Asleep

  Something like a panorama.

  I kind of wonder if that wasn't The Future, as my childish heart saw it. Back then my brother was something that definitely wouldn't die, he was both night and something that traveled through night—something like that.

  Yes. And during the last part of his life he hardly spent any time at home, so he wasn't what he'd been for me when he was small. He became the equivalent of a stranger.

  But when I'd been talking with Mari like this, or when it got unbearably hot in the summer and my whole family started complaining and we set all the air conditioners in the house on high, or when night had fallen and there was a typhoon raging outside—at times like that, I'd think of Yoshihiro, and I'd yearn to have him back with us. It was like that even while he was alive. It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.

  Early in the morning the phone rang.

  Our telephone is right next to the door to my room, so I wandered out, still half asleep, and lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?” I said.

  I heard a little gasp on the other end of the phone—a woman's startled exclamation. Maybe this was Sarah, just like Mari had said? I tried to fit the gasp I'd heard with the distant memories I had of Sarah's voice, but in the end I couldn't tell whether it was her or not. It seemed sort of like her, but at the same time I had the feeling it wasn't.

  “Sarah?” I said.

  There was a brief space of silence, a feeling that the line was about to go dead. A silence that was neither denial nor affirmation.

  I'd only just been buffeted out of sleep, and still couldn't think very clearly. My legs seemed wobbly, and various half-formed thoughts were spiraling around in my head, whirlpool-like.

  Suppose Sarah's in Japan now, and suppose there's some reason why she can't come and talk freely, out in the open, and that she feels it's too late now even to tell me who she is. Suppose she just wants to make sure that we're still here, that her old friends are still here.

  But these were only speculations. The silence told me nothing.

  “Sarah—wait,” I said.

  From the depths of an ocean of sleepiness, in my barely adequate English. The line didn't go dead. And so I continued.

  “This is Shibami, Yoshihiro's sister.

  “We met a couple of times, and we've exchanged letters.

  “I'm twenty-two now.

  “I'm sure you've changed a lot too.

  “Maybe there's nothing linking us anymore, but somewhere deep down inside I'm always thinking of you.

  “The other day I found a draft of a letter I wrote you, and I was thinking about the time you did my homework for me—letting myself remember.”

  When I stopped speaking I heard the faintest trace of a commotion on the other end of the line. A clamorous barrage of voices, as if a crowd of people was passing by in the background. Then it was silent again. And then, gradually, the sound of someone sobbing reached my ear, a tear-filled gasping that grew steadily louder and stronger. I shuddered.

  “Sarah?” I said.

  Sarah was crying. “I'm sorry. . . .”

  The voice was faint, but it was definitely hers.

  All right! We'll be able to talk!

  “Sarah, are you in Japan?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I can't come to see you,” Sarah said.

  “Have you come with someone? A man? Aren't you able to call me from your room? You're in a hotel now, right?”

  Sarah didn't answer. She just went on crying.

  Then she spoke. “I just wanted to know how you're doing. Hearing your voice . . . everything came back to me, I remembered being in your house . . . how much fun it was being in Japan.”

  “Are you happy now?” I asked.

  “Yes. Actually I'm married.”

  For the first time, Sarah laughed. “I'm fine, I'm really not unhappy. You don't have to worry.”

  “Well, that's all right, then. I'm glad,” I said.

  Suddenly Sarah changed the subject. “Tell me, Shi-ba-mi. Was Yo-shi-hi-ro alone when he died? I mean, I'm wondering it he had a true love, you know? I just want to know that.”

  I realized that Sarah must have felt it back then. It must have been already apparent by the time Mari went to Boston—it must have been visible in the color of her eyes, and in my brother's gaze. Because he always had a peculiar light in his eyes when he looked at Mari. As if he was calming himself, clearing his mind, confirming that what he saw was true. Making sure that she was actually alive and moving. That she was really there, really laughing.

  She must have sensed all that.

  “Yes, he was still alone,” I said.

  I put every ounce of strength I had into that lie.

  “He had female friends, but there was no one you could call his true love.”

  “I see. . . .” Sarah said. “Sorry to ask such a terrible question. I'm afraid I've kind of been losing it since I arrived in Japan. But I'm happy that we were able to talk. Thanks to you, of course.”

  This was no longer the Sarah who was unable to stop herself from making phone calls and then not saying a word, who was hurt so much by her memories that she ended up crying. This was the levelheaded Sarah I knew.

  “Well, take care. I've got to go back to the room,” Sarah said.

  “Okay. . . . Good-bye then,” I replied.

  I was now totally awake. The patch of sky visible through the window was a strange wash of subtle gradations of cloud and blue, and the interior of the room was very bright. Some-how that brightness felt terribly sad.

  What strange weather, I thought.

  “Sarah, I hope you'll be happy—I really hope you'll be happy!”

  “Thanks, Shi-ba-mi,” Sarah said.

  And then the line went dead.

  I settled into a strange mood—it felt as if I'd seen something through to its conclusion, but at the same time I felt overwhelmingly sad. It occurred to me once again how incredible Mari was. To think she'd figured out that Sarah was back in Japan just from listening to a silent phone call! There hadn't been the slightest hint of uncertainty in her eyes when she told me it was Sarah. She had known. Yes . . . perhaps Mari, wandering in the interval between dream and reality as she was, perhaps she could sense that much, figure out who was calling almost before she knew it, feel it as clearly as something she held cupped in her hand.

  * * *

  I called Ken'ichi later that day. He'd promised to pay me back today.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey—is that you, Shibami?”

  “Is it true that you're going to pay me back?”

  “Yep. I've earned a bit of money, and I'm going to return every yen.”

  “I hear you used my savings to go to Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii? Are you kidding? It was Atami, not Hawaii!”

  “Oh? Everyone's been saying you went to Hawaii.”

  “I suppose they probably added up all the money I'd gotten from everyone and just picked a destination based on the cost. Asses. I certainly won't be giving that Tanaka any of his money back.”

  “So what is it with Atami? Why there?”

  “I'll tell you about it later. Where should we meet? I'll let you decide.”

  “The lobby of the K. Hotel at one o'clock,” I said.

  I'd heard at some point that Sarah's parents usually stayed at the K. Hotel when they came to Japan, and it had occurred to me that Sarah might stay there too. I had put a call through to the front desk earlier and given them Sarah's name, but they said that as far as they could tell, no one by that name was staying there. Yet I hadn't been able to give up hope completely.

  “Okay,” Ken'ichi said.

  And he hung up.

  * * *

  The lobbies of these giant hotels always feel deserted. It doesn't matter how crowded they really are; the feeling is a fundamental part of these places, it drifts throu
gh every corner. Evidently Ken'ichi hadn't shown up yet. I sank down into the thick cushions of one of the couches and glanced around.

  I didn't have a chance of finding Sarah. The place was awash with foreigners. Of course most of them were suit-clad businessmen: their buttery-smooth English swooped around under the high ceiling, sounding exactly like music . . . I started feeling more and more dazed.

  I finally spotted Ken'ichi through the glass door, coming my way.

  He stopped in front of my couch and held out an envelope. “Here's the money.”

  I took the envelope in silence. I certainly couldn't thank him.

  “Have you got some time now?”

  “Yeah, I'm pretty much free.”

  “Well then, I'll buy you some tea,” Ken'ichi said.

  He sat down across from me.

  As we were drinking our tea he smiled and said, “People and their rumors sure are frightening, aren't they? Hawaii, indeed! I wish I could go to Hawaii.”

  “So what did you do with the five hundred thousand yen? Not that you have to tell me if you don't want to.”

  “It's fine with me. We went on this terrifically lavish vacation in Atami. Went around to all the very best old Japanese inns, you know, and ate delicious foods every day, and drove around to various places. We stayed for two weeks. Look at my skin. Super sleek, no? Not a surprise, I guess, after so much luxury.”

  “You went with your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hear she's in high school,” I said, smiling. “Unbelievable.”

  With that Ken'ichi exploded into laughter.

  “What are you talking about! She's in a two-year college. It's amazing, the completely ridiculous rumors that people start! Maybe I ought to keep myself out of sight a little longer—I'd love to see just how overblown this thing gets!”

  “Yeah, that's how it goes with rumors. You don't pay people back, so it just gets more and more extreme. But seriously—is there that much stuff to do at Atami? It seems like it'd get boring, even for lovers.”

  “But having all that time is what's so nice. . . . Or rather, anything would have been okay as long as it was somewhere far away from everyday life. You see, my girlfriend's parents are ‘newly-divorceds,’ as it were, and the whole situation is really rough, so I wanted to take her away from all that, you know? Except that traveling overseas wears you down, and Atami has all those old spas, and I'd heard that you never get bored there—it seemed like the perfect place. It was great to make plans like that, but I had no money. Not a single yen.”

  Ken'ichi burst out laughing again.

  “I see,” I said.

  “When people start getting depressed there's just no end to it—things just seem to get worse and worse. And I'd start getting drawn into it myself when I was with her, you know, so that I ended up becoming a little weird too. Of course, things did seem to be pretty horrendous in her house, so there wasn't much anyone could do. For instance, say we'd arranged to meet somewhere. And say I showed up about fifteen minutes late, just like I always do. Well, she'd already be all listless and droopy. And then she'd cry. I don't know, it's not like we even got together that much in the first place, but all of a sudden even I got this urge to go do something fun, you know? Of course I don't know how much fun it was for her, but I definitely had a good time.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” I said.

  Then I smiled.

  Evidently even Mari and my brother hadn't realized how strongly Mari's parents would object to their relationship. But if I think things over, I can see that if I were a parent with an only daughter, and if I'd paid good money so that she could learn to play the piano and take English Conversation classes and all that, I definitely wouldn't want to let her go off with a guy who looked as much like a womanizer as my brother.

  I saw the two of them during the days when their love for each other first began to deepen, unknown to anyone, and I watched them during the days after people found out and started putting pressure on them to end the relationship, when they dated in secret. The difference between those two environments was as enormous as that between light and dark. But since my brother was the sort of person who could find pleasure in the very enormity of that difference, and since Mari was the sort of person who was thrilled by anything that she did without telling her parents, and who delighted in that thrill, the two of them seemed to be fairly happy.

  The phone would ring twice and then stop.

  This was Mari's signal for my brother to call her.

  Hearing it and heading for the phone. His sweet steps.

  Yoshihiro got in a car accident and died in the emergency room of the hospital. He'd been on his way to a rendezvous with Mari when the accident happened, so he'd kept the date a secret from the rest of us. Our father worked as a surgeon at a very big hospital, so if we'd known where he'd been headed we could have had him rushed straight there, and it's possible that he might have been saved.

  Could any story leave you with an aftertaste as unpleasant as this one? I think the reason Mari got so terribly depressed was that it happened while she was waiting. She was waiting in a café just across from the train station. It was a very bright shop that everyone used as a meeting place. She got any number of refills on her coffee, ate two pieces of cake, drank a lemon soda, had some ice cream. . . . She waited for five hours. Then she trudged back to her house and was informed of her lover's death.

  She told me about it much later.

  “It felt like the inside of my stomach had turned completely black. Like a black hole. You could throw in anything you liked, I wouldn't even notice—my head was drifting through the clouds—everything would just go right in, things just kept going in. And all the while my heart kept its eyes trained on the door. I'd flip through a magazine, but my heart wouldn't be in it at all. My eyes would just skitter nervously across the surface of the page. I began remembering all the bad things I'd discovered about Yoshihiro, making them even worse. And with each moment that passed, that dark side of him kept spreading slowly through all the different parts of my body, until eventually it covered everything. That's how it felt. I was dragging all this black stuff along behind me, it was so heavy I could barely stand—so it was night by the time I headed home. I'd go home and go to sleep waiting for his call, that's what I thought. There had to be some reason. I'll understand if only we can talk about it. That's all I thought.”

  She talked to me about her heart, how it closed up as she waited.

  “Well, shall we head out?” Ken'ichi stood up.

  “Yeah. But you know, I have to say that I'm delighted to get this money back. It's like a dream,” I said. Ken'ichi told me not to go overboard, and grinned. I tagged along after him, weaving between the couches, walking across the carpet, heading for the door. My eyes were still bouncing around, attempting to locate Sarah. And then I noticed a blond woman standing over by the front desk with her back toward me—I noticed that her back was a lot like Sarah's. As were her clothes, her hairstyle, her height.

  I called out to Ken'ichi. “Listen, I just saw someone I know. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

  He told me to let him know if I heard any new rumors and walked off.

  I drew closer to the woman, my head whirling, trying to get a look at her face. The rug was so thick and soft that it made me feel strange, and my attention was so sharply focused on the woman that I didn't notice what I was doing until I felt something collide with my hip. I stumbled and regained my balance. Then, wondering what on earth had happened, I looked down and saw a small foreign boy who had fallen down and was lying on his back. I took his hands in mine and helped him up.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  As soon as I saw those eyes of his looking back at me, such a commotion broke loose in my chest that it frightened me. His hair was brown, his eyes dark brown. Slowly I readjusted my gaze and went on staring at him.

  “This is Sarah's child, my brother's child, absolutely.”

  Again and
again I whispered these words to myself.

  I hadn't seen eyes like these anywhere else. The powerful light in them, perfectly at ease—the lips slightly puckered, this expression—the shoulders that reminded you of someone wearing too large a suit . . . seeing him reawakened all the old memories I had, called them forth. I wanted to let Mari know. Before my father, even before my mother—Mari. Finally I managed to gather every bit of strength I had, to mold my lips—it was unlikely that we'd ever meet again, after all—into a smile softer and more gentle than any I'd ever given any lover of mine, and asked the child, “Are you okay?”

  He gave me a tiny smile and nodded, and then strode off toward . . .

  Sarah.

  The woman at the front desk, the person I'd thought was Sarah—I realized now that I'd made a mistake, that I'd had the wrong person. Because the real Sarah, who was standing a little ways off, looked completely different now. But there was no mistake, it was definitely her standing there, the same Sarah I'd met on that day so long ago.

  The same Sarah who'd patiently drilled me on the pronunciation of the word “refrigerator.” The same Sarah who'd still had a slightly girlish aura about her. The same Sarah who'd been a little weak, a little bit naive.

  The Sarah before me now was fitted out in an extremely sharp navy blue suit, and she'd had her hair cut short. She was standing beside a large trunk, her back held perfectly straight, and there was a small blond girl hanging on to her, evidently unwilling to move away. The boy walked over and joined them, started talking pleasantly with the girl. They must be brother and sister. Then all of a sudden a young, sturdily built American man came walking over to them, having settled the bill, apparently sorry to have kept her waiting.

  It was then that Sarah noticed me.

  First suspiciously, and then suddenly with a look of relief and sorrow, she stared at me with her crystal-clear, sky-blue eyes. She kept blinking, again and again, as if she were trying to make sure it was me. And then it seemed as if she'd lifted the corners of her mouth ever so slightly in a smile.