I wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed (I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway), lie down on my sofa, and relive memories of that small Greek island as I listen to Schwarzkopf. I recollect each and every event, quietly turning the pages of my memory. The lovely deserted beach, the outdoor cafe at the harbour. The waiter’s sweat-stained shirt. Miu’s graceful profile and the sparkle of the Mediterranean from the veranda. The poor hero standing in the town square who’d been impaled. And the Greek music I heard from the mountaintop that night. I vividly relive the magical moonlight, the wondrous echo of the music. The sensation of estrangement I experienced when I was awakened by the music. That formless, midnight pain, like my body, too, was silently, cruelly, being impaled
Lying there, I close my eyes for a while, then open them. I silently breathe in, then out. A thought begins to form in my mind, but in the end I think of nothing. Not that there was much difference between the two, thinking and not thinking. I find I can no longer distinguish between one thing and another, between things that existed and things that did not. I look out the window. Until the sky turns white, clouds float by, birds chirp, and a new day lumbers up, gathering together the sleepy minds of the people who inhabit this planet.
Once in downtown Tokyo I caught a glimpse of Miu. It was about six months after Sumire disappeared, a warm Sunday in the middle of March. Low clouds covered the sky, and it looked like it would rain at any minute. Everyone carried umbrellas. I was on my way to visit some relatives who lived downtown and was stopped at a traffic light in Hiroo, at the intersection near the MEIDI-YA store, when I spotted the navyblue Jaguar inching its way forward in the heavy traffic. I was
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in a taxi, and the Jaguar was in the through lane to my left. I noticed the car because its driver was a woman with a stunning mane of white hair. From a distance, her white hair stood out starkly against the flawless navy-blue car. I had only seen Miu with black hair, so it took me a while to put this Miu and the Miu I knew together. But it was definitely her. She was as beautiful as I remembered, refined in a rare and wonderful way. Her breathtaking white hair kept one at arm’s length and had a resolute, almost mythical air about it.
The Miu before me, though, was not the woman I had waved goodbye to at the harbour on the Greek island. Only half a year had passed, yet she looked like a different person. Of course her hair colour was changed. But that wasn’t all.
*
The Jaguar Miu was driving sometimes got ahead of my taxi, sometimes fell behind, but Miu didn’t notice I was watching her from nearby. I couldn’t call out to her. I didn’t know what to say, but even if I had, the windows of the Jaguar were shut tight. Miu was sitting up straight, both hands on the steering wheel, her attention fixed on the scene ahead of her. She might have been thinking deeply about something. Or maybe she was listening to the “Art of the Fugue” that was playing on her car
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stereo. The entire time her icy, hardened expression didn’t change, and she barely blinked. Finally the light turned green and the Jaguar sped off in the direction of Aoyama, leaving behind my taxi, which sat there waiting to make a right turn.
*
So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us—that’s snatched right out of our hands—even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.
*
