Taichi finished his wife’s leftover kaisendon. Natsuko looked once again at her watch. They could still make their schedule, maybe. “The bus will be leaving soon,” she urged him, and the two of them left the restaurant.
Shortly before they reached the bus terminal, his cane perhaps having gotten caught in the stone pavement, Taichi stumbled and fell to the ground. Natsuko picked up the cane, but merely stared down at her husband, while five or six passersby quickly surrounded him and helped him to his feet. He thanked them all with an embarrassed grin.
When they finally boarded the empty shuttlebus, Taichi waved to the small crowd that had come to his aid. “Such kind people,” he said softly.
What about her family then? What did he think about her mother and brother, whom Natsuko couldn’t call kind even out of hollow flattery? Maybe it was because they had gone on a trip, or maybe it was because she had finally been able to put some distance between themselves and her family, but she suddenly found that she wanted to talk to her husband about things that they had never discussed before.
She vividly remembered the day when her mother had been forced to let go of her apartment to pay off her brother’s debts. That had been long after Taichi was no longer able to work. He and Natsuko lived in a small apartment, paying the rent out of his pension and the income from her part-time job. Her mother called her out of the blue, using her as an outlet for her explosive anger, as a scapegoat, as a means of avenging herself. It’s all your husband’s fault! her mother shrieked when she and Taichi went to visit. This would never have happened if not for that worthless husband of yours! She must have truly believed that, that if her daughter had married someone wealthy, he would have built her a new house. Taichi knelt formally on the living-room floor, hanging his head in silence. Why didn’t he say anything? People liked Taichi, especially ever since he had been struck by his disability. No matter where he happened to fall over, people came to help him. Once, he had even been brought home in a police car. He’s brazen, completely shameless, her brother had said hatefully. More than anyone, Taichi was unreasonably hated by others, but he was also unreasonably loved. There was no doubt that unreasonableness affected everyone in life, to one extent or another, but how was it possible to face that much of it and still be so indifferent to it all?
The bus began to climb the steep mountain slope. After passing some cheap inns and a bunch of hotels, the coast came into view down below. It was around here, Natsuko remembered, but the bus showed no sign of stopping. Every time it swayed left and right, the couple too swayed from side to side. Finally, they reached a point at the top of the mountain where there wasn’t anything to see at all, and went through a narrow one-way tunnel before at last arriving at the hotel.
As soon as they stepped off the bus, she noticed that the rose garden by the side of the hotel had closed. The pink paradise that her mother, with her girlish tastes, had loved so much was now overrun with dead grass and closed to visitors.
“Ah,” Taichi exclaimed. “The air’s so fresh here. And the greenery…” He looked around casually, as if free from all worry.
The hotel had seen better days. The frame around the automatic door at the entrance was rusted over. The glass was a pale blue in color. The eight-year-old Natsuko hadn’t felt anything at all when she had gazed through that pale blue glass, but looking at it now, she could feel the weight of that old, neglected automatic door. Maybe it was because of the time of year, but the once bustling lobby stood empty. Only the old grand piano remained as she remembered it.
When she finished checking in at the front desk, she noticed that Taichi had sat himself down in a wheelchair. The hotel staff must have prepared it for him. He sank into the backrest with content, without showing any sign of embarrassment or humility. Truly, he was like little more than a piece of luggage. She doubted that he would even mind being treated that way. She pushed the wheelchair slowly as the staff guided them both to a sofa by the window. Taichi said nothing by way of thanks.
The couple sat down, and a beautiful woman with long, slender legs, her complexion unusually dark for a Japanese, brought them some pineapple juice. It was a welcome drink, she said. In the past, they would also have been offered tea or coffee, hot or iced, whatever they wanted—but no longer. No sooner had Taichi taken the cup than he had gulped it all the way down.
Natsuko stared at the carpet. Only that carpet was unchanged. That red feeling of oppression was just as she remembered it.
Okay, choose whatever drink you like, she remembered her mother saying when she was eight years old. Quite as if she herself were offering it to Natsuko. At this hotel, you can have whatever you want, for free, as much as you like. Of course, no one would want to drink that much tea or juice, but her mother was probably just happy that it was being offered to her.
For free, as much as you like. That was what that wealthy man, the one who could go to Monaco whenever he wanted, had said. For her mother, back then, being treated that way must have felt like a matter of course. For free, as much as you like. Tall waiters dressed in white shirts and black bowties, carrying more glasses than anyone could possibly drink on their silver trays. Her mother’s high heels sinking into the crimson carpet. We should go for a swim in the heated pool before evening. Oh, but it might be even nicer after dinner. At night, they light up the pool, you know. A group of men wearing well-starched shirts, each holding a cigar idly in one hand, stood chatting in a group. They seemed to be acquainted with the hotel manager. No doubt they were the kind of exclusive members who squandered their money at the hotel, staying in its most luxurious rooms whenever they visited. They kept on chatting, their welcome drinks standing untouched on the table. Her mother must have felt as if she too had become a member. She was quite capable of deceiving herself. Because she was completely incapable of looking at herself from the outside.
Back when I was little, when I came here with your grandfather, we had a whole suite to ourselves. He was a member, you see. It was wonderful, more wonderful than you could ever imagine. That day, her mother had been at her most talkative.
Her grandfather had undoubtedly relished his summer vacations. He had loved hot summers. So long as it’s warm, I don’t care where I die, he had said. He wouldn’t have even minded being killed on the battlefield, so long as it was somewhere in the South Seas. But he had been struck by malaria during the war and so returned home alive, ultimately founding a small business through which he built his fortune. Her mother must truly have been proud of such a dependable father. In his later years, he came down with emphysema and died sooner than anyone could have foreseen. By then, he had become so invisible that not even flies bothered to take note of him. And so he had disappeared, fading away into nothingness, without leaving her mother anything in the way of an inheritance.
The staff were describing the hotel’s various dining options. They handed her a pamphlet. Looking at it, Natsuko saw that there was a salon on the fifteenth floor. It was that salon. The 8 mm film started playing in her head. Her mother as a child, the hem of her skirt flowing wide as she spun around and around playfully.
Their room was on the seventh floor. There were two old but clean and tidy beds. There was no comparison to the beds in the suite room where her mother had jumped about so friskily in the 8 mm film. Taichi managed to lay himself down. I love these Western-style beds, he laughed. They don’t make my back hurt. Natsuko went to take a look at the bathroom. As expected, the toilet was quite old, but there was no smell, and it was clean enough. The bath was narrow, but the hotel had a large public one that they could use, so that didn’t matter.