Hear the Wind Sing

5

The Rat never read books. He never ran his eyes across anything more than the sports pages or his junk mail.

Sometimes, when I’d be killing time by reading a book, he’d peek at me curiously like a fly looking at a flyswatter.

“Why do you read books?”

“Why do you drink beer?”

After eating a mixed mouthful of pickled horse mackerel and vegetable salad, without making eye contact, I asked him again. He thought it over for a long time, but it took him five minutes to open his mouth.

“The good thing about beer is that it all comes out as piss. Like a double play with one out to go, there’s nothing left over.”

Having said that, he watched as I continued to eat.

“Why are you always reading books?”

After washing down my last mouthful of horse mackerel with beer and cleaning my plate, I grabbed the copy of L’Education sentimentale I’d been reading and started flipping through the pages.

“Because Flaubert’s already dead.”

“You don’t read books by living people?”

“Living authors don’t have any merit.”

“Why’s that?”

“Dead authors, as a rule, seem more trusting than live ones.”

I said this as I was watching the rebroadcast of Route 66 on the portable television in the middle of the counter. The Rat thought about my answer for a minute.

“Hey, how about living authors? Aren’t they usually trusting?”

“How should I put this…I haven’t really thought about it like that. When they’re chased into a corner, they might become that way. Probably less trusting.”

J came over and set two cold beers in front of us.

“And if they can’t trust?”

“They fall asleep clutching their pillows.”

The Rat shook his head, looking upset.

“It’s strange, I’ll give you that. Me, I have no idea.”

So said the Rat.

I poured the Rat’s beer into his glass, and with his bottle half-empty he sat there thinking.

“Before this, the last time I’d read a book was last summer,” said the Rat, “I don’t remember who wrote it or what it was about. I forget why I even read it. Anyway, it was written by some woman. The protagonist was this thirty year-old fashion designer girl, and somehow she starts to believe she’s come down with some incurable disease.”

“What kind of disease?”

“I forget. Cancer or something. Is there something more terminal than that? Anyway, she goes to this beach resort and masturbates the whole time. In the bath, in the forest, on her bed, in the ocean, really, all kinds of places.”

“In the ocean?”

“Yeah…can you believe it? Why write a story about that? There’s so much else you could write about.”

“Beats me.”

“Sorry for bringing it up, that’s just how the story went. Made me wanna throw up.”

I nodded.

“If it were me, I’d write a completely different story.”

“For example?”

The Rat ran his finger along the edge of its beer glass as he thought it over.

“How about this? The ship I’m on sinks in the middle of the Pacific.

“I grab a life preserver and look at the stars, floating all alone in the night sea. It’s a quiet, beautiful night. From nearby, clinging to another life preserver like mine, a young girl comes swimming over.”

“Is she cute?”

“Oh yeah.”

I took a swig of beer and nodded.

“It’s a little ridiculous.”

“Hey, listen. So we’re still floating in the ocean together, chatting. Our pasts, our futures, our hobbies, how many girls I’ve slept with, talking about TV shows, what we dreamed about the night before, stuff like that. Then we drink beer together.”

“Hold on a sec, where the hell did you get beer?”

The Rat considered this for a moment.

“It’s floating there. It’s beer in cans, floating over from the ship’s mess hall. Together with the canned sardines. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“During that time, the sun comes up. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asks, then adds, ‘I’m going to swim to where I think an island should be.’

“‘But it doesn’t look like there’s any islands. What’s more, if we just float here drinking beer, an airplane will definitely come to rescue us,’ I say. But she goes off swimming by herself.”

The Rat pauses to catch his breath and drink beer.

“For two days and two nights, the girl struggles to make her way to some island. I stay there, drunk for two days, and I’m rescued by an airplane. Some years later, at some bar on the Yamanote, we happen to meet again.”

“And then the two of you drink beer together once again?”

“Sad, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I said.