Yasushi Inoue - Bullfight

The past two or three days had been blustery, but that evening the wind died down and the stars were gorgeous. At midnight, all at once, the long, low gonging of the bells began issuing for the first time in years from all the great temples scattered throughout the city. Even Tsugami, who had been crouched over the low desk sipping the whiskey he had brought with him, carefully writing out in his brand-new pocket-size diary everything that needed to be done in the twenty days remaining until the tournament, set down his pen and surrendered to the sound. Sakiko sat beside him. They heard the bells being struck at regular intervals, nearby and far away, their countless reverberations all layering and colliding, echoing into each other, flowing like a hundred streams through the crisp midnight air.

They sat for a long time, saying nothing. It was a peculiarly quiet moment, unlike any Sakiko had experienced in all the years she and Tsugami had been together. The face of this man, liberated now from his work, as if some possessing spirit had lost its hold on him, looked oddly plain and docile. Oh, look at him — that helpless face, she thought. And suddenly, like water spreading through her, she felt something that was neither love nor hatred, but a sense of how truly lost he would be without her. It was a pure feeling, far removed from desire. Again and again, endlessly, the bells rang.

The bells would be struck one hundred and eight times. A little past the halfway mark, Tsugami got to his feet, opened the window, and stood for a time looking out. Sakiko rose, too, then went and leaned against him. Outside the night was uncannily dark and deep, nothing but the sound of the bells flying past. Thick foliage walled them in, blocking out every trace of light from the town. All at once, Sakiko felt intensely uneasy. The very fact that they were standing here quietly beside one another, as much like two lovers as two lovers could be, listening to the passing of the ringing of the bells being struck to send off the old year, filled her with a dark sense of foreboding. Maybe the only reason we are able to share a night like this, she thought, is that this time we really are going to break up.

Sakiko stepped away from Tsugami and went to sit at the small red-lacquered mirror in the corner. Her heart was still pounding. In the mirror, staring out at her like a fox, was the ashen face of a woman who had spent three years of the most important period in her life, from her twenties into her thirties, suffering with Tsugami.

*

Partly because of what felt like the onset of a cold, Sakiko spent the unseasonably warm first days of the new year holed up in her apartment. As soon as the three-day holiday ended, the New Evening Post started running a remarkable number of articles about bullfighting. One day there was an interview on the subject with a celebrated opera singer known for his performance of José in Carmen , and then the next a large section of a page was devoted to bullfighting anecdotes that Count F., a well-known sports enthusiast, had shared with the paper. One article, accompanied by a photograph, introduced an old sculptor who specialized in fighting bulls; in another, printed under the rather pedantic headline “The Specialist’s View,” an up-and-coming boxer offered his thoughts on the nature of the sport. They also ran a special series called “A Visit to the Fighting Bulls in the Nan’yo Region.”

Sakiko was not in the least interested in bullfighting, but this incessant stream of articles, day after day, inspired in her the same feeling she got looking into Tsugami’s coldly blazing eyes, so passionate he seemed like a man possessed. The angles the articles took were so typical of him; spread there on the page, they were like a map of his neuroses, his likes, his idiosyncratic style. One introduced an old man in W. who had worked as a handler in the ring for thirty years and had been recruited to serve as a commentator for the tournament; another outlined plans news media in Japan and elsewhere in the world had to film the event — though they were treated as news, in essence they were advertisements, meant to drum up interest. Reading them, Sakiko could imagine Tsugami running around, coming up with new ideas, working out plans, negotiating.

On the 8th, she decided to go see him. Once she had made up her mind she found it impossible to sit still. She would have to go back to the dressmaking shop in Shinsaibashi where she worked the next day, and besides, that unease she had felt on New Year’s Eve was still there like a knot inside her, even now that a new year had begun.

She called the newspaper and learned that for the past few days Tsugami had been working from Hanshin Stadium, where the tournament would be held, and staying over at a hotel in the area. And so, though he had warned her repeatedly never, under any circumstances, to come to see him at work, she went to Hanshin Stadium. The day was cold, the sunlight pale; one had the sense that snowflakes might start fluttering down at any minute. She got off the train at Nishinomiya Kitaguchi. She always saw the stadium from the train, but this was the first time she had ever been inside the vast, round, modern structure. She walked through the massive emptiness of the bowl to the other side and went in and to the left, and there was the office: a cramped room like a ship’s cabin that seemed entirely out of place in a building so large.

When she opened the door, four or five men who could have been from the paper or just visiting, she couldn’t tell, were gathered around a lit charcoal brazier, puffing away on their cigarettes. Beyond them was Tsugami: he was talking loudly to someone on the phone on the desk, the receiver pressed against his ear, the collar of his overcoat turned up. The cool, accusatory glance he shot at Sakiko when he noticed her standing in the doorway was like a knife in her heart. When he finally finished his long phone call, he stood and strode out of the room. He walked ahead of her up the dim, gently sloping concrete corridor, which turned back on itself, then turned back again, zigzagging upward in a shape like a bolt of cartoon lightning, his angry footsteps echoing through the building. On the fourth floor, he walked through the passageway to the stands and stopped just outside to wait.

“Why are you here? What do you need?” he said finally, as she came out.

His cheeks were wan, and he had lost a lot of weight. He glared at her for just a second with a look that could kill, then looked away. He always looked at her like that when he was in a bad mood.

“Am I only allowed to come if I need something?” she asked, trying to sound casual. She glanced up at him, keeping her face down, burying the lower half in her navy overcoat. If she wasn’t careful, she might say something harsh. They were in the infield stands, on the uppermost level; down below, as far as they could see, the vast, deserted stadium was filled with shoddily installed wooden seats that formed bleak stripes as they fell away step by step toward the playing field at the center. The wind was strong, perhaps because they were so high up; the weak afternoon sun gave the entire gray building a rough and gritty appearance.

“I told you how insanely busy I am, right?”

“Please, this is the first time I’ve seen you this year. Don’t look at me in that scary way, like I have no business being here. Is that the kind of relationship we have?”

“Don’t start with that again. I’m too tired.” Tsugami’s tone was so stony she didn’t know how to reply. She stood directly in front of him, equally pale, peering up at him as he sulkily put a cigarette in his mouth. The chill wind tousled his hair. The way they were standing made them seem almost like two men facing off in a duel; realizing this, he told her to sit down, then immediately lowered himself on to the nearest bench. She sat down next to him.