Kizu dozed for a while and then awoke, as if his consciousness had been speared by a gaff, to see Ikuo still stretched out beside him. Ikuo's muscular shoulders-their layers like seams of armor-and his waist and buttocks were covered with droplets of sweat. Kizu raised himself up, choking with excite- ment, picked up the tissue paper box from the side table, and, lying so close to Ikuo he could teel the warmth of his body, began to masturbate. As he ejacu- lated a small amount of semen into the tissue, a light brownish color mixed, r›, Ikuo, whom he thought was asleep, reached over without moving to lay a sweaty hand on the artist's wizened thigh. Eyes closed, Ikuo shifted around, trapped Kizu's weak-looking body in his strong arms, and lovingly kissed Kizu's shoulders. Kizu guessed it was a gesture to assuage his guilty conscience at not wanting to fellate him. But Ikuo's face, close up as he gently kissed Kizu, showed a rapturous satisfaction.
5
Kizu spread out on the floor the drawings he'd done for his as-yet still inchoate tableau with Ikuo modeling for him; Ikuo, Kizu's worn-out dress- ing gown draped over his naked body, came over close to him to stare intently at one drawing in particular, a design Kizu had done on a separate sheet of paper and then attached to the bottom of one of the sketches of Ikuo. After a moment, uneasy, Kizu looked up and saw that, as often happened when he was concentrating on something, Ikuo had the clever, severe expression of a hawk or a falcon. He spoke in dreamy voice, his eyes glazed.
"A strange thought occurred to me that I've experienced this before. I can't really remember, but something in my childhood…"
At first Kizu was startled. Around the time he determined he had had a relapse of cancer, he decided to take his sabbatical in Japan in order to search for that young man from long ago. When this desire had been at its height, he'd even drawn up a sort of wanted-poster sketch of the boy's plastic model under the girl's skirt. Now, without any particular idea in mind, he'd attached this sketch to the drawing he'd done of Ikuo. Kizu looked at this, then turned his gaze to the real Ikuo beside him. Memories of fifteen years before sud- denly zoomed in, and in an instant he saw in Ikuo the fierce canine face and beautiful eyes of that young boy. Once he realized this, Kizu also understood how, ever since they'd first met in the drying room at the club, a voice had been nagging at him, berating him for not seeing the obvious.
In the midst of their now exultant conversation, Kizu laughed out loud a lew times, while Ikuo fell into deep thought. Ikuo had arrived in the morn- ing and didn't leave until sunset; in the afternoon, a powerful cloud bank blew in from the southeast, forming into cirrus clouds with a reddish lower layer.
Reflecting back on how full these hours had been, Kizu felt that everything that had happened to him over the past two or three weeks was a godsend.
"You've really captured that scene well in your sketch," Ikuo had said repeatedly, unable to contain himself. "I don't have any memory of how I actually appeared as a child myself, but this scene of the bulky model I busted my butt to make getting caught in that girl's skirt, and her comically trying to keep her balance, is exactly as I remember it. And her little angry face glar- ing back at me-her whole pose seemed to be making fun of me."
"I can't forget it either, even a mediocre painter like myself, " Kizu said, remembering how it was seeing that scene that convinced him he didn't have any talent.
"I've been self-consciously drawing since I was fourteen or fifteen, and even allowing for the time when I didn't paint, living as an artist has become- to use the expression you've used several times-an ingrained habit. You sketch on paper, synchronizing the speed of your hand movements, so that even if you aren't holding a pencil you retain the scenery, objects, and people in a purely visual memory."
Ikuo listened carefully to Kizu's excited words, at the same time star- ing entranced at the drawing of the young girl balancing strangely on one leg.
Kizu came back to reality.
"I know where this young girl is now," he said. "The newspaper com- pany told me. I even phoned once, trying to check it out on my own."
"What did she sound like?"
"As you might expect, she's a unique young woman. There's a certainty in her voice, the way she talks, that you don't find in young Japanese girls these days. And when I remember how she clutched your model, trying her hard- est not to lose her balance and let it fall, she's definitely not an average sort of girl. I don't have many memories as clear as that one. It's not just because of her, but she holds a treasured spot in my mind-along with the memory of the light I saw in a very special young boy who destroyed his own creation."
"Up to that age I was just an ordinary child," Ikuo said slowly, still lost in his own memories. "I was crazy about making all kinds of models, from preformed plastic pieces or from pieces of wood I carved with a knife; some- times I'd go for days with hardly any sleep. Constantly making something made me feel like I was telling a story in words.
"What I remember is that the girl was a strange one. When she got caught up by the model it was like she was challenging me. I remember hat- ing her because I lost the chance to win the top prize and get a free trip to Disneyland in California."
But now aren't you a little nostalgic when it comes to her?" Kizu asked excitedly. "You want to start a new life, right? Aside from the question of being a free man, this might be a good opportunity for you. Think about it.
11 s pretty extraordinary for that one day in the past to come back to life at a single stroke for three people. Why don't we invite her for dinner? Consid- ering the dramatic way you two first met, how could she pass up the chance f°r a reunion? We can use this sketch as a thank-you present."
3: SOMERSAULT
1
The young girl, who fifteen years before had been pierced by Ikuo's plastic model and yet managed painfully to maintain her balance, was now of course a grown woman, and when Kizu's invitation came she readily ac- cepted. Kizu was overjoyed to hear her say that after his first phone call to her she had remembered everything that happened on that long-ago day. She hastened to add that she was working now in the office of a religious move- ment and wouldn't be able to spare much time. She asked if they could meet during her lunch break, near the Seijo Gakuenmae Station, not far from her office.
The way she responded was so typical of this new generation of Japa- nese, Kizu mused, for when he invited her out for a meal she immediately asked if she could go ahead and make a reservation in a French restaurant she knew. They decided on a date and time, and the next day a fax arrived for Kizu with a map indicating landmarks such as an old Catholic church and the route the buses take to Shibuya, as well as a photo of the restaurant itself, an old-style former Japanese residence with a large zelkova tree in front.
On Friday the three of them settled into their seats at the restaurant under a clear plastic roof and the lush foliage of the zelkova branches. The young woman sat by the window on one side, with Kizu seated across from her and Ikuo by his side.