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- Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene I hardly paid it any
- attention. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make
- a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that 18 years later I
- would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery
- that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the
- beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us
- together, and then about myself again. I was at that age, that time of
- life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a
- boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with
- complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind.
- Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to
- me. The smell of the grass, the faint chill of the wind, the line of the
- hills, the barking of a dog: these are the first things, and they come
- with absolute clarity. I feel as if I can reach out and trace them with a
- fingertip. And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. No
- one. Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have
- disappeared to? How could such a thing have happened? Everything
- that seemed so important back then - Naoko, and the self I was then,
- and the world I had then: where could they have all gone? It's true, I
- can't even bring back her face - not straight away, at least. All I'm left
- holding is a background, pure scenery, with no people at the front.
- True, given time enough, I can remember her face. I start joining
- images - her tiny, cold hand; her straight, black hair so smooth and
- cool to the touch; a soft, rounded earlobe and the microscopic mole
- just beneath it; the camel-hair coat she wore in the winter; her habit of
- looking straight into my eyes when asking a question; the slight
- trembling that would come to her voice now and then (as though she
- were speaking on a windy hilltop) - and suddenly her face is there,
- always in profile at first, because Naoko and I were always out
- walking together, side by side. Then she turns to me and smiles, and
- tilts her head just a little, and begins to speak, and she looks into my
- eyes as if trying to catch the image of a minnow that has darted across
- the pool of a limpid spring.
- It takes time, though, for Naoko's face to appear. And as the years
- have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I
- could recall in 5 seconds all too soon needed 10, then 30, then a full
- minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the
- shadows will be swallowed up in darkness. There is no way around it:
- my memory is growing ever more distant from the spot where Naoko
- used to stand - where my old self used to stand. And nothing but
- scenery, that view of the meadow in October, returns again and again
- to me like a symbolic scene in a film. Each time it appears, it delivers
- a kick to some part of my mind. Wake up, it says. I'm still here. Wake
- up and think about it. Think about why I'm still here. The kicking
- never hurts me. There's no pain at all. Just a hollow sound that echoes
- with each kick. And even that is bound to fade one day. At Hamburg
- airport, though, the kicks were longer and harder than usual. Which is
- why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens
- to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully
- comprehend them.
- Let's see, now, what was Naoko talking about that day?
- Of course: the "field well". I have no idea whether there was such a
- well. It might have been an image or a sign that existed only inside
- Naoko, like all the other things she used to spin into existence inside
- her mind in those dark days. Once she had described it to me, though,
- I was never able to think of that meadow scene without the well. From
- that day forward, the image of a thing I had never laid eyes on became
- inseparably fused to the actual scene of the field that lay before me. I
- can describe the well in minute detail. It lay precisely on the border
- where the meadow ended and the woods began - a dark opening in the
- earth a yard across, hidden by grass. Nothing marked its perimeter -
- no fence, no stone curb (at least not one that rose above ground level).
- It was nothing but a hole, a wide-open mouth. The stones of its collar
- had been weathered and turned a strange muddy-white. They were
- cracked and chunks were missing, and a little green lizard slithered
- into an open seam. You could lean over the edge and peer down to see
- nothing. All I knew about the well was its frightening depth. It was
- deep beyond measuring, and crammed full of darkness, as if all the
- world's darknesses had been boiled down to their ultimate density.
- "It's really, really deep," said Naoko, choosing her words with care.
- She would speak that way sometimes, slowing down to find the exact
- word she was looking for. "But no one knows where it is," she
- continued. "The one thing I know for sure is that it's around here
- somewhere."
- Hands thrust into the pockets of her tweed jacket, she smiled at me as
- if to say "It's true!"
- "Then it must be incredibly dangerous," I said. "A deep well, but
- nobody knows where it is. You could fall in and that'd be the end of
- you."
- "The end. Aaaaaaaah! Splat! Finished."
- "Things like that must happen."
- "They do, every once in a while. Maybe once in two or three years.
- Somebody disappears all of a sudden, and they just can't find him. So
- then the people around here say, "Oh, he fell in the field well'."
- "Not a nice way to die," I said.
- "No, it's a terrible way to die," said Naoko, brushing a cluster of grass
- seed from her jacket. "The best thing would be to break your neck, but
- you'd probably just break your leg and then you couldn't do a thing.
- You'd yell at the top of your lungs, but nobody would hear you, and
- you couldn't expect anyone to find you, and you'd have centipedes and
- spiders crawling all over you, and the bones of the ones who died
- before are scattered all around you, and it's dark and soggy, and high
- overhead there's this tiny, tiny circle of light like a winter moon. You
- die there in this place, little by little, all by yourself."
- "Yuck, just thinking about it makes my flesh creep," I said.
- "Somebody should find the thing and build a wall around it."
- "But nobody can find it. So make sure you don't go off the path."
- "Don't worry, I won't."
- Naoko took her left hand from her pocket and squeezed my hand.
- "Don't you worry," she said. "You'll be OK. You could go running all
- around here in the middle of the night and you'd never fall into the
- well. And as long as I stick with you, I won't fall in, either."
- "Never?"
- "Never!"
- "How can you be so sure?"
- "I just know," she said, increasing her grip on my hand and walking
- along in silence. "I know these things. I'm always right. It's got
- nothing to do with logic: I just feel it. For example, when I'm really
- close to you like this, I'm not the least bit scared. Nothing dark or evil
- could ever tempt me."
- "Well, that's the answer," I said. "All you have to do is stay with me
- like this all the time."
- "Do you mean that?"
- "Of course."
- Naoko stopped short. So did I. She put her hands on my shoulders and
- peered into my eyes. Deep within her own pattern. Those beautiful
- eyes of hers were looking inside me for a long, long time. Then she
- stretched to her full height and touched her cheek to mine. It was a
- marvelous, warm gesture that stopped my heart for a moment.
- "Thank you."
- "My pleasure," I answered.
- "I'm so happy you said that. Really happy," she said with a sad smile.
- "But it's impossible."
- "Impossible? Why?"
- "It would be wrong. It would be terrible. It - "
- Naoko clamped her mouth shut and started walking again. I could tell
- that all kinds of thoughts were whirling around in her head, so rather
- than intrude on them I kept silent and walked by her side.
- "It would be wrong - wrong for you, wrong for me," she said after a
- long pause.
- "Wrong how?" I murmured.
- "Don't you see? It's just not possible for one person to watch over
- another person forever and ever. I mean, suppose we got married.
- You'd have to work during the day. Who's going to watch over me
- while you're away? Or if you go on a business trip, who's going to
- watch over me then? Can I be glued to you every minute of our lives?
- What kind of equality would there be in that? What kind of
- relationship would that be? Sooner or later you'd get sick of me. You'd
- wonder what you were doing with your life, why you were spending
- all your time babysitting this woman. I couldn't stand that. It wouldn't
- solve any of my problems."
- "But your problems are not going to continue for the rest of your life,"
- I said, touching her back. "They'll end eventually. And when they do,
- we'll stop and think about how to go on from there. Maybe you will
- have to help me. We're not running our lives according to some
- account book. If you need me, use me. Don't you see? Why do you
- have to be so rigid? Relax, let down your guard. You're all tensed up
- so you always expect the worst. Relax your body, and the rest of you
- will lighten up."
- "How can you say that?" she asked in a voice drained of feeling.
- Naoko's voice alerted me to the possibility that I had said something I
- shouldn't have.
- "Tell me how you could say such a thing," she said, staring at the
- ground beneath her feet. "You're not telling me anything I don't know
- already. "Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's
- the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart.
- I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on
- living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to
- pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that?
- How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?"
- I said nothing.
- "I'm confused. Really confused. And it's a lot deeper than you think.
- Deeper ... darker ... colder. But tell me something. How could you
- have slept with me that time? How could you have done such a thing?
- Why didn't you just leave me alone?"
- Now we were walking through the frightful silence of a pine forest.
- The desiccated corpses of cicadas that had died at the end of summer
- littered the surface of the path, crunching beneath our shoes. As if
- searching for something we'd lost, Naoko and I continued slowly
- along the path.
- "I'm sorry," she said, taking my arm and shaking her head.
- "I didn't mean to hurt you. Try not to let what I said bother you.
- Really, I'm sorry. I was just angry at myself."
- "I suppose I don't really understand you yet," I said. "I'm not all that
- smart. It takes me a while to understand things. But if I do have the
- time, I will come to understand you - better than anyone else in the
- world."
- We came to a stop and stood in the silent forest, listening. I tumbled
- pinecones and cicada shells with my toecap, then looked up at the
- patches of sky showing through the pine branches. Hands in pockets,
- Naoko stood there thinking, her eyes focused on nothing in particular.
- "Tell me something, Toru," she said. "Do you love me?"
- "You know I do."
- "Will you do me two favors?"
- "You can have up to three wishes, Madame."
- Naoko smiled and shook her head. "No, two will do. One is for you to
- realize how grateful I am that you came to see me here. I hope you'll
- understand how happy you've made me. I know it's going to save me
- if anything will. I may not show it, but it's true."
- "I'll come to see you again," I said. "And what is the other wish?"
- "I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I
- existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?"
- "Always," I said. "I'll always remember."
- She walked on without speaking. The autumn light filtering through
- the branches danced over the shoulders of her jacket. A dog barked
- again, closer than before. Naoko climbed a small mound, walked out
- of the forest and hurried down a gentle slope. I followed two or three
- steps behind.
- "Come over here," I called towards her back. "The well might be
- around here somewhere." Naoko stopped and smiled and took my
- arm. We walked the rest of the way side by side. "Do you really
- promise never to forget me?" she asked in a near whisper.
- "I'll never forget you," I said. "I could never forget you."
- Even so, my memory has grown increasingly dim, and I have already
- forgotten any number of things. Writing from memory like this, I
- often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important
- thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all
- the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?
- Be that as it may, it's all I have to work with. Clutching these faded,
- fading, imperfect memories to my breast, I go on writing this book
- with all the desperate intensity of a starving man sucking on bones.
- This is the only way I know to keep my promise to Naoko.
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