Although Akari was ostensibly talking about his seizure, Maki thought there was a distinct undertone of apprehension about his mother’s illness as well. After assuring Akari that there was no need to worry since his seizure was safely in the past, she added that Mama had come through her surgery very well and was already on the road to recovery.
But when Maki said that, Akari suddenly began to shout something that sounded like a parody or at least a paraphrase of some of the quotations in My Own Words: “No, no, Mama is already dead! Oh, wait, you say she’ll be coming home in two or three weeks? Okay, that’s good, but even if she comes home then, right now she’s dead! Mama is really dead!”
Maki thought that was Akari’s oblique way of showing his true feelings. “Before Mama went into the hospital, she asked you to write down Akari’s quotes from your novels, including the parts where he was somehow conflating his father’s long absence with the idea of death, right?” she said. “It seemed kind of weird that Mama would make such a request at a time when she was dealing with a health crisis of her own, but I think she was just trying to imagine how Akari might respond to the death of one of his parents. Mama knows most of Akari’s quotes by heart, so I’d like to hear her play a game with Akari sometime when they talk on the phone. It could be a sort of call and response. Maybe Akari could say, ‘Mama was in a very bad way, but she pulled through!’ and Mama could respond by saying, ‘Thank you very much — with your support I’ll keep hanging in there and doing my best!’”
Late that night, I got a call from Asa. She had finished her duties at the hospital and was about to take an Odakyu Line train back to my house in Tokyo, where she was staying.
“Today I asked Chikashi whether she might want me to arrange for Unaiko and Ricchan to look after Akari while you made a trip up here to visit her in the hospital,” she began. “But Chikashi said that after all your years together, and all the joy and sadness you’ve shared, she was afraid it would be too hard on you to see your aged wife in such a weakened state, and rather than being able to comfort her, she was worried you might fall into depression or even start blubbering — we laughed at that — and she would need to prop you up instead! (By the way, I was very impressed by her efforts to be sprightly and humorous, making a literary allusion to the famous parable about a devoted old Chinese couple and so on.)
“Seriously, though, I think Chikashi has a valid point. I know that when her brother, Goro, jumped off a building and she had to go to the police station to identify his badly damaged body, she was able to look at it without flinching or turning away. But later, when you went to the wake at Goro’s house down in Yugawara and his widow wanted you to view the body, Chikashi said she thought it would be better if you didn’t, even though by then Goro’s face had been restored to its usual handsome state. She understands better than anyone that you tend to be squeamish about such things.
“On top of that, Chikashi said, ‘In my husband’s current mood I don’t think the kind of visit you’re suggesting is even in the realm of possibility. Ever since he stopped working on the drowning novel he’s been floundering around, and he totally lost control and called his mentally disabled son an idiot — not once, but twice. I know he was annoyed and upset about something on both occasions, but there is simply no excuse for that kind of behavior. No one is angrier at him than Maki, and I’ve been afraid that the tension between those two might come to a head at some point. That’s partly why I recommended that my husband and son go down to Shikoku together, on the assumption that Papa was serious about wanting to take the initiative in patching things up. Not so much for Akari, but for that man, I think reaching some kind of détente with his estranged son should be the first priority right now.’ Anyhow, that’s what Chikashi said. I have to admit I cringed when she referred to you as ‘that man’ again — it just sounds so cold — but on the positive side, she did call you ‘Papa’ once or twice as well.
“Kogii, one thing that fills me with hope is knowing Unaiko and Ricchan will be at the Forest House with you and Akari most of the time. As you know, I truly believe Unaiko is a genius. I’m not saying she’s a towering intellectual or anything, but even if you take her out of the theatrical milieu where she shines so brightly, she’s still a genius. Her special gift is the way she tries to think everything through on her own, in a completely original way, and I’m sure she’ll bring the same approach to bear on the situation between you and Akari. No matter what happens, I’m confident she’ll be a good influence on you. Because she has such a strong sense of certainty about her own beliefs I think she’ll be a reliable touchstone, much as a straightedge helps a carpenter keep things properly lined up.”
3
Ever since the occurrence at the Saya, the bond between Akari and Unaiko seemed to have grown noticeably stronger — and, of course, Ricchan was also a member of their cozy little in-group. The activities that Akari had previously been pursuing in either the dining room or the great room, depending on the theater group’s schedule, were now taking place in the downstairs room Unaiko and Ricchan shared: poring over the classical music program guides in the weekly FM radio magazine and elsewhere, listening to music on the radio, playing CDs, and so on. In that room, which also doubled as the young women’s sleeping quarters, Akari could be absolutely certain his father would never come bumbling in; that was part of an unspoken agreement among the residents of the house. Clearly, Akari was making good on his implicitly declared intention to never again share a single note of music with me.
Some of Akari’s medications were on the verge of running out and he happened to be nearby, listening, when I was talking to Maki on the phone one day about the logistics of refilling those prescriptions. The next morning when Maki called back, Akari piped up to say that if someone from the Forest House was going to Tokyo to get his medicine, he would like to ask them to bring down some of his CDs when they returned. As it turned out, shortly after Akari made the request it became necessary for Unaiko and Ricchan to head to Tokyo on business of their own, so no one had to make a special trip to fetch his prescriptions and CDs.
The news about what Unaiko had done in Matsuyama and at the theater in the round had been spreading by way of the national grapevine. Evidently some prominent theater people had taken notice and were offering her the opportunity to apply her talents to the much larger stages of Tokyo. There were some producers and directors (their names were familiar even to me) who were always on the lookout for innovative and ambitious dramatic work, and they had contacted Unaiko to invite her to meet with them. Asa, of course, was already in Tokyo to help Chikashi through her surgery and recuperation, and it went without saying that Unaiko and Ricchan wanted to share this development with her. I knew that Ricchan — the person most familiar with the sad state of my current relationship with Akari — was also hoping to ask Chikashi, in person, for some information regarding Akari’s daily routines. I was resigned to the fact that any such line of inquiry would inevitably make me look bad and would culminate in more criticism of my behavior from my outspoken wife.
4
Dear Kogii,
At the moment, Unaiko is being lionized by her new cronies in the theater world, and she has been spending every day (and night!) running around Tokyo doing all sorts of exciting and constructive things: seeing plays, visiting rehearsals, going to parties, and so on. She’ll be staying here for a while longer but Ricchan will be back at the Forest House very soon, and she should be able to bring you up to speed on all the details of Chikashi’s condition.