At this point Kita left off pondering the question, and instead drew a piece of paper from his pocket and checked her address and phone number.
Her name had changed to Mizuho Higashi now she was married, but Kita hadn’t taken this on board. It was still Mizuho Nishi who came to him in dreams, transformed herself into a soft pillow, and accepted his embraces. Naturally, she was as she had been during their short honeymoon period together. But it was all rather vague and unsatisfactory, like frolicking with the figure of a ghost. There were times when he thought he heard her voice, but as soon as he listened carefully it would fade into the dialect of passing high school girls.
He could still faintly recall what the sensation of love had been like. Back then, his sensitive nerves had registered her every word, her look, her fingers as they danced on an invisible keyboard, even the gentle breeze that brushed her cheek. Those nerves of his had been primed for her alone.
Had there been anything resembling a beginning, a development and a conclusion in her love, he wondered? The relationship had abruptly ended with the introduction of Higashi, and Kita could scarcely remember how things had begun with himself. He had a feeling he’d drawn her in a game of chance at a university party, but he also seemed to remember that things had begun with him asking her out to a concert of Beethoven’s thirty-second piano sonata by an elderly Russian pianist. Or maybe that time in the park with all the cosmos in bloom had been their first date. The fact was, Kita’s memory of those times had lost all sense of continuity. The passage of time and the seasons were all jumbled up in his mind.
Not that it was all so long ago his memory would naturally become moth-eaten like this. His self of that time wouldn’t have been at all surprised by his present self. Nevertheless, recalling memories of Mizuho Nishi was rather like sorting through strands of memory from early infancy. For one thing, he didn’t really have any memories to speak of – or perhaps he did, but couldn’t really recall them. What remained clearest in his memory from childhood, he wondered?
There was the time he’d fallen from the horizontal bar in the playground, and the world had suddenly gone red. And the time he’d shoplifted that book of Dali’s paintings, and run like crazy toward the river with it.
And what of his relationship with Mizuho?
There was an image of her standing on a station platform, wearing black leather boots. The time when they hadn’t been able to stop laughing as they ate dinner together. The bit of fluff on her eyelash one winter afternoon, and the mosquito bite on her knee that summer evening.
He had to tell himself stories over and over till he half believed them, before he could resurrect happy memories of her. He couldn’t really manage it on his own; he needed to find someone to help him. And if that was impossible, then all he could do was meekly concentrate his energies on trying to forget the bad memories. This was how the memories had come to be censored and moth-eaten to the point where all that was left was a pile of junk.
And had she ever even once been conscious of her relationship with Kita as being in love? It may well be that there’d never been a time when her nerves had tingled at his presence. In fact, those nerves of hers probably only ever really responded to Higashi, he decided.
He asked the way at the police box by the south exit, and set off. On the way, he came across a flower shop, so he got them to make up a ten thousand yen bouquet of yellow roses. He wouldn’t announce an express delivery, he decided, he’d announce that he was delivering some flowers.
He sniffed at the roses as he walked. They smelt to him like the scent of Mizuho’s body.
“Come along Kazuki, hurry up. What’re you doing?”
A woman in a dark blue suit was calling to her son in a low, authoritative voice. The little Kazuki, dressed likewise in dark blue shorts and a white open-necked shirt, was in his own fantasy world, running a toy car along the guard rail and telling himself how the Ferrari hit a camel and exploded. When Kita went by, the boy suddenly yelled, “Hey Mum, those flowers are walking!”
Sure, why shouldn’t flowers walk, after all? Kita thought, and he began to run. As he ran, his spirits lifted. He would get the better of his rival from the Finance Ministry, have lunch with his wife, and at least steal a kiss, he decided.
The site Mizuho’s house stood on was of average size for the neighbourhood, but the white tent-shaped building of reinforced concrete stood out glaringly, expressing its owner’s taste in excruciating detail. Tiles designed like Arabian picture plates graced the entrance pillars and balcony. The tiled fence itself formed a flowerbed in which tulips bloomed. The tiles of the gate pillars were faded from the rays of the sun. The garage doors were closed, but he could faintly discern a Mercedes Benz through the semitransparent glass shutters.
Kita passed the house and walked on another fifty yards. Then he pulled himself together, and turned back. This time, he stopped in front of the gate, but then immediately set off again in the direction of the station. After ten yards, he turned again, went back to the gate, and pressed the intercom button below the sign carved with the name “Higashi.” A toy car and a bicycle with practice wheels stood side by side in the entrance. Until this moment, Kita had scarcely registered that this couple had children.
Clutching his bouquet, Kita retreated. Unfortunately, just at that moment the little boy called Kazuki was coming towards him, holding his mother’s hand. If they were here to visit Mizuho, Kita would lose his chance. He and Kazuki caught each other’s eye. Clutching his toy car, Kazuki pointed at the flowers. “Hey Mum, those flowers are standing there.”
Pretending he’d mistaken the house, Kita moved on, then he began to trot, trying to create more distance between himself and the mother and child. It was the kind of press-the-doorbell-and-run game he hadn’t done for twenty years or more.
“Look! The flowers are running!” Kazuki cried.
This was why he hated kids, Kita thought as he executed another detour. He’d been wandering the neighbourhood for around half an hour by now, and it was past ten thirty. He decided he should find out whether she was at home and whether her children were with her before deciding on his next course of action. He’d telephone. Would she agree to meet him then and there when he asked her to? It couldn’t happen in front of her children. Judging from the toy car and bicycle by the entrance, she may have two kids. Or perhaps there was only one. At any rate, one was clearly a boy, maybe around Kazuki’s age. If she’d had a child soon after marrying, he’d be five or six by now.
He was going to be saying farewell to everything on Friday, yet here he was still unable to make up his mind. He mustn’t be scared of a child. These flowers had business to attend to with Mizuho. He mustn’t be put off. He’d go back to the shining gateway, and press that button.
But there was no need. Mizuho Nishi was standing there in front of the Higashi home. There was no sign of a child. If he kept walking, he’d run straight into her, so Kita paused and appeared to be tying his shoelace in the shade of a tree, while he looked at her.
She hadn’t come out to meet anyone, she was going out in the white Mercedes. From this distance, all he could make out was that she was wearing a black dress, and had short hair. He must hail a taxi right away. The prospect of a taxi in this residential area seemed hopeless, but luckily several soon cruised by on the lookout for department store shoppers. Sinking into one, Kita told the driver, “Follow that Mercedes.”