I Called Him Necktie (10 page)

No. She turned away. The moon behind her. I was dreaming. She spoke as if she were still dreaming. I dreamed of little Kei.

Who is little Kei?

The girl with the birthmark. They said her face was half covered with a red mark, red as fire, from forehead to neck. They said it under their breath. Her parents were well aware of the talk and kept her hidden during the day. They would only take her outside after dark. Her father would carry her on his shoulders and show her the streets we played in. Her mother would sing as she trotted along beside them. They talked of it in hushed voices. The three would walk through the night, avoiding the glare of the street lights. And if anyone came towards them, they would plunge into the bushes, stand still against a wall, or hurry away with their heads down. When I still lived in the neighborhood, I was seven, perhaps eight years old, I quite often went past their house. Blank windows. Sometimes the curtains moved. I imagined little Kei was waving to me. How lonely she must be. I wished I had the courage to wave back. Strange. To dream of her after all these years. I haven’t thought about her for a long time. In the dream she was the one who asked me: Are you lonely? I said: Very. Without you I am very lonely.

Only a dream. You were dreaming. I crouched beside Kyōko on the cold floor and folded one of the tiny jackets, no bigger than my hand.

Is that right? Kyōko was suddenly wide awake. We would
love our child, even if –

– What nonsense! I didn’t let her finish.

And when we were lying in bed: It’s a boy. The doctor told me it’s a boy.

I was already half asleep: He will be called Tsuyoshi.

The birth was apparently easy. I wasn’t there. I bought flowers on the way to the hospital. Their gentle scent in my nostrils mingled with the slightly sour smell I recognized from the teacher’s house. I thought of him as I ran up the steps, a song on my lips, I pushed open the door. I thought of him as I walked along corridors, past rooms and beds and countless name plates, at last read Ohara Kyōko, entered and on entering felt again that my life had reached a definitive point. It was a feeling of triumph. With one blow it was a feeling of defeat. They won’t bring him in to me. Kyōko’s first sentence after I walked in. I don’t know why. But they won’t bring him to me. Something’s not right. I don’t know why. Her hand grasped mine. Tetsu, please. I want them to bring him to me. Even if he has no eyes and no mouth. It doesn’t matter. I must see him. The flowers seemed withered, seemed dead, something hardened within me. I freed myself from Kyōko’s grasp, her hand fell back on the bedcover. What are you talking about? Everything is alright. I have a plan. Do you hear? I have thousands of plans. I screamed: Thousands! Do you hear? Thousands! We’re playing baseball together, Tsuyoshi and I. He’s the batter, I’m the catcher. You’re sewing a uniform for him, black and yellow, like the Giants. He’s interested in history. No. In geography. I
buy him a globe and with our fingers we travel around the world. We fight. For fun, of course. We fight like in the movies we watch together at night, when you’re already asleep. He’s stronger than me. He has a strong punch. He hits me in the belly and I think: He’ll be a strong man. He studies medicine. No. Technology. No. Business. He’s the best in his class, and I’m proud of him. I don’t say it but I am proud. I deny it. I am so proud that I deny it. My pride is such that I behave as if it were nothing: That he is the best not only in his class, the best son, altogether, the best man I have ever met in my life.

The doctor.

Smoothly shaven.

Small eyes behind thick glasses.

There is no doubt. We are sure. Your son is handicapped. A heart problem, as well. No, it can’t be corrected. It’s not something that can be corrected. You must understand. He will be like that. It can’t be operated on. Do you understand? Ohara-san? It is important that you understand. Your son will never be like the others.

I did not understand a word he was saying. When he asked me if I was ready to see him now, I shook my head and went out, without saying goodbye. I think I was afraid he might look like me.

A week later they came home. They, I mean Kyōko and Tsuyoshi. I didn’t count myself as one of them. The word family, which once had so mellowed me, now stuck in my
craw in a hard lump. I chewed on it, it choked me. The taste of it made me sick. I stood in the hall with a hand in front of my mouth and couldn’t bring myself to go across to them in the baby’s room.

Tsuyoshi didn’t cry. In my heart I had the image of a crying baby. The image of a mother rocking it to and fro, laying it to rest. The image of myself looking down, gently smiling on them both. That’s good, I had wanted to say, that’s good, to pat him on the back, and her on the arm. But I held myself apart. The silence allowed me that. In those days our house was silent. All sounds seemed muffled, suffocated by the silence. Hardly bearable. I longed for an earsplitting bang. For a door to slam shut, a pane of glass to shatter, for any sound similar to the crying of a baby as I had imagined it. The longing drove me away. I got up earlier than I needed to, left the house earlier than I needed to, sat at my desk in the office earlier than I needed to. The desk chair squeaked, the typewriter clicked. I did enough overtime for two. Close to dropping dead from exhaustion. Went drinking afterwards in a karaoke bar, stammered songs of sadness and beauty, the microphone close to my mouth. Stumbled out. Past rowdy streets. Obsessed beyond help by a person who had never been born.

Kyōko on the other hand!

She got up out of bed. I watched her as she rose, growing more beautiful by the day. That special glow in a mother’s eyes as she bends over her child’s bed, entranced by his every movement, even when it’s so small as to be hardly noticeable. Just look, he can grasp hold of things already,
she’d say. Just look, he’s smiling. Just look, he has your eyes. Don’t you think? Papa’s eyes, she said to him, since I didn’t answer. You have Papa’s eyes. From the hallway I felt envy. I envied her the ability, against all reason, so I thought, against all normal human comprehension, to regard it as ours, to accept it as it was, without mentioning its deficiency, this silent, silent child. Moreover: Not to be aware of any deficiency in him. But she must see that it’s a mistake. Surely, I thought, she’s just pretending. Yes, surely she’s putting on an act. I told my colleagues in the firm our son had arrived in the world hale and hearty. Ten fingers, ten toes. They congratulated me, applause broke out. I remember the sound of hands that didn’t want to stop clapping. And I remember that for thirty seconds time I experienced something like joy.

Our parents came to visit. Kyōko’s. Mine. A dutiful glance into the baby’s room, afterwards, over tea and cookies, we spoke of rising prices, the typhoon in the south and an actor’s affair with a singer. It was a strained conversation, kept faltering, maintained only to prevent it from turning to Tsuyoshi if at all possible. I went into the garden to smoke a cigarette. Oppressive humidity, a thunderstorm was coming. My mother followed me out. I heard her behind me sniffling into a handkerchief. Poor son, she said. She meant me. It’s impossible to know how such things happen. The Matsumotos. Perhaps. Okada-san kept something from us. We should have done more thorough research. It’s not from our side, she whispered. I let it go. Heard comfort in her whisper: It is Kyōko. Definitely. So ill-mannered, she was then, one should have seen it in her bad manners. Enough of that. Not loudly, I said it quietly: That’s enough.

Could you hold him? Kyōko pushed him into my arms. I have to check on the water. She was already in the kitchen. I was alone with Tsuyoshi for the first and last time. His weight surprised me. As did the warmth of his body. In my imagination he was light and cool, like something you cannot grasp: A gentle breeze. Hardly there, already gone. He stared at me, his fists stretching up. I held his head. Silky hair. Flat little nose. Open mouth. You. Just cry. A little. Can’t you cry for me? Babies do that. They cry all day. It’s enough to drive you mad, their crying. But you. Why don’t you cry? I pinched his cheeks. First hard, then harder, until my fingers hurt. His cry was a wheeze, shocked, I put him down. No babies cry like that, only old people. I need some air. When Kyōko came back I was already outside under the maple tree, lighting a cigarette. Today I think: If I had stayed, just a moment, waited for his smile. I would have discovered that his handicap was a minor one compared to mine. My hardness prevented me from feeling the softness of his cheeks deeply and sincerely. Of the two of us I had the serious heart defect.

Kyōko didn’t reproach me. She knew my unspoken feelings and feared I would express them. All the people who came to convey their best wishes. She called them jokingly, agonizingly, condolence visits. They came to express their regret. How sad that he is not healthy. And what a misfortune. Could it have been prevented? Kyōko was afraid of hearing the same helpless regret from me. As if he were dead. She snorted in disgust. She raged against the world instead of me.

Once, Kyōko’s idea, we were guests at the Sun House. It was a house where parents of children like Tsuyoshi met to share their experiences. To belong. Suddenly that was a suffocating thought. To be part of a group. I arranged a proper smile, put it on, and wore it, as a sign that said: Please don’t touch. I barricaded myself behind it. In the round of introductions I said with a smile: I’m pleased to be here. Five children, I counted. Nine fathers and mothers. One was missing. Me. Yet I was welcomed in: The pleasure is all ours.

Tsuyoshi was the youngest. Five months old. The other children were three, six, ten, one was sixteen. I was amazed. The sixteen-year-old, I think he was called Yōji, was busy painting a picture. He sat bobbing up and down with excitement, a red crayon in his hand, squinted covertly over at us, then bent over his sheet of paper again. Meanwhile the ten-year-old Miki eagerly declared that she wanted to build houses when she grew up. Her father caught her proudly by the shoulders: So, an architect. My daughter will be an architect. What a madman, I thought. My smile was still fixed. The three-year-old crawled between my legs. Tachan, come here! His mother enticed him with a plastic duck. They talked over each other and stumbled over scattered toys. A doll with twisted limbs lay on an eyeless teddy bear. The six-year-old struck at it wildly.

Uncle.

I jumped. A red hand, red as fire, nudged me.

It was Yōji. He had difficulty speaking. He forced out each word as if he’d just learned it: I have painted a picture.
Here. Please. It’s you. He held the sheet of paper under my nose.

I saw a face. Angular. The mouth was a line, the ends turned down. The eyes two holes, with two bolts of lightning coming out of them. No ears, but horns. The face of a demon. Yōji’s father apologized: It’s not a very good likeness. And to him: You can do better than that. You see, Uncle is smiling. Yōji sighed and went back to his place.

He was sighing as well. To think that this boy had seen into my soul. And he was not the only one. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. This heat. The grass is drying out. Of all the seasons I like summer the least. A little silent cough. We were in the park. I noticed that he hadn’t put his briefcase down between us as usual. I noticed, it didn’t worry me. Our bench was a waiting bench. Together we were waiting for something that would not happen.

Tsuyoshi!

A cry.

It echoes between the walls of our silent house.

I rush into the baby’s room. Kyōko is there. Crying. Over his bed. Lifting him up. His head falls heavily to one side. He’s not breathing. He’s cold. Come quickly. Hurry up. To the hospital. A slightly sour smell. I think of the teacher. Start the engine. The car, a moving cry. In the mirror I see Kyōko’s face distorted by crying. Tsuyoshi
is lower down on her lap. I can’t see him. Tetsu, please. Drive faster. For heaven’s sake. Drive as fast as you can. And that moment, abrupt, when she stopped crying. Instead she whispered: He’s not breathing. He’s dead. Blue traffic light on Kyōko’s face. Drive slowly. Slower. You should drive slowly. I want to keep him with me as long as possible. I take my foot off the pedal. Brake. I feel this awkwardness, I admit it, a hot wave. Who has died? I don’t know him. Behind us there is honking. Someone shouts an insult. A feeling, no feeling: He doesn’t. It’s not me they are talking about when they when they say: We are sorry, there’s nothing to be done.

It’s pointless, I know. But I wish, I really wish I could say that I recognized right away what a loss I’d suffered that day. I recognized the loss of my son. I recognized the loss that meant I had never called him by his name, the name I’d given him. Tsuyoshi. The strong one. That’s how I had imagined him. Strong as a fist punching me in the belly, like in the movies I never watched with him. Yet the recognition of who and what I lost only came later, years later, and when it came, it was a double loss. The forcing open of a scar. And you reach in and understand, it cannot be corrected. It’s not something that can be corrected.

We two returned home. A rattle lay in the hallway. Kyōko bent down, picked it up. I said, out loud: Perhaps it’s better like this. Kyōko turned around towards me, rattling. Her eyes widened: For whom was it better? For you? She left me standing there with that question, went into the baby’s room, locked the door behind her. I listened for a sign, heard nothing but the watch ticking on my wrist.
After an hour I gave up, sat down in front of the television and turned up the volume.

Years later.

Kyōko, catlike, curled up on the couch and spoke into a cushion. Always the same: You know what? That night in August. When you said: Perhaps it’s better like this. I’ve never in my life experienced such enmity towards you as then, when you said that. In your suit. Your tie was crooked. Dark patches at your armpits. I sat on Tsuyoshi’s bed and felt bitter enmity towards you. For six long months I struggled not to feel it, not when you came home drunk, not when you, in your drunken state, complained that your life was a dead end. But then it consumed me. Finally. It was the mournful longing to join him, on the other side. Friendly Death. I wanted him. In the midst of the enmity he appeared to me as a friend who would welcome me fondly, enfold me in his heart. Blessed night. I wanted to count sheep until the last one jumped over the fence. But. What do you think? What stopped me? Listen carefully! The simple thought that I have to get up at six o’clock and prepare your bento. Absurd. Isn’t it? An unparalleled absurdity. The thought that you need me. Me, who one day, today, will say to you: I see through you and your inability. Behind all your inability I see a person who suffers. This was the thought that saved me. All at once I saw you, how you travel to work and back, work and back, and all at once I saw that you’re rolling a rock, I’ll roll it with you. On and on. We’re rolling together up a steep mountain path.