“I think it’s because of a book I read a while ago about the Nazi concentration camps. There was a story about a doctor of internal medicine who was sent to Auschwitz during the war. He was Jewish and had his own clinic in Berlin, but one day he and his whole family were suddenly arrested and shipped off to Auschwitz. Up till then, he’d been loved by his family, respected by those around him, trusted by his patients. He’d lived a full life in an elegant home. He had a couple of dogs, and on weekends he played cello in an amateur chamber music group of friends—mostly Schubert and Mendelssohn. His life was peaceful and full. But then, in an instant, he was thrown into a living hell. No longer was he the affluent Berliner, the respected doctor—suddenly he was barely human. He was separated from his family and treated no better than a stray dog, barely getting anything to eat. The camp commandant learned he was a well-known doctor and kept him out of the gas chambers for the time being, figuring he might be of some use, but he had no idea what the next day might bring. He might at any time, on the whim of the guards, be bludgeoned to death with a truncheon. By this time the rest of his family had probably been murdered already.”
He paused for a moment.
“When I read this, it shocked me. If the time and place had been different, I might very well have suffered the same terrible fate. If for some reason—I don’t know why—I was suddenly dragged away from my present life, deprived of all my rights, and reduced to living as a number, what in the world would I become? I shut the book and thought about this. Other than my skills as a plastic surgeon, and the trust I’ve earned from others, I have no other redeeming features, no other talents. I’m just a fifty-two-year-old man. I’m healthy, though I don’t have the stamina I had when I was young. I wouldn’t be able to stand hard physical labor for long. The things I’m good at are selecting a nice Pinot Noir, frequenting some sushi restaurants and others where I’m considered a valued customer, choosing stylish accessories as gifts for women, playing the piano a little (I can sight-read simple sheet music). But that’s about the size of it. If I were thrown into a place like Auschwitz, none of that would help.”
I agreed with him. In a concentration camp Pinot Noir, amateur piano performances, and sparkling conversational skills would be totally useless.
“Have you ever thought that way, Mr. Tanimura? What you would be if the ability to write was taken away from you?”
I explained my stance to him. My starting point was being a simple person with nothing, starting life as if stripped bare. Through chance I happened to start writing and, luckily, was able to make a living at it. So I don’t need to come up with some dramatic scenario like being thrown into Auschwitz, I told him, to realize that I’m just a human being with no special qualities or skills.
Tokai mulled this over. It seemed like the first time he’d ever heard that such a point of view even existed.
“I see,” he said. “That might make life a little easier.”
I pointed out, hesitantly, that starting out life as a pared-down human with nothing might not, after all, be that easy.
“You’re right,” Tokai said. “You’re absolutely right. Starting life with nothing must be hard. In that sense, I’m more blessed than most. Still, when you get to a certain age, and have created your own lifestyle and social standing, and only then start having grave doubts about your value as a human being, that becomes pretty trying too, in a different sense. The life I’ve lived till now seems pointless, a waste. If I were younger it’d be possible to change, and I’d still have hope. But at my age the past weighs me down. It’s not so easy to start over.”
“And you started to seriously think about these things after reading the book about the Nazi concentration camps?” I asked.
“Yes. The book shocked me. On top of this, it was unclear what future this woman and I have, and the combination gave me a mild case of middle-aged depression. Who in the world am I? I’ve been incessantly asking myself this. But no matter how much I ask, I can’t find an answer. I just keep going around in circles. Things that I used to enjoy I now find boring. I don’t feel like exercising, or buying clothes. It’s too much trouble to sit down at the piano anymore. I don’t even feel much like eating. I just sit there and think about her. Even when I’m with a client, my mind’s full of her. I’m afraid I might even blurt out her name.”
“How often do you see her?”
“It’s always different, and depends on her husband’s schedule. That’s one of the things that’s so hard for me. When he’s off on a long business trip, we can see each other a lot. Her parents look after her child, or else she hires a babysitter. But when her husband’s in Japan, weeks can go by without us seeing each other. Those times are awful. It’s a cliché, I know, but when I think I might never see her again, I feel like I’m being torn in two.”
I listened to him without comment. His choice of words, though trite, didn’t strike me as clichéd. In fact, it sounded pretty real.
He took a long, slow breath, then exhaled. “I usually have multiple girlfriends. You might be startled to hear this, but sometimes as many as four or five at a time. When I can’t see one, I see another, which makes things pretty easy. But once I found myself so attracted to this particular woman, the other women no longer do a thing for me. When I’m with somebody else, I see only her face. I can’t get rid of it. This is a serious case.”
A serious case, I thought. I pictured Tokai calling for an ambulance. “Hello? We need an ambulance here right away. This is a really serious case. Trouble breathing, feels like I’m about to be ripped apart…”
“One huge problem is that the more I get to know her, the more I love her. We’ve gone out for a year and a half, but right now I’m even more entranced than I was at the beginning. It feels like our hearts have become intertwined. Like when she feels something, my heart moves in tandem. Like we’re two boats tied together with rope. Even if you want to cut the rope, there’s no knife sharp enough to do it. I’ve never experienced this—ever. And it scares me. If my feelings for her get even stronger, what in the world’s going to happen to me?”
“I see,” I said. Tokai seemed to be hoping for a more substantive response.
“Mr. Tanimura, what should I do?”
“I don’t have any practical suggestions,” I said, “but from what you tell me, what you’re feeling now seems normal and understandable. Falling in love is like that. You can’t control your feelings, and it’s like some outrageous power is manipulating you. What you’re going through is nothing abnormal. You’ve just fallen deeply in love with a woman, and you don’t want to lose her. You want to keep on seeing her. If you can’t, then it feels like the end of the world. This is natural. Nothing strange or unusual about it. Just one aspect of a perfectly normal life.”
Dr. Tokai sat there with his arms folded. He didn’t seem convinced. He may have had trouble grasping the concept of “one aspect of a perfectly normal life.”
We finished our beers and were about to leave when—as though he were about to make a secret confession—he said, “Mr. Tanimura, what scares me the most, and makes me the most confused, is the rage I feel inside me.”
“Rage?” I asked, surprised. Rage seemed the most unlikely emotion a person like Tokai would ever have. “Rage at what?”
Tokai shook his head. “I don’t know. Definitely not rage directed at her. But when I haven’t seen her for a while, when I can’t see her, I feel that rage welling up. I can’t grasp, though, what it’s about. But it’s the most intense anger I’ve ever felt before. It’s like I want to toss everything in the apartment out the window. Chairs, TV, books, dishes, framed pictures, you name it. I don’t care if they hit a pedestrian below on the head and kill him. It’s ridiculous, but that’s how I feel in the moment. I can control this rage, for the time being. I’m not about to really do any of that. But the day might come when I can’t control myself anymore. And I might hurt someone. That’s what terrifies me. If that’s what’s going to happen, I’d
rather hurt myself.”
I don’t recall what I said to him. No doubt some noncommittal words of consolation. Because at the time I couldn’t really understand what this “rage” he spoke of meant or suggested. I should have said something more helpful. But even if I had, his fate probably wouldn’t have been any different. I believe this.
We paid the bill, left the bar, and each returned home. He climbed into a cab, racket bag in hand, and waved to me from inside. This was the last time I ever saw Dr. Tokai. It was near the end of September, when the summer heat still lingered.
—
After that, Tokai didn’t show up at the gym. I went to the gym on the weekends, hoping to run across him then, but he was never there. No one had heard anything. But that often happens at gyms. People who are regulars suddenly stop coming. The gym isn’t a workplace. People are free to come and go as they please. So I didn’t worry about it much. Two months passed.
On a Friday afternoon at the end of November, Tokai’s secretary called me. His name was Goto. His voice was low and smooth and reminded me of Barry White’s music. The kind they play on late-night FM programs.
“It’s painful for me to have to tell you this over the phone,” he said, “but Dr. Tokai passed away last Thursday. On Monday of this week his family held a private funeral for him.”
“Passed away?” I said, dumbfounded. “He was fine when I last saw him two months ago. What happened?”
Goto was silent. Finally, he said, “I can’t really go into it over the phone. Actually, while he was still alive, Dr. Tokai entrusted me with something he wanted to give to you. I’m sorry to bother you, but could we get together for a while? I’ll tell you all about it then. I can meet at any time, anywhere.”
How about today, right after this? I asked. That would be fine, Goto replied. I named a cafeteria on a backstreet one street off Aoyama Boulevard. Let’s meet at six, I told him. We should be able to have a quiet talk there. Goto didn’t know the place, but said he’d be able to find it.
—
When I showed up at the cafeteria at five minutes till six, Goto was already seated, and as I approached he quickly got to his feet. From the low voice on the phone I was expecting some powerfully built man, but in reality he was tall and slim. He was, as Tokai had once told me, quite handsome. Goto had on a brown wool suit, white button-down shirt, and dark mustard-colored tie. A perfect outfit. His longish hair was neat, forelocks pleasantly falling on his forehead. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and if I hadn’t heard from Tokai that he was gay, I would have taken him for just a traditional, well-dressed young man. (I say “young” because he still looked quite youthful.) He looked like he had a thick beard. He was drinking a double espresso.
We exchanged a quick greeting, and I ordered the same.
“He passed away so suddenly, didn’t he?” I asked.
The young man narrowed his eyes, as if he were facing into a bright light. “Yes, his death was quite sudden. Surprisingly so. Yet it also took a long time, and was a painful way to die.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to explain. But he didn’t seem to want to give any of the details of the doctor’s death—at least not until the waiter brought my drink.
“I respected Dr. Tokai very much,” the young man said, as if changing the subject. “He was truly a wonderful person, as a doctor, and as a human being. He taught me all kinds of things, and was always patient and kind. I worked at the clinic for nearly ten years, and if I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. He was straightforward, decent. Always upbeat, never arrogant. He treated people fairly and cared about everyone. They all liked him. I never heard him, not even once, say something bad about someone else.”
Come to think of it, I’d never heard him bad-mouth anyone either.
“Dr. Tokai spoke very highly of you, too,” I said. “He said that without you he couldn’t run the clinic, and that his private life would be a complete mess.”
A faint, sad smile rose to Goto’s lips. “I’m not as good as all that. I just wanted to work behind the scenes, as hard as I could, to help him. And I enjoyed it.”
The waitress brought over my espresso, and after she left he finally began to talk about the doctor’s death.
“The first thing I noticed was that he stopped eating lunch. Before that he always ate something, every day, even something simple. He was very particular about making sure he ate, no matter how busy work was. But at a certain point he stopped eating lunch altogether. ‘Won’t you have something?’ I’d urge him, and he’d say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just not hungry.’ This was at the beginning of October. This change concerned me. He was not the kind of person who liked to alter his day-to-day habits. He valued regularity above all. Before I realized it, he stopped going to the gym, too. He always went three times a week to swim, play squash, and do strength training, but suddenly he seemed to have lost interest. And he stopped paying attention to his appearance. He’d always been a neat, stylish man, but he became a sloppy dresser. He started wearing the same clothes day after day. And he seemed lost in thought and grew quiet. At a certain point, he hardly said a word, and half the time it was as though he was in a daze. When I spoke to him he didn’t seem to hear me. And he stopped seeing women in his free time.”
“You kept his schedule, so I imagine you witnessed those changes quite clearly?”
“That’s true. Seeing his lady friends was an important daily event. The source of his energy. Cutting them out all of sudden wasn’t normal. Fifty-two isn’t too old for that. I’m sure you knew, Mr. Tanimura, about how active Dr. Tokai was when it came to women in his life?”
“He didn’t particularly keep it secret. He never bragged about it, but was always pretty open, is what I mean.”
Goto nodded. “He told me all kinds of things, too. Which is why this sudden change came as such a shock. He kept it all to himself and never revealed anything to me about it. Of course I asked him if something had gone wrong, or if there was something that was worrying him, but he just shook his head and didn’t elaborate. By this point he was barely speaking to me. He was visibly getting thinner and weaker every day. Clearly he wasn’t eating enough. But I couldn’t intrude on his private life. He was a very candid person, but past a certain point, he valued his privacy. In all the years I’d worked as his personal secretary, I’d only been to his home once, to pick up something important he’d forgotten. Probably only the women he saw were allowed to visit him at home. So I could only speculate and worry from a distance.”
Goto let out a small sigh, as if resigned to the fact that these women Tokai was intimate with had access that he had not been granted.
“He got thinner and weaker by the day?” I asked.
“Correct. His eyes grew sunken, his face was pale like paper. He couldn’t walk steadily and wasn’t able to use a scalpel anymore. There was no way he could operate on patients. Fortunately, he had an excellent assistant who temporarily took over the surgeries. But things couldn’t go on like that indefinitely. I called around, canceling all his appointments, and the clinic was, for all intents and purposes, closed. Finally, he stopped showing up at the clinic altogether. This was at the end of October. I called him, but no one answered. I couldn’t reach him for two whole days. I had a key to his apartment, and on the morning of the third day, I took the key and let myself inside. I know I shouldn’t have, but I was getting frantic with worry.
“When I opened the door I was hit with a horrible smell. The floor was littered with all kinds of things—clothes scattered all over, suits, neckties, underwear. It looked like no one had cleaned up in months. The windows were closed, and the air was stifling. I found him on the bed, just quietly lying there.”
Goto closed his eyes and shook his head. He seemed to be recalling the scene.
“When I saw him, I was sure he was dead. My heart felt like it was going to stop. But he wasn’t dead. He turned his gaunt, pale face in my direction, opened his eyes, and
looked at me. He blinked a few times. He was breathing, though faintly. He just lay there, unmoving, the covers pulled up to his neck. I spoke to him but got no reaction. His dry lips were closed tight, like they were sewn shut. He hadn’t shaved for a long time. I opened up the windows to let in some fresh air. It didn’t seem to me that I needed to take any immediate emergency action, and he didn’t seem to be in pain, so I went ahead and straightened up the apartment. The place was a complete disaster. I gathered up the scattered clothes, washed what I could in the washing machine, put what needed to be dry-cleaned in a bag to take to the store. I drained the stagnant bathwater and scrubbed the dirty ring from the inside of the tub. Dr. Tokai had always been so neat, and I found this mess impossible to fathom. The furniture was covered in white dust, and it seemed he’d stopped having the cleaning woman come in. Strangely enough, there were hardly any dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen sink. It alone was clean. He obviously hadn’t used the kitchen in some time. There were a couple of empty mineral water bottles around, but no sign that he’d eaten anything. I opened the fridge and there was this indescribably awful stink. The food left inside had all spoiled. Tofu, vegetables, fruit, milk, sandwiches, ham, and the like. I packed them all in a big plastic garbage bag and took it to the garbage area outside the apartment building.”
Goto lifted his empty espresso cup and studied it from a variety of angles. He finally looked up.
“It took over three hours to get the apartment back to the way it should be. I left the windows open the whole time so that by the time I was finished, the stench was nearly gone. But Dr. Tokai hadn’t said a word the whole time. He just followed me with his eyes as I moved about the room. He was so gaunt that his eyes looked bigger and shinier than usual. But I couldn’t detect any emotion in them. They were watching me but not really seeing anything. I’m not sure how to put it. They were simply following the movements of some object, like an automatic camera lens focusing in on a moving target. It was like he didn’t care that it was me, or couldn’t be bothered to notice what I was doing. His eyes were so sad. I’ll never forget them as long as I live.