Huge black mosquitoes buzz me like reconnaissance patrols, aiming for the exposed skin around my eyes. When I hear their buzz I brush them away or squash them.
Whenever I smush one it makes a squish, already bloated with blood it's sucked out of me. It feels itchy only later. I wipe the blood off my hands on the towel around my neck.
The army marching through these woods, if it was summer, must have had the same problems with mosquitoes. Full battle gear—how much would that have weighed?
Those old-style rifles like a clump of iron, ammunition belt, bayonet, steel helmet, a couple of grenades, food and rations, of course, entrenching tools to dig foxholes, mess kit... All that gear must add up to well over forty pounds. Damn heavy, and a lot more than my little daypack. I have the distinct feeling I'm going to bump into those soldiers around the next bend, even though they disappeared here more than sixty years ago.
I remember Napoleon's troops marching into Russia in the summer of 1812. They must have swatted away their share of mosquitoes, too, on that long road to Moscow. Of course mosquitoes weren't the only problem. They had to struggle to survive all kinds of other things—hunger, thirst, muddy roads, infectious disease, sweltering heat, Cossack commandos attacking their thin supply lines, lack of medical supplies, not to mention huge battles with the regular Russian army. When the French forces finally straggled into a deserted Moscow, their number had been reduced from 500,000 to a mere 100,000.
I stop and take a swig of water from my canteen. My watch shows exactly eleven o'clock. The library is just opening up. Oshima's unlocking the door, taking his usual seat behind the counter, a stack of long, neatly sharpened pencils on the desk. He picks one up and twirls it, gently pushing the eraser end against his temple. I can see it all clearly. But that place is so far away.
I've never had periods, says Oshima. I do anal sex and have never used my vagina for sex. My clitoris is sensitive but my breasts aren't.
I remember Oshima asleep in the bed in the cabin, his face to the wall. And the signs he/she left behind. Cloaked in those signs, I went to sleep in the same bed.
I give up thinking about it anymore. Instead I think about war. The Napoleonic Wars, the war the Japanese soldiers had to go off and fight. I feel the heft of the hatchet in my hands. That pale, sharp blade glints and I have to turn my eyes away from it. Why do people wage war? Why do hundreds of thousands, even millions of people group together and try to annihilate each other? Do people start wars out of anger? Or fear? Or are anger and fear just two aspects of the same spirit?
I hack another notch in a tree with my hatchet. The tree cries out silently, bleeding invisible blood. I keep on trudging. Coltrane picks up his soprano sax again.
Once more the repetition breaks apart the real, rearranging the pieces.
Before long my mind wanders into the realm of dreams. They come back so quietly. I'm holding Sakura. She's in my arms, and I'm inside her. I don't want to be at the mercy of things outside me anymore, thrown into confusion by things I can't control.
I've already murdered my father and violated my mother—and now here I am inside my sister. If there's a curse in all this, I mean to grab it by the horns and fulfill the program that's been laid out for me. Lift the burden from my shoulders and live—not caught up in someone else's schemes, but as me. That's what I really want. And I come inside her.
"Even if it's in a dream, you shouldn't have done that," the boy named Crow calls out. He's right behind me, walking in the forest. "I tried my best to stop you. I wanted you to understand. You heard, but you didn't listen. You just forged on ahead."
I don't respond or turn around, just silently keep on trudging.
"You thought that's how you could overcome the curse, right? But was it?" Crow asks.
But was it? You killed the person who's your father, violated your mother, and now your sister. You thought that would put an end to the curse your father laid on you, so you did everything that was prophesied about you. But nothing's really over. You didn't overcome anything. That curse is branded on your soul even deeper than before.
You should realize that by now. That curse is part of your DNA. You breathe out the curse, the wind carries it to the four corners of the Earth, but the dark confusion inside you remains. Your fear, anger, unease—nothing's disappeared. They're all still inside you, still torturing you.
"Listen up—there's no war that will end all wars," Crow tells me. "War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that."
"Sakura—my sister," I say. I shouldn't have raped her. Even if it was in a dream.
"What should I do?" I ask, staring at the ground in front of me.
"You have to overcome the fear and anger inside you," the boy named Crow says.
"Let a bright light shine in and melt the coldness in your heart. That's what being tough is all about. Do that and you really will be the toughest fifteen-year-old on the planet. You following me? There's still time. You can still get your self back. Use your head. Think about what you've got to do. You're no dunce. You should be able to figure it out."
"Did I really murder my father?" I ask.
No reply. I swing around, but the boy named Crow is gone and the silence swallows my question.
Alone in such a deep forest, the person called me feels empty, horribly empty.
Oshima once used the term hollow men. Well, that's exactly what I've become. There's a void inside me, a blank that's slowly expanding, devouring what's left of who I am. I can hear it happening. I'm totally lost, my identity dying. There's no direction where I am, no sky, no ground. I think of Miss Saeki, of Sakura, of Oshima. But I'm light-years away from them. It's like I'm looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, and no matter how far I stretch out my hand, I can't touch them. I'm all alone in the middle of a dim maze. Listen to the wind, Oshima told me. I listen, but no wind's blowing. Even the boy named Crow has vanished.
Use your head. Think about what you've got to do.
But I can't think anymore. No matter how much I try, I wind up at a dead end in the maze. What is it inside me that makes up me? Is this what's supposed to stand up to the void?
If only I could wipe out this me who's here, right here and right now. I seriously consider it. In this thick wall of trees, on this path that's not a path, if I stopped breathing, my consciousness would silently be buried in the darkness, every last drop of my dark violent blood dripping out, my DNA rotting among the weeds. Then my battle would be over. Otherwise, I'll eternally be murdering my father, violating my mother, violating my sister, lashing out at the world forever. I close my eyes and try to find my center.
The darkness that covers it is rough and jagged. There's a break in the dark clouds, like looking out the window to see the leaves of the dogwood gleaming like a thousand blades in the moonlight.
I feel something rearranging itself under my skin, and there's a tinkling sound in my head. I open my eyes and take a deep breath. I throw away the can of spray paint, the hatchet, the compass. From far away I hear them all clatter to the ground. I feel lighter. I slip the daypack off my shoulders and toss it aside. My sense of touch seems suddenly acute. The air around me's grown more transparent. My sense of the forest has grown more intense. Coltrane's labyrinthine solo plays on in my ears, never ending.
Thinking it over, I reach into the daypack and take out the hunting knife and stuff it in my pocket. The razor-sharp knife I stole from my father's desk. If need be, I could use it to slash my wrists and let every drop of blood inside me gush out onto the ground.
That would destroy the device.
I head off into the heart of the forest, a hollow man, a void that devours all that's substantial. There is nothing left to fear. Not a thing.
And I head off into the heart of the forest.
Chapter 42
Once the two of them were alone, Miss Saeki offered Nakata a chair. He thought about it
for a moment before sitting down. They sat there for a time without speaking, eyeing each other across the desk. Nakata placed his hiking hat on his lap and gave his short hair a good rub with his hand. Miss Saeki rested both hands on the desktop, quietly watching him go through his routine.
"Unless I'm mistaken, I think I've been waiting for you to come," she said.
"I believe that's true," Nakata replied. "But it took some time for Nakata to get here. I hope I didn't make you wait too long. I did my best to get here as quickly as I could."
Miss Saeki shook her head. "No, it's perfectly all right. If you'd come any earlier, or any later, I would've been even more at a loss, I suppose. For me, right now is the perfect time."
"Mr. Hoshino was very kind to me and helped me out a lot. If I had to do it alone it would've taken even longer. Nakata can't read, after all."
"Mr. Hoshino is your friend, isn't he?"
"Yes," Nakata replied, and nodded. "I think he is. But to tell the truth, I'm not all too sure about that. Besides cats, I've never had what you would call a friend in my life."
"I haven't had any friends either, for quite some time," Miss Saeki said. "Other than in memories."
"Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?" she replied.
"Actually, I don't have any memories either. I'm dumb, you see, so could you tell me what memories are like?"
Miss Saeki stared at her hands on the desk, then looked up at Nakata again.
"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."
Nakata shook his head. "That's a tough one. Nakata still doesn't understand. The only thing I understand is the present."
"I'm the exact opposite," Miss Saeki said.
A deep silence settled over the room.
Nakata was the one who broke it, lightly clearing his throat. "Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?"
"You know about the entrance stone, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," she said. She brushed the Mont Blanc pen on the desk with her fingers. "I happened to come across it a long time ago. Perhaps it would've been better if I'd never known about it. But I had no choice in the matter."
"Nakata opened it again a few days ago. The afternoon when there was lightning. Lots of lightning falling all over town. Mr. Hoshino helped me. I couldn't have done it myself. Do you know the day I'm talking about?"
Miss Saeki nodded. "Yes, I remember."
"I opened it because I had to."
"I know. You did that so things would be restored to the way they should be."
It was Nakata's turn to nod. "Exactly."
"And you had the right to do it."
"Nakata doesn't know about that. In any case, it wasn't something I chose. I have to tell you this—I murdered someone in Nakano. I didn't want to kill anybody, but Johnnie Walker was in charge and I took the place of the fifteen-year-old boy who should've been there, and I murdered someone. Nakata had to do it."
Miss Saeki closed her eyes, then opened them and looked him in the face. "Did all that happen because I opened the entrance stone a long time ago? Does that still have an effect even now, distorting things?"
Nakata shook his head. "Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?" she said.
"Nakata doesn't know about that. My role is to restore what's here now to the way it should be. That's why I left Nakano, went across a huge bridge, and came to Shikoku. And as I'm sure you're aware, you can't stay here anymore."
Miss Saeki smiled. "I know," she said. "It's what I've been hoping for, Mr. Nakata, for a long time. Something I longed for in the past, what I'm longing for right now. No matter how I tried, though, I couldn't grasp it. I simply had to sit and wait for that time—now, in other words—to come. It wasn't always easy, but suffering is something I've had to accept."
"Miss Saeki," Nakata said, "I only have half a shadow. The same as you."
"I know."
"Nakata lost it during that war. I don't know why that had to happen, and why it had to be me.... At any rate, a long time has passed since then, and it's nearly time for us to leave here."
"I understand."
"Nakata's lived a long time, but as I said, I don't have any memories. So this 'suffering' you talked about I don't rightly understand. But what I think is—no matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."
"That's true," Miss Saeki said. "It hurt more and more to hold on to them, but I never wanted to let them go, as long as I was alive. It was the only reason I had to go on living, the only thing that proved I was alive."
Nakata nodded silently.
"Living longer than I should have has only ruined many people and many things," she went on. "Just recently I had a sexual relationship with that fifteen-year-old boy you mentioned. In that room I became a fifteen-year-old girl again, and made love to him. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not, but I couldn't help it. But those actions must surely have caused something else to be ruined. That's my only regret."
"Nakata doesn't know about sexual desire. Just like I don't have memories, I don't have any desire. So I don't understand the difference between right or wrong sexual desire. But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong, I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now."
"Mr. Nakata?"
"Yes?"
"I have a favor to ask." Miss Saeki picked up the bag at her feet, took out a small key and unlocked a desk drawer, then pulled out some thick file folders and laid them on top of the desk.
"Ever since I came back to this town," she said, "I've been writing this. A record of my life. I was born nearby and fell deeply in love with a boy who lived in this house. I couldn't have loved him more, and he was deeply in love with me. We lived in a perfect circle, where everything inside was complete. Of course that couldn't go on forever. We grew up, and times changed. Parts of the circle fell apart, the outside world came rushing into our private paradise, and things inside tried to get out. All quite natural, I suppose, yet at the time I couldn't accept it. And that's why I opened up the entrance stone—to prevent our perfect, private world from collapsing. I can't remember now how I managed to do it, but I decided I had to open the stone no matter what—so I wouldn't lose him, so things from the outside wouldn't destroy our world. I didn't understand at the time what it would mean. And of course I received my punishment."
She stopped speaking here, picked up the fountain pen, and closed her eyes. "My life ended at age twenty. Since then it's been merely a series of endless reminiscences, a dark, winding corridor leading nowhere. Nevertheless, I had to live it, surviving each empty day, seeing each day off still empty. During those days I made a lot of mistakes. No, that's not correct—sometimes I feel that all I did was make mistakes. I felt like I was living at the bottom of a deep well, completely shut up inside myself, cursing my fate, hating everything outside. Occasionally I ventured outside myself, putting on a good show of being alive. Accepting whatever came along, numbly slipping through life. I slept around a lot, at one point even living in a sort of marriage, but it was all pointless. Everything passed away in an instant, with nothing left behind except the scars of things I injured and despised."
She laid her hands on top of the three files on her desk. "All the details are in here. I wrote this to put it all in order, to make sure one more time about the life I lived. I have only myself to blame, but it's a gut-wrenching process. And I've finally finished it. I've written everything I need to write. I don't need this anymore, and I don't want anybody else to read it. If someone else happened to see it, it might cause harm all over again. So I want it all burned up, every last page, so nothing's left. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to take care of it. You're the only person I can depend on, Mr. Nakata. I'm sorry to bother you with this, but could you do it for me?"
"Nakata understands," he said, nodding seriously. "If that's what you'd like, Miss Saeki, I'll be happy to burn it all up for you. You can rest assured
."
"Thank you," Miss Saeki said.
"Writing things was important, wasn't it?" Nakata asked.
"Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless."
"I can't read or write, so I can't write things down. Nakata's just like a cat."
"Mr. Nakata?"
"How can I help you?"
"I feel like I've known you for ages," Miss Saeki said. "Weren't you in that painting? A figure in the sea in the background? White pants legs rolled up, dipping your feet in the water?"
Nakata silently stood up and came over to stand in front of Miss Saeki. He laid his hard, sunburned hands on top of hers on the files. And as if listening carefully to something, he felt the warmth there filter from her hand to his. "Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?"
"I think I understand a little now."
"About what?"
"What memories are. I can feel them, through your hands."
She smiled. "I'm glad."
Nakata kept his hands on top of hers for a long while. Eventually Miss Saeki closed her eyes, quietly giving herself over to memories. There was no more pain there, for someone had siphoned it off forever. The circle was once again complete. She opens the door of a faraway room and finds two beautiful chords, in the shape of lizards, asleep on the wall. She gently touches them and can feel their peaceful sleep. A gentle wind is blowing, rustling the old curtain from time to time. A significant rustling, like some parable. She's wearing a long blue dress. A dress she wore somewhere a long time ago. Its hem swishes faintly as she walks. The shore is visible outside the window. And you can hear the sound of waves, and someone's voice. There's a hint of the sea in the breeze. And it's summer. Always it's summer. Small white clouds are etched against the azure sky.
Nakata carried the three thick files downstairs. Oshima was at the counter talking with one of the patrons. When he saw Nakata, he grinned. Nakata gave a polite bow in return, and Oshima went back to his conversation. Hoshino was in the reading room all the while, deep in a book.