I Called Him Necktie (6 page)

I was just thinking, you would be a good father.

Me?

Yes, you.

What makes you think that?

Because you sometimes look like a child yourself. When you eat, for instance. You do it like a child who is not aware of anything but what he is doing at the time.

And that would make me a good father?

Well, let’s say: a real father.

He bit back a word.

That girl there, for instance. Do you see her? She’s moving her finger through the puddle all the time. She’s drawing something in it. Sees the picture, how it disappears. Starts again from the beginning. Paints nothing but pictures that disappear. An aimless game, yet a happy one. The girl is constantly laughing. I often ask myself why we can’t do that anymore, be aimlessly happy. Why, when you are big, you sit in narrow, low-ceilinged rooms, wherever you are, at most you go from one room to another, but as a child you were in a room without walls. For that’s how I remember it: When I was small, I took refuge in life in the moment. Neither the past nor the present could affect me in any way, and how lovely if that were so now. If you could work, not for the sake of the result, but work as an offering, without effort.

Again he bit his lips white.

I sighed, anticipating his sigh.

He agreed and said: That would be really lovely.

For me the train has left anyway, and I’m glad it has set off without me. As far back as I can think, I never had a desire to achieve any particular aim. Not for myself, I mean. The good grades were not for me but for my parents, who thought I would become something respectable one day. It was their ambition, not mine. It was their image of a life of advancement.

I’ve still got the school uniform. It’s hanging in the darkest corner of my room, a garment without content. It looks like one of those figures you encounter in a dream. You don’t know them but are aware of a strange relationship. On closer examination it emerges that it’s your shadow.

If I put on the uniform today I would hardly fill it. It would be an absurd sight, as absurd as I felt then, when I wore it. A person dressed as a schoolboy, who pretends to be learning something, but in reality is forgetting what’s important. That’s also a reason why I am a hikikomori. Because I want to learn how to look at things again. From my bed I look at the crack I punched into the wall out of rage at myself. I’ve looked at it so long I’ve almost disappeared into it. Time has wrinkles, this is one of them. I look into it, to remind myself of the many moments when I looked away.

I was fourteen. An average student. My grades were good,
but not too good, and my survival depended on maintaining this averageness, this much I had already learned. The thing was to be normal. Under no circumstances anything other than normal. For whoever stands out attracts the ill will of those who, bored by their own normality, have nothing better to do than torment him, the one who is different. And who wants that? Who exposes himself willingly to torture? So you fit in and are grateful that you’re among the inconspicuous.

Takeshi, though. He stood out. Kobayashi Takeshi.

He had grown up in America, just come back. When he said New York or Chicago or San Francisco, he said it as if it were just over there, around the corner. His English flowed, I couldn’t hear enough of it. He said Hi. And Thank you. And Bye. The words came from his mouth in a whirlwind. Too fast thought some, and were ready to pounce on him. The next day he was missing a tooth. He lisped: I fell. The tooth was replaced, the lisp remained. And worse still. He began to make mistakes. When the teacher asked him to pronounce something, he mispronounced it. If he was asked to read out loud, he misread it. Bit by bit he lost the ability to get the words out of his mouth, the language he had grown up with, which had once been his home. He even went so far as to imitate our accent. He said San Furanshisuko and it was gone, far far away. It was ghastly to listen to it. How he forced himself to do it. Before each word he spoke, he paused and mourned to see it go.

The dreadful thing was: I could have been him. But I was spared. Nevertheless I was the observer, and it took someone like me, who looked and then looked away. I remained average simply by behaving as if I hadn’t seen anything. And the paradox was: I was a master at it. At
fourteen I was already achieved mastery in studiously ignoring the pain of others. My sympathy was limited to being the silent witness.

Hm.

And Hm again.

He hummed a song. Took a puff of his cigarette. Hummed some more. A little pile of ash fell on his chest, a gentle breeze wafted it away. A bicycle bell rang. I would like to have cried. Pale yellow blossoms fell from the bushes.

Takeshi wasn’t the only one, was he.

No. There was Yukiko too.

Hm.

Miyajima Yukiko.

The lump in my throat thickened. That Monday I could say no more than her name.

It looks like rain. He yawned.

I followed his gesture towards the dreary pale sky.

Tomorrow. What is it tomorrow? Right. Tuesday. The week has only just begun. If it rains ... he rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a card. His tongue pushed forward, he scribbled in big letters: MILES TO GO. A Jazz café. When it rains, he said, that’s where I
am.

But.

But what?

I felt dizzy. The idea of walking past tables and chairs, across a sweaty room, sitting down, meeting the gaze of a waiter, sipping from a glass that God knows who had sipped out of before. Still trying to get used to the park and our friendship, this idea was beyond the bounds of possibility and my self-confidence.

It’s just that. I stammered. Outside there’s more room between people.

I understand. He stood up. Then until next time the sun shines. It was six o’clock. On the other side of the card I read his name, Ohara Tetsu, and his address. A business card. I am a coward, I thought. And: Another object which, in my room, in the drawer, under the age-old fossil. I did not complete the thought.

Quick, quick. Through the foyer. Who was smiling there? The picture of the untaken trip to San Francisco hung on the wall, carefully straightened and dusted, as if I hadn’t turned it around. Father’s hand on my shoulder. Mother’s “cheese” cried out from the frame. Me, pimply, crooked cap, two fingers spread in a victory sign. A frozen moment. A grain of sand in the hourglass. Soon it would slip through the narrow waist. A few grains of sand later and I would shake off Father’s hand. Mother’s “cheese,” it would collapse. What’s the matter with
him, the boy. Let him be. It’s a phase. The truth is: They would rather not know. The truth is: I would rather not let them know. We had struck a pact: Better not to know anything about each other. And this pact is what holds families together for generations. We wore masks. Our faces no longer recognizable underneath, for our masks had grown onto us. It hurt to pull them off. It hurt so much that the pain of never meeting face to face was bearable, compared to the pain of showing your true face. Already this me in the photo knew that. It knew there’s no better place to hide than in a family, the ideal hiding place. It is the empty yellow-edged square that remains when you take a picture off the wall. I shoved it silently in the trash by the door. Crept back across the foyer into my room. Only after the door closed behind me did I ask myself whether my hikikomori identity, my complete indifference to the world, was also a masquerade. My answer: I am tired.

Two days passed. Drumming raindrops. Through the gap in the curtains I saw that the sky was sewn up. No tear in the clouds to be seen. I ran to and fro. An animal in a cage dreaming of the wide open plain. Again and again I brushed against the cage bars, cold iron on the pelt of longing. On the third day I outwitted myself and broke out. The cage had just been in my head.

The water smacked down from the overhanging roofs. I ran, the umbrella slanted in front of me, in wet shoes. MILES TO GO. I intended to walk past it at the very least. Past the flickering illuminated letters and perhaps catch a fleeting glimpse. Perhaps. With this Perhaps in my head I ranged like an escaped animal, a lion maybe, or a
panther, through the wind and rain lashed streets.

It must be up there. The Perhaps was in my chest and from there had penetrated to all parts of my body, pumped me on, up to the door, and past it, around the corner, around the block, and again: Past it, around the corner, around the block. I can’t say how many times. In my memory I walked for miles. When I finally touched the handle, cold iron on a longing hand, I was exhausted as if from a long journey.

A cloud of smoke in the cafe. Gentle clink of glasses. A subdued nothingness, nothing. Someone was on the phone. The melting of ice cubes. Crackling. The lighting was muted. Hiro! His voice was a thread. He reeled me in. Come and sit down. What will you have to drink? A cola! He snapped his fingers. Good to see you here. I sank into the soft padding of a leather armchair.

He looked different from in the park. Bigger in some way. Without the sky above him he was a bigger man. While I, growing small and smaller, didn’t know where I should look. With the chilled glass in front of me, I sensed I had walked into a trap. What did I really have to do with him? How had it come to the stage where I, with my neck in the noose, was listening to a trumpet alongside a stranger, surrounded by strangers?

Simply fabulous. He swayed to the rhythm of the music. You lose all sense of place and time. What’s the matter? Are you feeling sick? You look so pale! What can I do? What can I get for you?

I waved him away.

But of course! You’ve taken a leap into the unknown! Don’t worry, now you’ve done it. Set your mind at rest: Nothing will happen. You’ll see. This is not the sort of place where anything happens, and everyone who comes here, comes because it’s like that. You step into a capsule of music bound by neither space nor time. Why do you think I chose this café? Well, just because I was sure it would be like your room. That’s better. Now you’ve got a little bit of color in your cheeks again. With these words he grew smaller, I became bigger, until we assumed our original size again. What disturbed me now was simply understanding how much courage there was in me. It needed courage to come here, to trust him.

To want a love that can’t be true. A throaty woman’s voice.

Kyōko’s favorite number. He laughed. The song she puts on when she wants to cry. Funny, isn’t it? Sometimes she likes to lie flat on the floor and soak it with her tears, over and over again. She describes it as a sort of cleansing. It cleanses her eyes, she says, afterwards she can see more clearly. She doesn’t cry out of sadness. She cries to reach a clearer insight into the substance of life. The eyes are the windows, when she says it, it sounds like a new or recently rediscovered proverb, from which the soul shines. I wonder whether I want to understand that? Whether I can stand it?

We were brought together by a matchmaker. I was shown a picture of her. Twenty-three years old, typist, likes reading
and singing, draws. The father a bank official, mother a housewife, no siblings. That’s how she was described to me. Fine face in the photo, hands neatly folded in her lap. Only the hairdo! Not particularly flattering. I agreed to meet her, without having any particular image of her. She pleased me and she didn’t please me. Basically I gave in to pressure from the family. I was twenty-five and had a well-paid job. What was missing was a wife and child, a comfortable home. Judging by the example set by my parents, that was neither desirable, nor was it undesirable. It was simply what was expected of me and what I expected of myself, because you’re not complete as a man if you have no one beside you.

We met for dinner in a hotel. My parents, more nervous than me.
Okada-san*
, the matchmaker, with the corners of her mouth pulled up in a spasm. A wax doll, she could at times be very, very soft, then very, very hard. I found her simultaneously friendly and unfriendly. Some people are like that. They leave you unsure as to how to take them. Ah! There you are now! She waved with her waxen hand. Matsumoto-san! A stiff movement. I stood opposite a woman who bore not the slightest resemblance to the woman in the photo.

Not even close. He laughed out loud. She behaved like someone who has resolved not to be loved. Her lips pursed, she looked me up and down and said: There you see again, how you can be deceived. A photo is only a copy after all. The original is equally uninteresting. She said it with a smile. That hit home.

She likes reading and singing, this was intoned by Okada-san
with particular emphasis. Most of all, interrupted Kyōko, I like books and songs which deal with marrying off a daughter who does not want that. Embarrassed silence. Okada-san dabbed her forehead and eyebrows with a handkerchief, the parents stabbed awkwardly at their plates. And in case you hadn’t noticed, Kyōko spoke with her mouth full: I’m wearing a wig in the photo. I choked. Coughed. She jumped up and dealt me a blow on the back. So now you know, I can hit hard. I can do more than read and sing. I can, if it’s needed, deal you a blow you won’t forget so quickly. Oh how nice, intervened Okada-san, she has presence of mind. A quality often missing in young ladies. I broke into uncontrollable laughter. Forgive me! Nothing to forgive. A man should not apologize for his laughter or a woman for the tears she weeps. Sometimes, Kyōko put down her knife and fork, I have the urge to lie down on the floor and soak it with my tears over and over again. Can you understand that? Can you bear it? She furrowed her brow fiercely. Her face, her very own, propped up, chin on hand, scrutinizing me directly. Yes I can, I replied. I want to try. Surprised, she said: You fool.

He blushed.

His blush was not that of a young man who speaks of his first love. It was the blush of a man grown old, who bows before the first and last love of his life. It was a serene blush. It shimmered through his slack skin and lit up the whole space around us for several seconds. I blushed with him. A crackling. A whirring. The record had ended. Someone shouted: Let’s have Billie Holiday again! Murmurs of agreement, toasts to that across the tables.