Kojo Suzuki - Spiral

Shinagawa Saisei Hospital was a general hospital connected to Shuwa University, and the man Ando was going to see, Dr Wada, actually belonged to the university. Kurahashi, his superior, seemed to have contacted him already. No sooner had Ando stated his business than he was shown to a room on the seventh floor of the west wing.

Ando peered into Asakawa’s eyes where he lay prostrate on his sickbed, and was immediately reminded of the eyes of the patient he’d just seen. Asakawa’s eyes had the exact same quality to them: they were the eyes of a dead man.

Arms hooked up to a pair of I.V.s, face turned toward the ceiling, Asakawa moved not a muscle. Ando didn’t know what the man used to look like, but he guessed the poor soul must have been at about half his normal weight. His cheeks were sunken and his beard was turning white.

Ando moved to the bedside and addressed him gently. “Mr Asakawa.”

No answer. Ando thought to touch him on the shoulder, but hesitated and turned to Dr Wada for permission. Wada nodded, and Ando placed a hand on Asakawa’s shoulder, The skin under his gown had no resilience. Ando could feel the shoulder blade, and drew back his hand involuntarily. There was no reaction.

“Backing away from the bed, Ando turned to Wada and asked, “Has he been like this the whole time?”

“Yes,” Wada answered flatly, Asakawa had been brought in from the accident site on October 21st meaning that for fifteen days now he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t cried, hadn’t laughed, hadn’t gotten angry, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t evacuated his bladder or his bowels on his own.

“What do you think is causing it, doctor?” Ando asked in his politest voice.

“At first we thought he’d sustained a brain injury in the accident, but tests showed no irregularities. We suspect a psychological cause.”

“Shock?”

“Most likely.”

Probably the shock of losing his wife and daughter at the same time had destroyed Asakawa’s mind. But Ando wondered if that had been the only cause. Probably because he’d seen the photos of the accident scene, Ando had a surprisingly clear image of the moment of the collision. And every time he envisioned it, his gaze was drawn to the passenger seat and the video deck enshrined thereon. It loomed larger and larger in his imagination. Why had Asakawa been transporting a VCR? Where had he gone with it? If only the man could explain himself.

Ando pulled a stool up next to Asakawa’s pillow and sat down. He stared at Asakawa’s face in profile for a while, trying to imagine what dreamland the poor man was lost and floating in. Which was more pleasant to live in, he wondered, the world of reality or the world of delusion? Probably Asakawa’s wife and daughter were alive in his dream world. He was probably holding his daughter to his breast and playing with her right now.

“Mr Asakawa,” said Ando, with all the sympathy of one who felt the same grief. Since Asakawa had been a high-school classmate of Ryuji’s, he must have been two years younger than Ando. But to look at him one would have thought he was past sixty. What had brought about such a change? Sadness accelerated the aging process. Ando was aware that he himself had aged rapidly over the past year, for instance. He used to be told he looked young for his age, but now, people often thought he was older than he really was.

“Mr Asakawa,” he called a second time.

Wada couldn’t bear to watch. “I don’t think he can hear you.”

It was true. No matter how many times Ando called Asakawa’s name, there was no reaction. He gave up and got to his feet.

“Will he recover?”

Wada threw up his hands. “God knows.”

Patients like Asakawa could get better or worse without warning. Medical science was usually helpless to predict what lay ahead in cases like these.

“I’d like to ask you to notify me if there’s any change in his condition.”

“Understood.”

There was no point in staying any longer. Ando and Wada left together. At the door Ando stopped and took one last look at Asakawa. He couldn’t detect the slightest change. Asakawa kept his dead gaze fixed on the ceiling.

Mai reclined the adjustable backrest as far as it would go, and then lay back and stared at the ceiling. This was what she did when she was at an impasse. With her back arched like this she could read the titles on the bookshelves behind her, upside down. Not minding that her still-damp hair was touching the carpet, she closed her eyes and stayed in that awkward position for a while.

Her whole studio apartment, including the bathroom and kitchenette, measured less than two hundred square feet. One entire wall was taken up with bookshelves, leaving her without enough room for a bed or a desk. At night, she pushed the low table she used in lieu of a proper desk into the corner so she could unroll her futon. She’d had to sacrifice space in order to afford a place near campus on just her monthly allowance from home and the money she earned tutoring.

Her three conditions for an apartment had been that it be close to school, that it have its own bath and toilet, and that it offer some privacy. Rent accounted for nearly half of her monthly expenses, but even so, she was satisfied with the arrangement. She knew that if she relocated a little farther out toward the suburbs she’d be able to find a bigger place, but she had no intention of moving. She actually found it convenient to be able to sit at her table in the middle of the room and have everything she needed within arm’s reach.

With her eyes still closed, she felt around until she found her CD player and turned it on. She liked the song. She tapped her thighs in time with the music. She’d been on the track team in junior high and high school; she’d been a sprinter, and her legs were still pretty firm. She regulated her breathing until her chest, under her flowered pajamas, swelled and fell along with the music. She opened and closed her nostrils in rhythm, praying for a flash of wisdom. The discomfort of knowing that she had to finish the manuscript this very night had totally zapped her concentration.

She had an appointment tomorrow afternoon with Kimura, Ryuji’s editor. She was supposed to turn over the clean copy of the last installment then. And she still hadn’t come up with a solution for what to do about the end. She hadn’t found the missing pages at Ryuji’s parents’ house, and she had no more time to spend looking for them. She’d even started to wonder if there were any pages missing to begin with. Maybe Ryuji had meant to add something later but died before he had the chance. In which case, she’d be better off giving up the search and concentrating her energies on coming up with adjustments worthy of the final installment.

But she’d been stuck for words for ages now. She hadn’t written a line. She’d taken a shower to clear her head, but still her pen would not produce. She’d write something only to cross it out, to tear up the paper and throw it away.

Suddenly it struck her. She opened her eyes. You’re not getting anywhere because you ’re trying to add something.

All her suffering came from the fact that she was trying to fill in the blank towards the end of the book with her own words. But it was only to be expected that she’d find it impossible to guess where Ryuji’s line of thought would have gone. It tended to skip and jump at the best of times. It followed, then, that the best she could hope to do was to delete passages before and after the blank and smooth things over.

Mai got up and fixed the backrest so that it was nearly vertical. She’d been a fool. Taking words out was a lot easier than putting any in. Ryuji himself would undoubtedly have preferred it that way, even if it meant leaving some of his thoughts unexpressed. That would be far better than seeing them twisted beyond recognition.