I Called Him Necktie (7 page)

Isn’t it strange? I had fallen in love with Kyōko’s Fool more than anything else. With her direct, open gaze. It saw through me. I wanted her to see through me.

But it was hard. Whenever we met she went in a different direction. I believe she didn’t know where to go. She simply set off, not really in the hope of getting anywhere, but for the pure joy of going. I am a plant, she said, I need fire, earth, water. Otherwise I will be stunted. And: Is marriage not such a stunting? The fire goes out. The wind grows weak. The earth dries out. The water dwindles. I would die. You too. She tossed her hair over her shoulders. Purple lavender. And what if it wasn’t like that, I argued. What if the daily routine, our daily routine, is my promise to you? Your toothbrush next to mine. You get annoyed because I’ve forgotten to turn the light off in the bathroom. We choose wallpaper we think is horrible a year later. You tell me I’m getting a belly. Your forgetfulness. You’ve left your umbrella somewhere again. I snore, you can’t sleep. In my dream I whisper your name. Kyōko. You tie my tie. Wave goodbye to me as I go to work. I think: you are like a fluttering flag. I think it with a stabbing pain in my heart. For Heaven’s sake, is that not enough? Is that not enough to be happy? She turned away: Give me time. I’ll think about it.

I waited. A whole month. Then at last a letter came. Her handwriting. Round. She had put in pressed flowers. My answer is Yes, I read: Yes, I would like to lose a thousand umbrellas, so long as you do not get a belly. I wrote back. Awkwardly. Let’s go and choose wallpaper.

That’s her. My wife. He pulled a photo out of his wallet.
My first thought was: Mother. My second: She wants to make up for it. She wants to cry.

Our wedding, he went on, took place in a Shinto shrine. Okada-san was there with a guilty smirk on her face. No more doubts: She was an unfriendly, an extremely unfriendly person. I’m sorry, she wanted to say. Instead she said, like hardening wax: May your happiness be everlasting! Kyōko thanked her with an innocent laugh: What is everlasting? We are fireworks. Glowing bright and fading, we scatter sparks that soon die out.

Black coffee. A jug of milk. Two cubes of sugar. Slow stirring. Draining the spoon. He put it down carefully. Our first morning. Like coffee with milk and sugar. I woke up, Kyōko wasn’t there. Her pillow was indented, a hair stuck on the fabric. The sheet was still warm, I pushed my hand under the cover. From the kitchen came the sound of brewing from our coffee machine, a wedding present. I padded barefoot through the hall. I stopped by the gap in the doorway, saw only as much as was to be seen through it. Her back, gently bent over the stove. Sizzling pan. Her finger in a bowl. Quickly tasting. A pinch of salt, some pepper. She sneezed. As she sneezed she turned around. Her voice a bright bell: Breakfast is ready. On the counter, wrapped in a blue cloth, the bento box. For you. She added an apple. A still life.

And that too was a decision.

I once heard it said that the first morning together is of lasting significance. It is a commitment. It establishes who gets up first, who makes coffee, who prepares breakfast. Kyōko could just as well have stayed in bed, turned away and muttered: Buy yourself something on the way. The decision was what took my breath away, there by the gap in the doorway:
I would not have loved her any less if she had.

We postponed our honeymoon. At that time all hands were needed in the firm, and you know how it is, we never got around to rearranging it. The old travel guides, Paris, Rome, London, covered in dust. A little while ago I found them again at the bottom of the bookcase. Dog-eared, notes here and there. Kyōko had marked all the sights she wanted to see with a felt tip pen. The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, Tower Bridge. Nothing but hearts. On one page I came upon a drawing, a portrait of me: Tetsu smoking on Montmartre, written underneath. She’d captured me well. The top button of the shirt open. Wind in my hair. Gaze directed into the distance. My younger self. It spoke to me. It looked fine to me, and I shut the book with a bang.

Who could I have become.

Who had I become.

Who will I be when she finds out who I am.

She’s just waiting until I bow my head before her: You were right. There is no such thing as a happy working day. You must strive for it afresh every morning. He coughed a little. The ashtray stood full to the brim between us. We never even made it to
Miyajima*
.

Miyajima. A catchword. He repeated it: Miyajima. What was her name now? Was it Yuriko? Yukiho? It’s on the tip
of my tongue. Yukiko? Yes? So, the snow child. Please tell me about her. It would be fine by me to shut my eyes and just listen. It’s easier to talk when you’re not being looked at. Easier to hear without seeing. He took a deep breath. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes.

The Miyajimas were our neighbors, I began. Their house right next to ours. As a little boy, I was eight years old, I would often ring the doorbell and ask for Yukiko. She was the only child my age in the neighborhood, and although my parents did not like hers, they said you couldn’t tell where they were from, they accepted that we two, only children after all, played with each other now and then in front of the temple a few blocks away. Too many words in one sentence. I know. Too many words that can’t express how comfortable we were, she and I, in a world where differences matter. Where a single word can be enough to separate one from another.

I would ring the doorbell, I say. Yukiko’s mother would stick her head out and croak: She’ll be right there. The door would close and after a few minutes open again. A musty smell every time it opened and closed, a musty smell on Yukiko’s clothing. She wore a blouse, dirty frills, a skirt that was too big for her, tied around her hips with parcel string. On one of her shoes the lace was broken. Poor girl, I heard people say, as we zoomed past them, drowned out by Yukiko’s laughter: Today we’re going to fly! She spread her arms and flew ahead of me, up to the crooked pine tree where she folded her wings around its trunk. With one ear against the tree she chirped: It just grew a millimeter.

They were fantastic days. I mean, really, we were flying.
The temple grounds were heaven, we raced over them. We picked flowers and laid them on unknown graves. Caught cicadas. Butterflies. Dragonflies. Let them go as soon as we had caught them. Freed ourselves. When it was hot we poured bowls of water over our arms and legs. Bitten by mosquitoes. Chased the temple cat. Listened in on the monk’s sleepy singing. He was a dark man with a hump back. Sometimes he turned around towards us. Then he called out: Buddha’s children. And threw a candy for each of us. That’s what enlightenment tastes like, so sweet.

At home I seldom spoke of Yukiko. If I was questioned about her, I felt it was not out of interest, but out of a certain anxiety. You need to know who you are mixing with. And: The company you keep affects you, whether it’s good or bad. With such maxims she let me go and as I ran off, it felt as if someone had grabbed me roughly. Whether it was mother’s tone of voice, the face she made when the talk was of the Miyajimas, something told me that it was dangerous to give too much away. And so I kept it to myself that there were two buttons missing on Yukiko’s jacket, and so I kept it to myself, that it did not matter at all to me.

The vague feeling of threat remained, however. A tiny thorn in my breast, it bored deeper, and even the smallest, tiniest thorn torments when it sits deep enough, a wound in the flesh. You’re aware of it as a foreign body that slowly forces you to your knees.

How come you’re so different, I asked once, as we sat in the shade of the pine tree. Yukiko’s answer, a sentence learned by heart: Because I fell from a star.

From a star? I held my breath.

She nodded. My parents found me. In a box by the river. There was a note hanging around my neck. It said I was the princess of the constellation Lyra, condemned to lead a life on earth far from home. But shh! It’s a secret. If anyone finds out, I swear, I’ll dissolve into stardust.

And your clothing? I grew curious.

She screwed up her eyes, meditated with closed eyes, flashed them open and cried: A disguise! It’s all a disguise! I wear beggar’s clothes so that I don’t dissolve. Winding the end of the string around her finger she added in a whisper: Sometimes I’m homesick.

I said: Me too.

Does that mean you believe me?

Yes. I believe you.

And you promise not to betray me?

I give you my word.

Her hand in mine.

Friends. Forever and ever.

With a pocket knife we carved our names in the bark. Our friendship tree, announced Yukiko. She pulled a red cord from her skirt pocket, tied it around one of the branches and pronounced further: The red cord will remind us that we are bound to one another. Since I confided in you, you
are indebted to me. And since you promised not to betray me, I’m indebted to you. A solemn undertaking. The shadow moved on. High above us the sun, sharp needles trickled softly down on our heads.

We were nine. Th en ten. With every passing year my awareness heightened. Or rather it clouded over. As I questioned them, my belief in childhood fairytales began to waver and suddenly I saw with scrutinizing eyes, with eyes of doubt, with eyes that no longer see. Like the holes in Yukiko’s tights, my sight was frayed. In the end it was right, what my parents said. I had no idea who I was associating with, and even if it didn’t matter at all to me whether the company I kept was good or bad, I still felt a growing anger that Yukiko withheld the truth from me about herself and her origins.

Where are you from, I tried to coax it out of her. We were sitting back to back and pulling blades of grass out of the ground. The red cord above us had faded. Tell me, where? Where are you really from? Her shoulders leaned gently against mine. You know already. What do I know? I can’t tell you. But why not? Wriggling shoulder blades. Why not? Stony silence. I tore a whole tuft of grass out of the ground and threw it against the temple wall. Please forgive me. She shifted away from me. The wind blew through a cool gap between our backs. I’d have liked to say to her: It’s all right. I forgive you. But the anger prevented me, an angry pain.

The following day when I rang the bell at the Miyajimas’, her mother stuck her head out as usual and squawked:
She’ll be right there. The door shut, it smelled of mold and mildew. From inside I heard loud shouting at first, then quiet hissing, growing ever quieter. What’s that supposed to mean, you don’t want to see him? What’s this nonsense all about, you’re ashamed? The hissing broke off. Now it was quiet in the house, only a single cry broke the silence: I can no longer. After that it was quiet again. The door opened, it smelled of decay. The mother stuck her head out: Come another time. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps the day after. My daughter, the princess, has her moods.

Countless, all the other times I stood in front of the door and rang the bell. Behind it Yukiko, a twinkling star. Its bright light deceives, for it was extinguished long ago. With the eyes of the neighbors on my back I reached out towards it, in vain. With their gossip in my ears I had to accept that it was lightyears away, wandering in the universe. At the Miyajimas they eat cats and dogs. At the Miyajimas they fry ants. At the Miyajimas they drink from the rain barrel. At the Miyajimas – people talked about them. In our housing development they were the catalyst for fear of the Other. The fear: You could turn out like them. My parents shared it as well. I noticed it in their obvious satisfaction when I sat at dinner with my head drooping. Friends come and go, they said. You’d better get used to it. One day you will look back and realize that everything has a meaning and a place. Empty words whose emptiness emptied me. I had nothing to counter them. With the last remnants of resistance I wrote a letter. Dear Yukiko, I wrote, let’s meet again by our pine tree. I want to see you and to understand. To say goodbye. To tell you that. I rubbed out that bit for so long that the paper became thin and creased.

To want a love that can’t be true. Severe twitching under his eyelids. I paused. The song played, clicking as it turned round and round. At the next table someone ordered a whisky soda in a monotone. Somebody lifted up the curtain. Rain splashing down. The curtain fell back heavily over the window. The café, freed from the spell of daylight, returned to the enchantment of darkness. Incredible, that I had believed there was no room between the people inside. Each one sat sunk in his armchair, lost in his thoughts.

Did she come, he asked, his eyes still closed. In the gloomy smoke that enveloped us his tie was no longer red and gray. It was gray, simply gray.

Did she come, he repeated. And since I did not reply: But she must have come. Didn’t she? She did come! He said it with such emphasis, as if not just I, but he as well, as if we both had been waiting for her to come. As if it mattered to us both that she should come.

Yes, I said at last. Yukiko did come.

So there you are! He sighed.

But ...

... What?

She had become a stranger. After barely four months I hardly recognized her. She was wearing her school uniform, looked like any other girl, with a bobbing ponytail. She looked sideways as she came towards me, as if embarrassed. Came up to me, head down. Only then did
I recognize her by her smell. So self-conscious. I felt like hurting her. Grabbed her by the shoulders with my eleven-year-old hands. Shook her. Hit her, she took it silently, in the face. Why won’t you look at me? I lifted up her chin. You should look at me. At least that. I hate you. Can you hear? I hate you for making me belong to the others. To those who talk. Finally she looked at me: What you say is true. Our eyes locked. Near. Nearer. I kissed her. Far. Further. Something had come to an end. I pushed her away, and she turned aside. Walked like a bird with no wings over the sandy courtyard. I’m done with you, I screamed. Done forever. But by then she had already disappeared, white socks, behind the bushes. From the temple came the drone of the
Heart Sutra*
.