Sitting there on the concrete steps, Takayama was surrounded by people but steeped in a stunning solitude.
Nobody knew him as their messiah; everybody simply walked by without noticing him. Reiko was seized with a desire to reach out and touch his body so they could tend to each other's loneliness. If only she could. She was so close, but she couldn't even really hold his hand. For the first time since she'd begun accessing the Loop, she felt violently annoyed at the setup.
Takayama was leaning forward, hands resting on his weakly splayed knees. Sometimes he would lift his head and gaze at the sky; when he did, he looked strangely refreshed. Did he feel like he'd lived out his allotment of days? He'd certainly been through his share of death and rebirth. He looked like a man who had composed himself to meet a natural death, secure in the satisfaction of having accomplished his task. He stretched out his bent frame and leaned back against the steps. He looked more comfortable than before.
He was almost supine now, and she had a good view of the expression on his face. He was looking straight in her direction. He could probably see the sky from that space between tall buildings. But his stare seemed ready to penetrate to Reiko's side of the monitor.
Takayama started to say something to the sky but closed his mouth and licked his dry lips.
What's he trying to say?
His mouth opened only to clamp shut again several times.
Remembering Amano's instructions, Reiko tapped out some commands on the keyboard and locked into Takayama's perspective. It would allow her to see with her own eyes what Takayama was seeing with his.
The scenery changed, and just as she'd expected, the monitor showed her a small patch of blue sky between the tops of buildings. Reiko was now looking at the world through Takayama's eyes. It moved her to think that she was seeing the way he was seeing. When she looked more closely, she saw something resembling a human face floating in the sky.
Reiko recognized the face. She saw it in the mirror every day: it was her.
He's thinking of me right now and imagining my face.
Reiko felt Kaoru's feelings with painful intensity.
Even after he closed his eyes, the image of her face hov-ered there against the backs of his eyelids. She could actually see the strength of Kaoru's thoughts. He wanted her so much that his mind was creating her face for him.
Reiko could see it with her own eyes.
Only when the face in the sky started to blur and become double did Reiko become aware of her tears.
With Takayama's heart in her breast, she tried to imagine what it was he'd been trying to say—or not to say.
It seemed to her that, on the verge of death, he was reflecting on how happy he'd been with her. That made Reiko far happier than hearing him say goodbye.
The beating of his heart grew slower and fainter.
Death was approaching. The scene wobbled slightly. He seemed to be having a hard time keeping his head up.
Now his eyes stayed closed for longer stretches than they were open. At length, his surroundings faded away.
The skyscrapers, the trees, the crowds of people, all disappeared, and his field of vision was swathed in darkness. Reiko's face alone remained distinct. It stayed that way for a long time among the echoes of death.
The Loop world meant nothing to Reiko now. Seeing Takayama's final visions through the monitor made a far deeper impression on her than simply hearing about his death ever could. She disengaged from his point of view and allowed herself to stare at the Loop world from above for a time, lost. She knew that she had to accept Takayama's death calmly, just as he himself had. But she couldn't, not yet.
Later, when she'd managed to get herself somewhat under control, she eased her gaze away from the monitor. Her interest in the Loop world had faded now that Takayama was no longer in it.
Goodbye.
She turned off the power so that the virtual world disappeared from before her eyes. She would probably never look into it again.
It had only been for an instant, but Reiko had experienced death vicariously; strangely, she'd done so while seeing her own face through the eyes of someone she loved.
She didn't know if that was the reason, but a change had come over her body. Her labor pains hadn't exactly started yet, but her intuition was telling her:
It's coming.
She reached for the phone and dialed the number she'd been given.
7
Labor pains belonging to the first stage of childbirth came and went with a gentle rhythm. The fetus, which had been moving about so actively, quieted a bit now and moved to a lower position. Reiko felt as if a buoyant void occupied her chest area.
She climbed into a taxi and gave the name of the hospital.
"Having a baby?" the driver asked, and gently eased the car forward.
A large travel bag rested in her lap. She'd packed it some time ago with the things she'd need for the stay.
When Ryoji was born she hadn't needed to make any preparations. Her mother and husband had sat on either side of her in the car, holding her hands and encouraging her to "hang in there." Now she was on her own, and nervous.
She arrived at the hospital at exactly seven o'clock pm. She changed clothes and lay down on a bed to wait for her cervix to dilate completely.
The labor pains made her think of massive undula-tions. The intervals were shorter than the rising and falling of the tide, but somewhat longer than those between waves crashing onto a beach. Grimacing with pain, Reiko called Kaoru's name. It seemed like it might distract her from the pain to talk to Kaoru—he would be beside her, watching over her.
In between the waves, Reiko's ears picked up music.
At first she thought it was a radio in a neighboring room, but that didn't seem right.
She looked at the window, at the darkness it framed, and realized that the birth was going to last far into the night. She couldn't imagine that the music was coming from beyond the darkness. Maybe the hospital was playing some kind of background music for the fetus's benefit.
The music was soft, the melody mysterious and beautiful; it briefly lessened Reiko's suffering.
All at once she placed the source of the music. She could hardly believe it as she raised her head and stared at her belly.
"Stop singing down there and come out already."
She fantasized about her own son singing in the dark womb to ease his mother's suffering. Maybe the events of the Loop were still with her; she was starting to confuse the relationship between protector and protected, container and contained.
By a little after eleven, her cervix had completely dilated. Reiko was taken from the labor room to the delivery room and placed on the delivery table.
She started pushing in time with her labor pains, following the instructions of the doctor and the nurse.
The rhythm was quicker now than before, and the contractions of her uterus and abdominal muscles kept pace.
She could feel all the strength in her body concentrating in an effort to push the baby out.
She tried to switch to abdominal breathing like the nurse told her to, but it was difficult. Between the pain and her nervousness, the deep belly breaths she tried to take ended up as quick shallow ones. She needed to relax. She thought of Kaoru's face again and began to talk to him.
"Don't speak!"
She was calling Kaoru's name now with every groan, every ragged breath that escaped from the corners of her mouth. Each time, the nurse cautioned her not to talk—