Yoko Ogawa - Revenge

At last I gave up and left the hospital. I had wanted to see her discharging her duties in an elegant manner, efficiently typing one of my husband’s papers. But how could I feel jealous of someone so pathetic?

I pulled into the parking lot behind the city hall, intending to walk the short distance to her apartment. I could have found a spot on the street closer to her building, but a parking ticket on a day like this would have been too depressing.

Apartment 508 … five-oh-eight. I muttered the number to myself as I climbed out of the car into the sweltering heat. Almost instantly, I was dripping with sweat. The powder I had applied with such care began to melt under the blazing sun.

As I walked, I recalled, one by one, all the times I had ever been rejected. This process had become something of a ritual with me since my husband’s affair had started. I would unearth memories, beginning in childhood, of places and occasions when someone had hurt me. In that way, I believed, I would see that my pain was due not only to my husband but to the cruelty of countless others besides. I found it somehow comforting to think that his coldness was in no way special or unique.

At first I could recall only two or three instances. But as the connections between them became more apparent, the number grew and the details became more vivid. One by one, incidents I had completely forgotten came back to me as if from nowhere.

In kindergarten, when we paired up to dance, I was always the only one without a partner. I would end up dancing with the teacher, which was terribly humiliating. With an odd number of students in the class, why would the teacher have insisted on dancing in pairs in the first place?

Then there was the time before the class trip when my name was left off the list of room assignments for the inn where we were to stay. I thought I must have missed it the first time, so I checked again. No mistake: my name wasn’t there. Of course, I told myself, it was unintentional, a simple oversight, but my rationalizing did no good. In the end, I didn’t go on the trip. Not because of the list, but because I woke up that morning with tonsillitis.

At fifteen, I took an overdose of sleeping pills. I must have had a good reason for wanting to kill myself, but I’ve forgotten what it was. Perhaps I was just fed up with everything. At any rate, I slept for eighteen hours straight, and when I woke up I was completely refreshed. My body felt so empty and purified that I wondered whether I had, in fact, died. But no one in my family even seemed to have noticed I had attempted suicide.

Then yesterday, at the hairdresser’s, when I asked the stylist to trim in back a bit more, she gave me this nasty look and clacked her scissors as if to say I had no business telling her how to do her job. And she was a young girl, probably just a trainee.

When I looked up again, I realized I was lost. I had studied the map carefully, but it seemed now as though the city had warped in the heat. Each time I turned a corner, the scene that appeared was different from the one I remembered. The people passing by stared gloomily at the pavement; a stray cat crouched in the shadows of an alley.

Rows of roofs stretched into the distance, and beyond them I could see just a glimpse of the back of the tower. The clock struck two. Though the day was still, the sound seemed to swirl around somewhere high above me before reaching my ears.

When the echo died away, I suddenly noticed an odor in the air. It was sweet and persistent but not at all unpleasant. I took a deep breath and let myself be guided by the smell.

“Fern,” I murmured.

I was standing in front of a large stone house. The heavy iron gate was half open. A massive oak cast a cool shadow. Without a moment’s hesitation, I went in. I walked toward the house, looking up at the windows, then passed around to the back on the west side. The smell was coming from there.

I found a beautiful and meticulously tended garden. Shrubs trimmed with amazing precision lined little green paths. A few blooms still clung to the climbing roses, and clear water flowed from a fountain at the center. Next to the fountain, a tiger lay sprawled on the ground, and next to the tiger crouched an old man.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Come see,” said the man, who was apparently not at all surprised to find me standing there.

“Is it dead?”

“No, not yet,” he said, waving for me to come closer.

As I approached the fountain, I felt a pleasant breeze. Small birds chirped, and it seemed as though the heat that covered the town had suddenly abated.

The tiger was enormous, stretched out against the curve of the stone basin. Its legs were limp, its mouth half open. Its breathing was weak and labored.

“Is it sick?” I asked.

“Yes, it won’t last long.” The old man held the animal’s paw as he knelt beside it, and he seemed so comfortable and confident that I felt no fear. He gestured again for me to approach. He was dressed very formally for a hot summer day, but he did not seem to be sweating at all. He wore an elegant jacket, a bow tie, and pearl cufflinks. His white hair was neatly combed.

I knelt beside him and found I couldn’t resist the urge to rest my hand on the tiger’s back. The smell I had thought was fern seemed to be coming from the animal.

I was struck by the warmth of his body. This was no stuffed beast or a figment of my imagination but a living creature. Its hot mass pulsed under my palm.

“It’s magnificent,” I whispered.

“Magnificent indeed,” the man said as he continued to caress the beast. Its black and yellow fur shone in the light filtering down through the trees. The beautiful stripes, the enormous size—everything about the animal was perfect. Even lying prostrate, it seemed to be coiled and ready to attack; the paws looked heavy. The jaw was powerful, and sharp fangs peeked out from its mouth. Every bit of the tiger seemed to have a purpose, to be ideally suited to the hunt.

“It is yours?” I asked.

“It is.” The old man nodded. A shudder ran through the animal’s belly and it groaned.

“Poor thing,” I said. I tried to concentrate my energy in the hand stroking the tiger’s back. The fur was very thick and soft and pleasant to the touch. The more I stroked it, the more the scent of ferns filled the air.

“There now,” the man murmured. Then he turned toward me for the first time and smiled.

The tiger’s ears drooped and its tongue rolled from its mouth. It began to drool. With its last remaining strength, it pushed closer to the old man.

“There now,” the man repeated, wrapping his arms around the tiger’s neck and rubbing his cheek against its face.

The roses swayed in the hot breeze. Tiny insects danced above the lawn. Spray from the fountain misted down on us.

“I’m afraid I’m disturbing you,” I said, realizing that I was intruding on their last moments together.

“Why would you say that?” the old man said, a hint of reproach in his tone. “You must stay with us. We need you here.” Then he looked back at the tiger, his eyes full of pity.

The tiger’s breath grew fitful. Its throat rattled; its fangs clattered together. The tongue looked rough and dry. I continued to rub its back; it was all I could do.

The old man held his cheek against the animal’s head. The tiger’s eyes opened and sought his face. When it was satisfied that he was still nearby, the eyes shut again in relief.

Their bodies had become one. Cheek and jaw, torso and neck, paw and leg, bow tie and stripes—everything melted together into a single being. The tiger let out a roar, and as the echo died away so did the beating under my hand. The clicking of fangs stopped, and a final breath seeped from its lungs. Silence descended on us.