Hikikomori and the Rental Sister: A Novel (2 page)

“So it never stops,” I said, “it just keeps going and going and going?”

She smiled and nodded and I’m sure she meant it as comfort but the concept of forever terrified me. Too big to wrap my little head around, heaven sounded like hell.

When Mom died, Dad continued on, alone. He did not throw me away and start over. Surely he saw his wife in me, but he shed no tears. And his fortitude, his mettle and grit, and his benevolence, they ended with him. My dad did not bequeath me with the same; he forgot about my inheritance, or he always meant to give it to me but lost his chance, because one day in spring he went out to get the mail and on his way back—halfway between the mailbox and the front door—he fell to the concrete, a heart attack. He was wearing his bathrobe and held a handful of utility bills. Just like that.

In the casket he had his hands folded on his chest. He was perfectly still. He looked exactly like me. I was looking at my own funeral, ahead in time, when some unseen voice shouts: Tessler family! Everyone move one spot to the right! Grandpa, you’re in the grave now. Thomas, you get in the casket. Little Tessler Boy, you’re in the hot seat now, and pay attention, because you’re next.

I think my mom came down to get my dad. I think she was lonely up there in endless heaven.

The eggs are cold but delicious. Apparently she made too much toast, too, and spread it with my favorite strawberry-rhubarb jam. I am not used to fresh eggs: soon I’ll be sick. But for now they are delicious. I wash the plate in my bathroom sink and set it on the hallway floor.

I have sat cross-legged on my bed and read all the books by all the major physicists, so I am well acquainted with the concept of time as we currently understand it, and a tenuous understanding it is, for nobody seems to know quite what time is and whether it flows or only appears to flow, whether it has a beginning or an end, whether it can be stopped, and whether there are gaps between moments, and if so, what those gaps might be.

My television is on, but I don’t watch it. I find a show with a peaceful rhythm—baseball game, soap opera, courtroom drama—and put the volume on low and go about my business. The best days are the courtroom-drama marathon days, when I can set the channel and leave it there all day and be soothed by the pleas of the guilty and innocent. My television is like a metronome, so I can march in place forever, a beating heart to tell me I’m still alive.

I wake up in the dark, above the covers, television flickering in my face. I hear the last gurgles of her flushing toilet. She is home.

From in the hall she says, “I see you liked your eggs.”

I point my head toward the door. “I ate my eggs.” My voice sounds foreign to me. All day long thoughts flow like torrents but words never escape, and now here they are, like worms falling out of my mouth.

“You ate them but you didn’t enjoy them?” she says.

“I ate them and I enjoyed them.”

“You could say thank you.”

“Thank you.” She is chatty tonight, and her words slur together, as though her sentences are one long word.

“Too much salt?”

“Salt?”

“Were the eggs too salty?”

“No, they were perfectly salted.” I regret opening my mouth, words and worms. Nothing comes out right.

“What about pepper?”

“Did you come here to talk about salt and pepper?”

She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave. She knows better than to try the knob. She pushes the empty plate aside, and in the slit beneath the door are two shadows, her feet, just standing there. Life flows smoother when she doesn’t come down the hallway, when she doesn’t talk to me—or when I have the sense not to respond. Yet she stays, yet she comes down the hall, yet she believes in me. She thinks I’m the same man she married. And maybe I am, and maybe that’s the problem, that I always have been this man and always will be.

“Don’t you want to know where I’ve been all night?” she asks.

“It’s late,” I say, “maybe you should go to bed.”

“I’m not tired.” The two shadows move, and I hear her back slide down the wall and the dull thud of her ass landing on the floor. Even after so long, there are still things to learn about my wife. I search for meaning in every sound through the door. Her voice these days is different. More urgent. “You’re not even curious . . .” she says.

“You should go to bed. It’s late.”

“I should go to bed. It’s late. Is that right? You think you know what I should do?”

A far-off siren floats into my room. Someone out there is having an emergency, someone is life or death. I squeeze my left hand into a fist.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“Are you sure you want to tell me?” I ask. “Are you sure you want me to know what you’ve been doing?”

No hesitation, hardly a pause, and the brutal sound of plate colliding with door rips through the apartment. The shattered pieces ricochet off the walls and crash to the floor. Then there is silence.

Hours later, when I am sure she is asleep, I open the door, collect all the shards and take them into my room. My acrimony is sharp and real but it dies in a flash and I’m left with only deep remorse that starts at my core and eats its way to my skin, where it sits and chews, a constant, burning sorrow that she doesn’t realize exists—my bitterness is all she knows anymore—which makes the sorrow burn even hotter, and on and on it spirals.

Three

At 9:55 a.m., Megumi steps onto the floor of the Hamamoto Wagashi Boutique. She leans over to Naoko. “You feel as shitty as I do?”

“Worse,” Naoko says.

“My throat still tastes like beer and squid.”

“Mine still tastes like that white guy.”

“You went home with him?”

Hamamoto appears from the back room. “Good morning, girls,” she says. She is taller than Megumi and wears a tight cerulean dress with her hair pulled back, smoky makeup shading her sharp eyes. She looks young, unless you look really close, and every day Megumi wishes a little wish that she, too, will look as beautiful as Hamamoto when she’s that old.

“Megumi, I want you to make room in the case on the middle shelf for the new tsuyaguri we’re getting in today.”

“Better than last time, I hope.”

“Let’s try it together when it comes in and if it’s good enough you can make a nice countertop display.”

Hamamoto examines the display cases to make sure the delicate wagashi are perfectly arranged. Cakes, cookies, jellies, everything is in order. She pulls up the blinds, flips the sign, and unlocks the door. Ten a.m. exactly. Midnight back home.

After a time, while Megumi is squatting behind the display case polishing a spot for the new shipment of tsuyaguri, the first customer of the morning walks in from the cold, a blond woman, seemingly tall, but from Megumi’s low angle down by the floor it’s hard to tell. Hamamoto comes out to greet the woman. Megumi watches through the display case glass. It looks like the woman has stumbled into the wrong place. She doesn’t have the typical wide-eyed giddiness at being suddenly surrounded by all things delicious, and in fact she doesn’t look at the colorful wagashi at all. Her smile is forced and there is shame in her eyes.

Megumi shifts her squat to get a better angle through the glass. Hamamoto gives the blond customer a slight bow, basically just a polite nod of the head, since foreigners never know what to do with a real bow. Megumi can’t make out what they’re saying, but just from the tone she knows this must be the one they’ve been waiting for. The one she never thought would actually come. The woman’s hands are for a few moments clasped between Hamamoto’s. She’s younger than Megumi expected. The woman follows Hamamoto behind the counter, where they disappear into the back room.

Megumi stands up. Her head pounds from last night’s beer and sake. Naoko gives her a confused look, but Megumi just shrugs. She steps outside for some fresh air.

The winter morning tightens the skin on her face. The sun peeks through holes in the passing clouds, thick and heavy as though they are about to burst with snow. A cold breeze lifts and twists her hair, sending strands into her face, but she doesn’t brush them away.

Across Minetta Street is a small wedge of park, just enough space for a narrow path, a couple of frozen benches, some overgrown bushes and trees, among them a single cherry. She wonders if Hamamoto chose this location for her shop because of the cherry tree or if she even sneaked in long ago and planted it herself. Now the tree is just a frozen black skeleton, but in springtime it blooms like a proud pink beacon. How sad, she thinks, this beautiful tree in such a small space next to trees that do not bloom, trapped by streets and traffic, breathing fumes, choking. Just then the breeze blows chilly air onto her scalp.

The door opens. “It’s time,” Hamamoto says. “Let’s go.”

But Megumi doesn’t move. “I listened,” she says, “but I never agreed.” She can get away with talking like that only because she is in New York, and not Japan. She didn’t come all the way here to act like she’s still at home.

“Let’s sit,” Hamamoto says, grabbing Megumi’s arm. She pulls her across the street. They sit next to each other in the park, on one of the wooden benches. They are alone. A patch of sky opens up and sunlight strikes the concrete, but then it is gone and the park goes gray. “If you were having second thoughts, you should have told me sooner.”

“Why does it have to be me? Naoko could—”

“Naoko wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Megumi blows on her hands. The cherry tree slices the breeze. It whistles.

“You’re the only one who knows what it’s like,” Hamamoto says.

“I’m trying to forget.”

“It’s a chance to put to use everything you learned from your brother.”

“I learned that if I set birthday presents outside his door, they will sit there for days and days and never get opened. How should I put that to use?” Those presents are probably still sitting on the shelf in her old bedroom in Tokyo, behind the vase, wrapped, waiting, collecting dust.

“Her husband needs our help.”

“I never heard of an American
hikikomori.
Americans don’t get quieter, they get louder. They go crazy and start shooting everyone.”

“That’s exactly why he needs us. This country doesn’t know what to do with him.”

“But I’m not a rental sister.”

“There’s nobody else. He’s not back home, he’s here. It doesn’t matter if you’re not perfect—you’re all there is, all he has. All she has.”

An old man enters the park, pulling a small, wheeled suitcase. The suitcase is dented and stained. The straps are frayed. One of the wheels is locked. It scrapes against the concrete. His face has a large scab. The crust is yellow. His mittens are brand new. He lies on a bench. His sneakers have no laces.

“When I heard about them, I could’ve kept quiet. I could have kept eating my arugula salad, but I stuck my neck out and said we could help. I gave my word.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first?”

“Because time is always running out. And because I knew you would do the right thing.”

With cold fingertips Megumi presses her temples. She sucks in the wintry air. Maybe her vocal cords will go brittle and crack.

“Megumi, I need an answer.”

“It was different with my brother. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“She’s up in my office right now, waiting.”

“It’s not fair.”

“What should I tell her?”

“Tell her I can’t do it.” The empty park swallows her refusal. There are no lingering echoes. The old man does not stir.

“If that’s your decision, you’re going to have to tell her yourself. You’ll have to look her in the eye and tell her you won’t help.”

She could quit. She could walk out of the park and down the cold street and never come back, she could just walk and walk, away, alone.

“Don’t you wish someone would’ve been there to help your brother?” Megumi’s arm twitches, her hand flies open, she nearly slaps Hamamoto across the face. Not because she’s wrong, but because she is exploiting the fact that the heart’s sorest spot is also its softest. “By the way, about it being different from your brother, you’re right. It’s worse.”

“I’m supposed to ask how it’s worse.”

“Imagine it wasn’t your brother. Imagine it was your husband.”

“I don’t get it.”

“She’s putting up a brave front in there. But time is always running out.”

The old man on the bench coughs. He doesn’t put his hand to his mouth or press his chest. He just coughs into the winter morning, as though coughing is breathing.

“Hama-neesan, I’m sorry.”

“It’s just talking. All you’d have to do is go to his door and talk. If it doesn’t work out—if there’s something bad about him—you can stop. But first you have to try. Please.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hamamoto doesn’t go with her; she stays on the bench. As Megumi is about to cross the street, Hamamoto calls her over to the fence. “Tell Silke I apologize. Tell her good luck.”

Megumi climbs the narrow staircase to the loft office. She steps lightly, but the stairs still creak. Silke’s pretty green eyes are bloodshot.