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

When they entered the warmly lit dining hall, a waiter offered to push Taichi’s wheelchair. It seemed that only the dining hall had been redecorated since Natsuko had come as a child. She felt, for some vague reason, a sense of relief. There was a ramp between the entrance and the main area, so the wheelchair posed no problem.

Holding on tightly to his cane, Taichi wandered over to the serving area without relying on anyone’s help. Just as he always did. He liked to do everything for himself, and he would no doubt keep on doing so. There was a poster in the hall. The health retreat was holding a Hokkaido Fair. Perhaps Taichi, a Hokkaido native, wanted to try out food from his hometown at this tourist site. He certainly looked to be enjoying himself, shuffling back and forth with servings of Ishikari nabe , salmon carpaccio, and bowls of salmon roe over rice. He was, in a certain sense of the word, indifferent toward food.

The poster depicted a beautiful field of purple lavender spreading out all the way to the horizon. What kind of place was Hokkaido? Natsuko wondered. She had never been there. Her mother, who for no good reason regarded Taichi’s rural family with contempt, had arranged both the traditional exchange of gifts and the wedding reception all by herself, and so Natsuko had never had an opportunity to have a proper conversation with Taichi’s parents. And after he was struck by his disease, Hokkaido began to seem more and more distant. Terrifyingly distant. What was there to see or do? Some part of her wanted to find out.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you hungry?” Taichi asked her worriedly.

She had taken some mozzarella from the counter, but hadn’t so much as touched it. She could hear the sound of the waves. Her tears, the waves of her emotions, had taken the form of a deep, soughing basso continuo. There was a sea in her heart, always undulating. She looked at Taichi. There was a cut on his chin. He must have nicked it while shaving.

She sat lost in thought, staring at the immaculate tablecloth. That pure whiteness, unmarred by even a single drop of blood, spread out before her. The word clean seemed to fit. But it was unnatural, unhealthy even, that there wasn’t so much as a single drop of blood to be seen. Not anywhere in that restaurant, nor the famous hotel, nor its top floor, not in that French restaurant, and not on the tablecloth either.

Even after she married Taichi, her brother would frequently call their apartment. Something’s come up. I need to see you. Now. That was the kind of thing he would say. She had lost count how many times. She could never resist him. I’ve booked us a table at that French restaurant, on the top floor of that hotel. There’s something important I need to tell you. But this was just an excuse. All he really wanted was to go somewhere fancy to eat. He no doubt meant to put it on his credit card, or else had stolen some money from the drawer where their mother kept a ready supply of cash. There’s a dress code, so go and get changed first. He sounded like he had only just learned the words. Natsuko dressed formally, as always, putting on red lipstick.

They met in the lobby, quite as if they were a couple coming for a date. Her brother strode around as if he owned the place. He would no doubt force her to drink something expensive with him.

He gulped down his glass of champagne. Ah, this is the stuff, he said. There’s nothing quite like expensive food. It really makes you feel like you’re alive. So he thought that this was living, did he? And then he would always start talking about the same thing. Hey, so when are you going to divorce him? You don’t get it, do you? You’re only with him because you’re lonely, you know? You don’t really love him. Do you? He won’t work, he won’t do anything at home. How could anyone love that kind of guy? But someone who couldn’t do anything was still better off than a dead man, Natsuko thought. Her brother was simply jealous of Taichi’s life. How on earth could you love someone who won’t do anything for us?

And then, as if he had just invented the method himself, he said: Look, this is how you eat it. In front of him, on top of that white tablecloth, was a plate of tonguesole meunière. He handled the dish with a surprising level of dexterity. He was being awfully sociable. He called the waiter over. There’s some venison coming after this, right? he asked. The venison this time of year is the best.

This is just basic etiquette, got it? he pointed out to her. You don’t have much common sense, so pay attention.

The wine was beginning to kick in. He moved on to a topic that made her want to vomit in disgust.

I’m going to France, he said. To study. At the Sorbonne.

Before that, it had been Harvard. Whenever he started talking about studying abroad, Natsuko could only lower her head. Such conversations were, to her, a form of torture. First, he was going to study philosophy, then economics, then art. A cacophony of incoherent delusions. She stared at the knife on the tablecloth. She wanted to use that knife, to make a little cut somewhere that would make her blood come pouring out. How angry it would make her brother if she were to stain this white, unhealthy tablecloth with her blood. He would no doubt think that it was his immaculate pride that had been wounded. But she doubted that she would ever be able to go through with it. She wanted to go home, she wanted to go home and watch that TV show with that rock singer from Hokkaido that Taichi liked so much. She wanted to watch it with her husband and, more than that, to watch him, to return to the life that, though it never failed to exasperate her, still left her feeling somehow satisfied.

You poor thing, her mother would say. You poor, poor thing. Working so hard in place of your husband at that drab job of yours. I feel so sorry for you. Even though what was really deserving of pity were those hours spent in that restaurant looking at that tonguesole meunière, that evening spent together with someone who couldn’t understand her at all, in that gorgeous world in which she didn’t belong. It was all coming back to her again. Even her colleagues at the ward office acted that way. It must be so hard for you, one of them had said to her. If it were me, I would get so exhausted, you know? But you keep on going, in silence, without complaining to anyone. Don’t you ever get tired of it? Isn’t it painful? It sounds like torture. But her colleagues certainly had no idea what real torture was. What was painful, truly painful, was having to spend time with ghosts who wouldn’t rest in peace, people who had yet to realize that they had long since given up on both hope and future.

That was why, for as long as she could remember, Natsuko’s senses of hope and desire had already faded. She had never dreamed of becoming an idol, as normal girls did. Nor had she dreamed of becoming an airline stewardess, like her mother. Even when her mother brought it up, she had never seen herself heading toward some spectacular future. She had already given up on everything. And she never thought too deeply about why such unreasonableness, such unfairness, such unhappiness always befell her. She lived her life trying to think about it all as little as possible. Because it wasn’t the kind of thing that you could easily look at, not directly. And if, by chance, she were to glance on it, she knew that it would leave an unhealthy, fatal wound, the kind from which not even blood would flow. Only her mother and brother immersed themselves in memories of a happy past, dreaming, and talking endlessly about their dreams. All Natsuko could do was block her ears. She was never able to tell them to be quiet. If she did, if she told them the truth, the little world in which they immersed themselves would no doubt collapse. And then her brother would say to her: Give me a break, would you? They’re the ones who’re all messed up in the head. It’s them. All they ever do is deny every single one of our possibilities. And based on what? And so she couldn’t even bring herself to feel angry. If she were to get angry at them, she would just end up tiring herself out. Hers was simply a weary body, trying to preserve itself. She couldn’t understand why it tried so hard to keep on going, why it had to keep on living. If it were to die, that life would end forever. The noise would come to a stop.