Inhabitation Page 6

  “What do you mean by ‘attack’?”

  Nakakoa glanced at Tetsuyuki, then turned away with an insouciant air and said, “Get back to work. You’re paid by the hour here, after all.”

  Tetsuyuki vaguely remembered hearing rumors about a struggle over succession in the hotel, and he sensed that Nakaoka’s rudeness had something to do with it.

  It was a little before midnight when Tetsuyuki returned to his apartment. Turning on the light, he called out the name he had given the lizard: Kin-chan. As usual, Tetsuyuki filled a spoon with water and held it toward Kin, who lapped at it with his narrow tongue. After giving his pet water, he took the lid from a square wooden box on top of the refrigerator and, using tweezers to extract chestnut weevil larvae out of the sawdust, held them in front of Kin’s nose. He released the tension on the tweezers as soon as Kin’s long, agile tongue wrapped itself around the larvae. At first, he could not coordinate the timing of the release, and ended up dropping several on the floor. All of two weeks passed before Kin began eating them directly from him.

  “Hey, we’re getting good at this,” Tetsuyuki said after Kin had consumed four larvae. Then, tapping the lizard’s nose with the tweezers, he added: “It’ll be summer before long, and this room will turn into a sauna. But I can’t very well leave the windows open when I’m away.”

  Kin curled his tail back and forth and blinked several times. Having cleaned the droppings off the pillar, Tetsuyuki was finally able to stretch out on the tatami and fixed his gaze on the nail piercing the lizard’s back. “You know, it might get so hot in here that you could die by the time I come home, Kin-chan.” He wondered how long he intended to keep this reptile, and thought to himself that if it died, then it died, and that couldn’t be helped.

  “Kin-chan, when summer comes, I’m going to pull the nail out.” Even as he spoke the words, he realized that the lizard’s internal organs had probably already knit with the nail, which had thus become part of its body. By pulling the nail out, he would be opening a large wound that had finally healed. Tetsuyuki agonized over what to do.

  “Today I did nothing but haul luggage, and only got fifteen hundred yen in tips. Foreign guests have been told that tipping isn’t necessary in Japan, so even after hauling all those heavy trunks, I got nothing but ‘thank you.’ But three newlywed couples did give me five hundred yen each.” Tetsuyuki kept up his monologue directed to the small creature that, deprived of its freedom, remained silent in the phosphorescent glow. “But I have it a lot better than Isogai. I never imagined he had it so bad, poor guy. I just thought he was obnoxious.”

  At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Tetsuyuki sat up with a start, his body tense. A feeling of panic gripped him. The knock was repeated, followed by a man’s voice.

  “Iryō.” It was a peculiarly gravelly voice, one he could never forget. “It’s Kobori. Open up!”

  Kobori entered as soon as the door opened. He was extremely nearsighted, and the long narrow slits of his eyes blinked behind thick, brown-tinted lenses. “I found you! I never thought it’d take this long, but I had no idea where you’d gone. I finally tracked you down.” Kobori sat cross-legged and barked at Tetsuyuki: “Sit!” Kobori kept his red-and-white-striped blazer on until Tetsuyuki took a seat. “Where’s your old lady?”

  “She’s living where she works, at a restaurant.”

  “Well then, she must have a bit of dough by now. I’m not saying that it all has to be paid back at once. I’ll wait three months. After that, be prepared to fork over 350,000 yen.”

  “It’s 323,000 yen, isn’t it?”

  “You’ve put me to a lot of unpaid expense and trouble tracking you down.”

  “There’s no way I could come up with money like that. Besides, it has nothing to do with me. My dad didn’t leave me a thing, and I am under no obligation to repay his debts.”

  “You’ll end up in a condition where you’ll never be able to spout that argument again.”

  “I’ll report your threat to the police.”

  Instantly, a tremendous blow filled Tetsuyuki’s mind with sparks. Standing up, Kobori again punched Tetsuyuki in the face and kicked him in his side repeatedly after he had fallen over.

  “I’ll come again tomorrow. Be prepared to give me a more sensible answer.”

  Slinging his blazer over his shoulder, Kobori left. Blood was dripping on the tatami from Tetsuyuki’s nose and from a deep gash inside his upper lip. He staggered upright, but was not able to walk in a straight line. He washed his face in the kitchen sink and, stuffing tissue paper up his bleeding nostrils, used a towel to wipe the blood off the floor and then lay down. His nosebleed appeared to be stanched quickly, but blood from his lip continued to flow endlessly. What if I killed that jerk? That thought crossed his mind as he looked at Kin, nailed to the pillar. When he shows up tomorrow, he’ll get a carving knife stuck in him. Tetsuyuki was shaking with fear and mortification. No matter how hard he tried to calm himself, his trembling only grew stronger.

  Sleeping fitfully, Tetsuyuki awoke several times during the night. His nose and upper lip throbbed and he was repeatedly attacked by an anxiety that constricted his chest. Each time he awoke he smoked a cigarette. Once when he dozed off, he dreamed that he had become a lizard, scurrying about through clumps of grass and stone fences. Dying and being reborn, he continually passed through the cycle of life and death as a lizard. Through decades—even through centuries—he continued as a lizard and clearly sensed the long passage of time in his dream. Hiding in the shadow of grass on footpaths between paddies, he would look up to see Yōko, Isogai, and many other people he knew as they passed by, and wondered when his time would finally end.

  Then he awoke and glanced at his alarm clock: 3:30. He had not been dozing for longer than forty minutes. Pondering the several centuries he had clearly just spent as a lizard, he lay facedown and lit a cigarette. He was enveloped in a feeling of glowing intoxication. He had no idea why he was so enraptured, but it seemed as if something akin to hope had grown in one corner of his body, which was otherwise bound by tremendous anxiety.

  During forty minutes, he had spent centuries going through countless lives as a lizard. What a frightening dream that had been. And still, that strange and frightening dream had put his mind at ease. Savoring the flavor of the smoke, he reflected deeply. The bitterness of the tobacco penetrated the wound behind his upper lip. The dream had been vividly engraved in his mind and had not faded.

  He could recall everything: whether the sensation of the blazing sun on his back, or rapturously stretching his limbs out to imbibe from dew-drenched grasses, or the feeling of terror at soaring high into the sky in the beak of a shrike. Dying from hunger and thirst, or being devoured by some unidentified creature, or being clubbed to death by human children, he had died countless times and had been reborn as many times. He had unmistakably passed through a dreadfully long time. And yet all that had happened in only forty minutes. The idea that the lizard that had passed through centuries of recurring life and death, and the person who had awoken and was here smoking a cigarette were the same “self” produced a point of clarity in his hollowed-out spirit.

  Tetsuyuki got up and switched on the miniature light. He approached Kin and, leaning against the wall, gazed at the nail. Kin opened his eyes, blinked, moved his face to look at the human, and flicked his long, slender tongue.

  “Are you thirsty?” Tetsuyuki spoke to the reptile in a lowered voice. “You didn’t die even after being nailed to a pillar . . . Why didn’t you die, Kin-chan? Why are you alive?”

  He stroked Kin’s head gently with his fingertip. The lizard’s skin was rough, lacking any moistness. Filling a cup with water in the kitchen, Tetsuyuki returned and dipped his fingers into the cup, then let the drops from them fall onto Kin’s back.

  “Why were you born as a lizard? And why was I born human? There must be some reason for that. What do you think the reason is?”

  Tetsuyuki’s tongue licked the wound i
nside his upper lip. It had stopped bleeding, but a wide, deep gash remained. “There’s no way I’m going to pay anything to a gangster like that, Kin-chan. Even though I ended up in a mess like this, I didn’t die. And I won’t give in. Whether they break my nose, or even kill me, I’ll be damned if I do as that jerk says. I’ll kill him before he kills me!”

  Then a slight smile appeared on Tetsuyuki’s face as he corrected himself: “Yeah, but if I did that, my life would be over. No matter that he is only a louse as far as gangsters go, if I killed him everything would be at an end.” Then he told Kin about his dream.

  “This was the first time I’ve ever had such a strange dream. For centuries, I had actually become a lizard, just like you, going through life and death over and over.” The moment he spoke these words, it occurred to Tetsuyuki that during those forty minutes of dozing, perhaps he really had gone through all those cycles of birth and death as a lizard. But then he quickly banished the absurd notion from his mind. Such things could not be. It was a dream, after all, and here he was awake and human, talking to Kin, wasn’t he?

  Tetsuyuki continued to lean against the wall, staring fixedly at the bluish light reflected on Kin’s skin. As he did so, it became unclear which was dream, which was reality: his self as a human being, or his self as a lizard. It seemed as if both were dreams. Then again, it seemed as if both were real.

  “I’ll have to tell Yōko not to come here anymore.” He had no idea when Kobori might show up again, and he couldn’t let her be anywhere nearby.

  “Yōko, why do you care for someone like me and even say you want to marry me? I might never be anything more than a grunt salaryman.”

  The darkness outside the window was just beginning to yield to the faintest blue. Tetsuyuki left Kin’s side and tumbled into bed, curling up tightly. He slept soundly until nearly noon.

  Tetsuyuki remained in bed for a while, reflecting. Then he got up and looked at his face in the mirror. Both his nose and lip were swollen; he could not very well go out among people looking like that. He fixed himself a meal, making some toast and warming some milk. The wound smarted when he ate, and it took him three times longer than usual to get down one slice of toast and a glass of milk.

  Then, his face cast downward and his eyes on the ground, he walked the long path to the police box in front of the station. He peered inside and saw a middle-aged policeman sitting at a desk, scribbling notes on a document. Tetsuyuki returned to the shopping arcade, mustered his resolve, and then again went to the police box.

  “Excuse me . . .” At Tetsuyuki’s voice, the policeman looked up. “There’s a matter on which I’d be grateful for your advice.”

  The policeman’s gaze was fixed for a moment on Tetsuyuki’s swollen nose and lip. He asked, motioning for him to take a seat, “What is it?”

  Tetsuyuki summarized the matter from the beginning up to the incident the night before.

  “Apart from the issue of the debt, this is a clear case of extortion, and a charge of assault would also apply,” the policeman said as he removed his hat and smoothed his thinning hair with the palms of both hands. “It’s not unusual for collectors to make threats, but they rarely resort to violence. But since he actually assaulted you, you could have this petty gangster Kobori arrested.”

  “I’m worried about what would come after that.”

  “You mean, you’re afraid of reprisals?”

  “That’s right. He’s not working alone.”

  “They all capitulate without a fight. As for the debt, that could be solved legally as a civil suit. But since you’ve come to discuss the matter with the police—and especially now that there is the fact of your having been threatened and beaten—we are obliged to take action. Press charges against that gangster.”

  Looking at this officer, who somehow had the air of a middle school principal about him, Tetsuyuki hesitantly responded, “I’ll press charges.” He felt the blood drain from his face. The policeman poured some tea for him, but it was hot and made the wound smart, so he took only two or three sips and then vacantly stared at the steam rising from the cup.

  Leaving the police box, Tetsuyuki quickly went into a phone booth and dialed the hotel. He told Shimazaki that he had caught a cold and was running a fever, and asked to be excused from work. Then he hung up and returned to his apartment.

  Night fell. Around eight o’clock, Tetsuyuki’s heart began to pound violently. He had to keep wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers. He could hear footsteps climbing the metal stairs, and assumed a formal sitting posture in the middle of the room, with both fists clenched. There was a knock on the door, but before he could respond, Kobori had already entered.

  “So, have you thought of a good answer?” Kobori’s words hardly entered Tetsuyuki’s ears, which were listening intently for any hint of the arrival of the policeman who was supposed to be keeping watch.

  “What’s this? You’re trembling, aren’t you?” As soon as Kobori spoke, the door opened to reveal the familiar middle-aged policeman and a young officer. His mouth partly agape, Kobori glanced back and forth between Tetsuyuki and the policemen. The middle-aged policeman stepped into the room and, patting Kobori on the shoulder, said calmly, “You’re under arrest for extortion and assault.” Then he took out a pair of handcuffs.

  “Do you have a warrant?” Kobori was staring at Tetsuyuki, and his face was drained of blood.”

  “We do. I can show it to you if you want.” Then, handcuffing Kobori, the policeman smiled at Tetsuyuki. “If something else comes up, please come see us anytime.” The policeman’s voice echoed as they descended the stairs. “You’ll have plenty of other charges against you anyway, and we’ll have you fess up to all of them. It’ll be five or six years before you’ll be back on the streets.”

  Tetsuyuki quietly went to the kitchen and opened the window to peer out. Sometime or other, a police car had parked there. He hurriedly closed the window and, leaning against the wall, sank down, pressing his forehead against his knees, and remained motionless for a long time. He wondered how his mother was doing.

  They had been in contact by telephone two or three times a week, but over the two months since moving into this apartment, he had not met with her even once. He wanted desperately to see her. Feeling like a child lost in a crowd, he hurriedly put on his shoes and left the apartment. As he walked briskly down the dark path toward the station, he realized that he had not given Kin anything to eat or drink, and ran back.

  He opened the box containing the chestnut weevil larvae to find only four of the creatures left among the sawdust. After feeding those to Kin, Tetsuyuki got down on all fours in the kitchen and began looking about. Two young cockroaches ran out from underneath the refrigerator, and so he trapped them with a cup, then, holding the insects with tweezers, thrust them in front of Kin’s nose. Up to now he had only alternated between larvae and grubs, and had never tried feeding him cockroaches. Kin just fixed his beady black eyes on the baby cockroaches squirming in the grasp of the tweezers, but made no move to consume them.

  “What’s the matter, Kin-chan? You don’t like roaches?” As if at that urging, Kin’s tongue adroitly wrapped itself around a cockroach. One of the insect’s legs dangled out of Kin’s mouth. It finally disappeared, but it took a very long time for the lump to move from Kin’s throat down to his stomach. Tetsuyuki waited impatiently. Then he administered some water with a spoon.

  “Drink up. Who knows? Maybe I won’t be coming back today.” He dampened Kin’s body all over with the water remaining in the spoon, and then left.

  There were few people at Suminodō Station, where he waited a good half hour for a train to Katamachi. As soon as he sat down in the nearly empty car, he realized that he had eaten no dinner, and apart from his lunch of milk and a slice of toast he had consumed nothing at all. He had spent all that time so anxiously wondering where the policeman was keeping watch and when Kobori might show up that he had not felt hunger.

  From the central entrance
of Osaka Station, he went down to an underground arcade and glanced at a clock—11:30. Five or six vagrants had fashioned enclosures out of cardboard and had made beds in them for the night. Hurriedly turning right in the arcade, Tetsuyuki headed toward Sakura Bridge.

  No sooner had he started down the main avenue of Kita Shinchi than the restaurant curtain of Yūki came into view. Yūki was a two-story wooden structure sandwiched between large office buildings on either side. It was an unpretentious shop, marked only by an indigo-dyed curtain hanging in front of its latticed door, but it was numbered among the distinguished old establishments of Kita Shinchi, and it had a reputation both for its refined patronage and for its steep prices. It had a regular chef, and at first his mother was put in charge of cleaning up, but it was soon recognized that she was better at flavoring the appetizers and two weeks previously had been put in charge of that.

  Tetsuyuki stood in front of a florist’s shop not far from Yūki, waiting for the restaurant’s closing time. A man accompanied by a woman who looked like a bar hostess was purchasing armloads of orchids. Tetsuyuki watched through the window as the man paid, pulling money from a leather wallet bulging with 10,000-yen bills.

  As its last group of customers left, the lights inside Yūki went out and a young woman attired in a splash-patterned kimono came out to put away the shop curtain. Tetsuyuki approached her.

  “I’m Iryō Kinuko’s son. I’d like to see her for a moment.” The woman affably urged him to enter, loudly calling inside, “Mrs. Iryō, your son is here.”

  The light that was on in the kitchen soon spread to the interior of the darkened shop. His mother emerged, her slim body wrapped in an apron, wiping her wet hands with a towel. Tetsuyuki was still standing hesitantly outside.

  “The customers have all left. Don’t just stand there. Come on in.” When Tetsuyuki entered, she introduced him to the elderly chef who had poked his face out of the kitchen.

  “This is my son. And this is Mr. Ishii, the very best chef in Kita Shinchi.” At her words, a smile came to his lips and he said gruffly, “You’re the only one who calls me the best, auntie.”