9

The Well and Stars

* How the Ladder Disappeared The sky was already bright at something after five in the morning, but even so, I could make out a lot of stars overhead. It was just as Lieutenant Mamiya had told me: from the bottom of a well, you can see stars in the daylight. Into the perfect half-moon slice of sky, faintly glowing stars were packed neatly, like specimens of rare minerals.

Once before, when camping on a mountaintop with some friends in the fifth or sixth grade, I had seen stars in such numbers that they filled the sky. It almost seemed as if the sky would break under the weight of all those things and come tumbling down. Never had I seen such an amazing skyful of stars. Unable to sleep after the others had drowsed off, I crawled out of the tent and lay on the ground, looking at the sky. Now and then, a shooting star would trace a bright arc across the heavens. The longer I watched, though, the more nervous it made me. There were simply too many stars, and the sky was too vast and deep. A huge, overpow- ering foreign object, it surrounded me, enveloped me, and made me feel almost dizzy. Until that moment, I had always thought that the earth on which I stood was a solid object that would last forever. Or rather, I had never thought about such a thing at all. I had simply taken it for granted. But in fact, the earth was nothing but a chunk of rock floating in one little corner of the universe: a. temporary foothold in the vast emptiness of space. It-and all of us with it-could be blown away tomorrow by a momentary flash of something or a tiny shift in the universes energy. Beneath this breathtaking skyful of stars, the uncertainty of my own ex- istence struck me full force (though not in so many words, of course). It was a stunning discovery for a young boy.

Looking up at the dawn stars from the bottom of a well was a special experience very different from looking at the full, starry sky on a mountaintop, as if my mind-my self-my very existence-were firmly bonded through my narrow window to each one of those stars in the sky. I felt a deep sense of intimacy toward them: they were my stars, visible to no one but me, down here in the dark well. I embraced them as my own, and they in turn showered me with a kind of energy and warmth.

As time passed and the sky came increasingly under the sway of the bright morning sun of summer, one star at a time would obliterate itself from my field of view. They did this with the utmost gentleness, and I studied the process of obliteration with wide-open eyes. The summer sun did not, however, erase every star from the sky. A few of the strongest ones remained. No matter how high the sun climbed, they took a stubborn stance and refused to disappear. This made me very happy: aside from the occasional cloud that drifted by, the stars were the only things I could see from down there.

I had sweated in my sleep, and now the sweat was beginning to grow cold and chill me. I shuddered several times. The sweat made me think of that pitch-dark hotel room and the telephone woman there. Still ringing in my ears were the words she had spoken-every one of them-and the sound of the knocking. My nostrils retained the strangely heavy smell of flowers. And Noboru Wataya was still talking from the other side of the television screen. The memory of these impressions remained, undimmed by the passage of time. And this was because it had not been a dream, my memory told me.

Even after I was fully awake, I continued to feel an intense warmth in my right cheek. Mixed in now with the warmth was a mild sensation of pain, as if the skin had been chafed with rough sandpaper. I pressed my palm against the spot through my one-day stubble, but this did nothing to reduce the heat or the pain. Down in the bottom of the dark well, without a mirror, it was impossible for me to examine what was happening to my cheek.

I reached out and touched the wall, tracing the surface with my fingertips and then pressing my palm against it for a time, but I found nothing unusual: it was just an ordinary concrete wall. I made a fist and gave it a few taps. The wall was hard, expressionless, and slightly damp. I still had a clear impression of the strange, slippery sensation it had given me when I passed through it-like tunneling through a mass of gelatin.

I groped in my knapsack for the canteen and took a drink of water. I had gone a full day now without eating. The thought itself gave me intense hunger pangs, but these began to fade soon enough as they were absorbed into a limbo-like numbness. I brought my hand to my face again and tried to gauge the growth of my beard. My jaw now wore a days worth of stubble. No doubt about it: a whole day had gone by. But my one-day absence was probably not having an effect on anybody. Not one human being had noticed that I was gone, likely. I could disappear from the face of the earth, and the world would go on moving without the slightest twinge. Things were tremendously complicated, to be sure, but one thing was clear: no one needed me.

I turned upward again and looked at the stars. The sight of them gradually calmed the beating of my heart. Then it occurred to me to grope along the wall for the ladder. Where it should have been, my hand encountered nothing. I felt over a broad area, checking with the utmost care, but there was no ladder. It no longer existed in the place where it belonged. I took a deep breath, pulled the flashlight from the knapsack, and switched it on. But there was no sign of the ladder. Standing, I shone the light on the floor and then the wall above me, as far as the beam could reach. The ladder was nowhere. Cold sweat crept down my sides like some kind of living creature. The flashlight slipped from my hand, fell to the ground, and switched off from the impact. It was a sign. In that instant, my mind snapped: it was a grain of sand, absorbed into the surrounding darkness. My body stopped functioning, as if its plug had been pulled. A perfect nothingness came over me.

This lasted perhaps a few seconds, until I retrieved myself. My physical functions returned bit by bit. I bent over and picked up the flashlight lying at my feet, gave it a few taps, and switched it on again. The light returned without a problem. I needed to calm myself and put my thoughts in order. Fear and panic would solve nothing. When had I last checked the ladder? Yesterday, late at night, just before I fell asleep. I had made certain it was there and only then let myself sleep. No mistake. The ladder had disappeared while I was sleeping. It had been pulled up. Taken away. I cut the switch of the flashlight and leaned against the wall. Then I closed my eyes. The first thing I felt was hunger. It swept toward me out of the distance, like a wave, washed over me soundlessly, and glided away. Once it was gone, I stood there, hollow, empty as a gutted animal. After the initial panic had passed, I no longer felt either terror or despair. Strangely enough, all I felt at that moment was a kind of resignation.

Back from Sapporo, I held Kumiko and comforted her. She was feeling lost and confused. She had taken the day off from work. I couldnt sleep a wink last night, she said. The clinic had an opening at just the right time, so I went ahead and decided by myself. She cried a little after saying this.

Its finished now, I said. No point thinking about it anymore. We talked it over, and this was how it worked out. If theres anything else you want to talk about, better do it here and now. Then lets just put it out of our minds. Forget about it. You said on the phone you had something to tell me.

Kumiko shook her head. Never mind, she said. Youre right. Lets forget about it.

We went on with our lives for a while, avoiding all mention of Kumikos abortion. But this wasnt easy to do. We could be talking about something entirely different, when suddenly both of us would fall silent. On weekends, wed go to movies. In the dark, we might be concentrating on the movie, but we might just as well be thinking about things that had nothing to do with the movie, or we might be resting our brains by thinking about nothing at all. I knew that Kumiko, sitting next to me, was thinking about something else. I could sense it.

After the movie, wed go somewhere for a beer or a snack. Sometimes we wouldnt know what to talk about. This went on for six weeks-a very long six weeks, at the end of which Kumiko said to me, What do you say we take a trip tomorrow, go away for a little vacation, just the two of us? Tomorrows Friday: we can take off till Sunday. People need that kind of thing once in a while.

I know what you mean, I said, smiling, but I wonder if anybody at my office even knows what a vacation is.

Call in sick, then. Say its flu or something. Ill do the same.

We took the train to Karuizawa. I picked that destination because Kumiko said she wanted a quiet place in the mountains where we could walk all we liked. It was off-season there in April; the hotel was hushed, most of the shops were closed, but that was exactly what we wanted. We did nothing but go out for walks every day, from morning to evening.

It took a full day and a half for Kumiko to release her feelings. And once she did, she sat in the hotel room, crying, for nearly two hours. I said nothing the whole time, just held her and let her cry.

Then, little by little, in fragments, she began to tell me things. About the abortion. About her feelings at the time. About her extreme sense of loss. About how alone she had felt while I was in Hokkaido-and how she could have done what she did only while feeling so alone.

And dont get me wrong, she said finally. Im not regretting what I did. It was the only way. Im perfectly clear on that. What really hurts, though, is that I want to tell you everything-absolutely everything-but I just cant do it. I cant tell you exactly how I feel.

Kumiko pushed her hair up, revealing a small, shapely ear, and she gave her head a shake.

Im not hiding it from you. Im planning to tell you sometime. Youre the only one I can tell. But I just cant do it now. I cant put it into words.

Something from the past? No, thats not it. Take all the time you need, I said. Until youre ready. Time is the one thing weve got plenty of. Ill be right here with you. Theres no rush. I just want you to keep one thing in mind: Anything of yours-anything at all, as long as it belongs to you-I will accept as my own. That is one thing you will never have to worry about.

Thank you, she said. Im so glad I married you. But we did not have all the time I thought we had. Exactly what was it that Kumiko had been unable to put into words? Did it have something to do with her disappearance? Maybe, if I had tried dragging it out of her then, I could have avoided losing her now. But no, I concluded after mulling it over: I could never have forced her. She had said she couldnt put it into words. Whatever it was, it was more than she had the strength for.

Hey, down there! Mr. Wind-Up Bird! shouted May Kasahara. In a shallow sleep at the time, I thought I was hearing the voice in a dream. But it was not a dream. When I looked up, there was May Kasaharas face, small and far away. I know youre down there! Cmon, Mr. Wind-Up Bird! Answer me!

Im here, I said.

What on earth for? What are you doing down there? Thinking, I said. I dont get it. Why do you have to go to the bottom of a well to think? It must be such a pain in the butt! This way, you can really concentrate. Its dark and cool and quiet. Do you do this a lot? No, not a lot. Ive never done it before in my life-getting into a well like this. Is it working? Is it helping you to think? I dont know yet. Im still experimenting. She cleared her throat. The sound reverberated loudly to the bottom of the well. Anyway, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, did you notice the ladders gone? Sure did, I said. A little while ago. Did you know it was me who pulled it up? No, that I didnt know. Well, who did you think did it? I didnt know, I said honestly. I dont know how to put this, but that thought never really crossed my mind-that somebody took it. I thought it just disappeared, to tell you the truth.

May Kasahara fell silent. Then, with a note of caution in her voice, as if she thought my words contained some kind of trap for her, she said, Just disappeared. Hmm. What do you mean, it just disappeared? That, all by itself, it... just... disappeared?

Maybe so.

You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, its kinda funny for me to bring this up now, but youre pretty weird. There arent too many people out there as weird as you are. Did you know that?

Im not so weird to me, I said. Then what makes you think that ladders can just disappear? I rubbed my face with both hands and tried to concentrate all my attention on this conversation with May Kasahara. You pulled it up, didnt you? Of course I did. It doesnt take much brainwork to figure that one out. I did it. I sneaked out in the night and pulled the ladder up. But why?

Why not? Do you know how many times I went to your house yesterday? I wanted you to go to work with me again. You werent there, of course. Then I found that note of yours in the kitchen. So I waited a really long time, but you never came back. So then I thought just maybe you might be at the empty house again. I found the well cover half open and the ladder hanging down. Still, it never occurred to me you might be down there. I just figured some workman or somebody had been there and left his ladder. I mean, how many people go to sit in the bottom of a well when they want to think?

Youve got a point there, I said. Anyhow, so then I sneaked out at night and went to your place, but you still werent there. Thats when it popped into my mind. That maybe you were down in the well. Not that I had any idea what youd be doing down there, but you know, like I said, youre kinda weird. I came to the well and pulled the ladder up. Bet that gotcha goin.

Yeah, youre right. Do you have anything to eat or drink down there?

A little water. I didnt bring any food. Ive got three lemon drops, though. How long have you been down there? Since late yesterday morning.

You must be hungry. I guess so.

Dont you have to pee or anything?

Now that she had mentioned it, I realized I hadnt peed once since coming down here.

Not really, I said. Im not eating or drinking much.

Say, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, you know what? You might die down there, depending on my mood. Im the only one who knows youre in there, and Im the one who hid the rope ladder.

Do you realize that? If I just walked away from here, youd end up dead. You could yell, but no one would hear you. No one would think you were at the bottom of a well. I bet no one would even notice that you were gone. You dont work for any company, and your wife ran away. I suppose someone would notice eventually that you were missing and report it to the police, but youd be dead by then, and theyd never find your body.

Im sure youre right. I could die down here, depending on your mood.

How do you feel about that?

Scared, I said.

You dont sound scared.

I was still rubbing my cheeks. These were my hands and my cheeks. I couldnt see them in the dark, but they were still here: my body still existed. Thats because it hasnt really hit home with me, I said.

Well, it has with me, said May Kasahara. I bet its a lot easier to kill somebody than people think.

Probably depends on the method.

Itd be so easy! Id just have to leave you there. I wouldnt have to do a thing. Think about it, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Just imagine how much youd suffer, dying little by little, of hunger and thirst, down in the darkness. It wouldnt be easy.

Im sure youre right, I said.

You dont really believe me, do you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? You think I couldnt do anything so cruel.

I dont really know, I said. Its not that I believe you could do it, or that I believe you couldnt do it. Anything could happen. The possibility is there. Thats what I think.

Im not talking about possibility, she said in the coldest tone imaginable. Hey, Ive got an idea. It just occurred to me. You went to all the trouble of climbing down there so you could think. Why dont I fix it so you can concentrate on your thoughts even better?

How can you do that? I asked.

How? Like this, she said, closing the open half of the well cover. Now the darkness was total.