It was the day after Tetsuyuki completed his examinations for graduation when Isogai, the referral letter in hand, headed for the cardiovascular hospital in Senri. Tetsuyuki, whom Isogai had beseeched to accompany him, was made to wait nearly three hours in this hospital, which boasted all the latest equipment. When Isogai finally came back, he sat down next to Tetsuyuki. “They’ll still be doing some tests on me this afternoon.”
“Will they be able to operate?”
“It seems that’s what the tests will determine. But they talked as if they’d have to operate in any case. From what they said, I could be admitted even today.”
“But you’re not prepared to be admitted, are you?”
His pale face cast down, Isogai thought for a while then took a notebook out of his jacket pocket and went to a public phone.
“Who’re you going to call?”
“The place where my sister works. I’ll have her bring pajamas, a change of underwear, and toiletries.”
“You’ll need slippers too.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Not two hours had passed before Isogai’s sister showed up in the waiting room, having apparently been informed of Tetsuyuki’s features and the color of his sweater, for she approached him with no hesitation. “Are you Mr. Iryō?”
Tetsuyuki stood up and they exchanged greetings. The comment Isogai had once made that his sister was really cute was not off the mark. Dazed by her attractiveness, Tetsuyuki was unable to follow his greeting with appropriate words.
“Has my brother been assigned a room?”
Tetsuyuki took her to the nurses’ station. A surly young nurse showed them to the room, pointing to a bed by the window and saying simply, “There.” Then she returned to her station. It was a room for four occupants; a boy of middle school age, a middle-aged man with piercing eyes, and a corpulent elderly man were lying in their respective beds.
Isogai’s sister set on the bed the new pajamas she had hurriedly purchased, but appeared confused about where to put the large paper bag containing changes of underwear and toiletries. Tetsuyuki pointed to a corner by the wall. “You could put them here for now, Miss Isogai . . .”
“Please call me Kaori.”
“Don’t you need to get back to work, Kaori?”
“No, they let me off early.”
They returned to the waiting room and sat down together on a bench. “Please don’t think I’m just saying this because I’m not related, but I hear that the success rate for operations for valve disorders is nearly one hundred percent . . .” Tetsuyuki commented, noticing the unusual shade of the whites of Kaori’s eyes, which suggested an illness even more severe than her brother’s. He sensed a shadow of unhappiness on her attractive face.
“There’s plenty to be afraid of, but it’s not as if he had to set out swimming to America across the Pacific Ocean or anything like that.” Kaori raised her head and gave Tetsuyuki a dubious look. “But once you think, ‘Oh hell, just do it!’ and set out, then it’s ‘What? That one step was all there was to it?’ I’ve begun to think that, as long as you’re determined, everything in life is like that.”
Kaori did not respond, but after some time had passed, said, “Thank you for accompanying my brother today.” She stood up and bowed politely. Tetsuyuki had to leave.
Arriving at the Umeda Hankyū Line station, he took the escalator down to the subterranean mall, wondering how he might kill some time. He glanced through the window of a coffee shop to see Nakazawa Masami leaning against the glass wall panel as he drank his coffee alone. Tetsuyuki did not feel like wandering about aimlessly, and so he went on in. He tapped Nakazawa on the shoulder. “Are you by yourself?” He intended to move along if Nakazawa was waiting for someone.
“Oh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Sure has. Since last summer, when I was refused a loan.”
Nakazawa Masami moved only his eyes to look up at Tetsuyuki, but smiled slightly as he said in a casual tone, “Well, have a seat. But you’ve got to pay for your own coffee.”
“I owe you for a lot. I don’t know how many times I’ve had you feed me, or how many days you’ve put me up. When I’m able to, I want to make it up to you somehow.”
“What noble sentiments! It sounds as if you want to break off all ties with me.”
To be sure, that was Tetsuyuki’s intention, but he made a point of laughing and feigning otherwise.
“There’d be no need to repay someone you intended to break all ties with, would there? Don’t take it so cynically.”
“Cynically? Why should I be cynical toward you? Don’t say such foolish things.”
Nakazawa smiled as he spoke, but a wrinkle resembling a dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth, expanding and contracting like the mouth of a goldfish, an unfailing indicator that his pride had been wounded.
Tetsuyuki inferred that their argument about Lamenting the Deviations had left more of a stubborn anger within Nakazawa than he had imagined. Perhaps anger at a total rejection of a system of thought in which one believes—especially if it is religion—is greater and deeper than even the one who is rejected is capable of understanding. But he had no desire to rehash the argument and instead was about to ask him whether he planned to inherit his father’s business after graduating or seek employment in a different company. But before he could get the question out, Nakazawa spoke first.
“Do you still hold to your theory that Shinran didn’t exist?”
After sipping some coffee, Tetsuyuki answered calmly, “Let’s forget about that topic. I wasn’t in my right frame of mind then. People are free to hold whatever religious beliefs they wish. It isn’t as if I was rejecting you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. I asked about your theory of Shinran’s nonexistence.”
“I don’t care whether he existed or not. If you think he existed, then he probably did.”
“It isn’t a matter of what I think. Shinran actually existed. There’s a ton of evidence. It’s a historical fact.”
“Okay, fine, let’s say he did.”
“That’s not recognizing the fact. I want you to recognize it.”
“And if you get me to recognize it, what does that matter?”
Nakazawa smiled gloatingly and leaned closer. “That day, you said this to me: ‘Lamenting the Deviations is a collection of words that rob people of their vitality. Reading it makes me sick of living.’ Do you remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. And after that, I said, ‘It’s absurd for a rich man’s kid who’ll one day inherit this building to say “Hell will surely be my final abode.”’”
“What’s absurd is to place joining a religion on the same level as the question of whether one is rich or poor. Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah, you’re right. After all, there are children of privilege who benefit greatly from capitalism but end up as Communists.”
Holding up two fingers, Nakazawa smiled. “With that, you’ve now recognized two errors in the impertinent comments you made then.”
“Enough of this. I don’t feel like arguing today. I came into this shop because I saw you for the first time in a while.”
But Nakazawa would not give up, and continued talking triumphantly. “Do you realize how many illuminating insights Lamenting the Deviations has opened up for people? Do you realize how it has given people courage to live? Using logic, tell me why it’s a hellish book.”
His chin resting in his hand, Tetsuyuki stared into Nakazawa’s eyes. A faint whiff of cologne wafted from Nakazawa’s chest, which for some reason angered Tetsuyuki.
“Well then, in order for me to explain logically, answer this question.” Nakazawa nodded and folded his arms. “What is death (ōjō)?”
“It’s to go (ō) and then be reborn (jō) in paradise.”
“Where does one ‘go’?”
“To the Pure Land, I suppose.”
“And where is that?”
“You’ll find out when you die.”
“It’s something I can’t know until I die? That is to say, asking for rebirth in paradise is asking for death? ‘Illuminating insights’ that can be obtained by asking for death, or ‘the courage to live’ . . . what exactly are they? And it’s not at all the same thing as the saying ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ Where is paradise? Show it to me.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t exist. But by using the device of having the people dream of an imaginary Pure Land, Shinran helped them to overcome the sufferings of reality. The Pure Land is within each of us, but if he had taught that to the people of that time, what would it have amounted to? The real significance of Lamenting the Deviations is the depth of its ideas.”
“But Lamenting the Deviations maintains that even if you want to abandon attachment to this world there’s no way you can do it, and that’s okay. Eventually, your ties to this world will be exhausted and you’ll die whether you want to or not. Even as you tell everyone that it’s okay, you just keep telling them to ask for rebirth in paradise, don’t you? In the end, that’s the same as telling them, ‘Hurry up and die, hurry up and die,’ isn’t it? But even if they’re told to, people don’t just die. They want to live, after all. And Shinran himself no doubt felt the same way. So the idea of chanting such prayers creates people who’re dead while still alive. The ‘illuminating insights’ and joy given by Lamenting the Deviations are like the morphine given to sick patients to relieve their pain. If the pain vanishes, then they are under the illusion that the illness is cured. But that morphine is a virulent poison that hastens the patient’s demise. That’s why I called Lamenting the Deviations a hellish book. Sometimes nihilism is a sweet liquor. But the liquor of nihilism brewed in the cask of such chanting will make anyone who deeply imbibes of it suddenly hang himself, jump off a tall building, or jump in front of a train. That’s because it’s a liquor that draws out a resignation colored by the lowest depths of the spirit.”
“You’ve only given Lamenting the Deviations a superficial reading, so I suppose it’s no wonder you think that way. But that’s because you don’t even know how deep or violent Shinran’s inner conflicts were. It’s useless to argue with sensibilities that can’t even grasp that.” Nakazawa glared with a sneering smile, his cigarette still in his mouth. Then the smile disappeared. “In this subterranean mall there are tens of thousands of guys like you wandering around.”
“What kind of guys are ‘guys like me’?”
“Antireligious idealists.”
A spontaneous smile spread on Tetsuyuki’s face. “Do you chant ‘Hail Amitabha Buddha’ every day?”
“I don’t chant, but Buddha always exists in my heart.”
“Religion is practice, isn’t it? Aren’t you the real idealist, you who don’t chant anything but just keep it in your heart?” Nakazawa reddened. Tetsuyuki continued as he placed his money for the coffee on the table, “I’m neither an atheist nor antireligious. It’s just that, whether gods or buddhas as expedient means, I can’t believe in any religion that posits something outside of myself. I think I would lend an ear if it were a religion that affirmed what is absolutely and definitively within me. A certain lizard taught me that.”
“A lizard?”
Tetsuyuki stood up and looked down at Nakazawa. “I’m far more reverent toward religion than you are. Things like ‘Heaven’ or ‘Pure Land’ were probably meant as metaphors, and through some dialectical process came to be thought of as actually existing places. Intellectuals call that ‘back thinking’ or something like that. So what is ‘back thinking’? Ultimately, isn’t it just taking a defiant attitude because you don’t understand something? And that’s why I called Shinran a loser. His agonizing over defiling himself with women is idiotic. Sex is just part of Mother Nature, isn’t it? It’s the intellectuals who are impressed that a priest hypocritically transformed his indulgence into enlightenment. No matter who manipulates the paradoxes through whatever theory or rhetoric, I’ll go on calling Shinran a loser.”
Wishing to respond, Nakazawa grabbed Tetsuyuki’s wrist, but the latter said with a nonchalant smile, “Take care. As I said, somehow I’ll pay back your kindness.” Nakazawa released his grip.
Tetsuyuki thought as he walked through the crowd: it was definitely not out of friendship that Nakazawa Masami had lent him money and let him stay in his room those many times. For one thing he did it to combat boredom, and for another, to gain a feeling of satisfaction with himself for having done something for someone else. But thanks to Nakazawa, he had been helped out many times. Nakazawa would no doubt refuse it, but some day he would pay him back with sincere feelings. He wished that such a day would come soon.
He was not in an agitated state, but one phrase that was not the product of self-possessed thinking came to mind: “I’m far more reverent toward religion than you are.” Was that really true? Tetsuyuki slowly ascended stairs littered with newspapers and advertising flyers. The February wind made his flesh contract. How are gods and buddhas different? The Bible is a single work, but why is the vast corpus of Buddhist scripture divided into various sutras? Looking at Kin he realized that there was an enormous power of life—a power of regeneration—in fleas, lice, and dandelions as well as in dogs or tigers or human beings. All have this power within them. There’s neither a windup spring nor batteries in my body, and yet my hands and legs move freely. My heart beats, and my blood is constantly flowing. And this thing I call my mind goes on moment by moment ceaselessly being born even as it changes, quite apart from my ability to do anything about it. Such a reality is very strange, isn’t it? And yet all living things die. Why do they die?
Various kinds of illumination moved in the dusk of the metropolis. The time was approaching when he would pull the nail out. Kin appeared everywhere in Tetsuyuki’s field of vision, but what he saw was not a lizard; it seemed like a congealment of shining life in the guise of a lizard. Sensing something of infinite power and purity, he came to a standstill. But that scene of bliss lasted for one blink, then vanished. He looked up at the sky in an attempt to recall the same ecstasy, but Kin had become nothing more than a lizard.
That night there were many vacant rooms in the hotel, and Tetsuyuki had time to call Yōko twice during his shift. During the first call, she told him that through her father’s connections she had secured employment with a mid-level company. He called a second time because he had forgotten to ask about her starting salary, and excitedly ran to the public phone.
“That’s three thousand yen more than I’ll make. And they say that it’s hard for women who graduate with four-year degrees to get jobs . . .”
“Yeah, but you’ll get more in bonuses than I will. My base salary is less.”
“I can’t say I like this. It seems no matter what, you always have better luck than I do.”
“After we’re married, we’ll both share the same fate, won’t we?”
Yōko was concerned about the results of Tetsuyuki’s graduation examinations.
“The results were doubtful in only one subject, but they said they’d let me take a makeup exam.”
Yōko lowered her voice. “It’s not much longer.”
“Yeah.” After he hung up, Tetsuyuki wondered what Yōko was referring to when she said “It’s not much longer,” but he concluded happily that “not much longer” and everything would happen: he would graduate, move out of the apartment in Suminodō, pull the nail out of Kin’s back, and live together with Yōko and his mother.
Buffeted by cold winds sweeping off Mount Ikoma, he arrived at his apartment and immediately spread his futon. Then he boiled some water and made hot whiskey. He was waiting for his foot warmer to heat and had begun to sip the hot whiskey, when a man’s voice came from outside the door.
“I’d like to ask about your electric meter.”
Tetsuyuki went near the door. “This late at night?”
“You were out during the day.”
The moment Tetsuyuki opened the door a pair of brawny arms grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall. “Don’t make any noise,” the man whispered and, motioning with his chin, dragged Tetsuyuki down the stairs. He felt a strange aching all over his body and his feet became tangled. He was shoved into a waiting car. The man did not release his grip on Tetsuyuki’s collar even after the car set off.
He did not recognize the driver, but concluded that he must also be one of the henchmen of the collector Kobori. Tetsuyuki shuddered at the thought that he might be taken deep into the mountains of Ikoma and killed. But the car turned right on the highway and stopped by a river. There were no streetlights, only a large field with no houses around.
The man gripping his collar said, “You thought you could slight us, didn’t you?” The driver appeared to be the lookout, maintaining silence as he watched in the darkness.
“Because of you, my buddy got five years in the slammer. So, you’re prepared for what you’ve got coming, right?”
“What’re you going to do with me?”
“Kill you.”
“What would I have to do not to be killed?”
“It’d have to feel the same as five years in the clink. And what’s more, we still haven’t turned your old man’s promissory notes into cash.”
“I’ll pay the money.”
“With interest!”
“I’ll pay the interest, too,” Tetsuyuki pleaded.
“Fine. With interest that’ll be one point five million yen.”
“One point five million . . .”
“And when Kobori gets out of the cooler, you’ll have to make a suitable apology. That’s five years! Five years of stinking food, all because of you.”
“One point five million yen . . . even if you stood me on my head, I don’t have that much money.”
“Well then, you’ll die here.”
The strength drained from Tetsuyuki’s body. If they’d come after him no matter where he ran, he’d fight back. Did the man intend to kill him right there in the car? Or take him to a dark field with no one around to kill him? If he were dragged out of the car, he’d have a chance to run for it. He had no other choice. He murmured, “Please kill me.” The driver looked at him for the first time and said, “You mean it?”
“No matter how much I work, everything is eaten up by my dad’s debts. I’m tired of this. There’s no point in going on living. Please kill me.” This acting was a matter of life and death for Tetsuyuki. The two men looked at each other.
“Okay, I’ll kill you. Three punches for each of the five years Kobori spends in the slammer. That’s fifteen punches. And they won’t be with an open hand. No one survives fifteen of my punches.”
The driver got out of the car and opened the back seat door. Tetsuyuki was pulled out, remaining in the grip of the two large men and unable to escape.
With the first punch he felt as if his face had been crushed. His legs were numb and he was not even able to stand up, much less run away. He could hear nothing and felt nauseated. Grabbed by the collar, he was forced to stand. The second punch was more violent than the first, but the third seemed to be poorly aimed and only grazed his cheek. The fourth punch landed in the middle of his face, and he could hear his nose breaking. His entire face had become slimy, though he did not know where the blood was coming from. He desperately stood up and tried to run away. The man seemed to misunderstand his motive.
“Seems this punk really intends to get fifteen punches.” The man thought for a moment. “Hey, hurry up and kick the bucket!”
Only half conscious, Tetsuyuki thought he was running in the direction of escape, but instead ran right into the man. Unable even to sense that the fifth punch was lighter than the others, Tetsuyuki again stood up and clung to the man. Then he could understand nothing that was going on. Above his neck there were netlike cracks in all of his bones, and, hallucinating that blood was gushing out of those cracks, a fear of death welled up from within him.
A hollow sound like that of a crane became alternately louder and softer. After that, he could sometimes hear the sound of human voices. It was only after some time had passed that he realized it was the voices of the two men.
“This kid’s gonna die. How long do you plan to stick around? We should beat it, and fast.”
Like whispering in a large cathedral, the man’s words momentarily brought Tetsuyuki to consciousness. He realized that he was not lying on the ground of an embankment, but on the futon in his apartment.
“Idiot! We’re not dealing with a child messenger here. Unless we settle the matter once and for all, we can’t just give up on the promissory notes.” It was the voice of the man who had beaten him. The same man moved his face close to Tetsuyuki’s. “Hey, don’t you have anything of value? Anything would do. I’ll return these promissory notes to you in exchange for it.”
Tetsuyuki had nothing of value. Emitting a groan through the searing pain of his face, he barely managed to shake his head. He wanted to be taken to a hospital. If left in this condition, he would die. But he could produce no voice. He raised his arm in an attempt to grasp the man’s thick shoulder, and on his wrist was fastened the Rolex watch he had received from Yōko. The man mistook Tetsuyuki’s action as wanting to show him the watch, a thing of value. The man snatched the watch.
“It’s old but hey, it’s a Rolex.”
Tetsuyuki had no strength to resist. At length the cranelike sound receded, and everything fell silent.
His right leg was numb. He pounded on the floor with his right hand. He wanted someone to come help, anyone. He thought perhaps someone living in the apartment building would think the pounding suspicious and come look. The pounding caused vibrations that were unbearable inside his brain, and yet actually it produced a sound no greater than that of a rolled-up newspaper. He no longer sensed light, sound, or temperature.
He was playing baseball in the middle of a shopping arcade whose lights were all out. This “baseball” game used a bamboo broom handle for a bat and wadded newspaper secured with cellophane tape for a ball. Minoru pitched the ball, and Tetsuyuki struck at it. Having no bounce in it, the ball rolled, entering the grilled pancake shop Full Moon, whose door was slightly ajar. Tetsuyuki cautiously peered inside. Three old men were playing “flower” cards with the proprietress of the shop. Every night those three old men would show up at Full Moon to play cards, and she always trounced them.
“Don’t break the glass.” The proprietress—who looked about thirty but at the same time also past sixty—scolded him. One of the old men picked up the newspaper ball.
“You think this ball could break glass? Huh, Tetchin?” People who had known Tetsuyuki since he was little called him Tetchin. One of the pancakes sizzling on the grill was almost done, and the bonito flakes sprinkled on it were writhing.
“If you don’t eat it right away, it’ll burn,” Tetsuyuki reminded them in a loud voice, though he knew that the three old men had only ordered it but wouldn’t eat it. They had no time for that. Each held his fan-shaped hand of cards at eye level, and while scattering the ashes from their cigarettes would say such things as “Who’s got the Priest? It’s probably that vixen,” or “Someone toss in the Pine, or else I’ll be done in by the Red Poetry Ribbon.”
Tetsuyuki asked the old man: “Then, is it okay if Minoru and I eat it?”
“You just ate, didn’t you?” Another man added, “Well, at fifteen or sixteen they’re bottomless pits. They can eat any amount.”
“So then, it’s okay if we eat it?”
Tetsuyuki called Minoru and, by their own leave taking two stainless-steel spatulas in hand, sat down, turned off the gas burner, and cut the pancake in two. Staring at the old men, the proprietress bared her lipstick-stained teeth and laughed. “You guys are all going to be dead in another hour.”
The three old men all set their cards on the table in unison. Tetsuyuki’s maneuvering of the spatula came to a standstill as he looked at the faces of the old men, which had taken on an ashen cast. The door of the shop opened and in came a lizard, and then another one. Before he knew it, so many lizards had come rushing into Full Moon that there was no room to move. Even the walls and ceiling were thickly covered with them, and at length, the ankles of the three old men were buried in their glossiness. Like the surface of the sea at high tide, the number of lizards swelled up from the floor of the shop. Tetsuyuki held several of them on the palm of his hand after they had eaten up his pancake. One of the old men was crying. “There are lots of things I’ve left undone. Please don’t tell me I have only one hour left.”
The lizards kept pouring into the shop, piling on top of one another until the old men were waist-deep in them. There was also a steady stream of them falling from the ceiling.
“What’re the things you’ve left undone?” another old man asked, with an expression on his face as if he were the only one resigned to what was about to happen.
“Yōko, and the child she and I created together. I want to see them and apologize to them.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re nearby. I know they’re living somewhere close, but I can’t seem to find them.”
“Why did you become separated? Wasn’t it because you reduced them to poverty? And what’s more, you hit her just because she talked to another man.”
“Yes, and I want to apologize for that, too.”
At that, the old man who had been silent mumbled, “If our lives are two feet long, then the part taken up by dealings between men and women is just half an inch. And yet, if it weren’t for that half inch, it would never turn into two feet.” Then he laughed loudly and sank into an ocean of lizards. Tetsuyuki stood up and looked for Minoru, who was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll take you to that woman named Yōko and her kid.”
“Tetchin, you know where they are?”
“I do.”
“Where? Where are they?” Those were his last words before the two remaining old men were overcome by a wave of lizards and never resurfaced.
Fighting his way through the lizards, Tetsuyuki exited Full Moon, running through the shopping arcade and down a gray path. He dashed into a phone booth and dialed Yōko’s house, but his fingers and his will were at odds with each other: when he tried to dial 2 he dialed 6 instead and, becoming flustered, started over. No matter how many times he tried, he was unable to dial the number he wanted.
He had not noticed that lizards had entered the phone booth as well, their writhing bodies progressively burying his legs, abdomen, and chest. He stood on his tiptoes. The lizards finally reached his nostrils and stopped there. The phone rang. It must be Yōko. But if he moved even slightly he would sink into the mass of lizards, and would be unable to take Yōko’s call.
He wondered if Kin was not somewhere among them, and called out, “Kin-chan, Kin-chan.”
In Tetsuyuki’s field of vision there appeared the morning sun of winter and the form of Kin nailed to the pillar. His body was chilled to the bone and he was shivering in short bursts. His right leg had recovered from its numbness, but during his dream the pain in his nose had increased in severity and his face kept cramping. He tried reaching his hand to his face. Something like a hardened membrane was stuck to it from beneath his nose over his chin and extending to the apertures of his ears. Apparently he had gotten a crick in his neck from his beating, and was unable to move it. Using his fingernail, he scratched what was stuck to his face: it was dried blood.
His nose was swollen, and even without a doctor’s diagnosis he knew that it was broken; he could tell that a piece of bone moved when he endured the pain of pressing it. He could hardly open his left eye, and both cheekbones ached. It occurred to him that they might also be fractured. But his headache had vanished. Rolling his body over toward the closet, he was barely able to pull out his quilt.
He was unable to recall any blows except to his head, and yet he felt pain in his right ribs. When he was beaten and fell down in the frozen field he had probably injured them on a rock or something. He felt a burning sensation in his face and wanted to cool it with a wet towel, but was unable to get up.
He could hear the footsteps of the woman who lived alone in the apartment next door, and pounded repeatedly on the wall with his fist. There was no one aside from that sickly woman to whom he could appeal for help. At one point he gave up, but renewing his resolve, he began banging against the wall with his foot. He kept kicking against the wall with all his might. He heard her opening the door.
“Mr. Iryō,” she called with her thin voice. He opened his mouth and was about to answer, but then realized he needed to hide Kin. Pulling a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his trousers, he grasped the pillar and raised his body, struggling against dizziness and nausea. The moment he placed the handkerchief over the nail piercing Kin’s back, he fell over, making a great noise.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Iryō?”
The door was not locked. Tetsuyuki turned his face toward the door, and the moment his neighbor saw him she stooped down and let out a long, hoarse scream. An office worker in the neighborhood who had just left for work came into Tetsuyuki’s apartment in his overcoat, and another man in his thirties who lived on the corner of the alley but whom Tetsuyuki had never met also entered. The three of them showered him with questions.
“What happened? Were you robbed?”
“Hey, we need to call an ambulance.”
“Did you get in a fight or something?”
“Can you see?” Tetsuyuki nodded.
“Are you conscious?” He nodded again.
What made them turn pale and become alarmed was the fact that blood from his nose had formed a large, dark red circle on the front of his sweater and on the quilt, leading them to believe that he had been stabbed in the chest or stomach.
Tetsuyuki was taken by ambulance to a hospital on the Hanna Freeway, where the doctors immediately took an X-ray of his head. His nose was indeed broken.
“If the break had been even just one centimeter deeper, it would have killed you.”
“Is it only my nose that is broken?”
The doctor answered in the affirmative, and then explained that after the initial treatment he would do an electroencephalogram.
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“Your parents or siblings?”
Tetsuyuki did not want his mother to know about it. It was over now. The villains had left his father’s promissory notes, and would never come again. He wanted to keep this a secret from his mother. He gave the doctor Yōko’s home telephone number.
After the blood had been wiped away and he had been moved to a private room, a nurse came and put an ice bag on his face. As she exited, a young police detective came in and sat down beside the bed.
“You were threatened and beaten by a collector once before, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This was their henchmen, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You have no legal responsibility to pay back your father’s promissory notes. That was a despicable thing they did to you.”
Tetsuyuki expected to be asked about various other things, but the detective got up to leave the room.
“Please don’t arrest them. If you do, their partners will just come and get back at me. It’s all over now. They took my watch in exchange for the promissory notes.” The detective made no reply. “Even if you arrest them, they’ll get out of prison after five or six years, won’t they? And then I’ll have to live in fear again. I won’t press charges . . .”
The wooden expression of the detective then broke into a smile. “Uh, I was surprised at that lizard on the pillar. Is that some kind of charm?”
Tetsuyuki closed his eyes. The door shut, and the sound of the detective’s bold gait receded. Since the detective entered his room, the landlady must have accompanied him. And she no doubt also saw Kin. At that thought, it occurred to him that he might be evicted before April.
That miserly landlady would be certain to demand payment for the pillar, but even if she got the money she would simply install a new tenant without repairing it. Tetsuyuki resolved that he would not pay. It was because the landlady had not switched on the electricity that the lizard ended up getting nailed to the pillar, and he as tenant ended up in the situation of having to share the space with the reptile. What, after all, did she intend to do about his psychological stress? He would let all that loose on her in no uncertain terms, and that would take the edge off her hostility.
Tetsuyuki started to feel a bit better. He recalled fragments of his dream. He understood vaguely what the ocean of lizards was that had engulfed the three old men. No matter how severe the laws that human beings create, they never truly punish a guilty person. But you can never completely evade the law that creates human beings, no matter what you do. And there is such a law. There is a law that created the myriad living things, including flowers and trees. There are invisible, imperative laws. They make the seasons go through their cycles, and the tides advance and recede. They make human beings happy or unhappy, animating them and destroying them. If that were not so, then what was the reason that Kin—one worthless lizard—should go on living?
There must be a deep meaning in the dream he saw last night—during a time when he could easily have died—about the old man lamenting the things left undone as he was sinking in a sea of lizards. There are no doubt many people who die that way, and it is because they have violated a law. Though not applicable to rules created by human beings, the ocean that swallows those who are guilty of great sins leads them into a fathomless darkness that symbolizes everything horrifying, like lizards and snakes. Sawamura Chiyono was probably one of those human beings. Half asleep, Tetsuyuki’s thoughts branched out from one thing to another.
Tetsuyuki pricked his ears up with a start. He could definitely hear busy footsteps: Yōko’s. They brought tears to his eyes. He could not tell whether he was still dreaming or was out of his mind.
Yōko opened the door without knocking. The moment their eyes met Tetsuyuki raised one arm as if taking an oath. “As long as I’m alive, I’ll never hit you. And even if you dance with another man, I won’t get jealous.”
She timidly approached and peered into his face, which was mostly hidden by the ice bag. She sighed deeply and then began to cry.
“Yōko, my luck has really been rotten. I wasn’t able to die even after being thrashed by a guy who was like a pro wrestler.”
“Idiot . . .”
“They returned my dad’s promissory notes. Even though they said they’d kill me, after I lost consciousness they brought me back to my apartment. That was kind of them.”
“Such people ought to die.”
“If you say that, you’ll be the one who dies. While I’ve been half awake just now, I’ve been thinking about a lot of different things. I’ve turned into a philosopher. I’ve arrived at a great enlightenment, nothing like empty academic theorizing.”
Yōko gently lifted the ice bag. “Do you realize what your face is like?”
“I have a pretty good idea. From my nose on up I’m a monster with no eyes, and from my nose down . . .”
“It’s worse than you imagine. Someone who has no idea what his face is like could hardly have arrived at a great enlightenment, could he?” Yōko laughed and cried at the same time. Then she softly brushed her lips against his face.
“Keep this a secret from my mom.” Without responding, Yōko put the ice bag back into place. “In place of money, they took your watch. The Rolex. Sorry about that.”
The examination that afternoon showed no irregularities in brain waves, but revealed cracks in two of his ribs. He was told he would need three weeks for a full recovery. That evening, Yōko’s parents visited. From their expressions, Tetsuyuki guessed that they planned to use this incident as an occasion to settle his relationship with their daughter.
“Things in life never go according to plan, do they?” Yōko’s father said, looking directly at his daughter. The expression on her face was fuller than usual, but she again broke out in tears. Tetsuyuki then realized that his assumption had been incorrect.
Removing the ice bag himself, he said as a preliminary, “I’m sorry to have to meet you with a face like this.” Then he prepared himself to say what would sooner or later have to be said. Apparently amused by his manner of speaking, her parents smiled and straightened themselves.
Tetsuyuki announced that he wished to marry Yōko, that the matter of his father’s debts had been settled by last night’s incident, that he had secured employment, and that he was about to graduate. Yōko’s father had already made up his mind.
“Since you are an only child and so is she, I’d like to express some of my hopes.”
“Certainly.”
“There’s the expression ‘close enough that the soup doesn’t grow cold,’ and we’d like you to live in such a location.”
“We intend to. Thank you.”
“But, that’s really an awful face, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, but as soon as I walked into this room, I thought, ‘What an ugly man my daughter has fallen in love with!’”
“Until last night, I was quite handsome.”
After Yōko’s parents left, the two were alone again.
“Can you stay here today?”
“My mom told me to take care of you.”
They were about to embrace, but Yōko hurriedly returned to her chair when there was a knock at the door. Tetsuyuki supported the ice bag with both hands.
It was his landlady who came into the room. After her formal well-wishing, the heavily made-up, stout woman whose full-time occupation was that of beautician pressed him for an explanation of the lizard.
“The police detective was surprised, but I was frightened out of my wits. That’s rented property, you know, not your own house. And it was clearly spelled out in the contract. As soon as you have recovered, I want you to move out. And I’ll ask you to repair the pillar as well.”
Tetsuyuki agreed to move out on the first Sunday of April, but responded that he would not pay to have the pillar repaired.
“It’s your responsibility that a lizard got into the apartment. You knew three days before I rented the apartment the day and the time I would arrive with my luggage, but the electricity had not yet been turned on. It is of course the obligation of the property owner to see that such things are accomplished. I had no choice but to find a nail and pound it in the dark. I never imagined that a lizard would be there. Do you realize how unpleasant it has been for me every day because of that lizard? I’m going to leave it there, and you can take care of it later.”
“But, but . . . how did that lizard stay alive for a whole year?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Anyway, since there are lots of cracks and crevices in this room, that lizard’s spouse must have brought food for it when I was out.”
“That’s ridiculous, to say that lizards have husbands or wives . . .”
“I can’t think of any other explanation.”
After the landlady had left in high dudgeon, Yōko whispered and squeezed Tetsuyuki’s hand. “That’s right. It was the lizard’s wife, his really cute wife, who faithfully brought him food.”