The Briefcase (20 page)

“Let ’s walk alongside each other,” Sensei said, still holding my arm.

Yes, I replied, looking downward. I was about a thousand times more nervous than the first time I had gone on a date with a boy. We kept walking along, Sensei still holding my arm. The trees lining the street were just barely starting to show their autumn colors.
It looks like he’s bringing me in for questioning
, I thought as I walked beside Sensei.

The art museum was located within a big park. To the left, there was another museum and to the right was a zoo. The late afternoon sunlight shone on Sensei’s torso. A child was scattering popcorn on the path. The moment he dropped the pieces, dozens of pigeons would flock over. The child let out cries of wonder. The pigeons flew around him, even trying to peck at the popcorn that was still in his palm. The boy stood motionless, half crying.

“They’re rather aggressive pigeons, aren’t they?” Sensei said serenely. Shall we have a seat here? he asked as he sat on a bench. I sat down a moment after Sensei did. Now the afternoon sun’s rays fell across my torso as well.

“I bet that boy is about to start wailing,” Sensei said, leaning forward with great interest.

“I don’t think so.”

“No, lots of little boys are crybabies.”

“It’s not the other way around?”

“No, little boys are much wimpier than little girls.”

“Sensei, were you a wimp when you were little?”

“I’m still very much a wimp, even now.”

Sure enough, the little boy burst into tears. One of the pigeons had gone so far as to rest on top of his head. A woman who must have been his mother laughed as she came to pick him up.

“Tsukiko,” Sensei said, turning toward me. Now that he was facing me, however, I became incapable of facing him.

“Tsukiko, thank you for coming with me to the island that time.”

I muttered in reply. I hadn’t really wanted to think about what happened on the island. Ever since then the phrase “Hopes strictly forbidden, hopes strictly forbidden,” had been echoing in my mind.

“I’ve always been, well, a shilly-shallier.”

“A shilly-shallier?”

“Isn’t that what they used to call a kid who’s slow to respond or do something?”

But Sensei didn’t seem like the kind of person who shilly-shallied. I always thought of him as briskly decisive, standing up straight.

“No, in this way I am really something of a shilly-shallier.”

The boy who had been swarmed by the pigeons, now that he was in his mother’s arms, started scattering popcorn again.

“The child didn’t learn his lesson, did he?”

“Children never do.”

“That’s right, and I guess I’m no different.”

He shilly-shallies and he never learns. Just what was Sensei trying to say? I stole a glance at him—he was sitting up perfectly straight, as always, watching the little boy.

“When we were on the island, I was still shilly-shallying.”

The pigeons were swarming the boy again. His mother scolded him. The pigeons were trying to alight on her too. Still holding the boy, she tried to extricate herself from the flock of birds. But since the boy wouldn’t stop strewing the popcorn, the pigeons just kept following the mother and child. It looked as though they were trailing a huge moving carpet made of pigeons.

“Tsukiko, how much longer do you think I’ll live?” Sensei asked abruptly.

I met Sensei’s gaze. His eyes were placid.

“A very, very long time,” I cried out reflexively. The young couple sitting on the next bench turned around in surprise. Several pigeons took flight.

“You know that’s not the case.”

“But, still, a long time.”

Sensei took my left hand in his right hand, his dry palm enveloping mine.

“And would you not be satisfied, if it weren’t a long time?”

What? My mouth was half-open. Sensei had called himself a shilly-shallier, but I was the one who hesitated now. Even in the midst of this conversation, I sat there pathetic and slack-jawed.

The mother and child had disappeared without my noticing. The sun was starting to set, and the first signs of dusk were creeping up around us.

“Tsukiko!” Sensei said, sticking the tip of his left index finger into my open mouth. Astonished, my automatic reaction was to close my mouth. Sensei nimbly pulled his finger back out before it was caught by my teeth.

“What are you doing?!” I cried out. Sensei chuckled.

“You were in a bit of a daze, Tsukiko.”

“I was just thinking about what you said.”

“I’m sorry.” As he apologized, Sensei drew me into his arms.

As he held me close, it seemed like time stopped.

Sensei, I whispered.

Tsukiko, Sensei whispered back.

“Sensei, even if you were to die very soon, it would be all right for me. I could handle it,” I said, pressing my face against his chest.

“I’m not going to die very soon,” Sensei replied, still holding me in his arms. His voice was hushed. He sounded just like he had over the telephone: muted, with a mellow timbre.

“It was a rhetorical statement.”

“Well, then, rhetorically, it was an apt expression.”

“Thank you.”

Even as we embraced each other, we continued to speak formally.

One after another, the pigeons were flying up into the cluster of trees. Up above, crows were circling. They cawed loudly to each other. The darkness was gradually deepening. I could only make out the dim outlines of the young couple on the next bench.

“Tsukiko,” Sensei said, adjusting himself so that he was sitting upright again.

“Yes?” I too sat up straight.

“So, then, well.”

“Yes?”

Sensei fell silent for a moment. I could barely see his face in the twilight. Our bench was the farthest one from the lamppost. Sensei cleared his throat a few times.

“So, then, well.”

“Yes?”

“Would you consider a relationship with me, based on a premise of love?”

Excuse me? I stammered in response. What do you mean by that, Sensei? I’m already in love with you, for a while now, I blurted out, forgetting any and all restraint. I’ve loved you all along, I told you. Sensei, you already know that very well. So what, then, do you mean by this “premise”? I don’t get it.

A crow on a nearby branch cawed loudly. Surprised, I flew up off the bench. The crow gave another caw. Sensei smiled. He wrapped his palm around mine again, still smiling.

I clung to him. Wrapping my free arm around Sensei’s back, I pressed myself against his body and inhaled the scent of his jacket. It smelled faintly of mothballs.

“Tsukiko, with you so close, I’m embarrassed.”

“Even though you were the one holding me just before.”

“That was the decision of a lifetime.”

“Yes, but you seemed pretty natural about it.”

“Well, I was married before.”

“And you must not have felt embarrassed to be like this.”

“We’re in public.”

“It’s dark now, no one can see.”

“They can see.”

“They can’t.”

With my face in Sensei’s chest, I had been crying just a little bit. So that he wouldn’t notice my tears or hear them in my voice, I kept my face pressed firmly against his jacket and muffled my words. Sensei calmly patted my hair.

A premise of love, yes, certainly. I was still muffling my voice. Let’s have a relationship with that premise, I said, muffled.

That’s very fortunate, Tsukiko. You’re such a lovely girl, dear. Sensei’s words were also muffled. How did you like our first date?

I thought it went pretty well, I replied.

Then let’s do it again, Sensei said. Darkness fell quietly over us. Certainly, it’s good to have a premise of love.

So, where should we go next?

Maybe Disneyland would be nice.

Desney, you say?

It’s Disney, Sensei.

I see, Disney, right. But I’m not so good with crowds.

But I want to go to Disneyland.

Then let’s go to Desneyland.

Didn’t I tell you it’s not Desneyland?

Tsukiko, dear, you are a real stickler.

Darkness surrounded us as we went on talking to each other in our muffled voices. The pigeons and the crows must have returned to their nests. Enveloped in Sensei’s warm and dry embrace, I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry. But I didn’t laugh and I didn’t cry anymore either. All I did was be still there in Sensei’s arms.

I could feel Sensei’s heartbeat faintly through his jacket. We remained there, sitting quietly in the darkness.

UNUSUALLY, I FOUND myself at Satoru’s place while it was still daylight.

It was early winter, so for it to still be bright out, it must have been before five o’clock. I had been out on a call and decided to come straight home, without going back to the office. I had finished what I needed to do more quickly than expected and whereas, once, I would have had a look around a department store or somewhere, I decided to head to Satoru’s place and see if Sensei would meet me there. That’s how it was now that Sensei and I were in an “official relationship” (Sensei’s words). Had it been before our “relationship” started, I never would have called Sensei—though I probably still would have come to Satoru’s and whiled away the rest of the daylight by myself, enjoying my saké as I wondered, with heart racing, whether Sensei would show up or not.

It wasn’t a huge change. The only real difference was whether to sit and wait or not.

“When you put it that way, it makes waiting sound pretty tough, don’t you think?” Satoru said, looking up from his chopping on the other side of the counter. When I arrived he had been out in front of the bar watering. He told me that he was still getting ready to open—the curtain outside wasn’t even up yet—but he invited me in anyway.

Have a seat over there. We’ll open in about half an hour, Satoru said, placing a beer and glass in front of me along with a bottle opener and a little dish of miso paste. You can open it yourself, right? Satoru said as he diligently maneuvered his knife on the chopping block.

“Sometimes waiting is a good thing.”

“You think so?”

The beer entered my system. After a little while, I could feel a warmth along the path it coursed through. I took a lick of the miso paste. It was barley miso.

I excused myself in advance, and took my mobile phone out of my bag and dialed Sensei’s number. I debated whether to call his home number or his mobile phone number, but decided on his mobile.

Sensei picked up after six rings. He picked up, but there was only silence. Sensei didn’t say anything for the first ten seconds or more. Sensei hated mobile phones, citing the subtle lag after your voice went through as his reason.

 

 

“I DON’T HAVE any particular complaints about mobile phones, per se. I find it intriguing to see people who appear to be having a loud conversation with themselves.”

“I see.”

“But so then, if we’re talking about me agreeing to use a mobile phone, that’s a difficult one.”

This was the conversation we had when I suggested that Sensei get a mobile phone.

Whereas once, he would have flatly refused to carry a mobile phone, because I had insisted on the idea, he couldn’t reject it out of hand. I remember a boy I dated a long time ago who, when we would disagree, would go straight to outright denial, but Sensei wasn’t like that. Is that what you called benevolence? With Sensei, his benevolent nature seemed to originate from his sense of fair-mindedness. It
wasn’t about being kind to me; rather, it was born from a teacherly attitude of being willing to listen to my opinion without prejudice. I found this considerably more wonderful than just being nice to me.

That was quite a discovery for me, the fact that arbitrary kindness makes me uncomfortable, but that being treated fairly feels good.

“So there’s nothing to worry about if something happens,” I reasoned.

To which Sensei widened his eyes and asked, “Something like what?”

“Anything.”

“So then, what?”

“Um, for instance, you could be carrying something with both hands full when suddenly it starts raining, and there aren’t any public phones nearby, and now it’s crowded with people under the shop awnings, and you have to get home quickly—something like that.”

“Tsukiko, in that situation I would just get wet going home.”

“But what if the thing you’re carrying couldn’t get wet? Like some kind of bomb that would ignite if it got wet.”

“I would never buy anything like that.”

“What if there were a dangerous character lurking in the shadows?”

“It’s just as likely that there would be a dangerous character lurking somewhere when I’m walking down the street with you, Tsukiko.”

“What if you slipped on the wet sidewalk on your way?”

“Tsukiko, you’re the one who falls, aren’t you? I train in the mountains.”

Everything Sensei said was right. I fell silent and cast my eyes downward.

“Tsukiko,” Sensei said softly after a moment. “I understand. I will get a mobile phone.”

What? I asked.

Sensei patted the top of my head and replied, “You never know when something might happen to us geezers.”

“You’re not a geezer, Sensei!” I contradicted him.

“In return . . . ”

“What?”

In return, Tsukiko, I ask you not to call it a cell. Please refer to it as a mobile phone. I insist. I can’t stand to hear people call it a cell.

And that ’s how Sensei came to have a mobile phone. Every so often I call it, just for practice. Sensei has only ever called me from it once.

“Sensei?”

“Yes?”

“Um, I’m at Satoru’s place.”

“Yes.”

“Yes” is all Sensei ever says.This might not be so unusual, but on a mobile phone, it becomes remarkable.