“Um,” I said, changing the receiver back to my left hand. I could hear her breathing down the phone. I had no idea how I should respond. And, as so often happens when I don’t know what to say, I let slip some totally inappropriate comment.
“Not with me, I assume?”
“Not with you,” Sumire answered. I heard the sound of a cheap lighter lighting a cigarette. “Are you free today? I’d like to talk more.”
“You mean, about your falling in love with someone other than me?”
“Right,” she said. “About my falling passionately in love with somebody other than you.”
I clamped the phone between my head and shoulder and stretched. “I’m free in the evening.”
“I’ll be over at five,” Sumire said. And then added, as if an afterthought: “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being nice enough to answer my question in the middle of the night.”
I gave a vague response, hung up, and turned out the light. It was still pitch black out. Just before I fell asleep, I thought about her final
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words from her before. Maybe I had, once, but I couldn’t recall.
*
Sumire arrived at my apartment a little before five. I didn’t recognize her. She’d taken on a complete change of style. Her hair was short in a stylish cut, her fringe still showing traces of the scissors’ snips. She wore a light cardigan over a shortsleeve, navy-blue dress and a pair of black enamel, mediumhigh heels. She even had stockings on. Stockings? Women’s clothes weren’t exactly my field of expertise, but it was clear that everything she wore was pretty expensive. Dressed like this, she looked polished and lovely. It was quite becoming, to tell the truth. Though I preferred the old, outrageous Sumire. To each his own.
“Not bad,” I said, giving her a complete once-over. “But I wonder what good old Jack Kerouac would say.”
Sumire smiled, an ever-so-slightly more sophisticated smile than usual. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”
*
We walked side by side down University Boulevard towards the station and stopped by our favourite coffee shop. Sumire ordered her usual slice of cake along with her coffee. It was a clear Sunday evening near the end of April. The flower shops were full of crocuses and tulips. A gentle breeze blew, softly rustling the hems of young girls’ skirts and wafting over the leisurely fragrance of young trees.
I folded my hands behind my head and watched Sumire as she slowly yet eagerly devoured her cake. From the small speakers on the ceiling of the coffee shop Astrud Gilberto sang an old bossa nova song. “Take me to Aruanda,” she sang. I closed my eyes, and the clatter of the cups and saucers sounded like the roar of a far-off sea. Aruanda—what’s it like there? I
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wondered.
“Still sleepy?”
“Not any more,” I answered, opening my eyes.
“You feel okay?”
“I’m fine. As fine as the Moldau River in spring.”
Sumire gazed for a while at the empty plate that had held her slice of cake. She looked at me.
“Don’t you think it’s strange that I’m wearing these clothes?”
“I guess.”
“I didn’t buy them. I don’t have that kind of money. There’s a story behind them.”
“Mind if I try to guess the story?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“There you were in your usual crummy Jack Kerouac outfit, cigarette dangling from your lips, washing your hands in some public toilet, when this five-foot one-inch woman rushed in, all out of breath, dressed to the nines, and said, ‘Please, you’ve got to help me! No time to explain, but I’m being chased by some awful people. Can I exchange clothes with you? If we swap clothes I can give them the slip. Thank God we’re the same size.’ Just like some Hong Kong action flick.”
Sumire laughed. “And the other woman happened to wear a size-six-and-a-half shoe and a size-seven dress. Just by coincidence.”
“And right then and there you changed clothes, down to your Mickey Mouse knickers.”
“It’s my socks that are Mickey Mouse, not my knickers.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“Hmm,” Sumire mused. “Actually, you’re not too far off.”
“How far?”
She leaned across the table. “It’s a long story. Would you like
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to hear it?”
“Since you’ve come all the way over here to tell me, I have a distinct feeling it doesn’t matter if I do or not. Anyway, go right ahead. Add a prelude, if you’d like. And a ‘Dance of the Blessed Spirits’. I don’t mind.”
She began to talk. About her cousin’s wedding reception, and about the lunch she had had with Miu in Aoyama. And it
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3
The day after the wedding, a Monday, was rainy. The rain began to fall just after midnight and continued without a stop till dawn. A soft, gentle rain that darkly dampened the spring earth and quietly stirred up the nameless creatures living in it.
*
