Sputnik Sweetheart полностью

“I’ll remember that,” Sumire said. And the call ended, somewhat abruptly.

*

I pictured her hanging up the receiver, walking out of the telephone box. By my clock it was 3.30. I went to the kitchen, drank a glass of water, snuggled back in bed, and dosed my eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. I drew the curtain aside, and there was the moon, floating in the sky like some pale, clever orphan. I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, pulled a chair over next to the window, and sat there, munching on some cheese and crackers. I sat, reading, waiting for the dawn.

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5

It’s time to say a few words about myself.

Of course this story is about Sumire, not me. Still, I’m the one whose eyes the story is told through—the tale of who Sumire is and what she did—and I should explain a little about the narrator. Me, in other words.

*

I find it hard to talk about myself. I’m always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors—values, standards, my own limitations as an observer—make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I’ve always been disturbed by the thought that I’m not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of thing doesn’t seem to bother most people. Given the chance, they’re surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. “I’m honest and open to a ridiculous degree,”

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they’ll say, or “I’m thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world,” or “I’m very good at sensing others’

true feelings.” But any number of times I’ve seen people who say they’re easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they’re doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those who are “good at sensing others’

true feelings” are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It’s enough to make me ask the question: how well do we really know ourselves?

The more I think about it, the more I’d like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I’d like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That’s how I’d grasp a dearer sense of who I am.

These are the kinds of ideas I had running through my head when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint—or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might

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guess, I led a lonely life.

*

My family isn’t anything special. So blandly normal, in fact, I don’t know where to begin. My father graduated from a local university with a degree in science and worked in the research lab of a large food manufacturer. He loved golf, and every Sunday he was out on the course. My mother was crazy about tanka poetry and often attended poetry recitals. Whenever her name was in the poetry section of the newspaper, she’d be happy as a lark for days. She liked cleaning, but hated cooking. My sister, five years older than me, detested both cleaning and cooking. Those are things other people did, she decided, not her. Which meant that ever since I was old enough to be in the kitchen, I made all my own meals. I bought some cookbooks and learned how to make almost everything. I was the only child I knew who lived like that.