Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

Still, it was only Monday today, and Kita was still alive. He couldn’t go about like he was dead yet. He decided to get himself some new clothes for his remaining days, something cool that he could use as his death clothing as well. He headed for Ginza, Mitsuyo’s survival backpack still on his back.

First off, he looked for some shoes that would put a spring in his step for the remaining days. Smooth leather ones would be too slippery. On the other hand, his tread would be too heavy with thick caterpillar-type soles. The best kind would allow him speed lightly towards his destiny. His eye happened to fall on a pair of zebra-striped basket shoes. They had a layer of air in the sole, and he liked the sinewy feel of the tread. He threw away the old shoes that had kindly seen him through until now, and set off right away walking down Ginza mounted on his new “zebras.” Just the difference in feeling underfoot gave a lift to his mood. Wherever he might find himself flying away to, these shoes seemed to promise to give him a good strong run-up before takeoff.

He headed for the menswear section of a department store. It was still morning, and there was only a smattering of customers there. He bought a shirt with the same zebra stripes as his shoes, then at the urging of the salesgirl he added a cream jacket to the combination. This went perfectly with the tropical fish necktie that Zombie had given him, and gave him the air of one of those exotic gamblers who showed up in the casinos of Lido or Monte Carlo. The salesgirl added in a pair of mustard-coloured cotton trousers. When he turned up the cuffs over his basket shoes he looked, if not like someone about to commit Death by Choice, at any rate like some neurotic playboy. Then, adding the backpack to this attire, he was transformed into a vagrant with a touch of good taste. The sensibility revealed itself in the little clank of the aluminium pan at every step he took. Next, box of dried fish in hand, he added in for good measure a huge pair of Infinity sunglasses. Deciding against a hat, he instead bought a bright red umbrella. The whole thing came to eighty-two thousand three hundred yen.

He also popped his head into the basement food hall. His father often used to slip in the department store food halls on his way home from work to catch the closing-time sales, and would buy a cylinder of fish paste or some baby dried sardines, dried fish, or sukiyaki beef. He would just buy whatever was on special offer. Spurred on by his new outfit, Kita decided to follow his dead father’s example, and scooped up whatever food his hand fell on. To begin with, he limited himself to dry goods – dried cuttlefish, edible algae, kelp, dried white radish slivers and dried scallops – but before long he found himself on the kind of roll that shopping excitement induces, and he bought a kilo of high-grade Matsuzaka marbled beef, a box of early white peaches, and three skewers of roasted eel. The total set him back twenty thousand yen.

He glanced at his watch and saw it was right on noon. Manoeuvring his great pile of shopping into a taxi, he ordered the driver to take him to Takashima Daira.

There was somewhere he wanted to drop in on before his execution. Anybody in his position would do the same, as the hour of their execution approached. Not because the place was famous for its suicides, but because the woman who had brought him into this world was there. He hadn’t done much for her while he was alive, and now he was going to give her further grief by preceding her into the next world. Thus, he wanted to go and humbly express his regret, without putting on any airs about what he was going to do . Most people under sentence of Death by Choice make their way to their mother’s sitting room, driven by the same compulsion.

He decided not to talk to the driver. He couldn’t take another dose of any contradictory philosophising on life. But there, coming from the car radio in a sleep-inducing murmur, was a voice harping on about that very theme. The road was jammed with traffic. Kita closed his eyes, and did his best to shut out the distracting sound. He began to think of the various things he had to do.

He’d need papers in order to apply for the insurance. He’d better go to the local Ward Office and get an abridged copy of his family register and a document certifying his registered signature seal. He owed money to friends, so he should write a will leaving them an appropriate sum from the insurance money after his death. When would he do that? Where should he leave the will once he’d written it? He’d better ask Yashiro later. Where would he stay tonight? Surely there was no way he’d be spending it with Shinobu Yoimachi.

He stopped off at the Ward Office, then hailed another taxi, and called in on his Mum. Each time he went there, the sitting room seemed to have gotten smaller. His mother didn’t seem either delighted or put out by his calling in unexpectedly like this. She just said lightly, “Hi, welcome back. You been somewhere?”

“Not really, I just went down to Atami for a bit.”

“Atami, eh? A school trip?”

“What?” said Kita with a laugh, and he sat down. His mother gazed fixedly at the clothes he was wearing and looked as if she was about to say something, but remained silent. Unloading all the food he’d bought item by item and laying it on the table, Kita said, “Put the fresh stuff in the fridge, would you?”

His mother looked dubiously at the meat and peaches, then back to Kita’s face. “Who did you get all this from?” she asked.

“I bought it. At a department store.”

“I wonder why you’ve started acting like your father.”

“I’ll get more and more like him as time passes.”

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry. You’ll be in danger of being mistaken for him.”

His mother had this tendency to say really stupid things with a straight face. He hadn’t dropped in on her like this more than about once every six months for the last few years, and even then, he’d come along like some guest with a gift for her, just stayed for a meal, and hardly really spoken to her. He guessed she’d be feeling lonely since his father died, but she’d carried on living alone and always put up a brave front, assuring him she didn’t want to be a burden on him by moving in together. Most parents would let themselves be overheard murmuring to themselves that they wished their son would hurry up and marry, and give them the blessing of a grandchild. But Kita’s mother never said a thing. She chose to act as if it was no problem . Kita was aware of all he owed her, but he too found himself playing dumb, and just keeping an eye on her from a strategic distance.

“You won’t have had lunch yet, I guess. I’m just about to have some, so you’ve come at the right time. I’ve got some cold rice, so shall we grill some of this dried fish to have with it?”

“Sure. And let’s have some eel. How about making miso soup?”

His mother went into the kitchen. Her movements were listless, and quite confused. This mother of his, who used to slip constantly back and forth between kitchen and sitting room so swiftly and efficiently, now seemed to have shrunk as though the air had been let out of her, and had grown sluggish. Her life had been reduced to a painstaking repetition of the tiny day-to-day rituals of life alone in this thirty-year-old sitting room.

He looked in on the bedroom. There was a row of potted plants out on the balcony, pansies and mini tomatoes and so on. There was quite a lot of stuff about considering her solitary life, with tea chests and cardboard boxes crammed into the tiny room. Opening the drawers and top closets, he came across boxes marked “Yoshio’s summer clothes” or “Daddy’s formal wear”. Why did she keep clothing belonging to these two men who had left? What’s more, she had carefully kept the set of illustrated reference books that Kita had treasured back when he was a grade schooler. One whole area of the closet was exactly as it had been twenty years ago.