Tamako's Summer
I
The rear wheels of the bus flung up a spray of wind and rain, soaking Tamako’s shoes. In the sudden chill she lost focus, as though the bus had taken the surrounding scenery with it and left only her, standing in place.
The world was still. The cicadas that should have been singing had been put away by the rain. Tamako opened her umbrella and put the daze away. Raindrops slid along the pale blue edge, fell, shattered on the deep crimson of her shoes. Running away, she thought. This is running away. I will not go back.
The mountain lodge where the reunion was held was green in every direction, from the passable bamboo by the stream to the maples on the slope whose leaves had not yet turned, a thorough freshness; a chill, like the ice-cold rainwater inside Tamako’s shoes, sharp but not yet unbearable. The accommodation was ahead, two or three hundred metres along the road the bus had taken, a small gate on the opposite side of the street. Under its bamboo canopy a black cat lay, saw the deep crimson of her shoes, and did not raise its head. It was no concern of its own.
It was a school reunion, but there was only one person Tamako wanted to see: the glowing avatar in the chat window, a pair of red cedarwood shutters closed over a boy leaning forward, a braid tied at the crown of his head, doing something one could not see. Reading, probably. They had grown up together until their paths diverged: one to Canada, the other to England. The rain of two continents soaked identical hairstyles. Tamako felt that she had to see him.
The stream ran on, flowing from the gate into the lodge’s small lake, where a few sullen lotus flowers guarded their dignity in summer. ‘If it snowed here, how beautiful it would be,’ Tamako muttered, and took the long way round, approaching the accommodation from the lake’s far side. Snow was always beautiful to her: white burying past and present, erasing difference, correcting error, like the falling curtain of a theatre and the murky dark of night, letting filth and glory alike scatter on the tracks behind while the train continues towards the cliff.
Snow, train, Snow Country: Shimamura sees the gentle face of Yoko reflected in the carriage window! Tamako did not like her own name, probably because the owner of that reflected face bore a similar one. From the moment she read Kawabata in middle school, everything became a negotiation between herself and her reflection. Standing now at the lake’s edge, watching a face struck to pieces by raindrops, she could not help blaming her father a little: he had given her this name, and perhaps in doing so had silently handed her fate to the Japanese novelists. Once, Tamako had been able to stretch her name towards associations like tamago-yaki, but that ability seemed to have collapsed entirely; each time she thought of her name, what surfaced was Matsuko, Yoko, Haizi, and even a name as un-Japanese as Haizi could not escape a tragic life.
This loss of control over one’s own life was not only internal. External mockery, or what she took to be mockery, had also claimed a large territory. Because of her name, Tamako was often called Japanese at school. ‘Hey, Tamago!’ This teasing, originally harmless, grew increasingly severe in her eyes, like a soft cane flicked weakly against her face, raising welts over time.
She wanted, of course, to blame her father, but her father had left long ago. Her parents divorced when Tamako was starting primary school, though this separation did not become her reality until much later, when her mother could no longer conceal it. Her father’s departure created a vacuum in Tamako’s brief life, drawing in details that may never have existed: domestic violence, coldness, nights he did not come home. Because how else could one explain the suddenness of it all? How else could one feel entitled to blame?
Yoko’s face was shattered again; a deft ripple spread across the lake. Only then did Tamako notice that the black cat, previously lying by the gate, had come to stand at the lake’s edge, fixing her with a Sartrean ‘explanatory gaze’, rigid as a newly arrived protagonist staring at an audience member trying to climb onto the stage, its tail erect, maintaining balance. Tamako shuddered, from the soaked socks or from the cat, a sharp lean black cat, and the gaze locked upon her. Between them was a door; the cat’s gaze came through a small hole in it. The gaze was like snow, like night, projecting Tamako’s image onto a flat surface for examination. She was an intruder, a lost person with no destination. What had she come here for?
What had she come here for? Tamako was asking herself the same thing. To see the person she had been thinking about, naturally. Presumably. Even now, she did not know what she expected. Tamako had never truly expected anything in her life. As a child she had expected cars that could fly and chloroplasts for human use, but somewhere along the way, expectation became another ability that gradually collapsed. She learned to take things as they came: without expectation there is no disappointment, she told herself. And it was true: she would never again expect kindness to be repaid, never again expect a gathering to be interesting. Tamako sometimes felt that she was a socially phobic snail, hiding inside a shell fused to her flesh, the tip of her bun-braid poking from the top. For her, conversation was a process of surrendering freedom in exchange for responsibility: giving a portion of one’s time unconditionally to another while bearing an equal obligation in return. By this logic, talking to dull people was a double waste of life. So what had she come here for? Not for conversation; she did not find her former classmates interesting. Not for the mountain scenery; Tamako had no interest in summer green. For the cool air, she supposed. Her soaked socks assaulted her skull with another wave of chill.
Cold, properly cold. If she did not reach the accommodation and change, she would catch a cold by morning. Tamako walked along the river towards the wooden building ahead. The cat followed. Two lives drew closer, step by step. Invader and invaded explained each other with their eyes.
She pushed open the door. Crossed the threshold; dim amber light everywhere. Approached the front desk, gave her phone number, took the copper-coloured key, said thank you, went upstairs, metal into lock, handle turning. Pushed open the door. Drew the curtains; the first ray of sun after rain fell on the bed. Gold, blinding gold, piercing the gauze curtain like X-rays through an organ.
Tamako changed her clothes and lay on the bed. Sleep began to stir.
II
By the time she woke, the sunlight outside the window had gone. On the hilltop, a tree propped up half a moon with its trunk. A burst of laughter erupted outside the door; the voice of that loud boy from middle school was unmistakable, carrying Tamako’s attention with it towards the headboard. The classmates had arrived, presumably, though Tamako did not know who they were: the habit of putting on headphones the moment class ended had long since revoked that right. At this thought she felt a sudden loneliness, followed by an absurd excitement: she wanted to rush out the door and shout at the laughing strangers, ‘You’re here! It’s me, Tamako! It’s been so long!’ And then? Perhaps she could bluff her way through, reinvent herself as an extrovert, and at the cost of one cup of Earl Grey, join the laughter in someone else’s room. After so many years, perhaps these classmates had become interesting people. But strangely, the more she thought this, the more anxious she grew. Perhaps they were only discussing girls they had met at other gatherings. Tamako knew that several boys in the old class had been fond of this: scattering their attentions through dance floors and bars, claiming a ‘connection’ with someone, then continuing that convenient ‘connection’ on white bedsheets a few days later.
Freedom always breeds anxiety. Tamako before a social opportunity was like someone standing at the edge of a cloud-high cliff, possessing both a simple rationality and a call of the void. If she could not move, if she lay in bed eavesdropping on their sparse laughter, perhaps she could still sleep through the night and greet the dawn. But at the cliff’s edge there was no railing, no red light, not even a warning sign. She felt fear: absurd, but real. It had been this way since childhood.
Between the excitement and the fear, Tamako closed her eyes and seemed to catch another glimpse of the boy leaning forward behind the red cedarwood shutters. What was he reading? Not the copy of Memory Sees Me she had given him long ago? What was he thinking about? Not the Rachmaninoff she had once told him about? He was probably wearing those familiar black earbuds, his phone playing some unknown song, dozing through English class, drool on the desk, confusing Tranströmer with Transformer.
They had been close for a while. Strictly speaking, he had almost become her boyfriend. She still remembered the red cedarwood bookcase on her first visit to his house; everything about him seemed to carry the shadow of red cedar. The complete works of Lu Xun arranged neatly on the shelf, and beside them a Bei Dao poetry collection, its wrapper removed, glimmering a dusky rose. It was then, by association, that she took Bei Dao as the devotion of a lifetime. After that, Tamako became a permanent guest, sweeping through every word in that vast library. She was in the second year of middle school. She did not understand loneliness; she did not understand fear. She sat on his balcony, a book spread open in both hands, the cover facing the blazing sun, and squinted as she enjoyed it all. ‘As though all of it were stolen,’ Bei Dao wrote: ‘the sunset, the evening breeze, the inexplicable smile, and happiness.’
Freedom always breeds anxiety, as happiness always portends catastrophe. The two split apart as silently as they had met. The crack began slowly, invading by physical means. Their time was torn apart by geography; under identical sunlight they read different books. The crack ended quickly, invading by psychological means. Their connection was breached by rumour; at different latitudes they hated different people. Neither could escape that cat-like gaze: no communication, no explanation, an accusation that could not be cleared, a lie he had made himself believe. A dried fish snatched away by the cat.
Tamako clenched the white bedsheet.
Could she say she had loved him? Tamako did not know. She did not know whether she had ever truly loved anything in her life. She only felt that the sunlight of an ancient age had been beautiful. In that sunlight she had tied his hair for the first time: a neat bun-braid. Recalled now, the sunlight was beautiful, the black hair was beautiful, and the two of them in the first flush of feeling were beautiful. Memory feinted, then struck Tamako’s shoulder.
The pillow dampened quietly, bringing a chill. In the corner, Tamako’s soaked shoes sat in their blood-dark crimson, silent.
III
The reunion began at noon.
Why was she already so disappointed? Walking down the stairs, Tamako felt uneasy. Was reunion a curse or a mercy? Like a pair of rusted red city gates, anxiety and nostalgia creaking as they opened. A carved plum tree had been cut through a red wall; after yesterday’s rain, the bright sun cast its shadow onto the granite floor, perfectly still. Tamako edged past the wall, afraid of disturbing the sleeping flower-shadow.
He would come, surely? She thought this, and saw yesterday’s cat lying beneath the canopy on the opposite wall. Only then did she notice that its black fur, in the bright sun, shone with an impossible light. Sunlight placed Tamako and the cat in different worlds. The cat said nothing. Tamako said nothing, standing under the wooden plum blossoms for a while, remembering that his house, too, had a quiet cat like this, with a notch in one ear from an old injury, like a jade ring with a piece missing: not beautiful, but not necessarily bad.
In the distance, the noon bell sounded, sending echoes through the green, pulling Tamako back to the black cat. She stood a moment longer, then followed the dappled shadow of the plum blossoms along the red corridor. At its end, a right turn, a pair of red doors. Behind them, familiar laughter; the loud boy’s voice still distinguishable. She pushed open the doors. The world turned. Thirty-odd people milled about a smallish room. Behind a screen, everyone was fretworked by wooden plum blossoms. The faction led by the loud boy was the largest, circling a red cedarwood table laden with fruit. One boy, holding a slice of watermelon, glanced casually past the screen; the red in his hand orbited Tamako’s world once, then vanished.
Not him. Where was he? Stepping out from behind the screen, Tamako still saw only fretworked people: the loud one was the class monitor, presumably? Who was the girl over here? Fretworked occupations, pasts, circles. Fretworked people, none of them him. Where was he? Why the sudden severing of contact? Why years of silence? The fretwork extended to the foreground, then stopped abruptly, becoming solid red wall. Tamako slid onto a chair against the wall. She had ten thousand questions. Where was he? Where had he been, where was he now, where would he be?
He had not come, then? Noise, noncommittal noise, filled the room, and Tamako floated in it, drifting for she did not know how long. Oppression moved with the sunlight along the red wall; the shadow of the wooden plum blossoms inched across the floor, becoming the most primitive of clock hands. A female classmate approached: blue dress, walking quietly, not heading directly for Tamako (clearly not of the loud boy’s faction), but she sat down beside her and feigned a startled whisper: ‘I can’t believe you came! You’re Tamako, right? Your hair’s exactly the same as years ago!’ She then stared straight at Tamako’s nose, her gaze carrying something of the black cat’s focus. She was waiting for an answer. Tamako was direct: ‘Yes.’ Then could not help asking the other’s name. And so the two began to talk, in the stinging oppression. The early topics circled each other’s studies and work. Learning that both had gone abroad for university, the girl in the blue dress seized on this like a lifeline and began comparing England and America. Tamako had no appetite for the contest, yet had her own designs: she threaded mentions of Canada through her words until the other grew suspicious and asked why Tamako knew Canada so well. Tamako did not hesitate. Affecting calm, she recited his name. Then stared straight at the other’s nose, her gaze carrying something of the black cat’s focus. Yes: she was waiting for an answer. But what was the question? The girl in the blue dress heard the name, froze. Silence passed between them.
The information content of silence is immense. The girl wore an expression of distress; whether genuine or performed, Tamako could not tell. Shallow collarbones caught the light with a moving texture, drawing Tamako’s gaze upwards to the brownish-red cedarwood hairpin. The girl told Tamako that he had died over half a year ago, and said she had assumed Tamako, being close to him, would have known long since. Tamako thought: yes, we were close; yes, I already knew. Instantly all sound became indifferent greeting.
Somewhere in the crowd a glass shattered. Tamako used the commotion to flee from the girl in the blue dress. The noise covered the helicopter-roar of oppression inside Tamako’s world.
IV
The mountain lodge on a midsummer afternoon was green to the point of desolation; in the distance, a few temples were just visible, standing like headstones of human civilisation. Tamako met the black cat again by the lake, lying beneath the canopy, its eyes probably closed.
Mercifully, Tamako had not come here to see him at all. This had always been an escape, and she had resolved long ago not to turn back. This was fact, she told herself. All of it: the wind stirring the bamboo leaves, the light falling to the ground, the sparse laughter in the distance. All of it was fact, a fact that lacked her, demonstrating without effort the contingency of her existence. She recognised, suddenly and clearly, that she was not necessary: her name, her build, her bun-braid, and the faint mole on her collarbone were merely the cost of existing contingently in this world. In the returning tide of midsummer cicadas, she imitated her reflection in the lake and removed her glasses, folded the arms, placed them in her bag, then looked up to examine the still water: trees merged into a line of green in the distance; clouds too, raising a faint white glow in the sky. The background was blurred, as always, as with everything Tamako knew: in the simulator of memory, only a few blurred backgrounds remain; the subject is never more than one or two. Remove the glasses and the world contracts to the page before one’s eyes; all other detail scatters like startled birds. It was the same with him: Tamako remembered only his deep black-cat eyes, the cedar-red bookcase, the elastic band, his faint eyebrows. As for the uncle and auntie always busy in the background, she had no impression at all. For Tamako, that room, that building, that street, that metro stop held only one inhabitant.
As though to correspond with the nearsightedness, the following summer Tamako developed a severe middle-ear infection from a fever. After more than a fortnight the root cause was treated and the fever broke, but it left behind a hum, reverberating inside her skull, that never went away. Together with the nearsightedness, this chronic tinnitus brushed a layer of pale grey ink onto Tamako’s white paper.
Gradually, Tamako reached an accommodation with the nearsightedness and the tinnitus, accepting her status as prisoner. But in this moment, standing at the lake’s edge, none of it felt real. She thought of his half-smile: the upturn of a mouth in a blurred world, perhaps nothing more than a side-effect of her myopia. She thought of sunlight, of the bookcase, of the red shutters, of the wooden school desk. Until the real and the fabricated in memory could no longer be told apart, the sound in her ears grew louder. At first, a solo instrument: a faint hiss, like a gas stove igniting. But the sound grew, drowning out leaves and cicadas, drowning out sky and lake, like wildfire, painting everything in gold. Tamako seemed to see a wheat field, a child running through gold flowing in the wind, clutching a white kite string. The thin line cut the child’s palm; red merged into the golden river. The child’s face wore the trace of a smile. Tamako smiled too, and felt, suddenly, that amid all the misery, only that ill-fitting happiness was real.
Tamako leapt, and shattered the lake’s mirror to pieces.
Originally published in Chinese as 「玉子的夏天」 on 阿莫東森的無聊生活.
