“What sort of lies?”
“You name it,” said Reiko, with a sarcastic little smile. “It’s like I just said. Once someone starts lying, they have to keep lying more and more just to make it all sound plausible. That’s what compulsive lying is. The compulsive liar’s stories are for the most part harmless and those around them generally can tell. But with this kid, it was different. She didn’t give a jot about hurting others in order to protect herself, and she’d use whatever she could lay her hands on. Then she’d lie or not lie, depending on whom she was talking to. With her mother or close friends, those who could tell easily, she’d hardly ever lie except when she absolutely had to, and even then only with great caution, only lies that would never be found out. And if it did look like she’d get caught lying, she’d turn on the tears in those beautiful eyes to make some excuse wash, her voice oh-so-plaintive. After that, nobody could say anything.
“Just why that girl singled me out, I still can’t figure. Whether she chose me as a victim or she chose me in search of some kind of help, I still can’t tell. Not that it makes any difference at this point. It’s all over and done with, and here I am today.”
Pause.
“The girl said exactly what her mother had told me. That she’d been walking by my house, heard the music, and had been moved by it. She said she’d seen me any number of times outside the house and was filled with admiration. ‘Admiration’—she used that very word. It made me blush. To think that this doll of a child could admire the likes of me. Still, I’m not entirely sure it was all a lie. Of course, I was over thirty, not anywhere near as beautiful or quick-witted as she, and not especially talented. Yet there probably was something about me that attracted her, something she herself lacked, who knows? All the more reason for her to find me interesting. At least that’s what I’ve come to think. Still, it’s nothing I am proud of.”
“I didn’t think so, somehow,” I said.
“The girl brought some sheet music with her and asked if she could try playing. So I said go right ahead, and she played a Bach invention. What a funny way of playing she had! Funny or mysterious or I don’t know what, but in any case it wasn’t ordinary. And none too polished either, of course. After all, it’s not as if she was going to school just for that, not to mention that she played in her own way and had only had lessons off and on. Hers wasn’t your well-practiced sound. If she’d played in that way for a music school entrance exam she’d be out just like that. But that’s how she played for me. That is, ninety percent was terrible, but she’d have me listening to the remaining passable ten percent. And with a Bach invention, mind you! That’s what really interested me in the girl. What was with this kid?
“I mean there are all kinds of promising young pianists who can play better Bach, twenty times better than this kid. Most, however, don’t have any content to their playing. It’s all empty. But her, she might not have been good technically, but at least there was something about her that potentially grabbed me. Or so I thought. Certainly there was no way for her to unlearn and practice enough to become professional. But just maybe she could know the joy of playing the piano for herself like me at the time—or like now for that matter. A vain hope that was. She wasn’t the type to do anything quietly and discreetly for herself alone, not for anything. This was a child whose every move was calculated in minute detail to attract attention. How well she knew just what ploy to use, and when, so as to get people to admire her. And that included how she should play the piano for me. It was all precisely calculated. I’ll bet she practiced just that part she wanted me to hear, over and over for all she was worth. I can just see it.
“Yet even now, when all this is clear to me, I still think it was a wonderful performance. I’m sure my heart would leap if I heard it again, even minus her deceit and lies and faults. There are such things in this world.”
Reiko cleared her throat, interrupting her story.
“So you took the girl on as a pupil?” I asked.
“Right. Once a week, Saturday mornings. Her school had Saturdays off. She never missed one lesson, never came late, an ideal student. Always did her practice, too. And after the lessons, we’d have cake and talk,” said Reiko, suddenly remembering to look at her watch. “Say, maybe we ought to be heading back to the room. I’m a little worried about Naoko. Heaven forbid you’ve forgotten about Naoko!”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” I said smiling. “I just got caught up in the story.”
“If you want to hear the rest, I’ll tell you tomorrow. It’s too long for one session.”
“Scheherazade couldn’t have done it better.” “Now there’s no going back to Tokyo for you,” said Reiko, laughing.
We walked through the woods the way we came, back to the room. The candle had gone out, but the room light was still off. The bedroom door was open and a bedside lamp was on, spilling a dim glow into the living room. There amidst the gloom sat Naoko on the sofa. She’d changed into some sort of dressing gown, the collar pulled up tightly around her neck, both feet up on the sofa. Reiko went over to her and rested her hand on the crown of Naoko’s head.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry,” said Naoko quietly. Then she looked in my direction and shyly repeated her apology. “Startle you?”
“A little,” I said, smiling.
“Come over here,” she said. I took a seat next to Naoko, who leaned over as if to whisper a secret, but instead kissed me softly by my ear. “Sorry.” Naoko voiced another quiet apology at ear level. Then she sat back upright.
“Sometimes I don’t know what comes over me,” she said.
“It happens to me all the time,” I said.
Naoko smiled and looked at me. I told her that if she felt up to it, I’d like to hear more about her. Her life there. What she did, whom she met in the course of a typical day.
Naoko rattled off her day’s activities, but without going into any great detail. Up at six, breakfast here in the room, clean the bird coop, then she usually worked in the field, tending the vegetables. Before or after lunch, for an hour or so, she’d have an individual session with her doctor or else a group discussion. Afternoons were set aside for a choice of classes or outdoor work or sports. She was taking a number of different things, French and knitting and piano and ancient history.
“Piano, Reiko teaches me,” said Naoko. “She also teaches guitar. We all take turns being pupils and teachers. French is taught by this person who’s good at French, someone who once taught social studies teaches history, and the best knitter teaches knitting, and so on. Kind of like a little school. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything I could teach.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“But anyway, here I’m much more into my studies than I ever was at university. I really enjoy learning, a lot.”
“And after supper, what do you usually do?”
“I talk with Reiko or read or listen to records or go to someone else’s room and play games, whatever,” said Naoko.
“I practice my guitar, write my memoirs…” Reiko chimed in.
“Memoirs?”
“Just kidding,” laughed Reiko. “So then it’s lights out around ten. A healthy life, eh? Makes us sleep soundly.”
I looked at my watch. It was a little before nine. “Well, then, isn’t it getting on bedtime?”
“But it’s okay today, we can stay up a little later,” said Naoko. “It’s been so long, I’d like just to talk. Tell me something, anything.”
“A while ago, when I went off by myself, all sorts of things from way back suddenly came to mind,” I began. “Remember the time Kizuki and I went to see you when you were sick? At that seaside hospital? The summer of our second year in high school, was it?”
“When I had that chest operation,” said Naoko with a smile. “I remember it well. You and Kizuki came out on a motorbike, right? With a box of melted chocolates. What a time it was trying to eat them! Gee, it seems like ages ago.”
; “Sure does. And weren’t you writing some long poem at the time?”
“All girls that age write poems,” confessed Naoko, giggling. “What on earth made you remember that?”
“I don’t know. It just came to mind. The smell of the sea breeze and the oleanders, it all suddenly came back to me,” I said. “Tell me, did Kizuki visit you there often?”
“No, almost never. We had a fight about that later. First he came once, then with you, and that was it. The creep! And even that first time, he was all antsy, hung around maybe ten minutes before he split. Brought me an orange, muttered some nonsense or other, peeled the orange, fed me it, muttered more of the same nonsense, and—zip!—he was off. Said something like he really couldn’t take hospitals,” Naoko said with a laugh. “In that respect, the guy never grew up. I mean, really. Name me anybody who does like hospitals. After all, that’s why people go to cheer up their sick friends, to encourage them to get well, right? The guy didn’t seem to understand that.”
“When I came with him that time, though, he wasn’t so thoughtless. In fact, he was perfectly good about it all.”
“That’s because it was in front of you,” said Naoko. “He was always that way when you were around. Went all-out never to show his weak side. I guess Kizuki liked you, so he was always trying to show only his good side. But when it was just the two of us he wasn’t like that at all. He’d let down his guard. He’d change just like that. If he was talking up a storm to himself, the next instant he’d shut up and withdraw. He was like that ever since he was a child. Still he was always trying to better himself and improve.”
Naoko rearranged her legs on the sofa.
“He’d always try to better himself and improve and get all irritated and depressed when he failed. In spite of all the terrific and beautiful things about him, to the very last he had no self-confidence. He had to take care of this, go changing that, it was all he thought about. Poor Kizuki.”
“Well, all I can say is that if he was making an effort to show me only his good side, he certainly succeeded. I mean I only knew his good side.”
Naoko smiled. “I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that, you being his only friend and all.”
“And Kizuki was my one and only friend, too,” I added. “There hasn’t been a soul before or since I could call my friend.”
“That’s why I used to like the three of us hanging out, you, Kizuki, and me. We’d be seeing only our good sides, which was quite a relief. I was comfortable with being a threesome. I don’t know how you felt about it, of course.”
“I’m more concerned about how you saw the whole thing,” I said with a brisk shake of my head.
“But, you know, the problem was that it couldn’t go on like that. A tiny circle can’t keep itself going forever. Kizuki knew that, I knew that, and you knew that. No?”
I nodded.
“To be perfectly honest, though, I loved his weak side. Just as much as his good side. There wasn’t a shifty or mean thing about him, only a weak will. I’d tell him that, but he’d never believe me. And he’d tell me so. Naoko, he’d say, we’ve been together since we were three. With everything I knew about him, I’d lost all track of what were his faults and what were his strengths. He was always telling me that. But no matter what he said, I loved him, so much so I almost had no interest in anyone else.”
Naoko threw me a forced smile.
“We had something different from your typical boy-girl relationship. It was as if we were joined in our bodies somewhere. No matter how far apart we moved at times, there was this special gravity that would pull us back together in the end. That’s why it was the most natural thing in the world for Kizuki and I to become lovers. We were already kissing at twelve, petting at thirteen. I’d go to his room or he’d come to mine, and I’d do him by hand. I don’t think we were too young. It all came as a matter of course. If he wanted to fool with my breasts or my genitals, I didn’t mind in the least, and if he wanted to shoot off semen, I didn’t mind helping him at all. In fact, if anyone had criticized us for that, I’d probably have gotten very mad. I mean we didn’t do anything wrong. We only did what we could have been expected to do. We showed each other every inch of our bodies; it was almost as if we shared each other’s body. But for a good long while we never went any further. I was scared of getting pregnant, and we didn’t really know how to go about preventing it. In any case, that’s how we grew up, the two of us hand in hand, with almost no experience of the seriousness of sex or the inflated egos that accompany most kids’ growing years. Like I said before, we had a thoroughly open attitude toward sex, each absorbing the other’s self so that neither had to be excessively aware of things, if you know what I mean.”
“I think so,” I said.
“We were inseparable, a unit. That’s why if Kizuki were alive, I’m sure we’d be together, loving each other, getting miserable together by degrees.”
“How’s that?”
Naoko ran her fingers through her hair a few times. Without her hairclip, her hair swung across her face whenever she looked down.
“The way I see it, we were living a borrowed existence, one we could never repay,” said Naoko, looking up. “We never paid our dues when we were supposed to and the slam just came around the back way. That’s why Kizuki ended up like he did, that’s why I’m here right now. We were naked babes playing on a deserted island. We got hungry, we ate bananas; we felt lonely, we slept together. It just couldn’t last. We had to grow up and go out into society sometime. Which is what made you so valuable to us. You were our channel to the outside world. Through you, in our way we were trying to blend into the world at large. Can’t blame us for trying, eh?”
I nodded.
“Still, I don’t think we used you. Kizuki was honestly fond of you, while you just happened to be the first outsider we let into our midst. And that carries through to this day. Now that Kizuki’s gone, you’re still my only link to the outside world. And just like Kizuki, I’m fond of you in my own way, too. Yet, despite our best intentions, I guess this meant we were bound to wind up hurting each other. Although it never occurred to me.”
Naoko looked down again and fell silent.
“How about some cocoa?” interjected Reiko.
“That would be lovely,” said Naoko.
“I’ll have some of the brandy I brought with me, if it’s all right with you,” I said.
“Please do,” said Reiko. “And I wouldn’t mind a sip myself.”
“Certainly,” I replied with a laugh.
Reiko brought out two glasses, with which she and I had ourselves a toast. Then she went to the kitchen to make cocoa.
“Why don’t we talk about something more cheerful?” suggested Naoko.
I, however, couldn’t think of anything appropriately cheerful. Too bad Kamikaze wasn’t still around. If only he’d been there, there’d have been some new episode to keep everyone in stitches. For want of anything better, I rambled on about the unsanitary living conditions in the dorm. It got to be a bit much for me, but the two of them seemed to be amused by it all. Then Reiko followed this up with impersonations of various mental patients. Another big hit. By that point it was getting on eleven and Naoko was all sleepy-eyed, so Reiko folded the sofa down into a bed and gave me sheets, blanket, and pillow.
“You can come in and rape us in the middle of the night, but make sure you know who’s where,” said Reiko. “The one on the left without any wrinkles is Naoko.”
“Liar! I’m on the right,” was Naoko’s rejoinder.
“Oh, and by the way, I’ve arranged so we can pass up on some of my curriculum tomorrow afternoon, so let’s go on a picnic. There’s a really nice place nearby,” said Reiko.
“Sounds great,” I said.
The women took turns brushing their teeth at the washbasin before withdrawing into the bedroom, leaving me to stretch out on the sofa bed with my brandy to think over the day’s events in order, starting from the morning. And what a long day it
had been! Moonlight continued to pour into the room. Not a sound came from the bedroom where Naoko and Reiko were sleeping. Almost nothing stirred. Just the occasional creaking of a bedspring. I closed my eyes and minute patterns flickered before my eyes in the dark, while the echo of Reiko’s guitar lingering in my ears only dissipated now. At last sleep overtook me, dragging me down into the warm, sweet mire. And there were willows all around. A mountain path lined on both sides with willows. An unbelievable number of willow trees. The wind was blowing quite hard, but their branches didn’t even sway. How could that be, I thought, when just then I noticed tiny birds clinging to each and every branch. It was their weight that kept the branches still. I picked up a stick and struck the nearest branch to drive off the bird so the branch might swing freely, but the bird wouldn’t budge. Instead of flying off, it turned into a metal bird, which fell to the ground with a thud.
I awoke, but it still felt like the dream. The room was bright with moonlight. My first reaction was to look on the floor for the nonexistent metal bird. Naoko was sitting on the foot of the sofa bed, staring out the window. A half-starved waif, her knees pulled up under her chin. I looked over to check the time, but my watch was not where I remembered putting it. From the look of the moon, though, it must have been two or three o’clock. I felt a mighty thirst, but decided to stay put and watch Naoko. She was wearing the same blue dressing gown as before, her hair pinned up to one side with her butterfly hairclip, her brow strikingly exposed in the moonlight. Strange, I thought, hadn’t she undone her hairclip before she went to sleep?
Naoko kept that pose and didn’t so much as quiver. She seemed like some small animal transfixed by the moon, her lips made fuller by the underscoring shadow, an ever-so-vulnerable shadow that seemed to throb slightly in time with each heartbeat, a pulse of silent words whispered to the dark night.
Norwegian Wood Vol 1. Page 16
