by The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (retail) (epub)
I blamed her for the miscarriage. I thought, quite without reason, that this was an extreme and unfair means of revenge. But this was only on the surface. I blamed my wife because I knew that, having suffered herself without reason, she wanted to be blamed for it. This is something I understand. And I blamed my wife because I myself felt to blame for what had happened and if I blamed my wife, unjustly, she could then accuse me, and I would feel guilty, as you should when you are to blame. Also I felt that by wronging my wife, by hurting her when she had been hurt already, I would be driven by my remorse to do exactly what was needed in the circumstances: to love her. It was at this time that I realized that my wife’s eyebrows had the same attractions as Arabic calligraphy. The truth was we were both crushed by our misfortune, and by hurting each other, shifting the real pain, we protected each other. So I blamed my wife in order to make myself feel bound towards her. Men want power over women in order to be able to let women take this power from them.
This was seven years ago. I do not know if these reactions have ever ceased. Because we could have no children we made up for it in other ways. We began to take frequent and expensive holidays. We would say as we planned them, to convince ourselves: ‘We need a break, we need to get away.’ We went out a lot, to restaurants, concerts, cinemas, theatres. We were keen on the arts. We would go to all the new things, but we would seldom discuss, after seeing a play for instance, what we had watched. Because we had no children we could afford this; but if we had had children we could still have afforded it, since as my career advanced my job brought in more.
This became our story: our loss and its recompense. We felt we had justifications, an account of ourselves. As a result we lived on quite neutral terms with each other. For long periods, especially during those weeks before we took a holiday, we seldom made love – or when we did we would do so as if in fact we were not making love at all. We would lie in our bed, close but not touching, like two continents, each with its own customs and history, between which there is no bridge. We turned our backs towards each other as if we were both waiting our moment, hiding a dagger in our hands. But in order for the dagger thrust to be made, history must first stop, the gap between continents must be crossed. So we would lie, unmoving. And the only stroke, the only wound either of us inflicted was when one would turn and touch the other with empty, gentle hands, as though to say, ‘See, I have no dagger.’
It seemed we went on holiday in order to make love, to stimulate passion (I dreamt, perhaps, long before we actually travelled there, and even though my wife’s milky body lay beside me, of the sensuous, uninhibited East). But although our holidays seldom had this effect and were only a kind of make-believe, we did not admit this to each other. We were not like real people. We were like characters in a detective novel. The mystery to be solved in our novel was who killed our baby. But as soon as the murderer was discovered he would kill his discoverer. So the discovery was always avoided. Yet the story had to go on. And this, like all stories, kept us from pain as well as boredom.
‘It was the boy – I mean the porter. You know, the one who works on this floor.’
My wife had stopped crying. She is lying on the bed. She wears a dark skirt; her legs are creamy. I know who she is talking about, have half guessed it before she spoke. I have seen him, in a white jacket, collecting laundry and doing jobs in the corridor: one of those thick-faced, crop-haired, rather melancholy-looking young Turks with whom Istanbul abounds and who seem either to have just left or to be about to be conscripted into the army.
‘He knocked and came in. He’d come to repair the heater. You know, we complained it was cold at night. He had tools. I went out onto the balcony. When he finished he called out something and I came in. Then he came up to me – and touched me.’
‘Touched you? What do you mean – touched you?’ I know my wife will not like my inquisitorial tone. I wonder whether she is wondering if in some way I suspect her behaviour.
‘Oh, you know,’ she says exasperatedly.
‘No. It’s important I know exactly what happened, if we’re –’
‘If what?’
She looks at me, her eyebrows wavering.
I realize again that though I am demanding an explanation I really don’t want to know what actually happened or, on the other hand, to accept a story. Whether, for example, the Turk touched my wife at all; whether if he did touch her, he only touched her or actually assaulted her in some way, whether my wife evaded, resisted or even encouraged his advances. All these things seem possible. But I do not want to know them. That is why I pretend to want to know them. I see too that my wife does not want to tell me either what really happened or a story. I realize that for eight years, night after night, we have been telling each other the story of our love.
‘Well?’ I insist.
My wife sits up on the bed. She holds one hand, closed, to her throat. She has this way of seeming to draw in, chastely, the collar of her blouse, even when she is not wearing a blouse or her neck is bare. It started when we lost our baby. It is a way of signalling that she has certain inviolable zones that mustn’t be trespassed on. She gets up and walks around the room. She seems overwhelmed and avoids looking out of the window.
‘He is probably still out there, lurking in the corridor,’ she says as if under siege.
She looks at me expectantly, but cautiously. She is not interested in facts but reactions. I should be angry at the Turk, or she should be angry at me for not being angry at the Turk. The truth is we are trying to make each other angry with each other. We are using the incident to show that we have lost patience with each other.
‘Then we must get the manager,’ I repeat.
Her expression becomes scornful, as if I am evading the issue.
‘You know what will happen if we tell the manager,’ she says. ‘He will smile and shrug his shoulders.’
I somehow find this quite credible and for this reason want to scoff at it harshly. The manager is a bulky, balding man, with stylish cuff-links and a long, aquiline nose with sensitive nostrils. Every time trips have been arranged for us which have gone wrong or information been given which has proved faulty he has smiled at our complaints and shrugged. He introduces himself to foreign guests as Mehmet, but this is not significant since every second Turk is a Mehmet or Ahmet. I have a picture of him listening to this fresh grievance and raising his hands, palms exposed, as if to show he has no dagger.
My wife stares at me. I feel I am in her power. I know she is right; that this is not a matter for the authorities. I look out of the window. The sun is glinting on the Bosphorus from behind dark soot-falls of approaching rain. I think of what you read in the guide-books, the Arabian Nights. I should go out and murder this Turk who is hiding in the linen cupboard.
‘It’s the manager’s responsibility,’ I say.
She jerks her head aside at this.
‘There’d be no point in seeing the manager,’ she says.
I turn from the window.
‘So actually nothing happened?’
She looks at me as if I have assaulted her.
We both pace about the room. She clasps her arms as if she is cold. Outside the sky is dark. We seem to be entering a labyrinth.
‘I want to get away,’ she says, crossing her arms so her hands are on her shoulders. ‘This place’ – she gestures towards the window. ‘I want to go home.’
Her skin seems thin and luminous in the fading light.
I am trying to gauge my wife. I am somehow afraid she is in real danger. All right, if you feel that bad, I think. But I say, with almost deliberate casualness: ‘That would spoil the holiday, wouldn’t it?’ What I really think is that my wife should go and I should remain, in this unreal world where, if I had the right sort of dagger, I would use it on myself.
‘But we’ll go if you feel that bad,’ I say.
Outside a heavy shower has begun to fall.
‘I’m glad I got those photos then,’ I say. I go to t
he window where I have put the guide-books on the sill. A curtain of rain veils Asia from Europe. I feel I am to blame for the weather. I explain from the guide-book the places we have not yet visited. Exotic names. I feel the radiator under the window ledge. It is distinctly warmer.
My wife sits down on the bed. She leans forward so that her hair covers her face. She is holding her stomach like someone who has been wounded.
The best way to leave Istanbul must be by ship. So you can lean at the stern and watch that fabulous skyline slowly recede, become merely two-dimensional; that Arabian Nights mirage which when you get close to it turns into a labyrinth. Glinting under the sun of Asia, silhouetted by the sun of Europe. The view from the air in a Turkish Airlines Boeing, when you have had to cancel your flight and book another at short notice, is less fantastic but still memorable. I look out of the porthole. I am somehow in love with this beautiful city in which you do not feel safe. My wife does not look; she opens a magazine. She is wearing a pale-coloured suit. Other people in the plane glance at her.
All stories are told, like this one, looking back at painful places which have become silhouettes, or looking forward, before you arrive, at scintillating façades which have yet to reveal their dagger thrusts, their hands in hotel bedrooms. They buy the reprieve, or the stay of execution, of distance. London looked inviting from the air, spread out under clear spring sunshine; and one understood the pleasures of tourists staying in hotels in Mayfair, walking in the morning with their cameras and guide-books, past monuments and statues, under plane trees, to see the soldiers at the Palace. One wants the moment of the story to go on for ever, the poise of parting or arriving to be everlasting. So one doesn’t have to cross to the other continent, doesn’t have to know what really happened, doesn’t have to meet the waiting blade.
* * *
KAZUO ISHIGURO
* * *
A FAMILY SUPPER
Fugu is a fish caught off the Pacific shores of Japan. The fish has held a special significance for me ever since my mother died through eating one. The poison resides in the sexual glands of the fish, inside two fragile bags. When preparing the fish, these bags must be removed with caution, for any clumsiness will result in the poison leaking into the veins. Regrettably, it is not easy to tell whether or not this operation has been carried out successfully. The proof is, as it were, in the eating.
Fugu poisoning is hideously painful and almost always fatal. If the fish has been eaten during the evening, the victim is usually overtaken by pain during his sleep. He rolls about in agony for a few hours and is dead by morning. The fish became extremely popular in Japan after the war. Until stricter regulations were imposed, it was all the rage to perform the hazardous gutting operation in one’s own kitchen, then to invite neighbours and friends round for the feast.
At the time of my mother’s death, I was living in California. My relationship with my parents had become somewhat strained around that period, and consequently I did not learn of the circumstances surrounding her death until I returned to Tokyo two years later. Apparently, my mother had always refused to eat fugu, but on this particular occasion she had made an exception, having been invited by an old schoolfriend whom she was anxious not to offend. It was my father who supplied me with the details as we drove from the airport to his house in the Kamakura district. When we finally arrived, it was nearing the end of a sunny autumn day.
‘Did you eat on the plane?’ my father asked. We were sitting on the tatami floor of his tea-room.
‘They gave me a light snack.’
‘You must be hungry. We’ll eat as soon as Kikuko arrives.’
My father was a formidable-looking man with a large stony jaw and furious black eyebrows. I think now in retrospect that he much resembled Chou En-lai, although he would not have cherished such a comparison, being particularly proud of the pure samurai blood that ran in the family. His general presence was not one which encouraged relaxed conversation; neither were things helped much by his odd way of stating each remark as if it were the concluding one. In fact, as I sat opposite him that afternoon, a boyhood memory came back to me of the time he had struck me several times around the head for ‘chattering like an old woman’. Inevitably, our conversation since my arrival at the airport had been punctuated by long pauses.
‘I’m sorry to hear about the firm,’ I said when neither of us had spoken for some time. He nodded gravely.
‘In fact the story didn’t end there,’ he said. ‘After the firm’s collapse, Watanabe killed himself. He didn’t wish to live with the disgrace.’
‘I see.’
‘We were partners for seventeen years. A man of principle and honour. I respected him very much.’
‘Will you go into business again?’ I asked.
‘I am – in retirement. I’m too old to involve myself in new ventures now. Business these days has become so different. Dealing with foreigners. Doing things their way. I don’t understand how we’ve come to this. Neither did Watanabe.’ He sighed. ‘A fine man. A man of principle.’
The tea-room looked out over the garden. From where I sat I could make out the ancient well which as a child I had believed haunted. It was just visible now through the thick foliage. The sun had sunk low and much of the garden had fallen into shadow.
‘I’m glad in any case that you’ve decided to come back,’ my father said. ‘More than a short visit, I hope.’
‘I’m not sure what my plans will be.’
‘I for one am prepared to forget the past. Your mother too was always ready to welcome you back – upset as she was by your behaviour.’
‘I appreciate your sympathy. As I say, I’m not sure what my plans are.’
‘I’ve come to believe now that there were no evil intentions in your mind,’ my father continued. ‘You were swayed by certain – influences. Like so many others.’
‘Perhaps we should forget it, as you suggest.’
‘As you will. More tea?’
Just then a girl’s voice came echoing through the house.
‘At last.’ My father rose to his feet. ‘Kikuko has arrived.’
Despite our difference in years, my sister and I had always been close. Seeing me again seemed to make her excessively excited and for a while she did nothing but giggle nervously. But she calmed down somewhat when my father started to question her about Osaka and her university. She answered him with short formal replies. She in turn asked me a few questions, but she seemed inhibited by the fear that her questions might lead to awkward topics. After a while, the conversation had become even sparser than prior to Kikuko’s arrival. Then my father stood up, saying: ‘I must attend to the supper. Please excuse me for being burdened down by such matters. Kikuko will look after you.’
My sister relaxed quite visibly once he had left the room. Within a few minutes, she was chatting freely about her friends in Osaka and about her classes at university. Then quite suddenly she decided we should walk in the garden and went striding out onto the veranda. We put on some straw sandals that had been left along the veranda rail and stepped out into the garden. The daylight had almost gone.
‘I’ve been dying for a smoke for the last half-hour,’ she said, lighting a cigarette.
‘Then why didn’t you smoke?’
She made a furtive gesture back towards the house, then grinned mischievously.
‘Oh I see,’ I said.
‘Guess what? I’ve got a boyfriend now.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Except I’m wondering what to do. I haven’t made up my mind yet.’
‘Quite understandable.’
‘You see, he’s making plans to go to America. He wants me to go with him as soon as I finish studying.’
‘I see. And you want to go to America?’
‘If we go, we’re going to hitch-hike.’ Kikuko waved a thumb in front of my face. ‘People say it’s dangerous, but I’ve done it in Osaka and it’s fine.’
‘I see. So what is it you’re unsur
e about?’
We were following a narrow path that wound through the shrubs and finished by the old well. As we walked, Kikuko persisted in taking unnecessarily theatrical puffs on her cigarette.
‘Well. I’ve got lots of friends now in Osaka. I like it there. I’m not sure I want to leave them all behind just yet. And Suichi – I like him, but I’m not sure I want to spend so much time with him. Do you understand?’
‘Oh perfectly.’
She grinned again, then skipped on ahead of me until she had reached the well. ‘Do you remember,’ she said, as I came walking up to her ‘how you used to say this well was haunted?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
We both peered over the side.
‘Mother always told me it was the old woman from the vegetable store you’d seen that night,’ she said. ‘But I never believed her and never came out here alone.’
‘Mother used to tell me that too. She even told me once the old woman had confessed to being the ghost. Apparently she’d been taking a short cut through our garden. I imagine she had some trouble clambering over these walls.’
Kikuko gave a giggle. She then turned her back to the well, casting her gaze about the garden.
‘Mother never really blamed you, you know,’ she said, in a new voice. I remained silent. ‘She always used to say to me how it was their fault, hers and Father’s, for not bringing you up correctly. She used to tell me how much more careful they’d been with me, and that’s why I was so good.’ She looked up and the mischievous grin had returned to her face. ‘Poor Mother,’ she said.
