Manazuru

by Hiromi Kawakami

  WE PRESSED OUR lips together for some time.

  Then, slowly, neither of us taking the lead, we parted.

  The places that have separated begin to dry the soonest. It is like lifting a scab before it is ready. At first, it oozes, glistening, and then, before you know it, it is half dry.

  Almost immediately after I felt our lips had parted, I was back in Tokyo. I remember, very clearly, sitting side by side in the plane on the way back, and the moment when we waved goodbye in Shinagawa, but everything in between has been swept away.

  Momo leafs through her textbooks. She is writing her name in the textbooks for the next grade. Ya-na-gi-mo-to Mo-mo. Why are you writing it all in hiragana? I ask, and she tells me, grinning, My name doesn’t look good in kanji.

  “I’m going to file to have him declared disappeared.”

  The words fall easily from my mouth.

  Even though, all this time, I couldn’t make up my mind. Even though, all this time, it kept oozing, it never dried.

  “Oh my.” Mother looks up. Momo is starting to write her name in a notebook. She keeps her head down.

  “How were things, there, at Mr. Yanagimoto’s house?” Mother asks.

  “Very quiet.”

  This time, it is Mother who looks down. All of a sudden, as though her neck has snapped, her head drops. I peer at her, puzzled. She has fallen asleep.

  “Grandma starts napping sometimes, lately,” Momo tells me.

  She sits in the chair, back rigid, only her head bent, eyes shut.

  “Get up.” I shake Mother.

  “Don’t do that, she’ll wake up in a second.” Momo cocks her head. “Just let her sleep.”

  Mother opens her eyes a crack. She flicks her hand, as if she is shooing a small insect away, and then, all of a sudden, her eyes are wide open.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, and she looks confused.

  “Yes, why?” she asks back.

  The sun dims, and then the bright rays return. The light illuminates all three of us, from our faces to our shoulders. When we bend, the light rings our foreheads, like crowns. Three women of different age, sharing the same blood, wearing the same crown.

  THE PROCESS WAS not terribly complicated. I visited the police station and requested the forms, ordered a copy of our family register, prepared a statement, made a trip to family court, paid a few thousand yen.

  “We issue a public announcement, then wait six months,” they told me.

  In six months, he would be declared dead. I remembered that women are not allowed to remarry for six months after a divorce. There is something peculiar, I always think, about the number six.

  When I got home, Mother asked about the procedure. I explained, as if I were explaining the plot of a movie I had seen.

  “It seems too easy,” she said, an infant’s look of wonder on her face.

  Evening was approaching, but the sun was bright. The blossoms of the flowering cherries had long since scattered, new leaves covered the branches. I don’t like this season, your body can’t get settled, Mother grumbled, looking her age again. She touches the hair on her temples, now flecked everywhere with white.

  “Where’s Momo?” Mother asks, as if the thought has just occurred to her.

  School, I reply, and again she raises a hand to her temples. Mom, don’t die, please? I think, lightly, as if I am tossing her a ball. Was it always so bright in this house? There are spots, here and there, in the living room, that shine.

  Momo picked the dandelions in the glass mug. They open wide, gathering in the light. The dinner table; the chairs, pressed up against the table because they are empty now; the floor the chair legs rest upon; Momo’s slippers, left there on the floor; the fine coating of dust on the slippers; the white streaks in Mother’s hair as she dusts; the hands, puffy from working in water, that reach up occasionally to touch the hair; the wrinkly arms which the hands are connected to; the wrinkles in her sleeves, rolled up to her elbows—everything shines.

  “It’s so bright,” I said, and Mother smiled.

  “Things you’ve lost turn up on days like this, you know.”

  Do you think we’ll find something? I asked, and she smiled again.

  I squinted, without saying anything.

  YOU BOIL THE agar until it dissolves, Mother says.

  Wow, agar comes in sticks, huh? Momo laughs.

  It’s been soaking for about two hours, so all you have to do now is give it a good washing, picking it over, in case there are any little stones.

  Momo washes the sticks of agar in a bowl of water, squeezing them. Grandma, is this enough? Rei is present in her profile. Her nose. The edges of her mouth, when she smiles.

  She shreds the agar, dropping it into the water, over a low flame. See, the water is starting to get gelatinous. Gelatinous? What does that mean? Like jelly, gooey, but thinner.

  The voices that fill this house, women’s voices, like three sparrows chirping, are pliant. They do not reach very far, but they never go away.

  Then add sugar and milk to the pot, finally toss in the almond essence. Pour it all into a low, square dish, let it cool. Momo has grown a little, again. How warm your hands are, Mother says. So warm, and the water just rolls right off.

  The soft, white almond pudding is hardening, now, in its dish. Things made with agar firm up even if you don’t refrigerate them, Mother tells Momo. Let’s put it in, though, it tastes better cold, Momo says. These hands, handling food, deeply wrinkled, smooth, skin beginning to loosen, touching each other, moving apart, overlapping.

  Nothing comes, anymore, to follow.

  The space around my body is wide open, slightly cool.

  A pain seizes my chest, but quickly goes. I have grown accustomed to this pain. I will walk on, from here, through a dim place, growing accustomed. Beyond all the dimness, perhaps, something like the light that shines into this house will appear, again.

  I REWROTE THE parts I had erased, fixed the problems that kept appearing, no matter how many times I read it, found new problems each time I fixed the old ones, more and more, and then, fed up, called Seiji.

  “You know a novel is finished when it never ends,” he said, suppressing a laugh.

  Seiji’s voice seeps down, slowly, into my body.

  Will I want to meet him? I wondered as I dialed. He was not distant, but he was not, now, very close. I could not see us meeting. Eventually, perhaps, the sound of his name, too, would cease to summon anything in me.

  “I’ll send it to you, do me a favor and read it again?” I said.

  I’ll read it. His answer comes, quiet.

  Why did Rei go away? Why go to all the trouble, time would have helped him. Time takes everything, and changes it. Time changes everyone.

  “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

  Seiji seems to have read my thoughts. I am taken aback. I haven’t changed?

  “The way you speak, it’s always been the same.”

  Always, it feels odd to hear you use that word, I say, and Seiji chuckles. It has been a long time since we met.

  “Momo is starting to look like Rei.”

  I had tried, as much as possible, not to say Rei’s name, talking to Seiji. It was easy to say it now that Seiji and I had become so distant.

  I remember, clearly, how it felt to love Seiji. And our lips touching, just a little while ago. And the way I devoured him, as if I were crawling into his body, dissolving my feelings in his feelings. But I do not want, any longer, to have it back.

  “Children grow up so fast.”

  I have seen a picture of only one of Seiji’s three children. He was a boy, two years younger than Momo, he had just started school. He wore shorts and high socks, his sleeves were too long for his arms. He did not resemble Seiji. He doesn’t look like my wife, either. He’s in an in-between stage, you can’t tell which of us he looks like, Seiji said, smiling.

  When I hung up, my mood brightened. Only the gentleness of his voice lingered, swaying, within
me, in the feelings I had.

  Children, they grow so fast, I said, imitating Seiji, testing how it would feel. Momo used to be so prickly, before, the way she acted, but she has loosened up. She does not say so many things that hurt me.

  I remember Momo, last year, in the field that night, with the silhouette beside her. I know that silhouette was Rei. It was thick, but passing.

  WHAT WAS IT, there, in Manazuru?

  Momo asked.

  I don’t know. I remember it, and yet I can’t remember.

  I reply, and she looks as though it is not enough. You were going all the time, you know, leaving me and Grandma here all alone.

  I wouldn’t say that. I only went three times, alone.

  Really? Momo’s eyes widen. Is that all? That’s funny, somehow I had the impression you were gone for a very, very long time. I guess maybe it wasn’t that much, after all.

  Momo understands. That I left something there, in Manazuru. Something I left behind me, that will never be back, that these hands of mine will never hold again.

  Even when I am alone in a room, and I call out, Hey, into the empty air, nothing comes. Thin or thick, woman or man, nothing.

  Empty.

  I say, quietly.

  And yet, already, something has begun to fill the emptiness. Like the agar, after it has been cleaned, after it has begun to dissolve into the hot water, the agar and the water, translucent in precisely the same manner, and yet with different densities, mixing, becoming gelatinous, that is what it is like, the way, slowly, this something has begun to fill the emptiness.

  Sand is not it, exactly, but it is also like sand. The walls of this empty container are rough, and just as agar and water are close, in what they are, the rough walls, and the feeling of sand, call to one another.

  Momo, it was Dad, wasn’t it, you were with, in the field? I say.

  Momo stiffens for a moment, then sighs.

  “So, that was Dad?” she asks me.

  I do not answer, I only look, steadily, at Momo. Once again, her figure has lost its clarity. How many more times, before she stops growing, will she change?

  “So, that was Dad?” she asks, again.

  I keep staring at her, without speaking. Dad scares me, Momo muttered. I was frightened, since I didn’t know him. I was curious, because I was scared. So I wanted to go, to follow him.

  I shuddered.

  I’m glad you didn’t go, and follow him, I said, touching her shoulder, and Momo nodded. I hugged her to me, hard. I hugged her, hard, twice.

  FAR AWAY, DOWN the road, things are coming.

  The bottoms of their jackets billow in the wind, flapping. They walk together, side by side, squinting, looking dazzled, the light that enters their squinting eyes is strong.

  Are those their beach shoes, I wonder, noticing that with each step, a little sand drops from the soles of their shoes. The man’s angular shoulders do not heave when he walks. The woman’s sturdy hips do not sway.

  I wave hello, and they wave back.

  Today, too, the sun is shining. The voices of people out enjoying the day off echo under the high roof of Tokyo Station’s Marunouchi exit, where we have arranged to meet.

  “It’s quite a trip, getting here by bullet train from Hiroshima.”

  “That’s what you get for being afraid of flying, Saki.”

  They chatter back and forth, laughing.

  “Thanks for coming to see us!” Saki says, bowing slightly. “Even though we’re no longer family.”

  “I’m still a Yanagimoto for the next five months,” I say, and Saki smiles.

  There is no trace of the extreme, youthful thinness her body had the last time I saw her, when my mother-in-law died; she gazes directly back at me, her eyes wide open, much brighter than Rei’s before he vanished, her eyelids clearly defined, like all the Yanagimotos.

  “The hotel is a bit of a walk from here,” Saki’s husband, Ryūzō, says.

  “Momo is going to join us later.”

  The Sunday when they called, out of the blue, to say they would be coming to Tokyo and hoped we could meet, Momo hesitated, saying she had plans. On the other hand, she’s Dad’s sister, right? she said slowly, feeling the weight of the word “sister” in her mouth.

  “Sorry for the short notice, she’s always so impulsive,” Ryūzō laughs, shoulders shaking.

  We have a late lunch at a restaurant in the train station, then return to the wicket to wait for Momo. Saki and Ryūzō are both big eaters. They each eat a breaded pork cutlet, covering it liberally with mustard and sauce, then share an order of beef stew. Each has a heaping mound of rice, consuming it completely, without leaving a single grain.

  Suddenly, Momo walks toward us, her expression blooming.

  “Aunt Saki?” she says, passing through the gate, running over to us.

  “Momo, you look just like my brother,” Saki says, without hesitating.

  “Do I really?” Momo asks.

  Sunday afternoon sunlight streams in from outside the station, almost as far as the gates. The trees, the cars, the buildings, everything shines, brilliantly.

  LET’S GO SOMEWHERE with some greenery, Saki said, spreading her tourist map of Tokyo out. Momo peered down at it, curious. There’s a place called the Wadakura Fountain Park, Saki said, in a resonant voice, and started walking on ahead.

  “So, you’ve been working all this time?” Ryūzō said, coming up beside me. Momo stayed close to Saki, walked with a bounce in her step.

  “I guess you could call it work.” It’s not a steady income, though. Sometimes things are good, sometimes not. It varies. I’m happy we’ve been able to get along, somehow.

  Ryūzō gave an unhurried nod.

  In this way, it goes on.

  I think, focusing my gaze on Ryūzō’s square jaw.

  Wadakura Fountain Park was near a large hotel. Oh, wouldn’t you love to stay in a gorgeous hotel like this! Saki said. Can’t afford it, Ryūzō replies calmly. I remember the inn that bore the name “Suna,” run by a woman and a man, probably mother and son. We get lots of fishermen on weekends, the son had said. The atmosphere must be completely different when all those fishermen are there, having a good time, than when I was there, alone.

  “What are my cousins like?” Momo asks.

  Oh, they never listen to a word I say. If only we had an adorable child like you! Saki replies enthusiastically. Not likely, not the way we raise them. Besides, they’re our children, you can’t expect such sensitive children from parents like us. Ryūzō laughs, shoulders rocking.

  The sun shines on everything. Momo gazes up at the sky, shading her eyes with her hand. An airplane is flying overhead, leaving a trail of vapor. I can’t understand how anyone could not be frightened, that far off the ground, Saki says. It’s so beautiful, the plane, it’s like a needle, Momo says. You know, Momo looks like those dolls in your father’s house, Ryūzō says. I used to take those dolls out and play with them, Saki says. Mom was always getting after me for it.

  Momo’s hair shines in the sun. Saki’s face, Ryūzō’s ears, the grass in the park, the water in the fountains, the sky over the horizon, everything shines equally under the sun. I close my eyes, feel my eyelids shining. I call up an image of the Inland Sea. Countless fishing boats bobbing, in the offing, on the warm and waveless sea.

  Rei, I know, in some distant time, I’ll see you again.

  On the dark, agitated surface of the ocean, there in Manazuru, the burning boat gradually sank. Coming from a place of nothing, returning to nothing. I heard Momo’s gentle voice off in the distance, and the park filled with light.

  about the author

  HIROMI KAWAKAMI IS the recipient of the Pascal Short Story Prize for New Writers and the Akutagawa Prize. Her stories and essays are widely published in Japan, where she taught biology and is now a member of the Science Fiction Research Association. She lives in Japan.

  Copyright © 2010 by Hiromi Kawakami

  All rights reser
ved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  English translation © Michael Emmerich, 2010

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kawakami, Hiromi, 1958-

  [Manazuru. English]

  Manazuru / by Hiromi Kawakami ; translated by Michael Emmerich.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-582-43856-6

  1. Abandoned wives—Fiction. 2. Paramours—Family relationships—Fiction. 3. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Memory—Fiction. 5. Manazuru-machi (Japan)—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Emmerich, Michael. II. Title.

  PL855.A859M3613 2010

  895.6’35—dc22

  2010017806

  This book has been selected by the Japanese Literary Publishing Project (JLPP), an initiative of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.

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