an affectionate puppy to send sincere, ungainly signals. His friends, too, regarded Bird with vague, blunted curiosity. How would he explain Bird to his friends! As an English instructor who had drunk himself out of graduate school, a man in the grip of an unexplainable passion, or maybe a crazy fear?
The student smiled at him tenaciously until he was in the taxicab. Bird realized as he drove away that he felt as if he had just received charity. And from a boy who in all his time at the cram-school had never learned to distinguish English gerunds from present participles, a former student with a brain no bigger than a cat’s!
Bird’s friend lived on one of the city’s many hills, in a quarter ringed by temples and cemeteries. The girl lived alone in a tiny house at the end of an alley. Bird had met her at a class mixer in October of his freshman year. When it was her turn to stand and introduce herself, she had challenged the class to guess the source of her unusual name: Himiko—fire-sighting-child. Bird had answered, correctly, that the name was taken from the Chronicles of the ancient province of Higo—
The Emperor commanded his oarsmen, saying: There in the distance a signal fire burns; make for it straightaway.
After that, Bird and the girl Himiko from the island of Kyushu had become friends.
There were very few girls at Bird’s university, only a handful in the liberal arts who had come to Tokyo from the provinces; and all of those, as far as Bird knew, had undergone a transmutation into peculiar and unclassifiable monsters shortly after they had graduated. A certainpercentage of their body cells slowly overdeveloped, clustered and knotted until the girls were moving sluggishly and looking dull and melancholic. In the end, they became fatally unfit for everyday, postgraduate life. If they got married, they were divorced; if they went to work, they were fired; and those who did nothing but travel met with ludicrous and gruesome auto accidents. Himiko, shortly after graduation, had married a graduate student, and she hadn’t been divorced. Worse, a year after the marriage, her husband had committed suicide. Himiko’s father-in-law had made her a present of the house the couple had been living in, and he still provided her every month with money for living expenses. He hoped that Himiko would remarry, but at present she devoted her days to contemplation and cruised the city in a sports car every night.
Bird had heard open rumors that Himiko was a sexual adventuress who had broken out of conventional orbit. Even rumors that related her husband’s suicide to her deviate tastes. Bird had slept with the girl just once, but both of them had been terribly drunk and he wasn’t even certain coitus had been achieved. That was long before Himiko’s unfortunate marriage, and though she had been driven by keen desire and had pursued her pleasure actively, Himiko had been nothing more in those days than an inexperienced college girl.
Bird got out of the cab at the entrance to the alley where Himiko lived. Quickly, he calculated the money remaining in his wallet; he shouldn’t have any trouble getting an advance on this month’s salary after class tomorrow.
Bird twisted the bottle of Johnnie Walker into his jacket pocket and hurried down the alley, covering the neck of the bottle with his hand. Since the neighborhood knew all about Himiko’s eccentric life, it was impossible not to suspect that visitors were observed discreetly from windows here and there.
Bird pushed the buzzer in the vestibule. There was no response. He rattled the door a few times and softly called Himiko’s name. This was just a formality. Bird walked around toward the back of the house and saw that a dusty, secondhand MG was parked beneath Himiko’s bedroom window. With its empty seats exposed, the scarlet MG seemed to have been abandoned here for a long time. But it was proof that Himiko was at home. Bird propped a muddy shoe on the badly
The student smiled at him tenaciously until he was in the taxicab. Bird realized as he drove away that he felt as if he had just received charity. And from a boy who in all his time at the cram-school had never learned to distinguish English gerunds from present participles, a former student with a brain no bigger than a cat’s!
Bird’s friend lived on one of the city’s many hills, in a quarter ringed by temples and cemeteries. The girl lived alone in a tiny house at the end of an alley. Bird had met her at a class mixer in October of his freshman year. When it was her turn to stand and introduce herself, she had challenged the class to guess the source of her unusual name: Himiko—fire-sighting-child. Bird had answered, correctly, that the name was taken from the Chronicles of the ancient province of Higo—
The Emperor commanded his oarsmen, saying: There in the distance a signal fire burns; make for it straightaway.
After that, Bird and the girl Himiko from the island of Kyushu had become friends.
There were very few girls at Bird’s university, only a handful in the liberal arts who had come to Tokyo from the provinces; and all of those, as far as Bird knew, had undergone a transmutation into peculiar and unclassifiable monsters shortly after they had graduated. A certainpercentage of their body cells slowly overdeveloped, clustered and knotted until the girls were moving sluggishly and looking dull and melancholic. In the end, they became fatally unfit for everyday, postgraduate life. If they got married, they were divorced; if they went to work, they were fired; and those who did nothing but travel met with ludicrous and gruesome auto accidents. Himiko, shortly after graduation, had married a graduate student, and she hadn’t been divorced. Worse, a year after the marriage, her husband had committed suicide. Himiko’s father-in-law had made her a present of the house the couple had been living in, and he still provided her every month with money for living expenses. He hoped that Himiko would remarry, but at present she devoted her days to contemplation and cruised the city in a sports car every night.
Bird had heard open rumors that Himiko was a sexual adventuress who had broken out of conventional orbit. Even rumors that related her husband’s suicide to her deviate tastes. Bird had slept with the girl just once, but both of them had been terribly drunk and he wasn’t even certain coitus had been achieved. That was long before Himiko’s unfortunate marriage, and though she had been driven by keen desire and had pursued her pleasure actively, Himiko had been nothing more in those days than an inexperienced college girl.
Bird got out of the cab at the entrance to the alley where Himiko lived. Quickly, he calculated the money remaining in his wallet; he shouldn’t have any trouble getting an advance on this month’s salary after class tomorrow.
Bird twisted the bottle of Johnnie Walker into his jacket pocket and hurried down the alley, covering the neck of the bottle with his hand. Since the neighborhood knew all about Himiko’s eccentric life, it was impossible not to suspect that visitors were observed discreetly from windows here and there.
Bird pushed the buzzer in the vestibule. There was no response. He rattled the door a few times and softly called Himiko’s name. This was just a formality. Bird walked around toward the back of the house and saw that a dusty, secondhand MG was parked beneath Himiko’s bedroom window. With its empty seats exposed, the scarlet MG seemed to have been abandoned here for a long time. But it was proof that Himiko was at home. Bird propped a muddy shoe on the badly
Similar Books
