After Dark

  “Tell me something, Mari—do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Mari shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she says.

  “So you don’t think there’s a life to come?”

  “I haven’t thought much about it. But it seems to me there’s no reason to believe in a life after this one.”

  “So once you’re dead there’s just nothing?”

  “Basically.”

  “Well, I think there has to be something like reincarnation. Or maybe I should say I’m scared to think there isn’t. I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it.”

  “Nothingness means there’s absolutely nothing, so maybe there’s no need to understand it or imagine it.”

  “Yeah, but what if nothingness is not like that? What if it’s the kind of thing that demands that you understand it or imagine it? I mean, you don’t know what it’s like to die, Mari. Maybe a person really has to die to understand what it’s like.”

  “Well, yeah…,” says Mari.

  “I get so scared when I start thinking about this stuff,” Korogi says. “I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. It’s so much easier to just believe in reincarnation. You might be reborn as something awful, but at least you can imagine what you’d look like—a horse, say, or a snail. And even if it was something bad, you might be luckier next time.”

  “Uh-huh…but it still seems more natural to me to think that once you’re dead, there’s nothing.”

  “I wonder if that’s ’cause you’ve got such a strong personality.”

  “Me?!”

  Korogi nods. “You seem to have a good, strong grip on yourself.”

  Mari shakes her head. “Not me,” she says. “When I was little, I had no self-confidence at all. Everything scared me. Which is why I used to get bullied a lot. I was such an easy mark. The feelings I had back then are still here inside me. I have dreams like that all the time.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you worked hard over the years and overcame those feelings little by little—those bad memories.”

  “Little by little,” Mari says, nodding. “I’m like that. A hard worker.”

  “You just keep at it all by yourself—like the village smithy?”

  “Right.”

  “I think it’s great that you can do that.”

  “Work hard?”

  “That you’re able to work hard.”

  “Even if I’ve got nothing else going for me?”

  Korogi smiles without speaking.

  Mari thinks about what Korogi said. “I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my own world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere.”

  “Have you got a boyfriend?” Korogi asks.

  Mari gives her head a little shake.

  “Still a virgin?”

  Mari blushes with a quick nod. “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s okay, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I know.”

  “You just didn’t happen to meet anybody you liked?” Korogi asks.

  “There’s one guy I used to see. But…”

  “You didn’t like him enough to go all the way.”

  “Right,” Mari says. “I had plenty of curiosity, but I just never felt like doing that. I don’t know…”

  “That’s fine,” Korogi says. “There’s no sense forcing yourself if you don’t feel like it. Tell you the truth, I’ve had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That’s all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

  “Someday you’ll find the right person, Mari, and you’ll learn to have a lot more confidence in yourself. That’s what I think. So don’t settle for anything less. In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount.”

  Mari nods.

  Korogi scratches her earlobe with her little finger. “It’s too late for me, unfortunately.”

  “Let me just say this,” Mari says with special gravity.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I hope you do manage to get away from whoever’s chasing you.”

  “Sometimes I feel as if I’m racing with my own shadow,” Korogi says. “But that’s one thing I’ll never be able to outrun. Nobody can shake off their own shadow.”

  “Maybe that’s not it,” Mari says. After a moment’s hesitation she adds, “Maybe it’s not your own shadow. Maybe it’s something else, something totally different.”

  Korogi thinks about that for a while, then gives Mari a nod. “I guess you’re right. All I can do is try my best and see it through to the end.”

  Korogi glances at her watch, takes a big stretch, and stands up.

  “Time to get to work,” she says. “You should grab some shut-eye, and go home as soon as it gets light out, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Everything’s going to work out fine with your sister. I’ve got a feeling. Just a feeling.”

  “Thanks,” Mari says.

  “You may not feel that close to her now, but I’m sure there was a time when you did. Try to remember a moment when you felt totally in touch with her, without any gaps between you. You probably can’t think of anything right this second, but if you try hard it’ll come. She and you are family, after all—you’ve got a long history together. You must have at least one memory like that stored away somewhere.”

  “Okay, I’ll try,” Mari says.

  “I think about the old days a lot. Especially after I started running all over the country like this. If I try hard to remember, all kinds of stuff comes back—really vivid memories. All of a sudden out of nowhere I can bring back things I haven’t thought about for years. It’s pretty interesting. Memory is so crazy! It’s like we’ve got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.”

  Korogi stands there holding the remote control.

  “You know what I think?” she says. “That people’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed ’em to the fire, they’re all just paper. The fire isn’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is Kant,’ or ‘Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,’ or ‘Nice tits,’ while it burns. To the fire, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. It’s the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there’s no distinction—they’re all just fuel.”

  Korogi nods to herself. Then she goes on:

  “You know, I think if I didn’t have that fuel, if I didn’t have these memory drawers inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. It’s because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to—the important ones and the useless ones—that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can’t take it anymore, that I can’t go on anymore, but one way or another I get past that.”

  Still in her chair, Mari looks up at Korogi.

  “So try hard, Mari. Try hard to remember all kinds of stuff about your sister. It’ll be important fuel. For you, and probably for your sister, too.”

  Mari looks at Korogi without saying anythi
ng.

  Korogi looks at her watch again. “Gotta go.”

  “Thanks for everything,” Mari says.

  Korogi waves and slips out.

  Alone now, Mari scans the room anew. A little room in a love hotel. No window. The only thing behind the Venetian blind is a hollow where a window should be. The bed is hugely out of proportion to the room itself. The head of the bed has so many mysterious switches nearby, it looks like something from an airplane cockpit. A vending machine sells graphically shaped vibrators and colorful underthings cut in extreme styles. Mari has never seen such odd items before, but she is not offended by them. Alone in this offbeat room, she feels, if anything, protected. She notices that she is in a tranquil mood for the first time in quite a while. She sinks deeper into the chair and closes her eyes, and soon she is asleep. Her sleep is short but deep. This is what she has wanted for a long time.

  16

  The drab storage basement where the band is allowed to practice at night. No windows. High ceiling with exposed pipes. Smoking is prohibited here because of the poor ventilation. As the night draws to a close, the formal practice has ended and the musicians are jamming. There are ten of them altogether. Two are women: the pianist at the keyboard and the soprano-sax player, who is sitting this one out.

  Backed up by electric piano, acoustic bass, and drums, Takahashi is playing a long trombone solo. Sonny Rollins’s “Sonnymoon for Two,” a midtempo blues. His performance is not bad, marked less by technique than by his almost conversational phrasing. Perhaps it is a reflection of his personality. Eyes closed, he immerses himself in the music. The tenor sax, alto sax, and trumpet throw in simple riffs every now and then. Those not playing are drinking coffee from a thermos jar, checking their sheet music, or working on their instruments as they listen. Some call out now and then to urge Takahashi on during the pauses in his solo.

  Enclosed in bare walls, the music is loud; the drummer plays almost entirely with brushes. A long plank and tubular chairs comprise a makeshift table, on top of which are scattered takeout pizza boxes, the thermos jar of coffee, paper cups, sheet music, a small tape recorder, and saxophone reeds. The heating here is almost nonexistent. People play in coats and jackets. Some band members sitting out have donned scarves and gloves. It is a bizarre scene. Takahashi’s long solo ends, the bass takes a chorus, and the four horns join in for the final theme.

  When the tune ends, they take a ten-minute break. Everyone seems tired after the long night of practice, and there is less chatting than usual. As they prepare for the next tune, one musician stretches, another takes a hot drink, another nibbles some kind of cookie, a couple go out for a smoke. Only the pianist, a girl with long hair, stays with her instrument during the break, trying out new chord progressions. Takahashi sits in a tubular chair, organizes his sheet music, dismantles his trombone, spills the accumulated saliva on the floor, gives the instrument a quick wipedown, and begins putting it into its case. He is obviously not planning to participate in the next jam.

  The tall young bass player comes over and taps him on the shoulder. “That was a great solo, Takahashi. It had real feeling.”

  “Thanks,” he says.

  The long-haired young man who was playing the trumpet asks him, “Are you calling it a night, Takahashi?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got something to do,” he says. “Sorry I can’t help with the clean-up.”

  The Shirakawa house kitchen. On the TV, a beep signals the hour and the NHK news begins. The announcer stares straight into the camera, dutifully reading the news. Shirakawa sits at the table in the dining area, watching the television at low volume. The sound is barely audible. Shirakawa has loosened his tie and is leaning back in his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows. The yogurt container is empty. He has no special desire to see the news. Nothing is likely to arouse his interest. He knows that. He just can’t sleep.

  On the table, he opens and closes his right hand slowly. This is no ordinary pain he is feeling: it is a pain with memories. He takes a green-labeled Perrier bottle from the refrigerator and uses it to cool the back of his hand. Then he twists off the cap, pours himself a glass of water, and drinks it. He takes off his glasses and massages himself intently around the eyes. Still he feels no sign of sleepiness. His body is clearly suffering from exhaustion, but something in his head is preventing him from sleeping. Something is bothering him, and he can’t seem to get rid of it. He gives up, puts his glasses back on, and turns to the TV screen. The steel export dumping problem. Government measures to rectify the drastic rise of the yen. A mother who killed herself and her two children. She doused her car with gasoline and lit it. A shot of the blackened hulk of the car, still smoking. Time for the Christmas retail wars to begin.

  The night is nearly over, but for him the night will not end so easily. Soon his family will be getting up. He wants to be asleep by then for sure.

  A room in the Hotel Alphaville. Mari is sunk deep in a chair, napping. Her feet, in white socks, rest on a low glass table. In sleep, she wears a look of relief. Her thick book lies facedown on the table, spread open at the halfway point. The ceiling lights are on. The brightness of the room is apparently of no concern to Mari. The TV is switched off and silent. The bed is made. The only sound is the monotonous hum of the heater on the ceiling.

  Eri Asai’s room.

  Eri Asai is back on this side now. She is sleeping in her own bed in her own room again. Face turned toward the ceiling, she lies utterly still. Even her breathing is inaudible. This is the same view we had the first time we entered this room. Heavy silence, sleep of frightening density. Waveless, mirrorlike surface of the waters of thought. She floats there face-up. We can find no hint of disorder in the room. The TV screen is cold and dead, like the far side of the moon again. Could she have succeeded in escaping from that enigmatic room? Could a door have opened for her somehow?

  No one answers our questions. Our question marks are sucked, unresisting, into the final darkness and uncompromising silence of the night. All we know for sure is that Eri Asai has come back to her own bed in this room. As far as our eyes can tell, she has managed safely to return to this side, her outlines intact. She must have succeeded in escaping through a door at the last moment. Or perhaps she was able to discover a different exit.

  In any case it appears that the strange sequence of events that occurred in this room during the night has ended once and for all. A cycle has been completed, all disturbances have been resolved, perplexities have been concealed, and things have returned to their original state. Around us, cause and effect join hands, and synthesis and division maintain their equilibrium. Everything, finally, unfolded in a place resembling a deep, inaccessible fissure. Such places open secret entries into darkness in the interval between midnight and the time the sky grows light. None of our principles have any effect there. No one can predict when or where such abysses will swallow people, or when or where they will spit them out.

  Free of all confusion, Eri now sleeps decorously in her bed. Her black hair fans out on her pillow in elegant, wordless significance. We can sense the approach of dawn. The deepest darkness of the night has now passed.

  But is this actually true?

  Inside the 7-Eleven. Trombone case hanging from his shoulder, Takahashi is choosing food with a deadly serious look in his eye. He will be going back to his apartment to sleep but will need something to eat when he wakes up. He is the only customer in the store. Shikao Suga’s “Bomb Juice” is playing from the ceiling speakers. Takahashi picks up a tuna sandwich packed in plastic and a carton of milk. He compares the expiration date on this carton with those on other cartons. Milk is a food of great significance in his life. He cannot ignore the slightest detail where milk is concerned.

  At this very instant, a cell phone on the cheese shelf begins to ring. This is the phone that Shirakawa left there shortly before. Takahashi scowls and stares at it suspiciously. Who could possibly have left a cell phone in a place like this? He glances toward
the cash register, but there is no sign of the clerk. The phone keeps ringing. Takahashi finally takes the small silver phone in his hand and presses the talk button.

  “Hello?”

  “You’ll never get away,” a man’s voice says instantly. “You will never get away. No matter how far you run, we’re going to get you.”

  The voice is flat, as though the man is reading a printed text. No emotion comes through. Takahashi, of course, has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Takahashi says, his voice louder than before. But his words seem not to reach the man at the other end, who goes on talking in those same unaccented tones as though leaving a message on voice mail.

  “We’re going to tap you on the shoulder someday. We know what you look like.”

  “What the hell…”

  “If somebody taps you on the shoulder somewhere someday, it’s us,” the man says.

  Takahashi has no idea what he should say in response to this. He keeps silent. Having been left in a refrigerator case for a while, the phone feels uncomfortably cold in his hand.

  “You might forget what you did, but we will never forget.”

  “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m telling you you’ve got the wrong guy,” Takahashi says.

  “You’ll never get away.”

  The connection is cut. The circuit goes dead. The final message lies abandoned on a deserted beach. Takahashi stares at the cell phone in his hand. He has no idea who the man’s “we” are or who was meant to receive the call, but the sound of the voice remains in his ear—the one with the deformed earlobe—like an absurd curse that leaves a bad aftertaste. He has a smooth, cold feeling in his hand, as if he has just grabbed a snake.

  Somebody, for some reason, is being chased by a number of people, Takahashi imagines. Judging from the man’s declarative tone, that somebody will probably never get away. Sometime, somewhere, when he is least expecting it, someone is going to tap him on the shoulder. What will happen after that?