Sputnik Sweetheart Read online

  On weekends, Sumire would come over to my apartment, drafts of her novels spilling out of her arms— the lucky manuscripts that had escaped the massacre. Still, they made quite a pile. Sumire would show her manuscripts to only one person in the whole world. Me.

  In college I’d been two years ahead of her, and our majors were different, so there wasn’t much chance we’d meet. We met by pure chance. It was a Monday in May, the day after a string of holidays, and I was at the bus stop in front of the main gate of the college, standing there reading a Paul Nizan novel I’d found in a used-book store. A short girl beside me leaned over, took a look at the book, and asked me, Why Nizan, of all people? She sounded like she was trying to pick a fight. Like she wanted to kick something and send it flying but lacking anything suitable attacked my choice of reading material.

  Sumire and I were a lot alike. Devouring books came as naturally to us as breathing. Every spare moment we’d settle down in some quiet corner, endlessly turning page after page. Japanese novels, foreign novels, new works, classics, avant-garde to best-seller—as long as there was something intellectually stimulating in a book, we’d read it. We’d hang out in libraries, spend whole days browsing in Kanda, the used-book-store mecca in Tokyo. I’d never run across anyone else who read so avidly—so deeply, so widely—as Sumire, and I’m sure she felt the same.

  I graduated around the time Sumire dropped out of college, and after that she’d hang out at my place two or three times a month. Occasionally I’d go over to her apartment, but you could barely squeeze two people in there, and most of the time she’d wind up at my place. We’d talk about the novels we’d read and exchange books. I cooked a lot of dinners. I didn’t mind cooking, and Sumire was the kind of person who’d rather go hungry than cook for herself. She’d bring me presents from her part-time jobs to thank me. Once she had a part-time job in the warehouse of a drug company and brought me six dozen condoms. They’re probably still in the back of a drawer somewhere.

  The novels—or fragments of novels, really—that Sumire wrote weren’t as terrible as she thought. True, at times her style resembled a patchwork quilt sewn by a group of stubborn old ladies, each with her own tastes and complaints, working in grim silence. Add to this Sumire’s sometimes manic-depressive personality, and things occasionally got out of control. As if this weren’t enough, Sumire was dead set on creating a massive nineteenth-century-style Total Novel, the kind of portmanteau packed with every possible phenomenon in order to capture the soul and human destiny.

  This being said, Sumire’s writing had a remarkable freshness about it, an attempt to honestly portray what was important to her. On the plus side she didn’t try to imitate anyone else’s style, and she didn’t attempt to distill everything into some precious, clever little pieces. That’s what I liked most about her writing. It wouldn’t have been right to pare down the direct power in her writing just so it could take on some pleasant, cozy form. There was no need to rush things. She still had plenty of time for detours. As the saying goes, “What’s nurtured slowly grows well.”

  My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I want to write about,” Sumire said.

  “Images, scenes, snatches of words . . . in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! they shout at me. A great new story is about to be born—I can feel it. It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put all these down on paper, I realize something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals, just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.”

  With a frown, Sumire picked up her two-hundred-and-fiftieth stone and tossed it into the pond.

  “Maybe I’m lacking something. Something you absolutely must have to be a novelist.”

  A deep silence ensued. It seemed she was seeking my run-of-the-mill opinion.

  After a while I started to speak. “A long time ago in China there were cities with high walls surrounding them, with huge, magnificent gates. The gates weren’t just doors for letting people in or out but had greater significance. People believed the city’s soul resided in the gates. Or at least that it should reside there. It’s like in Europe in the Middle Ages when people felt a city’s heart lay in its cathedral and central square. Which is why even today in China there are lots of wonderful gates still standing. Do you know how the Chinese built these gates?”

  “I have no idea,” Sumire answered.

  “People would take carts out to old battlefields and gather the bleached bones that were buried there or that lay scattered about. China’s a pretty ancient country—lots of old battlegrounds—so they never had to search far. At the entrance to the city they’d construct a huge gate and seal the bones inside. They hoped that by commemorating them this way the dead soldiers would continue to guard their town. There’s more. When the gate was finished they’d bring several dogs over to it, slit their throats, and sprinkle their blood on the gate. Only by mixing fresh blood with the dried-out bones would the ancient souls of the dead magically revive. At least that was the idea.”

  Sumire waited silently for me to go on.

  “Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn’t make it a living, breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.”

  “So what you’re saying is that I go out on my own and find my own dog?”

  I nodded.

  “And shed fresh blood?”

  Sumire bit her lip and thought about this. She tossed another hapless stone into the pond. “I really don’t want to kill an animal if I can help it.”

  “It’s a metaphor,” I said. “You don’t have to actually kill anything.”

  We were sitting as usual side by side at Inogashira Park, on her favorite bench. The pond spread out before us. A windless day. Leaves lay where they had fallen, pasted on the surface of the water. I could smell a bonfire somewhere in the distance. The air was filled with the scent of the end of autumn, and far-off sounds were painfully clear.

  “What you need is time and experience,” I said.

  “Time and experience,” Sumire mused, and gazed up at the sky. “There’s not much you can do about time—it just keeps on passing. But experience? Don’t tell me that. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience can a writer have if she doesn’t feel passion? It’d be like a chef without an appetite.”

  “I don’t know where your sexual desire has gone,” I said. “Maybe it’s just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip and forgotten to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows—maybe even tomorrow.”

  Sumire turned her gaze from the sky to my face. “Like a tornado?”

  “You could say that.”

  She thought about it. “Have you ever actually seen a tornado?”

  “No,” I replied. Thankfully, Tokyo wasn’t exactly Tornado Alley.

  About half a year later, just as I had predicted, suddenly, preposterously, a tornado-like love seized Sumire. With a woman seventeen years older. Her very own Sputnik Sweetheart.

  As Sumire and Miu sat there together at the table at the wedding reception, they did what everybody else in the world does in such situations, namely, introduce themselves. Sumire hated her own name and tried to conceal it whenever she could. But when somebody asks you your name, the only polite thing to do is to go ahead and give it.

  According to her father, her mother had chosen the name Sumire. She loved the Mozart song of the same name and had decided long before that if she had a daughter that would be her name. On a shelf in their living room was a record of Mozart’s songs, doubtless the one her mother had listened to, and when she was a child, Sumire would carefully lay this heavy LP on the turntable and listen to the song over and over. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf wa
s the soprano, Walter Gieseking on piano. Sumire didn’t understand the lyrics, but from the graceful motif she felt sure the song was a paean to beautiful violets blooming in a field. Sumire loved that image.

  In junior high, though, she ran across a Japanese translation of the song in her school library and was shocked. The lyrics told of a callous shepherd’s daughter trampling down a hapless little violet in a field. The girl didn’t even notice she’d flattened the flower. It was based on a Goethe poem, and Sumire found nothing redeeming about it, no lesson to be learned.

  How could my mother give me the name of such an awful song?” Sumire said, scowling.

  Miu arranged the corners of the napkin on her lap, smiled neutrally, and looked at Sumire. Miu’s eyes were quite dark. Many colors mixed together, but clear and unclouded.

  “Do you think the song is beautiful?”

  “Yes, the song itself is pretty.”

  “If the music is lovely, I think that should be enough. After all, not everything in this world can be beautiful, right? Your mother must have loved that song so much the lyrics didn’t bother her. And besides, if you keep making that kind of face you’re going to get some permanent wrinkles.”

  Sumire allowed her scowl to relax.

  “Maybe you’re right, but I just felt so let down. I mean, the only tangible sort of thing my mother left me was that name. Other than myself, of course.”

  “Well, I think Sumire is a lovely name. I like it very much,” Miu said, and tilted her head slightly, as if to view things from a new angle. “By the way, is your father here at the reception?”

  Sumire looked around. The reception hall was large, but her father was tall and she easily spotted him. He was sitting two tables away, his face turned sideways, talking with a short, elderly man in a morning coat. His smile was so trusting and warm it would melt a glacier. Under the light of the chandeliers, his handsome nose rose up softly, like a rococo cameo, and even Sumire, who was used to seeing him, was moved by its beauty. Her father truly belonged at this kind of formal gathering. His mere presence lent the place a sumptuous atmosphere. Like cut flowers in a large vase or a jet-black stretch limousine.

  When she spied Sumire’s father, Miu was speechless. Sumire could hear the intake of breath. Like the sound of a velvet curtain being drawn aside on a peaceful morning to let in the sunlight to wake someone very special to you. Maybe I should have brought a pair of opera glasses, Sumire mused. But she was used to the dramatic reaction her father’s looks brought out in people—especially middle-aged women. What is beauty? What value does it have? Sumire always found it strange. But no one ever answered her. There was just that same immutable effect.

  “What’s it like to have such a handsome father?” Miu asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

  Sumire sighed—people could be so predictable. “I can’t say I like it. Everybody thinks the same thing: What a handsome man. A real standout. But his daughter, well—she isn’t much to look at, is she? This must be what they mean by atavism, they think.”

  Miu turned toward Sumire, pulled her chin in ever so slightly, and gazed at her face. Like she was admiring a painting in an art gallery.

  “If that’s how you’ve always felt up till now, you’ve been mistaken,” Miu said. “You’re lovely. Every bit as much as your father.” She reached out and, quite unaffectedly, lightly touched Sumire’s hand, which lay on the table. “You don’t realize how very attractive you are.”

  Sumire’s face grew hot. Her heart galloped as loudly as a crazed horse on a wooden bridge.

  After this Sumire and Miu were absorbed in their own private conversation. The reception was a lively one, with the usual assortment of after-dinner speeches (including, most certainly, Sumire’s father), and the dinner wasn’t half bad. But not a speck of this remained in Sumire’s memory. Was the entrée meat? Or fish? Did she use a knife and fork and mind her manners? Or eat with her hands and lick the plate? Sumire had no idea.

  The two of them talked about music. Sumire was a big fan of classical music and ever since she was small liked to paw through her father’s record collection. She and Miu shared similar musical tastes, it turned out. They both loved piano music and were convinced that Beethoven’s Sonata no. 32 was the absolute pinnacle in the history of music. And that Wilhelm Backhaus’s unparalleled performance of the sonata for Decca set the interpretive standard. What a delightful, vibrant, and joyous thing it was!

  Vladimir Horowitz’s monaural recordings of Chopin, especially the scherzos, are thrilling, aren’t they? Friedrich Gulda’s performances of Debussy’s preludes are witty and lovely; Gieseking’s Grieg is, from start to finish, sweet. Sviatoslav Richter’s Prokofiev is worth listening to over and over—his interpretation captures the mercurial shifts of mood exactly. And Wanda Landowska’s Mozart sonatas—so filled with warmth and tenderness it’s hard to understand why they haven’t received more acclaim.

  “What do you do?” Miu asked, once they’d wound up their discussion of music.

  I dropped out of college, Sumire explained, and I’m doing some part-time jobs while I work on my novels. What kind of novels? Miu asked. It’s hard to explain, Sumire replied. Well, said Miu, then what type of novels do you like to read? If I list them all we’ll be here forever, Sumire said. Recently I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac.

  And that’s where the Sputnik part of their conversation came in.

  Other than some light fiction she read to pass the time, Miu hardly ever touched novels. I never can get it out of my mind that it’s all made up, she explained, so I just can’t feel any empathy for the characters. I’ve always been that way. That’s why her reading was limited to books that treated reality as reality. Books, for the most part, that helped her in her work.

  What kind of work do you do? Sumire asked.

  “Mostly it has to do with foreign countries,” Miu said. “Thirteen years ago I took over the trading company my father ran, since I was the oldest child. I’d been studying to be a pianist, but my father passed away from cancer; my mother wasn’t strong physically and besides couldn’t speak Japanese very well. My brother was still in high school, so we decided, for the time being, that I’d take care of the company. A number of relatives depended on the company for their livelihood, so I couldn’t very well just let it go to pot.”

  She punctuated all this with a sigh.

  “My father’s company originally imported dried foods and medicinal herbs from Korea, but now it deals with a wide variety of things. Even computer parts. I’m still officially listed as the head of the company, but my husband and younger brother have taken over, so I don’t have to go to the office very often. Instead I’ve got my own private business.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Importing wine, mainly. Occasionally I arrange concerts, too. I travel to Europe quite a bit, since this type of business depends on personal connections. Which is why I’m able, all by myself, to compete with some top firms. But all that networking takes a lot of time and energy. That’s only to be expected, I suppose. . . .” She looked up, as if she’d just remembered something. “By the way, do you speak English?”

  “Speaking English isn’t my strong suit, but I’m OK, I guess. I love to read English, though.”

  “Do you know how to use a computer?”

  “Not really, but I’ve been using a word processor, and I’m sure I could pick it up.”

  “How about driving?”

  Sumire shook her head. The year she started college she tried backing her father’s Volvo station wagon into the garage and smashed the door on a pillar. Since then she’d barely driven.

  “All right—can you explain, in two hundred words or less, the difference between a sign and a symbol?”

  Sumire lifted the napkin from her lap, lightly dabbed at her mouth, and put it back. What was the woman driving at? “A sign and a symbol?”

  “No special significance. It’s just an example.”

  Again Sumire shook her head. “I hav
e no idea.”

  Miu smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to tell me what sort of practical skills you have. What you’re especially good at. Other than reading a lot of novels and listening to music.”

  Sumire quietly laid her knife and fork on her plate, stared at the anonymous space hanging over the table, and pondered the question.

  “Instead of things I’m good at, it might be faster to list the things I can’t do. I can’t cook or clean the house. My room’s a mess, and I’m always losing things. I love music, but I can’t sing a note. I’m clumsy and can barely sew a stitch. My sense of direction is the pits, and I can’t tell left from right half the time. When I get mad, I tend to break things. Plates and pencils, alarm clocks. Later on I regret it, but at the time I can’t help myself. I have no money in the bank. I’m bashful for no reason, and I have hardly any friends to speak of.”

  Sumire took a quick breath and forged ahead.

  “However, I can touch-type really fast. I’m not that athletic, but, other than the mumps, I’ve never been sick a day in my life. I’m always punctual, never late for an appointment. I can eat just about anything. I never watch TV. And other than a bit of silly boasting, I hardly ever make any excuses. Once a month or so my shoulders get so stiff I can’t sleep, but the rest of the time I sleep like a log. My periods are light. I don’t have a single cavity. And my Spanish is OK.”

  Miu looked up. “You speak Spanish?”

  When Sumire was in high school, she spent a month in the home of her uncle, a businessman who’d been stationed in Mexico City. Making the most of the opportunity, she’d studied Spanish intensively. She had taken Spanish in college, too.