洛中 10 Kyoto 10
私が小説を読んでいたという話は前にも話した。そのうちで、ひとつ印象的だったものがあった。それはアメリカの小説で、虎が家に来る話だ。最初に読んだときどうしてこの作者は私のことを知っているのかと不思議に思ったよ。この作者も同じような体験をくぐり抜けてきたのかと思ったぐらいだ。
その小説は例外的に私が何度も繰り返し読んだ本だった。最初は翻訳本を読んでいたが、そのうちに足りなくなって原書で読むようになった。たとえ最後まで読み終えたところで私が欲していたような答えはそこには見つからないとわかってはいても、まだその物語になにかがあるのではないかと思って何度も読んでしまう。紙はすっかり茶色になって、インクもかなり薄れてしまったが、それでも手放せずにずっと持っている。
国も言葉も違うその作者だったが、私は彼と自分が似ていると感じた。出来事の種類は違えど、彼もまた成長の過程で、私と同じように強く感受した出来事があったのだろうと私は信じる。
だから新聞でその作家の自殺が報じられたとき、私は驚きよりも納得を感じた。そのような選択の可能性は私たちにはいつでもあるから。そのいくつかの分岐ポイントを経て、彼はなるべくしてそうなった。
作家と会ったこともなかったし、本を通じてしか彼のことを知らないが、彼になら私の話を伝えられそうだった。そうして私は彼の話を聞いてみたかった。彼が幼い頃に何が欲しくて、何が恐ろしかったか、自分にはなんの価値もないのではないかと内心では安心できないまま、どんどん身体だけが大きくなっていくことが、どれだけ頼りなく恐いものだったか。
作家の死亡記事はそれほど大きなものではなかった。むしろ６０年代後半にあれほど話題になっていた作家とは思えないぐらいの、ささやかなものだった。ピストル自殺をした彼の遺体が発見されたときには、すでに作家はアメリカでは間違いなく時代遅れの存在で、その時になっても彼がまだヒッピー風のスタイルを続けているのは恥ずかしいことだった。そのとき私はたまたまアメリカのオクラホマ州エドモンドにいたが、すでに向こうの書店で彼の本を探すのも難しくなっていた。話題の新人作家は次々と現れ、アメリカの出版業界は元気だった。時代遅れの作家は親しい知人を除いては忘れられた人間になっていた。
その英字新聞の新聞記事を私は切り抜いて自分の財布に入れておいた。帰国してからもずっとその記事は持っていた。
これはお守りだった。私がなにかよくないことを考えたときに、その防波堤となるように。彼のように行き詰まってしまうのは、やはり避けねばならなかった。空白に全部飲み込まれてしまえば、私も彼と同じように考える可能性はきっとあった。
それは誇らしげに告白するような話ではない。いい年をした大人が空白やら、寂しさを語るのはちょっと常識から外れているように感じる。それは後ろめたく恥ずかしいことだ。
君が聞きたいという私の話。
もっと具体的に語ることもできる私の話。
しかし固有名詞を出して具体的に語れば、君はもしかしたらそれをヒントに新聞記事を調べるかもしれない。君はそんなことはしないと信じるのだが、名前を出して伝えたところで私の言いたいことが全部伝えられるとも思えない。だから真正面から語る回路を私は閉じた。代わりにあの小説のようにして語ろう。これが私にできる精一杯の譲渡だ。なんせによ起こった出来事の本質は間違えていないのだから。
とある地方の、ごく変哲もない住宅街の家に私たちは住んでいた。父親と母親と妹と、そして私の四人家族で、他の家と何も違わない。住宅街のガレージには車が停めてあり、父は毎朝８時半過ぎに仕事に出かけ、夜８時頃に帰って来る。母親は専業主婦で、あの当時は別にそれが普通だった。家の二階が自分と妹の部屋だった。
普段よりも少し遅い時間の、日曜日の朝食兼昼食の時間だった。
父はレコードを聴いていた。妹は床に寝転んでクレヨンで紙に色塗りをしていた。
母が昼ご飯に使用する卵がないと言った。だから私が自転車で馴染みの商店まで買いに出かけたのだ。それほど遠いものではない。せいぜい自転車で五分程度のところだった。お金を預かった私は店で首尾よく卵を買い、その前の通りで近所のおばさんにつかまった。話好きのおばさんで、小学校のこと、担任の先生のこと、私が入ったばかりの野球チームについて、あれこれと問われるままに私は話した。
移動時間を含めても、私が家を開けていたのはせいぜい半時間ほどだと思う。〈思う〉とわざわざ書いているのは正直、あの時の記憶があやふやだからだ。だからこれから私が書く内容も、もしかしたら曖昧な記憶を持つ私が嘘を書いていると思っても構わない。私が君に伝えたいのはこの事件そのものではなく、別のことだから。
傍目には何もおかしなところはないはずだった。なのに、玄関に自転車を停めて家のなかに入るときに私は違和感を感じた。なにか不穏な感じがあったのだ。
ドアを開けると、虎たちがいた。
虎たちは私の家に土足で上がりこみ、母がいつも掃除していた飴色の廊下に無遠慮な靴の跡をつけていた。それが普通の靴ではなく、ゴツゴツとしたブーツの跡だということをなぜか覚えている。そして父が聴いていたレコードが流れていたが、針が溝にはまったらしく、ずっと同じ一節が繰り返されていた。
卵を持ったまま玄関口に立っている子どもに、虎たちも気づいたようだった。
虎たちは全部で二人いた。
彼らは妙にのんびりしていた。私を見ると彼らは一回目配せをしあって近づいてきた。玄関を開けて逃げることも思いつかないほど私は固まっていた。
その場所からは何も見えず、閉まったリビングの戸の前に虎たちがいるだけなのに、私にはもう何が起こったのかわかっていた。
「いくつ？」と虎のうちの一人が訊ねた。
私は素直に小学校四年生だと答えた。あれほどのことをしておきながら、彼らはなんの匂いもなかったし、服も多分汚れていなかった。彼等のしている手袋が妙に白かった。
でも何よりも覚えているのは二人とも目が透明だったことだ。目玉の黒い部分が最初から透けているかのように、どちらも独特の薄い目をしていた。彼らの目玉は確かに私の方を向いているけれども、私を見ていない、とその時直感した。彼らはどことも繋がっていなかった。そんな感じだった。そんな連中が私の家族を奪ったのだ。
「小四か」と虎は答えた。
「わかった」ともうひとりが言った。「では俺等は行くよ」
「うん」
愚かにも私はそう答えた。彼らは私の隣をすり抜けて出ていった。
それからの記憶がない。本当にない。
やがて来た警察の人がわたしを抱き寄せた気がする。でもそれも怪しい記憶だ。
そもそも私はどうやって家族を発見し、どうやって警察を呼んだのか？呼んだのは私なのか？それとも私の声を聞いて駆けつけた近所の誰かだったのか？
起こった出来事はいつも暗闇の中で、私はその後教えられた話をつなぎ合わせているに過ぎない。私の家族は妹まで含めて皆刺されて死んでいたというが、その光景を私は思い出すことはできない。私の中には触れることのできない空白があって、記憶は私が母の妹の家に預けられるところからまた始まる。
伯父と伯母の二人暮らしの家に私が加えられる。私は引っ越しをし、新しいクラスで自己紹介をしているが、それも春ではなく夏の記憶なのが不思議だ。記憶がはっきりしないほうが合理的だと私の脳は判断したようだった。あるいは子どもだったからということが大きいのかもしれない。「そういうものだ」と私は環境を受け入れた。
子どもがいない夫婦に紛れ込んだ私はいつでも伯父夫婦から少し離れたところに座っている。彼等はいわゆる子どもの扱いに慣れていない。私もどのように接すればいいか分からない。毎日を過ごしながら私が気にしていたのは自分がうっかり伯父夫婦の機嫌を損ねて追い出されるようなことをしでかさないか、ということだった。寝るときだけが私が私でいられる時間だったが、私はその距離感にも慣れなくてはならなかった。今考えると単に血の繋がりがあるから、私は伯父夫妻に連れてこられたものの、全く関係ない他人と一緒の方がまだ気が楽だったかもしれない。
私とこの夫婦とをつなぐものがあるとすれば学校と、勉強だった。
私は教科書をよく読んだ。それで足りなくなると伯父たちが参考書を買ってくれた。あの当時の感覚からすれば、それぐらいしかすることがなかった、ということだったが、それは多分私が自分についた嘘だ。私は買い与えてもらった野球ボールも、ボードゲームもあったし、伯父夫婦からすれば私がそれらに夢中にでもなって子どもらしいふるまいを見せて欲しかったのだろう。しかし私はそれには興味を示さなかった。代わりに早く大人になるために勉強を続けた。たぶん机に向かうことで自分の気持を保とうとしているだけに過ぎなかった。あるいは本心から信じてはいなかったが、教科書のなかの知識に何か世界の答えのようなものが書いてあるかもしれない、と思ったのかもしれない。
中学生のとき高校入試の模擬試験で校内２位の成績を取った。伯父夫妻は私が勉強熱心なのを見て何か感じたのだろう。彼等は私に学問的な才能があると感じたようだった。結局私は彼等の期待を裏切るのだが「もしもあなたが医者になりたいと願うなら応援する」と伯母は私に言った。
私は伯母に勧められるまま県内の進学校に進んだ。その頃、伯父が死んだ。
高校２年生の終わり頃、伯母が私を部屋に呼んで突然泣き出した。私の家族を殺した虎たちが捕まったというのだった。
だが私はそれを聞いて伯母と同じように悲しみは感じなかった。収まるべきところに物事は収まったという感覚はあるのだがそれだけだった。伯母が私に期待していたような悲しみや怒り、あるいは喜びも私には湧いてこなかった。この伯母は私とは血はつながっていなかったが、むしろどうしてこの伯母が目の前でこんなにも泣けるのかそちらのほうが不思議だった。
ただ私の中でなにか変化があったのは確かだ。自分でもよくわからなかったけれども、あの時から勉強に対する意欲が急速に減った。ときおり放っておけば声を出しそうになるような、バランスの崩れた気分にあることがあった。できるなら電車に飛び込んだり、屋上から飛び降りたりしてこのまま一気に終わりにしたい気にも駆られた。実際、高校三年生のほとんどは私は「ただ日常的に過ごす」ことだけを目的としてなんとか演じていたに過ぎない。
大学に合格したのはほとんど運だった。伯母の期待とは裏原に私は国立大の医学部には落ちた。伯母は浪人を私に勧めたが、私は別の私立大学に入学した。
細かな話をしすぎたかもしれない。
ここからはもう話すべきことは少ない。
このような大きなマイナスを経た私に、何か大きな天恵があっても良いかもしれない。人生は総じて大きなバランスをとるものであると信じる人がいるが、その人に従うなら、家族を喪った代償に何かが起こるはずだった。
しかし何も起こらなかった。家族が殺され、犯人たちも死んだ。そして私は生き残った。
すでに入学前から予想していた通り、大学は私にとってはあまり意味のないものだった。それよりも伯母と離れて一人暮らしをすることで、私のなかの時間がむき出しになった。伯母は私に会いたがっていたようだったが、私のほうはそれを機に伯母から離れた。理屈にあっていないことだが、彼女が虎たちのことを私に話さなかったら、私は死ぬまでずっと何かに対応しつつ生きられたかもしれない、とすら思っていた。
あの話を聞いたときから、私は変わってしまった。嫌なことだが、その時期から私は知り合った人から遠い目をしていることがある、と言われる事があった。私の目はそちらを向いているのに、視線が遠い、目が透けている、と。
では透明な目をした私は何を殺せばいい？
君は私のことを知りたいと言った。だからできる限り正直に、私は自分のことを話そうと決めた。自分のことを語るのは難しく、この話をしながら自分がどれだけ恥じているか君には分からないだろう。
私は私の状態をうまく捕まえられていない。いつだって捕まえられていないままだ。でも、それを直したいとか、どうにかしたいと思うにはもう手遅れだと思う。
時間は流れる。過去から未来へ。でもそれを認識しようと思えば、本当なら動かない場所がないといけない。その定点ともいえる時点から見れば移動する時間を実感できるだろう。
私は不幸せだと誰かが言う。一方で幸せだと誰かが言う。そのどちらも正しくないと私は思う。それを語るには定点がいる。そんなものは人にはない。
私がノートを付けているのは、未だに根強く残っている自分の空虚さをなんとかしたいからだ。意味を見つけられそうで見つけられないこの感じ。あるいはそれはもっと簡単に「寂しさ」があるからかもしれない、と今は思う。
放っておくと崩れてしまいそうになるときがあって、それをなんとかしたかった。
結局、私は一〇歳の空虚をずっと抱えていて、ともすればそこに戻りたくなる。あの時家を出なければ、私はそのまま死んでいられた。日曜日のまま、父のレコードを聴いて、もう動くことも感じることもなく停まっていられた。
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７月の１０日に瀬古はネットで動画付きの記事を見た。彼もよく知っている河原町四条の橋の上から、白装束を着た男たちの集団が橋の上から桶で川の水を汲み上げていた。桶には紐がついておりその長い紐は、たゆたいながら川のなかに落ちていく。
長いこと京都に住んでいながら、これが神輿を洗うため神用水を汲み上げる儀式だとは瀬古は知らなかった。一般的に祇園祭といえば山鉾が街の中を巡行する行事とみなされがちだが、実際は７月からほぼ毎日のように行事が行われる大掛かりな祭りだった。そしてそれは瀬古がこの街に来る以前からもずっと続いており、街がある限りずっと続くであろう儀式だった。繰り返され、そのたびにまた始まる円環構造がこの街にはある。
祭りは気づかないうちに、京都の街なかに広がり始めていた。
例えばそれは、カフェへの通勤途中の通りでふと見かける駒形提灯だったり、市内の通りを走るときにどこかの建物の２階から聞こえてくる祇園囃子の練習だったりした。事務所をやめてから仕事場は四条の街なかのカフェが中心となったので、とりわけ今年の祭りの様子はよく分かる。
じわじわと蒸し暑さも広がり始めていた。朝のニュースで本日の最高気温は３４度ということだったが、日が暮れてもまだ熱は冷めなかった。
その週は、仕事終わりに瀬古はすぐには部屋には帰らずに、京都の市内を歩いて帰った。通りは夜になっても人の波が引かなかった。すでに八月だった。街角のあちこちに提灯を灯した山鉾の姿があった。そうしてこの時期だけは店も活気があって、夜八時を過ぎても大通りには観光客で溢れていた。
その明かりから逃げるようにして、瀬古はその隣の細い通りに移動する。そうするといつもの暗がりに満ちた通りに出るところがいかにも京都らしかった。こちらはひっそりと静まり、観光客たちの姿もない。この時期の街は、明るさと暗さが、交差する線のように混ざっていた。
明るい通りから暗い通りへと自分の住んでいる街をあちこちと巡りながら瀬古にはこれといった目的はなかった。進行する祇園祭の周りを衛星軌道のようにウロウロと周りながら、連想できる思い出をいくつか手繰り寄せているだけだった。
夜、大学の同級生たちと祭に出かけたこともあった。山鉾の写真を撮り、どこかの店で話しているうちに気づけ閉店の時間で、結局ろくに祭りも見なかった。
いつかの昔は菜摘と一緒に宵山に出た。二人とも屋台でものを買う勇気がなくて、結局なにも買わずにただウロウロと歩いて、最後にどこかの定食屋で夕食を取った。
その菜摘に秘密で付き合っていた人妻が、この日は家族が旅行していて留守番だから、一緒に祇園祭に観に行きたいと冗談交じりに言った言葉を聞こえなかったふりをした。
そういった全部はいつの間にか瀬古のもとから離れてしまい、瀬古だけがひとり京都に残っていた。あるいはそれは瀬古を中心とした考えに過ぎず、彼等からすれば消えたのは瀬古の方かもしれなかった。
先生ならそれについてどう答えるのか瀬古は聞いてみたかった。先生が店に来るのは予定なら明後日だった。
そのあたりで瀬古はふと現実に戻った。ふと顔を上げるとそこは山鉾町のあたりで、普段は閉まっている格子戸が開いているのが目についた。瀬古は足を止めた
戸の向こうには人影はないはずだった。暗がりの向こうに金屏風が浮かび、その脇に薄香色の小袖だけが一枚掛けられていたが、一瞬瀬古にはそこに誰かがいてこちらを眺めているような気さえした。何かその着物には覚えがあったような気がしたが、瀬古がそれを思い出そうとするとき、ふっとお香のような甘い香りが鼻をかすめた。
「先生」はやはり夕方六時すぎになると現れた。
いつもの壁寄りの席に座り、頼んだホットコーヒーをテーブルの上に置いて、いつものノートを出した。
けれどもそれからが違った。先生は席から立ち上がると、カウンター前のコーナーから新聞を引っ張って、席でそれを読み始めた。
そんなことは初めてだった。今日はいつもよりも店は混雑していた。それで注文の品もいつもより多岐にわたった。瀬古はパスタを作り、パンケーキを焼き、パンを焼いた。そうしているあいだも先生がいつもとは違う感じであることが気になって仕方なかった。
半時間ほどして先生はまた席を立った。先生の姿がトイレに消えたのを確認したとき、瀬古はカウンターから出て、自分でも予想していなかった事をした。テーブルの上に置かれたままの先生のノートを取りあげてカウンターのところまで持っていったのだった。
何か追い立てられる気持ちで瀬古はノートを開いた。最初のページに何も書いていないのを確認すると、瀬古は次のページをめくった。そこに何もないのを見ると、またページをめくった。それは白紙だ。カラフルなペンの跡も、訂正したあとも書き込みを加えたりした跡もなかった。
こんなにも突然に、物事は終わるのだと瀬古は感じた。予告も何もなく、終わることは突然やってくる。それはどこかで予想していたことでもあったし、もしかしたら自分がその一線を越えてしまったのかもしれない、という後悔めいた自覚はあった。風が通り抜けたように、ただ起こった物事を瀬古は受け止めるしかなかった。
トイレのドアが開いた。何も気づくことはなく先生はまっすぐ席に戻った。
瀬古はノートを手にしながら声を掛けた。
「すいませんーー、こちらのノートを床に落とされていましたので」
「ああ、どうも」
スーツ姿の男は礼を言うとノートを無造作にテーブルの上に戻した。グラスの足元に溜まった水溜まりの上に置いたのでノートの表紙の端が派手に濡れたが男は別にそれを気にもしないようだった。
彼は新聞を読み終わると、トレイを返却口に戻して店を出ていった。
その後ろ姿を眺めながら、もうそれも、きっと来るような現実だと思った。
先生と出会ったときから、この瞬間が来るのはたぶん分かっていた。
騒がしい音が窓の外から聞こえていた。
「わぁ」と誰かが呟いた。時間が来て、店の外の提灯に一斉に明かりが灯ったのだった。
勤務中だったが、彼はカウンターから飛び出して、そのまま店を出た。
ジメジメとした蒸し暑い夏の気温が瀬古を包んだ。じき日暮れだったが、すでに大通りは人で溢れていた。明日は山鉾が巡行する。今日はその前日の宵山だった。
日は暮れてゆき、ますます提灯の明かりが浮かんで見えた。
写真を撮る音や、出店の呼び込みがあちらこちらから聞こえてくる。祇園祭の宵山には中心はない。人の波に紛れて、通りの山鉾を巡りながら瀬古は歩いた。追い立てられるように早足で歩くので、背中や首元に早くも汗が滲み始めた。ただ、どこを歩いてもそこではなかった。
祭りの夜はまだまだ続きそうだった。
突然、瀬古は足を止めた。それは長刀鉾の前で、相変わらずこの場所も人でごった返していた。その暗がりの中では誰の顔も見分けることができず、人の顔が押し寄せる波のように、現れては動いていく。
コンチキチン、コンチキチン、と音が頭の上から、どこまでもどこまでも降り注いできた。
足を止めたのは、そのとき背中から誰かに名前を呼ばれた気がしたからだ。祭の喧騒の中で、その声だけがくっきりと耳に届いた。その声には確かに聞き覚えがあった。
コンチキチン、コンチキチン、と祭囃子が降り注ぐ。
また後ろから声が聞こえた。今度は確実に瀬古を呼んでいた。
瀬古は振り返った。
I told you before that I used to read novels. Among them, there was one that left a particularly strong impression on me. It was an American novel about a tiger that comes to a house. When I first read it, I remember wondering how on earth the author could have known about me. I even went so far as to wonder whether he, too, had lived through an experience like mine.
It was the one book I made an exception of and read over and over again. At first I read it in translation, but eventually that was no longer enough, and I began reading it in the original. Even though I knew that, however many times I finished it, I would never find the answers I was looking for, I kept returning to it, wondering whether there might still be something hidden in the story. The pages had turned completely brown, and the ink had faded considerably, but I could not bring myself to part with it. I have kept it all these years.
The author lived in a different country and spoke a different language, yet I felt that he and I were alike. The events themselves may have been different, but I believed that, somewhere in the course of growing up, he too had experienced something that affected him as deeply as my own experience had affected me.
That was why, when the newspapers reported that the author had died by suicide, I felt a sense of recognition rather than surprise. The possibility of making such a choice is always there for people like us. Having passed through a number of such branching points, he had arrived at the outcome that, in a sense, had been waiting for him all along.
I had never met the author, and I knew him only through his books, but I felt that I might have been able to tell him my story. I would have liked to hear his, too. What had he wanted when he was a child? What had he been afraid of? How frightening and precarious it must have been to grow steadily larger in body while remaining inwardly unable to feel secure, unable to shake the suspicion that he had no value at all.
The newspaper report of his death was not particularly prominent. In fact, it was so modest that it was hard to believe it concerned a writer who had attracted so much attention in the latter half of the 1960s. By the time his body was discovered after he had shot himself, there was no doubt that he had become a thoroughly outdated figure in America. Even then, the fact that he was still clinging to his hippie-style appearance was considered embarrassing. At the time, I happened to be in Edmond, Oklahoma, but even there it had already become difficult to find his books in bookstores. Promising new writers appeared one after another, and the American publishing industry was thriving. The outdated writer had become a forgotten man, except to a few people who had known him personally.
I cut out the article from the English-language newspaper and kept it in my wallet. Even after I returned to Japan, I continued to carry it with me.
It was a talisman. Something that might serve as a barrier whenever I began to entertain thoughts I should not have entertained. I had to avoid reaching the same dead end he had reached. If the emptiness swallowed me whole, I knew that I, too, might well come to think as he had.
It is not the sort of thing one can confess with pride. There is something a little outside the bounds of common sense about a grown man talking about emptiness and loneliness. It is something to feel guilty and ashamed of.
The story of mine that you want to hear.
The story of mine that I could tell in much more concrete terms.
But if I gave you proper names and told you what happened in detail, you might use them as clues to look up the newspaper reports. I believe you would not do such a thing, but even if I told you the names, I do not think I could convey everything I wanted to say. So I closed off the route that would allow me to speak directly about it. Instead, I will tell it as though it were that novel. This is the most I can manage to give you. After all, the essential nature of what happened there is not something I have got wrong.
We lived in a house in an utterly unremarkable residential neighborhood in some provincial town. There were four of us: my father, my mother, my younger sister, and me. We were no different from any other family. There was a car parked in the garage, and my father left for work a little after eight thirty every morning and returned around eight in the evening. My mother was a full-time housewife, which was nothing unusual in those days. My sister and I shared rooms on the second floor.
It was Sunday morning, and we were having breakfast and lunch together, a little later than usual.
My father was listening to a record. My sister was lying on the floor, coloring a sheet of paper with crayons.
My mother said that we had run out of eggs for lunch. So I took my bicycle and went to buy some at the shop I knew well. It was not very far away, no more than five minutes by bicycle. I took the money, went into the shop, and bought the eggs without any trouble. Outside, on the street in front of the shop, I was stopped by a woman from the neighborhood. She was fond of talking, and she asked me one question after another about school, my homeroom teacher, and the baseball team I had only recently joined. I answered her as she went along.
Including the time it took to travel back and forth, I think I was away from home for no more than half an hour. I have deliberately written think because, to be honest, my memory of that time is uncertain. So you may well believe that what I am about to write is a lie, told by someone whose memories are unreliable. What I want to convey to you is not the incident itself, but something else.
There should have been nothing unusual about the scene from the outside. And yet, as I parked my bicycle by the entrance and went into the house, I felt something was wrong. There was something ominous in the air.
When I opened the door, the tigers were there.
The tigers had come into my house with their shoes on, leaving careless footprints from their boots on the amber-colored hallway that my mother always kept clean. For some reason, I remember that the footprints were not made by ordinary shoes but by heavy, rugged boots. My father's record was still playing, but the needle must have become stuck in the groove, because the same phrase kept repeating over and over.
The tigers seemed to notice the child standing in the entrance with eggs in his hands.
There were two of them in all.
They were strangely relaxed. When they saw me, they exchanged a glance and approached. I was so frozen that I could not even think of opening the front door and running away.
From where I stood, I could see nothing. The tigers were simply standing in front of the closed door to the living room. And yet I already knew what had happened.
"How old are you?" one of the tigers asked.
I answered honestly that I was in the fourth grade of elementary school. After everything they had done, it was strange that they had no smell at all, and their clothes were probably not even dirty. The gloves they wore were strangely white.
But more than anything, I remember that both of them had transparent eyes. It was as though the black parts of their eyeballs had been translucent from the beginning. Both had unusually pale eyes. Their eyeballs were certainly turned toward me, but I had an intuition that they were not actually looking at me. They were connected to nothing. That was how it felt. These were the men who had taken my family away from me.
"Fourth grade," one of the tigers replied.
"All right," said the other. "Then we're leaving."
"Okay."
Foolishly, that was what I said. They slipped past me and went out.
I have no memory of what happened after that. None at all.
I have a vague feeling that a police officer who arrived later took me in his arms. But even that memory is questionable.
How, in the first place, did I discover my family's bodies? How did I call the police? Was it me who called them? Or was it someone in the neighborhood who came running after hearing my voice?
The events themselves have always remained in darkness. All I have done since then is piece together the stories I was told afterward. I was told that my entire family, including my younger sister, had been stabbed to death, but I cannot recall the scene. There is an emptiness inside me that I cannot touch, and my memories begin again only from the point when I was taken in by my mother's younger sister.
I was added to the household of my aunt and uncle, who lived alone together. I moved to a new place and introduced myself to a new class, though what is strange is that I remember it happening in summer rather than spring. My brain seemed to have decided that it would be more reasonable for my memories to remain unclear. Or perhaps the fact that I was a child had more to do with it. I accepted my circumstances as they were. That's just how things are.
Having been placed in the home of a couple who had no children, I always sat a little apart from my aunt and uncle. They were not accustomed to dealing with children, as people say. I did not know how to interact with them, either. As I went through each day, what worried me was whether I might accidentally do something to upset them and get myself thrown out. The only time I could be myself was when I went to bed, but even that distance between us was something I had to learn to live with. Looking back now, I wonder whether, simply because we were related by blood, my aunt and uncle had taken me in. Perhaps I would have felt more at ease living with complete strangers who had nothing to do with me at all.
If there was anything that connected me to this couple, it was school and studying.
I read my textbooks a great deal. When they were no longer enough, my aunt and uncle bought me reference books. Looking back, I used to tell myself that there was simply nothing else to do in those days. But that was probably a lie I told myself. I had also been given a baseball and board games, and I imagine my aunt and uncle hoped I would become absorbed in them and show some childlike enthusiasm. But I showed no interest in any of them. Instead, I kept studying in an effort to become an adult as quickly as possible. Perhaps I was doing nothing more than trying to keep myself together by sitting at my desk. Or perhaps, although I did not truly believe it, I thought that somewhere in the knowledge contained in my textbooks there might be something resembling an answer to the world.
When I was in junior high school, I came second in my school in a mock examination for high school entrance. My aunt and uncle must have sensed something when they saw how devoted I was to studying. They seemed to believe I had academic talent. In the end, I would disappoint their expectations, but my aunt said to me, "If you want to become a doctor, I will support you."
Following my aunt's advice, I went on to a prestigious high school in the prefecture. Around that time, my uncle died.
Toward the end of my second year of high school, my aunt called me into her room and suddenly burst into tears. She told me that the tigers who had murdered my family had been caught.
But when I heard this, I did not feel the same sadness as my aunt. I had a sense that things had finally fallen into their proper place, but that was all. The grief, anger, or even joy that my aunt had expected me to feel never arose in me. My aunt was not related to me by blood, but what I found more mysterious was how she could cry so intensely right there in front of me.
Still, something inside me had certainly changed. I did not understand it myself, but from that moment on, my motivation to study rapidly declined. At times, I found myself in such an unbalanced state of mind that I felt I might suddenly cry out if I let myself go. If I could, I wanted to end everything at once by throwing myself in front of a train or jumping from a rooftop. In reality, for almost all of my third year of high school, my only purpose was to somehow keep up the performance of simply going about my daily life.
Getting into university was mostly a matter of luck. As I had expected even before I entered, I failed to get into the medical school at a national university, contrary to my aunt's hopes. She encouraged me to spend another year preparing for the entrance examinations, but I enrolled at a different private university instead.
Perhaps I have gone into too much detail.
There is not much more I need to tell you from here on.
Having suffered such a great loss, I might reasonably have expected some great blessing in return. There are people who believe that life, taken as a whole, maintains some kind of balance. If I were to accept their view, then the loss of my family should have been compensated for by something else happening to me.
But nothing happened. My family was murdered, and the murderers died, too. And I survived.
As I had already expected before entering, university meant very little to me. What mattered more was that, by moving away from my aunt and living alone, I found myself exposed to the naked passage of time within me. My aunt seemed to want to see me, but I used the opportunity to distance myself from her. It made no logical sense, but I sometimes thought that if she had never told me about the tigers, I might have gone on living until the day I died, always responding to something, always having something to deal with.
From the moment I heard that story, I had changed. It was unpleasant, but from around that time onward, people I knew would sometimes tell me that I had a distant look in my eyes. My eyes were facing them, but my gaze seemed far away. My eyes looked transparent.
So, with my transparent eyes, what was I supposed to kill?
You said you wanted to know me. So I decided to speak about myself as honestly as I could. It is difficult to talk about oneself, and you probably cannot understand how ashamed I feel as I tell you this story.
I have never been able to grasp my own condition properly. I have always remained unable to grasp it. But I think it is already too late for me to want to fix it, or to do anything about it.
Time flows, from the past toward the future. But if we are to recognize that movement, there must surely be some place that does not move. From a point in time that serves as such a fixed reference, we might be able to feel time moving.
Someone says I am unhappy. Someone else says I am happy. I do not believe either of them is right. To speak of such things, we need a fixed point. Human beings have no such thing.
I keep a notebook because I want somehow to do something about the emptiness that still remains so stubbornly inside me. That feeling of almost finding meaning, yet never quite finding it. Or perhaps, as I now think, it is something simpler: perhaps I am lonely.
There are times when I feel that I might fall apart if I leave myself alone, and I wanted somehow to prevent that from happening.
In the end, I have carried the emptiness of a ten-year-old with me all this time, and sometimes I find myself wanting to return to it. If I had never left that house, I could have remained dead right there. I could have stayed frozen in that Sunday, listening to my father's record, no longer moving or feeling anything.
…………………
On July 10, Seko came across an online news article with a video attached. A group of men dressed in white robes were drawing water from the river with buckets, standing on the bridge at Kawaramachi-Shijo, a bridge he knew well. Ropes were attached to the buckets, and the long ropes swayed as they descended into the river.
Despite having lived in Kyoto for a long time, Seko had never known that this was a ritual for drawing sacred water to wash the mikoshi, the portable shrine. Gion Matsuri was generally regarded as an event in which the floats paraded through the streets, but in reality it was a large-scale festival with events taking place almost every day throughout July. These rituals had continued long before Seko ever came to the city, and they would presumably continue for as long as the city itself existed. There was a circular structure here, in which things were repeated, and each time they began again.
Without anyone quite noticing, the festival had begun spreading through the streets of Kyoto.
Sometimes it was a komagata lantern he happened to catch sight of on the way to the café where he worked. Sometimes it was the sound of people practicing the Gion festival music, drifting down from the second floor of a building somewhere in the city as he drove along the streets. Since leaving his office job, Seko had come to spend most of his working hours at a café in the heart of Shijo, and this year, in particular, he had become keenly aware of the festival's progress.
The humid heat was gradually spreading, too. The morning news had said that the day's high would be thirty-four degrees Celsius, but even after sunset the heat had not subsided.
That week, after finishing work, Seko did not return straight to his apartment. Instead, he walked through the city of Kyoto on his way home. Even at night, the streets remained crowded with waves of people. It was already August. Here and there on the street corners stood festival floats illuminated by lanterns. At this time of year, the shops were lively, too, and even after eight in the evening the main streets were overflowing with tourists.
As though escaping from those lights, Seko moved into the narrow streets beside them. There, he emerged onto streets filled with their familiar darkness, a sight that seemed quintessentially Kyoto. These streets were quiet and secluded, with no tourists in sight. At this time of year, brightness and darkness mingled throughout the city like intersecting lines.
As he wandered through the city where he lived, moving from bright streets to dark ones, Seko had no particular destination in mind. He was simply circling the advancing Gion festival like a satellite in orbit, reaching back for a few memories that came to mind.
There had been nights when he went to the festival with his university classmates. They took photographs of the floats and talked in some shop until they suddenly realized it was closing time. In the end, they had barely seen the festival at all.
Long ago, he had gone to Yoiyama with Natsumi. Neither of them had the courage to buy anything from the street stalls, so they ended up wandering around without buying a thing, finally having dinner at some little restaurant.
There had also been a married woman he was seeing in secret from Natsumi. That day, her family was away on a trip, and she had jokingly suggested that they go together to see the Gion festival, since she would be home alone. He had pretended not to hear her.
All of those things had somehow drifted away from Seko, leaving only him behind in Kyoto. Or perhaps that was merely how things looked from Seko's point of view. From their perspective, perhaps it was Seko who had disappeared.
He wondered what the Sensei would say about that. He wanted to ask. If things went according to schedule, the Sensei would come to the shop the day after tomorrow.
Around that point, Seko suddenly returned to the present. When he raised his head, he found himself in the area of the float neighborhoods, where he noticed that a lattice door, usually closed, had been left open. Seko stopped.
There should have been no one beyond the door. In the darkness, a gold folding screen emerged into view, and beside it hung a single kosode, a traditional kimono, in a pale, muted shade of ochre. For an instant, Seko even had the feeling that someone was standing there, watching him. He thought he recognized something about the garment, but just as he tried to remember what it was, a sweet fragrance, like incense, brushed past his nose.
The Sensei appeared, as usual, a little after six in the evening.
He sat in his usual seat against the wall, placed the hot coffee he had ordered on the table, and took out his usual notebook.
But after that, things were different. The Sensei got up from his seat, went to the corner in front of the counter, took a newspaper, and began reading it at his table.
He had never done that before. The shop was busier than usual that day, and the orders were more varied than they normally were. Seko made pasta, cooked pancakes, and baked bread. Even while he was doing all this, he could not stop thinking about how different the Sensei seemed today.
After about half an hour, the Sensei got up again. When Seko saw him disappear through the restroom door, he stepped out from behind the counter and did something he had not expected himself to do. He picked up the notebook the Sensei had left on the table and carried it over to the counter.
Feeling as though something were driving him forward, Seko opened the notebook. After confirming that the first page was blank, he turned to the next. When he saw that there was nothing there, either, he turned another page. It was blank. There were no colorful pen marks, no corrections, no traces of anything having been added to the pages.
Seko felt that things could come to an end this suddenly. Without warning, without any announcement, the end simply arrived. In a way, he had anticipated it. And perhaps he had crossed a certain line himself; he felt something like regret at the possibility. Like a gust of wind passing through, it was simply something that had happened, and Seko had no choice but to accept it.
The restroom door opened. The Sensei returned straight to his seat, apparently unaware of anything.
Holding the notebook in his hands, Seko called out to him.
"Excuse me—this notebook had fallen on the floor, so I picked it up for you."
"Oh, thank you."
The man in the suit thanked him and casually placed the notebook back on the table. He set it down in a puddle of water that had collected around the base of his glass, soaking one corner of the cover quite badly, but he did not seem to care.
After finishing the newspaper, he returned his tray to the collection counter and left the shop.
Watching him walk away, Seko felt that this, too, was probably a reality that would eventually arrive.
Ever since he had met the Sensei, he had probably known that this moment would come.
A commotion could be heard from outside the window.
"Wow," someone murmured. The appointed time had arrived, and the lanterns outside the shop had all lit up at once.
Although he was still on duty, Seko darted out from behind the counter and went straight out of the shop.
The damp, humid summer heat enveloped him. Dusk was approaching, but the main streets were already overflowing with people. Tomorrow, the floats would parade through the city. Today was Yoiyama, the evening before the procession.
The sun continued to set, and the lanterns seemed to glow more and more brightly.
The sounds of people taking photographs and vendors calling out to customers came from every direction. There was no center to the night of Gion Matsuri's Yoiyama. Swept along by the crowds, Seko walked from one float to another through the streets. He walked quickly, as though being driven forward, and sweat was already beginning to gather on his back and around his neck. Yet no matter where he walked, it was never the place he was looking for.
The festival night seemed as though it would go on for a long time yet.
Suddenly, Seko stopped. He was standing in front of Naginata Hoko, where, as always, the crowds were thick. In the darkness, he could not make out anyone's face. Faces surged toward him like waves, appearing and then moving away.
Konchikichin, konchikichin. The sound poured down from somewhere above his head, endlessly, endlessly.
He had stopped because he thought he heard someone call his name from behind. Amid the clamor of the festival, that voice alone had reached his ears with perfect clarity. He was certain he recognized it.
Konchikichin, konchikichin. The festival music poured down around him.
Then he heard the voice again from behind. This time, there was no doubt that it was calling Seko.
Seko turned around.
