We always sat across from each other at the same table in the same restaurant, talking. She was a regular there, and of course she always picked up the tab. The back part of the restaurant was divided into private compartments, so that the conversation at any one table could not be heard at another. There was only one seating per evening, which meant that we could talk at our leisure, right up to closing time, without interference from anyone-including the waiters, who approached the table only to bring or clear a dish. She would always order a bottle of Burgundy of one particular vintage and always leave half the bottle unconsumed.
A bird that winds a spring? I asked, looking up from my food.
A bird that winds a spring? said Nutmeg, repeating the words exactly as I had said them, then curling her lips just a little. I don't understand what you're saying. What are you talking about?
Didn't you just say something about a bird that winds a spring?
She shook her head slowly. Hmm. Now I cant remember. I don't think I said anything about a bird.
I could see it was hopeless. She always told her stories like this. I didn't ask her about the mark, either.
So you were born in Manchuria, then? I asked.
She shook her head again. I was born in Yokohama. My parents took me to Manchuria when I was three. My father was teaching at a school of veterinary medicine, but when the Hsinching city administrators wanted someone sent over from Japan as chief veterinarian for the new zoo they were going to build, he volunteered for the job. My mother didn't want to abandon the settled life they had in Japan and go off to the ends of the earth, but my father insisted. Maybe he wanted to test himself in someplace bigger and more open than Japan. I was so young, it didn't matter where I was, but I really enjoyed living at the zoo. It was a wonderful life. My father always smelled like the animals. All the different animal smells would mix together into one, and it would be a little different each day, like changing the blend of ingredients in a perfume. Id climb up onto his lap when he came home and make him sit still while I smelled him.
But then the war took a bad turn, and we were in danger, so my father decided to send my mother and me back to Japan before it was too late. We went with a lot of other people, taking the train from Hsinching to Korea, where a special boat was waiting for us. My father stayed behind in Hsinching. The last I ever saw him, he was standing in the station, waving to us. I stuck my head out the window and watched him growing smaller and smaller until he disappeared into the crowd on the platform. No one knows what happened to him after that. I think he must have been taken prisoner by the Soviets and sent to Siberia to do forced labor and, like so many others, died over there. Hes probably buried in some cold, lonely patch of earth without anything to mark his grave.
I still remember everything about the Hsinching zoo in perfect detail. I can bring it all back inside my head-every pathway, every animal. We lived in the chief veterinarians official residence, inside the grounds. All the zoo workers knew me, and they let me go anywhere I wanted- even on holidays, when the zoo was closed.
Nutmeg closed her eyes to bring back the scene inside her mind. I waited, without speaking, for her to continue her story.
Still, though, I cant be sure if the zoo as I recall it was really like that. How can I put it? I sometimes feel that its too vivid, if you know what I mean. And when I start having thoughts like this, the more I think about it, the less I can tell how much of the vividness is real and how much of it my imagination has invented. I feel as if I've wandered into a labyrinth. Has that ever happened to you?
It had not. Do you know if the zoo is still there in Hsinching? I asked.
I wonder, said Nutmeg, touching the end of her earring. I heard that the place was closed up after the war, but I have no idea if its still closed.
For a very long time, Nutmeg Akasaka was the only person in the world that I could talk to. We would meet once or twice a week and talk to each other across the table at the restaurant. After we had met several times like that, I discovered that she was an extremely accomplished listener. She was quick on the uptake, and she knew how to direct the flow of the story by means of skillfully inserted questions and responses.
So as to avoid upsetting her in any way, I always took great care whenever we met to see that my outfit was neat and clean and well chosen. I would put on a shirt fresh from the cleaners and choose the tie that best matched it in color. My shoes were always shined and spotless. The first thing she would do when she saw me was examine me top to bottom, with the eyes of a chef choosing vegetables. If anything displeased her, she would take me straight to a boutique and buy me the proper article of clothing. If possible, she would have me change into it then and there. When it came to clothing, she would accept nothing less than perfection.
As a result, my closet began to fill up almost before I knew it. Slowly but steadily, new suits, new jackets, and new shirts were invading the territory that had once been occupied by Kumiko's skirts and dresses. Before long, the closet was becoming cramped, and so I folded Kumiko's things, packed them in cartons with mothballs, and put them in a storage area. If she ever came back, I knew, she would have to wonder what in the world had happened in her absence.
I took a long time to explain about Kumiko to Nutmeg, little by little- that I had to save her and bring her back here. She put her elbow on the table, propping her chin in her hand, and looked at me for a while.
So where is it that you're going to save Kumiko from? Does the place have a name or something?
I searched for the words in space. But they were not there in space. Neither were they underground. Someplace far away, I said.
Nutmeg smiled. Its kind of like The Magic Flute. You know: Mozart. Using a magic flute and magic bells, they have to save a princess who's being held captive in a faraway castle. I love that opera. I don't know how many times I've seen it. I know the lines by heart: I'm the birdcatcher, Papageno, known throughout the land. Ever seen it?
I shook my head. I had never seen it.
In the opera, the prince and the birdcatcher are led to the castle by three children riding on a cloud. But whats really happening is a battle between the land of day and the land of night. The land of night is trying to recapture the princess from the land of day. Midway through the opera, the heroes cant tell any longer which side is right- who is being held captive and who is not. Of course, at the end, the prince gets the princess, Papageno gets Papagena, and the villains fall into hell. Nutmeg ran her finger along the rim of her glass. Anyhow, at this point you don't have a birdcatcher or a magic flute or bells.
But I do have a well, I said.
Whenever I grew tired from talking or I was unable to go on telling my story because I lost track of the words I needed, Nutmeg would give me a rest by talking about her own early life, and her stories turned out to be far more lengthy and convoluted than mine. And also, unlike me, she would impose no order on her stories but would leap from topic to topic as her feelings dictated. Without explanation, she would reverse chronological order or suddenly introduce as a major character someone she had never mentioned to me before. In order to know to which period of her life the fragment belonged that she was presently narrating, it was necessary to make careful deductions, though no amount of deduction could work in some cases. She would narrate events she had witnessed with her own eyes, as well as events that she had never witnessed.
They killed the leopards. They killed the wolves. They killed the bears. Shooting the bears took the most time. Even after the two gigantic animals had taken dozens of rifle slugs, they continued to crash against the bars of their cage, roaring at the men and slobbering, fangs bared. Unlike the cats, who were more willing to accept their fate (or who at least appeared to accept it), the bears seemed unable to comprehend the fact that they were being killed. Possibly for that reason, it took them far longer than was necessary to reach a final parting with that temporary condition known as life. When the soldiers finally succeeded in extinguishing all signs of life in the bears, they were so exhausted they were ready to collapse on the spot. The lieutenant reset his pistols safety catch and used his hat to wipe the sweat dripping down his brow. In the deep silence that followed the killing, several of the soldiers seemed to be trying to mask their sense of shame by spitting loudly on the ground. Spent shells were scattered about their feet like so many cigarette butts. Their ears still rang with the crackling of their rifles. The young soldier who would be beaten to death by a Soviet soldier seventeen months later in a coal mine near Irkutsk took several deep breaths in succession, averting his gaze from the bears corpses. He was engaged in a fierce struggle to force back the nausea that had worked its way up to his throat.