after the quake

Shimao. It was a news special on the Kobe earthquake. The usual images appeared again and again: tilted buildings, buckled streets, old women weeping, confusion and aimless anger. When a commercial came on, Shimao used the remote to switch off the TV.

“Let’s talk,” she said, “as long as we’re here.”

“Fine,” Komura said.

“Hmm, what should we talk about?”

“In the car, you and Keiko said something about a bear, remember? You said it was a great story.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, nodding. “The bear story.”

“You want to tell it to me?”

“Sure, why not?”

Shimao got a fresh beer from the minibar and filled both their glasses.

“It’s a little raunchy,” she said. “You don’t mind?”

Komura shook his head.

“I mean, some men don’t like hearing a woman tell certain kinds of stories.”

“I’m not like that.”

“It’s something that actually happened to me, so it’s a little embarrassing.”

“I’d like to hear it if you’re OK with it.”

“I’m OK, if you’re OK.”

“I’m OK,” Komura said.

“Three years ago—back around the time I entered junior college—I was dating this guy. He was a year older than me, a college student. He was the first guy I had sex with. One day the two of us were out hiking—in the mountains way up north.”

She took a sip of beer.

“It was fall, and the hills were full of bears. That’s the time of year when the bears are getting ready to hibernate, so they’re out looking for food and they’re really dangerous. Sometimes they attack people. They did an awful job on one hiker just three days before we went out. So somebody gave us a bell to carry—about the same size as a wind-bell. You’re supposed to shake it when you walk so the bears know there are people around and won’t come out. Bears don’t attack people on purpose. I mean, they’re pretty much vegetarians. They don’t have to attack people. What happens is they suddenly bump into people in their territory and they get surprised or angry and they attack out of reflex. So if you walk along ringing your bell, they’ll avoid you. Get it?”

“I get it.”

“So that’s what we were doing, walking along and ringing the bell. We got to this place where there was nobody else around, and all of a sudden he said he wanted to… do it. I kind of liked the idea, too, so I said OK and we went into this bushy place off the trail where nobody could see us, and we spread out a piece of plastic. But I was afraid of the bears. I mean, think how awful it would be to have some bear attack you from behind and kill you when you’re having sex! I would never want to die that way. Would you?”

Komura agreed that he would not want to die that way.

“So there we were, shaking the bell with one hand and having sex. Kept it up from start to finish. Ding-a- ling! Ding-a-ling! ”

“Which one of you shook the bell?”

“We took turns. We’d trade off when our hands got tired. It was so weird, shaking this bell the whole time we were doing it! I think about it sometimes even now, when I’m having sex, and I start laughing.”

Komura gave a little laugh, too.

Shimao clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. “You can laugh after all!”

“Of course I can laugh,” Komura said, but come to think of it, this was the first time he had laughed in quite a while. When was the last time?

“Do you mind if I take a bath, too?” Shimao asked.

“Fine,” he said.

While she was bathing, Komura watched a variety show emceed by some comedian with a loud voice. He didn’t find it the least bit funny, but he couldn’t tell whether that was the show’s fault or his own. He drank a beer and opened a pack of nuts from the minibar. Shimao stayed in the bath for a very long time. Finally, she came out wearing nothing but a towel and sat on the edge of the bed. Dropping the towel, she slid in between the sheets like a cat and lay there looking straight at Komura.

“When was the last time you did it with your wife?” she asked.

“At the end of December, I think.”

“And nothing since?”

“Nothing.”

“Not with anybody?”

Komura closed his eyes and shook his head.

“You know what I think,” Shimao said. “You need to lighten up and learn to enjoy life a little more. I mean, think about it: tomorrow there could be an earthquake; you could be kidnapped by aliens; you could be eaten by a bear. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” Komura echoed.

“Ding-a-ling,” Shimao said.

After several failed attempts to have sex with Shimao, Komura gave up. This had never happened to him before.

“You must have been thinking about your wife,” Shimao said.

“Yup,” Komura said, but in fact what he had been thinking about was the earthquake. Images of it had come to him one after another, as if in a slide show, flashing on the screen and fading away. Highways, flames, smoke, piles of rubble, cracks in streets. He couldn’t break the chain of silent images.

Shimao pressed her ear against his naked chest.

“These things happen,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You shouldn’t let it bother you.”

“I’ll try not to,” Komura said.

“Men always let it bother them, though.”

Komura said nothing.

Shimao played with his nipple.

“You said your wife left a note, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“What did it say?”

“That living with me was like living with a chunk of air.”

“A chunk of air?” Shimao tilted her head back to look up at Komura. “What does that mean?”

“That there’s nothing inside me, I guess.”

“Is it true?”

“Could be,” Komura said. “I’m not sure, though. I may have nothing inside me, but what would something be?”

“Yeah, really, come to think of it. What would something be? My mother was crazy about salmon skin. She always used to wish there were a kind of salmon made of nothing but skin. So there may be some cases when it’s better to have nothing inside. Don’t you think?”

Komura tried to imagine what a salmon made of nothing but skin would be like. But even supposing there were such a thing, wouldn’t the skin itself be the something inside? Komura took a deep breath, raising and then lowering Shimao’s head on his chest.

“I’ll tell you this, though,” Shimao said, “I don’t know whether you’ve got nothing or something inside you, but I think you’re terrific. I’ll bet the world is full of women who would understand you and fall in love with you.”