Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

  “That’s great news.”

  “I really appreciate all you’ve done trying to find him, I really do. But now that things have turned out this way I don’t need you to continue the investigation.”

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “The whole thing’s been so crazy and incomprehensible, but at least I have my husband back safe and sound, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Of course,” I said. “That’s what’s important.”

  “Are you sure, now, that you won’t accept anything for your services?”

  “As I told you the first time we met, I can’t accept any kind of payment whatsoever. So please don’t trouble yourself over that. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.”

  Silence. A refreshing silence that implied we’d come to a mutual understanding. I played my own role in supporting this, appreciating the calm.

  “Take care of yourself, then,” the woman finally said and hung up, her tone carrying with it a hint of sympathy.

  I put down the phone. For a while I sat there, slowly twirling a brand-new pencil, staring at the blank memo pad in front of me. The white pad reminded me of a freshly washed sheet just back from the laundry. The sheet made me think of a calico cat stretched out on it for a pleasant nap. That image—of a napping cat on a freshly laundered sheet—helped me relax. I started to search my memory, and I carefully wrote down on my memo pad, one by one, all the salient points the woman had made: Sendai Station, Friday around noon, telephone, lost twenty pounds, same clothes, lost his glasses, memory of twenty days gone.

  Memory of twenty days gone.

  I laid the pencil on the desk, leaned back in my chair, and stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling boards had some irregular spots here and there, and if I squinted it looked like a celestial chart. I gazed up at this imaginary starry night and wondered if maybe I should start smoking again—for my health. My head was filled with the click of the woman’s high heels on the stairway.

  “Mr. Kurumizawa,” I said aloud to a corner of the ceiling. “Welcome back to the real world. Back to the three sides of your beautiful triangular world—your panic-attack-prone mother, your wife, with her ice-pick heels, and good old Merrill Lynch.”

  I imagine my search will continue—somewhere. A search for something that could very well be shaped like a door. Or maybe something closer to an umbrella, or a doughnut. Or an elephant. A search that, I hope, will take me where I’m likely to find it.

  —TRANSLATED BY PHILIP GABRIEL

  THE KIDNEY-SHAPED STONE THAT MOVES EVERY DAY

  Junpei was sixteen years old when his father made the following pronouncement. True, they were father and son; the same blood flowed in their veins. But they were not so close that they could open their hearts to each other, and it was extremely rare for Junpei’s father to offer him views of life that might (perhaps) be called philosophical. And so that day’s exchange remained with him as a vivid memory long after he had forgotten what prompted it.

  “Among the women a man meets in his life, there are only three that have real meaning for him. No more, no less,” his father said—or, rather, declared. He spoke coolly but with utter certainty, as he might have in noting that the earth takes a year to revolve around the sun. Junpei listened in silence, partly because his father’s declaration was so unexpected; he could think of nothing to say on the spur of the moment.

  “You will probably become involved with many women in the future,” his father continued, “but you will be wasting your time if a woman is the wrong one for you. I want you to remember that.”

  Later, several questions formed in Junpei’s young mind: Has my father already met his three women? Is my mother one of them? And if so, what happened with the other two? But he was not able to ask his father these questions. As noted earlier, the two were not on such close terms that they could speak with each other heart-to-heart.

  Junpei left the house at eighteen when he went to college in Tokyo, and he became involved with several women, one of whom “had real meaning” for him. He knew this with absolute certainty at the time, and he is just as certain of it now. Before he could express his feelings in concrete form, however (by nature, it took him longer than most people to put things into concrete form), she married his best friend, and since then she has become a mother. For the time being, therefore, she had to be eliminated from the list of possibilities that life had to offer Junpei. He had to harden his heart and sweep her from his mind, as a result of which the number of women remaining who could have “real meaning” in his life—if he was going to accept his father’s theory at face value—was reduced to two.

  Whenever Junpei met a new woman after that, he would ask himself, Is this a woman who has real meaning for me? and the question would call forth a dilemma. For even as he continued to hope (as who does not?) that he would meet someone who had “real meaning” for him, he was afraid of playing his few remaining cards too early. Having failed to join with the very first important Other he encountered, Junpei lost confidence in his ability—the exceedingly important ability—to give outward expression to love at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. I may be the type who manages to grab all the pointless things in life but lets the really important things slip away. Whenever this thought crossed his mind—which was often—his heart would sink down to a place devoid of light and warmth.

  And so, after he had been with a new woman for some months, if he should begin to notice something about her character or behavior, however trivial, that displeased him or touched a nerve, somewhere in a recess of his heart he would feel a twinge of relief. As a result, it became a life pattern for him to maintain pale, indecisive relationships with one woman after another. He would stay with a woman as if taking stock of the situation until, at some point, the relationship would dissolve on its own. The breakups never entailed any discord or shouting matches because he never became involved with women who seemed as if they might be difficult to get rid of. Before he knew it, he had developed a kind of nose for convenient partners.

  Junpei himself was unsure whether this power stemmed from his own innate character or had been formed by his environment. If the latter, it could well have been the fruit of his father’s curse. Around the time he graduated from college, he had a violent argument with his father and cut off all contact with him, but his father’s “three-women” theory, its basis never fully explained, became a kind of obsession that clung tenaciously to his life. At one time he even half-jokingly considered moving on to homosexuality: maybe then he could free himself from this stupid countdown. For better or worse, though, women were the only objects of Junpei’s sexual interest.

  The next woman Junpei met, he soon discovered, was older than he was. Thirty-six. Junpei was thirty-one. An acquaintance of his was opening a little French restaurant on a street leading out of central Tokyo, and Junpei was invited to the party. He wore a Perry Ellis shirt of deep blue silk with matching summer sport coat. He had planned to meet a close friend at the party, but the friend canceled at the last minute, which left Junpei with time to kill. He nursed a large glass of Bordeaux alone at the bar. When he was ready to leave and beginning to scan the crowd to say goodbye to the owner, a tall woman approached him holding some kind of purple cocktail. Junpei’s first thought on seeing her was, Here is a woman with excellent posture.

  “Somebody over there told me you’re a writer. Is that true?” she asked, resting an elbow on the bar.

  “I suppose so, in a way,” Junpei answered.

  “A writer in a way.”

  Junpei nodded.

  “How many books have you published?”

  “Two volumes of short stories, and one book I translated. None of them sold much.”

  She gave him a quick head-to-toe inspection and smiled with apparent satisfaction.

  “Well, anyhow, you’re the first real writer I’ve met.”

  “It might be a little disappointing,” Junpei said. “Writers don’t have any talent
s to offer. A pianist could play you a tune. A painter could draw you a sketch. A magician could perform a trick or two. There’s not much a writer can do.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I can just enjoy your artistic aura or something.”

  “Artistic aura?” Junpei said.

  “A special radiance, something you don’t find in ordinary people?”

  “I see my face in the mirror every morning when I’m shaving, but I’ve never noticed anything like that.”

  She smiled warmly and asked, “What type of stories do you write?”

  “People ask me that a lot, but it’s hard to talk about my stories as ‘types.’ They don’t fit into any particular genre.”

  She ran a finger around the lip of her cocktail glass. “I suppose that means you write literary fiction?”

  “I suppose it does. But you say that the way you might say ‘chain letters.’”

  She smiled again. “Could I have heard your name?”

  “Do you read the literary magazines?”

  She gave her head a small, sharp shake.

  “Then you probably haven’t. I’m not that well known.”

  “Ever been nominated for the Akutagawa Prize?”

  “Twice in five years.”

  “But you didn’t win?”

  Junpei smiled but said nothing. Without asking his permission, she sat on the bar stool next to his and sipped what was left of her cocktail.

  “Oh, what’s the difference?” she said. “Those prizes are just an industry gimmick.”

  “I’d be more convinced if I could hear that from somebody who’s actually won a prize.”

  She told him her name: Kirie.

  “How unusual,” he said. “Sounds like ‘Kyrie’ from a mass.”

  Junpei thought she might be an inch or more taller than he was. She wore her hair short, had a deep tan, and her head was beautifully shaped. She wore a pale green linen jacket and a knee-length flared skirt. The sleeves of the jacket were rolled up to the elbow. Under the jacket she had on a simple cotton blouse with a small turquoise brooch on the collar. The swell of her breasts was neither large nor small. She dressed with style, and while there was nothing affected about it, her entire outfit reflected strongly individualistic principles. Her lips were full, and they would mark the ends of her sentences by spreading or pursing. This gave everything about her a strange liveliness and freshness. Three parallel creases would form across her broad forehead whenever she stopped to think about something, and when she finished thinking, they would disappear.

  Junpei noticed himself being attracted to her. Some indefinable but persistent something about her was exciting him, pumping adrenaline to his heart, which began sending out secret signals in the form of tiny sounds. Suddenly aware that his throat was dry, Junpei ordered a Perrier from a passing waiter, and as always he began to ask himself, Is she someone with real meaning for me? Is she one of the remaining two? Or will she be my second strike? Should I let her go, or take a swing?

  “Did you always want to be a writer?” Kirie asked.

  “Hmm, let’s just say I could never think of anything else I wanted to be.”

  “So, your dream came true.”

  “I wonder. I wanted to be a superior writer.” Junpei spread his hands about a foot apart. “There’s a pretty big distance between the two, I think.”

  “Everybody has to start somewhere. You have your whole future ahead of you. Perfection doesn’t happen right away.” Then she asked, “How old are you?”

  This was when they told each other their ages. Being older didn’t seem to bother her in the least. It didn’t bother Junpei. He preferred mature women to young girls. In most cases, it was easier to break up with an older woman.

  “What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

  Her lips formed a perfectly straight line, and her expression became earnest for the first time.

  “What kind of work do you think I do?”

  Junpei jogged his glass, swirling the red wine inside it exactly once. “Can I have a hint?”

  “No hints. Is it so hard to tell? Observation and judgment are your business.”

  “Not really,” he said. “What a writer is supposed to do is observe and observe and observe again, and put off making judgments to the last possible moment.”

  “Of course,” she said. “All right, then, observe and observe and observe again, and then use your imagination. That wouldn’t clash with your professional ethics, would it?”

  Junpei raised his eyes and studied Kirie’s face with new concentration, hoping to find a secret sign there. She looked straight into his eyes, and he looked straight into hers.

  After a short pause, he said, “All right, this is what I imagine, based on nothing much: you’re a professional of some sort. Not just anyone can do your job. It requires some kind of special expertise.”

  “Bull’s-eye! You’re right: not just anyone can do what I do. But try to narrow it down a little.”

  “Something to do with music?”

  “No.”

  “Fashion design?”

  “No.”

  “Tennis?”

  “No,” she said.

  Junpei shook his head. “Well, you’ve got a deep tan, you’re solidly built, your arms have a good bit of muscle. Maybe you do a lot of outdoor sports. I don’t think you’re an outdoor laborer. You don’t have that vibe.”

  Kirie lifted her sleeves, rested her bare arms on the counter, and turned them over, inspecting them. “You seem to be getting there.”

  “But I still can’t give you the right answer.”

  “It’s important to keep a few little secrets,” Kirie said. “I don’t want to deprive you of your professional pleasure—observing and imagining…I will give you one hint, though. It’s the same for me as for you.”

  “The same how?”

  “I mean, my profession is exactly what I always wanted to do, ever since I was a little girl. Like you. Getting to where I am, though, was not an easy trip.”

  “Good,” Junpei said. “That’s important. Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.”

  “An act of love,” Kirie said. The words seemed to have made an impression on her. “That’s a wonderful metaphor.”

  “Meanwhile, do you think I might have heard your name somewhere?” Junpei asked.

  “Probably not,” she answered, shaking her head. “I’m not that well known.”

  “Oh, well, everybody has to start somewhere.”

  “Exactly,” Kirie said with a smile. Then she turned serious. “My case is different from yours in one way. I’m expected to attain perfection right from the start. No mistakes allowed. Perfection or nothing. No in-between. No second chances.”

  “I suppose that’s another hint.”

  “Probably.”

  A waiter circulating with a tray of champagne approached them. She took two glasses from him and handed one to Junpei.

  “Cheers,” she said.

  “To our respective areas of expertise,” Junpei said.

  They clinked glasses with a light, secretive sound.

  “By the way,” she said, “are you married?”

  Junpei shook his head.

  “Neither am I,” Kirie said.

  She spent that night in Junpei’s room. They drank wine—a gift from the restaurant—had sex, and went to sleep. When Junpei woke at ten o’clock the next morning, she was gone, leaving only an indentation like a missing memory in the pillow next to his, and a note: “I have to go to work. Get in touch with me if you like.” She included her cell phone number.

  He called her, and they had dinner at a restaurant the following Saturday. They drank a little wine, had sex in Junpei’s room, and went to sleep. Again the next morning, she was gone. It was Sunday, but she left another simple note: “I have to work, am disappearing.” Junpei still had no idea what kind of work Kirie did, but it certainly started early in the morning. And—on occasion at least—she worke
d on Sundays.

  The two were never at a loss for things to talk about. She had a sharp mind and was knowledgeable on a broad range of topics. She enjoyed reading, but generally favored books other than fiction—biography, history, psychology, and popular science—and she retained an amazing amount of information. One time, Junpei was astounded at her detailed knowledge of the history of prefabricated housing.

  “Prefabricated housing? Your work must have something to do with construction or architecture.”

  “No,” she said. “I just tend to be attracted to highly practical topics. That’s all.”

  She did, however, read the two story collections that Junpei had published, and found them “wonderful—far more enjoyable than I had imagined. To tell you the truth, I was worried. What would I do if I read your work and didn’t like it? What could I say? But there was nothing to worry about. I enjoyed them thoroughly.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Junpei, relieved. He had had the same worry when, at her request, he gave her the books.

  “I’m not just saying this to make you feel good,” Kirie said, “but you’ve got something special—that special something it takes to become an outstanding writer. Your stories have a quiet mood, but several of them are quite lively, and the style is beautiful, but mainly your writing is so balanced. For me, that is always the most important thing—in music, in fiction, in painting. Whenever I encounter a work or a performance that lacks that balance—which is to say, whenever I encounter a poor, unfinished work—it makes me sick. Like motion sickness. That’s probably why I don’t go to concerts and hardly read any fiction.”

  “Because you don’t want to encounter unbalanced things?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And in order to avoid that risk, you don’t read novels and you don’t go to concerts?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sounds a little far out to me.”

  “I’m a Libra. I just can’t stand it when things are out of balance. No, it’s not so much that I can’t stand it as—”

  She closed her mouth in search of the right words, but she wasn’t able to find them, releasing instead a few tentative sighs. “Oh, well, never mind,” she went on. “I just wanted to say that I believe someday you are going to write full-length novels. And when you do that, you will become a more important writer. It may take a while, but that’s what I feel.”