WHERE HAS MY WIFE GONE?

“Listen. Satoshi is in the bathroom. He is singing a song he learned in the kindergarten today. How nicely he sings! My dear elephant, my dear elephant, your trunk is very long. Why is it so long? Can you hear him, dear?”
A pale-faced Yasuko began to sing merrily a kid’s song “My Dear Elephant” in a soft husky voice, with her eyes half shining.
“There you go again. Yasuko, Satoshi has been dead for four years. He is not in the bathroom. This is a hospital. You know that, don’t you?” Kenji pleaded controlling his irritation. Kenji saw two mental patients talking with their visitors in the lobby of the hospital. One was a young man talking with his mother, probably; and the other a middle-aged woman talking with another middle-aged woman. Probably they were sisters, Kenji thought. Yasuko’s high-pitched song resonated in the whole lobby, but the patients and the visitors did not pay attention to her.
“What are you talking about?” Yasuko rebuked. “Can’t you hear Satoshi’s cheerful song? Listen.”
Three years have passed since Yasuko was hospitalized. Four years before, when Satoshi had been a kindergartener, he had been taking a bath alone. He had been in the bathroom for more than 20 minutes. Wondering why he was taking a bath for such a long time, Yasuko went to the bathroom and was shocked to find Satoshi had drowned. His body was floating in the bathtub. Yasuko, terrified, called an ambulance, but by the time it reached the hospital, Satoshi had already stopped breathing.
Yasuko changed completely. She could not live in the condominium where her only son died. Her husband, Kenji and Yasuko moved to a different condo in a different town. Yasuko hated to go to the bathroom, and much more when she took a bath. She began to stay at home almost all day. She rarely cleaned the house, washed clothes, and made meals. Suddenly, Kenji had to do a lot of house work after coming back from work exhausted. He did most of shopping, cleaning, and washing on weekends. Yasuko was always crying, “Satoshi-chan, Satoshi-chan.”
One year after Satoshi’s death, Yasuko had become a little abnormal. She began to say that she could hear Satoshi’s voice and see Satoshi. One day she said, “Kenji-san, look, Satoshi is standing in front of the refrigerator. Satosh, don’t eat so much ice cream. You’ll have stomachache. You are a bad boy. I’ll have to lock the fridge.” Yasuko’s symptom gradually deteriorated. When she was watching a news program on TV, she suddenly stood up and said, “Look, Kenji-san, Satoshi is walking along the street. There! Satoshi! Satoshi!” When they were riding on the train, she whispered to Kenji looking at the women sitting near their seat, “They are talking about Satoshi. What are they saying about him? I’ll have to join them.” And, she said, “I saw a gold fox coming out of the wall of the living room. Satoshi loved the golden fox story, didn’t he, you know?”
At last, Kenji took her to a mental hospital, about an hour’s drive from his house and hospitalized her. He had told her to go on a picnic with Satoshi.
Since her hospitalization, Kenji visited her in the hospital every weekend, but every time he visited it, he was disappointed by Yasuko’s unusual behavior. One day, the nurse said to Kenji, “Yasuko-san sometimes sits down on the corridor and says, ‘Welcome Satoshi-chan, I’ve been waiting for you. Come here, and let me hug you. Here are some candies for you,’ and puts the candies which are given to the patients for the afternoon snack. She always keeps them for her son, I guess.” Kenji had to apologize for the trouble the nurse had to deal with.
When Kenji met the doctor and asked about Yasuko’s condition, he said, “It takes some time to recover from mental shock. Some recover in a few months, but in a severe case, it takes years. A mother who lost her three children in a traffic accident has been here for more than 20 years. The cause of the mental unbalance is to escape from an unbearable condition by means of changing character, that is, the mental status. The extreme case is, you know, split personality. They are trying to save their lives by changing themselves mentally and not physically. In the case of physical change, they suffer from diseases, such as a heart failure, gastric ulcer, and asthma. Kenji did not care what the cause of the disease was. He only wished for her recovery.
Yasuko was three years younger than Kenji. They had gone to the same university and met with each other while sitting on the same table in the university cafeteria. Her father was a doctor. Since her parents wanted Yasuko to marry a doctor, they objected to her marrying a man working for a trade company. But she married against her parents’ objection.
Although two months passed since her hospitalization, Yasuko showed no recovery. Every time he visited the hospital, he was dissapointed. It was not worth visiting. He was not able to communicate with Yasuko normally. What she was thinking about and what he was thinking about while they were “talking” was a world of difference. She only talked about Satoshi. She believed Satoshi was alive even if Kenji told her that he was dead. She said, “That’s a lie. Why do you dare to tell me a lie?” While she was talking, she did not look at Kenji’s eyes directly, but was always looking at somewhere around Kenji. She did not eat her favorite dish of sushi nor sweet bun he bought for her. She said she would keep them for Satoshi.
Gradually, the frequency of his visits to the hospital decreased. First, he visited her once a week, but then once in two weeks, and later once a month.
One day, Yasuko said, “Did you bring a shinkansen bullet train toy that I had asked you to buy?”
“Oh, I’ve forgotten. I’ll bring one the next time. I’m sorry.”
“You are so forgetful. Don’t forget the next time. And please bring some toy pamphlets, too. I want to buy a lot of toys for his birthday.”
Kenji felt demoralized whenever he left the hospital after meeting Yasuko. There was no normal husband-wife communication. She was seriously ill. She mightn’t recover. She would be in the mental hospital for her whole life, separated from the world. Is it worth visiting the hospital after driving for one hour? My life will be ruined if I continue visiting for the rest of my life. What happened to the passionate love between us before our marriage? What happened to the happy times when Satoshi was born? Where have they gone?
Yasuko came to me against her parents’ strong opposition. Is this the punishment? Do I, does she, or do we deserve this? I thought she would recover it she had another baby, but it was impossible. She wasn’t willing to have another baby. Having another baby was out of the question for her. The loss of Satoshi overwhelmed her.
After Satoshi’s death, she couldn’t think of anything else except Satoshi. She has become vacant. Her eyes have beome hollow. I can’t reach her. She is possessed by something powerful beyond my comprehension. I don’t catch, nor feel her self, her willingness to engage herself with me or with the world. She is Yasuko, but she is not. She talks like Yasuko, but someone else inside her is talking. She recognizes me, calls me, “Kenji-san,” or says, “Thank you for coming to see me,” but that is only superficial. Where has that bond, that normal human bond, that tie that connected us gone?
I go to the office and work there as if I didn’t have any more problems than my colleagues. I know they too have problems. One of their family member may be ill in bed in a hospital, but they are not insane. They can communicate with those who visit them in the hospital. Being normal is such a simple matter just like breathing air or drinking water, but it is not. To be normal is more difficult than to rotate the earth in reverse. I wish I could open Yasuko’s head and turn off the abnormal switch that controls her. Why do I have to receive the torrent of agony, torture, depression, hopelessness, and bitterness? This is unfair. This is unfair. Isn’t there any place for me where I can rest? I want a bit of peaceful time free from the burden of this everlasting oppression. I won’t have any peace of mind even for one minute as long as my wife is in the hospital.
Yasuko lives in her own world, not worrying about my agony. She does not, cannot pay any attention to my problems. Her world is firmly built around herself and no one can enter her fort, which is so high and strong. There is no bridge to her inner mind in the castle. Where has she gone? She has built a gigantic castle no one can enter or destroy. In the structure she lives with Satoshi. She will live with him forever. She doesn’t regard herself as a mentally disorganized person. In a sense, she may be happy; she meets me when I visit her every once in a while. She can “talk and see” Satoshi from time to time. The hospital nurses feed her, bathe her, and wash her clothes. She is safe in the fictional world.
Compare her life with mine. Which gear in my, our life went wrong? I prepare meals by myself, eat them alone, On weekends, I must go shopping, do the washing, and cleaning. I am tired. I am mentally and physically exhausted through and through. We were supposed to lead a happy life. When I cross a park, I see a happy family. I envy them. I sometimes hope, this is dreadful but, the child will die. That little child should die and make her parents suffer the same agony I have.
Watching television is superficial. Reading a book is hollow. Eating supper alone is vexing. I want someone to talk to. I want someone to quarrel with. I want someone to whom I can open my heart. I want someone to cry with, to laugh with. I want someone whom I can talk normally. My hope is not big, just a small hope.
After midnight, I go to my futon alone. Entering the futon, I curl my lonely body in a fetal position, with my shoulders hunched, hugging the pillow with my arms, tears standing in my eyes, weeping silently.

Five years passed since Yasuko was hospitalized. Kenji was 40 years old. One morning when Kenji was walking the corridor of his company, Yoko Shimizu, a young female office worker talked to him, “Good morning, Goto-san. You have a nice tie.”
Surprised, Kenji said, “Oh, Amano-san, thank you. I bought it when I went to the Singapore branch on business. Do you like it?”
“Yes, I love it, but I prefer your tartan-checked brown one,” Yoko said.
“Really? I am surprised. You know what ties I have? Are you always watching my ties?” Kenji asked.
“Yes, but not particularly your ties, but,” Yoko paused for a second. “I’m, I’m, actually, watching you.”
Kenji, a little confused, asked, “Are you? Why? Why are you….” Kenji paused and, the next moment he understood the reason. “You mean you are interested in, oh, this may sound rude, but are you fond of, fond of….” Kenji could not force him to say, “fond of me?”
Looking down at the floor of the corridor, Yoko said with her cheeks blushing, “Yes, you,” and with a quick stealthy glance at Kenji, she walked away at a brisk pace.
Kenji doubted what he had just heard. He thought, “She said in a clear voice, ‘Yes, you.’ Yoko is fond of me? Me of all men? Such a tired-out, such a hopeless, such a middle-aged man? But she surely said, ‘Yes, you.’ That’s why she knows what ties I have. That’s why she prefers my tartan-checked tie. So, she likes me. She is fond of me. What a happy feeling! I have never experienced such a happy feeling for the past six years since Satoshi died. Isn’t this a dream? Why is such a young girl like Yoko fond of me? She’s probably around 22 years old since she is one of the new employees fresh from college. She is 18 years younger than I.”
After kenji returned home, he was occupied by her voice, her face, her appearance. He couldn’t believe what had happened at the office. Kenji thought, “I am no longer lonely. Yoko is thinking about me. She is a support for me during these hard times.” He felt as if a ray of light streamed in the total darkness: his misery, loneliness, and agony. Yasuko, who was living in an unknown world, was unable to communicate with him. Visiting the hospital is a torture, but meeting Yoko is a paradise.
The next day Kenji was always looking for Yoko. Kenji and Yoko worked in the same Planning Department room where 23 people worked. Kenji was worried all day because Yoko did not seem to be paying any attention to him. He began to doubt what she had said to him the day before. He thought, “That must have been a joke, a mistake. I must have heard her wrong. It’s impossible that such a young girl likes me. I had a bad dream.” Kenji was beginning to lose confidence in himself.
Around six o’clock when the office work was about to finish, Yoko came to Kenji as if nothing particular had happened the day before, put a small envelope on Kenji’s desk, looked at him, and quickly went to her desk. Kenji’s eyes followed her to her desk. She sat down and resumed her work. Kenji looked at the pinkish-colored envelope with a design of a few purple flower petals on the front side. Kenji, thinking it was not an appropriate time to open it at that moment, put it in his bag, wondering what was in the envelope. He couldn’t wait for the closing time at the office work.
On his way home, Kenji opened the envelope, took out a piece of paper. It was a letter to him:
Goto-san,
Please forgive me for being blunt, but I would like to go to see the movie “Jane Eyre” with you. Could you possibly spare your time next Saturday or Sunday afternoon?”
Yoko.
Kenji said to himself, “What had happened yesterday was not a joke, nor a dream. Yes, of course I will go by all means.”
The movie theater specialized in famous classical movies such as “Roman Holiday,” “Gone with the Wind,” and “The Third Man.” Kenji had seen “Jane Eyre” before. The film might not be as interesting as when he had seen it for the first time because he knew the ending, but it was not a problem at all. He would go to see the movie a hundred times with Yoko.
The next Saturday, they enjoyed the movie. After the movie, they dropped in at a tea shop and talked over a cup of coffee. After making small talk about the movie, Kenji dared to ask her a question.
“I was surprised and happy when you said, ‘Yes, you,’ the other day. Why me of all men, may I ask?”
A moment of silence followed. Yoko sipped her coffee, put the cup on the saucer, and said, “Please excuse me if I am too rude, Goto san, but you resemble my deceased father. I was surprised to see you when I first came to the office as a newcomer.”
“Your father is deceased? I am sorry I didn’t know that.”
Kenji was disappointed to know that Yoko regarded him as a substitute for her father, not a close friend or a loved one.
“How old was he when he died?”
“41. He had leukemia.”
“So young? You must have been very sad. I don’t know how to, how to….” Kenji tried to utter some nice consoling words but couldn’t.
“Please, don’t worry. Ten years have passed since his death. I have overcome the sorrow. Of course, when he died I was so sad that I thought I would go mad.”
“I understand. So, you say I resemble your father? Specifically, what part of me resembles him?”
“Everything. Your face, your figure, and particularly your character.”
“My character? What do you mean?”
“Well, how shall I describe…. It’s difficult to tell, but I hope I am not too impolite. My father was a rather nervous man. In other words, he was sensitive and understood other people’s feelings well. And he was persevering,” Yoko paused for a second and then continued. “Also he looked somehow lonely.”
Kenji was listening to Yoko attentively. He thought that everything Yoko was saying about her father was applicable to him.
Kenji said, “Your father seems to have had close resemblance to me. You know, my wife often says to me, ‘You are nervous. You should be bolder. Your perseverance comes from your father.’” Kenji dared not ask about the reason why Yoko’s father looked lonely because he thought that would lead to the topic of his son’s death.
After coming back home for the date, Kenji thought, “I am a substitute for Yoko’s father. She has found something in me that consoles her. OK. All right. I am expecting too much of her. I should consider myself a lucky man because such a young woman like Yoko wants to go to a movie with me. I am a middle aged man. Yes, she is right. Probably I look lonely. It is natural since I lost my boy, and my wife has gone somewhere I can’t reach. Well, I don’t care whether I resemble her father or not as long as Yoko is fond of me, as long as she feels at home talking with me. She is taking my depressed feelings away from me.
A month passed. Kenji began to feel ambivalent. Whenever he met with Yoko, he felt guilty to his wife, Yasuko. Meeting his wife overclouded him, but meeting Yoko blew away the cloud and gave light to him. The more often Kenji met Yoko, the less often he wanted to meet Yasuko. Visiting the hospital became a kind of burden for him but at the same time it was a kind of atonement.
The hospital had roughly two sections: the open wards for the patients who had mild mental disorders, and the closed ones for those who were seriously ill. Yasuko was in the open wards sharing one room with two other patients. Those patients in the open wards were allowed to watch TV, do some light work such as making paper and cloth dolls, painting pictures, and playing games. They were also allowed to go out of the hospital if they got permission. Superficially they seemed to talk, eat, and work normally. Occasionally, Kenji was able to communicate with Yasuko normally.
Kenji said to Yasuko, “Last Sunday, I attended a Hoji Buddhist memorial service at Mr. Sasaki’s house. Mr. Sasaki’s first daughter is going to get married. What’s her name? I can’t remember.”
Yasuko said, “It’s Keiko. So Keiko-chan is going to get married? When she was a high school girl, she often visited us and read picture story books to Satoshi. Satoshi liked her.”
“The wedding ceremony is scheduled in November. Mr. Sasaki said he would send me an invitation card soon,” Kenji said.
“That’s wonderful,” Yasuko said surprised. “So, Satoshi can see Keiko-chan. How nice! Satoshi will be glad to see her after a long absence.”
Kenji was again pushed over a cliff down to the abyss. A moment ago, he was happy being able to communicate with Yasuko. A normal conversation took place, but the next moment, what a gap! Kenji thought, “What on earth is Yasuko thinking about? She never admits that Satoshi is dead.”
Though half Irritated, Kenji almost said, “Satoshi is dead,” but he did not because he remembered what the doctor had said: you must accept whatever Yasuko says.
Kenji said, “OK. We’ll take Satoshi to the wedding, shall we? Keiko-chan will be glad to see Satoshi after a long absence.”
Yasuko said, “That’s wonderful. Kenji-san, by the way let’s keep it a secret that Satoshi is dead. Then no one will know about his death. Right?”
Kenji did not know what to answer. He just kept silence and glanced at Yasuko’s face.
Yasuko looked back at Kenji and wondered what happened to Kenji. Kenji was confused. Kenji said to himself, “What does it mean ‘let’s keep it a secret.’” Now it was impossible to suppress himself. It was beyond his control. He said, “But it is impossible to keep it a secret. You know that?”
“Why is it impossible?” Yasuko said looking at Kenji in the face. “If you say so, I don’t want to see you. Please go home. Thank you. Don’t come to see me again!” Yasuko stood up, walked across the lobby, and disappeared without looking back.
Again Kenji sat behind the wheel and drove home depressed, discouraged, and nearly sobbing. He was thinking only on Yasuko. He could not see the green country fields that stretched on both sides of the car. He could not see anything, nor could he hear anything. He was only occupied with Yasuko.
But as he neared his home, Yasuko’s image gradually disappeared and was replaced by Yoko’s. Yoko encouraged Kenji when Yasuko discouraged him. Just going to his company erased his worries about Yasuko. Just looking at Yoko working or hearing her talking to their colleagues comforted him.
Two months passed since their first date. One afternoon they were walking abreast along the street.
Yoko said, “I heard you’ve lost your little son.”
“Yes, he was a kindergartner.”
“Now I understand why you look lonely.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, when I first met you, I felt so,” Yoko said. “You had something sad, something depressing in your heart.”
“But I think I have changed,” Kenji said. “Now I feel more alive. My depressed feelings have drastically decreased thanks to you. You’ve helped me a lot. You’ve given me light. I thank you.”
Kenji thanked her from the bottom of his heart. He tried to avoid talking about his wife. He had told his colleagues that his wife was hospitalized because of her kidney disease. No one in his company knew that she was in a psychiatric hospital. The only people who knew it were his close relatives, but they wouldn’t dare to say that to his colleagues. Kenji did not want Yoko to know about it.
“Don’t thank me,” Yoko said. “I am glad that I was of some help in releasing your sad feelings. Actually, my sister died when she was a seventh grader. After that my father changed. He often went to the tombstone to pray for her. He bought a big Buddhist alter and often chanted a Buddhist sutra for her in front of it.”
Kenji remembered that Yoko had said that he looked lonely and sorrowful just like her father. He was glad that Yoko revealed her sister’s death because this was a private matter. He felt he had heard something important about her family. He felt he had something in common with Yoko. Yoko confided in him.
Suddenly, Yoko stopped, looked at Kenji’s eyes, and said daringly.
“Goto san, to tell you the truth, my mother insists that I get married. She says, if there are no men I’m interested in marrying, she will ask a matchmaker and let him introduce a nice man to me. She always asks me if there is someone I like.”
Kenji was embarrassed. He didn’t know what to say. Was Yoko asking for some advice from him? Did Kenji have to play a role of her father now? Or was Yoko thinking of Kenji as the man she liked?
Kenji asked, “So, you have someone in mind?” Kenji regretted to have said such a senseless thing.
Yoko said, “Yes, but…,” and stopped talking. Kenji kept silent. Both of them continued to walk without saying anything more to each other. Yoko said after a few moments, looking down at the road. “Goto san, I’m sorry to have embarrassed you. I should have kept it to myslef. Please forgive me.”
That night, Kenji was unable to sleep. He was thinking about Yoko, about the relationship between him and Yoko. He said to himself, “What will our relation be? Is it all right to continue to associate with Yoko just as it is? What does it mean what Yoko said? She said, ‘Yes, but….’ ‘Yes’ means she has someone she likes, someone she wants to marry. Who on earth is he? Is it, is it me, myself? It is probable. Apparently she confided in no one but me about her marriage problem. Then it is probable that she is thinking of marrying me. That’s why she stopped talking. Her way of talking sounded rather painful, because she can’t marry me. Am I too complacent? Am I? But even if Yoko likes me and wants to marry me, what can I do? I can’t marry her. As long as Yasuko is alive, I can’t marry her. And I can’t communicate with Yasuko. Theoretically Yasuko and I are married, but in reality we are world’s apart. It is as if we are total strangers. If Yasuko were not alive, I could marry Yoko. Does a man who has an insane wife have to sacrifice their whole life because of her? It is unreasonable, isn’t it? I know there are many men whose wives are hospitalized because of serious illness, but they can communicate with their wives. I know a couple who are always quarreling with each other, but they quarrel because they are in the normal husband and wife relationship. The husband regards his quarreling opponent as his spouse and vice versa. Yasuko on the other hand is my wife only legally. Yasuko lives in a different world.” Kenji was trying to justify his desire to marry Yoko.
He continued to think, “Yes, the solution for this problem is Yasuko’s death. Yasuko used to say when Satoshi died, “I want to die and go meet Satoshi.” Insane people are doing nothing beneficial to society. They are useless. Their mental disorder involves their family members, who, as a result, feel distressed and exhausted. Insane people are minus elements of society. The minus elements of society must be eliminated. Murderers are great minus elements. That’s why the death penalty is admitted in some societies.”
Suddenly Kenji heard a car stopping and following that fierce barking of dogs outside his house. His chain of thought stopped and he realized what a dreadful thing he was thinking about. He thought he was so obsessed with marrying Yoko that he was viewing things from a selfish way.
After a sleepless night, however, he gradually began to hope that he could marry Yoko though he was not sure of her feelings about him.
The next Sunday, Kenji visited the hospital. The nurse took Yasuko to the lobby. Yasuko sat down next to Kenji on the sofa.
Yasuko said to Kenji, “You smell good. I smell a nice fragrance, some perfume.”
Kenji was startled. He had gone on a date with Yoko the previous day and she had worn perfume. The smell was from Yoko’s perfume, Kenji was afraid.　Yasuko may have detected that I was meeting Yoko, he thought.
“You say you smell perfume? What smell? I don’t know. The woman next to me in the subway wore a lot of perfume yesterday. Probably my coat absorbed the smell.”
“Is that so? But you smelled the same last time you came to see me. That’s a nice smell.”
“Really?” Kenji was embarrassed. “But, I don’t smell. You have a keen sense of smell. Some of the women in the company wear strong perfume and...”
“I like it. Will you buy the same perfume for me?”
“But I can’t identify the perfume. I’ll try, though,” he paused and looking at the toy box he had brought for her, he said, “By the way, I have brought a Shinkansen toy train.” Kenji changed the topic and breathed a sigh of relief, but at the back of his mind, he was worried that Yasuko might have sensed his relationship with Yoko. Yasuko was insane, he thought, and said she wanted him to buy the same perfume. What did it mean? Yasuko didn’t say that Kenji was going out with a woman. Was she acting as if she didn’t know? No, she was not acting. She was mentally confused. But how insane was she? How deep was her madness? She didn’t show any signs of jealousy. Or was she concealing her jealousy? Kenji was confused. He decided never to wear the same clothes that he wore on the date with Yoko.
Kenji opened a big toy box and took out the toy train, and handed it to Yasuko.
Yasuko said with a frown, “This is too large. Why didn’t you buy a smaller one. Satoshi can’t play with such a big train, can he? You should return it to the shop.”
Kenji got angry. He had had a hard time looking for a nice train in various toy shops and looked at many kinds before choosing the one he thought best for Satoshi. He did not find any significance of buying a toy for his dead son, but anyway he bought it just to console Yasuko’s pain, but she has coldly rejected the toy only because she thought it was too big for Satoshi.
Kenji couldn’t control his anger. Yasuko did not know how much energy and time he had spent to find the toy. “What do you mean it’s too big? Why can’t you admit that Satoshi is dead?” Simultaneously, he regretted to have said such a harsh thing to his wife. Kenji knew well about the doctor’s advice that he should refrain from hurting Yasuko’s heart, but there was limitation in anything. He had lost his patience with her.
Yasuko retorted immediately, “That’s why I am telling you again and again that we should keep Satoshi’s death a secret. Why don’t you understand?”
While he was driving back home from the hospital, his irritation, helplessness, and despair continued to harm him. He couldn’t do anything for Yasuko. He cursed Heaven and Yasuko. He wished Yasuko were dead. She was such a trouble maker, such an irritation. She confused him. She was a tremendous stress. His peaceful life was ruined whenever he met her. He thought, “I don’t care what will become of Yasuko. She is not what she used to be. She is a different character. She is not Yasuko. It’s impossible to expect her to recover.”
As he was driving home, familiar stores, trees, rivers, and condominiums began to come in sight. His irritation, confusion, and anger began to melt and instead Yoko’s face began to appear in his mind. He wanted to meet her. He wanted Yasuko to die and to marry Yoko that instant. He thought, “Yoko seems to want to marry me. I should ask her true feelings about me.” When he reached home, his mind was occupied by Yoko.
Five days later, Kenji asked Yoko, “If I proposed to you, would you, would you accept it?”
Yoko immediately answered, “Don’t tease me. I know you are married.”
Kenji said with earnest eyes, “I am serious. I wish I could marry you. If I could marry you, I would be very happy. I am always thinking about you. Since I met you for the first time, you have given me a new light, a strong power to live. This may sound like an exaggeration but you have changed my life. You have lifted me to heaven from hell. The whole world has changed. You are my power to live. You are my life. Without you, the world would be dark.”
Yoko was listening to Kenji quietly. After a moment’s silence, she responded, “That is the same with me. Since I lost my father, I was a living corps. Nothing in the world consoled me. I wanted to die and join with my father. I was always crying. As years passed, my sad feelings gradually decreased, but deep in my heart, I have never forgotten about my father. I have always been living with my father in my heart. Even after several years passed since his death, I talked with him, I walked with him, and I ate with him, until finally I met with you. When I first saw you, as I said before, you struck me. You looked like my father. When I was near you, I felt my father. When you talked to me, I thought my father was talking to me. Probably, I was in a state of blindness. At first you played the role of a substitute for my father, but now you are not a substitution. I find many different points between my father and you. I find you attractive. You give me a strong support for me. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying this because you look like my father. This is not a matter of whether you look like my father or not.” She paused a moment and continued, “I am also dreaming of marrying you. If I could marry you, I would be more than happy.”
She abruptly stopped talking and looked helplessly at Kenji’s eyes. Her face showed disappointment. She said, “Let’s stop talking about this. This is unproductive. You are married and it is…”
Kenji strongly wished that Yasuko would die and that he would marry Yoko, but how? How could he kill Yasuko die? By poisoning her? By making it like an accident? He couldn’t think of a clever way.
Three weeks later on Sunday, he visited the hospital and met Yasuko accompanied by the nurse. The nurse complained to him, “Goto-san, please tell your wife to eat. Yasuko-san won’t eat at all. She clenches her teeth and refuses to eat. Two nurses try hard to open her mouth and feed her.”
Kenji looked at Yasuko, who looked thin and tired. Her vacant eyes were looking at a distant place. She seemed to be aware of Kenji’s presence.
Kenji said to her, “Yasuko, the nurse says you are refusing to eat. Why? Why don’t you eat? If you don’t eat, you will become sick. You don’t want to become sick, do you?”
Yasuko looked at Kenji, but her eyes were out of focus. She seemed not to be listening to Kenji. Kenji sensed an impenetrable wall between Yasuko and himself. It was impossible to reach her heart, he thought, but at the same time he was afraid that Yasuko had penetrated the wall and knew what Kenji was really thinking about. He thought as if she were saying, “I know you. You want to marry Yoko, don’t you? You want me to die, don’t you?”
Kenji continued to talk to Yasuko despite the dilemma, “What are you thinking about, Yasuko? Don’t you feel sorry for putting the nurses through so much trouble?” He scolded her more than enough out of regard for the nurse who was standing beside them. “I say again, Yasuko. Please try to eat, otherwise you will die. Don’t you understand?”
Kenji looked at Yasuko, but their eyes did not meet. She was looking at a different place. She had sunken eyes and her face was dark and pale. Her arms were as thin as twigs. She was a living corpse. The nurse told Yasuko to do as Kenji said and left them.
Kenji said to Yasuko, “Why don’t you say something?”
Yasuko kept silent.
“Yasuko, what’s the matter with you?” Kenji said a little irritated.
Yasuko said in a feeble voice, “I’d rather die.”
Kenji couldn’t believe what he had just heard. She said she would rather die. He was bewildered. He wondered, “Does she really know my desire to marry Yoko?”
Kenji said, “What are you talking about? You should eat and recover your health and leave the hospital as soon as possible.” He half hated himself for saying to her what he did not really want.
Yasuko said frantically, “I want to die. I want to die. Takashi doesn’t come. Everyone goes away from me. Everyone. Where are they going? I want to go away.”
Kenji said to himself, “What does it mean, ‘Everyone goes away from me’?” Does it mean that Satoshi died or that I am thinking of leaving Yasuko and marrying another woman? Or that her mother died of heart failure a month after Satoshi was born? Or what?”
Kenji did not know what to say to the nurse. The nurses seemed to have more trouble taking care of Yasuko than other patients. They had sometimes complained of Yasuko’s strange actions: that Yasuko hated to take a bath; that she did not go to bed but prowled in the midnight; and that she refused to eat. He wanted to say to the nurses, “But that is your job,” but couldn’t. He felt sorry for the nurses and for himself. He was sad. He was tormented. He did not know what to do.
15 minutes later he went to the hospital office and paid the hospital charges and left the hospital. While he was driving back home, he talked to himself, “It is not you, Yasuko, who wants to die, but myself. I want to die. I want to vanish from this world. How can I overcome these spiritual sufferings? OK. OK. If you want to die, why don’t you die?” Kenji gradually got angry and desperate. “It’s all right with me if you die. Who cares? Why don’t you die right now? I can’t take care of you any longer. I want to forget about you. Go to heaven and meet Satoshi. I don’t care! This is the limit. I can’t endure the pain any more.”
That night he was very tired and went to bed early and fell asleep. After some hours passed, someone came to the front door of his house. “Tadaima, I am home.” That was Yasuko’s voice. Kenji opened the door and his eyes met with Yasuko’s smiling eyes. Kenji said surprised, “Yasuko, what’s happened? Have you recovered from the sickness? You look cheerful and happy. You look fine. So you’ve really got well.” Yasuko said, “I am sorry to have troubled you for a long time. I am completely cured. I know how much you have suffered. Thank you for visiting me in the hospital so often. I appreciate you. We will live together from today on. I’ll do the housework, go shopping, clean the house, and cook for you. So you don’t have to do any housework. But first, I want to go to Satoshi’s grave and pray for his peaceful rest. Shall we go now? Is it all right for you to go right now?”
The shrill sound of the telephone woke Kenji from the dream. It was past midnight. He picked up the receiver and said, his mind still foggy in his dream.
“Hello, this is Goto speaking.”
“This is Ogasawara Hospital. Is this Mr. Kenji Goto?”
“Yes, this is Kenji Goto speaking.”
“Goto-san, your wife, Yasuko-san is in critical condition. Please come to the hospital immediately.”
Kenji couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He confirmed, “Yasuko is in critical condition? Is it Ogasawara Hospital? Yasuko Goto, critical?”
“Yes, this is Ogasawara Hospital. Yasuko-san is in dangerous condition. Please come immediately.”
Kenji felt as if he were watching a scene from a movie. He repeated in his mind what the person at the end of the line said, “Ogasawara Hospital. Yasuko Goto.”
He called a taxi. It took less than an hour due to the light traffic in the middle of the night. Arriving at the hospital, he rushed to Yasuko’s room. When he opened the door, the hospital director, Yasuko’s doctor, and nurses turned and looked at Kenji. He entered the room, and saw Yasuko. An oxygen mask was covering Yasuko’s nose. An ECT machine was put on the table beside her bed.
The director said in a low voice, “Mr. Goto, I am sorry, but she has just taken her last breath.”
A powerful force hit Kenji. He couldn’t believe that Yasuko had died. She was alive just hours ago when he visited her. What happened during those hours?
The doctor said, “It was heart failure.”
A heart failure! Was it possible that a woman of 35 could die of heart failure? He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think of anything. He looked at Yasuko. She seemed to be sleeping, her face pale and bony, peaceful, free from any agony. Kenji suddenly imagined her funeral scene, which then was overlapped by the face of Yoko. The marriage with Yoko? Kenji tried hard to delete Yoko’s image. What a dreadful man I am, he thought, to think of marrying Yoko just at the moment of my wife’s death! He was surprised at his cruelty.
After the funeral, while Kenji was getting rid of Yasuko’s belongings sent from the hospital, he found a tiny notebook. It was Yasuko’s diary, which briefly described her daily life in the hospital. She had written things about Satoshi, meals, doctors and nurses, the patients, washing and taking a bath, remembrances of past days, and so forth. The last diary was written on the day when Kenji visited her the last time. It read:
May 20
Kenji visited. Nice smell. Don’t go away.
Kenji did not understand the meaning of “Nice smell” since he had avoided wearing the same clothes which he wore on his date with Yoko. Nor could he understand the meaning of “Don’t go away.” He wondered, "Does it mean that I shouldn’t go away from Yasuko and go to Yoko?”
Kenji looked at Yasuko’s handwriting. Her neat, smooth, and feminine handwriting. He remembered her first letter to him. It said that she wanted to marry him despite her father’s strong opposition. He remembered the day when he first met her. Yasuko was 23 years old and Kenji was 27. That day, Kenji was riding on a bus, holding a hand strap. Suddenly the bus stopped and he fell on a woman’s lap. She was sitting on the seat in front of him with a paper bag on her lap. When he fell on her lap, her bag fell, scattering the things in the bag on the floor. Kenji crouched down and tried to pick them up, but she said, “Oh, don’t. I’ll do it myself,” and began to pick them up. Arriving at his company, Kenji was walking along the corridor, when he happened to meet her again. That was how he met Yoko for the first time.
Kenji remembered the happy marriage, and her fulfilled smile at her baby beside her on the bed. He remembered her reading aloud kamishibai or picture card stories for Satoshi. He also remembered her painful agony when she lost Satoshi, and her loud crying over the small coffin at the funeral.
Kenji said to himself, “How much did I support Yasuko when she was distressed by losing Satoshi? I had work to do at my company which somehow relieved me from the pain, while Yasuko, staying all day at home, did not have anything to relieve the stress from her. He regretted that he had not stood by her in her hard days. He thought he should have done much more things to help her, to encourage her, and to rescue her before she really became insane. He realized that it was he himself that was responsible for her insanity. Now Kenji began to blame himself for the first time after Satoshi’s death.
In front of the Buddhist altar, Kenji prayed for Yasuko so that her soul might rest in peace. He talked to Yasuko’s picture in the altar, “I am sorry Yasuko. Only after you have died, I have realized how important you have been for me. Your existence in this world, even if you were insane, was a silent support for me. You were like water or air without which I couldn’t live. Now that they were lost, I have realized how important they were. Sometimes I hated visiting you at the hospital because I couldn’t talk to you, communicate with you, or reach your heart. I was all wrong. I expected too much out of you. I should have accepted you as you were. I was not generous. I was cruel and cold to you. I am sorry. I have done wrong twice. I failed to support you at Satoshi’s death. And I failed to support you while you were in the hospital. I am sorry I have been such a selfish man. I won’t go away from you.”
Kenji continued to look at her picture for a long time. He wanted to hear some words from Yasuko. He wanted her to pardon him. Then he clearly realized that he had been using Yoko to escape from his harsh reality.
Kenji wrote a letter to Yoko saying that he wanted to stop meeting her because he realized after his wife’s death that he did not love Yoko.
He then asked the manager of personal division of his company to send him to the Singapore branch.

The End