The Briefcase (18 page)

“Quit your stupid joke,” I said, but Sumiyo paid no attention. For the rest of the meal, she continued to bark.
Arf
,
arf
,
arf
. Both our son and I lost our appetites and quickly got up from the table.

The next day Sumiyo was back to her usual self, but our son was infuriated. Mom, say you’re sorry, he demanded persistently. Sumiyo was completely indifferent.

But he’s been reincarnated. Chiro’s inside me now. The casual way in which she said it only intensified his pique. Ultimately, neither one of them would concede to the other. This was the source of the strained relationship between them, and after our son graduated from high school, he decided to go off to a faraway university, and he stayed there and found a job. He rarely visited, even after his own child was born.

I would ask Sumiyo, Don’t you love your grandchild? Don’t you have any desire to see him?

“Not particularly,” she would say.

Then, Sumiyo disappeared.

“SO, THEN, WHERE are we?” I asked, for the umpteenth time. And still, Sensei did not reply.

Perhaps Sumiyo couldn’t bear misfortune. Perhaps she couldn’t stand feeling unhappy.

“Sensei,” I called out. “You cared deeply for Sumiyo, didn’t you?”

Sensei made a harrumphing sound and glared at me. “Whether I cared for her or not, she was a selfish woman.”

“Was she?”

“Selfish, headstrong, and temperamental.”

“They all mean the same thing.”

“Yes, they do.”

The tidal flat was now completely obscured by haze. Where we were, the place where Sensei and I stood, to-go glasses of saké in hand, appeared to be nothing but air, all around us.

“Where are we?”

“This place is, well, here.”

Once in a while, children’s voices would rise up from below. The voices were sluggish and distant.

“We were young, Sumiyo and I.”

“You’re still young.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Sensei, I’ve had enough of these glasses of saké.”

“Shall we go down there and dig for littleneck clams?”

“We can’t eat them raw.”

“We could build a fire and roast them.”

“Roast them?”

“You’re right, it’s too much trouble.”

Something made a rustling sound. It was the camphor tree murmuring outside my window. This was a pleasant time of year. It rained often, but the rain-slicked leaves on the camphor tree gleamed lustrously. Sensei smoked his cigarette somewhat distractedly.

This place is a borderline. Sensei seemed to have moved his lips, but in fact, I couldn’t tell if he had spoken or not.

“How long have you been coming here?” I asked, and Sensei smiled.

“Perhaps since around when I was your age. Somehow I just had to urge to come here.”

Sensei, let ’s go back to Satoru’s place. I don’t want to stay in this strange place anymore. Let’s hurry back, I called out to Sensei. Let’s go back.

But how do we get out of this place? Sensei replied.

A flurry of voices rose up from the tidal flat. The camphor tree outside the window made a rustling murmur. Sensei and I stood there in a daze, to-go glasses of saké in our hands. The leaves of the camphor tree outside my window murmured, Come here.

LATELY, FOR A while now, I haven’t seen Sensei.

And it’s not because we ended up in that strange place together—it’s because I’m avoiding him.

I don’t go anywhere near Satoru’s place. I don’t take evening walks on my days off either. Instead of wandering around the old market in the shopping district, I hurriedly do my shopping at the big supermarket by the station. I don’t go to the used bookstore or the two bookshops in the neighborhood. I figure if I can manage not to do these things, than maybe I won’t run into Sensei. Should be easy.

Easy enough that I could probably manage not to see Sensei for the rest of my life. And if I never saw him again, then maybe I could move on.

“It grows because you plant it.” This was a phrase often repeated by my great-aunt when she was alive. As old as she was, my great-aunt was still more enlightened than my own mother. After her husband, my great-uncle, passed away, she had numerous “boyfriends” who doted on her as she dashed around to dinners and card games and croquet.

“That’s how love is,” she used to say. “If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would a plant—fertilize it, protect it from the
elements—you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn’t true, then it’s best to just let it wither on the vine.”

My great-aunt was fond of wordplay and puns.

If I followed her theory, and didn’t see Sensei for a long time, then maybe my feelings for him would just wither away.

Which was why I’ve been avoiding him lately.

 

 

IF I LEFT my apartment and walked for a while alongside the big main road, then followed a street that led into a residential area before reaching the riverside, if I walked about one hundred meters further, there on the corner was Sensei’s house.

Sensei’s house was not on the riverfront; it was set back about three houses from the water. Up until about thirty years ago, whenever a big typhoon came through, the easily overflowing river would flood the neighborhood up to the houses’ floorboards. During the era of rapid economic growth, there were large-scale river improvements that enclosed the riverbank in concrete. The wall was dug quite deep, which also widened the river.

It used to be a swiftly flowing river. The water moved so fast you could barely tell if it was transparent or muddy. There must have been something inviting about the current, because occasionally people would throw themselves into it. Most of the time, though, instead of drowning they would be carried downstream and then rescued, to their dismay, or so I heard.

On my days off it had been my habit—not necessarily with the intention of running into Sensei—to stroll along the river on my way to the market by the station. However, if I was trying not to see him, then I ought not to stroll at all. This put me at a loss as to how to spend my leisure time.

For a while, I tried taking the train to go see a movie or going downtown to shop for clothes or shoes.

But I simply felt out of sorts. The weekend cinema that smelled like popcorn, the stale air of a brightly lit department store on a summer evening, the chilly bustle at the register of a big bookstore—it was all too much for me. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.

I even tried taking weekend trips on my own. I bought a book,
Suburban Hot Spring Hotels: Travel Without an Itinerary
, and proceeded to visit several of these places “itinerantly.”

Times had changed—nowadays, hotels didn’t seem to consider a woman traveling alone unusual. They briskly escorted me to my room, briskly instructed me where the dining room and the bath were located, and briskly indicated when checkout time was.

I had no other choice, and once I had briskly used the bath, briskly finished my dinner, and briskly taken another bath, there was nothing else to do. I briskly went to bed, briskly left the next morning, and that was all there was to it.

Up until now, I thought I had enjoyed my life alone, somehow.

I quickly lost interest in the “itinerant” travel, and seeing as how I couldn’t take evening walks by the river, I sprawled around my apartment, thinking to myself.

But had I really enjoyed living life on my own until now?

Joyful. Painful. Pleasant. Sweet. Bitter. Sour. Ticklish. Itchy. Cold. Hot. Lukewarm.

Just what kind of life had I lived? I wondered.

While I contemplated these things, I became sleepy. Since I was already sprawled on the floor, my eyes soon grew heavy.

Resting on a cushion I had folded in half, I slipped off into sleep. A gentle breeze drifted in through the screen door and washed over me. Off in the distance, I could hear the hum of cicadas.

But why was I avoiding Sensei? I wondered, on the verge of sleep, the stray thought arriving drowsily, like in a dream. In my dream, I was walking on a dusty white road. Where was Sensei? I looked for him, the cicadas’ call raining down on me from above as I kept walking along the white road.

I couldn’t seem to find Sensei.

That’s right, I had put him away in a box. Now I remembered.

I had wrapped Sensei neatly in a piece of silk cloth with French seams and put him into a big paulownia wood box, which I then tucked away in the closet.

I couldn’t take Sensei back out now. The closet was too deep. And the silk cloth was so nice and cool, Sensei would want to stay wrapped up in it. He would just keep dozing in the dusk inside the box.

I kept stride along the white road while I thought about Sensei, lying in the box with his eyes open. The cicadas bombarded me from above with their maddening drone.

 

 

I SAW TAKASHI Kojima for the first time in a while. He told me that he had been away on a month-long business trip. He had brought me back a heavy metal nutcracker “as a souvenir,” he said.

“Where did you go?” I asked, opening and closing the nutcracker.

“Here and there around the western part of the States,” Kojima replied.

“Here and there?” I smiled as I repeated his words, and Kojima smiled too.

“Towns whose name I’m sure you’ve never heard of, sweetheart.”

I pretended not to notice that he had called me sweetheart.

“What kind of work were you doing in these towns that I haven’t heard of?”

“Oh, well, this and that.”

Kojima’s arms were tanned.

“Looks like you got some American sun,” I said, and Kojima nodded.

“But if you think about it, there is no such thing as American sun or Japanese sun. There’s only one sun, of course.”

I stared distractedly at Kojima’s arms while snapping the
nutcracker open and shut. There’s only one sun, of course. I could imagine my mind spinning off from his words and getting all sentimental, but I stopped myself.

“Lately, you know ...”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been itinerant, this summer.”

“Itinerant?”

“Yes, itinerant, going here and there.”

How genteel, I envy you, Kojima said without hesitation.

Oh, yes, quite genteel, I replied, just as readily.

In the ambient lighting of Bar Maeda, the nutcracker shone dully. Kojima and I each drank two bourbon and sodas. We paid our bill and climbed the stairs. Standing on the top step, lightly but formally, we shook hands. Then, lightly but formally, we kissed.

“You seem like you’re somewhere else,” Kojima said.

“Like I said, I’ve been itinerant lately,” I replied, and Kojima tilted his head.

“What does that mean, sweetheart?”

“The ‘sweetheart’ bit sounds quite odd to me.”

“I don’t think so,” Kojima said.

“I do,” I retorted, and Kojima laughed.

“Summer will be over soon.”

“Yes, soon it will be.”

We shook hands again, formally, and then went our separate ways.

 

 

“TSUKIKO, IT’S BEEN a while,” Satoru said.

It was already past ten o’clock. This was about the time for last call at Satoru’s place. I hadn’t been there in two months.

I was on my way home from a farewell party for my boss, who was retiring. Even drunker than usual, I was feeling uninhibited.
It’s been two months, everything should be all right
, my inebriated mind told me.

“It’s been a long time.” My voice sounded more high-pitched than usual.

“What can I get you?” Satoru asked, looking up from his chopping block.

“Chilled saké. And edamame.”

“All right, then,” Satoru replied, looking down again at the chopping block.

There were no other customers at the counter. The only other people were two couples sitting quietly across from each other at the tables.

I sipped the chilled saké. Satoru was silent. The baseball scores were on the radio broadcast.

“The Giants came from behind, huh,” Satoru muttered, as if to himself. I scanned around the bar. There were a few forgotten umbrellas in the umbrella stand. It hadn’t rained at all for the past several days.

A chirping rose up from the area around my feet. I had thought the noise was part of the sports broadcast, but now it seemed like the sound of an insect.
Chirp
,
chirp
, it called. Then it would stop. Just when you thought it was done, the chirping would start up again.

“There’s an insect . . . ,” I said when Satoru handed me a steaming plate of edamame.

“Must be a cricket. It’s been there since this morning,” Satoru replied.

“You mean here inside the bar?”

“Yeah, it seems like one got in somewhere around the concrete drain.”