The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Of course, I'll have to find a job eventually. I know that, you know that. I cant go on hanging around like this forever. And I will find a job sooner or later. Its just that right now, I don't know what kind of a job I should take. For a while after I quit, I just figured Id take some other law-related job. I do have connections in the field. But now I cant get myself into that mood. The more time that goes by, the less interest I have in law. I feel more and more that its simply not the work for me.

Kumiko looked at me in the mirror. I went on: But knowing what I don't want to do doesn't help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don't have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That's my problem now. I cant find the image.

So, then, she said, putting her towel down and turning to face me, if you're tired of law, don't do it anymore. Just forget about the bar exam. Don't get all worked up about finding a job. If you cant find the image, wait until it forms by itself. Whats wrong with that?

I nodded. I just wanted to make sure I had explained to you exactly how I felt.

Good, she said.

I went to the kitchen and washed my glass. She came in from the bathroom and sat at the kitchen table.

Guess who called me this afternoon, she said. My brother. Oh? Hes thinking of running for office. In fact, he's just about decided to do it. Running for office?! This came as such a shock to me, I could hardly speak for a moment. You mean ... for the Diet? That's right. They're asking him to run for my uncles seat in Niigata. I thought it was all set for your uncles son to succeed him. He was going to resign his directorship at Dentsu or something and go back to Niigata. She started cleaning her ears with a cotton swab. That was the plan, but my cousin doesn't want to do it. Hes got his family in Tokyo, and he enjoys his work. Hes not ready to give up such an important post with the worlds largest advertising firm and move back to the wilds of Niigata just to become a Diet member. The main opposition is from his wife. She doesn't want him sacrificing the family to run for office.

The elder brother of Kumiko's father had spent four or five terms in the Lower House, representing that electoral district in Niigata. While not exactly a heavyweight, he had compiled a fairly impressive record, rising at one point to a minor cabinet post. Now, however, advanced age and heart disease would make it impossible for him to enter the next election, which meant that someone would have to succeed to his constituency. This uncle had two sons, but the elder had never intended to go into politics, and so the younger was the obvious choice.

Now the people in the district are dying to have my brother run. They want somebody young and smart and energetic. Somebody who can serve for several terms, with the talent to become a major power in the central government. My brother has the name recognition, hell attract the young vote: he's perfect. True, he cant schmooze with the locals, but the support organization is strong, and they'll take care of that. Plus, if he wants to go on living in Tokyo, thats no problem. All he has to do is show up for the election.

I had trouble picturing Noboru Wataya as a Diet member. What do you think of all this? I asked.

Hes got nothing to do with me. He can become a Diet member or an astronaut, for all I care.

But why did he make a point of coming to you for advice? Don't be ridiculous, she said, with a dry voice. He wasn't asking my advice. You know he'd never do that. He was just keeping me informed. As a member of the family. I see, I said. Still, if he's going to run for the Diet, wont it be a problem that he's divorced and single? I wonder, said Kumiko. I don't know anything about politics or elections or anything.

They just don't interest me. But anyway, I'm pretty sure hell never get married again. To anybody. He should never have gotten married in the first place. That's not what he wants out of life. Hes after something else, something completely different from what you or I want. I know that for sure.

Oh, really?

Kumiko wrapped two used cotton swabs in a tissue and threw them in the wastebasket. Then she raised her face and looked straight at me. I once saw him masturbating. I opened a door, and there he was.

So what? Everybody masturbates, I said.

No, you don't understand, she said. Then she sighed. It happened maybe two years after my sister died. He was probably in college, and I was something like a third grader. My mother had wavered between getting rid of my sisters things and putting them away, and in the end she decided to keep them, thinking I might wear them when I got older. She had put them in a carton in a closet. My brother had taken them out and was smelling them and doing it. I kept silent.

I was just a little girl then. I didn't know anything about sex. I really didn't know what he was doing, but I could tell that it was something twisted, something I wasn't supposed to see, something much deeper than,it appeared on the surface. Kumiko shook her head.

Does Noboru Wataya know you saw him?

Of course. We looked right into each others eyes. I nodded.

And how about your sisters clothes? I asked. Did you wear them when you got bigger? No way, she said.

So you think he was in love with your sister? I wonder, said Kumiko. I'm not even sure he had a sexual interest in her, but he certainly had something, and I suspect he's never been able to get away from that something. That's what I mean when I say he should never have gotten married in the first place.

Kumiko fell silent. For a long time, neither of us said anything. Then she spoke first. In that sense, I think he may have some serious psychological problems. Of course, we all have psychological problems to some extent, but his are a lot worse than whatever you or I might have. They're a lot deeper and more persistent. And he has no intention of letting these scars or weaknesses or whatever they are be seen by anybody else. Ever. Do you understand what I'm saying? This election coming up: it worries me.

Worries you? Hows that?

I don't know. It just does, she said. Anyhow, I'm tired. I cant think anymore today.

Lets go to bed.

Brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I studied my face in the mirror. For over two months now, since quitting my job, I had rarely entered the outside world. I had been moving back and forth between the neighborhood shops, the ward pool, and this house. Aside from the Ginza and that hotel in Shinagawa, the farthest point I had traveled from home was the cleaners by the station. And in all that time, I had hardly seen anyone. Aside from Kumiko, the only people I could be said to have seen in two months were Malta and Kano and May Kasahara. It was a narrow world, a world that was standing still. But the narrower it became, and the more it betook of stillness, the more this world that enveloped me seemed to overflow with things and people that could only be called strange. They had been there all the while, it seemed, waiting in the shadows for me to stop moving. And every time the wind-up bird came to my yard to wind its spring, the world descended more deeply into chaos.

I rinsed my mouth and went on looking at my face for a time.

I cant find the image, I said to myself. I'm thirty, I'm standing still, and I cant find the image.

When I went from the bathroom to the bedroom, Kumiko was asleep.

11 Enter Lieutenant Mamiya What Came from the Warm Mud Eau de Cologne

Three days later, Tokutaro Mamiya called. At seven-thirty in the morning. I was eating breakfast with Kumiko at the time.