Nagasaki
Éric Faye
Translated from the French by Emily Boyce
It is said that all bamboos of the same stock flower together and die together, no matter how far apart they are planted.
Pascal Quignard
This novel is based on a story which appeared in several Japanese newspapers, including Asahi, in May 2008.
Contents
1 Title Page
2 Epigraph
3 Nagasaki
4 About the Author
5 Copyright
Imagine a man in his fifties disappointed to have reached middle age so quickly and utterly, residing in his modest house in a suburb of Nagasaki with very steep streets. Picture these snakes of soft asphalt slithering up the hillsides until they reach the point where all the urban scum of corrugated iron, tarpaulins, tiles and God knows what else peters out beside a wall of straggly, crooked bamboo. That is where I live. Who am I? Without wishing to overstate matters, I don’t amount to much. As a single man, I cultivate certain habits which keep me out of trouble and allow me to tell myself I have at least some redeeming features.
One of these habits is avoiding as far as possible going out for a drink with my colleagues after work. I like to have time to myself at home before eating dinner at a reasonable hour: never later than 6.30 p.m. If I were married, I don’t suppose I would stick to such a rigid routine, and would probably go out with them more often, but I’m not (married, that is). I’m fifty-six, by the way.
That day, I was feeling a little under the weather, so I came home earlier than usual. It must have been before five when the tram dropped me in my road with a shopping bag over each arm. I rarely get back so early during the week, and as I went inside I felt almost as if I was trespassing. That’s putting it a bit strongly, and yet … Until quite recently, I hardly ever locked the door when I went out; ours is a safe area and several of my old-lady neighbours (Mrs Ota, Mrs Abe and some others a bit further away) are at home most of the time. On days when I have a lot to carry, it’s handy if the door is unlocked: all I have to do is get off the tram, walk a few steps, pull the sliding door across, and I’m inside. I just take off my shoes, put on my slippers and I’m ready to put the shopping away. Afterwards, I usually sit down and draw breath, but I didn’t have that luxury this time: at the sight of the fridge, the previous day’s concerns came flooding back to me all at once.
When I opened it, however, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything was in the right place, which is to say the place I had left it that morning. The pickled vegetables, cubes of tofu, the eels set aside for dinner. I carefully inspected each glass shelf. Soy sauce and radishes, dried kelp and red-bean paste, raw octopus in a Tupperware container. On the bottom shelf, all four triangular pouches of seaweed rice were present and correct. The two aubergines were there as well. I felt a weight lifting from me, especially since I was convinced the ruler would provide extra assurance. It’s a stainless-steel one, forty centimetres long. I stuck a strip of blank paper to the unmarked side and plunged it into a carton of fruit juice (with added vitamins A, C and E) that I had opened that morning. I waited a few seconds, just long enough for my probe to soak up the liquid, and then I slowly pulled it out. I hardly dared look. Eight centimetres, I read. Only eight centimetres of juice remained, compared to fifteen when I had left for work. Someone had been helping themselves to it. And yet I live alone.
My fears boiled up again. To make absolutely sure, I checked the notebook where I had been recording levels and quantities for several days. Yes, it had definitely been fifteen that morning. Once I had even gone as far as taking a photograph of the inside of the fridge, but had never done it since. Either I couldn’t be bothered or had felt stupid. That was in the days before I knew for sure; any remaining doubts had now vanished. I had new evidence that something really was going on, the third such sign in the last fortnight, and bear in mind I’m a very rational person, not someone who would believe a ghost was popping in to quench his thirst and polish off the leftovers.
My suspicions had first been aroused several weeks earlier, but had rapidly disappeared. Yet some time later they came back in a vague sort of way, rather like midges that buzz around in the evening air and then fly off before you’ve quite registered they’re there. The whole thing began one day when I was certain I had bought some food that I then couldn’t find. My instinctive reaction was, naturally, to doubt myself. It’s so easy to convince yourself you put something in your shopping trolley when in fact you only meant to. It’s so tempting to put memory lapses down to tiredness. Tiredness is used as an excuse for almost anything!
The second time, by chance, I had kept the till receipt and was able to confirm I had not imagined it: I really had bought the fish that had since vanished into thin air. This didn’t make things any clearer though; I remained mystified and no closer to an explanation. I was rattled. The inside of my fridge was, in a sense, the ever-changing source of my future: the molecules that would provide me with energy in the coming days were contained within it in the form of aubergines, mango juice and whatever else. Tomorrow’s microbes, toxins and proteins awaited me in that cold antechamber, and the thought of a stranger’s hand taking from it at random and putting my future self in jeopardy shook me to the core. Worse: it repulsed me. It was nothing short of a kind of violation.
The night did nothing to dispel my unease over the disappearing fruit juice. In the morning, I set my nit-picking mind to piecing together the puzzle. At times like this the brain investigates, reconstructs, corroborates, deduces, unpicks, juxtaposes, supposes, calculates, suspects. I ended up cursing that grey Sanyo fridge with the slogan ‘Always with you’ slyly printed across it. Was there such a thing as a haunted refrigerator? Or one that fed itself by skimming off part of its contents? When I got back from work, I was eager to do something to calm my anxiety, which was slowly becoming a form of torture. At just gone six o’clock, there was still time … It was a last resort and I would probably feel ridiculous doing it, but my stress levels were now such that I simply had to know. To hell with the routine, I would eat dinner late.
I put my coat and shoes back on, went out, and caught a tram heading down towards Hamanomachi. The shop where I intended to purchase my new ‘trap’ was only two stops away and, providing my DIY skills were up to the task, I would sleep more peacefully afterwards.
In fact I didn’t need to put my handyman credentials to the test, as the device turned out to be much easier to fit than I had anticipated. I would have to wait until I was at work the next day to put my plan into action, a strategy that would make my fridge readings look like Stone Age techniques. I would aim to get in as early as possible and be at my desk by 8 a.m. I was relieved to be taking action but impatient to get started and, to tell the truth, beginning to lose the plot: it was after nine when I realised I hadn’t had a bite to eat. Oh well, just this once.
Sitting in my armchair with a pot of hot tea beside me, I tried to take my mind off things by watching TV, but nothing gripped my attention. Instead I picked up the magazine I subscribe to but never normally read. On page 37, a picture of a horribly wrinkled man caught my eye. ‘Tanabe Tomoji hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in his life,’ declared the journalist. As I skimmed the article, I couldn’t help thinking what a fool this man was. Tanabe, the oldest man alive, maintained he had got to the age of 113 eating nothing but vegetables and the occasional deep-fried prawn as a treat. Well, he sounded like a real live wire. This living fossil’s last remaining source of pleasure consisted of peeling a prawn or two, though he was eating fewer and fewer of them because greasy foods no longer agreed with him. Poor old Tanabe! Soon you’ll be