The bookseller had a brown scarf wrapped around his neck and a red cap covering his shiny bald head, and in his mouth, he was sucking on his trusty Asada Ame. He told us his wife had a cold, too, and was sleeping on the second floor. He had us sit on the opposite sofa and poured us some tea mixed with Chinese herbs.
When he turned off the radio, the ticking of the clock on the wall seemed loud. Despite being in the middle of the city, they had a tiny yard outside a glass door from the living room where an ugly little tree like a wire statue grew. Its few remaining leaves swayed under the gray sky.
“Is it all right for you to be up and about?”
“I was lying down all morning. It’s just so boring.” He coughed and then crunched on the Asada Ame. “I caught this at the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s general meeting. That bonehead Todou should’ve stayed home in bed if he was sick. Instead, he came out, and now all the attendees are sick—the owner of Chitoseya, all the students from the Youth Division…” He blew his nose, irritated.
Hearing Mr. Todou’s name for the first time in so long made me nostalgic.
Mr. Todou is a middle-aged man, the shrewd manager of Todou Koi Fish Center in Rokujizo, and a philosopher on the meaning of life. When, at the end of May, I went out in search of alcohol, Mr. Todou was the first person I met. If I hadn’t run into him, I wouldn’t have ended up at a certain bar on Kiyamachi, I wouldn’t have gotten groped, I wouldn’t have been rescued by Ms. Hanuki, I wouldn’t have met the admirable Mr. Higuchi, I wouldn’t have met Mr. Rihaku, or the president, or any of the others, and my world would still be as small as a cat’s forehead.
Meeting Mr. Todou was a gift. He opened up a whole new horizon in my life.
“Mr. Todou has a cold, too? I’ll have to go see him.”
“You can leave him alone, that scoundrel,” the owner of Gabi Shobo said bluntly. “I’m sure his daughter is taking care of him anyway.”
Just then, the latticed door slid open, and a voice politely called, “Excuse me.”
When the bookseller greeted, “C’mon in,” the one who entered the living room was the owner of the traditional Kyoto cuisine restaurant Chitoseya. He was puffy and all bundled up, so his appearance was rather substantial. Also, he was carrying a parcel.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” The owner of Gabi Shobo frowned at him.
The owner of Chitoseya scratched his head awkwardly. “Well…yeah, but I’m busy this time of year. I came by while I was out shopping.”
“If you overdo it, you won’t make it to next year.”
The owner of Chitoseya took a big kabocha squash out of his bundle. “I hope you’ll get some nutrients out of this,” he proclaimed. A little glass bottle also appeared out of the package. It was stuffed full of pickled plums.
“I don’t eat kabocha. Had too much of it as a kid.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. It’ll be the winter solstice soon. Gotta eat kabocha.”
“What’s with the plums? I don’t like pickled plums, either.”
“And you call yourself Japanese! In Manners and Customs of Edo, they say aged pickled plums work as medicine for colds. You could eat these with some rice porridge. How’s your wife?”
“She’s asleep. Got a high fever.”
“That’s no good.”
And from there, we chatted over tea with Chinese herbs. The round kabocha was cute, so I put it on my lap and petted it. The owner of Chitoseya said, “I have two, so I’ll give you that one.” I hugged it and thought, I’ll simmer this and take it to Ms. Hanuki.
“Been a while since I’ve seen you,” the owner of Chitoseya commented, looking at Mr. Higuchi. “You were at the bookfair, right?”
“Hmm, maybe.”
“We ate fire hot pot together, didn’t we?”
Mr. Higuchi suddenly seemed to remember. “Yes, that was tasty.”
“You liked it? I thought I was going to die.”
“Oh? I can’t really remember.”
“You don’t remember? Are you serious…?” For a few moments, he was lost for words. I’ve never eaten Mr. Rihaku’s fire hot pot, but it must have a terrifying flavor profile. My tongue is so sensitive to heat that just hearing the words fire hot pot seemed to make it burn.
The owner of Chitoseya collected himself and continued. “That was an odd collection of people. That old gray-haired guy, you, the student from the Keifuku Electric Railroad Research Society… You and one other guy managed to hang on till the end.”
“Oh, him.”
“You know, he was supposed to take the Hokusai for me, but he betrayed me partway through. For crying out loud. He wanted that picture book, whatever it was called, so bad.”
“He beat me.” Mr. Higuchi looked at me. “You know him—your clubmate,” he added.
We eventually departed, carrying pickled plums, kabocha, and Asada Ame. Please forgive us for greedily leaving with loot when we were the ones visiting. The owner of Gabi Shobo saw us off to the door and said, “Drop by the shop if the mood strikes you.”
“Isn’t it closed?”
“I found a promising kid, so I left him in charge. He’s a little guy but with a wonderfully sharp mind and a quick wit. He’s much more reliable than college kids these days.”
I wandered out of my room along the canal and walked Kitashirakawa. As I reached the Kitashirakawa Betto intersection, I saw a convenience store sparkling brilliantly in the twilight, and I finally realized I’d come out to buy something to drink. Due to my fever, the outlines of everything around me trembled as they do when you’re drunk. When I threw some yogurt and drinks into a basket and went to check out, a poster encouraging reservations for Christmas cake caught my eye. But I no longer had the energy to get aggravated, scream into the void, or make an escape. All I wanted was to ingest enough nutrients to not die and lie in bed. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to lament how low my standards were.
After returning to my room, I sipped some instant soup and burrowed into my futon. I coughed into the darkness inside it and whispered, “Even when I cough, alone.”
With my body in such a weakened state, I couldn’t think of anything good.
My grades haven’t improved since I started school, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be happening anytime soon. I loudly proclaim I’m continuing on to grad school, but it’s only an excuse to delay the job hunt. I’m not witty, I’m not talented, I’m not rich, I’m not strong, I’m not brave, I’m not charismatic, and neither am I the type of lovable little piglet guy you want to rub cheeks with. I’m never going to be able to make it in this world with nothing, nothing at all.
I got so anxious, I hauled myself out of my futon and crawled around my four-and-a-half-mat room on all fours, my hands pattering across the floor, searching for any talent or gifts I might have left lying around somewhere. Then I remembered in my first year, my creed was “A skilled hawk hides its talons,” and I had stashed a “talent bank” in my closet. “Right, I have that! Oh yeah!” I was delighted.
When I opened the closet, it was full of huge mushrooms. When the heck did this happen? I wondered, pushing the slimy fungi aside. The talent bank I pulled from the back gleamed golden. Like a symbol of my future. I tipped it over and whacked the bottom like a madman. What came out was a single piece of paper that said, “Do what you can, step-by-step.”
I collapsed in my futon and nearly bawled my eyes out.
I was up and at ’em on the morning of the winter solstice.
My eyes popped open in bed, and when I looked out the window, I could see the wind was gusting. I needed to go to the co-op and buy a ticket to go home for the holidays. I got up and did the Sophism Samba to get myself psyched.
I threw my clothes in the laundry machine and turned on the TV. While I was frying an egg, I saw that the Kyoto TV news station was covering the cold going around. The God of Colds, not content with merely knocking out everyone I was close to, was apparently attacking people around town like a murderer in
the streets. The news had put together an emergency feature on cold remedies.
There was a poster hanging in the lobby of my apartment complex in Mototanaka that warned, “Beware of colds!” I heard the landlord and his whole family on the first floor were bedridden. The whole building was quiet, and I hadn’t even heard the boisterous late-night mah-jongg games in a few days. On top of that, it was supposed to be my club’s year-end party that evening, but the night before, I’d gotten a phone call that it was canceled because most of the members were sick. Apparently, this was unheard of. There were so many people sick in bed, I couldn’t possibly visit them all. I felt bad.
After boosting my immunity with breakfast, I got ready to go out. The laundry was done, so I hung it out on the veranda. A somehow disquieting, lukewarm breeze was blowing in, but it didn’t seem as if it was going to rain.
Once the laundry was out to dry, I thought, Time to go! and when I was doing a point check to make sure the gas was off and whatnot, I noticed the red koi plushie in the corner of my room. It was a prize I’d won with some splendid shooting skills—if I do say so myself—at the school festival in the fall.
Oh, I know. I’ll give this to Mr. Todou as a get-well-soon gift. Just the thought of it made me happy and excited.
The owner of Gabi Shobo had coldly said I didn’t need to go, but he did tell me how to find the Todou Koi Fish Center. Now my plans for the day were set. Mr. Todou was breeding carp, so seeing one this big would be sure to cheer him right up. Yes, indeed.
Then I packed the koi plushie into a big cloth bundle and headed confidently out.
Come to think of it, haven’t I spend all this time in university uselessly thinking too hard about everything, intent on finding ways to delay taking the first step toward anything? It’s the same—I’m endlessly circling her castle’s moat, doing nothing but exhausting myself. A multitude of myselves began debating, precluding any definitive action.
I got out of my bed and went down the long hallway to the conference hall. When I appeared and turned in my application to date her, the room went nuts.
“I’m firmly against getting swept up in popular trends.”
“All you’re after is some comfort for your loneliness, you coward. Just grit your teeth and endure it.”
“You’re just using her as an escape because you can’t figure out what your future will be!”
“Be careful! First you need to see how she really feels—in as indirect a way as possible!”
“Are you even capable of something that requires as much sensitivity as dating a girl? Do you think it’ll be fun?”
“You just want to get your hands on a boob or two. Your head’s full of obscenities!”
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and retorted, “It’s true my head is full of obscenities, but that’s not all. There are lots of other things in there, too! More beautiful things!”
“Then here’s a question: Let’s say you’re going out alone together for the first time. By chance, you happened to have a fun day together, and that night, she snuggles up to you. What do you do?”
“She wouldn’t warm up to you as quickly as instant ramen!”
“This is just a hypothetical. If she said to you, C’mon, squeeze my breasts, would you refuse?”
All I could do was writhe. “I wouldn’t refuse! I wouldn’t, but…”
“There, you see that? You’re a dyed-in-the-wool pervert. Tell her you’re sorry. Throw yourself at her feet and apologize. Then content yourself with squeezing a rubber ball by the wayside!”
I was furious, but I couldn’t retaliate. “Sophistry! That’s just sophistry!” I shouted.
“I’ll make myself clear. How did you fall for her? Why did you choose her? If you insist on making a move, then show me a reason we can all agree on.”
All at once the insults started flying: Coward, traitor, rebel, pervert, idiot, airhead… The deluge of abuse left me out of breath up on the platform.
“But, gentlemen!” I raised both my hands and yelled hoarsely at my opponents crowding the room. “If you say I have to think it through so thoroughly, then how do men and women ever start dating? Isn’t the pure beginning to a romance that you desire impossible? If I consider every factor and perform an exhaustive analysis of my motives, I’ll be like the motionless arrow in the void, unable to take a step forward. Call it horniness, or her looks, or a trend, or a fantasy, or plain idiocy—I’ll accept it all. They’re all correct. But isn’t there a moment when you have to understand that and take a haphazard leap anyway? Even if you land in an abyss of heartache? If I don’t leap now, I’ll be stuck going in circles forever in this little corner of my youth. Is that what you want? Is there any one of you who can say you wouldn’t regret it if I died alone tomorrow without telling her how I feel? If you do, step forward.”
The hall fell utterly silent.
I stepped off the platform, went back down the long hallway, and opened my eyes in bed. Apparently, I’d been screaming my throat raw at the ceiling, and a trail of hot tears was flowing from the corner of my eye. I didn’t feel as if I’d slept at all.
“At any rate, I’m stuck in this situation at the moment… I don’t have a way to make a move anyhow…”
Coughing, I sat up. Panting, I hauled myself across the tatami and turned on the TV. I stared sulkily at the screen, eating a banana and drinking tea.
The light out the window was pale and bright; it was exactly what a winter morning should look like.
Apparently, it was the solstice.
I caught the Keihan train at Demachiyanagi Station and rocked along with my big bundle of koi plushie. At Chushojima, I transferred to the Uji Line; there were three stops to Rokujizo. When I reached Rokujizo, I walked toward Fushimi Momoyama with my parcel on my back, and before long, I was in town.
But I had trouble finding Mr. Todou’s house. The Todou Koi Fish Center had to have spacious tanks as far as the eye could see and innumerable fish leaping into the air—I was sure it was just like the undersea Dragon Palace of myth. There was no way I could miss such a fabulous facility. But it was very strange: I turned my map sideways and upside down, pacing back and forth through the quiet neighborhood. Eventually, I realized I had passed a house with a sign that said TODOU KOI FISH CENTER quite a few times. When I asked Mr. Todou later, he said the reservoir was in the back.
Next to the house was something like a workshop, full of glass tanks, pipes, and all sorts of clutter. A machine was groaning incessantly. A man in work clothes and a white mask was going around checking the tanks, so I approached him.
“Sorry to bother you while you’re working.”
But he answered, “What can I do for you?”
“I’m just wondering if Mr. Todou is here.”
“The president? He’s sleeping up on the second floor of the office…”
“I heard he had a cold, so I came to visit…”
The man let out a big sneeze and complained, “Agh, enough already” in irritation at himself, then turned to me and bowed politely. “Oh, thank you for coming out of your way. This way, please, right this way.”
In the office, there was a stout little heater. The kettle on it was quietly spouting steam. I sat there getting warm for a little while, and Mr. Todou came down wearing a cotton-padded coat. His familiar cucumber face looked haggard and even thinner; the lower half was covered in stubble, and his eyes gleamed with fever. Even so, when he saw me, he smiled.
“Oh, it’s you. You came all the way out here?”
“The man from Gabi Shobo told me the way.”
“He’s probably mad at me right? ’Cause I gave him the cold.”
“He was a tiny bit mad.”’
When the man in the work clothes said “Mr. Todou, kakkonto” and handed him the medicine, Mr. Todou obediently drank it.
Then he complained, “My daughter had been coming to see me, but then she got it… So I’m really in such a miserable state. No one’s been to visit since th
en. I’m really thankful you remembered me.”
“But I owe you so much, Mr. Todou.”
“You owe me? Really?”
As I drank my tea, I told him about all the experiences I’d had thanks to meeting him that night in Ponto-cho.
“Wow, that’s a whole lot of stuff.” He listened with interest. When I gave him the big koi plushie as a get-well-soon gift, he started to cry and professed, “This really brings back memories. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a fun night as that.” So we reminisced about that night.
“Talking with you is better for me than any panacea. I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
“You must have had it rough.”
“My fever wouldn’t go down; the cough was horrible… All the dreams I had were bizarre, and I never felt well rested when I woke up…”
“What kind of dreams were they?”
“Awful ones. I told you about the tornado that hit us this spring, right? I’ve seen that thing in my dreams a zillion times. The sun’s setting, and I look up at the sky, calling out each of my carp’s names. But they get sucked into the tornado… I kept having that dream over and over till I couldn’t stand it.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“But man, here I am causing trouble for everyone again, giving them my cold…,” he mumbled sadly and held his hands up to the heater. As I watched over that pitiful figure, the image of the God of Colds skipping from person to person came vividly to mind.
After leaving Mr. Todou, the God of Colds journeyed to Ms. Naoko and her husband, from them to the president, from the president to Dr. Uchida, to Ms. Hanuki… And meanwhile from Mr. Todou to the members of the Bedroom Investigation Commission, to the owner of Gabi Shobo, to the owner of Chitoseya, to the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s Youth Division, and to the director of the School Festival Office… The director of the School Festival Office gave it to Chief-in-Chief Underpants and Ms. Noriko, as well as the other people who came to visit him from the Keifuku Electric Railroad Research Society, the film club Ablutions, the Sophistry Debate Team, and more. Those people, who numbered in the dozens, gave the cold to all the people they knew, and from there, it wouldn’t take long to rampage throughout the entire university. The cold carried by several thousand students would be spread to their workplaces and hangouts and eventually to the entire city…
The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl Page 19
