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  Since it was the first time for both, they were clumsy and things did not go smoothly. He sensed that she was feeling warm, and before they knew it the covers were down around their feet.

  “Just relax,” Tetsuyuki kept telling her, but Yōko remained rigid. Then in an instant, she clung to him tightly and began to cry. The cloth that had been serving as a curtain fell down, filling the room with spring sunlight. The two of them lay still, their bodies intertwined. There was no heat in the room, but his back was covered with sweat, and her skin was flushed and burning. Bathed in the spring light, her tense body relaxed and, exhausted, she let herself go. For his part, Tetsuyuki was carried away by an illusion of embracing her on a warm, deserted field of flowers in full bloom.

  For nearly three hours, they cuddled under the covers.

  “My mother said she likes you.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He doesn’t seem to think too highly of our relationship.”

  “I wonder if he’d let me marry you.”

  “That’s hard to say.”

  Tetsuyuki again uncovered her. Gazing on her body illumined by the spring sunlight, he thought how beautiful she was. She responded by clinging to him even more firmly than the first time, again crying.

  “Are you going to cry every time?”

  “I just can’t help crying.”

  Tetsuyuki had never had more tender feelings toward anyone before. Yōko lightly brushed away his insistently groping hand. She glanced at the tennis cap hanging on the pillar and asked, “What happened to your rackets?”

  “I sold them to friends. All three of them.”

  “So, you’ve given up on tennis?”

  “Tomorrow I start working as a bellboy at a hotel. My mom’s working now, and I won’t have time for anything like tennis.”

  “Take good care of that cap.”

  “Sure. I’ll wear it every day this summer.”

  Yōko asked Tetsuyuki to turn his face away, and then got dressed. She prepared a meal using the meat and canned soup she had bought. When he tried to pay for the gas range, she smiled.

  “My mother bought it. She said it was a housewarming gift.”

  “It wasn’t a matter of moving. It was more fly-by-night. Or, rather, fly-by-morning.”

  They ate and then they left the apartment, walking the long path to the station, where they took the ancient Katamachi Line to Kyōbashi, and from there rode the Kanjō Line to Osaka. They went into a hotel coffee shop to the side of Osaka Station. Yōko was taciturn, occasionally stealing glances at Tetsuyuki as she sipped her coffee. He mentioned that after securing full-time employment next year, he would have to spend the next three years making monthly payments on his father’s debts.

  “I won’t be able to get married until I’ve paid off the debts.” Yōko was about to say something in response, but then held her tongue.

  “What were you about to say?”

  Her palms pressed against her round cheeks, Yōko muttered, her eyes cast down, “I’d like to marry you right now.” She had allowed him to enter her for the first time that day, and seemed somehow dejected, but her skin was more radiant than usual and her moist eyes glistened. She had grown up as the only child of an executive in a large company. Superficially she gave the impression of being easygoing and willing to agree to anything, and yet she possessed a stubborn streak that Tetsuyuki admired, and found challenging. Once she said something, she would not budge from it, and whenever the two got together they would argue about trivial things. But as Tetsuyuki came to understand her personality, even that hard core that coexisted with her mild manners and her adaptability became something precious to him, something that gave him a certain feeling of security.

  “I’ll start working too after I graduate. We can both work, can’t we?”

  They left the coffee shop and got on the escalator to the ticket gate of the Hankyū station, where a train bound for Sannomiya was about to depart. Yōko said she would take the next train but, goaded by Tetsuyuki to run for it, she dashed up the stairs to the platform, waving at him repeatedly.

  Tetsuyuki looked at his watch—9:00 p.m.—and realized that he had forgotten his promise to his mother. She had told him to be sure to call every day around noon, but it had completely slipped his mind. At noon that day, he had in his arms Yōko’s white, naked body, which had soon become warm inside the futon and was as sleek as if it had been brushed with oil.

  He thought of phoning the Yūki restaurant, but it occurred to him that if he called too often while his mother was busy at work, it might reflect badly on her. He set off toward Osaka Station and took the Kanjō Line to Kyōbashi, where he descended the dark stairs to the platform of the Katamachi Line and looked at the schedule. A train had left just two minutes ago, and he would have to wait a full thirty minutes for the next one. He sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette. On the deserted platform, he thought of his sickly mother.

  Through spaces between billboards on the other side of the tracks, the entertainment district in front of Kyōbashi Station was visible. A red lantern with the words STAND-UP BAR was swaying. There appeared in his mind the image of Yōko as she ascended the stairs to the platform, reluctant to part. Every time after saying goodbye, he would soon recall her face and manners at their parting moment and would feel lonely and dejected.

  He rose from the bench. Hurrying up the stairs and out the ticket gate, he walked toward the red stand-up-bar lantern where working-class men were drinking saké and munching on peanuts and shredded dried squid. Oldies could be heard playing somewhere in the distance. An odor was wafting from the gutter.

  “House saké, please.”

  “What would you like to go with it?” asked the owner, who was wearing a hachimaki around his head.

  “Nothing, just saké.”

  Nervously keeping track of the time, he guzzled the warmed saké. He sensed that if he drank this fast he would feel queasy by the time he got to the station, but if he missed the next train he would have to wait another forty minutes after that.

  He drained the saké from his cup, paid for it, bought another ticket, and again descended the stairs to the Katamachi Line. Five minutes later the train arrived. It would stop at Shigino, Hanaten, Tokuan, Kōnoike Shinden, and his own destination of Suminodō before going on to the limits of Osaka and then Nara. Though he was born and had grown up in Osaka, he had never realized that there were stations with such odd names on the line extending beyond Kyōbashi. Sitting in a corner of the empty car with its metallic smell, he glanced at a sports newspaper lying at his feet. As he read its headlines he gave himself over to the fantasy that he was headed for some distant, foreign land. It was nearly half an hour to Suminodō Station.

  Most of the stores in the shopping street along the railway were already shuttered. Groups of what looked like country ruffians were hanging out here and there, casting their vacant stares at people who were hurrying home. It took another half hour to get to his apartment. The saké he had gulped down was taking its effect, and the damp, chilly wind was unpleasant. Tetsuyuki could taste the strong smell of alcohol on his own breath. As he approached his apartment his sense of loneliness grew. It began to rain.

  He ascended the steps and as he was about to unlock the door, the next-door tenant came out: a lean, fiftyish woman. Tetsuyuki introduced himself, and said that he had just moved in the day before. He thought of bringing up the matter of the telephone, but decided that it would be awkward to make such a request while he was reeking of alcohol, and left it with only a simple greeting. She soon disappeared into her room without looking at his face. She seemed somehow somber, a sad expression on her mouth.

  The fluorescent light came on when he flipped the switch; the landlady had contacted the power company.

  “That’s only as it should be. After all, I paid my deposit, and forked over a month’s rent in advance.” Standing alone in the room, Tetsuyuki spoke to himself. The quilt that had enveloped Yōko’s nake
d body was still spread out, and leftovers from the food she had prepared were on top of the refrigerator. He plugged in the refrigerator, and sat down at the low table to eat the leftovers.

  He lay prone on the futon, taking in its scent. Yōko’s fragrance had dissipated, but there was a slight trace of her lipstick on the pillowcase. He pressed his lips against it and for some time lay motionless. He pricked up his ears at the sound of someone climbing the stairs, and a powerful anxiety made him grow tense at the thought that perhaps the loan shark had already sniffed out his location. The sound of the footsteps stopped in front of the next-door apartment, followed by the sound of a conversation, immediately after which the footsteps descended the stairs. The feeling of relief revived in his mind the feel of Yōko’s body. The first time he was a bit frightened and not at ease, but the second time the pleasure was really wonderful. It was so incredibly warm and soft inside her. He pressed his erection against the futon and turned his head to glance at the tennis cap hanging on the pillar. He got up and, using a marker, wrote FROM YOKO on the inside. As he was about to return the cap to its nail, he jumped back with a start. A small lizard was stuck on the pillar.

  For a while Tetsuyuki was glued to the spot, but then cautiously drew close and stared intently at the creature, finally emitting a gasp that was almost a scream and falling back to the opposite wall. The nail that Tetsuyuki had driven into the pillar as he groped in the darkness the previous night had pierced the lizard right in the middle. When he approached it again, it squirmed, moving its legs and tail. Tetsuyuki sat down and for a long time gazed at the creature he had nailed, alive, to the pillar.

  2

  The glare of the fluorescent light made the lizard’s body appear dark, and yet Tetsuyuki was able to tell that it was unmistakably a lizard, not a gecko or a newt. The small striped reptilian pattern was the same as he had seen in the crevices of stone walls, clumps of grass, and on ridges between rice fields when he was a child.

  When Tetsuyuki remained motionless, the lizard likewise stopped its writhing and kept still, but as soon as he moved his face even slightly toward the creature, its head, legs, and tail would thrash about in a desperate attempt to escape. In order not to frighten it, he slowly sidled his way over to the closet, noiselessly opened its sliding panel, and took out a hammer that had a claw. With that in hand, he again stood in front of the lizard and puzzled over how best to pull out the nail.

  The creature had been fastened to the very middle of the pillar at a slightly crooked angle but with its head up. He was certain that the nail was about two inches long, and more than half of it was driven into the pillar. Tetsuyuki thought about the optimal angle of the claw to pull the nail out of the poor thing.

  It seemed strange that it had not died; it occurred to him that if he pulled the nail out, it would leave in the lizard’s abdomen a hole out of which its innards might protrude. He could not help imagining how that might only plunge this reptile that had barely escaped death into its final agony.

  His hand holding the hammer gradually relaxed. Seating himself on top of the low desk, he mused that if he just left it alone, it would die anyway. The nail was nearly an eighth of an inch thick, so in terms of a human body it would be like being pierced by a utility pole. Whether it would die of internal injuries or of starvation, it could not last long. Tetsuyuki decided just to wait until it died, and put the hammer back in the toolbox. He could not very well hang the French-made cap on the nail to cover the lizard, but neither could he just neglect that valuable gift from Yōko.

  He tried hanging a white towel on the nail, but then only the reptile’s head protruded, making him feel like a little girl at play putting her doll to bed under a blanket. An idea came to him: he took down the towel and pulled a small, flat wooden dish out of a cardboard box left unopened in the corner of the kitchen. Then, fumbling about in the toolbox, he produced an awl and bored a hole right in the middle of the dish. The hole was smaller than the head of the nail, and he spent considerable time enlarging it with a knife. Then he gently placed the dish over the lizard. The head of the nail passed through the hole in the dish, which he pressed firmly against the pillar, neatly covering the lizard.

  Tetsuyuki left a small space between the dish and the pillar in order not to smother the creature. Then he reconsidered, and thought that he ought in fact to smother it. Using cellophane tape, he carefully sealed off the space between the pillar and the perimeter of the dish, and for good measure put several layers of tape over the hole as well. With that, he was sure the lizard would be dead by the following evening.

  He addressed the reptile that was now completely airtight under the small brown dish: “What a dumb thing you are! What were you doing there anyway, not paying attention? The room was pitch-dark, and I had no idea you were there. When a human approaches, you’re supposed to run the hell away.”

  Considering a lizard’s agile movements, Tetsuyuki wondered how he could possibly not have noticed its presence. He tried to recall driving the nail, but was only able to remember the resistance of the hard wood and could not recollect feeling the slightest hint of hitting anything living. Feeling sorry for the lizard, his mood darkened, and he looked at the small dish taped up with such determination. “When I think of things I can’t stand, reptiles top the list.”

  He glanced at the alarm clock: 1:00 a.m. He washed his face and hands, brushed his teeth, and changed into his pajamas. Overcome by an irresistible fatigue, he turned off the light, dived into the quilts left spread out from the night before, and closed his eyes. He had long since sobered up from the half-pint of saké and was feeling a chill. Hugging his knees he kept repeating in his mind, Go to sleep! Go to sleep! At length he did doze off, but soon awoke and realized that his sleep had been very brief.

  He had not looked at the clock to determine this; the ache in the middle of his head and the heavy feeling of his body informed him of the brevity of his slumber. He got up, turned on the miniature lamp, and looked at the clock: only a little over an hour had passed.

  Wrapped in the quilts, Tetsuyuki stared at the small wooden bowl covering the lizard and thought, A small creature under there has been robbed of its freedom, and I’m the robber. Though it had not been intentional, he nevertheless felt a deep contrition for the suffering he had caused. Wouldn’t it be better just to kill it once and for all? An image began to flit across his mind of the lizard left alive in the small, sealed-off space between the dish and the pillar, desperately trying to breathe in the last of the oxygen that was certain to run out. With a sweater over his pajamas, Tetsuyuki went to the kitchen and lit a burner on the gas stove since he had no space heater.

  Soon the room grew warm. Tetsuyuki thrust his head inside the closet and took a hammer out of the toolbox. He tore off the several layers of cellophane tape he had affixed around the small dish, and removed with his fingernail the many strips he had placed over the hole in the center. Since it had spent more than an hour in the narrow, sealed-off space, perhaps it would already have died of suffocation. Hoping that would be the case, Tetsuyuki removed the dish from the pillar.

  The lizard was motionless. Relieved, Tetsuyuki tossed the hammer onto the quilt. Had it still been alive, he had intended to kill it with a blow to the head. Sitting on the low desk, he hunched over and rested his head in both hands with his elbows on his knees. He wondered how Yōko was doing. She was no doubt mumbling to herself in deep sleep, all warm and curled up in quilts.

  Counting on his fingers, he realized that exactly three years had passed since they had first met. Three years ago she was eighteen, he nineteen. During those three years he had desired her every time they’d seen each other, but he had never once expressed what he was feeling. There were several couples among his friends at the university who, it seemed, readily formed physical relationships, later very casually parting ways; after they parted, they would soon be walking about holding hands with someone else. If he had pressed her insistently—or perhaps even not so insist
ently—Yōko would have yielded to him long ago. Even though both of them had this on their minds when they were together, they had not said it aloud during these three years. And yet today . . .

  Then he saw that the hands on the clock were already pointing to three, and he realized, Ah, that’s right. That was yesterday! He recalled her face as she removed her clothes and got under the quilts. There could be no doubt that she had resolved long before to do that. She had mustered all her courage and gotten naked in this shabby, dirty apartment.

  That dreamlike act of supreme bliss, accompanied by Yōko’s plump-cheeked smile, appeared like a mirage beneath the light of the miniature lamp. Tetsuyuki vowed that after graduation he would work as hard as he could to make Yōko happy. The thought made his heart sink to even greater darkness: why, after an event of such happiness, did he feel so depressed? It seemed so strange to him. He had a sort of premonition that a great unhappiness lay far ahead. That premonition had been with him for three months: a vague and unreasoned feeling stubbornly occupying a corner of his mind.

  At one time he had mentioned to his mother that, after graduating, he was going to marry a young woman named Ōsugi Yōko. And then he introduced Yōko to her at an arranged meeting in front of a department store in Umeda. That was about a month after his father had died. Using most of her carefully saved nest egg, his cash-strapped mother had treated them to sushi at a restaurant well known for being expensive, but made no mention of her sacrifice.