Chapter 2: Another Unfinished Idea (Tengo)
Tengo's first memory was from when he was one and a half years old. His mother took off her blouse, pulled down the shoulder strap of her white slip, and a man who was not his father sucked on her nipple. There was a baby in a crib; it was probably Tengo. He saw himself in the third person. Maybe it was actually his twin brother. No, that couldn't be. It was most likely one and a half year old Tengo himself. It was something he understood in his gut. The sleeping baby had his eyes closed and was making little noises in his sleep. This was Tengo's first memory in his entire life. This roughly 10 second long scene was burned into the walls of his consciousness. There was nothing before it nor after it. Like a town built on high ground during a great flood sticking out above the muddy water, that memory was completely isolated in his head.
Whenever he had the chance, Tengo would ask the people around him how old they were in the first memory. Most people would answer four or five years old. The earliest was three years old. There wasn't a single year instance where someone had an earlier memory than that. Children don't develop the ability to remember what happens around them until after they turn three years old. Before that stage, children are unable to understand what's going on around them and everything seems like chaos. To them, the world was unstable, and unable to hold its shape, like a simmering bowl of rice pudding. Since they were unable to form memories in their brains, their memories would go right out the window.
Of course, a one and a half year old infant shouldn't be able to understand what it means when a man who is not his father sucks his mother's nipples. That much is obvious. Therefore, if this memory of Tengo's was in fact real, he probably hadn't understood it at all even as it was burned into his retinas. It was just like how a camera takes a mixture of ordinary light and shadow and mechanically records it as an object on film. Therefore, as he became more self-aware, little by little he carefully analyzed the image, and invested time in understanding what it meant. But, was this memory really something based on reality? Just what was it about babies was it that made it impossible for them to form these sorts of memories?
Perhaps it was only a fake memory. If his subconscious had a good reason, couldn't it have just made the whole thing up? That is was all just a creation of his memory-Tengo had considered that possibility very deeply. Afterward, though, he had reached a decision. Made up memories aren't this vivid, and don't have such persuasive power. In this memory, there was light, and smell, and the feel of his own heartbeat. It felt so overwhelmingly real that he couldn't believe it was fake. Anyhow, assuming that the scene had in fact really happened, it explained a few things very well. Both logical things and emotional things.
The vivid 10 second scene would come without warning. If there had been signs, then they must have gotten delayed. There was no knock at the door or anything like that. When he was riding on a train, when he was writing an equation on the black board, when he was talking to someone sitting across from him (like he was this time, for example) the memory would suddenly come to him and flood his mind completely. Once he noticed it, the scene would appear before his eyes and his arms and legs would go completely numb. The flow of time would stop. The air around him would become thin, and he would become unable to breathe. The people and things around him would become irrelevant. His whole body would become covered with sweat. His sense of the world would darkly close off, and his consciousness would fade for no reason. It was as though a train had switched tracks. Some of his senses would become rather sharp. There would be no fear. But he wouldn't be able to open his eyes. His eyelids would remain tightly shut. The sounds around him would fade away. He had seen this familiar scene many times like this. Sweat would poor over his entire body; he knew that the armpits of his shirt would be soaked. His whole body would begin to tremble slightly. His heartbeats would become fast and load.
If there was anyone around during these situations, Tengo would pretend that he had just become dizzy from standing too quickly. In fact, it was actually very similar to the feeling of standing up too quickly. Usually he would completely recover after a little time had passed. He would take his handkerchief and hold it over his mouth. With his hand, he would make a signal that there was nothing to worry about. It would last for somewhere between 30 seconds to a minute. During that time the same scene would play like a video tape set to automatically repeat. His mother would pull down the shoulder strap of her slip, and as her nipples became hard a man from who-knows-where would suck them. Her eyes closed, she would let out a tremendous sigh. The nostalgic smell of breast milk would faintly hang in the air. To a baby, smell was a very important sense to have. A smell could give lots of information. In this case, it gave all the information. There weren't any sounds to hear. The air would become like a thick liquid; the only sound he could catch were his own faint heartbeats.
“Look at this,” his heartbeats would say. “Look only at this,” they would say. “You're hear now, and you can't go anywhere else,” they would say. He'd received this message many, many times.
This time the “attack” lasted for a long time. Tengo closed his eyes and as always brought his handkerchief to his mouth while he bit down tightly. How long this lasted he didn't know. When it was finally all over, his whole body was tired but he had no idea why. His body was terribly exhausted. It was the first time he had ever felt such fatigue. It took time just for him to be able to open his eyes. He immediately tried to regain his bearings, but his muscles and his internal organs resisted. His eyes were like hibernating animals that were being woken up early in the wrong season.
“Hey, Tengo,” someone had said before. He heard the voice dimly as if it were coming from the back of a cave. Tengo realized that that was his own name. “What is it? Was it that again? Are you OK?” the voice said. This time when he heard the voice it seemed to be closer.
He finally opened his eyes and regained his senses; he look down at his own right hand which was gripping the edge of the table. That the world had not fallen apart and still existed confirmed for him that he was still himself within that world. Though it was still a little numb, this was probably his own right hand. Also, he could smell the scent of his own sweat. Like the smell in front of some animal's cage at a zoo, it was a strangely sharp smell. Yet, there was no room for doubt that it was the smell that his own body gave off.
His throat was dry. Tengo reached out for the glass of water on the table and, taking special care not to spill it, drank half of it. He paused to catch his breath, then drank the other half. His mind returned to its usual state, and his body began to feel normal again. Having completely emptied the glass, he wiped his lips with his handkerchief.
“I'm sorry. I'm OK now,” he said. He confirmed that he was meeting someone named Komatsu. The two of them had a meeting in a coffee shop near Shinjuku Station, He could hear the usual background conversations now. The two people sitting at the next table over were looking over at him suspiciously as though something weird had happened. The waitress standing nearby had a nervous expression on her face. He wasn't sure, but she seemed as though she might have been worried that he would throw up in his seat. Tendo looked up and turned to her and, smiling, nodded. It was as though he was saying “don't worry, I won't throw up.”
“That wasn't a seizure, was it?” Komatsu asked.
“It's nothing as serious as that. It's just something like the ordinary dizziness you get from standing up too quickly. It's no more severe than that,” Tengo said. He still couldn't tell if his voice was indeed his own voice. But that wasn't really something urgent.
“If it were to were to happen while you were driving, it would be pretty serious,” Komatsu said, looking him in the eye.
“I'm not driving.”
“That's not the point. I know someone who's allergic to pollen, and while he was driving he started to sneeze and crashed into a telephone pole. You too, Tengo, don't know when you might sneeze. The first time it could just be a coincidence, but once it happens twice it's a pattern.”
“I'm sorry.”
Tengo took his coffee cup in his hand and drank everything that was in it in a single gulp. The flavor didn't matter. He just needed something warm to pass down his throat.
“Should I go get you more water?” Komatsu asked.
Tengo shook his head. “No, I'm OK. I've already recovered.”
Komatsu took a box of Marlboros from his pocket, put a cigarette in his mouth, then lit it with one of the coffee shop's matches. After that he glanced at his watch.
“Anyway, what were we talking about?” Tengo asked. He was quickly returning to normal.
“Um, just what were we talking about?” Komatsu said, staring off into space and thinking for a bit. Or, perhaps he only appeared to be thinking. Tengo couldn't be sure which it was. Few of Komatsu movements made it seem like he wanted to talk. “Oh, that's right, we were talking about a girl named Fukaeri. That and 'the Chrysalis of the Air'.”
Tengo nodded. They had been talking about the Fukaeri and “the Chrysalis of the Air”. Tengo had been in the middle of explaining something to Komatsu when his “attack” had interrupted the conversation. Tengo pulled a bunch of copies of the manuscript out of his bag and set them on the table. Holding up a manuscript in his hand, he looked over it one more time.
“We spoke about it briefly on the phone, but the best thing about this 'the Chrysalis of the Air' is that it's not imitating anyone else. It's an unusual work for a newcomer, and it's not really trying to be like anything else,” Tengo said, carefully choosing his words. “The word choices are poor, probably because the sentence structure is so rough. As for the title, it's easy to get 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon' mixed up. If you're interested, I could point out a bunch of other flaws. But even if these kinds of stories are rare, there's something about them that draws people in. Even though the whole thing is a fantasy, the detailed descriptions make it seem awfully real. The balance is very good. How necessary things like originality or proper word choice are, I don't really know. I'm not really sure if I'd say she's reached that level. But after you've finished reading you're left with a genuine kind of response. For example, you feel uncomfortable, but you can't really explain why you feel so strange.”
Komatsu looked at Tengo's face and said nothing. Then again, he didn't ask many questions.
Tengo continued. “Even though the writing is bad in spots, I don't want to simply drop this from consideration. In all my years of work, I've read mountains of application manuscripts. Well, I guess you'd say it's more like I've skimmed them rather than actually read them. Of course, most were overwhelmingly bad, but I've gotten some relatively good works, and the difference between the good and the bad ones is the difference between sticks and chopsticks. But, anyway, during that time, out of all the manuscripts I've looked over, only this 'the Chrysalis of the Air' made me feel such a reaction. For the first time, after I had finished reading I felt like going back and reading it one more time.”
“Huh,” Komatsu said. Then, in a disinterested sort of way, he puckered his lips and took a drag on his cigarette. Because he had know Komatsu for a long time, though, Tengo wasn't fooled by this simple expression. Often times this guy's expression would have nothing to do with what he was thinking, and sometimes it be the exact opposite. Knowing this, Tengo just waited patiently for him to speak.
“I read it as well,” Komatsu said after a while had passed. “Right after you told me about it on the phone, I read the manuscript. But, well, it was actually awful. Since there aren't any sentence particles, I couldn't understand what the sentences were supposed to mean. Before writing a novel, it would probably be better if she went back and studied the basics of writing and editing, I think.”
“But you did read it all the way to the end. Right?”
Komatsu smiled. His smile seemed like something taken out of a drawer that was almost never opened.
“That's right, it's just as you say; I read it all the way to the end. I was surprised myself. I've never ever read a Newcomer Award-winning manuscript straight through. And on top of that, I even had a slight desire to reread it. That's as rare as the planets aligning. I'll give you that much.”
“That's because there's something there. Am I right?”
Komatsu put his cigarette in the ashtray and rubbed the side of his nose with the middle finger of his right hand. He didn't answer Tengo's question, though.
Tengo spoke up. “This girl is still a 17 year old high school student. She did this without any special training for reading or writing. If we're already talking about winning the Newcomer Award, then it might not be impossible. It's good enough to make it to the final round of selections. You can do that much on your own. If you want it to, it will make it to the final round.”
“Huh,” Komatsu said again, yawning as though bored. Then he drank his glass of water in a single gulp. “Well, you've certainly thought this through, haven't you? You'd really dare to send this kind of rough story on to the final round of selections? The professors on the selection committee will probably overrule you. It might even make them angry. They probably won't even read it all the way to the end in the first place. The selection committee is made up of four current writers. Everyone's busy with work. They'll throw it out after flipping through the first two pages. You couldn't even say that it's as good as an elementary school student's story. With such well polished stories in the running, even if I wave my hands and give a passionate speech, who's going to listen to me? Even if I use all the influence I have, you've got way too high of expectations for me.”
“Saying that, don't you think you're giving up a little too quickly?”
“I didn't say I was giving up,” Komatsu said while continuing to rub the side of his nose. “I have something a little different in mind for this story.”
“Something a little different in mind,” Tengo repeated. He had sensed something ominous in the way Komatsu said that.
“You're saying you have high expectations for her next work,” Komatsu said. “I also have high hopes for her, of course. After some time passes and the young writer grows up to become famous, it would be a delight to be her editor. My heart skips a beat knowing that soon when someone looks up into the clear night sky they'll find a new star there. Honestly speaking, it's difficult to imagine what's next. While I may not be a famous author myself, I've been doing this for 20 years. During that time I've seen various authors come and go. Because of this, I can mostly tell the difference between which people are going to be famous next, and which people won't. If I had to say, this girl won't be the next person to be famous. I'm sorry, but she won't be the one after the next one either. Or the one after the one after the next one. The first thing she needs to do in order to improve her writing is not just to pile on a lot of studying. It won't do any good no matter how long you wait; you'd just be waiting in vain. Just why that is, I'm not sure, but they're just something missing if she really intends to write a good novel, to write a complete novel. Whether it's natural talent or whether she became good due to constant effort, I'm not sure. For this kid named Fukaeri, it doesn't matter. Since she seems to be missing natural talent, she'll probably try to make up for it by putting forth a lot of effort. Whether that will help, I'm not sure. But just saying you have an interest in writing isn't what's important. You need determination to write a story. She definitely does have determination, I'll admit that. That's probably what attracted you to such a rough work, and what made me read the manuscript all the way to the end. Depending on how you think about it, that's really something. Even so, she has no future as a writer. Less than the dung of a bedbug. I know it will disappoint you, but if you want my opinion, that's it.”
Tengo thought about it. He decided that Komatsu had a point. After all, Komatsu was a really talented editor.
“But would it really be so bad to give her a chance?” Tengo asked.
“How about we just cast this into the water and see if it sinks or floats?”
“Will it really be that simple?”
“Well, there wouldn't be much of a point to kill it at this point. But I have no desire to see it drown in the end.”
“How can I learn to judge like you?”
“You need to put forth a little more effort,” Komatsu said, choosing her words carefully. “The way I see it, there's no cutting corners. Writing a story is very honest work. Why? It's because you have to like writing. I'll be judging as well, so I can say that for someone who wants to be good, the love of writing is very important.”
“But, it's not enough.”
“Of course. It's not enough. It has have a “special something.” At the very least, it needs something that can't be described. When I talk about how I feel about a novel, I'm judging something that I can't completely explain. Novels that can be entirely understood don't interest me at all. It's only natural. It's the most basic thing.”
Tengo was silent for a moment. Then he opened his mouth. “Does Fukaeri's story have this indescribable something, Komatsu?”
“Yeah. It has it, of course. This girl has something big. Just what kind of something, I don't know, but she's really got it. And she knows it, too. You know it, and I know it too. Like smoke from a big fire on a clear windless afternoon, it's clear to everyone. But, Tengo, whatever this girl has, she doesn't have complete control over it yet.”
“So you don't expect her to float if we throw her in the water?”
“Exactly right,” Komatsu said.
“So then we shouldn't send her off to the final round of selections?”
“Right,” Komatsu said. Then he curled his lips and put both his hands together on top of the table. “At this point, I have to choose my words carefully.”
Tengo took his coffee cup in his hand and checked how much we left. Then he put it back. Komatsu still didn't say anything. Tengo opened his mouth. “So, what did you mean when you said you had 'something a little different in mind' for her?”
Komatsu squinted at him like a teacher in front of a diligent student. Then he slowly nodded.
“I did say that...”
The man called Komatsu had something mysterious about him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling simply from his expression or tone of voice. This guy seemed to enjoy keeping the people around his wrapped in a dense fog. He was likely very clever. Since he followed his own logic instead of what everyone else expected, others thought he was the judgmental type. He didn't show it off unnecessarily, but since he often read very large books, he had all sorts of detailed knowledge about a wide variety of things. Not only did he know a lot and have a sixth sense for people, but he also had an eye for novels. That probably made him biased, but for him being biased was one of the most important things.
By nature he was a man of few words who hated to explain anything, but if it was necessary he was able to cleverly and logically explain his opinion. When he wanted to, he could become quite severe. He would listen for his opponent's weak spot and then, in the blink of an eye, would peirce straight through it. There were, individually, some people and some novels, who he could tolerate, but there were more by far whom he couldn't tolerate. Thus, while there were of course some people with whom he was friendly, there were far more people with whom he wasn't. But there was a void within himself. From Tengo's point of view, since he rather liked isolating himself, he had lots of fun keeping others at a distance, almost as if he hated them. You might say that he believed that sharpness of mind couldn't be born in a comfortable environment.
Komatsu was 45, 16 years older than Tengo. Since he was a first rate editor of a literary magazine, his name was well known in the working world for all of the work he did, but no one knew a thing about his personal life. Even though he was at the top level of his company, no one ever spoke with him personally. When he was born, where he grew up, where he was currently living; Tengo didn't know any of these things. Even in a long conversation, these sorts of topics never came up. Up to this point, even though he had ignored the literary world and had made no connections, since he was often getting manuscripts which turned people's heads, he was naturally receiving manuscripts from several famous authors. It was thanks to him that the magazine had such a good reputation. So, even if people didn't like him, they all had their eye on him.
He was rumored to have been a leader of one of the student movements during the student revolts of the sixties while he was studying literature at Tokyo University. He was said to have received serious injuries when he was beaten to the point of death by the police during the Michiko Kanba demonstrations. No one knew if this was true. Just because people often said so wasn't enough to prove that it was true. He was tall and thin, with a terribly large mouth and a terribly small nose. His arms and legs were long and his fingertips were stained from cigarettes. He was reminiscent of a revolutionary or the crumbling Intelligentsia, right out of a 19th Century Russian novel. Although he almost never laughed, when he did a smile would appear on his face. Even then, though, he didn't seem especially happy. He looked more like a magician's apprentice, chuckling while he made an ominous prophecy. He was always clean cut, but as if to show that he didn't care about his appearance, he never wore normal clothing. A tweed jacket, white cotton oxford shirts or pale grey polos, no tie, grey trousers, suede shoes: he wore this outfit like it was his uniform. People imagined that he must have about half a dozen three-button tweed jackets, each with slightly different colors, patterns, materials and sizes hanging in the closet of his house, where he would carefully brush them. They were so indistinguishable, though, that no one knew exactly how many of them there were.
His hair was thin and rough, and he had a few white strands in the front. His ears were hidden beneath his tangle of hair. His hair was so unusually fast growing that within less than a week after a haircut he would need to get another. Just how this was possible, Tengo didn't understand. Sometimes there would be a sharp glint in his eye like a start twinkling in a winter night sky. Whenever something caused him to fall silent, he would remain silent forever, like a rock on the dark side of the moon. The few times that it happened, it even felt the like temperature in the room began to fall.
Tengo had met Komatsu five years previously. When he had applied for the Newcomer Award of the magazine, Komatsu had been the editor who had kept him in the running until the final round of selections. After they had spoken on the phone, Komatsu had said he wanted to speak in person. They met in a coffee shop in Shinjuku (the same coffee shop they were currently in). “It would probably be impossible for this work to win the Newcomer Award,” Komatsu had said (it really hadn't won). “But I personally was interested in your work. You don't have any particular reason to do me a favor, but you should know that I rarely ask favors; normally people are asking me rather than me asking them” (Tengo didn't know it at the time, but it was true). “So, would you let me read the next thing you write, before anyone else?” Komatsu had asked. Tengo said that he would.
Komatsu also wanted to know what sort of person Tengo was. How he had grown up, and what sort of things he was doing now. Tengo explained everything as honestly as he could. He had been born and raised in the city of Ichikawa in the Chiba Prefecture. Tengo's mother had become had become sick while giving birth to him and had died. At least that's what his father had said. He didn't have any brothers. After that his father had never remarried, and raised Tengo by himself. His father had been a collection agent for the NHK, but now he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, so he had been put in a mental hospital on the southernmost tip of the Fusafusa Peninsula. After he had graduated from Tsukuba University with a degree in the strangely named “1st Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics,” he had worked as a math lecturer at a cram school in Yoyogi, during which time he had written his written his novel. After graduation he had the option of becoming a teacher at a local prefectural high school, but he had chosen to be a lecturer at a cram school because of the more flexible schedule. He lived alone in a small apartment in Koenji.
He wanted to become a professional author, but he didn't really know how on his own. Just how much talent he had for writing, he didn't really know either. The only thing he knew for sure was that he couldn't help but work on his novel every day. For him, writing was the same as breathing. Listening fixedly to Tengo, Komatsu had noticed this easily.
He didn't understand why, but he seemed to have taken a liking to Tengo. Tengo had a well-built body that resembled that of an early rising farmer (in middle school, Tengo had been a central player in the Judo club). With his hair cut short, his skin always the color of sunburn, and his ears wrinkled like cauliflower, he didn't really look much like a student of literature or a math teacher. Komatsu seemed to like that kind of thing. When Tengo finished a new novel, he would take it to Komatsu. Komatsu would read it and state his opinion. Tengo learned a lot from this advise. When Tengo would revise a work, Komatsu would give instructions about which direction to go with the new version. This way he seemed to raise the bar a little each time. “I don't know how much time it's going to take,” Komatsu said, “but there's no hurry. Eat a good breakfast and then write without stopping everyday. Include only what you absolutely can't cut out. After that, I don't know how much I can help.” Tengo always followed his advice.
Komatsu also got Tengo a job working on literature. He worked on publishing unsigned manuscripts for a women's magazine owned by Komatsu's publishing company. From revising submissions, to writing simple articles introducing new books and movies, to horoscopes; he easily handled whatever was asked of him. Tengo gained a reputation for having a knack for horoscopes. When he wrote “Be careful of early morning earthquakes,” there was actually be a big earthquake that morning. These various kinds of works allowed him to make a little extra money as well as to practice his writing. He was happy that his own writing, no matter what form it took, was being printed and sold in bookstores.
Soon Tengo was given the job of preparing for the Newcomer Award. While he was working on his own submission, he looked at all the entries fairly; it's strange enough to criticize another authors work, so in his own delicate situation he didn't take any special interest in his own work. By reading a mountain of terribly boring submission, he learned for himself just how awful and boring novels could be. He would go over all the novels about a hundred times and select around ten novels who meaning he could understand; these he would take to Komatsu. Then he would write a memo about his impressions of each work and attach it to the submission. Then five of these would be chosen to go on to the final round of selections, where a committee made up of four people would decide which submission would win the Newcomer Award.
There were other part timers preparing for the contest, and several other editors were also doing the selecting. Since the judging was split up like this, there wasn't any reason that Tengo entering the contest would be a problem. There were only a few promising work, two or three from the whole group, so anyone who was reading them would be able to tell which ones were good right away. Tengo's works had made it to the final round three times. Tengo hadn't even chosen his stories, the two other judges had; thus they were sent on to the desk of the editing department, where Komatsu had sent them on to the next round. None of those works had won the Newcomer Award, but Tengo wasn't discouraged. However, since the only thing Komatsu had said, “You need to take more time,” was burned into not just his head but his whole body, at the moment it wasn't as though Tengo wanted to be best friends with Komatsu.
If he made some adjustments to his class schedule, then four days a week he would be able to stay home and work on his hobby. He had worked as a lecturer at the same cram school for seven years, and among the students he had a fairly decent reputation. When speaking, he got straight to the point rather than speaking in a roundabout manner, and he would always give a prompt answer to any sort of question. He himself was surprised at how skilled he was at speaking. He kept the class interested because he was good at explaining things, had a voice that always carried, and would even tell jokes. Until he had become a lecturer, he had thought he was terrible at speaking. Even now, if someone was looking him in the eye while he spoke, he would get nervous and the words just wouldn't come out smoothly. If he was in a small group, he would always take the part of the listener. Up on a platform in front of people from the general public, though, his mind would abruptly become clear, and he would be able to casually talk about anything. I don't understand human beings at all, Tengo would often think to himself.
He couldn't complain about his salary. Whether or not they admitted it, the cram school decided payment based on ability. If your students' scores regularly improved, you would receive better treatment. This was because the school was afraid that other schools would hire away their best speakers (in fact, headhunting was a frequent topic of conversation). Normal schools didn't worry about those kinds of things. The salaries were based on seniority, chosen by the bosses and managers; ability and popularity didn't have any meaning there. Tengo enjoyed working at a cram school. Since most of the students in the class clearly wanted to do well on their college entrance exams, they would earnestly listen to the lectures. In the classroom, a lecturer didn't have to do anything but teach. That was something for which Tengo was grateful. You couldn't really say that there were a lot of delinquent students or rule-breaking going on, so the teachers' heads didn't need to be bothered with such troublesome issues. Normally, when standing on the platform, he would often just explain the solutions to various math problems. One thing Tengo was really proud of was how he could use abstract concepts as if they were tools to solve problems.
On days when he was at home, he would wake up early and write his novels almost until evening. Using a Mont Blanc 1000-year brush and blue ink, he would cram four hundred characters onto a single sheet of his manuscript. As long as he could do that, Tengo would be satisfied. Once a week his married girlfriend would come over to his apartment and the two of them would spend the afternoon together. When having sex with a married woman ten years older than you, it's easier just not to go out anywhere, and Tengo was satisfied with that arrangement. In the evening he would go for long walks, and when the sun set he would read a book alone while listening to music. He didn't watch TV. Whenever NHK collection agents came to his door asking for donations, he would politely refuse, saying, “I'm sorry, but I don't own a TV. I really don't have one; feel free to come in and check for yourself.” But they never came in. NHK collection agents probably weren't allowed to go into people's houses.
“What I think is, it deserves something a little bit bigger,” Komatsu said.
“Something bigger?”
“Right. No one talks about the Newcomer Award very much, so we might as well aim for something bigger.”
Tengo was silent. He didn't know what Komatsu's plans were, but something about this gave him an uneasy feeling.
“The Akutagawa Prize,” Komatsu said after a moment.
“The Akutagawa Prize.” Tengo repeated Komatsu's words as though he were practicing writing big words in the sand with a stick.
“The Akutagawa Prize. That way everyone in the world who hasn't heard of you will know who you are. You'd be in the newspapers in a big way, and also on the TV news.”
“Hey, Komatsu, maybe I'm confused, but by any chance aren't we supposed to be talking about Fukaeri?”
“That's right. We're talking about Fukaeri and 'The Chrysalis of the Air'. No subjects other than those two should come up.”
Tengo bit his lip, firmly feeling the nerves along the back of it. “But, didn't you just say that it was impossible for this work to even win the Newcomer Award? As it is, wouldn't you say that it's not very good?”
“You're absolutely right; as it is, it's not very good. That much is obvious.”
Tengo needed a moment to think. “So, in other words, what you're saying is that you want to edit the work as it was submitted?”
“That's not the only way. For a promising entry, there's always a lot of advise that an editor can give about revising. That's not unusual. But this time it won't be the author herself who rewrites it; it will be someone else.”
“Someone else?” he asked, although before the question could leave his lips he understood the answer. He only asked to make sure.
“You're going to revise it, Tengo,” Komatsu said.
Tengo searched for the right words. But the right words were nowhere to be found. Taking a deep breath, he said, “But, Komatsu, I won't be able to make all the necessary revisions in time. If I don't completely rewrite it from front to back, it won't seem cohesive.”
“Of course you have to rewrite it from front to back. You can just use the framework of the story as it is now. Keep as much as you can of the style and tone. But feel free to make the writing seem more natural. You're in charge of all the real revisions. I'll just be in charge of the publishing.”
“That might work out,” was all Tengo said.
“You see?” Komatsu took his coffee spoon in his hand and faced Tengo like a conductor assigning a solo. “This girl, Fukaeri, she has something special. You can understand that much just by reading 'The Chrysalis of the Air'. That sort of imagination isn't normal. But, while it's unfortunate, her writing isn't going to become anything special. It's really just terrible. The only chance is if you write the story. You've got a good sense of plot. Her writing is bulky, but yours is delicate and sophisticated. It usually has a kind of momentum to it. Completely the opposite of Fukaeri, you could be able to write well, but you haven't gotten a firm grasp on it yet. Therefor, you often can't find the heart of your stories. You've definitely got the need to write inside of you. But it's like a small animal hiding deep inside a burrow; it almost never comes out. You know that it's hiding at the very back of the hole. But, unless it comes out, you won't be able to catch it. That's what I meant when I told you that you needed more time.”
Tengo awkwardly shifted his position in his seat. He didn't say anything.
“It's a simple conclusion,” Komatsu continued while delicately waving his coffee spoon. “It would be better if the two of you got together to become a single new author. Fukaeri has a rough story, and you're going to write it properly. It would be ideal for you to join forces. That way, you'll each only be using your strengths. More importantly, as it stands now, I can't recommend either of you for the Newcomer Award. Right? But if you work together, you could just leave everything to me. With your combined skills, you'd be able to win more than just the Newcomer Award. It would be good enough to aim for even the Akutagawa Prize. I didn't get into this business just to live a life of leisure; I know this business inside and out.”
Tengo opened his mouth slightly and looked at Komatsu's face. Komatsu replaced his coffee spoon on his saucer. It made and unnaturally loud sound.
“If we win the Akutagawa Prize, then what?” Tengo asked, catching his breath.
“If you win the Akutagawa Prize, it'll make your reputation. Most people in the world won't understand just how valuable your novel is. But most people won't want to be behind the trends, either, I think. So they'll talk about the prize-winning book, buy it, and read it. Even more so if the author is a girl still in high school. If the book sells alright, there will be some money. Probably enough to divide among three people. I'll be taking care of that part.”
“Right now it's not how we'll divide the money that I'm worried about,” Tengo said in a dry sort of voice. “But if things do get that far, I won't interfere with your professional ethics as an editor. But if we do this, once the truth gets out into the world, there will be lots of questions. The company probably won't be able to handle it.”
“Then we simply won't let it get out. If you're worried about that part, then I can take care of it. Even if it does get out, I'll willingly take the fall in front of the company. Anyhow, I've got kind of a bad reputation, so they don't treat me as well as I deserve. I can just find another job. It's not as though I chose this job for the money. What I want is to make a fool of the literary world. I want to be able to laugh decisively while the literary world give compliments from all sides like a swarm of insects emerging from a dark hole; while they lick their wounds and kick themselves for dragging their feet, the whole lot of them won't be able to do anything but admit that the direction that that literary world has been heading is nothing but a bunch of over-inflated junk. Having outwitted the system, I'd be able to laugh at them forever. Don't you think that would be fun?”
Tengo didn't think it would really be that fun. He didn't really know that much about the literary world in general. No matter how competent Komatsu was, knowing that he would cross such a dangerous bridge for such a childish reason, words failed Tengo.
“What you're suggesting kind of sounds like some sort of fraud to me.”
“Collaborations aren't unusual,” Komatsu said, frowning. “Half of all serialized comics in our magazine are collaborations. Someone on the staff comes up with an idea, then an artist draws a simple outline, and finally some assistants fill in the details and colors. It's just like building alarm clocks on an assembly line. There are similar examples for novels as well. For instance, romance novels are done like that. Most of the time they just hire a bunch of out of work writers who will obey the rules and suggestions of the publishing company. They need a system to divide the work. If they didn't do it like that, they wouldn't be able to mass produce them so fast, right? Since this method isn't officially used in proper literature, though, if we do use this strategy, we'll have to put only Fukaeri's name on the cover. If we don't, I can't know for sure, but there might be a scandal. But there's no reason that we'd actually be breaking the rules. It's just that it's against the current trend. And it's not as though we're talking about Murasaki Shikibu or Balzaac. We're just filling some gaps in the writing of a high school girl to help her complete her novel. What's wrong with that? If the final product ends up being a high quality novel and pleases a lot of readers, isn't that a good thing?”
Tengo though about what Komatsu was saying. Then he carefully selected his next words. “I've got two questions. I should have a lot more, but for now I'm just going to ask two. First, will the actual author approve of having someone else rewrite her story? If she says no, we can't even take a single step forward. Second, even if she does approve, how am I supposed to rewrite the story well? Collaborative work is a very delicate process, so why do you seem to think that it can be done so easily?”
“As long as it's you, it can be done,” Komatsu answered without missing a beat, as though he had been expecting that question. “You won't make a mistake. First of all, it was only because you read 'The Chrysalis of the Air' that this idea even popped into my head. That's why I'm saying that it should be you who rewrites this story. What I'm trying to say it, this is the perfect story for you to revise. It's a story just waiting for you to rewrite. Don't you think so?”
Tengo shook his head. The words wouldn't come out.
“There's no need to rush,” Komatsu said quietly. “It's an important decision. You should think about it for two or three days. And reread 'The Chrysalis of the Air' one more time. Then think some more about whether or not you'll accept my proposal. Oh, that's right, I need to give you this.”
Komatsu reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a brown envelope, which he handed to Tengo. Inside the envelope were two color photographs. They were pictures of a girl. The first was a portrait from the chest up, the other was a full body snapshot. They seemed to have been taken at the same time. She was standing in front of some stair somewhere. They were large, stone stairs. She had a classical sort of beauty, with long straight hair. She had on a white blouse. She was small and thin. Her lips were making an effort to smile, but her eyes were resisting. They were serious. Eyes. They were eyes that were searching for something. He looked back and forth between the two pictures. He wasn't sure why, but looking at these pictures reminded him of something in his own past. It made his chest hurt a little. It was an unusual kind of pain, one which he hadn't felt in a long time. It was as though the figure of this girl was awakening this pain from somewhere inside him.
Komatsu said “That's Fukaeri. She's very beautiful, don't you think? She's also the neat and clean type. Seventeen years old. No defects. Her real name is Fukada Eriko. But her real name isn't on her manuscript. She only sent in Fukaeri. If you win the Akutagawa Prize, that unusual name will attract a little attention, don't you think? The mass media will come swooping in like a bunch of bats in the night. The book will sell well from the very start.”
Just where did Komatsu get his hand of these pictures? Tengo thought it was strange. There was no reason that they would have been included in the application. However, he decided not to ask. The answer was difficult to predict; there were some things he preferred not to know.
“You can keep those. They might be of some use to you somehow,” Komatsu said. Tengo returned the pictures to the envelope and placed it on top of the manuscript of “The Chrysalis of the Air”.
“Komatsu, I don't really know much about the circumstances of the literary world. But it's just common sense that this plan is pretty risky. Even if we can fool the world for a little while, we won't be able to keep up the lie forever. We won't be able to keep everything consistent. It's not an easy thing, both mentally and practically. If anyone makes a single mistake anywhere, it'll be the end of the whole thing. Don't you think?”
Komatsu took out a new cigarette and lit it. “That's exactly right. Everything you said is true. It's definitely a risky plan. From this point on there are all sorts of little things which could go wrong. There's no way to predict what will happen. If we make a mistake, we have no idea what sort of unintended consequences might happen. I understand that well. But, Tengo, above all these considerations, my instincts are telling me to go for it. Because this is the kind of chance you almost never get. Up until now, there hasn't been a single such chance. And there probably won't be another one after this, either. It's like illicit gambling, only we don't need to have a lot of money. It's plenty cheap. The conditions are just right. If we miss this chance, we'll regret it for sure.”
Tengo was silent, gazing at the ominous, satisfied sort of smile that had appeared on Komatsu's face.
“Anyhow, the most important thing for us to do now is to revise 'The Chrysalis of the Air'. Obviously the writing needs to be better. That's really important. But not just anyone could do that without removing the something special from the story. You probably already understand that. Let work together on that. At the start of a project, everyone brings their own strengths. We don't need to be ashamed about revealing out motives.”
“But, Komatsu, what reason do we have to lie like this? We may not be ashamed our motives, but it's not like we can actually reveal them to the world. We still have to sneak around behind everyone's backs. 'Fraud' isn't even a strong enough word; 'treachery' would be better. It may not be breaking any rules, but it's definitely questionably moral. If an editor helps write the winner of his own company's literary magazine's Newcomer Award, it will definitely seem like insider dealings to the general public, don't you think?”
“Don't compare the literary world to the general public. The two are completely different things.”
“Just how are they different?”
“Well, for example, you're overlooking one very important fact,” Komatsu said. Looking at his mouth up to this point, it hadn't seemed especially large, but now that Komatsu was enjoying himself it seemed to have expanded. “Or rather, you're deliberately ignoring that fact. Your own body us already begging for this. Your feelings are obviously steering you to revise 'The Chrysalis of the Air'. I can tell that much easily. To hell with risks and morals. You're dying to rewrite 'The Chrysalis of the Air' with your own hand. You're dying to take that special something of Fukaeri's for yourself. So, that's the major difference between the literary world and the general public. We are moved by something other than motives of good and evil or even money. When we go home we carefully check our own feelings. We often look into our own eyes when standing in front of a mirror. Our feelings are firmly written on our faces.”
The air around them seemed to suddenly grow thin. Tengo quickly looked around. Would that same scene return again? But there weren't any signs of it. This thin air had come from some completely different realm somewhere. He withdrew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away his sweat. What Komatsu said was always right. Just why was that?
