yakiniku
?”
573
“
Yakiniku
?” Tengo didn’t eat much meat. He didn’t usually crave it. But now that
she had brought it up, he thought it might be good to have some meat for a change.
His body might indeed be crying out for more nourishment.
“All of us were talking about going out now to eat some
yakiniku
. You should join
us.”
“All of us?”
“The others finish work at six thirty and we’ll meet afterward. There will be three
of us. Interested?”
The other two were Nurse Omura and Nurse Adachi. The three of them seemed to
enjoy spending time together, even after work. Tengo considered the idea of going out
to eat
yakiniku
with them. He didn’t want to disrupt his simple lifestyle, but he
couldn’t think of a plausible excuse in order to refuse. It was obvious to them that in a
town like this Tengo would have plenty of free time on his hands.
“If you don’t think I’ll be a bother.”
“Of course you won’t,” the nurse said. “I don’t invite people out if I think they’ll
be a bother. So don’t hesitate to come with us. It will be nice to have a healthy young
man along for a change.”
“Well, healthy I definitely am,” Tengo said in an uncertain voice.
“That is the most important thing,” the nurse declared, giving it her professional
opinion.
It wasn’t easy for all three nurses to be off duty at the same time, but once a month
they managed it. The three of them would go into town, eat something nutritious,
have a few drinks, sing karaoke, let loose, and blow off some steam. They definitely
needed a change of scenery. Life in this rural town was monotonous, and with the
exception of the doctors and other nurses at work, the only people they saw were the
elderly, those devoid of memory and signs of life.
The three nurses ate and drank a lot, and Tengo couldn’t keep up. As they got
livelier, he sat beside them, quietly eating a moderate amount of grilled meat and
sipping his draft beer so he didn’t get drunk. After they left the
yakiniku
place, they
went to a bar, bought a bottle of whiskey, and belted out karaoke. The three nurses
took turns singing their favorite songs, then teamed up to do a Candies number,
complete with choreographed steps. Tengo was sure they had practiced, they were
that good. Tengo wasn’t into karaoke, but he did manage one Yosui Inoue song he
vaguely remembered.
Nurse Adachi was normally reserved, but after a few drinks, she turned animated
and bold. Once she got a bit tipsy, her red cheeks turned a healthy tanned color. She
giggled at silly jokes and leaned back, in an entirely natural way, on Tengo’s
shoulder. Nurse Omura had changed into a light blue dress and had let down her hair.
She looked three or four years younger and her voice dropped an octave. Her usually
brisk, businesslike manner was subdued, and she moved languidly, as if she had taken
on a different personality. Only Nurse Tamura, with her metal-framed glasses, looked
and acted the same as always.
“My kids are staying with a neighbor tonight,” Nurse Omura explained. “And my
husband has to work the night shift. You have to take advantage of times like this to
574
just go out and have fun. It’s important to get away from it all sometimes. Don’t you
agree, Tengo?”
The three nurses had started calling him by his first name. Most people around him
seemed to do that naturally. Even his students called him “Tengo” behind his back.
“Yes, that’s for sure,” Tengo agreed.
“We just have to get out sometimes,” Nurse Tamura said, sipping a glass of
Suntory Old whiskey and water. “We’re just flesh and blood, after all.”
“Take off our uniforms, and we’re just ordinary women,” Miss Adachi said, and
giggled at her comment.
“Tell me, Tengo,” Nurse Omura said. “Is it okay to ask this?”
“Ask what?”
“Are you seeing anybody?”
“Yes, tell us,” Nurse Adachi said, crunching down on some corn nuts with her
large, white teeth.
“It’s not an easy thing to talk about,” Tengo said.
“We don’t mind if it’s not easy to talk about,” the experienced Nurse Tamura said.
“We have lots of time, and we would love to hear about it. I’m dying to hear this
hard-to-talk-about story.”
“Tell us, tell us!” Nurse Adachi said, clapping her hands lightly and giggling.
“It’s not all that interesting,” Tengo said. “It’s kind of trite and pointless.”
“Well, then just cut to the chase,” Nurse Omura said. “Do you have a girlfriend, or
not?”
Tengo gave in. “At this point, I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Hmm,” Nurse Tamura said. She stirred the ice in her glass with a finger and
licked it. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all. A young, vigorous man like yourself
without a girlfriend, it’s such a waste.”
“It’s not good for your body, either,” the large Nurse Omura said. “If you keep it
stored inside you for a long time, you’ll go soft in the head.”
Young Nurse Adachi was still giggling. “You’ll go soft in the head,” she said, and
poked her forehead.
“I did have someone until recently,” Tengo said, somewhat apologetically.
“But she left?” Nurse Tamura said, pushing up the bridge of her glasses.
Tengo nodded.
“You mean she dumped you?”
“I don’t know,” Tengo said, inclining his head. “Maybe she did. I think I probably
was dumped.”
“By any chance is that person—a lot older than you?” Nurse Tamura asked, her
eyes narrowed.
“Yes, she is,” Tengo said. How did she know that?
“Didn’t I tell you?” Nurse Tamura said, looking proudly at the other two nurses.
They nodded.
“I told the others that,” Nurse Tamura said, “that you were going out with an older
woman. Women can sniff out these things.”
“Sniff, sniff,” went Nurse Adachi.
“On top of that, maybe she was already married,” Nurse Omura said in a lazy tone.
“Am I right?”
575
Tengo hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Lying was pointless.
“You bad boy,” Nurse Adachi said, and poked him in the thigh.
“Ten years older,” Tengo said.
“Goodness!” Nurse Omura exclaimed.
“Ah, so you had an experienced, older married woman loving you,” Nurse Tamura,
herself a mother, said. “I’m envious. Maybe I should do that myself. And comfort
lonely, gentle young Tengo here. I might not look it, but I still have a pretty decent
body.”
She grabbed Tengo’s hand and was about to press it against her breasts. The other
two women managed to stop her. Even if you were letting your hair down, there was a
line that shouldn’t be crossed between nurses and a patient’s relative. That’s what
they seemed to think—or else they were afraid that someone might spot them. It was
a small town, and rumors spread quickly. Maybe Nurse Tamura’s husband was the
jealous type. Tengo had enough problems and didn’t want to get caught up in any
more.
“You’re really something,” Nurse Tamura said, wanting to change the subject.
“You come all this way here, sit by your father’s bedside for hours a day reading
aloud to him … Not many people would do that.”
Young Nurse Adachi tilted her head a bit. “I agree, he really is something. I really
respect you for that.”
“You know, we’re always praising you,” Nurse Tamura said.
Tengo’s face reddened. He wasn’t in this town to nurse his father. He was staying
here hoping to again see the air chrysalis, and the faint light it gave off, and inside it,
the sleeping figure of Aomame. That was the only reason he remained here. Taking
care of his unconscious father was only a pretext. But he couldn’t reveal the truth. If
he did, he would have to start by explaining an air chrysalis.
“It’s because I never did anything for him up till now.” Awkwardly, he scrunched
up his large frame in the narrow wooden chair, sounding uncomfortable. But the
nurses found his attitude appealingly humble.
Tengo wanted to tell them he was sleepy so he could get up and go back to his inn,
but he couldn’t find the right opportunity. He wasn’t the type, after all, to assert
himself.
“Yes, but—” Nurse Omura said, and cleared her throat. “To get back to what we
were talking about, I wonder why you and that married woman ten years older than
you broke up. I imagine you were getting along all right? Did her husband find out or
something?”
“I don’t know the reason,” Tengo said. “At one point she just stopped calling, and I
haven’t heard from her since.”
“Hmm,” Nurse Adachi said. “I wonder if she was tired of you.”
Nurse Omura shook her head. She held one index finger pointing straight up and
turned to her younger colleague. “You still don’t know anything about the world. You
don’t get it at all. A forty-year-old married woman who snags a young, vigorous,
delicious young man like this one and enjoys him to the fullest doesn’t then just up
and say
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