35

Just a Real Knife

* The Thing That Had Been Prophesied Lighting my way along the floor and keeping my steps soundless, I moved toward the door. The bat was in my right hand. I was still walking when the knocks came again: two knocks, then two more. Harder this time, and more violent. I pressed myself against the side wall where I would be hidden by the door when it opened. There I waited, keeping my breath in check.

When the sound of the knocks faded, deep silence descended on everything again, as if nothing had happened. I could feel the presence of someone on the other side of the door, though. This someone was standing there the way I was, keeping his breath in check and listening, trying to hear the sound of breathing or the beating of a heart, or to read the movement of a thought. I tried to keep my breath from agitating the surrounding air. I am not here, I told myself. I am not here. I am not anywhere.

The key turned in the lock. He made each movement with the utmost caution, stretching out the time it took to perform any one act so that the sounds involved would become isolated from each other, their meaning lost. The doorknob turned, and this was followed by the almost imperceptible sound of hinges rotating. The contractions of my heart began to speed up. I tried to quell the disturbance this caused, but without success.

Someone came into the room, sending ripples through the air. I made a conscious effort to sharpen each of my five senses and caught the faint smell of a foreign body-a strange mixture of thick clothing, suppressed breathing, and overwrought nerves steeped in silence. Did he have the knife in his hand? I had to assume that he did. I remembered its vivid white gleam. Holding my breath, obliterating my presence, I tightened my grip on the bat.

Once inside, the someone closed the door and locked it from within. Then he stood there, back to the door, waiting and watching. My hands on the bat were drenched with sweat. I would have liked to wipe my palms on my pants, but the slightest extra movement could have had fatal results. I brought to mind the sculpture that had stood in the garden of the abandoned Miyawaki house. In order to obliterate my presence here, I made myself one with that image of a bird. There, in the sun-drenched summer garden, I was the sculpture of a bird, frozen in space, glaring at the sky.

The someone had brought his own flashlight. He switched it on, and its straight, narrow beam cut through the darkness. The light was not strong. It came from the same kind of penlight I was carrying. I waited for the beam to pass me as he walked into the room, but he made no effort to move. The light began to pick out items in the room, one after another-the flowers in the vase, the silver tray lying on the table (giving off its sensual gleam again), the sofa, the floor lamp.... It swung past my nose and came to rest on the floor a few inches beyond the tips of my shoes, licking every corner of the room like the tongue of a snake. I waited for what felt like an eternity. Fear and tension drilled into my consciousness with intense pain.

No thinking. You are not allowed to think, I told myself. You are not allowed to use your imagination. Lieutenant Mamiya had said that in his letter. Imagining things here can be fatal.

Finally, the flashlight beam began to move forward slowly, very slowly. The man seemed to be heading for the inner room. I tightened my grip on the bat. It was then I noticed that the sweat of my hands had dried. If anything, my hands were now too dry.

The man took one slow step forward, then stopped. Then one more step. He seemed to be checking his footing. He was closer to me than ever now. I took a breath and held it. Two more steps, and he would be where I wanted him. Two more steps, and I would be able to put an end to this walking nightmare. But then, without warning, the light disappeared.

Total darkness had swallowed everything again. He had turned off his flashlight. I tried to make my mind work quickly in the dark, but it would not work at all. An unfamiliar chill ran through me. He had realized that I was there.

Move, I told myself. Dont just stand there. I tried to dodge to the left, but my legs would not move. My feet were stuck to the floor, like the feet of the bird sculpture. I bent forward and barely managed to incline my stiffened upper body to the left. Just then, something slammed into my right shoulder, and something hard and cold as frozen rain stabbed me to the bone.

The impact seemed to revive me, and the paralysis went out of my legs. I sprang to the left and crouched in the darkness, feeling for my opponent. The blood was pounding through my body, every muscle and cell straining for oxygen. My right shoulder was going numb, but I had no pain. The pain would come later. I stayed absolutely still, and he did too. We faced each other in the darkness, holding our breaths. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear.

Again, without warning, the knife came. It slashed past my face like an attacking bee, the sharp point just catching my right cheek where the mark was. I could feel the skin tearing. No, he could not see me, either. If he could, he would have finished me off long before. I swung the bat in the darkness, aiming in the direction from which the knife had come, but it just swished through the air, striking nothing. The swing had been a good one, though, and the crisp sound helped me to loosen up somewhat. We were still an even match. The knife had cut me twice, but not badly. Neither of us could see the other. And though he had a knife, I had my bat.

Again, in our mutual blindness, breathing held in check, we felt each other out, waiting for some hint of movement. I could feel blood dripping down my face, but I was strangely free of fear. Its just a knife, I said to myself. Its just a cut. I waited. I waited for the knife to come my way again. I could wait forever. I drew my breath in and expelled it without a sound. Come on! I said to him in my mind. Move! Im waiting for you to move. Stab me if you want to. Im not afraid.

Again the knife came. It slashed the collar of my sweater. I could feel the point moving past my throat, but it never touched my skin. I twisted and jumped to the side, and almost too impatient to straighten up, I swung the bat through space. It caught him somewhere around the collarbone. Not enough to bring him down or break any bones, but I knew I had hurt him. I could feel him recoil from the blow, and I heard a loud gasp. I took a short backswing and went for him again-in the same direction at a slightly higher angle, where I had heard the breath drawn in.

It was a perfect swing. I caught him somewhere high on the neck. There was a sickening sound of cracking bone. A third swing hit home- the skull-and sent him flying. He let out a weird sound and slumped to the floor. He lay there making little gasps, but those soon stopped. I closed my eyes and, without thinking, aimed one final swing in the direction of the sound. I didnt want to do it, but I had no choice. I had to finish him off: not out of hatred or even out of fear, but as something I simply had to do. I heard something crack open in the darkness like a piece of fruit. Like a watermelon. I stood still, gripping the bat, holding it out in front of me. Then I realized I was trembling. All over. And there was no way I could stop it. I took one step back and pulled the flashlight from my pocket.

Dont! cried a voice in the darkness. Dont look at it! Kumikos voice was calling to me from the inner room, trying to stop me from looking. But I had to look. I had to see it. I had to know what it was, this thing in the center of the darkness that I had just beaten to a pulp. Part of my mind understood what Kumiko was forbidding me to do. She was right: I shouldnt look at it. But I had the flashlight in my hand now, and that hand was moving on its own.

Please, Im begging you to stop! she screamed. Dont look at it if you want to take me home again!

I clenched my teeth and quietly released the air I had locked in my lungs. Still the trembling would not subside. A sickening smell hung in the air-the smell of brains and violence and death. I had done this: I was the one who had made the air smell like this. I found the sofa and collapsed onto it. For a while, I fought against the nausea rising in my stomach, but the nausea won. I vomited everything in my stomach onto the carpet, and when that was gone I brought up stomach fluid, then air, and saliva. While vomiting, I dropped the bat on the floor. I could hear it rolling away in the darkness.

Once the spasms of my stomach began to subside, I wanted to take out my handkerchief to wipe my mouth, but I could not move my hand. I couldnt get up from the sofa. Lets go home, I said toward the darkness of the inner room. This is all over now. Lets go.

She didnt answer. There was no one in there anymore. I sank into the sofa and closed my eyes. I could feel the strength going out of me-from my fingers, my shoulders, my neck, my legs.... The pain of my wounds began to fade as well. My body was losing all sense of mass and substance. But this gave me no anxiety, no fear at all. Without protest, I gave myself up- surrendered my flesh-to some huge, warm thing that came naturally to enfold me. I realized then that I was passing through the wall of jelly. All I had to do was give myself up to the gentle flow. Ill never come back here again, I said to myself as I moved through the wall. Everything had come to an end. But where was Kumiko? Where did she go? I was supposed to bring her back from the room. That was the reason I killed the man. That was the reason I had to split his skull open like a watermelon. That was the reason I... But I couldnt think anymore. My mind was sucked into a deep pool of nothingness.

When I came to, I was sitting in the darkness again. My back was against the wall, as always. I had returned to the bottom of the well.

But it was not the usual well bottom. There was something new here, something unfamiliar. I tried to gather my faculties to grasp what was going on. What was so different? But my senses were still in a state of near-total paralysis. I had only a partial, fragmentary sense of my surroundings. I felt as if, through some kind of error, I had been deposited in the wrong container. As time passed by, though, I began to realize what it was.

Water. I was surrounded by water.

The well was no longer dry. I was sitting in water up to my waist. I took several deep breaths to calm myself. How could this be? The well was producing water-not cold water, though. If anything, it felt warm. I felt as if I were soaking in a heated pool. It then occurred to me to check my pocket. I wanted to know if the flashlight was still there. Had I brought it back with me from the other world? Was there any link between what had happened there and this reality? But my hand would not move. I couldnt even move my fingers. All strength had gone out of my arms and legs. It was impossible for me to stand.

I began a coolheaded assessment of my situation. First of all, the water came up only to my waist, so I didnt have to worry about drowning. True, I was unable to move, but that was probably because I had used up every ounce of strength. Once enough time had gone by, my strength would probably come back. The knife wounds didnt seem very deep, and the paralysis at least saved me from having to suffer with pain. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing from my cheek.

I leaned my head back against the wall and told myself, Its OK, dont worry. Everything had probably ended. All I had to do now was give my body some rest here, then go back to my original world, the world above-ground, where the sunlight overflowed.... But why had this well started producing water all of a sudden? It had been dried up, dead, for such a long time, yet now it had come back to life. Could this have some connection with what I had accomplished there? Yes, it probably did. Something might have loosened whatever it was that had been obstructing the vein of water.

Shortly after that, I encountered one ominous fact. At first I tried to resist accepting it as a fact. My mind came up with a list of possibilities that would enable me to do that. I tried to convince myself that it was a hallucination caused by the combination of darkness and fatigue. But in the end, I had to recognize its truth. However much I attempted to deceive myself, it would not go away.

The water level was rising.

The water had risen now from my waist to the underside of my bent knees. It was happening slowly, but it was happening. I tried again to move my body. With a concentrated effort, I tried to squeeze out whatever strength I could manage, but it was useless. The most I could do was bend my neck a little. I looked overhead. The well lid was still solidly in place. I tried to look at the watch on my left wrist, without success. The water was coming in from an opening-and with what seemed like increasing speed.

Where it had been barely seeping in at first, it was now almost gushing. I could hear it. Soon it was up to my chest. How deep was it going to get?

Be careful of water, Mr. Honda had said to me. I had never paid any heed to his prophecy. True, I had never forgotten it, either (you dont forget anything as weird as that), but I had never taken it seriously. Mr. Honda had been nothing more than a harmless episode for Kumiko and me. I would repeat his words as a joke now and then when something came up: Be careful of water. And we would laugh. We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy. But Mr. Honda had been right. I almost wanted to laugh out loud. The water was rising, and I was in trouble.

I thought about May Kasahara. I used my imagination to picture her opening the well cover-with total reality and clarity. The image was so real and clear that I could have stepped right into it. I couldnt move my body, but my imagination still worked. What else could I do?

Hey, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. Her voice reverberated all up and down the well shaft. I hadnt realized that a well with water echoed more than one without water. What are you doing down there? Thinking again?

Im not doing any one thing in particular, I said, facing upward. I havent got time to explain now, but I cant move my body, and the water is rising in here. This isnt a dry well anymore. I might drown.

Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird! said May Kasahara. You emptied yourself out trying so hard to save Kumiko. And you probably did save her. Right? And in the process, you saved lots of people. But you couldnt save yourself. And nobody else could save you. You used up your strength and your fate saving others. All your seeds were planted somewhere else, and now your bag is empty. Have you ever heard of anything so unfair? I feel sympathy for you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, from the bottom of my heart. Its true. But finally, it was a choice you made yourself. Do you know what I mean?

I do, I said.

I felt a dull throb in my right shoulder. It really happened, then, I told myself. The knife really cut me. It cut me as a real knife.

Are you afraid to die, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? asked May Kasahara.

Sure I am, I said. I could hear my voice reverberating in the well. It was my voice, and at the same time it wasnt. Sure Im afraid when I think about dying down here in a dark well.

Goodbye, then, poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. Sorry, theres nothing I can do for you. Im far, far away.

Goodbye, May Kasahara, I said. You looked great in a bikini. May Kasaharas voice was very quiet as she said, Goodbye, poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird. The well cover closed tightly again. The image faded. But nothing happened. The image was not linked to anything. I shouted toward the well mouth, May Kasahara, where are you now when I need you?

The water was up to my throat. Now it was wrapped around my neck like a noose. In anticipation, I was beginning to find it difficult to breathe. My heart, now underwater, was working hard to tick off the time it had remaining. At this rate, I would have another five minutes or so before the water covered my mouth and nose and started filling my lungs. There was no way I could win. I had brought this well back to life, and I would die in its rebirth. It was not a bad way to die, I told myself. The world is full of much worse ways to die.

I closed my eyes and tried to accept my impending death as calmly as I could. I struggled to overcome my fear. At least I was able to leave a few things behind. That was the one small bit of good news. I tried to smile, without much success. I am afraid to die, though, I whispered to myself. These turned out to be my last words. They were not very impressive words, but it was too late to change them. The water was over my mouth now. Then it came to my nose. I stopped breathing. My lungs fought to suck in new air. But there was no more air. There was only lukewarm water.

I was dying. Like all the other people who live in this world.