Authors: Koji Suzuki
Her three conditions for an apartment had been that it be close to school, that it have its own bath and toilet, and that it offer some privacy. Rent accounted for nearly half of her monthly expenses, but even so, she was satisfied with the arrangement. She knew that if she relocated a little farther out toward the suburbs she'd be able to find a bigger place, but she had no intention of moving. She actually found it convenient to be able to sit at her table in the middle of the room and have everything she needed within arm's reach.
With her eyes still closed, she felt around until she found her CD player and turned it on. She liked the song. She tapped her thighs in time with the music. She'd been on the track team in junior high and high school; she'd been a sprinter, and her legs were still pretty firm. She regulated her breathing until her chest, under her flowered pajamas, swelled and fell along with the music. She opened and closed her nostrils in rhythm, praying for a flash of wisdom. The discomfort of knowing that she had to finish the manuscript this very night had totally zapped her concentration.
She had an appointment tomorrow afternoon with Kimura, Ryuji's editor. She was supposed to turn over the clean copy of the last installment then. And she still hadn't come up with a solution for what to do about the end. She hadn't found the missing pages at Ryuji's parents' house, and she had no more time to spend looking for them. She'd even started to wonder if there were any pages missing to begin with. Maybe Ryuji had meant to add something later but died before he had the chance. In which case, she'd be better off giving up the search and concentrating her energies on coming up with adjustments worthy of the final installment.
But she'd been stuck for words for ages now. She hadn't written a line. She'd taken a shower to clear her head, but still her pen would not produce. She'd write something only to cross it out, to tear up the paper and throw it away.
Suddenly it struck her. She opened her eyes.
You 're not getting anywhere because you 're trying to add something.
All her suffering came from the fact that she was trying to fill in the blank towards the end of the book with her own words. But it was only to be expected that she'd find it impossible to guess where Ryuji's line of thought would have gone. It tended to skip and jump at the best of times. It followed, then, that the best she could hope to do was to delete passages before and after the blank and smooth things over.
Mai got up and fixed the backrest so that it was nearly vertical. She'd been a fool. Taking words out was a lot easier than putting any in. Ryuji himself would undoubtedly have preferred it that way, even if it meant leaving some of his thoughts unexpressed. That would be far better than seeing them twisted beyond recognition.
Mai felt herself relax, now that she'd hit upon a solution. And as though to seize upon her relaxation, the videotape leapt into sight. She'd brought it back from Ryuji's parents' house without telling them. Ever since she'd discovered it there in the study, she'd wanted to see what was on it. But there hadn't been a TV set in the room, and the deck hadn't been hooked up. The only way she could watch the tape was to bring it home with her. At first she'd fully intended to ask Ryuji's parents if she could borrow it. But when she'd finally decided to leave, having given up on finding the pages, all the phrases she'd prepared vanished, and she couldn't figure out how to broach the subject.
Excuse me, but this videotape has really got me intrigued. Would you mind if I borrowed it?
What a vague way to put it. What did "intrigued" mean, anyway? If they asked her, she wouldn't be able to answer. So at last she'd simply left with the tape hidden in her bag.
Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr/1989.
Chances are he'd just recorded a music show; the cassette itself was totally ordinary. And yet it had taken hold of her. She couldn't even remember when she'd taken it out of her bag. There it was, sitting on top of her fourteen-inch combination TV/VCR, tempting her. Even in Ryuji's room, when it had been shut inside the deck, that mechanical box, the tape had been attracting her in some way. Now, out of its shell, exposed, it seemed almost to have the power to suck her in whole.
The title didn't seem to mesh with Ryuji's taste in music. As a matter of fact, as far as she knew, he didn't listen to music all that much. When he did, it was light classical. In any case, from the handwriting on the label it was clear enough that the tape hadn't belonged to Ryuji. Someone else had made it. In the course of events, it had been taken to Ryuji's apartment in East Nakano. And now, it was in Mai's own apartment.
Without getting up, Mai reached over and put the tape in the VCR. The machine switched on automatically. She turned to the video channel and pushed PLAY.
Mai heard a
thunk
as the tape started to roll, and she hurriedly pressed PAUSE. What if it was something she was not meant to see? She balked. Once certain images were burned into your brain, she knew, it was impossible to wipe them away- to ever return to a state of purity. Maybe she'd better stop now before she regretted it. But in the end her doubts couldn't overcome her curiosity, and she released the pause button.
There was the sound of static as the picture wobbled. A second later, the screen went black as if ink had been splashed over it. There was no going back now. Mai braced herself. What then unfolded before her eyes was a series of scenes whose meaning she could not understand and whose nature she could never have guessed from the title.
As soon as she'd finished watching it, Mai felt like throwing up, and she ran into the bathroom. She wished she'd turned it off halfway through, but she couldn't resist the power of the images. She'd watched until the very end. No, it was probably more accurate to say that she was
shown
it. She simply couldn't press the stop button.
She was drenched with sweat and was shivering. She felt something force its way up from her stomach into her throat. She felt more revulsion than fear-something had come inside her, deep inside her. She knew she had to get it out. She stuck her finger down her throat, but she only vomited a small amount. She choked on the taste of bile, and tears streamed from her eyes. Turning a hollow, helpless gaze around the room, she slumped to her knees. For a while she could feel herself being destroyed-and then her consciousness receded, to some place far, far away.
It was already fifteen minutes past the time they were supposed to meet. Ando started to fidget. He took out his planner and checked the schedule again.
There it was: Friday, November 9th, 6:00 pm, in front of the Moai statue at the west exit of Shibuya Station.
Meet Mai for dinner.
He hadn't misremembered.
Ando inserted himself into the flow of passersby and made a brief circuit of the area. Each time he saw a woman of roughly Mai's age he peered at her face, but none were hers. Half an hour had passed now. Thinking maybe she'd forgotten, Ando called Mai's apartment from a pay phone. He let it ring six or seven times, fancying he could hear from the echoes how small her apartment was.
It's really tiny, she'd said. Less than five mats!
Ten rings. Obviously, she wasn't home. He brought the receiver away from his ear. No doubt something had happened to make her late. She was probably on her way. At least he hoped so, as he hung up.
His gaze kept stealing back to his watch. It had been almost an hour now.
At seven I'll give up.
It had been so long since he'd dated that he didn't even know if it was proper to wait any longer. Come to think of it, he'd never been stood up before. His wife had been pretty punctual when they were dating. He'd kept her waiting occasionally, but never she him.
He spent a while thinking back over various times he'd waited for people in the past, and as he did so, seven o'clock came and went. But Ando couldn't make himself leave. He couldn't give up while there was still some slight ray of hope. As he kept telling himself,
Five more minutes .
… All week long he'd been looking forward to this. He couldn't give up now.
In the end, Ando waited in the Shibuya throng for an hour and thirty-three minutes, but Mai never appeared.
He entered the hotel lobby and headed straight for the front desk to ask where the farewell party was being held. Funakoshi's send-off. Now that Mai had stood him up, he had no reason not to come. Plus, after standing in the chilly evening air in a throng of countless young people, he just couldn't bear to go straight back to his empty apartment. Seeking some way to salvage the evening, he'd hit on the idea of showing up at the party after all. It wouldn't hurt to kick up his heels with his friends for the first time in a while, he reasoned.
The organized-gathering part of the evening was just ending, and people were getting together in groups of threes and fives to hit the bars. This was how it always worked. The professors would go home after the main party, allowing the younger faculty to speak freely in their informal post-party binge sessions. Ando's timing was perfect; he'd come just in time to join in on one of those sessions.
Miyashita was the first one to notice him. He came over and put a hand on Ando's shoulder. "I thought you were out on a date?"
"Oh, she stood me up," Ando forced himself to say cheerfully.
"Ah, sorry to hear that. Hey, come here a second." Miyashita grabbed him by the cuff and led him over to the space by a door. He didn't seem interested in pursuing Ando's strikeout.
"What is it?" Something seemed fishy.
But before Miyashita could tell him anything, Professor Yasukawa from the Second Internal Medicine Unit walked by. Miyashita whispered, "You'll come drinking with us, right?"
"That's why I'm here."
"Great. I'll tell you later."
And then Miyashita was off to make nice with Yasukawa. As organizer, he thanked the professor for attending. Miyashita smiled and joked, his jowly face glowing. Ando couldn't but admire the way his friend managed to find favor with all the profs. If anybody else acted in such a way it would have come across as smarmy, but Miyashita knew how to carry it off.
Ando stayed by the door, waiting for Miyashita and Yasukawa's conversation to end. In the interim, several familiar faces passed by, but none did more than offer a greeting. Nobody cared to stop and talk to Ando.
His circle of friends had narrowed considerably in the time since he'd lost his son to the sea. He bore not a smidgen of a grudge against those who'd distanced themselves from him, though. He knew that the fault lay with him. Right after it had happened, everybody had crowded around him to offer help and comfort, but Ando hadn't been able to respond appropriately. Instead, he'd just dragged his misery around interminably, acting morose with his friends. "Cheer up," they'd say, but how could he? Gradually, one by one, they'd deserted him. Before he knew it, Miyashita was the only one left. Miyashita always had a joke ready, no matter how melancholy Ando's expression. Miyashita knew how to find something to laugh about in misfortune, no matter whose. The only times Ando could forget his sadness were when he was with Miyashita. By now, Ando could put his finger on what it was that set Miyashita apart from his other friends: while everyone else came to him to
cheer him up,
Miyashita had come to
actually have fun.
There was no more meaningless phrase in all of language than "Cheer up!" The only way to get someone to cheer up was to help them forget, and saying "cheer up" had quite the opposite effect, only reminding the person why he or she was depressed in the first place.
Ando knew quite well that he hadn't worn a sunny expression once all year. He tried to imagine, objectively, how he must look from Mai's perspective. Terribly gloomy, no doubt. No wonder she didn't want to have dinner with him; he'd only depress her more.
The thought, in turn, depressed him. A year and a half ago he'd been full of confidence. The future had stretched out before him, wide open and full of promise. He had a loving wife and a darling son, a ritzy condo in South Aoyama, a BMW with a leather interior, and a position as chief administrator waiting for him down the road. But he realized now that everything had been in his wife's name, or her father's, and a simple twist of fate had made it all slip through his fingers.
Miyashita was still talking with Professor Yasukawa. At a loss for what to do, Ando let his gaze wander idly around the lobby until he noticed a row of three pay phones. He took out a phone card and went over to them, thinking to dial Mai's number one last time. Cradling the receiver on his shoulder, he looked back over at Miyashita. If he lost track of his friend and missed out on the drinking session, he'd have come all the way in vain. Miyashita was in charge, here. As long as Ando stuck close to his friend, he wouldn't be stranded.
He let it ring eight times, then hung up and looked casually at his watch. Almost nine o'clock. It was three hours past the time they'd agreed to meet, and Mai still wasn't home.
I
wonder where she went.
He was beginning to worry about her.
Miyashita was bowing deeply to Yasukawa. Their conversation seemed to be over. As Miyashita moved away from the professor, Ando went and stood by Miyashita.
"Hey, sorry to keep you waiting." His tone was informal, a 180 degree reversal from how he'd been speaking to Yasukawa.
"No problem."
Miyashita took a scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ando.
"This is where we're going. I think you know it-it's over in the Third District. Would you do me a favor and go on ahead? I have to wrap things up here." He waved and started away, but Ando touched his elbow.
"Hold on a second."
"What?"
"What is it you want to tell me?" Miyashita's tease had been bothering at him.
Miyashita licked his lips with his thick tongue. They'd served roast beef at the party, and he was enjoying the last drops of grease. His lips glistened red as he said, "I found something."