“Yes, and I feel bad about it.”
Maybe I should have asked her who it was, and when it had started. But I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about those things. So I gazed again outside the window at the falling rain. Why hadn’t I noticed all this before?
“This was just one element among many,” my wife said.
I looked around the room. I’d lived there a long time, and it should have been familiar, but it had now transformed into a scene from a remote, strange land.
Just one element?
What does that mean, just one? I gave it some thought. She was having sex with some man other than me. But that was “just one element.” Then what were all the others?
“I’ll move out in a few days,” my wife said. “So you don’t need to do anything. I’m responsible, so I should be the one who leaves.”
“You already decided where you’re going to go?”
She didn’t answer, but seemed to have already decided on a place. She must have made all kinds of preparations before bringing this up with me. When I realized this, I felt helpless, as if I’d lost my footing in the darkness. Things had been steadily moving forward, and I’d been totally oblivious.
“I’ll get the divorce procedures going as quickly as I can,” my wife said, “and I’d like you to be responsive. I’m being selfish, I know.”
I turned from the rain and gazed at her. And once again it struck me. We’d lived under the same roof for six years, yet I knew next to nothing about this woman. In the same way that people stare up at the sky to see the moon every night, yet understand next to nothing about it.
“I have one request,” I ventured. “If you’ll grant me this, I’ll do whatever you say. And I’ll sign the divorce papers.”
“What is it?”
“That I’m the one who leaves here. And I do it today. I’d like you to stay behind.”
“Today?” she asked, surprised.
“The sooner the better, right?”
She thought it over. “If that’s what you want,” she said.
“It is, and that’s all I want.”
Those were my honest feelings. As long as I wasn’t left behind alone in this wretched, cruel place, in the cold March rain, I didn’t care what happened.
“And I’ll take the car with me. Are you okay with that?”
I really didn’t need to ask. The car was an old, stick-shift model a friend of mine had let me have for next to nothing back before I got married. It had well over sixty thousand miles on it. And besides, my wife didn’t even have a driver’s license.
“I’ll come back later to get my painting materials and clothes and things. Does that work for you?”
“Sure, that’s fine. By ‘later,’ how much later do you mean?”
“I have no idea,” I said. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the future. There was barely any ground left under my feet. Just remaining upright was all I could manage.
“I might not stay here all that long,” my wife said, sounding reluctant.
“Everyone might go to the moon,” I said.
She seemed not to have caught it. “Sorry?”
“Nothing. It’s not important.”
* * *
—
By seven that evening I’d stuffed my belongings into an oversized gym bag and thrown that into the trunk of my red Peugeot 205. Some changes of clothes, toiletries, a few books and diaries. A simple camping set I had always had for hiking. Sketchbooks and a set of drawing pencils. Other than these few items, I had no idea what else to take. It’s okay, I told myself, if I need anything I can buy it somewhere. While I packed the gym bag and went in and out of the apartment, she was still seated at the kitchen table. The coffee cup was still on top of the table, and she continued to stare inside it…
“I have a request, too,” she said. “Even if we break up like this, can we still be friends?”
I couldn’t grasp what she was trying to say. I’d finished tugging on my shoes, had shouldered the bag, and stood, one hand on the doorknob, to stare at her.
“Be friends?”
“I’d like to meet and talk sometimes. If possible, I mean.”
I still couldn’t understand what she meant. Be friends? Meet and talk sometimes? What would we talk about? It’s like she’d posed a riddle. What could she be trying to convey to me? That she didn’t have any bad feelings toward me? Was that it?
“I’m not sure about that,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything more to say. If I’d stood there a whole week, running this through my head, I doubt I’d have found anything more to add. So I opened the door and stepped outside.
When I left the apartment I hadn’t given any thought to what I was wearing. If I’d had on a bathrobe over pajamas, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Later on, when I looked at myself in a full-length mirror in a restroom at a drive-in, I saw I had on a sweater that I favored while working, a gaudy orange down jacket, jeans, and work boots. And an old knit cap. There were white paint stains here and there on the frayed, green, round-neck sweater. The only new item I had on were the jeans, their bright blue too conspicuous. A random collection of clothes, but not too peculiar. My one regret was not having brought a scarf.
When I pulled the car out from the parking lot underneath the apartment building, the cold March rain was still falling. The Peugeot’s wipers sounded like an old man’s raspy, hoarse cough.
* * *
—
I had no clue where to go, so for a while I drove aimlessly around Tokyo. At the intersection at Nishi Azabu, I drove down Gaien Boulevard toward Aoyama, turned right at Aoyama Sanchome toward Akasaka, and after a few more turns found myself in Yotsuya. I stopped at a gas station and filled up the tank. I had them check the oil and tire pressure for me, and top off the windshield washer fluid. I might be in for a very long trip. For all I knew I might even go all the way to the moon.
I paid with my credit card, and headed down the road again. A rainy Sunday night, not much traffic. I switched on an FM station, but it was all pointless chatter, a cacophony of shrill voices. Sheryl Crow’s first CD was in the CD player, and I listened to the first three songs and then turned it off.
I suddenly realized I was driving down Mejiro Boulevard. It took a while before I could figure out which direction I was going—from Waseda toward Nerima. The silence got to me and I turned on the CD again and listened to Sheryl Crow for a few more songs. And then switched it off again. The silence was too quiet, the music too noisy. Though silence was preferable, a little. The only thing that reached me was the scrape of the worn-out wipers, the endless hiss of the tires on the wet pavement.
In the midst of that silence I imagined my wife in the arms of another man.
I should have picked up on that, at least, a long time ago. So how come I didn’t think of it? We hadn’t had sex for months. Even when I tried to get her to, she’d come up with all kinds of reasons to turn me down. Actually, I think she’d lost interest in having sex for some time before that. But I’d figured it was just a stage. She must be tired from working every day, and wasn’t feeling up to it. But now I knew she was sleeping with another man. When had that started? I searched my memory. Probably four or five months ago, would be my guess. Four or five months ago would make it October or November.
But for the life of me I couldn’t recall what had happened back in October or November. I mean, I could barely recall what had happened yesterday.
I paid attention to the road—so as not to run any red lights, or get too close to the car in front of me—and mentally reviewed what had happened last fall. I thought so hard about it that it felt like the core of my brain was going to overheat. My right hand unconsciously changed gears to adjust to the flow of traffic. My left foot stepped on the clutch in time with this. I’d never been so happy that my car was a stick shift. Besides mulling over my wife’s affair, it gave me something to do to keep my hands and feet busy.