Tetsuyuki decided to tell his mother that he had been assaulted and beaten by two or three unfamiliar drunk men, and asked Yōko to inform her, using this fiction. The following afternoon, his mother took three days off and came to see him.
“You really got roughed up badly. Anyone who would do that isn’t human.” After hearing his invented account, his mother spoke impassively, though she was usually one to cry on such occasions. “No matter what, time will play a major role . . .” she mumbled as she cast her gaze in the distance out the window, and then continued peeling the oranges Yōko had bought. This one hour alone with his mother was a rare occurrence. Aware of that, Yōko had limited herself to two phone calls a day, and did not stop by at all. Tetsuyuki was eager to find out the results of Isogai’s examination. He asked Yōko to go to the hospital and inquire.
“They said that there are still no results, and that they have yet to do various tests. Even if they decide to go ahead with surgery, it will be another month or so.”
When he returned to his room from the telephone at the nurses’ station, his mother asked for the key to his apartment. “I need to wash the blood off your quilts, and you’ll need more changes of clothing. And besides, I’d like to see where you’ve been living this past year.”
The landlady had taken the key, but Tetsuyuki acted as if it had slipped his mind. “I handed it to Yōko, and she still has it. She’s probably forgotten that it’s in her purse.”
“The landlady has a master key, doesn’t she?”
“No, there’s no master key. The person who lived there before lost his key, and it wasn’t replaced. So the landlady told me that I absolutely must not lose it.” He lied because he did not want his mother to see Kin. “And besides, I don’t have anything that would amount to a change of clothes. Everything’s dirty.”
“Well, that’s not hard to imagine.” She had begun to get up, but again settled into her seat next to the bed. While stuffing orange segments into Tetsuyuki’s mouth, she spoke in fits and starts about how she had spent the past year.
“I wonder why so many of the women who run places like diners, snack bars, or clubs are so temperamental. If one day you find them kind and thoughtful, the next day they’re brusque and impossible to please, always haranguing and complaining. I always thought such a business just made women that way, but that’s not the case.”
“What do you mean?”
“Women like that don’t get married, and before you know it, they’ll be into something, whether the nightlife trade or some other line of work. I’ve come to understand that very well.”
“In that case, we mustn’t make a woman a president or prime minister.”
“No, we mustn’t. It’d be horrible.”
His mother proclaimed after drawing a long breath that nothing was easy about her work. Tetsuyuki felt somewhat annoyed, expecting a sermon to begin. But on the contrary, his mother kept all distressful happenings to herself, punctuating her report with smiles and only talking about episodes with interesting customers or about the amusing tactics of the power struggles that are a solid reality even in a small restaurant employing only three people. Only at the very end did she say, “But you know, I’d really like to be able to think as I crawl between the covers at night, ‘Ah, I’m happy.’”
After three o’clock that afternoon, Section Chief Shimazaki and Tsuruta came to visit. Seeing Tetsuyuki’s face covered in gauze and adhesive plaster, they cried out in surprise. His mother expressed her thanks effusively, then left to do some shopping. Shimazaki had apparently heard from the doctor about the condition of the injuries. Frowning, he lowered his voice. “They say that if the break in the bone had been even one centimeter higher, it would have been fatal.”
Fingering the adhesive plaster where the bone was broken, Tetsuyuki forced a smile. “It’s totally ruined my good looks.”
“If you don’t look ahead while you walk, this world’s a dangerous place.” With that, Tsuruta gave a suggestive laugh. Shimazaki glared at him as if to imply that such a remark was uncalled for. But Tsuruta did not notice, and kept on in his playful tone.
“There was a sudden change in personnel. Mr. Shimazaki was promoted to manager. Mr. Miyake was exiled to Hakata as regional manager.”
The hotel in Osaka was the company headquarters, but there were branches bearing the local place-names in Kyoto, Nara, Okayama, and Hakata, as well as two resorts. Of those, Hakata was the smallest, and the decision whether to remodel it completely or just close it had become urgent. Rumor had it that the management was leaning toward closure, and now Operations Chief Miyake was to be transferred there as regional manager. Tetsuyuki had no idea what methods he employed, but Tsuruta had indiscriminately broadcast within the company the relationship between the grill cook Yuriko and Miyake, who had a wife and children. Tetsuyuki fixed his gaze on the oily face of Tsuruta, who was a vulgar but quick-witted strategist of unimaginable abilities.
There were things Tetsuyuki wanted to ask Tsuruta, who also wanted to provide answers. Shimazaki, whose presence was a hindrance to such an exchange, took out a cigarette.
“If you light up in a patient’s room, an ogre of a nurse will come scream at you.” Then Tetsuyuki told him where the smoking room was located.
No sooner had Shimazaki said “I’m going to go have a smoke” and left than Tsuruta spoke with a smile. “You’re really a bad one, aren’t you? All that stuff about getting mixed up with some drunks is a lie, isn’t it? You’ve done plenty of things to earn grudges against you, haven’t you?”
“Why am I the bad one? That description fits you. There’s no way Miyake could even imagine that a bellboy like you could be the ringleader in getting him demoted to Hakata.”
“It serves him right! After he made a plaything of Yuriko like that . . .”
“What’s happened to Yuriko?”
“There are plenty of other jobs in Osaka. It’s no concern of mine. You put me up to this. ‘You’ll be a bellboy until you retire.’ That one phrase included a threat. It came as a shock, and I couldn’t just stay still.”
Shimazaki returned. He told Tetsuyuki to take care of himself and reminded him that the company entrance ceremony was set for April 2. Then he left, urging Tsuruta to go with him.
So, it was a total victory for the beanpole faction . . . Tetsuyuki thought of Yuriko, who was perhaps already sleeping with another man somewhere in Osaka.
“Mr. Iryō, I told you, didn’t I, to leave the ice bag on all day today?” At the shrill voice of the head nurse, Tetsuyuki quickly placed the bag on his face.
The doctor had said that they would perform cosmetic surgery on the twisted nose bone as soon as the swelling had completely abated, but after his release and return to his apartment Tetsuyuki never once went back to the hospital. He would be able to take care of something like that anytime, and had many other things he needed to do.
He felt impatient: though it was already the middle of March, the weather had not warmed at all. Every time he saw a cherry tree he would check to see if the buds were swelling. The day he had agreed upon with the landlady was getting close. He suddenly recalled having heard the word “keichitsu,” and looked it up in the dictionary:
. . . also keichū, or the emergence of insects that have spent the winter hibernating. One of twenty-four points in the ellipsis of the sun. When the sun is at 345 degrees longitude, during the second month of the lunar calendar. Around the sixth of March in the solar calendar.
Tetsuyuki tried setting the heater closer to the pillar in an attempt to hasten Kin’s awakening, but decided against that out of fear that going against nature might actually weaken the lizard. So he endured the cold and spent a day without lighting the stove.
The day for keichitsu was already a week ago. He could see no signs of spring, but perhaps they were invisible only to humans; the rhythms had no doubt already begun in insects and other animals, and in humans as well. He began to get up, but again sat down with his face between his knees, averting his gaze from Kin.
An air mail letter arrived from Mr. and Mrs. Lang. Wondering how they had obtained his address, he tore it open. Two sheets were inside: one typed in German by Mr. Lang, and the other a handwritten translation into Japanese, its small characters lined up neatly.
Dear Tetsuyuki Iryō,
We are both keeping well in our Munich apartment, which is too spacious for an elderly old couple. My wife has discovered joy in planting vegetable seeds in our small garden plot, and I have found a modest purpose in life jotting down simple verses that suddenly pop into my mind. This feeling that I have become another Homer makes me realize that the many dreamlike happenings in my life were decidedly not dreams at all. I have written this letter wishing to share with you and your beautiful, charming girlfriend one of my poor poems. Please don’t laugh at it. I worked as a printer, but my vocabulary is limited.
All things that fly in the sky
have two wings, and also one mirror.
And yet those that suppose
they have one wing and two mirrors
will at length fall to the depths of the earth.
The two wings work in unison,
and a mirror has a front and back.
How could anyone aware of that
undertake to lead another
into unhappiness?
I may make pretensions to be Homer, but I racked my brains for ten days to write this verse. I had a Japanese student in our neighborhood translate this letter for me. Kisses for you and your girlfriend.
March 4, 19XX
Friedrich Lang
At first, Tetsuyuki was moved more by the phrase “the many dreamlike happenings in my life were decidedly not dreams at all” than by Mr. Lang’s poem. But as he reread the letter several times, he became more immersed in the verse, whose literary quality he was unable to judge. That evening, he shaved, shoved the envelope in his pocket, and set out. On the way, he called both his mother and Isogai’s hospital.
“I was in the hospital with a broken nose.” Tetsuyuki candidly explained the circumstances.
After listening to the end, Isogai said, “I wonder why those gangsters quit before they finished you off.”
“I don’t know. I suppose fate was more on my side than on theirs.”
“My surgery has been set for April twenty-fifth.” Isogai said nothing about the results of the examinations.
“My landlady found out about Kin, and she was hopping mad. She told me to be out of the apartment by the first Sunday of April. Of course, I’ll take Kin with me. You’ll be put under anesthesia and a skilled surgeon will stitch you up, but Kin won’t be so lucky.”
Tetsuyuki worried that what he said might make Isogai feel bad, but the latter just laughed. “You should try being a patient about to undergo heart surgery. I get so scared I can’t sleep at night.”
The moment he hung up, Tetsuyuki decided that even if pulling out the nail should kill Kin, he would lie about it to Isogai.
It was before eight o’clock that he arrived at Mukonosō Station. He wanted to try visiting Yōko’s house without prior notice. But as he approached the house, he reconsidered, thinking that he should not presume upon them just because they had given permission for the marriage. He dashed to a public telephone. Yōko’s mother answered, and asked, “Where are you now?” He ended up answering, “In Umeda,” and so although he could see their house, he would have to kill some time before stopping by. Yōko angrily took the receiver from her mother.
“What have you been doing all day? I’ve been waiting for you to call, and I can’t do anything but wait. You have to decide on a date to move, don’t you?”
“Actually, I’m in your neighborhood, but without thinking I told your mom that I’m in Umeda. What should I do?”
“Why did you do that?”
“I guess I still feel awkward about visiting.”
Saying that she would invent some excuse, Yōko hung up and within two minutes had exited the house.
“It isn’t as if they’ve gladly given me their daughter, and it would be a bit impertinent of some guy she’s been meeting in secret until recently to say, ‘Well, I was just in the area,’ wouldn’t it?”
Sitting on a swing in the park, Tetsuyuki looked up at Yōko, who had just gotten out of the bath and smelled of soap. She reached out and lightly stroked his left cheek. “It’s still a bit swollen here.”
Without saying a word, Tetsuyuki handed her the letter from Mr. Lang.
“When did it arrive?”
“Today.”
Not wanting her to feel chilled after her bath, he suggested that they go to a coffee shop somewhere, but she replied that her fur-lined coat was quite warm. She sat down on the swing next to him and read the letter by the light of the mercury lamp.
“Sawamura Chiyono’s intuition turned out to be wrong. In the tea hut she had said: ‘These two were not able to die here, but they will no doubt carry out their plan someplace else. This was a farewell tea ceremony . . .’”
Yōko made no response to his comment, but said in a thin voice, “I’m glad I didn’t wash my hair. Somehow I had a feeling that you’d show up.” Then she mumbled, “‘Dreamlike . . .’”
He took the letter from Yōko. “Mr. Lang wrote that it made him realize it wasn’t a dream.” Tetsuyuki spoke even as he became aware of a strangely wonderful feeling welling up within him. It was decidedly not a dream, but it was like a dream . . . It was even hard for him to believe that his own nest—if only for a short time—was a stifling boxlike place atop some metal stairs, separated by a number of train connections and a thirty-minute walk along a deserted country lane. Everything—whether the incidents that had come up between himself and Yōko, the easily imagined life his mother was living, the days when he was threatened by collectors, the power struggle between the fatso and beanpole factions that was likely to continue, the major surgery Isogai would soon face—everything was contained within the body of one lizard named Kin. Entertaining these thoughts, he touched his bent nose with his index finger.
“Kin will probably die if I pull out the nail, won’t he?”
“I’ve made a house for him.” Yōko explained that for the time being they would leave the nail in Kin after pulling it out of the pillar. Then they would wait for the right time to pull the nail out of his flesh, and keep him in a small wooden box until the wound healed. When he was in good condition, they would let him go. “I think that would be best. I made the box myself, and put some round stones in it.”
“When did you make it?” Tetsuyuki was surprised.
“Today. I sawed some wood, and pounded nails . . . I don’t know how many times I hit my fingers with the hammer. See, I have blood blisters, don’t I? I found pieces of board in the storage shed, and my face and neck got all dusty. That’s why I took a bath.”
“Why? Why did you do that?”
“Because I decided that you’ll be moving the day after tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow?”
“You know that my cousin is an electrical contractor, don’t you? He’s working on some major construction projects, and the day after tomorrow is the only day he’ll be able to lend us his truck. And that’s why I hurried and made a house for Kin.”
Tetsuyuki stood up, grasped Yōko’s hand, and took off running. After paying quick but appropriate respects to her parents, he took the wooden box and went back to Mukonosō Station. The deformed box, measuring eight inches on each side, told of the great pains Yōko had expended in making it. At the ticket gate, she pulled a face at him.
“Idiot.”
“I think I’m about to break down in tears.”
“The truck will arrive the day after tomorrow at ten. If you’re still asleep then, I’ll kick you in the face.”
Tetsuyuki wanted to say something wonderfully endearing but was in too exultant a state of mind and was not even able to reply coherently.
By the time he arrived at Suminodō Station, his feelings of exultation had subsided into a solemn tranquility. Walking against headwinds, he carried the box containing the round stones, pushing forward with his head down along the dark path. Locking the door, he caressed Kin’s nose. Kin’s tail shivered slightly. It occurred to Tetsuyuki that there were many things he must talk to Kin about before going through with it, but the moment he said “Kin-chan,” he winced at the thought that he should pull the nail out of Kin’s body at once rather than traumatizing him twice. Holding the pliers in his right hand, he gently held down Kin’s body.
“You won’t die. You won’t die.”
Kin’s legs moved wildly, his tail writhing. Following an instantaneous creaking sound, the dislodged nail along with the pliers went flying up toward the ceiling. A piece of Kin’s internal organs appeared on the finger Tetsuyuki had used to hold down the lizard, forming a red-and-yellow-green speck. He opened the box and released his fingers, but Kin’s body remained stuck to the pillar, twisting like a mosquito larva. But he did not fall into the box. When he had been pierced by the nail, some flesh from his abdomen had hardened along with body fluids, causing him to adhere to the pillar. Tetsuyuki found the nail in a corner of the room. Using the point of the nail, he tried to scrape away the congealed matter. Kin was thrashing about violently. If Tetsuyuki were not careful, the wound would only grow wider. The nail that had for so long pierced him only created a fresh wound in his abdomen after it was pulled out.
At length, Kin fell to the floor. Getting down on all fours, Tetsuyuki cautiously placed the lizard on his palm, and then set him in the wooden box. With spasms in his neck and back, Kin hid between the stones, his mouth open.
Toward dawn, it began to rain. It was past noon when it stopped, and bright sunlight fell on the tatami floor and on Kin’s box. Lying on his stomach, Tetsuyuki put his ear to the box.
“You won’t die. You won’t die . . . I had a dream, it was a long time ago. I turned into a lizard, and went through lots of lives and deaths.”
There was no sound from inside the box. He barely managed to suppress the urge to take out the stones to determine whether Kin was alive or dead.
“This is definitely spring sunlight. Kin-chan, when I pulled the nail out, spring arrived.”
He spent that entire day telling Kin whatever came to mind. Years from now, if he recalled this period of living apart from his mother, all images would appear through the lens of this mysterious messenger named Kin. Tetsuyuki realized nothing had yet begun. He drank some saké, talked on, and occasionally peered between the stones as he waited for the next day. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow Yōko would come in the truck with her cousin. Thought of tomorrow brought panic and at the same time excitement. This must be what true bliss was like.
He awoke at eight o’clock on that awaited day. The unmistakable light of spring brought beads of perspiration around his neck and under his arms. Carrying the wooden box, he made several trips to the corner of the path. He wanted to wave his arms to greet Yōko by the side of the road rather than in his apartment. As he was waiting, he could no longer contain himself and removed the stones from the box one by one. Some were the size of hen’s eggs; there were also pieces of brick.
“Kin-chan, stay alive,” Tetsuyuki mumbled, his heart pounding. After removing all the stones, he stared for a long time into the box, occasionally raising his head like a marionette and looking off into the vast sky filled with spring light. Kin was not there.