I Called Him Necktie (2 page)

Was it his sigh? Or the way he flicked away the ash? Absentmindedly, absent from his own mind. I was not afraid to watch him, as he was, sitting opposite me.

I observed him like a familiar object, a toothbrush, a washcloth, a piece of soap, which all at once you see for the first time, quite separate from its purpose. It may be that this familiarity was what stimulated my particular interest. His well-pressed figure was like thousands of others who fill the streets day in and day out. They stream out of the belly of the city and disappear into tall buildings, whose windows break up the sky into separate pieces. They are average, typical in their inconspicuousness, with smooth-shaven suburban faces, all of them interchangeable. He for example could have been my father. Any father. And yet here he was. Like me.

Again he sighed. This time more quietly. Someone who sighs like that, I thought, is not just a bit tired. More than thinking it, I felt it. I felt this is someone who is tired of life. The tie constricted his throat. He loosened it, looked again at his watch. It was almost midday. He unpacked his
bento box. Rice with salmon and pickled vegetables.

He ate slowly, chewed each bite ten times. He had time. He slurped the iced tea in little sips. I watched him doing that too. I was surprised at myself now, because at that time I could hardly bear to look at anyone eating or drinking. But he did it with such care that I forgot my nausea. Or how should I describe it: He did it with a full awareness of what he did, and this transformed an everyday act into something meaningful. He took in each individual grain of rice, presenting it to himself with a grateful smile.

With anyone else I would have gotten up and run away, I would have seen his grinding jaws as a threat, his chomping teeth as a danger. I found it horrific, how one mouthful after another slipped in and down into his digestive system. I was gulping, without thinking about it. The inner compulsion to protect myself above all was a mystery I avoided solving. Better not to think about it.

As soon as he had finished eating, he became a normal salaryman. He spread open the newspaper, read the sports section first. The
Giants*
, printed in bold, had pulled off a triumphant win. He nodded in agreement as his finger traveled along the lines. A ring. So he was married. A married Giants fan. Once again he lit a cigarette. Then another and another, as the smoke enveloped him.

The park had grown smaller due to his presence. It consisted
of just two benches, his and mine, separated by a few paces. When would he get up and go? The sun had traveled towards the west. It was cooling down. He folded his arms. The newspaper lay open on his knees. A gaggle of schoolchildren came tripping noisily over the grass. Two old ladies were discussing their ailments. That’s life, said one, you are born to die. He had fallen asleep. Heavy-headed. The newspaper fluttered to the ground. It can end at any moment, I heard, sometimes I have no feeling at all inside.

In sleep his face relaxed. Silver strands hung on his forehead, beneath his eyelids one dream chased another. Twitching thigh muscle. I felt something, as thin as the thread of saliva which hung from his open mouth. But the word for it was missing. Only now does it come to me. Sympathy. Or the rash impulse to cover him up.

When he eventually awoke he looked more tired than before.

Six o’clock.

He pulled his tie tighter. The park filled with the sounds of the approaching evening. A mother called out: Come, we’re going home. The gentle sound as she summoned them home, as if tugging at their navels. He brushed the hair off his forehead, yawned, and stood up. The briefcase was in his right hand, and he waited for one undecided second. What for? He disappeared, a gray back, behind one of the trees. I watched him until he had completely disappeared, and it must have been in that moment, in the short moment when I lost sight of him, that I sighed
like him.

And so what. I shook myself. I shook him off. What connection did I have with someone I’d never see again? I was overcome by the old nausea. Unbearable, how I had meddled in the fate of a stranger. As if it had anything to do with me. Full of the old disgust I shook him off my hands and feet. As I’ve said: I had no idea. That evening, as I went to bed, the covers rising in waves, that evening I hadn’t the slightest idea why, shortly before going under, I should see his face crumbling away on the wall. I waded in the waters of my ignorance. The moon shone through the gap in the curtains.

I had not forgotten him when I made my way to the park a few days later. In my dreams he had appeared to me by turns as a grain of rice, a cigarette, a baseball bat, a necktie. The last image was blurred: a man in a room with no walls. It grew fainter with each step, then I extinguished it.

Reaching my bench, I was relieved to find his empty. Where he had sat, there was no trace of him remaining. A sanitation crew was emptying the trash bins. The cigarette butts had already been swept up and dumped into a plastic bag. There were no flakes of ash left to remind me of him. The park was just as big as it had been before. A dewdrop sparkled on one of the blades of grass that grew out of the gravel here and there. I bent down and found it warm from the morning sun. When I got up again he had suddenly appeared, as on the previous day.

I recognized him by his walk. Tilting a little. As if he wanted to avoid someone. That’s how people walk who
are accustomed to moving through teeming masses. He wore the same suit, the same shirt, the same tie. The briefcase, swinging. He sat down, crossed his legs, waited, leaned back. Sighed. The same sigh. Blew smoke rings from his nose and mouth. To try to put him out of my mind from now on was futile. He was there, had gotten inside of me, had become a person of whom I could say: I recognize you.

He had a piece of bread with him. He unwrapped it carefully, tore it into smaller and smaller pieces, shaped them into little balls and scattered them in front of the cooing pigeons. For you, I heard him murmur. And when he finished: Kish, kish. White feathers swirled all around him. One landed on his head. It was caught up in his slicked back hair and gave him a playful air. If he had sat there in a t-shirt and shorts, you could have taken him for a child. Even the boredom that soon overwhelmed him was that of a child. He rocked restlessly to and fro. Ground his heels into the earth. Puffed out his cheeks. Let the air slowly escape.

I was forced to think about the persistent eternity of a day that had just begun, stretching endlessly ahead. The certainty that it would pass was nothing compared to the pale melancholy of its passing, and melancholy, I considered, was the word written on both our foreheads. It connected us. We met inside it.

In the park he was the only salaryman. In the park I was the only
hikikomori*
. Something was not quite right with us. He should really be in his office, in one of the high-rises, I should stick to my room, within four walls. We
should not be here, or at least not pretend we belong here. High above us was a vapor trail. We should not look up, in the blue, blue sky. I puffed out my cheeks. Let the air slowly escape.

At midday others like him arrived. They came in small groups, their ties thrown over their shoulders, to the benches further to the side, and sat, each with his bento box, chatting happily together. At last a break, one of them laughed, at last we can stretch our legs. Others joined in on his laughter.

Why was he not with them? I speculated about it. Perhaps he was just traveling through and he’d missed his connection. Had to wait until. Or was just simply. I could not find an explanation.

His bento, this time it had rice balls, tempura, a seaweed salad. He separated the chopsticks, paused, stroked his eyes with the back of his hand, a surreptitious movement. His clenched jaw, I saw it, it was trembling. I was embarrassed to see he was weeping. It was a suppressed weeping, and I alone was his witness. The embarrassment continued: Who weeps in broad daylight? Who reveals himself to that extent? And not only to himself, but to me, the observer! He shouldn’t weep, not in front of me. He should be behind closed doors. He should know that. That weeping is a private matter. I shuddered at the memory of a squashed body on the asphalt. Dreadful. To stand nearby, dumb with shock. The white hand, strangely bent, pointed at me. Of all the bystanders, at me. I wanted to be blind. The sirens of the rescue vehicle blared at me. Never again, I swore to myself, would I share the pain of
others. He should know that. That weeping and dying are private matters.

The sound of him clearing his throat. He pulled himself together. At first his chin quivered, then it became still and he didn’t blink. With a cigarette between his lips, he went behind the bushes. A zipper whizzed open and closed again, twigs crackled. I had seen too much. Even before he got back, I was on my feet and had run away. Out of the park, beyond the intersection, past Fujimoto’s general store. Home. Into my room. The click of the lock. I was in a safe place. As dust whirled, I drew the curtains shut.

The next morning I slept longer than usual. I heard the alarm clock ringing next door, stayed in bed, went to sleep again. I dreamed of an invisible thread robbing me of air. I finally woke up gasping. Nothing had happened. Guided by this principle - nothing had happened - and its corollaries - nothing happens, nothing will ever happen - I went on my way.

As I entered the park he sat bent over his newspaper. Beside him his empty bento box. He was snoring. Spread on his knees, the Giants and the secret of their success, I read, creeping past him. He had undone his tie. It dangled loose round his neck. Hair crumpled at the back. I gave in. And that too was a decision. To give in, and give him, sleeping there, a name. It had gone that far, I gave him a name. Not Honda. Not Yamada. Not Kawaguchi. I simply called him Necktie. The name suited him. Redandgray.

So, Necktie.

It is the tie that wears you, not the other way around. Later that was a joke between us. The tie wears you. At which he smiled, then laughed, a great roar broke out. You are right. It’s a mistake to think that I’m the one who wears it. I don’t wear anything, nothing at all. At which point he broke off abruptly, then fell silent, stayed silent. If I could have foreseen this silence, I would have given him a different name. Yet it was worth it, for the sake of his laugh, the laughter that preceded the silence. He laughed much too seldom.

The name binds me to him. Like the vague sympathy beforehand, I began to feel a vague responsibility. To be with him, not to leave him alone. It’s grotesque to feel responsibility for a person about whom you could no longer just say: I would recognize him again. Rather: I know him. I know how he breathes, when he sleeps. The name entangled me. I no longer felt the freedom to simply get up and leave. That a name should possess such power.

Two weeks passed. He appeared every Monday, exactly at nine, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. He only stayed away on weekends. I missed him then. I had gotten so used to his presence that in his absence my presence in the park seemed somehow pointless. Without him and the questions he posed, I was a question mark with no purpose. There it is on a sheet of white paper, questioning the void.

Once, on a cloudy Friday in June, he was just about to nod off when it began to drizzle. He sat up, startled, stuck his newspaper over his head, whereas I, fortunately prepared, opened my umbrella, drew in my legs, and huddled under the protective shelter. First it dripped, then the drops soon turned into ribbons. He extended his hands into the rain, let the paper fall, closed his eyes. I watched as the water collected in his hands. He had formed them into a bowl. Plip-plop, it sprinkled on him. I was surprised. No salaryman likes to sit out in the rain. The park all around was indistinct and blurry. People scurrying everywhere. Nobody who is healthy sits out in the rain. Completely absorbed, already soaked to the bone, he seemed to experience no greater joy than to get wet like that. I stared transfixed at his happy face. He opened his eyes. He looked at me unexpectedly through the rain. I jumped up. I hadn’t counted on that. Not with this unexpected, knowing look. I am not alone, it said, you are there. Then he closed his eyes again.

I had fallen out of my anonymity, out of my cocoon. But that’s not quite right. His glance and the recognition he shined on me had merely illuminated the space around me a little. In the mornings he nodded to me. I nodded back. In the evenings he raised his hand as he left. I raised mine. A silent understanding. You are here. I am here. We both have the right to simply be here.

What changed between us was just one thing. I guessed it. Since he had seen me, I had become an image within him. Now he had a conception of me, and his daily greeting related to the image he had of me. He regarded it. Quietly. His look was not invasive. It was stored in his
memories. He remembered a day by the sea, with fine sand, rough dune grass; he remembered his father’s beard, hard stubble on his chin, a certain light, how it fell on his wife’s back one morning in late autumn, a smile in a shop window, by chance, the warm fur of a cat that snuggled up against him. He had thousands of memories, thousands of images, and now, since he had noticed me, I was one of them.

I let it happen. I offered him my profile, held still, so he could absorb it. Looked over at him as well. Absorbed him further within me. So out of our minimal acquaintance grew a minimal friendship.

To speak with one another would still at this point in time have been going too far. There was a frontier, the gravel path. Here my bench, there – his. Between them were blades of grass, a rolling ball, a child tumbling after it.

I had practiced forgetting how to speak for two years. Granted, I had not succeeded. The language I had learned permeated me, and even when I was silent, my silence was eloquent. I spoke inner monologues, spoke incessantly into the void. But the sound of my voice had become alien to me. At night I sometimes woke bathed in sweat from a nightmare, only to find it continuing in the hoarse Aah forced from my belly, my lungs, my throat. Who is that shouting there, I asked myself, and fell asleep again. Wandered through a landscape in which every sound echoed as it was uttered. The last sentence I had spoken had been: I can no longer. Period. A vibrating period. After that something snapped shut. The effort it would cost to go on talking from where I had stopped was outweighed by the
futility of expressing the inexpressible in words.