“And that’s the main thing you want to do now?”
“That’s it.”
“Oh, brother,” I said, shaking my head.
MIDORI CAME TO PICK ME UP at nine-thirty on Sunday morning. I had just awakened and hadn’t washed my face yet. Somebody pounded on my door and yelled, “Hey, Watanabe, it’s a woman!” I went down to the lobby to find Midori wearing an incredibly short jeans skirt and sitting there with her legs crossed, yawning. Every guy passing through on his way to breakfast slowed down to stare at her long, slim legs. She did have really nice legs.
“Am I too early?” she asked. “I bet you just woke up.”
“Can you give me fifteen minutes? I’ll wash my face and shave.”
“I don’t mind waiting, but all these guys are staring at my legs.”
“What’d you expect, coming into a men’s dorm in such a short skirt? Of course they’re gonna stare at you.”
“Oh, well, it’s O.K. I’m wearing really cute panties today—all pink and frilly and lacy.”
“That just makes it worse,” I said with a sigh. I went back to my room and washed and shaved as fast as I could, put on a blue button-down shirt and a gray tweed sports coat, then went back down and hurried Midori out through the dorm gate. I was in a cold sweat.
“Tell me, Watanabe,” Midori said, looking up at the dorm buildings, “do all the guys in here masturbate, rub-a-dub-dub?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Do guys think about girls when they do that?”
“I guess so. I kinda doubt that anybody thinks about the stock market or verb conjugations or the Suez Canal when they masturbate. Nah, I’m pretty sure just about everybody thinks about girls.”
“The Suez Canal?”
“For example, I mean.”
“So I guess they think about particular girls, right?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking your boyfriend about that?” I said. “Why should I have to explain stuff like that to you on a Sunday morning?”
“I was just curious,” she said. “Besides, he’d get mad if I asked him about stuff like that. He’d say girls aren’t supposed to ask all those questions.”
“A perfectly normal point of view, I’d say.”
“But I want to know. This is pure curiosity. Do guys think about particular girls when they masturbate?”
I gave up trying to avoid the question. “Well, I do, at least. I don’t know about anybody else.”
“Have you ever thought about me when you were doing it? Tell me the truth. I won’t get mad.”
“No, I haven’t, to tell you the truth,” I answered honestly.
“Why not? Aren’t I attractive enough?”
“Oh, you’re plenty attractive, all right. You’re cute, and sexy outfits look good on you.”
“So why don’t you think about me?”
“Well, first of all, I think of you as a friend, so I don’t want to get you involved in my sexual fantasies, and second—”
“You’ve got somebody else you’re supposed to be thinking about.”
“That’s about the size of it,” I said.
“You have good manners even when it comes to something like this,” Midori said. “That’s what I like about you. Still, couldn’t you allow me just one brief appearance? I want to be in one of your sexual fantasies or daydreams or whatever you call them. I’m asking you because we’re friends. Who else can I ask for something like that? I can’t just walk up to anyone and say, ‘When you masturbate tonight, will you please think of me for a second?’ It’s because I think of you as a friend that I’m asking. And I want you to tell me later what it was like. You know, what you did and stuff.”
I let out a sigh.
“You can’t put it in, though. ‘Cause we’re just friends. Right? As long as you don’t put it in, you can do anything you like, think anything you want.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never done it with so many restrictions before,” I said.
“Will you just think about me?”
“All right, I’ll think about you.”
“You know, Watanabe, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression—that I’m a nymphomanic or frustrated or a tease or anything. I’m just interested in that stuff. I want to know about it. I grew up surrounded by nothing but girls in a girls’ school, you know that. I want to find out what guys are thinking and how their bodies are put together. And not just from pullout sections in the women’s magazines but in actual case studies.”
“Case studies?” I groaned.
“But my boyfriend doesn’t like it when I want to know things or try things. He gets mad, calls me a nympho or crazy. He won’t even let me give him a blow job. Now, that’s one thing I’m dying to study.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you hate getting blow jobs?”
“No, not really, I don’t hate it.”
“Would you say you like it?”
“Yeah, I’d say that. But can we talk about this next time? Here it is, a really nice Sunday morning, and I don’t want to ruin it talking about masturbation and blow jobs. Let’s talk about something else. Is your boyfriend in the same university with us?”
“Nope, he goes to another one, of course. We met in high school during a club activity. I was in a girls’ school, and he was in a boys’ school, and you know how they do those things, joint concerts and stuff. We got serious after graduation, though. Hey, Watanabe.”
“What?”
“You only have to do it once. Just think about me, O.K.?”
“O.K., I’ll give it a try, next time,” I said, throwing in the towel.
WE TOOK A COMMUTER TRAIN to Ochanomizu. When we transferred at Shinjuku I bought a thin sandwich at a stand in the station to take the place of the breakfast I hadn’t eaten. The coffee I had with it tasted like boiled printer’s ink. The Sunday morning trains were filled with couples and with families on outings. A group of boys with baseball bats and matching uniforms scampered around inside the car. Several of the girls on the train had short skirts on, but none as short as Midori’s. Midori would yank on hers every now and then to bring it lower. Some of the men stared at her thighs, which made me feel uneasy, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Know what I’d like to do right now?” Midori whispered to me when we had been riding for some ten minutes.
“No idea,” I said. “But please, don’t talk about that stuff here. Somebody’ll hear you.”
“Too bad. This one’s kind of wild,” Midori said with obvious disappointment.
“Anyhow, why are we going to Ochanomizu?”
“Just come along, you’ll see.”
With all the cram schools around Ochanomizu Station, on Sunday the area was full of junior high and high school kids on their way to practice exams or classes. Midori plunged through the crowds clutching her shoulder-bag strap with one hand and my hand with the other.
Without warning, she asked me, “Hey, Watanabe, can you explain the difference between the English subjunctive present and the subjunctive past?”
“I think I can,” I said.
“Let me ask you, then, what purpose does stuff like that serve in daily life?”
“None at all,” I said. “It may not serve any concrete purpose, but it does give you some kind of training to help you grasp things in general more systematically.”
Midori took a moment to give that some serious thought. “You’re amazing,” she said. “That never occurred to me before. I always thought of things like the subjunctive case and differential calculus and chemical symbols as totally useless. A pain in the neck. So I’ve always ignored them. Now I have to wonder if my whole life has been a mistake.”
“You’ve ignored them?”
“Yeah. Like, for me, they didn’t exist. I don’t have the slightest idea what ‘sine’ and ‘cosine’ mean.”
“That’s incredible! How’d you graduate from high school? How’d you get into college?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mid
ori. “You don’t have to know anything to pass college entrance exams! All you need is a little intuition—and I have great intuition. ‘Choose the correct answer from the following three.’ I know immediately which one is right.”
“My intuition’s not as good as yours, so I have to learn systematic thinking to some extent. Like the way a crow collects chunks of glass in a hollow tree.”
“Does it serve some purpose?”
“I wonder. It probably makes it easier to do some kinds of things.”
“What kinds of things? Give me an example.”
“Metaphysical thought, say. Mastering several languages.”
“What good does that do?”
“It depends on the person who does it. It serves a purpose for some, and not for others. But mainly it’s training. Whether it serves a purpose or not is another question. Like I said.”
“Hmmm,” said Midori, seemingly impressed. She led me by the hand down the hill. “You know, Watanabe, you’re really good at explaining things to people.”
“I wonder,” I said.
“It’s true. I’ve asked hundreds of people what good the English subjunctive is, and not one of them gave me a good, clear answer like yours. Not even English teachers. They either got confused or angry or laughed it off. Nobody gave me a decent answer before. If somebody like you had been around when I asked my question, and given me a proper explanation, even I might have been interested in the subjunctive. Damn!”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“Have you ever read Das Kapital?”
“Yup. Not the whole thing, of course, but parts, like most people.”
“Did you understand it?”
“I understood some parts, not others. You have to acquire the necessary intellectual apparatus to read a book like Das Kapital. I think I understand the general idea of Marxism, though.”
“Do you think a college freshman who hasn’t read books like that can understand Das Kapital just by reading it?”
“That’s pretty nearly impossible, I’d say.”
“You know, when I entered the university, I joined a folk music club. I just wanted to sing songs. But the members were a pack of phonies. I get chills just thinking about them. The first thing they tell you when you enter the club is you have to read Marx. ‘Prepare page so-and-so to such-and-such for next time.’ Somebody lectured on how folk songs have to be deeply involved with society and the radical movement. So, what the hell, I went home and tried as hard as I could to read it, but I didn’t understand a thing. It was worse than the subjunctive. I gave up after three pages. So I went to the next week’s meeting like a good little scout and said I had read it but that I couldn’t understand it. From that point on they treated me like an idiot. I had no critical awareness of the class struggle, they said, I was a social cripple. I mean, this was serious. And all because I said I couldn’t understand a piece of writing. Don’t you think they were terrible?”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“And their so-called discussions were terrible, too. Everybody would use big words and pretend they knew what was going on. But I would ask questions whenever I didn’t understand something. ‘What is this imperialist exploitation stuff you’re talking about? Is it connected somehow to the East India Company?’ ‘Does smashing the educational-industrial complex mean we’re not supposed to work for a company after we graduate from college?’ And stuff like that. But nobody was willing to explain anything to me. Far from it—they got mad at me. Can you believe it?”
“Yeah, I can,” I said.
“One guy yelled at me, ‘You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?’ Well, that did it as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to put up with it. O.K., so I’m not so smart. I’m working class. But it’s the working class that keeps the world running, and it’s the working class that gets exploited. What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working-class people can’t understand? What the hell kind of social revolution is that? I mean, I’d like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody’s really being exploited, we’ve got to put a stop to it. That’s what I believe, and that’s why I ask questions. Am I right, or what?”
“You’re right.”
“So that’s when it hit me. These guys are a bunch of phonies. All they’ve got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they’re so proud of and sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they’re seniors, they cut their hair short and go trooping to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who’ve never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don’t make me laugh! And the new members were just as bad. They didn’t understand a thing either, but they made believe they did and they were laughing at me. After the meeting, they told me, ‘Don’t be silly! So what if you don’t understand? Just agree with everything they say.’ Hey, Watanabe, I’ve got stuff that made me even madder than that. Wanna hear?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, one time they called a late-night political meeting, and they told the girls to make twenty rice balls each for midnight snacks. I mean, talk about sex discrimination! I decided to keep quiet for a change, though, and showed up like a good girl with my twenty rice balls, complete with umeboshi inside and nori outside. And what do you think I got for my efforts? Afterward people complained because my rice balls had only umeboshi inside, and I hadn’t brought along anything to go with them! The other girls stuffed theirs with cod roe and salmon, and they included nice, thick slices of fried egg. I got so mad I couldn’t talk! Where the hell do these ‘revolution’ mongers get off making a fuss over rice balls? They should be grateful for umeboshi and nori. Think about the children starving in India!”
I laughed. “So then what happened with your club?”
“I quit in June, I was so damn mad,” Midori said. “Most of these university types are total phonies. They’re scared to death somebody’s gonna find out they don’t know something. They all read the same books and they all throw around the same words, and they get off listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that ‘revolution’?”
“Hey, don’t ask me, I’ve never actually seen a revolution.”
“Well, if that’s revolution, you can have it. They’d probably shoot me for putting umeboshi in my rice balls. They’d shoot you, too, for understanding the subjunctive.”
“It could happen.”
“Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m working class. Revolution or no, the working class is going to have to keep scraping by in the same old shit holes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn’t just changing the name on city hall. But those guys don’t know that—those guys with their big words. Tell me, Watanabe, have you ever seen a tax man?”
“Never have.”
“Well I have. Lots of times. They come barging in and acting big. ‘What’s this ledger for?’ ‘Hey, you keep pretty sloppy records.’ ‘You call this a business expense?’ ‘I want to see all your receipts right now.’ Meanwhile, we’re crouching in the corner, and when suppertime comes we’ve gotta treat them to sushi deluxe—home delivered. Let me tell you, though, my father never once cheated on his taxes. That’s just how he is, a real old-fashioned straight arrow. But tell that to the tax man. All he can do is dig and dig and dig and dig. ‘Income’s a little low here, don’tcha think?’ Well, of course the income’s low when you’re not making any money! I wanted to scream! ‘Go do this where they’ve got some money!’ Do you think the tax man’s attitude would change if there was a revolution?”
“Highly doubtful, highly doubtful.”
“That does it for me, then. I’m not going to believe in any damned revolution. Love is all I’m going to believe in.”
“Peace,” I said.
“Peace,” said Midori.
“Say, where are we headed?” I asked.
“
The hospital,” she said. “My father’s there. It’s my turn to stay with him all day.”
“Your father?! I thought he was in Uruguay!”
“That was a lie,” said Midori as if it was nothing at all. “He’s been screaming about going to Uruguay forever, but he could never do that. He can hardly get himself out of Tokyo.”
“How bad is he?” I asked.
“It’s just a matter of time,” she said.
We moved several paces ahead without a word.
“I know what I’m talking about. It’s the same thing my mother had. A brain tumor. Can you believe it? It’s hardly been two years since a brain tumor killed her, and now he’s got one.”
THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL CORRIDORS WERE NOISY and crowded with weekend visitors and patients who had less serious symptoms, and everywhere hung that special hospital smell, a cloud of disinfectant and visitors’ bouquets and urine and mattresses, through which nurses surged back and forth with a dry clattering of heels.
Midori’s father was in a semiprivate room, in the bed nearer the door. Stretched out, he looked like some tiny creature with a fatal wound. He lay on his side, limp, the drooping left arm inert, jabbed with an intravenous needle. He was a skinny little man who gave the impression that he would get only skinnier and littler. A white bandage encircled his head, and his pasty white arms were dotted with the wounds left by injections or intravenous feedings. His half-open eyes stared at a fixed point in space, but the bloodshot spheres twitched in our direction when we entered the room. For some ten seconds they stayed focused on us, then drifted back to that fixed point in space.
He was going to die soon, you knew when you saw those eyes. There was no sign of life in his flesh, just the barest traces of what had once been a life. His body was like a dilapidated old house from which all furniture and fixtures have been removed and which awaited now only its final demolition. Around the dry lips sprouted clumps of whiskers like so many weeds. So, I thought, even after so much of his life force had been lost, a man’s beard continued to grow.
Midori said hello to the ample-fleshed man in the bed by the window. He nodded and smiled, apparently unable to talk. He coughed a few times and, after sipping some water from a glass by his pillow, he shifted his weight in bed and rolled on his side, turning his gaze out the window. Beyond the window could be seen only a utility pole and some power lines, nothing more, not even a cloud in the sky.