Jul 2020
Chapter 9
Culverts and an Absolute Insufficiency of Electricity · May Kasahara’s Inquiry into the Nature of Hairpieces
[...]
In the six years since I had married Kumiko, I had never slept with another woman. Which is not to say that I never felt the desire for another woman or never had the chance. Just that I never pursued it when the opportunity arose. I can’t explain why, exactly, but it probably has something to do with life’s priorities.
I did once happen to spend the night with another woman. She was someone I liked, and I knew she would have slept with me. But finally, I didn’t do it.
We had been working together at the law firm for several years. She was probably two or three years younger than I. Her job was to take calls and coordinate everyone’s schedules, and she was very good at it. She was quick, and she had an outstanding memory. You could ask her anything and she would know the answer: who was working where at what, which files were in which cabinet, that kind of thing. She handled all appointments. Everybody liked her and depended on her. On an individual basis, too, she and I were fairly close. We had gone drinking together several times. She was not exactly what you would call a beauty, but I liked her looks.
When it came time for her to quit her job to get married (she would have to move to Kyushu in connection with her husband’s work), several colleagues and I invited her out for a last drink together. Afterward, she and I had to take the same train home, and because it was late, I saw her to her apartment. At the front door, she invited me in for a cup of coffee. I was worried about missing the last train, but I knew we might never see each other again, and I also liked the idea of sobering up with coffee, so I decided to go in. The place was a typical single girl’s apartment. It had a refrigerator that was just a little too grand for one person, and a bookshelf stereo. A friend had given her the refrigerator. She changed into something comfortable in the next room and made coffee in the kitchen. We sat on the floor, talking.
At one point when we had run out of things to say, she asked me, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, “Can you name something-some concrete thing-that you’re especially afraid of?”
“Not really,” I said, after a moment’s thought. I was afraid of all kinds of things, but no one thing in particular. “How about you?”
“I’m scared of culverts,” she said, hugging her knees. “You know what a culvert is, don’t you?”
“Some kind of ditch, isn’t it?” I didn’t have a very precise definition of the word in mind.
“Yeah, but it’s underground. An underground waterway. A drainage ditch with a lid on. A pitch-dark flow.”
“I see,” I said. “A culvert.”
“I was born and raised in the country. In Fukushima. There was a stream right near my house-a little stream, just the runoff from the fields. It flowed underground at one point into a culvert. I guess I was playing with some of the older kids when it happened. I was just two or three. The others put me in a little boat and launched it into the stream. It was probably something they did all the time, but that day it had been raining, and the water was high. The boat got away from them and carried me straight for the opening of the culvert. I would have been ****** right in if one of the local farmers hadn’t happened by. I’m sure they never would have found me.”
She ran her left index finger over her mouth as if to check that she was still alive.
“I can still picture everything that happened. I’m lying on my back and being swept along by the water. The sides of the stream tower over me like high stone walls, and overhead is the blue sky. Sharp, clear blue. I’m being swept along in the flow. Swish, swish, faster and faster. But I can’t understand what it means. And then all of a sudden I do understand-that there’s darkness lying ahead. Real darkness. Soon it comes and tries to drink me down. I can feel a cold shadow beginning to wrap itself around me. That’s my earliest memory.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“I’m scared to death,” she said. “I’m so scared I can hardly stand it. I feel like I did back then, like I’m being swept along toward it and I can’t get away.”
She took a cigarette from her handbag, put it in her mouth, and lit it with a match, exhaling in one long, slow breath. This was the first time I had ever seen her smoke.
“Are you talking about your marriage?” I asked.
“That’s right,” she said. “My marriage.”
“Is there some particular problem?” I asked. “Something concrete?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not really. Just a lot of little things.”
I didn’t know what to say to her, but the situation demanded that I say something.
“Everybody experiences this feeling to some extent when they’re about to get married, I think. ‘Oh, no, I’m making this terrible mistake!’
You’d probably be abnormal if you didn’t feel it. It’s a big decision, picking somebody to spend your life with. So it’s natural to be scared, but you don’t have to be that scared.”
“That’s easy to say-’Everybody feels like that. Everybody’s the same,’ “ she said.
Eleven o’clock had come and gone. I had to find a way to bring this conversation to a successful conclusion and get out of there. But before I could say anything, she suddenly asked me to hold her. “Why?” I asked, caught off guard. “To charge my batteries,” she said. “Charge your batteries?”
“My body has run out of electricity. I haven’t been able to sleep for days now. The minute I get to sleep I wake up, and then I can’t get back to sleep. I can’t think. When I get like that, somebody has to charge my batteries. Otherwise, I can’t go on living. It’s true.”
I peered into her eyes, wondering if she was still drunk, but they were once again her usual cool, intelligent eyes. She was far from drunk.
“But you’re getting married next week. You can have him hold you all you want. Every night. That’s what marriage is for. You’ll never run out of electricity again.”
“The problem is now,” she said. “Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. I’m out of electricity now.”
Lips clamped shut, she stared at her feet. They were in perfect alignment. Small and white, they had ten pretty toenails. She really, truly wanted somebody to hold her, it seemed, and so I took her in my arms. It was all very weird. To me, she was just a capable, pleasant colleague. We worked in the same office, told each other jokes, and had gone out for drinks now and then. But here, away from work, in her apartment, with my arms around her, we were nothing but warm lumps of flesh. We had been playing our assigned roles on the office stage, but stepping down from the stage, abandoning the provisional images that we had been exchanging there, we were both just unstable, awkward lumps of flesh, warm pieces of meat outfitted with digestive tracts and hearts and brains and reproductive organs. I had my arms wrapped around her back, and she had her ******* pressed hard against my chest. They were larger and softer than I had imagined them to be. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, and she was slumped against me. We stayed in that position for a long time, holding each other without a word.
“Is this all right?” I asked, in a voice that did not sound like my own. It was as if someone else were speaking for me.
She said nothing, but I could feel her nod.
She was wearing a sweatshirt and a thin skirt that came down to her knees, but soon I realized that she had nothing on underneath. Almost automatically, this gave me an *******, and she seemed to be aware of it. I could feel her warm breath on my neck.
In the end, I didn’t sleep with her. But I did have to go on “charging” her “batteries” until two in the morning. She pleaded with me to stay with her until she was asleep. I took her to her bed and tucked her in. But she remained awake for a long time. She changed into pajamas, and I went on holding and “recharging” her. In my arms, I felt her cheeks grow hot and her heart pound. I couldn’t be sure I was doing the right thing, but I knew of no other way to deal with the situation. The simplest thing would have been to sleep with her, but I managed to sweep that possibility from my mind. My instincts told me not to do it.
“Please don’t hate me for this,” she said. “My electricity is just so low I can’t help it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I understand.”
I knew I should call home, but what could I have said to Kumiko? I didn’t want to lie, but I knew it would be impossible for me to explain to her what was happening. And after a while, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Whatever happened would happen. I left her apartment at two o’clock and didn’t get home until three. It was tough finding a cab.
[...]
Culverts and an Absolute Insufficiency of Electricity · May Kasahara’s Inquiry into the Nature of Hairpieces
[...]
In the six years since I had married Kumiko, I had never slept with another woman. Which is not to say that I never felt the desire for another woman or never had the chance. Just that I never pursued it when the opportunity arose. I can’t explain why, exactly, but it probably has something to do with life’s priorities.
I did once happen to spend the night with another woman. She was someone I liked, and I knew she would have slept with me. But finally, I didn’t do it.
We had been working together at the law firm for several years. She was probably two or three years younger than I. Her job was to take calls and coordinate everyone’s schedules, and she was very good at it. She was quick, and she had an outstanding memory. You could ask her anything and she would know the answer: who was working where at what, which files were in which cabinet, that kind of thing. She handled all appointments. Everybody liked her and depended on her. On an individual basis, too, she and I were fairly close. We had gone drinking together several times. She was not exactly what you would call a beauty, but I liked her looks.
When it came time for her to quit her job to get married (she would have to move to Kyushu in connection with her husband’s work), several colleagues and I invited her out for a last drink together. Afterward, she and I had to take the same train home, and because it was late, I saw her to her apartment. At the front door, she invited me in for a cup of coffee. I was worried about missing the last train, but I knew we might never see each other again, and I also liked the idea of sobering up with coffee, so I decided to go in. The place was a typical single girl’s apartment. It had a refrigerator that was just a little too grand for one person, and a bookshelf stereo. A friend had given her the refrigerator. She changed into something comfortable in the next room and made coffee in the kitchen. We sat on the floor, talking.
At one point when we had run out of things to say, she asked me, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, “Can you name something-some concrete thing-that you’re especially afraid of?”
“Not really,” I said, after a moment’s thought. I was afraid of all kinds of things, but no one thing in particular. “How about you?”
“I’m scared of culverts,” she said, hugging her knees. “You know what a culvert is, don’t you?”
“Some kind of ditch, isn’t it?” I didn’t have a very precise definition of the word in mind.
“Yeah, but it’s underground. An underground waterway. A drainage ditch with a lid on. A pitch-dark flow.”
“I see,” I said. “A culvert.”
“I was born and raised in the country. In Fukushima. There was a stream right near my house-a little stream, just the runoff from the fields. It flowed underground at one point into a culvert. I guess I was playing with some of the older kids when it happened. I was just two or three. The others put me in a little boat and launched it into the stream. It was probably something they did all the time, but that day it had been raining, and the water was high. The boat got away from them and carried me straight for the opening of the culvert. I would have been ****** right in if one of the local farmers hadn’t happened by. I’m sure they never would have found me.”
She ran her left index finger over her mouth as if to check that she was still alive.
“I can still picture everything that happened. I’m lying on my back and being swept along by the water. The sides of the stream tower over me like high stone walls, and overhead is the blue sky. Sharp, clear blue. I’m being swept along in the flow. Swish, swish, faster and faster. But I can’t understand what it means. And then all of a sudden I do understand-that there’s darkness lying ahead. Real darkness. Soon it comes and tries to drink me down. I can feel a cold shadow beginning to wrap itself around me. That’s my earliest memory.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“I’m scared to death,” she said. “I’m so scared I can hardly stand it. I feel like I did back then, like I’m being swept along toward it and I can’t get away.”
She took a cigarette from her handbag, put it in her mouth, and lit it with a match, exhaling in one long, slow breath. This was the first time I had ever seen her smoke.
“Are you talking about your marriage?” I asked.
“That’s right,” she said. “My marriage.”
“Is there some particular problem?” I asked. “Something concrete?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not really. Just a lot of little things.”
I didn’t know what to say to her, but the situation demanded that I say something.
“Everybody experiences this feeling to some extent when they’re about to get married, I think. ‘Oh, no, I’m making this terrible mistake!’
You’d probably be abnormal if you didn’t feel it. It’s a big decision, picking somebody to spend your life with. So it’s natural to be scared, but you don’t have to be that scared.”
“That’s easy to say-’Everybody feels like that. Everybody’s the same,’ “ she said.
Eleven o’clock had come and gone. I had to find a way to bring this conversation to a successful conclusion and get out of there. But before I could say anything, she suddenly asked me to hold her. “Why?” I asked, caught off guard. “To charge my batteries,” she said. “Charge your batteries?”
“My body has run out of electricity. I haven’t been able to sleep for days now. The minute I get to sleep I wake up, and then I can’t get back to sleep. I can’t think. When I get like that, somebody has to charge my batteries. Otherwise, I can’t go on living. It’s true.”
I peered into her eyes, wondering if she was still drunk, but they were once again her usual cool, intelligent eyes. She was far from drunk.
“But you’re getting married next week. You can have him hold you all you want. Every night. That’s what marriage is for. You’ll never run out of electricity again.”
“The problem is now,” she said. “Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. I’m out of electricity now.”
Lips clamped shut, she stared at her feet. They were in perfect alignment. Small and white, they had ten pretty toenails. She really, truly wanted somebody to hold her, it seemed, and so I took her in my arms. It was all very weird. To me, she was just a capable, pleasant colleague. We worked in the same office, told each other jokes, and had gone out for drinks now and then. But here, away from work, in her apartment, with my arms around her, we were nothing but warm lumps of flesh. We had been playing our assigned roles on the office stage, but stepping down from the stage, abandoning the provisional images that we had been exchanging there, we were both just unstable, awkward lumps of flesh, warm pieces of meat outfitted with digestive tracts and hearts and brains and reproductive organs. I had my arms wrapped around her back, and she had her ******* pressed hard against my chest. They were larger and softer than I had imagined them to be. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, and she was slumped against me. We stayed in that position for a long time, holding each other without a word.
“Is this all right?” I asked, in a voice that did not sound like my own. It was as if someone else were speaking for me.
She said nothing, but I could feel her nod.
She was wearing a sweatshirt and a thin skirt that came down to her knees, but soon I realized that she had nothing on underneath. Almost automatically, this gave me an *******, and she seemed to be aware of it. I could feel her warm breath on my neck.
In the end, I didn’t sleep with her. But I did have to go on “charging” her “batteries” until two in the morning. She pleaded with me to stay with her until she was asleep. I took her to her bed and tucked her in. But she remained awake for a long time. She changed into pajamas, and I went on holding and “recharging” her. In my arms, I felt her cheeks grow hot and her heart pound. I couldn’t be sure I was doing the right thing, but I knew of no other way to deal with the situation. The simplest thing would have been to sleep with her, but I managed to sweep that possibility from my mind. My instincts told me not to do it.
“Please don’t hate me for this,” she said. “My electricity is just so low I can’t help it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I understand.”
I knew I should call home, but what could I have said to Kumiko? I didn’t want to lie, but I knew it would be impossible for me to explain to her what was happening. And after a while, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Whatever happened would happen. I left her apartment at two o’clock and didn’t get home until three. It was tough finding a cab.
[...]
