“What’s wrong? Are you OK?”
It was kind of disappointing being asked if I was OK instead of something like “how’ve you been” or “long time no see,” having not seen each other for such a long time. We talked a bit and it turned out that I had arrived an hour early. When I said, “Damn. What a pain in the ass,” she replied, “Oh really? Why?”
“I’m probably going to die soon.”
I told her about my predicament in a nearby cafe.
She remained silent for a while, sipping leisurely on her cocoa. Then looking up at me she said,
“Is that so?”
This took me by surprise. Her response seemed a little glib to say the least.
I had imagined three possible responses. In order of preference they go like this:
“Why? What happened?”
“Is there anything I can do? Just say it. I’ll do anything.”
Remain silent for a moment and then burst into tears.
Her reaction left something to be desired.
On the other hand, when I think about it, even I acted pretty calm when I was told I didn’t have long to live. The whole thing seemed kind of surreal, even to me, so why should I be surprised if other people don’t seem shocked, disappointed, or sad.
I wonder why people always expect things from others that they themselves can’t or won’t do. Did I want her to be shocked, or sad?
“But why so sudden?”
“I just found out. It’s cancer.”
“Oh, that’s terrible . . . but you don’t seem upset at all. So I guess people are actually pretty calm when they hear that they might die soon?”
Of course, I couldn’t exactly tell her that the Devil was helping me to buy more time. I don’t think there’s anyone who would want his first love to think he’s lost his mind when he’s on the brink of death. And besides, that wasn’t what I came to speak to her about.
“And so . . .”
“What?”
“Since I might die soon, I feel the need to find out more about myself . . . you know . . . to reach some kind of understanding.”
“Is that so?”
“I mean . . . I guess I need to know if my life had any meaning.”
“Yeah, I guess you’d wonder about that . . .”
“Well, yeah. So that’s why I wanted to talk about us. I mean, our history. I remember all sorts of things about us, but I wanted to ask you what you remember, even the little things.”
I realized I’d been talking very fast, and then discovering that my coffee had gone cold, I downed the rest of it in one go.
She didn’t seem pleased. “Well, if that was the case you should have given me some advance warning.” She stopped and looked deep in thought. Suddenly I felt really awkward, so I went to the bathroom and took my time getting back to my seat.
“Now that’s something I do remember.”
“What?”
“You always went to the bathroom a lot.”
This was her first offering.
“And you always took a really long time . . . for a man.”
What? So that was it? No warm up—straight to it.
And besides, she’d never mentioned it before. But now that I think about it, I do go pretty often and take quite a long time. That’s because I tend to start thinking about things while I’m in the bathroom, to the point where I sort of drift off. Then I take a long time washing my hands afterward, and walking back from the bathroom and so on. It seemed like she hardly ever went to the bathroom. And whenever we used public toilets at the same time, she’d always be out first and waiting for me.
“Oh, and you always sighed a lot. I was always thinking how awful life must be for you.”
“Was it really like that . . . ?”
“And you weren’t much of a drinker. Couldn’t take your liquor.”
“Jeez, sorry . . .”
“Oh, yeah, and whenever we went to a restaurant you could never decide what to order . . . even though you’re supposed to be a man. And then you’d always end up ordering the same thing anyway—curry rice. And whenever I got angry you’d sulk and take a really long time to get over it.”
After blurting all of this out she looked pretty pleased with herself and went back to casually sipping her cocoa.
Wow. So this is what I have to listen to as I approach the end? Did my life have any meaning? Was it worth the effort?
This seemed pretty harsh. So this is what you remember about the man you once loved? Or maybe it’s not so strange. Women are always unforgiving and unsentimental about men in their past. That must be it. At least that’s what I told myself.
“Oh, right, and one more thing. Whenever you phoned you’d talk a lot, but then when we met in person, like this, you didn’t have much to say.”
I’ll have to admit she was probably right there.
In those days, we’d talk on the phone for two or three hours at a time. And we only lived a thirty-minute walk from each other. Every now and again we’d talk on the phone for eight hours straight, and then we’d laugh, saying if we were going to talk for that long we should have just spent the day together.
But then when we actually did spend time with each other, we didn’t seem to have much to talk about. On the phone, it seemed more intimate, even though we weren’t with each other, and we’d have the most involved conversations over even the small things.
Even so, her judgment of me seemed a bit negative. Don’t I deserve more than that now, when the end is near? I kept on going even though my heart was breaking.
“But then, you did stick around for more than three years, you put up with all of that.”
“You can say that for sure! But . . .”
“But what?”
“I liked your phone calls. You used to talk so passionately about music and novels . . . it was as if the world had suddenly transformed. I liked you. I might have even loved you. Even though you were incapable of talking about anything when we actually met.”
“Yeah. You’re right, you know. The phone calls. It was the same for me. I remember how you’d talk about movies, and how the whole world seemed to change just listening to your voice.”
This seemed to break the ice, and we rambled on endlessly after that. Mostly we talked about old times and people we knew back then, like the skinny kid who had now grown incredibly fat, or that girl who was a plain Jane and really stern, but who married right out of college and now had four children.
The next thing we knew it had got dark, so I walked her home. She lived in a little room above the movie theater where she worked.
“So you finally did it—you married the movies.”
She laughed at me. “Now, now, you’re not allowed to joke about that kind of thing.”
“So how’s your father?” she asked me as we strolled along the cobbled street.
“Mmmm . . . I wouldn’t know . . .”
“Still haven’t made up?”
“I haven’t seen him since my mother died.”
“Your mother always said she wanted the two of you to get along.”
“I guess we just weren’t able to live up to her expectations.”
After we had been seeing each other for about six months I took her home to meet my parents. My father didn’t even come out of his shop to say hello, but my mother really took to her. Mom served cake and then cooked a meal, and then served more cake after that. She wouldn’t let her go home!
“I always wanted a daughter,” my mother told her. Mom had only brothers and no sister. Even the cats, Lettuce and Cabbage, were male.
After that the two of them used to go out together without my knowing.
“Your mother was very special,” she said smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“When a new restaurant opened she’d get all excited and invite me to go out with her. She taught me how to cook. We’d even go to the beauty salon together.”
“Huh? You went to the beauty salon together?
I never knew.”
Mom died three years after we broke up, but my girlfriend still came to the funeral. She shook and cried, and held on to Cabbage until it was all over. I think she’d sensed how confused and upset Cabbage was, as he went pacing back and forth through the house.
After we broke up Mom would always say, “Now, she was a good catch that one,” making sure to slip it in every time I saw her. When I saw how my girlfriend held Cabbage at the funeral, I think I finally understood what Mom had meant.
“How’s Cabbage?”
“He’s doing fine.”
“But what are you going to do about him? Who’ll take care of him when you die?”
“I’m thinking about it. I’ll find someone.”
“Well, let me know if you can’t find anyone.”
“Thanks.”
At the foot of the steep hill we were making our way down I could see the movie theater’s sign all lit up. Years had gone by since I last saw the place and now it seemed so small. I first saw it as a student and it seemed big, and colorful. It was the same with the clock tower in the square. The neighborhood remained for the most part unchanged. The real-estate office, restaurants, the prep school, and the flower shop. The only difference was that the supermarket had been done up. But now the town I used to know felt like a miniature model, as if it had shrunk in size. Or was it that the way I saw things had become bigger?
“You know, there was something I wanted to ask you . . .” I trailed off.
“What?”
“Why do you think we broke up?”
“What made you want to know all of a sudden?”
“I guess there must have been some specific reason, but I can’t seem to remember now.”
Actually, I had been planning to ask her about this the whole time. About why we broke up. Maybe we just got bored, or our feelings got worn out, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was exactly that finally drove us apart.
“So do you remember?”
For a while she didn’t respond, and then, turning to face me suddenly, fired off a series of questions.
“OK, what’s my favorite food?”
What a random question. The seconds ticked by.
“Ummmm, let me think. Is it deep-fried shrimp?”
“Wrong! It’s corn tempura!”
Hey, but I was close. They’re both fried foods. But wait a minute, what was she getting at with all this?
“OK then, what’s my favorite animal?”
“What? Ummm, let’s see now . . .”
“Japanese monkey.”
Right, right . . .
“Then what’s my favorite drink?”
What was it? I had no memory of it at all.
“Sorry . . . I give up.”
“Cocoa. What I was drinking back there at the cafe. You’ve forgotten already?”
Right. Now I remembered. She loved corn tempura and always ordered it when corn was in season. She used to say it was her favorite food in the whole wide world. And when we went to the zoo she’d never stray far from the monkey enclosure. And she’d drink hot cocoa all the time, even in summer.
It’s not as if I’d forgotten completely. I just couldn’t remember at that precise moment. I suppose after we broke up I had just shut away all my memories of her.
Somewhere I heard that people forget in order to build memories. You have to forget in order to move on. But on the other hand, I’d started to think . . . Now I was staring death in the face, I’d found myself remembering lots of trivial things.
“I guess people forget. It’s more or less what I expected. It’s the same with us breaking up. It’s just one of those things. It’s not worth trying to remember all the details.”
“Was that it . . . really?”
“Well, if you really want to know, I’d say that that trip we took before graduation was the beginning of the end.”
“You mean . . . Buenos Aires? Wow, that takes me back.”
All of the dates we went on took place right in the confines of the small town—we never went further afield. We just did laps around town, as if we were playing an endless game of Monopoly. And yet we were never bored.
We’d meet at the library after class and go to a movie. And then we’d go to our usual cafe and talk. Later we’d go to her place and have sex. Every once in a while she’d pack lunch for us and we’d take the cable car to the spot with the best view in town and have a picnic. It wasn’t much, but we were happy. It was all we needed.
Thinking about it now it’s kind of hard to believe, but I suppose the size of this town was just right for us then.
We went out for over three years, and we only went abroad once. Argentina . . . Buenos Aires. It was both our first and last trip together.
At the time, we were both crazy about a film by a Hong Kong director, set in Buenos Aires.
So for our last long holiday as students we decided to go there.
We booked a flight on a cheap American airline with a connection part way through. We were permanently cold and the food was awful. After twenty-six hours of travel we finally arrived in Buenos Aires.
From Ezeiza International Airport we took a seedy cab to El Centro. We checked into the hotel and headed straight to our room, to bed, but we couldn’t sleep. It didn’t matter how tired we were, our inner clocks were still on Japan time. We were on the other side of the world, as well as in a different hemisphere.
So we decided to go out and explore the city.
The beautiful sound of someone playing the bandoneón echoed through the streets and dancers did the tango on the cobblestones. The sky hung low in Buenos Aires as we took in the sights. We headed for the famous old Recoleta Cemetery and wandered around its labyrinthine passages, eventually finding the grave of Eva Peron. Later we ate lunch in a cafe while listening to tango melodies played by an elderly white-haired guitarist.
Later in the day we boarded a bus for La Boca, the old working-class district everyone talks about with its colorful houses, street musicians, and other attractions. The journey took half an hour as the bus wound its way through the series of narrow streets. Then the colors of the neighborhood came into view—the wooden houses painted sky blue and mustard yellow, emerald green and salmon pink. As we strolled around, the colors of the houses glowed in the setting sun, as if we were looking at dolls’ houses. When night fell, we went to watch a tango show at La Ventana in San Telmo—the heat of the dance took us to another world.
We spent a couple of days strolling through the city, slightly drunk on the passion that hung in the air. Then we met Tom, who was staying at the same cheap hotel as us.
He called himself Tom, but he was actually Japanese. He was a young man of twenty-nine and had quit his job at a media company to travel around the world. In the evenings, we’d go along with him to the local supermarket, to buy wine, meat, and cheese, which we took back to the hotel and ate in the dining room. Night after night we talked until late as we ate and sipped our wine.
Tom told us stories from his travels. He told us about the sacred cows in India, little boy Buddhist monks of Tibet, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and the white nights of Helsinki. He told us of seeing the ocean stretch on endlessly in Lisbon.
Tom didn’t hold back on the Argentine red wine and was soon stinking drunk, but he could still go on talking.
“There are so many cruel things in the world, but there are also just as many beautiful things.”
For us, after life in a small town doing the same thing day after day, it was all so new and fascinating . . . it was impossible to picture the things he described. But even so, Tom had no trouble relating to us, sometimes laughing, sometimes with tears in his eyes. There we were, the three of us on the other side of the world, talking on and on.
Then finally it was almost time for us to return to Japan, but Tom had suddenly disappeared. He hadn’t turned up at the hotel after heading out for a day of sightseeing, as usual. We drank wine as we always did and wait
ed for him, but he never came.
The next day we found out that Tom was dead. He had taken a trip to the border between Argentina and Chile to see a historical site with a statue of Christ, and the bus he was on drove off a cliff.
It was like a dream. It didn’t feel real. I could still see Tom coming into the dining room with a bottle of wine in one hand saying, “C’mon, time for a drink,” but now Tom wasn’t coming back. We spent the day feeling stunned.
On our last day we visited Iguazu Falls, making the thirty-minute journey from the nearest airport. We walked two hours until we got to the narrow crack in the earth’s surface that they call the Devil’s Throat. We’d seen it in the Hong Kong film that made us want to visit Argentina in the first place. It sits at the top of the largest waterfall in the world.
Water rushed over the falls with such an unimaginable force . . . the magnificence of that place, its scale, it gave me a sense of the sheer violence nature is capable of.
Then I noticed that my girlfriend was crying next to me. She raised her voice and screamed and cried, and no matter how loudly she yelled, her voice was drowned out by the deafening sound of the falls.
It was then that it hit me. The real, tangible feeling that someone had died, of having lost someone you’d grown close to. Tom was dead. We would never see him again. No more talking late into the night, drinking red wine, and enjoying meals together . . . It was the first time the reality of death had really hit home for either of us. And so she started to cry there, in that place, where it was so obvious just how powerless, how utterly helpless, human beings are. She went on crying and I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was stare blankly at the white, foamy water as it came down the falls and was swallowed up by the great hole in the earth.
We left Buenos Aires and returned to Japan via the same route. Again, it took ages. For the whole twenty-six hours that it took to get home, we never spoke one word to each other.
Had we talked too much while we were in Buenos Aires? No, that’s not what it was. We could just no longer find the words. It wasn’t that we wouldn’t talk. We just couldn’t. We sat there right next to each other and couldn’t explain what we were thinking or feeling. We couldn’t speak. We were both in pain because a friend had died, but now we were at a loss for words.
If Cats Disappeared From the World Page 4
