Vaseline Buddha (16 page)

I don't feel much of an interest in majestic historical relics that show traces of time, or beautiful and impressive natural objects. Rarely did a place or a structure I actually saw surpass what I saw on television or in a photograph. I've almost never been moved by a place or a structure the way you should be moved. The Heidelberg Castle, which looked picturesque in a photograph, moved me so little, if at all, when I actually went there one summer that I couldn't believe my eyes—at least, I was much less moved by the castle than I was by the sight of a black girl spinning around to extricate herself from her long scarf as her mother held on to the end—and the same went true for the old Hindu ruins in an Asian jungle that was very moving. The reason why a certain place or structure looked all right on television or in a photograph was because I could contemplate some interesting thoughts I had while looking at them.

I left behind the Heidelberg Castle and went to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, another famous old castle in Germany, and I liked it much more when I hadn't actually seen it, shrouded in mist and surrounded by Bavarian coniferous forests, and standing tall at the top of a steep mountain in a fortress-like atmosphere. And that was because I left the mist-shrouded castle after learning some facts surrounding the castle, such as that the man who built the castle was Ludwig II, who was fascinated by Wagner and sponsored him, and identified himself with the mythical German heroes of Wagner operas and had himself painted to look like them, and was so handsome that he looked like a hero, and liked swans so much that he had all the door handles decorated with a swan motif, and liked to go around in the nude, and died in a lake near the castle, although it's unclear whether the death was a suicide or a homicide.

I was able to swim for a little while in the lake below the Neuschwanstein Castle, whose water was so cold that it would be difficult to dip your foot in it even in the middle of summer, and then take a nap while drying off, which was an experience that more than made up for the disappointment at the Heidelberg Castle. And while sleeping, I had a dream that I had joined a sort of guerilla movement and was in a fierce battle against an unknown enemy in the far off Amazonian jungle in Bolivia, but there was something that gave me a harder time than fighting in the jungle, which was none other than fighting back the diarrhea that was about to explode, and in the end I woke up and actually relieved myself with urgency in the forest. I could see why I had a dream about getting diarrhea, but not why I had a dream set in the Amazonian jungle in Bolivia, when I was at a lake surrounded by the forest near the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Many times I've been to a certain place where I couldn't see anything because it was shrouded in mist, and each time I felt very lucky on the whole. For in some places with thick mist, I didn't need anything, just the mist.

One winter when I went to Venice and arrived at St. Mark's Square the mist was so thick that, to exaggerate a bit, I couldn't even see the bag I was carrying, and, to exaggerate a bit more, I couldn't even see my hand that was holding the bag, and to exaggerate some more, I couldn't even see myself—a voice inside
me says that a story like this should be exaggerated, and then exaggerated some more, but I'm ignoring it now—and in the end, the only part I saw of St. Mark's Basilica, facing the square, was the entrance. Nevertheless, I saw a blue balloon in the air, tied to a string in the hand of a child being led out of the entrance by his mother, which made quite an impression on me. I could have taken a look inside the basilica but there were too many people, and in the end, I stood in St. Mark's Square, which Napoleon called the finest drawing room in Europe, and saw the belfry next to the basilica, which was rebuilt after it collapsed in the early twentieth century, although I didn't see a spire which I may have been able to see if I climbed up the steep staircase and if there was a spire, although I don't know if there was a spire on the basilica, and saw the bottom of the belfry as I recalled a story surrounding the belfry, about how a cat was crushed to death when the belfry collapsed, and, suddenly, I recalled a thought I once had, without any grounds, a thought that seemed even more plausible because it was without any grounds, that cats may have been the first victims of the French Revolution, and that there must have been many other revolutions and wars whose first victims were cats or other animals.

And in the Venetian mist, which offered almost nothing of a view, I suddenly became curious as to what happened to the animals in zoos around the world in the midst of confusion such as revolutions or wars. I wondered if the cages were bombed or destroyed, and if some animals died and others survived and ran out to the streets, exposing themselves to the strange wild world of humans in which they couldn't receive any kind of protection, and if some of them went mad, unable to adapt to the strange
environment, and starved to death while roaming the streets like a madman. I wondered if among them was a lion that, momentarily blinded by the headlights of an oncoming car, leapt in front of the car, and a gorilla that got on a subway train, and a rhinoceros that ran across a bridge and jumped over the guardrail, and a zebra that entered a basement pub that was still open even amid the confusion, and not knowing what to do among the startled people, ended up sitting on a stool, and a horse that accompanied the zebra into the pub, for which someone poured a beer, recalling that horses liked beer, and an ostrich that went into a restroom in a restaurant, frightening a woman freshening her makeup after doing her business, and a badger that climbed up the stairs in a building that was half destroyed through bombing, and a stork that came flying into someone's kitchen and sat on the table, and a pelican that hatched an egg in a bedroom whose owner had fled. (Surreal situations that could take place when war actually broke out were something I liked to imagine, because they could cause rifts in my everyday perceptual experience, although they didn't make me want to experience war.)

The fate of zoo animals in the midst of confusion was a somewhat strange thing to think about in mist-shrouded Venice, which is why it struck my fancy, and I wondered if there was a zoo in Venice, the city of water, and I thought that it might be nice to go to the zoo, if there was one, and listen to the cries of the animals that couldn't be seen in the mist, but I wanted to keep the thought as only a thought (I still wonder if there's an ordinary zoo in Venice, or just huge aquariums).

And while having a very leisurely meal at a restaurant in mist-shrouded St. Mark's Square, and listening to the sound of the bell from the belfry of the basilica, which seemed to break everything into very little pieces, I became lost in some rambling thoughts that come to my mind when I'm having a very leisurely meal, and I suddenly wondered if there was a trampoline in a park or a playground in Venice, with children jumping up and down on it in a thick mist, and thought it would be nice if there were such children. If you jumped on a trampoline in a mist in which you couldn't see anything, you could feel as if you were jumping up and down in a cloud. Perhaps I was led to think such a thought because I saw a blue balloon, tied to a string in the hand of a child being led out of St. Mark's Basilica by his mother, floating in the air just before that. I thought it would be nice to jump ropes in such a thick mist and tried to picture myself jumping ropes without much success.

After the meal, I sat listening for a little while to the cooing of pigeons that moved like phantoms, like the ghosts of some animals in the mist, and then left Venice earlier than I'd planned, which strangely made me feel that I could have a special feeling for the city, by not experiencing anything more there. I actually stayed in Venice for no more than a few hours, so it seemed that I saw or felt something that I couldn't see or feel when I saw the city of water with plenty of time on my hands. At least by doing so I could think, in mist-shrouded Venice, about what kind of a fate the zoo animals met amid confusion, and about jumping on a trampoline in a mist, and perhaps I could tell someone about it, and enjoy seeing him misunderstand, or only partially understand, what I was saying.

In the end, all I did in Venice was imagine, in a mist-shrouded square, what happened to zoo animals amid confusion, and see a blue balloon—a blue balloon in a mist is not a sight to be easily seen anywhere—tied to a string in the hand of a child being led by his mother, and I asked myself if I could say that I'd been to Venice, with that, and as soon as I asked, I answered that I could. I went to Venice again later, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did on my first visit. I went to St. Mark's Square again, but I didn't enter the basilica. Nevertheless, I checked to see that St. Mark's Basilica was in the baroque style, and didn't have the spire of a gothic basilica I pictured in my mind. And I saw many balloons in the hands of children in the square, but they were just ordinary children's balloons. Nevertheless, I learned that at one time in Venice, masked balls were so popular that the people of Venice went around wearing masks for half the year. In the end, masked balls were banned by law due to all the scandalous things people did hiding behind masks, but it was pleasant to imagine people wearing masks, wandering in the mist like ghosts, in the city of mist which itself was wearing a mask.

To add to the feeling of being lost and wandering in my own story, I recall memories of places I've been to and hover above them like a phantom. A memory from Paris comes to the phantom's mind.

At the time, I was spending most of my time doing nothing in a hotel room from which the top of the Eiffel Tower, which could be seen from almost anywhere in downtown Paris, could be seen through a window. I'd wanted a room as high up as possible, but ended up getting a room on the middle floor. In that room, I had
a quarrel, more violent than necessary, with the woman I was traveling with at the time, for a reason that's unclear now, no, a reason that was unclear even then, a reason that seemed absurd when you thought about it for a moment, and much too absurd when you thought about it for a while—the reason, it seemed, could be found out if I tried to find it out, but I wanted to remain in ignorance if possible, and wanted to feign ignorance. We stayed cooped up in that room for two days in a poor state, utterly exhausted. I wanted to get out of there, but it seemed that I couldn't find the right moment. I suggested that she wash herself, and she did so without a fuss. I made the suggestion because I had a sudden picture of her shampooing her hair, which was because I'd stepped out for a moment that day and bought a balsamic shampoo at a shop, and the reason why I bought the shampoo was because of its brand name, which I've now forgotten. She went to the bathroom to wash herself, and in the meantime, I thought it might be well to leave while she was in the shower shampooing her hair, and packed my things. And I opened the bathroom door and quietly watched her naked body in the shower for a moment, then left the hotel. That was the last I saw of her, and how I wanted to remember her, and how I do remember her, and so she remains a good memory for me.

Having checked into another hotel, I had to deal with a sense of betrayal about the woman who must be dealing with a sense of betrayal upon finding me gone while drying her hair after a shower, so I took out from my coat pocket the small Eiffel Tower replica she'd bought for me at a shop the day before, made up of pieces of wood glued together, and broke it into small pieces, put the
pieces back in my pocket, and went outside with a heavy heart, and it happened to be raining, which made my heart even heavier, so I went to a nearby restaurant with an even heavier heart. At the restaurant I ordered something that couldn't really be identified, which contained a lot of boiled carrots, which I hate, and I ate halfheartedly, absorbed in picking out the pieces of carrot without hiding my hostility toward boiled carrots, and arranged the pieces into the word “NO,” but I wasn't sure what I was saying no to.

When I went out of the restaurant I was still hungry, but it seemed that I had no emotion left in me that should be dealt with after breaking up with a woman. Nevertheless, I threw away the Eiffel Tower replica in my pocket piece by piece here and there as I walked, and hoped that the woman I'd broken up with would live a difficult life that suited her.

I returned to the hotel after wandering around the streets and felt the surge of emotions that come over you when you're alone in a room just after a breakup, and thought that for a while now, mostly when I was suddenly awake, I'd be feeling an extreme sorrow weighing down upon me, though it came from far away, and then the sorrow would gradually fade away, which seemed to be the sad thing about breakups. And I tried to think about a more real problem—for instance, I didn't have very much money left, and had to think about the problem of getting home—but nothing seemed real. Outside, where it was raining, a fierce wind was blowing erratically, and it seemed that the sound of the wind knocking at the window was mocking and picking on every thought I had, my very being. I felt an urge to go home and sit on my sofa in the living room, caressing the fabric sofa with my hand to savor being home, and sit vacantly, feeling the texture of the sofa, as I do sometimes after returning from a trip.

Nevertheless, amid a vague feeling of loneliness and frustration, which gently washed over me, I became seized with a strange feeling, and made a somewhat strange resolve that I wouldn't even go near the Eiffel Tower, which I couldn't help but see out the window—the Eiffel Tower could be seen from there as well—as if by doing so I could keep myself from falling even deeper into the distress I was in. I didn't have anything against the Eiffel Tower, a massive steel-frame structure. The Eiffel Tower was a public historical heritage that was much too famous, and it was difficult to have personal feelings about it, just as it was difficult to have personal feelings about the Egyptian sphinx. No, to be precise, you could have personal feelings about them somehow, in some way, it was quite possible—just as it was possible to have personal feelings about certain things in your house, for instance, a damaged chair with a broken leg, a chipped kitchen knife, or your sock, which you discovered had a hole in it—but it was difficult to express those feelings.