Earthlings, page 10
“Really? You’ll be able to use smartphones in Akishina?”
Akishina had always been there in my thoughts, and now I walked unsteadily along the road by the river, feeling that the reality didn’t quite fit with the image in my mind, as if I’d suddenly experienced a twenty-three-year time slip. Some things were as I remembered, but other things were different. It felt strange, as though I’d entered a parallel world.
“Look over there. Do you remember that?”
Uncle was pointing at the dear old storehouse with its thick, white-painted mud walls and red roof. It was completely unchanged.
“Yes! It’s exactly as I remembered it!” I broke into a run.
“Is it? I suppose it was a popular hiding place for you kids when playing hide-and-seek, wasn’t it?” Uncle called after me with a smile.
“Wow, it’s amazing! Oh, wow!” my husband whooped as he caught up with us. He took out his cell phone and started taking pictures.
As we climbed the narrow path up to the storehouse, the garden and the main house came into view. The garden was much smaller than I remembered. The house beyond it looked big even now—with its familiar white plaster walls, dark wooden beams, and steep roof with deep eaves—but since it had lain empty for quite a long period the roof and pillars were a bit run-down.
Uncle knocked on the glass pane of the front door. Maybe there wasn’t a doorbell.
“Hello? Yuu, we’re here!”
No answer. The interior of the house was silent.
“That’s odd. I called him yesterday to let him know we’d be getting here around lunchtime.”
Uncle Teruyoshi said he’d go check the back door and climbed up the weed-covered slope next to the house.
My husband and I were left standing at the front. Maybe Yuu had run away, not wanting to meet me. I felt somehow betrayed.
“That bug . . .” my husband murmured.
Some sort of green insect I’d never seen before was about to squeeze through a slight gap in the door into the house. I went to brush it away with my hand when the door suddenly slid open. Disturbed by the sudden movement, the bug flew away.
“Hello? Is anyone home?” I called out nervously and went inside.
The dark, old-fashioned entrance hall was about the size of an entire studio apartment in Tokyo. Inside were some farming tools, a bamboo hat, a hosepipe, some plastic kerosene cans, and rubber boots. In among the dusty rubber boots was a pair of brand-new indigo-color sneakers. It had just occurred to me that these were probably Yuu’s, which meant that he must be inside, when the staircase creaked.
“Hello,” came a feeble voice, and Yuu appeared.
Twenty-three years had passed since I’d last met him, but he hadn’t changed at all. His arms and legs had grown, but his hairstyle was the same, and his facial features hadn’t altered much. Superimposing his appearance now onto the Yuu in my memory felt rather strange.
“I’m your cousin Natsuki Sasamoto,” I politely introduced myself, thinking that I had perhaps changed quite a lot.
Yuu gave a little smile and murmured quietly, “Natsuki, is it you?”
“And I’m her husband,” my husband said awkwardly, bowing his head.
“Uncle Teruyoshi just went around to the back door.”
“Oh, sorry! That door’s locked. I’ll go open it for him.”
“Uncle Teruyoshi said he’d phoned you yesterday.”
Yuu was wearing a neat white shirt, and I thought uneasily that he looked as though he was on his way out somewhere.
“Yes, I spoke with him. So, you two are going to be staying here for a while, right?”
“I hope we won’t be a bother to you.”
“Of course not! And anyway, this isn’t my house, so please make yourselves at home,” he said with a smile and slid open the door through to the living room where we’d often played as children. “Please do come in. I’ll just go check the back door. Come in and make yourselves comfortable. It’s a bit of a mess I’m afraid. And it is a bit weird for me to be welcoming you in when it’s not even my house!”
He put some slippers out for me and my husband, then went down the hall toward the bathroom. As a child, I hadn’t known that there’d been another entrance back there.
My husband and I nervously went into the house clutching our bags. I was relieved that Yuu was connecting to me naturally, as if that affair had never happened between the two of us.
“There’s a kind of animal smell in here,” my husband murmured. I didn’t know whether he meant that one had gotten into the house or that the house smelled of humans.
“Oh man, this is so amazing!”
In the living room was the kotatsu, some shelves with my grandmother’s stuff on them, and a TV. In my memory, the TV was an old-fashioned one with a dial, but the one there now was the latest flat-screen model.
“Wow, this room is just how I imagined it! Is the veranda over here?” my husband said excitedly as my uncle and Yuu came in.
“You must be tired after traveling for so long. Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I must get going now,” Uncle said. “My grandson is visiting. I promised I’d be back in time for dinner.”
My husband and I hastily bowed to him. “So sorry to bring you all the way out here when you’re so busy!”
“Oh, no problem! I’m happy to see a bit of life in this house!” My uncle’s wrinkled face broke into a smile as he put down his shoes in the entrance hall, hopped into them, and waved goodbye.
When the sound of his car had faded into the distance, the house suddenly felt unnaturally quiet. Feeling a little awkward, I said casually to Yuu, “I can’t believe how small this room is! I thought all us cousins used to gather in here at night and play cards!”
Yuu’s expression relaxed. “When I came back here, I also thought it was smaller than I remembered.”
The three of us sat down at the kotatsu and ate the sweet bean jelly that Yuu had put out, together with green tea. “Try this Nagano delicacy too,” Yuu said to Tomoya, fetching some seaweed jelly from the kitchen. He then went on to briefly explain the house setup.
“I’ll show you around later, but the bathroom and toilet are down that corridor. The kitchen is through there. We use well water here. It’s clean and tastes good, but if you’re worried about it I can buy you some mineral water when I go down the mountain. There’s only one bus a day, so I’ll do the shopping by car. Tell me whenever you need something, and I’ll go get it for you.”
“What about shopping online?” my husband asked.
“I don’t think any stores will deliver here. I don’t know if any of the houses up here are even connected to the internet. There isn’t a mobile grocery store either. Even most taxis will refuse to bring you out this far, unless the driver knows the road to Akishina. The number for the local taxi service is written down here, but if you ever want to go anywhere just tell me, and I’ll drive you,” Yuu said. “The house is out of range for cell phones, but there’s a spot just the other side of the red bridge where you can get reception, so if you want to send email or whatever, try walking down there. Otherwise, use the landline for calls. The number’s written down here.”
“Okay.”
“As I said, there aren’t any stores here in the village. Or even vending machines. Even the nearest convenience store is a good drive away. There’s a roadside station, which is good for buying vegetables, and I go to the local supermarket for other necessities. Uncle left us some vegetables and rice in the doma next to the kitchen, so help yourself to those. There are still quite a few pears left I think.”
“Sorry, but what’s a doma?” my husband ventured.
“It’s like a room with a bare earth floor. Go have a look at it, and you’ll see what I mean.”
“Can I see the attic too?” my husband asked, abruptly leaning forward.
“Sure. You’re really into these country houses, aren’t you?” Yuu said with a smile. “As for the toilet, you remember what it was like when we were kids, Natsuki? It’s what we call a drop toilet, which gives you the general idea. It hasn’t changed, so take care when you use it, okay? The old gas-heated bath is just the same too.”
“Where should we sleep?”
“Wherever you like.” Yuu began pointing at various sliding doors around the room. “The upper tatami room is there, the lower one there, the altar room there. Take a look around the house and decide which room you want to use. I’m currently in the room at the top of the stairs, so you can choose anywhere other than that.”
My husband started to get up. “Is that the silkworm room?!”
“No, what used to be the silkworm room is the one next to it at the far end, I think . . . You really do know a lot about this place, don’t you? Has Natsuki been telling you stories?”
Taken aback at being addressed, I nodded.
“I see. Funny that you remembered the silkworms. Anyway, you can use anywhere except the room right by the top of the stairs. Although since you are a couple, I would have thought one of the bigger rooms would be best.”
“Well, actually we’d like to sleep in separate rooms if you don’t mind,” my husband said apologetically. “We’re a bit different from your usual couple. We’re married, but we’re not so close that we actually sleep together.”
“Huh?” Yuu said, tilting his head questioningly.
“I don’t mind sleeping with other people in the same room, but Tomoya doesn’t like it. We always get single rooms when traveling together too. If you’re not using the room where Granny used to sleep, then I’d be grateful if he could sleep there. I don’t mind where I sleep. I can sleep in the silkworm room or the altar room, whichever.
“Um, well . . .”
Seeing Yuu look so disconcerted, my husband and I exchanged a glance.
“Seeing as we’re going to be staying here a while, maybe we should tell him the truth about us?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, nodding.
Yuu gaped at us, an uneasy look on his face.
I started telling Yuu the story. “Do you remember Planet Popinpobopia?”
As a child I’d disliked seaweed jelly, but now I was enjoying its refreshing texture. Next to me, my husband was eating it with relish.
“Er, yes, I remember,” Yuu nodded after a moment’s silence and glanced at my husband.
“Not long after that happened, I found out that actually I was from that planet too. Piyyut told me, and I told Tomoya about it. But now there’s no hope of a spaceship coming, right? So all I can do is keep my head down and pretend to live as an Earthling. I thought that when I grew up society would brainwash me, but it didn’t work. I’m tired, so I decided to come and rest here for a while. The stars are closer here too.”
Yuu glanced at my husband again. “I see. I had no idea.”
“I don’t particularly love my wife, but I married her in order to divert the attention of the Factory. Unlike her, I’m terrified of being brainwashed. The Factory really is frightening, you know. It makes us into slaves.”
“Sorry, but what is this Factory you’re talking about?” Yuu asked him, choosing his words carefully.
“Oh, that’s what we call the society we live in. After all, that’s what it is, right? We are physically connected components. Parts that just keep on manufacturing children, carrying our genes forward into the future. I’d always been kind of creeped out by it ever since I was a kid, but when I met Natsuki I was finally able to see it for what it was,” my husband said. “You see, that’s when the alien eye was downloaded into me too,” he added, touching his eyelid.
“The alien eye?”
Yuu looked puzzled, so I explained it to him as clearly as I could. “He means the way aliens see human society. Probably everyone has it. They just don’t normally realize.”
“That’s right. It was always inside me too,” my husband said. “Now it seems the alien eye is stronger in me than in Natsuki.”
Yuu seemed somewhat bemused at our vigorous assertions. “I, er . . . I see. You two do seem to have well-matched values, don’t you?”
“No, what we call values are also part of the Factory’s brainwashing! Natsuki wants to be brainwashed by the Factory, so that someday she’ll be able to live as an Earthling rather than a Popinpobopian, but not me. I personally think the alien eye is important.”
My husband was leaning forward as he talked, and Yuu glanced at me as if asking for help.
“Tomoya, calm down. You’re scaring him!”
My husband snapped back into himself and sat back in his seat apologetically. “I’m sorry, I try to stop myself from talking about this. I am always keeping my head down so as not to be exposed by the Factory.”
Unlike me, my husband really hated the Factory. As far as I was concerned, though, I would never be able to return to my home planet without a spaceship, so the sooner I was brainwashed the better.
“Have you never thought like that yourself, Yuu? Society is a factory, and you’re an alien, that sort of thing?” my husband asked.
Yuu smiled. “No, never. I might have had that kind of fantasy when I was little, but I’m an adult now. I’m a fully fledged Earthling, and I’ll live out my life on this planet.”
Night fell, and Yuu wanted to go down the mountain to get some more local Nagano delicacies for us, but we didn’t want to put him to that sort of trouble. In the end, we decided to make a simple hotpot from whatever we could find in the fridge and doma.
My husband chopped up vegetables, and Yuu served up rice from the rice cooker. I found and washed some tableware for us to use.
“This really takes me back,” I said when I saw the glasses with blue and red flowers on them.
When we were little, we cousins would always fight over who got to use them. I liked the glass with the blue flower best, because it struck me as more grown-up, but Yota also thought it was cool and would refuse point-blank to give it up.
“Really? You mean we used to use these glasses when we were little too?”
“Yes! Yota and I would always fight over this one, and I sometimes even made him cry! Don’t you remember?”
“No, I don’t remember that. Yota lives in Ueda now, and he sometimes comes to see me here, you know. He had a little girl recently, so he’ll probably bring her, too, when she’s a little bigger.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if all the cousins’ kids could gather here and play together, just like we used to back then?”
“Yes, wouldn’t it! Maybe someday.”
My husband didn’t join our conversation as he carried the chopped vegetables through to the living room to cook on the tabletop gas burner. He didn’t much like talk about children and relatives. He was instinctively averse to the suggestion that blood connections and family gatherings were enjoyable. For him they were all part of the brainwashing by the Factory. He was probably right to some extent, but I was also curious to see what the children who had inherited my grandfather’s genes looked like. I was probably more brainwashed than my husband and a bit closer to being an Earthling.
“Natsuki, it’s really like you’ve been frozen in time, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“You remember all of it, every detail about this place.”
“I guess so.”
There were things that didn’t match my memory, and I found that disorientating, but it probably didn’t seem that way to Yuu. He put the bowls of rice on a tray and went through to the living room. Left alone in the kitchen, I turned on the faucet to wash the glasses, and the cold water from the mountain spring splashed off the back of my hand and spattered my blouse.
Once we’d finished our simple meal, we each went to our separate rooms to sleep.
After some discussion, it was decided that Yuu would continue to use the room at the top of the stairs, while my husband would sleep in the silkworm room. My husband was super excited by this, saying it was like a dream come true.
I decided to sleep in the altar room. I liked the aroma of incense, and I wouldn’t be able to relax in the other bigger rooms farther in.
I brought down some bedding from upstairs and laid it out on the tatami floor. The feel of my head lying on the pillow filled with buckwheat chaff took me back.
Come to think of it, it had been a long time since I had last slept in a wooden house. The ceiling creaked faintly, and the sliding doors rattled, communicating the presence of two other animals other than myself in the house.
As I closed my eyes, the chirring of insects outside pressed against the windows. Not the summer insects, this was the sound of autumn. Before I knew it, I’d fallen asleep to the noise of the creaking floorboards upstairs.
CHAPTER 4
Being back in Akishina, all kinds of childhood memories began resurfacing. Like, for example, how I killed the Wicked Witch at Mr. Igasaki’s place.
I don’t really remember much about what happened after that incident with Yuu; it all seems like a dream now. As soon as we arrived back home from Nagano, I was shut up in my bedroom. A large padlock was placed on the outside of the door, and when nobody else was home it was locked. If I wanted to go to the toilet, I had to wait until my sister or Mom came home.
Whenever I phoned my friends, either my sister or Mom would keep watch over me to make sure I wasn’t talking to Yuu. For the rest of the summer holiday, I spent pretty much all my time locked up in my room.
I passed the days in the gloom staring at our marriage pledge and my ring. Gradually something strange happened. I began to see my transformation mirror and origami wand become filled with particles of light. I could hear Piyyut’s voice clearly talking to me. He would often talk to me now that he’d been freed from the spell cast by the evil forces.
