The diving pool: three novellas (11 page)

The pale light from the courtyard filtered through the window. Tulips were blooming in the flower bed. A single orange petal had fallen on the dark earth. Everything was absolutely still except the Manager's jaw.

My cousin and I watched his preparations as if we were attending some solemn ritual. Pressing the button on the thermos with his toe, he filled the teapot with boiling water, and then, still using his toes, he grasped the pot and poured the tea into the cups. The sound of the thin trickle of hot tea fell into the silence of the room.

The Manager's foot was beautiful. Though he must have used it much more than one normally would, it was flawless, without a single cut or bruise. I studied the fleshy instep, the sole that looked so warm and alive, the translucent nails, the long toes—and I realized I had never considered a foot so closely or carefully, not even my own, which I could only vaguely recall.

I wondered what sort of hands the Manager would have had, and I found myself imagining ten strong fingers extending from broad, fleshy palms, fingers that would have been as graceful and precise as his toes. My eyes wandered to the empty spaces at the ends of his sleeves.

When he had finished preparing the tea, the Manager coughed quietly and removed his leg from the table.

"Please, help yourself," he said, looking down almost bashfully. We bowed and took our tea. My cousin held his cup in both hands and drained it slowly, almost as if he were saying a prayer.

When we had finished, we went to have a look at the room where my cousin would be living and then told the Manager we had to be going. He saw us to the door.

"We'll see you again soon," he said.

"I think I'll be very happy here," my cousin responded. As the Manager bowed, his leg squeaked unpleasantly, and the sound hung between us like a plaintive murmur.

Soon afterward, my cousin moved into the dormitory. It wasn't a complicated process, since he had very little besides the few items we had gathered. We packed these into a cardboard box and sent them by express delivery. Dismayed at the thought of returning to my cocoon existence, I puttered about in search of ways to delay his departure, even by a few minutes.

"I suppose college classes are completely different from high school," he said. "I'm worried I won't be able to keep up. Do you think you could help me with German?"

"Sorry, I took Russian."

"Too bad," he said. Despite his claim to be worried, he seemed quite cheerful as he packed. No doubt it was the prospect of the freedom that lay ahead.

"Let me know right away if you have any trouble. If you run out of money, or get sick, or get lost . . ."

"Lost?"

"Just for instance," I said. "And come to dinner now and then. I'll cook something you like and give you advice about your love life. I'm particularly good in that department." He smiled happily as he nodded to each of my requests.

Then he headed off once more for the dormitory, this time by himself. I can't say why, but this simple parting affected me more than I would have imagined. I watched him walking away, sweater over his shoulders, bag in hand, until he was no more than a tiny point in the distance. I watched, without so much as blinking, and I realized how utterly lonely I was. But all my staring couldn't prevent that distant point from vanishing like a snowflake dissolving in the sunlight.

After he left, I returned to my usual routine: long naps, simple meals, and my patchwork. I found the half-finished quilt in the sewing basket and ironed out the wrinkles. I added patch after patch in every color and pattern, lavender and yellow, gingham check and paisley. First I pinned the seams, and then I would carefully sew the piece to the quilt. I became so absorbed in simply adding one patch to the next that I sometimes forgot what I was making. Then I would spread out the pattern and remind myself that I was working on a quilt or a wall hanging or whatever— before returning to the patches.

I looked at my hand holding the needle, and I thought of the Manager's beautiful foot. I thought of the phantom hands that had disappeared to some unknown place, the tulips in the flower bed, the spot on the ceiling, the frames of my cousin's glasses. They had somehow been wedded in my mind—the Manager, the dormitory, and my cousin.

Soon after school started, I went to visit. It was a beautiful day, and the petals of the cherry blossoms had begun to fall like tiny butterflies settling to earth. Unfortunately, my cousin was still at the university, but I decided to look in on the Manager while I waited for him. We sat on the porch and ate the strawberry shortcake that I'd brought for my cousin.

Though the new semester had started, the dormitory was as quiet as ever. At one point I thought I heard footsteps from deep within the building, but the sound died away almost immediately. When I had lived here, there was always a radio playing somewhere, or laughter or a motorbike engine racing, but now it seemed that all signs of life had faded. The orange tulips in the flower bed had been replaced by deep red ones, and a honeybee flew in and out of the crimson petal cups.

"Is he getting along all right?" I asked, looking down at the shortcake.

"Yes, he seems fine," the Manager said. "He ties his books on the back of his bike every morning and rushes off to school." Grasping the fork with his toes, he scooped up a bite of cake and whipped cream.

The tiny dessert fork suited his foot. The curve of the ankle, the delicate movement of the toes, the luster of the nails—it all went perfectly with the glistening silver.

"He says he's playing team handball. He must be quite good."

"I don't think so," I said. "He played in high school, but his team was only second or third in the prefecture championships."

"But he certainly has the build to be an athlete. You don't see too many people with bodies like that," the Manager said. "I should know." The bite of cake that had been trembling on his fork was deposited in his mouth, and he chewed it with infinite care. "When I meet someone for the first time, I pay no attention to his looks or personality; the only thing that interests me is the body as a physical specimen." As he spoke, he scooped up another bite of cake. "I notice little irregularities right away: an imbalance between the biceps, signs of an old sprain in the ring finger, an oddly formed ankle. I catch those kinds of things in the first few seconds. When I remember someone, I think of the sum of the parts—the hands and feet, the neck, the shoulders and the chest, the hips, the muscles, the bones. There's no face involved. I'm particularly interested in the bodies of young people—given my line of work. But don't misunderstand me—I'm not interested in
doing
anything to them; to me, it's like looking at pictures in a medical dictionary. But I suppose that sounds strange."

I stared at my fork, unable to respond. The Manager swallowed the second bite of cake.

"I don't know how it feels to use four limbs. I suppose that's why I'm so fascinated by other people's bodies." I glanced at his artificial leg hanging over the edge of the porch. The dull metallic color peeked out between his sock and the hem of his kimono. He seemed to be enjoying his cake; after each bite he would lap the cream from the end of his fork and then carefully lick his lips.

"At any rate, I can assure you he has a marvelous body—perfect for team handball. Strong fingers to grip the ball, a flexible spine for the jump shot, long arms for blocking, powerful shoulders for the long pass . . ."

It seemed he could go on forever about my cousin's body. I listened uncomfortably as he formed his lips, still sticky from the whipped cream, around the words "spine" and "shoulders."

A soft breeze was blowing and the garden was filled with sunlight. The bee that had been hovering around the tulips flew between us and disappeared into the Manager's room, coming to rest in the middle of the spot on the ceiling. The spot seemed to have grown a good deal since I'd first seen it. It was still round, but the color had darkened, as if all the shades in the paint box had been mixed together. The transparent wings of the bee flashed brilliantly against the dark stain.

The Manager had been saving the strawberry on the top of his cake, but now he popped it in his mouth. There was still no sign of my cousin. I listened for his bike but heard only the droning of the bee's wings. The Manager began to cough quietly, as if he were muttering to himself.

In the end, I never saw my cousin that day. He phoned to say that he had something to do at the university and would be late getting home.

About ten days later, I paid my next visit to the dormitory. This time I decided to take an apple pie, but again I was unable to deliver the gift to my cousin.

"He just called to say that there was an accident on the train line and he was stuck somewhere." The Manager was out sweeping the yard with a bamboo broom.

"What kind of accident?"

"He said that someone jumped in front of the train."

"Oh," I said, clutching the pastry box to my chest. I pictured the body on the tracks, crushed like an overripe tomato, the hair tangled in the gravel, bits of bone scattered over the railroad ties.

Springtime had come to the dormitory. A gentle breeze softened even the broken bicycle abandoned in one corner of the garden. There was still a trace of warmth coming from the pie in the box.

"But you've come all this way," said the Manager. "You might as well stay awhile."

"Thank you," I said.

The garden was well tended, but the Manager worked the broom vigorously, sweeping the same spot again and again until he had gathered every leaf and twig. Bent over to hold the broom under his chin, he seemed lost in thought as he worked.

The bamboo scraped quietly in the dirt. I glanced up at my cousin's room and noticed a pair of tennis shoes hanging on the balcony.

"It's quiet around here," I said.

"It certainly is," the Manager agreed. The sound of the broom continued.

"How many students do you have now?"

"Very few," he said, a bit evasively.

"Other than my cousin, how many new students moved in this year?"

"He was the only one."

"But it must be lonely with so many empty rooms. I remember one time I didn't go home for the New Year's holiday, and I was so frightened I couldn't sleep." The Manager said nothing. "Are you advertising?" Still nothing. A deliveryman on a motorbike passed by outside the gate.

Suddenly, the Manager spoke up. "It's because of the rumor."

"The rumor?" I repeated, taken aback.

"It's the rumor that's keeping them away," he said, beginning his explanation as if he were telling a favorite story. "In February, one of the students suddenly disappeared. 'Disappeared' is the only way to describe it—it was as if he dissolved into thin air without so much as a whimper. I wouldn't have believed that a human being with a brain, a heart, with arms and legs and the power of speech could have simply vanished like that. There was nothing about him that suggested he would disappear. He was a freshman, studying mathematics. A brilliant student who had received a prestigious scholarship. He was popular, and he went out with his girlfriend from time to time. His father teaches at a university somewhere, and his mother writes children's books. There was a cute little sister, too. He seemed to have everything going for him. So it didn't make sense that he would suddenly vanish."

"There were no clues at all? A call, a note?"

The Manager shook his head.

"The police did a thorough investigation. They seemed to think he'd got himself mixed up in some sort of bad business, but there was no real evidence. When he disappeared, the only things he had with him were a mathematics text and a notebook."

The broom that had been propped on his shoulder fell to the ground, but he ignored it and went on with his story.

"The police called me in for questioning. . . . I was apparently a suspect. They wanted to know everything I'd done during the week he disappeared. Every word of the conversations I'd had with him, what books I'd read and what they were about, who had called me and what they wanted, what I'd eaten, how often I'd been to the bathroom—everything. They took down every word, recopied it, edited it, read it back to me. It was like sifting through every grain of sand on the beach. It took them three weeks to go over one week of my life—but in the end it was all a waste of time. And I was completely exhausted. The stump on my leg got infected and hurt like the devil. But they never found him."

"But I don't understand," I said. "Had you done something to him? Why did they suspect you?"

"I don't know. But the residents and the neighbors knew that I'd been questioned, and that was enough. They didn't say anything to my face, but the rumors must have been cruel. And since then almost everyone has moved out."

"How awful!"

"Rumors have a life of their own. But what bothers me more is that enormous file they made on my private life. I have no idea where it ended up, and that gives me a sick feeling."

He closed his eyes and started coughing. He tried to say something, apologize perhaps, but ended up coughing even harder. Finally, he was bent double and gasping.