“So nursing or anything like that is impossible, no matter what I do. Even going back to school is impossible.”
“It’s never too late,” I said, but my words sounded hollow.
The waiter filled my glass once more, still with the same fixed smile. I looked at my watch.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve taken up too much of your time, when you could be relaxing on your day off.”
She gave a small shake of the head.
“No, you’re the one who made time for me. If you don’t have to rush off, maybe we could talk for a bit longer.”
She looked out the window.
“It’s a nice day. Shall we go for a walk?”
I looked outside too. It was chilly, and Kaori wasn’t warmly dressed.
“But it looks cold.”
“In that case, how about going for a drive? This is a pretty area.”
And she smiled at me again.
KAORI HAD CASUALLY suggested a drive because she’d taken it for granted that I’d come by car, so she was very apologetic when I said I’d rent one, but I filled out the papers for a Prius at a rental agency in front of the station. She kept asking if I minded, and I replied jokingly that since she worked in a high-class club, it was peculiar that she’d get stressed about money. She took me seriously, however, and started apologizing even more profusely, so I had to explain myself. It was a bit windy outside, and the air felt dry. During our awkward exchange a junior high school couple walked past, holding hands with just the tips of their fingers. We got into the car.
Kaori’s discreet perfume enveloped me. We were too close, and the whiteness of her clothes overwhelmed me. Even after I switched on the ignition I couldn’t compose myself. The sheen of her stockinged legs was right there beside me. When I looked at them my heart fluttered, and I was painfully aware of her breasts as well. My entire happiness was sitting beside me, and I knew it would never be mine. The happiness that had turned up in my life once before like some kind of mistake, that had accepted me, and that had soon vanished into the distance. Memories of that time came flooding back, mingling with Kaori’s immediate presence, more beautiful than ever. But she was really there, it wasn’t a dream. Her warm body, Kaori herself, who had accepted without flinching my habit of collecting hair and toenails, was in the seat next to me. She was watching me curiously. Her face, too, was too close.
“Um, Kaori?” I said, gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead. “If you could, would you mind getting in the back?”
“Huh?”
“You’re so pretty that having you sitting next to me makes me nervous.”
She looked bewildered.
“What? I’m not that good-looking. And you’re friends with Azumi.”
“I really am nervous. Please?”
Clearly she found my request bizarre, but she got out and climbed into the back seat.
A silence fell over the car. At first she tried to hold it in, but soon she burst out laughing. I also smiled faintly, aware of the absurdity of our seating arrangements, of the whole situation.
“You’re funny, Mr. Shintani!”
Maybe she really did think so. But perhaps romance is always absurd.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go. I haven’t driven in a long time, so let’s find somewhere without too much traffic.”
“You look like a chauffeur.”
We drove along the avenue. The trees were draped with cords for the New Year illumination, but since it was still daytime the lights hadn’t been turned on. I wanted to find some quieter roads, but I didn’t know Tokyo very well. It wasn’t exactly rush hour, but we had to stop and start a lot. Kaori didn’t seem to mind, though. She murmured that it was nice and warm, probably because the heater was on. She was watching me from behind, leaning forward on the seat.
“Oh, guess what? The manager I told you about, the one I don’t like? He left.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. But it looks like he was let go because sales are down, so at the same time I felt a bit sorry for him.”
“Ah, I see.”
Her voice touched my heart.
“Yeah, so on his last day we all bought a cake and gave it to him, as if we felt responsible. But one of the girls has a cat, and she dusted the cake with sand from its litter box.”
I laughed.
“That’s terrible.”
“It must’ve been gritty when he took it home and ate it. It just looked like some kind of fancy powder.”
“Yeah, really gritty powder! Women are scary!”
“Yes, especially when we gang up. But it’s fun.”
I turned left at the light for no particular reason and drove under a railroad bridge, thinking I didn’t want to go too far. A couple in a red car waiting at an intersection were looking at us carelessly. They’d been shopping, and their back seat was piled with bags.
“Then the day before yesterday one of the girls—hey, the cake shop up ahead is good. Especially their cookies.”
“After what you’ve just been talking about?”
“True.” She laughed again.
“Okay, let’s buy some.”
“This time it’s on me.”
“No, don’t worry about it.”
I pulled up outside the shop and we bought some cookies. When we went back to the car and started eating them, crumbs scattered all over the upholstery.
“Look, we’re making a mess,” said Kaori.
“Doesn’t matter, it’s a rental.”
“But look at it!”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
The cars started to thin out and there were fewer traffic lights. I made another random right turn on a road lined with apartment buildings. In the distance I could see the overpass of an expressway. I thought about listening to some music on the radio, then pulled my hand back, conscious of the possibility of hearing the news about Mikihiko. Until then things had been going quite smoothly, but for some reason the conversation stalled. I wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything to talk about. Kaori’s comment about feeling bad if she used the Kukis’ money had stuck in my mind. She had it completely the wrong way around—it was the Kuki family that had caused her nothing but pain. I didn’t know what she was apologizing for, and as far as I was concerned she should use whatever she could get her hands on to secure her future.
“Maybe you’ve heard this from Azumi,” Kaori said, breaking the silence.
I was deep in my own thoughts, and her voice startled me. I realized she’d been speaking for some time.
“You know they’re talking about that guy now, the one who died?”
Taken aback, I couldn’t answer, and the atmosphere grew even more stilted.
“He’s the son of the man who adopted me. I was astounded. I only met him once, though, when I was a kid.”
The lights turned red, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on the road.
“The money I was talking about, I got that when my guardian died. Then when I heard the news, I felt even more guilty.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said without thinking. “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”
Kaori was looking at my face in the rear view mirror.
“No, how can I put it …”
She dropped her gaze, staring at her feet.
“They’re saying it might be suicide, aren’t they? I’m not saying that’s why, but I just thought, maybe my guardian killed himself too. Though he was already pretty old.”
My throat was tight. I clung to the steering wheel, determined not to turn around.
“And he—” Kaori began, then stopped as though she’d remembered something. After a short silence she continued. “The old man who adopted me, he often used to weep in front of me. I was just a child then.”
“What?”
The lights changed and I put my foot on the accelerator, but it was impossible for me to drive any more. I
pulled over to the side of the road.
“The man who adopted you?”
“Yes. Um, Mr. Shintani?”
She was obviously wondering why I’d stopped. I couldn’t utter a word.
“So, wow, how did we get to talking about this? Well, in that family, I … I had some problems, but the old man, he often got drunk and cried. It was really scary. Well, I found that pretty horrible, and I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. But then the old man died, probably killed himself. And at the time I had this boyfriend, the same age as me, but I …”
“No,” I shouted. “No. You mustn’t think like that. Your … because Shozo Kuki was murdered.”
“What?”
She stared at me. The silence seemed to grow even heavier. I went on, my throat hurting and my voice quavering.
“He was killed by a crime syndicate. There’s proof. That’s why.”
“Mr. Shintani?”
The interior of the car was suddenly freezing.
“I … I know Fumihiro Kuki.”
You could have heard a pin drop. Several cars drove by as we sat there on the shoulder.
“I don’t think Azumi knows. I heard about you from Fumihiro. It’s not that I was trying to keep it a secret, that I knew him. I just never got a chance to tell you. Azumi was talking about you, and when I heard the surname I realized you must be the woman he used to talk about. It’s an unusual name. Fumihiro has always cared about you. If I ever saw you, he asked me to tell him how you were getting on.”
“Fumihiro did?” she asked.
Kaori’s voice, speaking my name.
“Yes, well, so, you don’t have to worry about the Kukis anymore.”
“What’s he doing now?
Suddenly I was extremely reluctant to accept that I was no longer Fumihiro. I remembered that around the corner to the right there was the site of a demolished factory. I felt the dense air pressing down on me, felt something stirring inside. In the mirror I could see Kaori’s lovely face. I couldn’t move, as though I’d been seized by a powerful force. I gasped, realizing that what I was feeling was lust.
Maybe everything had been leading up to this moment, I thought. My chest thudded painfully and my eyesight dimmed. Mikihiko had told me that by eliminating all the people who were in the way, by setting up the right conditions, by meeting her again, I would destroy her. That I’d lay waste to the most beautiful, the most precious light in the entire world. And then that I’d transcend myself. By passing through an even greater shock than that of killing my father, I would change from a fretful human being into a monster. I would surpass my father and Mikihiko, I would wipe away the despondency that had shrouded me all my life, wipe away my regrets. I would change from Fumihiro to Shintani, and then from Shintani into a monster. I would cease to exist. In my madness, all my previous awareness would disappear completely. By dragging Kaori into the center of that turbulent vortex, my mind would change into a fierce flame and then vanish. From that point on I would never suffer again. As a monster cloaked in insanity, no memories or events would move me, because my previous self would perish. Then perhaps that violent, evil force would fly off somewhere else, like the traffic accident that Mikihiko had talked about. Maybe my whole life so far had been lived as that evil, for that evil. My heart was beating fiercely and I couldn’t breathe. I looked at Kaori in the rear view mirror, but her eyes were too beautiful for me.
So beautiful that my existence, the reasons for my existence, lost all meaning. So beautiful that I was irrelevant. Kaori’s warmth, the joy of being with her day by day, certainly at one time it had been present in my life. I felt a persistent, overpowering pressure at the back of my neck. I couldn’t destroy the me that possessed those joyful memories. Even if my consciousness was hard to bear, I never wanted to lose it, because that would mean losing my happy memories as well. No matter how miserable I might be, I wanted to keep those days inside me. I remained facing forward in the driver’s seat.
“Fumihiro … he’s happy now,” I managed to say finally.
The windshield reflected my face back at me, the face of a killer, the face of a man who had lost everything.
“He’s got a regular job at a company, he’s married, he’s happy. Working hard, and I heard he bought a house with a view of the ocean.”
I still didn’t look around.
“In the evenings he and his wife go for walks along the beach, hand in hand. She’s quite cute, though not as pretty as you.”
I knew I was just babbling.
“They’ve got one child, and he’s doing his best not to pass his own depression on to his kid. When he argues with his wife, he’s always quick to apologize. She often plays tricks on him, then laughs at his confusion. Pushes her beautiful eyes close to his and smiles mischievously. It’s just an ordinary life, but for him …”
My eyes filled with tears and I could hardly carry on.
“But he says that he was really happy with you. Sure, it ended, but throughout his childhood he was able to keep on living because you were there, even with a father like that, even in that gloomy house. There were times when he thought about killing himself, but he managed to talk himself out of it thanks to the days he’d shared with you, because he knew you were out there somewhere. Because of you he was able to see a little good in this world. He could keep on going. His heart was filled with memories, and he never wanted to lose them. Those happy days really happened, and he wanted to keep them inside him forever. That’s why—”
I couldn’t prevent the tremor in my voice.
“That’s why you must be happy.”
The sun was slowly sinking. I couldn’t turn around, but I could see Kaori in the mirror. I noticed for the first time that she was crying.
“This is so sudden. It’s a bit of a shock.”
Her words came out haltingly.
“When I heard he’d disappeared I was really upset, and I didn’t know what to do. So Fumihiro is …”
The tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t take out a handkerchief. I stayed motionless, my mind in turmoil.
“I thought that if I met him I’d get all messed up again and we’d both suffer, so I couldn’t contact him.”
Her words were like a hammer blow. It had never occurred to me that I lived inside Kaori in the same way that she lived in me.
“But still, just living is really hard, and not many good things have happened to me. But the time I spent with Fumihiro, that’s been my salvation.”
Vivid memories passed before my eyes, of us walking home together hand in hand as if we were checking the other was still there, of spending hours in my bed, giggling the whole time.
“I didn’t know how he felt about me, but whenever I was having a hard time, I prayed that he was happy. If he was still alive somewhere, I could keep on living too. I could find some good in the world.”
She faltered.
“Don’t you think that’s true? Because even people like us, we were able to be that happy, just for a short time. Because we were able to prove that such happiness exists. I always tell myself that no matter how difficult things are now, you never know what will happen in the future. And because I don’t know, I’ve kept on living. That’s how I’ve survived, because things like that can really happen. I’m so happy that Fumihiro is …”
Her arms and shoulders were trembling.
“Please tell him that I’m doing well too. And please tell him thanks.”
I was shaken to the core. A warmth spread through my body, a warmth that I’d thought I would never experience again. I wiped my eyes several times with my right hand. Time flowed by and the sun sank even lower. Finally I roused myself, put the car in gear and drove off.
“For today, we’ll … I’m sorry for bringing this up out of the blue. Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll take you home. You’re staying with Azumi at the moment, aren’t you?”
I tried to focus on driving. Azusa’s apartment was close. I drove slowly down the narrow stree
t, turning cautiously at the corners, past the shops and houses.
“Um,” said Kaori softly, after a long silence.
She was watching me with troubled eyes, brushing away tears, as if trying to make up her mind. I grunted in reply, keeping my eyes on the road, feeling a sense of dread. We turned at an intersection and entered a residential area.
“Are you … are you really happy?” Her voice was low but I could hear her clearly.
“Yes.”
I don’t know how I managed to get the words out. My voice was still shaking.
“I’m married, so I probably shouldn’t say this, but you really are beautiful, you’re wonderful.”
I could see Konishi’s condo. The white building gradually grew nearer, and I stopped the car out front. I hardly knew if I was still crying or not, but I wanted to see Kaori one last time. Whether I was Fumihiro or Shintani, that no longer seemed important. I twisted around in my seat, taking in her eyes and lips, her thin neck and shoulders. She was as lovely as ever, so lovely that I wanted to find some good in the world, no matter what happened to me.
“I love you.”
This was the second time I had made that confession to her.
“So it’s probably better if we don’t see each other again. Since I’m married.”
I turned to the front again and unlocked the doors. She hesitated, but then started to move. I kept my eyes averted, and finally I heard her getting out. She walked around and stood by the driver’s side door, peering at me through the glass, her figure lit by the setting sun. Dazzled, I wound down the window.
“Today,” she started, “I, um …”
Her whole body was bathed with an orange light.
“I’m still a bit confused, but …”
I handed her a paper bag.
“Sorry, I forgot to give you this. It’s a small present. A white hair-tie.”
Kaori smiled weakly, her eyes red.
“Please use it from time to time, at the end of the day.”
I took a breath. Tears welled in my eyes again.
“I’m really glad I met you.”
I drove slowly away. I didn’t know if she was watching me leave, but I knew that once I turned the corner it would be over. I searched for a place where I could pull myself together. After a few minutes I spotted a park. I stopped the car and got out, gently distancing myself from the lingering scent of her perfume. In a haze of tears I staggered to a bench and collapsed onto it. It seemed to embrace my crumbling body and spirit.