Sputnik Sweetheart

15

The phone rang on a Sunday afternoon. The second Sunday after the new school term began in September. I was fixing a late lunch and had to turn off the gas range before I answered. The phone rang with a kind of urgency—at least it felt that way. I was sure it was Miu calling with news of Sumire’s whereabouts. The call wasn’t from Miu, though, but from my girlfriend.

“Something’s happened,” she said, skipping her usual opening pleasantries. “Can you come straightaway?”

It sounded like something awful. Had her husband found out about us? I took a deep breath. If people discovered I was sleeping with the mother of one of the kids in my class, I’d be in a major fix to say the least. Worst-case scenario, I could lose my job. At the same time, though, I was resigned to it. I knew the risks.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At a supermarket,” she said.

I took the train to Tachikawa, arriving at the station near the supermarket at 2.30. The afternoon was blazing hot, the summer back in force, but I had on a white dress-shirt, tie, and light grey suit, the clothes she’d asked me to wear. “You look more like a teacher that way,” she said, “and you’ll give a better impression. Sometimes you still look like a college student,” she added.

At the entrance to the supermarket I asked a young assistant who was rounding up stray shopping trolleys where the security office was. He told me it was across the street on the third floor of an annexe, an ugly little three-storey building without even a lift. Hey, don’t worry about us, the cracks in the concrete walls seemed to say, They’re just going to tear this place down someday anyway. I walked up the narrow, timeworn stairs, located the door with SECURITY on it, and gave a couple of light taps. A man’s deep voice answered. I opened the door and saw my girlfriend and her son inside seated in front of a desk facing a middle-aged uniformed security guard. Just the three of them.

The room was an in-between size, not too big, not too small. Three desks were lined up along the window, a steel locker against the wall opposite. On the wall between were a duty rota and three security guard caps on a steel shelf. Beyond a frosted-glass door at the far end of the room there seemed to be a second room, which the guards probably used for taking naps. The room we were all in was almost completely devoid of decoration. No flowers, no pictures, not even a calendar. Just an overly large round clock on the wall. A totally barren room, like some ancient corner of the world that time forgot. On top of which the place had a strange odour—of cigarette smoke, mouldy documents, and perspiration mixed together over the years.

The security guard in charge was a thickset man in his late fifties. He had beefy arms and a large head covered with a thick patch of coarse salt-and-pepper hair he’d plastered down with some cheap hair tonic, the best he could probably afford on his lowly security guard salary. The ashtray in front of him was overflowing with Seven Star butts. When I came in the room, he took off his black-framed glasses, wiped them with a cloth, and put them back on. Maybe his set way of greeting new people. With his glasses off, his eyes were as cold as moon rocks. When he put them back on, the coldness retreated, replaced by a kind of powerful glazed look. Either way, this wasn’t a look to put people at their ease.

The room was oppressively hot; the window was wide open, but not a breath of air came in. Only the noise from the road outside. A large lorry coming to a halt at a red light blatted out a hoarse air brake, reminding me of Ben Webster on the tenor sax in his later years. We were all sweating. I walked up to the desk, introduced myself, and handed the security guard my business card. He took it without a word, pursed his lips, and stared at it for a while, then placed it on the desk and looked up at me.

“You’re pretty young for a teacher, aren’t you?” he said.

“How long have you been teaching?”

I pretended to think it over and answered, “Three years.”

“Hmm,” he said. And didn’t say anything else. But the silence spoke volumes. He picked up my card and read my name again, as if re-checking something.

“My name’s Nakamura, I’m the chief of security here,” he introduced himself. He didn’t proffer a business card of his own. “Just pull up a chair from over there if you would. I’m sorry about how hot it is. The air conditioner’s on the blink, and no one will come out to fix it on a Sunday. They aren’t nice enough to give me a fan, so I sit and suffer. Take off your jacket if you’d like. We might be here for a while, and it makes me hot just looking at you.”

I did as he told me, pulling over a chair and removing my jacket. My sweaty shirt clung to my skin.

“You know, I’ve always envied teachers,” the guard began. A stillborn smile played around his lips, yet his eyes remained those of a deep-sea predator searching my depths for the slightest movement. His words were polite enough, but that was only a veneer. The word teacher sounded like an insult.

“You have over a month off in the summer, don’t have to work on Sundays or at night, and people give you gifts all the time. Pretty nice life if you ask me. I sometimes wish I’d studied harder and become a teacher myself. Destiny intervened and here I am—a security guard at a supermarket. I wasn’t smart enough, I suppose. But I tell my kids to grow up to be teachers. I don’t care what anybody says, teachers have it made.”

My girlfriend wore a simple blue, half-sleeve dress. Her hair was piled up neatly on top of her head, and she had on a pair of small earrings. White sandals with heels completed her outfit, and a white bag and small, cream-coloured handkerchief rested on her lap. It was the first time I’d seen her since I got back from Greece. She looked back and forth between me and the guard, her eyes puffy from crying. She’d been through a lot, it was clear.

We exchanged a quick glance, and I turned to her son. His name was Shin’ichi Nimura, but his classmates nicknamed him Carrot. With his long, thin face, his shock of unkempt, curly hair, the name fitted. I usually called him that, too. He was a quiet boy, hardly ever speaking more than was necessary. His grades weren’t bad; he rarely forgot to bring his homework and never failed to do his share of the cleaning up. Never got into trouble. But he lacked initiative and never once raised his hand in class. Carrot’s classmates didn’t dislike him, but he wasn’t what you’d call popular. This didn’t please his mother much, but from my point of view he was a good kid.

“I assume you’ve heard about what happened from the boy’s mother,” the security guard said.

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “He was caught shoplifting.”

“That’s correct,” the guard said and set a cardboard box that was at his feet on top of the table. He pushed it towards me. Inside was a collection of identical small staplers still in their packaging. I picked one up and examined it. The price tag said ¥850.

“Eight staplers,” I commented. “Is this all?”

“Yep. That’s the lot of it.”

I put the stapler back in the box. “So the whole thing would come to ¥6,800.”

“Correct. ¥6,800. You’re probably thinking, ‘Well, okay, he shoplifted. It’s a crime, sure, but why get so worked up about eight staplers? He’s just a school kid.’ Am I right?”

I didn’t reply.

“It’s okay to think that. ‘Cause it’s the truth. There are a lot worse crimes than stealing eight staplers. I was a policeman before I became a security guard, so I know what I’m talking about.”

The guard looked directly into my eyes as he spoke. I held his gaze, careful not to appear defiant.

“If this were his first offence, the store wouldn’t raise such a fuss. Our business is dealing with customers, after all, and we prefer not to get too upset over something small-scale like this. Normally I’d bring the child here to this room and I’d put a little of the fear of God into him. In worse cases we’d contact the parents and have them punish the child. We don’t get in touch with the school. That’s our store’s policy, to take care of children shoplifting quietly.

“The problem is, this isn’t the first time this boy’s shoplifted. In our store alone we know he’s done it three times. Three times!

Can you imagine? And what’s worse is both other times he refused to give us his name or the name of his school. I was the one who took care of him, so I remember it well. He wouldn’t say a word, no matter what we asked. The silent treatment, we used to call it in the police force. No apologies, no remorse, just adopt a crummy attitude and stonewall it. If he didn’t tell me his name this time, I was going to turn him over to the police, but even this didn’t raise a reaction. Nothing else to do, so I forced him to show me his bus pass, and that’s how I found out his name.”

He paused, waiting for it all to sink in. He was still staring fixedly at me, and I continued to hold his gaze.

“Another thing is the kind of things he stole. Nothing cute about it. The first time he stole 15 propelling pencils. Total value, ¥9,750. The second time it was eight compasses, ¥8,000 altogether. In other words, each time he just steals a pile of the same things. He’s not going to use them himself. He’s just doing it for kicks, or else he’s planning to sell it all to his friends at school.”

I tried conjuring up a mental image of Carrot selling stolen staplers to his friends during lunch hour. I couldn’t picture it.

“I don’t quite understand,” I said. “Why keep stealing from the same shop? Wouldn’t that just increase the chances you’d get caught—and worsen your punishment when you were? If you’re trying to get away with it, wouldn’t you normally try other shops?”

“Don’t ask me. Maybe he was stealing from other shops. Or maybe ours just happens to be his favourite. Maybe he doesn’t like my face. I’m just a simple security guard for a supermarket, so I’m not going to think out all the ramifications. They don’t pay me enough for that. If you really want to know, ask him yourself. I hauled him in here three hours ago and not a peep so far. Pretty amazing. Which is why I dragged you in here. I’m sorry you had to come in on your day off… One thing I’ve been wondering about since you came in, though. You look so tanned. Not that it’s relevant, but did you go somewhere special for your summer holidays?”

“No, nowhere special,” I replied.

Even so, he continued to scrutinize my face carefully, as if I were an important piece in the puzzle.

I picked up the stapler again and examined it in detail. Just an ordinary, small stapler, the kind you’d find in any home or office. An office supply about as cheap as they come. Seven Star cigarette dangling from his lips, the security guard lit it with a Bic lighter and, turning to one side, blew out a cloud of smoke.

I turned to the boy and gently asked, “Why staplers?”

Carrot had been staring the whole time at the floor, but now he quietly lifted his face and looked at me. But he didn’t say anything. I noticed for the first time that his expression was completely changed—strangely expressionless, eyes out of focus. He seemed to be staring into a void.

“Did somebody bully you into doing it?”

Still no answer. It was hard to tell if my words were getting through. I gave up. Asking the boy anything at this point wasn’t going to be productive. His door was closed, the windows shut tight.

“Well, sir, what do you propose we do?” the guard asked me.

“I get paid to make my rounds of the shop, check the monitors, catch shoplifters, and bring them back to this room. What happens afterwards is another matter entirely. Especially hard to deal with when it’s a child. What do you suggest we do? I’m sure you’re more knowledgeable in this area. Should we just let the police handle the whole thing? That would certainly be easier for me. Keep us from wasting our time when we’re just treading water anyway.”

Actually, at that moment I was thinking about something else. This dumpy little supermarket security room reminded me of the police station on the Greek island. Thoughts of which led straight to Sumire. And the fact that she was gone. It took me a few moments to work out what this man was trying to say to me.

“I’ll let his father know,” Carrot’s mother said in a monotone,

“and make sure my son knows in no uncertain terms that shoplifting is a crime. I promise he won’t ever bother you again.”

“In other words you don’t want this to be taken to court. You’ve said that over and over,” the security guard said in a bored tone. He tapped his cigarette on the ashtray, flicking the ash into it. He turned to me again and said, “But from where I sit, three times is just too many. Somebody’s gotta put a stop to it. What are your feelings about this?”

I took a deep breath, pulling my thoughts back to the present. To the eight staplers and a Sunday afternoon in September.

“I can’t say anything unless I talk to him,” I replied. “He’s a smart boy, and he’s never caused any problems before. I have no clue why he’d do something so stupid, but I’m going to spend time myself and get to the bottom of this. I really apologize for all the trouble he’s caused.”

“Yeah, but I just don’t get it,” the guard said, frowning behind his glasses. “This boy—Shin’ichi Nimura?—he’s in your class, right? So you see him every day, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s in fourth grade, which means he’s been in your class for a year and four months. Am I right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I’ve been in charge of his class since they were in third grade.”

“And how many pupils are in your class?”

“Thirty-five.”

“So you can keep an eye on them all. You’re telling me you never had any hint that this boy was going to cause trouble. No sign at all?”

“That’s right.”

“Wait a sec—as far as we know, he’s been shoplifting for a half year. Always alone. Nobody’s threatening him to do it. And it’s not spur of the moment. And he’s not doing it for the money either. According to his mother he gets plenty of pocket money. He’s doing it just to get away with stealing. This boy has problems, in other words. And you’re telling me there wasn’t any indication of this whatsoever?”

“I’m speaking as a teacher here,” I replied, “but especially with children, habitual shoplifting is not so much a criminal act as the result of a subtle emotional imbalance. Maybe if I’d paid a little more attention I would have noticed something. I fell down on the job, definitely. But with emotionally disturbed children there’s not always something outward to go on. If you separate the act from everything else and punish the child, the basic problem isn’t going to be cured. Unless you find the fundamental cause and treat that, the same problem will surface later on in a different form. Often children are trying to send a message by shoplifting, so even if it isn’t the most efficient way of handling the problem, it’s important to take the time to talk things out.”

The guard crushed out his cigarette and, mouth half open, stared at me for a long time, as if I were some odd-looking animal. His fingers resting on the tabletop were terribly thick, like ten little furry black creatures. The more I looked at them, the harder I found it to breathe.

“Is that what they teach you in college, in teacher-training or whatever you call it?”

“Not necessarily. It’s basic psychology. You can find it in any book.”

“You can find it in any book,” he said, repeating my words listlessly. He picked up his hand towel and wiped away the sweat from his thick neck.

“A subtle emotional imbalance—what’s that supposed to mean? When I was a policeman I spent every day, morning till night, dealing with characters who were imbalanced, all right. But there was nothing subtle about it. The world’s full of people like that. Ten a penny. If I took the time to listen to each and every one of the messages those people were sending out, I’d need ten more brains. And that still wouldn’t be enough.”

He sighed, and placed the box of staplers back under the desk.

“Okay—you’re absolutely right. Children have pure hearts. Corporal punishment is bad. People are all equal. You can’t judge people by their grades. Take the time to talk and work out a solution. I don’t have a major problem with that. But do you think that’s how the world will get to be a better place? No way. It’ll only get worse. How can people all be equal? I’ve never heard such a thing. Consider this—110 million people are elbowing one another out of the way every day in Japan. Try making all of them equal. It’d be hell on earth.

“It’s easy to say all these sweet words. Close your eyes, pretend not to see what’s going on, and pass the buck. Don’t make any waves, sing Auld Lang Syne’, hand the kids their diplomas, and everybody lives happily ever after. Shoplifting is a child’s message. Don’t worry about later on. That’s the easy way out, so why not? But who’s going to clean up the mess?

People like me, that’s who. You think we do this because we like it? You lot have this kind of hey-what’s-¥6,800?-look on your faces, but think about the people he stole from. A hundred people work here, and you better believe they take a difference of one or two yen seriously. When they add up the receipts for a cash register and there’s a ¥100 discrepancy, they work overtime to straighten it out. Do you know how much an hour the women who work the checkouts make here? Why don’t you teach your pupils that?”

I didn’t say anything. Carrot’s mother was silent, as was the boy. The security guard had worn himself out talking and sank back into the general silence. In another room a phone rang, and someone picked it up on the first ring. “So, what should we do?” he asked.

I said: “How about we string him upside down from the ceiling until he says he’s sorry?”

“I like it! ‘Course you know that we’d both be out on our ears.”

“Well, then, the only thing we can do is patiently take the time to discuss the problem. That’s all I can say.”

Someone from another room knocked at the door and entered. “Mr Nakamura, could you lend me the key to the storeroom?” he asked. Mr Nakamura rummaged through the drawer in his desk for a while, but couldn’t find it.

“It’s gone,” he said. “That’s strange. I always keep it in here.”

“It’s very important,” the other man said. “I need it now.”

The way the two of them talked about it, it sounded like a very important key, something that probably shouldn’t have been kept in a drawer to begin with. They rifled through every drawer, but came up empty-handed.

The three of us just sat there while this was going on. A couple of times Carrot’s mother glanced at me beseechingly. Carrot sat as before, expressionless, eyes pinned to the ground. Pointless, random thoughts flashed through my head. The room was stifling.

The man who needed the key gave up, grumbling as he left.

“That’s enough,” Mr Nakamura said, turning to us; in a toneless, matter-of-fact voice he continued: “Thank you for coming. We’re finished here. I’ll leave the rest up to you and the boy’s mother. But get one thing clear—if he does this one more time, he won’t get off this easy. You do understand that, I hope? I don’t want any trouble. But I do have to do my job.”

She nodded, and so did I. Carrot looked as though he hadn’t heard a word. I stood up, and the two of them weakly followed suit.

“One last thing,” the security guard said, still seated. He looked up at me. “I know this is rude of me, but I’ll just go ahead and say it. Since I laid eyes on you there’s something just not quite right. You’re young, tall, make a good impression, nicely tanned, logical. Everything you say makes absolute sense. I’m sure the parents of your pupils like you a lot. I can’t really explain it, but since I first saw you something’s been gnawing at me. Something I just can’t swallow. Nothing personal, so don’t get angry. It’s just something bothers me. But what is it that’s gnawing at me, I wonder?”

“Would you mind if I ask you something personal?” I said.

“Ask away.”

“If people aren’t equal, where would you fit in?”

Mr Nakamura took a deep lungful of cigarette smoke, shook his head, and exhaled ever so slowly, as if he were forcing someone to do something. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Don’t you worry, though. The two of us won’t be sharing the same level.”

She’d parked her red Toyota Celica in the supermarket car park. I called her over to one side, away from her son, and told her to go on home alone.

“I need to talk to your son alone for a while,” I said. “I’ll bring him home later.” She nodded. She was about to say something, but didn’t, got in her car, took her sunglasses from her bag, and started the engine.

After she left I took Carrot to a cheerful-looking little coffee shop I noticed nearby. I relaxed in the air-conditioning, ordered an iced tea for myself and an ice-cream for the boy. I undid the top button of my shirt, took off my tie, and slipped it in my jacket pocket. Carrot remained sunk in silence. His expression and the look in his eyes were unchanged from when we were in the security office. He looked completely blank, like he was going to be that way for a while. His small hands placed neatly in his lap, he looked down at the floor, averting his face. I drank my iced tea, but Carrot didn’t touch his ice-cream. It slowly melted in the dish, but he didn’t seem to notice. We sat facing each other like some married couple sharing an awkward silence. Every time she stopped by our table, the waitress looked tense.

“Things just happen,” I said finally. I wasn’t trying to break the ice. The words just came bubbling up.

Carrot slowly raised his head and turned towards me. He didn’t say a thing. I shut my eyes, sighed, and was silent for a while.

“I haven’t told anybody yet,” I said, “but during the summer holidays I went to Greece. You know where Greece is, don’t you? We watched that video in social studies class, remember?

In southern Europe, next to the Mediterranean. They have lots of islands and grow olives. Five hundred BC was the peak of their civilization. Athens was the birthplace of democracy, and Socrates took poison and died. That’s where I went. It’s a beautiful place. But I didn’t go to have a good time. A friend of mine disappeared on a small Greek island, and I went to help search. But we didn’t find anything. My friend just quietly vanished. Like smoke.”

Carrot opened his mouth a crack and looked at me. His expression was still hard and lifeless, but a glimmer of light appeared. I’d got through to him.

“I really liked this friend of mine. Very, very much. My friend was the most important person in the world to me. So I took a plane to Greece to help search. But it didn’t help. We didn’t find a clue. Since I lost my friend, I don’t have any more friends. Not a single one.”

I wasn’t talking to Carrot as much as to myself. Thinking aloud.

“You know what I’d really like to do the most right now?

Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see as far as possible. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what’s been lost from the world. I don’t know… Maybe I really don’t want to see that. Maybe I don’t want to see anything any more.”

The waitress came over, removed Carrot’s plate of melted ice cream, and left the bill.

”I feel like I’ve been alone ever since I was a child. I had parents and an older sister at home, but I didn’t get along with them. I couldn’t communicate with anyone in my family. So I often imagined I was adopted. For some reason some distant relatives gave me up to my family. Or maybe they got me from an orphanage. Now I realize how silly that idea was. My parents aren’t the type to adopt a helpless orphan. Anyway, I couldn’t accept the fact that I was related by blood to these people. It was easier to think they were complete strangers.

“I imagined a town far away. There was a house there, where my real family lived. Just a modest little house, but warm and inviting. Everyone there can understand one another, they say whatever they feel like. In the evening you can hear Mum bustling around in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and there’s a warm, delicious fragrance. That’s where I belong. I was always picturing this place in my mind, with me as a part of the picture.

“In real life my family had a dog, and he was the only one I got along with. He was a mongrel, but pretty bright; once you taught him something he never forgot. I took him for a walk every day, and we’d go to the park; I’d sit on a bench and talk about all sorts of things. We understood each other. Those were my happiest moments as a child. When I was in fifth grade my dog was hit by a lorry near our house and killed. My parents wouldn’t let me buy another. They’re too noisy and dirty, they told me, too much trouble.

“After my dog died I stayed in my room a lot, just reading books. The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I’d never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We’d just make small talk, play football together. When something bothered me, I didn’t talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that’s just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.

“When I entered college, though, I made a friend, the one I told you about. And my way of thinking started to change. I came to understand that thinking just by myself for so long was holding me back, keeping me to a single viewpoint. And I started to feel that being all alone is a terribly lonely thing.

“Being all alone is like the feeling you get when you stand at the mouth of a large river on a rainy evening and watch the water flow into the sea. Have you ever done that? Stand at the mouth of a large river and watch the water flow into the sea?”

Carrot didn’t reply.

“I have,” I said.

Eyes wide open, Carrot looked in my face.

“I can’t really say why it’s such a lonely feeling to watch all the river water mix together with the sea water. But it really is. You should try it sometime.”

I picked up my jacket and the bill and slowly stood up. I rested a hand on Carrot’s shoulder, and he got up, too. And we left the coffee shop.

It took about 30 minutes to walk to his house. We walked together, and I didn’t say a word.

Near his house was a small river, with a concrete bridge over it. A bland little thing, really, less a river than a drainage ditch that had been widened. When there was still farmland around here it must have been used for irrigation. Now, though, the water was cloudy, with a slight odour of detergent. Summer grasses sprouted in the riverbed, a discarded comic book lay open in the water. Carrot came to a halt in the middle of the bridge, leaned over the railing, and gazed down. I stood beside him and looked down, too. We stood like that for a long time. He probably didn’t want to go back home. I could understand that.

Carrot stuck a hand inside his trouser pocket, pulled out a key, and held it towards me. Just an ordinary key, with a large red tag on it. The tag said STORAGE 3 on it. The key for the storeroom that the security guard, Nakamura, was looking for.

Carrot must have been left alone in the room for a moment, found it in the drawer, and slipped it into his pocket. This boy’s mind was a bigger enigma than I’d imagined. He was an altogether strange child.

I took the key and held it in my palm and could feel the weight of countless people that had seeped into it. It struck me as terribly wretched, dirty, small-minded. Flustered for a moment, I ended up dropping the key into the river. It made a tiny splash. The river wasn’t very deep, but the water was cloudy, and the key disappeared from sight. Side by side on the bridge, Carrot and I gazed at the water for a time. Somehow it made me feel cheerful, my body lighter.

“It’s too late to take it back,” I said, more to myself than to him. “I’m sure they have a spare somewhere. It’s their precious storeroom, after all.”

I held my hand out, and Carrot softly took it in his. I could feel his slim, small fingers in mine. A feeling that I’d experienced somewhere—where could it have been?—a long long time ago. I held his hand and we headed for his home.

His mother was waiting for us when we got there. She’d changed into a smart little white, sleeveless blouse and a pleated skirt. Her eyes were red and swollen. She must have cried alone the whole time after she got home. Her husband ran an estate agent’s in the city and on Sundays was either at work or out playing golf. She had Carrot go to his room on the first floor and took me not to the living room, but to the kitchen, where we sat down at the table. Maybe it was easier for her to talk there. The kitchen had a huge avocado-green fridge, an island in the middle, and a sunny window facing east.

“He looks a little better than he did before,” she said weakly.

“When I first saw him at that security office, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never seen him look that way. Like he was off in another world.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Just give it time and he’ll get back to normal. For the time being it’d be better if you don’t say anything to him. Just leave him alone.”

“What did you two do after I left?”

“We talked,” I said.

“About what?”

“Not much. Basically I did all the talking. Nothing special, really.”

“Would you like something cold to drink?” I shook my head.

“I have no idea how to talk to him any more,” she said. “And that feeling just grows stronger.”

“There’s no need to force yourself to talk to him. Children are in their own world. When he wants to talk, he will.”

“But he barely talks at all.”

We were careful not to let our bodies touch as we faced each other across the kitchen table. Our conversation was strained, the kind you might expect of a teacher and a mother discussing a problem child. As she spoke she played with her hands, twisting her fingers, stretching them out, grasping her hands. I thought about the things those hands had done to me in bed. I won’t report what’s happened to the school, I told her. I’ll have a good talk with him, and if there’s any problem, I’ll take care of it. So don’t worry about it. He’s a smart boy, a good boy; give it time and he’ll settle down. This is just a phase he’s going through. The most important thing is for you to be calm about it. I slowly, calmly repeated all this over and over, letting it sink in. It seemed to make her feel better.

She said she’d drive me back to my apartment in Kunitachi.

“Do you think my son senses what’s going on?” she asked me when we were stopped at a traffic light. What she meant, of course, was what was going on between her and me.

I shook my head. “Why do you say that?”

“While I was alone at home, waiting for you to come back, the thought just struck me. I have nothing to go by, it’s just a feeling. He’s very intuitive, and I’m sure he’s picked up on how my husband and I don’t get along well.”

I was silent. She didn’t say any more.

She parked her car in the car park just beyond the intersection where my apartment building stood. She pulled on the handbrake and turned off the engine. It sputtered out, and with the sound from the air-conditioning off, an uncomfortable silence fell over the car. I knew she wanted me to take her in my arms right then and there. I thought of her pliant body beneath her blouse, and my mouth became dry.

“I think it’d be better for us not to meet any more,” I came right out and said.

She didn’t say anything. Hands on the steering wheel, she stared in the direction of the oil gauge. Almost all expression had faded from her face.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” I said. “I don’t think it’s right that I’m part of the problem. I can’t be part of the solution if I’m part of the problem. It’s better for everyone that way.”

“Everyone?”

“Especially for your son.”

“For you, too?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“What about me? Does that include me?”

Yes, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t get the word out. She took off her dark green Raybans, then slipped them on again.

“It’s not easy for me to say this,” she said, “but if I can’t see you any more it will be very hard on me.”

“It will be hard on me, too. I wish we could continue the way we are. But it’s not right.”

She took a deep breath and let it out.

“What is right? Would you tell me? I don’t really know what’s right. I know what’s wrong. But what is right?”

I didn’t have a good answer.

She looked like she was about to weep. Or cry out. But somehow she held herself in check. She just gripped the steering wheel tightly, the backs of her hands turning slightly red.

“When I was younger all kinds of people talked to me,” she said. “Told me all sorts of things. Fascinating stories, beautiful, strange stories. But past a certain point nobody talked to me any more. No one. Not my husband, my child, my friends…

no one. Like there was nothing left in the world to talk about. Sometimes I feel like my body’s turning invisible, like you can see right through me.”

She raised her hands from the steering wheel and held them out in front of her.

“Not that you would understand what I’m trying to say.”

I searched for the right words, but nothing came.

“Thank you very much for everything today,” she said, pulling herself together. Her voice was nearly her usual, calm tone. “I don’t think I could have handled it alone. It’s very hard on me. Having you there helped a lot. I’m grateful. I know you’re going to be a wonderful teacher. You almost are.”

Was this meant to be sarcastic? Probably. No—definitely.

“Not yet,” I said. She smiled, ever so slightly. And our conversation came to an end.

I opened the car door and stepped outside. The summer Sunday afternoon sunlight had weakened considerably. I found it hard to breathe and my legs felt strange as I stood there. The Celica’s engine roared to life, and she drove out of my life for ever. She rolled down her window and gave a small wave, and I lifted my hand in response.

Back in the apartment I took off my sweaty shirt and tossed it in the washing machine, took a shower, and washed my hair. I went to the kitchen, finished preparing the meal I’d left half done, and ate. Afterwards, I sank back in my sofa and read a book I’d just started. But I couldn’t finish five pages. Giving up, I closed the book and thought for a while about Sumire. And the storeroom key I’d tossed in the filthy river. And my girlfriend’s hands gripping the steering wheel. It had been a long day, and it was finally over, leaving behind just random memories. I’d taken a good long shower, but my body was still steeped in the stink of tobacco. And my hand still retained a sharp sensation—as if I’d crushed the life out of something. Did I do what was right?

I didn’t think so. I’d only done what was necessary for me. There’s a big difference. Everyone? she’d asked me. Does that include me?

Truthfully, at that time I wasn’t thinking about everyone. I was thinking only about Sumire. Not all of them there, or all of us here.

Only of Sumire, who wasn’t anywhere.