Tsukuru nodded. “She said there are some things I have to resolve. I have to revisit the past. Otherwise … I’ll never be free from it.”
“She thinks you have some issues you need to deal with.”
“She does.”
“And she thinks these issues are damaging your relationship.”
“Most likely,” Tsukuru said.
Eri held the mug in both hands, testing how hot it was, and then took another sip of coffee.
“How old is she?”
“She’s two years older than me.”
Eri nodded. “I can see you getting along well with an older woman.”
“Maybe so,” Tsukuru said.
They were quiet for a while.
“There are all kinds of things we have to deal with in life,” Eri finally said. “And one thing always seems to connect with another. You try to solve one problem, only to find that another one you hadn’t anticipated arises instead. It’s not that easy to get free of them. That’s true for you—and for me, too.”
“You’re right, it’s not easy to get free of them. But that doesn’t mean we should leave them hanging, unresolved,” Tsukuru said. “You can put a lid on memory, but you can’t hide history. That’s what my girlfriend said.”
Eri stood up, went over to the window, opened it, then returned to the table. The breeze fluttered the curtain, and the boat slapped sporadically against the dock. She brushed her hair back with her fingers, rested both hands on the tabletop, and looked at Tsukuru, then spoke. “There could be lids that have gotten so tight you can’t pry them off anymore.”
“I’m not trying to force anything. That’s not what I’m trying to do. But at least I’d like to see, with my own eyes, what kind of lid it is.”
Eri gazed at her hands on the table. They were larger, and more fleshy, than Tsukuru remembered. Her fingers were long, her nails short. He pictured those hands spinning a potter’s wheel.
“You said I look very different,” Tsukuru said. “I think I’ve changed, too. Sixteen years ago, after you banished me from the group, all I could think about for five months was dying. Death and nothing else. Not to exaggerate or anything, but I was really teetering on the brink. Standing on the edge, staring down at the abyss, unable to look away. Somehow, I was able to make my way back to the world I came from. But it wouldn’t have been surprising if I had actually died then. Something was wrong with me—mentally, I mean. I don’t know what would be the correct diagnosis—anxiety, depression. Something like that. But something was definitely abnormal. It wasn’t like I was confused, though. My mind was perfectly clear. Utterly still, with no static at all. A very strange condition, now that I think back on it.”
Tsukuru stared at Eri’s silent hands and went on.
“After those five months were over, my face was totally transformed. And my body, too. None of my old clothes fit anymore. When I looked in the mirror, it felt like I’d been put inside a container that wasn’t me. I don’t know, maybe my life just happened to reach that stage—a stage where I had to kind of lose my mind for a while, where my looks and my body had to undergo a metamorphosis. But the trigger for this change was the fact that I had been cut off from our group. That incident changed me forever.”
Eri listened without a word.
Tsukuru went on. “How should I put it? It felt like I was on the deck of a ship at night and was suddenly hurled into the ocean, all alone.”
After he said this, he suddenly recalled this was the same description that Aka had used. He paused and continued.