South of the Border, West of the Sun Page 0,38

color of lipstick on the glass and on the cigarettes.

Yukiko was waiting up for me when I got home. She’d thrown a cardigan over her pajamas and was watching a video of Lawrence of Arabia. The scene where Lawrence, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, has finally made it across the desert and reached the Suez Canal. She’d already seen the film three times. It’s a great film, she told me. I can watch it over and over. I sat down next to her, and had some wine as we watched the rest of the movie.

Next Sunday there’s a get-together at the swimming club, I told her. One of the members owned a large yacht, which we’d been on several times offshore, fishing and drinking. It was a little too cold to go out in a yacht in February, but my wife knew nothing about boats, so she didn’t have any objections. I hardly ever went out on Sundays, and she seemed to think it was good for me to meet people in other fields and be outdoors.

“I’ll be leaving really early in the morning. And I’ll be back by eight, I think. I’ll have dinner at home,” I said.

“All right. My sister’s coming over that Sunday anyway,” she said. “If it isn’t too cold, maybe we could take a picnic to Shinjuku Gyoen. Just us four girls.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

The next afternoon I went to a travel agency and made plane and rental car reservations. There was a flight arriving back in Tokyo at six-thirty in the evening. Looked like I would be back in time for a late dinner. Then I went to the bar and waited for Shimamoto’s call. She phoned at ten. “I’m a little busy, but I think I can make the time,” I told her. “Is next Sunday okay?”

That’s fine with me, she replied.

I told her the flight time and where to meet me at Haneda Airport.

“Thank you so much,” she said.

After hanging up, I sat at the counter for a while, with a book. The bustle of the bar bothered me, though, and I couldn’t concentrate. I went to the rest room and washed my face and hands with cold water, stared at my reflection in the mirror. I’ve lied to Yukiko, I told myself. Sure, I’d lied to her before, when I slept with other women. But I never felt I was deceiving her. Those were just harmless flings. But this time was wrong. Not that I was planning to sleep with Shimamoto. But even so, it was wrong. For the first time in a long while, I looked deep within my own eyes in the mirror. Those eyes told me nothing of who I was. I laid both hands on the sink and sighed deeply.

10

The river flowed swiftly past cliffs, in places forming small waterfalls, in others coming to a halt in pools. The surface of these pools faintly reflected the weak sun. An old iron bridge downstream spanned the river. The bridge was so narrow one car could barely squeeze across it. Its darkened, impassive metal frame sank deep into the chilled February silence. The only people who passed over the bridge were the hotel’s guests and employees, and the people in charge of caring for the woods. When we walked over it we passed no one going the other way, and looking back, we saw no one. After arriving at the hotel, we had had a light lunch, then we crossed the bridge and walked along the river. Shimamoto had on a heavy pea coat, the collar turned up, and a muffler wrapped around her up to her nose. She had on casual clothes, good for walking in the mountains, much different from her usual attire. Her hair was tied in back, and she wore a pair of rugged-looking work boots. A green nylon shoulder bag was slung over one shoulder. Dressed like that, she looked just like a high school girl. On either side of the river, hard patches of snow remained. Two crows squatted on top of the bridge, gazing down at the river below, every once in a while releasing grating, scolding caws. Those shrill calls echoed in the leaf-blanketed woods, crossed the river, and rang unpleasantly in our ears.

A narrow, unpaved path continued along the river, a terribly silent, deserted path leading who knows where. No houses appeared beside the path, only the occasional bare field. Snow-covered furrows inscribed bright white lines across the