I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. Thinking she must be making fun of me, I laughed. I meant to laugh out loud, but my voice was hoarse, and all that escaped from my throat was a strained sigh. My vision became dim, and some time passed before I realized that I had been staring at her for quite a while. At the edge of my consciousness, the word “bathroom” flickered, and I managed to tell the girl that I was going to the bathroom. She said something to me about being worried. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was ashen, as if white paint had oozed from every pore of my skin. There was sweat on my brow, and a chill went up and down my spine. I felt a tingle along the inside of both arms, like I had virtually no strength. I splashed water on my face, and then for some reason, drank some. I thought the contact with water would bring back some feeling to my face. There was a knock on the door, and it gave me quite a start. “Are you okay?” I heard a voice that must have been her. I muttered to myself, What the hell are you doing? Everything is going to be fine.
Through the door I said, “Uh, sorry, I, uh, kind of threw up. I’m really sorry. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“What? Oh, I was afraid of that. But the bread was still fresh—oh, no, I’m so sorry.”
“No, that’s not it—sometimes, this happens for no reason. I guess it’s just how I am.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, really—should I call an ambulance, or something?”
“No, no. I’m fine. It’s nothing, really. I’m better now. I always feel better right after.”
Staring in the mirror, I could feel laughter starting to well up. I was getting ahead of myself, I thought. After all, I didn’t kill that guy. For all I knew, he might have committed suicide. But then it occurred to me. Since I had made off with the gun from the scene, his death was considered a murder. If the weapon that caused his death were not at the scene, it was unlikely to be deemed a suicide, which must be why the police were treating it as a homicide. And, at least as far as the police were concerned, whoever had the gun was the criminal. I was still a little worked up, but I managed to pull myself back together. I had figured all along this would happen, ever since that night. None of this was outside of my expectations. At the time, I had been very careful when I left the scene of the crime—nothing there could be traced to me, and there were no witnesses. There was no way for anyone to know that I was in possession of the gun. I was safe, I thought to myself. And as long as I didn’t make any mistakes, the gun would remain mine.
Nevertheless, I was a little surprised that I hadn’t been checking regularly for this in the news. I ought to have been actively seeking information about when they would discover the man’s body, and how the police were conducting their investigation from the outset. The fact that I hadn’t done so was probably because I had been on such a high. It must have taken them so long to find him because of the days of rain. Under normal circumstances, nobody ever went near that darkened bridge, much less when it was raining. It seemed like I should be grateful that it had taken so long to discover him. I felt like I had been saved, despite my lack of attention. At least now, the police and I were on the same starting line, and I would be fine as long as I went about it carefully. There was no reason for anyone to associate me with the dead guy. At the thought that sooner or later the case would be forgotten, I felt a sensation of relief mixed with joy, as the strength once again seeped out of my body. I thought to myself, it was possible that this tension, and even my sense of relief at having overcome this looming crisis, could transform into a kind of enjoyment.
I then had sex with the girl one more time. I got the impression that she wasn’t all that into it, but I was feeling good and was up for it. I think I might have really worn her out. After I came, I stroked her hair. I did that for a while, despite the fact that she was certainly not a beauty. Then I made a joke to get her to laugh, and added, “I’ll be back sometime.”
4
I went to the department store in my neighborhood, where I bought two white handkerchiefs. I finally had the chance to get something to lay under the gun inside the bag. The handkerchiefs were made of cupro fabric—smooth to the touch, like silk—exactly like what I had imagined. I thought the gun’s colors, the riveting silver-black as well as the vibrant brown, reminiscent of natural wood, would stand out beautifully atop this velvety white. I also bought another handkerchief made of the same fabric but in black. I thought I would use that one to polish the gun. My gun was so beautiful, I didn’t think it needed to be polished, but I liked the idea of polishing it and wanted to anyway. Through the act of polishing it, I thought I might be able to communicate more deeply with the gun.
I was eager to get back to my apartment, so I quickened my pace. No matter how much I walked, I didn’t feel tired. I went over the railway crossing and cut across a park, breaking into a run midway. My cell phone rang, and I was a little surprised by how loud it sounded. Reflexively, I answered; it was my mother calling. She asked me if anything new had happened. When I said, “Why do you ask?” she told me that she had had a dream about me.
“It’s just that, you know, seeing you in my dream all of a sudden, I was worried that something might have happened.”
“Come on, you freak me out with that kind of thing.”
“No, for some reason I was just worried—so you haven’t caught a cold? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Look, I’m kind of busy right now, sorry, I have to go,” I said and hung up, even though it seemed like my mother still had something else she wanted to say. She always called my apartment whenever she needed to speak to me. I wondered for a moment why she had decided to call my cell phone, but then my thoughts turned once again to the gun. There were two things for me to do today. I had just completed the first—buying the white cloths—and the second was to examine the bullets inside the gun. Whether bullets were loaded securely inside was, as far as I was concerned, a critical issue. So critical, in fact, that, terrified of confirming whether or not they were there, I had not dared investigate before today. This was a habit of mine, putting off matters of grave importance. It was less about not wanting to kill my joy; rather, I preferred to cling to grand illusions. However, I could not just avoid this forever. If there were no bullets inside, my gun would lose some of its significance. I mean, even if I never actually used the gun, it needed to have bullets in it. If it weren’t loaded, then one way or another I would need to get my hands on some bullets. And doing so would be fraught with considerable peril and challenges. It was a choice I hoped to avoid, if possible.
What concerned me was the high probability that the man lying there had in fact killed himself. How many bullets would he load in the gun he would use to commit suicide? He could have loaded a single bullet and then taken his own life. I guessed that would have been the usual way to do it. This was a nagging suspicion in my mind. When I became aware of this doubt I harbored, I grew anxious, sometimes to the point where I couldn’t stand it. I realized I could no longer put it off. I needed to know for certain what my situation was.
I returned to my apartment and opened the satchel. The gun was as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. The girl I had just slept with was no comparison for the gun. In this moment, the gun was everything to me, and would be everything to me from now on as well. As I pondered whether or not it was loaded, I gazed at its piercing metallic sheen.
I made up my mind that I would try to pull the cylindrical piece in the center out sideways. In my imagination, bullets could be loaded one by one, by moving this part out to either the left or right. Figuring that was a safe bet, I proceeded, careful not to touch the trigger or the hammer. My hands trembled slightly with nervousness, and I felt my body dampening with a cold sweat. As I pushed it with the ball of my thumb, the cylinder made a little clink and moved far out to the left, stopping at a point where I could see clearly inside. There were four golden bullets loaded in it. Each of the gold bullets was embedded in one of the six
regularly spaced holes. For a moment, I gave myself over to a sense of bewildering joy that was mingled with excitement and relief. This was as it should be, I thought. The gun would never betray me, it would satisfy me in every way, I said to myself as I could feel a smile breaking out across my face. I stared at the bullets and imagined them being fired from the gun and how far they would travel. I couldn’t call to mind a more beautiful image, or something so fascinating. Then, without hesitation, I visualized myself using the gun. First I leveled the gun, and with my right thumb I lowered the hammer. Then I closed my left eye, focusing my right eye as I decided on an appropriate target. What should I shoot? I hadn’t thought about it. For instance, I wondered, a person? Anyone would do—some hopeless lowlife who deserved to be shot—that’s who I’d aim for. I imagined a woman. A man would also do, but the first thing that popped into my mind was an unknown woman, slender with long hair. Preparing for the impact, I braced my right wrist, grasping it with my left hand. I placed my right index finger on the trigger, and slowly pulled it toward me. The impact of the gunshot rippled through my entire body, a dense and fine vibration running along my wrist. Of course I couldn’t see the actual bullet fly out, but I thought I saw a spark of discharge and a plume of smoke that accompanied it. The bullet bore through the woman’s body, and as she fell blood spurted out. She might say something as she lay there. But that’s where I took leave of my fantasy. I had no penchant for so-called subversive impulses or brutality. For example, I was capable of unflinchingly watching a movie in which a monster eats someone’s guts out, but it didn’t excite me in any way. I had no particular desire to see a woman writhing in agony. My interest was simply in the kind of excitement derived from the act of destroying some form of life, and in the extraordinariness of that. It was the process, rather than the outcome; more than the blood and gore on the screen, it was the tension evoked by what I saw that aroused my interest.
I lay down on my bed and wondered about who first thought up such a device and decided to create it. I imagined the gun’s predecessor must be something like a cannon, which developed into a long rifle, like a musket, before evolving into a pistol. Naturally, it goes without saying, they all shared the common purpose of killing living things. A knife or a sword served the same objective, but what was fundamentally different about these was the risk involved. In order to kill someone with a knife, you needed to get close to him. The implication being that you would likely be prone to a counterattack—that is to say, someone trying to kill you—this was the specific risk involved. But that wasn’t the case with a gun. Of course, if the other guy had a gun too then it would turn into a shootout, but you could take aim from a protected position, and if you hit your target, your foe might die without knowing who killed him. On the part of the killer, it still guaranteed a considerable—not to say absolute—degree of safety, compared to a knife or a sword. As well as the fact that there would be virtually no immediate sensation of having killed someone—no slicing through flesh or shattering bones. Naturally the killer must experience something, but with a gun, it was only the impact of the bullets being fired; there was no point of contact with your foe’s flesh and bone. It didn’t require the effort of a cannon or a bow and arrow, nor did it expose your own person to the danger of a bomb or the like. A pistol was even more portable than a rifle, all it took was the pull of your fingertip. The silver of the metal seemed to embody the desire of the inventor who sought an easy way to kill someone. It made me a little uncomfortable to put words like “ease” and “death” together. Once again, I picked up this device that equated such contradictory concepts in my hand, and I studied it closely. The gun brought murder closer, and yet, it seemed to enable the murderer himself to stand by and watch the crime being committed. And it came in such a beautiful shape. I thought that its creator must have made it look this way in order to arouse the desire to acquire it, or perhaps it was through this proximity to death that its shape evolved organically, and that was what the creator found beautiful. Yet an arrow or a knife were also beautiful in the same way. Did people experience beauty in things that were associated with death? Or is that what they sought? I turned these thoughts over, but I couldn’t be sure. I decided that I wasn’t supposed to understand.
I lit a cigarette, and I lay the two white handkerchiefs I had bought in the bag before placing the gun on top of them. I added the black cloth as well, and took another look. Now that I knew there were bullets inside, the gun seemed to possess an even stronger presence, even more persuasiveness. My breath caught, as I stared at the gleaming silver-black and the deep brown. At that moment, what I felt toward its riveting presence was a sense of awe. Its presence seemed far greater than that of myself. I wondered if I could actually possess something such as this. With its distinct purpose, and its diverse potential, would it allow me to be its owner? I thought about this as I pulled on my cigarette relentlessly, and when it was finished, I closed the flap of the bag.
I opened the refrigerator, then slowly drank a mineral water I took from inside. I was hungry, so I went to a nearby coffee shop, where I ordered coffee and a tuna sandwich with lettuce. The waitress was plump, and she was heavily made up. Bored by my surroundings, I slugged down the terrible coffee. A guy who seemed to be the owner was absentmindedly watching a small television that was set on the counter. Neither the waitress nor the owner seemed very enthusiastic about running the coffee shop. The television showed a montage of New York streetscapes. I figured that, in America, there were average citizens who owned a gun like the one I now had. For them, guns were just a part of everyday life, nothing particularly unusual about them. Yet the strange thing was that I did not envy them. I rarely yearned for anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t much matter to me if everyone else had the same things as I did. The thing was that I had found it. The same way that, for instance, some people found pleasure drawing pictures or making music, or they relied on work or women, drugs or religion, I felt like I had discovered what I was passionate about. And for me, that thing was nothing more than the gun. There was nothing wrong with me. That’s what I realized. And I started to relax—I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair.
5
I went to the university, and attended a number of my lectures. Lately I had been getting to class often, and the reason was probably because I had the gun. Since I had found it, I had become more active, doing things that I normally found tedious. I handed in papers before they were due, I lent my notes to other students.
I headed over to the cafeteria, where I smoked cigarettes while drinking coffee. Keisuke drank coffee with me, and talked about girls. “This last one, she was really something,” he said, laughing in amusement. “She seemed pretty normal, but she could really scream. I’m sure the people next door must have been able to hear her.” I doubted that Keisuke would stop talking anytime soon. I just laughed at his stories, and kept smoking.
“What about you? You got some, right? Tell me, how was it?”
“Yeah, I got some. I think she’ll even let me do it again sometime.”
“Huh? You mean you might be able to, like, date her?”
“No, just sex. She’s got a boyfriend, so it’s perfect,” I said, and Keisuke laughed and said, “Nishikawa, you really are a prick.” It made no sense to me, but I laughed anyway. Maybe Keisuke laughed too hard, because he choked a little as he took a drag of his cigarette. For some reason, I felt like being alone.
“But isn’t that kind of risky? I mean, seriously, if her boyfriend finds out, you’ll get dragged into it. She’ll probably say she wants to dump him for you.”
“I’ll deal with that when it happens. Anyway, I don’t really care. I’ll see her if I feel like it.”
Keisuke laughed, and then he started telling me about picking up girls on the street. I didn’t have much interest, but I nodded anyway, and kept on like that until he had to leave for his job.
Now that I was by myself, I ordered
another coffee and drank it slowly. The voices of the students around me were annoying, and I thought about going somewhere quieter. There was a guy at the table next to me, scribbling away furiously, seemingly oblivious to the noise surrounding him. I had the urge to interrupt him, but since I didn’t know him, I restrained myself. A number of people I knew walked in; they called out to me, and I greeted each of them. It was a while until my next lecture, so I didn’t know what to do. It occurred to me then that I probably should have brought the gun with me.
Someone tapped me, and I turned around to see a girl there. I didn’t recognize her so I was quite surprised. She asked me what I was doing, and I replied that I was killing time. As I studied her face, gradually I realized that something about her seemed familiar, but that was only after talking with her for a while. I thought I remembered her talking to me from the row behind me during class before, and that she had said, “It’s been a while.” But I couldn’t recall anything else about her. I had no choice but to act as though I knew who she was, and watch as she took a seat at my table.
“University is so boring, isn’t it? Lately I’ve been thinking of quitting again. But then, I’ve got two years to go.”
“Well, there’s no reason to quit, is there? Then again, what do I know?”
“Hmm, it’s a tough call, I guess . . . I wish it was more interesting.”
She wore a short black skirt with a fitted white sweater; she had large breasts and refined features. I searched through my memory as I stared at her, but I still couldn’t recall who she was. Her dyed brown hair was very well-kempt, and it gleamed as it reflected the fluorescent light of the cafeteria. She looked directly at me, blinking her big eyes repeatedly, while she talked about this and that. Apparently she was frustrated about something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. As I smoked my cigarette and observed her various mannerisms, I was aware of my sexual desire for her.
The Gun Page 3
