“In a word.” (Laughter.)
“You really don’t like to put one on, do you?”
“It’s true. It makes me feel I’m not myself. It’s as if I’m wearing a stiff corset.” (Laughter.)
“You really do like high places, don’t you?”
“I do. I feel it’s my calling to be up high. I can’t imagine doing any other kind of work. Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.”
“It’s time for a song now,” said the announcer. “James Taylor’s ‘Up on the Roof.’ We’ll talk more about tightrope walking after this.”
While the music played, Junpei leaned over the front seat and asked the driver, “What does this woman do?”
“She says she puts up ropes between high-rise buildings and walks across them,” the driver explained. “With a long pole in her hands for balance. She’s some kind of performer. I get scared just riding in a glassed-in elevator. I guess she gets her kicks that way. She’s gotta be a little weird. She’s probably not all that young, either.”
“It’s her profession?” Junpei asked. He noticed that his voice was dry and the weight had gone out of it. It sounded like someone else’s voice coming through a gap in the taxi’s ceiling.
“Yeah. I guess she gets a bunch of sponsors together and puts on a performance. She just did one at some famous cathedral in Germany. She says she wants to do it on higher buildings but can’t get permission. ’Cause if you go that high a safety net won’t help. She wants to keep adding to her record, and challenging herself with buildings that are a little higher every time. Of course, she can’t make a living that way, so—well, you heard her say she’s got this window-cleaning company. She wouldn’t work for a circus even if she could do tightrope walking that way. The only thing she’s interested in is high-rise buildings. Weird chick.”
“The most wonderful thing about it is, when you’re up there you change yourself as a human being,” Kirie declared to the interviewer. “You change yourself, or rather, you have to change yourself or you can’t survive. When I come out to a high place, it’s just me and the wind. Nothing else. The wind envelops me, rocks me. It understands who I am. At the same time, I understand the wind. We accept each other and we decide to go on living together. Just me and the wind: there’s no room for anybody else. It’s that moment that I love. No, I’m not afraid. Once I set foot onto that high place and enter completely into that state of concentration, all fear vanishes. We are there, inside our own warm void. It’s that moment that I love more than anything.”
Kirie spoke with cool assurance. Junpei could not tell whether the interviewer understood her. When the interview ended, Junpei stopped the cab and got out, walking the rest of the way to his destination. Now and then he would look up at a tall building and at the clouds flowing past. No one could come between her and the wind, he realized, and he felt a violent rush of jealousy. But jealousy toward what? The wind? Who could possibly be jealous of the wind?
Junpei waited several months after that for Kirie to contact him. He wanted to see her and talk to her about lots of things, including the kidney-shaped stone. But the call never came, and his calls to her could never be “completed as dialed.” When summer came, he gave up what little hope he had left. She obviously had no intention of seeing him again. And so the relationship ended calmly, without discord or shouting matches—exactly the way he had ended relationships with so many other women. At some point the calls stop coming, and everything ends quietly, naturally.
Should I add her to the countdown? Was she one of my three women with real meaning? Junpei agonized over the question for some time without reaching a conclusion. I’ll wait another six months, he thought. Then I’ll decide.
During that six months, he wrote with great concentration and produced a large number of short stories. As he sat at his desk polishing the style, he would think, Kirie is probably in some high place with the wind right now. Here I am, alone at my desk writing stories, while she’s all alone somewhere, up higher than anyone else—without a lifeline. Once she enters that state of concentration, all fear is gone: “Just me and the wind.” Junpei would often recall those words of hers and realize that he had come to feel something special for Kirie, something that he had never felt for another woman. It was a deep emotion, with clear outlines and real weight in the hands. Junpei was still unsure what to call this emotion. It was, at least, a feeling that could not be exchanged for anything else. Even if he never saw Kirie again, this feeling would stay with him forever. Somewhere in his body—perhaps in the marrow of his bones—he would continue to feel her absence.
As the year came to an end, Junpei made up his mind. He would count her as number two. She was one of the women who “had real meaning” for him. Strike two. Only one left. But he was no longer afraid. Numbers aren’t the important thing. The countdown has no meaning. Now he knew: What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. And it always has to be the first time and the last.
One morning, the doctor notices that the dark kidney-shaped stone has disappeared from her desk. And she knows: it will not be coming back.
—TRANSLATED BY JAY RUBIN
A SHINAGAWA MONKEY
Recently she’d had trouble remembering her own name. Mostly this happened when someone unexpectedly asked her name. She’d be at a boutique, getting the sleeves of a dress altered, and the clerk would say, “And your name, ma’am?” Or she’d be at work, on the phone, and the person would ask her name, and she’d totally blank out. The only way she could remember was to pull out her driver’s license, which was bound to make the person she was talking with feel a little weird. If she happened to be on the phone, the awkward moment of silence as she rummaged through her purse inevitably made the person on the other end wonder what was going on.
When she was the one who brought up her name, she never had trouble remembering it. As long as she knew in advance what was coming, she had no trouble with her memory. But when she was in a hurry, or someone suddenly asked her name, it was like a breaker had shut down and her mind was a complete blank. The more she struggled to recall, the more that featureless blank took over and she couldn’t for the life of her remember what she was called.
She could remember everything else. She never forgot the name of people around her. And her address, phone number, birthday, passport number were no trouble at all. She could rattle off from memory her friends’ phone numbers, and the phone numbers of important clients. She’d always had a decent memory—it was just her own name that escaped her. The problem had started about a year before, the first time anything like this had ever happened to her.
Her married name was Mizuki Ando, her maiden name Ozawa. Neither one was a very unique or dramatic name, which isn’t to say that this explained why, in the course of her busy schedule, her name should vanish from her memory.
She’d become Mizuki Ando in the spring three years earlier, when she married a man named Takashi Ando. At first she couldn’t get used to her new name. The way it looked and sounded just didn’t seem right to her. But after repeating her new name, and signing it a number of times, she gradually came to think it wasn’t so bad after all. Compared to other possibilities—Mizuki Mizuki or Mizuki Miki or something (she’d actually dated a guy named Miki for a while)—Mizuki Ando wasn’t so bad. It took time, yet gradually she began to feel comfortable with her new, married name.
A year ago, however, that name started to slip away from her. At first this happened just once a month or so, but over time it became more frequent. Now it was happening at least once a week. Once “Mizuki Ando” had escaped, she was left alone in the world, a nobody, a woman without a name. As long as she had her purse with her she was fine—she could just pull out her license and remember who she was. If she ever lost her purse, though, she wouldn’t have a clue. She wouldn’t become a complete nonentity, of course—losing her name for a time didn’t negate the fact that she still existed, and she still re
membered her address and phone number. This wasn’t like those cases of total amnesia in movies. Still, the fact remained that forgetting her own name was upsetting. A life without a name, she felt, was like a dream you never wake up from.
Mizuki went to a jewelry shop, bought a thin simple bracelet, and had her name engraved on it: Mizuki (Ozawa) Ando. Not her address or phone number, just her name. Makes me feel like I’m a cat or a dog, she sighed. She made sure to wear the bracelet every time she left home, so if she forgot her name all she had to do was glance at it. No more yanking out her license, no more weird looks from people.
She didn’t let on about her problem to her husband. She knew he’d only say it proved she was unhappy with their life together. He was overly logical about everything. He didn’t mean any harm; that’s just the way he was, always theorizing about everything under the sun. That way of looking at the world was not her forte, however. Her husband was also quite a talker, and wouldn’t easily back down once he started on a topic. So she kept quiet about the whole thing.
Still, she thought, what her husband said—or would likely have said if he only knew—was off the mark. She wasn’t worried or dissatisfied with their marriage. Apart from his sometimes excessive logicality, she had no complaints about her husband, and no real negative feelings about her in-laws, either. Her father-in-law was a doctor who operated a small clinic in Sakata City, in the far north prefecture of Yamagata. Her in-laws were definitely conservative, but her husband was a second son so they generally kept out of Mizuki’s and her husband’s lives. Mizuki was from Nagoya, and so was at first overwhelmed by the frigid winters in Sakata, but during their one or two annual trips there she started to like the place. Two years after she and her husband married, they took out a mortgage and bought a condo in a new building in Shinagawa. Her husband, now thirty, worked in a lab in a pharmaceutical company. Mizuki was twenty-six and worked at a Honda dealership. She answered the phone, showed customers to the lounge, brought coffee, made copies when necessary, took care of files and updating their computerized customer list.
Mizuki’s uncle, an executive at Honda, had found the job for her after she graduated from a women’s junior college in Tokyo. It wasn’t the most thrilling job imaginable, but they did give her some responsibility and overall it wasn’t so bad. Her duties didn’t include car sales, but whenever the salesmen were out she took over, always doing a decent job of answering the customers’ questions. She learned by watching the salesmen, and quickly grasped the necessary technical information, and the knack of selling cars. She’d memorized the mileage ratings of all the models in the showroom, and could convince anyone, for instance, how the Odyssey handled less like a minivan and more like an ordinary sedan. Mizuki was a good conversationalist herself, and that and her winning smile always put customers at ease. She also knew how to subtly change her tack based on her reading of each customer’s personality. Unfortunately, however, she didn’t have the authority to give discounts, negotiate prices of trade-ins, or throw in options for free, so even if she had the customer ready to sign on the dotted line, in the end she had to turn over negotiations to the sales staff. She might have done most of the work, but one of the salesmen would take over and get the commission. The only reward she could expect was the occasional free dinner from one of the salesmen sharing his windfall.
Occasionally the thought crossed her mind that if they’d let her do sales they’d sell more cars and the dealership’s overall record would improve. If these young salesmen, fresh out of college, only put their minds to it, they could sell twice as many cars. Nobody told her, though, that she was too good at sales to be wasting her time in clerical work, that she should be transferred to the sales division. That’s the way a company operates. The sales division is one thing, the clerical staff another, and except in very rare cases, these were unbreachable boundaries. Besides, she wasn’t ambitious enough to want to try to boost her career that way. She much preferred putting in her eight hours, nine to five, taking all the vacation time she had coming, and enjoying her time off.
At work Mizuki continued to use her maiden name. If she officially changed her name, then all the data concerning her in their computer system would have to be changed, a job she’d have to do herself. It was too much trouble and she kept putting it off, and finally she just decided to go by her maiden name. For tax purposes she was listed as married, but her name was unchanged. She knew it wasn’t right to do that, but nobody at work said anything (they were all far too busy to worry about details), so she still went by Mizuki Ozawa. That was still the name on her business cards, her name tag, her time card. Everybody called her either Ozawa-san, Ozawa-kun, Mizukisan, or even the familiar Mizuki-chan. She wasn’t trying to avoid using her married name. It was just too much paperwork to change it, so she managed to slip by without ever making the changes. If somebody else would input all the changes for her, she thought, she’d be happy to go by Mizuki Ando.
Her husband knew she was going by her maiden name at work (he called her occasionally), but didn’t have a problem with it. He seemed to feel that whatever name she used at work was just a matter of convenience. As long as he was convinced of the logic, he didn’t complain. In that sense he was pretty easygoing.
Mizuki began to worry that forgetting her name so completely might be a symptom of some awful disease, perhaps an early sign of Alzheimer’s. The world was full of unexpected, fatal diseases. She’d never known, until recently, that there were diseases such as myasthenia and Huntington’s disease. There must be countless others she’d never heard of. And with most of these illnesses the early symptoms were quite slight. Unusual, but slight symptoms such as—forgetting your own name? Once she started thinking this way, she grew worried that an unknown disease was silently spreading throughout her body.
Mizuki went to a large hospital and explained the symptoms. The young doctor in charge, however—who was so pale and exhausted he looked more like a patient than a physician—didn’t take her seriously. “Do you forget anything else besides your name?” he asked. No, she said. Right now it’s just my name. “Hmm. This sounds more like a psychiatric case,” he said, his voice devoid of any interest or sympathy. “If you start to forget things other than your name, please check back with us. We can run some tests then.” We’ve got our hands full with a lot more seriously ill people than you, he seemed to imply. Forgetting your own name every once in a while is no big deal.
One day, in the local ward newsletter that came in the mail, she came across an article announcing that the ward office would be opening a counseling center. It was just a tiny article, something she’d normally have overlooked. The center would be open twice a month and feature a professional counselor who, at a greatly reduced rate, would advise people one-on-one. Any resident of Shinagawa Ward over eighteen was free to make use of its services, the article said, with everything held in the strictest confidence. Mizuki had her doubts about whether a ward-sponsored counseling center would do any good, but decided to give it a try. It couldn’t hurt, she concluded. The dealership she worked at was busy on the weekends, but getting a day off during the week wasn’t difficult and she was able to adjust her schedule to fit the schedule of the counseling center, which was an unrealistic one for ordinary working people. The center required an appointment, so she phoned ahead. One thirty-minute session cost two thousand yen, not an excessive amount for her to pay. She made an appointment for one p.m. the following Wednesday.
When she arrived at the counseling center on the third floor of the ward office, Mizuki found she was the only client. “They started this program rather suddenly,” the woman receptionist explained, “and most people don’t know about it yet. Once people find out, I’m sure we’ll get more people coming by. But now we’re pretty open, so you’re lucky.”
The counselor, whose name was Tetsuko Sakaki, was a pleasant, short, heavyset woman in her late forties. Her short hair was dyed a light brown, her broad face wreathed in an amiable smile.
She wore a light-colored summer-weight suit, a shiny silk blouse, a necklace of artificial pearls, and low heels. She looked less like a counselor than some friendly, helpful neighborhood housewife.
“My husband works in the ward office here, you see. He’s section chief of the Public Works Department,” she said by way of friendly introduction. “That’s how we were able to get support from the ward and open this counseling center. Actually, you’re our first client, and we’re very happy to have you. I don’t have any other appointments today, so let’s just take our time and have a good heart-to-heart talk.” The woman spoke extremely slowly, everything about her slow and deliberate.
It’s very nice to meet you, Mizuki said. Inside, though, she wondered whether this sort of person would be of any help.
“You can rest assured that I have a degree in counseling and lots of experience. So just leave everything up to me,” the woman added, sounding like she’d read Mizuki’s mind.
Mrs. Sakaki was seated behind a plain metal office desk. Mizuki sat on a small, ancient sofa that looked like something they’d just dragged out of storage. The springs were about to go, and the musty smell made her nose twitch.
“I was really hoping to get one of those nice couches so it looks more like a counselor’s office, but that’s all we could come up with at the moment. We’re dealing with a town hall here, so you can always count on a lot of red tape. An awful place. I promise next time we’ll have something better for you to sit on, but I hope today you won’t mind.”
Mizuki sank back into the flimsy old sofa and began to explain how she’d come to forget her name so often. All the while Mrs. Sakaki just nodded along. She didn’t ask any questions, never showed any surprise. She hardly even made any appropriate sounds to show she was following Mizuki. She just listened carefully to Mizuki’s story, and except for the occasional frown as if she were considering something, her face remained unchanged, her faint smile, like a spring moon at dusk, never wavered.