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  As he walked down the road to the station, he recalled his own words to Isogai: “I don’t remember anything but this life . . . There’s just this one life, nothing before or after. Death is the end of everything.” Somehow he felt that the pitiful form of Kin yielding to the caress of his fingertip wordlessly denied that statement.

  6

  In a dimly lit periphery of the station, near rows of coin lockers where the guardroom of the Railway Public Security officer and branch offices of travel agencies stood side by side, was an area where about fifty red pay phones had been set up.

  Tetsuyuki gazed for some time at the throngs of people projecting their words into their respective mouthpieces in that sweltering space. One irate man was shouting at a phone, while a woman laughed as she spoke softly, twisting the cord around a finger. A young man—likely a salesman—was quoting prices for some kind of merchandise to his interlocutor as he studied a pamphlet. A laborer kept dialing a number apparently only to get a busy signal, finally slamming the receiver down and spitting on the ground. To Tetsuyuki the scene spoke of loneliness; this was the noisiest but also the loneliest area in the enormous station. He felt uneasy about calling his mother from a place like this. The back of his polo shirt was wet with perspiration and clung to his skin. The coin lockers, the scores of red pay phones, the people talking to others via machinery, the midsummer heat . . .

  Tetsuyuki escaped down into the central underground arcade and entered a coffee shop. After ordering iced coffee, he dialed the number from the pay phone in the corner of the shop. Cool air, trained directly at him from a large air conditioner, felt good for a moment, but soon gooseflesh broke out on his sweat-drenched body.

  To Tetsuyuki’s question as to why her voice sounded so listless, his mother replied, “A bit of heat exhaustion. This summer’s a real scorcher. How are you doing?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m eating three meals a day, and when I’m finished with work I go right home, where I get plenty of sleep.”

  “Has something happened?” his mother asked after taking a breath.

  “No, nothing.”

  “Would you actually give your mother a call if it were nothing? Maybe you’re suffering from heat exhaustion too.”

  It was only when they had first started living separately that he kept his promise to phone her daily at noon. Then that turned into once every three or four days, and finally only when he had something to discuss.

  “Will Yōko be working at the department store again this year?” his mother asked.

  “Yeah.”

  His mother fell silent, and so did he. She mentioned the need to be patient only a bit longer, that next spring they would be able to live together. With that, she hung up. Judging from her manner of speaking, he had a feeling she knew something about Yōko that he did not.

  He went to the hotel at three o’clock that day and explained to Section Chief Shimazaki that there was a matter he would unavoidably have to take care of and asked to be allowed to leave at nine, but to compensate he had come to work two hours early. After Shimazaki agreed to his request, he went to look for Isogai, whose time card indicated that he had come to work at eight in the morning, and had just finished at three. Thinking that he might still find him in the locker room, Tetsuyuki dashed through the passageway between the kitchen and the laundry room, with temperatures as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, and found Tsuruta changing into his uniform.

  “Has Isogai already left?”

  “He left just now. Didn’t you see him?” Tsuruta whistled as he arranged his hair neatly with a brush and left the locker room without so much as glancing at Tetsuyuki. He soon returned and smiled at Tetsuyuki. “Excuse me, Iryō!” This was the first time Tsuruta had ever addressed him in such a friendly way.

  “Just now, Section Chief Shimazaki mentioned that you’d be hired full-time here next year. Is that true?”

  “He has recommended it to me, but I still haven’t decided what I’ll do.”

  Tsuruta went on: about how in the first year of employment here they offered 20 or 30 percent more than some other places, but since the base salary was low, raises and bonuses after that would be paltry; about how the hotel industry had grown excessively competitive, resulting in a decrease in guests since last autumn; about how the perversity of the bosses made it an unpleasant and difficult place to work. He urged Tetsuyuki to seek permanent employment elsewhere.

  “At any rate, their pay system is underhanded.”

  Tetsuyuki had been on the job less than five months, but he knew that between full-time employees with only a high school diploma and those who had graduated from college, the gap was considerable in terms of promotions and raises. Tsuruta was the same age as Tetsuyuki, but had only graduated from high school, and was probably worried that if he were hired full-time, after three years or so he would be his superior. Perhaps Tsuruta was concerned about the possibility that Tetsuyuki would make trouble for him by lodging a complaint about his usual behavior.

  “Well, I’m ninety-nine percent certain that I want to stay on here.” It was really more like fifty-fifty, but he put it that way to Tsuruta hoping to effect a change in him.

  “For your sake, I think you’d be better off quitting,” Tsuruta said as he closed the door. Tetsuyuki did not care; his mind was totally occupied with Yōko. If she had found a guy she liked better, and if she had already pressed her beautiful body against his chest . . . He was overcome with emotion at the thought, and wanted to sink to the linoleum floor of the locker room, cradling his head in his hands.

  That day, all the guests he escorted to their rooms tipped him. That was the first time such a thing had happened, and as he stood in the lobby he pressed his hands against the pockets of his uniform to prevent the abundant coins from jingling.

  After finishing his shift, he took the Hankyū Line to Mukonosō Station, where the clock read 9:40. Tetsuyuki assumed that even if Yōko was working, surely she would be home by now. He phoned her from the station, but she had not yet returned. He walked through the residential area to her house and leaned against a utility pole, waiting for her to return. After about an hour a cab stopped and Yōko got out. Tetsuyuki intently studied the taxi, and was relieved to confirm that no one else was in the passenger seat; Yōko had returned alone. Hurrying toward the house, she stopped in her tracks when she recognized Tetsuyuki.

  “Tetsuyuki, what is it?”

  “Yōko . . . what’s up?” Observing her bearing as she had dashed from the cab toward her house and the expression on her face, he realized that his premonitions had not been mistaken.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to hide this forever? In any case, you’ll have to decide.” Yōko just continued to stare at him silently.

  “Who is he? Is he a student, like me? Or is he someone a lot older and loaded?” Yōko remained silent. Leaning as before against the utility pole, Tetsuyuki continued his questioning. “When we parted yesterday, did you go somewhere with him?”

  “We went to see a movie.”

  “And then?”

  “We went to dinner, and then I came home . . .”

  “What about today?”

  “We went to Kyoto.”

  “You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”

  Yōko averted her eyes and said in a small voice, “I thought that if I couldn’t marry you, then I would want to marry him.”

  “Don’t confuse the issue. That means that you want to marry him more than me, doesn’t it?”

  Yōko shook her head. “It doesn’t mean that. I just think that if I can’t marry you, then I’d want to marry him.”

  Tetsuyuki wasn’t sure he understood what she was saying. He started to walk toward the station. She followed after him.

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “He’s an architect. This year he’s been able to establish an independent practice.”


  Tetsuyuki stopped and wheeled around. “You see? You’d be a lot better off marrying him!” He spoke with conviction.

  “I’m not making comparisons between you and him.”

  “You just think you’re not. But somewhere in your mind, you’re definitely making comparisons. And naturally you’ll be more inclined toward him. I think that’s what will happen.”

  The two of them went to a small park nearby and sat side by side on swings. After some hesitation he asked Yōko never to see that man again. Granted, Tetsuyuki had no secure employment, and even after graduation he would have to spend several years paying back his father’s debts. But he would give everything in him to make certain she would be glad that she had married a man like himself. He loved her more than she could possibly know. He didn’t want her to see that guy anymore. His words were firm but delivered in what could hardly have been a more desperate tone of voice.

  “I can’t make such a promise right now.” Enunciating each syllable separately, Yōko answered weakly and gripped the chain of the swing. Her words fell on Tetsuyuki like a pile driver, burying the calmness he had struggled so hard to call forth.

  “Why? Until recently you were in love only with me, right? Why this, all of a sudden?”

  “I can’t lie to you. I’d hate meeting him if I’d lied and told you I wouldn’t. That’s why I’m being honest with you. Give me some time to do as I please.” Yōko was crying, shaking her head as if in a gesture of reluctance.

  “Some time . . . how long?”

  “. . . I don’t know.”

  Each time a train stopped at the station, the number of people exiting the gate decreased. The voice of a drunk slurring his words as he shouted at them, “Hey, what the hell you sayin’?” gradually faded in the distance.

  “You like me, don’t you?”

  Yōko nodded deeply.

  “And you like him, too?”

  This time she made a shallow nod, and muttered, “I don’t understand my feelings.” Tetsuyuki gazed at the garishly blazing illuminated sign on the roof of a love hotel incongruously situated among the condominiums and rental buildings lined up on the other side of the tracks.

  “How far have you gone with that guy?”

  Yōko looked up into Tetsuyuki’s eyes. “We’ve just gone to movies and dinners together.”

  Tetsuyuki found it impossible to believe her. He stood up from the swing and, pointing at the love hotel, asked, “Can you go with me now, over there?” Yōko nodded and stood up.

  They crossed the railroad tracks and circled around the south side of the station. Approaching the front of the hotel, Tetsuyuki marched right inside, not slackening his pace. Without saying a word, a reception clerk showed them to their room and then disappeared, closing the door. Tetsuyuki threw Yōko down on the bed. He bit her lips, and she responded in kind, following the same actions and reactions as they had done in his apartment. But this time Tetsuyuki looked down at her steadfastly as she let out only restrained cries of ecstasy, clinging tightly to him. Her eyes opened slightly, and he asked her once again never to see that man. Her body completely given over to Tetsuyuki, she said, “I want to see him, too.”

  Something like a shudder ran through Tetsuyuki’s mind. He barely restrained himself from shouting and, pulling away from her, quickly got dressed.

  “You go out first, okay? I’m embarrassed to leave together.”

  Making no reply to Yōko’s request, Tetsuyuki descended the cheaply constructed hotel staircase and paid the fee at the front desk, informing them that his partner would leave in another five minutes.

  He ran outside. The warning signal was sounding at the railroad crossing. He bought a ticket, dashed up the stairs to cross over to the platform on the other side, and jumped on the train just before it departed. On previous occasions Yōko had insisted on using a contraceptive device, but today she had taken his fluid deep within her. This evening she had lost her composure and had perhaps forgotten. Or had she done that on purpose? The questions continued to pass through Tetsuyuki’s mind as he sat in the train, leaving him totally mystified.

  It was 11:40 when he arrived at Umeda Station, and he missed the last train for Suminodō. He hesitated, unsure whether he should go to his mother’s place or have Nakazawa put him up, but his feet spontaneously began moving toward Kita Shinchi.

  Just before reaching the main avenue in Shinchi, he remembered Kin: today had been unusually hot and, having had no water or fan to cool him, he would probably expire before morning. He counted the money in his pocket: the fee at the love hotel had been higher than he expected, leaving him with only a little over 600 yen. The taxi fare Isogai had paid the night before was 3,200 yen. With that, he immediately recalled: yes, he had received an unusual number of tips that day, and many hundred-yen coins were still stuffed in his uniform.

  He retraced his steps, running through the employees’ entrance and the overheated hallway to the locker room. He opened his locker and grabbed the coins from his uniform: thirty-three 100-yen coins, and one 500-yen note. During the more than four months he had been working as a bellboy, this was the first time every guest had tipped him; such a thing was unlikely to happen again. It even seemed almost as if, in order to protect himself, Kin had used some supernatural power to make the guests tip.

  The cab he hailed was privately owned, and the cleanliness of the seat covers and floor mats signaled the driver’s care for this instrument of his livelihood. Tetsuyuki removed his soiled cheap shoes and placed them upside down on the side of the mat.

  The driver laughed. “There’s no need for you to remove your shoes.” Surely he was not able to see a customer’s feet in his rearview mirror. Tetsuyuki wondered how he knew that he had removed his shoes, but rather than ask, he simply said, “They’re so dirty, it would be a shame to soil your cab.”

  “I can always wash the floor mat. You’re a paying customer. If you always show that kind of deference, you’ll never make it through life.”

  “. . . I see.”

  “To get to Suminodō, I go straight down the Hanna Freeway and past the intersection at Akai, right?”

  “That’s right. After you pass the intersection at Akai, the turns are rather confusing.”

  “That area’s always getting hit by downpours or typhoons, leaving standing water on the road. Anyway, there’s no good storm drainage system. After typhoons there’ve been two or three times when I’ve had customers and gotten stuck.”

  The driver talked on volubly. Responding perfunctorily, Tetsuyuki pondered Yōko’s words, uttered even as she was in his embrace: “I want to see him, too.” She spoke those words clearly. And yet when she was in his arms, she gave every evidence of her usual affection: not the slightest hesitation, no sign of disgust, responding to his every caress with one of her own. Nevertheless she was drawn to another man and wanted to see him, asking to be left to do as she pleased.

  If Yōko were just another pretty face like one sees around town or on campus, then he would surely not be reduced to such a stupor. She possessed a sort of class, purity, and gentleness that is rare these days, and none of that had changed during the nearly three years they had known each other. And one day, suddenly, she took off everything she had on. Didn’t that mean she had decided? At that thought, their conversation that same evening in the park and their first time together at a love hotel seemed like an illusion.

  He tried to recall the features of the room in the love hotel, but nothing came to mind, not even the color of the bedspread or the curtains, or the pattern of the wallpaper. Only the lingering warmth of Yōko’s body enveloped part of his body as if it were a membrane. There were numerous couples on campus, but everyone regarded Tetsuyuki and Yōko as somehow special. He recalled the words of a rugby team member: “It wouldn’t matter with other couples, but if those two broke up, I’d permanently lose all faith in the bond between men and women.”

  “Please turn right on that street just before the traffic light.”
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  “Nara’s just over the mountain. Now there are new homes for sale lined up endlessly, but this place used to be the sticks. The next station after Suminodō is Nozaki. Are you familiar with it?”

  “Just with the name.”

  “Just the name? Yeah, you probably wouldn’t know anything but the name.” With that, the driver began singing to a folk rhythm:

  A pilgrimage to Nozaki

  On a roofed pleasure boat—

  Let us go...

  “There’s a song that goes like that. There used to be roofed pleasure boats from Osaka carrying geisha who’d bring their lunches and make a pilgrimage to the deity Kannon in Nozaki. Now there’s nothing in that river but sludge, and factories are crammed along its banks. You’d never get a pleasure boat down it now.”

  Tetsuyuki paid the fare with more than thirty 100-yen coins.

  “What’s this? Did you break your piggy bank to pay the cab fare?”

  “Something like that.” Tetsuyuki returned the driver’s affable smile and trudged with heavy steps up the stairs to the apartment. Entering the room and switching on the fluorescent light, he let out a cry: Kin was drooping with his stomach and chin facing upward.

  “Kin-chan!” Tetsuyuki poked Kin’s nose, eliciting a slight movement of the tail. He was not yet dead. Tetsuyuki rushed to open the windows and direct the fan toward Kin, then prepared some ice water and sprayed the lizard’s body with several times the usual amount, so that the chilled water dripped in streams from its tail down the pillar. After five—then ten—minutes, Kin’s nailed body was still drooping backward.

  Rummaging about in the kitchen, Tetsuyuki finally found a straw. Dipping it into a cup of water while stopping the other end, he pried Kin’s mouth open by gently squeezing both sides with his thumb and index finger. He then released the liquid slowly into Kin’s mouth. Most did not enter the throat and just spilled out on Tetsuyuki’s hand, but a small amount did get into Kin’s dehydrated body. At length, the lizard’s feet began to move, and its arched body gradually straightened.