Wait a Little Longer and Everything is Different
by Kevin Kalinowski

The Japanese people are forgetting their own language. Or so the newspapers say. A year out of college, I moved to Japan and translated for a couple of the English dailies in Tokyo, and every week, I remember, a member of the older generation submitted his or her own critique of youth culture. But they were all the same. The youth are lazy. Useless. Good for nothing. The articles told of the decline of the language: the influx of foreign words, the loss of tradition—the young people’s inability to write even some of the simpler characters. And sure, it’s true. And I do wonder what becomes of a people who can no longer write their own language: Do they just disappear? Cease to exist? But all of it seems like such an exaggeration to me. Because they’re not going to forget. Someone will remember, because someone always remembers. Every once in while, I still stumble upon these articles. I try to read the Sunday Asahi when I have the time. I head over to NYU’s library and find myself a seat among the students whose jittering feet shake the tables. The familiar stories are right there on page two or three. But I no longer recognize the names of the cultural critics. Or their pictures. After a while, I suppose they realize that their efforts at reform are futile. Or maybe they just die.

In the past month, I’ve become something of a regular at NYU. I haven’t heard from Yuka even once. She runs a translation business in Yokohama, and I worked for her off and on while I was in Japan. I’ve been freelancing for her since I moved back to New York, and it’s been three years, but this is the first real dry spell. Not so long ago, she e-mailed me to let me know it was coming. She said she was sorry, very sorry, and she apologized for any inconvenience. I said don’t worry about it, Yuka. No reason to be sorry. Just let me know. But what I meant to say was you can’t do this to me. Please. You don’t understand. Maybe if I told her about Kira. Then she would understand. I should say here’s a story about my wife. Let me tell you. I’ve got something to tell you. This is what I’d say. Then Yuka would say here’s a job. I don’t have any jobs. But how about a hundred jobs? I’ve tried to tell her, but the words never come. And so now I have a favorite library table. I think it’s some girl’s favorite table too. We nod at one another every day, and yesterday, for the first time, she waved goodbye. I smiled then touched my forefinger to my temple in a mock salute. I wonder what she thinks of me. I figure she’s an English major. She seems to like reading out loud. Yesterday it was Milton.

*

They let me see Kira on Sundays, and we go for a walk. There’s a little park across the street from the hospital, and there’s a pond that’s full of algae. Sometimes fathers and sons cast their fishing lines into the muck, and their red and white striped bobbers float side by side, untouched in the water. I hold Kira’s hand and strain to hear what words of encouragement the fathers have for the sons: Give it some time. Have patience. I think I felt a tug. And every week, I wait for the sounds of a bobber’s plunge and the recoil of a reel, but in this pond, there are no fish. But no one seems to care. There’s even one family that I see every week. They bring a cooler for their potential catches.

Kira and I always circle the pond until she squeezes my hand. Then I lead her back across the street and into the hospital. The psychiatric ward is on the sixth floor, but Kira likes to climb the stairs. She says she needs her exercise. By the fourth floor, she’s gasping for breath, but she never stops to rest. After I sign her back in at the desk, a nurse escorts her to her room, and I wave as they recede down the hallway. I can hear the nurse tell her to say goodbye: He’s waving. Why don’t you say it? He needs to hear you say it. But Kira never turns her head. Sometimes I lose her in the glare of the windows at the end of the hallway.

Last night, her doctor called because he wanted to give me some notice before my visit this afternoon. “I’m sorry,” he said. He says this a lot. “Things aren’t going so well. We want to extend her stay.” He waited for me to respond. “The money,” he said. “We can talk about it.”

I laughed.

“It’s possible she may get better,” he said.

I could hear him breathing into the receiver. And for a while, neither of us spoke. At one point, I set the phone down. I got a drink of water. I picked up the phone again.

“Hello,” he said. “Hello?”

I spun my empty glass on the counter. It wobbled then fell to the floor. It didn’t break. “None of this makes any sense,” I said.

“Oh,” the doctor said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

After I hung up, I e-mailed Yuka. I try not to e-mail her all the time, but I can’t help it. I tell her even a small job is fine. Anything. But she doesn’t respond. She’s a busy woman. I understand.

*

I sold my car, so I take the subway to the hospital. I sit down and stare at my hands. A woman sits on my right and rustles her newspaper, and I shift toward the empty seat on my left. Across the aisle, a man holds a little girl’s hand. She sings a song I recognize from the radio. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson. One of them. The tunnel lights that flash in the windows above the man and little girl obscure my reflection. I look back at my folded hands and try to imagine what I’ll say to Kira. I could tell her about the girl from the library. The one who waves and I salute. I could tell her how she whispers her readings aloud to herself and smiles. How I recognized Paradise Lost. Or Yuka. I could tell her how she’s going to get back to me any day. How everything will be fine. I would say it, and Kira would nod. She would say that’s good. Good. Then we would circle the pond and she would squeeze my hand. I would sign her in, and she would walk down the hall and vanish in the afternoon sun.

I pull a pen and a small pad from my jacket pocket. I hold the pad against my thigh. My hand shakes as I write. It’s more of a scribble. They’re only notes, so I figure what’s it matter? I fill three pages then stop. I have everything to tell her, but there’s only so much time. I tear out my notes and stuff them into my jacket pocket. I stick the pad in too—it’s almost empty. In college, when I studied abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, I carried a notebook like this everywhere. I wrote down the funny advertisements I saw on the train, or the strange things I heard people say. And in my letters to Kira, I translated them. I told her: This is my life. This is what’s happening. It’s amazing—I hope you think so too. As soon as my first letter arrived, she called me. “You’re so weird,” she said. “These things you do for me. Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real.” I sent her I don’t know how many letters that year, and I filled six notebooks. Kira kept all of the letters, and she even framed three of them.

After the subway shudders and slows, the man carries the little girl in his arms out onto the platform. Through the window, I can see her lips move as she continues to sing. As the doors close, an older couple steps into the car, and I stand so they can sit together. Then I hold the bar by the door and sway with the car’s every movement.

*

It’s cool in the hospital’s shadow, and everything seems to lean with the breeze. I look up at Kira’s window. It’s open but the curtains are closed. There’s a plant on the windowsill of the neighboring room, and behind it, a man in a green paper gown stands alone.

Inside, the air conditioner hums and I cross my arms. At the gift shop, I buy Kira an overstuffed bear that’s holding an umbrella over its right shoulder. I smile at the old woman who takes my credit card, and she nods and tells me to wish my loved one the best. Outside the elevator, there’s a crowd of children with volunteer badges, so I take the stairs. My undershirt begins to stick to my back between the fifth and sixth floors, and I wipe my forehead with the bear. The door to the sixth floor is yellow. Everything on the sixth floor is yellow. They use yellow because white isn’t a happy color. This is according to Sarah. She works the desk, and every week, she asks that I sign and date my visiting records. Today, she hands me the clipboard and says: Cute bear. When I slide the clipboard back across the desk, I toss her the bear. She turns it round in her hands then flips it back to me. “Why does a bear need an umbrella?”

I try to smile. “Because it rains,” I say.

“It rained yesterday,” she says. “I forgot my umbrella.”

“They sell umbrellas in the gift shop.” I stick the bear in the crook of my right arm. “They have bins full of them.”

She shakes her head. “But they have hearts on them.”

I tell her that’s true. But I don’t understand. She pulls a set of keys from a cupboard behind the desk, and walks down the hallway to Kira’s room. She wears yellow slips over her shoes, so as she walks, she doesn’t make a sound.

Kira is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and for a moment, I forget that her tennis shoes have no laces. We stand by the desk and look at one another. I finger the notes in the left pocket of my jacket. This week, I made several lists. They’re things for Kira to remember, because I feel like she’s starting to forget.

I pull my hand from my pocket and hold the bear with both hands. I grip a paw in each and rock it side to side, making it dance. Kira reaches out and touches one of its marble eyes.

“I bought it for you,” I say. “It even has an umbrella for when it rains.”

When I set it on the desk, she slides it into her arms. She tugs at the umbrella, but it’s sewn onto the bear’s paw. “Funny,” she says.

“I just thought it was neat,” I say.

She returns the bear to the desk and leans against the wall. She eases herself to the floor and crosses her legs. “I didn’t sleep last night,” she says. “I dragged my bed to the window and watched the rain.”

I turn and look at her face. There are purple creases beneath her eyes. I lift my hand to touch her, but then drop it back to my side. “There was lightning,” I say.

She shrugs. She’s not looking at me, but at something far off on the other side of the room. Or nothing at all. I’m not sure. I pull my feet beneath my body and look at the tiled floor in front of me. I pick at the dirt in the crevices that separate the tiles. I loosen it, building a pile. It looks something like an ant hill. I brush the dirt into my left hand and dump it to the side. “I guess you didn’t see the lightning,” I say. “Maybe you should sleep.”

“I think that’s why my eyes feel heavy,” Kira says. “Because I didn’t sleep.” She lifts a hand and touches her face. She feels her eyes, her nose, and mouth, and then lowers her hand back to her lap. “It’s a strange feeling. The heaviness.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She grabs the desk and pulls herself to her feet. “It’s like weights,” she says. “Like gravity.”

“I bet if you sleep.”

“I’m going to sleep. I’ll go put my gown back on. Then I’ll sleep.”

“First we’ll walk.”

“Right,” she says, stepping past me and into the hallway. She stands and crosses her arms, waiting for Sarah. When Sarah notices, she circles round the desk and flashes the keys at Kira.

Sarah smiles at me and taps Kira on the shoulder. “Kira,” she says. “Kira. You could at least take the bear.”

“They won’t let me keep it,” she says. She looks back at me then begins to walk down the hallway.

Sarah turns and points at the bear. “It was a nice gesture,” she says. Then she jogs to catch up with Kira.

Kira sticks her hands in her pockets. “I can’t believe they call it a gown,” she says.

I slip back down the wall and onto the floor as the squeak of Kira’s tennis shoes fades through the corridor. I feel for the notes in my pocket and clutch them in my left hand. I sit for an hour, maybe an hour, and then the doctor reaches down and touches my forearm. He says why don’t you go on down and talk with Harold? Harold’s the hospital’s money man. The doctor says there are some things that need clarification. So I nod my head and go to Harold’s office. Harold pours me a cup of coffee, and then one for himself. He tells me that we really should talk about the money, because it’s about to become a problem. He says he’s sorry, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Well,” I say. “You’re trying to tell me something.”

“We’ll have to discharge her,” he says. “I don’t know what else to say.”

He says they’ll give it a week. When he speaks, he looks into his mug.

*

There’s a video store a block from our apartment, and every Sunday night after I visit Kira, I rent a movie. I rent samurai movies, because we always rented samurai movies. I never enjoyed any of the films themselves, and neither did Kira, but even so, we watched them all the time. Kira would tape construction paper to the bottom of the screen to hide the subtitles, and then I would translate for her. Sometimes I didn’t understand the archaic Japanese, but I never paused in my translation. I just said whatever came to mind. I don’t think she ever noticed. Usually, she watched me, not the screen. She liked it when I did the voices. I can’t really do voices, but I tried; like, whenever a woman spoke, I pinched my nose closed and spoke as fast as possible. It didn’t make sense, and there was nothing feminine about it, but we both laughed. So I did it every time.

Today, I rented Seven Samurai. It’s a classic, but somehow I’ve never seen it. I have no construction paper and no tape, so I lean an empty pizza box against the bottom of the screen. I lie on the couch and get ready to translate, but I fall asleep during the opening credits. I dream about the rain. When it rains hard enough, it sounds like a steam locomotive. And in my dream, it’s like one’s circling round me. But nothing happens. It’s just the rain.

The TV screen is black when I wake up. Every few seconds, it flickers green. I hit rewind then go to our bedroom. There’s a shoebox under our bed where I keep the notes that I write for Kira. I used to write them on whatever was around, so there’s a cardboard Budweiser coaster and a couple of napkins beneath all the shredded notebook paper. I take today’s notes from my jacket and add them to the pile. I slide the shoebox back beneath the bed and pull the comforter to the floor. I sit in front of the computer and e-mail Yuka. Every hour, I check the time in Tokyo so I’m sure she’s at work. I told her please respond. Say anything. I just need to know. It’s past four in the morning when I finally hear from her. I had fallen asleep at my desk. I think my head was on the keyboard. In her e-mail, Yuka says very little, but I understand: Sorry for the so long delay! Soon. I will tell you soon! I turn off the computer and toss the keyboard to the side. Then I put my head in my arms and try not to dream.

In the morning, I go to the library and sit at my table. The girl is there, but she’s not even reading. When she looks up and catches me staring, I flip open my newspaper and scan the headlines. There’s a character I’ve forgotten in the first article I read. I close the paper and try to remember, and I remember the hundreds of times I copied it, and how the rote memorization blistered my fingers, but its meaning still escapes me. When the girl leans across the table and waves her hand in front of my face, I realize that, once again, my eyes had been on her. She sits back in her chair, and we look at one another. She laughs and shakes her head. She says how is it possible that we’ve never said a single word to each other?

I shrug and tap the table. “It’s possible,” I say.

“But we’re talking now.”

“Also possible.”

She shakes her head again, and then turns and points at the far windows. “I was going for coffee across the street. So if you want to go for coffee.”

“I was just going to read. I thought you’d be reading too.”

“I was just curious,” she says. “You always sit here, so I thought maybe we could talk. I was just thinking. I mean, because I was going to get some coffee.”

I fold my newspaper twice over and set it on the chair to my left. I jam my hands into the pockets of my jacket. I have to struggle to find room for them. A Budweiser coaster drops to the floor. She squints at me as I pick it up. “It’s nothing,” I say. I lean back in my chair. “Anyway, I have a question. I wanted to ask you something. If that’s all right with you.”

She doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “The other day you were reading Paradise Lost. You were whispering.”

She laughs then reaches for her bag. “That’s not really a question,” she says. “But I hope it doesn’t bother you. That I read out loud.” She sets the bag on the table and pulls out a thick blue-backed book. “My mom tells me it’s a mark of unintelligence.”

“It’s nice,” I say. “I like to listen.”

“Then I could read something for you. Now. If you want.”

“I think that would work,” I say, tipping my hand toward her.

She smiles and centers the book on the table. She opens it, and sitting forward in her chair, closes her eyes and flips to a random page. Then she circles her finger above the table and drops it onto a passage. “It’s funny,” she says. “I don’t even know why I do it. Maybe I just like to listen.”

She shrugs, and then lifts the book from the table and starts to read. I don’t recognize the passage. It could be anything. But it rhymes, so I guess it’s poetry. She reads for less than a minute. When she finishes, she closes the book and stuffs it back in her bag. Then, again, she sits up straight in her chair and we look at one another from across the table. I’m gripping the papers—everything—in my pockets. We look at each other for I don’t know how long. And at some point, she stands. “My name’s Laurie,” she says. I tell her my name’s John, and that’s all there is to it. She walks out of the library.

*

The hospital isn’t far from NYU, so I decide to walk. There’s a man on the street playing the saw, and I stop and listen. As everyone else passes by, they look back over their shoulders. He’s playing it like a cello, with a kind of bow and everything, and as the saw wobbles and flexes, it makes this eerie sound, like in horror films, like when someone’s about to die. I think the girl reads to me because I look alone. But tomorrow, if I go back to the library, I don’t think she’ll be at our table. I don’t think she’ll ever be there again. I give the saw-man a dollar, because he has a sign, and he says his name’s Ed, and he says that even spare change is helpful, because he can go to the bank and get it exchanged, so it really doesn’t matter.

At the hospital, I climb the stairs to the sixth floor, and then everything is yellow. Sarah isn’t at the desk, so I just walk around and take the keys from the cupboard. I’ve never seen Kira’s room and I wonder if it’s yellow too. All of the doors on the sixth floor have little windows, like giant peepholes, and I try to get a look inside each room as I pass, but I see nothing more than beds, and maybe windows on the other side, and for the most part the curtains are closed. Kira’s room is the last door on the right. I look through the window, and she’s sitting on her bed, maybe staring at the floor. I stand there and I watch her. And that’s all I do.

She used to tell me that translating was for writers who have nothing to write. She said it’s like you have nothing to say. It just seems that way. That’s what she said. Even then, she didn’t understand. But I don’t even know what I want her to understand. I just hope she’ll understand.

So I did what I could. I brought her my notes. I kneel down and spread them across the floor. There’s the Budweiser coaster, a couple of napkins, a business card, several receipts, and a pile of notebook paper.

I start to read from them. I think she can hear me. I lie on the floor and try to look inside the room. It may be yellow. I can only see her feet, but I think she’s walking toward the door.

So I start again. From the beginning.

The Japanese people are forgetting their own language. Or so the newspapers say.

These are my words. This is what I tell her.

I hope she understands.