Essay (English Literature)

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H a r u k i M u r a k a m i

S P U T N I K S W E E T H E A R T

T R A N S L A T E D F R O M T H E J A P A N E S E B Y

Philip Gabriel

VVVV

VINTAGE

Published by Vintage 2002

8 10 9 7

English translation © Haruki Murakami 2001

Haruki Murakami has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or

otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published by Kodansha Ltd in 1999 with the title Sputoniku no koibito

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by The Harvill Press

Vintage Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

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South Wales 2061, Australia

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Zealand

Random House (Pty) Limited Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse

O’Gowrie, Houghton 2198, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage

The quote from Pushkin on page 62 is from Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse,

translated by Babette Deutsch (Mineola, NY: Dover publications, 1999)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099448471 (from Jan 2007)

ISBN 0099448475

Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from

wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform

to the environmental regulations of the country of origin

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

Scanner’s note: the book has been proofed and formatted as a Word doc to match UK paperback edition as closely as possible, including the use of similar fonts, headings, and paragraph spacing. Jan. 2010.

Sputnik Sweetheart

Sputnik

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first

man-made satellite, Sputnik I, from the Baikanor Space Centre

in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Sputnik was 58 cm in diameter,

weighed 83.6 kilograms, and orbited the Earth in 96 minutes

and 12 seconds.

On 3 November of the same year, Sputnik II was successfully

launched, with the dog Laika on board. Laika became the first

living being to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, but the satellite

was never recovered, and Laika ended up sacrificed for the

sake of biological research in space.

from The Complete Chronicle of World History

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for

the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado

sweeping across the plains—flattening everything in its path,

tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing

them to bits. The tornado’s intensity doesn’t abate for a second

as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat,

incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything,

transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an

exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly

monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with

happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married.

And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began,

and where it all ended. Almost. *

At the time, Sumire—“Violet” in Japanese—was struggling to

become a writer. No matter how many choices life might bring

her way, it was novelist or nothing. Her resolve was a regular

Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing could come between her and her

faith in literature.

After she graduated from a public high school in Kanagawa

Prefecture, she entered the liberal arts department of a cosy

little private college in Tokyo. She found the college totally out

of touch, a lukewarm, dispirited place, and she loathed it—and

found her fellow students (which would include me, I’m

afraid) hopelessly dull, second-rate specimens. Unsurprisingly,

then, just before her junior year, she simply upped and left.

Staying there any longer, she concluded, was a waste of time. I

think it was the right move, but if I can be allowed a mediocre

generalization, don’t pointless things have a place, too, in this

far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an

imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection. *

Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways—

innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start

her talking and she’d go on nonstop, but if she was with

someone she didn’t get along with—most people in the world,

in other words—she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too

much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time

she took the train. She’d get so engrossed in her thoughts at

times she’d forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those

war orphans in an old Italian film—like a stick with eyes. I’d

love to show you a photo of her, but I don’t have any. She

hated having her photograph taken—no desire to leave behind

for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man. If there

were a photograph of Sumire taken at that time, I know it

would provide a valuable record of how special certain people

can be.

I’m getting the order of events mixed up. The woman Sumire

fell in love with was named Miu. At least that’s what everyone

called her. I don’t know her real name, a fact that caused

problems later on, but again I’m getting ahead of myself. Miu

was Korean by nationality, but she didn’t speak a word of

Korean until she decided to study it when she was in her mid-

twenties. She was born and raised in Japan and studied at a

music academy in France, so as well as Japanese she was fluent

in both French and English. She always dressed well, in a

refined way, with expensive yet modest accessories, and she

drove a twelve-cylinder, navy-blue Jaguar. *

The first time Sumire met Miu, she talked about Jack Kerouac’s

novels. Sumire was absolutely nuts about Kerouac. She always

had her Literary Idol of the Month, and at that point it

happened to be the out-of-fashion Kerouac. She carried a dog-

cared copy of On the Road or Lonesome Traveler stuck in her coat

pocket, thumbing through them every chance she got.

Whenever she came across lines she liked, she’d mark them in

pencil and commit them to memory as if they were Holy Writ.

Her favourite lines were from the fire lookout section of

Lonesome Traveler. Kerouac spent three lonely months in a cabin

on top of a high mountain, working as a fire lookout.

Sumire especially liked this part:

No man should go through life without once

experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the

wilderness, finding himself depending solely on

himself and thereby learning his true and hidden

strength.

“Don’t you just love it?” she said. “Every day you stand on

top of a mountain, make a 360° sweep, checking to see if there

are any fires. And that’s it. You’re done for the day. The rest of

the time you can read, write, whatever you want. At night

scruffy bears hang around your cabin. That’s the life!

Compared to that, studying literature in college is like biting

down on the bitter end of a cucumber.”

“Okay,” I said, “but someday you’ll have to come down off

that mountain.” As usual, my practical, humdrum opinions

didn’t faze her. *

Sumire wanted to be like a character in a Kerouac novel—wild,

cool, dissolute. She’d stand around, hands shoved deep in her

coat pockets, her hair an uncombed mess, staring vacantly at

the sky through her black plastic-framed Dizzy Gillespie

glasses, which she wore despite her 20/20 vision. She was

invariably decked out in an oversized herringbone coat from a

second-hand shop and a pair of rough work boots. If she’d

been able to grow a beard, I’m sure she would have.

Sumire wasn’t exactly a beauty. Her cheeks were sunken, her

mouth a little too wide. Her nose was on the small side and

upturned. She had an expressive face and a great sense of

humour, though she hardly ever laughed out loud. She was

short, and even in a good mood she talked like she was half a

step away from picking a fight. I never knew her to use lipstick

or eyebrow pencil, and I have my doubts that she even knew

bras came in different sizes. Still, Sumire had something special

about her, something that drew people to her. Defining that

special something isn’t easy, but when you gazed into her eyes,

you could always find it, reflected deep down inside. *

I might as well just come right out and say it. I was in love with

Sumire. I was attracted to her from the first time we talked, and

soon there was no turning back. For a long time she was the

only thing I could think about. I tried to tell her how I felt, but

somehow the feelings and the right words couldn’t connect.

Maybe it was for the best. If I had been able to tell her my

feelings, she would have just laughed at me.

While Sumire and I were friends, I went out with two or

three other girls. It’s not that I don’t remember the exact

number. Two, three—it depends on how you count. Add to this

girls I slept with once or twice, and the list would be a little

longer. Anyhow, while I made love to these other girls, I

thought about Sumire. Or at least thoughts of her grazed a

corner of my mind. I imagined I was holding her. Kind of a

caddish thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. *

Let me get back to how Sumire and Miu met.

Miu had heard of Jack Kerouac and had a vague sense that he

was a novelist of some kind. What kind of novelist, though, she

couldn’t recall. “Kerouac … hmm… Wasn’t he a Sputnik?”

Sumire couldn’t work out what she meant. Knife and fork

poised in mid-air, she gave it some thought. “Sputnik? You

mean the first satellite the Soviets sent up, in the fifties? Jack

Kerouac was an American novelist. I guess they do overlap in

terms of generation…”

“Isn’t that what they called the writers back then?” Miu

asked. She traced a circle on the table with her fingertip, as if

rummaging through some special jar full of memories.

“Sputnik … ?”

“The name of a literary movement. You know—how they

classify writers in various schools of writing. Like Shiga Naoya

was in the White Birch School.”

Finally it dawned on Sumire. “Beatnik!”

Miu lightly dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

“Beatnik—Sputnik. I never can remember those kinds of terms.

It’s like the Kenmun Restoration or the Treaty of Rapallo.

Ancient history.”

A gentle silence descended on them, suggestive of the flow of

time.

“The Treaty of Rapallo?” Sumire asked.

Miu smiled. A nostalgic, intimate smile, like a treasured old

possession pulled out of the back of a drawer. Her eyes

narrowed in an utterly charming way. She reached out and,

with her long, slim fingers, gently ruffled Sumire’s already

tousled hair. It was such a sudden yet natural gesture that

Sumire could only return the smile. *

Ever since that day, Sumire’s private name for Miu was Sputnik

Sweetheart. She loved the sound of it. It made her think of Laika,

the dog. The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across

the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog

gazing out of the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of

space, what could Laika possibly be looking at? *

This Sputnik conversation took place at a wedding reception

for Sumire’s cousin at a posh hotel in Akasaka. Sumire wasn’t

particularly close to her cousin; in fact they didn’t get along at

all. She’d just as soon be tortured as attend one of these

receptions, but she couldn’t back out of this one. She and Miu

were seated next to each other at one of the tables. Miu didn’t

go into all the details, but it seemed she’d taught Sumire’s

cousin the piano—or something along those lines—when she

was taking the entrance exams for the university music

department. It wasn’t a long or very close relationship, clearly,

but Miu felt obliged to attend.

In the instant Miu touched her hair, Sumire fell in love, as if

she were crossing a field when bang! a bolt of lightning zapped

her right in the head. Something like an artistic revelation.

Which is why, at that point, it didn’t matter to Sumire that the

person she fell in love with happened to be a woman.

I don’t think Sumire ever had what you’d call a lover. In high

school she had a few boyfriends, guys she’d go to the cinema

with, go swimming with. I couldn’t picture any of those

relations ever getting very deep. Sumire was too focused on

becoming a novelist to really fall for anybody. If she did

experience sex—or something close to it—in high school, I’m

sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than

literary curiosity.

“To be perfectly frank, sexual desire has me baffled,” she

once told me, making a sober face. This was just before she left

college, I believe; she’d downed five banana daiquiris and was

pretty drunk. “You know—how it all comes about. What’s your

take on it?”

“Sexual desire’s not something you understand,” I said,

giving my usual middle-of-the-road opinion. “It’s just there.”

She scrutinized me for a while, as if I were some machine

running on a previously unheard-of power source. Losing

interest, she stared up at the ceiling, and the conversation

petered out. No use talking to him about that, she must have

decided.

Sumire was born in Chigasaki. Her home was near the

seashore, and she grew up with the dry sound of sand-filled

wind blowing against her windows. Her father ran a dental

clinic in Yokohama. He was remarkably handsome, his well-

formed nose reminding you of Gregory Peck in Spellbound.

Sumire didn’t inherit that handsome nose, nor, according to

her, did her brother. She found it amazing that the genes that

had produced that nose had disappeared. If they really were

buried for ever at the bottom of the gene pool, the world was a

sadder place. That’s how wonderful this nose was.

Sumire’s father was an almost mythic figure to the women in

the Yokohama area who needed dental care. In the examination

room he always wore a surgical cap and large mask, so the only

thing the patient could see was a pair of eyes and ears. Even so,

it was obvious how attractive he was. His beautiful, manly

nose swelled up suggestively from under the mask, making his

female patients blush. In an instant—regardless of whether

their dental plan covered the costs—they fell in love. *

Sumire’s mother passed away from a congenital heart defect

when she was just 31. Sumire hadn’t quite turned three. The

only memory she had of her mother was a vague one of the

scent of her skin. Just a couple of photographs of her

remained—a posed photo taken at her wedding, and a

snapshot taken immediately after Sumire was born. Sumire

used to pull out the photo album and gaze at the pictures.

Sumire’s mother was—to put it mildly—a completely

forgettable person. A short, humdrum hairstyle, clothes that

made you wonder what she could have been thinking, an ill-at-

ease smile. If she’d taken one step back, she would have melted

right into the wall. Sumire was determined to brand her

mother’s face on her memory. Then someday she might meet

her in her dreams. They’d shake hands, have a nice chat. But

things weren’t that easy. Try as she might to remember her

mother’s face, it soon faded. Forget about dreams—if Sumire

had passed her mother on the street, in broad daylight, she

wouldn’t have known her.

Sumire’s father hardly ever spoke of his late wife. He wasn’t

a talkative man to begin with, and in all aspects of life—as

though it were a kind of mouth infection he wanted to avoid

catching—he never talked about his feelings. Sumire had no

memory of ever asking her father about her dead mother.

Except for once, when she was still very small, for some reason

she asked him, “What was my mother like?” She remembered

this conversation very clearly.

Her father looked away and thought for a moment before

replying. “She was good at remembering, things,” he said.

“And she had nice handwriting.”

A strange way to describe someone. Sumire was waiting

expectantly, the snow-white first page of her notebook open,

for nourishing words that could have been a source of warmth

and comfort—a pillar, an axis, to help prop up her uncertain

life here on this third planet from the sun. Her father should

have said something that his young daughter could have held

on to. But Surnire’s handsome father wasn’t going to speak

those words, the very words she needed most. *

Sumire’s father remarried when she was six, and two years

later her younger brother was born. Her new mother wasn’t

pretty either. On top of which she wasn’t so good at

remembering things, and her handwriting wasn’t any great

shakes. She was a kind and fair person, though. That was a

lucky thing for little Sumire, her brand-new stepdaughter. No,

lucky isn’t the right word. After all, her father had chosen the

woman. He might not have been the ideal father, but when it

came to choosing a mate, he knew what he was doing.

Her stepmother’s love for her never wavered during her

long, difficult years of adolescence, and when Sumire declared

she was going to quit college and write novels, her

stepmother—though she had her own opinions on the matter—

respected Sumire’s desire. She’d always been pleased that

Sumire loved to read so much, and she encouraged her literary

pursuits.

Her stepmother eventually won over her father, and they

decided that, until Sumire turned 28, they would provide her

with a small stipend. If she wasn’t able to make a living by

writing then, she’d be on her own. If her stepmother hadn’t

spoken up in her defence, Sumire might very well have been

thrown out—penniless, without the necessary social skills—

into the wilderness of a somewhat humourless reality. The

Earth, after all, doesn’t creak and groan its way around the sun

just so human beings can have a good time and a bit of a laugh. *

Sumire met her Sputnik Sweetheart a little more than two years

after she’d dropped out of college.

She was living in a one-room apartment in Kichijoji where

she made do with the minimum amount of furniture and the

maximum number of books. She’d get up at noon, and take a

walk around Inogashira Park in the afternoon, with all the

enthusiasm of a pilgrim making her way through sacred hills.

On sunny days she’d sit on a park bench, chewing on bread,

puffing one cigarette after another, reading. On rainy or cold

days she’d go into an old-fashioned coffee house where

classical music played at full volume, sink down into a worn-

out sofa, and read her books, a serious look on her face as she

listened to Schubert’s symphonies, Bach’s cantatas. In the

evening she’d have one beer and buy some ready-to-eat food at

the supermarket for dinner.

By 11 p.m. she’d settle down at her desk. There’d always be a

thermos of hot coffee, a coffee mug (one I gave her on her

birthday, with a picture of Snafkin on it), a pack of Marlboro

and a glass ashtray. Of course she had a word processor as

well. Each key with its very own letter.

A deep silence ensued. Her mind was as clear as the winter

night sky, the Big Dipper and North Star in place, twinkling

brightly. She had so many things she had to write, so many

stories to tell. If she could only find the right outlet, heated

thoughts and ideas would gush out like lava, congealing into a

steady stream of inventive works the likes of which the world

had never seen. People’s eyes would pop wide open at the

sudden debut of this Promising Young Writer with a Rare Talent.

A photo of her, smiling coolly, would appear in the arts section

of the newspaper, and editors would beat a path to her door.

But it never happened that way. Sumire wrote some works

that had a beginning. And some that had an end. But never one

that had both a beginning and an end. *

Not that she suffered from writer’s block—far from it. She

wrote endlessly, everything that came into her head. The

problem was that she wrote too much. You’d think that all she’d

have to do was cut out the extra parts and she’d be fine, but

things weren’t that easy. She could never decide on the big

picture—what was necessary and what wasn’t. The following

day when she re-read what she’d printed out, every line looked

absolutely essential. Or else she’d Tippex out the whole thing.

Sometimes, in despair, she’d rip up her entire manuscript and

consign it to the bin. If this had been a winter night and the

room had had a fireplace, there would have been a certain

warmth to it—imagine a scene from La Bohème—but Sumire’s

apartment not only lacked a fireplace, it didn’t even have a

phone. Not to mention a decent mirror. *

On weekends, Sumire would come over to my apartment,

drafts of her novels spilling out of her arms—the lucky

manuscripts that had escaped the massacre. Still, they made

quite a pile. Sumire would show her manuscripts to only one

person in the whole world. Me.

In college I’d been two years ahead of her, and our subjects

were different, so there wasn’t much chance we’d meet. We

met by pure chance. It was a Monday in May, the day after a

string of holidays, and I was at the bus stop in front of the main

gate of the college, standing there reading a Paul Nizan novel

I’d found in a second-hand bookshop. A short girl beside me

leaned over, took a look at the book, and asked me, Why Nizan,

of all people? She sounded like she was trying to pick a fight.

Like she wanted to kick something and send it flying, but

lacking a suitable target had attacked my choice of reading

matter.

Sumire and I were very alike. Devouring books came as

naturally to us as breathing. Every spare moment we’d settle

down in some quiet corner, endlessly turning page after page.

Japanese novels, foreign novels, new works, classics, avant-

garde to bestseller—as long as there was something

intellectually stimulating in a book, we’d read it. We’d hang

out in libraries, spend whole days browsing in Kanda, the

second-hand bookshop Mecca in Tokyo. I’d never come across

anyone else who read so avidly—so deeply, so widely, as

Sumire, and I’m sure she felt the same.

I graduated around the time Sumire dropped out of college,

and after that she’d hang out at my place two or three times a

month. Occasionally I’d go over to her apartment, but you

could barely squeeze two people in there, and most of the time

she’d end up at mine. We’d talk about the novels we’d read

and exchange books. I cooked a lot of dinners. I didn’t mind

cooking, and Sumire was the kind of person who’d rather go

hungry than cook herself. She’d bring me presents from her

part-time jobs to thank me. Once she had a job in a warehouse

in a drug company and brought me six dozen condoms.

They’re probably still at the back of a drawer somewhere. *

The novels—or fragments of novels, really—Sumire wrote

weren’t as terrible as she thought. True, at times her style

resembled a patchwork quilt sewn by a group of stubborn old

ladies, each with her own tastes and complaints, working in

grim silence. Add to this her sometimes manic-depressive

personality, and things occasionally got out of control. As if

this weren’t enough, Sumire was dead set on creating a

massive nineteenth-century-style Total Novel, a kind of

portmanteau packed with every possible phenomenon in order

to capture the soul and human destiny.

Having said that, Sumire’s writing had a remarkable

freshness about it, her attempt to honestly portray what was

important to her. On the plus side she didn’t try to imitate

anyone else’s style, and she didn’t attempt to distil everything

into some precious, clever little pieces. That’s what I liked most

about her writing. It wouldn’t have been right to pare down the

direct power in her writing just so it could take on some

pleasant, cosy form. There was no need to rush things. She still

had plenty of time for detours. As the saying goes, “What’s

nurtured slowly grows well.” *

“My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I

want to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches of

words … in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! they

shout at me. A great new story is about to be born I can feel it.

It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I

sit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realize

something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals,

just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.”

With a frown, Sumire picked up her 250th stone and tossed it

into the pond.

“Maybe I’m lacking something. Something you absolutely

must have to be a novelist.”

A deep silence ensued. It seemed she was seeking my run-of-

the-mill opinion.

After a while I started to speak. “A long time ago in China

there were cities with high walls around them, with huge,

magnificent gates. The gates weren’t just doors for letting

people in or out, they had greater significance. People believed

the city’s soul resided in the gates. Or at least that it should

reside there. It’s like in Europe in the Middle Ages when

people felt a city’s heart lay in its cathedral and central square.

Which is why even today in China there are lots of wonderful

gates still standing. Do you know how the Chinese built these

gates?”

“I have no idea,” Sumire answered.

“People would take carts out to old battlefields and gather

the bleached bones that were buried there or lay scattered

about. China’s a pretty ancient country—lots of old

battlegrounds—so they never had to search far. At the entrance

to the city they’d construct a huge gate and seal the bones up

inside. They hoped that by commemorating the dead soldiers

in this way they would continue to guard their town. There’s

more. When the gate was finished they’d bring several dogs

over to it, slit their throats, and sprinkle their blood on the gate.

Only by mixing fresh blood with the dried-out bones would the

ancient souls of the dead magically revive. At least that was the

idea.”

Sumire waited in silence for me to go on.

“Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and

make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might

be, that alone doesn’t make it a living, breathing novel. A story

is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of

magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world

on the other side.”

“So what you’re saying is that I go out on my own and find

my own dog?”

I nodded.

“And shed fresh blood?”

Sumire bit her lip and thought about this. She tossed another

hapless stone into the pond. “I really don’t want to kill an

animal if I can help it.”

“It’s a metaphor,” I said. “You don’t have to actually kill

anything.” *

We were sitting as usual side by side at Inogashira Park, on her

favourite bench. The pond spread out before us. A windless

day. Leaves lay where they had fallen, pasted on the surface of

the water. I could smell a bonfire somewhere far away. The air

was filled with the scent of the end of autumn, and far-off

sounds were painfully clear.

“What you need is time and experience,” I said.

“Time and experience,” she mused, and gazed up at the sky.

“There’s not much you can do about time—it just keeps on

passing. But experience? Don’t tell me that. I’m not proud of it,

but I don’t have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience

can a writer have if she doesn’t feel passion? It’d be like a chef

without an appetite.”

“I don’t know where your sexual desire has gone,” I said.

“Maybe it’s just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip and

forgotten to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty

crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you.

Who knows—maybe even tomorrow.”

Sumire turned her gaze from the sky to my face. “Like a

tornado?”

“You could say that.”

She thought about it. “Have you ever actually seen a

tornado?”

“No,” I replied. Thankfully, Tokyo wasn’t exactly Tornado

Alley.

About a half a year later, just as I had predicted, suddenly,

preposterously, a tornado-like love seized Sumire. With a

woman 17 years older. Her very own Sputnik Sweetheart. *

As Sumire and Miu sat there together at the table at the

wedding reception, they did what everybody else does in the

world in such situations, namely, introduce themselves. Sumire

hated her own name and tried to conceal it whenever she

could. But when somebody asks you your name, the only polite

thing to do is to go ahead and give it.

According to her father, her mother had chosen the name

Sumire. She loved the Mozart song of the same name and had

decided long before that if she had a daughter that would be

her name. On the record shelf in their living room was a record

of Mozart’s songs, doubtless the one her mother had listened to

and, when she was a child, Sumire would carefully lay this

heavy LP on the turntable and listen to the song over and over.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was the soloist, Waiter Gieseking on

piano. Sumire didn’t understand the lyrics, but from the

graceful motif she felt sure the song was a paean to the

beautiful violets blooming in a field. Sumire loved that image.

In junior high, though, she came across a Japanese translation

of the song in her school library and was shocked. The lyrics

told of a callous shepherd’s daughter trampling down a

hapless little violet in a field. The girl didn’t even notice she’d

flattened the flower. It was based on a Goethe poem, and

Sumire found nothing redeeming about it, no lesson to be

learned. *

“How could my mother give me the name of such an awful

song?” said Sumire, scowling.

Miu arranged the corners of the napkin on her lap, smiled

neutrally, and looked at Sumire. Miu’s eyes were quite dark.

Many colours mixed together, but clear and unclouded.

“Do you think the song was beautiful?”

“Yes, the song itself is pretty.”

“If the music is lovely, I think that should be enough. After

all, not everything in this world can be beautiful, right? Your

mother must have loved that song so much the lyrics didn’t

bother her. And besides, if you keep making that kind of face

you’re going to get some permanent wrinkles.”

Sumire allowed her scowl to relax.

“Maybe you’re right. I just felt so let down. I mean, the only

tangible sort of thing my mother left me was that name. Other

than myself, of course.”

“Well, I think Sumire is a lovely name. I like it very much,”

said Miu, and tilted her head slightly as if to view things from a

new angle. “By the way, is your father here at the reception?”

Sumire looked around. The reception hall was large, but her

father was tall, and she easily spotted him. He was sitting two

tables away, his face turned sideways, talking with some short,

elderly man in a morning coat. His smile was so trusting and

warm it would melt a glacier. Under the light of the

chandeliers, his handsome nose rose up softly, like a rococo

cameo, and even Sumire, who was used to seeing him, was

moved by its beauty. Her father truly belonged at this kind of

formal gathering. His mere presence lent the place a

flamboyant atmosphere. Like cut flowers in a large vase or a

jet-black stretch limousine. *

When she spied Sumire’s father, Miu was speechless. Sumire

could hear the intake of breath. Like the sound of a velvet

curtain being drawn aside on a peaceful morning to let in the

sunlight to wake someone very special to you. Maybe I should

have brought a pair of opera glasses, Sumire mused. But she

was used to the dramatic reaction her father’s looks brought

out in people—especially middle-aged women. What is

beauty? What value does it have? Sumire always found it

strange. But no one ever answered her. There was just that

same immovable effect.

“What’s it like to have such a handsome father?” Miu asked.

“Just out of curiosity.”

Sumire sighed—people could be so predictable. “I can’t say I

like it. Everybody thinks the same thing: What a handsome

man. A real standout. But his daughter, well—she isn’t much to

look at, is she? That must be what they mean by atavism, they

think.”

Miu turned towards Sumire, pulled her chin in ever so

slightly, and gazed at her face, as if she were admiring a

painting in an art gallery.

“If that’s how you’ve always felt up till now, you’ve been

mistaken,” she said. “You’re lovely. Every bit as much as your

father.” She reached out and, quite unaffectedly, lightly

touched Sumire’s hand that, lay on the table. “You don’t realize

how very attractive you are.”

Sumire’s face grew hot. Her heart galloped as loudly as a

crazed horse on a wooden bridge.

After this Sumire and Miu were absorbed in their own

private conversation. The reception was a lively one, with the

usual assortment of after-dinner speeches (including, most

certainly, Sumire’s father), and the dinner wasn’t half bad. But

not a speck of this remained in Sumire’s memory. Was the

main course meat? Or fish? Did she use a knife and fork and

mind her manners? Or eat with her hands and lick the plate?

Sumire had no idea.

The two of them talked about music. Sumire was a big fan of

classical music and ever since she was small liked to paw

through her father’s record collection. She and Miu shared

similar tastes, it turned out. They both loved piano music and

were convinced that Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 was the

absolute pinnacle in the history of music. And that Wilhelm

Backhaus’s unparalleled performance of the sonata for Decca

set the interpretive standard. What a delightful, vibrant, and

joyous thing it was!

Vladimir Horowitz’s mono recordings of Chopin, especially the

scherzos, are thrilling, aren’t they? Friedrich Gulda’s performances of

Debussy’s preludes are witty and lovely. Gieseking’s Grieg is sweet

from start to finish. Sviatoslav Richter’s Prokofiev is worth listening

to over and over—his interpretation exactly captures the mercurial

shifts of mood. And Wanda Landowska’s Mozart sonatas—so filled

with warmth and tenderness it’s hard to understand why they

haven’t received more acclaim.

“What do you do?” asked Miu, once their discussion of

music had come to an end.

I dropped out of college, Sumire explained, and I’m doing

some part-time jobs while I work on my novels. What kind of

novels? Miu asked. It’s hard to explain, replied Sumire. Well,

said Miu, then what type of novels do you like to read? If I list

them all we’ll be here for ever, said Sumire.

Recently I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac. And that’s where

the Sputnik part of their conversation came in.

Other than some light fiction she read to pass the time, Miu

hardly ever touched novels. “I never can get it out of my mind

that’s it’s all made up,” she explained, “so I just can’t feel any

empathy for the characters. I’ve always been that way.” That’s

why her reading was limited to books that treated reality as

reality. Books, for the most part, that helped her in her work.

What kind of work do you do? asked Sumire.

“Mostly it has to do with foreign countries,” said Miu.

“Thirteen years ago I took over my father’s trading company,

since I was the oldest child. I’d been studying to be a pianist,

but my father passed away from cancer, my mother wasn’t

strong physically and besides couldn’t speak Japanese very

well. My brother was still in high school, so we decided, for the

time being, that I’d take care of the company. A number of

relatives depended on the company for their livelihood, so I

couldn’t very well just let the company go to pot.”

She punctuated all this with a sigh.

“My father’s company originally imported dried goods and

medicinal herbs from Korea, but now it deals with a wide

variety of things. Even computer parts. I’m still officially listed

as the head of the company, but my husband and younger

brother have taken over so I don’t have to go to the office very

often. Instead I’ve got my own private business.”

“Doing what?”

“Importing wine, mainly. Occasionally I arrange concerts,

too. I travel to Europe quite a bit, since this type of business

depends on personal connections. Which is why I’m able, all by

myself, to compete with some top firms. But all that

networking takes a lot of time and energy. That’s only to be

expected, I suppose… ” She looked up, as if she had just

remembered something. “By the way, do you speak English?”

“Speaking English isn’t my strong suit, but I’m okay, I guess.

I love to read English, though.”

“Do you know how to use a computer?”

“Not really, but I’ve been using a word processor, and I’m

sure I could pick it up.”

“How about driving?”

Sumire shook her head. The year she started college she tried

reversing her father’s Volvo estate into the garage and smashed

the door on a pillar. Since then she’d barely driven.

“All right—can you explain, in 200 words or less, the

difference between a sign and a symbol?”

Sumire lifted the napkin from her lap, lightly dabbed at her

mouth, and put it back. What was the woman driving at? “A

sign and a symbol?”

“No special significance. It’s just an example.”

Again Sumire shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Miu smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to tell me what

sort of practical skills you have. What you’re especially good at.

Other than reading a lot of novels and listening to music.”

Sumire quietly laid her knife and fork on her plate, stared at

the anonymous space hanging over the table, and pondered the

question.

“Instead of things I’m good at, it might be faster to list the

things I can’t do. I can’t cook or clean the house. My room’s a

mess, and I’m always losing things. I love music, but I can’t

sing a note. I’m clumsy and can barely sew a stitch. My sense of

direction is the pits, and I can’t tell left from right half the time.

When I get angry, I tend to break things. Plates and pencils,

alarm clocks. Later on I regret it, but at the time I can’t help

myself. I have no money in the bank. I’m bashful for no reason,

and I have hardly any friends to speak of.”

Sumire took a quick breath and forged ahead.

“However, I can touch-type really fast. I’m not that athletic,

but other than the mumps, I’ve never been sick a day in my life.

I’m always punctual, never late for an appointment. I can eat

just about anything. I never watch TV. And other than a bit of

silly boasting, I hardly ever make excuses. Once a month or so

my shoulders get so stiff I can’t sleep, but the rest of the time I

sleep like a log. My periods are light. I don’t have a single

cavity. And my Spanish is okay.”

Miu looked up. “You speak Spanish?”

When Sumire was in high school, she spent a month in the

home of her uncle, a businessman who’d been stationed in

Mexico City. Making the most of the opportunity, she’d

studied Spanish intensively. She had taken Spanish in college,

too.

Miu grasped the stem of her wineglass between two fingers

and lightly turned it, as if turning a screw on a machine. “What

would you think about working at my place for a while?”

“Working?” Unsure what expression would best fit this

situation, Sumire made do with her usual dour look. “I’ve

never had a real job in my life, and I’m not even sure how to

answer a phone the right way. I try to avoid taking the train

before 10 a.m. and, as I’m sure you’ve noticed from talking to

me, I don’t speak politely.”

“None of that matters,” said Miu simply. “By the way, are

you free tomorrow, around noon?”

Sumire nodded reflexively. She didn’t even have to think

about it. Free time, after all, was her main asset.

“Well then, why don’t we have lunch together? I’ll reserve a

quiet table at a restaurant nearby,” Miu said. She held out the

fresh glass of red wine a waiter had poured for her, studied it

carefully, inhaled the aroma, then quietly took the first sip. The

whole series of movements had the sort of natural elegance of a

short cadenza a pianist has refined over the years.

“We’ll talk over the details then. Today I’d rather just enjoy

myself. You know, I’m not sure where it’s from, but this

Bordeaux isn’t half bad.”

Sumire relaxed her dour look and asked Miu straight out:

“But you just met me, and you hardly know a thing about me.”

“That’s true. Maybe I don’t,” Miu admitted.

“So why do you think I might be of help to you?”

Miu swirled the wine in her glass. “I always judge people by

their faces,” she said. “Meaning that I like your face, the way

you look.”

Sumire felt the air around her suddenly grow thin. Her

nipples tightened under her dress. Mechanically she reached

for a glass of water and gulped it down. A hawk-faced waiter

quickly sidled in behind her and filled her empty glass with ice

water. In Sumire’s confused mind, the clatter of the ice cubes

sounded just like the groans of a robber hiding out in a cave. *

I must be in love with this woman, she realized with a start. No

mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red. I’m in love.

And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The

current’s too overpowering; I don’t have any choice. It may

very well be a special place, some place I’ve never seen before.

Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up

wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything.

But there’s no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if

it means I’ll be burned up, gone for ever. *

Now, after the fact, I know her hunch turned out to be correct.

One hundred and twenty per cent on the money.

It was about two weeks after the wedding reception when

Sumire called me, a Sunday night, just before dawn. Naturally,

I was asleep. As dead to the world as an old anvil. The week

before I’d been in charge of arranging a meeting and could only

snatch a few hours’ sleep as I gathered together all the

necessary (read pointless) documents we needed. Come the

weekend, I wanted to sleep to my heart’s content. So of course

that’s when the phone rang. *

“Were you asleep?” Sumire asked.

“Um,” I groaned and instinctively glanced at the alarm clock

beside my bed. The clock had huge fluorescent hands, but I

couldn’t read the time. The image projected on my retina and

the part of my brain that processed it were out of sync, like an

old lady struggling, unsuccessfully, to thread a needle. What I

could understand was that it was dark all around and close to

Fitzgerald’s “Dark Night of the Soul”.

“It’ll be dawn pretty soon.” “Um,” I murmured listlessly.

“Right near where I live there’s a man who raises roosters.

Must have had them for years and years. In half an hour or so

they’ll be crowing up a storm. This is my favourite time of the

day. The pitch-black night sky starting to glow in the east, the

roosters crowing for all they’re worth like it’s their revenge on

somebody. Any roosters near you?”

On this end of the telephone line I shook my head slightly.

“I’m calling from the phone box near the park.”

“Um,” I said. There was a phone box about 200 yards from

her apartment. Since Sumire didn’t own a phone, she always

had to walk over there to call. Just your average phone box.

“I know I shouldn’t be calling you this late. I’m really sorry.

The time of night when the roosters haven’t even started

crowing. When this pitiful moon is hanging there in a corner of

the eastern sky like a used-up kidney. But think of me—I had

to trudge out in the pitch dark all the way over here clutching

this telephone card I got as a present at my cousin’s wedding.

With a photo on it of the happy couple holding hands. Can you

imagine how depressing that is? My socks don’t even match,

for pity’s sake. One has a picture of Mickey Mouse; the other’s

plain wool. My room’s a complete disaster area; I can’t find

anything. I don’t want to say this too loudly, but you wouldn’t

believe how awful my panties are. I doubt if even one of those

pantie thieves would touch them. If some pervert killed me, I’d

never live it down. I’m not asking for sympathy, but it would

be nice if you could give me a bit more in the way of a

response. Other than those cold interjections of yours—ohs and

ums. How about a conjunction? A conjunction would be nice.

A yet or a but.”

“However,” I said. I was exhausted and felt like I was still in

the middle of a dream.

“‘However’,” she repeated. “Okay, I can live with that. One

small step for man. One very small step, however.”

“So, was there something you wanted?”

“Right, I wanted you to tell me something. That’s why I

called,” Sumire said. She lightly cleared her throat. “What I

want to know is what’s the difference between a sign and

symbol?”

I felt a weird sensation, like something was silently parading

through my head. “Could you repeat the question?”

She did. What’s the difference between a sign and a symbol?

I sat up in bed, switched the receiver from my left hand to

my right. “Let me get this right—you’re calling me because you

want to find out the difference between a sign and a symbol.

On Sunday morning, just before dawn. Um …”

“At 4.15, to be precise,” she said. “It was bothering me. What

could be the difference between a sign and a symbol?

Somebody asked me that a couple of weeks ago and I can’t get

it out of my mind. I was getting undressed for bed, and I

suddenly remembered. I can’t sleep until I find out. Can you

explain it? The difference between a sign and a symbol?”

“Let me think,” I said and gazed up at the ceiling. Even when

I was fully conscious, explaining things logically to Sumire was

never easy. “The emperor is a symbol of Japan. Do you follow

that?”

“Sort of,” she replied.

“Sort of isn’t good enough. That’s what it says in the Japanese

constitution,” I said, as calmly as possible. “No room for

discussion or doubts. You’ve got to accept that, or we won’t get

anywhere.”

“Gotcha. I’ll accept that.”

“Thank you. So—the emperor is a symbol of Japan. But this

doesn’t mean that the emperor and Japan are equivalent. Do

you follow?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Okay, how about this—the arrow points in one direction.

The emperor is a symbol of Japan, but Japan is not the symbol

of the emperor. You understand that, right?”

“I guess.”

“Say, for instance, you write ‘The emperor is a sign of Japan.’

That makes the two equivalent. So when we say ‘Japan’, it

would also mean ‘the emperor’, and when we speak of ‘the

emperor’, it would also mean ‘Japan’. In other words, the two

are interchangeable. Same as saying, ‘ A equals B , so B equals

A . ’ That’s what a sign is.”

“So you’re saying you can switch the emperor and Japan?

Can you do that?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I said, shaking my head vigorously

at my end of the line. “I’m just trying to explain the best I can.

I’m not planning to switch the emperor and Japan. It’s just a

way of explaining it.”

“Hmm,” said Sumire. “I think I get it. As an image. It’s the

difference between a one-way street and a two-way street.”

“For our purposes, that’s close enough.”

“I’m always amazed how good you are at explaining things.”

“That’s my job,” I said. My words seemed somehow flat and

stale. “You should try being an elementary-school teacher

sometime. You’d never imagine the kinds of questions I get.

‘Why isn’t the world square? Why do squids have ten legs and not

eight?’ I’ve learned to come up with an answer to just about

everything.”

“You must be a great teacher.”

“I wonder,” I said. I really did wonder.

“By the way, why do squids have ten legs and not eight?”

“Can I go back to sleep now? I’m whacked. Just holding this

phone I feel like I’m holding up a crumbling stone wall.”

“You know,” said Sumire, and let a delicate pause

intervene—like an old gatekeeper closing the railway-crossing

gate with a clatter just after the train bound for St Petersburg

has passed by—“it’s really silly to say this, but I’m in love.”

“Um,” I said, changing the receiver back to my left hand. I

could hear her breathing down the phone. I had no idea how I

should respond. And, as so often happens when I don’t know

what to say, I let slip some totally inappropriate comment.

“Not with me, I assume?”

“Not with you,” Sumire answered. I heard the sound of a

cheap lighter lighting a cigarette. “Are you free today? I’d like

to talk more.”

“You mean, about your falling in love with someone other

than me?”

“Right,” she said. “About my falling passionately in love

with somebody other than you.”

I clamped the phone between my head and shoulder and

stretched. “I’m free in the evening.”

“I’ll be over at five,” Sumire said. And then added, as if an

afterthought: “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being nice enough to answer my question in the middle

of the night.”

I gave a vague response, hung up, and turned out the light. It

was still pitch black out. Just before I fell asleep, I thought

about her final thank you and whether I’d ever heard those

words from her before. Maybe I had, once, but I couldn’t recall. *

Sumire arrived at my apartment a little before five. I didn’t

recognize her. She’d taken on a complete change of style. Her

hair was short in a stylish cut, her fringe still showing traces of

the scissors’ snips. She wore a light cardigan over a short-

sleeve, navy-blue dress and a pair of black enamel, medium-

high heels. She even had stockings on. Stockings? Women’s

clothes weren’t exactly my field of expertise, but it was clear

that everything she wore was pretty expensive. Dressed like

this, she looked polished and lovely. It was quite becoming, to

tell the truth. Though I preferred the old, outrageous Sumire.

To each his own.

“Not bad,” I said, giving her a complete once-over. “But I

wonder what good old Jack Kerouac would say.”

Sumire smiled, an ever-so-slightly more sophisticated smile

than usual. “Why don’t we go for a walk?” *

We walked side by side down University Boulevard towards

the station and stopped by our favourite coffee shop. Sumire

ordered her usual slice of cake along with her coffee. It was a

clear Sunday evening near the end of April. The flower shops

were full of crocuses and tulips. A gentle breeze blew, softly

rustling the hems of young girls’ skirts and wafting over the

leisurely fragrance of young trees.

I folded my hands behind my head and watched Sumire as

she slowly yet eagerly devoured her cake. From the small

speakers on the ceiling of the coffee shop Astrud Gilberto sang

an old bossa nova song. “Take me to Aruanda,” she sang. I

closed my eyes, and the clatter of the cups and saucers sounded

like the roar of a far-off sea. Aruanda—what’s it like there? I

wondered.

“Still sleepy?”

“Not any more,” I answered, opening my eyes.

“You feel okay?”

“I’m fine. As fine as the Moldau River in spring.”

Sumire gazed for a while at the empty plate that had held her

slice of cake. She looked at me.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that I’m wearing these clothes?”

“I guess.”

“I didn’t buy them. I don’t have that kind of money. There’s a

story behind them.”

“Mind if I try to guess the story?”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“There you were in your usual crummy Jack Kerouac outfit,

cigarette dangling from your lips, washing your hands in some

public toilet, when this five-foot one-inch woman rushed in, all

out of breath, dressed to the nines, and said, ‘Please, you’ve got

to help me! No time to explain, but I’m being chased by some

awful people. Can I exchange clothes with you? If we swap

clothes I can give them the slip. Thank God we’re the same

size.’ Just like some Hong Kong action flick.”

Sumire laughed. “And the other woman happened to wear a

size-six-and-a-half shoe and a size-seven dress. Just by

coincidence.”

“And right then and there you changed clothes, down to

your Mickey Mouse knickers.”

“It’s my socks that are Mickey Mouse, not my knickers.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Hmm,” Sumire mused. “Actually, you’re not too far off.”

“How far?”

She leaned across the table. “It’s a long story. Would you like

to hear it?”

“Since you’ve come all the way over here to tell me, I have a

distinct feeling it doesn’t matter if I do or not. Anyway, go right

ahead. Add a prelude, if you’d like. And a ‘Dance of the

Blessed Spirits’. I don’t mind.”

She began to talk. About her cousin’s wedding reception, and

about the lunch she had had with Miu in Aoyama. And it was a

long tale.

The day after the wedding, a Monday, was rainy. The rain

began to fall just after midnight and continued without a stop

till dawn. A soft, gentle rain that darkly dampened the spring

earth and quietly stirred up the nameless creatures living in it. *

The thought of meeting Miu again thrilled Sumire, and she

found it hard to concentrate. She felt as though she were

standing alone on the summit of a hill, the wind swirling

around her. She settled down at her desk as usual, lit a

cigarette, and switched on her word processor, but stare as she

might at the screen, not a single sentence came to her. For

Sumire that was next to impossible. She gave up, turned off the

word processor, lay down in her tiny little room, and, an unlit

cigarette dangling from her lips, gave herself up to some

aimless musings.

If just the thought of seeing Miu has me this worked up, she

thought, imagine how painful it would be if we’d said goodbye

at the party and never saw each other again. Am I just yearning

to be like her—a beautiful, refined older woman? No, she

decided, that can’t be it. When I’m beside her, I always want to

touch her. That’s a bit different from a yearning.

Sumire sighed, gazed up at the ceiling for a while, and lit her

cigarette. It’s pretty strange if you think about it, she thought.

Here I am in love for the first time in my life, aged 22. And the

other person just happens to be a woman. *

The restaurant Miu had made a reservation at was a ten-minute

walk from the Omote Sando subway station. The kind of

restaurant that’s hard for first-timers to find; certainly not a

place where you just casually drop in for a meal. Even the

restaurant’s name was hard to remember unless you heard it a

couple of times. At the entrance Sumire told them Miu’s name

and was escorted to a small, private dining room on the first

floor. Miu was already there, sipping an iced Perrier water,

deep in conversation with the waiter about the menu.

Over a navy-blue polo shirt Miu had on a cotton sweater of

the same colour, and she wore a thin, plain silver hairpin. Her

trousers were white slim-fit jeans. On a corner of the table

rested a pair of bright blue sunglasses, and on the chair next to

her was a squash racquet and a Missoni sports bag. It looked

like she was on her way home after a couple of afternoon

games of squash. Her cheeks were still flushed a faint pink.

Sumire imagined her in the shower at the gym, scrubbing her

body with an exotic smelling bar of soap.

As Sumire entered the room, dressed in her usual

herringbone jacket and khaki trousers, her hair all messy like

some orphan, Miu looked up from the menu and gave her a

dazzling smile. “You told me the other day that you can eat

anything, right? I hope you don’t mind if I go ahead and order

for us.”

Of course not, Sumire replied. *

Miu ordered the same thing for both of them. The main course

was a light grilled fish with a touch of green sauce with

mushrooms. The slices of fish were cooked to perfection,

browned in an almost artistic way that you knew was just right.

Pumpkin gnocchi and a delicate endive salad rounded off the

meal. For dessert they had the crème brûlée, which only Sumire

ate. Miu didn’t touch it. Finally, they had espresso. Sumire

observed that Miu took great care over what she ate. Her neck

was as slender as the stalk of some plant, her body without an

ounce of detectable fat. She didn’t seem to have to diet. Even

so, it would appear she was super-strict about food. Like some

Spartan holed up in a mountain fortress.

As they ate they chatted about nothing in particular. Miu

wanted to know more about Sumire’s background, and she

obliged, answering the questions as honestly as she could. She

told Miu about her father, her mother, the schools she had

attended (all of which she loathed), the prizes she had won in a

composition contest—a bicycle and a set of encyclopedias—

how she came to quit college, the way she spent her days now.

Not a particularly thrilling life. Even so, Miu listened,

enthralled, as if listening to the enchanting customs of a far-off

land.

Sumire wanted to know so much more about Miu, but Miu

hesitated to talk about herself. “That’s not important,” she

deferred with a bright smile. “I’d rather hear more about you.”

By the time they finished eating, Sumire still hadn’t learned

much. About the only thing she found out was this: that Miu’s

father had donated a lot of money to the small town in the

north part of Korea where he had been born, and had built

several public buildings for the townspeople—to which they’d

responded by erecting a bronze statue of him in the town

square.

“It’s a small town deep in the mountains,” Miu explained.

“The winter’s awful, and just looking at the place makes you

shiver. The mountains are craggy and reddish, full of bent

trees. Once, when I was little, my father took me there. When

they unveiled the statue. All these relatives came up, crying

and hugging me. I couldn’t understand a word they said. I

remember being frightened. For me it was a town in a foreign

country I’d never set eyes on before.”

“What kind of statue was it?” asked Sumire. She’d never

known anyone who’d had a statue erected.

“Just a normal statue. The kind you’d find anywhere. But it’s

weird to have your own father become a statue. Imagine if they

erected a statue of your father in the square in front of

Chigasaki Station. You’d feel pretty weird about it, right? My

father was actually fairly short, but the statue made him look

like some towering figure. I was only five at the time, but I was

struck by the way things you see aren’t always true to life.”

If they made a statue of my father, Sumire mused, it’d be the

statue that would draw the short straw. Since in real life her

father was a little too good-looking. *

“I’d like to pick up where we left off yesterday,” Miu began,

when they were on their second cup of espresso. “So, do you

think you might want to work for me?”

Sumire was dying for a cigarette, but there weren’t any

ashtrays. She made do with a sip of chilled Perrier.

She answered honestly. “Well, what kind of work would it

be, exactly? Like I said yesterday, except for some simple

physical-labour-type jobs, I’ve never once had what you’d call

a proper job. Plus I don’t have a thing to wear that would be

appropriate. The clothes I had on at the reception I borrowed.”

Miu nodded, her expression unchanged. She must have

anticipated this sort of response.

“I think I understand pretty much what sort of person you

are,” she said, “and the work I have in mind shouldn’t give you

any trouble. I’m sure you can handle whatever comes up. What

really matters is whether or not you’d like to work with me.

Just approach it that way, as a simple yes or no.”

Sumire chose her words carefully. “I’m really happy to hear

you say that, but right now what’s most important for me is

writing novels. I mean, that’s why I left college.”

Miu looked across the table straight at Sumire. Sumire sensed

that quiet look on her skin and felt her face grow warm.

“Do you mind if I say exactly what’s on my mind?” Miu

asked.

“Of course not. Go right ahead.”

“It might make you feel bad.”

To show she could handle it, Sumire pursed her lips and

looked into Miu’s eyes.

“At this stage in your life I don’t think you’re going to write

anything worthwhile, no matter how much time you put into

your novels,” said Miu, calmly but firmly. “You’ve got the

talent. I’m sure someday you’ll be an extraordinary writer. I’m

not just saying this, I truly believe it. You have that natural

ability within you. But now’s not the time. The strength you

need to open that door isn’t quite there. Haven’t you ever felt

that way?”

“Time and experience,” said Sumire, summing it up.

Miu smiled. “At any rate, come and work for me. That’s the

best choice for you. And when you feel the time is right, don’t

hesitate to chuck it all in and write novels to your heart’s

content. You just need more time than the average person in

order to reach that stage. So even if you get to 28 without any

breaks coming your way, and your parents cut off your funds

and you’re left without a penny, well—so what? Maybe you’ll

go a little hungry, but that might be a good experience for a

writer.”

Sumire opened her mouth, about to reply, but nothing

emerged. She merely nodded.

Miu stretched out her right hand towards the middle of the

table. “Let me see your hand,” she said.

Sumire reached out her right hand and Miu grasped it, as if

enveloping it. Her palm was warm and smooth. “It’s not

something you should worry about so much. Don’t look so

glum. We’ll get along fine.”

Sumire gulped, but somehow managed to relax. With Miu

gazing right at her like that, she felt as though she were

steadily shrinking. Like a block of ice left out in the sun, she

might very well disappear.

“Starting next week I’d like you to come to my office three

times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You can start

at 10 a.m., and you can leave at four. That way you’ll miss the

rush hour. I can’t pay you much, but the work is easy, and you

can read when there’s nothing to do. One condition is that you

take private lessons in Italian twice a week. You already know

Spanish, so it shouldn’t be too hard. And I’d like you to

practise English conversation and driving whenever you have

the time. Do you think you can do that?”

“I think so,” Sumire replied. Her voice sounded like it was

somebody else’s coming from another room. No matter what

I’m asked to do, no matter what I’m ordered to do, all I can do

is say yes, she realized. Miu gazed steadily at Sumire, still

holding her hand. Sumire could make out clearly her own

figure reflected deep inside Miu’s dark eyes. It looked to her

like her own soul being sucked into the other side of a mirror.

Sumire loved that vision, and at the same time it frightened

her.

Miu smiled, charming lines appearing at the corners of her

eyes. “Let’s go to my place. There’s something I want to show

you.”

The summer holiday of my first year in college I took a random

trip by myself around the Hokuriku region, came across a

woman eight years older than me who was also travelling

alone, and we spent one night together. It struck me, at the

time, as something straight out of the opening of Soseki’s novel

Sanshiro.

The woman worked in the foreign exchange section of a bank

in Tokyo. Whenever she had some time off, she’d grab a few

books and set out on her own. “Much less tiring to travel

alone,” she explained. She had a certain charm, which made it

hard to work out why she’d have any interest in someone like

me—a quiet, skinny 18-year-old college kid. Still, sitting across

from me in the train, she seemed to enjoy our harmless banter.

She laughed out loud a lot. And—unusually—I chattered away.

We happened to get off at the same station at Kanazawa.

“Do you have a place to stay?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. I’d never made a hotel reservation in my life.

“I have a hotel room,” she told me. “You can stay if you like.

Don’t worry about it,” she went on, “it costs the same whether

there’s one or two people staying.”

I was nervous the first time we made love, which made

things awkward. I apologized to her.

“Aren’t we polite!” she said. “No need to apologize for every

little thing.”

After her shower she threw on a dressing gown, grabbed two

cold beers from the fridge, and handed one to me.

“Are you a good driver?” she asked.

“I just got my licence, so I wouldn’t say so. Just average.”

She smiled. “Same with me. I think I’m pretty good, but my

friends don’t agree. Which makes me average, too, I suppose.

You must know a few people who think they’re great drivers,

right?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“And there must be some who aren’t very good.”

I nodded. She took a quiet sip of beer and gave it some

thought.

“To a certain extent those kinds of things are inborn. Talent,

you could call it. Some people are nimble; others are all thumbs

… Some people are quite attentive, and others aren’t. Right?”

Again I nodded.

“Okay, consider this. Say you’re going to go on a long

journey with someone by car. And the two of you will take

turns driving. Which type of person would you choose? One

who’s a good driver, but inattentive, or an attentive person

who’s not such a good driver?”

“Probably the second one,” I said.

“Me, too,” she replied. “What we have here is very similar.

Good or bad, nimble or clumsy—those aren’t important.

What’s important is being attentive. Staying calm, being alert to

things around you.”

“Alert?” I asked.

She just smiled and didn’t say anything.

A while later we made love a second time, and this time it

was a smooth, congenial ride. Being alert—I think I was starting

to get it. For the first time I saw how a woman reacts in the

throes of passion.

The next morning after we ate breakfast together, we went

our separate ways. She continued her trip, and I continued

mine. As she left she told me she was getting married in two

months to a man from work. “He’s a very nice guy,” she said

cheerily. “We’ve been going out for five years, and we’re

finally going to make it official. Which means I probably won’t

be making any trips by myself any more. This is it.”

I was still young, certain that this kind of thrilling event

happened all the time. Later in life I realized how wrong I was. *

I told Sumire this story a long time ago. I can’t remember

why it came up. It might have been when we were talking

about sexual desire.

“So what’s the point of your story?” she asked me.

“The part about being alert,” I replied. “Not prejudging

things, listening to what’s going on, keeping your ears, heart,

and mind open.”

“Hmm,” Sumire replied. She seemed to be mulling over my

paltry sexual affair, perhaps wondering whether she could

incorporate it into one of her novels.

“Anyway, you certainly have a lot of experiences, don’t

you?”

“I wouldn’t say a lot,” I gently protested. “Things just

happen.”

She chewed lightly at her nail, lost in thought. “But how are

you supposed to become attentive? The critical moment

arrives, and you say okay, I’m going to be alert and listen

carefully, but you can’t just be good at those things by

snapping your fingers, right? Can you be more specific? Give

me a for instance?”

“Well, first you have to relax. By … say, counting.”

“What else?”

“Think about a cucumber in a fridge on a summer afternoon.

Just an example.”

“Wait a second,” she said with a significant pause. “Do you

mean to tell me that when you’re having sex with a girl you

imagine cucumbers in a fridge on a summer afternoon?”

“Not all the time,” I said.

“But sometimes.”

“Maybe.”

Sumire frowned and shook her head a couple of times.

“You’re a lot weirder than you look.”

“Everybody’s got something weird about them,” I said. *

“In the restaurant, as Miu held my hand and gazed deep into

my eyes, I thought about cucumbers,” Sumire said to me.

“Gotta stay calm, gotta listen carefully, I told myself.”

“Cucumbers’?”

“Don’t you remember what you told me—about cucumbers

in a fridge on a summer afternoon?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I did,” I recalled. “So did it help?”

“A little,” she said.

“Glad to hear it,” I replied.

Sumire steered the conversation back on track. “Miu’s

apartment is just a short walk from the restaurant. Not a very

big place, but really lovely. A sunny veranda, house-plants, an

Italian leather sofa, Bose speakers, a set of prints, a Jaguar in

the garage. She lives there alone. The place she and her

husband have is somewhere in Setagaya. She goes back there at

the weekends. Most of the time she stays in her apartment in

Aoyama. What do you think she showed me there?”

“Mark Bolan’s favourite snakeskin sandals in a glass case,” I

ventured. “One of the invaluable legacies without which the

history of rock and roll cannot be told. Not a single scale

missing, his autograph on the arch. The fans go nuts.”

Sumire frowned and sighed. “If they invent a car that runs on

stupid jokes, you could go far.”

“Put it down to an impoverished intellect,” I said humbly.

“Okay, all joking aside, I want you to give it some serious

thought. What do you think she showed me there? If you get it

right, I’ll pay the bill.”

I cleared my throat. “She showed you the gorgeous clothes

you have on. And told you to wear them to work.”

“You win,” she said. “She has this rich friend with clothes to

spare who’s just about the same size as me. Isn’t life strange?

There are people who have so many leftover clothes they can’t

stuff them all in their wardrobe. And then there are people like

me, whose socks never match. Anyway, I don’t mind. She went

over to her friend’s house and came back with an armful of

these leftovers. They’re just a bit out of fashion if you look

carefully but most people wouldn’t notice.”

I wouldn’t know no matter how closely I looked, I told her.

Sumire smiled contentedly. “The clothes fit me like a glove.

The dresses, blouses, skirts—everything. I’ll have to take in the

waist a bit, but put a belt on and you’d never know the

difference. My shoe size, fortunately, is almost the same as

Miu’s, so she let me have some pairs she doesn’t need. High

heels, low heels, summer sandals. All with Italian names on

them. Handbags, too. And a little make-up.”

“A regular Jane Eyre,” I said. *

All of which explains how Sumire started working three days a

week at Miu’s office. Wearing a suit jacket and dress, high

heels, and a touch of make-up, taking the morning commuter

train from Kichijoji to Harajuku. Somehow I just couldn’t

picture it. *

Apart from her office at her company in Akasaka, Miu had her

own small office at Jingumae. There she had her desk as well as

her assistant’s (Sumire’s, in other words), a filing cabinet, a fax,

a phone, and a PowerBook. That’s all. It was just one room in

an apartment building and came with an afterthought-type of

tiny kitchen and bathroom. There was a CD player, mini-

speakers, and a dozen classical CDs. The room was on the

second floor, and out of the east-facing window you could see a

small park. The ground floor of the building was taken up by a

showroom selling Northern European furniture. The whole

building was set back from the main thoroughfare, which kept

traffic noise at a minimum.

As soon as she arrived at the office, Sumire would water the

plants and get the coffee-maker going. She’d check phone

messages and e-mails on the PowerBook. She’d print out any

messages and put them on Miu’s desk. Most of them were from

foreign agents, in either English or French. She’d open any

ordinary post that came and throw away whatever was clearly

junk mail. A few calls would come in every day, some from

abroad. Sumire would take down the person’s name, number,

and message and relay these to Miu on her cellphone.

Miu usually showed up around one or two in the afternoon.

She’d stay an hour or so, give Sumire various instructions,

drink coffee, make a few calls. Letters that required a reply

she’d dictate to Sumire, who’d type them up on the word

processor and either post or fax them. These were usually quite

brief business letters. Sumire also made reservations for Miu at

the hairdresser, restaurants, and the squash court. Business out

of the way, Miu and Sumire would chat for a while, and then

Miu would leave.

So Sumire was often alone in the office, talking to no one for

hours, but she never felt bored or lonely. She’d review her

twice-a-week Italian lessons, memorizing the irregular verbs,

checking her pronunciation with a tape recorder. She took

some computer classes and got to where she could handle most

simple glitches. She opened up the information in the hard

drive and learned the general outlines of the projects Miu had

going.

Miu’s main work was exactly as she had described it at the

wedding reception. She contracted with small wine producers,

mostly in France, and wholesaled their wine to restaurants and

speciality shops in Tokyo. On occasion she arranged concert

trips by musicians to Japan. Agents from large firms handled

the complex business angles, with Miu taking care of the

overall plan and some of the groundwork. Miu’s speciality was

searching out unknown, promising young performers and

bringing them to Japan.

Sumire had no way of knowing how much profit Miu made

from her private business. Accounting records were kept on

separate disks and couldn’t be accessed without a password. At

any rate, Sumire was ecstatic, her heart aflutter, just to be able

to meet Miu and talk to her. That’s the desk where Miu sits, she

thought. That’s the ballpoint pen she uses; the mug she drinks

coffee from. No matter how trivial the task, Sumire did her

best. *

Every so often Miu would invite Sumire out for dinner. Since

her business involved wine, Miu found it necessary to

regularly make the rounds of the better-known restaurants to

stay in touch with the latest news. Miu always ordered a light

fish dish or, on occasion, chicken, though she’d leave half, and

would pass on dessert. She’d pore over every detail of the wine

list before deciding on a bottle, but would never drink more

than a glass. “Go ahead and have as much as you like,” she told

Sumire, but there was no way Sumire could finish that much.

So they always ended up with half a very expensive bottle of

wine left, but Miu didn’t mind.

“It’s such a waste to order a whole bottle of wine for just the

two of us,” Sumire said to Miu one time. “We can barely finish

half.”

“Don’t worry.” Miu laughed. “The more we leave behind, the

more people in the restaurant will be able to try it. The

sommelier, the headwaiter, all the way down to the waiter who

fills the water glasses. That way a lot of people will start to

acquire a taste for good wine. Which is why leaving expensive

wine is never a waste.”

Miu examined the colour of the 1986 Médoc and then, as if

savouring some nicely turned out prose, carefully tasted it.

“It is the same with anything—you have to learn through

your own experience, paying your own way. You can’t learn it

from a book.”

Taking a cue from Miu, Sumire picked up her glass and very

attentively took a sip, held it in her mouth, and then swallowed

it. For a moment an agreeable aftertaste remained, but after a

few seconds this disappeared, like morning dew on a summer

leaf. All of which prepared the palate for the next bite of food.

Every time she ate and talked with Miu, Sumire learned

something new. Sumire was amazed by the overwhelming

number of things she had yet to learn.

“You know I’ve never thought I wanted to be somebody

else,” Sumire blurted out once, perhaps urged on by the more-

than-usual amount of wine she’d drunk. “But sometimes I

think how nice it would be to be like you.”

Miu held her breath for a moment. Then she picked up her

wineglass and took a sip. For a second, the light dyed her eyes

the crimson of the wine. Her face was drained of its usual

subtle expression.

“I’m sure you don’t know this,” she said calmly, returning

her glass to the table. “The person here now isn’t the real me.

Fourteen years ago I became half the person I used to be. I wish

I could have met you when I was whole—that would have

been wonderful. But it’s pointless to think about that now.”

Sumire was so taken aback she was speechless. And missed

the chance to ask the obvious questions. What had happened to

Miu 14 years ago? Why had she become half her real self? And

what did she mean by half, anyway? This enigmatic

announcement, in the end, only made Sumire more and more

smitten with Miu. What an awesome person, she thought. *

Through fragments of conversation Sumire was able to piece

together a few facts about Miu. Her husband was Japanese, five

years older and fluent in Korean, the result of two years as an

exchange student in the economics department of Seoul

University. He was a warm person, good at what he did, in

point of fact the guiding force behind Miu’s company. Even

though it was originally a family-run business, no one ever said

a bad word about him.

Ever since she was a little girl, Miu had had a talent for

playing the piano. Still in her teens she had won the top prize

at several competitions for young people. She went on to a

conservatoire, studied under a famous pianist and, through her

teacher’s recommendation, was able to study at a music

academy in France. Her repertoire ran mainly from the late

Romantics, Schumann and Mendelssohn, to Poulenc, Ravel,

Bartók, and Prokofiev. Her playing combined a keen, sensuous

tone with a vibrant, impeccable technique. In her student days

she held a number of concerts, all well received. A bright future

as a concert pianist looked assured. During her time abroad,

though, her father fell ill, and Miu shut the lid of her piano and

returned to Japan. Never to touch a keyboard again.

“How could you give up the piano so easily?” Sumire asked

hesitantly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. I just

find it—I don’t know—a little unusual. I mean, you had to

sacrifice a lot of things to become a pianist, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t sacrifice a lot of things for the piano,” Miu said softly.

“I sacrificed everything. The piano demanded every ounce of

flesh, every drop of blood, and I couldn’t refuse. Not even

once.”

“Weren’t you sorry to give up? You’d almost made it.”

Miu gazed into Sumire’s eyes searchingly. A deep, steady

gaze. Deep within Miu’s eyes, as if in a quiet pool in a swift

stream, wordless currents vied with one another. Only

gradually did these clashing currents settle.

“I’m sorry,” Sumire apologized. “I’ll mind my own

business.”

“It’s all right. I just can’t explain it well.”

They didn’t talk about it again. *

Miu didn’t allow smoking in her office and hated people to

smoke in front of her, so after she began the job Sumire decided

it was a good chance to quit. Being a two-packs-of-Marlboro-a-

day smoker, though, things didn’t go so smoothly. After a

month, like some animal that’s had its furry tail sliced off, she

lost her emotional grip on things—not that this was so firm to

begin with. And as you might guess, she started calling me all

the time in the middle of the night. *

“All I can think about is having a smoke. I can barely sleep, and

when I do sleep I have nightmares. I’m constipated. I can’t

read, can’t write a line.”

“Everybody goes through that when they try to stop. In the

beginning at least,” I said.

“You find it easy to give opinions as long as it’s about other

people, don’t you?” she snapped. “You’ve never had a cigarette

in your life.”

“Hey, if you can’t give your opinion about other people, the

world would turn into a pretty scary place, wouldn’t it? If you

don’t think so, just look up what Joseph Stalin did.”

On the other end of the line Sumire was silent for a long time.

A heavy silence like dead souls on the Eastern Front.

“Hello?” I asked.

She finally spoke up. “Truthfully, though, I don’t think it’s

because I stopped smoking that I can’t write. It might be one

reason, but that’s not all. What I mean is stopping smoking is

just an excuse. You know: ‘I’m stopping smoking; that’s why I

can’t write. Nothing I can do about it.’”

“Which explains why you’re so upset?”

“I guess,” she said, suddenly meek. “It’s not just that I can’t

write. What really upsets me is I don’t have confidence any

more in the act of writing itself. I read the stuff I wrote not long

ago, and it’s boring. What could I have been thinking? It’s like

looking across the room at some filthy socks tossed on the

floor. I feel awful, realizing all the time and energy I wasted.”

“When that happens you should call somebody up at three in

the morning and wake him up—symbolically of course—from

his peaceful semiotic sleep.”

“Tell me,” said Sumire, “have you ever felt confused about

what you’re doing, like it’s not right?”

“I spend more time being confused than not,” I answered.

“Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

Sumire tapped her nails against her front teeth, one of her

many habits when she was thinking. “I’ve hardly ever felt

confused like this before. Not that I’m always confident, sure of

my talent. I’m not that nervy. I know I’m a haphazard, selfish

type of person. But I’ve never been confused. I might have

made some mistakes along the way, but I always felt I was on

the right path.”

“You’ve been lucky,” I replied. “Like a long spell of rain right

after you plant rice.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“But at this point, things aren’t working out.”

“Right. They aren’t. Sometimes I get so frightened, like

everything I’ve done up till now is wrong. I have these realistic

dreams and snap wide awake in the middle of the night. And

for a while I can’t work out what’s real and what isn’t … That

kind of feeling. Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” I replied.

“The thought hits me a lot these days that maybe my novel-

writing days are over. The world’s crawling with stupid,

innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously

chasing after dreams that’ll never come true. I should shut the

piano lid and come down off the stage. Before it’s too late.”

“Shut the piano lid?”

“A metaphor.”

I switched the receiver from my left hand to my right. “I am

sure of one thing. Maybe you aren’t, but I am. Someday you’ll

be a fantastic writer. I’ve read what you’ve written, and I

know.”

“You really think so?”

“From the bottom of my heart,” I said. “I’m not going to lie to

you about things like that. There are some pretty remarkable

scenes in the things you’ve written so far. Say you were writing

about the seashore in May. You can hear the sound of the wind

in your ears and smell the salt air. You can feel the soft warmth

of the sun on your arms. If you wrote about a small room filled

with tobacco smoke, you can bet the reader would start to feel

like he can’t breathe. And his eyes would sting. Prose like that

is beyond most writers. Your writing has the living, breathing

force of something natural flowing through it. Right now that

hasn’t all come together, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to—

shut the lid on the piano.”

Sumire was silent for a good 10, 15 seconds. “You’re not just

saying that to make me feel better, to cheer me up, are you?”

“No, I’m not. It’s an undeniable fact, plain and simple.”

“Like the Moldau River?”

“You got it. Just like the Moldau River.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

“Sometimes you’re just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas,

summer holidays and a brand-new puppy all rolled into one.”

Like I always do when somebody praises me, I mumbled

some vague reply.

“But one thing bothers me,” she added. “Someday you’ll get

married to some nice girl and forget all about me. And I won’t

be able to call you in the middle of the night whenever I want

to. Right?”

“You can always call during the day.”

“Daytime’s no good. You don’t understand anything, do

you?”

“Neither do you,” I protested. “Most people work when the

sun’s up and turn out the light at night and go to sleep.” But I

might as well have been reciting some pastoral poems to

myself in the middle of a pumpkin patch.

“There was this article in the paper the other day,” she

continued, completely oblivious. “It said that lesbians are born

that way; there’s a tiny bone in the inner ear that’s completely

different from other women’s and that makes all the difference.

Some small bone with a complicated name. So being a lesbian

isn’t acquired; it’s genetic. An American doctor discovered this.

I have no idea why he was doing that kind of research, but ever

since I read about it I can’t get the idea out of my mind of this

little good-for-nothing bone inside my ear, wondering what

shape my own little bone is.”

I had no idea what to say. A silence descended on us as

sudden as the instant fresh oil is poured into a large frying pan.

“So you’re sure what you feel for Miu is sexual desire?” I

asked.

“A hundred per cent sure,” Sumire said. “When I’m with her

that bone in my ear starts ringing. Like delicate seashell wind

chimes. And I want her to hold me, let everything take its

course. If that isn’t sexual desire, what’s flowing in my veins

must be tomato juice.”

“Hmm,” I said. What could I possibly say to that?

“It explains everything. Why I don’t want to have sex with

any men. Why I don’t feel anything. Why I’ve always thought

I’m different from other people.”

“Mind if I give you my pennyworth here?” I asked.

“Okay.”

“Any explanation or logic that explains everything so easily

has a hidden trap in it. I’m speaking from experience.

Somebody once said if it’s something a single book can explain,

it’s not worth having explained. What I mean is don’t leap to

any conclusions.”

“I’ll remember that,” Sumire said. And the call ended,

somewhat abruptly. *

I pictured her hanging up the receiver, walking out of the

telephone box. By my clock it was 3.30. I went to the kitchen,

drank a glass of water, snuggled back in bed, and dosed my

eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. I drew the curtain aside, and

there was the moon, floating in the sky like some pale, clever

orphan. I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep. I brewed a fresh

pot of coffee, pulled a chair over next to the window, and sat

there, munching on some cheese and crackers. I sat, reading,

waiting for the dawn.

It’s time to say a few words about myself.

Of course this story is about Sumire, not me. Still, I’m the one

whose eyes the story is told through—the tale of who Sumire is

and what she did—and I should explain a little about the

narrator. Me, in other words. *

I find it hard to talk about myself. I’m always tripped up by the

eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure

data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of

other factors—values, standards, my own limitations as an

observer—make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things

about me, the narratee. I’ve always been disturbed by the

thought that I’m not painting a very objective picture of myself.

This kind of thing doesn’t seem to bother most people. Given

the chance, they’re surprisingly frank when they talk about

themselves. “I’m honest and open to a ridiculous degree,”

they’ll say, or “I’m thin-skinned and not the type who gets

along easily in the world,” or “I’m very good at sensing others’

true feelings.” But any number of times I’ve seen people who

say they’re easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent

reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing

what they’re doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get

what they want. And those who are “good at sensing others’

true feelings” are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It’s

enough to make me ask the question: how well do we really

know ourselves?

The more I think about it, the more I’d like to take a rain

check on the topic of me. What I’d like to know more about is

the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the

world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium

by coming to terms with it. That’s how I’d grasp a dearer sense

of who I am.

These are the kinds of ideas I had running through my head

when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his

string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this

viewpoint—or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it.

Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this

viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own

experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful

episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across

to other people wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.

The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to

draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people.

No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance,

carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t

get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told

me. My only passions were books and music. As you might

guess, I led a lonely life. *

My family isn’t anything special. So blandly normal, in fact, I

don’t know where to begin. My father graduated from a local

university with a degree in science and worked in the research

lab of a large food manufacturer. He loved golf, and every

Sunday he was out on the course. My mother was crazy about

tanka poetry and often attended poetry recitals. Whenever her

name was in the poetry section of the newspaper, she’d be

happy as a lark for days. She liked cleaning, but hated cooking.

My sister, five years older than me, detested both cleaning and

cooking. Those are things other people did, she decided, not

her. Which meant that ever since I was old enough to be in the

kitchen, I made all my own meals. I bought some cookbooks

and learned how to make almost everything. I was the only

child I knew who lived like that.

I was born in Suginami, but we moved to Tsudanuma in

Chiba Prefecture when I was small, and I grew up there. The

neighbourhood was full of white-collar families just like ours.

My sister was always top of her class; she couldn’t stand not

being the best and didn’t step one inch outside her sphere of

interest. She never—not even once—took our dog for a walk.

She graduated from Tokyo University law school and passed

the bar exam the following year, no mean feat. Her husband is

a go-getter management consultant. They live in a four-room

condo they purchased in an elegant building near Yoyogi Park.

Inside, though, the place is a pigsty.

I was the opposite of my sister, not caring much about

studying or my grades. I didn’t want any grief from my

parents, so I went through the motions of going to school,

doing the minimum amount of study and homework to get by.

The rest of the time I played football and sprawled on my bed

when I got home, reading one novel after another. None of

your typical after-hours cram school, no tutor. Even so, my

grades weren’t half bad. At this rate, I reckoned I could get into

a decent college without killing myself studying for the

entrance exams. And that’s exactly what happened. *

I started college and lived by myself in a small apartment. Even

when I was living at home in Tsudanuma I hardly ever had a

heart-to-heart conversation with my family. We lived together

under one roof, but my parents and sister were like strangers to

me, and I had no idea what they wanted from life. And the

same held true for them—they didn’t have any idea what kind

of person I was or what I aspired to. Not that I knew what I

wanted in life—I didn’t. I loved reading novels to distraction,

but didn’t write well enough to be a novelist; being an editor or

a critic was out, too, since my tastes ran to extremes. Novels

should be for pure personal enjoyment, I decided, not part of

your work or study. That’s why I didn’t study literature, but

history. I didn’t have any special interest in history, but once I

began studying it I found it an engrossing subject. I didn’t plan

to go to grad school and devote my life to history or anything,

though my adviser did suggest that. I enjoyed reading and

thinking, but I was hardly the academic type. As Pushkin put

it:

He had no itch to dig for glories

Deep in the dirt that time has laid.

All of which didn’t mean I was about to find a job in a

normal company, claw my way through the cut-throat

competition, and advance step by step up the slippery slopes of

the capitalist pyramid.

So, by a process of elimination, I ended up a teacher. The

school is only a few stations away by train. My uncle happened

to be on the board of education in that town and asked me

whether I might want to be a teacher. I hadn’t taken all the

required teacher-training classes, so I was hired as an assistant

teacher, but after a short period of screening I qualified as a

proper teacher. I hadn’t planned on being a teacher, but after I

actually became one I discovered a deeper respect and affection

for the profession than I ever imagined I’d have. More

accurately, really, I should say that I happened to discover

myself.

I’d stand at the front of the classroom, teaching my primary-

school charges basic facts about language, life, the world, and

I’d find that at the same time I was teaching myself these basic

facts all over again—filtered through the eyes and minds of

these children. Done the right way, this was a refreshing

experience. Profound, even. I got along well with my pupils,

their mothers, and my fellow teachers.

Still the basic questions tugged at me: Who am I? What am I

searching for? Where am I going? *

The closest I came to answering these questions was when I

talked to Sumire. More than talking about myself, though, I

listened attentively to her, to what she said. She threw all sorts

of questions my way, and if I couldn’t come up with an answer,

or if my response didn’t make sense, you’d better believe she

let me know. Unlike other people she honestly, sincerely wanted

to hear what I had to say. I did my best to answer her, and our

conversations helped me open up more about myself to her—

and, at the same time, to myself.

We used to spend hours talking. We never got tired of

talking, never ran out of topics—novels, the world, scenery,

language. Our conversations were more open and intimate

than any lovers’.

I imagined how wonderful it would be if indeed we could be

lovers. I longed for the warmth of her skin on mine. I pictured

us married, living together. But I had to face the fact that

Sumire had no such romantic feelings for me, let alone sexual

interest. Occasionally she’d stay over at my apartment after

we’d talked into the small hours, but there was never even the

slightest hint of romance. Come 2 or 3 a.m. and she’d yawn,

crawl into bed, sink her face into my pillow, and fall fast asleep.

I’d spread out some bedding on the floor and lie down, but I

couldn’t sleep, my mind full of fantasies, confused thoughts,

self-loathing. Sometimes the inevitable physical reactions

would cause me grief, and I’d lie awake in misery until dawn.

It was hard to accept that she had almost no feelings, maybe

none at all, for me as a man. This hurt so bad at times it felt like

someone was gouging out my guts with a knife. Still, the time I

spent with her was more precious than anything. She helped

me forget the undertone of loneliness in my life. She expanded

the outer edges of my world, helped me draw a deep, soothing

breath. Only Sumire could do that for me.

In order to ease the pain and, I hoped, eliminate any sexual

tension between me and Sumire, I started sleeping with other

women. I’m not saying I was a big hit with women; I wasn’t. I

wasn’t what you’d call a ladies’ man, and laid no claim to any

special charms. For whatever reason, though, some women

were attracted to me, and I discovered that if I let things take

their course it wasn’t so hard to get them to sleep with me.

These little flings never aroused much passion in me; they

were, at most a kind of comfort.

I didn’t hide my affairs from Sumire. She didn’t know every

little detail, just the basic outlines. It didn’t seem to bother her.

If there was anything in my affairs that was troubling, it was

the fact that the women were all older and either were married

or had fiancés or steady boyfriends. My most recent partner

was the mother of one of my pupils. We slept together about

twice a month.

“That may be the death of you,” Sumire warned me once.

And I agreed. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. *

One Saturday at the beginning of July my class had an outing. I

took all 35 of my pupils mountain climbing in Okutama. The

day began with an air of happy excitement, only to descend

into total chaos. When we reached the summit, two children

discovered they’d forgotten to pack their lunches in their

backpacks. There weren’t any shops around, so I had to split

my own nori-maki lunch the school had provided. Which left

me with nothing to eat. Someone gave me some chocolate, but

that was all I had the whole day. On top of which one girl said

she couldn’t walk any more, and I had to carry her piggyback

all the way down the mountain. Two boys started to scuffle,

half in fun, and one of them fell and banged his head on a rock.

He got a slight concussion and a heavy nosebleed. Nothing

critical, but his shirt was covered in blood as if he’d been in a

massacre. Like I said, total chaos.

When I got home I was as exhausted as an old railway

sleeper. I took a bath, downed a cold drink, snuggled into bed

too tired to think, turned off the light, and settled into a

peaceful sleep. And then the phone rang: a call from Sumire. I

looked at my bedside clock. I’d only slept for about an hour.

But I didn’t grumble. I was too tired to complain. Some days

are like that.

“Can I see you tomorrow afternoon?” she asked.

My woman friend was coming to my place at 6 p.m. She was

supposed to park her red Toyota Celica a little way down the

road. “I’m free till four,” I said. *

Sumire had on a sleeveless white blouse, a navy-blue mini

skirt, and a tiny pair of sunglasses. Her only accessory was a

small plastic hairclip. An altogether simple outfit. She wore

almost no make-up, exposed to the world in her natural state.

Somehow, though, I didn’t recognize her at first. It had only

been three weeks since we last met, but the girl sitting across

from me at the table looked like someone who belonged to an

entirely different world from the Sumire I knew. To put it

mildly, she was thoroughly beautiful. Something inside her

was blossoming.

I ordered a small glass of draught beer, and she asked for

grape juice.

“I hardly recognize you these days,” I said.

“It’s that season,” she said disinterestedly, sipping at her

drink through a straw.

“What season?” I asked.

“A delayed adolescence, I guess. When I get up in the

morning and see my face in the mirror, it looks like someone

else’s. If I’m not careful, I might end up left behind.”

“So wouldn’t it be better to just let it go, then?” I said.

“But if I lost myself, where could I go?”

“If it’s for a couple of days, you can stay at my place. You’d

always be welcome—the you who lost you.”

Sumire laughed.

“All joking aside,” she said, “where in the world could I be

heading?”

“I don’t know. Look on the bright side—you’ve stopped

smoking, you’re wearing nice clean clothes—even your socks

match now—and you can speak Italian. You’ve learned how to

judge wines, use a computer, and at least for now go to sleep at

night and wake up in the morning. You must be heading

somewhere.”

“But I still can’t write a line.”

“Everything has its ups and downs.”

Sumire screwed up her lips. “Would you call what I’m going

through a defection?”

“Defection?” For a moment I couldn’t see what she meant.

“Defection. Betraying your beliefs and convictions.”

“You mean getting a job, dressing nicely, and giving up

writing novels?”

“Right.”

I shook my head. “You’ve always written because you

wanted to. If you don’t want to any more, why should you? Do

you think your not writing is going to cause a village to burn to

the ground? A ship to sink? The tides to get messed up? Or set

the revolution back five years? Hardly. I don’t think anybody’s

going to label that defection.”

“So what should I call it?”

I shook my head again. “The word defection’s too old-

fashioned. Nobody uses it any more. Go to some leftover

commune, maybe, and people might still use the word. I don’t

know the details, but if you don’t want to write any longer,

that’s up to you.”

“Commune? Do you mean the places Lenin made?”

“Those are called kolkhoz. There aren’t any left, though.”

“It’s not like I want to give up writing,” Sumire said. She

thought for a moment. “It’s just that when I try to write, I can’t.

I sit down at my desk and nothing comes—no ideas, no words,

no scenes. Zero. Not too long ago I had a million things to write

about. What in the world’s happening to me?”

“You’re asking me?”

Sumire nodded.

I took a sip of my cold beer and gathered my thoughts. “I

think right now it’s like you’re positioning yourself in a new

fictional framework. You’re preoccupied with that, so there’s

no need to put your feelings into writing. Besides, you’re too

busy.”

“Do you do that? Put yourself inside a fictional framework?”

“I think most people live in a fiction. I’m no exception. Think

of it in terms of a car’s transmission. It’s like a transmission that

stands between you and the harsh realities of life. You take the

raw power from outside and use gears to adjust it so

everything’s all nicely in sync. That’s how you keep your

fragile body intact. Does this make any sense?”

Sumire gave a small nod. “And I’m still not completely

adjusted to that new framework. That’s what you’re saying?”

“The biggest problem right now is that you don’t know what

sort of fiction you’re dealing with. You don’t know the plot; the

style’s still not set. The only thing you do know is the main

character’s name. Nevertheless, this new fiction is reinventing

who you are. Give it time, it’ll take you under its wing, and you

may very well catch a glimpse of a new world. But you’re not

there yet, which leaves you in a precarious position.”

“You mean I’ve taken out the old transmission, but haven’t

quite finished bolting down the new one? And the engine still’s

running. Right?”

“You could put it that way.”

Sumire made her usual sullen face and tapped her straw on

the hapless ice in her drink. Finally she looked up.

“I understand what you mean by precarious. Sometimes I feel

so—I don’t know—lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when

everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s

no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no

idea where I’m going.”

“Like a little lost Sputnik?”

“I guess so.”

“But you do have Miu,” I said.

“At least for now.”

For a while silence reigned.

“Do you think Miu is seeking that, too?” I asked.

Sumire nodded. “I believe she is. Probably as much as I am.”

“Physical aspects included?”

“It’s hard to say. I can’t get a handle on it yet. What her

feelings are, I mean. Which makes me feel lost and confused.”

“A classical conundrum,” I said.

In place of an answer, Sumire screwed up her lips again.

“But as far as you’re concerned,” I said, “you’re ready to go.”

Sumire nodded once, unequivocally. She couldn’t have been

more serious. I sank back deep into my chair and clasped my

hands behind my head.

“After all this, don’t start to hate me, okay?” Sumire said. Her

voice was like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc

Godard movie, filtering in just beyond the frame of my

consciousness.

“After all this, I won’t start to hate you.” *

The next time I saw Sumire was two weeks later, on a Sunday,

when I helped her move. She’d decided to move all of a

sudden, and I was the only one who came to help. Other than

books, she owned very little, and the whole procedure was

over before we knew it. One good thing about being poor, at

least.

I borrowed a friend’s Toyota minivan and transported her

things over to her new place in Yoyogi-Uehara. The apartment

wasn’t so new or much to look at, but compared to her old

wooden building in Kichijoji—a place that should be on a list of

designated historical sites—it was definitely a step up. An

estate agent friend of Miu’s had located the place for her;

despite its convenient location, the rent was reasonable and it

boasted a nice view. It was also twice as big as the old place.

Definitely worth the move. Yoyogi Park was nearby, and she

could walk to work if the mood took her.

“Starting next month I’ll be working five days a week,” she

said. “Three days a week seems neither here nor there, and it’s

easier to stand commuting if you do it every day. I have to pay

more rent now, and Miu told me it’d be better all around if I

became a full-time employee. I mean, if I stay at home, I still

won’t be able to write.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” I commented.

“My life will get more organized if I work every day, and I

probably won’t be calling you up at 3.30 in the morning. One

good point about it.”

“One very good point,” I said. “But it’s sad to think you’ll be

living so far away from me.”

“You really feel that way?”

“Of course. Want me to rip out my heart and show you?”

I was sitting on the bare floor of the new apartment, leaning

against the wall. Sumire was so bereft of household goods the

new place looked deserted. There weren’t any curtains in the

windows, and the books that didn’t fit into the bookshelf lay

piled on the floor like a gang of intellectual refugees. The full-

length mirror on the wall, a moving present from Miu, was the

only thing that stood out. The caws of crows filtered in from

the park on the twilight breeze. Sumire sat down next to me.

“You know what?” she said.

“What?”

“If I were some good-for-nothing lesbian, would you still be

my friend?”

“Whether you’re a good-for-nothing lesbian or not doesn’t

matter. Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin minus ‘Mack

the Knife’. That’s what my life would be like without you.”

Sumire narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “I’m not sure I

follow your metaphor, but what you mean is you’d feel really

lonely?”

“That’s about the size of it,” I said. *

Sumire rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair was held

back by a small hairclip, and I could see her small, nicely

formed ears. Ears so pretty you’d think they had just been

created. Soft, easily injured ears. I could feel her breath on my

skin. She wore a pair of pink shorts and a faded, plain navy-

blue T-shirt. The outline of her small nipples showed through

the shirt. There was a faint odour of sweat. Her sweat and

mine, the two odours subtly combined.

I wanted to hold her so badly. I was seized by a violent desire

to push her down on the floor right then and there. But I knew

it would be wasted effort. Suddenly I found it hard to breathe,

and my field of vision narrowed. Time had lost an exit and

spun its wheels. Desire swelled up in my trousers, hard as a

rock. I was confused, bewildered. I tried to get a grip. I

breathed in a lungful of fresh air, closed my eyes, and in that

incomprehensible darkness I slowly began counting. My urges

were so overpowering that tears came to my eyes.

“I like you, too,” Sumire said. “In this whole big world, more

than anyone else.”

“After Miu, you mean,” I said.

“Miu’s a little different.”

“How so?”

“The feelings I have for her are different from how I feel

about you. What I mean is … hmm. How should I put it?”

“We good-for-nothing heterosexuals have a term for it,” I

said. “We say you get a hard-on.”

Sumire laughed. “Other than wanting to be a novelist, I’ve

never wanted anything so much. I’ve always been satisfied

with exactly what I have. But now, right at this moment, I want

Miu. Very, very much. I want to have her. Make her mine. I just

have to. There are no other choices. Not one. I have no idea why

things worked out like this. Does that … make sense?”

I nodded. My penis still maintained its overpowering

rigidity, and I prayed that Sumire wouldn’t notice.

“There’s a great line by Groucho Marx,” I said. ‘”She’s so in

love with me she doesn’t know anything. That’s why she’s in

love with me.’”

Sumire laughed.

“I hope things work out,” I said. “But try your best to stay

alert. You’re still vulnerable. Remember that.” *

Without a word, Sumire took my hand and gently squeezed it.

Her small, soft hand had a faint sheen of sweat. I imagined her

hand stroking my rock-hard penis. I tried not to think that, but

couldn’t help it. As Sumire had said, there were no other

choices. I imagined taking off her T-shirt, her shorts, her

panties. Feeling her tight, taut nipples under my tongue.

Spreading her legs wide, entering that wetness. Slowly, into the

deep darkness within. It enticed me inside, enfolded me, then

pushed me out … The illusion grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

I closed my eyes tight again and let a concentrated clump of

time wash over me. My face turned down, I waited patiently

for the overheated air to blow above me and away. *

“Why don’t we have dinner together?” she asked. But I had to

take the minivan I borrowed back to Hino by the end of the

day. More than anything else, though, I had to be alone with

my violent urges. I didn’t want Sumire to get involved any

more than she already was. I didn’t know how far I could

control myself if she was beside me. Past the point of no return,

and I might completely lose it.

“Well, let me treat you to a nice dinner sometime soon, then.

Tablecloths, wine. The works. Maybe next week,” Sumire

promised as we said goodbye. “Keep your diary free for me

next week.”

“Okay,” I said. *

I glanced at the full-length mirror as I passed by and saw my

face. It had a strange expression. It was my face, all right, but

where did that look come from? I didn’t feel like retracing my

steps and investigating further.

Sumire stood at the entrance to her new place to see me off.

She waved goodbye, something she rarely did.

In the end, like so many beautiful promises in our lives, that

dinner date never came to be. At the beginning of August I

received a long letter from her.

The envelope had a large, colourful Italian stamp on it and was

postmarked Rome, though I couldn’t make out when it had

been sent.

The day the letter arrived, I’d gone out to Shinjuku for the

first time in quite a while, picked up a couple of new books at

the Kinokuniya bookshop, and taken in a Luc Besson movie.

Afterwards I stopped by a beer hall and enjoyed an anchovy

pizza and a mug of dark beer. Only just beating the rush hour, I

boarded the Chuo Line and read one of my new books until I

arrived home at Kunitachi. I planned to make a simple dinner

and watch a football match on TV. The ideal way to spend a

summer holiday. Hot, alone, and free, not bothering anyone,

and nobody bothering me.

When I got back home, there was a letter on the mat. The

sender’s name wasn’t on the envelope, but one glance at the

handwriting told me it was from Sumire. Hieroglyphic writing,

compact, hard, uncompromising. Writing that reminded me of

the beetles they discovered inside the pyramids of Egypt. Like

it’s going to start crawling and disappear back into the

darkness of history.

Rome? *

I put the food I’d bought at a supermarket in the fridge and

poured myself a tall glass of iced tea. I sat down in a chair in

the kitchen, slit open the envelope with a paring knife, and

read the letter. Five pages of stationery from the Rome

Excelsior Hotel, crammed full of tiny writing in blue ink. Must

have taken a lot of time to write that much. On the last page, in

one corner, was some sort of stain—coffee, perhaps. *

How are you?

I can imagine how surprised you must be to all of

a sudden get a letter from me from Rome. You’re

so cool, though, it’d probably take more than

Rome to surprise you. Rome’s a bit too touristy.

It’d have to be some place like Greenland,

Timbuktu, or the Strait of Magellan, wouldn’t it?

Though I can tell you I find it hard to believe that

here I am in Rome.

Anyway, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to take you out

to dinner like we planned. This Europe trip came

right out of the blue, just after I moved. Then it

was utter madness for a few days—running out

to apply for a passport, buying suitcases,

finishing up some work I’d begun. I’m not very

good at remembering things—I don’t need to tell

you, do I?—but I do try my best to keep my

promises. The ones I remember, that is. Which is

why I want to apologize for not keeping our

dinner date.

I really enjoy my new apartment. Moving is

certainly a pain (I know you did most of the

work, for which I’m grateful; still, it’s a pain), but

once you’re all moved in it’s pretty nice. There’re

no roosters crowing in my new place, as in

Kichijoji, instead a lot of crows making a racket

like some old wailing women. At dawn flocks of

them assemble in Yoyogi Park, and make such a

ruckus you’d think the world was about to end.

No need for an alarm clock, since the racket

always wakes me up. Thanks to which I’m now

like you, living an early-to-bed-early-to-rise

farmer’s lifestyle. I’m beginning to understand

how it feels to have someone call you at 3.30 in

the morning. Beginning to understand, mind you.

I’m writing this letter at an outdoor cafe on a

side street in Rome, sipping espresso as thick as

the devil’s sweat, and I have this strange feeling

that I’m not myself any more. It’s hard to put it

into words, but I guess it’s as if I was fast asleep,

and someone came, disassembled me, and

hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of

feeling. Can you understand what I’m getting at?

My eyes tell me I’m the same old me, but

something’s different from usual. Not that I can

clearly recall what “usual” was. Ever since I

stepped off the plane I can’t shake this very real,

deconstructive illusion. Illusion? I guess that’s the

word …

Sitting here, asking myself, “Why am I in Rome

of all places?” everything around me starts to

look unreal. Of course if I trace the details of how

I got here I can come up with an explanation, but

on a gut level I’m still not convinced. The me

sitting here and the image of me I have are out of

sync. To put it another way, I don’t particularly

need to be here, but nonetheless here I am. I know

I’m being vague, but you understand me, don’t

you?

There’s one thing I can say for sure: I wish you

were here with me. Even though I have Miu with

me, I’m lonely being so far away from you. If we

were even farther apart, I know I’d feel even more

lonely. I’d like to think you feel the same way.

So anyway, here Miu and I are, traipsing around

Europe. She had some business to take care of

and was planning originally to go around Italy

and France by herself for two weeks, but asked

me to come along as her personal secretary. She

just blurted this out one morning, took me

completely by surprise. My title might be

“personal secretary”, but I don’t think I’m much

use to her; still, the experience will do me good,

and Miu tells me the trip’s her present to me for

stopping smoking. So all the agony I went

through paid off in the end.

We landed first in Milan, went sightseeing, then

rented a blue Alfa Romeo and headed south on

the autostrada. We went around a few vineyards

in Tuscany, and after taking care of business

stayed a few nights in a charming little hotel, and

then arrived in Rome. Business is always

conducted in either English or French, so I don’t

have much of a role to play, though my Italian

has come in handy in day-to-day things as we

travel. If we went to Spain (which unfortunately

won’t happen on this trip), I might be of more use

to Miu.

The Alfa Romeo we rented was a manual drive,

so I was no help at all. Miu did all the driving.

She can drive for hours and never seems to mind.

Tuscany is all hills and curves, and it was

amazing how smoothly she shifted gears up and

down; watching her made me (and I’m not joking

here) shiver all over. Being away from Japan, and

simply being by her side are quite enough to

satisfy me. If only we could stay this way for ever.

Next time I’ll write about all the wonderful

meals and wine we’ve had in Italy; it’d take too

much time to do so now. In Milan we walked

from store to store shopping. Dresses, shoes,

underwear. Other than some pyjamas (I’d

forgotten to take mine), I didn’t buy anything. I

didn’t have much money, and besides there were

so many beautiful things I had no idea where to

start. That’s the situation where my sense of

judgement blows a fuse. Just being with Miu as

she shopped was sufficient. She’s an absolute

master shopper, choosing only the most exquisite

things, and buying only a select few. Like taking a

bite of the tastiest part of a dish. Very smart and

charming. When I watched her select some

expensive silk stockings and underwear I found it

hard to breathe. Drops of sweat bubbled up on

my forehead. Which is pretty strange when you

think about it. I’m a girl, after all. I guess that’s

enough about shopping—writing about all that as

well will make this too long.

At hotels we stay in separate rooms. Miu seems

very insistent on this. Only once, in Florence,

when our reservation got messed up somehow,

did we end up having to share a room. It had

twin beds, but just being able to sleep in the same

room with her made my heart leap. I caught a

glimpse of her coming out of the bath with a

towel wrapped around her, and of her changing

her clothes. Naturally I pretended not to look and

read my book, but I did manage a peek. Miu has a

truly gorgeous figure. She wasn’t completely

nude, but wore some tiny underwear; still her

body was enough to take my breath away. Very

slim, tight buns, a thoroughly attractive woman. I

wish you could have seen it—though it’s a little

weird for me to say that.

I imagined being held by that lithe, slim body.

All sorts of obscene images came to mind of us as

I lay in bed in the same room with her, and I felt

these thoughts gradually pushing me to some

other place. I think I got a little too worked up—

my period started that same night, way ahead of

schedule. What a pain that was. Hmm. I know

telling you this isn’t going to get me anywhere.

But I’ll go ahead anyway—just to get the facts

down on paper.

Last night we attended a concert in Rome. I

wasn’t expecting much, it being the off-season,

but we managed to enjoy an incredible

performance. Martha Argerich playing Liszt’s

Piano Concerto No. 1. I adore that piece. The

conductor was Giuseppe Sinopoli. What a

performance! Can’t get bored when you listen to

that kind of music—it was absolutely the most

expansive, fantastic music I’ve ever heard. Come

to think of it, maybe it was a bit too perfect for my

taste. Liszt needs to be a bit slippery, and

furtive—like music at a village festival. Take out

the difficult parts and let me feel the thrill—that’s

what I like. Miu and I agreed on this point.

There’s a Vivaldi festival in Venice, and we’re

talking about going. Like when you and I talk

about literature, Miu and I can talk about music

till the cows come home.

This letter’s getting pretty long, isn’t it? It’s like

once I take hold of a pen and start to write I can’t

stop halfway. I’ve always been like that. They say

well brought up girls don’t overstay their

welcome, but when it comes to writing (maybe

not just writing?) my manners are hopeless. The

waiter, with his white jacket, sometimes looks

over at me with this disgusted look on his face.

But even my hand gets tired, I’ll admit. Besides,

I’ve run out of paper.

Miu is out visiting an old friend in Rome, and I

wandered the streets near the hotel, then decided

to take a break in this cafe I came across, and here

I am busily writing away to you. Like I’m on a

desert island and I’m sending out a message in a

bottle. Strange thing is, when I’m not with Miu I

don’t feel like going anywhere. I’ve come all this

way to Rome (and most likely won’t come back

again), but I just can’t rouse myself to get up and

see those ruins—what do they call those?—or

those famous fountains. Or even to go shopping.

It’s enough just to sit here in a cafe, sniff the smell

of the city, like a dog might, listen to voices and

sounds, and gaze at the faces of the people

passing by.

And suddenly I just got the feeling, while

writing this letter to you, that what I described in

the beginning—the strange sense of being

disassembled—is starting to fade. It doesn’t

bother me so much now. It’s like the way I feel

when I’ve called you up in the middle of the night

and just finished the call and stepped out of the

phone box. Maybe you have that kind of effect on

me?

What do you think? At any rate, please pray for

my happiness and good fortune. I need your

prayers.

Bye for now.

P.S. I’ll probably be back home around the 15th of

August. Then we can have dinner together — I

promise! — before the summer’s over. *

Five days later a second letter came, posted from some obscure

French village. A shorter letter than the first one. Miu and

Sumire had left their rental car in Rome and taken a train to

Venice. There they listened to two full days of Vivaldi. Most of

the concerts were held at the church where Vivaldi had served

as a priest. “If I don’t hear any more Vivaldi for six months

that’s fine by me,” wrote Sumire. Her descriptions of how

delicious the paper-wrapped grilled seafood was in Venice

were so realistic it made me want to dash off to Venice to try

some for myself.

After Venice they returned to Milan, then flew to Paris. They

took a break there, shopping some more, then boarded a train

to Burgundy. One of Miu’s good friends owned a huge house, a

manor really, where they stayed. As in Italy, Miu made the

rounds of several small vineyards on business. On free

afternoons they took a picnic-basket lunch and went walking in

the woods nearby. With a couple of bottles of wine to

complement the meal, of course. “The wine here is simply out

of this world,” Sumire wrote.

Somehow, though, it looks like our original plan

of returning to Japan on the 15th of August is

going to change. After our work is done in France

we may be taking a short holiday on a Greek

island. This English gentleman we happened to

meet here—a real gentleman, mind you—owns a

villa on the island and invited us to use it for as

long as we like. Great news! Miu likes the idea,

too. We need a break from work, some time to

just kick back and relax. The two of us lying on

the pure white beaches of the Aegean, two

beautiful sets of breasts pointed towards the sun,

sipping wine with a scent of pine resin in it, just

watching the clouds drift by. Doesn’t that sound

wonderful?

It certainly does, I thought.

That afternoon I went to the public pool and paddled around,

stopped in a nicely air-conditioned coffee shop on the way

home, and read for an hour. When I got back to my place I

listened to both sides of an old Ten Years After LP while

ironing three shirts. Ironing done, I drank some cheap wine I’d

got on sale, mixed with Perrier, and watched a football match

I’d videotaped. Every time I saw a pass I thought I wouldn’t

have made myself, I shook my head and sighed. Judging the

mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do—and it feels pretty

good.

After the football match I sank back in my chair, stared at the

ceiling, and imagined Sumire in her village in France. By now

she was already on that Greek island. Lying on the beach,

gazing at the passing clouds. Either way, she was a long way

from me. Rome, Greece, Timbuktu, Aruanda—it didn’t matter.

She was far, far away. And most likely that was the future in a

nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I

felt like I was some meaningless bug clinging for no special

reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no

beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her.

I had no one. All I had was—me. Same as always. *

Sumire didn’t come back on 15 August. Her phone still just had

a curt I’m-away-on-a-trip recording on it. One of her first

purchases after she moved was a phone with an answering

machine, so she wouldn’t have to go out on rainy nights,

umbrella in hand, to a phone box. An excellent idea all round. I

didn’t leave a message. *

I called her again on the 18th but got the same recording. After

the lifeless beep I left my name and a simple message for her to

call me when she got back. Most likely she and Miu found their

Greek island too much fun to want to leave. *

In the interval between my two calls I coached one football

practice at my school and slept once with my girlfriend. She

was well tanned, having just returned from a holiday in Bali

with her husband and two children. As I held her I thought of

Sumire on her Greek island. Inside her, I couldn’t help but

imagine Sumire’s body.

If I hadn’t known Sumire I could have easily fallen for this

woman, seven years my senior (and whose son was one of my

students). She was a beautiful, energetic, kind woman. She

wore a bit too much make-up for my liking, but dressed nicely.

She worried about being a little overweight, but shouldn’t

have. I certainly wasn’t about to complain about her sexy

figure. She knew all my desires, everything I wanted and didn’t

want. She knew just how far to go and when to stop—in bed

and out. Made me feel like I was flying first class.

“I haven’t slept with my husband for almost a year,” she

revealed to me as she lay in my arms. “You’re the only one.” *

But I couldn’t love her. For whatever reason, that

unconditional, natural intimacy Sumire and I had just wasn’t

there. A thin, transparent veil always came between us. Visible

or not, a barrier remained. Awkward silences came on us all

the time—particularly when we said goodbye. That never

happened with me and Sumire. Being with this woman

confirmed one undeniable fact: I needed Sumire more than

ever.

After the woman left, I went for a walk alone, wandered

aimlessly for a while, then dropped by a bar near the station

and had a Canadian Club on the rocks. As always at times like

those, I felt like the most wretched person alive. I quickly

drained my first drink and ordered another, closed my eyes

and thought of Sumire. Sumire, topless, sunbathing on the

white sands of a Greek island. At the table next to mine four

college boys and girls were drinking beer, laughing, and

having a good time. An old number by Huey Lewis and the

News was playing. I could smell pizza baking.

When did my youth slip away from me? I suddenly thought.

It was over, wasn’t it? Seemed just like yesterday I was still only

half grown up. Huey Lewis and the News had a couple of hit

songs then. Not so many years ago. And now here I was, inside

a closed circuit, spinning my wheels. Knowing I wasn’t getting

anywhere, but spinning just the same. I had to. Had to keep

that up or I wouldn’t be able to survive. *

That night I got a phone call from Greece. At 2 a.m.

But it wasn’t Sumire. It was Miu.

The first thing I heard was a man’s deep voice in heavily

accented English, spouting my name and then shouting, “I’ve

reached the right person, yes?” I’d been fast asleep. My mind

was a blank, a rice paddy in the middle of a rainstorm, and I

couldn’t work out what was going on. The bed sheets still

retained a faint memory of the afternoon’s lovemaking, and

reality was one step out of line, a cardigan with the buttons

done up wrong. The man spoke my name again. “I’ve reached

the right person, yes?”

“Yes, you have,” I replied. It didn’t sound like my name, but

there it was. For a while there was a crackle of static, as if two

different air masses had collided. Must be Sumire making an

overseas call from Greece, I imagined. I held the receiver away

from my ear a bit, waiting for her voice to come on. But the

voice I heard next wasn’t Sumire’s, but Miu’s.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about me from Sumire?”

“Yes, I have,” I answered.

Her voice on the phone line was distorted by some far-off,

inorganic substance, but I could still sense the tension in it.

Something rigid and hard flowed through the phone like

clouds of dry ice and into my room, throwing me wide awake.

I sat bolt upright in bed and adjusted my grip on the receiver.

“I have to talk quickly,” said Miu breathlessly. “I’m calling

from a Greek island, and it’s next to impossible to get through

to Tokyo—even when you do they cut you off. I tried so many

times, and finally got through. So I’m going to skip formalities

and get right to the point, if you don’t

mind?”

“I don’t mind,” I said.

”Can you come here?”

“By here, you mean Greece?”

“Yes. As soon as you possibly can.”

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Did

something happen to Sumire?”

A pause as Miu took in a breath. “I still don’t know. But I

think she would want you to come here. I’m certain of it.”

“You think she would?”

“I can’t go into it over the phone. There’s no telling when

we’ll be cut off, and besides, it’s a delicate sort of problem, and

I’d much rather talk to you face to face. I’ll pay the return fare.

Just come. The sooner the better. Just buy a ticket. First class,

whatever you like.”

The new term at school began in ten days. I’d have to be back

before then, but if I wanted to, a round trip to Greece wasn’t

beyond the realm of possibility. I was scheduled to go to school

twice during the break to take care of some business, but I

should be able to have somebody cover for me.

“I’m pretty sure I can come,” I said. “Yes, I think I can. But

where exactly is it I’m supposed to go?”

She told me the name of the island. I wrote down what she

said on the inside cover of a book next to my bed. It sounded

vaguely familiar.

“You take a plane from Athens to Rhodes, then take a ferry.

There are two ferries a day to the island, one in the morning

and one in the evening. I’ll go down to the harbour whenever

the ferries arrive. Will you come?”

“I think I’ll make it somehow. It’s just that I—” I started to

say, and the line went dead. Suddenly, violently, like someone

taking an axe to a rope. And again that awful static. Thinking

we might be connected again, I sat there for a minute, phone

against my ear, waiting, but all I heard was that grating noise. I

hung up the phone and got out of bed. In the kitchen I had a

glass of cold barley tea and leaned back against the fridge,

trying to gather my thoughts.

Was I really going to get on a plane and fly all the way to

Greece?

The answer was yes. I had no other choice. *

I pulled a large world atlas down from my bookshelf to locate

the island Miu had told me about. It was near Rhodes, she’d

said, but it was no easy task to find it among the myriad islands

that dotted the Aegean. Finally, though, I was able to spot, in

tiny print, the name of the place I was looking for. A small

island near the Turkish border. So small you couldn’t really tell

its shape.

I pulled my passport out of a drawer and checked it was still

valid. Next I gathered all the cash I had in the house and

stuffed it in my wallet. It didn’t amount to much, but I could

withdraw more from the bank in the morning. I had some

money in a savings account and had barely touched my

summer bonus. That and my credit card and I should be able to

come up with enough for a return ticket to Greece. I packed

some clothes in a vinyl gym bag and tossed in a toilet kit. And

two Joseph Conrad novels I’d been meaning to re-read. I

hesitated about packing my swimming trunks, but ended up

taking them. Maybe I’d get there and whatever problem there

was would be solved, everybody healthy and happy, the sun

hanging peacefully in the sky, and I’d enjoy a leisurely swim or

two before I had to come home—which of course would be the

best outcome for everyone involved.

Those things taken care of, I turned out the light, sunk my

head back on the pillow, and tried to go back to sleep. It was

just past three, and I could still catch a few winks before

morning. But I couldn’t sleep. Memories of that harsh static

thrummed in my blood. Deep inside my head I could hear that

man’s voice, barking out my name. I switched on the light, got

out of bed again, went to the kitchen, brewed some iced tea,

and drank it. Then I replayed the entire conversation I’d had

with Miu, every word in order. Her words were vague,

abstract, full of ambiguities. But there were two facts in what

she told me. I wrote them both down on a memo pad.

1. Something has happened to Sumire. But Miu doesn’t know what it is.

2. I have to get there as soon as possible. Sumire, too, Miu thinks, wants me to do that.

I stared at the memo pad. And I underlined two

phrases.

1. Something has happened to Sumire. But Miu doesn’t know what it is.

2. I have to get there as soon as possible. Sumire, too, Miu thinks, wants me to do that.

I couldn’t imagine what had happened to Sumire on that small

Greek island. But I was sure it had to be something bad. The

question was, how bad? Until morning there wasn’t a thing I

could do about it. I sat in my chair, feet up on the table, reading

a book and waiting for the first light to show. It seemed to take

forever. *

At first light I boarded the Chuo Line to Shinjuku, hopped

aboard the Narita Express, and arrived at the airport. At nine I

made the rounds of airline ticket counters, only to learn that

there weren’t any direct flights between Narita and Athens.

After a bit of trial and error I booked a business-class seat on

the KLM flight to Amsterdam. I’d be able to change there onto

a flight to Athens. Then at Athens I’d take an Olympic Airways

domestic flight to Rhodes. The KLM people made all the

arrangements. As long as no problems arose, I should be able

to make the two connections okay. It was the fastest way to get

there. I had an open ticket for the return flight, and I could

come back any time in the next three months. I paid by credit

card. Any bags to check in? they asked me. No, I replied.

I had time before my flight, so I ate breakfast at the airport

restaurant. I withdrew some cash from an ATM and bought

dollar traveller’s cheques. Next I bought a guidebook to Greece

in the bookshop. The name of the island Miu told me wasn’t in

the little book, but I did need to get some information about the

country—the currency, the climate, the basics. Other than the

history of ancient Greece and classical drama, there wasn’t

much I knew about the place. About as much as I knew of the

geography of Jupiter or the inner workings of a Ferrari’s

cooling system. Not once in my life had I considered the

possibility of going to Greece. At least not until 2 a.m. on that

particular day. *

Just before noon I phoned one of my fellow teachers.

Something unfortunate happened to a relative of mine, I told

her, I’ll be away from Tokyo for about a week, so I wonder if

you’d take care of things at school until I get back. No problem,

she replied. We’d helped each other out like this a number of

times, it was no big deal. “Where are you going?” she asked

me. “Shikoku,” I answered. I just couldn’t very well tell her I

was heading off to Greece.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Anyway, make sure you

get back in time for the start of the new term. And pick up a

souvenir for me if you can, okay?”

“Of course,” I said. I’d work that one out later.

I went to the business-class lounge, lay back in a sofa, and

dozed for a bit, an unsettled sleep. The world had lost all sense

of reality. Colours were unnatural, details crude. The

background was papier mache, the stars made out of

aluminium foil. You could see the glue and the heads of the

nails holding it all together. Airport announcements flitted in

and out of my consciousness. “All passengers on Air France

flight 275, bound for Paris.” In the midst of this illogical

dream—or uncertain wakefulness—I thought about Sumire.

Like some documentary of ages past, fragments sprang to mind

of the times and places we’d shared. In the bustle of the airport,

passengers dashing here and there, the world I shared with

Sumire seemed shabby, helpless, uncertain. Neither of us knew

anything that really mattered, nor did we have the ability to

rectify that. There was nothing solid we could depend on. We

were almost boundless zeros, just pitiful little beings swept

from one kind of oblivion to another.

I woke in an unpleasant sweat, my shirt plastered to my

chest. My body was listless, my legs swollen. I felt as if I’d

swallowed an overcast sky. I must have looked pale. One of the

lounge staff asked me, worriedly, if I was okay. “I’m all right,”

I replied, “the heat’s just getting to me.” Would you like

something cold to drink? she asked. I thought for a moment

and asked for a beer. She brought me a chilled facecloth, a

Heineken, and a bag of salted peanuts. After wiping my sweaty

face and drinking half the beer, I felt better. And I could sleep a

little. *

The flight left Narita just about on time, taking the polar route

to Amsterdam. I wanted to sleep some more, so I had a couple

of whiskys and when I woke up, had a little dinner. I didn’t

have much of an appetite and skipped breakfast. I wanted to

keep my mind a blank, so when I was awake I concentrated on

reading Conrad.

In Amsterdam I changed planes, arrived in Athens, went to

the domestic flight terminal, and, with barely a moment to

spare, boarded the 727 bound for Rhodes. The plane was

packed with an animated bunch of young people from every

imaginable country. They were all tanned, dressed in T-shirts

or tank tops and cut-off jeans. Most of the young men were

growing beards (or maybe had forgotten to shave) and had

dishevelled hair pulled back in ponytails. Dressed in beige

slacks, a white short-sleeve polo shirt and dark-blue cotton

jacket, I looked out of place. I’d even forgotten to bring any

sunglasses. But who could blame me? Not too many hours

before I had been in my apartment in Kunitachi, worrying

about what I should do with my rubbish.

At Rhodes airport I asked at the information desk where I

could catch the ferry to the island. It was at a harbour nearby. If

I hurried, I might be able to make the evening ferry. “Isn’t it

sold out sometimes?” I asked, just to be sure. The pointy-nosed

woman of indeterminate age at the information counter

frowned and waved her hand dismissively. “They can always

make room for one more,” she replied. “It’s not an elevator.” *

I hailed a taxi and headed to the harbour. “I’m in a hurry,” I

told the driver, but he didn’t seem to catch my meaning. The

cab didn’t have any air-conditioning, and a hot, dusty wind

blew in the open window. All the while the taxi driver, in

rough, sweaty English, ran on and on with some gloomy

diatribe about the Euro. I made polite noises to show I was

following, but I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I squinted at

the bright Rhodes scenery passing by outside. The sky was

cloudless, not a hint of rain. The sun baked the stone walls of

the houses. A layer of dust covered the gnarled trees beside the

road, and people sat in the shade of the trees or under open

tents and gazed, almost silently, at the world. I began to

wonder if I was in the right place. The gaudy signs in Greek

letters, however, advertising cigarettes and ouzo and

overflowing the road from the airport into town, told me that—

sure enough—this was Greece.

The evening ferry was still in the port. It was bigger than I’d

imagined. In the stern was a space for transporting cars, and

two medium-sized lorries full of food and sundries and an old

Peugeot sedan were already aboard, waiting for the ship to pull

out of the port. I bought a ticket and got on, and I’d barely

taken a seat on a deckchair when the line to the dock was

untied and the engines roared into life. I sighed and looked up

at the sky. All I could do now was wait for the ship to take me

where I was going.

I removed my sweaty, dusty cotton jacket, folded it and

stuffed it in my bag. It was 5 p.m., but the sun was still in the

middle of the sky, the sunlight overpowering. The breeze

blowing from the bow under the canvas awning wafted over

me, and ever so slowly I began to feel calmer. The gloomy

emotions that had swept through me in the lounge at Narita

airport had disappeared. Though there was still a bitter

aftertaste. *

There were only a few tourists on board, so I guessed that the

island I was heading for was not such a popular holiday spot.

The vast majority of passengers were locals, mainly old people

who’d taken care of business on Rhodes and were heading

home. Their purchases lay carefully at their feet, like fragile

animals. The old people’s faces were all deeply etched with

wrinkles and deadpan, as if the overpowering sun and a

lifetime of hard work had robbed them of all expression.

There were also a few young soldiers on board. And two

hippie travellers, heavy-looking backpacks in hand, sitting on

the deck. Both with skinny legs and grim faces.

There was a teenage Greek girl, too, in a long skirt. She was

lovely, with deep, dark eyes. Her long hair blew in the breeze

as she chatted to her girlfriend. A gentle smile played around

the corners of her mouth, as if something wonderful was about

to occur. Her gold earrings glinted brightly in the sun. The

young soldiers leaned against the deck railing, smoking,

looking cool, throwing a quick glance in the girl’s direction

from time to time.

I sipped a lemon soda I’d bought at the ferry’s canteen and

gazed at the deep blue sea and the tiny islands floating by.

Most were not so much islands as crags in the sea, completely

deserted. White seabirds rested on the tip of the rocks, scanning

the ocean for fish. They ignored our ship. Waves broke at the

foot of the cliffs, creating a dazzling white border. Occasionally

I spotted an inhabited island. Tough-looking trees grew all over

it, and white-walled houses dotted the slopes. Brightly

coloured boats bobbed in the inlet, their tall masts inscribing

arcs as they rolled with the waves.

A wrinkled old man sitting next to me offered me a cigarette.

Thank you, I smiled, waving my hand, but I don’t smoke. He

proffered a stick of spearmint gum instead. I took it gratefully,

and continued to gaze out to sea as I chewed.

It was after seven when the ferry reached the island. The

blazing sun had passed its zenith, but the sky was as light as

before, the summer light actually increasing in brilliance. As if

on some huge nameplate, the name of the island was written in

gigantic letters on the white walls of a building in the harbour.

The ferry sidled up to the wharf, and one by one the passengers

walked down the gangplank, luggage in hand. An open-air

café faced the harbour, and people who’d come to meet the

ship waited there until they recognized the people they were

looking for.

As soon as I debarked I looked around for Miu. But there was

no one around who might be her. Several owners of inns came

up, asking me if I was looking for a place to stay for the night.

“No, I’m not,” I said each time, shaking my head. Even so, each

one handed me a card before leaving.

The people who’d left the ship with me scattered in all

directions. Shoppers trudged home, travellers went off to

hotels and inns. As soon as the people who’d come to greet

their returning friends spotted them, they hugged each other

tightly or shook hands, and off they’d go. The two lorries and

the Peugeot, too, were unloaded and roared off into the

distance. Even the cats and dogs that had assembled out of

curiosity were gone before long. The only ones left were a

group of sunburned old folks with time on their hands. And

me, gym bag in hand, thoroughly out of place.

I took a seat at the café and ordered an iced tea, wondering

what I should do next. There wasn’t much I could do. Night

was fast approaching, and I knew nothing about the island and

the layout of the land. If nobody came after a while, I’d get a

room somewhere and the next morning come back to the

harbour, hopefully to meet with Miu. According to Sumiré,

Miu was a methodical woman, so I couldn’t believe she’d stand

me up. If she couldn’t make it to the harbour, there must be

some very good explanation. Maybe she didn’t think I’d get

here so quickly.

I was starving. A feeling of such extreme hunger I felt sure

you could see through me. All the fresh sea air must have made

my body realize it hadn’t had any nourishment since morning.

I didn’t want to miss Miu, though, so I decided to wait some

more in the cafe. Every so often a local would pass by and give

me a curious glance.

At the kiosk next to the cafe I bought a small English

pamphlet about the history and geography of the island. I

leafed through it as I sipped the incredibly tasteless iced tea.

The island’s population ranged from 3,000 to 6,000, depending

on the season. The population went up in the summer with the

number of tourists, down in winter when people went

elsewhere in search of work. The island had no industry to

speak of, and agriculture was pretty limited—olives and a

couple of varieties of fruit. And there was fishing and sponge-

diving. Which is why, since the beginning of the twentieth

century, most of the islanders had emigrated to America. The

majority moved to Florida, where they could put their fishing

and sponging skills to good use. There was even a town in

Florida with the same name as the island.

On top of the hills was a military radar installation. Near the

civilian harbour was a second, smaller harbour where military

patrol ships docked. With the Turkish border nearby, the

Greeks wanted to prevent illegal border crossings and

smuggling, which is why there were soldiers in the town.

Whenever there was a dispute with Turkey—in fact small-scale

skirmishes often broke out—traffic in and out of the harbour

picked up.

More than 2,000 years ago, when Greek civilization was at its

peak, this island, situated along the main route to Asia,

flourished as a trading centre. Back then the hills were still

covered with green trees, put to good use by the thriving ship-

building industry. When Greek civilization declined, though,

and all the trees had been cut down (an abundant greenery

never to return again), the island quickly slid downhill

economically. Finally, the Turks came in. Their rule was

draconian, according to the pamphlet. If something wasn’t to

their liking, they’d lop off people’s ears and noses as easily as

pruning trees. At the end of the nineteenth century, after

countless bloody battles, the island finally won its

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independence from Turkey, and the blue-and-white Greek flag

fluttered over the harbour. Next came Hitler. The Germans

built a radar and weather station on top of the hills to monitor

the nearby sea, since the hills provided the best possible view.

An English bombing force from Malta bombed the station. It

bombed the harbour as well as the hilltop, sinking a number of

innocent fishing boats and killing some hapless fishermen.

More Greeks died in the attack than did Germans, and some

old-timers still bore a grudge over the incident. *

Like most Greek islands there was little flat space here, it was

mostly steep, unforgiving hills, with only one town along the

shore, just south of the harbour. Far from the town was a

beautiful, quiet beach, but to get to it you had to climb over a

steep hill. The easily accessible places didn’t have such nice

beaches, which might be one reason the number of tourists

remained static. There were some Greek Orthodox monasteries

up in the hills, but the monks led strictly observant lives, and

casual visitors weren’t allowed. As far as I could tell from

reading the pamphlet, this was a pretty typical Greek island.

For some reason, though, Englishmen found the island

particularly charming (the British are a bit eccentric) and, in

their zeal for the place, built a colony of summer cottages on a

rise near the harbour. In the late 1960s several British writers

lived there and wrote their novels while gazing at the blue sea

and the white clouds. Several of their works became critically

acclaimed, resulting in the island garnering a reputation among

the British literati as a romantic spot. As far as this notable

aspect of their island’s culture was concerned, though, the local

Greek inhabitants couldn’t have cared less. *

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I read all this to take my mind off how hungry I was. I closed

the pamphlet and looked around me again. The old people in

the café gazed unceasingly at the sea, as if they were

contestants in a staring contest. It was already eight o’clock,

and my hunger was turning into something close to physical

pain. The smell of roast meat and grilled fish drifted over from

somewhere and, like a good-natured torturer, seized me by the

guts. I couldn’t endure it any more and stood up. Just as I

picked up my bag and was about to start searching for a

restaurant, a woman silently appeared before me. *

The sun, finally sinking into the sea, shone directly on the

woman, her knee-length white skirt rippling slightly as she

strode down the stone steps. She wore small tennis shoes, and

her legs were girlish. She had on a sleeveless light-green

blouse, a narrow-brimmed hat and carried a small cloth

shoulder bag. The way she walked was so natural, so ordinary,

she blended into the scenery, and at first I took her for a local.

But she was heading straight for me, and as she approached I

could make out her Asian features. Half reflexively I sat down,

then stood up again. The woman removed her sunglasses and

spoke my name.

“Sorry I’m so late,” she said. “I had to go to the police station,

and all the paperwork took a long time. And I never imagined

you’d be here today. Tomorrow at noon at the earliest, I

thought.”

“I managed to make all my connections,” I said. The police

station?

Miu looked straight at me and smiled faintly. “If it’s all right

with you, why don’t we go somewhere to eat and talk. I’ve

only had breakfast today. How about you? Are you hungry?”

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You’d better believe it, I replied. *

She led me to a taverna on a side street near the harbour. There

was a charcoal grill set up near the entrance and all kinds of

fresh seafood cooking away on the iron grill. Do you like fish?

Asked Miu, and I said I did. She spoke to the waiter, ordering

in broken Greek. First he brought a carafe of white wine, bread,

and olives. Without any toasts or further ado, we poured

ourselves some wine and started drinking. I ate some of the

coarse bread and a few olives to ease my hunger pangs.

Miu was beautiful. My first impression was of that clear and

simple fact. No, maybe it wasn’t that clear or that simple.

Maybe I was under some terrible mistaken impression. Maybe

for some reason I’d been swallowed up in some other person’s

unalterable dream. Thinking about it now, I can’t rule out that

possibility. All I can say for sure is that at that moment I saw

her as an extremely lovely woman.

She wore several rings on her slim fingers. One was a simple

gold wedding band. While I tried hurriedly to arrange my first

impressions of her in some kind of order, she gazed at me with

gentle eyes, taking an occasional sip of wine.

“I feel like I’ve met you before,” she said. “Perhaps because I

hear about you all the time.”

“Sumire’s told me a lot about you, too,” I said.

Miu beamed. When she smiled, and then only, charming

small lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “I guess we can

forgo introductions, then.”

I nodded.

What I liked most about Miu was that she didn’t try to hide

her age. According to Sumire, she must be 38 or 39. And indeed

she looked that age. With her slim, tight figure, a little make-up

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and she’d easily pass for late twenties. But she didn’t make the

effort. Miu let age naturally rise to the surface, accepted it for

what it was, and made her peace with it. *

Miu popped an olive into her mouth, grasped the pit with her

fingers and, like a poet getting the punctuation just right,

gracefully discarded it in an ashtray.

“I’m sorry to call you up like that in the middle of the night,”

she said. “I wish I could have explained things better then, but I

was too upset and didn’t know where to begin. I’m still not

totally calm, but my initial confusion has settled a bit.”

“What in the world happened?” I asked.

Miu brought her hands together on the table, separated them,

brought them together again. “Sumire has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Like smoke,” Miu said. She took a sip of wine.

She continued. “It’s a long story, so I think I’d better start at

the beginning and tell it in the right order. Otherwise some of

the nuances might not come through. The story itself is quite

subtle. But let’s eat first. It’s not like each second counts right

now, and it’s hard to think straight if you’re hungry. Also, it’s a

bit too noisy to talk here.”

The restaurant was filled with Greeks gesturing and talking

boisterously. So that we didn’t have to shout at each other, Miu

and I leaned forward across the table, our heads close together

as we talked. Presently the waiter brought over a heaping plate

of Greek salad and a large grilled whitefish. Miu sprinkled

some salt on the fish, squeezed out half a lemon, and dripped

some olive oil onto her portion. I did the same. We

concentrated on eating for a while. As she said, first things first.

We needed to assuage our hunger.

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How long could I stay here? she asked. “The new term

begins in a week,” I replied, “so I have to be back by then.

Otherwise things will be a bit sticky.” Miu gave a matter-of-fact

nod. She pursed her lips and seemed to be working out

something. She didn’t say anything predictable, like “Don’t

worry, you’ll be back by then,” or “I wonder if things’ll be all

settled by then.” She came to her own private conclusion,

which she tucked away in a drawer, and silently went back to

her meal.

After dinner, as we were having coffee, she broached the

subject of the air fare. Would you mind taking the amount in

dollar traveller’s cheques? she asked. Or else I could have the

money transferred to your account in yen after you return to

Tokyo. Which do you prefer? I’m not strapped for funds, I

answered, I can pay it myself. But Miu insisted on paying. I’m

the one who asked you to come, she said.

I shook my head. “It’s not like I’m being polite or anything. A

little bit later on, and I probably would have come here of my

own accord. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Miu gave it some thought and nodded. “I am very grateful to

you. For coming here. I can’t tell you how much.” *

When we left the restaurant, the sky was a brilliant splash of

colours. The kind of air that felt like if you breathed it in, your

lungs would be dyed the same shade of blue. Tiny stars began

to twinkle. Barely able to wait for the long summer day to be

over, the locals were out for an after-dinner stroll around the

harbour. Families, couples, groups of friends. The gentle scent

of the tide at the end of the day enveloped the streets. Miu and

I walked through the town. The right side of the street was

lined with shops, small hotels, and restaurants with tables set

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up on the pavement. Cosy yellow lights shone at small,

wooden-shuttered windows, and Greek music filtered down

from a radio. On the left side the sea spread out, dark waves

placidly breaking on the wharves.

“In a while the road goes uphill,” Miu said. “We can either

take some steep stairs or a gentle slope. The stairs are faster. Do

you mind?”

“No, I don’t,” I answered.

Narrow stone stairs paralleled the slope of the hill. They were

long and steep, but Miu’s trainer-clad feet showed no signs of

tiring, and she never slackened her pace. The hem of her skirt

just in front of me swished pleasantly from side to side, her

tanned, shapely calves shone in the light of the almost full

moon. I got winded first and had to stop to take some deep

breaths. As we made our way up, the lights of the harbour

became smaller and further away. All the activities of the

people who’d been right beside me were absorbed into that

anonymous line of lights. It was an impressive sight, something

I wanted to cut out with scissors and pin to the wall of my

memory.

The place where Miu and Sumire were staying was a small

cottage with a veranda facing the sea. White walls and a red-

tiled roof, the door painted a deep green. A riot of red

bougainvilleas overgrew the low stone wall that surrounded

the house. She opened the unlocked door and invited me in.

The cottage was pleasantly cool. There was a living room and

a medium-sized dining room and kitchen. The walls were

white stucco, with a couple of abstract paintings. In the living

room there was a sofa and bookshelf, and a compact stereo.

Two bedrooms and a small but clean-looking tiled bathroom.

None of the furniture was very appealing, just cosy and lived

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in.

Miu took off her hat and laid her bag down on the kitchen

worktop. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “Or

would you like a shower first?”

“Think I’ll take a shower first,” I said.

I washed my hair and shaved. Blow-dried my hair and

changed into a fresh T-shirt and shorts. Made me feel halfway

back to normal. Below the mirror in the bathroom there were

two toothbrushes, one blue, the other red. I wondered which

was Sumire’s.

I went back into the living room and found Miu in an easy

chair, brandy glass in hand. She invited me to join her, but

what I really wanted was a cold beer. I got an Amstel beer from

the fridge and poured it into a tall glass. Sunk deep in her chair,

Miu was quiet for a long time. It didn’t look like she was trying

to find the right words she wanted to say, rather that she was

immersed in some personal memory, one without beginning

and without end.

“How long have you been here?” I ventured.

“Today is the eighth day,” Miu said after thinking about it.

“And Sumire disappeared from here?”

“That’s right. Like I said before, just like smoke.”

“When did this happen?”

“At night, four days ago,” she said, looking around the room

as if seeking a clue. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Sumire told me in her letters about going to Paris from

Milan,” I said. “Then about taking the train to Burgundy. You

stayed at your friend’s large estate house in a Burgundy

village.”

“Well, then, I’ll pick up the story from there,” she said.

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“I’ve known the wine producers around that village for ages,

and I know their wines like I know the layout of my own

house. What kind of wine the grapes on a certain slope in a

certain field will produce. How that year’s weather affects the

flavour, which producers are working hardest, whose son is

trying his best to help his father. How much in loans certain

producers have taken out, who’s bought a new Citroen. Those

kinds of things. Wine is like breeding thoroughbreds—you

have to know the lineage and the latest information. You can’t

do business based just on what tastes good and what doesn’t.”

Miu stopped for a moment to catch her breath. She seemed

unable to decide whether to go on or not. She continued.

“There are a couple of places in Europe I buy from, but that

village in Burgundy is my main supplier. So I try to spend a

fair amount of time there at least once a year, to renew old

friendships and gather the latest news. I always go alone, but

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this time we were visiting Italy first, and I decided to take

Sumire with me. It’s more convenient sometimes to have

another person with you on trips like this, and besides, I’d had

her study Italian. In the end I decided I would rather go alone

and planned to make up some excuse to have her go back

home before I set out for France. I’ve been used to travelling

alone ever since I was young, and no matter how close you are

to them it’s not easy to be with someone else day after day.

“Sumire was surprisingly capable and took care of lots of

details for me. Buying tickets, making hotel reservations,

negotiating prices, keeping expense records, searching out

good local restaurants. Those kinds of things. Her Italian was

much improved, and I liked her healthy curiosity, which

helped me experience things I never would have if I’d been

alone. I was surprised at how easy it is to be with someone else.

I felt that way, I think, because of something special that

brought us together.” *

“I remember very well the first time we met and we talked

about Sputniks. She was talking about Beatnik writers, and I

mistook the word and said ‘Sputnik’. We laughed about it, and

that broke the ice. Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in

Russian? ‘Travelling companion’. I looked it up in a dictionary

not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about

it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange

name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the

Earth.”

Miu was silent for just a moment, then continued. *

“Anyway, I ended up taking Sumire with me to Burgundy.

While I was seeing old acquaintances and taking care of

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business, Sumire, whose French was nonexistent, borrowed the

car and drove around the area. In one town she happened to

meet a wealthy old Spanish lady, and they chatted in Spanish

and got to be friends. The lady introduced Sumire to an

Englishman who was staying in their hotel. He was more than

50, a writer of some sort, very refined and handsome. I’m

positive he was gay. He had a secretary with him who seemed

to be his boyfriend.

“They invited us for dinner. They were very nice people, and

as we talked we realized we had some mutual acquaintances,

and I felt like I’d found some kindred spirits.

“The Englishman told us he had a small cottage on an island

in Greece and would be happy if we used it. He always used

the cottage for a month in the summer, but this summer he had

some work that kept him from going. Houses are best

occupied, otherwise the caretakers will get lazy, he told us. So

if it isn’t any bother, please feel free to use it. This cottage, in

other words.”

Miu gazed around the room. *

“When I was in college I visited Greece. It was one of those

whirlwind tours where you leap from port to port, but still I

fell in love with the country. That’s why it was such an enticing

offer to have a free house on a Greek island to use for as long as

we wanted. Sumire jumped at the chance, too. I offered to pay a

fair price to rent the cottage, but the Englishman refused,

saying he wasn’t in the rental business. We batted some ideas

around for a while, and ended up agreeing that I would send a

case of red wine to his home in London to thank him.

“Life on the island was like a dream. For the first time in I

don’t know how long I could enjoy a real holiday, without any

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schedule to worry about. Communications are a bit backward

here—you know about the awful phone service—and there

aren’t any faxes or the Internet. Getting back to Tokyo later

than originally planned would cause a bit of a problem for

other people, but once I got here it didn’t seem to matter any

more.

“Sumire and I got up early every morning, packed a bag with

towels, water, sunscreen, and walked to the beach on the other

side of the mountains. The shore is so beautiful it takes your

breath away. The sand is pure white, and there are hardly any

waves. It’s a little out of the way, though, and very few people

go there, particularly in the morning. Everyone, men and

women, swims nude. We did, too. It feels fantastic to swim in

the pure blue sea in the morning, as bare as the day you were

born. You feel like you’re in another world.

“When we tired of swimming, Sumire and I would lie on the

beach and get a tan. At first we were a little embarrassed to be

nude in front of each other, but once we got used to it, it was no

big deal. The energy of the place was working on us, I suppose.

We’d spread sunscreen on each other’s backs, loll in the sun,

reading, dozing, just chatting. It made me feel truly free.

“We’d walk back home over the mountains, take showers

and have a simple meal, then set off down the stairs to town.

We’d have tea in a harbour cafe, read the English paper, buy

some food in a shop, go home, then spend our time as we

pleased until evening—reading out on the veranda or listening

to music. Sometimes Sumire was in her room, writing

apparently. I could hear her opening up her PowerBook and

clattering away on the keys. In the evening we’d go out to the

harbour to watch the ferryboat come in. We’d have a cool drink

and watch the people getting off the ship.

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* “There we were, sitting quietly on the edge of the world, and

no one could see us. That’s the way it felt—like Sumire and I

were the only ones here. There was nothing else we had to

think about. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go

anywhere. I just wanted to stay this way for ever. I knew that

was impossible—our life here was just a momentary illusion,

and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came

from. But until that time came I wanted to enjoy each day to the

fullest, without worrying about anything. We loved our life

here. Until four days ago.” *

On their fourth morning there they went as usual to the beach,

skinny-dipped, returned home, and left again for the harbour.

The waiter at the cafe remembered them—the generous tips

Miu always left didn’t hurt—and greeted them warmly. He

made some polite comment about how beautiful they looked.

Sumire went to the kiosk and bought a copy of the English

newspaper published in Athens. That was their only link with

the outside world. Sumire’s job was reading the paper. She’d

check the exchange rate and translate and read aloud to Miu

any major news item or interesting article she happened to

come across.

The article Sumire picked to read aloud that particular day

was a report of a 70-year-old lady who was eaten by her cats. It

happened in a small suburb of Athens. The dead woman had

lost her husband, a businessman, eleven years before and ever

since had lived a quiet life in a two-room apartment with

several cats as her only friends. One day the woman collapsed

face down on her sofa from a heart attack and expired. It

wasn’t known how much time had elapsed between her attack

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and her death. At any rate, the woman’s soul passed through

all the set stages to bid farewell to its old companion, the body

it had inhabited for 70 years. She didn’t have any relatives or

friends who visited her regularly, and her body wasn’t

discovered until a week later. The doors were shut, the

windows shuttered, and the cats couldn’t get out after the

death of their owner. There wasn’t any food in the apartment.

There must have been something in the refrigerator, but cats

don’t possess the necessary skill to open fridge doors. Starving,

they devoured the flesh of their owner.

Taking an occasional sip from her coffee cup, Sumire

translated the article in stages. Some bees buzzed around the

table, licking the jam a previous patron had spilled. Miu gazed

at the sea through her sunglasses, listening intently to Sumire.

“And then what happened?” Miu asked.

“That’s it,” said Sumire, folding the tabloid in half and laying

it on the table. “That’s all the newspaper says.”

“What could have happened to the cats?”

“I don’t know …” Sumire said, pursing her lips to one side

and giving it some thought. “Newspapers are all the same.

They never tell you what you really want to know.”

The bees, as if sensing something, flew up in the air and with

a ceremonious buzz circled for a while, then settled again on

the table. They returned to their jam licking.

“And what was the fate of the cats, one wonders,” Sumire

said, tugging at the collar of her oversize T-shirt and smoothing

out the wrinkles. She had on a T-shirt and shorts and—Miu

happened to know—no underwear underneath. “Cats that

develop a taste for human flesh might turn into man-eating

cats, so maybe they destroyed them. Or maybe the police said,

‘Hey, you guys have suffered enough,’ and they were

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acquitted.”

“If you were the mayor or chief of police in that town, what

would you do?”

Sumire thought about it. “How about placing them in an

institution and reforming them? Turn them into vegetarians.”

“Not a bad idea.” Miu laughed. She took off her sunglasses

and turned to face Sumire. “That story reminds me of the first

lecture I heard when I entered a Catholic junior high school.

Did I ever tell you I went to a very strict Catholic girls’ school

for six years? I attended an ordinary elementary school, but I

went into that school in junior high. Right after the entrance

ceremony a decrepit old nun took all of us new students into

the auditorium and gave a talk on Catholic ethics. She was a

French nun, but her Japanese was fluent. She talked about all

kinds of things, but what I recall is the story of cats and the

deserted island.”

“That’s sounds interesting,” Sumire said.

“You’re shipwrecked, washed up on a deserted island. Only

you and a cat made it to the lifeboat. You drift for a while and

end up on this island, just a rocky island with nothing you can

eat. No water, either. In your lifeboat you have ten days’ worth

of biscuits and water for one person, and that’s it. That’s how

the story went.

“The nun looked all around the auditorium and she said this

in a strong, clear voice. ‘Close your eyes and imagine this

scene. You’re washed up on a deserted island with a cat. This is

a solitary island in the middle of nowhere. It’s almost

impossible that someone would rescue you within ten days.

When your food and water run out, you may very well die.

Well, what would you do? Since the cat is suffering as you are,

should you divide your meagre food with it?’ The sister was

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silent again and looked at all our faces. ‘No. That would be a

mistake,’ she continued. ‘I want you to understand that

dividing your food with the cat would be wrong. The reason

being that you are precious beings, chosen by God, and the cat

is not. That’s why you should eat all the food yourself.’ The

nun had this terribly serious look on her face.

“At first I thought it was some kind of joke. I was waiting for

the punchline. But there wasn’t one. She turned her talk to the

subject of human dignity and worth, and it all went over my

head. I mean, really, what was the point of telling that kind of

story to kids who’d just entered the school? I couldn’t figure it

out—and I still can’t.”

Sumire thought it over. “Do you mean whether it would be

okay in the end, to eat the cat?”

“Well, I don’t know. She didn’t take it that far.”

“Are you a Catholic?”

Miu shook her head. “That school just happened to be near

my house, so I went. I liked their uniforms, too. I was the only

non-Japanese citizen in the school.”

“Did you have any bad experiences?”

“Because I was Korean?”

“Yes.”

Again Miu shook her head. “The school was quite liberal.

The rules were pretty strict, and some of the sisters were

eccentrics, but the atmosphere was generally progressive, and

no, I never experienced any prejudice. I made some good

friends, and overall I’d say I enjoyed school. I’ve had a few

unpleasant experiences, but that was after I went out into the

real world. But that’s nothing unusual—it happens to most

people.”

“I heard they eat cats in Korea. Is it true?”

115

“I’ve heard the same thing. But nobody I know does.” *

It had been the hottest time of day, and the early afternoon

town square was nearly deserted. Almost everyone in town

was shut up in a cool house, taking a nap. Only curious

foreigners ventured out at that time of day.

There was a statue of a hero in the square. He’d led a

rebellion in mainland Greece and fought the Turks who

controlled the island, but was captured and put to death by

skewering. The Turks set up a sharpened stake in the square

and lowered the pitiful hero onto it, naked. Ever so slowly, the

stake went through his anus, and finally all the way to his

mouth, taking him hours to die. The statue was supposedly

erected on the spot where this happened. When it was erected,

the valiant bronze statue must have been quite a sight, but over

the intervening years, what with the sea wind, dust, and

seagull droppings, you could barely make out the man’s

features. Island folk hardly gave the shabby statue a passing

glance, and the statue itself looked like it had turned its back on

the world. *

“Speaking of cats,” Sumire had blurted out, “I have a very

strange memory of one. When I was in second grade we had a

pretty little six-month-old tortoiseshell cat. I was on the

veranda one evening, reading a book, when the cat started to

run like crazy around the base of this large pine tree in the

garden. Cats do that. There’s nothing there, but suddenly they

hiss, arch their backs, jump, hair standing on end and tail up, in

attack mode.

“The cat was so worked up it didn’t notice me watching it

from the veranda. It was such a strange sight I laid down my

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book and watched the cat. It didn’t seem to tire of its solitary

game. Actually, as time passed it got more determined. Like it

was possessed.”

Sumire took a drink of water and lightly scratched her ear.

“The more I watched, the more frightened I became. The cat

saw something that I couldn’t see, and whatever it was drove it

into a frenzy. Finally the cat started racing around and around

the tree trunk at a tremendous speed, like the tiger that changes

into butter in that children’s story. Finally, after running

forever, it leaped up the tree trunk. I could see its tiny face

peeping out between the branches way up high. From the

veranda I called out its name in a loud voice, but it didn’t hear

me.

“Finally the sun set and the cold late-autumn wind began to

blow. I sat on the veranda, waiting for the cat to come down. It

was a friendly cat, and I thought that if I sat there for a while, it

would come down. But it didn’t. I couldn’t even hear it

miaowing. It got darker and darker. I got scared and told my

family. ‘Don’t worry,’ they said, ‘just leave it alone and it’ll

come down before long.’ But the cat never came back.”

“What do you mean—never came back?” asked Miu.

“It just disappeared. Like smoke. Everybody told me the cat

must have come down from the tree in the night and gone off

somewhere. Cats get worked up and climb tall trees, then get

frightened when they realize how high they are, and won’t

come down. Happens all the time. If the cat was still there, they

said, it’d miaow for all it’s worth to let you know. But I didn’t

believe that. I thought the cat must be clinging to a branch,

scared to death, unable to cry out. When I came back from

school, I sat on the veranda, looked at the pine tree, and every

once in a while called out the cat’s name. No reply. After a

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week, I gave up. I loved that little cat, and it made me so sad.

Every time I happened to look at the pine tree I could picture

that pitiful little cat, stone-cold dead, still clinging to a branch.

The cat never going anywhere, starving to death and

shrivelling up there.”

Sumire looked at Miu.

“I never had a cat again. I still like cats, though I decided at

the time that that poor little cat who climbed the tree and never

returned would be my first and last cat. I couldn’t forget that

little cat and start loving another.” *

“That’s what we talked about that afternoon at the cafe,” said

Miu. “I thought they were just a lot of harmless memories, but

now everything seems significant. Maybe it’s just my

imagination.”

Miu turned and looked out of the window. The breeze

blowing in from the sea rustled the pleated curtains. With her

gazing out at the darkness, the room seemed to acquire an even

deeper silence.

“Do you mind if I ask a question? I’m sorry if it seems off the

subject, but it’s been bothering me,” I said. “You said Sumire

disappeared, vanished ‘like smoke’, as you put it. Four days

ago. And you went to the police. Right?”

Miu nodded.

“Why did you ask me to come instead of getting in touch

with Sumire’s family?”

“I didn’t have any clues about what happened to her. And

without any solid evidence, I didn’t know if I should upset her

parents. I agonized over it for some time and decided to wait

and see.”

I tried picturing Sumire’s handsome father taking the ferry to

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the island. Would her stepmother, understandably hurt by the

turn of events, accompany him? That would be one fine mess.

As far as I was concerned, though, things were already a mess.

How could a foreigner possibly vanish on such a small island

for four days?

“But why did you call me?”

Miu brought her bare legs together again, held the hem of

her skirt between her fingers, and tugged it down. “You were

the only one I could count on.”

“But you’d never met me.”

“Sumire trusted you more than anyone else. She said you

think deeply about things, no matter what the subject.”

“Definitely a minority opinion, I’m afraid.”

Miu narrowed her eyes and smiled, those tiny wrinkles

appearing around her eyes.

I stood up and walked in front of her, taking her empty glass.

I went into the kitchen, poured some Courvoisier into the glass,

then went back to the living room. She thanked me and took

the brandy. Time passed, the curtain silently fluttering. The

breeze had the smell of a different place.

“Do you really, really want to know the truth?” Miu asked

me. She sounded drained, as if she’d come to a difficult

decision.

I looked up and gazed into her face. “One thing I can say

with absolute certainty,” I said, “is that if I didn’t want to know

the truth, I wouldn’t be here.”

Miu squinted in the direction of the curtains. And finally

spoke, in a quiet voice. “It happened that night, after we’d

talked about cats at the café.”

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After their conversation at the harbour cafe about cats, Miu and

Sumire went grocery shopping and returned to the cottage. As

usual, they relaxed until dinner. Sumire was in her room,

writing on her laptop. Miu lay on the sofa in the living room,

hands folded behind her head, eyes closed, listening to Julius

Katchen’s recording of Brahms’s ballads. It was an old LP, but

the performance was graceful, emotional, and utterly

memorable. Not a bit presumptuous, but fully expressive.

“Does the music bother you?” Miu asked once, looking in at

the door to Sumire’s room. The door was wide open.

“Brahms never bothers me,” Sumire said, turning around.

This was the first time Miu had seen Sumire writing so

intently. Her mouth was tight, like a prowling animal’s, her

eyes deeper than usual.

“What are you writing?” Miu asked. “A new Sputnik novel?”

The tenseness around Sumire’s mouth softened a little.

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“Nothing much. Just things that came to mind that might be of

use someday.”

Miu returned to her sofa and sank back down in the

miniature world the music traced in the afternoon sunlight;

how wonderful it would be, she mused, to play Brahms so

beautifully. In the past I always had trouble with Brahms’s

minor works, especially the ballads, she thought. I never could

give myself up to that world of capricious, fleeting nuances and

sighs. Now, though, I should be able to play Brahms more

beautifully than before. But Miu knew very well: I can’t play

anything. Ever again. *

At 6.30 the two of them prepared dinner in the kitchen and ate

out on the veranda. A soup of sea bream and fragrant herbs,

salad, and bread. They had some white wine and, later, hot

coffee. They watched as a fishing boat appeared in the lee of

the island and inscribed a short white arc as it sailed into the

harbour. No doubt a hot meal was awaiting the fishermen in

their homes.

“By the way, when will we be leaving here?” asked Sumire

as she washed the dishes in the sink.

“I’d like to stay one more week, but that’s about as long as I

can manage,” Miu replied, looking at the calendar on the wall.

“If I had my way, I’d stay here for ever.”

“If I had my way, me too,” Sumire said, beaming. “But what

can you do? Wonderful things always come to an end.” *

Following their usual routine, they each went to their rooms

before ten. Miu changed into long-sleeve, white cotton pyjamas

and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. But soon she

woke up, as if shaken by the beating of her own heart. She

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glanced over at the travel alarm clock next to her; it was past

12.30. The room was pitch black, enveloped by total silence. She

sensed someone nearby, hiding with bated breath. Miu pulled

the covers up to her neck and pricked up her ears. Her heart

thumped loudly, drowning out everything else. It wasn’t just a

bad dream spilling over into wakefulness—someone was

definitely in the room with her. Careful not to make a sound,

she reached out and pulled aside the window curtain an inch

or two. Pale, watery moonlight stole into the room. Keeping

perfectly still, she swept the room with her eyes.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could distinguish an

outline of something gradually forming in a corner of the room.

In the shadow of the wardrobe beside the door, where the

darkness was deepest. Whatever it was, it was low, rolled into

a thick ball like some large, long-forgotten postbag. An animal?

A large dog? But the front door was locked, the door to her

room shut. A dog wouldn’t be able to get in.

Miu continued to breathe quietly and stared fixedly. Her

mouth was dry, and she could catch a faint whiff of the brandy

she’d had before going to bed. She reached out and drew the

curtain back a little to let more moonlight in. Slowly, like

unravelling a tangled thread, she could make out the outline of

the black lump on the floor. It looked like a person’s body: hair

hanging down in front, two thin legs bent at an acute angle.

Someone was sitting on the floor, rolled up, head between legs,

scrunched up as if to protect herself from something falling

from the sky.

It was Sumire. Wearing her usual blue pyjamas, she crouched

like an insect between the door and the wardrobe. Not moving.

Not even breathing, as far as Miu could tell.

Miu gave a sigh of relief. But what in the world was Sumire

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doing here? Miu sat up quietly in bed and switched on the

lamp. Yellow light lit up the entire room, but Sumire didn’t

budge an inch. She didn’t even seem to realize the light was on. *

“What’s the matter?” Miu called out. First in a small voice, then

more loudly.

There was no response. Miu’s voice didn’t appear to reach

Sumire. Miu got out of bed and walked over to her. The feel of

the carpet was rougher than ever against her bare feet.

“Are you sick?” Miu asked, crouching beside Sumire.

Still no answer.

Miu noticed that Sumire was holding something in her

mouth. A pink facecloth that was always hanging in the

bathroom. Miu tried to pull it out, but Sumire’s mouth was

clamped down hard. Her eyes were open, but unseeing. Miu

gave up and rested a hand on her shoulder. Sumire’s pyjamas

were soaking wet.

“You’d better take your pyjamas off,” Miu said. “You’re

sweating so much you’ll catch cold.”

Sumire looked stupefied, not hearing anything, not seeing

anything. Miu decided to get Sumire’s pyjamas off; otherwise

her body would freeze. It was August, but sometimes nights on

the island were chilly. The two of them swam nude every day

and were used to seeing each other’s bodies, so Miu thought

Sumire wouldn’t mind if she undressed her.

Supporting Sumire’s body, she unbuttoned the pyjamas and,

after a time, was able to get the top off. Then the bottoms.

Sumire’s body was rigid, but gradually relaxed and ended up

limp. Miu took the facecloth out of her mouth. It was soaked

from her saliva. There was a perfect set of teethmarks on it.

Sumire had no panties on under the pyjamas. Miu grabbed a

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towel nearby and wiped the sweat from her body. First her

back, then under her arms, then her chest. She wiped her belly,

then very quickly the area from her waist to her thighs. Sumire

was subdued, unresisting. She appeared unconscious, though

looking into her eyes Miu could make out a glint of

comprehension.

Miu had never touched Sumire’s naked body before. Her

skin was taut, smooth like a young child’s. Lifting her up, Miu

found that Sumire’s body was heavier than she had imagined,

and smelled of sweat. Wiping the sweat from her, Miu felt

again her own heart thumping in her chest. Saliva gathered in

her mouth, and she had to swallow again and again.

Bathed in moonlight, Sumire’s body glistened like some

ancient ceramic. Her breasts were small, but shapely, with well-

formed nipples. Her black pubic hair was wet with sweat and

glittered like grass in the morning dew. Her limp, naked body

was completely different from the one Miu had seen under the

blazing sun at the beach. Her body was a mix of still-girlish

elements and a budding maturity blindly wrenched open by

the painful flow of time.

Miu felt like she was peering into someone’s else’s secrets,

something forbidden she shouldn’t be seeing. She avoided

looking at her naked skin as she continued to wipe away the

sweat from Sumire’s body, all the while replaying in her mind

a Bach piece she’d memorized as a child. She wiped Sumire’s

sweaty fringe, which was plastered to her forehead. Even the

inside of Sumire’s tiny ears were sweaty.

Miu felt Sumire’s arm silently go around her own body.

Sumire’s breath grazed her neck.

“All you all right?” she asked.

Sumire didn’t reply. But her arm held on a bit more tightly.

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Half carrying her, Miu helped her into her own bed. She lay her

down and pulled the covers over her. Sumire lay there,

unmoving, and closed her eyes. *

Miu watched her for a while, but Sumire didn’t move a muscle.

She seemed to have fallen asleep. Miu went to the kitchen and

gulped down several glasses of mineral water. She took a few

deep breaths and managed to calm down. Her heart had

stopped pounding, though her chest ached with the tension of

the last few moments. Everything was cloaked in a choking

silence. No voices, not even a dog barking. No waves, no sound

of the wind. Why, Miu wondered, is everything so deadly still?

Miu went into the bathroom and took Sumire’s sweaty

pyjamas, the towel she’d used to wipe her down, and the

facecloth with the teethmarks and tossed them into the laundry

basket. She washed her face and gazed at her reflection in the

mirror. Since coming to the island she hadn’t dyed her hair,

which was now pure white, like newly fallen snow.

When Miu went back into the room Sumire’s eyes were open.

A thin, translucent veil seemed to cover them, but a glimmer of

consciousness had returned. She lay there, the covers up to her

shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she said huskily. “Sometimes I get this way.”

Miu sat down on a corner of the bed, smiled, and reached out

to touch Sumire’s still-damp hair. “You should take a good,

long shower. You were really sweating.”

“Thanks,” said Sumire. “I just want to lie here.”

Miu nodded and handed Sumire a fresh bath towel, took out

a pair of her own clean pyjamas from the chest of drawers and

laid them beside Sumire. “You can use these. I don’t imagine

you have another pair, do you?”

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“Can I sleep here tonight?” asked Sumire.

“All right. Just go to sleep. I’ll sleep in your bed.”

“My bed must be soaked,” Sumire said. “The covers,

everything. And I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me here.

Would you sleep beside me? Just for tonight? I don’t want to

have any more nightmares.”

Miu thought about it, then nodded. “But first put on a pair of

pyjamas. I don’t think I’d like having somebody naked lying

right next to me—especially in such a small bed.” *

Sumire got up slowly and pushed back the covers. She stood

up, still naked, and tugged on Miu’s pyjamas. She leaned

forward and slipped on the bottoms, then the top. It took some

time to get the buttons all fastened. Her fingers wouldn’t work

right. Miu didn’t help, she just sat there watching. Sumire

buttoned up the pyjamas in such a deliberate way it struck Miu

as an almost religious ceremony. The moonlight lent a strange

hardness to her nipples.

She might be a virgin, Miu suddenly thought.

After putting on the silk pyjamas, Sumire lay down again in

bed, on the far side. Miu got into bed, where the scent of sweat

remained strong.

“Can I,” Sumire began, “just hold you for a while?”

“Hold me?”

“Yes.”

While Miu wondered how to respond, Sumire reached out

and clasped her hand. Her palm was still sweaty, warm and

soft. She reached both hands behind Miu. Sumire’s breasts

pushed against Miu, just above her stomach. Sumire pressed

her cheek between Miu’s breasts. They remained that way for a

long time. Sumire seemed to be shaking, ever so slightly. She

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must be crying, Miu thought. But it was as if she couldn’t let it

all out. Miu reached around Sumire’s shoulder and drew her

closer. She’s still a child, Miu thought. Lonely and frightened,

she wants someone’s warmth. Like that kitten clinging to a

pine branch.

Sumire shifted her body upwards a bit. The tip of her nose

brushed Miu’s neck. Their breasts pressed together. Miu

gulped. Sumire’s hand wandered over her back.

“I really like you,” Sumire said in a small voice.

“I like you, too,” Miu said. She didn’t know what else to say.

And it was the truth.

Sumire’s fingers started to unbutton the front of Miu’s

pyjamas. Miu tried to stop her. But Sumire wouldn’t stop. “Just

a little,” she said. “Just a little—please.”

Miu lay there unresisting. Sumire’s fingers gently traced the

contours of Miu’s breasts. Her nose flickered back and forth at

Miu’s throat. She touched Miu’s nipple, stroked it gently, and

held it between two fingers. Hesitantly at first, then more

boldly. *

Miu stopped speaking. She looked up, searchingly, at me. Her

cheeks were slightly flushed.

“There’s something I need to explain to you. A long time ago

I had a very unusual experience, and my hair turned pure

white. Overnight, completely. Since then I’ve dyed my hair.

Sumire knew I dyed it, and since it was too much trouble after

we came to this island, I gave up. Nobody knows me here, so it

didn’t matter. But knowing you’d be coming, I dyed it again. I

didn’t want to give you a strange first impression.”

Time flowed past in the ensuing silence. *

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“I’ve never had a homosexual experience, and never

considered I had those tendencies. But if that’s what Sumire

really wanted, I thought I could oblige. At least I didn’t find it

disgusting. As long as it was with Sumire, that is. So I didn’t

resist when she started feeling me all over, or when she stuck

her tongue inside my mouth. It felt strange, but I tried to get

used to it. I let her do what she wanted. I like Sumire, and if it

made her happy, I didn’t mind what she did.

“But my body and my mind are two different things. A part

of me was happy that Sumire was caressing me so lovingly. But

no matter how happy my mind was, my body resisted. It

wouldn’t yield to her. My heart and my head were aroused, but

the rest of me was like a hard, dry stone. It’s sad, but I couldn’t

help it. Of course Sumire picked up on that. Her body was

flushed and gently damp, but I couldn’t respond.

“I told her how I felt. ‘I’m not rejecting you,’ I said, ‘but I just

can’t do that kind of thing. Ever since that happened to me, 14

years ago, I haven’t been able to give myself to anyone in this

world. It’s something that’s out of my hands, decided

somewhere else.’ I told her that if there was anything I could

do, you know, with my fingers, or mouth, I would. But that

isn’t what she wanted. I knew that already.” *

”She kissed me on the forehead and said she was sorry. ‘It’s

just that I like you,’ she said. ‘I’ve worried about it for so long,

and I had to try.’ ‘I like you, too,’ I told her. ‘So don’t worry

about it. I still want you to be with me.’

“As if a dam had burst, Sumire sobbed into her pillow for the

longest time. As she cried, I rubbed her bare back from the top

of her shoulder to her waist, feeling all her bones. I wanted to

cry along with her, but I couldn’t.

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“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful travelling

companions, but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal

on their own separate orbits. From far off they look like

beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they’re nothing more

than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going

nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours

happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even

open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest

moment. In the next instant we’d be in absolute solitude. Until

we burned up and became nothing.” *

“After crying her heart out, Sumire got up, picked up the

pyjamas that had fallen to the floor and slipped them on,” said

Miu. “She said she wanted to be alone and was going back to

her room. ‘Don’t think too deeply about things,’ I told her.

‘Tomorrow’s a new day, things will work out just like before.

You’ll see.’ ‘I guess so,’ Sumire said. She leaned over and held

her cheek against mine. Her cheek was wet and warm. She

whispered something in my ear, I think. But in such a small

voice I couldn’t make it out. I was about to ask her what she

said, but she’d already turned away.” *

”Sumire wiped her tears away with the bath towel and left the

room. The door closed, and I snuggled back under the covers

and closed my eyes. After an experience like that, I thought it

would be hard to sleep, but strangely enough I soon fell fast

asleep.

“When I woke up at seven the next morning, Sumire was

nowhere in the house. Perhaps she woke up early—or maybe

never got back to sleep—and went to the beach by herself. She

said she wanted to be alone for a while. It was odd that she

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didn’t even leave a note, but considering the night before, I

guessed she was still pretty upset and confused.

“I did the washing, hung out her bedding to dry, and sat on

the veranda, reading, waiting for her to come back. The whole

morning passed, and no Sumire. I was worried, so I looked

through her room, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I was afraid

maybe she’d left the island. But her bags were still open, her

passport was still in her handbag, her swimsuit and socks

drying in a corner of her room. Coins, notepaper, and a bunch

of keys lay scattered on her desk. One of the keys was for the

front door of the cottage.

“It all felt weird to me. What I mean is whenever we went to

the beach we always wore heavy trainers and T-shirts over our

swimsuits as we walked over the mountains. With a canvas bag

with our towels and mineral water. But she’d left it all

behind—the bag, shoes, and swimsuit. The only things missing

were the pair of cheap flip-flops she’d bought at a local shop

and the pair of thin silk pyjamas I’d lent her. Even if you only

meant to take a walk around the neighbourhood, you wouldn’t

stay out long dressed like that, would you?

“In the afternoon I went out to scour the area for her. I made

a couple of circuits nearby, went to the beach, then walked

back and forth down the streets of the town, and finally

returned home. But Sumire was nowhere to be found. The sun

was setting, and night came on. The wind had picked up. All

night long I could hear the sound of the waves. Any little

sound woke me up. I left the front door unlocked. Dawn came,

and still no Sumire. Her bed was just as I’d left it. So I went

down to the local police station near the harbour.” *

“I explained everything to one of the policemen, one who

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spoke English. ‘The girl who was travelling with me has

disappeared,’ I told him, ‘and hasn’t been back for two nights.’

He didn’t take me seriously. ‘Your friend will be back,’ he said.

‘It happens all the time. Everyone lets their hair down here. It’s

summer, they’re young, what do you expect?’ I went again the

next day, and this time they paid a bit more attention. Not that

they were going to do anything about it. I phoned the Japanese

embassy in Athens and explained the situation. Thankfully, the

person there was quite kind. He said something in no uncertain

terms in Greek to the police chief, and the police finally started

getting an investigation up and running.

“They were simply clueless. They questioned people in the

harbour and around our cottage, but no one had seen Sumire.

The captain of the ferry, and the man who sold ferry tickets,

had no recollection of any young Japanese girl getting on the

boat in the last couple of days. Sumire must still be on the

island. She didn’t have any money on her to buy a ticket in the

first place. On this little island a young Japanese girl wandering

about in pyjamas wouldn’t escape people’s notice. The police

questioned a German couple who’d been swimming for a long

time that morning at the beach. They hadn’t seen any Japanese

girl, either at the beach or on the road there. The police

promised me they’d continue to do their best, and I think they

did. But time passed without a single clue.”

Miu took a deep breath and covered half her face with her

hands.

“All I could do was call you in Tokyo and ask you to come. I

was at my wits’ end.” *

I pictured Sumire, alone, wandering the rugged hills in a pair

of thin silk pyjamas and flip-flops.

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“What colour were the pyjamas?” I asked.

“Colour?” said Miu, a dubious look on her face.

“The pyjamas Sumire was wearing when she disappeared.”

“What colour were they? I’m not sure. I bought them in

Milan and hadn’t worn them yet. A light colour. Pale green,

maybe? They were very lightweight, with no pockets.”

“I’d like you to call the embassy in Athens again and ask

them to send somebody here. Insist on it. Then have the

embassy contact Sumire’s parents. It’ll be hard on them, but

you can’t keep it from them any more.”

Miu gave a small nod.

“Sumire can be a little outrageous at times, as you know,” I

said, “and she does the craziest things. But she wouldn’t leave

for four days without a word. She’s not that irresponsible. She

wouldn’t disappear unless there’s a very good reason. What

reason, I don’t know, but it must be serious. Maybe she fell

down a well out in the country, and she’s waiting for someone

to rescue her. Maybe somebody kidnapped her. For all we

know she could be murdered and buried somewhere. A young

girl wandering at night in pyjamas—anything could happen.

At any rate, we’ve got to come up with a plan. But let’s sleep on

it. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“Do you think maybe … Sumire … killed herself?” Miu

asked.

“We can’t rule that out. But she would have left a note. She

wouldn’t have left everything scattered like this for you to pick

up the pieces. She liked you, and I know she would consider

your feelings.”

Arms folded, Miu looked at me for a while. “You really think

so?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. That’s the way she is.”

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“Thank you. That’s what I wanted to hear most.” *

Miu led me to Sumire’s room. Devoid of decorations, the boxy

room reminded me of a big cube. There was a small wooden

bed, a writing desk, a wardrobe, and a small dresser. At the

foot of the desk was an average-size red suitcase. The front

window was open to the hills beyond. On top of the desk was a

brand new Macintosh PowerBook.

“I’ve straightened up her things so you can sleep here.”

Left alone, I grew suddenly sleepy. It was nearly midnight. I

undressed and got under the covers, but I couldn’t sleep. Until

just a while ago, I thought, Sumire was sleeping in this bed.

The excitement of the long trip reverberated in my body. I was

struck by the illusion that I was on a journey without end.

In bed I reviewed everything Miu had told me, making a

mental list of the important points. But my mind wouldn’t

work. Systematic thought was beyond me. Leave it for

tomorrow, I concluded. Out of the blue, the image came to me

of Sumire’s tongue inside Miu’s mouth. Forget about it, I willed

my brain. Leave that for tomorrow as well. But the chances of

tomorrow being an improvement on today were,

unfortunately, slim. Gloomy thoughts weren’t going to get me

anywhere, I decided, and closed my eyes. I soon fell into a deep

sleep.

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1 0

When I woke up, Miu was setting the table for breakfast out on

the veranda. It was 8.30, and a brand-new sun was flooding the

world with sunlight. Miu and I sat down on the veranda and

had breakfast, gazing at the bright sea as we ate. We had toast

and eggs and coffee. Two white birds glided down the slope

towards the coast. A radio was playing nearby, an announcer’s

voice, speaking quickly, reading the news in Greek. *

A strange jet-lag numbness filled my head. I couldn’t separate

the boundary between what was real and what only seemed

real. Here I was on a small Greek island, sharing a meal with a

beautiful older woman I’d met only the day before. This

woman loved Sumire, but couldn’t feel any sexual desire for

her. Sumire loved this woman and desired her. I loved Sumire

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and felt sexual desire for her. Sumire liked me, but didn’t love

me, and didn’t feel any desire for me. I felt sexual desire for a

woman who will remain anonymous. But I didn’t love her. It

was all so complicated, like something out of an existential

play. Everything hit a dead end there, no alternatives left. And

Sumire had exited stage right. *

Miu refilled my empty coffee cup. I thanked her.

“You like Sumire, don’t you?” Miu asked me. “As a woman, I

mean.”

I gave a slight nod as I buttered my toast. The butter was cold

and hard, and it took some time to spread it on the bread. I

looked up and added, “Of course that’s not something you

necessarily can choose. It just happens.”

We continued eating breakfast in silence. The news ended,

and the radio started to play Greek music. The wind swelled

up and shook the bougainvilleas. If you looked closely, you

could make out whitecaps appearing.

“I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and I think I should go

to Athens right away,” Miu said, peeling some fruit. “I’d

probably get nowhere over the phone, so it’d be better if I went

straight to the embassy and talked with them face to face.

Maybe someone from the embassy will be willing to come back

with me, or I might wait for Sumire’s parents to arrive in

Athens and come back with them. At any rate, I’d like you to

stay here as long as you can. The police might get in touch, and

there’s always the possibility that Sumire will come back.

Would you do that for me?”

Of course, I replied.

“I’m going to go to the police station again to check on the

investigation, then charter a boat to take me to Rhodes. A

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return trip to Athens takes time, so most likely I’ll get a hotel

room and stay a couple of days.”

I nodded.

Miu finished peeling the orange and wiped it carefully with a

napkin. “Have you ever met Sumire’s parents?”

I never have, I said.

Miu gave a sigh like the wind at the edge of the world. “I

wonder how I’m going to explain it to them.”

I could understand her confusion. How can you explain the

inexplicable?

Miu and I walked down to the harbour. She had a small bag

with a change of clothes, wore leather high-heeled shoes, and

carried a Mila Sch[umlaut]on shoulder bag. We stopped by the

police station. We told them I was a relative of Miu’s who

happened to be travelling nearby. They still didn’t have a

single clue. “But it’s all right,” they said cheerily. “Not to

worry. Look around you. This is a peaceful island. We have

some crime, of course—lovers’ quarrels, drunks, political

fights. We’re dealing with people, after all, and everywhere

you go it’s the same. But those are domestic squabbles. In the

last 15 years there’s never once been a foreigner who’s been the

victim of a crime on this island.”

That might very well be true. But when it came to explaining

Sumire’s disappearance, they had nothing to say.

“There’s a large limestone cave on the north shore of the

island,” the police ventured. “If she wandered in there, maybe

she couldn’t find her way out. It’s like a maze inside. But it’s

very, very far away. A girl like that couldn’t have walked that

far.”

Could she have drowned? I asked.

The policemen shook their heads. There’s no strong current

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around here, they said. And the weather this past week has

been mild, the sea calm. Lots of fishermen go out to fish every

day, and if the girl had drowned, one of them would have

come across her body.

“What about wells?” I asked. “Couldn’t she have fallen in a

deep well somewhere while she was out for a walk?”

The chief of police shook his head. “There aren’t any wells on

the island. We have a lot of natural springs so there’s no need

to dig any. Besides, the bedrock is hard and digging a well

would be a major undertaking.”

After we left the police station I told Miu I wanted to walk to

the beach she and Sumire had frequented, if possible in the

morning. She bought a simple map of the island at a kiosk and

showed me the road; it takes 45 minutes one way, she

cautioned, so be sure to wear some sturdy shoes. She went to

the harbour and, in a mixture of French and English, quickly

concluded negotiations with the pilot of a small taxi boat to

take her to Rhodes.

“If only we had a happy ending,” Miu said as she left. But

her eyes told another story. She knew that things didn’t work

out that simply. And so did I. The boat’s engine started up, and

she held down her hat with her left hand and waved to me

with her right. When her boat disappeared offshore, I felt like

my insides were missing a couple of parts. I wandered around

the harbour for a while and bought some dark sunglasses at a

souvenir shop. Then I climbed the steep stairs back to the

cottage. *

As the sun rose higher it grew fiercely hot. I put a short-sleeve

cotton shirt on over my trunks, put on my sunglasses and

jogging shoes, and set off over the steep mountain road to the

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beach. I soon regretted not bringing a hat, but decided to forge

on. I soon got thirsty walking uphill. I stopped and took a drink

and rubbed the sunscreen Miu had lent me over my face and

arms. The path was white with dust, which swirled into the air

whenever the wind blew. Occasionally I’d pass villagers

leading donkeys. They’d greet me in a loud voice: “Kali mera!”

I’d say the same thing back to them. I supposed it was the thing

to do.

The mountainside was covered with short, twisted trees.

Mountain goats and sheep made their way over the craggy

rock face, crabby looks on their faces. The bells around their

necks made a matter-of-fact little tinkling sound. The people

herding the flocks were either children or old people. As I

passed they’d glance at me out of the corner of their eyes and

then half raise their hand in some sort of sign. I raised my hand

the same way in greeting. Sumire couldn’t have come this way

by herself. There was no place to hide, and someone would

have seen her. *

The beach was deserted. I took off my shirt and trunks and

swam in the nude. The water was clear and felt wonderful. You

could see all the way to the stones on the bottom. A yacht was

anchored at the mouth of the inlet, sail stowed, and the tall

mast swayed back and forth like a giant metronome. Nobody

was on deck. Each time the tide went out, countless little stones

were left behind, clattering listlessly. After swimming, I went

back to the beach and lay down, still naked, on my towel and

gazed up at the high, pure blue sky. Seabirds circled above the

inlet searching for fish. The sky was utterly cloudless. I dozed

there for perhaps half an hour, during which time no one

visited the beach. Before long a strange hush fell over me. This

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beach was a little too quiet for a person to visit alone, a little too

beautiful. It made me imagine a certain way of dying. I dressed

and walked over the mountain path, back towards the cottage.

The heat was even more intense than before. Mechanically

moving one foot after the other, I tried to imagine what Sumire

and Miu must have talked about when the two of them walked

this road together.

Sumire might very well have been pondering the sexual

desire she felt. The same way I thought about my own desire

when I was with her. It wasn’t hard for me to understand how

she felt. Sumire pictured Miu naked beside her and wanted

nothing so much as to hold her tight. An expectation was there,

mixed with so many other emotions—excitement, resignation,

hesitation, confusion, fear—that would well up, then wither on

the vine. You’re optimistic one moment, only to be wracked the

next by the surety that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it

does.

I walked to the top of the mountain, took a break and a drink

of water, then headed downhill. Just as the roof of the cottage

came into view, I remembered what Miu had said about

Sumire feverishly writing something in her room after they

came to the island. What could she have been writing? Miu

hadn’t said anything more, and I didn’t push it. There might—

just might—be a clue in what Sumire wrote. I could have kicked

myself for not having thought of it before. *

When I got back to the cottage I went to Sumire’s room, turned

on her PowerBook, and opened the hard drive. Nothing looked

promising. There was a list of expenses for their European trip,

addresses, a schedule. All business items related to Miu’s work.

No personal files. I opened the RECENT DOCUMENTS

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menu—nothing. She probably didn’t want anybody to read it

and had erased it all. Which meant that she had saved her

personal files on a floppy disk somewhere. It was unlikely

she’d taken the disk with her when she disappeared; for one

thing, her pyjamas didn’t have any pockets.

I rummaged around in the desk drawers. There were a

couple of disks, but they were copies of what was on the hard

drive or other work-related files. Nothing looked promising. I

sat at the desk and thought. If I were Sumire, where would I

put it? The room was small; there weren’t many places to hide

something. Sumire was very particular about deciding who

could read what she wrote.

Of course—the red suitcase. This was the only thing in the

room that could be locked.

Her new suitcase seemed empty, it was so light; I shook it,

but it didn’t make any sound. The four-digit padlock was

locked, however. I tried several combinations of numbers I

knew Sumire was likely to use—her birthday, her address,

telephone number, post code—but none of them worked. Not

surprising, since a number that someone could easily guess

wasn’t much use as a combination number. It had to be

something she could remember, but that wasn’t based on

something personal. I thought about it for a long time, and then

it hit me. I tried the area code for Kunitachi—my area code, in

other words. 0-4-2-5.

The lock clicked open.

A small black cloth bag was stuck inside the inner side

pocket of the suitcase. I unzipped it and found a little green

diary and a floppy disk inside. I opened the diary first. It was

written in her usual handwriting. Nothing leaped out at me. It

was just information about where they went. Who they saw.

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Names of hotels. The price of petrol. Dinner menus. Brands of

wine and what they tasted like. Basically just a list. A lot of the

pages were blank. Keeping a diary wasn’t one of Sumire’s

strong points, apparently. *

The disk was untitled. The label just had the date on it, in

Sumire’s distinctive handwriting. August 19**. I slipped the

disk inside the PowerBook and opened it. The menu showed

two documents, neither of which had a title. They were just

Document 1 and Document 2.

Before opening them, I slowly looked around the room.

Sumire’s coat was hanging in the wardrobe. I saw her goggles,

her Italian dictionary, her passport. Inside the desk were her

ballpoint pen and propelling pencil. In the window above the

desk the gentle, craggy slope was visible. A black cat was

walking on top of the wall of the house next door. The bare

little box room was enveloped in the late afternoon silence. I

closed my eyes and could still hear the waves on the deserted

beach that morning. I opened my eyes again, and this time

listened closely to the real world. I couldn’t hear a thing. *

I set my pointer on Document 1 and double-clicked the icon.

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1 1

Document 1

Did You Ever See Anyone Shot by a Gun without Bleeding?

Fate has led me to a conclusion—an ad hoc conclusion, mind you (is there any other kind? interesting question, but I’ll leave it for some other time)—and here I am on an island in Greece. A small island whose name I’d never even heard of until recently. The time is … a little past four in the morning. Still dark out, of course. Innocent goats have slipped into their peaceful, collective sleep. The line of olive trees outside in the field is sipping at the nourishment the darkness provides. And the moon, like some melancholy priest, rests above the rooftop, stretching out its hands to the barren sea.

No matter where I find myself, this is the time of day I love best. The time that’s mine alone. It’ll be dawn soon, and I’m sitting here writing. Like Buddha, born from his mother’s side (the right or the left, I can’t recall), the new sun will lumber up and peek over the edge of the hills. And the ever discreet Miu will quietly wake up. At six we’ll make a simple breakfast together, and afterwards go over the hills to our ever lovely beach. Before this routine begins, I want

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to roll up my sleeves and finish a bit of work. *

Except for a few letters, it’s been a long time since I’ve written something purely for myself, and I’m not very confident I can express myself the way I’d like to. Not that I’ve ever had that confidence. Somehow, though, I always feel driven to write.

Why? It’s simple, really. In order for me to think about something, I have to first put it into writing.

It’s been that way since I was little. When I didn’t understand something, I gathered up the words scattered at my feet, and lined them up into sentences. If that didn’t help, I’d scatter them again, rearrange them In a different order. Repeat that a number of times, and I was able to think about things like most people. Writing for me was never difficult. Other children gathered pretty stones or acorns, and I wrote. As naturally as breathing, I’d scribble down one sentence after another. And I’d think.

No doubt you think It’s a time-consuming process to reach a conclusion, seeing as how every time I thought about something I had to go through all those steps. Or maybe you wouldn’t think that. But In actual practice it did take time. So much so that by the time I entered elementary school people thought I was retarded. I couldn’t keep up with the other kids.

When I finished elementary school the feeling of alienation this gave me had lessened considerably. By then I’d found a way to keep pace with the world around me. Still, until I left college and broke off any relations with officialdom, this gap existed inside me—like a silent snake in the grass.

My provisional theme here: On a day-to-day basis I use writing to work out who I am.

* Right? Right you are!

* I’ve written an incredible amount up till now. Nearly every day. It’s like I was standing in a huge pasture, cutting the grass all by

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myself, and the grass grows back almost as fast as I can cut it. Today I’d cut over here, tomorrow over there… By the time I make one complete round of the pasture the grass in the first spot is as tall as it was in the beginning.

But since I met Miu I’ve barely written. Why is that? The Fiction = Transmission theory K. told me does make sense. On one level there’s some truth to it. But it doesn’t explain everything. I’ve got to simplify my thinking here.

Simplify, simplify. *

What happened after I met Miu was I stopped thinking. (Of course I’m using my own individual definition of thinking here.) Miu and I were always together, two interlocking spoons, and with her I was swept away somewhere—someplace I couldn’t fathom—and I just thought, Okay, go with the flow.

In other words, I had to get rid of a lot of baggage to get closer to her. Even the act of thinking became a burden. I think that explains it. No matter how tall the grass got, I couldn’t be bothered. I sprawled on my back, gazing up at the sky, watching the billowy clouds drift by. Consigning my fate to the clouds. Giving myself up to the pungent aroma of the grass, the murmur of the wind. And after a time I couldn’t have cared less about the difference between what I knew and what I didn’t know.

No, that’s not true. From day one I couldn’t have cared less. I have to be a bit more precise in my account here.

Precision, precision. *

I see now that my basic rule of thumb in writing has always been to write about things as if I didn’t know them—and this would include things that I did know, or thought I knew about. If I said from the beginning, Oh, I know that, no need to spend my precious time writing about it, my writing would never have got off the ground. For example, if I think about somebody, I know that guy, no need to spend time thinking about him, I’ve got him down, I run

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the risk of being betrayed (and this would apply to you as well). On the flip side of everything we think we absolutely understand lurks an equal amount of the unknown.

Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings.

Just between us, that’s my way of comprehending the world. In a nutshell.

* In the world we live in, what we know and what we don’t know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

Confusion, confusion. Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected

in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness? Without any fuss, then, I gave up worrying about the difference between knowing and not knowing. That became my point of departure. A terrible place to start, perhaps—but people need a makeshift springboard, right? All of which goes to explain how I started seeing dualisms such as theme and style, object and subject, cause and effect, the joints of my hand and the rest of me, not as black-and-white pairs, but as indistinguishable one from the other. Everything had spilled on the kitchen floor—the salt, pepper, flour, starch. All mixed into one fine blob.

* The joints of my hand and the rest of me … I notice sitting here in front of the computer that I’m back to my old bad habit of cracking my knuckles. This bad habit made quite a comeback after I stopped smoking. First I crack the joints of the five fingers of my right hand—crack crack—then the joints of my left hand. I’m not trying to brag, but I can crack my joints so loud you’d think someone’s neck’s getting broken. I was the champion knuckle- cracker in elementary school. Put the boys to shame.

When I was at college, K. let me know In no uncertain terms that this wasn’t exactly a skill I should be proud of. When a girl reaches a certain age she can’t be snapping her knuckles all over the place. Especially in front of other people. Otherwise you’ll end up like

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Lotte Lenya In From Russia with Love. Now why hadn’t anybody ever told me that before? I tried to break the habit. I mean, I really like Lotte Lenya, but not enough to want to be her. Once I stopped smoking, though, I realized that whenever I sat down to write, unconsciously I was cracking my knuckles all over again. Snap crackle pop.

The name’s Bond. James Bond. *

Let me get back to what I was saying. Time’s limited—no room for detours. Forget Lotte Lenya. Sorry, metaphors—gotta split. As I said before, inside us what we know and what we don’t know share the same abode. For convenience’s sake most people erect a wall between them. It makes life easier. But I just swept that wall away. I had to. I hate walls. That’s just the kind of person I am.

* To use the image of the Siamese twins again, it’s not like they always get along. They don’t always try to understand each other. In fact the opposite is more often true. The right hand doesn’t try to know what the left hand’s doing—and vice versa. Confusion reigns, we end up lost—and we crash smack-bang right into something. Thud.

* What I’m getting at is that people have to come up with a clever strategy if they want what they know and what they don’t know to live together in peace. And that strategy—yep, you’ve got it!— is thinking. We have to find a secure anchor. Otherwise, no mistake about it, we’re on an awful collision course.

* A question.

So what are people supposed to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow—not thinking, in other words? Sounds hard? Not at all. Logically, it’s easy. C’est simple. The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of

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time. In dreams you don’t need to make any distinctions between

things. Not at all. Boundaries don’t exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don’t hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites.

Reality, reality. *

Way back when the Sam Peckinpah film The Wild Bunch premiered, a woman journalist raised her hand at the press conference and asked the following: “Why in the world do you have to show so much blood all over the place?” She was pretty worked up about it. One of the actors, Ernest Borgnine, looked a bit perplexed and fielded the question. “Lady, did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?” This film came out at the height of the Vietnam War.

I love that line. That’s gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way. And bleeding. Shooting and bleeding.

Did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?

Which explains my stance as a writer. I think—in a very ordinary way—and reach a point where, in a realm I cannot even give a name to, I conceive a dream, a sightless foetus called understanding, floating in the universal, overwhelming amniotic fluid of incomprehension. Which must be why my novels are absurdly long and, up till now, at least, never reach a proper conclusion. The technical, and moral, skills needed to maintain a supply line on that scale are beyond me.

* Of course I’m not writing a novel here. I don’t know what to call it. Just writing. I’m thinking aloud, so there’s no need to wrap things up neatly. I have no moral obligations. I’m merely—hmm— thinking. I haven’t done any real thinking for the longest time, and

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probably won’t for the foreseeable future. But right now, at this very moment, I am thinking. And that’s what I’m going to do until morning. Think.

* That being said, though, I can’t rid myself of my old familiar dark doubts. Aren’t I spending all my time and energy in some useless pursuit? Hauling a bucket of water to a place that’s on the verge of flooding? Shouldn’t I give up any useless effort and just go with the flow?

Collision? What’s that? *

Let me put it a different way. Okay—what different way was I going to use? Oh, I remember—this is what it is. If I’m going to merely ramble, maybe I should just snuggle under

the warm covers, think of Miu, and play with myself. That’s what I meant.

I love the curve of Miu’s rear end. The exquisite contrast between her jet-black pubic hair and snow-white hair, the nicely shaped arse, clad in tiny black panties. Talk about sexy. Inside her black panties, her T-shaped pubic hair, every bit as black.

I’ve got to stop thinking about that. Switch off the circuit of pointless sexual fantasies (click) and concentrate on writing. Can’t let these precious pre-dawn moments slip away. I’ll let somebody else, in some other context, decide what’s effective and what isn’t. Right now I don’t have a glass of barley tea’s worth of interest in what they might say.

* Right? Right you are! So—onward and upward.

* They say it’s a dangerous experiment to include dreams (actual dreams or otherwise) in the fiction you write. Only a handful of writers—and I’m talking the most talented—are able to pull off

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the kind of irrational synthesis you find in dreams. Sounds reasonable. Still, I want to relate a dream, one I had recently. I want to record this dream simply as a fact that concerns me and my life. Whether it’s literary or not, I don’t care. I’m just the keeper of the warehouse.

* I’ve had the same type of dream many times. The details differ, including the setting, but they all follow the same pattern. And the pain I feel upon waking is always the same. A single theme is repeated there over and over, like a train blowing its whistle at the same blind curve night after night.

Sumire’s Dream

(I’ve written this in the third person. It feels more authentic that way.)

* Sumire is climbing a long spiral staircase to meet her mother, who died a long time ago. Her mother is waiting at the top of the stairs. She has something she wants to tell Sumire, a critical piece of information Sumire desperately needs in order to live. Sumire’s never met a dead person before, and she’s afraid. She doesn’t know what kind of person her mother is. Maybe—for some reason Sumire can’t imagine—her mother hates her. But she has to meet her. This is her one and only chance.

* The stairs go on forever. Climb and climb and she still doesn’t reach the top. Sumire rushes up the stairs, out of breath. She’s running out of time. Her mother won’t always be here, In this building. Sumire’s brow breaks out in a sweat. And finally the stairs come to an end.

At the top of the staircase there’s a broad landing, a thick stone wall at the very end facing her. Right at eye level there’s a kind of round hole like a ventilation shaft. A small hole about 20 inches In diameter. And Sumire’s mother, as if she’d been pushed inside feet

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first, is crammed inside that hole. Sumire realizes that her time is nearly up.

* In that cramped space, her mother faces outwards, towards her. She looks at Sumire’s face as if appealing to her. Sumire knows in a glance that It’s her mother. She’s the person who gave me life and flesh, she realizes. But somehow the woman here is not the mother in the family photo album. My real mother is beautiful, and youthful. So that person in the album wasn’t really my mother after all, Sumire thinks. My father tricked me.

“Mother!” Sumire bravely shouts. She feels a wall of sorts melt away inside her. No sooner does she utter this word than her mother is pulled deeper into that hole, as if sucked by some giant vacuum on the other side. Her mother’s mouth is open, and she’s shouting something to Sumire. But the hollow sound of the wind rushing out of the hole swallows up her words. In the next instant her mother is yanked into the darkness of the hole and vanishes.

Sumire looks back, and the staircase is gone. She’s surrounded by stone walls. Where the staircase had been there’s a wooden door. She turns the knob and opens the door, and beyond is the sky. She’s at the top of a tall tower. So high it makes her dizzy to look down. Lots of tiny objects, like aeroplanes, are buzzing around in the sky. Simple little planes anybody could make, constructed of bamboo and light pieces of lumber. In the rear of each plane there’s a tiny fist-sized engine and propeller. Sumire yells out to one of the passing pilots to come and rescue her. But none of the pilots pays any attention.

* It must be because I’m wearing these clothes, Sumire decides. Nobody can see me. She has on an anonymous white hospital gown. She takes it off, and is naked—there’s nothing on underneath. She discards the gown on the ground next to the door, and like a soul now unfettered it catches an updraught and sails out of sight. The same wind caresses her body, rustles the hair

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between her legs. With a start she notices that all the little aeroplanes have changed into dragonflies. The sky is filled with multicoloured dragonflies, their huge bulbous eyes glistening as they gaze around. The buzz of their wings grows steadily louder, like a radio being turned up. Finally it’s an unbearable roar. Sumire crouches down, eyes closed, and covers her ears.

* And she wakes up.

* Sumire could recall every last detail of the dream. She could have painted a picture of it. The only thing she couldn’t recall was her mother’s face as it was sucked into that black hole. And the critical words her mother spoke, too, were lost for ever in that vacant void. In bed, Sumire violently bit her pillow and cried and cried.

The Barber Won’t Be Digging Any More Holes

After this dream I came to an important decision. The tip of my somewhat industrious pickaxe will finally begin to chip away at the solid cliff. Thwack. I decided to make it clear to Miu what I want. I can’t stay like this forever, hanging. I can’t be like a spineless little barber digging a hole in his back garden, revealing to no one the fact that I love Miu. Act that way and slowly but surely I will fade away. All the dawns and all the twilights will rob me, piece by piece, of myself, and before long my very life will be shaved away completely—and I would end up nothing.

* Matters are as clear as crystal. Crystal, crystal. I want to make love to Miu, and be held by her. I’ve already

surrendered so much that’s Important to me. There’s nothing more I can give up. It’s not too late. I have to be with Miu, enter her. And she must enter me. Like two greedy, glistening snakes.

And if Miu doesn’t accept me, then what? I’ll cross that bridge when the times comes.

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“Did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?” *

Blood must be shed. I’ll sharpen my knife, ready to slit a dog’s throat somewhere.

* Right? Right you are!

* What I’ve written here is a message to myself. I toss it into the air like a boomerang. It slices through the dark, lays the little soul of some poor kangaroo out cold, and finally comes back to me.

But the boomerang that returns is not the same one I threw. Boomerang, boomerang.

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1 2

Document 2

It’s 2.30 in the afternoon. Outside it’s as bright and hot as hell. The cliffs, the sky, and the sea are sparkling. Look at them long enough and the boundaries begin to dissolve, everything melting into a chaotic ooze. Consciousness sinks into the sleepy shadows to avoid the light. Even the birds have given up flying. Inside the house, though, it’s pleasantly cool. Miu is in the living room listening to Brahms. She’s wearing a blue summer dress with thin straps, her pure-white hair pulled back simply. I’m at my desk, writing these words.

“Does the music bother you?” Miu asks me. Brahms never bothers me, I answer.

* I’ve been searching my memory, trying to reproduce the story Miu told me a few days ago in the village in Burgundy. It’s not easy. She told the story in fits and starts, the chronology thoroughly mixed up. Sometimes I couldn’t unravel which events happened first, and which came later, what was cause, what was effect. I don’t blame her, though. The cruel conspiratorial razor buried in her memory

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slashed out at her, and as the stars faded with the dawn above the vineyard, so the life force drained from her cheeks as she told me her tale.

Miu told the story only after I insisted on hearing it. I had to run through a whole gamut of appeals to get her to talk -alternately encouraging her, bullying her, indulging, praising, enticing her to continue. We drank red wine and talked till dawn. Hands clasped together we followed the traces of her memories, piecing them together, analysing the results. Still there were places Miu couldn’t dredge up from her memory. Once she dipped her foot there she grew quietly confused, and downed more wine. These were the danger zones of memory. Whenever we came across these, we’d give up the search and gingerly withdraw to higher ground.

* I persuaded Miu to tell me the story after I became aware that she dyed her hair. Miu is such a careful person that only a very few people around her have any idea she dyes her hair. But I noticed it. Travelling together for so long, spending each day together, you tend to pick up on things like that. Or maybe Miu wasn’t trying to hide it. She could have been much more discreet if she’d wanted to. Maybe she thought it was inevitable I’d find out, or maybe she wanted me to find out. (Hmm—pure conjecture on my part.)

* I asked her straight out. That’s me—never beat about the bush. How much of your hair is white? I asked. How long have you been dyeing it? Fourteen years, she answered. Fourteen years ago my hair turned entirely white, every single strand. Were you sick? No, that wasn’t it, said Miu. Something happened, and all my hair turned pure white. Overnight.

I’d like to hear the story, I said, imploring her. I want to know everything about you. You know I wouldn’t hide a thing from you. But Miu quietly shook her head. She’d never once told anyone the story; even her husband didn’t know what had happened. For fourteen years it had been her own private secret.

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But in the end we talked all night. Every story has a time to be told, I convinced her. Otherwise you’ll be forever a prisoner to the secret inside you.

Miu looked at me as if gazing at some far-off scene. Something floated to the surface of her eyes, then slowly settled to the bottom again. “I have nothing I have to clear up,” she said. “They have accounts to settle—not me.” I couldn’t understand what she was driving at.

“If I do tell you the story,” Miu said, “the two of us will always share it. And I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. If I lift open the lid now, you’ll be implicated. Is that what you want? You really want to know something I’ve sacrificed so much trying to forget?”

Yes, I said. No matter what it is, I want to share it with you. I don’t want you to hide a thing.

Obviously confused, Miu took a sip of wine and closed her eyes. A silence followed In which time itself seemed to bend and buckle.

In the end, though, she began to tell the story. Bit by bit, one fragment at a time. Some elements of the story took on a life of their own, while others never even quivered into being. There were the inevitable gaps and elisions, some of which themselves had their own special significance. My task now, as narrator, is to gather—ever so carefully—all these elements into a whole.

The Tale of Miu and the Ferris Wheel

One summer Miu stayed alone in a small town In Switzerland near the French border. She was 25 and lived in Paris, where she studied the piano. She came to this little town at her father’s request to take care of some business negotiations. The business itself was a simple matter, basically just having dinner once with the other party and having him sign a contract. Miu liked the little town the first time she laid eyes on it. It was such a cosy, lovely place, with a

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lake and medieval castle beside it. She thought it would be fun to live there, and took the plunge. Besides, a music festival was being held in a nearby village, and if she rented a car she could attend every day.

She was lucky enough to find a furnished apartment on a short- term lease, a pleasant, tidy little building on top of a hill on the outskirts of town. The view was superb. Nearby was a place where she could practise piano. The rent wasn’t cheap, but if she found herself strapped for cash she could always rely on her father to help out.

Thus Miu began her temporary but placid life in the town. She’d attend concerts at the music festival, take walks in the neighbourhood, and before long got to make a few acquaintances. She found a nice little restaurant and café that she began to frequent. Out of the window of her apartment she could see an amusement park outside town. There was a giant Ferris wheel in the park. Colourful boxes with doors forever wed to the huge wheel, all of which would slowly rotate through the sky. Once it reached its upward limit, it began to descend. Naturally. Ferris wheels don’t go anywhere. They go up, they come back down, a roundabout trip that, for some strange reason, most people find pleasant.

In the evenings the Ferris wheel was speckled with countless lights. Even after it shut down for the night and the amusement park closed, the wheel twinkled all night long, as if vying with the stars in the sky. Miu would sit near her window, listening to music on the radio, and gaze forever at the up-and-down motion of the Ferris wheel. Or, when it was stopped, at the monument-like stillness of it. She got to know a man who lived in the town. A handsome, 50-ish Latin type. He was tall, with a thoroughly handsome nose and dark straight hair. He introduced himself to her at the cafe. Where are you from? he asked. I’m from Japan, she answered. And the two of them began talking. His name was Ferdinando. He was from

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Barcelona, and had moved here five years before to work in furniture design.

He spoke in a relaxed way, often joking. They chatted for a while, then said goodbye. Two days later they met each other at the same cafe. He was single, divorced, she found out. He told her he left Spain to begin a new life. Miu didn’t have a very good impression of the man. She could sense he was trying to move In on her. She sniffed a hint of sexual desire, and it frightened her. She decided to avoid the cafe.

Still, she bumped into Ferdinando many times in town—often enough to make her feel he was following her. Perhaps it was just a silly delusion. It was a small town, so running across the same person wasn’t so strange. Every time he saw her, he smiled broadly and said hello in a friendly way. Still, ever so slowly, Miu became irritated and uneasy. She started to see Ferdinando as a threat to her peaceful life. Like a dissonant cymbal at the beginning of a musical score, an ominous shadow began to cloud her pleasant summer.

* Ferdinando, though, turned out to be just a glimpse of a greater shadow. After living there ten days, she started to feel a kind of impediment attaching itself to her life in the town. The thoroughly lovely, neat-as-a-pin town now seemed narrow-minded, self- righteous. The people were friendly and kind enough, but she started to feel an invisible prejudice against her as an Asian. The wine she drank in restaurants suddenly had a bad aftertaste. She found worms In the vegetables she bought. The performances at the music festival sounded listless. She couldn’t concentrate on her music. Even her apartment, which she thought quite comfortable, began to look to her like a poorly decorated, squalid place. Everything lost its initial lustre. The ominous shadow spread. And she couldn’t escape it.

The phone would ring at night, and she’d pick it up. “Alio?” she’d say. But the phone would go dead. This happened again and again.

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It had to be Ferdinando, she thought. But she had no proof. How would he know her number? The phone was an old model, and she couldn’t just unplug it. She had trouble sleeping, and started taking sleeping pills. Her appetite had gone.

* I’ve got to get out of here, she decided. But for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she couldn’t drag herself away from the town. She made up a list of reasons to stay. She’d already paid a month’s rent, and bought a pass to the music festival. And she’d already let out her apartment in Paris for the summer. She couldn’t just up and leave now, she told herself. And besides, nothing had actually happened. She hadn’t been hurt in any real way, had she? No one had treated her badly. I must just be getting overly sensitive to things, she convinced herself.

One evening, about two weeks after she began living there, she dined out as usual at a nearby restaurant. After dinner she decided to enjoy the night air for a change, and took a long stroll. Lost in thought, she wandered from one street to the next. Before she realized it, she was at the entrance to the amusement park. The park with the Ferris wheel. The air was filled with lively music, the sound of carnival barkers, and children’s happy shouts. The visitors were mostly families, and a few couples from town. Miu remembered her father taking her to an amusement park once when she was little. She could remember even now the scent of her father’s tweed coat as they rode the whirling teacups. The whole time they were on the ride, she clung to her father’s sleeve. To young Miu that odour was a sign of the far-off world of adults, a symbol of security. She found herself missing her father.

* Just for fun, she bought a ticket and went inside the park. The place was filled with different little shops and stands—a shooting gallery, a snake show, a fortune-teller’s booth. Crystal ball in front of her, the fortune-teller, a largish woman, beckoned to Miu: “Mademoiselle, come here, please. It’s very important. Your fate is

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about to change.” Miu just smiled and passed by. She bought some ice-cream and sat on a bench to eat it,

watching the people passing by. She felt herself far removed from the bustling crowds around her. A man started to talk to her in German. He was about 30, small, with blond hair and a moustache, the kind of man who’d look good in a uniform. She shook her head and smiled and pointed to her watch. “I’m waiting for somebody,” she said in French. Her voice sounded higher, and remote to her. The man said nothing further, grinned sheepishly, gave her a brief wave of the hand and was gone.

* Miu stood up, and wandered around. Somebody was throwing darts and a balloon burst. A bear was stomping around in a dance. An organ played “The Blue Danube Waltz”. She looked up, and saw the Ferris wheel leisurely turning through the air. It would be fun to see my apartment from the Ferris wheel, she suddenly thought, instead of the other way around. Fortunately she had a small pair of binoculars in her shoulder bag. She had left them in there since the last time she was at the music festival, where they came in handy for seeing the stage from her far-off seat on the lawn. They were light and strong enough. With these she should be able to see right into her room.

* She went to buy a ticket at the booth in front of the Ferris wheel. “We’ll be closing pretty soon, Mademoiselle,” the ticket seller, an old man, told her. He looked down as he mumbled this, as if talking to himself. And he shook his head. “We’re almost finished for the day. This will be the last ride. One time around and we’re finished.” White stubble covered his chin, his whiskers stained by tobacco smoke. He coughed. His cheeks were as red as if buffeted for years in a north wind.

“That’s all right. Once is enough,” Miu replied. She bought a ticket and stepped up on the platform. She was the only person waiting to board, and as far as she could make out, the little

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gondolas were all empty. Empty boxes swung idly through the air as they revolved, as if the world itself were fizzling out towards its end.

She got inside the red gondola, sat on the bench, while the old man came over, closed the door, and locked it from the outside. For safety’s sake, no doubt. Like some ancient animal coming to life, the Ferris wheel clattered and began its ascent. The assorted throng of booths and attractions shrank below her. As they did, the lights of the city rose up before her. The lake was on her left- hand side, and she could see lights from excursion boats reflected gently on the surface of the water. The far-off mountainside was dotted with lights from tiny villages. Her chest tightened at the beauty of it all.

* The area where she lived, on the hilltop, came into view. Miu focused her binoculars and searched for her apartment, but it wasn’t easy to find. The Ferris wheel steadily rose higher and higher. She’d have to hurry. She swept the binoculars back and forth in a frantic search. But there were too many buildings that looked alike. The Ferris wheel reached the top, and began its downward turn. Finally she spotted the building. That’s it! But somehow it had more windows than she remembered. Lots of people had their windows open to catch the summer breeze. She moved her binoculars from one window to the next, and finally located the second apartment from the right on the third floor. But by then the Ferris wheel was getting closer to ground level. The walls of other buildings got in the way. It was a shame—just a few more seconds and she could have seen right inside her place.

* The Ferris wheel approached the ground, ever so slowly. She tried to open the door to get out, but it wouldn’t budge. Of course—it was locked from the outside. She looked around for the old man in the ticket booth, but he was nowhere to be seen. The light in the booth was already out. She was about to call to someone, but

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there wasn’t anyone to yell to. The Ferris wheel began rising once more. What a mess, she thought. How could this happen? She sighed. Maybe the old man had gone to the toilet and missed the timing. She’d have to make one more circuit.

It’s alt right, she thought. The old man’s forgetfulness would give her a second free spin on the wheel. This time for sure she’d spot her apartment. She grasped the binoculars firmly and stuck her face out of the window. Since she’d located the general area and position last time around, this time it was an easy task to spot her own room. The window was open, the light on. She hated to come back to a dark room, and had planned to come back straight after dinner.

* It gave her a guilty feeling to look at her own room from so far away through the binoculars, as if she were peeking in on herself. But I’m not there, she assured herself. Of course not. There’s a phone on the table. I’d really like to place a call to that phone. There’s a letter I left on the table, too. I’d like to read it from here, Miu thought. But naturally she couldn’t see that much detail.

* Finally the Ferris wheel passed its zenith and began to descend. It had only gone down a short while when it suddenly stopped. She was thrown against the side of the car, banging her shoulder and nearly dropping the binoculars on the floor. The sound of the Ferris wheel motor ground to a halt, and everything was wrapped in an unearthly silence. All the lively background music she’d heard was gone. Most of the lights in the booths down below were out. She listened carefully, but heard only the faint sound of the wind and nothing more. Absolute stillness. No voices of carnival barkers, no children’s happy shouts. At first she couldn’t grasp what had happened. And then it came to her: she’d been abandoned.

She leaned out of the half-open window, and looked down again. She realized how high up she was. Miu thought to yell out for help, but knew that no one would hear her. She was too high

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up, her voice too small. Where could that old man have gone to? He must have been

drinking. His face that colour, his breath, his thick voice—no mistake about it. He forgot all about putting me on the Ferris wheel and turned the machinery off. At this very moment he’s probably getting pissed in some bar, having a beer or gin, getting even more drunk and forgetting what he’s done. Miu bit her lip. I might not get out of here until tomorrow afternoon, she thought. Or maybe evening? When did the amusement park open for business? She had no idea.

* Miu was dressed only in a light blouse and short cotton skirt, and though it was the middle of summer the Swiss night air was chilly. The wind had picked up. She leaned out of the window once more to look at the scene below. There were even fewer lights than before. The amusement park staff had finished for the day and gone home. There had to be a guard around somewhere. She took a deep breath and shouted for help at the top of her lungs. She listened. And yelled again. And again. No response.

She took a small notebook from her shoulder bag, and wrote on it in French: “I’m locked Inside the Ferris wheel at the amusement park. Please help me.” She dropped the note out of the window. The sheet flew off on the wind. The wind was blowing towards the town, so if she was lucky it might end up there. But if someone actually did pick it up and read it, would he (or she) believe it? On another page, she wrote her name and address along with the message. That should be more believable. People might not take it for a joke then, but realize she was in serious trouble. She sent half the pages in her notebook flying out on the wind.

Suddenly she got an idea, took everything out of her wallet except a ten-franc note, and put a note inside: “A woman is locked inside the Ferris wheel up above you. Please help.” She dropped the wallet out the window. It fell straight down towards the ground. She couldn’t see where it fell, though, or. hear the thud of

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it hitting the ground. She put the same kind of note inside her purse and dropped that as well.

Miu looked at her wristwatch. It was 10.30. She rummaged around inside her shoulder bag to see what else she could find. Some simple make-up and a mirror, her passport. Sunglasses. Keys to her rental car and her apartment. An army knife for peeling fruit. A small plastic bag with three crackers inside. A French paperback. She’d eaten dinner, so she wouldn’t be hungry until morning. With the cool air, she wouldn’t get too thirsty. And fortunately she didn’t have to go to the toilet yet.

She sat down on the plastic bench, and leaned her head back against the wall. Regrets spun through her mind. Why had she come to the amusement park, and got on this Ferris wheel? After she left the restaurant she should have gone straight home. If only she had, she’d be taking a nice hot bath right now, snuggling into bed with a good book, as she always did. Why hadn’t she done that? And why in the world would they hire a hopeless drunk like that old man?

* The Ferris wheel creaked in the wind. She tried to close the window so the wind wouldn’t get in, but it didn’t give an inch. She gave up and sat on the floor. I knew I should have brought a sweater, she thought. As she’d left her apartment she’d paused, wondering if she should drape a cardigan over her shoulders. But the summer evening had looked so pleasant, and the restaurant was only three blocks from her place. At that point walking to the amusement park and getting on the Ferris wheel were the furthest things from her mind. Everything had gone wrong.

To help her relax, she removed her wristwatch, her thin silver bracelet, and the seashell-shaped earrings and stored them in her bag. She curled up in a corner of the floor, and hoped she could just sleep till morning. Naturally she couldn’t get to sleep. She was cold, and uneasy. An occasional gust of wind shook the gondola. She closed her eyes and mentally played a Mozart sonata in C

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minor, moving her fingers on an imaginary keyboard. For no special reason, she’d memorized this piece that she’d played when she was a child. Halfway through the second movement, though, her mind grew dim. And she fell asleep.

* How long she slept, she didn’t know. It couldn’t have been long. She woke with a start, and for a minute had no idea where she was. Slowly her memory returned. That’s right, she thought, I’m stuck inside a Ferris wheel at an amusement park. She pulled her watch out of her bag; it was after midnight. Miu slowly stood up. Sleeping in such a cramped position had made all her joints ache. She yawned a couple of times, stretched, and rubbed her wrists.

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for a while, she took the paperback out of her bag to take her mind off her troubles, and began reading where she’d left off. It was a new mystery she’d bought at a bookshop in town. Luckily, the lights on the Ferris wheel were left on all night. After she’d read a few pages, though, she realized she wasn’t following the plot. Her eyes were following the lines all right, but her mind was miles away.

Miu gave up and shut the book. She looked at the night sky. A thin layer of clouds covered the sky, and she couldn’t make out any stars. There was a dim sliver of moon. The lights cast her reflection clearly on the gondola’s glass window. She stared at her face for a long time. When will this be over? she asked herself. Hang in there. Later on this will all be just a funny story you’ll tell people. Imagine getting locked inside a Ferris wheel in an amusement park in Switzerland!

But it didn’t become a funny story. This is where the real story begins.

* A little later, she picked up her binoculars and looked out at the window of her apartment. Nothing had changed. Well, what do you expect? she asked herself, and smiled.

She looked at the other windows in the building. It was past

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midnight, and almost everyone was asleep. Most of the windows were dark. A few people, though, were up, lights on in their apartments. People on the lower floors had taken the precaution of closing their curtains. Those on the upper floors didn’t bother, and left their curtains open to catch the cool night breeze. Life within these rooms was quietly, and completely, open to view. (Who would ever imagine that someone looking in with binoculars was hidden away in a Ferris wheel in the middle of the night?) Miu wasn’t very interested in peeking in on others’ private lives, though. She found looking in her own empty room far more absorbing.

* When she made one complete circuit of the windows and returned to her own apartment, she gasped. There was a naked man in her bedroom. At first she thought she had the wrong apartment. She moved the binoculars up and down, back and forth. But there was no mistake; it was her room all right. Her furniture, her flowers in the vase, her apartment’s paintings hanging on the wall. The man was Ferdinando. No mistake about it. He was sitting on her bed, stark naked. His chest and stomach were hairy, and his long penis hung down flaccidly like some drowsy animal.

What could he be doing in my room? A thin sheen of sweat broke out on Miu’s forehead. How did he get in? Miu couldn’t understand it. She was angry at first, then confused. Next, a woman appeared in the window. She had on a short-sleeve white blouse and a short blue cotton skirt. A woman? Miu clutched the binoculars tighter and fixed her eyes on the scene.

What she saw was herself. *

Miu’s mind went blank. I’m right here, looking at my room through binoculars. And in that room is me. Miu focused and refocused the binoculars. But no matter how many times she looked, it was her inside the room. Wearing the exact same clothes she had on now. Ferdinando held her close and carried her to the bed. Kissing her,

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he gently undressed the Miu inside the room. He took off her blouse, undid her bra, pulled off her skirt, kissed the base of her neck as he caressed her breasts with his hands. After a while, he pulled off her panties with one hand, panties exactly the same as the ones she had on now. Miu couldn’t breathe. What was happening?

Before she realized it, Ferdinando’s penis was erect, as stiff as a rod. She’d never seen one so huge. He took Miu’s hand, and placed it on his penis. He caressed her and licked her from head to toe. He took his own sweet time. She didn’t resist. She—the Miu in the apartment—let him do whatever he wanted, thoroughly enjoying the rising passion. From time to time she would reach out and caress Ferdinando’s penis and balls and allow him to touch her everywhere.

Miu couldn’t drag her gaze away from this strange sight. She felt sick. Her throat was so parched she couldn’t swallow. She felt as if she was going to vomit. Everything was grotesquely exaggerated, menacing, like some medieval allegorical painting. This is what Miu thought: that they were deliberately showing her this scene. They know I’m watching. But still she couldn’t pull her eyes away.

* A blank.

* Then what happened?

Miu didn’t remember. Her memory came to an abrupt halt at this point.

“I can’t recall,” she said. She covered her face with her hands. “All I know is that it was a horrifying experience,” she added quietly. “I was right here, and another me was over there. And that man—Ferdinando—was doing all kinds of things to me over there.”

“What do you mean, all kinds of things?” “I just can’t remember. All kinds of things. With me locked inside

the Ferris wheel, he did whatever he wanted—to the me over

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there. It’s not like I was afraid of sex. There was a time when I enjoyed casual sex a lot. But that wasn’t what I was seeing there. It was all meaningless and obscene, with only one goal in mind—to make me thoroughly polluted. Ferdinando used all the tricks he knew to soil me with his thick fingers and mammoth penis—not that the me over there felt that this was making her dirty. And in the end it wasn’t even Ferdinando any more.

Not Ferdinando any more? I stared at Miu. If it wasn’t Ferdinando, then who was it?

I don’t know. I can’t recall. But in the end it wasn’t Ferdinando any more. Or maybe from the beginning it wasn’t him.

* The next thing she knew, Miu was lying in a hospital bed, a white hospital gown covering her naked body. All her joints ached. The doctor explained what had happened. In the morning one of the workers at the amusement park had found the wallet she’d dropped and worked out what had happened. He got the Ferris wheel down and called an ambulance. Inside the gondola Miu was unconscious, collapsed in a heap. She looked like she was in shock, her pupils non-reactive. Her face and arms were covered with abrasions, her blouse bloody. They took her to the hospital for treatment. Nobody could work out how she’d got the injuries. Thankfully none of them would leave any lasting scars. The police hauled in the old man who ran the Ferris wheel for questioning, but he had no memory at all of giving her a ride just near closing time.

The next day some local policemen came to question her. She had trouble answering their questions. When they compared her face with her picture in her passport, they frowned, strange expressions on their faces like they’d swallowed something awful. Hesitantly, they asked her: “Mademoiselle, we’re sorry to have to ask, but are you really 25?”

“I am,” she replied, “just like it says in my passport.” Why did they have to ask that?

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A little while later, though, when she went to the bathroom to wash her face, she understood. Every single hair on her head was white. Pure white, like freshly driven snow. At first she thought it was somebody else in the mirror. She spun around. But she was alone in the bathroom. She looked in the mirror once more. And the reality of it all came crashing down on her in that instant. The white-haired woman staring back at her was herself. She fainted and fell to the floor.

* And Miu vanished.

“I was still on this side, here. But another me, maybe half of me, had gone over to the other side. Taking with it my black hair, my sexual desire, my periods, my ovulation, perhaps even the will to live. And the half that was left is the person you see here. I’ve felt this way for the longest time—that in a Ferris wheel in a small Swiss town, for a reason I can’t explain, I was split in two for ever. For all I know this may have been some kind of transaction. It’s not like something was stolen away from me, because it all still exists, on the other side, lust a single mirror separates us from the other side. But I can never cross the boundary of that single pane of glass. Never.”

Miu nibbled at her fingernails. “I guess never is too strong a word. Maybe someday,

somewhere, we’ll meet again, and merge back into one. A very important question remains unanswered, however. Which me, on which side of the mirror, is the real me? I have no idea. Is the real me the one who held Ferdinando? Or the one who detested him? I don’t have the confidence to work that one out.”

* After the summer holidays were over, Miu didn’t return to school. She abandoned her studies abroad and went back to Japan. And never again did she touch a keyboard. The strength to make music had left her, never to return. A year later her father died and she took over his company.

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“Not being able to play the piano any more was definitely a shock, but I didn’t brood about it. I had a faint idea that, sooner or later, it was bound to happen. One of these days …” Miu smiled. “The world is filled with pianists. Twenty active world-class pianists are more than enough. Go to a record shop and check out all the versions of the ‘Waldstein’, the ‘Kreisleriana’, whatever. There are only so many classical pieces to record, only so much space on the CD shelves at shops. As far as the recording industry’s concerned, 20 top-notch pianists are plenty. No one was going to care if I wasn’t one of them.”

Miu spread her ten fingers out before her, and turned them over again and again, as if she were making sure of her memory.

“After I’d been in France for about a year I noticed a strange thing. Pianists whose technique was worse than mine, and who didn’t practise nearly half as much as I did, were able to move their audiences more than I ever could. In the end they defeated me. At first I thought it was just a misunderstanding. But the same thing happened so many times it made me angry. It’s so unfair! I thought. Slowly but surely, though, I understood—that something was missing from me. Something absolutely critical, though I didn’t know what. The kind of depth of emotion a person needs to make music that will inspire others, I guess. I hadn’t noticed this when I was in Japan. In Japan I never lost to anyone, and I certainly didn’t have the time to criticize my own performance. But in Paris surrounded by so many talented pianists, I finally understood that. It was entirely clear—like when the sun rises and the fog melts away.”

Miu sighed. She looked up and smiled. “Ever since I was little I’ve enjoyed making my own private rules

and living by them. I was a very independent, super-serious type of girl. I was born in Japan, went to Japanese schools, grew up playing with Japanese friends. Emotionally I was completely Japanese, but by nationality I was a foreigner. Technically speaking Japan will always be a foreign country. My parents weren’t the

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kind to be strict about things, but that’s one thing they drummed into my head since I can remember: You are a foreigner here. I decided that in order for me to survive I needed to make myself stronger.”

Miu continued in a calm voice. “Being tough isn’t of itself a bad thing. Looking back on it,

though, I can see I was too used to being strong, and never tried to understand those who were weak. I was too used to being fortunate, and didn’t try to understand those less fortunate. Too used to being healthy, and didn’t try to understand the pain of those who weren’t. Whenever I saw a person in trouble, somebody paralysed by events, I decided it was entirely their fault—they just weren’t trying hard enough. People who complain were just plain lazy. My outlook on life was unshakeable, and practical, but lacked any human warmth. And not a single person around me pointed this out.

“I lost my virginity at 17, and slept with quite a few men. I had a lot of boyfriends, and if the mood struck me, I didn’t mind one- night stands. But never once did I truly love someone. I didn’t have the time. All I could think about was becoming a world-class pianist, and deviating from that path was not an option. Something was missing in me, but by the time I noticed that gap, it was too late.”

Again she spread out both hands in front of her, and thought for a while.

“In that sense, what happened in Switzerland 14 years ago may well have been something I created myself. Sometimes I believe that.”

* Miu married at 29. Ever since the incident in Switzerland, she was totally frigid, and couldn’t manage sex with anyone. Something inside her had vanished for ever. She shared this fact—and this fact alone—with the man she ended up marrying. That’s why I can’t marry anyone, she explained. But the man loved Miu, and

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even if it meant a platonic relationship, he wanted to share the rest of his life with her. Miu couldn’t come up with a valid reason for turning down his proposal. She’d known him since she was a child, and had always been fond of him. No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with. Also, on the practical side, being married was important as far as carrying on her family business was concerned.

Miu continued. “My husband and I see each other only at weekends, and

generally get along well. We’re like good friends, life partners able to pass some pleasant time together. We talk about all sorts of things, and we trust each other implicitly. Where and how he has a sex life I don’t know, and I don’t really care. We never make love, though—never even touch each other. I feel bad about it, but I don’t want to touch him. I just don’t want to.”

Worn out with talking, Miu quietly covered her face with her hands. Outside, the sky had turned light.

“I was alive in the past, and I’m alive now, sitting here talking to you. But what you see here isn’t really me. This is just a shadow of who I was. You are really living. But I’m not. Even these words I’m saying right now sound empty, like an echo.”

Wordlessly I put my arm around Miu’s shoulder. I couldn’t find the right words, so I just held her.

I’m in love with Miu. With the Miu on this side, needless to say. But I also love the Miu on the other side just as much. The moment this thought struck me it was like I could hear myself -with an audible creak—splitting in two. As if Miu’s own split became a rupture that had taken hold of me. The feeling was overpowering, and I knew there was nothing I could do to fight it.

One question remains, however. If this side, where Miu is, is not the real world—if this side is actually the other side—what about me, the person who shares the same temporal and spatial plane with her?

Who in the world am I ?

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1 3

I read both documents twice, a quick run-through at first, then

slowly, paying attention to the details, engraving them on my

mind. The documents were definitely Sumire’s; the writing was

filled with her one-of-a-kind phrasing. There was something

different about the overall tone, though, something I couldn’t

pin down. It was more restrained, more distanced. Still, there

was no doubt about it—Sumire had written both.

After a moment’s hesitation, I slipped the floppy disk into the

pocket of my bag. If Sumire were to come back without

incident, I’d just put it back where it belonged. The problem

was what to do if she didn’t return. If somebody went through

her belongings, they were bound to find the disk, and I

couldn’t abide the thought of other eyes prying into what I had

just read.

After I read the documents, I had to get out of the house. I

changed into a new shirt, left the cottage, and clambered down

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the staircase to town. I exchanged $100-worth of traveller’s

cheques, bought an English-language tabloid at the kiosk, and

sat under a parasol at a cafe, reading. A sleepy waiter took my

order for lemonade and melted cheese on toast. He wrote down

the order with a stubby pencil, in no particular hurry. Sweat

had seeped through the back of his shirt, forming a large stain.

The stain seemed to be sending out a message, but I couldn’t

decipher it.

I mechanically leafed through half the paper, then gazed

absently at the harbour scene. A skinny black dog came out of

nowhere, sniffed my legs, then, losing interest, padded away.

People passed the languid summer afternoon, each in his own

personal spot. The only ones who seemed to be moving were

the waiter and the dog, though I had my doubts about how

long they’d keep at it. The old man at the kiosk where I’d

bought the paper had been fast asleep under a parasol, legs

spread wide apart. The statue of the hero in the square stood

impassively as always, back turned to the intense sunlight.

I cooled my palms and forehead with the cold glass of

lemonade, turning over and over in my mind any connections

there might be between Sumire’s disappearance and what

she’d written.

For a long time Sumire had not written. When she first met

Miu at the wedding reception, her desire to write had flown

out of the window. Still, here on this little island, she’d

managed those two pieces in a short space of time. No mean

feat to complete that much in a few days. Something must have

driven Sumire to sit at her desk and write. Where was the

motivation?

More to the point, what theme tied these two pieces of

writing together? I looked up, gazed at the birds resting on the

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wharf, and gave it some thought.

It was far too hot to think about complicated matters.

Admittedly I was confused and tired. Still, as if marshalling

together the remnants of a defeated army—minus any drums

and trumpets—I rallied my scattered thoughts. My mind

focused, I began to piece it together.

“What’s really important here,” I whispered aloud to myself,

“is not the big things other people have thought up, but the

small things you, yourself, have.” My standard maxim I taught

my own students. But was it really true? It’s easy to say, but

putting it into practice isn’t. One’s hard put to start with even

the small things, let alone the Big Picture. Or maybe the smaller

the notion, the harder it is to grasp? Plus it didn’t help that I

was so far from home.

Sumire’s dream. Miu’s split. *

These are two different worlds, I realized. That’s the common

element here.

Document 1: This relates a dream Sumire had. She’s climbing a

long staircase to go to see her dead mother. But the moment

she arrives, her mother is already returning to the other side.

And Sumire can’t stop her. And she’s left standing on the spire

of a tower, surrounded by objects from a different world.

Sumire’s had many similar dreams.

Document 2: This one concerns the strange experiences Miu

had 14 years ago. She was stuck inside a Ferris wheel overnight

in an amusement park in a small Swiss town, and looking

through binoculars at her own room she saw a second self

there. A doppelgänger. And this experience destroyed Miu as a

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person—or at least made this destruction tangible. As Miu put

it, she was split in two, with a mirror in between each self.

Sumire had persuaded Miu to tell the story and wrote it down

as best she could. *

This side—the other side. That was the common thread. The

movement from one side to the other. Sumire must have been

drawn by this motif and motivated enough to spend so much

time writing it all down. To borrow her own word, writing all

this helped her think.

The waiter came to clear away the remnants of my toast, and

I ordered a refill of lemonade. “Put in lots of ice,” I asked him.

When he brought the drink over I took a sip and used it again

to cool my forehead.

“And if Miu doesn’t accept me, then what?” Sumire had

written. “I’ll cross that bridge when the times comes. Blood

must be shed. I’ll sharpen my knife, ready to slit a dog’s throat

somewhere.”

What was she trying to convey? Was she hinting that she

might kill herself? I couldn’t believe that. Her words didn’t

have the acrid smell of death. What I sensed in them was rather

the will to move forwards, the struggle to make a new start.

Dogs and blood are just metaphors, like I’d explained to her on

that bench at Inogashira Park. They get their meaning from

magical, life-giving forces. The story about the Chinese gates

was a metaphor of how a story captures that magic.

Ready to slit a dog’s throat somewhere.

Somewhere?

My thoughts slammed into a solid wall. A total dead end.

Where could Sumire have gone to? Is there somewhere she

had to go to on this island?

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* I couldn’t shake the image of Sumire falling down a well in

some remote area and waiting, alone, for help to arrive.

Injured, lonely, starving, and thirsty. The thought of this nearly

drove me crazy.

The police had made clear that there wasn’t a single well on

the island. They’d never heard of any holes either anywhere

near town. If there were, we’d be the first to know, they

declared. I had to grant them that.

I decided to venture a theory.

Sumire went over to the other side.

That would explain a lot. Sumire broke through the mirror

and journeyed to the other side. To meet the other Miu who

was there. If the Miu on this side rejected her, wouldn’t that be

the logical thing to do?

I dredged up from memory what she’d written: “So what

should we do to avoid a collision? Logically, it’s easy. The

answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of

dreams, and never coming out. Living there for the rest of

time.”

One question remains, however. A major question. How are

you supposed to go there?

Put in simple logical terms, it’s easy. Though explaining it

isn’t.

I was right back where I started. *

I thought about Tokyo. About my apartment, the school where

I taught, the kitchen rubbish I’d stealthily tossed in a bin at the

station. I’d only been away from Japan for two days, but

already it seemed like a different world. The new term was

going to start in a week. I pictured myself standing in front of

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35 pupils. Seen from this distance, the thought of my teaching

anyone—even ten-year-old kids—seemed absurd.

I removed my sunglasses, wiped my sweating brow with a

handkerchief, and put them on again, then gazed at the

seabirds.

I thought about Sumire. About the colossal hard-on I had the

time I sat beside her when she moved into her new place. The

kind of awesome, rock-hard erection I’d never experienced

before. Like my whole body was about to explode. At the time,

in my imagination—something like the world of dreams Sumire

wrote of—I made love to her. And the sensation was far more

real than any sex I’d ever had.

I gulped down some lemonade to clear my throat. *

I returned to my hypothesis, taking it one step further. Sumire

had somehow found an exit. What kind of exit that was, and

how she discovered it, I had no way of knowing. I’ll put that on

hold. Suppose it’s a kind of door. I closed my eyes and

conjured up a mental image—an elaborate image of what this

door looked like. Just an ordinary door, part of an ordinary

wall. Sumire happened to find this door, turned the knob, and

slipped outside—from this side to the other. Clad only in thin

silk pyjamas and a pair of flip-flops.

What lay beyond that door was beyond my powers of

imagination. The door closed, and Sumire wouldn’t be coming

back.

I went back to the cottage and made a simple dinner from

things I found in the fridge. Tomato and basil pasta, a salad, an

Amstel beer. I went out to sit on the veranda, lost in thought.

Or maybe thinking of nothing. Nobody phoned. Miu might be

trying to call from Athens, but you couldn’t count on the

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phones to work.

Moment by moment the blue of the sky turned deeper, a

large circular moon rising from the sea, a handful of stars

piercing holes in the sky. A breeze blew up the slopes, rustling

the hibiscus. The unmanned lighthouse at the tip of the pier

blinked on and off with its ancient-looking light. People were

slowly heading down the slope, leading donkeys as they went.

Their loud conversation came closer, then faded into the

distance. I silently took it all in, this foreign scene seeming

entirely natural.

In the end the phone didn’t ring, and Sumire didn’t appear.

Quietly, gently, time slipped by, the evening deepening. I took

a couple of cassettes from Sumire’s room and played them on

the living room stereo. One of them was a collection of Mozart

songs. The handwritten label read: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and

Walter Gieseking (p). I don’t know much about classical music,

but one listen told me how lovely this music was. The singing

style was a bit dated, but it reminded me of reading some

beautiful, memorable prose—it demanded that you sit up

straight and pay attention. The performers were right there in

front of me, it seemed, their delicate phrasing swelling up, then

retreating, then swelling up again. One of the songs in the

collection must be “Sumire”. I sank back in my chair, closed my

eyes, and shared this music with my missing friend. *

I was awakened by music. Far-off music, barely audible.

Steadily, like a faceless sailor hauling in an anchor from the

bottom of the sea, the faint sound brought me to my senses. I

sat up in bed, leaned towards the open window, and listened

carefully. It was definitely music. The wristwatch next to my

bed showed it was past one o’clock. Music? At this time of

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night?

I put on my trousers and a shirt, slipped on my shoes, and

went outside. The lights in the neighbourhood were all out, the

streets deserted. No wind, not even the sound of waves. Just

the moonlight bathing the earth. I stood there, listening again.

Strangely, the music seemed to be coming from the top of the

hills. There weren’t any villages on the steep mountains, just a

handful of shepherds and monasteries where monks lived their

cloistered lives. It was hard to imagine either group putting on

a festival at this time of night.

Outside, the music was more audible. I couldn’t make out the

melody, but by the rhythm it was clearly Greek. It had the

uneven, sharp sound of live music, not something played

through speakers. *

By then I was wide awake. The summer night air was pleasant,

with a mysterious depth to it. If I hadn’t been worried about

Sumire, I might very well have felt a sense of celebration. I

rested my hands on my hips, stretched, looking up at the sky,

and took a deep breath. The coolness of the night washed

inside me. Suddenly a thought struck me—maybe, at this very

moment, Sumire is listening to the same music.

I decided to walk for a while in the direction of the sound. I

had to find out where it was coming from, who was playing it.

The road to the hilltop was the same one I’d taken that morning

to go to the beach, so I knew the way. I’ll go as far as I can, I

decided.

The brilliant moonlight lit everything, making walking easy.

It created complex shadows between the cliffs, dyeing the

ground with unlikely shades. Every time the soles of my

running shoes crushed a pebble on the road, the sound was

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amplified. The music grew more pronounced as I made my

way further up the slopes. As I’d surmised, it was coming from

the top of the hill. I could make out some kind of percussion

instrument, a bouzouki, an accordion, and a flute. Possibly a

guitar. Other than that, I couldn’t hear a thing. No singing, no

people shouting. Just that music playing endlessly, at a

detached, almost monotonous pace.

I wanted to see what was taking place on top of the

mountain, yet at the same time I thought I should keep my

distance. Irrepressible curiosity vied with an instinctive fear.

Still, I had to go forward. I felt as if I was in a dream. The

principle that made other choices possible was missing. Or was

it the choice that made that principle possible that was

missing?

For all I knew, a few days before Sumire had awakened to

the same music, her curiosity getting the better of her as she

clambered up the slope in her pyjamas. *

I stopped and turned to look behind me. The slope twisted

palely down towards the town like the tracks of some gigantic

insect. I looked up at the sky then, under the moonlight, and

glanced at my palm. With a rush of understanding I knew this

wasn’t my hand any more. I can’t explain it. But at a glance I

knew. My hand was no longer my hand, my legs no longer my

legs.

Bathed in the pallid moonlight, my body, like some plaster

puppet, had lost all living warmth. As if a voodoo magician

had put a spell on me, blowing my transient life into this lump

of clay. The spark of life had vanished. My real life had fallen

asleep somewhere, and a faceless someone was stuffing it in a

suitcase, about to leave.

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An awful chill swept through me and I felt choked.

Someone had rearranged my cells, untied the threads that held

my mind together. I couldn’t think straight. All I was able to do

was retreat as fast as I could to my usual place of refuge. I took

a huge breath, sinking in the sea of consciousness to the very

bottom. Pushing aside the heavy water I plunged down quickly

and grabbed a huge rock there with both arms. The water

crushed my eardrums. I squeezed my eyes tightly closed, held

my breath, resisting. Once I made up my mind, it wasn’t that

difficult. I grew used to it all—the water pressure, the lack of

air, the freezing darkness, the signals the chaos emitted. It was

something I’d mastered again and again as a child.

Time reversed itself, looped back, collapsed, reordered itself.

The world stretched out endlessly—and yet was defined and

limited. Sharp images—just the images alone—passed down

dark corridors, like jellyfish, like souls adrift. But I steeled

myself not to look at them. If I acknowledged them, even a

little, they would envelop themselves in meaning. Meaning

was fixed to the temporal, and the temporal was trying to force

me to rise to the surface. I shut my mind tight to it all, waiting

for the procession to pass.

How long I remained that way, I don’t know. When I bobbed

to the surface, opened my eyes, and took a silent breath, the

music had already stopped. The enigmatic performance was

finished. I listened carefully. I couldn’t hear a thing. Absolutely

nothing. No music, no people’s voices, no rustle of the wind.

I tried to check the time, but I wasn’t wearing a watch. I’d left

it by my bedside.

The sky was now filled with stars. Or was it my imagination?

The sky itself seemed to have changed into something

different. The strange sense of alienation I’d felt inside had

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vanished. I stretched, bent my arm, my fingers. No sense of

being out of place. My underarms were clammy, but that was

all.

I stood up from the grass and continued to climb uphill. I’d

come this far and might as well reach the top. Had there really

been music there? I had to see for myself, even if only the

faintest clues remained. In five minutes I reached the summit.

Towards the south the hill sloped down to the sea, the harbour,

and the sleeping town. A scattering of streetlights lit the coast

road. The other side of the mountain was wrapped in darkness,

not a single light visible. I gazed fixedly into the dark, and

finally a line of hills beyond floated into sight in the moonlight.

Beyond them lay an even deeper darkness. And here around

me, no indication whatsoever that a lively festival had taken

place only a short while before.

Though the echo of it remained deep inside my head, now I

wasn’t even sure I’d heard music. As time passed, I became less

and less certain. Maybe it had all been an illusion, my ears

picking up signals from a different time and place. It made

sense—the idea that people would get together on a

mountaintop at 1 a.m. to play music was pretty preposterous.

In the sky above the summit, the coarse-looking moon

loomed awfully near. A hard ball of stone, its skin eaten away

by the merciless passage of time. Ominous shadows on its

surface were blind cancer cells stretching out feelers towards

the warmth of life. The moonlight warped every sound,

washed away all meaning, threw every mind into chaos. It

made Miu see a second self. It took Sumire’s cat away

somewhere. It made Sumire disappear. And it brought me

here, in the midst of music that—most likely—never existed.

Before me lay a bottomless darkness; behind me, a world of

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pale light. I stood there on the top of a mountain in a foreign

land, bathed in moonlight. Maybe this had all been

meticulously planned, from the very beginning. *

I returned to the cottage and downed a glass of Miu’s brandy. I

tried to get to sleep, but I couldn’t. Not a wink. Until the

eastern sky grew light, I was held in the grip of the moon, and

gravity, and something astir in the world.

I pictured cats, starving to death in a closed-up apartment.

Soft, small carnivores. I—the real me—was dead, and they were

alive, devouring my flesh, chewing on my heart, sucking my

blood. If I listened very carefully, somewhere far, far away I

could hear the cats lapping up my brain. Three lithe cats,

surrounding my broken head, slurping up the mushy grey

soup within. The tips of their red, rough tongues licked the soft

folds of my mind. And with each lick of their tongues, my

mind—like a shimmer of hot air—flickered and faded away.

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1 4

In the end we never found out what happened to Sumire. As

Miu put it, she vanished like smoke.

Two days later Miu came back to the island on the noon ferry

together with an official from the Japanese embassy and a

police official in charge of tourist affairs. They met with the

local police and launched a full-scale investigation involving

the islanders. The police put out a public appeal for

information, publishing a blown-up version of Sumire’s

passport photo in a national newspaper. Many people got in

touch, but nothing connected. The information always turned

out to be about someone else.

Sumire’s parents came to the island, too. I left just before they

arrived. The new school term was around the corner, but

mostly I couldn’t stand the thought of facing them. Besides, the

mass media in Japan had caught wind of events and had begun

to contact the Japanese embassy and the local police. I told Miu

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it was about time for me to be getting back to Tokyo. Staying

any longer on the island wasn’t going to help find Sumire.

She nodded. “You’ve done so much already,” she said.

“Really. If you hadn’t come, I would have been completely lost.

Don’t worry. I’ll explain things to Sumire’s parents. And I’ll

handle any reporters. Leave it to me. You had no responsibility

for any of this to begin with. I can be pretty businesslike when I

need to be, and I can hold my own.” *

She saw me off at the harbour. I was taking the afternoon ferry

to Rhodes. It was exactly ten days since Sumire had

disappeared. Miu hugged me just before I left. A very natural

embrace. For a long moment, she silently rubbed my back as

she held me. The afternoon sun was hot, but strangely her skin

felt cool. Her hand was trying to tell me something. I closed my

eyes and listened to those words. Not words -something that

couldn’t coalesce into language. In the midst of our silence,

something passed between us. “Take care of yourself,” said

Miu.

“You, too,” I said. For a while we stood there in front of the

gangplank.

“I want you to tell me something, honestly,” She said in a

serious tone, just before I boarded the ferry. “Do you believe

Sumire is no longer alive?” *

I shook my head. “I can’t prove it, but I feel like she’s still

alive somewhere. Even after this much time, I just don’t have

the sense that she’s dead.” *

Miu folded her tanned arms and looked at me.

“Actually I feel exactly the same,” she said. “That Sumire

isn’t dead. But I also feel that I’ll never see her again. Though I

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can’t prove anything either.”

I didn’t say a word. Silence wove itself into the spaces of

everything around us. Seabirds squawked as they cut across

the cloudless sky, and in the café the ever-sleepy waiter hoisted

yet another tray of drinks.

Miu pursed her lips and was lost in thought. “Do you hate

me?” she finally asked.

“Because Sumire disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I hate you?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was tinged with a long-suppressed

exhaustion. “I have the feeling I’ll never see you again, either.

That’s why I asked.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“But who can tell, maybe later on?”

“I don’t hate people over things like that.”

Miu took off her hat, straightened her fringe, and put it back

on. She squinted at me.

“That might be because you don’t expect anything from

anyone,” she said. Her eyes were deep and clear, like the twilit

darkness on the day we met. “I’m not like that. I just want you

to know that I like you. Very much.” *

And we said goodbye. The ship edged backwards out of the

harbour, the propeller churning up the water as it lumbered

through a 180° change of direction; all the while, Miu stood on

the wharf watching me go. She wore a tight white dress and

occasionally reached out to keep her hat from flying away in

the wind. Standing there on that wharf on this little Greek

island, she looked like something from a different world,

fleeting, full of grace and beauty. I leaned against the railing on

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deck and watched her for a long time.

Time seemed to stand still, the scene forever etched on my

memory. *

But time began to move again, and Miu got smaller and

smaller, first a vague dot, then swallowed up whole in the

shimmering air. The town grew distant, the shape of the

mountains indistinct, and finally the island merged into the

mist of light, blurred, and vanished altogether. Another island

rose up to take its place and likewise disappeared into the

distance. As time passed, all the things I left behind there

seemed never to have existed at all.

Maybe I should have stayed with Miu. So what if the new

school term was starting? I should encourage Miu, do

everything I could to help in the search, and if something awful

happened, then I should hold her, give her what comfort I

could. Miu wanted me, I believe, and in a sense I wanted her as

well. *

She’d grabbed hold of my heart with a rare intensity.

I realized all this for the first time as I stood on the deck and

watched her disappear in the distance. A feeling came over me,

like a thousand strings were tugging at me. Perhaps not full-

blown romantic love, but something very close. Flustered, I sat

on a bench on the deck, placed my gym bag on my knees, and

gazed out at the white wake trailing behind the ship. Seagulls

flew after the ferry, clinging to the wake. I could still feel Miu’s

small palm on my back, like a soul’s tiny shadow.

I planned to fly straight back to Tokyo, but for some reason

the reservation I’d made the day before was cancelled, and I

ended up spending the night in Athens. I took the airline

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shuttle bus and stayed at a hotel in the city that the airline

recommended. A pleasant, cosy hotel near the Plaka district,

which, unfortunately, was crowded with a boisterous German

tour group. With nothing else to do, I wandered around the

city, bought some souvenirs for no one in particular, and in the

evening walked to the top of the Acropolis. I lay down on a

slab of stone, the twilight breeze blowing over me as I gazed at

the white temple floating up in the bluish floodlights. A lovely,

dreamy scene.

But all I felt was an incomparable loneliness. Before I knew it,

the world around was drained of colour. From the shabby

mountaintop, the ruins of those empty feelings, I could see my

own life stretching out into the future. It looked just like an

illustration in a science fiction novel I read as a child: the

desolate surface of a deserted planet. No sign of life at all. Each

day seemed to last for ever, the air either boiling hot or

freezing. The spaceship that brought me there had

disappeared, and I was stuck. I’d have to survive on my own. *

All over again I understood how important, how irreplaceable,

Sumire was to me. In her own special way she’d kept me

tethered to the world. As I talked to her and read her stories,

my mind quietly expanded, and I could see things I’d never

seen before. Without even trying, we grew close. Like a pair of

young lovers undressing in front of each other, Sumire and I

had exposed our hearts to one another, an experience I’d never

have with anyone else, anywhere. We cherished what we had

together, though we never put into words how very precious it

was.

Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a

physical way. We would have been far happier if we had. But

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that was like the tides, the change of seasons—something

immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No

matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship

wasn’t going to last for ever. We were bound to reach a dead

end. That was painfully clear.

I loved Sumire more than anyone else and wanted her more

than anything in the world. And I couldn’t just shelve those

feelings, for there was nothing to take their place.

I dreamed that someday there’d be a sudden, major

transformation. Even if the chances of it coming true were slim, I

could dream about it, couldn’t I? But I knew it would never

come true.

Like the tide receding, the shoreline washed clean, with Sumire

gone I was left in a distorted, empty world. A gloomy, cold

world in which what she and I had would never ever take

place again.

We each have a special something we can get only at a special

time of our life. Like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few

cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their

way. But once that flame goes out, it’s gone for ever. What I’d

lost was not just Sumire. I’d lost that precious flame. *

What is it like—on the other side? Sumire was over there, and so

was the lost part of Miu. Miu with black hair and a healthy

sexual appetite. Perhaps they’ve come across each other there,

loving each other, fulfilling each other. “We do things you can’t

put into words,” Sumire would probably tell me, putting it into

words all the same. *

Is there a place for me over there? Could I be with them? While

they make passionate love, I’d sit in the corner of a room

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somewhere and amuse myself reading the Collected Works of

Balzac. After she showered, Sumire and I would take long

walks and talk about all kinds of things—with Sumire, as

usual, doing most of the talking. But would our relationship

last for ever? Is that natural? “Of course,” Sumire would tell

me. “No need to ask that. ‘Cause you’re my one and only true

friend!” *

But I hadn’t a clue how to get to that world. I rubbed the slick,

hard rock face of the Acropolis. History had seeped through

the surface and was stored up inside. Like it or not, I was shut

up in that flow of time. I couldn’t escape. No—that’s not

entirely true. The truth is, I really don’t want to escape. *

Tomorrow I’ll get on a plane and fly back to Tokyo. The

summer holidays are nearly over, and I have to step once more

in that endless stream of the everyday. There’s a place for me

there. My apartment’s there, my desk, my classroom, my

pupils. Quiet days await me, novels to read. The occasional

affair.

But tomorrow I’ll be a different person, never again the

person I was. Not that anyone will notice after I’m back in

Japan. On the outside nothing will be different. But something

inside has burned up and vanished. Blood has been shed, and

something inside me is gone. Face turned down, without a

word, that something makes its exit. The door opens; the door

shuts. The light goes out. This is the last day for the person I am

right now. The very last twilight. When dawn comes, the

person I am won’t be here any more. Someone else will occupy

this body. *

Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it

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all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning,

looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves.

Why? Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

I turned face-up on the slab of stone, gazed at the sky, and

thought about all the man-made satellites spinning around the

Earth. The horizon was still etched in a faint glow, and stars

began to blink on in the deep, wine-coloured sky. I gazed

among them for the light of a satellite, but it was still too bright

out to spot one with the naked eye. The sprinkling of stars

looked nailed to the spot, unmoving. I closed my eyes and

listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now

circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely

metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet,

pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words

passing between them. No promises to keep.

191

1 5

The phone rang on a Sunday afternoon. The second Sunday

after the new school term began in September. I was fixing a

late lunch and had to turn off the gas range before I answered.

The phone rang with a kind of urgency—at least it felt that

way. I was sure it was Miu calling with news of Sumire’s

whereabouts. The call wasn’t from Miu, though, but from my

girlfriend.

“Something’s happened,” she said, skipping her usual

opening pleasantries. “Can you come straightaway?”

It sounded like something awful. Had her husband found out

about us? I took a deep breath. If people discovered I was

sleeping with the mother of one of the kids in my class, I’d be

in a major fix to say the least. Worst-case scenario, I could lose

my job. At the same time, though, I was resigned to it. I knew

the risks.

“Where are you?” I asked.

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“At a supermarket,” she said. *

I took the train to Tachikawa, arriving at the station near the

supermarket at 2.30. The afternoon was blazing hot, the

summer back in force, but I had on a white dress-shirt, tie, and

light grey suit, the clothes she’d asked me to wear. “You look

more like a teacher that way,” she said, “and you’ll give a

better impression. Sometimes you still look like a college

student,” she added.

At the entrance to the supermarket I asked a young assistant

who was rounding up stray shopping trolleys where the

security office was. He told me it was across the street on the

third floor of an annexe, an ugly little three-storey building

without even a lift. Hey, don’t worry about us, the cracks in the

concrete walls seemed to say, They’re just going to tear this

place down someday anyway. I walked up the narrow,

timeworn stairs, located the door with SECURITY on it, and

gave a couple of light taps. A man’s deep voice answered. I

opened the door and saw my girlfriend and her son inside

seated in front of a desk facing a middle-aged uniformed

security guard. Just the three of them.

The room was an in-between size, not too big, not too small.

Three desks were lined up along the window, a steel locker

against the wall opposite. On the wall between were a duty

rota and three security guard caps on a steel shelf. Beyond a

frosted-glass door at the far end of the room there seemed to be

a second room, which the guards probably used for taking

naps. The room we were all in was almost completely devoid

of decoration. No flowers, no pictures, not even a calendar. Just

an overly large round clock on the wall. A totally barren room,

like some ancient corner of the world that time forgot. On top

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of which the place had a strange odour—of cigarette smoke,

mouldy documents, and perspiration mixed together over the

years.

The security guard in charge was a thickset man in his late

fifties. He had beefy arms and a large head covered with a thick

patch of coarse salt-and-pepper hair he’d plastered down with

some cheap hair tonic, the best he could probably afford on his

lowly security guard salary. The ashtray in front of him was

overflowing with Seven Star butts. When I came in the room,

he took off his black-framed glasses, wiped them with a cloth,

and put them back on. Maybe his set way of greeting new

people. With his glasses off, his eyes were as cold as moon

rocks. When he put them back on, the coldness retreated,

replaced by a kind of powerful glazed look. Either way, this

wasn’t a look to put people at their ease.

The room was oppressively hot; the window was wide open,

but not a breath of air came in. Only the noise from the road

outside. A large lorry coming to a halt at a red light blatted out

a hoarse air brake, reminding me of Ben Webster on the tenor

sax in his later years. We were all sweating. I walked up to the

desk, introduced myself, and handed the security guard my

business card. He took it without a word, pursed his lips, and

stared at it for a while, then placed it on the desk and looked

up at me.

“You’re pretty young for a teacher, aren’t you?” he said.

“How long have you been teaching?” *

I pretended to think it over and answered, “Three years.”

“Hmm,” he said. And didn’t say anything else. But the

silence spoke volumes. He picked up my card and read my

name again, as if re-checking something.

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“My name’s Nakamura, I’m the chief of security here,” he

introduced himself. He didn’t proffer a business card of his

own. “Just pull up a chair from over there if you would. I’m

sorry about how hot it is. The air conditioner’s on the blink,

and no one will come out to fix it on a Sunday. They aren’t nice

enough to give me a fan, so I sit and suffer. Take off your jacket

if you’d like. We might be here for a while, and it makes me hot

just looking at you.”

I did as he told me, pulling over a chair and removing my

jacket. My sweaty shirt clung to my skin.

“You know, I’ve always envied teachers,” the guard began.

A stillborn smile played around his lips, yet his eyes remained

those of a deep-sea predator searching my depths for the

slightest movement. His words were polite enough, but that

was only a veneer. The word teacher sounded like an insult.

“You have over a month off in the summer, don’t have to

work on Sundays or at night, and people give you gifts all the

time. Pretty nice life if you ask me. I sometimes wish I’d

studied harder and become a teacher myself. Destiny

intervened and here I am—a security guard at a supermarket. I

wasn’t smart enough, I suppose. But I tell my kids to grow up

to be teachers. I don’t care what anybody says, teachers have it

made.” *

My girlfriend wore a simple blue, half-sleeve dress. Her hair

was piled up neatly on top of her head, and she had on a pair

of small earrings. White sandals with heels completed her

outfit, and a white bag and small, cream-coloured handkerchief

rested on her lap. It was the first time I’d seen her since I got

back from Greece. She looked back and forth between me and

the guard, her eyes puffy from crying. She’d been through a lot,

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it was clear.

We exchanged a quick glance, and I turned to her son. His

name was Shin’ichi Nimura, but his classmates nicknamed him

Carrot. With his long, thin face, his shock of unkempt, curly

hair, the name fitted. I usually called him that, too. He was a

quiet boy, hardly ever speaking more than was necessary. His

grades weren’t bad; he rarely forgot to bring his homework and

never failed to do his share of the cleaning up. Never got into

trouble. But he lacked initiative and never once raised his hand

in class. Carrot’s classmates didn’t dislike him, but he wasn’t

what you’d call popular. This didn’t please his mother much,

but from my point of view he was a good kid. *

“I assume you’ve heard about what happened from the boy’s

mother,” the security guard said.

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “He was caught shoplifting.”

“That’s correct,” the guard said and set a cardboard box that

was at his feet on top of the table. He pushed it towards me.

Inside was a collection of identical small staplers still in their

packaging. I picked one up and examined it. The price tag said

¥850.

“Eight staplers,” I commented. “Is this all?”

“Yep. That’s the lot of it.”

I put the stapler back in the box. “So the whole thing would

come to ¥6,800.”

“Correct. ¥6,800. You’re probably thinking, ‘Well, okay, he

shoplifted. It’s a crime, sure, but why get so worked up about

eight staplers? He’s just a school kid.’ Am I right?”

I didn’t reply.

“It’s okay to think that. ‘Cause it’s the truth. There are a lot

worse crimes than stealing eight staplers. I was a policeman

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before I became a security guard, so I know what I’m talking

about.”

The guard looked directly into my eyes as he spoke. I held

his gaze, careful not to appear defiant.

“If this were his first offence, the store wouldn’t raise such a

fuss. Our business is dealing with customers, after all, and we

prefer not to get too upset over something small-scale like this.

Normally I’d bring the child here to this room and I’d put a

little of the fear of God into him. In worse cases we’d contact

the parents and have them punish the child. We don’t get in

touch with the school. That’s our store’s policy, to take care of

children shoplifting quietly.

“The problem is, this isn’t the first time this boy’s shoplifted.

In our store alone we know he’s done it three times. Three times!

Can you imagine? And what’s worse is both other times he

refused to give us his name or the name of his school. I was the

one who took care of him, so I remember it well. He wouldn’t

say a word, no matter what we asked. The silent treatment, we

used to call it in the police force. No apologies, no remorse, just

adopt a crummy attitude and stonewall it. If he didn’t tell me

his name this time, I was going to turn him over to the police,

but even this didn’t raise a reaction. Nothing else to do, so I

forced him to show me his bus pass, and that’s how I found out

his name.”

He paused, waiting for it all to sink in. He was still staring

fixedly at me, and I continued to hold his gaze.

“Another thing is the kind of things he stole. Nothing cute

about it. The first time he stole 15 propelling pencils. Total

value, ¥9,750. The second time it was eight compasses, ¥8,000

altogether. In other words, each time he just steals a pile of the

same things. He’s not going to use them himself. He’s just

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doing it for kicks, or else he’s planning to sell it all to his friends

at school.”

I tried conjuring up a mental image of Carrot selling stolen

staplers to his friends during lunch hour. I couldn’t picture it.

“I don’t quite understand,” I said. “Why keep stealing from

the same shop? Wouldn’t that just increase the chances you’d

get caught—and worsen your punishment when you were? If

you’re trying to get away with it, wouldn’t you normally try

other shops?”

“Don’t ask me. Maybe he was stealing from other shops. Or

maybe ours just happens to be his favourite. Maybe he doesn’t

like my face. I’m just a simple security guard for a

supermarket, so I’m not going to think out all the ramifications.

They don’t pay me enough for that. If you really want to know,

ask him yourself. I hauled him in here three hours ago and not

a peep so far. Pretty amazing. Which is why I dragged you in

here. I’m sorry you had to come in on your day off … One

thing I’ve been wondering about since you came in, though.

You look so tanned. Not that it’s relevant, but did you go

somewhere special for your summer holidays?”

“No, nowhere special,” I replied.

Even so, he continued to scrutinize my face carefully, as if I

were an important piece in the puzzle.

I picked up the stapler again and examined it in detail. Just

an ordinary, small stapler, the kind you’d find in any home or

office. An office supply about as cheap as they come.

Seven Star cigarette dangling from his lips, the security guard

lit it with a Bic lighter and, turning to one side, blew out a

cloud of smoke.

I turned to the boy and gently asked, “Why staplers?”

Carrot had been staring the whole time at the floor, but now

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he quietly lifted his face and looked at me. But he didn’t say

anything. I noticed for the first time that his expression was

completely changed—strangely expressionless, eyes out of

focus. He seemed to be staring into a void.

“Did somebody bully you into doing it?”

Still no answer. It was hard to tell if my words were getting

through. I gave up. Asking the boy anything at this point

wasn’t going to be productive. His door was closed, the

windows shut tight.

“Well, sir, what do you propose we do?” the guard asked me.

“I get paid to make my rounds of the shop, check the monitors,

catch shoplifters, and bring them back to this room. What

happens afterwards is another matter entirely. Especially hard

to deal with when it’s a child. What do you suggest we do? I’m

sure you’re more knowledgeable in this area. Should we just let

the police handle the whole thing? That would certainly be

easier for me. Keep us from wasting our time when we’re just

treading water anyway.”

Actually, at that moment I was thinking about something

else. This dumpy little supermarket security room reminded

me of the police station on the Greek island. Thoughts of which

led straight to Sumire. And the fact that she was gone.

It took me a few moments to work out what this man was

trying to say to me.

“I’ll let his father know,” Carrot’s mother said in a monotone,

“and make sure my son knows in no uncertain terms that

shoplifting is a crime. I promise he won’t ever bother you

again.”

“In other words you don’t want this to be taken to court.

You’ve said that over and over,” the security guard said in a

bored tone. He tapped his cigarette on the ashtray, flicking the

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ash into it. He turned to me again and said, “But from where I

sit, three times is just too many. Somebody’s gotta put a stop to

it. What are your feelings about this?”

I took a deep breath, pulling my thoughts back to the

present. To the eight staplers and a Sunday afternoon in

September.

“I can’t say anything unless I talk to him,” I replied. “He’s a

smart boy, and he’s never caused any problems before. I have

no clue why he’d do something so stupid, but I’m going to

spend time myself and get to the bottom of this. I really

apologize for all the trouble he’s caused.”

“Yeah, but I just don’t get it,” the guard said, frowning

behind his glasses. “This boy—Shin’ichi Nimura?—he’s in your

class, right? So you see him every day, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s in fourth grade, which means he’s been in your class

for a year and four months. Am I right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I’ve been in charge of his class since they

were in third grade.”

“And how many pupils are in your class?”

“Thirty-five.”

“So you can keep an eye on them all. You’re telling me you

never had any hint that this boy was going to cause trouble. No

sign at all?”

“That’s right.”

“Wait a sec—as far as we know, he’s been shoplifting for a

half year. Always alone. Nobody’s threatening him to do it.

And it’s not spur of the moment. And he’s not doing it for the

money either. According to his mother he gets plenty of pocket

money. He’s doing it just to get away with stealing. This boy

has problems, in other words. And you’re telling me there

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wasn’t any indication of this whatsoever?”

“I’m speaking as a teacher here,” I replied, “but especially

with children, habitual shoplifting is not so much a criminal act

as the result of a subtle emotional imbalance. Maybe if I’d paid

a little more attention I would have noticed something. I fell

down on the job, definitely. But with emotionally disturbed

children there’s not always something outward to go on. If you

separate the act from everything else and punish the child, the

basic problem isn’t going to be cured. Unless you find the

fundamental cause and treat that, the same problem will

surface later on in a different form. Often children are trying to

send a message by shoplifting, so even if it isn’t the most

efficient way of handling the problem, it’s important to take the

time to talk things out.”

The guard crushed out his cigarette and, mouth half open,

stared at me for a long time, as if I were some odd-looking

animal. His fingers resting on the tabletop were terribly thick,

like ten little furry black creatures. The more I looked at them,

the harder I found it to breathe.

“Is that what they teach you in college, in teacher-training or

whatever you call it?”

“Not necessarily. It’s basic psychology. You can find it in any

book.”

“You can find it in any book,” he said, repeating my words

listlessly. He picked up his hand towel and wiped away the

sweat from his thick neck.

“A subtle emotional imbalance—what’s that supposed to

mean? When I was a policeman I spent every day, morning till

night, dealing with characters who were imbalanced, all right.

But there was nothing subtle about it. The world’s full of

people like that. Ten a penny. If I took the time to listen to each

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and every one of the messages those people were sending out,

I’d need ten more brains. And that still wouldn’t be enough.”

He sighed, and placed the box of staplers back under the

desk.

“Okay—you’re absolutely right. Children have pure hearts.

Corporal punishment is bad. People are all equal. You can’t

judge people by their grades. Take the time to talk and work

out a solution. I don’t have a major problem with that. But do

you think that’s how the world will get to be a better place? No

way. It’ll only get worse. How can people all be equal? I’ve

never heard such a thing. Consider this—110 million people are

elbowing one another out of the way every day in Japan. Try

making all of them equal. It’d be hell on earth.

“It’s easy to say all these sweet words. Close your eyes,

pretend not to see what’s going on, and pass the buck. Don’t

make any waves, sing Auld Lang Syne’, hand the kids their

diplomas, and everybody lives happily ever after. Shoplifting is

a child’s message. Don’t worry about later on. That’s the easy

way out, so why not? But who’s going to clean up the mess?

People like me, that’s who. You think we do this because we

like it? You lot have this kind of hey-what’s-¥6,800?-look on

your faces, but think about the people he stole from. A hundred

people work here, and you better believe they take a difference

of one or two yen seriously. When they add up the receipts for

a cash register and there’s a ¥100 discrepancy, they work

overtime to straighten it out. Do you know how much an hour

the women who work the checkouts make here? Why don’t

you teach your pupils that?” *

I didn’t say anything. Carrot’s mother was silent, as was the

boy. The security guard had worn himself out talking and sank

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back into the general silence. In another room a phone rang,

and someone picked it up on the first ring. “So, what should

we do?” he asked.

I said: “How about we string him upside down from the

ceiling until he says he’s sorry?”

“I like it! ‘Course you know that we’d both be out on our

ears.”

“Well, then, the only thing we can do is patiently take the

time to discuss the problem. That’s all I can say.”

Someone from another room knocked at the door and

entered. “Mr Nakamura, could you lend me the key to the

storeroom?” he asked. Mr Nakamura rummaged through the

drawer in his desk for a while, but couldn’t find it.

“It’s gone,” he said. “That’s strange. I always keep it in here.”

“It’s very important,” the other man said. “I need it now.”

The way the two of them talked about it, it sounded like a very

important key, something that probably shouldn’t have been

kept in a drawer to begin with. They rifled through every

drawer, but came up empty-handed.

The three of us just sat there while this was going on. A

couple of times Carrot’s mother glanced at me beseechingly.

Carrot sat as before, expressionless, eyes pinned to the ground.

Pointless, random thoughts flashed through my head. The

room was stifling.

The man who needed the key gave up, grumbling as he left.

“That’s enough,” Mr Nakamura said, turning to us; in a

toneless, matter-of-fact voice he continued: “Thank you for

coming. We’re finished here. I’ll leave the rest up to you and

the boy’s mother. But get one thing clear—if he does this one

more time, he won’t get off this easy. You do understand that, I

hope? I don’t want any trouble. But I do have to do my job.”

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She nodded, and so did I. Carrot looked as though he hadn’t

heard a word. I stood up, and the two of them weakly followed

suit.

“One last thing,” the security guard said, still seated. He

looked up at me. “I know this is rude of me, but I’ll just go

ahead and say it. Since I laid eyes on you there’s something just

not quite right. You’re young, tall, make a good impression,

nicely tanned, logical. Everything you say makes absolute

sense. I’m sure the parents of your pupils like you a lot. I can’t

really explain it, but since I first saw you something’s been

gnawing at me. Something I just can’t swallow. Nothing

personal, so don’t get angry. It’s just something bothers me. But

what is it that’s gnawing at me, I wonder?”

“Would you mind if I ask you something personal?” I said.

“Ask away.”

“If people aren’t equal, where would you fit in?”

Mr Nakamura took a deep lungful of cigarette smoke, shook

his head, and exhaled ever so slowly, as if he were forcing

someone to do something. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Don’t you worry, though. The two of us won’t be sharing

the same level.” *

She’d parked her red Toyota Celica in the supermarket car

park. I called her over to one side, away from her son, and told

her to go on home alone.

“I need to talk to your son alone for a while,” I said. “I’ll

bring him home later.” She nodded. She was about to say

something, but didn’t, got in her car, took her sunglasses from

her bag, and started the engine.

After she left I took Carrot to a cheerful-looking little coffee

shop I noticed nearby. I relaxed in the air-conditioning, ordered

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an iced tea for myself and an ice-cream for the boy. I undid the

top button of my shirt, took off my tie, and slipped it in my

jacket pocket. Carrot remained sunk in silence. His expression

and the look in his eyes were unchanged from when we were

in the security office. He looked completely blank, like he was

going to be that way for a while. His small hands placed neatly

in his lap, he looked down at the floor, averting his face. I

drank my iced tea, but Carrot didn’t touch his ice-cream. It

slowly melted in the dish, but he didn’t seem to notice. We sat

facing each other like some married couple sharing an

awkward silence. Every time she stopped by our table, the

waitress looked tense. *

“Things just happen,” I said finally. I wasn’t trying to break the

ice. The words just came bubbling up.

Carrot slowly raised his head and turned towards me. He

didn’t say a thing. I shut my eyes, sighed, and was silent for a

while.

“I haven’t told anybody yet,” I said, “but during the summer

holidays I went to Greece. You know where Greece is, don’t

you? We watched that video in social studies class, remember?

In southern Europe, next to the Mediterranean. They have lots

of islands and grow olives. Five hundred BC was the peak of

their civilization. Athens was the birthplace of democracy, and

Socrates took poison and died. That’s where I went. It’s a

beautiful place. But I didn’t go to have a good time. A friend of

mine disappeared on a small Greek island, and I went to help

search. But we didn’t find anything. My friend just quietly

vanished. Like smoke.”

Carrot opened his mouth a crack and looked at me. His

expression was still hard and lifeless, but a glimmer of light

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appeared. I’d got through to him. *

“I really liked this friend of mine. Very, very much. My friend

was the most important person in the world to me. So I took a

plane to Greece to help search. But it didn’t help. We didn’t

find a clue. Since I lost my friend, I don’t have any more

friends. Not a single one.”

I wasn’t talking to Carrot as much as to myself. Thinking

aloud.

“You know what I’d really like to do the most right now?

Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The

highest place I can find. Where you can see as far as possible.

Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the

scenery, and see with my own eyes what’s been lost from the

world. I don’t know … Maybe I really don’t want to see that.

Maybe I don’t want to see anything any more.”

The waitress came over, removed Carrot’s plate of melted ice

cream, and left the bill. *

”I feel like I’ve been alone ever since I was a child. I had

parents and an older sister at home, but I didn’t get along with

them. I couldn’t communicate with anyone in my family. So I

often imagined I was adopted. For some reason some distant

relatives gave me up to my family. Or maybe they got me from

an orphanage. Now I realize how silly that idea was. My

parents aren’t the type to adopt a helpless orphan. Anyway, I

couldn’t accept the fact that I was related by blood to these

people. It was easier to think they were complete strangers.

“I imagined a town far away. There was a house there, where

my real family lived. Just a modest little house, but warm and

inviting. Everyone there can understand one another, they say

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whatever they feel like. In the evening you can hear Mum

bustling around in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and there’s

a warm, delicious fragrance. That’s where I belong. I was

always picturing this place in my mind, with me as a part of

the picture.

“In real life my family had a dog, and he was the only one I

got along with. He was a mongrel, but pretty bright; once you

taught him something he never forgot. I took him for a walk

every day, and we’d go to the park; I’d sit on a bench and talk

about all sorts of things. We understood each other. Those were

my happiest moments as a child. When I was in fifth grade my

dog was hit by a lorry near our house and killed. My parents

wouldn’t let me buy another. They’re too noisy and dirty, they

told me, too much trouble.

“After my dog died I stayed in my room a lot, just reading

books. The world in books seemed so much more alive to me

than anything outside. I could see things I’d never seen before.

Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good

friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my

heart to. We’d just make small talk, play football together.

When something bothered me, I didn’t talk with anyone about

it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and

took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that’s

just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis,

have to survive on their own.

“When I entered college, though, I made a friend, the one I

told you about. And my way of thinking started to change. I

came to understand that thinking just by myself for so long was

holding me back, keeping me to a single viewpoint. And I

started to feel that being all alone is a terribly lonely thing.

“Being all alone is like the feeling you get when you stand at

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the mouth of a large river on a rainy evening and watch the

water flow into the sea. Have you ever done that? Stand at the

mouth of a large river and watch the water flow into the sea?”

Carrot didn’t reply.

“I have,” I said.

Eyes wide open, Carrot looked in my face.

“I can’t really say why it’s such a lonely feeling to watch all

the river water mix together with the sea water. But it really is.

You should try it sometime.”

I picked up my jacket and the bill and slowly stood up. I

rested a hand on Carrot’s shoulder, and he got up, too. And we

left the coffee shop. *

It took about 30 minutes to walk to his house. We walked

together, and I didn’t say a word.

Near his house was a small river, with a concrete bridge over

it. A bland little thing, really, less a river than a drainage ditch

that had been widened. When there was still farmland around

here it must have been used for irrigation. Now, though, the

water was cloudy, with a slight odour of detergent. Summer

grasses sprouted in the riverbed, a discarded comic book lay

open in the water. Carrot came to a halt in the middle of the

bridge, leaned over the railing, and gazed down. I stood beside

him and looked down, too. We stood like that for a long time.

He probably didn’t want to go back home. I could understand

that. *

Carrot stuck a hand inside his trouser pocket, pulled out a key,

and held it towards me. Just an ordinary key, with a large red

tag on it. The tag said STORAGE 3 on it. The key for the

storeroom that the security guard, Nakamura, was looking for.

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Carrot must have been left alone in the room for a moment,

found it in the drawer, and slipped it into his pocket. This boy’s

mind was a bigger enigma than I’d imagined. He was an

altogether strange child.

I took the key and held it in my palm and could feel the

weight of countless people that had seeped into it. It struck me

as terribly wretched, dirty, small-minded. Flustered for a

moment, I ended up dropping the key into the river. It made a

tiny splash. The river wasn’t very deep, but the water was

cloudy, and the key disappeared from sight. Side by side on the

bridge, Carrot and I gazed at the water for a time. Somehow it

made me feel cheerful, my body lighter.

“It’s too late to take it back,” I said, more to myself than to

him. “I’m sure they have a spare somewhere. It’s their precious

storeroom, after all.”

I held my hand out, and Carrot softly took it in his. I could

feel his slim, small fingers in mine. A feeling that I’d

experienced somewhere—where could it have been?—a long

long time ago. I held his hand and we headed for his home. *

His mother was waiting for us when we got there. She’d

changed into a smart little white, sleeveless blouse and a

pleated skirt. Her eyes were red and swollen. She must have

cried alone the whole time after she got home. Her husband ran

an estate agent’s in the city and on Sundays was either at work

or out playing golf. She had Carrot go to his room on the first

floor and took me not to the living room, but to the kitchen,

where we sat down at the table. Maybe it was easier for her to

talk there. The kitchen had a huge avocado-green fridge, an

island in the middle, and a sunny window facing east. *

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“He looks a little better than he did before,” she said weakly.

“When I first saw him at that security office, I didn’t know

what to do. I’ve never seen him look that way. Like he was off

in another world.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Just give it time and he’ll

get back to normal. For the time being it’d be better if you don’t

say anything to him. Just leave him alone.”

“What did you two do after I left?”

“We talked,” I said.

“About what?”

“Not much. Basically I did all the talking. Nothing special,

really.”

“Would you like something cold to drink?” I shook my head.

“I have no idea how to talk to him any more,” she said. “And

that feeling just grows stronger.”

“There’s no need to force yourself to talk to him. Children are

in their own world. When he wants to talk, he will.”

“But he barely talks at all.”

We were careful not to let our bodies touch as we faced each

other across the kitchen table. Our conversation was strained,

the kind you might expect of a teacher and a mother discussing

a problem child. As she spoke she played with her hands,

twisting her fingers, stretching them out, grasping her hands. I

thought about the things those hands had done to me in bed.

I won’t report what’s happened to the school, I told her. I’ll

have a good talk with him, and if there’s any problem, I’ll take

care of it. So don’t worry about it. He’s a smart boy, a good

boy; give it time and he’ll settle down. This is just a phase he’s

going through. The most important thing is for you to be calm

about it. I slowly, calmly repeated all this over and over, letting

it sink in. It seemed to make her feel better.

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She said she’d drive me back to my apartment in Kunitachi. *

“Do you think my son senses what’s going on?” she asked me

when we were stopped at a traffic light. What she meant, of

course, was what was going on between her and me.

I shook my head. “Why do you say that?”

“While I was alone at home, waiting for you to come back,

the thought just struck me. I have nothing to go by, it’s just a

feeling. He’s very intuitive, and I’m sure he’s picked up on how

my husband and I don’t get along well.”

I was silent. She didn’t say any more. *

She parked her car in the car park just beyond the intersection

where my apartment building stood. She pulled on the

handbrake and turned off the engine. It sputtered out, and with

the sound from the air-conditioning off, an uncomfortable

silence fell over the car. I knew she wanted me to take her in

my arms right then and there. I thought of her pliant body

beneath her blouse, and my mouth became dry.

“I think it’d be better for us not to meet any more,” I came

right out and said.

She didn’t say anything. Hands on the steering wheel, she

stared in the direction of the oil gauge. Almost all expression

had faded from her face.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” I said. “I don’t think it’s right

that I’m part of the problem. I can’t be part of the solution if I’m

part of the problem. It’s better for everyone that way.”

“Everyone?”

“Especially for your son.”

“For you, too?”

“Yes. Of course.”

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“What about me? Does that include me?”

Yes, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t get the word out. She

took off her dark green Raybans, then slipped them on again.

“It’s not easy for me to say this,” she said, “but if I can’t see

you any more it will be very hard on me.”

“It will be hard on me, too. I wish we could continue the way

we are. But it’s not right.”

She took a deep breath and let it out.

“What is right? Would you tell me? I don’t really know

what’s right. I know what’s wrong. But what is right?”

I didn’t have a good answer. *

She looked like she was about to weep. Or cry out. But

somehow she held herself in check. She just gripped the

steering wheel tightly, the backs of her hands turning slightly

red.

“When I was younger all kinds of people talked to me,” she

said. “Told me all sorts of things. Fascinating stories, beautiful,

strange stories. But past a certain point nobody talked to me

any more. No one. Not my husband, my child, my friends …

no one. Like there was nothing left in the world to talk about.

Sometimes I feel like my body’s turning invisible, like you can

see right through me.”

She raised her hands from the steering wheel and held them

out in front of her.

“Not that you would understand what I’m trying to say.”

I searched for the right words, but nothing came.

“Thank you very much for everything today,” she said, pulling herself together. Her voice was nearly her usual, calm tone. “I don’t think I could have handled it alone. It’s very hard on me. Having you there helped a lot. I’m grateful. I know

212

you’re going to be a wonderful teacher. You almost are.” Was this meant to be sarcastic? Probably. No—definitely. “Not yet,” I said. She smiled, ever so slightly. And our

conversation came to an end. I opened the car door and stepped outside. The summer

Sunday afternoon sunlight had weakened considerably. I found it hard to breathe and my legs felt strange as I stood there. The Celica’s engine roared to life, and she drove out of my life for ever. She rolled down her window and gave a small wave, and I lifted my hand in response.

* Back in the apartment I took off my sweaty shirt and tossed it in the washing machine, took a shower, and washed my hair. I went to the kitchen, finished preparing the meal I’d left half done, and ate. Afterwards, I sank back in my sofa and read a book I’d just started. But I couldn’t finish five pages. Giving up, I closed the book and thought for a while about Sumire. And the storeroom key I’d tossed in the filthy river. And my girlfriend’s hands gripping the steering wheel. It had been a long day, and it was finally over, leaving behind just random memories. I’d taken a good long shower, but my body was still steeped in the stink of tobacco. And my hand still retained a sharp sensation—as if I’d crushed the life out of something.

Did I do what was right? I didn’t think so. I’d only done what was necessary for me.

There’s a big difference. Everyone? she’d asked me. Does that include me?

Truthfully, at that time I wasn’t thinking about everyone. I was thinking only about Sumire. Not all of them there, or all of us here.

Only of Sumire, who wasn’t anywhere.

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1 6

I hadn’t heard a word from Miu since the day we’d said

goodbye at the harbour. This struck me as odd, since she

promised to get in touch regardless of whether there was any

news about Sumire. I couldn’t believe she’d forgotten me; she

wasn’t the type to make promises she didn’t intend to keep.

Something must have happened to keep her from contacting

me. I considered calling her, but I didn’t even know her real

name, or the name of her company or where it was. As far as

Miu was concerned, Sumire hadn’t left behind any solid leads.

Sumire’s phone still had the same message on it, but it was

soon disconnected. I thought about calling her family. I didn’t

know the number, though it wouldn’t have been hard to find

her father’s dental clinic in the Yokohama Yellow Pages. But

somehow I couldn’t take that step. Instead, I went to the library

and looked through the August newspapers. There was a tiny

article about her, about a 22-year-old Japanese girl travelling in

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Greece who disappeared. The local authorities are

investigating, searching for her. But so far no clues. That was it.

Nothing I didn’t already know. Quite a few people travelling

abroad disappeared, it seemed. And she was merely one of

them.

I gave up trying to follow the news. Whatever the reasons for

her disappearance, however the investigation was proceeding,

one thing was certain: if Sumire were to come back, she’d get in

touch. That was all that mattered.

September came and went, autumn was over before I knew

it, and winter set in. 7 November was Sumire’s 23rd birthday,

and 9 December was my 25th. The New Year came and the

school year ended. Carrot didn’t cause any more problems and

went into fifth grade, into a new class. After that day I never

really talked to him about the shoplifting. Every time I saw

him, I realized it wasn’t necessary.

Since he had a new teacher now, there were fewer times I’d

come across my former girlfriend. Everything was over and

done with. Sometimes, though, a nostalgic memory of the

warmth of her skin would come to me, and I’d be on the verge

of picking up the phone. What brought me to a halt was the

feeling of that supermarket storeroom key in my hand. Of that

summer afternoon. And of Carrot’s little hand in mine. *

Every time I met Carrot at school, I couldn’t help thinking that

he was one strange child. I had no inkling of what thoughts

were brewing behind that thin, calm face. But something was

definitely going on under that placid exterior. And if push

came to shove, he had the wherewithal to take action. I could

sense something deep about him. I believed that telling him the

feelings I held inside was the right thing to do. For him, and for

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me. Probably more for my sake. It’s a little strange to say this,

but he understood me then and accepted me. And even forgave

me. To some extent, at least. *

What kind of days—the seemingly endless days of youth—

would children like Carrot go through as they grew into

adulthood? It wouldn’t be easy for them. Hard times would

outnumber the easy. From my own experience, I could predict

the shape their pain would take. Would he fall in love with

somebody? And would that other person love him back? Not

that my thinking about it mattered. Once he graduated from

elementary school, he’d be gone, and I’d see him no more. And

I had my own problems to think about.

I went to a record shop, bought a copy of Elisabeth

Schwarzkopf singing Mozart’s lieder, and listened to it again

and again. I loved the beautiful stillness of the songs. If I closed

my eyes, the music always took me back to that night on the

Greek island. *

Aside from some very vivid memories, including the one of the

overwhelming desire I felt the day I helped her move, all

Sumire left behind were several long letters and the floppy

disk. I read the letters and the two documents so many times I

nearly had them memorized. Every time I read them, I felt like

Sumire and I were together again, our hearts one. This warmed

my heart more than anything else could. Like you’re on a train

at night travelling across some vast plain, and you catch a

glimpse of a tiny light in the window of a farmhouse. In an

instant it’s sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes.

But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you,

just barely, for a few moments. *

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I wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed (I’m not

going to be able to sleep anyway), lie down on my sofa, and

relive memories of that small Greek island as I listen to

Schwarzkopf. I recollect each and every event, quietly turning

the pages of my memory. The lovely deserted beach, the

outdoor cafe at the harbour. The waiter’s sweat-stained shirt.

Miu’s graceful profile and the sparkle of the Mediterranean

from the veranda. The poor hero standing in the town square

who’d been impaled. And the Greek music I heard from the

mountaintop that night. I vividly relive the magical moonlight,

the wondrous echo of the music. The sensation of estrangement

I experienced when I was awakened by the music. That

formless, midnight pain, like my body, too, was silently,

cruelly, being impaled

Lying there, I close my eyes for a while, then open them. I

silently breathe in, then out. A thought begins to form in my

mind, but in the end I think of nothing. Not that there was

much difference between the two, thinking and not thinking. I

find I can no longer distinguish between one thing and another,

between things that existed and things that did not. I look out

the window. Until the sky turns white, clouds float by, birds

chirp, and a new day lumbers up, gathering together the sleepy

minds of the people who inhabit this planet.

Once in downtown Tokyo I caught a glimpse of Miu. It was

about six months after Sumire disappeared, a warm Sunday in

the middle of March. Low clouds covered the sky, and it

looked like it would rain at any minute. Everyone carried

umbrellas. I was on my way to visit some relatives who lived

downtown and was stopped at a traffic light in Hiroo, at the

intersection near the MEIDI-YA store, when I spotted the navy-

blue Jaguar inching its way forward in the heavy traffic. I was

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in a taxi, and the Jaguar was in the through lane to my left. I

noticed the car because its driver was a woman with a stunning

mane of white hair. From a distance, her white hair stood out

starkly against the flawless navy-blue car. I had only seen Miu

with black hair, so it took me a while to put this Miu and the

Miu I knew together. But it was definitely her. She was as

beautiful as I remembered, refined in a rare and wonderful

way. Her breathtaking white hair kept one at arm’s length and

had a resolute, almost mythical air about it.

The Miu before me, though, was not the woman I had waved

goodbye to at the harbour on the Greek island. Only half a year

had passed, yet she looked like a different person. Of course

her hair colour was changed. But that wasn’t all.

An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to

mind. Miu was like an empty room after everyone’s left.

Something incredibly important—the same something that

pulled in Sumire like a tornado, that shook my heart as I stood

on the deck of the ferry—had disappeared from Miu for good.

Leaving behind not life, but its absence. Not the warmth of

something alive, but the silence of memory. Her pure-white

hair inevitably made me imagine the colour of human bones,

bleached by the passage of time. For a time, I couldn’t exhale. *

The Jaguar Miu was driving sometimes got ahead of my taxi,

sometimes fell behind, but Miu didn’t notice I was watching

her from nearby. I couldn’t call out to her. I didn’t know what

to say, but even if I had, the windows of the Jaguar were shut

tight. Miu was sitting up straight, both hands on the steering

wheel, her attention fixed on the scene ahead of her. She might

have been thinking deeply about something. Or maybe she was

listening to the “Art of the Fugue” that was playing on her car

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stereo. The entire time her icy, hardened expression didn’t

change, and she barely blinked. Finally the light turned green

and the Jaguar sped off in the direction of Aoyama, leaving

behind my taxi, which sat there waiting to make a right turn. *

So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal

the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from

us—that’s snatched right out of our hands—even if we are left

completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin

from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in

silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time,

bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often

adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a

feeling of immeasurable emptiness. *

Though she came back to Japan, Miu couldn’t get in touch with

me for some reason. Instead, she kept her silence, clutching her

memories close, seeking some nameless, remote place to

swallow her up. That’s what I imagined. I didn’t feel like

blaming Miu. Let alone hating her.

The image that came to mind at that moment was of the

bronze statue of Miu’s father in the little mountain village in

North Korea. I could picture the tiny town square, the low-

slung houses, and the dust-covered bronze statue. The wind

always blows hard there, twisting the trees into surreal shapes.

I don’t know why, but that bronze statue and Miu, hands on

the steering wheel of her Jaguar, melted into one in my mind.

Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly,

lost. Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can

disappear, melding together in a single, overlapping figure.

And as we live our lives we discover —drawing towards us the

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thin threads attached to each—what has been lost. I closed my

eyes and tried to bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as

I could. Drawing them closer, holding on to them. Knowing all

the while that their lives are fleeting. *

I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To

dream, to live in the world of dreams—just as Sumire said. But

it doesn’t last for ever. Wakefulness always comes to take me

back.

I wake up at 3 a.m., turn on the light, sit up, and look at the

phone beside my bed. I picture Sumire in a phone box, lighting

up a cigarette and pushing the buttons for my number. Her

hair’s a mess; she has on a man’s herringbone jacket many sizes

too big for her and mismatched socks. She frowns, choking a

bit on the smoke. It takes her a long time to push all the

numbers correctly. Her head is crammed full of things she

wants to tell me. She might talk until dawn, who knows?

About the difference, say, between symbols and signs. My

phone looks as though it will ring any minute now. But it

doesn’t ring. I lie down and stare at the silent phone.

But one time it does ring. Right in front of me, it actually

rings. Making the air of the real world tremble and shake. I

grab the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I’m back,” said Sumire. Very casual. Very real. “It

wasn’t easy, but somehow I managed it. Like a 50-word précis

of Homer’s Odyssey.”

“That’s good,” I said. I still couldn’t believe it. Being able to

hear her voice. The fact that this was happening.

“That’s good?” Sumire said, and I could almost hear the

frown. “What the heck do you mean by that? I’ve gone through

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bloody hell, I’ll have you know. The obstacles I went through—

millions of them, I’d never finish if I tried to explain them all—

all this to get back, and that’s all you can say? I think I’m going

to cry. If it isn’t good that I’m back, where would that leave me?

That’s good. I can’t believe it! Save that kind of heartwarming,

witty remark for the kids in your class—when they finally

work out how to multiply!”

“Where are you now?”

“Where am I? Where do you think I am? In our good old

faithful telephone box. This crummy little square telephone box

plastered inside with ads for phony loan companies and escort

services. A mouldy-coloured half-moon’s hanging in the sky;

the floor’s littered with cigarette butts. As far as the eye can see,

nothing to warm the cockles of the heart. An interchangeable,

totally semiotic telephone box. So, where is it? I’m not exactly

sure. Everything’s just too semiotic—and you know me, right? I

don’t know where I am half the time. I can’t give directions

well. Taxi drivers are always yelling at me: Hey lady, where in

the world you trying to get to? I’m not too far away, I think.

Probably pretty close by.”

“I’ll come and get you.”

“I’d like that. I’ll find out where I am and call you back. I’m

running out of change, anyway. Wait for a while, okay?”

“I really wanted to see you,” I said.

“And I really wanted to see you, too,” she said. “When I

couldn’t see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as if

the planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I really

need you. You’re a part of me; I’m a part of you. You know,

somewhere—I’m not at all sure where—I think I cut

something’s throat. Sharpening my knife, my heart a stone.

Symbolically, like making a gate in China. Do you understand

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what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“Then come and get me.” *

Suddenly the phone cuts off. Still clutching the receiver, I stare

at it for a long time. Like the phone itself is some vital message,

its very shape and colour containing hidden meaning.

Reconsidering, I hang up. I sit up in bed and wait for the phone

to ring again. I lean back against the wall, my focus fixed on a

single point in the space before me, and I breathe slowly,

soundlessly. Making sure of the joints bridging one moment of

time and the next. The phone doesn’t ring. An unconditional

silence hangs in the air. But I’m in no hurry. There’s no need to

rush. I’m ready. I can go anywhere. *

Right?

Right you are! *

I get up out of bed. I pull back the old, faded curtain and open

the window. I stick my head out and look up at the sky. Sure

enough, a mouldy-coloured half-moon hangs in the sky. Good.

We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re

connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly

draw it towards me.

I spread my fingers apart and stare at the palms of both

hands, looking for bloodstains. There aren’t any. No scent of

blood, no stiffness. The blood must have already, in its own

silent way, seeped inside.

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