Kitchen

  When was it that Yuichi said to me, “Why is it that everything I eat when I’m with you is so delicious?”

  I laughed. “Could it be that you’re satisfying hunger and lust at the same time?”

  “No way, no way, no way!” he said, laughing. “It must be because we’re family.”

  Even in the absence of Eriko, a lighthearted mood had been reestablished between us. Yuichi eating his katsudon, me drinking my tea, the darkness no longer harboring death. And so it was all right again.

  I stood up. “Well, I’ll be going back now.”

  “Back?” Yuichi looked surprised. “Where to? Where did you come from?”

  “You’re right,” I teased, wrinkling my nose. “If I tell you, this night will become reality.” But I couldn’t stop myself. “I came here from Izu in a taxi. You see, Yuichi, how much I don’t want to lose you. We’ve been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy—we, too young to know about it, couldn’t handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty, and ugliness, but if only you’ll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, whatever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you’re completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the meantime, though, don’t disappear on me.”

  Yuichi put down his chopsticks and looked straight into my eyes. “This is the best katsudon I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “It’s incredibly delicious.”

  “Yes.” I smiled.

  “Overall, I’ve been pretty cold, haven’t I? It’s just that I wanted you to see me when I’m feeling more manly, when I’m feeling strong.”

  “Will you tear a telephone book in half for me?”

  “That’s it. Or maybe pick up a car and throw it.”

  “Or smash a truck against a wall with your bare hands.”

  “Just your average tough-guy stuff.” Yuichi’s smiling face seemed to sparkle. I knew I had touched something inside him.

  “Okay, I’ll be going now. The taxi’s going to abandon me.” With that I headed for the door.

  “Mikage.”

  I turned around.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  Smiling, I waved good-bye, then unbolted the door, let myself out, and ran for the taxi.

  Back at the inn, the heat in my room still on, I burrowed under the covers and fell asleep, dead to the world.

  I awoke with a start to the pit-a-pat of slippers and the voices of the inn employees in the hall. The world had undergone a complete change. Outside the large, modern windows, a strong wind raged, chased by dense gray clouds heavy with snow.

  The night before seemed like a dream. I stood up sleepily and turned on the lights. Dancing snowflakes scattered over the mountains, clearly visible from the window. The trees swayed and roared. The overheated room was bright white.

  I crawled back under the covers, still staring at that cold-looking, powerful snowstorm outside. My cheeks burned.

  Eriko was no more.

  Watching that scene, I really knew it for the first time. No matter how it turned out with Yuichi and me, no matter how long or how beautiful a life I would live, I would never see her again.

  Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkling coldly.

  Soon after, I heard Sensei call, “Mikage! Are you awake? It’s snowing, look! It’s snowing!”

  “I’m coming!” I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again.

  The last day, we went to a hotel in Shimoda to sample French cuisine. They threw us a fabulous banquet that night.

  Why was it that the entire group was made up of people who went to bed so early? For me, a night owl, this would not do. After they all dispersed to their rooms, I went for a walk on the beach outside the hotel.

  Even wrapped in my coat and wearing two pairs of stockings, I was so cold I wanted to scream. On my way out I had bought a hot can of coffee from the vending machine, and now I was carrying it in my pocket. It was very hot.

  I stood on a seawall and looked down at the foggy mass of white over the beach. The sea was jet black, from time to time fringed with a lacy, flickering light.

  As the cold wind raged around me, the night seemed to echo in my head. I continued down the darkened steps toward the water. The frozen sand crunched beneath my feet. I walked far up the beach, beside the ocean, sipping my coffee.

  The endless sea was shrouded in darkness. I could see the shadowy forms of gigantic, rugged crags against which the waves were crashing. While watching them, I felt a strange, sweet sadness. In the biting air I told myself, there will be so much pleasure, so much suffering. With or without Yuichi.

  The beacon of the faraway lighthouse revolved. It turned to me, then it turned away, forming a pathway of light on the waves.

  Nodding to myself, my nose dripping, I returned to my room. I took a hot shower while I waited for the tea water to boil. As I was sitting up in bed in my warm, fresh pajamas, the phone rang. When I answered it, the person at the desk said, “You have a telephone call. Please hold.”

  I looked down at the garden outside the window, the dark lawn, then the white gates. Beyond that was the cold beach I had just come from, and the black, undulating sea. I could hear the waves.

  “Hello.” Yuichi’s voiced popped up. “Tracked you down at last. It wasn’t easy.”

  “Where are you calling from?” I asked, laughing. My heart was slowly beginning to relax.

  “Tokyo,” said Yuichi. I had a feeling that was the entire answer.

  “Today was our last day, you know. I’m coming back tomorrow.”

  “Did you eat a lot of good things?”

  “Yes. Sashimi, prawns, wild boar. Today was French. I think I’ve gained a little weight. That reminds me, I sent a package jam-packed with wasabi pickle, eel pies, and tea by express mail to my apartment. You can go pick it up if you like.”

  “Why didn’t you send sashimi and prawns?”

  “Because there’s no way to send them!” I laughed.

  Yuichi sounded happy. “Too bad—I’m picking you up at the station tomorrow, so you could have carried them with you. What time are you getting in?”

  The room was warm, filling with steam from the boiling water. I launched into what time I’d be in and what platform I’d be on.

  MOONLIGHT SHADOW

  Wherever he went, Hitoshi always had a little bell with him, attached to the case he kept his bus pass in. Even though it was just a trinket, something I gave him before we were in love, it was destined to remain at his side until the last.

  Although we were in separate homerooms, we met serving on the same committee for the sophomore-class field trip. Because we had completely different itineraries, the only time we had together was on the bullet train itself. On the platform after we arrived, we shook hands in a playful show of regret at having to part. I suddenly remembered that I had, in the pocket of my school uniform, a little bell that had fallen off the cat. “Here,” I said, “a farewell gift,” and handed it to him. “What’s this?” he said, laughing, and—although it wasn’t the most creative gift—took it from my palm and wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief as if it were something precious. He surprised me: it was not typical behavior for a boy that age.

  As it turns out, it was love.

  Whether he did it because the gift was from me or because that was how he was raised, not to treat a gift carelessly, it amazed me and made me warm to him.

  There was electric charge between our hearts, and its conduit was the sound of the bell. The whole time we spent apart on that class trip, we each had the bell on our minds. Whenever he heard it ring, he would remember me and the time we had spent together; I passed the trip imagining I could hear the bell across the vast sky, imagining th
e person who had it in his possession. After we got back, we fell deeply in love.

  For nearly four years the bell was always with us. Each and every afternoon and evening, in each and every thing we did—our first kiss, our big fights, rain and shine and snow, the first night we spent together, every smile and every tear, listening to music and watching TV—whenever Hitoshi took out that case, which he used as a wallet, we heard its faint, clear tinkling sound. It seemed as though I could hear it even when he wasn’t there. You might say it was just a young girl’s sentimentality. But I did think I heard it—that’s how it felt to me then.

  There was one thing that always disturbed me profoundly. Sometimes, no matter how intently I would be staring at him, I would have the feeling that Hitoshi wasn’t there. So many times, when he was asleep, I felt the need to put my ear to his heart. No matter how bright his smile, I would have to strain my eyes to see him. His facial expressions, the atmosphere around him, always had a kind of transparency. The whole time I was with him there was that feeling of ephemerality, uncertainty. If that was a premonition of what was to come, what a sorrowful one it was.

  A lover should die after a long lifetime. I lost Hitoshi at the age of twenty, and I suffered from it so much that I felt as if my own life had stopped. The night he died, my soul went away to some other place and I couldn’t bring it back. It was impossible to see the world as I had before. My brain ebbed and flowed, unstable, and I passed the days in a relentless state of dull oppression. I felt that I was fated to undergo one of those things it’s better not to have to experience even once in a lifetime (abortion, prostitution, major illness).

  After all, we were still young, and who knows whether it would have been our last love? We had overcome many first hurdles together. We came to know what it is to be deeply tied to someone and we learned to judge for ourselves the weight of many kinds of events—from these things, one by one, we constructed our four years.

  Now that it’s over, I can shout it out: The gods are assholes! I loved Hitoshi—I loved Hitoshi more than life itself.

  * * *

  For two months after Hitoshi died, every morning found me leaning over the railing of the bridge on the river, drinking hot tea. I had begun to go jogging every day at dawn, since I slept very badly, and that point on the bridge was where I rested before the run back home.

  Sleeping at night was what I feared most. No—worse than that was the shock of awakening. I dreaded the deep gloom that would fall when I remembered he was gone. My dreams were always about Hitoshi. After my painful, fitful sleep, whether or not I had been able to see him, on awakening I would know it had been only a dream—in reality I would never be with him again. And so I tried not to wake up. Going back to sleep was no answer: depressed to the point of nausea, I would toss around in a cold sweat. Through my curtains I would see the sky getting lighter, blue-white, and I would feel abandoned in the chill and silence of dawn. It was so forlorn and cold, I wished I could be back in the dream. There I would be, wide-eyed, tortured by its lingering memory. It was always then that I truly woke up. Finally, exhausted from lack of sleep, beginning to panic at the prospect of that lonely time—like a bout of insanity—in which I would wait for the first morning light, I decided to take up running.

  I bought myself an expensive two-piece sweatsuit, running shoes, and even a small aluminum container in which to carry a hot drink. I thought, ironically, that beginners always over-equip—but still, it was best to look ahead.

  I began running just before spring vacation. I would run to the bridge, turn around, and head home, where I would carefully wash out my neck towel and sweaty clothes. While they were in the dryer I would help my mother make breakfast. Then I’d go back to bed for a while. That was my life. In the evenings I’d get together with friends, watch videos, whatever, anything to leave myself as little free time as possible. But the struggle was fruitless. There was only one thing I had any desire to do: I wanted to see Hitoshi. Yet at all costs I had to keep my hands and body and mind moving. Doing that, I hoped, albeit listlessly, would somehow, someday, lead to a breakthrough. There was no guarantee, but I would try to endure, no matter what, until it came. When my dog died, when my bird died, I had gotten through in more or less the same way. But it was different this time. Without a prospect in sight, day after day went by, like losing one’s mind bit by bit. I would repeat to myself, like a prayer: It’s all right, it’s all right, the day will come when you’ll pull out of this.

  The river, spanned by a white bridge, was wide, and divided our part of the city almost exactly in half. It took me about twenty minutes to reach it. I loved that place—it was there that I used to meet Hitoshi, who had lived on the other side of the river. Even after he died I still loved the place.

  On the deserted bridge, with the city misted over by the blue haze of dawn, my eyes absently followed the white embankment that continued on to who knows where. I rested, enveloped in the sound of the current, leisurely drinking hot tea. Standing there in the clear air that tingled with cold, I felt just the tiniest bit close to death myself. It was only in the severe clarity of that horribly lonely place that I could feel at ease. My self-torture stopped when I was there. Without this respite I would never have been able to get through the days. I was pierced by how much I needed it.

  That morning I awoke with a start from a vicious nightmare. It was five-thirty. In the dawn of what promised to be a clear day I dressed and went out as usual. It was still dark; not a soul was out. The air was bitingly cold, the streets misty white, the sky a deep navy blue. Rich gradations of red were coming up in the east.

  I had to force myself to run. My breath was labored; the notion that running this much on not enough sleep was only tormenting my body passed through my mind, but I ignored it: I can sleep when I get home, I thought in my befuddled brain. The streets were so utterly quiet that I struggled to remain fully conscious.

  The sound of the current grew louder as I approached the river; the colors in the sky were changing moment by moment. I was leaning over the railing the way I always did upon reaching the bridge, absently looking at the rows of buildings on the street, which hung in a faint mist, as if submerged in an ocean of blue air. The river was roaring, sweeping along anything and everything in its way on a stream of white foam. The wind it gave off blew cold and seemed to suck the perspiration from my face. A half-moon shone serenely in the still-brisk March sky. My breath came out in puffs of white. I took the cap off my aluminum bottle and poured out some tea, still looking out over the river.

  Just then I suddenly heard a voice from behind me pipe up, “What kind of tea is that? Could I have some?” It startled me—so much so that I dropped the bottle in the river. I still had a full cup of steaming tea in one hand.

  Imagining god knows what, I turned around, and there stood a young woman with a smile on her face. I knew she was older than me, but for some reason I couldn’t guess her age. Maybe about twenty-five . . . She had short hair and very clear, large eyes. She wore a thin white coat, but seemed not to feel the cold in the least. She had popped up before I had a clue that anyone was there behind me.

  Then, looking cheerful, she said in a slightly nasal but sweet voice, “It’s just like that Brothers Grimm story about the dog, isn’t it? Or was that Aesop?” She laughed.

  “In that instance,” I said coolly, “the dog dropped his bone when he saw his own reflection in the water. Nobody sneaked up behind him.”

  She said, smiling, “I’d like to buy you a new thermos.”

  “Thank you,” I said, showing her a smile in return. She spoke so calmly that I was not afraid of her, and she wasn’t attempting familiarities. She didn’t seem crazy, nor did she look like a drunk on her way home at dawn. Her eyes were too knowing and serene; the expression on her face hinted that she had tasted deeply of the sorrows and joys of this world. The air around her seemed somehow charged.

  After taking one sip to wet my throat, I offered her the cup. “Here, hav
e the rest. It’s Pu-Arh tea.”

  “Oh, I love that,” she said, taking the cup with a slender hand. “I just got here. I came from pretty far away.” She looked down at the river. Her eyes had the bright sparkle of a traveler’s.

  “Sightseeing?” I asked, wondering what could have brought her to this particular place.

  “Yes. Soon, on this spot, there’ll be something to see that only happens every hundred years. Have you ever heard about it?”

  “Something to see?”

  “Yes. If all the conditions are right.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. But I promise I will, because you shared your tea with me.” She laughed as she said it, and I almost failed to catch that last part. The mood of approaching morning seemed to fill the whole world. The rays of the rising sun spread over the blue sky, illuminating the faintly sparkling layers of air with white light.

  It was time to be getting back, so I said, “Well, goodbye.” At that she looked me directly in the eye with that same bright expression. “My name is Urara,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Satsuki,” I answered.

  “Let’s get together again,” said Urara, waving good-bye.

  I waved back and started running home. She was an odd one. I had no idea what she was talking about, but somehow I knew that she was someone who did not live like other people. With each step I took I grew more uneasy, and I couldn’t help but turn and look back. Urara was still on the bridge. I saw her face in profile as she watched the river. It shocked me—it was not that of the person I had just talked with. I had never seen such a severe expression on anyone.

  She noticed me standing there, smiled brightly again, and waved. Flustered, I returned her wave and broke into a run.

  In heaven’s name, what kind of person was she? I pondered it for quite some time. More and more, that morning in the sunlight, the impression of that mysterious Urara carved itself with baroque filigree into my sleepy brain.