The Unconsoled

by Kazuo Ishiguro

  Brodsky hesitated, then said: ‘It’s what I’ve been advised to wear. By the people helping me. I’m to be a conductor again. I have to dress so people see me that way.’

  ‘I almost said to you yesterday at the zoo. That ridiculous grey coat! Who told you to wear it? Mr Hoffman? Really, you should have a little more sense of your own appearance. These people are dressing you like some puppet, and you let them do it. And now look at you! This ridiculous suit. Do you imagine you look artistic like that?’

  Brodsky glanced down at his attire, a hurt expression in his eyes. Then he looked up and said: ‘You’re an old woman. You don’t know about the fashions now.’

  ‘It’s the prerogative of the old to deplore the clothes of the young. But how ridiculous that you should be the one dressed like that. Really, it’s no use, it’s simply not your style. Quite frankly, I think the town will prefer you in what you used to wear a few months ago. That’s to say, rather elegant rags.’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me. I’m no longer like that. I might soon be a conductor again. These are my clothes now. When I looked at myself, I thought I looked right. You forget, in Warsaw, I had clothes like these. A bow tie like this one. You forget now.’

  For a second, a sad look came into Miss Collins’s eyes. Then she said:

  ‘Of course I forget. Why would I remember such things? There have been so many more vivid things to remember in the years since.’

  ‘Your dress,’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s very good. Very elegant. But your shoes, they’re as bad as ever, a disaster. You never accepted you have fat ankles. For a woman so thin, your ankles were always fat. And now look, even now.’ He pointed at Miss Collins’s feet.

  ‘Don’t be so childish. Do you think it’s like those days in Warsaw when you could make me change my whole costume minutes before we left with just one remark like that? How much you live in the past, Mr Brodsky! Do you think it means the slightest thing to me, what you think of my footwear? And do you think I don’t realise now that it was all merely a trick you played, deliberately leaving it to the last possible moment to make your criticism? Of course, I’d change everything then, go out in something thrown on in a terrible rush. Then once we were sitting in the car, or perhaps at the concert hall, only then would I remember my eye-shadow was the wrong colour for the dress, or the necklace looked awful with the shoes. And it was all so important for me in those days. The conductor’s wife! It was so important for me and you knew that. Do you suppose I don’t see now just what you were doing? How you would say: “Good, good, very nice,” right until there were only a few minutes left. Then, yes, it would be something exactly like this. “Your shoes are a disaster!” As if you would know such a thing! What would you know about fashions today, you’ve been drunk for the last two decades.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Brodsky said, a hint of imperiousness now entering his expression, ‘nevertheless, what I say is true. Those shoes make the lower half of your figure look absurd. It’s true.’

  ‘Look at this ridiculous suit! Some Italian creation, no doubt. The sort of thing a young ballet dancer might wear. And you believe this will help you gain credibility in the eyes of people here?’

  ‘Absurd shoes. You look like one of those toy soldiers with a base so you don’t fall over.’

  ‘It’s time for you to leave! How dare you come here like this, disturbing my morning! The young couple in there, they’re very distressed, they need my counsel more than ever this morning, and here, you’ve disturbed us. This is our last conversation. It was a mistake to have met you yesterday at the zoo.’

  ‘The cemetery.’ There was suddenly a desperate note in his voice. ‘You must meet me, this afternoon. Okay, I didn’t think, the dead people, I didn’t think. But I explained that. We have to talk before … before this evening. Or else how can I? How can I do it? Can’t you see how important tonight is? We have to talk, you must meet me …’

  ‘Look here.’ Parkhurst stepped forward and glared at Brodsky. ‘You heard what Miss Collins said. She’s requested you leave her residence. Leave her sight, leave her life. She’s too polite to say it, so I’ll say it on her behalf. After everything you’ve done, you have no right, not the shred of a right to make the request you’ve just made. How can you stand there requesting a meeting, as though all those things never occurred? Perhaps you’re pretending you were so drunk you don’t remember. Well then I’ll remind you. It’s not so long ago you stood out there in that street, urinating on the wall of this building, shouting obscenities at this very window. The police took you away in the end, dragged you away while you shouted the vilest things about Miss Collins. This was no more than a year ago. No doubt, you’re expecting Miss Collins to have forgotten by now. But I can assure you it was only one of many incidents like it. And as for your sartorial pronouncements, wasn’t it less than three years ago you were found unconscious in the Volksgarten in clothes you’d repeatedly vomited over, taken to the Holy Trinity Church and there found to have body lice? Do you expect Miss Collins to care what such a man has to say about her dress sense? Let’s face it, Mr Brodsky, once a man falls to the depths to which you fell, his position is irredeemable. You’ll never, never win back a woman’s love, I can tell you that with some authority. You’ll never win back even her respect. Her pity perhaps, but nothing more. Conductor! Do you imagine this town will ever look at you and see anything other than a disgusting down-and-out? Let me remind you, Mr Brodsky, four years ago, perhaps five now, you physically attacked Miss Collins just off the Bahnhofplatz, and if not for two students who were passing you’d certainly have caused her serious injury. And all the time you were attempting to strike her, you were shouting the vilest …’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Brodsky suddenly cried, shaking his head and covering his ears.

  ‘You were shouting the vilest obscenities. Of a sexual and deviant nature. There was talk you should have been imprisoned for it. Then of course there was the episode at the telephone kiosk in Tillgasse …’

  ‘No, no!’

  Brodsky grabbed Parkhurst by the lapel, causing the latter to recoil in alarm. But then Brodsky carried out no further aggression, simply clutching Parkhurst’s lapel as though it were a lifeline. For the next few seconds, Parkhurst struggled to prise off Brodsky’s fingers. When he finally succeeded, the whole of Brodsky’s posture seemed to sag. The old man closed his eyes and sighed, then turned and walked silently out of the room.

  At first the three of us remained standing in silence, unsure what to do or say next. Then the sound of Brodsky slamming the front door brought us to life and Parkhurst and I both moved to the window.

  ‘There he goes,’ Parkhurst said, his forehead against the glass. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Collins, he won’t be back.’

  Miss Collins appeared not to hear. She wandered towards the door, then turned back again.

  ‘Please excuse me, I must … I must …’ She walked dreamily up to the window and looked out. ‘Please, I must … You see, I hope you understand …’

  She was speaking to neither of us in particular. Then her confusion appeared to clear and she said: ‘Mr Parkhurst, you had no right to speak in that way to Leo. He has shown enormous courage this past year.’ She gave Parkhurst a piercing look, then hurried out of the room. The next moment we heard the door slam again.

  I was still beside the window and could see Miss Collins’s figure hurrying away down the street. She had caught sight of Brodsky already a good way ahead and after a few seconds broke into a trot, perhaps wishing to avoid the indignity of having to call to him to make him wait. But Brodsky, with his odd lop-sided gait, kept up a surprisingly brisk pace. He was obviously upset and it appeared genuinely not to have occurred to him she would come out after him.

  Miss Collins, her breath coming harder, pursued him past the rows of apartment houses, then past the shops at the upper end of the street, without appreciably closing the distance. Brodsky continued to walk steadily, now turning the corner where I had earlier part
ed with Gustav, and past the Italian cafés on the wide boulevard. The pavement was even more crowded than when I had come along it with Gustav, but Brodsky walked without looking up, so that he often came close to colliding with people in his path.

  Then, as Brodsky approached the pedestrian crossing, Miss Collins appeared to realise she stood no chance of overtaking him. Coming to a halt, she cupped her hands around her mouth, but then seemed caught in some last dilemma, perhaps concerning whether to call out ‘Leo’ or else, as she had called him throughout their conversation, ‘Mr Brodsky’. No doubt some instinct warned her of the urgency of the situation at which they had now arrived, for she called out: ‘Leo! Leo! Leo! Please wait!’

  Brodsky turned with a startled expression as Miss Collins came hurrying towards him. She was still holding the bouquet, and in his confusion Brodsky held out both hands as though offering to relieve her of it. But Miss Collins kept hold of the flowers and, though short of breath, sounded quite calm as she said: ‘Mr Brodsky, please. Please wait.’

  They stood together awkwardly for a moment, both suddenly conscious of the passers-by all around them, many of whom were starting to look their way, some barely hiding their curiosity. Then Miss Collins gestured back in the direction of her apartment, saying softly: ‘The Sternberg Garden is very beautiful at this time of year. Why don’t we go there and talk?’

  They set off with more and more people looking their way, Miss Collins a step or two in front of Brodsky, both grateful for a clear reason to delay conversation until they had reached their destination. They turned the corner back into her street and before long were passing once again in front of the apartment houses. Then just a block or so away, Miss Collins stopped by a small iron gate tucked discreetly back from the pavement.

  She reached for the latch, but paused a moment before opening the gate. It occurred to me then that the simple walk they had just completed together, the mere fact that they were now standing side by side at the entrance to the Sternberg Garden, would hold a significance for her far beyond anything Brodsky could at that moment have suspected. For the truth was, she had made that same short journey with him, from the bustle of the boulevard, finishing at the little iron gate, countless times in her imagination down the years – ever since the mid-summer’s afternoon they had chanced upon one another on the boulevard in front of the jeweller’s shop. And in all those years, she had not forgotten the look of studied indifference with which he had turned away from her that day, pretending to be engrossed by something in the shop’s window.

  At that point – a good year before the start of the drunkenness and the abuse – such shows of indifference had still been the principal feature of any contact between them. And although by that afternoon she had already resolved several times to set in motion some form of reconciliation, she too had looked away and gone on walking. Only when she had gone further along the boulevard, beyond the Italian cafés, had she given in to her curiosity and glanced back. It was then she had realised he had been following her. He had again been peering into a shop window, but there he had been none the less, only a short way away.

  She had slowed her walk, assuming he would sooner or later catch up. When she had reached her corner and he had still not done so, she had taken another glance back. On that day, as on this, the broad sunny pavement had been crowded with pedestrians, but she had had the satisfaction of gaining a clear view of him as he checked himself in mid-stride and looked away towards the flower stall he was passing. A smile had come to her lips, and as she had turned her corner she had been pleasantly surprised by the lightness of her own mood. Her walk now reduced to a dawdle, she too had started to peer into shop windows. She had looked in turn at the pǎtisserie, the toy shop, the drapers – in those days the bookshop had not been there – all the while trying to formulate in her head her opening remark to him when he finally came up to her. ‘Leo, what children we must be,’ she had considered saying. But that had seemed altogether too sensible and she had thought about something more ironic: ‘I notice we seem to be going the same way’ or some such thing. Then his figure had appeared around the corner and she had seen he was holding a bright bouquet. Turning away quickly, she had started to walk again, now at a reasonable pace. Then as she had approached her apartment, for the first time that day, she had been seized by a sense of annoyance at him. Her afternoon had been neatly planned. Why had he chosen this of all moments to seek a conversation with her? When she had arrived at her door, she had stolen another quick glance up the street, only to discover he was still at least twenty yards away.

  She had closed her door behind her and, resisting the urge to look out of the window, had hurried to her bedroom at the rear of the building. There she had checked her appearance in her mirror and composed her emotions. Then, emerging from the bedroom, she had come to a startled halt in the corridor. The door at the far end had been standing ajar and she had been able to see right through, across her sun-filled front parlour and through the bay windows, to the pavement outside where he was now visible, his back to the house, loitering there as though he had arranged to meet someone at that very spot. For a moment she had not moved, suddenly afraid he would turn, look in through the glass and see her. Then his figure had drifted out of view and she had found herself gazing at the fronts of the houses on the opposite side, listening intently for the ring of the doorbell.

  When after a minute he had still not rung, she had again felt a flash of anger towards him. He was, she had realised, waiting for her to come and invite him in. She had again calmed herself and, thinking over the situation carefully, had resolved to do nothing until he had rung the bell.

  For the next several minutes she had proceeded to wait. Once she had returned to her bedroom for no particular reason, then drifted back out into the corridor. Then eventually, when it had finally occurred to her he had gone, she had made her way slowly out to the entrance hall.

  Opening the door and looking left and right, Miss Collins had been surprised to find no trace of him whatsoever. She had expected to discover him lurking a few doors away – or at least the flowers to be on the doorstep. For all that, at that moment, she had felt no regret. A small sense of relief, certainly, and a not unpleasant feeling of excitement that the reconciliation process had at last begun, but she had felt no regret at all. In fact, as she had sat down in her front parlour she had experienced a triumphant glow at having stood her ground. Such small victories, she had told herself, were very important and would help them to avoid repeating the errors of the past.

  Only several months later had it occurred to her she had made a mistake that day. Even then, at first, the idea had remained a very vague one she did not examine carefully. But then as the months had continued, that summer’s afternoon had come to occupy an increasingly dominant place in her thoughts. Her great error, she had concluded, had been to enter her apartment. By doing so, she had asked just a little too much of him. Having led him all that way, around the corner and down past the shops, what she should have done was to have paused at the little iron gate, then, making quite sure he had a clear view of her, gone into the Sternberg Garden. Then, without a doubt, he would have followed. And even if for a while they had wandered about the shrubs in silence, sooner or later they would have started to talk. And sooner or later he would have given her the flowers. Throughout the twenty odd years that had passed since then, Miss Collins had rarely glanced towards that iron gate without experiencing a small tug somewhere within her. And so it was that on this morning, as she finally led Brodsky into the garden, she did so with a certain sense of ceremony.

  For all the prominence the Sternberg Garden had come to assume in Miss Collins’s imagination, it was not an especially appealing place. Essentially a concreted square no larger than a supermarket car park, it seemed to exist primarily for horticultural interest, rather than to provide beauty or comfort to the neighbourhood. There was no grass or trees, simply rows of flower beds, and at this point in the day the squar
e was a suntrap with no obvious sign of shade anywhere. But Miss Collins, looking around at the flowers and ferns, clapped her hands in delight. Brodsky, closing the iron gate carefully after him, looked at the garden without enthusiasm, but seemed to take satisfaction from the fact that, aside from the apartment windows overlooking them, they had complete privacy.

  ‘I sometimes bring them here, the people who come to see me,’ Miss Collins said. ‘It’s so fascinating here. You’ll see specimens you won’t find anywhere else in Europe.’

  She continued to stroll slowly, glancing admiringly about her, while Brodsky walked respectfully a few paces behind. The awkwardness they had displayed in each other’s presence only a few minutes before had now evaporated entirely, so that someone glimpsing them from the gate might easily have mistaken them for an elderly couple of many years’ standing taking an habitual walk together in the sunshine.

  ‘But of course,’ Miss Collins said, pausing by a shrub, ‘you’ve never liked gardens like these, have you, Mr Brodsky? You despise all this harnessing of nature.’

  ‘Won’t you call me Leo?’

  ‘Very well. Leo. No, you’d prefer something wilder. But you see, it’s only with careful control and planning some of these species can survive at all.’

  Brodsky regarded solemnly the leaf Miss Collins was touching. Then he said: ‘Do you remember? Every Sunday morning, after we’d had our coffee together at the Praga, we used to go to that bookstore. So many old books, so cramped and dusty whichever way you turned. You remember? You used to get so impatient. But we used to go anyway, every Sunday, after our coffee at the Praga.’

  Miss Collins remained silent for a few seconds. Then she laughed lightly and began to walk slowly again. ‘The tadpole man,’ she said.

  Brodsky smiled. ‘The tadpole man,’ he repeated, nodding. ‘That was it. If we went back now, maybe he’ll still be there, behind his table. The tadpole man. Did we ever ask him his name? He was always so polite to us. Even though we never bought his books.’