Their fears were groundless, however. The Ice Man wasn’t really made out of ice. He was just as cold as ice. So even if it got hot, he wasn’t about to melt. He was cold, all right, but this wasn’t the kind of cold that was going to rob someone else of his body heat.
So we got married. No one celebrated our wedding. No one—not my friends, or relatives, or my family—was happy about us getting married. We didn’t even have a wedding ceremony. The Ice Man didn’t have a family register, so even a civil ceremony was out. The two of us simply decided that we were married. We bought a small cake and ate it, just the two of us. That was our ceremony. We rented a small apartment, and the Ice Man took a job at a refrigerated meat warehouse. The cold never bothered him, of course, and he never got tired, no matter how hard he worked. He never even ate very much. So his boss really liked him, and paid him more than any of his fellow employees. We lived a quiet life, just the two of us, not bothered by anyone else, not troubling anybody.
When we made love, I always pictured a solitary, silent clump of ice off somewhere. Hard ice, as hard as it could possibly be, the largest chunk of ice in the entire world. It was somewhere far away, though the Ice Man must know where that chunk of ice is. What he did was convey a memory of that ice. The first few times we made love, I was confused, but soon I grew used to it. I grew to love it when he took me in his arms. As always, he never said a word about himself, not even why he became an Ice Man, and I never asked him. The two of us simply held each other in the darkness, sharing that enormous ice, inside of which the world’s past, millions of years’ worth, was preserved.
Our married life was fine. We loved each other, and everyone left us alone. People found it hard at first to get used to the Ice Man, but after a while they started to talk with him. An Ice Man’s not so different from anybody else, they concluded. But deep down, I knew they didn’t accept him, and they didn’t accept me for having married him. We’re different people from them, they concluded, and the gulf separating them and us will never be filled.
We tried but failed to have a baby, perhaps because of a genetic difference between humans and Ice Men that made having children difficult. Without a baby to keep me busy, I found I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I’d straighten up the house in the morning, but after that had nothing to keep me busy. I didn’t have any friends to talk to or go out with, and I didn’t know anybody in the neighborhood. My mother and sister were still angry with me over marrying an Ice Man, and refused to get in touch. I was the family black sheep they were embarrassed about. There was no one to talk to, even over the phone. While the Ice Man was working in the warehouse, I stayed alone at home, reading or listening to music. I was a bit of a homebody anyway, and didn’t mind being by myself all that much. Still, I was young, and couldn’t put up with such a monotonous routine for long. Boredom didn’t bother me as much as the sheer repetitiveness of each day. I started to see myself as nothing more than a repetitive shadow within that daily routine.
So, one day I suggested to my husband that we take a trip somewhere to break up the routine. A trip? the Ice Man asked, his eyes narrowing. Why would you want to go on a trip? You’re not happy the way we are, just the two of us?
No, that’s not it, I replied. I’m perfectly happy. We get along fine. It’s just that I’m bored. I’d like to go someplace far away, see things I’ve never seen before, experience something new. Do you know what I mean? And besides, we never went on a honeymoon. We have enough saved up, plus you have plenty of vacation time. It would be nice to take a leisurely vacation for once.
The Ice Man let out a deep, nearly freezing sigh, which crystallized audibly in the air, then brought his long, frost-covered fingers together on his lap. Well, he said, if you really want to go on a trip that much, I don’t see why not. I don’t think traveling is all that great, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, go wherever you want. I’ve worked hard at the warehouse and should be able to take some time off. It shouldn’t be a problem. But where would you like to go?
How about the South Pole? I said. I picked the South Pole because I was sure the Ice Man would be interested in going there. And, truth be told, I’d always wanted to go see it. To see the aurora, and the penguins. I had this wonderful mental picture of myself in a hooded parka underneath the aurora, playing with the penguins.
The Ice Man looked deep into my eyes, unblinking. His look was like a sharply pointed icicle piercing deep into my brain. He was silent for a while, thinking, then with a twinkle in his voice he said, All right. If you’d really like to go to the South Pole then let’s do it. You’re sure that’s where you want to go?
I nodded.
I can take a long vacation in a couple of weeks, he said. You should be able to get everything ready for the trip in the meantime. That’s all right with you?
I couldn’t respond. His icicle stare had frozen my brain and I couldn’t think.
As the days passed, though, I started to regret bringing up the idea to my husband of a trip to the South Pole. I’m not sure why. It’s like ever since I mentioned the name “South Pole” he changed. His eyes grew more piercing and icicle-like than ever, his breath whiter, his fingers covered with an increasing amount of frost. He was quieter than before, and more stubborn. And he was no longer eating, which had me worried. Five days before we were set to depart I decided I had to say something. Let’s not go to the South Pole after all, I said to him. It’s too cold, and might not be good for us. It’d be better to go to some ordinary place—Europe or Spain or somewhere. We could drink some wine, eat some paella, watch a bullfight or two. But my husband ignored me. He had this faraway look for a while, then turned to me and looked deep into my eyes. His stare went so deep I felt like my body was about to vanish right then and there. No, my husband the Ice Man said flatly, Spain doesn’t interest me. I’m sorry, but it’s just too hot and dusty. And the food’s too spicy. And I already bought our tickets to the South Pole, and a fur coat and fur-lined boots for you. We can’t let those go to waste. We can’t just back out now.
To tell you the truth, I was frightened. If we went to the South Pole, I felt sure something terrible was going to happen to us. I had the same awful dream night after night. I’m walking somewhere when I fall into a deep hole. Nobody finds me and I freeze solid. I’m frozen inside the ice, gazing up at the sky. I’m conscious but can’t even move a finger. It’s such a weird feeling. With each passing moment I’m becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating. Everybody is watching this happening to me. They’re watching the past, watching as I slip further and further away.
Then I wake up and find the Ice Man sleeping beside me. He makes no sound as he sleeps, like something frozen and dead. I love him, though. I start to cry, my tears wetting his cheeks. He awakens and holds me close. I had an awful dream, I tell him. In the darkness he slowly shakes his head. It was only a dream, he says. Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn’t control you—you should control them.
You’re right, I say—but I’m not at all certain.
So we ended up taking a plane to the South Pole. I couldn’t find a reason to call off our trip. The pilots and stewardesses in our plane barely said a word the whole way. I was hoping to enjoy the scenery as we flew, but the clouds were so thick I couldn’t see a thing. Before long, the windows were covered with a thick film of ice. All this time, my husband just quietly read a book. I felt none of the usual excitement and happiness you feel as you set out on a trip, merely the feeling that we were fulfilling what we’d set out to do.
As we walked down the ramp and first set foot at the South Pole, I could feel my husband’s whole body tremble. It all happened in the blink of an eye, in half an instant, and his expression didn’t change a jot, so no one else noticed. But I didn’t miss it. Something inside him sent a quiet yet intense jolt through him. I stared at his face. He stood there, looked up at the sky, then at his hands, and then let out a
deep breath. He looked over at me and smiled. So this is where you wanted to come? he asked. That’s right, I replied.
I knew the South Pole was going to be a lonely place, but it turned out to be lonelier than anything I could have imagined. Hardly anyone lived there. There was just one small featureless town, with one equally featureless hotel. The South Pole isn’t much of a tourist destination. There weren’t even any penguins, not to mention any aurora. Occasionally I’d stop passersby and ask where the penguins were, but they’d merely shake their head. They couldn’t understand my words, so I’d end up sketching a penguin on a piece of paper to show them, but all I got was the same response—a silent shake of the head. I felt so alone. Step outside the town and all you saw was ice. No trees, no flowers, rivers, or ponds. Ice and nothing but—a frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see.
My husband, on the other hand, with his white breath, frosty fingers, and faraway look in his icicle eyes, strode tirelessly here and there. It wasn’t long before he learned the language and spoke with the locals in hard, icy tones. They talked for hours, intense looks on their faces, but I didn’t have a clue what they could be talking about. My husband was entranced by the whole place. Something about it appealed to him. It upset me at first, and I felt like I was left behind, betrayed and abandoned.
Finally, though, in the midst of this silent, icy world, all strength drained out of me, ebbing away bit by bit. Even, in the end, the strength to feel upset by my situation. My emotional compass had vanished. I lost all sense of direction, of time, of the sense of who I was. I don’t know when it began, or when it ended, but before I knew it I was locked away, alone and numb in the endless winter of that world of ice. Even after I’d lost almost all sensation, I still knew this: The husband here at the South Pole is not the husband I used to know. I couldn’t say how he’d changed, exactly, for he still was always thoughtful, always had kind words for me. And I knew he sincerely meant the things he said. But I also knew that the Ice Man before me now was not the Ice Man I’d first met at the ski resort. But who was I going to complain to? All the South Pole people liked him a lot, and they couldn’t understand a word I said. With white breath and frosty faces they talked, joked around, and sang songs in that distinctively spirited language of theirs. I stayed shut up in my hotel room gazing out at the gray skies that wouldn’t clear for months, struggling to learn the complicated grammar of the South Pole language, something I knew I’d never master.
There weren’t any more airplanes at the airport. After the plane that carried us here departed no more landed. By this time the runway was buried beneath a hard sheet of ice. Just like my heart.
Winter’s come, my husband said. A long, long winter. No planes will come, no ships either. Everything’s frozen solid, he said. All we can do is wait for spring.
It was three months after we’d come to the South Pole that I realized I was pregnant. And I knew one thing: that the baby I was going to give birth to would be a tiny Ice Man. My womb had frozen over, a thin sheet of ice mixed in with my amniotic fluid. I could feel that chill deep inside my belly. And I knew this, too: my child would have the same icicle eyes as his father, the same frost-covered fingers. And I knew one more thing: our new little family would never step outside the South Pole again. The outrageous weight of the eternal past had grabbed us and wasn’t about to let go. We’d never be able to shake free.
My heart is just about gone now. The warmth I used to have has retreated somewhere far away. Sometimes I even forget that warmth ever existed. I’m still able to cry, though. I’m completely alone, in the coldest, loneliest place in the world. When I cry, my husband kisses my cheeks, turning my tears to ice. He peels off those frozen tears and puts them on his tongue. You know I love you, he says. And I know it’s true. The Ice Man does love me. But the wind blows his frozen words further and further into the past. And I cry some more, icy tears welling up endlessly in our frozen little home in the far-off South Pole.
—TRANSLATED BY PHILIP GABRIEL
CRABS
They ran across the little restaurant entirely by accident. It was the evening of their first night in Singapore and they were walking near a beach when, on a whim, they ducked into a side street and happened to pass by the place. The restaurant was a one-story building surrounded by a waist-high brick wall, with a garden with low palm trees and five wooden tables. The stucco main building was painted a bright pink. Each table had its own faded umbrella opened over it. It was still early and the place was nearly deserted. Just two old men with short hair, Chinese apparently, sat across from each other, drinking beer and silently eating a variety of snacks. They didn’t say a word to each other. On the ground at their feet a large black dog lay there wearily, its eyes half-closed. A ghostly trail of steam streamed out of the kitchen window, and the tempting smell of something cooking. The happy voices of the cooks filtered out as well, along with the clatter of pots and pans. The palm fronds on the trees, trembling in the slight breeze, stood out in the sinking sun.
The woman came to a halt, taking in the scene.
“How about having dinner here?” she asked.
The young man read the name of the restaurant at the entrance and looked around for a menu. But there wasn’t a menu posted outside. He gave it some thought. “Hmm. I don’t know. You know, eating at some place we’re not sure of in a foreign country.”
“But I’ve got a sixth sense about restaurants. I can always sniff out the really good ones. And this one’s definitely great. I guarantee it. Why don’t we try it?”
The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had no idea what kind of food they made here, but he had to admit it did smell pretty tempting. And the restaurant itself had a certain charm to it. “But do you think it’s clean?”
She tugged at his arm. “You’re too sensitive. Don’t worry. We’ve flown all this way here, so we should be a little more adventurous. I don’t want to eat in the restaurant in the hotel every day. That’s boring. Come on, let’s give it a try.”
Once inside they realized that the place specialized in crab dishes. The menu was written in English and Chinese. Most of the customers were locals, and the prices were quite reasonable. According to the menu Singapore boasts dozens of varieties of crabs, with over a hundred types of crab dishes. The man and the woman ordered Singapore beer, and after looking over what was available, selected several crab dishes and shared them. The portions were generous, the ingredients all fresh, the seasoning just right.
“This really is good,” the man said, impressed.
“See? What’d I tell you? I told you I have the power to find the best. Now do you believe me?”
“Yep. Have to say I do,” the young man admitted.
“This kind of power really comes in handy,” the woman said. “You know, eating’s much more important than most people think. There comes a time in your life when you’ve just got to have something super-delicious. And when you’re standing at that crossroads your whole life can change, depending on which one you go into—the good restaurant or the awful one. It’s like—do you fall on this side of the fence, or the other side.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Life can be pretty scary, can’t it?”
“Exactly,” she said, and held up a mischievous finger. “Life is a scary thing. More than you can ever imagine.”
The young man nodded. “And we happened to fall on the inside of the fence, didn’t we.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s good,” the young man said dispassionately. “Do you like crab?”
“Mm, I’ve always loved it. How about you?”
“I love it. I wouldn’t mind eating crab every day.”
“A new point we have in common,” she beamed.
The man smiled, and the two of them raised their glasses in another toast.
“We’ve got to come back tomorrow,” she said. “There can’t be many places like this in the world. I mean, it’s so delicious—and look at the prices.�
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For the next three days they ate at the little restaurant. In the mornings they’d go to the beach to swim, and sunbathe, then stroll around the town and pick up souvenirs at local handicraft shops. Around the same time each evening they’d go to the little back-street restaurant, try different crab dishes, then return to their hotel room for some leisurely lovemaking, then fall into a dreamless sleep. Every day felt like paradise. The woman was twenty-six, and taught English in a private girls’ junior high. The man was twenty-eight and worked as an auditor at a large bank. It was almost a miracle that they were able to take a vacation at the same time, and they wanted to find a place where no one would bother them, where they could simply enjoy themselves. They tried their best to avoid any topic that would spoil the mood and their precious time together.
On the fourth day—the last day of their vacation—they ate crab as always in the evening. As they scooped out meat from the crab legs with metal utensils they talked about how being here, swimming every day at the beach, eating their fill of crab at night, made life back in Tokyo begin to look unreal, and far far away. Mostly they talked about the present. Silence fell on their meal from time to time, each of them lost in their own thoughts. But it wasn’t an unpleasant silence. Cold beer and hot crab filled in the gaps nicely.
They left the restaurant and walked back to their hotel, and, as always, ended their day by making love. Quiet, but fulfilling lovemaking. They both took showers and soon fell asleep.
But after a short while the young man woke up, feeling awful. He had a sensation like he’d swallowed a hard cloud. He rushed to the bathroom, and draped over the toilet bowl he spewed out the contents of his stomach. His stomach had been full of white crabmeat. He hadn’t had time to switch on the light, but in the light of the moon, which lay floating over the sea, he could make out what was in the toilet. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let time pass. His head was a blank, and he couldn’t form a single thought. All he could do was wait. Another wave of nausea hit him and again he hurled up whatever was left in his stomach.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Page 23
