I Called Him Necktie (13 page)

Kumamoto had changed. There was no longer anything feverish in his movements. They were more sedate than anything else. His body appeared bloated, I thought of a corpse that had been under water and now slopped onto land on a strong current. That’s the medication, he said. He stretched out his lame leg.

It’s good, I said. Good to see you again.

He nodded: Really good.

Are you better now?

I don’t know. After each accident, they persisted in calling them accidents, another one happened, just after I was released. Gas. Our house almost blew up. I was admitted to a clinic. They gave me these tablets. I slept again, gently compelled to sleep. I only have fragments of memory. There was a light beam that tickled my nose. A water carafe. A sprig of cherry, the buds opened. A nurse. Her hair up in a knot. A picture. She would take out the clip, her hair would fall in soft waves down her back. A patient who constantly babbled. We called him the drunkard. Though he only drank water and tea like the rest of us. Once I spoke to him. He explained to me in a babble that he had such a longing to lie down in the street, in a corner, in a state of intoxication, without memory, without a past, to hear people’s footsteps passing by. It would comfort him, he said, this sound of passing shoes.

Or Hiroko, the fat one. She thought she would dissolve into nothing at any moment. Can you see me, she asked. Do you see how I am disappearing? Yet her body was so plump you couldn’t imagine how it would ever disappear. Where are my toes, she asked, my feet, my knees. Full of horror, she felt her legs and screamed: I feel a void. In the end she had to be fed through a tube, because she was convinced she no longer had a mouth.

Why am I telling you this? Illness, I think, is holding onto an illusion. The loneliness while you’re holding onto it. If I say I don’t know whether I’m better, it’s because I
don’t know whether that’s even possible. To be completely free. But: Yes. For the last half year I have really been so well that I gradually began to find pleasure in imagining bumping in to you, and telling you that I am genuinely pleased to see you again. A curiosity within me: What’s coming next? Wonderful. Such curiosity: Where is it all going? In the morning I get up and experience, as I wash my face, a simple pleasure in being so curious. The water is alive. It rinses the sleep out of my eyes, wakes me up. It’s as if I first have to practice being as alive as the water.

Of course for my parents it’s difficult. I see that now. That it is difficult for them, this vision they had of seeing me smashed to pieces. Not being able to hold onto that. For my father especially it’s a severe loss. He’s reluctant to talk about what happened, and when he does, he says he would rather I had gone on writing poems instead of being ill. He just says that in passing. With eyes brimming. Looks away when he adds: Would much rather you had written a long, long poem. I hear the apology in it. I hear it because I want to hear it. An effort of will, I owe it to him. It makes things easier for him. He doesn’t lose face. It makes it easier for me, I can reinvent myself. In this way we’re each in our own space and some time, who knows when, we’ll meet and sit in one space big enough for both of us, and then we’ll understand: We were never anywhere else.

Am I still writing? Unthinkable not to. In the very darkest night the words were like shiny pebbles. They caught the light of the moon and stars and reflected it back. One word among them that shone especially brightly. Simplicity. I would approach it, stepping softly, regard it from all sides, finally pick it up, enchanted by it, recognize that its
enchantment lay in its shine, its pure meaning. Simplicity. To simply be there. Simply keep going. The longer I kept going, the easier it was to see how beautiful, simply beautiful, it is to be here.

I would like to write about how this word shines. I’d like to write about the simplest things. About, for example, how we’re sitting at this table now, across from each other, after two and a half years, telling each other things we usually conceal. The green tea latte we’re drinking is lukewarm, it tastes sweet. It will be dusk soon. The day is slipping into night with the sun. We notice lots of time has passed. My leg, extended, reminds us of that. You’re not blaming me. We’re friends, more than that, you know: Twins who turn to each other over half-filled glasses. I missed you. You missed me. So simple. The air conditioner hums. People are talking, laughing. The waitress runs to and fro and when she does stop, she wipes her apron over her tired face.

And Kumamoto had not changed.

Despite his sedateness, despite his bloated body, he sat before me as a poet through and through, he had maintained his integrity. He radiated a fierce strength, a man who had descended into the abyss, totally alone, and had taken its measure. And once he was out again he was the same man, just happy to be out.

What do you think? I laid my hand flat on the table so that he could see the scars. Do you think we are needed? I mean people like us, who have strayed from the path, withdrawn? Who have no diploma, no education, no work, nothing to
show, have learned nothing except this: That it is worth it to stay alive. It worries me, the thought that we may not be needed now, after we have learned that and are still learning. We are marked, after all. We have a flaw. What if it is not forgiven? What if society ... won’t have us back?

I avoid thinking of the big picture. If I think: Society. Then my head spins. Too big. What is that? I can’t see it. What I see are details. That’s what I want to stay with. With small things. And there, everyone is marked, everyone has a flaw, everyone needs each other. Kumamoto laid his hand beside mine. When I found you again just now, fingertip to fingertip, it was a moment. At first I did not recognize you. You’ve grown thinner. It was only when you let go of the strap in the swaying train and were gently thrown to and fro that I recognized you by the way you pushed back with your feet on the floor, against the pressure. The doors sprang open. I got up immediately. Following you. I didn’t want to lose sight of you again. You were quick, by the escalator already. I could hardly keep up. Stumbling after you I realized how much I need you. I need you so I can tell you: I’m sorry. I need you, so I can hear from you: It’s alright. You stopped for a moment. I hesitated. Overwhelmed by the feeling that I had no right to need you so much. But you were standing there. I reached out my hand towards you, and, that’s the answer to your question, perhaps it really is this reaching out, this reaching towards someone else, that’s needed most of all.

Do you have any plans, I asked.

You?

To fully emerge.

Me too.

The other thing I wanted to ask you: What did you, just before you, what did you call out then? You do know. I was coming towards you. And you called out something. The whole time I’ve been convinced it was a message for me. Something I should hear. Something that was intended for me. What was it?

I was confused.

Have you forgotten?

I don’t think it was anything.

No?

What’s the point of repeating it?

Perhaps to ...

I am telling you: It was nothing.

Actually, it no longer mattered to me. A cry from the past, it was fading away. Whether it was freedom, life or happiness, it was no longer important. We bade each other farewell with a simple goodbye. We’ll bump into each other again, said Kumamoto. We will, I said, and take care. You too. For my sake. And with that he disappeared behind somebody’s broad back. He would go home. Go home. Suddenly I was aware of a great hunger. A hole in my stomach, I rushed off. Hunger drove me on.

Father’s shoes in the entrance. Polished leather, you could almost see yourself in them. My parents were sitting down to dinner. The television was on. Baseball. The Giants were ahead by three runs. I saw in the hall, surprised that I wasn’t surprised, that the picture I shoved in the trash not long ago hung in its place again. Under it a notice fixed with thumbtacks: I have the negative. However often you may remove the picture, I can get another made. Mother. Smiley face. The family is multiplying. There I stood again, Father’s hand on my shoulder, crooked cap, in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, and waited for the grain of sand to run through the hourglass, to shake off the hand, and — waited a little longer, until my bitterness over it had faded. Or as Kumamoto would have said: Because I didn’t want to feel any bitterness, I didn’t. It was a conscious effort. I owed it to myself. It made things easier for me. Without bitterness I picked up the tray from beside the door, the bowl of rice was still steaming, took a carefully considered step, then a second one, opened the door with a hand that wasn’t trembling. Wide eyes regarded me. A mute nod. Father broke the silence first. Well, clear the chair, he said, turning to Mother. On my chair, the chair I had not sat on for two years, lay a pile of old magazines, the Crown Princess waving a hand, a ball of red wool, knitting. Mother hurried to clear it off. As she did, the ball of wool fell in front of her, on the floor, and rolled to my feet. I nudged it on towards Father. A home run. I sat down.
Itadakimasu*
.

More rice?

Mother filled up the bowl. Here is some more tofu.
Otousan*
, please pass him the leeks. Within seconds the
table was reorganized. Side dishes and sauces rearranged so that they lay within my reach. I ate. The last piece of
Gyoza*
. Father’s chopsticks clashed with mine. You take it. No, you. He rubbed his belly: I’m full. We looked at each other. We held it. A beer, he said finally: Keiko, fetch us a beer. We clinked glasses. To what? you ask. Well, to the Giants of course. Excited cheering came from the television. The commentator’s voice went crazy. The game continued. Mother brought three glasses and dried squid.
Kampai*
. We toasted each other. Beer tastes best, laughed Mother, at the end of a long day.

How we sat together and with the help of irreality agreed about reality. I realized that Father and Mother had been hikikomoris as well. With me in the house they were captive too, for my life depended on them. Father’s meager holidays had been spent at home. No trips to the seaside. No weekends in O, Mother’s hometown. Now and then to the movie theater, yes. To sit in the dark. To a restaurant, from time to time. With friends they hadn’t seen for ages. A few hours in the car, from time to time. Simply driving off and imagining what it would be like to drive on. To the end of the world. Then stopping and saying to each other: There is someone who needs us. Turn around. And back. Every few days to Fujimoto’s and shopping. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mother never missed any mealtimes. Sometimes there was a t-shirt. A pair of socks. A sweater in winter. Lots of letters, which I didn’t read, left that way by the door. I asked myself what they might have contained. Perhaps how it made them happy to see a cola missing from the fridge, or wet tiles in the bathroom. Perhaps also how it made them very sad. Perhaps how they were ashamed of me. Perhaps also how it was
difficult for them to understand what brought me to shut myself away from them. After all that, to sit together and with the help of irreality to agree about reality, it was like the first breath after all three of us had been underwater. Breaking the surface. We were still gasping.

And then. I stood up. Good Night.

Father: That was the best game I’ve seen for a long time. He spoke without looking up, his gaze towards the screen. In one hand he grasped his empty glass, with the other he held onto the edge of the table. His white knuckles betrayed him. Revealing immobility. One more word and the glass in his hand would have shattered.

BEGINNING

I am grateful to all the people who have supported me while writing. Their incalculable friendship has flowed into the story in a living contribution.

Special thanks to my husband Thomas (I thank you for your encouragement, your patience, your solicitude), Ojiichan and Obaachan (I thank you for many summers filled with happiness), Michio, Niken, Ayana and Ryuta (I thank you for the red thread that bound us to one another across the miles), Satoshi (I thank you for the beautiful memory of you), Tobias (I thank you for your support), Angela (I thank you for your Epile Spitmek), Barbara and Verena (I thank you for your loyalty and glasses of wine), Kathrin (I thank you for our singing and reading together), Lelo (I thank you for cupcakes and stardust).

The greatest thanks goes especially to those I have not mentioned.

Butsudan
Buddhist altar to honor ancestors and the recently dead.

-chan
Diminutive suffix added to names, especially of children.

Giants
A Tokyo baseball team.

Gyoza
Meat filled pastry squares.

Hajimemashite
I am happy to make your acquaintance.

Heart Sutra
A popular Buddhist writing, whose central doctrine is “Form is a void, the void is form.”

Hikikomori
This is the word used to describe Japanese youths who refuse to leave their parents’ house, shut themselves in their rooms and reduce their contact with the family to the minimum. The period of time varies. Some spend up to 15 years or even longer shut in. How many hikikomoris there are remains uncertain, as many are concealed for fear of the stigma involved. According to estimates, between 100,000 and 320,000 young people fall victim to it. The main cause is believed to be the huge demands to conform and achieve in school and society.

Itadakimasu
Said before a meal: I accept it with humility.

Kampai
A toast: Cheers!

Kanjou
Feeling.

Karaage
Fried chicken.

Miyajima
An area of beautiful countryside in Nihon.

Otousan
Father, often used to address the husband.

Period of mourning
In Japan this traditionally lasts for 7 weeks, after which the urn containing the remains of the deceased is placed in the grave. Cremation takes place at the funeral soon after death.