We happened to run across each other in Lucca, a town in central Italy. I was renting an apartment in Rome at the time. My wife had to go back to Japan, so I was enjoying a leisurely, solitary train trip, first from Venice to Verona, then on to Mantua and Pisa, with a stopover in Lucca. It was my second time there. Lucca’s a quiet, pleasant town, and there’s a wonderful restaurant on the outskirts of town where they have superb mushroom dishes.
He’d come to Lucca on business, and we just happened to be staying in the same hotel. Small world.
We had dinner together at a restaurant that night. Both of us were traveling alone, and were bored. The older you get, the more boring traveling alone becomes. It’s different when you’re younger—whether you’re alone or not, traveling can be a blast. But as you age, the fun factor declines. Only the first couple of days are enjoyable. After that, the scenery becomes annoying, and people’s voices start to grate. There’s no escape, for if you close your eyes to block these out, all kinds of unpleasant memories pop up. It gets to be too much trouble to eat in a restaurant, and you find yourself checking your watch over and over as you wait for streetcars that never seem to arrive. Trying to make yourself understood in a foreign language becomes a total pain.
That’s why, when we spotted each other, we breathed a sigh of relief, just like that time we ran across each other at driving school. We sat down at a table near the fireplace, ordered a pricey bottle of red wine, had a full-course mushroom dinner: mushroom hors d’oeuvres, mushroom pasta, and arrosto con funghi.
It turned out he owned a furniture company that imported European furniture, and was in Europe on a buying trip. You could tell his business was doing well. He didn’t boast about it or put on any airs—when he handed me his business card he just said he was running a small company—yet he’d clearly done well for himself. His clothes, the way he spoke, his expression, manner, everything about him made this obvious. He was entirely at home with his worldly success, in a pleasant sort of way.
He told me he’d read all my novels. “Our way of thinking and goals are very different,” he said, “but I think it’s a wonderful thing to be able to tell stories to other people.”
That made sense. “If you can do a good job of telling the story,” I added.
At first we mainly talked about our impressions of Italy. How the trains never ran on time, how meals took forever. I don’t remember how it came about, exactly, but by the time we were into our second bottle of wine he’d already started telling his story. And I was listening, making the appropriate signs to show I was following along. I think he must have wanted to get this off his chest for a long time, but for some reason hadn’t. If we hadn’t been in a nice little restaurant in a pleasant little town in central Italy, sitting before a fireplace, sipping a mellow 1983 Coltibuono, I seriously doubt he would have told me the tale. But tell it he did.
“I’ve always thought I was a boring person,” he began. “I’ve never been the type who could just cut loose and have a good time. It was like I could always sense a boundary around me and I did my best not to step across the line. Like I was following a well-laid-out highway with signs telling me where to exit, warning me that a curve was coming up, not to pass. Follow the directions, I figured, and life would turn out okay. People praised me for toeing the line, and when I was little I was sure everybody else was doing the same thing as me. But I soon found out that wasn’t the case.”
He held his wineglass up to the fire and gazed at it for a time.
“In that sense, my life, at least the beginning stages, went smoothly. But I had no idea what my life meant, and that kind of vague thought only grew stronger the older I got. What did I want out of life? I had no idea! I was good at math, at English, sports, you name it. My parents always praised me, my teachers always said I was doing fine, and I knew I could get into a good college with no problem. But I had no idea at all what I was aiming at, what I wanted to do. As far as a major in college, I was clueless. Should I go for law, engineering, or medicine? I knew I could have done well in any one of them, but nothing excited me. So I went along with my parents’ and teachers’ recommendations and entered the law department at Tokyo University. There was no principle guiding me, really—it’s just that everybody said that was the best choice.”
He took another sip of wine. “Do you remember my girlfriend in high school?”
“Was her name Fujisawa?” I said, somehow able to call up the name. I wasn’t entirely sure that was right, but it turned out it was.
He nodded. “Right. Yoshiko Fujisawa. Things were good with her, too. I liked her a lot, liked being with her and talking about all kinds of things. I could tell her everything I felt, and she understood me. I could go on forever when I was with her. It was wonderful. I mean, before her, I never had a friend I could really talk to.”
He and Yoshiko were spiritual twins. It was almost uncanny how similar their backgrounds were. As I’ve said, they were both attractive, smart, natural-born leaders. Class superstars. Both of them were from affluent families, with parents who didn’t get along. Both had mothers who were older than their fathers, and fathers who kept a mistress and stayed away from home as much as they could. Fear of public opinion kept their parents from divorcing. At home, then, their mothers ruled the roost, and expected their children to be the tops in whatever they did. He and Yoshiko were both popular enough, but never had any real friends. They weren’t sure why. Maybe it was because ordinary, imperfect people always choose similarly imperfect people as friends. At any rate, the two of them were always lonely, always a bit on edge.
Somehow, though, they hooked up and started going out. They ate lunch together every day, walked home from school together. Spent every spare moment with each other, talking. There was always so much to talk about. On Sundays they studied together. When it was just the two of them they could relax the most. Each knew exactly how the other was feeling. They could talk forever about the loneliness they’d experienced, the sense of loss, their fears, their dreams.
They made out once a week, usually in one of the rooms of their respective houses. It wasn’t hard to be alone, what with their fathers always gone and their mothers running errands half the time, their homes were practically deserted. They followed two rules during their make-out sessions: their clothes had to stay on, and they’d only use their fingers. They’d passionately make out for ten or fifteen minutes, then sit down together at a desk and study together.
“That’s enough. Why don’t we study now?” she’d say, smoothing down the hem of her skirt. Both of them got almost identical grades, so they made a game out of studying, competing, for instance, to see who could solve math problems the quickest. Studying was never a burden; it was like second nature to them. It was a lot of fun, he told me. You might think this is stupid, but we really enjoyed studying. Maybe only people like the two of us could ever understand how much fun it was.
Not that he was totally happy with their relationship. Something was missing. Actual sex, in other words. “A sense of being one, physically,” is how he put it. I felt we had to take the next step, he said. I thought if we did, we’d be freer in our relationship, and understand each other better. For me that would have been a completely natural development.
But she saw things differently. Her mouth set, she shook her head slightly. “I love you so much,” she quietly explained, “but I want to stay a virgin until I get married.” No matter how much he tried to persuade her, she wouldn’t listen.
“I love you, I really do,” she said. “But those are two different things. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to put up with it. You will, if you really love me.”
When she put it that way, he told me, I had to respect her wishes. It was a question of how she wanted to live her life and there wasn’t anything I could say about that. To me, whether a girl’s a virgin or not didn’t matter that much. If I got married and found out my bride wasn’t a virgin, I wouldn’t car
e. I’m not a very radical type of person, or a dreamy, romantic sort. But I’m not all that conservative, either. I’m more of a realist, I guess. A girl’s virginity just isn’t that big a deal. It’s much more important that a couple really know each other. But that’s just my opinion, and I’m not about to force others to agree. She had her own vision of how her life should be, so I just had to grin and bear it, and make do with touching her under her clothes. I’m sure you could imagine what this involved.
I can imagine, I said. I have similar memories.
His face reddened a bit and he smiled.
That wasn’t so bad, don’t get me wrong, but since we never went any further, I never felt relaxed. To me we were always stopping halfway. What I wanted was to be one with her, with nothing coming between us. To possess her, to be possessed. I needed a sign to prove that. Sexual desire figured into it, of course, but that wasn’t the main thing. I’m talking about a sense of being one, physically. I’d never once experienced that sense of oneness with a person. I’d always been alone, always feeling tense, stuck behind a wall. I was positive that once we were one, my wall would come crumbling down, and I’d discover who I was, the self I’d only had vague glimpses of.
“But it didn’t work out?” I asked him.
“No, it didn’t,” he said, and stared for a time at the blazing logs in the fireplace, his eyes strangely dull. “It never did work out,” he said.
He was seriously thinking of marrying her, and told her so. After we graduate from college we can get married right away, he told her. We could even get engaged earlier. His words made her very happy, and she beamed a charming smile at him. At the same time, her smile revealed a hint of weariness, of a wiser, more mature person listening to a young person’s immature ideas. I can’t marry you, she said. I’m going to marry someone a few years older than me, and you’re going to marry someone a few years younger. That’s the way things are done. Women mature faster than men, and age more quickly. You don’t know anything about the world yet. Even if we were to marry right out of college, it wouldn’t work out. We’d never stay as happy as we are now. Of course I love you—I’ve never loved anyone else. But those are two different things. (“Those are two different things” being her pet saying.) We’re still in high school, and we’ve lived sheltered lives. But the world outside isn’t like that. It’s a big world out there, and we have to get ready for it.
He understood what she was getting at. Compared to other boys his age, he had his feet firmly on the ground. If someone else had been arguing the same point he probably would have agreed. But this was no abstract generalization. This was his life they were talking about.
I just don’t get it, he told her. I love you so much. I want us to be one. This couldn’t be clearer to me, or more important. I don’t care if it’s unrealistic. That’s how much I love you.
She shook her head again, as if to tell him it was out of the question. She stroked his hair and said, “I wonder what either of us knows about love. Our love has never been tested. We’ve never had to take responsibility for anything. We’re still children.”
He couldn’t say a thing. It just made him sad he couldn’t smash down the wall around him now. Until then he’d always seen that wall as protecting him, but now it was a barrier, barring his way. A wave of impotence swept over him. I can’t do anything anymore, he thought. I’m going to be surrounded by this thick wall forever, never allowed to venture outside. The rest of my insipid, pointless life.
Their relationship remained the same until the two of them graduated from high school. They’d meet up at the library as always, study together, make out with their clothes on. She didn’t seem to mind that they never went all the way. She actually seemed to like things left that way, unconsummated. Everybody else imagined that Mister and Miss Clean were both enjoying an uncomplicated youth. But he continued to struggle with his unresolved feelings.
In the spring of 1967, he entered Tokyo University, while she went to a women’s college in Kobe. It was definitely a first-rate school, but with her grades she could have gotten into someplace much better, even Tokyo University if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t think it was necessary, and didn’t take the entrance exam. I don’t particularly want to study, or get into the Ministry of Finance, she explained. I’m a girl. I’m different from you. You’re going to go far. But I want to take a break, and spend the next four years enjoying myself. After I get married, I won’t be able to do that again.
He was frankly disappointed. He’d been hoping they’d both go to Tokyo and start their relationship afresh. He pleaded with her to join him, but again she merely shook her head.
He came back from Tokyo for summer vacation after his freshman year, and they went on dates almost every day. (That’s the summer he and I ran across each other at driving school.) She drove them all around and they continued the same make-out sessions as before. He started, though, to sense that something in their relationship was changing. Reality was silently starting to worm its way between them.
It wasn’t like there was some obvious change. Actually, the problem was more a lack of change. Nothing about her had changed—the way she spoke, her clothes, the topics she chose to talk about, her opinions—they were all the same as before. Their relationship was like a pendulum gradually grinding to a halt, and he felt out of synch.
Life in Tokyo was lonely. The city was filthy, the food awful, the people uncouth. He thought about her all the time. At night he’d hole up in his room and write letter after letter to her. She wrote back, though not as often. She wrote all the details about her life, and he devoured her letters. Her letters were what kept him sane. He started smoking and drinking, and cutting classes.
When summer vacation finally rolled around, though, and he rushed back to Kobe, a lot of things disappointed him. He’d only been away for three months, yet strangely enough his hometown now struck him as dusty and lifeless. Talking with his mother was a total bore. The scenery back home he’d waxed nostalgic over while he was in Tokyo now looked insipid. Kobe, he discovered, was just a self-satisfied backwater town. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, and even going to the barbershop he’d gone to since he was a child depressed him. When he took his dog for a walk, the seashore was empty and littered with trash.
You’d think going on dates with Yoshiko would have excited him, but it didn’t. Every time they said goodbye, he’d go home and brood. He was still in love with her—that was a given. But it wasn’t enough. I have to do something, he felt. Passion will get by on its own steam for a time, but it doesn’t last forever. If we don’t do something drastic our relationship will reach an impasse, and all the passion will be suffocated out of us.
One day, he decided to raise again the issue of sex that they’d frozen out of their conversations. This will be the last time I bring it up, he decided.
“These last three months in Tokyo I’ve been thinking about you all the time,” he told her. “I love you, and my feelings won’t change, even if we’re away from each other. But being apart so long, all kinds of dark thoughts start to take over. You probably don’t understand this, but people are weak when they’re alone. I’ve never been so alone like this in my life. It’s awful. So I want something that can bring us closer together. I want to know for sure that we’re bound together, even if we’re apart.”
But his girlfriend turned him down. She sighed and gently kissed him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t give you my virginity. These are two different things. I’ll do anything for you, except that. If you love me, please don’t bring that up again.”
He raised the idea of their getting married.
“There are girls in my class who are engaged already,” she said. “Just two of them, actually. But their fiancés have jobs. That’s what getting engaged involves. Marriage involves responsibility. You become independent and accept another person into your life. If you don’t take responsibility you can’t gain anything.”
“I can take responsibility,” he declared. “Listen—I’m going to a top university, and I’m getting good grades. I can get a job later in any company or government office I want. You name the company and I’ll get into it as the top candidate. I can do anything, if I put my mind to it. So what’s the problem?”
She closed her eyes, leaned back against the car seat, and didn’t say anything for a while. “I’m scared,” she said. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “I’m so very very scared. Life is frightening. In a few years, I’ll have to go out in the real world and it scares me. Why don’t you understand that? Why can’t you try to understand what I’m feeling? Why do you have to torment me like this?”
He held her close. “As long as I’m here you don’t need to be afraid,” he said. “I’m scared, too—as much as you are. But if I’m with you, I’m not afraid. As long as we pull together, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She shook her head again. “You don’t understand. I’m not like you. I’m a woman. You don’t get it at all.”
It was pointless for him to say anything more. She cried for a long time, and when she was finished she said the following, rather astonishing thing:
“If…we ever broke up, I want you to know I’ll always think about you. It’s true. I’ll never forget you, because I really love you. You’re the first person I’ve ever loved and just being with you makes me happy. You know that. But these are two different things. If you need me to promise you, I will. I will sleep with you someday. But not right now. After I marry somebody else, I’ll sleep with you. I promise.”
“At the time I had no idea what she was trying to tell me,” he said, staring at the burning logs in the fireplace. The waiter brought over our entrees and laid a few logs on the fire while he was at it. Sparks crackled up. The middle-aged couple at the table next to us was puzzling over which desserts to order. “What she said was like a riddle. After I got home I gave a lot of thought to what she’d said, but I just couldn’t grasp it at all. Do you understand what she meant?”