The Lake

  “Besides, they hired you to do a job. They can’t keep changing their minds about what that job is.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How about telling them you’ll quit unless they agree to have the logo at the edge, very small?”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Do you have any connections? Professors at the art school, say, or some famous art critic?”

  “A few.”

  “Have them say something. It helps to fight authority with authority, I think. And if you could get someone to come do a story about your work, write an article that would give meaning to your mural or something, that would make your position stronger, too. And if you should end up in court or something, who cares? Sayuri can decide for herself where she stands.” Nakajima paused a moment, then continued. “See, people like us are never at the center of things. We’re always on the margins, and I generally figure it’s best not to stand out too much. Most of the time we see things in exactly the opposite light as the majority does, and people don’t look kindly on you if you stand out. When push comes to shove, though, you’ve got to have something you won’t cave in on. Otherwise, you end up like a recluse or something, cut off from the world.”

  Our opinions were so close I felt as if he were reading my mind.

  The amazing alignment of our perspectives made me forget how annoyed I’d been at the prospect of having to stop painting and go to all this trouble doing irrelevant things. That feeling faded so quickly it was like magic.

  When something unpleasant happened during the day, I used to come home and pet my cat to cheer myself up. Being with Nakajima seemed to have a similar effect, neutralizing the poison that had accumulated inside me.

  My old self would probably have come in without saying a word and tried to forget it all by having sex with whoever I was sleeping with just then, not talking to him about what had happened, keeping everything bottled up inside. That shows you how much respect I had for my lovers.

  But Nakajima was different, I thought. This time it was for real.

  At this very moment, I was truly beginning to fall in love. It weighed on me and it was sometimes a pain in the ass, but the payoff could be big, too. So big it felt like gazing up into the sky. Or like looking out an airplane window at the ocean, with clouds shining above it.

  It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.

  Like the feeling you get when you realize that, in the grand scheme of things, your time here on this earth really isn’t all that long after all.

  There was one other thing I had to do.

  “Hey, Dad, I’m at the station now. Do you have some time today?”

  I didn’t want to call him at work, so I’d called his cell phone.

  “Wow, this is sudden,” my dad said.

  “Well, the job I had scheduled sort of stopped unexpectedly,” I replied. “It’s hard for me to get out here unless something like that happens.”

  “I can get away for a while in the evening,” my dad said. “We could have dinner in about two hours.”

  The restaurant my dad chose was this incredibly mediocre Italian place, and whenever he went there his Prominent Local Personage thing went into high gear. I couldn’t stand it.

  But I’d asked to see him without any warning, and of course he’d be treating me, so I figured I had no right to complain.

  With a family as stable as mine had been, my heart certainly wasn’t scarred, or if it was, the scars were ones I’d made myself—now that I was comparing myself to Nakajima all the time I could see that. I thought I was pretty tough, too. Still, I cried a bit at the station.

  The days I’d passed with my mom before she died were still there, it seemed, seared into the corners of my heart.

  The atmosphere of the station brought it all back. I could see myself running to the hospital, glad to be seeing my mother again. You never know you’re happy until later. Because physical sensations like smells and exhaustion don’t figure into our memories, I guess. Only the good bits bob up into view.

  I was always startled by the snatches of memory that I saw as happy, how they came.

  This time, it was the feeling I got when I stepped out onto the platform. The sense of what it had been like to be on my way to see my mom, for her still to be alive, if only for the time being, if only for that day. The happiness of that knowledge had come back to life inside me.

  And the loneliness of that moment. The helplessness.

  The fact that now when I came to this station, I could go see my dad, but not my mom. I’d always done that in the past, but now I couldn’t.

  “You know, the chef in this place spent four whole years in Italy! Seriously. Hey, kid, do me a favor and ask Sugiyama to come say hi when he has a moment, will you? I want to introduce him to my daughter.”

  Just as I expected: he’d said it. In my heart I was thinking, Please, I’ve already heard that story, and how could he “have a moment” when he’s got a restaurant full of customers? But I kept quiet.

  Before long a man in a tall chef’s hat came out and talked for a while with my dad, and he said hello to me, too, so I just kept smiling away.

  I’d be leaving Japan soon, after all, and probably wouldn’t be seeing my dad for a while. When I thought about that, I felt kind of attached even to his preening.

  After that the dishes started coming out: huge quantities of pasta that had obviously been boiled too long, especially considering that the chef had lived in Italy for four years, and tiny servings of the main courses. I suppose he must have ended up adapting to the tastes of his customers out here in the country—he didn’t have any choice. I’d met some exchange students from Italy when I was in art school, and I had made a few super-low-budget trips to the towns they had come from. Needless to say, none of the restaurants in Italy had been as half-hearted in their approach as this one.

  As I thought back fondly over those days, I began to realize with more and more clarity that I was seriously on the verge of going to Europe. And I was going there for myself.

  “Listen, Dad,” I said. “I’m thinking of going to study in Paris next year.”

  “With a guy, I take it?” He didn’t miss a beat.

  I was stunned.

  “What makes you think that?” I asked.

  “I can see it in your face,” he replied. “You look ready to be a mom.”

  “Do I?”

  I smiled. Maybe I was more giddy than I realized.

  “Anyway, it sounds good to me. It’s great you’re even able to consider it. Bring him to see me before you go, though, will you?”

  “Well, if I can,” I said. “You’ll have to wait a bit.”

  Nakajima was too weird, not the kind of guy you introduce to your family.

  “What does he do?” my dad asked. “Don’t tell me he wants to be a painter.”

  “No.”

  “He’s younger than you? A student?” my dad said.

  I was impressed at how close to the truth he was. Parents are amazing.

  “He’s in med school. We’re the same age, but he is a student. He wants to get a scholarship to study at this research institute in Paris when he finishes his degree.”

  “I suspected there was a man behind this. Can’t say I like it. Not a bit.”

  He seemed genuinely displeased.

  “Terrible, getting me to confess it all.” I smiled.

  “Well, once you’ve settled on an art school in Paris, send me a breakdown of all the funds you’ll need. And promise you’ll come visit me sometimes.”

  “Oh, I won’t need anything—I’ve got the money Mom left,” I said. “And you don’t have to give me anything to get me to come visit. Of course I’ll come! You should come see me in Paris, too. And to tell the truth, you’re the only one I want to see. I’d rather not have to see your relatives anymore, honestly.”

  “No, I don’t like it when you have to spend time with my sister and the rest of that crowd, either,” my dad said. “I ha
te seeing you unhappy. But please—if I do send you some money, don’t turn it down, okay? And if anything should happen, let me know. Definitely. If you get hurt, or pregnant, or you break up with this guy and start living on your own, or you quit school … any big change. Tell me. And if you can manage it, introduce him. Anytime is fine.”

  “Okay.”

  Thank you, Dad, I thought, chewing my mushy pasta.

  My relationship with him had entered a new phase.

  You don’t necessarily have to want to become an adult; it happens as a matter of course, as you go, making choices. The important thing, I think, is to choose for yourself.

  Standing next to my dad, I realized that his body no longer smelled like a middle-aged man’s. All of a sudden, he smelled like a grandfather.

  That’s what happens when you live apart.

  We’ll probably never live under the same roof again. The second that thought struck me, days that had seemed utterly unremarkable were made irreplaceable, unforgettable. I came face-to-face, once more, with a time I had left behind. My dad had been part of the life I’d lived then, he was woven indistinguishably into the fabric, with exactly the same color thread.

  But life keeps flowing on. Maybe if his business failed and he went bankrupt and everyone in this town abandoned him, he and I might end up living near each other. If I were somehow to become extraordinarily wealthy, say, and I rented an apartment for him to live in. There was no way that would happen, I knew that, but daydreaming alleviated my jealousy.

  The jealousy I felt, after my mom died, at losing my dad to this town.

  Deep inside me, the child I used to be is crying. Weren’t you supposed to drop everything else and just be my dad, after Mom died? How can you go on running the same company, as if nothing has happened, and go on hanging out with those relatives of yours? What did all the time we spent together as a family mean to you? Was it just a game for you, playing at our being a family?

  But the adult I’ve become wants her freedom, and the truth is that I wouldn’t like it at all if my dad actually thrust himself into my life.

  And so, like a man and a woman secretly in love, we remain silent about the half-wish we each feel, that somehow we could live together.

  I guess this is one way to love, I think.

  Love isn’t only a matter of fussing over each other, hugging, wanting to be together. Some things communicate, inevitably, precisely because you keep them in check. The heartfelt feelings that find their way to you in the form of money and imported gourmet ham.

  Having the sensitivity to gauge those things is a real gift.

  Our negotiating strategies seemed to have worked, because things went well.

  I managed to have the interview take place just in time to meet the deadline for a certain magazine’s next issue. The timing was perfect: people who saw the article started coming to watch while I was still working on the mural, and the fact that it was featured in a magazine seems to have convinced people in the neighborhood that my work must have value, even if did look like a child’s doodling.

  The letter I’d written and the recommendation from my art school professor had been delivered to the president of the kon’nyaku company, and he’d come to take a look at the site where I was painting the mural. He was extremely pleased to see it was the center of so much activity, and he decided that it would be a shame to ruin the picture; it would be good enough just to put the logo somewhere at the edge. I lucked out because he was a pleasant man: he had broad shoulders, and looked sort of like a block of kon’nyaku himself. He asked me to mention the company when the local newspaper and a cable TV station came to interview me after the mural was completed.

  I didn’t really care one way or the other as long as the picture could be saved, so naturally I smiled good-naturedly and agreed. Sayuri, who had gotten the knack of managing things like this through the process of negotiating and arranging my painting schedule and so on, told me that if she ever lost her job she would come and be my agent.

  “So it looks like I’ll be able to finish the mural after all. Everything went beautifully. Thanks again, Nakajima. I really appreciate your standing by me,” I said.

  We were at a homey teishoku restaurant near the apartment. I was having ginger pork.

  “So it worked, that’s great! I figured it would. We’re surrounded by all these bozos who don’t know the difference between a mural and an advertisement, after all. They’re bound to have a weakness for mass media stars.”

  There he goes again, being a bit too frank.

  Something in his bluntness reminded me of Chii.

  “I bet that’s true anywhere, no matter what country you’re in,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Nakajima replied, taking a bite of his boiled mackerel set. “It might be easier if you were dealing with people who see historically significant architecture and incredible paintings on church ceilings and so on every day. I don’t know much about art, so I really have no idea how great those things are, but I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot once we’re in Paris. I get the feeling that in countries with that kind of history, even researchers will take a different attitude toward their work—just thinking about it makes my heart pound. I won’t even be able to compete, I bet, in all kinds of areas.”

  “I feel the same way,” I said. “In Paris, I’ll be able to spend as much time as I want looking at paintings of the sort I’d have to line up to see for just fifteen seconds at the museums in Ueno Park. There’s simply no comparison in the quantity of what’s available. And I’ll be able to see as many paintings in churches as I want. After all, I’m most interested in frescos.… If I have a chance, I’d love to learn about restoration, too—there’s so much I want to do! It’s all there for me to study, from now on. I owe that to you: it’s only after we met that I’ve started wanting so badly to go and learn more about the things I’m interested in.”

  The restaurant was packed with students and single men; there was a baseball game on TV. Waiters bustled back and forth, calling out one order after another. We hardly ever ate out, so it all seemed very novel. I felt dazzled looking at everyone, like a mole fresh out of its tunnel.

  I had suggested to Nakajima that I take him out to eat, even though we never ate out, because I wanted to thank him for being there for me during my troubles with the mural. He grudgingly came along, saying that maybe it would be nice to go out for a change.

  Having dinner at a local teishoku place, for the first time in ages … that’s all we were doing. Back when I was on my own, this scene would have been drearily familiar. But since every little opinion Nakajima offered was linked to a whole other universe, the ordinariness of it all melted away, affording me glimpses of the unknown.

  “The thing that concerns me,” Nakajima said, “is that people might start offering you lots more jobs now that you’re getting a little more famous, and then you won’t be interested in going to Paris anymore.”

  He kept his eyes down as he said this. He carefully picked the small clams out of his miso soup, one at a time, and popped them into his mouth.

  “If I did get offered a job, I’d certainly go anywhere in Japan to do it, as long as that were possible, right until the last minute. I want to earn money that way as long as I can,” I said. “But I’m going to Paris. My life with you is important to me, and I want to be overwhelmed, too, while I’m still not too old. I want to be blown away by greatness. Because I’ve started wanting to become a better person, now, even just a little bit better.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Nakajima said.

  He had a habit, when he was truly happy, of not showing it.

  We sound like a married couple, I thought.

  Playing at marriage, playing at being a dad, playing at being a full member of society.

  Everything in my life revolves around people playing at being something.

  But that’s only because we have to be that way in order to get on with our lives. Just b
ecause people are playing doesn’t mean their hearts aren’t in it.

  The schedule was pretty tight, and I ended up staying pretty late a few times, but at last I finished the mural.

  Sayuri and the center’s director and I took a photo to mark the occasion, and, as promised, I made a special point of highlighting the name of the kon’nyaku company and thanking it for its support in an interview with the local paper and on TV. We took another picture with the children from the center, with whom I’d become good friends, as if we had all gone camping together or something, and then they took me to a yakiniku place to celebrate.

  After it was all over, in the middle of the night, I climbed over the gate and snuck onto the grounds all alone, and went to stand in front of the mural.

  Maybe it was because I’d just finished it, but it looked really terrific. It was the best of all my works to date. There was a boldness to it that defied the darkness, even when no one was there to see it.

  At last, a faint sense of confidence dropped anchor inside me.

  Now, I thought, I’m free to leave.

  The monkeys in the picture dashed around like they had no time to waste. Little blasts of color radiated out, one overlapping with another, merging, like a rainbow.

  And then my eye landed on those two monkeys, one drinking tea and one in her bed, and something inside me shimmered.

  Maybe I should go see them. By myself … yeah, I’ll go see Mino and his sister.

  I’d take along a picture of this mural to show them, and talk to Chii.

  I was trying to remember what train line we had taken, where we changed, what that lake had been called, when all of a sudden I remembered what Yotchan had said.

  Ghosts.

  And I began to wonder.

  Maybe that place never existed, it was all a figment of Nakajima’s imagination. Could it be that the two of them, Mino and Chii, were no longer living? That Yotchan had been right?

  I shuddered. That seemed so much more likely than that it had been real.

  I’m a pretty practical person, and ordinarily there’s no way I’d even consider such a thing, but … somehow the notion seemed oddly right. I felt like I was lost, body and all, in a fog of memories, and the feeling refused to dissipate. Nakajima had the power to make you lose sight of the boundary between what you had actually experienced and what you hadn’t—maybe it wasn’t real, after all. Maybe in the end Nakajima’s whole existence was aiming somewhere else, not toward the light but away from it. I got that feeling somehow.