The Elephant Vanishes: Stories Read online

  [Thump, thump, thump (rapping on tabletop)]

  Now for some knocking.

  [Knock, knock, knock]

  Stop me if you’ve heard this.

  Don’t open the door if you don’t feel like it. Either way is perfectly fine. If you don’t want to listen anymore, please stop the tape and throw it away. I just wanted to sit down awhile by your front door talking to myself, that’s all. I have no idea whatsoever if you’re listening or not, but since I don’t know, it’s really all the same whether you do or you don’t, isn’t it? Ha, ha, ha.

  OKAY, WHAT THE HELL, let’s give it a go.

  • • •

  STILL AND ALL, this imperfection business is pretty tough going. Who’d have thought talking into a microphone without any script or plan would be so hard? It’s like standing in the middle of the desert sprinkling water around with a cup. No visible sign of anything, not one thing to cling to.

  That’s why all this time I’ve been talking to the VU meters. You know, the VU meters? Those gizmos with the needles that twitch to the volume? I don’t know what the V or the U stand for, but whatever, they’re the only things showing any reaction to my ranting.

  Hey, hey.

  All the same, their criteria are really quite simple.

  V and U, well, they’re like a vaudeville duo. There’s no V without U and no U without V—a nice little setup. As far as they’re concerned, it really doesn’t matter what I babble on about. The only thing they’re interested in is how much my voice makes the air vibrate. To them, the air vibrates, therefore I am.

  Pretty swift, don’t you think?

  Watching them, I get to thinking it doesn’t matter what I say so long as I keep talking.

  Whoa!

  Come to think of it, not too long ago I saw a movie. It was about a comedian who just couldn’t make anyone laugh no matter what jokes he told. Got the picture? Not one soul would laugh.

  Well, talking into this microphone, I’m reminded of that movie over and over again.

  It’s all very odd.

  The very same lines when spoken by one person will have you dying with laughter but when spoken by another won’t seem funny in the least. Curious, don’t you think? And the more I think about it, that difference just seems to be one of these things you’re born with. See, it’s like the curvature of the semicircular canals of your ears having the edge over somebody else’s, or … you know.

  Sometimes I find myself thinking, If only I had such gifts, how happy I’d be. I’m always doubling over laughing to myself when something strikes me as funny, but try to tell someone else and it falls flat, a dud. It makes me feel like the Egyptian Sandman. Even more, it’s …

  You know about the Egyptian Sandman?

  Hmm, well, you see, the Egyptian Sandman was Prince of Egypt by birth. A long time ago, back in the days of pyramids and sphinxes and all that. But because he was so ugly—I mean, truly ugly—the king had him sent off into the deepest jungle to get rid of him. Well, it so happens that the kid ends up getting raised by wolves, or monkeys, maybe. One of those stories, you know. And somehow or other, he becomes a Sandman. Now, this Sandman, everything he touches turns to sand. Breezes turn into sandstorms, babbling brooks turn into dunes, grassy plains turn into deserts. So goes the tale of the Sandman. Ever hear it before? Probably not, eh? That’s because I just made it up. Ha, ha, ha.

  Anyway, talking to you like this, I get the feeling I’ve become the Egyptian Sandman myself. And whatever I touch, it’s sand sand sand.

  ONCE AGAIN, I see I’m talking about myself too much. But all things considered, it’s unavoidable. I mean, I don’t even know one solitary thing about you. I’ve got your address and your name, and that’s it. Your age, income bracket, the shape of your nose, whether you’re slender or overweight, married or not—what do I know? Not that any of that really matters. It’s almost better this way. If at all possible, I prefer to keep things simple, very simple—on the metaphysical level, if you will.

  To wit, here I have your letter.

  This is all I need.

  Just as the zoologist collects shit samples in the jungle from which to deduce the elephant’s dietary habits and patterns of activity and weight and sex life, so your one letter gives me enough to go on. I can actually sense what kind of person you are. Of course, minus your looks, the kind of perfume you wear, details like that. Nonetheless—your very essence.

  Your letter was, honestly, quite fascinating. Your choice of words, the handwriting, punctuation, spacing between lines, rhetoric—everything was perfect. Superlative it was not. But perfect, yes.

  Every month, I read over five hundred letters, and frankly, yours was the first letter that ever moved me. I secretly took your letter home with me and read it over and over again. Then I analyzed your letter thoroughly. Being such a short letter, it was no trouble at all.

  Many things came to light through my analysis. First of all, the number of punctuation marks is overwhelming. 6.36 commas for every period. On the high side, don’t you think? And that’s not all: The way you punctuate is markedly irregular.

  Listen, please don’t think I’m putting down your writing. I’m simply moved by it.

  Enthralled.

  And it’s not just the commas, either. Every part of your letter—down to each ink smear—everything set me off, everything shook me.

  Why?

  Well, the long and the short of it is that there’s no you in the whole piece of writing. Oh, there’s a story to it, all right. A girl—a woman—makes a mistake buying a record. She had the feeling the record had the wrong tunes, but still, she went ahead and bought it, and it’s exactly one week before she realizes. The salesgirl won’t exchange it. So she writes a letter of complaint. That’s the story.

  I had to reread your letter three times before I grasped the story. The reason was, your letter was completely different from all the other letters of complaint that come our way. To put it bluntly, there wasn’t even any complaint in your letter. Let alone any emotion. The only thing that was there … was the story.

  Really and truly, you had me wondering. Was the letter in fact intended as a complaint or a confession or a proclamation, or was it perhaps meant to put forth some thesis? I had no idea. Your letter reminded me of a news photo from the scene of a massacre. With no commentary, no article, no nothing—just a photo. A shot of dead bodies littering some roadside in some country somewhere.

  Bang, bang, bang … there’s your massacre.

  No, wait, we can simplify things a little. Simplify them a lot.

  That is to say, your letter excites me sexually.

  There you have it.

  LET US NOW address the topic of sex.

  [Thud, thud, thud]

  MORE KNOCKING.

  You know, if this doesn’t interest you, you can stop the tape. I’m just talking to myself, blabbering away to the VU meters. Blah, blah, blah.

  Okay?

  PICTURE THIS: Short forearms with five fingers, but singularly huge hind legs with four toes, the fourth of which is immensely overdeveloped, while the second and third are extra tiny and fused together … that’s a description of the feet of a kangaroo. Ha, ha, ha.

  UH, MOVING ON to the topic of sex.

  Ever since I took your letter home with me, all I can seem to think about is sleeping with you. That I’ll climb into bed to find you next to me, wake up in the morning and there you’d be. As I open my eyes you’ll already be getting out of bed, and I’ll hear you zipping up your dress. There I’d be—and you know how delicate the zipper on a dress can be—well, I’d just shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I wouldn’t even set eyes on you.

  Once you cut across the room and disappeared into the bathroom, only then would I open my eyes. Then I’d get a bite to eat and head out to work.

  In the pitch-black of night—I’ll install special blinds on my windows to make the place extra pitch-black—of course, I wouldn’t see your face. I’d know nothing, not your
age or weight. So I wouldn’t lay a hand on you, either.

  But, well, that’s fine.

  If you really want to know, it makes no difference whatsoever if I have sex with you or not….

  No, I take that back.

  Let me think that one over.

  OKAY, let’s put it this way. I would like to sleep with you. But it’s all right if I don’t sleep with you. What I’m saying is, I’d like to be as fair as possible. I don’t want to force anything on anybody, any more than I’d want anything forced on me. It’s enough that I feel your presence or see your commas swirling around me.

  YOU SEE, it’s like this:

  Sometimes, when I think about entities—like in “separate entities”—it gets mighty grim. I start thinking, and I nearly go to pieces….

  For instance, say you’re riding on the subway. And there are dozens of people in the car. Mere “passengers” you’d have to call them, as a rule. “Passengers” being conveyed from Aoyama One-chome to Akasakamitsuke. Sometimes, though, it’ll strike you that each and every one of those passengers is a distinct individual entity. Like, what does this one do? Or why on earth do you suppose that one’s riding the Ginza Line? Or whatever. By then it’s too late. You let it get to you and you’re a goner.

  Looks like that businessman’s hairline is receding, or the girl over there’s got such hairy legs I bet she shaves at least once a week, or why is that young guy sitting across the aisle wearing that awful tie? Little things like that. Until finally you’ve got the shakes and you want to jump out of the car then and there. Why, just the other day—I know you’re going to laugh, but—I was on the verge of pressing the emergency-brake button by the door.

  I admit it. But that doesn’t mean you should go thinking I’m hypersensitive or on edge all the time. I’m really a regular sort of guy, your everyday ordinary workaday type, gainfully employed in the product-control section of a department store. And I’ve got nothing against the subway.

  Nor do I have any problem sexually. There’s a woman I’m seeing—I guess you could call her my girlfriend—been sleeping with her twice a week for maybe a year now. And she and I, we’re both pretty satisfied. Only I try not to take her too seriously. I have no intention of marrying her. If I thought about getting married, I’m sure I’d begin taking her seriously, and I’d lose all confidence that I could carry on from that point. I mean, that’s how it is. You live with a girl and these things start to get to you—her teeth aren’t exactly straight, the shape of her fingernails—how can you expect to go on like that?

  LET ME SAY a little more about myself.

  No knocking this time.

  If you’ve listened this far, you might as well hear me out.

  Just a second. I need a smoke.

  [Rattle, rattle]

  Up to now, I’ve hardly said a word about myself. Like, there’s really not that much to say. And even if I did, probably nobody would find it terribly interesting.

  So why am I telling you all this?

  I think I already told you, it’s because now my sights are set on the Nobility of Imperfection.

  And what touched off this Nobility of Imperfection idea?

  Your letter and four kangaroos.

  Yes, kangaroos.

  Kangaroos are such fascinating creatures, I can look at them for hours on end. What can kangaroos possibly have to think about? The whole lot of them, jumping around in their cage all day long, digging holes now and again. And then what do they do with these holes? Nothing. They dig them and that’s it. Ha, ha, ha.

  Kangaroos give birth to only one baby at a time. So as soon as one baby is born, the female gets pregnant again. Otherwise the kangaroo population would never sustain itself. This means the female kangaroo spends her entire life either pregnant or nursing babies. If she’s not pregnant, she’s nursing babies; if she’s not nursing babies, she’s pregnant. You could say she exists just to ensure the continuance of the species. The kangaroo species wouldn’t survive if there weren’t any kangaroos, and if their purpose wasn’t to go on existing, kangaroos wouldn’t be around in the first place.

  Funny about that.

  BUT I’M GETTING ahead of myself. Excuse me.

  TO TALK about myself, then.

  Actually, I’m extremely dissatisfied with being who I am. It’s nothing to do with my looks or abilities or status or any of that. It simply has to do with being me. The situation strikes me as grossly unfair.

  Still, that doesn’t mean you should write me off as someone with a lot of gripes. I have not one complaint about the place where I work or about my salary. The work is undeniably boring, but then, most jobs are boring. Money is not a major issue here.

  Shall I put it on the line?

  I want to be able to be in two places at once. That is my one and only wish. Other than that, there’s not a thing I desire.

  Yet being who and what I am, my singularity hampers this desire of mine. An unhappy lot, don’t you think? My wish, if anything, is rather unassuming. I don’t want to be ruler of the world, nor do I want to be an artist of genius. I merely want to exist in two places simultaneously. Got it? Not three, not four, only two. I want to be roller-skating while I’m listening to an orchestra at a concert hall. I want to be a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder and still be a clerk in the product-control section of the department store. I want to sleep with you and be sleeping with my girlfriend all the while. I want to lead a general existence and yet be a distinct, separate entity.

  ALLOW ME one more cigarette.

  Whoa.

  Getting a little tired.

  I’m not used to this, speaking so frankly about myself.

  There’s just one thing I’d like to get clear, though. Which is that I do not lust after you sexually as a woman. Like I told you, I am angry at the fact that I am only myself and nothing else. Being a solitary entity is dreadfully depressing. Hence I do not seek to sleep with you, a solitary individual.

  If, however, you were to divide into two, and I split into two as well, and we four all shared the same bed together, wouldn’t that be something! Don’t you think?

  PLEASE SEND no reply. If you decide you want to write me a letter, please send it care of the company in the form of a complaint. If not a complaint, then whatever you come up with.

  That’s about it.

  I LISTENED to the tape this far on playback just now. To be honest, I’m very dissatisfied with it. I feel like an aquarium trainer who’s let a seal die out of negligence. It made me worry whether I should even send you this tape or not, blowing this thing all out of proportion even by my standards.

  And now that I’ve decided to send it, I’m still worried.

  But what the hell, I’m striving for imperfection, so I’ve got to live happily by my choice. It was you and the four kangaroos who got me into this imperfection, after all.

  SIGNING OFF.

  —translated by Alfred Birnbaum

  ONE BEAUTIFUL APRIL MORNING, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harajuku neighborhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl.

  Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either—must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

  Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl—one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

  But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers—or even if she had one.
All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

  “Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% perfect girl,” I tell someone.

  “Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

  “Not really.”

  “Your favorite type, then?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her—the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

  “Strange.”

  “Yeah. Strange.”

  “So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

  “Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

  She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

  Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and—what I’d really like to do—explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

  After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

  Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

  Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

  How can I approach her? What should I say?

  “Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

  Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

  “Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

  No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

  Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

  No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% perfect boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.