89
He was sighing as well. To think that this boy had seen into my soul. And he was not the only one. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. This heat. The grass is drying out. Of all the seasons I like summer the least. A little silent cough. We were in the park. I noticed that he hadn’t put his briefcase down between us as usual. I noticed, it didn’t worry me. Our bench was a waiting bench. Together we were waiting for something that would not happen.
Tsuyoshi!
A cry.
It echoes between the walls of our silent house.
I rush into the baby’s room. Kyōko is there. Crying. Over his bed. Lifting him up. His head falls heavily to one side. He’s not breathing. He’s cold. Come quickly. Hurry up. To the hospital. A slightly sour smell. I think of the teacher. Start the engine. The car, a moving cry. In the mirror I see Kyōko’s face distorted by crying. Tsuyoshi is lower down on her lap. I can’t see him. Tetsu, please. Drive faster. For heaven’s sake. Drive as fast as you can. And that moment, abrupt, when she stopped crying. Instead she whispered: He’s not breathing. He’s dead. Blue traffic light on Kyōko’s face. Drive slowly. Slower. You should drive slowly. I want to keep him with me as long as possible. I take my foot off the pedal. Brake. I feel this awkwardness, I admit it, a hot wave. Who has died? I don’t know him. Behind us there is honking. Someone shouts an insult. A feeling, no feeling: He doesn’t. It’s not me they are talking about when they when they say: We are sorry, there’s nothing to be done.
90
It’s pointless, I know. But I wish, I really wish I could say that I recognized right away what a loss I’d suffered that day. I recognized the loss of my son. I recognized the loss that meant I had never called him by his name, the name I’d given him. Tsuyoshi. The strong one. That’s how I had imagined him. Strong as a fist punching me in the belly, like in the movies I never watched with him. Yet the recognition of who and what I lost only came later, years later, and when it came, it was a double loss. The forcing open of a scar. And you reach in and understand, it cannot be corrected. It’s not something that can be corrected.
We two returned home. A rattle lay in the hallway. Kyōko bent down, picked it up. I said, out loud: Perhaps it’s better like this. Kyōko turned around towards me, rattling. Her eyes widened: For whom was it better? For you? She left me standing there with that question, went into the baby’s room, locked the door behind her. I listened for a sign, heard nothing but the watch ticking on my wrist. After an hour I gave up, sat down in front of the television and turned up the volume.
91
Years later.
Kyōko, catlike, curled up on the couch and spoke into a cushion. Always the same: You know what? That night in August. When you said: Perhaps it’s better like this. I’ve never in my life experienced such enmity towards you as then, when you said that. In your suit. Your tie was crooked. Dark patches at your armpits. I sat on Tsuyoshi’s bed and felt bitter enmity towards you. For six long months I struggled not to feel it, not when you came home drunk, not when you, in your drunken state, complained that your life was a dead end. But then it consumed me. Finally. It was the mournful longing to join him, on the other side. Friendly Death. I wanted him. In the midst of the enmity he appeared to me as a friend who would welcome me fondly, enfold me in his heart. Blessed night. I wanted to count sheep until the last one jumped over the fence. But. What do you think? What stopped me? Listen carefully! The simple thought that I have to get up at six o’clock and prepare your bento. Absurd. Isn’t it? An unparalleled absurdity. The thought that you need me. Me, who one day, today, will say to you: I see through you and your inability. Behind all your inability I see a person who suffers. This was the thought that saved me. All at once I saw you, how you travel to work and back, work and back, and all at once I saw that you’re rolling a rock, I’ll roll it with you. On and on. We’re rolling together up a steep mountain path.
92
Three rice balls. Tempura. Seaweed salad.
If Tsuyoshi were alive he would be thirty-one years old. A good age. He separated the chopsticks. An age when you can look back, and forward too. Would you like some?
I nodded.
Here, take a rice ball. Is it good?
Yes. It’s the best rice ball I’ve ever tasted.
He laughed, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Invisible tears. I wish I could sit with him like this and eat Kyōko’s bento together. I mean. Like with you. Don’t you think? He indicated with the chopsticks in one direction then another. In some way they are all here in the park. The man there with the young woman on his arm. That’s Hashimoto. The old woman with the walking stick who is limping behind them: His wife. The one with the book over there, pen in his mouth, is Kumamoto. In the shade of the tree, pulling her skirt over her knee: Yukiko. The man sitting by the fountain feeding the pigeons. He could be the teacher. All of them here. Under this sky. You only have to look.
If that’s so, I wanted to say, then I would like to be your son. But I didn’t say it. Instead I asked him a favor. There is something, I began.
What is it?
There is something you could do for me.
Well, tell me.
Please tell your wife the truth, this very evening, that you have lost your job. You owe her that. After all that has happened, all that has not happened.
I promise you, I will do it. And you, you promise me that you’ll cut your hair short, this very evening. I’ve waited long enough, not saying it, you look dreadful with that shaggy mane.
I laughed with him: Good, it’s agreed.
On Monday we won’t recognize each other.
Will you come?
Yes, of course.
And then?
A new beginning.
93
That afternoon I was the one who fell asleep. I fell asleep and dreamed: I was in my room. Cold sweat on my hands. I lay stretched out on my bed, a corpse. With all my strength I tried to move. Then I heard Father’s voice: Nothing to be done. The boy is dead. I wanted to call out: No, I’m alive! But I had no mouth. Above me was a mirror. I saw I had neither mouth nor eyes. With eyes I didn’t have, I saw that my face was a white wall. Mother’s voice: It’s too bad, about him. He never found his face. At this moment the curtains opened. A harsh light came through the window and fell on the white wall, which was me, and suddenly in the mirror I saw the wall crumble, and then the four walls of my room crumbled away too. Wide open space all around me. Someone touched me. I ran after him. As I ran I got back my mouth and eyes. A stinging on my cheeks. I noticed I was crying. My tears were red threads, flowing down me. I have not forgotten, I cried, how to weep for you, my dear child.
When I awoke he was no longer there. Beside me, over the bench arm, hung his tie. I put it in my pocket and felt the material, warm silk. A new beginning, he said. I dragged myself through the park, over the intersection, past Fujimoto’s, home. My parents were standing looking worried in the doorway. There you are. Thank God. We were going to. But I was too tired to respond with anything more than my weary, thoughtless: Tadaima. I am home. My parents, with one voice: Okaerinasai. Welcome back.
94
This very evening. We had an agreement. I kept to it. With the scissors in my right hand, I cut strand by strand, until my head felt light and cool. Once cut, the hair all over the floor was no longer mine, and I thought, it would be the same for him. Once spoken, the burden of the truth would fall away and afterwards he would not be able to explain why he had put it off for so long. Like me he would stand in front of the mirror and find himself strange and familiar at the same time. He would think of me and say to himself: To cut your hair is to admit the truth.