Maki Kashimada: Touring the Land of the Dead: Two Novellas

“Oh?”

“And my grandfather too. He brought my mother here when she was little.”

“Huh? It’s that old, is it?”

The comedian on the TV was playing the fool. A wave of laughter gushed forth. Taichi laughed as well.

“It was pretty fancy, back then. There’s no way they would have let us stay here for five thousand yen. It was a members-only kind of place.”

“Oh?”

“My mom always likes to think of herself as being specially chosen. My brother too, probably.”

Natsuko glanced toward her husband. He kept his gaze fixed on the TV, not realizing that she was looking at him.

“They’re a little strange, those two, aren’t they?” he said.

“Do you think so? When I was little, I thought it would still be possible to return to the good old days that my mom and all the others always talked about. But then after I came to this rundown hotel as a girl, I realized that the past isn’t somewhere you can go back to. So I wasn’t able to bring myself to come here again until now.”

Taichi turned toward her. “Then what made you change your mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“It is pretty relaxing here, though,” he said, before stuffing his little finger in his ear, and turning back to the TV. He let out a truly pleasure-filled laugh, quite as if he had completely forgotten their present conversation.

The sound of the TV enveloped her as she closed her eyes, leaving her feeling as if she were drifting off to sleep in their familiar apartment.

The next morning, Natsuko woke up before Taichi. As she softly pulled back the curtain, a hard, cement-like ocean spread out before her. If she were to follow that sea northward, and keep going, she might end up at the coastal town where Taichi had been born. But in front of her, there was only the sea, stretching out to the horizon. A dark, leaden color, a lead mixed with the color of ash, a lead bordering on white. A color that couldn’t be expressed in a single word. She felt confused. Wasn’t her own past, like that sea, something that couldn’t be put into words? Wasn’t it precisely that violent force that had attacked her all of a sudden? Afraid, she squeezed her eyes shut, when she heard a voice carry across from behind her. “We’d better go get breakfast.” She slowly opened her eyes.

Once they finished eating, Natsuko hurried Taichi back to their room. They packed their bags in a hurry, before going down to the front desk to finish checking out. Seeing as they still had a little time before the shuttle bus left, they decided to take a look at the souvenir corner.

Taichi walked around with his cane, sticking his nose into some sachets of herb potpourris like a bee collecting pollen. He floated around aimlessly, muttering his impressions of each of them in turn: “This one smells like sweets. This one’s like black tea. And this one, this one smells like you, Natchan, like a newborn. Yep, this one’s the best.” He bought around a dozen different varieties.

“Who are you planning to give them to?”

“You know, there’s Yoshimura, the orthopedic nurse, and Itō, the rehabilitation doctor.” He listed a half-dozen or so names, even some that Natsuko didn’t recognize. He spent most of his days at home, but it seemed that he had his own world too.

They were the only passengers to board the shuttlebus. The hotel faded into the distance behind them.

If the past had already been chewed to exhaustion, was there any point in continuing this journey? Natsuko let out a tired sigh.

“This really does smell just like you, Natchan,” Taichi said, sniffing at the potpourri in the seat beside her.

They changed buses, and headed toward an art museum. Natsuko didn’t want the journey to end just yet. She wanted to find some kind of healing, at least. She wanted to see the things that others considered beautiful. Some vague part of her felt that if she could look at those things for herself, she too might be able to think of them in that way. Maybe then she would be able to find some degree of peace. Taichi didn’t question her sudden desire to visit the art gallery. He remained silent, as if he were happy simply to be there with her.

Natsuko supported her stumbling husband as they entered the building and approached a woman at the information desk. Do you have a wheelchair? Taichi asked, and without even waiting for her to respond, added: Can I borrow one? My wife will push it.

To Natsuko, his manner was as brazen as ever, but the woman didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Once the wheelchair was brought his way, Taichi settled himself comfortably in the seat, and Natsuko began to slowly push him toward the galleries.

The first thing that she laid eyes on was an objet d’art , something that looked like a ball of yarn. It was round and seemed like it would be strangely warm to the touch. She tried to imagine whether people felt at peace when looking at such round warmth.

The next item was a landscape painting. The scene looked like an ornamental garden. There were flowers in every color imaginable, and trees bathed in light, casting long shadows over the lawn. She looked at the artist’s name, the title of the painting, the year in which it had been produced, and tried to call to mind the ideas that the painter must have been trying express, and the thoughts and feelings that the picture must bring to those who looked at it.

They followed the path through the gallery, looking first at one image, then the next. After a short while, they came to a small picture.

It was a family portrait. There were two small children, a gaunt father, and a fat mother who was pouring milk into a cup. Natsuko confronted that scene—and as she did so, the past, which should already have been chewed to exhaustion, came rushing back. She thought about her own life, doubtful that the kind of scene depicted in the work, a family as peaceful as the one staring back at her, could ever truly exist. She doubted too whether anyone could ever eat so modestly.

Let’s go to an expensive restaurant, the most expensive place you can imagine , she remembered a man saying to her once . This was after she had graduated from university, during her time as a temporary worker. She had been invited by a full-time employee at her company. Since Natsuko was a modest and docile woman, he must have thought that she wouldn’t say anything, that he could get away with his sexual harassment, that seeing as he was her superior, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Eventually, his advances grew so persistent that she was forced to leave her job.

It was her mother who first realized what had happened. She kept pestering Natsuko, demanding to know why she had quit. More than anything, she was afraid of the idea of her daughter not working. Whether this was because both she and her son were dependent on Natsuko’s income, or whether she wanted her daughter to have a successful career, Natsuko didn’t know. She tried to explain that everything was okay, because she was looking for a new job now, but nothing would soothe her mother’s temper. And having worked herself into a frenzy, her mother ended up striking her. So Natsuko had no choice but to tell her the truth. Not to stop the violence, but to calm her down, to cool her anger however she could. But her mother never considered the possibility that Natsuko had been targeted because of her average looks. She had convinced herself that her daughter was just too attractive, so like herself, and that was why she had been the victim of sexual harassment, until at last she wound up convincing herself that she was the victim, not her daughter.

She grasped Natsuko’s hand tenderly. “I can’t believe that someone would do such a terrible thing to you… It’s unforgivable. We’ll have to sue.”