“Hardly the question. I rise quite early,” he said. “What is it?”
“Which newspaper do you read?”
“Eight papers, national and local. The locals do not arrive until evening, though.”
“And you read them all?”
“It is part of my work,” said the man patiently. “What of it?”
“Do you read the Sunday pages?”
“Of necessity, yes,” he said.
“Did you see the photo of the horse in the weekend section?”
“Yes, I saw the horse photo,” said the man.
“Don’t the horse and rider seem to be thinking of two totally different things?”
Through the receiver, a silence stole into the room. There wasn’t a breath to be heard. It was a silence strong enough to make your ears hurt.
“This is what you called me about?” asked the man.
“No, just small talk. Nothing wrong with a little topic of conversation, is there?”
“We have other topics of conversation. For instance, sheep.” He cleared his throat. “You will have to excuse me, but I am not as free with my time as you. Might you simply get on with your concern as quickly as possible?”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “Simply put, from tomorrow I’m thinking of going off in search of that sheep. I thought it over a lot, but in the end that’s what I decided. Still, I can only see myself doing it at my own pace. When I talk, I will talk as I like. I mean I have the right to make small talk if I want. I don’t like having my every move watched and I don’t like being pushed around by nameless people. There, I’ve said my piece.”
“You obviously do not know where you stand.”
“Nor do you know where you stand. Now listen, I thought it over last night. And it struck me. What have I got to feel threatened about? Next to nothing. I broke up with my wife, I plan to quit my job today, my apartment is rented, and I have no furnishings worth worrying about. By way of holdings, I’ve got maybe two million yen in savings, a used car, and a cat who’s getting on in years. My clothes are all out of fashion, and my records are ancient. I’ve made no name for myself, have no social credibility, no sex appeal, no talent. I’m not so young anymore, and I’m always saying dumb things that I later regret. In a word, to borrow your turn of phrase, I am an utterly mediocre person. What have I got to lose? If you can think of anything, clue me in, why don’t you?”
A brief silence ensued. In that interval, I picked the lint from a shirt button and with a ballpoint pen drew thirteen stars on a memo pad.
“Everybody has some one thing they do not want to lose,” began the man. “You included. And we are professionals at finding out that very thing. Humans by necessity must have a midway point between their desires and their pride. Just as all objects must have a center of gravity. This is something we can pinpoint. Only when it is gone do people realize it even existed.” Pause. “But I am getting ahead of myself. All this comes later. For the present, let me say that I do not turn an uncomprehending ear toward your speech. I shall take your demands into account. You can do as you like. For one month, is that clear?”
“Clear enough,” I said.
“Well then, cheers,” said the man.
At that, the phone clicked off. It left a bad aftertaste, the click of the receiver. In order to kill that aftertaste, I did thirty push-ups and twenty sit-ups, washed the dishes, then did three days’ worth of laundry. It almost had me feeling good again. A pleasant September Sunday after all. Summer had faded to a distant memory almost beyond recall.
I put on a clean shirt, a pair of Levi’s without a ketchup stain, and a matching pair of socks. I brushed my hair. Even so, I couldn’t bring back the Sunday-morning feeling I used to get when I was seventeen. So what else was new? Guess I’ve put on my share of years.
Next, I took my near-scrap Volkswagen out of the apartment-house parking lot, headed to the supermarket, and bought a dozen cans of cat food, a bag of kitty litter, a travel razor set, and underwear. At the doughnut shop, I sat at the counter and washed down a cinnamon doughnut with some tasteless coffee. The wall directly in front of the counter was mirrored, giving me an unobstructed view of myself. I sat there looking at my face, half-eaten doughnut still in hand. It made me wonder how other people saw me. Not that I had any way of knowing, of course. I finished off the doughnut and left.
There was a travel agency near the train station, where I booked two seats on a flight to Sapporo the following day. Then into the station arcade for a canvas shoulder bag and a rain hat. Each time I peeled another ten-thousand-yen note from the wad of bills in my pocket. The wad showed no sign of going down no matter how many bills I used. Only I showed signs of wear. There’s that kind of money in the world. It aggravates you to have it, makes you miserable to spend it, and you hate yourself when it’s gone. And when you hate yourself, you feel like spending money. Except there’s no money left. And no hope.
I sat down on a bench in front of the station and smoked two cigarettes, deciding not to think about the money. The station plaza was filled with families and young couples out for a Sunday morning. Casually taking it all in, I thought of my ex-wife’s parting remark that maybe we ought to have had children. To be sure, at my age it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to have kids, but me a father? Good grief. What kid would want to have anyone like me for a father?
I smoked another cigarette before pushing through the crowd, each arm around a shopping bag, to the supermarket parking lot. While having the car serviced, I popped into a bookstore to buy three paperbacks. There went another two ten-thousand-yen notes. My pockets were stuffed with loose change.
When I got back to the apartment, I dumped all the change into a glass bowl and splashed cold water on my face. It had been forever since I’d gotten up, but when I looked at the clock, it was still before noon.
At three in the afternoon, my girlfriend returned. She was wearing a checkered shirt with mustard-colored slacks and intensely dark sunglasses. She had a large canvas bag like mine slung over her shoulder.
“I came packed and ready to go,” she said, patting the bulging bag. “Will it be a long trip?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
She stretched out on the sofa by the window, stared off at the ceiling with her sunglasses still on, and smoked a clove cigarette. I fetched an ashtray and went over to sit beside her. I stroked her hair. The cat appeared and jumped up on the sofa, putting his chin and forepaws over her ankles. When she’d had enough of her smoke, she transplanted what remained of the cigarette to my lips.
“Happy to be going on a trip?” I asked.
“Uh-huh, very happy. Especially because I’m going with you.”
“You know, if we don’t find that sheep, we won’t have any place to come back to. We might end up traveling the rest of our lives.”
“Like your friend?”
“I guess. In a way, we’re all in the same boat. The only difference is that he’s escaping out of his own choice and I’m being ricocheted about.”
I ground out the cigarette in the ashtray. The cat raised his head and yawned, then resumed his position.
“Finished with your packing?” she asked.
“No, haven’t begun. But I don’t have too much to pack. A couple changes of clothes, soap, towel. You really don’t need that whole bag yourself. If you need anything, you can buy it there. We’ve got more than enough money.”
“I like it this way,” she said, again with that cute little smile of hers. “I don’t feel like I’m traveling unless I’m lugging a huge bag.”
“You’ve got to be kidding….”
A piercing bird call shot in through the open window, a call I’d never heard before. A new season’s new bird.
A beam of afternoon sun landed on her cheek. I lazily watched a white cloud move from one edge of the window to the other. We stayed like that for the longest time.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to put it
, but I just can’t get it through my head that here and now is really here and now. Or that I am really me. It doesn’t quite hit home. It’s always this way. Only much later on does it ever come together. For the last ten years, it’s been like this.”
“Ten years?”
“There’s been no end to it. That’s all.”
She laughed as she picked up the cat and let it down onto the floor. “Shall we?”
We made love on the sofa. A period piece of a sofa I’d bought at a junk store. Put your face up against it and you get the scent of history. Her supple body blended in with that scent. Gentle and warm like a vague recollection. I brushed her hair aside with my fingers and kissed her ear. The earth trembled. From that point on, time began to flow like a tranquil breeze.
I undid all the buttons of her shirt and cupped her breasts while I appreciated her body.
“Feeling really alive now,” she said.
“You?”
“Mmm, my body, my whole self.”
“I’m right with you,” I said. “Truly alive.”
How amazingly quiet, I thought. Not a sound anywhere around. Everybody but the two of us probably gone off somewhere to celebrate the first Sunday of autumn.
“You know, I really love this,” she whispered.
“Mmm.”
“It seems like we’re having a picnic, it’s so lovely.”
“A picnic?”
“Yeah.”
I wrapped both hands around her back and held her tight. Then I nuzzled my way through her bangs to kiss her ear again.
“It’s been a long ten years for you?” she asked, down low by my ear.
“Long enough,” I said. “A long, long time. Practically endless, not that I’ve managed to get anything over and done with.”
She raised her head a tiny bit from the sofa armrest and smiled. A smile I’d seen somewhere before, but for the life of me I couldn’t place where or on whom. Women with their clothes off have a frightening similarity. Always throws me for a loop.
“Let’s go look for the sheep,” she said, eyes closed. “Once we get to looking for that sheep, things’ll fall into place.”
I looked into her face a while, then I gazed at both her ears. A soft afternoon glow enveloped her body as in an old still life.
Limited but Tenacious Thinking
At six o’clock, she got dressed, brushed her hair, brushed her teeth, and sprayed on her eau de cologne. I sat on the sofa reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story began: “My colleague Watson is limited in his thinking to rather narrow confines, but possesses the utmost tenacity.” Not a bad lead-in sentence.
“I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me,” she said.
“Work?”
“Afraid so. I actually should have had today off, but those are the breaks. They pushed it on me because I’m taking off from tomorrow.”
She went out, then after a moment or two the door opened.
“Say, what’re you going to do about the cat while we’re gone?” she asked.
“Oops, completely slipped my mind. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
I brought out milk and cheese snacks for the cat. His teeth were so weak, he had a hard time with the cheese.
There wasn’t a thing that looked particularly edible for me in the refrigerator, so I opened up a beer and watched television. Nothing newsworthy on the news either. On Sunday evenings like this, it’s always some zoo scene. I watched the rundown of giraffes and elephants and pandas, then switched off the set and picked up the telephone.
“It’s about my cat,” I told the man.
“Your cat?”
“Yes, I have a cat.”
“So?”
“So unless I can leave the cat with someone, I can’t go anywhere.”
“There are any number of kennels to be had thereabouts.”
“He’s old and frail. A month in a cage would do him in for sure.”
I could hear fingernails drumming on a tabletop. “So?”
“I’d like you to take care of him. You’ve got a huge garden, surely you could take care of one cat.”
“Out of the question. The Boss hates cats, and the garden is there to attract birds. One cat and there go all the birds.”
“The Boss is unconscious, and the cat has no strength to chase down birds.”
“Very well, then. I will send a driver for the cat tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
“I’ll provide the cat food and kitty litter. He only eats this one brand, so if you run out, please buy more of the same.”
“Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell these details to the driver. As I believe I told you before, I am a busy man.”
“I’d like to keep communications to one channel. It makes it clear where the responsibility lies.”
“Responsibility?”
“In other words, say the cat dies while I’m gone, you’d get nothing out of me, even if I did find the sheep.”
“Hmm,” said the man. “Fair enough. You are somewhat off base, but you do quite well for an amateur. I shall write this down, so please speak slowly.”
“Don’t feed him fatty meat. He throws it all up. His teeth are bad, so no hard foods. In the morning, he gets milk and canned cat food, in the evening a handful of dried fish or meat or cheese snacks. Also please change his litter box daily. He doesn’t like it dirty. He often gets diarrhea, but if it doesn’t go away after two days the vet will have some medicine to give him.”
Having gotten that far, I strained to hear the scrawl of a ballpoint pen on the other end of the line.
“He’s starting to get lice in his ears,” I continued, “so once a day you should give his ears a cleaning with a cotton swab and a little olive oil. He dislikes it and fights it, so be careful not to rupture the eardrum. Also, if you’re worried he might claw the furniture, trim his claws once a week. Regular nail clippers are fine. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have fleas, but just in case it might be wise to give him a flea bath every so often. You can get flea shampoo at any pet shop. After his bath, you should dry him off with a towel and give him a good brushing, then last of all a once-over with a hair dryer. Otherwise he’ll catch cold.”
Scribble scribble scribble. “Anything else?”
“That’s about it.”
The man read back the items from his notepad. A memo well taken.
“Is that it?”
“Just fine.”
“Well then,” said the man. And the phone cut off.
It was already dark out. I slipped some change, my cigarettes, and a lighter into my pocket, put on my tennis shoes, and stepped outside. At my neighborhood dive, I drank a beer while listening to the latest Brothers Johnson record. I ate my chicken cutlet while listening to a Bill Withers record. I had some coffee while listening to Maynard Ferguson’s “Star Wars.” After all that, I felt as if I’d hardly eaten anything.
They cleared away my coffee cup and I put three ten-yen coins into the pink public phone and rang up my partner. His eldest son, who was still in grammar school, answered.
“Good day,” I said.
“It’s ‘good evening,’” he corrected. I looked at my watch. Of course, he was right.
After a bit, my partner came to the phone.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Is it all right to talk now? I’m not catching you in the middle of eating?”
“We’re in the middle of eating, but it’s okay. Wasn’t much of a meal, and anyway your story’s got to be more interesting.”
I related snatches of the conversation with the man in the black suit. Then I talked about the huge limo and the dying Boss. I didn’t touch on the sheep. He wouldn’t have believed it, and already this was too long and involved. Which naturally made everything more confusing than ever.
“I can’t begin to follow you,” said my partner.
“This is all confidential, you understand. If it gets out, it could mean a lot of trouble for yo
u. I mean, with your family and all….” I trailed off, picturing his high-class four-bedroom condominium, his wife with high blood pressure, his two cheeky sons. “I mean, that’s how it is.”
“I see.”
“In any case, I have to be going on a trip from tomorrow. A long trip, I expect. One month, two months, three months, I really don’t know. Maybe I’ll never come back to Tokyo.”
“Er … umm.”
“So I want you to take over things at the company. I’m pulling out. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. My work is pretty much done, and for all its being a co-venture, you hold down the important part. I’m only half playing there.”
“But I need you there to take care of all the details.”
“Consolidate your battle line, and go back to how it used to be. Cancel all advertising and editing work. Turn it back into a translation office. Like you were saying the other day yourself. Keep one secretary and get rid of the rest of the part-timers. You don’t need them anymore. Nobody’s going to complain if you give them two months’ severance. As for the office, you can move to a smaller place. The income will go down, sure, but so will the outlay. And minus my take, yours’ll increase, so in actual terms you won’t be hurting. You won’t have to worry about exploiting anyone so much, and taxes will be less of a problem. It’d be ideal for you.”
“No go,” he said, after some silence. “It won’t work, I know it won’t work.”
“It’ll be fine, I tell you. I’ve been through it all with you, so I know, no problem.”
“It went well because we went into it together,” he said. “Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off.”
“Now listen. I’m not talking about expanding business. I’m telling you to consolidate. The pre-industrial-revolution translation business we used to do. You and one secretary, plus five or six freelancers you can farm out work to. There’s no reason why you can’t do fine.”
There was a click as the last ten-yen coin dropped into the machine. I fed the phone another three coins.
“I’m not you,” he said. “You can make it on your own. Not me. Things don’t go anywhere unless I have someone to complain to or bounce ideas off of.”