“But why?”
I took a breath and looked around the room. “I’ve been living in this house for six months now,” I said. “Sitting on the stool he sat on, painting in his studio. Eating off his dishes, listening to his records. I feel his presence all over the place. That’s why I have to meet the flesh-and-blood Tomohiko Amada. Once is enough. It doesn’t matter a bit if we can’t talk to each other.”
“Then it’s all right,” Masahiko said, seemingly persuaded. “He won’t be thrilled to see you, but he won’t be ticked off either. He can’t tell one person from another, you see. So there’s no problem if you come along. I plan to visit the nursing home again pretty soon. According to the doctor, he doesn’t have much longer—the end could come at any time. So join me on my next visit, if you’re free.”
I brought a spare blanket, pillow, and futon and made up a bed on the sofa in the living room. I looked around the room to make sure the Commendatore wasn’t there. If Masahiko woke up in the middle of the night and saw him—two feet tall and dressed in ancient Asuka garb—he’d freak out. He’d figure he had become a real alcoholic.
Besides the Commendatore, there was The Man with the White Subaru Forester to worry about. I had turned the painting around so no one could see it. Still, I had no idea what strangeness might happen without my knowledge in the middle of the night.
So I wasn’t kidding when I wished Masahiko a sound sleep.
I gave him a spare pair of pajamas to wear. He and I were more or less the same size, so there was no problem with the fit. He took off his clothes, put on the pajamas, and climbed under the bedding I had laid out. The air in the room was a bit chilly, but he looked snug and warm under the covers.
“You’re sure you’re not angry?” he asked before I left.
“No, I’m not angry,” I answered.
“It must hurt a little, though.”
“Maybe a little.” I had the right to be a little hurt, I thought.
“But the cup is still one-sixteenth full.”
“You’ve got it there,” I said.
I turned off the living room light and retired to my bedroom. Before long I had fallen asleep, together with my slightly wounded feelings.
43
IT COULDN’T END LIKE ANY OTHER DREAM
When I woke it was already light outside. Thin gray clouds covered the sky from end to end, but the sun’s benevolent rays still quietly filtered through. It was not quite seven.
I washed my face, turned on the coffee maker, and went to check the living room. Wrapped in blankets, Masahiko was fast asleep on the sofa. He appeared unlikely to wake up any time soon. The almost empty bottle of Chivas Regal sat on the table. I managed to tidy up the bottle and glasses without disturbing him.
I must have drunk quite a lot the night before, but I wasn’t a bit hungover. My mind was as sharp as it was every morning. No heartburn, either. I’ve never had a hangover in my life. Why, I don’t know. Probably it’s just the way I was born. One night’s sleep and all traces of alcohol vanish from my system, however much I drink. I eat breakfast and I’m ready to go.
I toasted two slices of bread, fried two eggs, and ate them while listening to the news and weather on the radio. The stock market was fluctuating wildly, a new parliamentary scandal had been uncovered, and a terrorist bombing in the Middle East had killed and wounded many people. Nothing to brighten my day. Yet none of these events was likely to affect my immediate circumstances. For now, at least, they were limited to distant places and people I had never met. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do. The weather forecast promised nothing new either. Not a particularly gorgeous day, but not particularly awful either. Overcast, but no rain. Maybe not, anyway. But the forecasters and media types were clever—they never used vague words like “maybe.” No, they stuck with convenient terms for which no one could be held accountable, like “probability of precipitation.”
When the news and weather ended, I turned off the radio and cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Then I sat down again at the table, drank a second cup of coffee, and thought. Most people would have used that time to read the Sunday paper, but I didn’t subscribe. So I just sipped my coffee, looked at the magnificent willow tree outside the window, and thought.
First, I thought about my wife, who, I had been told, was about to give birth. Then it hit me—she wasn’t my wife any longer. No connection between us remained. Not contractual, not personal. From where she stood, I was now in all likelihood a virtual stranger, a person of no special consequence. It felt weird. Until a few months ago we had eaten breakfast together, shared the same soap and towel, walked around naked in front of each other, slept in the same bed. Now our lives bore no relationship to each other.
As I followed this train of thought, gradually I began to feel a stranger to myself as well. I placed my hands on the table and studied them for a while. These were my hands, no doubt. Right and left a symmetrical pair. I used these hands to paint, to cook, to eat, sometimes to caress a woman’s body. But this morning, for some reason, they didn’t look like my hands at all. They had become a stranger’s hands—the palms, the backs, the fingernails.
I quit studying my hands. And thinking about the woman who had formerly been my wife. I got up from the table and went to the bath, where I removed my pajamas and took a hot shower. I carefully washed my hair and shaved in the bathroom sink. When I finished, I thought about the baby Yuzu was about to have—the baby who was not my child—again. I didn’t want to, but there was nothing I could do about it.
She was about seven months pregnant. Seven months ago had been the second half of April. Where was I then, and what was I doing? I had left home and set out on a long, solitary trip in mid-March, driving my antique Peugeot 205 more or less at random all across Hokkaido and northeastern Japan. By the time my trip ended and I returned to Tokyo it was already early May. In late April I had crossed over from Hokkaido to Aomori in northern Honshu on the ferry that ran from Hakodate to Oma on the Shimokita Peninsula.
I pulled the simple diary I had kept out of a desk drawer and checked. At that time I had been traveling in the mountains of Aomori, far from the sea. Although it was well into the second half of April, it was still cold, and snow was everywhere. Why on earth had I chosen such a cold place? I couldn’t remember the precise location, but I did recall a small, almost deserted lakefront hotel where I had stayed for a few days. It was an unprepossessing old building made of concrete, where they offered simple (but not bad) meals and amazingly cheap rates. There was even a small outdoor hot springs bath in a corner of the garden that was available twenty-four hours a day. The hotel had just reopened for the spring season, and I was practically the only guest.