Chapter 22 Chapter Twenty

The graduation thesis of the Faculty of Arts that year was due on December 10th, and I didn't know until the beginning of December. I seldom went to school after September, and I completely forgot about my graduation thesis.I couldn't help laughing when I read the revelations about graduation thesis posted on the bulletin board.No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't write it in nine days, and by then I was doomed to repeat a grade. The inaugural examinations for each company's line numbers are also over.Even the students with problematic thinking clearly know that no good company will employ them, but they are still worried about whether they will be able to graduate next spring.The students who are not worried continue to fight fiercely without changing their original intentions, seriously consider quitting school, and plan ways to make money.

Only I did nothing during that period.Newspapers are not read, books are not opened, and people are not socialized.If there was anything I did at that time, I would probably just sleep in at noon, wake up at night and stroll to Shinjuku to listen to jazz music "feeling the same". , or watch a movie you don’t really want to see. There have also been times when I wandered around the dark streets, found a quiet park, went in to swing on a swing, and fell into deep thought, until I realized that it was early morning.There have also been times when it didn't matter if I didn't sleep for two or three days, and I was locked in my small apartment all the time.Like getting moldy, eats almost nothing but coffee and smokes.As if suffering from autism, looking out of the window in a daze and turning white, and then the dusk fell until the surroundings were completely dark.

At that time, the thoughts in my mind were chaotic.I don't know how to pick it myself.Sometimes I think, am I going crazy if I go on like this?But I can't stop thinking about it.It was just a meaningless attempt to prove that he was still rational.Anyway, I am really afraid that I will become a useless person who can't think about anything. Even so, all I think about is the past.The times spent with Hinako and Shintaro are clearly replaying in his mind.All I try to remember is what I did and said at this time last year. When it was more serious, I had to recall such trivial things as what clothes I was wearing, what month it was, whether the weather was sunny or rainy, and what news was in the newspaper.It is not surprising to think about it for three or four hours.Very keen on collecting fragments of past happy memories.

I have several times wished I knew what was seriously ill.It is best if there is no cure.I wondered how relieved I would be if I got to the hospital and heard from the doctor that I didn't have long to live. I dreamed that when I was walking outside, it would be fine if I was run over by a fast-moving truck; and I wondered if there would be a murderer who invaded when I was not at home when I was going home. Strangled me when I entered the door. I crave physical pain.I feel that if there is physical pain, perhaps the spiritual pain can be liberated. To have this effect, I drank countless glasses of cheap whiskey in my room.Waiting for the body to be uncomfortable, but at that time, I just don't get drunk, just have a slight headache, which reminds me of my emptiness even more.And then there's just sadness and leaden exhaustion, doubling the pain from before the drink.

But I'm still alive.Try to live as little as possible.Every Saturday, I still go to Meguro's apartment regularly, and then meet with Shintaro to receive the manuscript. The work of transcribing continued mechanically, but somewhat stagnantly.There have also been cases where I went to Meguro without completing the required amount of transcription. But Shintaro didn't complain.Because he himself is not interested in working, the number of manuscripts handed to me is getting smaller and smaller. I never met Hinako in the apartment.When I met Shintaro, I couldn't have fun with him, but I still went out to eat with him every Saturday as usual.But I don't know when it started, I stopped drinking after meals, and I stopped going for a drive, and I ate simple dinners in very ordinary restaurants.After drinking the coffee, Shintaro would pick up the car keys that were placed on the table without saying a word, as if he had already decided on a pattern.That's the cue to go back.

I just watched to see when he would pick up the key.Will today be fifteen minutes later than usual?I seem to be in a hurry today, I'm afraid I'll go back earlier.Just thinking about this, and not talking.Perhaps because of this, I remember hating the key ring that Shintaro used at the time. It was a black leather key ring in the shape of a small horseshoe.There are silver engraved letters in the middle, which represent Katase.But doesn't it also represent Okubo?I have thought so boringly several times, it can be said that I am in a half-crazy state. Shintaro, who had the key, paid the bill and took me home, but he never came upstairs, and I didn't invite him.So he didn't turn off the engine at all, just stepped on the brake, kissed me lightly on the cheek and said, "Good night, Boo. See you next week."

I do not know what to do.What to say to avoid this sad feeling.At that time, all I could do was to maintain my only self-esteem, not to reluctantly send his car away, but to run upstairs immediately. But even though I hid my body, my ears stubbornly listened to the movement outside.Like the sound of tires rubbing against the road, it didn't take long for Shintaro's car to drift away. Then I would run outside again, the road still smelling of white smoke from Shintaro's car.All I could see was the small red taillights of the car going away. At the corner below, because the car is going to turn right, it has to stop first and turn on the right turn signal.In the cold winter night air, only the flashing right-turn lights and red rear lights stood out vividly.After a while, the car was gone, leaving me in horrific solitude.

That's how I lived through 1971.I remember staying in Tokyo until December 30th, and returning to Sendai that night. I couldn't tell my parents that I wasn't writing a paper, much less that I was sure to repeat a grade. I looked rather thin, and my parents and grandmother worried about my health.I don't like to have them frown and say, "I'm skinny! What's wrong?" So I pretend to be energetic.But with all the clothes on and the accumulation of fatigue, he looks thinner. During the Chinese New Year, relatives whom I hadn’t seen for a long time shouted loudly that I was so skinny and forced me to eat more meat, saying that only in this way would I have physical strength.Instead, it gave me severe indigestion.Because of this, I lost even more weight.When I returned to Tokyo on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, I could no longer feel my own weight. I walked as lightly as if I was on a cloud, and I was indeed terrified even myself.

Back at the apartment, there was a letter from me in the mailbox next to the entrance on the first floor.It's postmarked January 3rd.The name of Tang Mu's good friend was written in the sender's place.When Tang Mu often ran towards me, he always followed him in and out.He also came to tell me about Tang Mu's arrest. The letter was included in the mail of other residents returning to their hometown for the New Year, and it was delivered four days ago.There was a thin layer of dust on it, maybe because I had a premonition that something was wrong at the beginning, so I stood in front of the mailbox and took it apart with my fingers.

It was not an ordinary letter, but a piece of paper for writing a report. It was full of tiny words written horizontally and tilted to the right, which looked a little neurotic.It's the kind of word that's perfect for conveying death. The letter contained the news of Tang Mu's death.The date of death was December 18th near the end of the year.It must have been quite painful not to go to the hospital until the end, but Tang Mu did not tell the people around him that he was not feeling well.He collapsed in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and was rushed to the hospital with terminal symptoms of both kidneys being disabled.Even the doctors were amazed that "it is possible to live like this".On the twenty-sixth, uremia was complicated, and on the twenty-seventh, he became unconscious, and died in a long sleep on the twenty-eighth morning of the next day.A funeral was held near my home on December 30.Because it was the end of the year, the remains were cremated in a hurry.I know that Tang Mu has broken up with Ms. Yano, but I just want to tell you the news of his death, so I wrote this letter.

The letter did not use any sentimental words expressing grief, nor did it describe the remembrance of Tang Mu, just like writing an official document, the news of the death was conveyed in a very businesslike manner. I read the letter and put it in my coat pocket.Hang up your purse and go upstairs to your room.He opened the closed window, turned on the switch of the electric heating table, and just put on his coat and curled up under the quilt.I couldn't quite believe Tang Mu's death, my mind went blank. I tried to recall what I was doing on the 28th when Tang Mu died.Because it was ten days ago, it is not easy to wake up the memory.I just vaguely remember that day when I went to Kichijoji, wandering aimlessly in the street.When I saw a small, dark coffee shop, I went in and sat down.Then I don't remember what I did. To me, Tang Mu is like a classmate in elementary school, only when looking through old photo books will there be many memories.So if on the twenty-eighth day I suddenly thought about Tang Mu and became worried for no reason, it must be Tang Mu's manifestation somewhere.But nothing. When we were still dating, I asked Tang Mu about his views on life and death.I remember him saying that dead creatures simply become formless.Any ghost stories or spiritual phenomena are just fabricated by living people.Death is neither holy nor unclean, nor something to be feared.It just means that everything is destroyed.And he was as invisible as he said he was.Death equals nothing, there is no need to be sentimental.In front of my eyes, Tang Mu's usual, stubborn face appeared. I drank whiskey alone in my room that night.Turn on the radio and listen to upbeat American pop.Whenever I hear a song I haven't listened to for a long time, I will recall the moment when I was listening to music with Tang Mu. I still think of Tang Mu putting his feet on the same electric heating table, leaning his back against the wall, reading a heavy book, and telling me his ideals.I don't remember anything he told me about the struggle, but I do recall the smell of his neck, and touching his long, greasy hair that would immediately turn oily on his scalp no matter how much he washed it, and the smell of smoke. The warm exhalation of the smell. I can't recall having sex with Tang Mu.All I can think of is the movement of his shoulders when he slipped on the condom behind my back on the bed, and the weight of his feet when he slumps on top of me when it's over...that's all. Tang Mu died at the age of twenty-four.I still sometimes think about what would have happened to him if he was still alive and healthy.Will they eventually quit the struggle and become an ordinary office worker, get married and have children, or at most become the leader of a labor union?Or he continued his passionate revolutionary movement under the banner of armed struggle, and was later implicated in the Asama Villa incident, and his name was also found among the arrested Red Army fighters. I didn't cry that day, and I didn't feel sad.I'm just a little surprised and a little dazed by this separation.Not entirely without sentimentality, of course.But I think it's just the air of that era that draws out my sentimentality.I am also very satisfied that I can accept Tang Mu's death so calmly.But the next morning, I dreamed of Tang Mu.He didn't say anything, just bowed his head lonely and hunched over.The background is a dark bar with gray walls and a gray counter.But there was no one around, only Tang Mu was facing the counter, with his head down and his body motionless. It was just a dream like that.But I remember that when I awoke, I was overcome by a wave of overwhelming emotion that made me tremble uncontrollably.It was truly indescribably intense, and it stirred up emotional waves like crazy. It wasn't an ordinary emotion like uncontrollable sadness, or feeling lonely.It's a different kind, mixed with the horror of the bottomless pit, and mixed with the kind of self-deprecation when you laugh at yourself.These feelings merged together, as if a volcano was about to erupt, spewing up in my body. At that time, for the first time in my life, I understood what it means to cry.I pressed my face against the quilt and wept bitterly.