Goodbye Tsugumi

  My father had already swum out pretty far. He still had a long way to go before you could call him elderly, but he was also more than old enough to be supporting a family for the first time in his life. He really wasn’t that far off, only a few yards ahead, and yet as he swam his head kept appearing framed in the dizzyingly bright valley of the long, shining ocean, only to disappear again into the tight blue commotion of the waves—his head seemed so terribly tiny, so close to vanishing . . . this was what had made me think about his age. As I swam on, a vague feeling of unease began to take hold of me. Maybe it was because the water was cold, or maybe it was because for a while now I had been swimming in water so deep that my feet couldn’t touch the bottom. Or perhaps it was the strength of the sun, or the way the clouds changed shape every time I blinked—perhaps that was what opened the way for these thoughts to sneak into me, I don’t know. I’m losing sight of my father . . . we’re going to end up lost on the far side of these waves . . . never to return, vanished . . . No, that isn’t it. It’s nothing as physical as that. It’s just that I don’t really have a good grasp on our life in Tokyo yet. Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream. I saw my father swimming in front of me, his hands cutting through the water, but that was simply part of another faraway dream. Maybe deep down I still hadn’t managed to work through it all—maybe in the end I was still exactly what I’d been back then, a little girl who waited all alone for her father to arrive, weekend after weekend . . .

  Back then, when things at work got too busy and my father showed up with a totally worn-out expression on his face, there was something my mother would say to him. She wasn’t trying to be unpleasant, and it wasn’t like she was really worried, because she would always say it with a smile.

  “You know, if something ever happened to you, Maria and I aren’t in the kind of position where we’d be able to rush up to Tokyo to see you, and we certainly wouldn’t be able to come to your funeral. I don’t want that to happen, so you’ve really got to take better care of your health. Understand?”

  I was only a child, but even so I understood. Yes, in the uncertainty of our days my father always seemed like he was about to depart for someplace very far away, never to return. That’s the kind of man he was for me.

  These memories were still crowding my mind when my father turned his head to look at me, squinting his eyes in the sunlight. He stopped swimming. Stroke by stroke I closed in on him, plowing across the valleys between waves. As the distance between us dwindled, my father smiled.

  “I decided I’d better let you catch up,” he said.

  Light exploded on the water into millions of individual flecks, an array so dazzling that it made me catch my breath. As my father and I swam together toward a nearby buoy, my thoughts continued to race.

  When Dad catches the bullet train back to Tokyo tomorrow, I just know he’s going to have about a ton of packages of dried fish and conches and all kinds of other stuff, and he’ll hardly be able to carry it all. My mother will be standing in the kitchen, and she’ll turn around to look at him and ask how I’m doing and how everyone else is doing . . . The scene rose up before me, almost transparent, like a vision, making me so happy I started to feel a bit dizzy. I’m happy to be what I am, a single daughter in this family. Yes, it was true. This seaside town where I’d grown up was no longer mine, but I had somewhere else to return to, an unshakably real home of my own.

  I had come out of the water and was lazing about on the beach when I felt the bottom of someone’s bare foot slam down onto the palm of my hand and start squashing it. When I opened my eyes Tsugumi was peering down at me. With all the light streaming around from behind, her white skin and her large, intensely glittering eyes were so bright it was hard to look.

  “God, Tsugumi, was it really necessary for you to stomp on my hand like that?” I moaned. “I mean, no warning or anything!” Figuring I had no choice, I sat up.

  “Listen, kid, just be glad I didn’t do it with my sandal on.”

  Tsugumi finally removed her faintly warm foot from my palm and put her sandal back on. My father sat up next to me with a groan.

  “Hey there, Tsugumi!” he said.

  “Howdy, Uncle. Long time no see.”

  Tsugumi had squatted down beside me. She looked over at my father and grinned. A long time had passed since we stopped attending the same school, and seeing her smile in this meant-for-the-public way made me feel strangely nostalgic, calling up memories of her as a school-uniformed child. Playing angel at school was one of her favorite pastimes. For a moment I wondered if Kyōichi would ever have managed to discover her if they had gone to the same school, but I decided very quickly that he would have. Kyōichi had the same sort of unbalanced view of the world as Tsugumi, where you focus your entire life on a single thing and just keep digging down deeper and deeper into it. People like the two of them would be able to find each other blindfolded.

  “So what’s up, Tsugumi? Where are you headed?” I asked.

  There was a strong wind blowing, and I could feel sand swishing about in tiny swirls around my feet, then whirling off.

  “Got a date. Pretty swell, huh?” Tsugumi said, giving me such a dazzling smile you had the impression it might spill over the top of her face. “I’m not one of these losers you come across on the beach spending their time dozing with their daddies, if you catch my drift.”

  I let this pass just as I always do, but since my father hadn’t been properly Tsugumi-ized like the rest of us, his face took on a sort of puzzled expression.

  “Well you know, when you’ve spent as much time living apart as we have, a grown daughter does come to seem somewhat like a lover,” he said. “Listen, Tsugumi, if you have the time, why not sit down with us and enjoy the sea.”

  “I see your old man is still cracking his vulgar jokes,” said Tsugumi. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to sit down for a while before I go. To tell the truth, in my eagerness to get the guy I left the house a little early.”

  Tsugumi plopped down on our plastic spread. She gazed out at the ocean, squinting against the light. Just beyond her, the curve of our beach umbrella cut sharply into the blue sky, flapping crazily, noisily in the wind. It was such an amazingly bright, vivid scene that I lay there unable to tear my gaze away. My heart felt as if it might flutter off to some place far away.

  “It sounds like you’re in love, Tsugumi,” said my father. He’s a nice guy, he really is. In the past his niceness had created all sorts of barriers, keeping life from progressing as he wished, but now that things had ended up peacefully he seemed calm and bright, like those lines of mountains shining in the sun. Now, watching his goodness work its magic in a world where everything had settled into place, the change seemed truly sacred and good.

  “Boy oh boy, am I ever!” Tsugumi cried, then flopped down alongside me, plopping her head down on the bag I’d brought with me as if she had every right in the world to do so.

  “You’ll run a fever if you get sunburned,” I said.

  “Women in love are strong.” Tsugumi laughed.

  Without a word I picked up my hat and lay it over her face.

  “Yeah, you’re right—the only reason I’ve managed to live this long, and the reason my skin is so fair, and the reason I’m able to relish my food as much as I do is that Maria here fusses over me so!” she warbled, and put on the hat.

  “You seem to have grown a lot stronger, Tsugumi,” said my father.

  “How lovely of you to notice,” said Tsugumi.

  All three of us were now lying in a line, gazing up at the sky, which seemed kind of strange for some reason. Every so often a cloud would float by slowly overhead, the sky beyond it shining faintly through.

  “Are you really that deeply in love with him?”

  “Not as much as you’re in love, I’ll grant you that. Hell, all the years you
spent as a commuting husband! I was wondering how things would turn out, and damn it if you didn’t push that love right through to the end!”

  Tsugumi and my father got along really well. Tsugumi’s own father was a very inflexible, almost overly masculine, type of person—lots of times he would get angry over one of Tsugumi’s cheeky remarks and suddenly leap up and stalk away from the dinner table without even saying a word. Of course Tsugumi has never been the slightest bit bothered by things like that; she just goes right on living her own life. But my father isn’t simply a wishy-washy fellow who finds it hard to take a stance; he also recognizes the difference between good and bad intentions. He sees that Tsugumi doesn’t have any real malice in her. Their conversation now was so adorable that I felt a kind of tenderness welling up inside me as I listened.

  “I’m the sort of person who can never give up on anything until it’s really finished, I’ll admit that, but I get the feeling that in this case it may have had more to do with the qualities of the partner I’ve found,” my father said.

  “Yeah, she seems pretty tenacious, doesn’t she? And of course there’s no denying that she’s one hell of a looker. I was betting that she’d end up staying here her whole life, and that you’d keep doing the commuting husband thing right up to the end. After all, that’s the true path of the righteous lover, huh?”

  “That might have been possible, as long as an end was in sight,” replied my father earnestly. Looking at him you would have thought he was talking to the goddess of destiny, rather than to some young girl. “Love is the kind of thing that’s already happening by the time you notice it, that’s how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn’t change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types—love where there’s an end in sight and love where there isn’t. People in love understand that better than anyone. When there’s no end in sight, it means you’re headed for something huge. After I first got to know Maria’s mom, the future started to feel totally unlimited, all of a sudden. So yeah, I guess you could say that maybe we didn’t even need to get married.”

  “Then what would have become of me?” I said, just as a joke.

  “Yeah, we had you, and now we’re happy, right?” My father stretched his arms up like a boy, looking out over the ocean and the mountains and the sky. “I certainly don’t have any complaints. This is the greatest!”

  “You know, the way you’re so simple that you just come out and say things like that—I kinda like it. You’re one of the few guys around who’s able to put me in such an obliging mood,” said Tsugumi, her face very serious.

  My father chuckled, looking pleased. “Is that right? Seems like you must have been pretty popular with the guys all along. Do you like this guy more than you liked any of the others?” he asked.

  Tsugumi cocked her head slightly and replied in a whisper, almost as if she were talking to herself. “Hard to say . . . It kinda seems like something I’ve been through before, but on the other hand I guess you could say that it was never really like this. I mean, until now, no matter what happened, even if the guy were to break down and start bawling right in front of me, no matter how much I liked him, he could start bugging me to let him hold my hand or touch me or whatever, but somehow . . . I don’t know . . . it just always seemed like I was stuck at the edge. I was on the shore of this river, in the dark, looking at this fire burning on the other side. I could see just how long it would take for the fire to burn down, you know, and it was so boring I thought I might fall asleep. Because all that stuff always ends right on time, you know? I really couldn’t see what those guys were looking for in love, at our age.”

  “I agree with you there. Sooner or later people are definitely going to give up if you don’t give them back as much as they’re giving you,” my father said.

  “But you know, this time I really feel like I’m participating. Perhaps it’s because of the dogs, or because I’ll be moving. But Kyōichi is different. No matter how many times we get together I never get sick of being with him, and every time I look into his eyes I just want to take the ice cream or whatever I’ve got in my hand and rub it into his face. That’s how much I like him.”

  “I don’t think Kyōichi would really go for that,” I said. But even as I spoke I felt her words sinking into me, sinking me deep in thought. Hot sand brushed against the soles of my feet, silky smooth. Somehow the sensation made me want to start praying. Please let Tsugumi be visited by nothing but good from now on—over and over, in time with the roaring of the waves.

  “I see,” said my father. “Introduce me to this guy sometime.”

  Tsugumi nodded and said she would.

  The next day I went to see my father off. He was taking a bus headed directly for Tokyo, an express. He was heading home.

  “Say hi to Mom for me,” I said.

  My newly tanned father nodded. Just as I’d expected, he was taking back such a load of various seafoods that he couldn’t carry it all, even using both hands. He had so much stuff you wondered just who he expected to eat it all. I figured my mother would end up being put to lots of trouble, going around distributing stuff to the neighbors. It was a scene I knew, one that had sent its roots deep down into me by now, and I could see it clearly. Like the lines of buildings in Tokyo, and the strangely subdued dinners the three of us ate together. Like the sound of my returning father’s footsteps.

  The bus stop was flooded with late afternoon light, and the reflected orange glow was bright enough to make me squint. The bus drew in just as slowly as the one my father had come on, and my father got on; then the bus pulled out into the street, still moving slowly. My father never stopped waving.

  I felt a little lonely as I strolled back to the inn through the gathering dusk, alone this time. I wanted to hold on to the particular feeling of languor that I got as I walked the streets of this town, the town of my past, which I would lose when summer ended. This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next—and I didn’t want to forget a single one.

  Festival

  Not long after the number of vacationers hits its peak and starts declining, this town holds its summer festival. Which is to say that it’s an event staged in large part for the locals. The activities are centered around this big Shinto shrine up on one of the mountains. Crowds of stalls are set up in two long rows along the spacious cobblestone walkway that cuts through the middle of the shrine, and a stage is assembled for people to perform regional variations of two ancient festival rites, the o-bon and kagura dances. Out on the beach there’s an enormous display of fireworks.

  Right around the time when the hustle and bustle of preparations for the festival take ahold of the town, all of a sudden you find yourself noticing that autumn has begun weaving itself into the rhythm of your days. The sun is still just as strong as before, but the breeze blowing in off the sea has turned just the tiniest bit softer, and the sand has cooled. Now the rain that quietly drenches the boats ranged along the beach carries the damp, misty smell of a cloudy sky. You realize that summer has turned its back on you.

  * * *

  One day shortly before the festival, I came down with a fever and had to take to my futon—perhaps because I’d let myself get swept up in all the excitement and worn myself out having a good time. Tsugumi happened to be laid up too, so Yōko ended up shuttling back and forth between our two rooms like a nurse, bringing us ice packs and bowls of creamed rice that were supposed to help us get well. She kept telling us over and over that we had to hurry and get better before the festival.

  It’s extremely rare for me to come down with a fever, so just thinking that my temperature had inched up over one hundred degrees was enough to make my head start spinning. With things as they were, there really was nothing I could do but lie there in my futon, my face glowing red.

  A little before dusk Tsugumi shoved open the sliding door and saunt
ered into my room, following her usual policy of giving me absolutely no warning at all before she entered. I had been lying completely motionless, gazing out the window into a ruby red sky that extended so far into the distance it was scary. My whole body felt heavy and dull and I really didn’t want to have to bother with Tsugumi, so I just lay as I was, keeping my gaze directed out the window, not even turning to look at her.

  “So babe, you got a fever, huh?” Tsugumi growled, kicking me in the back. Figuring that if she was going to be like this I didn’t have much of a choice, I rolled over and swiveled my head around to face her. She had her hair pulled back and tied up in a single knot, and was wearing a pair of cheerful light blue pajamas. She looked as if she were feeling fine.

  “Look who’s talking! You sure don’t look so feverish to me,” I said.

  “Listen missy, this much is normal for me.” Tsugumi grinned. My hand had been lying outside the covers, so she picked it up and squeezed it in hers. “Yeah, I’d say we’re running just about the same temperature.”

  It was true. Usually when Tsugumi had a fever her hands were so hot that it blew my mind, but now they didn’t even feel particularly warm.

  “I guess you’re really used to being sick, aren’t you?” I said.

  The realization that Tsugumi was constantly running around in a state like the one I was in now hit me with a new strength, and I felt a swell of emotion. Feverish eyes see a world in limbo, one that soars up aggressively. Your heart flaps around with a lightness that balances the heaviness of your body, and your thoughts keep getting tangled up again and again in unfamiliar ideas.

  Tsugumi squatted down beside my pillow.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she said. “But then my body’s so weak that I get totally pooped in next to no time. It sucks, it really does.”

  “Luckily mademoiselle’s spirit has enough kick for two,” I grinned.