Almost Transparent Blue (14 page)

I felt I was being sucked into Lilly's eyes, that she was swallowing me up.

The medic had opened the woman's mouth for me. Her teeth melted, he'd said in Japanese and laughed. Lilly took out some brandy. You're not O.K. Should I take you to the hospital? The woman, her mouth opened wide like a hole, had screeched. Lilly, I don't know what's the matter, maybe if you have some Philopon you could shoot me up, I want to calm down.

Lilly tried to force me to drink some brandy. I bit hard on the rim of the glass, seeing the ceiling light through the moist glass, spots overlapping spots, my dizziness got worse and I felt nauseated. There's none left, Ryū, because after that mesc I shot it all up, I felt really nervous and shot it all up.

The medic had stuck various things up the thin woman's butt and showed me.

The woman had rubbed her lipstick on the sheets, panted, glared at me, turned toward the whiskey-drinking laughing medic and screeched Gimme ciggy. Lilly made me sit down on the sofa. Lilly, I really haven't been taking anything, it's different from that time, it's completely different from that time with the jet.

That time, you know, I was all full of the smell of the fuel oil, that time was scary, too, but this time's different, I'm empty, there's nothing. My head's so hot I can't stand it but I'm cold, I can't get rid of the cold. And I can't make myself do what I want very well, it's weird even talking like this, just like I'm talking in a dream.

Like I'm talking in a scary dream I can't get out of, it's scary. Even when I've been talking like this I've been thinking about something entirely different, about an idiot Japanese woman, not you Lilly, someone else. I've had that woman and a GI medic in my mind all the time. But I really know I'm not dreaming. I know my eyes are open and I'm here, that's why it's scary. I'm so scared I almost want to die, want you to kill me. Yeah, I really want you to kill me, I'm scared just standing here.

Lilly pushed the brandy glass between my teeth again. The warm liquid shook my tongue and slid down my throat. The ringing in my ears filled my whole head. The veins in my palms stood out, their color was gray, they pulsed grayly.

Sweat ran down my neck, and Lilly wiped the cold sweat for me. You're just tired, you'll be O.K. after a good night's sleep.

Lilly, maybe I should go back, I want to go back. I don't know where but I want to go back there, I must have got lost. I want to go to someplace cooler, I used to be there, I want to go back. You know it, too, Lilly? A place like under big trees that smell real good—where am I now? Where am I?

The back of my throat seemed dry enough to burst into flame. Lilly shook her head, drank the rest of the brandy herself, and muttered This is a bad scene. I remembered that guy Green Eyes. Have you seen the black bird? You'll be able to see the black bird, Green Eyes had told me. Outside this room, beyond that window, a huge black bird might be flying. A bird as huge as the black night itself, a black bird dancing in the sky just like the gray birds I always saw pecking crumbs, but just because it was so huge all I could see of it was the hole in its beak like a cave beyond the window, I guess I couldn't ever see the whole of it. The moth I'd killed must have died without seeing the whole of me.

It was just that something huge had crushed that soft belly full of green fluids, and the moth died without knowing that was part of me. Now I was just like the moth, going to be crushed by the black bird. I guess Green Eyes had come to tell me that, he'd tried to tell me.

Lilly, can you see the bird? There's a bird flying outside now, right? Don't you see it? I know, the moth didn't know, but I know. The bird, the big black bird—

Lilly, you know it, too?

Ryū, you're going crazy, pull yourself together! Don't you understand? You're going crazy!

Lilly, don't kid me, I know. I won't be fooled, not anymore, I know, I know where I am. This is the place nearest the bird, I've got to be able to see it from here.

I know, I've really known for a long time, finally I understand, it's been the bird.

I've lived till now so I could understand this.

It's the bird, Lilly, can you see it?

Stop it! Stop it, Ryū, stop it!

Lilly, do you know where this is? I wonder how I got here. The bird's flying just like it should, look, it's flying there beyond the window, the bird that's destroyed my city.

Sobbing, Lilly slapped my cheek.

Ryū, you're going crazy, don't you understand?

I guess Lilly couldn't see the bird, she opened the window. Sobbing, she threw open the window, the nighttime town spread out below us. Tell me where your bird's flying, take a good look, there's no bird anywhere!

I smashed the brandy glass on the floor. Lilly shrieked. The glass flew apart.

The pieces glittered on the floor.

Lilly, that's the bird, look hard, that town is the bird, that's not a town or anything, there're no people or anything living in it, that's the bird, don't you see? Don't you really see? When that guy yelled at the missiles to blow up in the desert, he was trying to kill the bird. We've got to kill the bird, if it's not killed I won't understand about myself anymore, the bird's in the way, it's hiding what I want to see. I'll kill the bird, Lilly, if I don't kill it I'll be killed. Lilly, where are you, come and kill the bird with me, Lilly, I can't see anything, Lilly, I can't see a thing.

I rolled on the floor. Lilly ran outside.

There was the sound of a car starting up.

The light bulb spun. The bird was flying, flying outside the window. Lilly was gone, the huge black bird was coming here. I picked up a fragment of glass from the rug, gripped it, and jabbed it into my shaking arm.

The sky was cloudy, it wrapped me and the sleeping hospital like a soft white cloth. As the wind cooled my still burning cheeks there was the sound of leaves rubbing together. The wind held dampness, the smell of plants at night, it brought the smell of plants breathing quietly at night. In the hospital, there were red emergency lights only in the entranceway and lobby, the rest was dark. The many windows, marked off by narrow aluminum frames, reflected the sky waiting for dawn.

That twisting purple line must be a crack in the clouds, I thought.

Now and then passing headlights lit up the bushes shaped like children's caps.

The moths that had been thrown out didn't reach this far. On the ground were little stones mixed with bits of dried grass. When I tried picking some up, I saw the morning dew had soaked the down covering it—just like dead insects covered with cold sweat.

Back then, when I'd run out of Lilly's room, I'd felt my bloody left arm to be the only living part of me. I put the thin fragment of glass, dripping blood, in my pocket, and ran out into the misty road. The doors and windows of the houses were shut, nothing was moving. I thought I'd been swallowed by a huge living thing, that I was turning around and around in its stomach like the hero of some fairy tale.

I fell again and again, so that the glass in my pocket broke into little pieces.

As I was crossing an empty space, I collapsed on the grass. I bit the damp grass blades. Their bitterness pricked my tongue and a little bug resting on the grass ended up in my mouth.

The bug wriggled around with its scratchy little legs.

I put my finger in and the round bug with a pattern on its back crawled out, wet with my saliva. Sliding on its wet legs, it returned to the grass. As I felt the places on my gums the bug had scratched with my tongue, the dew on the grass cooled my body. The smell of grass surrounded me, and I felt the fever that had racked my body slowly escape into the ground.

All the time I was being touched by something I didn't understand, I thought as I lay on the grass. Surely even now, even in the garden of this gentle nighttime hospital, that hadn't changed. The huge black bird was flying even now, and I and the bitter grass and the round bug were all shut up together in its womb.

Unless my body dried up hard like moths that became like pebbles, I couldn't escape from the bird.

I took a fragment of glass about the size of my thumbnail out of my pocket and wiped the blood off it. The little fragment with its smooth hollow reflected the brightening sky. Under the sky stretched the hospital and far away the tree-lined street and the town. The horizon of the shadowy reflected town made a delicate curving line. Its curves were the same, the same as the time I'd almost killed Lilly on the runway in the rain, that white curved line that burned for an instant with the thunder. Like the wave-filled foggy horizon of the sea, like a woman's white arm, a gentle curve.

All the time, since I didn't know when, I'd been surrounded by this whitish curving.

The fragment of glass with the blood on its edge, as it soaked up the dawn air, was almost transparent.

It was a boundless blue, almost transparent. I stood up, and as I walked toward my own apartment, I thought, I want to become like this glass. And then I want to reflect this smooth white curving myself. I want to show other people these splendid curves reflected in me.

The edge of the sky blurred with light, and the fragment of glass soon clouded over. When I heard the songs of birds, there was nothing reflected in the glass, nothing at all.

Beside the poplar in front of the apartment lay the pineapple I'd thrown out yesterday. From its moist cut end there still drifted the same smell.

I crouched down on the ground and waited for the birds.

If the birds dance down and the warm light reaches here, I guess my long shadow will stretch over the gray birds and the pineapple and cover them.

Letter to Lilly

Lilly, where are you now? I think it was four years ago, I tried going to your house once more, but you weren't there. If you read this book, get in touch with me.

I had just one letter from Augusta, who went back to Louisiana. She says she's driving a taxi. She told me to say Hi to you. Maybe you even married that half-Japanese painter. But I don't care, even if you're married, I think I'd like to see you just once more if I can. Just once more, I want the two of us to sing "Que sera sera" again.

And just because I've written this book, don't think I've changed. I'm like I was back then, really.