The Lake

by Banana Yoshimoto

  “Yeah, I think that was it,” I replied. “So it was kind of hard to care. Trying to make time to see him would have been much, much harder on me. I guess it was kind of a relief to see the last of him. Because more than anything, I really needed time alone—that and some serious sleep.”

  “I know what you mean …” Nakajima nodded.

  He had a habit of frowning slightly when he nodded.

  That same night, he started coming to my place to hang out.

  We took to doing things together: eating dinner, going out for yakiniku at a neighborhood bar (neither of us, especially Nakajima, liked eating out, and we never went drinking), taking turns having baths and cracking beers when we got out, sitting together without talking.

  It was odd, but somehow my apartment seemed brighter when Nakajima was there. For the first time in my life, I felt that I had a real friend, and that I wasn’t alone.

  At some point, I had decided that Nakajima was gay, and the woman who sometimes came to stay with him was just a friend, and that he had his own means of taking care of whatever urges he had, out in the city somewhere.

  I got the sense that he wasn’t really into sex, and he was shockingly thin, and although there were days when he would consume an astonishing amount, ordinarily he ate almost nothing, so overall he didn’t seem very energetic. There was that woman who came over, of course, but they didn’t really seem to be involved, and I assumed that on the rare nights when he went out, he headed to a part of town where guys like him gathered.

  Or maybe it was my pride that made me want to believe that. Because he seemed so totally uninterested in me. Like I could get dressed in front of him and he wouldn’t even blush.

  Then last night, Nakajima really, really hadn’t wanted to go home.

  He kept delaying, trotting out so many excuses that I made a joke of it.

  “What, are the debt collectors coming? An old girlfriend?”

  “I kind of think something bad happened to me on this day of the year, a long time ago—I feel really uneasy,” Nakajima said. “I’ve got a weirdly precise memory, mentally and physically, and I never do well on the anniversary of a bad day. I’m sorry, though, I can’t tell you about what happened right now. I’ll get even more agitated if I remember the details.”

  I was tempted to point out how self-centered he was being, seeing as it was my apartment and he was the one who had come over. But Nakajima looked like he was really hurting, and I got the sense that whatever the story was it was pretty heavy, so I decided not to press him.

  I just asked if he wanted to stay over, and he nodded, and that was that.

  We left the lights on after we lay the futons out. I read a book, and Nakajima asked if he could watch some movie on TV, and watched it, and for a very long time neither one of us spoke. When the movie ended and Nakajima turned off the TV, I decided maybe it was time to go to bed, and I had just closed my book, thinking how nice it was to have someone else in the room, how reassuring it was to hear him doing this and that, when he spoke.

  “Actually, it’s not easy for me to have sex.”

  He was gazing up at the ceiling.

  “Ahh … really?” I said.

  I felt a light tremor of surprise, as if he had confessed that he loved me. I’d assumed he was intentionally avoiding that topic.

  Just then, I was still dealing with the discovery that when someone important to you dies, you stop having sexual desires. It’s like all the water in your body has dried up. That’s how it was for me. So if Nakajima had been all slick and eager, I probably would have thrown him out on his ear. I too had been trying, casually, to steer clear of that kind of talk, that mood.

  At the same time, I was afraid it would be worse if I lost him now, over this.

  I was so worn down from taking care of my mother that I doubted I’d feel like sleeping with anyone anytime soon.

  And I’d seen nothing but butts and bedpans and urine bottles, day in and day out; that might have had something to do with it, too. I’d had so much time to myself at the hospital, while my mom was getting tests done, that sometimes I even took care of the old man in the next bed.

  I was kind of tired, I guess, of knowing that people are flesh. Flesh and water.

  When I changed my mom’s pajamas, a smell that you could only describe as the smell of water came wafting up from under her collar. I miss it now, and wish I could smell it again; I wish I could go back to that moment and keep inhaling that smell forever—but at the time it made me think, God, it’s true, people are made of water, and the thought depressed me.

  I hadn’t told Nakajima this, but the real reason I’d broken up with my boyfriend was that he kept pushing me to have sex and I kept refusing.

  He was so busy with work that we could only really spend time together on Saturdays, if then, so he ended up dropping in on weekday nights, or on Sunday evening. And we would end up in bed, of course. But there was no way, just no way I could get myself into it. As it happened, this guy was bursting with energy, raring to go, morning and night, no matter where we were. That’s nice when you’re feeling good, but it’s not nice at all when you’ve got other things on your mind. In other words, I really didn’t like this guy. He was a sort of sex buddy, and when I first met him it just happened that that’s what I wanted. In the excitement of our new relationship, I’d mistaken my eagerness for affection. I thought it was him I wanted.

  All along, I didn’t realize what had happened, and then one day it hit me. I noticed that I never felt like opening the curtains when he was over, and that clued me in.

  I didn’t want Nakajima to see him relaxing in my apartment.

  When it’s like that, no matter who it is, it’s clearly not going to work.

  On the other hand, here I was with Nakajima—a guy I really did like—hanging around all the time, and still I couldn’t do it because I didn’t feel happy enough. Even I found it puzzling. Here I had this young guy I liked in front of me, and I wasn’t holding back, I just didn’t feel turned on. Needless to say, I wasn’t thinking at all about how Nakajima might be feeling.

  At most, I had a vague sense that maybe someday I’d fall for him.

  It’s hard to imagine, I know, but Nakajima had this particular aura about him that made it easy to accept anything, and when I luxuriated in that aura, even the most bizarre things came to seem perfectly ordinary.

  For instance, after I started spending time with Nakajima, I became clearly aware, for the first time in my life, of the way I had always looked at the world, and of how I wanted to see it in the future. It was because he was so steadfast. All the matters in which I’d let myself flip-flop, changing from day to day, all the times I’d tried to make myself into something I wasn’t in order to assuage little stabs of conscience—bitter thoughts about my parents’ relationship, say, or how my mother was living her life … I saw it all so clearly. I’d always felt bad, somewhere in my heart, about my inability to sympathize with my mom, who had tried in her own wishy-washy way to accommodate herself to society, and remained like that until she died. Of course you have to sympathize with her—she was weak, she was only human. Out in the country, people aren’t as tough as they are in the city. Living alone in Tokyo as I do now, I’m starting to forget what it’s like, but in the countryside those social connections still matter, and that’s the world Mom belonged to … See how arrogant you are? I had told myself. You’ve got to change that. And I’d believed it.

  But after I met Nakajima and saw how he dove into each day, though only doing the bare minimum, only what he liked, I realized that I was exactly like my mother—the way she tried to be what others wanted her to be, because she was afraid to be different. I had that same fawning impulse, too.

  And when it occurred to me that being that way really wasn’t going to help me get through the rest of my life, I realized that from now on, my mom’s life and mine would have to be completely, unmistakably different. Nothing about us was the same: the times we lived
in, the ways we regarded the world, the things we valued. That wasn’t to say I didn’t love my mom, or that I couldn’t respect or forgive her. That’s not what I mean.

  Tremulously peeling back that film of false sympathy, I discovered a smooth new willingness to let bygones be bygones forming like new skin underneath.

  Something flashed in my mind when I discovered that feeling inside me: So this is what it means to grow up. And I realized, rather late, that Nakajima, who had been on his own for ages, had also been an adult for a very long time.

  And not just an adult: frail as he seemed, he was also a man.

  “So if I’m like this, Chihiro, it’s not because you’re not attractive. I’m sorry.”

  Nakajima peered awkwardly at me in the dimly lit room as he said this.

  “You don’t have to apologize. Besides, who said I want you to do anything? How do you know what I’m feeling?” I said.

  “What? I thought women were like that,” Nakajima said. “They always get angry if I don’t try to come on to them after a while, once we get friendly.”

  “I’m not angry yet. Besides, we’re kind of still in the process of getting friendly, or maybe that’s not quite right, I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said. “So relax.”

  “Okay. It’s just that all kinds of things happened to me. A long time ago. And so it’s like, that kind of stuff, it scares me so much, really, I hate it so much I shudder just thinking about it. Getting naked with people and stuff. People being naked. I’m so scared I can’t even go to a public bath or a hot springs or anything—do you believe me?” Nakajima said.

  I had no idea what had happened, but clearly it was pretty serious.

  When someone tells you something big, it’s like you’re taking money from them, and there’s no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.

  My mother used to say that. What a stingy way to look at the world, I thought, and yet at the same time I realized it was probably true.

  So I’d gotten into the habit of withdrawing into myself whenever people tried to talk.

  When you’ve got a parent who works in a club, you learn very early that the sky’s the limit when it comes to terrible stories. Whenever a girl I got to know at school came and launched into some sad tale with a “I don’t like to talk about it, but …,” it all seemed totally trivial to me. I guess you could say I was mature for my years, at least in terms of the stories I’d heard.

  I was still very young, too, when I learned that on some level, whether or not two people had slept together really wasn’t such a big deal.

  “It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me. Especially if it hurts,” I said. “If I should happen to start feeling that way for you and you still can’t perform, I’ll just go on out and find another boyfriend and chase you out of here. I won’t give you another thought, really. So don’t worry about it, okay? It’s not a problem. Right now, I’m not in the mood, either. I mean it.”

  “… Okay.”

  Nakajima began sobbing quietly.

  All of a sudden I felt like I was with a little boy, and my heart ached. Because he cried like a child. It was as if his tears had nowhere to go, they were meant for god alone. I wanted to hug him to me, but I thought that might frighten him, too. So I tried something else.

  “Here,” I said, “let’s hold hands as we sleep.”

  I took his hand in mine. He had been hiding his eyes with the other hand since he started crying. And now he was crying even harder. I kept squeezing his thin, dry hand.

  The heat in his palm made me think that sometimes it’s too late, some things can’t be fixed. I didn’t know anything about his past, but I had the sense that long ago, someone had abused him sexually. He had been completely crushed, pushed to a point where there was no hope he would ever recover—or maybe it was just a matter of giving it time, I thought.

  I felt bad for having spoken so flippantly. It’s so easy to be insensitive about things you have no personal experience of. I couldn’t even guess what it was that had gone wrong inside him.

  No doubt every little thing I did to try and help him feel better, things any woman would do, only drove him further into a corner.

  At the same time, seeing how extremely sweaty his face had become when he made his confession earlier had left me feeling a little frightened myself, like he was telling me more than I needed to know. Right now I was still too exhausted, too wasted to start anything new, but after a little while I hoped I could fall in love, and have more fun, and be young. Go to the movies, argue, meet up somewhere, go out to eat (even though Nakajima didn’t like eating out), do all that, wasting time in a nice way. That’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to deal with weighty matters. That’s what I was hoping for, except that if I were to go out with him it seemed unlikely we could ever go to a hot springs together, and simply having sex would be an ordeal. That would really be a pain. I mean, I want to have fun with my life, I thought. Because I was still able, at that point, to treat it all lightly.

  And then, peering at me with the eyes of a boy in elementary school, his voice stuffy from crying, Nakajima spoke.

  “Is it all right if we try? If we see if I can do it? If I can’t now, I feel like I never will.”

  Okay, if you want, I said. And that was it.

  He said he’d be too scared if we were naked, so we fumbled over each other’s bodies in our pajamas. Nakajima was kind of oddly built, and he didn’t really seem to be enjoying himself. It felt like I was faking sex with a person who thought sex was a bad thing.

  The whole time, I kept thinking that it would take a pretty major shift in perspective for me to start wanting to go on doing this with this guy, and that made it even more bizarre.

  But occasionally something in our movements flashed. There was hope.

  Those are my memories of our first night together.

  After I said goodbye to my mom, my life seemed to turn rapidly in a new direction.

  I no longer had to go back to my hometown all the time and Nakajima had begun coming over, and everything happened so suddenly … day after day, it was like living out some weird fantasy. Like I was inhabiting someone else’s dream, some stranger’s. Did all that really happen? I wondered, dazed, casting my mind back. To her bones, the crematorium.

  And then I got offered a big job.

  I was a fledgling painter, you see, who specialized in murals.

  My palette was unusual, unlike other painters’, so every so often my work got featured on TV programs and stuff, and since I was happy to go anywhere, all on my own—except that I often had to hire a student to take me, since I don’t drive—I had gotten a decent number of jobs, here and there. It’s not like I was famous or anything, but there’s always a demand for that kind of work, more than you’d expect, and so I was constantly going off to do a mural on the side of someone’s house or in a garden, on a crumbling wall outside an aquarium, on the side of a shed owned by a neighborhood association. The main point, as far as I was concerned, was to put my pictures outside, so as a rule I didn’t agree to requests regarding the subject matter. I would talk things over with people, and to some extent I’d take general suggestions, like if someone said they wanted fruit, or animals, or the ocean or something. So far I had painted about twenty pictures on walls, warehouses, and playground equipment.

  That said, I wasn’t passionately committed to earning a living this way or anything. I tried it once and people liked it, so I kept doing it. That’s all there was to it.

  Basically, I just liked the lifestyle I had when I was painting my murals. I didn’t think my work necessarily had much value as art.

  Sooner or later they were bound to be destroyed or painted over for bureaucratic reasons, after all, so there was no point obsessing over details. All I wanted was to have fun painting, to chat and make friends with people who came by while I worked, and for my mural to add just a little bit of warmth
to the lives of the people in the vicinity.

  The wall I’d been asked to paint this time was on the grounds of my old art school. It was a fairly low wall that divided the campus from a place that used to be a preschool and was now a privately run Infant Development Center. There was already a mural on the art-school side, one from a long time ago, but the side facing the center was just plain yellow. The people who hired me said I could paint whatever I wanted there.

  I had nice memories of the building itself, since it was near my school and I had seen it all the time when I was taking classes, so I accepted the job immediately when an old classmate of mine, Sayuri, offered it to me. She was the center’s piano teacher.

  The building that housed the center was a bit old but really charming: it had been designed by an architect who grew up in the neighborhood, and he had worked hard to make it special so that future generations of children could go to school in a fresh, innovative structure.

  Even when I was a student, I’d loved the center, I loved it more the more I saw it—the shape of the walls; the contour of the building itself; the yard, specially landscaped for children, with a little manmade hill—and I used to have my lunch leaning against that wall, watching the kids. The building had such an aura of warmth to it that I thought if I had been young enough, I would have wanted to go to school there myself.

  Apparently it was getting dangerously run-down, though, and since it would cost a fortune to fix it up, someone had suggested that the whole structure be torn down. A TV crew came to report on it and everything. They presented it as the story of a community trying to save a local building and a painter they had hired to help. I agreed to do an interview.

  I wasn’t particularly involved with the political stuff, though. I just wanted to have fun with the kids who had to pass by to get in and out of the building, and to look into their eyes, and put the things I saw in them up on that wall. I figured this job would keep me busy all spring; beyond that, I couldn’t say. There’s no point thinking about the future.