"I'm cold."

"You're cold? It's eighty-six degrees!"

"I don't know, but I'm cold."

I grabbed the blanket that had been kicked down past our feet and pulled it up to our necks and then held her. Her body was rattling a little as she shook ever so slightly.

"Are you feeling well?"

She shook her head a little.

"I'm scared."

"Of?"

"Everything. You're not scared?"

"Not particularly."

She was silent. It was a silence as if she were taking my answer by its hand to confirm its existence.

"You want to have s.e.x with me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry. I can't today."

Still embracing her, I nodded, saying nothing.

"I just had the operation."

"A baby?"

"Yes."

She lessened the pressure with which she was moving her hand around on my back, using her fingers to make small circles behind my shoulders over and over again.

"It's strange, I don't remember a thing."

"Yeah?"

"The man. I've completely forgotten him. I can't even remember his face."

I patted her hair with my palm.

"I felt like I could really fall for him. For just a short instant...you ever fall in love with someone?"

"Yeah."

"Can you remember her face?"

I tried to imagine the faces of the three girls from before, but it was strange, I couldn't bring even one of them clearly into mind.

"Nope," I said.

"Strange. Why do you think that is?"

"Probably because that would be too easy."

With the side of her face pressed to my chest, she nodded silently a few times.

"You know, if you really want to do it, we can probably do something else..."

"Nah, don't worry about it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She once again increased the pressure behind the hand she was moving around on my back. I could feel her b.r.e.a.s.t.s on the center of my stomach. I really wanted to drink a beer.

"Starting quite a few years back, I've failed at lots of things."

"How many years, do you think?"

"Twelve, thirteen...the year my father got sick. I don't remember a single thing before that. Just a bunch of bad stuff. There's always an unlucky wind blowing above my head."

"The winds can change direction."

"You really think so?"

"It's gotta happen sometime."

She was quiet for a moment. In the midst of the dryness of that desert-like silence, she took a second to soak up my words, leaving only bitterness in her mouth.

"I've tried many times to believe that, but it's never worked out. I've tried to get close to people, tried to be more patient, but..."

Without saying another word, we put our arms around each other. She put her head on my chest, her lips nestled lightly on my nipple and was still for a lone time, as if asleep.

For a long time, a really long time, she was silent. Half-dozing, I gazed up at the dark ceiling.

"Mom..." she murmured softly, as if in a dream. She was sleeping.

37

Hey, how's it going? This is Radio NEB's Pop Music Requests. Sat.u.r.day night has come around once again. For the next two hours, we've got lots of great music for you to listen to. By the way, summer is drawing to a close. How was it? Did you have a good summer?

Today, before I start playing records, I'd like to tell you about this letter I received. I'd like to read it for you. Here's the letter: How are you?

I enjoy listening to your program every week. Time goes by quickly; this fall will mark my third year of living in this hospital.

Time really does go by before you know it. Of course, gazing at a little bit of the scenery from the window of my air-conditioned hospital room, the change of the seasons holds little meaning for me, but still, when one season ends, another comes calling, and that really does make my heart dance.

I'm seventeen now, for these last three years I've been unable to read a book, unable to watch television, unable to walk...no, I'm unable to rise from bed, and it's gotten to the point where I can't even shift the positions in my sleep. My sister, visiting me, is the one kind enough to write this letter for me. She stopped going to college so she could look after me. Of course, I'm incredibly grateful to her. What I've learned during my three years of lying in this hospital bed is that even from whatever miserable experience you might have, there is something to be learned, and it's because of this that I can find the will to keep on living.

My illness appears to be related to nerve damage in my spinal cord. It's a terribly debilitating disease, but there is, of course, a chance of recovery. It might only be three percent...but my doctor (a wonderful person) gave me an example ill.u.s.trating the rate of recovery from my illness. The way he explained it, the odds are longer than a pitcher throwing a no-hit, no-run game against the Giants, but not quite as unlikely as a complete shutout.

Sometimes, when I think I'm never going to recover, I get really scared. So scared I want to scream out.

I feel like I'm going to spend my whole life like this, like a stone, lying on my back staring at the ceiling, unable to read a book, unable to walk in the wind, unable to be loved by anyone, growing old here for decades and decades, and then die here quietly, I think of this and I just can't stand it and I get so sad. When I wake up at 3am in the middle of the night, I feel like I can hear the bones in my spine dissolving. In reality, that's probably what's happening. I won't say any more about that unpleasant business. So, like my sister coming here every day, hundreds of times over, to encourage me, I'm going to try to only think positive thoughts. And I'll be able to fall sound asleep at night. Because the worst thoughts usually strike in the dead of night. From my hospital window, I can see the harbor. Every morning, I get out of bed and walk to the harbor and take deep breaths of the ocean air...at least, I imagine that I do. If I could do this just once, just one time, I think I could understand what the world is all about. I believe that. And if I could comprehend just that little bit, I think I'd even be able to endure spending the rest of my life in this bed. Goodbye. Take care.

The letter is unsigned.

It was yesterday, a little after 3pm, when I received this letter. I was sitting in the break room, reading it as I drank coffee, and when my work finished in the evening, I walked down to the harbor, looking up towards the mountains. If you can see the harbor from your hospital room, I expect I can see your hospital room from the harbor. I could see quite a few lights when I looked at the mountains. Of course, I have no idea which of the lights was your hospital room. One thing I saw was the lights of a rundownlooking house, and I could also see the lights of a big mansion. There were hotels, schools, also company buildings. Really just many different kinds of people living their various lives, I thought. It was the first time I'd really thought about it like that. Thinking that, I burst out in tears. It was the first time I'd cried in a really long time. But hey, it's okay, I wasn't crying because I felt sorry for you. What I want to say is this. I'm only going to say it once, so listen up: I love all of you.

Ten years from now, this show and the records I played, and me, if you still remember all this, remember what I told you just now.

I'll play the song she requested. Elvis Presley's Good Luck Charm.

After this song, we've got one hour and fifty minutes left, and we'll go back to the same old lowbrow comedy routine we always do. Thank you for listening.

38

The evening of my return to Tokyo, with my suitcase in hand, I peeked my head into J's Bar. It wasn't open yet, but J let me in and gave me a beer.

"I'm taking the bus back tonight."

Facing the potatoes for the French fries, he nodded a few times.

"I'll be sad to see you go. Our monkey business is finished," he said as he pointed to the picture on the counter. "The Rat is sad, too."

"Yeah."

"Tokyo seems like a lot of fun."

"Anyplace is the same as any other."

"Perhaps. Since the Tokyo Olympics, I haven't left this town even once."

"You like this town that much?"

"You put it best: any place is as good as any other."

"Yeah."

"Still, after a few years go by, I'd like to go back to China one time. I've never been there even once...I think about it when I go down to the harbor and look at the ships."

"My uncle died in China."

"Yeah...lots of people died there. Still, we're all brothers."

J treated me to a few beers, and as a bonus he threw some French fries into a plastic bag and gave them to me to take.

"Thank you."

"No big deal. Just something I felt like doing...hey, you kids grow up so fast. First time I met you, you were still in high school."

I laughed and nodded and said goodbye.

"Take care," J said.

On the bar's calendar, the aphorism written under August 26th was: "What you give freely to others, you will always receive in turn."

I bought a ticket for the night bus, went to the pickup spot and sat on a bench, gazing at the lights of the town. As the night grew later, the lights started to go out, leaving only the streetlights and neon signs. The sea breeze blew over the faint sound of a steam whistle.

There were two station workers, one on each side of the bus door, taking tickets and checking seat numbers. When I handed over my ticket, he said, "Number twenty-one China."

"China?"

"Yeah, seat 21-C, it's a kind of phonetic alphabet. A is America, B for Brazil, C for China, D for Denmark. You'll be upset if you hear me wrong and end up in the wrong seat."

Saying that, he pointed to his partner, who was in charge of consulting the seating chart. I nodded and boarded the bus, sat in seat 21-C, and ate my stillwarm French fries. Things pa.s.s us by. n.o.body can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.

39

This is where my story ends, but of course there's an epilogue.

I'm twenty-nine, the Rat is thirty. Kind of an uninteresting age. At the time of the highway expansion, J's Bar was remodeled and became a nice little place. Going in there, you can see J every day, same as ever, facing his bucket of potatoes, and you can hear the regulars complaining about how much better things used to be as they keep on drinking their beers.

I got married, and I'm now living in Tokyo. Whenever a new Sam Peckinpah movie comes out, my wife and I go to the movie theatre, stop at Hibiya Park on the way back and drink two beers each, scattering our popcorn for the pigeons. Out of Peckinpah's movies, my favorite is Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and she says she likes Convoy the best. Of non-Peckinpah movies, I like Ashes and Diamonds, and she likes Mother Joan of the Angels. Live together long enough, and I guess your interests start to coincide.

Am I happy? If you asked me this, I'd have to say, 'Yeah, I guess.' Because dreams are, after all, just that: dreams.

The Rat is still writing his novels. He sends me copies of them every year for Christmas. Last year's was about a cook in a psychiatric hospital's cafeteria, the one from the year before that was about a comedy band based on The Brothers Karamazov. Same as ever, his novels have no s.e.x scenes, and none of the characters die.

The first page is always a piece of j.a.panese writing paper bearing this message: "Happy birthday, and a White Christmas."