Beside me, over the bench arm, hung his tie. I put it in my pocket and felt the material, warm silk. A new beginning, he said. I dragged myself through the park, over the intersection, past Fujimoto’s, home. My parents were standing looking worried in the doorway. There you are. Thank God. We were going to. But I was too tired to respond with anything more than my weary, thoughtless: Tadaima. I am home. My parents, with one voice: Okaerinasai. Welcome back.
94
This very evening. We had an agreement. I kept to it. With the scissors in my right hand, I cut strand by strand, until my head felt light and cool. Once cut, the hair all over the floor was no longer mine, and I thought, it would be the same for him. Once spoken, the burden of the truth would fall away and afterwards he would not be able to explain why he had put it off for so long. Like me he would stand in front of the mirror and find himself strange and familiar at the same time. He would think of me and say to himself: To cut your hair is to admit the truth.
Yet the familiar prevailed. The question: How should it continue? Our friendship was the larger space into whichI had stepped. I decorated its walls with pictures of the people we described to each other, and the thought that I might have to leave it, through a door leading I knew not where, to expose myself to the unknown, that thought hovered dangerously. I almost hoped he would postpone his confession again, turn up on Monday and imply silently that he had failed. It was a mean hope. I pushed it away. I spent the whole weekend pushing it into a corner. On Sunday evening there was only the feeble wish that I had taken the chance to tell him I wished I were his son.
95
Nine o’clock. That must be him. Short-sleeved shirt, Hawaiian pattern. He came towards me, his face strangely youthful. No, a mistake, it wasn’t him. That one there behind him though. Shoulders bent forward. Stealthy walk, as if he wanted to avoid someone. Yes, that was him. Then: No. And again: Yes. Then: No, it’s not. And: Wrong again. How could it be? Surely something must have detained him. A delay. Surely. He would be here any moment now. The figure by the bushes. Was that a man? Or a woman? Or a child? What if he? I waited. Eyes scanning. Surely it was a misunderstanding. So many people, they came and went. I hadn’t noticed them before. What if something happened to him? With every false sighting I discovered a reason for his absence. Once it was a headache, then it was the death of a distant relative, a summer flu, someone urgently needed his help. With the tie grasped between my two fingers I waited, it was no longer clear for whom.
Midday. In the park, bentos were being unpacked. Sitting scattered in little groups, eating, drinking, chatting. I thought of Kyōko and wondered whether, out ofhabit, she had really gotten up at six o’clock even today. Or whether she had stayed in bed, had asked him not to go. Whether she knew about me. And whether she would come here to tell me the news if something had happened to him. The woman up there, that could be her. I had the impression she was looking for someone. I am here, I almost called out, but then I saw, she was already happily arm in arm. All at once I was ashamed I had ascribed such importance to myself. I turned up my collar. Who was I, to think that Kyōko must be looking for me? Who was I to think she must feel some obligation towards me? I watched her as she disappeared behind one of the trees. As they walked the salaryman beside her very gently laid his hand on her neck.
96
And there it was again. The feeling of being a nobody, or less than nobody, a nothing. It was a subconscious feeling. It shackled me and said: Run! I tried, struggled to and fro, moved not a millimeter. I shook with the effort it had taken to get this far. After Yukiko’s death it was this shaking, a constant tremor just beneath my skin, which reminded me inwardly and outwardly that despite all
94
This very evening. We had an agreement. I kept to it. With the scissors in my right hand, I cut strand by strand, until my head felt light and cool. Once cut, the hair all over the floor was no longer mine, and I thought, it would be the same for him. Once spoken, the burden of the truth would fall away and afterwards he would not be able to explain why he had put it off for so long. Like me he would stand in front of the mirror and find himself strange and familiar at the same time. He would think of me and say to himself: To cut your hair is to admit the truth.
Yet the familiar prevailed. The question: How should it continue? Our friendship was the larger space into whichI had stepped. I decorated its walls with pictures of the people we described to each other, and the thought that I might have to leave it, through a door leading I knew not where, to expose myself to the unknown, that thought hovered dangerously. I almost hoped he would postpone his confession again, turn up on Monday and imply silently that he had failed. It was a mean hope. I pushed it away. I spent the whole weekend pushing it into a corner. On Sunday evening there was only the feeble wish that I had taken the chance to tell him I wished I were his son.
95
Nine o’clock. That must be him. Short-sleeved shirt, Hawaiian pattern. He came towards me, his face strangely youthful. No, a mistake, it wasn’t him. That one there behind him though. Shoulders bent forward. Stealthy walk, as if he wanted to avoid someone. Yes, that was him. Then: No. And again: Yes. Then: No, it’s not. And: Wrong again. How could it be? Surely something must have detained him. A delay. Surely. He would be here any moment now. The figure by the bushes. Was that a man? Or a woman? Or a child? What if he? I waited. Eyes scanning. Surely it was a misunderstanding. So many people, they came and went. I hadn’t noticed them before. What if something happened to him? With every false sighting I discovered a reason for his absence. Once it was a headache, then it was the death of a distant relative, a summer flu, someone urgently needed his help. With the tie grasped between my two fingers I waited, it was no longer clear for whom.
Midday. In the park, bentos were being unpacked. Sitting scattered in little groups, eating, drinking, chatting. I thought of Kyōko and wondered whether, out ofhabit, she had really gotten up at six o’clock even today. Or whether she had stayed in bed, had asked him not to go. Whether she knew about me. And whether she would come here to tell me the news if something had happened to him. The woman up there, that could be her. I had the impression she was looking for someone. I am here, I almost called out, but then I saw, she was already happily arm in arm. All at once I was ashamed I had ascribed such importance to myself. I turned up my collar. Who was I, to think that Kyōko must be looking for me? Who was I to think she must feel some obligation towards me? I watched her as she disappeared behind one of the trees. As they walked the salaryman beside her very gently laid his hand on her neck.
96
And there it was again. The feeling of being a nobody, or less than nobody, a nothing. It was a subconscious feeling. It shackled me and said: Run! I tried, struggled to and fro, moved not a millimeter. I shook with the effort it had taken to get this far. After Yukiko’s death it was this shaking, a constant tremor just beneath my skin, which reminded me inwardly and outwardly that despite all
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