A Quiet Life (29 page)

As soon as they saw me emerge from the locker room, Mr. Arai and Eeyore, who had already changed and had been waiting for me, hastened down to the club's reception counter on the second floor. In the staff room beyond the lockers and automatic door of the regular members' exit was Mr. Osawa, who seemed to have something to discuss with me. But because Eeyore, who usually needs more time to put on his shoes and everything, had been very quick that evening, all I could do was hurry out after him.

Night had set in, and a fine rain was falling. Both Eeyore
and I took out our folding umbrellas from our bags, but Mr. Arai, who had turned up his sweater collar, wasn't at all bothered by the rain. We helplessly followed Mr. Arai, who had the sort of gait that exploited the spring in the sole of his jogging shoes, and entered a road alongside the health club, perpendicular to the street that runs along the railway tracks, the one we always take. On one side of this road was a kindergarten and several posh condos, and on the other side, which had night lamps, ran the carefully built high concrete wall of a prewar residential area. It wasn't that long after dusk, yet the road was empty of human figures, probably on account of the rain. Mr. Arai kept walking, even after we had passed the signboard marking the club's parking place for bicycles, and so I asked, “Is the parking lot far?”

To this he clasped the collar of his sweater like an eagle, turned, and replied curtly, making light of me, “My condo's very near this place. Why should we go by car?” and continued walking briskly.

I too hurried along, abreast of Eeyore, who was resolutely stretching his strides to keep up with Mr. Arai, and while walking I was seized with a sense of fear and a feeling of nausea that chilled me to the core of my body. It occurred to me that, if he didn't keep his car at the club parking lot, then he must have gone there from the very outset, in search of a place to beat up Mr. Shigeto. Unable to bring myself to tell Eeyore that we should turn back, I kept walking along the road between the wall, which grew progressively taller, and structures that showed no sign of people in them. I was intimidated by the fact that the road, which up ahead turned down to the right, was of an antiquated style that consisted of placing on a slant one thick, blackish, hardened-gravel slab on top of another, for never before in my life had I taken such a road. I tried to walk its full stretch, while bringing myself so close to Eeyore
that our umbrellas hit. On the right hand side of this slope, which felt like we were descending one oddly long step at a time, was a garage that cut into the backyard hedge of a stately old house. In the darkness were two cars. One of them was the Porsche. Mr. Arai hopped onto a narrow walkway by the garage. At the top of a steep flight of stairs that led up from the path was a long and narrow lot on which stood the three-story building that housed Mr. Arai's condo, on one side of which was a high concrete wall, and on the other a structure, most likely a public building, fringed with beech and zelkova trees that had shed their leaves.

On the second floor—reached by ascending a flight of stairs on the outside of the building that was narrow like the passageways adjoining a ship's cabins, and had chest-high panels that served as blinds—were two residential units, side by side. Mr. Arai unlocked the two doors with a gesture that boasted he owned both units. I then realized that, if Mr. Arai had left the place with both keys—one for the unit closer to the stairs, which had
KUROKAWA
on its nameplate, and one for the other unit, marked ARAI, which Eeyore and I were being led into—then Mrs. Kurokawa wasn't home, and this prompted me to assume a firm defensive posture. Yet I failed to turn back, despite this situation, not only because Eeyore had quickly gone in, but also because my attitude that day on the whole had been one of confusion. And my memory of what happened after I entered Mr. Arai's condo is just as confused. Indeed my comportment, as I tried to somehow hold my ground against fretting, fearing, almost
robotizing
, must have been far from natural. …

This, ironically, must have been a factor in causing Mr. Arai's actions to escalate in the direction of utter unruliness. Although I could never match Mrs. Shigeto's efforts to be thoroughly fair, I want to write about what happened in Mr. Arai's room without
imparting any emotions, lest I be overly unfair to him. I'll be, brief, like I would in presenting an outline. While I have reservations about presenting conclusions beforehand, I would say that the most distinctive feature of the incident, which began to gel in my mind as I later repeatedly replayed what had happened, is that Mr. Arai's attitude in his condo, even after he became overtly hostile, indeed even before that, was such that I could not really tell whether he was serious or joking; and in spite of this, or because of this, his behavior was overly and flagrantly exaggerated. In a sense, you could interpret the ambiguity of Mr. Arai's attitude as something he intended to serve as an alibi, so that later he could insist that it had all been a game, for no man in his right mind could have seriously attempted to translate into action anything so outrageous. …

Mr. Arai's condo was typical of a young man's habitat, with new-model audio components, a TV set with a videogame gadget attached to it, CDs and videos piled on shelves next to a big bed. Pinned to the wall, like a collage, were a slew of bright, gaudy posters and pictures of himself swimming. For books, all he had were, I don't know what you call them, new science or new religion books with psychedelic covers on them, books on swimming, and textbooks of sports theory, all jumbled together with magazines, which made me feel that I didn't belong there, accustomed as I was to life in a house filled with Father's books. Eeyore, who proceeded straight to the CD shelf to see what it held, said reservedly, but with bewilderment and dismay crossing his face, “Rock and new music aren't my favorites. …”

Whereupon Mr. Arai, saying that there was plenty of classical stuff in the adjacent room, opened the large steel door connecting the two units from inside, and took Eeyore into Mrs. Kurokawa's living area. Almost immediately after this, Brahms's
First Symphony came through with fine sound quality, and I heard Eeyore's joyous exclamation, “Furtwängler, is it? Hoh!” Mr. Arai came back alone, sat down on his bed with a thud, and suddenly, with an attitude that was almost rude, told me to come to his side. I feared that if I
robotized
I wouldn't be able to put up any resistance, and while desperately bracing my feelings, I tried not to listen to the unbelievable words he relentlessly spewed at me. …

I quote Mr. Arai's words. “If you want to make your dream of marrying me and bringing Eeyore along come true, you could very well move in here, right now. Eeyore could sleep in Mrs. Kurokawa's room at night. … You sit there as prim as a princess, but myself, I've seen what yours looks like, good and hard, from behind your crotch when you, in your swimsuit, were doing the breaststroke. … Myself, I could give it to you now if you want, but Eeyore's quietly listening to music, and he would be bothered if you started moaning and groaning with pleasure. But as a token of us having arrived at a new relationship, you could show me just the part that your swimsuit conceals … never mind your breasts—myself, I could see from looking at you in your swimsuit that you hardly have any. Myself, I want to see your lower body. …

“Mr. K wrote that myself, I had the woman bare her lower parts, and tied her legs to both sides of her hips in the shape of an
M
, so as to expose her c—. He just let his imagination go wild, and branded me with infamy. … It would be mighty fun if myself, I experimented with you, his daughter, to see what shape it really looks like. …”

I screamed at the top of my voice in the direction of the living area next door, and I heard what sounded like Eeyore quickly rise and approach the door and repeatedly pull at the doorknob, for Mr. Arai had locked it. I sprang to my feet to
rush to the door, but Mr. Arai caught me by my arms and twisted them upward from behind with the force of a machine. He stood like this for a while, chuckling behind my ears, but soon he dragged me backward with one forceful pull, and threw me onto his bed. I fell on my back and tried to hide my face in my hands, but he pushed my arms open, from in front of me to my sides; and with his flushed smooth face mixed with an expression of rage and amusement, he kept looking down at me with his apricot-shaped eyes. …

Pinned down, and utterly helpless, I suddenly found myself free, standing by the bed in blank surprise. Eeyore, with power suffusing every fiber of his body, like when he's angry at a barking dog, had his hands clasped around Mr. Arai's carotids, and the two, entangled together, cascaded down between the bed and the sofa. … Eeyore had exited Mrs. Kurokawa's condo to the road, and then entered Mr. Arai's unit through the front door. As soon as I realized this I was running to the door, which was still open, and I fled outside without even putting my shoes on. …

The direction in which I ran, trying to get back on the road we had come on, turned out to be wrong, and I found myself on the block of the Women's Community Hall and the Elderly Citizens' Welfare Hall, where there were neither any lighted houses nor passersby I could ask for help. I slipped and fell as I panted and raced up the slope with its sturdy, cemented-pebble slabs, and just like that little girl in our neighborhood, I wobbled on my knees to get away. I even sobbed and cried. When at last I was on my feet again, I was seized with the bloodcurdling thought that I had fled without Eeyore, that I had left him in the hands of a person like Mr. Arai, who could kick at, and break, his ribs. I cried out loud as I thought of Eeyore, who had been forsaken by Mother and Father, and by me too—undoubtedly
an “abandoned child”—yet was fighting bravely to save me. …

Despite all this, I somehow managed to get back on the street that ran along the railroad tracks, and heedless of the penetrating stares of the passersby—it was drizzling, I had no umbrella over my head, I was barefoot, and my knees were bleeding—I walked back toward the health club. Feeling helplessly desperate, I thought of asking Mr. Osawa to come to Eeyore's rescue. But as I passed and happened to peer up the alley we had taken when going to Mr. Arai's condo—the road right beside the club building—I saw Eeyore walking with Mr. Arai, who was carrying the bag and umbrella I had left behind. I stood there, rooted in fear, but Mr. Arai, upon recognizing me, handed my belongings to Eeyore, and leapt back on the road he had come, as if he were jogging.

I walked in Eeyore's direction, and he hurried toward me, squinting his eyes as if to peer into the drizzling dark, and said with a calm and gentle voice, “Are you all right? Ma-chan! I fought!”

The next day, I started running a fever again, and I couldn't get up for some time. I couldn't even write to Mother, though it bothered me that I didn't. All the while I was in bed, O-chan did a great job not only with the household chores but also with various other things he had searched out that needed to be done. As for things that concerned him personally—such as going to the university to check the bulletin boards and see whether or not he had passed his entrance exams—he did them after taking Eeyore to the welfare workshop. O-chan locked the front door so that I could sleep without being disturbed. Returning home with the makings for dinner, he busied himself in the
kitchen with this and that, and at long last he peered in through my door and said. “Sister, thank you for your cooperation.” It was an impersonation of his younger self, but with an adult voice that was nothing like the clear, crystalline voice he had when he passed his elementary school entrance exams. “Thanks to you, I passed.”

O-chan had gone to pick up Eeyore, and later, hearing in mind the time difference, made, an overseas call to our parents in California. Eeyore was beside him, probably thinking he would substitute for me, since even if I could have gotten up and walked to the living room, given my unstable emotions my voice might have become all teary. So after O-chan had made his
sort of
passing-the-examination report, Eeyore switched with him and said, “Ma-chan was in big trouble, but I fought!”

This prompted Mother to get O-chan on the phone again. He, sounding irritated, bluntly but correctly related to Mother an account of what had happened, as I had briefly related it to him. He also reported to her that, after listening to my story, he had
sort of
contacted Mr. Shigeto, upon whose advice he had called the health club and discussed the matter with Mr. Osawa. It seemed that Mr. Osawa was taking action to prohibit Mr. Arai from coming to the club. For the time being, Eeyore wouldn't be swimming, but what the body has learned it won't forget, so when he resumes, he'll swim all right. I was in bed with a headache, but my fever seems to have gone. Soon I should be able to recover the quiet life I love. In other words, Mother need not worry about us here. …

But when Mother heard this on the phone, she got to worrying, and before the week was up, she was already back in Japan. What first shocked me was that, during her roughly six-month stay in California, something had made the texture and movement of the skin on her face project the impression of a nisei woman in her early sixties. And though Mother herself
had decided to go with Father in order to help him cope with his “pinch,” she now embraced not so much a cold attitude as one that placed a clear distance between herself and Father—perhaps because she had decided that, for her part, she had done all there was to do and could do no more. She did say, objectively, that he might stay another year at some UC campus, for toward the end of last year, through the auspices of some friends at Berkeley, he had received the Distinguished Service Award; and, though not because of this, he could expect a grant from the Japan Foundation if he earnestly asked for one. And just about this time, when Mother returned to Japan, a freelance photographer who had signed a contract with a Japanese magazine had taken some pictures of Father, several of which had been forwarded to us. Some showed Father in the shade of a California live oak tree on the UC campus, standing in his black-collared raincoat with ornamental cuffs on it, his eyes closed and his hands cupped behind his ears; others depicted him lying on a slope studded with oak trees that had trunks as big as elephants' feel, looking up at a shoot of grass right in front of his nose, one that looked like a wood sorrel grown tall. …