their meal, Tetsuyuki changed into his pajamas at Yōko’s urging, and slipped under the futon she had spread out for him. Over the past week, he had averaged only four hours of sleep each day. She sat down next to his pillow. He slipped his hand under her skirt.
“Again?” She stopped his hand. “If you do that, you won’t get any sleep.” Though reproving him, when he promised not to make any indecent movements with his fingers, she relaxed her legs with a half-doubting expression on her face.
“I wonder who’ll come into possession of that enormous mansion.”
As he thought about how to respond to Yōko, Tetsuyuki fell asleep.
He slept until nearly five thirty, and it was just before nine o’clock when they arrived at Kawaramachi in Kyoto. In the vicinity of the Shūgakuin Imperial Villa—in front of a bamboo thicket that hardly suggested a residential area—paper lanterns bearing a family crest had been set out, indicating that a wake was being held. Several cars were parked on the road beside the river. As they got out of the cab and approached the gate, both realized at the same time that they had forgotten their juzu prayer beads. Tetsuyuki had arranged that on the following day a fellow student would lend him notes from several classes to prepare for the upcoming graduation exam, and Yōko had planned to act as tour guide of Kobe for an aunt and uncle who had taken advantage of the New Year’s vacation to visit the Kansai area. Thus neither would be able to participate in tomorrow’s funeral ceremony, but at Osaka Station they had purchased an envelope for condolence money and had inserted 10,000 under both their names. They were in a hurry and had completely forgotten to purchase juzu.
Yōko whispered, “What shall we do? We can’t go into such a formal gathering without prayer beads.”
“It can’t be helped. We can’t turn back now. We’ll just have to tell them that we were out when we heard of Mrs. Sawamura’s passing, and that coming here directly, we were in such a hurry that we forgot them.”
As they opened the front door, a monk was just leaving. The familiar middle-aged maid saw him off, then returned and thanked them with a polite bow for having come from such a distance. As they walked down the long corridor, she continued.
“All of her relatives live far away and have not yet arrived. The only ones here now are her friends and Mr. and Mrs. Kumai.”
In the large Japanese-style room in which Mrs. Sawamura’s remains had been placed, only five friends were sitting in silence, an all-too-melancholy sight for the wake of the owner of an enormous mansion.
Some time after Tetsuyuki and Yōko had offered incense, one of those friends in attendance addressed Mr. Kumai—the only relation present—saying they were elderly and did not have the stamina to remain at the wake through the night, and asked to be excused. Bowing deeply, Mr. Kumai thanked them for their participation. The five friends then stood in front of the coffin, pressing their hands together reverently. One of them, an elderly woman, placed her hand on the small hinged door on the lid of the coffin to view the face of the deceased, but Mr. Kumai stopped her, explaining in a calm but overpowering voice:
“I’m truly sorry, but before her demise the departed expressed her wish that her face not be viewed by anyone.” After the five friends left, only Mr. and Mrs. Kumai, Tetsuyuki, and Yōko remained in the room.
“We’re sorry for imposing on you the last time we came.”
Mr. Kumai responded impassively to Yōko’s apology. “I think I should also inform Mr. and Mrs. Lang of my aunt’s passing. Though it was none of my business, their son rather angered me. He did come to pick up his parents, but was very curt with us, and it was difficult to tell whether his greeting to my aunt was intended as an expression of gratitude or a complaint that she had been meddlesome. He did not have a proper spirit about him.”
“I received New Year’s gift money from Mrs. Sawamura. It came this morning, and when I tried calling to thank her, I was surprised to hear that she had passed away last night . . .”
Mr. Kumai responded to Yōko. “She had had a cold for about twenty days, and had been coughing constantly. I told her she ought to see a doctor, but she laughed it off, saying that she had no fever and felt fine. Yesterday evening, the sound of something breaking came from her room. When the maid went to check, she was crouching down on the floor in agony. The maid said that her lips were pale. She appeared to be conscious right up to the time she was loaded into the ambulance, because she said something to the maid.”
“What did she say?”
Mr. Kumai shook his head at Tetsuyuki’s question. “It was difficult to make out, and the maid couldn’t understand it. From then until the time she expired, she never regained consciousness. The doctor’s diagnosis was heart failure.”
Tetsuyuki glanced at Yōko, and was met with a doubtful look. Mr. Kumai had just said to the elderly woman who was about to look at Sawamura Chiyono’s face that, before breathing her last, she had said that she wanted no one to see her face after her death. Apologizing for not being able to attend the funeral ceremony, Tetsuyuki explained the reason.
“You’ve gone to the trouble of coming to the wake, so please do not feel obligated,” Mr. Kumai said with a bow. Mrs. Kumai—beautiful, but with a mien that somehow suggested daggers—kept looking intently at Yōko, or training her eyes on Tetsuyuki’s threadbare jacket or the black tie he had just purchased in Kawaramachi.
From outside the room, the maid announced relatives. “They have just arrived from Kanazawa.” Mr. and Mrs. Kumai stood up and hurriedly exited. As the sound of footsteps receded, Tetsuyuki approached the coffin.
“Tetsuyuki!” Yōko’s voice was lowered as she tried to stop him, but he opened the small hinged doors on the coffin and pulled the white cloth back. He broke out in gooseflesh and almost let out an involuntary cry. What he saw was not the fair-skinned, refined, calm and self-possessed Sawamura Chiyono he had known in life, but rather a hideous dead face with blackened skin, whose features were grotesquely distorted in agony. The right eye was shut tight, but the left eye was wide open. The proof that it was not indeed someone else was a small brown mole next to her lip and the peculiarly well-shaped ridge of her nose that was all that remained of the beauty of her younger years.
“Tetsuyuki!” Yōko again called out in a small voice. Footsteps could be heard approaching through the long corridor. Tetsuyuki quickly replaced the white cloth, closed the hinged doors, and returned to his seat. His fingertips were trembling and his heart was pounding wildly. Mr. and Mrs. Kumai entered accompanied by three male relatives. Availing themselves of that opportunity, Tetsuyuki and Yōko took their leave of the Sawamura residence.
“That was kind of a creepy wake. It seems a bit strange that it should be such a lonely affair, with so few people . . .” Yōko commented inside the cab, giving Tetsuyuki’s wrist a firm squeeze. “I was really nervous not knowing from where in that huge mansion someone might enter that room.”
“Yeah, but you thought it was odd too, didn’t you, Yōko? What Mr. Kumai said to that old lady. And it didn’t hang together with what he said later.”
“Mmm. And then, my heart was really pounding while you were looking inside the coffin . . .”
“My hair was standing on end.”
The neon sign for the hotel came into view and they had the cab stop. They both fell silent as they walked along the dark street. The chilly wind typical of winter in Kyoto made their faces grow taut. The square electric sign proclaiming VACANCIES was making a creaking noise as it shook in the wind. The owner of the hotel remembered Tetsuyuki and Yōko. With a smile and mannerism more suited to an eager street vendor than to the owner of a love hotel, he said, “Welcome! I’m glad you came again.”
“We’ll be staying here tonight.”
“Guests to stay the night! Usher them to their room!” The owner called commandingly in a loud voice as if addressed to a steward, but like the time before, showed them to their room himself.
“It’s pretty cold out tonight, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“You two are already engaged to be married, aren’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you pick up on things like that. There are all kinds of couples that come here: some I can tell are both married with families, or that this young woman doesn’t realize she’s come here with a gangster . . . there are those kinds of couples.” The owner explained as he filled the bath for them, then added, “There is no breakfast service for guests who stay the night. We don’t have the staff for that, so we can only offer coffee, toast, and a fried egg. Will that be all right?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“What time shall I bring it by?”
“At ten.”
“Breakfast at ten! Check!” Raising his voice like a cashier, the owner exited the room. Tetsuyuki and Yōko looked at each other and smiled.
“Looking at that guy energizes me.”
It occurred to Tetsuyuki that both times they had come to this hotel were days when they attended on matters of life and death: the previous time was after Mr. and Mrs. Lang’s attempted suicide, and today it was after Sawamura Chiyono’s wake. Tetsuyuki stood there in his shabby old coat, musing idly. Yōko unbuttoned his coat, buried her face in his chest, and sighed deeply.
“What did Mrs. Sawamura’s face look like?”
After some hesitation, he lied. “She looked beautiful, as if she were alive . . .”
“Then why did it frighten you so much?”
“Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? I had no idea when Mr. Kumai would come back, and he had told both of us in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to show us the face.”
“I wonder why.”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, does it?”
They bathed together, cavorting with each other in the tiled tub. With his palm, Tetsuyuki traced the contour from her waist over her buttocks, his favorite part of her body. Then he said in as cheerful and unaffected tone as possible, “What’s this? A yawn? I’m not going to let you get any sleep tonight.”
“No, I’m going to bed.”
They dried each other with the towel and lay down naked on the bed until they cooled down from the bath.
“. . . it hurts,” Yōko whispered in his ear.
“Where?”
“. . . my nipples.”
The overture was coming from her, but it was not a call for ecstasy. Tetsuyuki perceived it as rather like a child’s presuming upon an adult’s indulgence. He turned off the light and began whispering sweet nothings, using every phrase he knew to declare his love for her. At some point they coupled, and at some point they finished, ending in such gentle rapture and peace that Tetsuyuki was soon able to begin again.
Several hours later Tetsuyuki awoke, startled by a dream in which he emerged from water only to have someone force his head back into it. He turned on the small lamp by the bed and checked the clock: five a.m. Taking care not to wake her, he brushed Yōko’s hair away from her face and looked at her sleeping profile. She was sleeping on her side, her naked body facing him. He breasts appeared very constricted, squeezed between her arms, and he carefully moved her top arm to her side. It took rather a long time before one of her nipples—the one that had been crumpled under her arm—returned to its original shape, and its amusing movement brought a smile to his lips. Yōko also appeared to be having a dream; her lips were making short movements, like those of an infant sucking its mother’s breast, even making a slight sound. Tetsuyuki carefully covered her breasts with the quilt and traced the parting of her lips with his index finger. The sucking sound increased, then suddenly stopped.
Tetsuyuki began to comprehend what sort of thing love between a man and woman is, why it is both resilient and at the same time fragile. He vowed that he would never again mention her having once shifted affections to another man, but even as he pledged to himself, he realized how doubtful his resolution was. Even so, he was confident that they would make a very fine married couple. He felt both regret and horror at the thought that her body, lustrous and supple, would someday inevitably disappear from this world, but for that very reason he was drawn to serious reflection about what happiness was, and he felt a renewed drive to turn himself and those he loved toward this happiness.
He was unable to get Sawamura Chiyono’s hideous dead face out of his mind. She had such a calm and collected attitude toward life and death, speaking of such matters with a sort of lofty, religious enlightenment. So why did she have such a horrifying visage in death that those paying their condolences were forbidden to look at her? What was it that she said to her maid as she was dying? Did she actually believe her own stated view on life and death? Wasn’t it really not a matter of enlightenment, but rather of her own final pride, her last pretense of self-importance? Tetsuyuki compared her face in death with that of his father. His father’s was beautiful, peaceful even.
While alive, his father was always being deceived, but had never deceived anyone. He had been betrayed and had lost a great deal, but had never robbed anyone of anything. He had done no wrong, and one could even say that it was because of his honesty that his business failed. And yet didn’t he win at the game of life?
Tetsuyuki had no idea what kind of life Sawamura Chiyono had led, but perhaps the abundant and tranquil life of her later years rested on a foundation of the misery of countless other people. No matter how she tried to conceal such things or to dismiss them as belonging to the past, her deeds had blackened her face in death and distorted it, causing one eye to open wide. Yes, that must be it. Unable to take her magnificent mansion or her elegant garden or her famed tea utensils with her, Sawamura Chiyono had set out on a journey accompanied only by her horrifying face. Isn’t the face of a dead person the ultimate indication of the unconcealable character of a person? Lost in his thoughts, Tetsuyuki had forgotten about the movements of his own index finger. Yōko’s entire body jerked in a sudden spasm. She turned her sleepy eyes to Tetsuyuki.
“You mustn’t play such tricks . . . not while I’m asleep.” She moved his hand over to her shoulder and appeared to fall asleep again, but at length asked with her eyes closed, “Can’t you sleep?”
“I can’t.”
“That happens when you’re too tired.”
“It’s because my nerves are exhausted. I think I’ll have some beer.”
The room was so heated that Tetsuyuki was thirsty. He took a can of beer out of the refrigerator and drank it sitting on the bed. Lying prone, Yōko gazed at him, resting her chin in her hands. After two or three sips, Tetsuyuki turned her face up.
“Let me nail you again. Then I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Can’t you put it in a way that sounds more romantic?”
She shifted her body to receive him. His plea of wanting to be able to sleep had just been an excuse, but after sex and beer he actually did fall into a peaceful sleep.
It was around noon when Tetsuyuki and Yōko returned to Umeda Station on the Hankyū Line. They entered a coffee shop on the fifth floor of a building in front of the station, and as soon as they sat down, Yōko said in a hushed voice, “I think it would be great if I could get pregnant.”
Tetsuyuki understood immediately the meaning behind those words. Sooner or later he would have to meet with her father and secure his permission for their marriage, something the old man had absolutely no intention of giving.
In the four or five times they had met, it was obvious from her father’s bearing that he was not well disposed toward Tetsuyuki. His was a tone of voice and an expression that differed qualitatively from the unpleasantness that is not uncommon in fathers toward men who come to take away their daughters. To Tetsuyuki it seemed like nothing but undisguised contempt, and he reciprocated with the same feeling.
What was wrong with the fact that his mother worked in a small restaurant in Kita Shinchi? And what was wrong with the fact that he worked as a bellboy while attending college? What was wrong with the fact that he and his mother had been saddled with his father’s debts? Tetsuyuki thought that way even as he recognized how a father must feel when sending his daughter off to be married; it was only natural that Yōko’s father should disapprove of someone like him. But her father did not just disapprove of him; he despised both him and his life’s circumstances. As soon as he graduated, Tetsuyuki planned to thank Yōko’s father profusely, and then declare his intentions clearly.
“But if he still refuses to give me your hand, what then?”
“Even if I were pregnant?” Yōko giggled. “If that happened, I’d have to give up on Mom and Dad. But a parent absolutely wouldn’t refuse in that case.”
Tetsuyuki grimaced at her resoluteness. He sensed something for which he was no match.
She changed the topic of conversation. “It’s about time you started putting serious effort into your graduation thesis. I’ve already written twenty pages.”
“I’ll start on mine tomorrow.”
“What’s the topic?”
“Why Kin-chan is still alive after having a nail driven through him.”
“Stop it. It’d be just like you to write about something like that. And if they wouldn’t let you graduate with that . . .”
“I’m just joking. I couldn’t turn a difficult topic like that into a thesis, now, could I? There’d be no topic more impossible for me.”
“I’m really exhausted.” Yōko’s smile was mixed with embarrassment.
“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s a hundred times more exhausting for a man than for a woman. I had to be in full command of my intellect and vitality, moment by moment either being wounded or exulting in victory, putting on an act or becoming desperate . . . All you had to do was take it easy and sit there.”
“You put on acts? Ugh, that’s disgusting. So, what kind of acts do you put on?” Yōko moved her face closer, her expression not concealing her amusement.
“I couldn’t mention something like that.”
“Keep on acting, okay? Even after you’ve become an old man. I’ll get tired of you the minute you stop acting.”
“If I get to be an old man, it’ll be too late for acting.” Even as he answered, it occurred to Tetsuyuki that some mutual acting would probably be necessary in their lives.
Yōko opened her purse and took out the envelope she had received from Sawamura Chiyono. For a while she was lost in thought, but then said as she pulled a loose thread from Tetsuyuki’s jacket and disposed of it in the ashtray, “I’ve been acting too.”
Tetsuyuki was silent. It struck him as not at all strange that, when they were both naked, Yōko too might be “acting” in her own way. But the words she enunciated clearly and distinctly were very different from what he anticipated: “To be quite honest, I did not like Sawamura Chiyono.”
“Why?”
“I recall a line from a French movie I saw a long time ago: ‘Except for murder, she’s a woman who’s done everything.’ That line came to mind when I first met Mrs. Sawamura. I had an impression that she was probably a person like that. And yet she put on an air of innocence, which was all an act, doing her utmost to play the virtuous person and pretending that she was living in a manner that transcended all things.”
“Huh . . . Why did you get that impression?”
“The movements of her face and her eyes were at odds with each other; it gave me the creeps. I’m not sure how to describe it . . . You know what I mean, don’t you? The feeling that someone is wearing several masks, and keeps changing them around. Even if that person’s face changes, the eyes stay the same. That’s really creepy, isn’t it?”
“So, what was your ‘acting’?”
“Even though I didn’t like her, I pretended to. Through my choice of words and my attitude, I pretended to adore her.”
“Hmm.” Tetsuyuki was not surprised that Yōko had engaged in such acting; rather, he was surprised at the eye she had for seeing through Sawamura Chiyono. Just as his mother had said, “She’s had a privileged upbringing, but I think that even tomorrow she’d be able to put off a bill collector.” He was impressed with his mother’s insight.
“Yesterday, when I opened the doors on the coffin, Mrs. Sawamura’s masks had all been taken away.”
Cocking her head slightly, Yōko pondered Tetsuyuki’s words, but did not ask about them. As usual, the two of them parted at the ticket gate of the Hankyū Line.
Tetsuyuki returned to his apartment to find Isogai sitting on the stairs. Whether because of the cold or because of his heart condition, his face was pale and bloodless. They had often seen each other in passing at the hotel, but had been too busy to talk and had just said hello to one another.
“How long have you been sitting here?”
“Over three hours.”
“What’s up?”
“Is that lizard still alive?”
“Yeah. It’s the season for hibernation, so it rarely eats anything, but it’s alive.”
Still sitting on the iron steps, Isogai said, “Let me stay here tonight.”
“Okay. Is something wrong?”
Getting up as if with great effort, Isogai’s eyes followed a group of children running through the alley as he murmured, “I want to die.”
Tetsuyuki fixed his gaze on Isogai. In the distant sky, three kites were being flown. As he was searching for some words of encouragement, his feelings became indifferent and he locked the room without saying a word. He wished that Isogai would just go home. If he wanted to die, he could just die, couldn’t he?
Isogai sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and staring at Kin, whose tail was moving like the pendulum of a clock that was winding down. Tetsuyuki tried giving him some larvae, but he would not eat. He spread his futon and changed into his pajamas. “I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.”
“That quilt smells of a woman.” A slight smile came to Isogai’s lips, but his eyes were on Kin. To be sure, yesterday afternoon Yōko had indeed come to this room, but after putting Tetsuyuki to bed she had spent the time straightening the kitchen and jotting down notes for her graduation thesis, and her scent could hardly have permeated the quilts. Tetsuyuki surmised that Isogai’s hypersensitivity must be due to being overwrought.
“Anyone becomes nihilistic when they’re exhausted. Get a good rest, and you’ll feel better.”
“Just to do an ordinary job, my heart is taxed as if it had been many hours at hard labor. And it’s the same even if I’m just sitting still. I can neither work nor play. I wish it would just stop.” Tetsuyuki had pulled the quilts over his head, and had his eyes closed. “I’m sick of everything. I’m really sick of it.”
Those were the kinds of things I said to Kin when another man came into Yōko’s life, Tetsuyuki thought to himself as he recalled that night several months ago. He poked his head out of the quilts and, taking the room key out of his trouser pocket, set it by Isogai’s side. “I’m going to sleep, so lock up when you leave, okay? You can slip the key back inside underneath the door.”
Fantasizing about making love with Yōko had become the most effective way for Tetsuyuki to fall asleep, and it worked.
The lights of dusk flickered between the curtains, which made him think of his mother. After a recurring unpleasant and incoherent dream, he awoke feeling not at all rested. Isogai had still not gone home.
“You slept well, snoring away. Light the heater.”
Tetsuyuki put a sweater on over his pajamas and lit the kerosene heater, spreading his hands over it in anticipation of the growing flame. “While I was asleep, were you watching Kin the whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“When April comes around, I’m going to pull that nail out of him.”
“April?”
“I have this feeling that if I pulled it out now, he’d die. It’d be better to wait for spring.”
“Let’s start a revolution.” Isogai spoke in a calm but strangely firm tone of voice.
“Revolution? What are you talking about?” Tetsuyuki turned toward Isogai with an amused snort.
“I’m the object of this revolution. I’m terrified, but I’m going to go through with it.”
Tetsuyuki stood up and turned on the light. “Great! Let’s go to the hospital tomorrow. I’ll go with you.” Tetsuyuki spoke as if he would be the one receiving the operation.
“In Chisato there’s a large hospital that specializes in heart diseases. In my pocket I’ve been carrying around a letter of introduction to be admitted.” Isogai pulled out a folded envelope and rested it on his palm, murmuring with a slight smile, “Every time I look at this, it feels as if I’m carrying around a pistol for my own suicide.”
“Heart surgery in Japan is among the best in the world. Don’t worry, it’ll be a success.”
“That’s easy for you to say. After they use a saw to cut away ribs, they’ll connect my arteries to an artificial heart . . . just thinking about it, everything goes dark before my eyes. I want to run away, but there’s no place to escape.” Isogai pointed at Kin. “I’m a living creature, and so is he. If he can stay alive after all he’s been subjected to, I ought to be able to as well.”
A little of the meat was left from yesterday’s shopping, and there were potatoes and cabbage. Tetsuyuki switched on the rice cooker, and chopped things up. He melted some butter in the frying pan, sautéed the ingredients and, seasoning them with soy sauce and pepper, served everything up in dishes, which he set on the small dining table.
“Stay here the rest of the night.”
“Okay. I never intended to go home.”
“You never really intended to die, did you? You came here to build up the resolve to have surgery. You owe thanks to Kin for that.” Tetsuyuki decided he would do whatever it took to show that he could pull the nail out without killing Kin. Tears came to his eyes. As the two ate, they thought of how to do it.
“Since the nail has become a part of the internal organs, it should be pulled out all at once. Then you’d have to make a wooden box to keep him in, and take care of him until the wound heals. Otherwise, the moment you let him go outside, a snake or carnivorous bird would make a meal of him.” This was Isogai’s suggestion. Tetsuyuki had thought of the same thing, but somewhere in his mind a very different idea flickered. Kin was now quite alive. If the nail were pulled out, he might die, but if the nail were left in, he would continue to live if given food and water. Tetsuyuki did not want to inflict pain on him all over again; he wanted him to keep on living. Most of all, he did not want to part from him.
He sometimes thought that he should use a saw and chisel to free Kin from the pillar, but leave the nail in him. But then part of the pillar would be chipped out and his landlady would demand he pay for the repairs. If it were a matter of a torn sliding panel or a broken window, the amount would not be so great, but replacing part of a pillar would be a sizable cost. Tetsuyuki described this alternative plan to Isogai, who hemmed as he thought about it.
“You’d have to come up with a good excuse—an unavoidable accident.”
“What kind of unavoidable accident would result in part of a pillar being chipped away?”
“I don’t know. But I think you could come up with one.”
“Think of something. It’s already been determined that I’ll be moving out in April to live with my mom. I can’t leave Kin here like this. I’ll either have to pull the nail out or cut the pillar out and take him with me.”
The two of them came up with a few plans, but all were either impractical or were not “unavoidable.”
“How about saying that rats chewed on the pillar?”
“That’s a dumb idea. Who’d ever believe it?” Tetsuyuki glared at Isogai out of the corner of his eye. In the end, they got into bed without either of them being able to hit on a good idea. Since there was only one set of quilts, they had to share them, sleeping with their backs to each other. The woman who lived alone next door opened her window and called her cat.
“This place is so cheaply constructed, I can hear that lady talking to her cat. Sometimes she even makes sounds like a ghost cat, and argues with her pet.” Hearing Tetsuyuki’s muffled explanation, Isogai sat up suddenly.
“A cat!”
“A cat?”
“You could use a cat.”
“How?”
“You could say you had some dried fish hanging on the pillar, and forgot to close the window. When you came back at night, the cat lunged at you in the dark. You were surprised, not knowing that it was the cat from next door, and started slashing with a butcher knife in order to defend yourself. The cat was surprised too, and kept lunging. The knife struck the pillar, making deep cuts in it and carving out a piece. How does that sound?”
“There’s still a problem with it. If it were the landlady’s cat, then she wouldn’t be able to complain. But the cat belongs to the lady next door, who’s no relation to the landlady. She’d make one or the other of us pay.”
“Doesn’t the landlady keep a cat?”
“No. She’s the kind who’d never spend a cent she didn’t have to. You think she’d ever feed a cat or a dog?”
Isogai sighed. “I’m tired. And my head’s aching. There’s nothing for it but to pull the nail out. Even if he dies, Kin-chan will be happier that way. It could hardly be crueler than to keep him alive this way.” Isogai’s words appeared to be speaking for his own state of mind.
“So, you won’t have changed your mind when tomorrow rolls around, will you? You’re afraid of surgery after all . . .”
“I am afraid of surgery. Why shouldn’t I be? But I’ve already made up my mind. It took me five years to come to this resolution.”
Tetsuyuki felt an urge to tell Isogai about Sawamura Chiyono: about the incident with Mr. and Mrs. Lang, and about the various pronouncements she made. And about her face in death. It took a long time for him to explain everything, since he was unable to avoid mentioning Yōko as well. From the beginning of his story, he got sidetracked talking about his and Yōko’s romance and their future plans, and it took nearly forty minutes before he was able to address the main topic. At the end of Tetsuyuki’s story, Isogai mumbled, “I guess that means that if you think with your head alone, it won’t do you any good.”
“What do you mean by that?” No answer was forthcoming from Isogai, so Tetsuyuki knocked against Isogai’s buttocks with his own. “Are you asleep?”
Isogai finally responded. “I think that what she said was correct. Of course, without dying there’s no way to know for sure, but I think that while you’re alive if you really believe with every fiber of your being that you’ll be born again, that you’ll die again and be born again, then no matter what kind of painful experiences you have in the world, you’ll remain impassive. However, if that’s just something you use as self-defense against a fear of death, then it won’t be of any use to you. No one truly believes in this ideology in their heart. Try listening to a sermon by a priest at a tourist temple in Kyoto or Nara and it sounds so idiotic that you want to throw a rock at them. Even authors who write difficult novels don’t really believe in their heart of hearts the ideas and philosophies they write about. No matter what lofty things they write or say, they’re not able to save even one unhappy person, much less solve the problems of those who are nearest and dearest to them, are they?”
“So, what do you have to do to believe with every fiber of your being?”
“You have to move something to the level of actual practice.”
“What is ‘something’? And what kind of practice amounts to ‘actual practice’?”
“I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have agonized for five years about whether to have surgery.”
Tetsuyuki crawled out of bed and turned on the light. He moved his face close to Kin and grabbed the unyielding nail. For some reason, that nail that refused to budge brought to the back of his mind the image of Sawamura Chiyono’s face in death, and he answered Isogai’s intent stare: “I’m going to pull the nail out in April.”