then, when you said that. In your suit. Your tie was crooked. Dark patches at your armpits. I sat on Tsuyoshi’s bed and felt bitter enmity towards you. For six long months I struggled not to feel it, not when you came home drunk, not when you, in your drunken state, complained that your life was a dead end. But then it consumed me. Finally. It was the mournful longing to join him, on the other side. Friendly Death. I wanted him. In the midst of the enmity he appeared to me as a friend who would welcome me fondly, enfold me in his heart. Blessed night. I wanted to count sheep until the last one jumped over the fence. But. What do you think? What stopped me? Listen carefully! The simple thought that I have to get up at six o’clock and prepare your bento. Absurd. Isn’t it? An unparalleled absurdity. The thought that you need me. Me, who one day, today, will say to you: I see through you and your inability. Behind all your inability I see a person who suffers. This was the thought that saved me. All at once I saw you, how you travel to work and back, work and back, and all at once I saw that you’re rolling a rock, I’ll roll it with you. On and on. We’re rolling together up a steep mountain path.
92
Three rice balls. Tempura. Seaweed salad.
If Tsuyoshi were alive he would be thirty-one years old. A good age. He separated the chopsticks. An age when you can look back, and forward too. Would you like some?
I nodded.
Here, take a rice ball. Is it good?
Yes. It’s the best rice ball I’ve ever tasted.
He laughed, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Invisible tears. I wish I could sit with him like this and eat Kyōko’s bento together. I mean. Like with you. Don’t you think? He indicated with the chopsticks in one direction then another. In some way they are all here in the park. The man there with the young woman on his arm. That’s Hashimoto. The old woman with the walking stick who is limping behind them: His wife. The one with the book over there, pen in his mouth, is Kumamoto. In the shade of the tree, pulling her skirt over her knee: Yukiko. The man sitting by the fountain feeding the pigeons. He could be the teacher. All of them here. Under this sky. You only have to look.
If that’s so, I wanted to say, then I would like to be your son. But I didn’t say it. Instead I asked him a favor. There is something, I began.
What is it?
There is something you could do for me.
Well, tell me.
Please tell your wife the truth, this very evening, that you have lost your job. You owe her that. After all that has happened, all that has not happened.
I promise you, I will do it. And you, you promise me that you’ll cut your hair short, this very evening. I’ve waited long enough, not saying it, you look dreadful with that shaggy mane.
I laughed with him: Good, it’s agreed.
On Monday we won’t recognize each other.
Will you come?
Yes, of course.
And then?
A new beginning.
93
That afternoon I was the one who fell asleep. I fell asleep and dreamed: I was in my room. Cold sweat on my hands. I lay stretched out on my bed, a corpse. With all my strength I tried to move. Then I heard Father’s voice: Nothing to be done. The boy is dead. I wanted to call out: No, I’m alive! But I had no mouth. Above me was a mirror. I saw I had neither mouth nor eyes. With eyes I didn’t have, I saw that my face was a white wall. Mother’s voice: It’s too bad, about him. He never found his face. At this moment the curtains opened. A harsh light camethrough the window and fell on the white wall, which was me, and suddenly in the mirror I saw the wall crumble, and then the four walls of my room crumbled away too. Wide open space all around me. Someone touched me. I ran after him. As I ran I got back my mouth and eyes. A stinging on my cheeks. I noticed I was crying. My tears were red threads, flowing down me. I have not forgotten, I cried, how to weep for you, my dear child.
When I awoke he was no longer there.
92
Three rice balls. Tempura. Seaweed salad.
If Tsuyoshi were alive he would be thirty-one years old. A good age. He separated the chopsticks. An age when you can look back, and forward too. Would you like some?
I nodded.
Here, take a rice ball. Is it good?
Yes. It’s the best rice ball I’ve ever tasted.
He laughed, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Invisible tears. I wish I could sit with him like this and eat Kyōko’s bento together. I mean. Like with you. Don’t you think? He indicated with the chopsticks in one direction then another. In some way they are all here in the park. The man there with the young woman on his arm. That’s Hashimoto. The old woman with the walking stick who is limping behind them: His wife. The one with the book over there, pen in his mouth, is Kumamoto. In the shade of the tree, pulling her skirt over her knee: Yukiko. The man sitting by the fountain feeding the pigeons. He could be the teacher. All of them here. Under this sky. You only have to look.
If that’s so, I wanted to say, then I would like to be your son. But I didn’t say it. Instead I asked him a favor. There is something, I began.
What is it?
There is something you could do for me.
Well, tell me.
Please tell your wife the truth, this very evening, that you have lost your job. You owe her that. After all that has happened, all that has not happened.
I promise you, I will do it. And you, you promise me that you’ll cut your hair short, this very evening. I’ve waited long enough, not saying it, you look dreadful with that shaggy mane.
I laughed with him: Good, it’s agreed.
On Monday we won’t recognize each other.
Will you come?
Yes, of course.
And then?
A new beginning.
93
That afternoon I was the one who fell asleep. I fell asleep and dreamed: I was in my room. Cold sweat on my hands. I lay stretched out on my bed, a corpse. With all my strength I tried to move. Then I heard Father’s voice: Nothing to be done. The boy is dead. I wanted to call out: No, I’m alive! But I had no mouth. Above me was a mirror. I saw I had neither mouth nor eyes. With eyes I didn’t have, I saw that my face was a white wall. Mother’s voice: It’s too bad, about him. He never found his face. At this moment the curtains opened. A harsh light camethrough the window and fell on the white wall, which was me, and suddenly in the mirror I saw the wall crumble, and then the four walls of my room crumbled away too. Wide open space all around me. Someone touched me. I ran after him. As I ran I got back my mouth and eyes. A stinging on my cheeks. I noticed I was crying. My tears were red threads, flowing down me. I have not forgotten, I cried, how to weep for you, my dear child.
When I awoke he was no longer there.
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