Sputnik Sweetheart

6

The envelope had a large, colourful Italian stamp on it and was postmarked Rome, though I couldn’t make out when it had been sent.

The day the letter arrived, I’d gone out to Shinjuku for the first time in quite a while, picked up a couple of new books at the Kinokuniya bookshop, and taken in a Luc Besson movie. Afterwards I stopped by a beer hall and enjoyed an anchovy pizza and a mug of dark beer. Only just beating the rush hour, I boarded the Chuo Line and read one of my new books until I arrived home at Kunitachi. I planned to make a simple dinner and watch a football match on TV. The ideal way to spend a summer holiday. Hot, alone, and free, not bothering anyone, and nobody bothering me.

When I got back home, there was a letter on the mat. The sender’s name wasn’t on the envelope, but one glance at the handwriting told me it was from Sumire. Hieroglyphic writing, compact, hard, uncompromising. Writing that reminded me of the beetles they discovered inside the pyramids of Egypt. Like it’s going to start crawling and disappear back into the darkness of history.

Rome?

I put the food I’d bought at a supermarket in the fridge and poured myself a tall glass of iced tea. I sat down in a chair in the kitchen, slit open the envelope with a paring knife, and read the letter. Five pages of stationery from the Rome Excelsior Hotel, crammed full of tiny writing in blue ink. Must have taken a lot of time to write that much. On the last page, in one corner, was some sort of stain—coffee, perhaps.

How are you?

I can imagine how surprised you must be to all of a sudden get a letter from me from Rome. You’re so cool, though, it’d probably take more than Rome to surprise you. Rome’s a bit too touristy. It’d have to be some place like Greenland, Timbuktu, or the Strait of Magellan, wouldn’t it?

Though I can tell you I find it hard to believe that here I am in Rome.

Anyway, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to take you out to dinner like we planned. This Europe trip came right out of the blue, just after I moved. Then it was utter madness for a few days—running out to apply for a passport, buying suitcases, finishing up some work I’d begun. I’m not very good at remembering things—I don’t need to tell you, do I?—but I do try my best to keep my promises. The ones I remember, that is. Which is why I want to apologize for not keeping our dinner date.

I really enjoy my new apartment. Moving is certainly a pain (I know you did most of the work, for which I’m grateful; still, it’s a pain), but once you’re all moved in it’s pretty nice. There’re no roosters crowing in my new place, as in Kichijoji, instead a lot of crows making a racket like some old wailing women. At dawn flocks of them assemble in Yoyogi Park, and make such a ruckus you’d think the world was about to end. No need for an alarm clock, since the racket always wakes me up. Thanks to which I’m now like you, living an early-to-bed-early-to-rise farmer’s lifestyle. I’m beginning to understand how it feels to have someone call you at 3.30 in the morning. Beginning to understand, mind you. I’m writing this letter at an outdoor cafe on a side street in Rome, sipping espresso as thick as the devil’s sweat, and I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself any more. It’s hard to put it into words, but I guess it’s as if I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling. Can you understand what I’m getting at?

My eyes tell me I’m the same old me, but something’s different from usual. Not that I can clearly recall what “usual” was. Ever since I stepped off the plane I can’t shake this very real, deconstructive illusion. Illusion? I guess that’s the word…

Sitting here, asking myself, “Why am I in Rome of all places?” everything around me starts to look unreal. Of course if I trace the details of how I got here I can come up with an explanation, but on a gut level I’m still not convinced. The me sitting here and the image of me I have are out of sync. To put it another way, I don’t particularly need to be here, but nonetheless here I am. I know I’m being vague, but you understand me, don’t you?

There’s one thing I can say for sure: I wish you were here with me. Even though I have Miu with me, I’m lonely being so far away from you. If we were even farther apart, I know I’d feel even more lonely. I’d like to think you feel the same way.

So anyway, here Miu and I are, traipsing around Europe. She had some business to take care of and was planning originally to go around Italy and France by herself for two weeks, but asked me to come along as her personal secretary. She just blurted this out one morning, took me completely by surprise. My title might be “personal secretary”, but I don’t think I’m much use to her; still, the experience will do me good, and Miu tells me the trip’s her present to me for stopping smoking. So all the agony I went through paid off in the end.

We landed first in Milan, went sightseeing, then rented a blue Alfa Romeo and headed south on the autostrada. We went around a few vineyards in Tuscany, and after taking care of business stayed a few nights in a charming little hotel, and then arrived in Rome. Business is always conducted in either English or French, so I don’t have much of a role to play, though my Italian has come in handy in day-to-day things as we travel. If we went to Spain (which unfortunately won’t happen on this trip), I might be of more use to Miu.

The Alfa Romeo we rented was a manual drive, so I was no help at all. Miu did all the driving. She can drive for hours and never seems to mind.

Tuscany is all hills and curves, and it was amazing how smoothly she shifted gears up and down; watching her made me (and I’m not joking here) shiver all over. Being away from Japan, and simply being by her side are quite enough to satisfy me. If only we could stay this way for ever. Next time I’ll write about all the wonderful meals and wine we’ve had in Italy; it’d take too much time to do so now. In Milan we walked from store to store shopping. Dresses, shoes, underwear. Other than some pyjamas (I’d forgotten to take mine), I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t have much money, and besides there were so many beautiful things I had no idea where to start. That’s the situation where my sense of judgement blows a fuse. Just being with Miu as she shopped was sufficient. She’s an absolute master shopper, choosing only the most exquisite things, and buying only a select few. Like taking a bite of the tastiest part of a dish. Very smart and charming. When I watched her select some expensive silk stockings and underwear I found it hard to breathe. Drops of sweat bubbled up on my forehead. Which is pretty strange when you think about it. I’m a girl, after all. I guess that’s enough about shopping—writing about all that as well will make this too long.

At hotels we stay in separate rooms. Miu seems very insistent on this. Only once, in Florence, when our reservation got messed up somehow, did we end up having to share a room. It had twin beds, but just being able to sleep in the same room with her made my heart leap. I caught a glimpse of her coming out of the bath with a towel wrapped around her, and of her changing her clothes. Naturally I pretended not to look and read my book, but I did manage a peek. Miu has a truly gorgeous figure. She wasn’t completely nude, but wore some tiny underwear; still her body was enough to take my breath away. Very slim, tight buns, a thoroughly attractive woman. I wish you could have seen it—though it’s a little weird for me to say that.

I imagined being held by that lithe, slim body. All sorts of obscene images came to mind of us as I lay in bed in the same room with her, and I felt these thoughts gradually pushing me to some other place. I think I got a little too worked up—my period started that same night, way ahead of schedule. What a pain that was. Hmm. I know telling you this isn’t going to get me anywhere. But I’ll go ahead anyway—just to get the facts down on paper.

Last night we attended a concert in Rome. I wasn’t expecting much, it being the off-season, but we managed to enjoy an incredible performance. Martha Argerich playing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. I adore that piece. The conductor was Giuseppe Sinopoli. What a performance! Can’t get bored when you listen to that kind of music—it was absolutely the most expansive, fantastic music I’ve ever heard. Come to think of it, maybe it was a bit too perfect for my taste. Liszt needs to be a bit slippery, and furtive—like music at a village festival. Take out the difficult parts and let me feel the thrill—that’s what I like. Miu and I agreed on this point. There’s a Vivaldi festival in Venice, and we’re talking about going. Like when you and I talk about literature, Miu and I can talk about music till the cows come home.

This letter’s getting pretty long, isn’t it? It’s like once I take hold of a pen and start to write I can’t stop halfway. I’ve always been like that. They say well brought up girls don’t overstay their welcome, but when it comes to writing (maybe not just writing?) my manners are hopeless. The waiter, with his white jacket, sometimes looks over at me with this disgusted look on his face. But even my hand gets tired, I’ll admit. Besides, I’ve run out of paper.

Miu is out visiting an old friend in Rome, and I wandered the streets near the hotel, then decided to take a break in this cafe I came across, and here I am busily writing away to you. Like I’m on a desert island and I’m sending out a message in a bottle. Strange thing is, when I’m not with Miu I don’t feel like going anywhere. I’ve come all this way to Rome (and most likely won’t come back again), but I just can’t rouse myself to get up and see those ruins—what do they call those?—or those famous fountains. Or even to go shopping.

It’s enough just to sit here in a cafe, sniff the smell of the city, like a dog might, listen to voices and sounds, and gaze at the faces of the people passing by.

And suddenly I just got the feeling, while writing this letter to you, that what I described in the beginning—the strange sense of being disassembled—is starting to fade. It doesn’t bother me so much now. It’s like the way I feel when I’ve called you up in the middle of the night and just finished the call and stepped out of the phone box. Maybe you have that kind of effect on me?

What do you think? At any rate, please pray for my happiness and good fortune. I need your prayers.

Bye for now.

P.S. I’ll probably be back home around the 15th of August. Then we can have dinner together—I promise!—before the summer’s over.

Five days later a second letter came, posted from some obscure French village. A shorter letter than the first one. Miu and Sumire had left their rental car in Rome and taken a train to Venice. There they listened to two full days of Vivaldi. Most of the concerts were held at the church where Vivaldi had served as a priest. “If I don’t hear any more Vivaldi for six months that’s fine by me,” wrote Sumire. Her descriptions of how delicious the paper-wrapped grilled seafood was in Venice were so realistic it made me want to dash off to Venice to try some for myself.

After Venice they returned to Milan, then flew to Paris. They took a break there, shopping some more, then boarded a train to Burgundy. One of Miu’s good friends owned a huge house, a manor really, where they stayed. As in Italy, Miu made the rounds of several small vineyards on business. On free afternoons they took a picnic-basket lunch and went walking in the woods nearby. With a couple of bottles of wine to complement the meal, of course. “The wine here is simply out of this world,” Sumire wrote.

Somehow, though, it looks like our original plan of returning to Japan on the 15th of August is going to change. After our work is done in France we may be taking a short holiday on a Greek island. This English gentleman we happened to meet here—a real gentleman, mind you—owns a villa on the island and invited us to use it for as long as we like. Great news! Miu likes the idea, too. We need a break from work, some time to just kick back and relax. The two of us lying on the pure white beaches of the Aegean, two beautiful sets of breasts pointed towards the sun, sipping wine with a scent of pine resin in it, just watching the clouds drift by. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It certainly does, I thought.

That afternoon I went to the public pool and paddled around, stopped in a nicely air-conditioned coffee shop on the way home, and read for an hour. When I got back to my place I listened to both sides of an old Ten Years After LP while ironing three shirts. Ironing done, I drank some cheap wine I’d got on sale, mixed with Perrier, and watched a football match I’d videotaped. Every time I saw a pass I thought I wouldn’t have made myself, I shook my head and sighed. Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do—and it feels pretty good.

After the football match I sank back in my chair, stared at the ceiling, and imagined Sumire in her village in France. By now she was already on that Greek island. Lying on the beach, gazing at the passing clouds. Either way, she was a long way from me. Rome, Greece, Timbuktu, Aruanda—it didn’t matter.

She was far, far away. And most likely that was the future in a nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I felt like I was some meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her. I had no one. All I had was—me. Same as always.

Sumire didn’t come back on 15 August. Her phone still just had a curt I’m-away-on-a-trip recording on it. One of her first purchases after she moved was a phone with an answering machine, so she wouldn’t have to go out on rainy nights, umbrella in hand, to a phone box. An excellent idea all round. I didn’t leave a message.

I called her again on the 18th but got the same recording. After the lifeless beep I left my name and a simple message for her to call me when she got back. Most likely she and Miu found their Greek island too much fun to want to leave.

In the interval between my two calls I coached one football practice at my school and slept once with my girlfriend. She was well tanned, having just returned from a holiday in Bali with her husband and two children. As I held her I thought of Sumire on her Greek island. Inside her, I couldn’t help but imagine Sumire’s body.

If I hadn’t known Sumire I could have easily fallen for this woman, seven years my senior (and whose son was one of my students). She was a beautiful, energetic, kind woman. She wore a bit too much make-up for my liking, but dressed nicely. She worried about being a little overweight, but shouldn’t have. I certainly wasn’t about to complain about her sexy figure. She knew all my desires, everything I wanted and didn’t want. She knew just how far to go and when to stop—in bed and out. Made me feel like I was flying first class.

“I haven’t slept with my husband for almost a year,” she revealed to me as she lay in my arms. “You’re the only one.”

But I couldn’t love her. For whatever reason, that unconditional, natural intimacy Sumire and I had just wasn’t there. A thin, transparent veil always came between us. Visible or not, a barrier remained. Awkward silences came on us all the time—particularly when we said goodbye. That never happened with me and Sumire. Being with this woman confirmed one undeniable fact: I needed Sumire more than ever.

After the woman left, I went for a walk alone, wandered aimlessly for a while, then dropped by a bar near the station and had a Canadian Club on the rocks. As always at times like those, I felt like the most wretched person alive. I quickly drained my first drink and ordered another, closed my eyes and thought of Sumire. Sumire, topless, sunbathing on the white sands of a Greek island. At the table next to mine four college boys and girls were drinking beer, laughing, and having a good time. An old number by Huey Lewis and the News was playing. I could smell pizza baking.

When did my youth slip away from me? I suddenly thought. It was over, wasn’t it? Seemed just like yesterday I was still only half grown up. Huey Lewis and the News had a couple of hit songs then. Not so many years ago. And now here I was, inside a closed circuit, spinning my wheels. Knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere, but spinning just the same. I had to. Had to keep that up or I wouldn’t be able to survive.

That night I got a phone call from Greece. At 2 a.m. But it wasn’t Sumire. It was Miu.