- A Bridge -
I had the dream again that night. She was on top of me again, and the sky stretched out above. Each star was clear, crisply defined like they were actually tangible objects right next to us. Every night they seemed to grow closer. Such that they seemed to caress her back and her ears. I wished to touch her like the stars but I couldn't move very well yet. But I could see more of her this time. I could see her silhouette against the stars. I couldn't make out her face - she was a shadow hovering over me. It wasn't a frightening experience, to look up into the darkness of her body. She was warm and soft. Inside of me, there was a deep calm, a peace that moves like a lullaby coaxing me to succumb to sleep.
"There's a bridge," she said, "across the river. Three miles from here."
I was about to speak but she put a finger to my lips. As if she's sharing a secret and someone was trying to eavesdrop on us.
"After tonight, you may be able to cross the river."
"What's on the other side?"
"It's important to cross to the other side soon."
"Why?"
But she didn't respond.
It oddly didn't strike me as a strange way to put it at the time, as if someone was dying. As if I had to die. But it was the first time the conversation had moved onward from the myths and the sky and the universe above. She would dodge the questions I ask, if it treaded into territory too specific. I had learned the flow of our conversation and what kind of responses I should make to encourage her to speak on. Hearing her voice became my goal in the dream. It was comforting and the more she spoke the more aroused I became, until I could feel the need for release. If I could make her speak a lot maybe I would finish. But there was never any release. I would end up sweating profusely, wide awake in bed, never knowing the end. This time, however, she had given me a crucial piece of information.
It had occurred after I found Shizuka Kaneko's note in the yearbook. There had been no name to which it was written to. Just purple font on white paper. Neither did the yearbook seem to belong to anyone. I could conclude that Kozue Sato's yearbook had been donated to the school after her death, but that might be too hasty a guess. Of course Shirayuki gave no answer.
When I dug through the pages of the yearbook, I found Shizuka Kaneko's fifteen year old face framed in a photo for the junior high senior class. It came as a shock. Her features were largely the same but her hair was different. She was smiling, kindly, and her eyes had preserved a bright intensity. Even as a fifteen year-old she was stunning to look at. An exquisite little creature expertly crafted and refined. Her eyes were not as powerful as what I remembered, but still, it was better than nothing. After so long, I felt something kindling within, perhaps hope, or perhaps affection, for this fifteen year-old. What might be a drop of dew in a desert on parched lips. I had stood for a long time staring in desperation, soaking up that dew, trying to memorize the already fading image. Yet I grew in frustration as I realized my memory was insufficient to contain it. As soon as I turned away, her face would disappear, evaporate from my mind. While other images could remain, hers couldn't. Next I managed to take out my phone and take a picture, but it just wasn't enough. I needed her and to return the days we spent together. I tried to imagine her as a fifteen year-old, in a school uniform, hair up in a ponytail, books in her hands. She would be talking quietly to a teacher or lending her notes to a classmate. Perhaps she would be eating lunch alone, on the rooftop. Maybe she would be studying at home, or reading a book under a tree outside. On Wednesdays, she would put on her bathing suit for swimming classes and boys would watch her. On Friday, she had joined the tennis club and was a celebrated prodigy. Such thoughts overcame me like a sudden wave or a jolt of electricity. It finally dawned on me that she had gone to this same school Kozue Sato had. And the same school I had. Had I ever seen her? Spoken to her? Did I know her? What would it be like for Shizuka at school? How had she dealt with the ability to hear everyone's thoughts laid out bare? Had she known me all along? Had she met me a long time ago? Did she intentionally manipulate my lack of memory? Or had she lost her own memory too?
The more I thought of her – her as a fifteen year-old and the older version I was familiar with - I couldn't draw any conclusions, or draw any closer to her. No matter how hard I tried, the box borders of the photo and the white negative space of the page blocked out all possibility. She existed only within a two-dimensional print, like a portrait at a funeral. Looking at the photo only seemed to push her further away, as if I am confirming a death – the death of her in me.
For a while I had stood there in the library, hand on the shelf, trying to regain my bearings. It was like standing on quicksand where I was sinking slowly. The more I moved the more I would sink. I could feel warmth escaping my body, and a frigid chill set in through my bones, travelling through me like liquid in tubes. Soon I was shivering. Shizuka who had excavated me from my unknown pursuers and self-induced confinement, might have known something, perhaps much more than she had ever told me, all along. What was the truth and what were the lies? Yet, hadn't I already expected this at the same time? The world that she had explained, was a world that was entirely her perception, and I had consciously believed in her perception. I adapted it into my own perception. It had ultimately been my choice, hadn't it?
"Mr. Maeda, are you alright?" The librarian came up to me in what seemed like genuine concern.
"Yes, I'm fine."
She nodded and glanced at what I was holding. For a moment there was silence. Then she said: "Mr. Maeda, what are you truly here for?"
I was surprised and I looked up at her. Her eyes were unsympathetic. I averted my eyes. She knew. She knew I wasn't here for my thesis. My head started to ache. She frowned. Shirayuki stood beside me and said: "You're here to find something you had lost."
"I'm here to find something I lost," I replied.
"I see. Something that you can find in this yearbook?"
"I don't know, maybe."
The librarian asked me to stay put for a while, that she had something for me, that maybe it would help, before she turned and stepped out of the room. I was prepared to wait but Shirayuki quickly grabbed me by the arm. Tightly. "You've got what you wanted right? It's time to leave."
"Why?"
"We must leave." Her eyes were wide with fear. She was serious.
By the time the librarian returned with a few black suits and a mysterious, tall and lanky man, I had long departed from the back stairs with Shizuka's message in my pocket, dodged through the basketball court, passing by a swimming pool where a class sat on the side, and cut through an empty track field. Though none of them paid us any attention, I had felt those same eyes watching my every move.
*
It's the next day when I receive a message on my phone, as soon as I wake up. A morning herald bearing tidings of ill omen. It's as if someone is still monitoring me. Sleep or not, regardless, I am under surveillance. By whom, I couldn't be sure. There are too many forces at work, pushing and pulling this way and that. None of them work confrontationally and prefer to play games and riddles. I'm only one small driftwood against the tidal waves of a tropical storm. Regardless, my momentum wouldn't change. There's something I must do, a trail I should continue to follow, until the very end. Until I hit a dead end or an allegorical new world. Until I can see Shizuka again. At least once more. At the moment, I don't know what I would say to her, what I might ask, what I would do, but when the time comes, I am certain I would know then.
From another number that I don't recognize, my cell phone tells me to be at the cafe today at 3:35 sharp, not a minute more or less. It would be in the middle of classes that I had resumed, but I'm not taking any chances. It is definitely not from Shirayuki this time. The bridge has appeared. Perhaps I would be able to meet the Fox.
I make sure I'm early, and we stand on the opposite side of the street at three next to a McDonald's, as if on guard duty. From there I can see the entrance to the cafe, wooden doors painted black, under the sprawling red sign that says Resso Coffee Ltd. This is the same company Kumiko Bordeaux had owned. Of course, now it is under a different owner, and is doing exceptionally well with numerous branches around Japan, defining their brand as traditional coffee shops. "Coffee is Life." Their slogan reads. Under which says since 1976. I recall 1976 being the year Mao Zedong died and when the Cultural Revolution came to an end.
Under the sign, people wander by in droves, somehow even strangers end up cluttered up together. This is likely because of the traffic light nearby, where a red light would herd pedestrians like sheep into one unanimous indistinguishable organism. Heads mix into a bubbling soup of black beans. Only their outfits could be differentiated. There is a diverse mix of occupations here, based on their clothing, as it's a fusion of a residential and commercial district: some in school uniforms or suits, others casually walking by in jeans, t-shirts, coloured patterns, hats, sometimes with a slouch. It's easy to tell who's up to something important and who isn't, who has a pressing matter to attend to or who is relieved to be done. Most of them are younger than fifty. I can almost tell when someone has dyed their greying hair. Women are by standard more well-dressed than men. Even the most casual part-timer sports a brightly coloured handbag and matching shoes, maybe a skirt or leggings. It seems that the population however, notices the warmer weather and have adjusted their wardrobe accordingly. Though none of them stop baffled at the newfound flowers and leaves on trees, they must feel the warmth of spring setting in. It's only January according to my calendar.
There aren't too many people who enter the cafe. After about ten minutes, a couple enters, followed by an elderly man with a newspaper five minutes after them. Then until 3:35, no one else had entered. I had been watching carefully enough that I was certain that there's no mistake. Unless the person meeting me had been inside all along, I couldn't be wrong.
While I watch on, I feel eyes watching me like I always do. Perhaps, I have become numb to the sensation – it gives me no pressure. Sometimes, it even provides comfort, as if my stalker has become company. Maybe I could even speak to it once I feel comfortable enough. I find it wholly possible that they could hear my thoughts and read lips.
At 3:35 when I cross the street and enter the cafe, from the corner of my eye, I notice three men in black suits following a young woman quite closely. She seems to be oblivious. Her eyes are dead center, looking straight ahead, thoughts wandering. She might be thinking about what to eat or if she should attend the party tonight. Maybe her ex-boyfriend would be there. The men behind her aren't wearing sunglasses or particularly identical looking – one has bleached hair and another, a large earring. The third appears to be wearing glasses so plain, one would probably forget what he looks like immediately after. I debate stopping her but my time is up.
"She will be fine," Shirayuki says. Her voice is firm.
I enter the cafe, guilt seeping through my body like a cold chill on a winter night. I could almost hear the news report. A twenty-six year old woman has been assaulted by three men claiming to be acting on behalf of the Cause in Shinjuku Ward yesterday afternoon. I would watch and realize I might have been able to stop it. I could have made a choice to intervene. But Shirayuki might be right. Abstract manifestations ought to have a better handle as to what's going on.
I make my way to the back corner where I usually sit. It is the same table where Shirayuki and I had spoken.
This time, I order a macchiato and read a collection of short stories by Carver. Each depict relationships between people, friends, lovers, family, and most of these relationships fall out or crumble in some way, metaphorically, spiritually, or in actuality. There are no solutions or clear endings to each. The ending leaves a massive hole, waiting to be filled in. But it's hauntingly realistic: life isn't meant to carry answers. Life is a journey, however hard or easy. There is never a stalemate or a dead end: everything is in constant flux, always moving on, falling apart, reconstructing, like water down a river: eddies around rocks, slowing into pools, churning and rushing down rapids, even cascading down a waterfall, and then becoming gentler creeks under a springtime sun. It may appear that the water falls forever or is left in a puddle of still water for a long time, but eventually there's a way onward, and even if not forward or backward, water will evaporate and precipitate as fresh rain.
I'm well into the fourth short story when I look up and realize I have been reading for an hour. In front of me now sits a man, or a woman, I can't be sure. I think I've definitely seen him or her before. I don't know how long he or she has been sitting there or when he or she had arrived, but it's the same person from the shower a month ago on campus. Clothed, he or she is more androgynous than ever. He wears a large silver necklace hanging halfway down a pink t-shirt, with a vibrant graphic print of what seem to be white elephants. The elephants remind me of Hemingway's short story. His hair is short and he is wearing eyeliner. On his head is a straw can-can hat. All in all, I don't know what to make of it all.
The Fox smiles. "Well, we meet again."