A Quiet Life (11 page)

In connection with this, I asked O-chan the next morning about another related scene I thought was important but didn't understand very well. I asked him about it because his character is such that once he discusses a movie with me, it sets him to thinking, and though it was long, he appeared to have carefully watched this one straight through, using his study time, after Eeyore and I had retired to our bedrooms.

“O-chan,” I began, “I want to ask you about the girl who had that gold-colored kerchief around her head.
Platok
, it's
called? Remember Papa bought one like that in Moscow? Twice in the movie, her mother calls her an ‘accursed child,’ and in the scene where her mother comes to the bar to take her husband home, she has crutches with her. So the child must have had some affliction in her legs, but other than this, she didn't seem to have any other handicap. A very beautiful child. …”

“I think the child has the power to move objects with just her own consciousness,” O-chan remarked. “Psychokinesis, I think it's called, In this sense, I suppose she's endowed with an ability that's newer and stranger than the guide's. The long scene where she moves three glasses with the power of her eyes—it was interesting to watch it in reverse, because then the glasses looked like they were being pulled toward her. And I guess ‘accursed child’ means she's a child with supernatural powers which neither she herself nor the people around her understand very well.”

“The glasses moved in two scenes,” I said, “in the beginning and at the end. In the first one, the girl is sleeping. Then the rumble of a train becomes loud. You begin to hear it before this, and it's filmed in a way that makes you think the things on the table slide because of the tremor of the train that's approaching the apartment building. I wonder if this isn't a technique Tarkovsky likes. At first you just can't figure out what he's trying to get across, but as the story develops, important meanings are communicated to you. … You can say the same for the scene where the guide tells the professor and writer to tie ribbons to the nuts. Thinking of it this way, don't the glasses move as a result of the train's vibrations?”

“As a science student,” O-chan replied, “I'm inclined to see it as due to the vibrations of the train, but isn't it in fact psychokinesis? While watching this scene, I thought, Ah, this must be a precautionary measure against the ‘technicians.’ You see, Papa once told me that in the Soviet Union it's the ‘technicians’
who, as representatives of the local masses, write letters to the newspapers criticizing various forms of art, like literature and the movies. Because these ‘technicians’ strive to construct socialism through scientific practice, they actually occupy a higher place in their society than writers and movie directors. Of course, there would be problems if these ‘technicians’ wrote letters saying the movie was incomprehensible. And so you have the creation of a means to explain the movement of the glasses as due to the vibrations from the train. Yet somehow I feel that Tarkovsky is showing a child who's able to transmit the power of her mind to objects.”

“I half thought so, too,” I said, “but I didn't take ‘technicians’ into account the way you did. … If you pursue this line of thought, though, couldn't you say that the girl with her head wrapped in the golden kerchief was the image of Jesus Christ in his ‘Second Corning?’ The guide walks a long distance with the girl on his shoulders, remember? Walks on, makes a sharp left, and then continues walking? Typical of Tarkovsky's style, I guess. And you know about the man who bears Christ on his back? Christopher, is it? I think the scene's alluding to this.”

“The Second Coming of Christ! Now that's bewildering. Because then you'd have the Antichrist appearing on the scene to wreak universal havoc.”

“Yes,” I continued, “but isn't the mere fact that the Zone came into existence after a meteor fell evidence of the havoc, basically? If I were a girl in a farming village in Russia, I would take such a horrible disaster as an omen of Christ's Second Coming.”

“Indeed, the woman's mother, who objected to her daughter's marriage to the guide, sensed that: their child was an evil omen and called her ‘accursed.’ Really, though, this movie was a mind-boggier. But it's my fault that I didn't understand it.”

“Well, O-chan,” I said, “thanks for keeping me company. I'm beginning to feel I understand everything a little better. I guess I'll do some more thinking on my own now.”

I'd been thinking about something else in connection with the child's mother in
Stalker.
After our parents left for America, I often thought about them, especially Mother. I associated her with various minor events that occurred in the house, and because of this, I hadn't delved very deeply into anything in particular. Or at least this is what I first thought.

But what I next thought about Mother—or rather what I, the scatterbrain that. I am, imagined about her—is as follows. As I now transcribe this thought from “Diary as Home,” I realize that its contents are simple and brief, yet it was an idea I'd been quietly nursing in my mind for some time. I had also wondered, while knowing it could never happen in reality, whether Mother had ever thought Eeyore an ‘accursed child.’ And believing this to be somewhat more probable, I had wondered whether Father, in the habit of carrying his jokes dangerously far, hadn't said to Mother, “You bore me an accursed child.” Which is the way he usually unwittingly hurts other people's feelings. And when it backfires he thinks he's been misunderstood, though he's asked for it by being the one who stalled it. And this, in turn, leads him to indulge in self-pity, and then end up mercilessly angry at the one he offends. My heart sank as I thought of Mother's sorrows and sufferings at the time.

Obviously, it's only a supposition, but if such a thing had actually happened at some point in time, could it be that going to live together alone for the first time in their long married life, twenty-five years after Eeyore was born, was an attempt on their part to heal and restore what had been hurt or broken? … I brooded over this, and though I told myself it was only a figment of my imagination, a safety valve on my consciousness, I sank into such a deep abyss of despair, one from
which I felt I could not be redeemed by merely sitting quietly beside Eeyore like I usually do, that all I could do was stagger up to my room and bury myself in bed.

Because things like this happened, the next time I took Eeyore to the Shigetos for his music composition lesson I ended up talking with Mr. Shigeto about
Stalker
, which I'd been thinking about all the while. I said nothing about my doubts as to whether my parents had ever thought Eeyore an ‘accursed child,’ about these suspicions that came to my mind during the night, thoughts that were as vivid as the night's menacing darkness, but which disappeared as evanescent foolishness with the brightness of day. Nevertheless. I talked to him in detail about the little girl whose head was wrapped in the golden kerchief.

“Hmm,
Stalker
…” Mr. Shigeto said. “I can't comment on a movie I haven't seen. And I haven't heard of a Russian word like
stalker
. But it's a movie title, so perhaps they're using a new word from English or something. We do that a lot in Japan, too, don't we? If it's
stalker
, then it's a person who pursues game. Couldn't be
stoker
, someone who tends a furnace. … This girl, who's protected from the cold air with the golden
platok
, is probably going home, preciously borne on her father's shoulders, so I don't think her parents usually think of her as an ‘accursed child.’ Such a thought enters the guide's wife's mind only when she's downhearted and wants to reproach her husband. … And the guide obviously loves his family, for he says he has no intention of taking his wife and child to the perilous Zone. At the same time, he has a sense of mission to escort those who have a reason to go there. In other words, he's stuck on the Zone. And that's why he can't get a steady job. His wife nags him about this, but she wholeheartedly cares for his well-being. Which is to say, they're a beautiful family.”

When, after saying this, Mr. Shigeto noticed his wife by his side smiling at him, the expression on his face suddenly became what you would want to call solemn.

“I believe Tarkovsky expressed his intent very well on the screen,” I said. “I feel it's only my limited powers of understanding that leave me unable to decide whether the child who moves those glasses with her stare is Christ in his Second Coming, or the antichrist.”

“I'll have to watch the movie to comment on that,” Mr. Shigeto replied, “… but for the moment, let me think of it this way—though only from what you've told me, mind you. An entire village disappears after a meteor hits it. That's how big the disaster is. After such a calamity, a yearning for the ‘millennium’ often spreads among the populace, and many so-called messiahs appear. Now if I were to say whether or not the guide represents the existence of one such messiah, I would say no. But couldn't the Room in the Zone where the guide leads the people, the Room itself, be a messiah? For you say that it fulfills the cherished, secret wishes of its visitors; and because it fulfills their wishes, some of the visitors are thrown into such despair that they have to hang themselves. But a place can't be human, can it?

“Looking at it this way, it all comes down to the child. She has yet to make formal use of her powers, but it seems the potential is there. I wouldn't put it past her if she became Stalker Junior. She'll turn out to be a person with ample savvy, unlike her dutiful but slow and benign father. Then the only question becomes: Is she Christ or the antichrist? The part you told me about, where the guide leads his charges through a pool of water, is to me an image of baptism. And so, in the end, the redeeming role of the Room in the Zone is, in itself, an image of Christ. But with a multitude of people rushing to the Zone and dying there, or even with things going well, if the fulfillment
of their earthly wishes is merely a matter of desire, then I guess you would have to think of her as the havoc-wreaking antichrist, even if she were to pave the way for Christ's Second Coming. … In any event, a child messiah taking charge of the ‘millennium’ after devastation by a meteor makes an intriguing story.”

“A dog anxiously whines,” I said, “as the child concentrates on the power of her eyes to move the glasses on the table. Being a dog, perhaps it hears the distant din of the train before the human ear would, especially since it's new to the apartment. Anyway, when the train's rumble becomes loud, one of the glasses that's moved to the edge of the table falls to the floor and breaks into pieces. Up to this point you saw the child's face behind the glass, so now you see it better, and the expression on it appears to be savoring the sound of destruction … and then you hear music. Beethoven, wasn't it, Eeyore?”

“Yes,” replied Eeyore. “It was the ‘Ode to Joy.’ It's more than twenty minutes if you play it straight through, but in the movie it was very short!”

Both Mr. Shigeto and his wife appeared happy to hear Eeyore promptly respond to a question about music. Until then he'd been sitting there quietly, though it was highly dubious whether he understood what we were talking about.

“Ma-chan, when Eeyore's with you, you always share your topics of discussion with him, don't you? And it's so natural, the way you do it. Ma-chan is quite a person, don't you think, Eeyore?”

“Does that have a good meaning?” Eeyore thoughtfully asked for assurance.

“The best meaning,” replied Mrs. Shigeto. Her husband's face again turned solemn.

“I think Ma-chan is quite a person, too,” Eeyore said for me.

There was no music lesson scheduled for the following Thursday, but Mrs. Shigeto phoned to invite us over. Mr. Shigeto seems to truly enjoy teaching Eeyore, and he greeted us with a dash of ceremony, his welcoming mood much happier than usual. Eeyore, too, I know, enjoys his lessons with Mr. Shigeto. But I could tell from the way he sat beside me on the sofa— that day more relaxed, his face thrust forward, all ready to listen to Mr. Shigeto—that he, also, was particularly happy. Mr. Shigeto immediately revealed to us the reason for their invitation.

“I saw
Stalker
, too,” he said. “The commercial version. At my friend's place. He's an expert on Russian literature, and he said the version you saw on television must have been more or less the same. First, about the term
stalker
. Just as I thought, it's straight from the English
stalker
. It's just spelled in Russian. This is how it appears on the screen.” He printed
CTAIIKEP
on a piece of paper for me. “Hoh!” Eeyore breathed out in utter amazement at a printed letter with an unusual form. “I checked in some of the modern dictionaries of the Russian language my friend had, but it wasn't listed there,” Mr. Shigeto continued. “I looked in both Academy's and Ushanko's four-volume dictionaries. I tried Ozhekov's, too.
Dictionary of New Words of the Seventies
didn't have it either. This means it isn't Russian, but a loanword, and a new one at that. My friend told me he had read, in Russian, the novel on which the movie is based. He said that although
CTAIIKEP
appeared in it, the title of the book was totally different:
Roadside Picnic
by the Strugatsky brothers. Even as a movie title I think this would have been more chic.”

‘… I'm sorry I made you go to so much trouble,” I said, feeling much obliged, and Eeyore, who was seated beside me, appeared to stiffen his body. I should have known better than to ask an offhand question of a scholar.

“No, no,” Mr. Shigeto said. “You see, I'm getting lazy, and I hardly ever go out these days, much less to see a movie. I wouldn't have known about this one if you hadn't told me. But don't you think the actor who played the guide was good, that he did a great job expressing the character's agony? What his wife said about him being derided, being called a slowpoke and a ne'er-do-well, came through very well. His acting also enabled me to quite naturally accept why, even though this man is being so dolefully tormented, a beautiful young girl marries him, and says how much she loves him and can do nothing about it. It reminded me that things like this can happen.”