Manazuru

by Hiromi Kawakami

  “Will we take the boat?” I asked.

  “With this storm, the boat won’t sail,” the woman replies, expressionless.

  We were walking at the tip of the peninsula, but somehow we have returned to the port. There is no sign of anyone in festival garb; maybe they are inside, taking shelter from the rain. I do hear the music of flutes and drums, though, coming from far away.

  “The sound is back,” I say, and the woman shakes her head.

  “That’s different.”

  Those sounds are from here, not there, she says, quietly.

  I don’t really understand the meaning of her words. Oh well, whatever, I say as flippantly as I can, trying. I never intended to come to such a peculiar place.

  Oh well, whatever. I could hear my voice. Not an inside voice. It sounded, the way it should, outside me.

  “I have Momo, I can’t go any further,” I told the woman, and her look grew fierce.

  “You don’t want to meet Rei?” she asked, her voice low.

  She does know about Rei, then. I am both persuaded and hesitant.

  “Do you really know, really, who Rei was?” I demand of her, my tone sharp, determined not to give in so easily.

  “A useless man,” she replies instantly.

  The wind blows strong. Gusts more forceful than before. The waves are somewhat smaller in the port, but beyond it they pound with strength enough to erode the breakwater. Was he, really, a useless man? I wonder vaguely. My skin is stung by the driving rain.

  “Look at you, soaking wet,” the woman says with a sneer.

  It’s true, I realize, my body, not only the outside, but the interior, too, is wet. Without thinking, I crouch down, making my body round.

  MOMO, I CALL her name. Help. Help me, Momo.

  “You’d ask a child for help?” The woman jeers. Such merciless laughter, I think to myself. What does she know, she’s never even had wonton soup.

  I want to strain, build up the blurring places. Tense, make them flood.

  No, I say aloud. But the word doesn’t sound outside my body.

  “You’re not really unwilling, at all,” the woman insists. Her tone annoys me. Why did she, a woman like her, have to come to follow. “You’re just like me.”

  That’s not true, I shake my head. The woman never ceases jeering. I scatter the blurring, try to return to what I was, but I can’t. Gradually the flooding starts. More than when I coupled with Rei, more than when I couple with Seiji, without resistance, I flood.

  During Momo’s birth, I was told, Don’t push. The cervix had dilated enough already, even now the fetus was on its way out, gradually revolving, and yet—

  “Don’t push.”

  They told me, sternly. Endure. It’s too early. It won’t be long. But, not yet.

  Five minutes’ endurance was an eternity. And now, in much the same way, I am enduring. My body yearns unbearably to flood. Cross another line, just one more, focus my strength, close my eyes, concentrate on the core of the blurring, and I will lift instantly to the summit. And yet I don’t go.

  I remember being told, Don’t close your eyes. You can push now. Keep your eyes open. Focus on the ceiling. All right, now tighten your muscles, toward your butt. Push as hard as you can, okay?

  Bearing a child is more intense, even, than I suspected. I realized, for the first time, on the delivery table. All the way here, no one ever told me. The word intense was, perhaps, a little off. Strange might be a better word, I thought. Bearing a child is a strange thing.

  I thought, and pushed. I couldn’t think at all while I was pushing, but in the instant when I caught my breath, again and again, my mind in a whirl, I thought: how strange, how strange.

  I had been enduring, and yet I reached the summit. Oh, oh my, a sigh escaped. No sooner had I arrived, than I cooled. At the same time, the woman’s form warped. The storm was still raging, but the sounds returned. I was seeing people, too.

  The woman went off somewhere. My goodness, look at you, you’re sopping wet, let me get you a towel, an elderly lady at a sweet shop called to me. She was a plump old woman, her speech easy, unfazed.

  BACK AT THE hotel, I ordered from room service and drank.

  A bottle of whiskey, and ice, sure thing. Your room is stocked with beer and so on, in case you feel like a chaser. The voice of the man speaking so smoothly on the other end of the hotel line sounded so real, I could hardly believe it. Where was I all that time? Just before?

  An urge to hear Seiji’s voice came over me, so I got my cell phone out. I punched the keys, held the device to my ear, but there was no sound. It got soaked in the rain, maybe it’s broken. I tried calling home, but again it was silent.

  I lift the receiver of the hotel phone, push the buttons. Momo answers. Oh, Mom, it’s you. Her voice is gentle. How gently she speaks when I’m away. We exchange a few words, have a conversation. How’s Grandma doing? Okay. Is it raining there? It’s awful out. Your work isn’t done yet? Not yet, I’m sorry. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Okay. Really? Ah. Yeah.

  After I hang up, I dial Seiji’s number. But I stop midway. I have the feeling Seiji will intuit it. How, going with the woman, passing on, toward the end, she made me blur.

  My face is reflected in a large oval mirror over the chest of drawers. Hair mussed, having been left to dry on its own. Lips without color. Faint shadows had formed beneath the eyes.

  I stripped off my blouse and approached the mirror. My breasts hang slightly. My chest is perfectly white. Everything hidden is white. Momo’s skin is so much darker. Sometimes I want to touch her skin, so taut it looks as if it has been stretched. But she won’t let me touch her anymore. Even though she and I used to be together, talking to each other, walking side by side, one of us falling behind, from time to time, moving ahead, from time to time. I was with her, then, not with the woman.

  I see Momo’s face through my own. Lately she has come to look like me again. A little while ago, she looked like Rei. Take a bit from her cheeks, push in her eyes, trim her eyebrows, and she would look exactly like me. I hate mirrors, I used to think, all the time. The things that are reflected there, that aren’t there. You try to touch your own body, and can’t reach it.

  I don’t hate them anymore. It seems ordinary, now, to have a body. When I was Momo’s age, my body was more than I could understand. I didn’t know which parts of my body worked in what ways, which parts responded how. And in my ignorance, I was afraid.

  Who was Momo with?

  I started thinking back, and grew frightened.

  Amidst the rain, a single ray of light pierced the clouds. It struck the mirror, reflected dully. I broke the seal on the whiskey bottle, poured a glass. Tossed it back, straight.

  IT WASN’T A dream, or wakefulness either, I was simply listening to the rainfall.

  Is it raining in that world? Or in this world?

  I saw the woman’s face, her lips muttering these words, under my eyelids. But she soon vanished. When I woke, the wind was blowing strong but the rain had let up. The bottle of whiskey, standing on the chest of drawers, was one-third gone. I didn’t have a hangover.

  I sat up in bed, gazed out the window. I guess I fell asleep with the curtains open. The morning light was shining in, but it was weak. The clouds scudded by. I went down to the restaurant for breakfast. I asked about the festival at the front desk, but didn’t understand the answer. They’re saying they may do the fireworks tonight. Depending on the weather.

  It wasn’t the fireworks I was interested in, but I didn’t learn any more. I heard there may be a boat going out? Don’t know anything about that, the woman behind the counter shook her head, that was all. Mist wafted over the hotel pool. From time to time, a drop of water fell from the edge of a beach umbrella standing open by the pool. Water had collected on the white tables, and on the white chairs.

  Maybe that person with Momo was Rei.

  The thought came to me last night. I had no reason to think so. Momo had been relaxed,
but also seemed uneasy; if I wanted a clue, that was all I had to go on.

  Oh my, I shook my head. What am I doing here, in such a place? How many times have I come here? Thinking. I should pack my things and go home, now. I have work to do.

  The woman came.

  “Apparently the boat may not set out today, either,” she said gruffly.

  “Because of the typhoon?”

  “Yes.”

  She sat on the floor, her feet out. Her skirt hitched up to her thighs, revealing her swollen veins. “Have you ever given birth?” I asked.

  “I have,” the woman answered.

  “To how many?”

  “Seven.”

  That many? Seeing my surprise, the woman assumed a vaguely supercilious air. Three boys, four girls. Two of them were twins. The third boy was really a twin, too, but the other one was stillborn. The girl twins grew up good and healthy.

  There was a writer who had two sets of twins, Yosano Akiko, I think, I said, curious how the woman would react, but all she did was gape.

  Akiko? What are you talking about? the woman muttered.

  Beside the white building that had collapsed yesterday, there stood a stone inscribed with a poem by Yosano Akiko. It remained standing, solitary, even after the building fell. So what happened to the building? I asked the woman.

  “It’s still there, same as always,” the woman replied.

  So was all that an illusion?

  What strange questions you ask. The woman laughed. You’re asking me whether or not it was an illusion?

  I laughed, too, my voice joining hers. True. It is kind of strange. Strange.

  “Where are your children now?”

  “I have no idea.” Once again, she turned gruff.

  The boat may not set out, but there will be a Kagura dance. For the god. It’s a nice festival, it really is, done by the locals, she says, sounding like a tour guide.

  Tell me more about Rei. Tell me, please? I moved my face closer to the woman’s. She turned, drew back. I thought she would vanish, but she didn’t vanish, she just fell silent.

  By the time I finished breakfast, the mist had deepened.

  I HEAR A woman crying.

  The festive mood is more apparent today than it was yesterday. Since morning, men have been weaving through the town carrying posts decked out, umbrella-like, with paper flowers. People beating drums and playing flutes, packed into the long, narrow bed of a beautifully decorated truck, lead the way for the omikoshi.

  From time to time, mixed with the music, I hear the woman crying. Or maybe it is the wind moaning. Yes, it was only the wind, I think, relieved, and the next instant I begin to think again that it is the woman crying.

  The tone of the flutes and drums is bright. The woman’s crying is dark. Sometimes I lose sight of the flower-covered posts, the shrine moving along. The mist is thick. I make my way forward, relying on the sounds, then my field of vision expands, once again I am in the midst of the bustle.

  “She was a good girl, a good girl,” the woman says, crying.

  “What girl?”

  “The girl strung up in the tree.”

  It wasn’t you, was it, it was your daughter? I ask the woman, but I can’t see her, I feel as if I am all on my own. Without her expression before me, I am at a loss.

  “I don’t know.” There is only her voice.

  Why would anyone want to have children? Dogs do, and cats, foxes, deer, people. When my heart turns to Rei, when it turns to Seiji, it is utterly unclouded, it is only when my heart turns to Momo that it is overcast, everywhere. I’m as confused as in my youth, when I didn’t know how my body worked and how it responded. I have no idea how my heart turns to Momo, in what way it reaches toward her, whether it is affection or dislike, love or hatred, or to what extent they are commingled.

  “It’s easy if they’re not your children, when they belong elsewhere,” I murmur, and then, slowly, the woman’s form emerged from the mist.

  “Really? Is it really so?” the woman asked.

  Maybe not. I laughed, and she did, too. I am glad she has stopped crying. I feel pity for a crying woman.

  “Look at me, I’m all wet again.” The woman held out her arms. A fine rain falls and stops, stops and falls, intermittently. The drops don’t roll from the woman’s skin, they seep into it.

  “We’ve become very close, haven’t we,” I said, and the woman nodded.

  “Take care,” the woman said, walking behind me.

  Of what? I asked, turning around, but by then she was gone. I felt a sense of disjointedness in the center of my body. A terrible pain seized me, just below the pit of my stomach.

  “Lost a little weight.” I remembered the words in Rei’s diary. I wrapped my arms around my body, embraced myself. Held myself, strongly, in my arms.

  five

  IT’S LISTING, I thought. And then, just like that, the boat keeled over.

  Countless people, thrown overboard, sank.

  It was filled beyond capacity. Earlier in the afternoon, in the aftermath of the typhoon, the wind had still been strong. Yesterday, the boat had not gone out. Today, toward sunset, when the wind died down, the decision was made that this passage should take place.

  There were many times more people at the festival than the day before. The crowd swelled so fast it was as if the earth had disgorged them. Stalls lined both sides of the street; the smell of sauces charring on iron griddles hung, heavy, thick, in the air.

  Musicians, playing their flutes and drums, alone had filled the boat; then, happi-clad men, clambering over each other, boarded as well.

  “Why do they hurry so?” the woman asked. Since nightfall, her presence had grown strong again. It was more than her presence; often her form appeared to me, clear as day.

  “You keep coming and going,” I said. She smiled thinly.

  “Because you keep calling me back,” she replied. “Because you insist.”

  She says I insist. But it is not true. I do not need this woman following me.

  “Why do they hurry so, those men,” she sneered. “Toward death?”

  Human forms, thrown in an arc from the deck when the packed boat lost its balance, rocked among the waves. In the swath where darkness lay against the ocean, many heads popped indistinctly into view, then vanished—vanished, then reappeared.

  “It’s shallow enough, they won’t die,” I said.

  The woman nodded.

  “They will, eventually,” she muttered.

  The boat exposes its belly. As it rolls, upends itself, human heads surface, roiling up from beneath it. It is like some brilliant, gleeful game that people play in the shallows, near the shore, where there are no waves. And yet out there, down below the capsized boat, bodies may be plunging, arrow-like, into the depth.

  “Will any of them, out there, die?” I ask the woman. “I mean, here, right now?”

  “I couldn’t say.” She is brusque. As always.

  Among the heads bobbing on the waves are arms flung toward the sky; other forms appear to be treading water. People are still there, in the water. Slowly, the capsizing of the boat comes to seem like just another highlight of the festival.

  A huge firework is launched from the shore. And the boom follows.

  THE BOAT ONTO which the moveable shrine has been loaded, however, surges on, leaving the upended hull in its wake, and beaches below the main shrine.

  The shrine is taken ashore. The men transporting it, themselves transported, voices raised, lug it on their shoulders up the steep incline to the shrine at the top of the hill.

  Buffeted by the crowd, I am pulled farther from the foundering boat. The flow carries me to the foot of the stairway to the shrine. I cannot resist.

  Wait, I call to the woman. Just now, her presence faded. One body after another streams past me, each face flushed with the thrill of the festival. I am surrounded by people, and yet, bit by bit, I cease to feel them. They are nothing but the heat of things around me.

&nbs
p; I push my way free of the stream. I collide with many human bodies. Their hands and feet knock against me, like hard balls. I dart into a narrow alley, and breathe. I look around, but there is no sign of the woman.

  I walk uphill. The alley opens out into a clearing. A vine wraps around the rotting pillar of an abandoned house. The weeds reach my knees. Dozens of sea stones lie scattered among the grasses. Up here, there is nothing of the commotion below.

  “Quiet, isn’t it, when you get a little higher up,” the woman says.

  I am caught off guard. When did you come back? I ask, and she says, I never leave.

  Seated on a rock in the clearing, I peer at the ocean. I can see only a narrow strip of water along the wall of a rundown storehouse that stands, off to one side, before me.

  One after another, fireworks soar into the air. They make no noise. I realize, suddenly, that there is no sound at all anymore. Just like yesterday, when I stopped for coffee in the white building on the cape.

  There, look.

  The woman points. The upside-down boat nudges into the strip along the storehouse wall, drifting slowly in the water. A shower of sparks rains down across its belly. Soon the sparks become small flames that begin to hop and weave around the hull like will-o’-the-wisps. The wet wood starts to burn, then goes out. Then begins burning again.

  At last the boat catches fire.

  “It’s caving in,” the woman says.

  Slowly, very slowly, the boat dissolves into flame. The people, too, pitching among the waves, are consumed, gracefully, quietly, by the inferno. They seem so tiny, the boat so bulky, as they are absorbed by the fire.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the woman murmurs, forlorn.

  I WALK IN a place without sound.

  A strong wind is blowing. Earlier, toward sunset, it had died down, I am sure it did, but now the gusts assail me continually, right and left. Occasionally a whirlwind rises. My hair clings to my face. Shutting my eyes, I seem to feel drops hitting me. Does it hurt? the woman asks. No, I’m okay, I reply. And she takes my hand in hers.