Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Page 24

  When he opened his eyes he saw a white lump of what he’d vomited floating in the water in the toilet. A huge amount. What a hell of a lot of crab I ate! he thought, half-impressed. Eating this much crab day after day—no wonder I got sick. No matter how you cut it, this was way too much crab. Two or three years’ worth of crab in four days.

  As he stared he noticed that the lump floating in the toilet looked like it was moving slightly. At first he thought he must be imagining things. The faint moonlight must be producing the illusion. An occasional passing cloud would cover the moon, making everything, for a moment, darker than before. The young man closed his eyes, took a slow deep breath, and opened his eyes again. It was no illusion. The lump of meat was definitely moving. Like wrinkles twisting around, the surface of the meat was wiggling. The young man stood up and flicked on the bathroom light. He leaned closer to the lump of meat and saw that what was trembling on the surface were countless worms. Tiny worms the same color as the crabmeat, millions of them, clinging to the surface of the meat.

  Once more he vomited everything in his stomach. But there wasn’t anything left, and his stomach clenched into a fist-size lump. Bitter green bile came out, wrung out of his guts. Not content with this, he gulped down mouthwash and spewed it back up. He flushed down the contents of the toilet, flushing over and over to make sure it was all gone. Then he washed his face at the sink, using the fresh white towel to scrub hard around his mouth, and he thoroughly brushed his teeth. He rested his hands against the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His face looked gaunt, wrinkled, his skin the color of dirt. He couldn’t believe this was really his face. He looked like some exhausted old man.

  He left the bathroom, leaned back against the door, and surveyed the bedroom. His girlfriend was in bed, fast asleep. Face sunk deep in her pillow, she was snoring peacefully, oblivious to what had transpired. Like a delicate fan, her long hair covered her cheeks, her shoulders. Just below her shoulder blades were two small moles, lined up like a pair of twins. Her back revealed a clear swimsuit line. Light from the whitish moon tranquilly filtered in through the blinds, along with the monotonous sound of waves against the shore. On the bedside the green numbers of the alarm clock glowed. Nothing had changed. Except that now, the crab was inside her—that evening they’d shared the same dishes. Only she wasn’t aware of it.

  The young man sank down in the rattan chair next to the window, closed his eyes, and breathed, slowly and regularly. Breathing fresh air into his lungs, exhaling the old, the stale. Trying to breathe as much air as he could into his body. He wanted all the pores in his body to open wide. Like an antique alarm clock in an empty room, his heart pounded out a hard, dry beat.

  Gazing at his sleeping girlfriend, he pictured the countless tiny worms in her stomach. Should he wake her up and tell her about it? Shouldn’t they do something? Unsure what to do, he thought for a while, and decided against it. It wouldn’t do any good. She hadn’t noticed anything. And that was the main problem.

  The world felt out of kilter. He could hear as it creaked through this new orbit. Something had happened, he thought, and the world had changed. Everything was out of order, and would never get back to the way it was. Everything had changed, and all it could do was continue in this new direction. Tomorrow I’m going back to Tokyo, he thought. Back to the life I left there. On the surface nothing’s changed, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get along with her again. I’ll never feel the way I felt about her until yesterday, the young man knew. But that’s not all. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get along with myself. It’s like we fell off a high fence, on the outside. Painlessly, without a sound. And she never even noticed.

  The young man sat in the rattan chair until dawn, quietly breathing. From time to time a squall came up in the night, the raindrops pounding against the window like some kind of punishment. The rain clouds would pass and the moon showed its face. Again and again. But the woman never woke up. Or even rolled over in bed. Her shoulder shook a little a few times, but that was all. More than anything, he wanted to sleep, to sleep soundly and wake up to find that everything had been solved, that everything was as it had been, operating smoothly as always. The young man wanted nothing more than to fall into a deep sleep. But no matter how much he might stretch his hand out for it, sleep lay out of reach.

  The young man remembered that first night, when they passed by that little side-street restaurant. The two old Chinese men silently eating their food, the black dog, eyes closed, at their feet, the faded umbrellas at the tables. How she’d tugged at his arm. It all seemed like years ago. But it was barely three days. Three days in which, through some strange force, he’d changed into one of those ominous, ashen old men. All in the quiet, beautiful seaside city of Singapore.

  He brought his hands in front of him and gazed at them intently. He looked at the back of his hands, then the palms. Nothing could hide the fact that his hands were trembling, ever so slightly.

  “Mm, I’ve always loved crab,” he could hear her say. “How about you?”

  I don’t know, he thought.

  His heart felt enclosed by something formless, surrounded by a deep, soft mystery. He no longer had the faintest clue where his life was headed, and what might be waiting for him there. But as the eastern sky finally began to lighten he had a sudden thought: One thing I am sure of, he thought. No matter where I go, I’m never going to eat crab again.

  —TRANSLATED BY PHILIP GABRIEL

  FIREFLY

  Once upon a time—more like fifteen years ago, actually—I lived in a privately run dorm for college students in Tokyo. I was eighteen then, a brand-new college freshman, and didn’t know the first thing about the city. I’d never lived on my own, either, and my parents were naturally worried; putting me in a dorm seemed the best solution. Money was a factor, too, and the dorm seemed the cheapest way to go. I’d been dreaming of living in my own apartment, having a great old time, but what can you do? My folks were footing the bill for college—tuition and fees, a monthly allowance—so that was that.

  The dorm was situated on a generous piece of land on a rise in Bunkyo Ward, and had a fantastic view. The whole place was surrounded by a tall concrete wall, and right inside the main gate stood a huge zelkova tree. Some 150 years old, maybe more. When you stood at its base and looked up, its huge, leafy branches blotted out the sky. The concrete sidewalk detoured around the tree, then ran straight across the courtyard. On either side of the courtyard there were two concrete dorm buildings three stories tall, lined up side by side. Huge buildings. From the open windows somebody’s transistor radio was always blasting out some DJ’s voice. The curtains in the room were all the same color, cream being the color that fades least in the sunlight.

  The two-story main building fronted the sidewalk. A dining hall and communal bath were on the first floor, an auditorium, guest rooms, and meeting rooms on the second. Next to the main building was a third dorm building, also three stories. The courtyard was spacious, and sprinklers spun around on the lawn, glinting in the sunlight. Rounding it all out was a playing field for soccer and rugby behind the main building, as well as six tennis courts. Who could ask for more?

  The only problem with the dorm (not that everybody was convinced it was a problem, though) was who ran it—some mysterious foundation headed up by a right-wing fanatic. One look at the pamphlet the dorm put out made this clear. The dorm was founded on a spirit of “achieving the basic goals of education and cultivating promising talent to serve the country.” And a lot of well-heeled businessmen who agreed with that philosophy apparently helped underwrite the dorm. At least that was the official story. What lay beneath the surface was, like many things there, anybody’s guess. Rumor had it the whole place was a tax dodge, or some sort of land fraud scheme. Not that this made a bit of difference to the day-to-day life at the dorm. On a practical level, I guess, it didn’t matter who ran it—right-wingers, left-wingers, hypocrites, scoundrels. What have you. Whatever t
he real story was, from the spring of 1967 to the fall of ’68, I called this dorm home.

  Each day at the dorm began with a solemn flag-raising ceremony. The platform for the flag raising was in the middle of the courtyard, so you could see it all from the dorm windows. Of course they played the national anthem. Just like sports news and marches go together, can’t have one without the other.

  The role of flag-raiser was played by the head of the east dorm, the one I was in. He was fiftyish, an altogether tough-looking customer. He had bristly hair with a sprinkling of gray, and a long scar on his sunburned neck. It was rumored he was a graduate of the Nakano Military Academy. Next to him was a student who acted as his assistant. The guy was basically an enigma. He had close-cropped hair and always wore a school uniform. Nobody had any idea what his name was or which room he lived in. I’d never run across him in the dining hall or the communal bath. I wasn’t even sure he was a student. But since he wore the uniform, what else could he have been? Unlike Academy Man, he was short, chubby, and pasty-looking. Every morning at six the two of them would hoist the rising sun flag up the flagpole.

  I don’t know how many times I watched this little scene play out. The six a.m. chime would ring and there they were in the courtyard, Uniform Boy carrying a light wooden box, Academy Man a portable Sony tape recorder. Academy Man placed the tape recorder at the base of the platform and Uniform Boy opened the box. Inside was a neatly folded Japanese flag. Uniform Boy handed it to the boss, who then attached it to the rope. Uniform Boy switched on the tape recorder.

  “May thy peaceful reign last long…” And the flag glided up the flagpole.

  When they got to the part that goes “Until these tiny stones…” the flag was halfway up the pole, and it reached the top when they got to the end of the anthem. The two of them snapped to attention and gazed up at the flag. On sunny days when there was a breeze, it was quite a sight.

  The evening ceremony was about the same as in the morning, just done in reverse. The flag glided down the pole and was put away in the wooden box. The flag doesn’t wave at night.

  Why the flag’s got to be put away at night I have no idea. The country still exists at night, right? And plenty of people are hard at work. Doesn’t seem fair those people can’t have the same flag flying over them. Maybe it’s a silly thing to worry about—just the kind of thought a person like me is likely to fret over.

  In the dorm freshmen and sophomores lived two to a room, while juniors and seniors lived alone. The kind of two-man room I inhabited was cramped and narrow. On the wall furthest from the door was a window with an aluminum frame. The furniture was spartan, but solidly built—two desks and chairs, a bunk bed, two lockers, and built-in shelves. In most of the rooms the shelves were crammed full of the usual stuff: transistor radios, blow-dryers, electric coffeepots, instant-coffee jars, sugar, pots for cooking instant noodles, cups and plates. Playboy pinups were taped to the plaster walls, and lined up on the desks were school textbooks, plus the odd popular novel.

  With just men living there the rooms were filthy. The bottoms of the trash baskets were lined with moldy orange skins, and the empty tin cans that served as ashtrays contained four-inch-high layers of cigarette butts. Coffee grounds were stuck to the cups, cellophane wrappers from instant-noodle packages and empty beer cans were scattered all over the floor. Whenever the wind blew in, a cloud of dust swirled up from the floor. The rooms stank to high heaven, too, since everyone just stuffed their dirty laundry under their beds. And forget about anyone airing out their bedding, so it all reeked of sweat and BO.

  My room, though, was spotless. Not a speck of dirt on the floor, gleaming ashtrays as far as the eye could see. The bedding was aired out once a week, the pencils were lined up neatly in the pencil holders. Instead of a pinup, our room was decked out with a photo of canals in Amsterdam. Why? Simple enough—my roommate was a nut about cleaning. I didn’t lift a finger since he did it all—the laundry, too; even my laundry, if you can imagine. Say I’d just finished a beer; the instant I set the empty down on the table he’d whisk it away to the trash can.

  My roommate was a geography major.

  “I’m studying about m-m-maps,” he told me.

  “So you’re into maps, huh?” I asked.

  “That’s right. I want to get hired by the National Geography Institute and make m-maps.”

  To each his own, I figured. Up till then I’d never given a thought to what kind of people want to make maps—and why in the world they would. You have to admit, though, that it’s a little weird for someone who wanted to work in the Geography Institute to stutter every time he said the word “map.” He stuttered only part of the time, sometimes not at all. But when the word “map” came up, so did the stutters.

  “What’s your major?” he asked me.

  “Drama,” I replied.

  “Drama? You mean you put on plays?”

  “No, I don’t act in plays. I study the scripts. Racine, Ionesco, Shakespeare, guys like that.”

  I’ve heard of Shakespeare but not those others, he said. Actually, I didn’t know much about them myself. I was just parroting the course description.

  “Anyhow, you like that kind of thing, right?” he asked.

  “Not particularly.”

  That threw him for a loop. When he got flustered he stuttered worse than usual. I felt like I’d done something awful.

  “Any subject’s fine with me,” I hurriedly explained, trying to calm him down. “Indian philosophy, Oriental history, whatever. I just ended up choosing drama. That’s all.”

  “I don’t get it,” he insisted, still upset. “In m-m-my case I like m-m-maps, so I’m learning how to make them. That’s why I came all the way to T-T-Tokyo to go to college and had m-m-my parents foot the bill. But you…I don’t g-get it…”

  His explanation made more sense than mine. Not worth the effort, I figured, and gave up trying to explain my side of the story. We drew straws to see who’d get the top and bottom bunks. I got the top.

  He was tall, with close-cropped hair and prominent cheekbones. He always wore a white shirt and black trousers. When he went to school he invariably wore the school uniform with black shoes, toting a black briefcase. A perfect right-wing student, by the look of it, and certainly the other guys in the dorm tagged him as such. In reality, the guy had zero interest in politics. He just thought it was too much trouble to pick out clothes to wear. The only things that could pique his interest were changes in the shoreline, newly completed tunnels, things like that. Once he got started on those topics he’d go on, stuttering all the while, for a good hour, even two, until you screamed for mercy or fell asleep.

  Every morning he was up at six on the dot, the national anthem his alarm clock. So I guess the flag-raising wasn’t a complete waste. He dressed and went to wash up, taking an incredibly long time to finish. Made me wonder sometimes if he wasn’t taking each tooth out and brushing them individually. Back in the room he smoothed out his towel, hung it on a hanger, and put his toothbrush and soap back on the shelf. Then he’d switch on the radio and start exercising to the morning exercise program.

  I was pretty much a night owl, and a heavy sleeper, so when he started up I was usually dead to the world. When he got to the part where he began to leap up and down, I’d bolt out of bed. Every time he jumped up—and believe me he jumped really high—my head would bounce three inches off the pillow. Try sleeping through that.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said on the fourth day of this, “but I wonder if you could do your exercises on the roof or something. It wakes me up.”

  “I can’t,” he replied. “If I do it there, the people on the third floor will complain. This is the first floor, so there isn’t anyone below us.”

  “Well, how about doing it in the courtyard?”

  “No way. I don’t have a transistor radio so I wouldn’t be able to hear the music. You can’t expect me to do my exercises without music.”

  His radio was the kind you
had to plug in. I could have lent him my transistor, but it only picked up FM stations.

  “Well, at least could you turn the music down and stop jumping? The whole room shakes. I don’t want to complain or anything, but…”

  “Jumping?” He seemed surprised. “What do you mean, j-jumping?”

  “You know, that part where you bounce up and down.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I could feel a headache coming on. Go ahead, suit yourself, I thought. But once I’d brought it up I couldn’t very well back down. So I started to sing the melody of the NHK radio exercise program, jumping up and down in time to the music.

  “See? This part. Isn’t that part of your routine?”

  “Uh—yeah. Guess so. I hadn’t noticed.”

  “So—,” I said, “any chance you could skip that part? The rest I can put up with.”

  “Sorry,” he said, brushing the suggestion aside. “I can’t leave out one part. I’ve been doing this for ten years. Once I start I do it w-without th-thinking. If I leave out one part I wouldn’t b-be able to d-do any of it.”

  “Then how about stopping the whole thing?”

  “Who do you think you are, bossing me around like that?”

  “Come on! I’m not bossing you around. I just want to sleep till eight. If eight’s out of the question I still would like to wake up like normal people. You make me feel like I’m waking up in the middle of a pie-eating contest or something. You follow me here?”

  “Yeah, I follow,” he said.

  “So what do you think we should do about it?”