“Where is it coming from?” the old man asked before I could say anything. We were both clearly puzzled.
“The box is playing the song,” said R.
“But it’s just a box. No one’s touching it, and nothing’s moving. How can that be? Is it a trick of some kind?” I asked. R smiled but said nothing more.
Before long the song began to slow and the notes seemed to blur and tumble hesitatingly one after the other. The old man cocked his head and peeked anxiously into the mirror. Suddenly, a final note sounded in midtune, and silence returned to the hidden room.
“Is it broken?” the old man murmured, clearly upset.
“No, not at all,” said R. He picked up the box and gave three turns to a key attached to the bottom. No sooner had he done so than the music resumed, louder and more cheerful than ever.
“Oh!” the two of us cried together.
“It’s like magic!” added the old man. “I don’t know how I can accept a gift like this.” He reached out toward the box several times only to drop his hands to his knees again, as if afraid he might destroy the magic by touching it.
“It’s not really magic,” R said. “It’s an orugōru.”
“Oru…”
“…gōru.”
The old man and I divided the word between us.
“That’s right.”
“What a beautiful word.”
“Like the name of a rare animal or flower,” said the old man.
We whispered it to ourselves again and again in order to commit it to memory.
“It’s a music box. It plays music all by itself thanks to an internal mechanism. You don’t remember? Even when you’re looking at one? You probably had a few here in this house, somewhere on a shelf or in a drawer. From time to time, when the thought occurred, you would have picked it up and wound the mechanism, to hear a familiar old tune.”
I desperately wanted to be able to tell R that I remembered, but no matter how hard I concentrated, the object sitting before me did not trigger a single memory. “So this is something that has already disappeared?” asked the old man.
“That’s right,” R replied. “A very long time ago. I’m not quite sure when I realized that the disappearances weren’t affecting me, but I think it must have been about the time the orugōru disappeared. I told no one. I knew instinctively that I had to keep silent. But that was also when I decided to begin hiding as many of the objects that disappeared as I could. It was impossible for me to simply discard them the way everyone else did. Touching them became a way of confirming that I was still whole. This box was the first thing I ever hid. I unraveled a seam in the bottom of my gym bag and sewed the box inside.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose.
“Which is why I can’t possibly accept something so precious.”
“Not at all. The best gift I can give you is one of the things I’ve been hiding. Of course I know something so insignificant can never make up for all the risks you’ve taken on my behalf. But I’ll be happy if I can help delay or stop this decay in your hearts even in some small way. I’m not sure how to do that, but I think there might be some benefit from holding these forgotten objects in your hands, feeling their weight, smelling them, listening to them.”
R turned the box over and wound the key. The melody started again from the beginning. I could see the knot of the old man’s necktie and my left ear reflected in the mirror.
I looked over at R. “So you really think our hearts are decaying?”
“I don’t know whether that’s the right word, but I do know that you’re changing, and not in a way that can be easily reversed or undone. It seems to be leading to an end that frightens me a great deal.” As he spoke, he swiveled the handle of his teacup back and forth. The old man continued to stare at the music box.
“An end,” I murmured to myself. It was not as though I had never thought about this. End… conclusion… limit—how many times had I tried to imagine where I was headed, using words like these? But I’d never managed to get very far. It was impossible to consider the problem for very long, before my senses froze and I felt myself suffocating. Nor was it helpful to talk about this with the old man, since he simply repeated over and over that everything would be all right.
“It feels terribly odd to have something that has disappeared right here before my eyes,” I said. “After all, this is something that supposedly no longer exists. Yet here we are looking at this box and listening to the music and pronouncing the name… o… ru… gō… ru. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“Not strange at all. The box exists without any doubt and it’s right in front of us. The music continues to play, before the disappearance and after. It plays on faithfully, as long as the key is wound. That’s its role, now and forever. The only thing that’s different is the hearts of those who once heard it.”
“I understand,” I said. “It’s not the box’s fault that it disappeared. But what can we do? It’s disturbing to see things that have disappeared, like tossing something hard and thorny into a peaceful pond. It sets up ripples, stirs up a whirlpool below, throws up mud from the bottom. So we have no choice, really, but to burn them or bury them or send them floating down the river, anything to push them as far away as possible.”
“Is the music from the box that painful?” R asked, bending over and crossing his hands on his knees.
“No, not at all. I don’t think so at all,” the old man hurried to put in.
“In any case, I suspect the feeling would go away once you got used to it,” said R. “In fact, the sound of a music box is particularly soothing. Which is why you should wind it up once a day, in the quietest place on the boat, where no one is likely to hear. I’m sure you’ll be able to get the effect of the sound before long. Nothing would make me happier,” he added, lowering his forehead to his folded hands.
“Of course!” said the old man. “I’ll be very careful with it. I’ll put it in the cupboard in the bathroom where I keep the tooth powder and hair tonic and soap, so there’ll be nothing suspicious about having a box like this mixed in, and then I’ll open it in the morning while I’m shaving with this beautiful set you’ve given me and in the evening when I’m brushing my teeth. How elegant I’ll feel, listening to music while I’m doing my little rituals, and how lucky I feel today, being here with you and celebrating a birthday at my age.”
His face was so covered in wrinkles that it was impossible to tell from his expression whether he was laughing or crying. I pressed my hand against his back.
“It was a wonderful party,” I said.
“Indeed it was,” said R. “The best birthday party I can remember.” He reached out to slide the music box toward the old man. The tune danced around us, echoing off the walls of the room. Using both hands, the old man gently closed the lid, as if determined to show how terrible it would be to break it. The hinges creaked and the music died.
At that very instant, the front doorbell gave a shrill ring.
Chapter 17
I froze, instinctively grabbing the old man’s arm. He held the music box on his lap with one hand, but the other arm he put around my shoulders. R had not flinched, but his eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling.