«Okay, how about the International Date Line? Or
«Shut up, will you? How can you churn out so much garbage so fast?» she struck back. «So you don't like or dislike chocolate, you're just not interested in it. Happy?»
Presently the movie began. I knew the whole story backwards, so I didn't bother paying a lot of attention. Yuki didn't think much of the picture either, if the way she muttered to herself was any indication.
On screen, the handsome teacher Gotanda was explaining to his class how mollusks breathe. Simply, patiently, with just the right touch of humor. The girl lead gazed at him.
«Is that guy your friend?» Yuki asked.
«Yeah.»
«Seems like a real airhead,» said Yuki.
«You said it,» I said. «But only in the film. In real life, he's a good guy.»
«Then maybe he should get into some good movies.»
«That's what he wants to do. Not so easy, though. It's a long story.»
The movie creaked along, obvious and mediocre plot. Mediocre script, mediocre music. They ought to have sealed the thing in a time capsule marked «Late 20th Century Mediocrity» and buried it somewhere.
Finally Kiki's scene came up. The most intense point in the movie. Gotanda and Kiki sleeping together. The Sunday morning scene.
I took a deep breath and concentrated on the screen. Sunday morning sunlight slanting through the blinds, the same
light, same exposure, same colors as always. I'd engraved every detail of that room in my brain. I could almost breathe the atmosphere of that room. Zoom in on Gotanda. His hand moves down Kiki's spine. Sensuously, effortlessly, caressing. The slightest tremor of response runs through her body. Like a candle flame just flickering in a microcurrent of air that the skin doesn't feel. I hold my breath. Close-up of Gotanda's fingers. The camera starts to pan. Kiki's face comes into view. Enter lead girl. She climbs the apartment stairs, knocks on the door, opens it. Once again, I ask myself, why isn't it locked? Makes no sense. But it doesn't have to. It's just a film and a mediocre one at that. The girl walks in, sees Gotanda and Kiki getting it on. Her eyes register shock. She drops her cookies and runs. Gotanda sits up in bed, numbly observing what has transpired. Kiki has her line, «What was
The very same as always. Exactly the same.
I shut my eyes. The Sunday morning light, Gotanda's hand, Kiki's back, everything floats up with singular clarity. A discrete little world existing in a dimension all its own.
The next thing I know, Yuki was bent forward, head on the backrest of the seat in front, with both arms wrapped around herself as if to ward off the cold. Dead silent, not moving a hair. Hardly a sign of breathing.
«Hey, are you all right?» I asked.
«No, I don't feel very well,» Yuki barely squeezed out the words.
«Let's get out of here. Do you think you can manage?»
Yuki half-nodded. I held her stiffened arms and helped her out of the theater. As we walked up the aisle, Gotanda was up on the screen behind us, lecturing the class in biology. Outside, the streets were hushed under a curtain of fine rain. The scent of surf blew in from the sea. Supporting her by the elbow, I walked her slowly to the car. Yuki was biting her lip, not saying anything. I didn't say anything either. The parking lot was scarcely two hundred meters from the theater, but it took forever.
38
I sat Yuki in the front seat and wound her window open. Soft rain fell, undetectable to the eye, though the asphalt was slowly staining black. There was the smell of rain. Some people had their umbrellas up, others walked along as if nothing was coming down. An outstretched hand would be retracted with only a hint of dampness. It was that fine a rain.
Yuki rested an arm on the door and her chin upon that, the tilt of her neck turning her face half out of the car. She held that pose for a good while, not moving except to breathe. Each tiny rise followed by a tiny fall, the slightest crest and trough of breath. How could anyone look so fragile, so defenseless? From where I sat, it seemed that the least impact would be enough to snap off her head and elbow. Was it merely that she was a child, not hardened to the ways of the world, while I was an adult, who, however inexpertly, had endured?
«Is there anything I can I do?» I asked. «Not really,» said Yuki, swallowing as she spoke facedown. The saliva clearing her throat sounded unnaturally loud. «Take me somewhere quiet where there's no people, but not too far.» «The beach?»
«Wherever. But don't drive fast. I might throw up if we bump too much.»
I lifted her head inside onto the headrest, careful as if cradling an egg, and rolled up her window halfway. Then as slowly as the traffic would allow, we headed to the Kunifuzu seaside. We parked the car and walked to the beach, where Yuki vomited onto the sand. There'd been hardly anything in her stomach, only the chocolate and gastric juices. The most excruciating way to get sick. The body is in spasms, but nothing comes. You're wringing out your entire system, until your stomach is a knot the size of a fist. I massaged her back. The misting rain continued, but Yuki didn't notice.
I tried lamely to comfort her.
After ten minutes of this, I wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and kicked sand over the mess. Then holding her by the elbow, I walked her over to a nearby jetty. We sat down, leaning back against the seawall as the rain began to fall. We stared off into the waves, at the cars droning in the background on the West Shonan Causeway. The only people around were standing in the water before us, fishing. They wore slickers and rain hats, their eyes trained somewhere below the horizon, their rods unbending. They didn't turn around to see us. Yuki lay her head on my shoulder, but didn't say a word. We must have seemed like lovers.
Yuki closed her eyes. Breathing so lightly, she seemed to be asleep. Her wet bangs were plastered in a clump across her forehead, her skin still tan from last month. But beneath the overcast sky, Yuki looked sickly. I wiped the rain and tears from her face. Rain kept falling silently over the boundless sea. Self-Defense Force submarine- spotting planes groaned past overhead like dragonflies in heat.
Finally, her head still resting on my shoulder, she opened her eyes and looked at me in soft focus. She pulled a Virginia Slim from her hip pocket and lit up. Or tried to repeatedly—she barely had the strength to light a match. No lectures from me about smoking, not this time. Eventually she got it lit and flicked the match away. Then after two drags on the cigarette, she tossed it away too. It continued burning until the rain put it out.
«Your stomach still hurt?» I asked.
«A little.»
«Let's just stay put a while though. You're not cold?»
«I'm fine. The rain feels good.»
The fishermen were still transfixed on the Pacific. What was the attraction of fishing? It couldn't be merely catching fish. Was it just one of those acquired tastes? Like sitting out on a rainy beach with a high-strung thirteen-year-old?
«Your friend,» Yuki ventured cautiously, her voice cracking.
«My friend?»
«Yeah, the one in the film.»
«His real name's Gotanda,» I said. «Like the station on the Yamanote Line. The one after Meguro and before Osaki.»
«He killed that woman.»
I squinted at Yuki, hard. She looked wan. Her breathing came irregularly, like a nearly drowned soul trawled up from the drink. What was the girl saying? It didn't register. «Killed what woman?» I asked.
«That woman. The one he was sleeping with on Sunday morning.»
I didn't get it. I couldn't get it. What was she talking about? Half-consciously, I smiled and said, «But nobody
