“Those are cigarette burns,” she said simply.
Kino was at a loss for words. But he had to say something. “Who did that to you?” he asked, his voice parched.
The woman didn’t reply. She didn’t even seem about to, and Kino realized that he wasn’t hoping for an answer.
“Could I get another brandy?” the woman asked.
Kino freshened her drink. She took a sip, feeling the warmth slowly spread down her throat.
“Mr. Kino?”
Kino stopped polishing a glass and looked up.
“I have them in other places, too,” she said finally, her voice drained of expression. “Places that are…a little hard to show.”
—
Kino couldn’t remember now what had led him to sleep with the woman that night. Kino had felt, from the first, that there was something out of the ordinary about her. Something had triggered an instinctive response, warning him not to get involved. And now these cigarette burns on her back. He was basically a cautious person. If he really needed to sleep with a woman, he could always make do with a professional, he felt. Just take care of things by paying for it. And it wasn’t as if he were even attracted to this woman.
But that night she desperately wanted a man to make love to her—and it seemed that he was the man. Her eyes were depthless, the pupils strangely dilated, but there was a decisive glitter in them that would brook no retreat. Kino didn’t have the power to resist.
He locked up the bar, and the two of them went upstairs. In the light of the bedroom, the woman quickly took off her dress, peeled off her underwear, and showed him the places that were a little hard to show. Kino couldn’t help averting his eyes at first, but then was drawn back to look. He couldn’t understand, nor did he want to understand, the mind of a man who would do something so cruel, or of a woman who would willingly endure it. It was a savage scene from a barren planet, light-years away from where Kino lived.
The woman took his hand and guided it to the scars, making him touch each one in turn. There were scars on her breasts, and beside her vagina. She guided his hand as he traced those dark, hard marks, as if he were using a pencil to connect the dots. The marks seemed to form a shape that reminded him of something, but in the end led nowhere. They had sex on the tatami floor. No words exchanged, no foreplay, no time even to turn off the light or lay out the futon. The woman’s tongue slid down his throat, her nails dug into his back. Under the light, like two starving animals, they devoured the flesh they craved, over and over. In all sorts of positions, almost without ceasing. When dawn began to show outside, they crawled onto the futon and slept, as if dragged down into darkness. Kino awoke just before noon, and the woman was gone. He felt as if he’d had a very realistic dream, but, of course, it hadn’t been a dream. His back was lined with scratches, his arms with bite marks, his penis wrung by a dull ache. Several long black hairs swirled around his white pillow, and the sheets had a strong scent he’d never smelled before.
—
The woman came to the bar several times after that, always with the goateed man. They would sit at the counter, speak in subdued voices as they drank a cocktail or two, and then leave. The woman would exchange a few words with Kino, mostly about music. Her tone was the same as before, as if she had no memory of what had taken place between them that night. Still, Kino could detect a glint of desire in her eyes, like a faint light deep down a mineshaft. He was sure of it. It was definitely there. And it brought everything vividly back to him—the stab of her nails into his back, the sting of his penis, her long, slithering tongue, the odor on his bedding. You can’t forget that, the light told him.
As he and the woman spoke, the man with her, like a careful reader adept at reading between the lines, observed Kino’s expression and behavior. Kino sensed something viscous entwining itself about the couple, as if there were a deep secret only the two of them shared. As before, he couldn’t tell if they came to the bar right before, or right after, they had sex. But it was definitely one or the other. And he noticed that, oddly, neither one of them smoked.
She might well visit the bar again alone, most likely on another quiet, rainy night. When the man was somewhere “far away.” Kino knew this. The strong light deep within the woman’s eyes told him. The woman would sit at the bar, silently drinking a few brandies, waiting for Kino to close up for the night. She would go upstairs, slip off her dress, open her body to him under the light, and show him her new burns. Then the two of them would have sex like a pair of wild animals again. On and on, no time to think, until dawn began to break. Kino didn’t know when it would happen, but felt sure it would, someday. The woman would decide that. The thought made his throat dry, the kind of dryness no amount of water could quench.
—
At the end of the summer, Kino’s divorce was finalized, and at her lawyer’s request, he and his wife met at his bar one afternoon, before it opened, to take care of a few last matters.
The legal issues were quickly settled (Kino didn’t contest any of the terms), and the two of them signed the necessary documents and affixed their seals. Kino’s wife was wearing a new blue dress, her hair cut shorter than he’d ever seen it. She looked healthy and cheerful. She’d begun a new, no doubt more fulfilling, life. She glanced around the bar. “What a wonderful place,” she said. “Quiet, clean, and calm—very you.” A short silence followed. But there’s nothing here that really moves you: Kino imagined that these were the words she wanted to say.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.
“A little red wine, if you have some.”
Kino took out two wineglasses and poured some Napa Zinfandel. They drank in silence. They weren’t about to toast to their divorce. The cat padded over and, surprisingly, leaped into Kino’s lap. Kino petted it behind its ears.
“I need to apologize to you,” his wife said finally.
“For what?” Kino asked.
“For hurting you,” she said. “You were hurt, a little, weren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Kino said, after giving it some thought. “I’m human, after all. I was hurt. But whether it was a lot or a little I can’t say.”
“I wanted to see you and tell you I’m sorry.”
Kino nodded. “You’ve apologized, and I’ve accepted your apology. No need to worry about it anymore.”
“I wanted to tell you what was going on, but I just couldn’t find the words.”
“But wouldn’t we have arrived at the same place, anyway?”
“I guess so,” his wife said. “But I hesitated, not saying anything, and we wound up here, at this awful point.”
Kino said nothing, and took a sip of wine. Actually, he was starting to forget all that had happened back then. He couldn’t recall events in the order they’d occurred. It was like a mixed-up jigsaw puzzle in his mind.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come home a day early. Or I should have let you know I was coming. Then we wouldn’t have had to go through that.”
His wife didn’t say anything.
“When did you start seeing that guy?” Kino asked.
“I don’t think we should get into that.”
“Better for me not to know, you mean.”
His wife said nothing.
“Maybe you’re right about that,” Kino admitted. He kept on petting the cat, which purred deeply. Another first.
“Maybe I don’t have the right to say this,” this woman—his former wife—said, “but I think it’d be good for you to forget about what happened and find someone new.”
“Maybe,” Kino said.
“I know there must be a woman out there who’s right for you. It shouldn’t be that hard to find her. I wasn’t able to be that person for you, and I did a terrible thing. I feel awful about it. But there was something wrong between us from the start, as if we’d done the buttons up wrong. I think you should be able to have a more normal, happy life.”
Done the buttons up
wrong, Kino thought.
He looked at the new blue dress she was wearing. They were sitting facing each other, so he couldn’t tell if there was a zipper or buttons at the back. But he couldn’t help thinking about what he would see if he unzipped or unbuttoned her clothes. Her body was no longer his, though. No longer could he see it, let alone touch it. All he could do was imagine it. When he closed his eyes, he saw countless dark brown burn marks wriggling on her pure-white back, like a swarm of worms. He shook his head to dispel that image, and his wife seemed to misinterpret this.
She gently laid her hand on top of his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry.”
—
Fall came, and the cat disappeared. Then the snakes started to show up.
It took a few days for Kino to realize that it was gone. This female cat—still nameless—came to the bar when it wanted to and sometimes didn’t show up for a while. Cats value their freedom. The cat also seemed to be fed somewhere else, too, so if Kino didn’t see it for a week, or even ten days, he wasn’t particularly worried. But when two weeks passed he began to get concerned. Had it been in an accident? After three weeks Kino’s gut told him the cat would never return.
He was fond of the cat, and the cat seemed to trust him. He fed it, provided it a place to sleep, but otherwise let it be. The cat rewarded him by being friendly, or at least not hostile, to him. It was also like a good-luck charm for the bar. Kino had the distinct impression that as long as it was asleep in a corner nothing bad would happen.
Around the time that the cat disappeared, Kino started to notice snakes outside, near the building.
The first snake he saw was dull brown and long. It was in the shade of the willow tree in the front yard, leisurely slithering along. Kino, a bag of groceries in hand, was unlocking the door when he spotted it. It was rare to see a snake in the middle of Tokyo. He was a bit surprised, but he didn’t worry about it. Behind his building was the Nezu Museum, with its large gardens. It wasn’t inconceivable that a snake might be living there.
But two days later, as he opened the door just before noon to retrieve the paper, he saw a different snake in the same spot. This one was bluish, smaller than the other one, and slimy looking. When the snake saw Kino, it stopped, raised its head slightly, and stared at him. (Or at least looked like it was staring.) Kino hesitated, unsure what to do, and the snake slowly lowered its head and vanished into the shade. The whole thing made him uneasy, as if that snake knew him.
It was three days after this, in almost the exact same spot, when he spied the third snake. It was also under the willow tree in the front yard. This snake was considerably smaller than the others and blackish. Kino knew nothing about snakes, but this one struck him as the most dangerous. It looked poisonous, somehow, though he couldn’t be sure. He only saw it for a split second. The instant it sensed his presence it burst away, disappearing into the weeds. Three snakes within the space of a week, no matter how you considered it, was too many. Something strange was going on.
Kino phoned his aunt in Izu. After bringing her up to date on neighborhood goings-on, he asked if she had ever seen snakes around the house in Aoyama.
“Snakes?” his aunt said loudly, in surprise. Kino told her about seeing three snakes, one after another, in the front yard.
“I lived there for a long time but can’t recall ever seeing any snakes,” his aunt said.
“Then seeing three snakes around the house in a week’s time is kind of unusual?”
“I would say so. I wonder if it’s a sign of an earthquake or something. Animals sense disasters coming and start to act strange.”
“If that’s true, then maybe I’d better stock up on emergency rations,” Kino said.
“That might be a good idea. Tokyo’s going to get hit with a huge earthquake someday.”
“But are snakes that sensitive to earthquakes?”
“I don’t know what they’re sensitive to,” his aunt said. Kino, of course, didn’t know either.
“But snakes are smart creatures,” his aunt said. “In ancient legends, they often help guide people. You find this in legends from different cultures all over the world. But when a snake leads you, you don’t know whether it’s taking you in a good direction or a bad one. In most cases, it’s a combination of good and evil.”
“It’s ambiguous,” Kino said.
“Exactly. Snakes are essentially ambiguous creatures. In these legends, the biggest, smartest snake hides its heart somewhere outside its body, so that it doesn’t get killed. If you want to kill that snake, you need to go to its hideout when it’s not there, locate the beating heart, and cut it in two. Not an easy task, for sure.”
How did his aunt know all this?
“The other day I was watching a show on NHK comparing different legends around the world,” she explained, “and a professor from some university was talking about this. TV can be pretty useful—when you have time, you ought to watch more TV. Don’t underestimate it.”
Seeing three snakes in one week’s time wasn’t normal—that much at least was clear from talking with his aunt.
He would close the bar at midnight, then lock up and go upstairs. Take a bath, read for a while, then turn out the light just before two to go to sleep. Kino began to feel as if the house were surrounded by snakes. He sensed their quiet presence. At midnight, when he closed the bar, the neighborhood was still, with no sound other than the occasional ambulance siren. So quiet he could almost hear a snake slithering along. He took a board and nailed shut the pet door he’d built for the cat, so that no snakes would get inside the house.
At this point, at least, it didn’t seem like the snakes planned to harm Kino. They had merely surrounded the little house, silently, ambiguously. Perhaps that was why the gray female cat no longer came by. The woman with the burn scars, too, didn’t show up. Kino feared she would appear again, alone, some rainy night. Yet a part of him hoped she would. Another case of ambiguity.
—
One night, just before ten, Kamita appeared. He had a beer, followed by his usual double White Label, and ate a stuffed-cabbage dish. It was unusual for him to come by so late, and stay so long. Occasionally, he glanced up from his reading to stare at the wall in front of him, as if pondering something. As closing time approached, he remained, until he was the last customer.
“Mr. Kino,” Kamita said rather formally, after he’d paid his bill. “I find it very regrettable that it’s come to this.”
“Come to this?” Kino repeated.
“That you’ll have to close the bar. Even if only temporarily.”
Kino stared at Kamita, not knowing how to respond. Close the bar?
Kamita glanced around the deserted bar, then turned back to Kino. “You haven’t quite grasped what I’m saying, have you?”
“I don’t think I have.”
“I really liked this bar a lot,” Kamita said, as if confiding in him. “It was quiet, so I could read, and I enjoyed the music. I was very happy when you opened the bar here. Unfortunately, though, there are some things missing.”
“Missing?” Kino said. He had no idea what this could mean. All he could picture was a teacup with a tiny chip in its rim.
“That gray cat won’t be coming back,” Kamita said. “For the time being, at least.”
“Because this place is missing something?”
Kamita didn’t reply.
Kino followed Kamita’s gaze, and looked carefully around the bar, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He did, though, get a sense that the place felt emptier than ever, lacking vitality and color. Something beyond the usual, just-closed-for-the-night feeling.
Kamita spoke up. “Mr. Kino, you’re not the type who would willingly do something wrong. I know that very well. But there are times in this world when it’s not enough just not to do the wrong thing. Some people use that blank space as a kind of loophole. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Kino didn’t understand.
“Thi
nk it over carefully,” Kamita said, gazing straight into Kino’s eyes. “It’s a very important question, worth some serious thought. Though the answer may not come all that easily.”
“You’re saying that some serious trouble has occurred, not because I did something wrong but because I didn’t do the right thing? Some trouble concerning this bar, or me?”
Kamita nodded. “You could put it that way. But I’m not blaming just you, Mr. Kino. I’m at fault, too, for not having noticed it earlier. I should have been paying more attention. This was a comfortable place not just for me but for anybody.”
“Then what should I do?” Kino asked.
Kamita was silent, hands stuck in the pockets of his raincoat. Then he spoke. “Close the bar for a while and go far away. There’s nothing else you can do at this point. If you know any good priest, you might have him recite some sutras for you, and hang talismans around your house. Though it’s hard to find someone like that these days. But I think it’s best for you to leave before we have another long spell of rain. Excuse me for asking, but do you have enough money to take a long trip?”
“I guess I could cover it for a while.”
“Good. You can worry about what comes after that when you get to that point.”
“Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m just a guy named Kamita,” Kamita said. “Written with the characters for kami, ‘god,’ and ‘field,’ but not read as ‘Kanda.’ I’ve lived around here for a long time.”
Kino decided to plunge ahead and ask. “Mr. Kamita, I have a question. Have you seen snakes around here before?”
Kamita didn’t respond. “Here’s what you do. Go far away, and don’t stay in one place for long. And every Monday and Thursday make sure to send a postcard. Then I’ll know you’re okay.”
“A postcard?”
“Any kind of picture postcard of where you are.”
“But who should I address it to?”