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Air Chrysalis
. First of all, he had been dragged almost
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bodily into Komatsu’s dangerous plan. Secondly, the beautiful girl who wrote the
book had shaken his heart from a strange angle. And it seemed that the experience of
rewriting
Air Chrysalis
had begun to change something inside of him. Now Tengo felt
driven by a powerful urge to write
his own
novel. This, of course, was a change for
the better. But it was also true that his neat, self-satisfied lifestyle was being tested.
In any case, tomorrow was Friday. His girlfriend would be coming. He had to get
rid of Fuka-Eri before then.
Fuka-Eri woke up just after two o’clock in the morning. Dressed in his pajamas, she
opened the bedroom door and came out to the kitchen. She drank a big glass of water
and, rubbing her eyes, sat down at the kitchen table across from Tengo.
“Am I in your way,” Fuka-Eri asked in her usual style free of question marks.
“Not especially,” Tengo said. “I don’t mind.”
“What are you writing.”
Tengo closed the pad and set his ballpoint pen down.
“Nothing much,” Tengo said. “Anyway, I was just thinking of quitting.”
“Mind if I stay up with you a while,” she asked.
“Not at all. I’m going to have a little wine. Want some?”
The girl shook her head. “I want to stay out here a while.”
“That’s fine. I’m not sleepy, either.”
Tengo’s pajamas were too big on Fuka-Eri. She had the sleeves and cuffs rolled
up. Whenever she leaned forward, the collar revealed glimpses of the swell of her
breasts. The sight of Fuka-Eri wearing his pajamas made it strangely difficult for
Tengo to breathe. He opened the refrigerator and poured the wine left in the bottom of
a bottle into a glass.
“Hungry?” Tengo asked. On their way back to his apartment earlier, they had had
some spaghetti at a small restaurant near Koenji Station. The portions had not been
very big, and several hours had elapsed in the meantime. “I can make you a sandwich
or something else simple if you’d like.”
“I’m not hungry. I’d rather have you read me what you wrote.”
“You mean what I was writing just now?”
“Uh-huh.”
Tengo picked up his pen and twirled it between his fingers. It looked ridiculously
small in his big hand. “I make it a policy not to show people manuscripts until they’re
finished and revised. I don’t want to jinx my writing.”
“ ‘Jinx.’ ”
“It’s an English word. ‘To cause bad luck.’ It’s a kind of rule of mine.”
Fuka-Eri looked at Tengo for several moments. Then she drew the pajama collar
closed. “So read me a book.”
“You can get to sleep if someone reads you a book?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I suppose Professor Ebisuno has read you lots of books.”
“Because he stays up all night.”
“Did he read you
The Tale of the Heike
?”
Fuka-Eri shook her head. “I listened to a tape.”
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“So that’s how you memorized it! Must have been a very long tape.”
Fuka-Eri used two hands to suggest a pile of cassette tapes. “Very long.”
“What part did you recite at the press conference?”
“ ‘General Yoshitsune’s Flight from the Capital.’ ”
“That’s the part after the defeat of the Heike where the victorious Genji general
Yoshitsune flees from Kyoto, with his brother Yoritomo in pursuit. The Genji have
won the war against the Heike, but then the family starts fighting among themselves.”
“Right.”
“What other sections can you recite from memory?”
“Tell me what you want to hear.”
Tengo tried to recall some episodes from
The Tale of the Heike
. It was a long book,
with an endless number of stories. Off the top of his head, Tengo named “The Battle
of Dan-no-ura.”
Fuka-Eri took some twenty seconds to collect her thoughts in silence. Then she
began to chant a decisive part of the final sea battle in the original verse:
The Genji warriors had boarded the Heike ships to find
The sailors and helmsmen pierced by arrows or slashed by swords,
Their corpses lying in the bilge, leaving no one to steer.
Aboard a small boat, New Middle Counselor Tomomori
Approached the Imperial Ship and said:
“And so it seems to have come to this.
Heave everything unsightly into the ocean.”
He ran from stem to stern, sweeping, scrubbing,
Gathering litter, cleaning everything with his own hands.
The ladies-in-waiting asked, “How goes the battle, Counselor?”
“Soon you will behold those marvelous men of the east,”
He replied with caustic laughter.
“How dare you jest at a time like this?” the women cried.
Observing this state of affairs, the Nun of Second Rank
Proceeded to carry out the plan
Upon which she had settled long before.
Hooding herself under two dark-gray robes,
She lifted high the hems of her glossy silk split skirt,
Tucked the Imperial Bead Strand under one arm,
Thrust the Imperial Sword under her sash,
And took the Child Emperor himself in her arms.
“Mere woman though I am, I shall never fall into enemy hands.
I shall go wherever His Majesty goes.
All you women whose hearts are with him,
Follow us without delay.” So saying,
She strode to the gunwale.
His Majesty had turned but eight that year,
Yet he exhibited a maturity far beyond his age.
His handsome countenance radiated an Imperial glow,
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And his glossy black hair could cascade down his back past the waist.
Confused by all the commotion, he asked,
“Grandmother, where are you taking me?”
She turned to the innocent young Sovereign and,
Fighting back her tears, she said,
“Do you not know yet what is happening?
For having followed the Ten Precepts in your previous life,
You were born to be a Lord commanding
Ten thousand charioteers,
But now, dragged down by an evil karma,
Your good fortune has exhausted itself.
Turn first now to the east,
And say your farewell to the Grand Shrine of Ise.
Then turn toward the west and call upon Amida Buddha
That his heavenly hosts may guide you to the Western Pure Land.
This country is no better than a scattering of millet,
A place where hearts know only sadness.
I am taking you, therefore, to a wonderful pure land called ‘Paradise.’ ”
Her tears escaped as she spoke thus to him.
His Majesty wore a robe of olive-tinged gray,
And his hair was bound on either side in boyish loops.
Tears streaming from his eyes, he joined his darling hands.
First, he bowed toward the east
And spoke his farewell to the Grand Shrine of Ise.
Then he turned to the west and, once he had called upon Amida Buddha,
The Nun of Second Rank clasped him to her breast and,
Comforting him with the words,
“There is another capital beneath the waves,”
She plunged ten thousand fathoms beneath the sea.
Listening to her recite the story with his eyes closed, Tengo felt as though he were
hearing it the traditional way, chanted by a blind priest accompanying himself on the
lute, and he was reminded anew that
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