The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (71 page)

“And just between you and me, there may be some vicious players involved in this affair, types you don’t know anything about, Mr. Okada. If that’s the case, this is eventually going to include more than our dear Doctor. Once that happens, we could be talking about a whole new ball game. Let’s compare this to a visit to the dentist. So far, we’re at the stage of poking a spot where the novocaine’s still working. Which is why no one’s complaining. But soon the drill is going to hit a nerve, and then somebody’s going to jump out of the chair. Somebody could get seriously angry. Do you see what I’m saying? I’m not trying to threaten you, but it seems to me—to old Ushikawa here—that you are slowly being dragged into dangerous territory without even realizing it.”

Ushikawa seemed finally to have made his point.

“You mean I should pull out before I get hurt?” I asked.

Ushikawa nodded. “This is like playing catch in the middle of the expressway, Mr. Okada. It’s a very dangerous game.”

“In addition to which, it’s going to cause Noboru Wataya a lot of trouble. So if I just fold up my cards, he’ll put me in touch with Kumiko.”

Ushikawa nodded again. “That about sums it up.”

I took a swallow of beer. Then I said, “First of all, let me tell you this. I’m going to get Kumiko back, but I’m going to do it myself, not with help from Noboru Wataya. I don’t want his help. And you’re certainly right about one thing: I don’t like Noboru Wataya. As you say, though, this is not just a question of likes and dislikes. It’s something more basic than that. I don’t simply dislike him: I cannot accept the fact of his very existence. And so I refuse to make any deals with him. Please be so kind as to convey that to him for me. And don’t you ever come into this house again without my permission. It is
my
house, not some hotel lobby or train station.”

Ushikawa narrowed his eyes and stared at me awhile from behind his glasses. His eyes never moved. As before, they were devoid of emotion. Not that they were expressionless. But all he had there was something fabricated temporarily for the occasion. At that point, he held his disproportionately large right palm aloft, as if testing for rain.

“I understand completely,” he said. “I never thought this would be easy, so I’m not particularly surprised by your answer. Besides, I don’t surprise very easily. I understand how you feel, and I’m glad everything is out in the open like this, no hemming and hawing, just a simple yes or no. Makes it easier for everybody. All I need as a carrier pigeon is another convoluted answer where you can’t tell black from white! The world has too many of those as it is! Not that I’m complaining, but all I seem to get every day are sphinxes giving me riddles. This job is bad for my health, let me tell you. Living like this, before you know it, you become devious by nature. Do you see what I mean, Mr. Okada? You become suspicious, always looking for ulterior motives, never able to put your faith in anything that’s clear and simple. It’s a terrible thing, Mr. Okada, it really is.

“So, fine, Mr. Okada, I will let the Doctor know that you have given him a very clear-cut answer. But don’t expect things to end there.
You
may want to finish this business, but it’s not that simple. I will probably have to come to see you again. I’m sorry to put you through this, having to deal with such an ugly, messy little fellow, but please try to accustom yourself to
my
existence, at least. I don’t harbor any feelings toward you as an individual, Mr. Okada. Really. But for the time being, whether you like it or not, I’m going to be one of those things that you can’t just sweep away. I know it’s an odd way to put it, but please try to think of me like that. I can promise you one thing, though. I will not be letting myself into your house again. You are quite right: that is not a proper way to behave. I should go down on my knees and beg to be let in. This time I had no choice. Please try to understand. I am not always so reckless. Appearances to the contrary, I am an ordinary human being. From now on, I will do as other people do and call beforehand. That should be all right, don’t you think? I will ring once, hang up, then ring again. You’ll know it’s me that way, and you can tell yourself, ‘Oh, it’s that stupid Ushikawa again,’ when you pick up the phone. But
do
pick up the phone. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to let myself in again. Personally, I would rather not do such a thing, but I am being paid to wag my tail, so when my boss says ‘Do it!’ I have to try my best to do it. You understand.”

I said nothing to him. Ushikawa crushed what was left of his cigarette in the bottom of the cat food can, then glanced at his watch as if suddenly recalling something. “Oh, my, my, my—look how late it is! First I come barging in, then I talk you to death and take your beer. Please excuse me. As I said earlier, I don’t have anybody to go home to, so when I find someone I can talk to, I settle in for the night. Sad, don’t you think? I tell you, Mr. Okada, living alone is not something you should do for long. What is
it they say? ‘No man is an island.’ Or is it ‘The devil finds mischief for idle hands’?”

After sweeping some imaginary dust from his lap, Ushikawa stood up slowly.

“No need to see me out,” he said. “I let myself in, after all; I can let myself out. I’ll be sure to lock the door. One last word of advice, though, Mr. Okada, though you may not want to hear this: There are things in this world it is better not to know about. Of course, those are the very things that people most want to know about. It’s strange. I know I’m being very general.… I wonder when we’ll meet again? I hope things are better by then. Oh, well, good night.”

•

The quiet rain continued through the night, tapering off toward dawn, but the sticky presence of the strange little man, and the smell of his unfiltered cigarettes, remained in the house as long as the lingering dampness.

“Cinnamon stopped talking once and for all just before his sixth birthday,” Nutmeg said to me. “It was the year he should have entered elementary school. All of a sudden, that February, he stopped talking. And as strange as it may seem, it was night before we noticed that he hadn’t said a word all day. True, he was never much of a talker, but
still
. When it finally occurred to me what was happening, I did everything I could to make him speak. I talked to him, I shook him; nothing worked. He was like a stone. I didn’t know whether he had suddenly lost the power to speak or he had decided on his own that he would stop speaking. And I still don’t know. But he’s never said another word—never made another
sound
. He’ll never scream if he’s in pain, and you can tickle him but he’ll never laugh out loud.”

Nutmeg took her son to several different ear, nose, and throat specialists, but none of them could locate the cause. All they could determine was that it was not physical. Cinnamon could
hear
perfectly well, but he wouldn’t speak. All the doctors concluded that it must be psychological in origin. Nutmeg took him to a psychiatrist friend of hers, but he also was unable to determine a cause for Cinnamon’s continued silence. He administered an IQ. test, but there was no problem there. In fact, he turned out to have an unusually high IQ. The doctor could find
no evidence of emotional problems, either. “Has he experienced some kind of unusual shock?” the psychiatrist asked Nutmeg. “Try to think. Could he have witnessed something abnormal or been subjected to violence at home?” But Nutmeg could think of nothing. One day her son had been normal in every way: he had eaten his meals in the normal way, had normal conversations with her, gone to bed when he was supposed to, had no trouble falling asleep. And the next morning he had sunk into a world of deep silence. There had been no problems in the home. The child was being brought up under the ever watchful gaze of Nutmeg and her mother, neither of whom had ever raised a hand to him. The doctor concluded that the only thing they could do was observe him and hope that something would turn up. Unless they knew the cause, there was no way to treat him. Nutmeg should bring Cinnamon to see the doctor once a week, in the course of which they might figure out what had happened. It was possible that he would just start speaking again, like someone waking from a dream. All they could do was wait. True, the child was not speaking, but there was nothing else wrong with him.…

And so they waited, but Cinnamon never again rose to the surface of his deep ocean of silence.

•

Its electric motor producing a low hum, the front gate began to swing inward at nine o’clock in the morning, and Cinnamon’s Mercedes-Benz 500SEL pulled into the driveway. The car phone’s antenna protruded from the back window like a newly sprouted tentacle. I watched through a crack in the blinds. The car looked like some kind of huge migratory fish, afraid of nothing. The brand-new black tires traced a silent arc over the concrete surface and came to a stop in the designated spot. They traced exactly the same arc every morning and stopped in exactly the same place with probably no more than two inches’ variation.

I was drinking the coffee that I had brewed for myself a few minutes earlier. The rain had stopped, but gray clouds covered the sky, and the ground was still black and cold and wet. The birds raised sharp cries as they flitted back and forth in search of worms on the ground. The driver’s door opened after a short pause, and Cinnamon stepped out, wearing sunglasses. After a quick scan of the area, he took the glasses off and slipped them into his breast pocket. Then he closed the car door. The precise sound of the big Mercedes’s door latch was different from the sounds other car doors made. For me, this sound marked the beginning of another day at the Residence.

I had been thinking all morning about Ushikawa’s visit the night
before, wondering whether I should tell Cinnamon that Ushikawa had been sent by Noboru Wataya to get me to pull out of the activities conducted at this house. In the end, though, I decided not to tell him—for the time being, at least. This was something that had to be settled between Noboru Wataya and me. I didn’t want to have any third parties involved.

Cinnamon was stylishly dressed, as always, in a suit. All his suits were of the finest quality, tailored to fit him perfectly. They tended to be rather conservative in cut, but on him they looked youthful, as if magically transformed into the latest fashion.

He wore a new tie, of course, one to match that day’s suit. His shirt and shoes were different as well. His mother, Nutmeg, had probably picked everything out for him, in her usual way. His outfit was as spotless, top to bottom, as the Mercedes he drove. Each time he showed up in the morning, I found myself admiring him—or, I might even say, moved by him. What kind of being could possibly lie hidden beneath that perfect exterior?

•

Cinnamon took two paper shopping bags full of food and other necessities out of the trunk and held them in his arms as he entered the Residence. Embraced by him, even these ordinary paper bags from the supermarket looked elegant and artistic. Maybe he had some special way of holding them. Or possibly it was something more basic than that. His whole face lit up when he saw me. It was a marvelous smile, as if he had just come out into a bright opening after a long walk in a deep woods. “Good morning,” I said to him. “Good morning,” he did not say to me, though his lips moved. He proceeded to take the groceries out of the bags and arrange them in the refrigerator like a bright child committing newly acquired knowledge to memory. The other supplies he arranged in the cupboards. Then he had a cup of coffee with me. We sat across from each other at the kitchen table, just as Kumiko and I had done every morning long before.

•

“Cinnamon never spent a day in school, finally,” said Nutmeg. “Ordinary schools wouldn’t accept a child who didn’t speak, and I felt it would be wrong to send him to a school with nothing but handicapped children. The reason for his being unable to speak—whatever it was—I knew was different from other children’s reasons. And besides, he never showed any sign of wanting to go to school. He seemed to like it best to stay home alone, reading or listening to classical music or playing in the yard
with the dog we had then. He would go out for walks too, sometimes, but not with much enthusiasm, because he didn’t like to see children his own age.”

Nutmeg studied sign language and used that to talk with Cinnamon. When sign language was not enough, they would converse in writing. One day, though, she realized that she and her son were able to convey their feelings to each other perfectly well without resorting to such indirect methods. She knew exactly what he was thinking or requesting with only the slightest gesture or change of expression. From that point on, she ceased to be overly concerned about Cinnamon’s inability to speak. It certainly wasn’t obstructing any mental exchange between mother and son. The absence of spoken language did, of course, give her an occasional sense of physical inconvenience, but it never went beyond the level of “inconvenience,” and in a sense it was this very inconvenience that purified the quality of the communication between the two.