I Called Him Necktie (3 page)

My room was like a cave, as always. I had grown up here. I had essentially lost my innocence here. I mean, growing up signifies a loss. You think you are winning. Really you are losing yourself. I mourned the child I had once been, whom I heard in rare moments pummeling wildly in my heart. At thirteen it was too late. At fourteen. At fifteen. Puberty a battle, I lost myself by the end. I hated my face in the mirror, the growing, the surging within. The scars on my hand all stem from the attempts to make it better. Countless mirrors smashed. I didn’t want to be a man who thinks he is winning. Didn’t want to fit into any suit. Not to be a father who tells his son: You must work. Father’s voice. Mechanical. He worked. When I looked at him I saw a future in which I would slowly, too slowly, lose my life. Nothing works, I replied. And then: I can no longer. This last sentence was my maxim. The motto that defined me.

Defined in that way I was sitting on my bench when he suddenly reappeared, exactly at nine. It was a Thursday, I remember: He arrived hunched over, as if under a heavy load. I thought he’d aged overnight, with wrinkles on his neck as he nodded to me. So there you are. I nodded back. And more than that: I nodded an invitation. To my own amazement I nodded to him, who had aged, and even nodded again when he came towards me, warily, across the frontier, and offered me a cigarette.

Ohara Tetsu. He bowed slightly.
Hajimemashite.*
You don’t smoke? That’s good. Better not to start at all. It’s an addiction. I need it, you see. He sat down beside me,
his briefcase between us. The clicking of the lighter, he puffed away. One of those things I can’t stop. Again I nodded. I’ve tried everything. No use. Can’t get away from it. Don’t have the willpower. I’m sure you know about that. A husky voice, he coughed quietly. In the firm, he continued, everyone smokes. It’s the stress, it never stops. In the firm. He bent down, stubbed out the cigarette. We spent the rest of the morning in silence on our bench.

Now and then someone came by. A mother pushing a stroller. A man limping. A group of truants in crumpled uniforms. The earth was turning, birds were flying. A butterfly landed for a few seconds on the bench across from me. Sitting together we watched as it swooped away. A faint recognition that from now on there was no going back.

Kyōko made this, he said, as he unpacked his bento at midday.
Karaage*
with potato salad. My wife. She’s a wonderful cook. Want some? No? He smiled in embarrassment. You know, she gets up every morning at six o’clock to prepare my bento. For thirty-three years. Every morning at six. And the best thing about it: It tastes wonderful! He rubbed his belly. Almost too good, he hesitated, for someone like me. But I’m lucky, aren’t I? And with that he started eating.

In my inner eye I saw Kyōko, his wife, in her nightgown standing in the kitchen. Sizzling oil. A fleck of marinade on her sleeve. She chops and stirs. Peels. Cuts. Salts. The whole house is filled with the sound of chopping and stirring. Of peeling. Cutting. Salting. He wakes up. Still half asleep he thinks: I’m lucky. He thinks it with a sadness almost
unbearable in its infinity: I have damned good luck. He gets up. Goes into the bathroom. Bends over the sink and turns on the cold, very cold, water. Puts his face in it, his hair, his neck. Turns the tap further. Comes up. Turns it off. Stays under. Hears the glugging in the drain. Turns it on. Off. On. Off. Watches how the water separates into drops, the drops into dribbles. A smear of toothpaste on the edge of the sink. White on white. He pushes his finger in and – Kyōko doesn’t know. A faint burp. He spoke as if to himself: Kyōko doesn’t know that I come here. I haven’t told her. Stretched syllables: I ha-ven’t to-ld her that I lo-st my jo-b.

The pause afterwards. I had become a confidant. As soon as it was uttered, his secret made us allies. It weighed on my feet, and it was impossible now to get up and go. He had confided in me, me alone. I regarded my shoes, which pinched. Shapeless and worn out. He stretched his heels out half a meter in front of him. Black leather, polished smooth. Father’s shoes, it went through my head. I wonder whether he too sometimes has a longing to confide in someone. With some bitterness I noticed: I knew less about him than about the person whose name I had only discovered barely three hours ago. One more reason to stay sitting beside him and to nod to him over his briefcase and beyond.

It was pretty strange. He continued speaking. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell Kyōko. No, I wanted to. But then I couldn’t bring myself to. Something held me back. Habit, maybe. Gray smoke escaped from his mouth. The habit of getting up early and washing my face. She puts on my tie. As I leave I call out: Have a good day. She calls out:
You too. She waves goodbye. At the first bend in the path I turn back towards her. Her figure in front of the house. Like a fluttering flag. I could run back. But there’s the bus coming. I get in. It goes to the station. Onto the express train. To the A. Into the subway. To the O. In its way, it works. I don’t. He was still laughing. It works.

And you? What brings you here? I shrugged my shoulders. No idea? Hm, you’re still young. Eighteen? I froze. Nineteen? Twenty? Incredible, so young. You have everything before you. No past. He sighed. Incredible, to have been so young once myself. Although what does that mean? There is only one age for anyone. I was and am, will always be fifty-eight. But you. Be careful what age you end up. It sticks to you. It seals you shut. The age you choose is like glue, it sets around you. This wisdom is not mine, you know. I got it from a book. A movie. I’m not sure. You notice things. It’s incredible. Your whole life you notice things.

As he read the newspaper I considered what he had said. Yet the more I considered it, the What escaped me and instead, the How took hold of me. The weary note that gave the words a bitter taste. Whether young or incredible, both had, the way he said them, acquired a stringent, heavy tone, and both were, as I had heard them, one and the same word. That’s how you speak, I thought, when you have been silent for a long time. All words are the same to you then and you can hardly understand how one differs from another. Whether glue or life, it didn’t make all that much difference.

His sleep came suddenly. On page two of the sports section it caught him. Leaning back he’d dozed off, his head bowed. His palms open over a picture of the Giants baseball team. A network of lines. Crossing the heartline. Grimy black print on his right forefinger. Again he looked like a child. Harmless. Vulnerable in his innocence. And again I felt the need to cover him, a natural desire to protect him somehow from harm.

When he woke up it was already past five thirty. Yawning, he stretched and wiped the dust from his eyes. A few more minutes, he said, blinking, then the day will be done. No overtime today. He folded up the newspaper. The nicest thing about working is the coming home. My first words when I come through the door, standing inside the entrance. It smells of garlic and ginger. Freshly steamed vegetables. I stand in the entrance, savor this smell and say: The nicest thing about working is the coming home. Kyōko calls me an idiot. From her it sounds so gentle. No offense meant. Do you understand. She could call me a lot worse things. A liar, a deceiver. And yet it would be with the same tenderness, I really hope, as when she calls me an idiot. Although. I’d rather not know. So long as there is hope, I’d rather not know how it would be if I told her the truth. What’s the point after all? She deserves better than the truth, so much better.

Five to six. He straightened his tie. Not too fast. Rather as if he had to restrain himself. A horse in harness, pulling at the reins. Again and again he shook his hand above him, pushed back the shirtsleeve, looked at his watch. I’m
going now. Three minutes to six. No, wait a bit. Two minutes to six. Now, really. One minute to six. So then? Till tomorrow? I nodded. He spoke quietly, almost too faint to hear: Thank you so much. A last glance at his wrist. Exactly six. He got up with a jerk. I imitated him. We stood eye to eye, the same height. Goodbye. My voice. After two years of silence it was as translucent as glass. Goodbye. That was it. A crisp conjunction of consonants and vowels. Once more I was mute. Then it shot out of me: My name is Taguchi Hiro. I am twenty years old. Twenty is the age I have chosen. I bowed, awkwardly, stayed in the bow till he had gone. A strange satisfaction: I can still do it. Introduce myself to someone. I have not forgotten. Even though my name might dissolve on my tongue.

As I walked home, I imagined how his story would unfold. Perhaps it was enough that he had confided in me, and he would go home and speak up. But perhaps not. Perhaps he would delay it until the last savings were exhausted. And perhaps that was what he was waiting for: That Kyōko would figure it out. That she would wake up one morning with an uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. She would start to investigate, find him out, put him on the spot. And perhaps we really were like each other in that way. We watched as everything slid away from us, and felt some relief at not being able to set things straight. Perhaps that was the reason we’d encountered each other. To simultaneously and irrevocably realize that it was impossible for us now to change what has happened to us. So perhaps his story was my story too. It concerned what he had neglected, what could not now be changed.

So many people going home. So many shoes in step, I
was out of step. There ahead of me under the street lamp I saw Father coming from work, past a flowering bush, his gaze on the ground. He did not see me. I had quickly hidden behind a vending machine. I wanted to spare us, him and me, the pain of meeting outside on the street and not knowing what to say. Only when he had gone around the corner did I feel sorry that I had not wished him good evening, at the very least.

A lovely day, isn’t it? When the sky is so blue, one would love to drive out to the seaside. Too bad, really. He looked down at himself, shaking his head. I am free and yet I am not. But tomorrow is another day. He sat down. Sighed. So, Taguchi Hiro. I thought you were mute and somehow that would have been alright by me. Not really of course, if you see what I mean. He scratched his chin. In the green of the trees behind him, a runner flung her arms in the air. She trotted on, wearing a red headband. From the street came a gentle honking. The sound of cars rising and falling away in the surrounding bushes, staying outside the innermost circle that contained us.

He picked up where he had left off. Really it would be alright if Kyōko found out that I come here. It’s a comfort to me, the idea that she may know, instinctively, in her heart; it would make her, if she knew, my accomplice, did it for my sake. Sad, isn’t it. The idea that she would play along, willingly. Early this morning, when she tied my tie, she said, and she said it seriously: If only one were crazy enough to do everything differently. To break out for once, she said and drew a breath. That would have been the moment to admit to her that I’ve been outside for a long time. But then she finished tying the tie and
what remained was only the shame. I’m ashamed of my shame. How much effort I use, to conceal it from myself and from Kyōko. It’s like this: it’s not just my job that I’ve lost. The biggest loss is self-respect. That’s where the descent begins. When you stand at the end of a crowded platform, see the lights of the approaching train and find yourself calculating the exact moment when a leap onto the rails would mean certain death. You take a step forward. You think Now! Now! Now! And then: Nothing! Such a dark Nothing! You’re not even up to that. The train rolls in. It’s full of people. You see your reflection in the windows as they glide by and you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

So! He drew himself up. That’s the end. I talk and talk. You must think I can’t stop. Enough about me. Now it’s your turn. Tell me something.

What?

Whatever. The first thing that comes to you. I’ll listen.

And then he leaned back and actually seemed to have nothing else in mind but to listen.

Where to start? I was looking for something that would be worthy of what he had said. It’s difficult, I said. The first thing that occurs to me is that it is difficult to tell something. Every person is an accumulation of stories. But I. I hesitated. I am frightened of accumulating stories. I’d like to be one in which nothing happens. Given that you throw yourself in front of the train in the early morning. What is the use of what I’m telling today? And does it
have any validity? As I said. It’s difficult. The first thing that occurs to me is: We are skating on melting ice.

A fine sentence. He repeated it. We are skating on melting ice. Is it yours?

No, not mine. Kumamoto’s. I swallowed. Kumamoto Akira.

The words flooded out of me. I was a dry riverbed where hard rain falls after years of drought. The ground is quickly soaked through and then there is no stopping. The water rises and rises, way over the banks, pulls down trees and bushes, laps over the land. I felt a release with every word I spoke.

Kumamoto wrote poems. His school notebooks were full of them. Always on the quest for the perfect poem, his obsession, he sat with a pencil stuck behind his ear, completely withdrawn from the world, a poet through and through, a poem in himself.

We were both in our final year. Both under the same pressure to pass. He found it easier than I did. Or rather, he pretended to. What’s the point of learning, he joked, when my path is mapped out. Unmistakably. The footprints that have marked it before me. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my father. All lawyers who have paved the way for me. I don’t have to learn anything. They’ve already done it for me. I just have to regurgitate and spit it out afterwards. That’s what I owe them. Look! He showed me his notebooks. Torn up. Father thinks society doesn’t need misfits. Well, he’s right. I just can’t help it. I’ve spent
hours taping it back together.

Under one strip of adhesive tape I read: Hell is cold.

The most perfect line, he said, that he had ever created.