Sputnik Sweetheart полностью

All over again I understood how important, how irreplaceable, Sumire was to me. In her own special way she’d kept me tethered to the world. As I talked to her and read her stories, my mind quietly expanded, and I could see things I’d never seen before. Without even trying, we grew close. Like a pair of young lovers undressing in front of each other, Sumire and I had exposed our hearts to one another, an experience I’d never have with anyone else, anywhere. We cherished what we had together, though we never put into words how very precious it was.

Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far happier if we had. But

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that was like the tides, the change of seasons—something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn’t going to last for ever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear.

I loved Sumire more than anyone else and wanted her more than anything in the world. And I couldn’t just shelve those feelings, for there was nothing to take their place. I dreamed that someday there’d be a sudden, major transformation. Even if the chances of it coming true were slim, I could dream about it, couldn’t I? But I knew it would never come true.

Like the tide receding, the shoreline washed clean, with Sumire gone I was left in a distorted, empty world. A gloomy, cold world in which what she and I had would never ever take place again.

We each have a special something we can get only at a special time of our life. Like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their way. But once that flame goes out, it’s gone for ever. What I’d lost was not just Sumire. I’d lost that precious flame.

*

What is it like—on the other side? Sumire was over there, and so was the lost part of Miu. Miu with black hair and a healthy sexual appetite. Perhaps they’ve come across each other there, loving each other, fulfilling each other. “We do things you can’t put into words,” Sumire would probably tell me, putting it into words all the same.

*

Is there a place for me over there? Could I be with them? While they make passionate love, I’d sit in the corner of a room

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somewhere and amuse myself reading the Collected Works of Balzac. After she showered, Sumire and I would take long walks and talk about all kinds of things—with Sumire, as usual, doing most of the talking. But would our relationship last for ever? Is that natural? “Of course,” Sumire would tell me. “No need to ask that. ‘Cause you’re my one and only true friend!”

*

But I hadn’t a clue how to get to that world. I rubbed the slick, hard rock face of the Acropolis. History had seeped through the surface and was stored up inside. Like it or not, I was shut up in that flow of time. I couldn’t escape. No—that’s not entirely true. The truth is, I really don’t want to escape.

*

Tomorrow I’ll get on a plane and fly back to Tokyo. The summer holidays are nearly over, and I have to step once more in that endless stream of the everyday. There’s a place for me there. My apartment’s there, my desk, my classroom, my pupils. Quiet days await me, novels to read. The occasional affair.

But tomorrow I’ll be a different person, never again the person I was. Not that anyone will notice after I’m back in Japan. On the outside nothing will be different. But something inside has burned up and vanished. Blood has been shed, and something inside me is gone. Face turned down, without a word, that something makes its exit. The door opens; the door shuts. The light goes out. This is the last day for the person I am right now. The very last twilight. When dawn comes, the person I am won’t be here any more. Someone else will occupy this body.

*

Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it

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all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?