Ryu Murakami - Piercing

You’re a weird kid , she’d say, and when you get older you’ll be a crazy person, a nutcase. I know because I had a classmate like that when I was a girl, and I visited him at the loony-bin once. He was in a narrow little room with no windows, and all he did all day long was stand with his ear pressed against the wall, listening to a voice only he could hear and laughing and crying. When he was in my class, whatever you asked this lunatic to do, he’d do the exact opposite. If you told him to shut up he’d start gibbering like mad, and if you told him to eat he’d clamp his mouth shut and grit his teeth and wouldn’t open up for anything. Obstinate and contrary, just like you. Wait and see — someday you’ll end up in a little cell with no windows, listening to the voice in the wall like that classmate of mine. He used to twist his neck to one side so he could press his ear against the wall, and finally he got so he couldn’t straighten it out and had to walk around with his chin touching his shoulder and only his ear facing forward.

In later years Kawashima had read up on mental illness. People like the one his mother had described were called schizophrenics. And one of the symptoms of a schizophrenic breakdown was the delusion that someone or something was manipulating you, making you say things or do things against your will.

I didn’t plan to kill her, officer. It was beyond my control. The girl started stabbing her own leg, and after that she begged me to kill her. She lay down naked on the bed, and when I planted the knife in her she was very happy and died smiling.

Imagine saying something like that, Kawashima thought. They’d put me in the nuthouse for sure. If anyone’s manipulating me, though, it isn’t this girl. She’s just a servant, a slave. Some random suicidal erotomaniac sent by whoever it is that wants me to go insane. I need her to squeal and weep and plead for her life — and look at her: sitting there with her eyes all misty, smiling like the masque of comedy as she imagines me stabbing her to death. She’s wet up to her eyeballs with lust and chatting away as if this were the happiest moment of her life.

‘Think about it,’ she said, moving his hand. ‘First you touch the sheets like this, and then, after that, you touch my skin.’ She put his hand on her left thigh, the one without the bandage. ‘Nobody’s ever done this before.’

And that’s the truth, she thought. Nobody else has ever touched these sheets — not Yoshiaki or Yutaka or Atsushi or Hisao or Kazuki or anybody. To be able to enjoy the feel of them and then the feel of my body, that’s a very special thing. And basically what I’m telling you, Mister, is that it’s OK for you to ejaculate all over my new sheets.

Ejaculate , she thought, and felt her smile drain away. I wonder what sort of face he’ll make when he comes. Will it be different from the others? How? Take it in your mouth . That’s what You-know-who used to say. But why do I have to remember him now? He made me take it in my mouth. We can’t have you getting pregnant, Chiaki . You-know-who would make me take it in my mouth, and then right away the stuff would come out. But this man is different. Isn’t he? He helped me in the bathroom, and he waited for me in the cold. That’s why I thought I’d do whatever he wanted, let him have his way with me, even lick me down there if he wants to. He licks me, and then I take it in my mouth. Take it in my mouth. Then the stuff comes out. Maybe I’m falling in love. Because even when I bit his finger he didn’t do anything but kept whispering softly in my ear, and because he stood out in that freezing cold waiting for me. Falling in love with him. Because he didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything. Didn’t try to do anything. He’s different from You-know-who, completely different. You-know-who. Take it in your mouth. Take it in your mouth, Chiaki, take it in your mouth. Take it in your mouth .

The girl still had hold of Kawashima’s hand but had stopped sliding it up and down her thigh. She was about to say something, then clenched her jaw and seemed to swallow the words. Peering down at the hand that held his, she untwined her fingers and withdrew it. She raised her fingertips to her upper lip, as if smelling them, and closed her eyes. Her lips moved, and it looked as if she were whispering to her hand. When Kawashima gently removed his own hand from her thigh, she opened her eyes and glared at him.

Chiaki knew she was on the verge of snapping again. Looking down at the thigh the man had just rejected, she felt the rage building. He’s just like all the others after all , she said to herself. But just like them how? And who did she mean by ‘the others’? These questions occurred to her, but she didn’t have the energy or will to deal with them now. It was almost as if she could see the rage — the one thing without which she couldn’t survive, without which she’d be helpless. As if she could see the rage come foaming up the pathways from her fingers and toes to her heart and brain. Why do I need this, though, she asked herself, and tears welled up in her eyes. Why do I need this stupid rage? There were times when, having been slowly stretched to the breaking point, she snapped like a rubber band, and other times, like now, when it happened with no warning at all, as if the rage had been cut loose with a blade.

Something terrible always happens when I get like this, she thought. And when it’s all over I’ll feel so bad I’ll want to die. I hate it. I hate it, but I never have the power to stop it, so it must be something I really need. This rage that makes me want to destroy everything I see — all the people and things, and myself too, burn everything down to the ground. I must need it. But why would a person need something like that? In elementary school that time, alone in the equipment room with the young gym teacher. I lifted my skirt and took his hand and tried to slide it inside my underwear. I thought that was what grown-up men liked, and I wanted to make him happy. But he pulled his hand away. The rage took over and I started screaming as if I’d burst into flames, and the gym teacher reached for my hand, saying, I see — you just want to be friends with me, don’t you? and I bit his hand until it bled. This man too, Chiaki thought and glared at him again. I know he’s going to make me angry. Sooner or later he’ll do or say something to make me lose it. Whether he tries to kiss me or tries to run away or tries to lick me down there or tries to hit me or gets down on his hands and knees and begs for forgiveness, I’ll end up in a rage, like I always have, sooner or later, with all the others.

I hate that, she thought, I hate that that always has to happen.

She closed her eyes again, remembering walking along arm in arm with this man, and sitting next to him in the taxi with the lights of the skyscrapers all around. She remembered how cold his arm was to the touch, and the memory cheered her a little. I wanna do that again , she thought, silently mouthing the words. I wanna walk with him like that again .

‘I’ll fix the soup,’ she declared, and stood up and limped towards the kitchenette. She could feel the man’s eyes on her as she walked away from the bed. He’s probably really disappointed, she thought. I didn’t let him do anything after all, so now he’ll be all discouraged. What’ll I do if he tells me he’s leaving?

The thought frightened her, and she decided to mix some Halcion into his soup.

‘I put in too much curry powder, didn’t I? Sorry! Was it too spicy?’

No, it was good, Kawashima told her, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He’d devoured two rolls and finished every drop of the creamy yellow soup. Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten anything since that sandwich at Haneda Airport when he bought the overnight bag. He could feel his body warming from the inside out, melting some of the tension.