Milena Flašar - I Called Him Necktie

Hashimoto is still cruising. Just recently I ran into him in a store. I asked: How are you? He said: No cracks! His laugh was unworried. He had preserved his youthful vigor. And your wife? There she is, over there. He pointed to a group of women rummaging through items on a table. The one with the scarf. I was shocked. A face destroyed. She was a hundred, no, several hundred years old. What happened? He laughed, showing his white teeth: Life! Man! Life! A fraction too loud. I watched them as they disappeared up the escalator, he upright, she bent, a mismatched pair. Their backs turned to each other, each in their own world.

47

What I’d like to say. The lie takes its toll. Once you’ve lied you find yourself in a different place. You live under one roof, stay in the same rooms, sleep in the same bed, turn over under one blanket. Yet the lie eats right through the middle. It’s a moat. Unbridgeable. It causes one home to break into two. And who knows whether it does the same to the truth?

I, who have never betrayed Kyōko, feel as though I have a lover. Her name is Pretense. She is not beautiful, but she’s pretty enough. Long legs. Red lips. Wavy hair. I’m crazy about her. Although I don’t want to start a new life with her, I am building castles in the air with her. I take her to the most expensive restaurants in town. I feed her. I rent an apartment. I support her. No matter the cost. She satisfies me and my masculinity. By her side I am young and strong again. She murmurs: The world is at your feet. She believes in me and my abilities, and I believe in her belief and allow myself to be surrounded by this flattery. I am a contented adventurer.

At home I float in a bubble. It is so thin that one touch would puncture it. So I take care not to be touched. I sit in front of the television and watch the news. If Kyōko asks me what it was like at work, or why I haven’t done any overtime recently, or whether I have spoken to the boss about this or that, I say: Shh. Not now. She repeats the question. Fainter now. I say: Later. Please. She shrugs her shoulders. I dare to breathe out. The bubble in which I float barely vibrates with the expulsion of breath.

It is a decision.

And with that he unpacks his bento box. Rice with salmon and pickled vegetables again. I had resolved to behave as if. For that was my promise: That everyday life, our everyday life, would become our refuge. It has to be preserved. To the end.

Finally he looked at me. Winked: Kyōko’s bento boxes simply taste too good for me to miss.

48

Do you have any children?

No. He slumped a little. No. Why?

I was just thinking, you would be a good father.

Me?

Yes, you.

What makes you think that?

Because you sometimes look like a child yourself. When you eat, for instance. You do it like a child who is not aware of anything but what he is doing at the time.

And that would make me a good father?

Well, let’s say: a real father.

He bit back a word.

That girl there, for instance. Do you see her? She’s moving her finger through the puddle all the time. She’s drawing something in it. Sees the picture, how it disappears. Starts again from the beginning. Paints nothing but pictures that disappear. An aimless game, yet a happy one. The girl is constantly laughing. I often ask myself why we can’t do that anymore, be aimlessly happy. Why, when you are big, you sit in narrow, low-ceilinged rooms, wherever you are, at most you go from one room to another, but as a child you were in a room without walls. For that’s how I remember it: When I was small, I took refuge in life in the moment. Neither the past nor the present could affect me in any way, and how lovely if that were so now. If you could work, not for the sake of the result, but work as an offering, without effort.

Again he bit his lips white.

I sighed, anticipating his sigh.

He agreed and said: That would be really lovely.

49

For me the train has left anyway, and I’m glad it has set off without me. As far back as I can think, I never had a desire to achieve any particular aim. Not for myself, I mean. The good grades were not for me but for my parents, who thought I would become something respectable one day. It was their ambition, not mine. It was their image of a life of advancement.

I’ve still got the school uniform. It’s hanging in the darkest corner of my room, a garment without content. It looks like one of those figures you encounter in a dream. You don’t know them but are aware of a strange relationship. On closer examination it emerges that it’s your shadow.

If I put on the uniform today I would hardly fill it. It would be an absurd sight, as absurd as I felt then, when I wore it. A person dressed as a schoolboy, who pretends to be learning something, but in reality is forgetting what’s important. That’s also a reason why I am a hikikomori. Because I want to learn how to look at things again. From my bed I look at the crack I punched into the wall out of rage at myself. I’ve looked at it so long I’ve almost disappeared into it. Time has wrinkles, this is one of them. I look into it, to remind myself of the many moments when I looked away.

50

I was fourteen. An average student. My grades were good, but not too good, and my survival depended on maintaining this averageness, this much I had already learned. The thing was to be normal. Under no circumstances anything other than normal. For whoever stands out attracts the ill will of those who, bored by their own normality, have nothing better to do than torment him, the one who is different. And who wants that? Who exposes himself willingly to torture? So you fit in and are grateful that you’re among the inconspicuous.

Takeshi, though. He stood out. Kobayashi Takeshi.

He had grown up in America, just come back. When he said New York or Chicago or San Francisco, he said it as if it were just over there, around the corner. His English flowed, I couldn’t hear enough of it. He said Hi. And Thank you. And Bye. The words came from his mouth in a whirlwind. Too fast thought some, and were ready to pounce on him. The next day he was missing a tooth. He lisped: I fell. The tooth was replaced, the lisp remained. And worse still. He began to make mistakes. When the teacher asked him to pronounce something, he mispronounced it. If he was asked to read out loud, he misread it. Bit by bit he lost the ability to get the words out of his mouth, the language he had grown up with, which had once been his home. He even went so far as to imitate our accent. He said San Furanshisuko and it was gone, far far away. It was ghastly to listen to it. How he forced himself to do it. Before each word he spoke, he paused and mourned to see it go.

The dreadful thing was: I could have been him. But I was spared. Nevertheless I was the observer, and it took someone like me, who looked and then looked away. I remained average simply by behaving as if I hadn’t seen anything. And the paradox was: I was a master at it. At fourteen I was already achieved mastery in studiously ignoring the pain of others. My sympathy was limited to being the silent witness.

Hm.

And Hm again.

He hummed a song. Took a puff of his cigarette. Hummed some more. A little pile of ash fell on his chest, a gentle breeze wafted it away. A bicycle bell rang. I would like to have cried. Pale yellow blossoms fell from the bushes.

Takeshi wasn’t the only one, was he.

No. There was Yukiko too.

Hm.

Miyajima Yukiko.

The lump in my throat thickened. That Monday I could say no more than her name.

51

It looks like rain. He yawned.

I followed his gesture towards the dreary pale sky.

Tomorrow. What is it tomorrow? Right. Tuesday. The week has only just begun. If it rains… he rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a card. His tongue pushed forward, he scribbled in big letters: MILES TO GO. A Jazz café. When it rains, he said, that’s where I am.