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  It was about an hour before he recovered from his state of suspended animation, and during that time Tetsuyuki never stopped giving him water through the straw, spraying him with ice water, and setting the fan at different angles, rushing back and forth from the kitchen and trying every measure that came to mind. It took another thirty minutes before Kin was able to lap water from a spoon.

  “It was miserably hot today, and I was two hours later than usual getting home,” Tetsuyuki explained to Kin, who lapped the water but refused the larvae. “Kin, here’s a cricket. They’re your favorite.” During the day, Tetsuyuki had crawled about in a thicket of tall goldenrod and had managed to catch one cricket, which he thrust before Kin’s nose, holding it by its long hind legs. Kin just flicked his red tongue, but would not eat the insect. Tetsuyuki determined to stay up until Kin ate the cricket.

  “Mr. Iryō!” A man’s voice sounded along with a knock on the door. Assuming it must be one of Kobori’s henchmen, Tetsuyuki felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Mr. Iryō, are you asleep?” It was not a gangster’s tone of voice. Tetsuyuki closed his palm around the cricket.

  “Who is it, may I ask?”

  “Police.”

  Tetsuyuki opened the door to see the police officer from the other day standing there.

  “Sorry to bother you at this time of night.”

  “Mosquitoes will get in, so please step inside.”

  The officer sat down on the step inside the door, which Tetsuyuki quickly closed.

  “Has anything happened since then? Any visits from that guy’s associates or anything?” When Tetsuyuki answered in the negative, the officer took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief. “Upon investigating that collector, Kobori, we found plenty of other crimes, as I expected we would: extortion, assault, illegal trafficking in pornographic films . . . he was even working as a trafficker of amphetamines. I’m sure he won’t get out for another seven or eight years.” Then he furrowed his brow as he stared suspiciously at one corner of the room. “What is that?”

  Tetsuyuki had forgotten to cover Kin. Since he had already been seen, there was nothing for it but to tell the truth.

  “It’s a lizard.”

  “A lizard . . .”

  “It’s nailed to the pillar.”

  “Why?” The officer turned his astonished face toward Tetsuyuki, who summarized how it had happened.

  “Is it actually alive?”

  “Today was brutally hot, and I got home later than usual, so he had almost died. He’s just now recovered.”

  “This is the first time I’ve seen such a thing.”

  “I myself don’t understand why I don’t just pull the nail out. If I took a crowbar and used a bit of muscle, I could get the nail out. But then I’m afraid he’d die . . .”

  The officer continued to gaze at Kin. “My son keeps hamsters. Ever since he was little, he’s liked small animals, you know. But he’s never wanted a cat or a dog. When he was in elementary school, he kept frogs and bell crickets. And when he was in high school, he saved his New Year’s money and bought a baby alligator. Hey, even though it’s a baby, it’s still an alligator. After about two months, we had to ask a zoo to take it. My son pouted for four or five days and wouldn’t say a word to us. He complained that it had cost fifty thousand yen. Now he has hamsters, a pair, so they keep having litters.”

  After the officer left, Tetsuyuki again approached Kin and held out the cricket that had been in his hand all that time. With a smooth movement of his tongue, Kin pulled the cricket into his mouth. Tears welled up in Tetsuyuki’s eyes as he looked at Kin in that condition. He lifted his voice and cried like a child. Were they tears of joy because Kin was still alive? Or tears of sadness because Yōko was attracted to another man? Tetsuyuki himself could not say for sure. As he cried, he caressed Kin’s body with his finger, just as he had done during the day. In Kin’s throat was a cricket-shaped bulge.

  7

  After purchasing chestnut weevil larvae at the fishing gear section of a department store, Tetsuyuki took the subway to Honmachi. Ever since having heard from Yōko’s own lips that there was another man in her life, he had confined himself to his apartment, missing work at the hotel. He had no idea how many times he had tossed about on the floor, groaning. After twenty days of that he began to run out of money for food, not to mention rent. He called Nakazawa Masami to ask for a loan, lying that he had come down with such a severe summer cold that he had not been able to work. Nakazawa reluctantly agreed.

  As he walked down the street lined with office buildings, it began to rain and thunder rumbled in the distance. The momentum of the rain picked up quickly and in no time it was a downpour, roaring as it pelted the road. Walking slumped over, Tetsuyuki became soaked. This rain seemed to herald the end of summer. He longed for autumn to arrive, and resolved that until then—until fleecy clouds again appeared in the sky—he would not see Yōko. By then she would probably have reached some conclusion.

  As soon as Nakazawa saw Tetsuyuki soaked to the bone, he switched off his tape deck. “You said you’ve been fighting a cold. You get soaked like this, and you’ll have a relapse.” Then, handing over the money he had prepared, he added, “Instead of borrowing from me, you have a devoted lady friend, don’t you?”

  Tetsuyuki made no reply. Taking off his wet clothing, he borrowed a towel and dried himself off, then asked Nakazawa to put on “Lady Jane.”

  “You really like that song, don’t you? I’ve gotten so sick of it that I can’t even stand to look at the record jacket anymore. Go ahead and put it on if you like.” Lying faceup on the bed, Nakazawa pointed to the shelf of LPs, mentioning that it should be the fourth one from the right. Tetsuyuki did not know how many times he had heard “Lady Jane,” but listening intently to the saxophone, he thought of his mother, whose life was getting shorter day by day. He glanced over to see a copy of Lamenting the Deviations by Nakazawa’s pillow, and thought it unsurprising that he would read such a book.

  “To you, these hundreds of LPs and that copy of Lamenting the Deviations are all the same thing, aren’t they?”

  “Have you read Lamenting the Deviations?”

  “I had to read it for my class in Eastern philosophy. If I wrote and submitted a report on it, I could get credit without taking the exam. So I read it.”

  “Shinran was extraordinary. I’ve gradually come to realize how amazing he was.”

  “What was so amazing about him?”

  Flipping through the pages of Lamenting the Deviations, Nakazawa found and read aloud the following line:

  “‘Since I could never succeed in any austerities, hell will surely be my final abode.’”

  “What’s so amazing about that? Reading Lamenting the Deviations made me sick of living. It’s a collection of words that rob people of their vitality. Shinran was just a loser himself, and his legacy to humanity was that sort of resignation. So the pampered son of a rich guy who will one day inherit this building says ‘hell will surely be my final abode.’ How ridiculous!”

  “You really like taking a dig at me, don’t you?” Unusually for him, a hurt expression appeared on Nakazawa’s face. The figure of Kin, nailed to a pillar but still alive, suddenly cast a strange glow in Tetsuyuki’s mind.

  “Did Shinran really even exist?”

  At Tetsuyuki’s query, Nakazawa sat up. “Are you some kind of idiot? Haven’t you read Japanese history? Lamenting the Deviations is a collection of Shinran’s words, compiled later by his disciple Yuien. Shinran was a priest in the early Kamakura period. He was born in 1173 and died in 1262. As a child, he went by the name Matsuwaka-maru. He studied under Jien, and later became a disciple to Hōnen. Isn’t all of that clear enough in the history books?”

  “‘History,’ huh? That can all be fabricated later to suit someone.”

  “What? So then you’re saying that Shinran was just a figment of someone’s imagination? I’d like to hear what basis
you have for thinking so.”

  “Since I reject Lamenting the Deviations, I find it strange that this Shinran is so lionized among the half-baked intelligentsia. I mean, isn’t he all too human, warts and all? Hōnen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism, had his ashes strewn in the Kamo River, leaving a command that no prayers be recited. The Pure Land sect desperately needed to create a charismatic symbol. But when you think of how Hōnen died, he couldn’t be of use that way.”

  “There was no need to create a fictional character as a symbol. There was always Rennyo, wasn’t there?”

  “Exactly! It was Rennyo who invented that fictional character Shinran. Rennyo was a bright guy. He didn’t need to be charismatic himself, just invent this Shinran and make an idol of him, and then bask in the charisma himself. That makes Rennyo a politician as well.”

  “That’s an interesting piece of inference. But don’t go around saying that to people with a straight face. You’ll be laughed at.”

  “Well, in any case, it’s a defeatist religion. In that age someone born a peasant would be a peasant for life with no recourse to anything but a miserable existence and unable to hope for any happiness in this life. Words like ‘hell will surely be my final abode’ were probably persuasive. So then the idea was popular that if you chant prayers, after death you’ll achieve happiness in the Pure Land, which lies innumerable leagues to the west. When I see people who are leading ordinary lives reverencing Lamenting the Deviations and acting as if they really understand it, it makes me angry. It is a hellish book cobbled together from the defiant words of a defeatist with a generous admixture of beautiful passages gushing melancholy. For you it’s just a substitute for records and booze. It’s a mental ornament, one that allows you to be pleased with yourself. And that’s about all that Pure Land thought amounts to.”

  Nakazawa approached Tetsuyuki and extended his hand. Tetsuyuki immediately understood what was meant, and returned the money he had borrowed.

  “Get out! That doesn’t seem like any way to talk to someone who has just lent you money. So, I’m a loser . . . For a malnourished guy who looks like death warmed over, your mouth is in good shape, isn’t it? At that rate, you should be able to go another four or five days without eating.”

  Tetsuyuki put on his wet clothes, picked up the box of larvae, and left Nakazawa’s room. The rain was still coming down hard. He stood for a while in the entrance to the Nakazawa Second Building, but at length set out, with head bowed, walking toward the subway station. As he walked, he fixed his gaze on the Rolex watch he had borrowed from Yōko. Nothing had entered his stomach since the glass of milk he had drunk that morning, and now it was nearly dusk. Pawning the watch without her permission would make him a thief.

  Without hesitating, he dialed Yōko’s number from a pay phone by the ticket gate in the subway station. The moment he heard her voice, he felt as if he might collapse then and there. Promising that he would definitely return it, he asked if he could pawn the Rolex for a short time.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you have any money?” Tetsuyuki responded that he was short on cash to pay rent.

  “Tetsuyuki, you’re hungry, aren’t you? This is how you talk when you’re hungry.”

  He remained silent as he tried to think of how to explain it away, but he had never once been able to lie convincingly to her.

  “They give you dinner at the hotel, don’t they?”

  “I’ve been missing work for a long time.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In Honmachi. I came here to borrow some money from Nakazawa, but ended up offending him and wasn’t able to get a loan.”

  She said that she would leave right away, and told him to wait at the east gate of the National Railways station.

  “No, I don’t want to see you anymore.” Saying the opposite of what he felt, he listened intently for her response.

  “I’m heading out now . . . The east gate, got it?” Then she hung up. The very thought that he would see Yōko revived him. But in his mind’s eye, the figure of a man he had never seen before appeared next to her. Also he did not wish to appear before her all drenched like a stray dog, pale and unprepossessing. She’ll probably treat me to a meal, and press me to take half—or even all—of her pocket money. But she’ll never come back to me. She’s still distressed about the choice she has to make. Tetsuyuki went to the ticket-vending machine and felt in his pocket for coins. From Honmachi to Umeda was only one fare sector, but after searching all his pockets, he was still 10 yen short. He unconsciously scanned the area, thinking perhaps he might find a 10-yen coin.

  Exiting onto Midōsuji Avenue in the rain, he walked toward Umeda. He purposely walked slowly. If Yōko hurried, she would arrive at the east gate in half an hour, and if he were not there she would no doubt take seriously his words “I don’t want to meet with you anymore,” and just return home. With that thought in mind, Tetsuyuki walked ever so slowly. “In that case, there’s no point in walking from Honmachi to Osaka Station.”

  Rain was dripping from his earlobes, from the end of his nose and from his chin, and his handkerchief was as soaked as the rest of his clothing. After he had passed Yodoya Bridge and was close to Umeda, a young office worker approached from behind.

  “Won’t you share my umbrella?”

  “Since I’m already this wet, it wouldn’t make any difference,” Tetsuyuki said with a smile and a nod, thanking the man.

  He smiled back, as if in agreement, and passed on ahead. If he walked at a normal pace, it would take about thirty minutes from Honmachi to Osaka Station, but an hour had passed before Tetsuyuki arrived at the east gate. He peered through the rush-hour crowd thronging the ticket gate, and saw Yōko standing there. She quickly espied him and came running.

  “What happened? You look as if you fell into a river.”

  “I walked here from Honmachi, without an umbrella.”

  “Why didn’t you take the subway?”

  “I wanted to see what it would be like to walk in the rain.”

  “If you don’t get out of those wet clothes, you’ll catch a cold.”

  “I don’t have a change of clothes.”

  Yōko took a handkerchief out of her purse and wiped Tetsuyuki’s head and face. Several people walked past casting suspicious glances at the two of them.

  “Will you come to our house? You could put on my dad’s underwear and clothes.”

  Tetsuyuki shook his head. “If I went there, even your mother would not be pleased.”

  Yōko cast her eyes down, then, as if suddenly hitting on a brilliant idea, leaned over and whispered into Tetsuyuki’s ear, blushing: “We could go to a hotel, like the last time. And we could stay there until your clothes dry.”

  “What the hell are you thinking?” He looked at her with both sorrow and agony. “You want to make a fool of me? There’s another man you’re fond of, but you can still go to a hotel with me? You’ve come to a conclusion, have you? You’ll take me over him? That’s not it, is it? You’re still dithering. Or no, you’re not dithering. You’ve pretty much made up your mind. You’ve decided on that architect guy. But you’ll still go to a hotel with me? What kind of woman are you, anyway?”

  “I just wanted to go there to get your clothes dry, that’s all.” Looking as if she were about to burst into tears, she turned an upward glance at him, like a small child being scolded by an adult. Of all the expressions she assumed when arguing with him, that was by far the most endearing. “I wouldn’t let you do anything else . . . just dry your clothes. I’d bite you if you made any moves on me.”

  The hot air in the station made his wet clothing feel heavy. It seemed as if he were coming apart, like overripe fruit, but at the same time he felt a chill in the core of his body.

  “How many times have you let that guy touch you?”

  “I’ve only met him once since then, and not at all for over two weeks now.”

  “Why?”

  “His parents came to visit and said they wan
ted me for their son. It seems that starting next year he’ll be studying for about five years in America. He wants to take me with him, so apparently his parents want to hurry things. I haven’t been able to make up my mind and I think he must have consulted them about the situation.”

  “Does he know about us?”

  Yōko nodded. “He says he wants to meet with you and talk.”

  “Fine. I’ll meet with him. I’m interested in knowing what kind of guy he is. Go call him.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now. He might still be in his office now. Where is his office?”

  “At Sakurabashi . . .”

  “Hey, that’s just a stone’s throw from here, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t want to. I really don’t. I’m the one who’s got to decide, right? And I’m free to decide. What difference will it make if the two of you meet and talk?” Unusually for her, Yōko spoke rapidly and passionately, then grabbed Tetsuyuki’s wrist and began walking. His eyes fixed on the nape of her neck, he put up no resistance as he was drawn into the crowd.

  “I don’t want to go with you into one of those seedy places.”

  “We could go to a proper hotel, couldn’t we?”

  It was only when they had arrived in front of a newly opened high-rise hotel that was a business competitor with Tetsuyuki’s place of employment that she finally let go of his wrist. Through a large, thick glass panel he watched Yōko as she went inside and spoke with a clerk at the front desk. At length, she motioned for him to come inside. Glancing at him, the clerk handed a room key to the bellboy and said to Yōko: “After you’ve entered the room, dial number six and a laundry maid will come. Since it’s only to dry the clothes, it shouldn’t take even twenty minutes.”

  After they had been shown to the room Yōko sat on the bed and dialed for laundry. Tetsuyuki asked: “Hotels like this won’t usually rent rooms by the hour. How did you put your request?” Yōko did not answer. After conveying her order to the laundry service, she hung up and began unbuttoning Tetsuyuki’s shirt. In that spontaneous action he sensed unmistakably her love for him. She removed his shirt, undid his belt, and even pulled off his trousers. Yielding to her movements, he gripped her shoulders and obeyed her every command, raising his right foot, then his left. Kneeling in front of him on the carpet, she took off his shoes. Looking at his torso after his attire had been reduced to undershorts, she asked: “Why have you become so thin?”