Etsuko’s uniform was ready. In a twinkling the clerk had unfolded it so I could verify that it was perfect. I inclined my head. Thanking me in a chirp of little-girl sweetness, she re-formed it into its original rectangular bundle, which would have done credit to the most fastidious demonstrator of Euclid, wrapped it in sky-blue paper decorated with opened white books and golden chrysanthemums, wove a pink ribbon around it, crowning and locking it with three beautiful knots, bowed her head and offered it to me with both hands. Bowing, I paid, and again she thanked me as if I had done her the greatest favor in the world. As I left the shop she was already cooing and bowing to the next customer.
The uniform had cost twice as much as Nakano said it would. I began to feel worried and sad. How could my ease have come to an end, for no reason? In my life I had never squandered a single yen; every expenditure had gone to satisfy my very reasonable desires. For example, when Nakano required a new kimono, simply because she was tired of the ones her mother had left her, it made me happy to please her, never mind that we might have bought a car for the same price. What would I do now? I could pay next month’s rent, but the month after might be chilly. For a good three years that client had fed me with projects; I had not changed, so why had he? Was I now expected to touch death’s flat golden leafwork on the lacquered doors of night? It was clear that when I told Nakano what had occurred, she would look me over with hatred and contempt. Then I would pay for her lettuce sandwich, and we would go home to Etsuko. Nakano’s lined face was proof that life wears us out, either through worry about losing what no one can keep, or by disappointment about never having gotten it. Tonight would find me sleeping on the floor, no doubt, while Nakano lay rigid on our futon, sobbing silently. Why didn’t the client accept responsibility for that also? Tomorrow morning I should have been going away on another business trip: rainy white skies and concrete lattices smearing themselves against the windows of an express train. Tomorrow evening would then have clothed me in a sweaty yellow evening light on the return train to Tokyo, the conveyance hissing and humming, my ears singing the song of death. Although I disliked going away from Nakano and Etsuko, now I finally perceived how much I enjoyed those moments like flashing windows when one long train speeds past another, both reflected in the watery windows of rice fields; and of course I never failed to feel important when speeding across the sunset bridge.
An old woman whose spine was so badly crooked that she did not even reach to my waist staggered slowly down the sidewalk, clutching a shopping bag in each hand. Diagnosis: calcium insufficiency. Nakano’s mother might have ended up like that, had she lived longer. The old woman stooped so far forward that from the rear she appeared to be decapitated. How much longer could she creep on, and how much pain must she endure — and for what? I would have helped her, but Nakano was waiting.
So I turned away down Chuo-dori, into the promenading crowds, the huge advertising screen in the cylindrical brand-name tower of the many windows, with the café at the bottom named after a mediocre coffee chain. Nakano had left the café, it seemed. Bowing indifferently, the waitress presented me with a note from her; I was no longer to trouble myself with her affairs. I thanked the girl and walked away, not knowing where to take myself; and not even the sunshine on the creamy golden calves of little uniformed schoolgirls consoled me.
Our flat lay an hour and a half from the Ginza: three changes of subway, a bus so crowded that one could rarely sit down, another bus and then a fifteen minute walk. Nakano had found the place when my income became less regular. Perhaps I should have gone straight there. After all, I needed to pack my belongings. Etsuko, who adored me, would jump up and down when I opened the door. I would take snapshots of her in her uniform, and her mother might smile for an instant before she expelled me. But when I reached the subway station, my legs declined to stop. Before I knew it, I had rounded the corner, and reached the Kabuki-za.
Instead of the accustomed line of ticket-buyers and — holders there stood a vague horde, most of them on the sidewalk in front of the theater, and others, the ones with zoom lenses or a yearning for lost panoramas, across the street. They aimed their cameras upward at the row of white-and-black-crested red beehive lanterns above the awning; above these, that familiar wide white arch with the flattened ends roofed the portico; then rose the high façade which was now merely an outermost sarcophagus. The signboards no longer bore the likenesses of brilliant warrior-actors and onnagatas in many-hued kimonos. This saddened me more than my own failures. The authorities had already fenced off the theater with black-and-yellow-striped plastic bars connected by waist-high plastic cones. I could have stepped over them, but someone would have scolded me. Gazing in beneath the awning, I saw a certain door striped wood-brown and tan — closed now. How many times had I entered it?
The window of the semicylindrical box office had closed, and inside, a white sign with black characters marched down it. Behind the purple awning, the three pairs of brass-handled, red-lacquered doors were shut, and through their panes I could see nothing but the crowd’s dark reflections.
Behind the plate-glass windows of the Miu Miu department store stood two mannequins whose well-shapen legs were crystalline plastic, whose arms and heads were brass armatures and whose white skirts were embroidered with red fish-scales around their narrow waists. As I contemplated the glittering silver geoglyphs where their breasts should have been, that same bent crone approached me, creeping and groaning. She had set down those two heavy shopping bags somewhere, but seemed no less weighed down. Bowing, she informed me: Your prayers will no longer be accepted.
By the time I finally returned to our apartment, nobody lived there, and even the number had been obliterated. As I watched, workmen began to carefully demolish the building. A bridge of silver paper was rolling itself up into the sky.
I set down Etsuko’s parcel on the sidewalk, knelt, bowed and clapped my hands. Then I rose and walked away, wishing to spend the rest of my money at once.
Across the street stood a stationery shop where I used to buy Etsuko’s school supplies. She used to cry out for joy and clap her hands when I brought her a new pink notebook whose cover depicted yellow butterflies, or a bookbag dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu, or a lacquered vermilion pencil. Entering this establishment, and exchanging bows with a pretty, chirpy clerk in a black-and-yellow uniform, I discovered just past the magnifiers and inkstones a new subdepartment devoted to folded-paper figurines. A certain warrior wore wide-legged pantalons with a gold-on-cream pattern of upside-down waves; he was as flat and broad as a Noh actor. A certain slender lady, as faceless as a Heian beauty, lived straight and stiff in her cellophane envelope. The hem of her vermilion gown had been neatly creased back to show naked white paper. Most of these origami personages, as I should really call them, were not previously known to me, although I thought to recognize the last Regent of Kamakura. Their beauty aroused my greed, so I bought more than twenty of them. They were all the same price. Counting sweetly in a low voice, the clerk showed me the total, and bowed once more when I paid. The light gleamed on her edible cheeks.
Then I went next door and bought a bottle of sake which was wrapped in a brown-spotted bamboo leaf tied with coarse black cord. Since I still possessed money, I proceeded to the next building, where, abutting the wooden façade of an old shop, there rose a curvy-cornered pillar with a sliding steel grating which must have once opened and closed from side to side, and above this, red and white in plastic relief announced TOBACCO; and from the next storey upward it was all hotel. I checked in. They made me pay in advance. Then I took the elevator to my room.