We walked on, talking from time to time and then falling silent. There was something else on my mind besides the Manager's physical condition. I kept thinking about what he'd said about the dormitory "disintegrating" in some "peculiar way," but I couldn't come up with a good way to mention this to my cousin. While I was still thinking, we turned the last corner and found ourselves in front of the dormitory.
It had clearly aged. There was no striking change in the overall appearance, but each individual detail-the doorknob in the front hall, the rails on the fire escape, the antenna on the roof-seemed older. It was probably just normal wear and tear, given how long I'd been away. But at the same time there was something deep and weary about the silence that hung over the place, something almost sinister that could not be explained away by the fact that it was spring break and the residents would be absent.
I paused for a moment at the gate, overcome more by this silence than by nostalgia. Weeds had grown up in the courtyard, and someone had left a helmet by the bicycle rack. When the wind blew, the grass seemed to whisper.
I looked from window to window, searching for any sign of life. They were all tightly closed, as if rusted shut, except one that stood open just a crack to reveal a bit of faded curtain. The dusty porch was littered with clothespins and empty beer cans. Still staring up at the building, I took a step forward and brushed lightly against my cousin. We looked at each other for a moment and then walked through the door.
Inside, everything was strangely unchanged. The pattern on the doormat, the old-fashioned telephone that took only ten-yen coins, the broken hinges on the shoe cupboard-it was all just as it had been when I'd lived here, except that the profound stillness made all these details seem somehow more solitary and forlorn. There were no students to be seen, and as we penetrated deeper into the building, the silence seemed to grow denser. Our footsteps were the only sound, and they were quickly muffled by the low plaster ceiling.
We had to pass through the dining hall to reach the Manager's room. As the Manager had said on the phone, it had been out of service since the cook had been let go, and everything was spotless and tidy. We made our way cautiously among the empty tables.
My cousin knocked on the Manager's door, and after a moment it opened haltingly, as if it were caught on something. His door had always opened this way, since the Manager had to bend over double to turn the knob between his chin and collarbone and then drag the door back with his torso.
"Welcome."
"Pleased to meet you."
"I'm sorry I've been so out of touch."
We muttered our respective greetings and bowed. The Manager wore a dark blue kimono, just as he always had. He had a prosthetic leg, but the sleeves hung empty at his sides. As he twisted his shoulder in the direction of the couch and told us to sit down, they flapped loosely against his body.
When I lived in the dormitory, I had always conducted my business with the Manager while standing in the doorway, so this was the first time I'd been in this room. I looked around with a certain curiosity. It was a small but well-organized space, and everything in it had been designed to make his life easier. Everything-the pens, the pencils, the dishes, the television-seemed to have been carefully arranged so that he would be able to manipulate it with his chin, his collarbone, or his leg. As a result, the room was completely bare above a certain height, except for a spot in the corner of the ceiling about six inches in diameter.
It took only a few minutes to complete the necessary paperwork. There was apparently nothing preventing my cousin from moving in, nor did the Manager mention the "peculiar disintegration" of the dormitory. After listening to the usual speech about the rules and regulations, my cousin signed the contract in his neat, angular handwriting. The contract was no more than a simple promise to obey the rules of the dormitory and live a "happy student life." As I watched him sign, I whispered the word "happy" to myself. It seemed too sentimental for a contract, and I wondered whether I had signed the same document when I lived here. I certainly didn't remember it. In fact, nothing about the scene seemed familiar, and I wondered how much I had forgotten about the dormitory.
"Well then, would you like some tea?" said the Manager. His voice was slightly hoarse, as it had always been. My cousin gave me a nervous glance, as if he wasn't sure how to respond, and I realized that it was difficult to imagine the Manager making tea. But I gave him a look that was intended to say, "Don't worry, he can do almost anything." My cousin turned to face the Manager again, but his lips were still fixed in an anxious smile.
The tea canister, teapot, thermos bottle, and cups were laid out in precise order. The Manager braced himself on his artificial leg and swung his right leg lightly up on the table. It happened in an instant, almost too quickly for the eye to see, but there it lay, like a tree felled in the forest. There was an odd contradiction between Manager's awkward posture now, bent over the table, and the deft movement that had got him into this position.
Next, he took the tea canister between his chin and collarbone and twisted it open, just as he had done with the doorknob. Lifting the canister, he poured the tea into the pot. This movement was exquisitely graceful. The degree of force applied, the angle of the canister, the quantity of tea-it was all perfect. The supple line of his jaw and the fixed plane of his collarbone functioned together like a precisely calibrated instrument that seemed to become a separate living thing as we watched.
The pale light from the courtyard filtered through the window. Tulips were blooming in the flower bed. A single orange petal had fallen on the dark earth. Everything was absolutely still except the Manager's jaw.
My cousin and I watched his preparations as if we were attending some solemn ritual. Pressing the button on the thermos with his toe, he filled the teapot with boiling water, and then, still using his toes, he grasped the pot and poured the tea into the cups. The sound of the thin trickle of hot tea fell into the silence of the room.
The Manager's foot was beautiful. Though he must have used it much more than one normally would, it was flawless, without a single cut or bruise. I studied the fleshy instep, the sole that looked so warm and alive, the translucent nails, the long toes-and I realized I had never considered a foot so closely or carefully, not even my own, which I could only vaguely recall.
I wondered what sort of hands the Manager would have had, and I found myself imagining ten strong fingers extending from broad, fleshy palms, fingers that would have been as graceful and precise as his toes. My eyes wandered to the empty spaces at the ends of his sleeves.
When he had finished preparing the tea, the Manager coughed quietly and removed his leg from the table.
"Please, help yourself," he said, looking down almost bashfully. We bowed and took our tea. My cousin held his cup in both hands and drained it slowly, almost as if he were saying a prayer.
When we had finished, we went to have a look at the room where my cousin would be living and then told the Manager we had to be going. He saw us to the door.
"We'll see you again soon," he said.
"I think I'll be very happy here," my cousin responded. As the Manager bowed, his leg squeaked unpleasantly, and the sound hung between us like a plaintive murmur.
Soon afterward, my cousin moved into the dormitory. It wasn't a complicated process, since he had very little besides the few items we had gathered. We packed these into a cardboard box and sent them by express delivery. Dismayed at the thought of returning to my cocoon existence, I puttered about in search of ways to delay his departure, even by a few minutes.
"I suppose college classes are completely different from high school," he said. "I'm worried I won't be able to keep up. Do you think you could help me with German?"