5



Views of Distant Towns
*
Eternal H a I f - M o o n
*
Ladder in Place



The telephone rang at almost the exact moment I was falling asleep. I tried to ignore it, but
as if it could read my mind, it kept up its stubborn ringing: ten times, twenty times-it was
never going to stop. Finally, I opened one eye and looked at the clock. Just after six in the
morning. Beyond the window shone the full light of day. The call might be from Kumiko. I
got out of bed, went to the living room, and picked up the receiver.
"Hello," I said, but the caller said nothing. Somebody was obviously there, but the person
did not try to speak. I, too, kept silent. Concentrating on the earpiece, I could just make out
the sound of breathing.
"Who is it?" I asked, but the silence continued at the other end.
"If this is the person who's always calling, do me a favor and make it a little later," I said.
"No sex talk before breakfast, please."
"The person who's always calling?" blurted out the voice of May Kasahara. "Who do you
talk about sex with?"
"Nobody," I said.
"The woman you were holding in your arms last night? Do you talk about sex with her on


the telephone?"
"No, she's not the one."
"Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, just how many women do you have hanging around you-
aside from your wife?"
"That would be a very long story," I said. "Anyhow, it's six in the morning and I haven't
had much sleep. So you came to my house last night, huh?"
"And I saw you with her-holding each other."
"That didn't mean a thing," I said. "How can I put it? It was a kind of little ceremony."
"You don't have to make excuses to me," said May Kasahara. "I'm not your wife. It's
none of my business, but let me just say this: You've got a problem."
"You may be right," I said.
"You're having a tough time now, I know that. But I can't help thinking it's something
you brought on yourself. You've got some really basic problem, and it attracts trouble like a
magnet. Any woman with any sense would get the hell away from you."
"You may be right," I said again.
May Kasahara maintained a brief silence on her end of the line. Then she cleared her
throat once and said, "You came to the alley last night, didn't you? Standing for a long time at
the back of my house, like some amateur burglar ... Don't worry, I saw you there."
"So why didn't you come out?"
"A girl doesn't always want to go out, you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Sometimes she feels
like being nasty-like, if the guy's gonna wait, let him really wait."
I grunted.
"But I still felt bad," she went on. "So I dragged myself all the way to your house later-
like an idiot."
"And I was holding the woman."
"Yeah, but isn't she kinda cuckoo? Nobody dresses like that anymore. And that makeup
of hers! She's, like, in a time warp or something. She should go get her head examined."
"Don't worry," I said, "she's not cuckoo. Different people have different tastes."
"Well, sure. People can have any taste they want. But ordinary people don't go that far
just for taste. She's like-what?-right out of an old magazine: everything about her, from head
to foot."
To that I did not reply.
"Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, did you sleep with her?"
I hesitated a moment and said, "No, I didn't."
"Really?"
"Really. I don't have that kind of physical relationship with her."
"So why were you holding her?"
"Women feel that way sometimes: they want to be held."
"Maybe so," said May Kasahara, "but an idea like that can be a little dangerous."
"It's true," I said.
"What's her name?"
"Creta Kano."
May Kasahara fell silent at her end. "You're kidding, right?" she said at last.
"Not at all. And her sister's name is Malta Kano."
"Malta?! That can't be her real name."
"No, it isn't. It's her professional name."
"What are they, a comedy team? Or do they have some connection with the Mediterranean
Sea?"
"Actually, there is some connection with the Mediterranean."
"Does the sister dress like a normal person?" "Pretty much," I said. "Her clothing is a lot
more normal than Creta's, at least. Except she always wears this red vinyl hat."


"Something tells me she's not exactly normal, either. Why do you always have to go out
of your way to hang around with such off-the-wall people?"
"Now, that really would be a long story. If everything settles down sometime, I may be
able to tell you. But not now. My head is too messed up. And things are even more messed
up."
"Yeah, sure," she said, with a note of suspicion in her voice. "Anyway, your wife hasn't
come back yet, has she?"
"No, not yet."
"You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, you're a grown man. Why don't you use your head a
little bit? If your wife had changed her mind and come home last night, she would have seen
you with your arms locked around this woman. Then what?"
"True, that was a possibility."
"And if she had been the one making this call, not me, and you started talking about
telephone sex, what would she have thought about that?"
"You're right," I said.
"I'm telling you, you've got a problem," she said, with a sigh.
"It's true, I do have a problem."
"Stop agreeing with everything I say! It's not as if you're going to solve everything by
admitting your mistakes. Whether you admit them or not, mistakes are mistakes."
"It's true," I said. It was true.
"I can't stand it anymore!" said May Kasahara. "Anyway, tell me, what did you want last
night? You came to my house looking for something, right?"
"Oh, that. Never mind."
"Never mind?"
"Yeah. Finally, it's ... never mind."
"In other words, she gave you a hug, so you don't need me anymore."
"No, that's not it. It just seemed to me-"
At which point May Kasahara hung up. Terrific. May Kasahara, Malta Kano, Creta Kano,
the telephone woman, and Kumiko. May Kasahara was right: I had just a few too many
women around me these days. And each one came packaged with her own special, inscrutable
problem.
But I was too tired to think. I had to get some sleep. And there was something I would
have to do when I woke up.
I went back to bed and fell asleep.



When I did wake up, I took a knapsack from the drawer. It was the one we kept for
earthquakes and other emergencies that might require evacuation. Inside was a water bottle,
crackers, a flashlight, and a lighter. The whole was a set that Kumiko had bought when we
moved into this house, just in case the Big One should hit. The water bottle was empty,
though, the crackers were soggy, and the flashlight's batteries were dead. I filled the bottle
with water, threw away the crackers, and put new batteries in the flashlight. Then I went to
the neighborhood hardware store and bought one of those rope ladders they sell as emergency
fire escapes. I thought about what else I might need, but nothing came to mind- besides lemon
drops. I went through the house, shutting windows and turning off lights. I made sure the
front door was locked, but then I reconsidered. Somebody might come looking for me while I
was gone. Kumiko might come back. And besides, there was nothing here worth stealing. I
left a note on the kitchen table: "Gone for a while. Will return. T."
I wondered what it would be like for Kumiko to find this note. How would she take it? I
crumpled it up and wrote a new one: "Have to go out for a while on important business. Back


soon. Please wait. T."
Wearing chinos, a short-sleeved polo shirt, and the knapsack, I stepped down into the yard
from the veranda. All around me were the unmistakable signs of summer-the genuine article,
without reservations or conditions. The glow of the sun, the smell of the breeze, the blue of
the sky, the shape of the clouds, the whirring of the cicadas: everything . announced the
authentic arrival of summer. And there I was, a pack on my back, scaling the garden wall and
dropping down into the alley.
Once, as a kid, I had run away from home on a beautiful summer morning just like this. I
couldn't recall what had led up to my decision to go. I was probably mad at my parents. I left
home with a knapsack on my back and, in my pocket, all the money I had saved. I told my
mother I would be hiking with some friends and got her to make a lunch for me. There were
good hills for hiking just above our house, and kids often went climbing in them without adult
supervision. Once I was out of the house, I got on the bus that I had chosen for myself and
rode it to the end of the line. To me, this was a strange and distant town. Here I transferred to
another bus and rode it to yet another strange and distant-still more distant-town. Without
even knowing the name of the place, I got off the bus and wandered through the streets. There
was nothing special about this particular town: it was a little more lively than the
neighborhood where I lived, and a little more run-down. It had a street lined with shops, and a
commuter train station, and a few small factories. A stream ran through the town, and facing
the stream stood a movie house. A signboard out front announced they were showing a
western. At noon I sat on a park bench and ate my lunch. I stayed in the town until early
evening, and when the sun began to sink, my heart did too. This is your last chance to go
back, I told myself. Once it gets completely dark, you might never be able to leave here. I
went home on the same buses that had brought me there. I arrived before seven, and no one
noticed that I had run away. My parents had thought I was out in the hills with the other kids.
I had forgotten all about that particular event. But the moment I found myself scaling the
wall wearing a knapsack, the feeling came back to me-the indescribable loneliness I had felt,
standing by myself amid unfamiliar streets and unfamiliar people and unfamiliar houses,
watching the afternoon sun lose its light bit by bit. And then I thought of Kumiko: Kumiko,
who had disappeared somewhere, taking with her only her shoulder bag and her blouse and
skirt from the cleaner's. She had passed her last chance to turn back. And now she was
probably standing by herself in some strange and distant town. I could hardly bear to think of
her that way.
But no, she couldn't be by herself. She had to be with a man. That was the only way this
made sense.
I stopped thinking about Kumiko.



I made my way down the alley.
The grass underfoot had lost the living, breathing greenness it had seemed to possess
during the spring rains, and now it wore the frankly dull look typical of summer grass. From
among these blades a green grasshopper would leap out now and then as I walked along.
Sometimes even frogs would jump away. The alley had become the world of these little
creatures, and I was simply an intruder come to upset the prevailing order.
When I reached the Miyawakis' vacant house, I opened the gate and walked in without
hesitation. I pressed on through the tall grass to the middle of the yard, passed the dingy bird
statue, which continued to stare at the sky, and walked around to the side of the house, hoping
that May Kasahara had not seen me come in.
The first thing I did when I got to the well was to remove the stones that held the cap on,
then take off one of the two wooden half-circles. To make sure there was still no water at the


bottom, I threw in a pebble, as I had done before. And as before, the pebble hit with a dry
thud. There was no water. I set down the knapsack, took the rope ladder out, and tied one end
of it to the trunk of the nearby tree. I pulled on it as hard as I could to be sure it would hold.
This was something on which it was impossible to lavish too much care. If, by some chance,
the ladder somehow got loose or came undone, I would probably never make it back to the
surface.
Holding the mass of rope in my arms, I began to lower the ladder into the well. The
whole, long thing went in, but I never felt it hit bottom. It couldn't possibly be too short: I had
bought the longest rope ladder they made. But the well was a deep one. I shone the flashlight
straight down inside, but I couldn't see whether or not the ladder had reached bottom. The
rays of light penetrated only so far, and then they were swallowed up by the darkness.
I sat on the edge of the well curb and listened. A few cicadas were screaming in the trees,
as if competing to see which had the loudest voice or the greatest lung capacity. I couldn't
hear any birds, though. I recalled the wind-up bird with some fondness. Maybe it didn't like
competing with the cicadas and had moved off somewhere to avoid them.
I turned my palms upward in the sunlight. In an instant, they felt warm, as though the light
were seeping into the skin, soaking into the very lines of my fingerprints. The light ruled over
everything out here. Bathed in light, each object glowed with the brilliant color of summer.
Even intangibles such as time and memory shared the goodness of the summer light. I popped
a lemon drop in my mouth and went on sitting there until the candy had melted away. Then I
pulled hard on the ladder one more time to be sure it was firmly anchored.
Making my way down the soft rope ladder into the well was much harder work than I had
imagined it would be. A blend of cotton and nylon, the ladder was unquestionably sturdy, but
my footing on the thing was unstable. The rubber bottoms of my tennis shoes would slip
whenever I tried to lower my weight onto either leg. My hands had to keep such a tight grip
on the rope that my palms started to hurt. I let myself down slowly and carefully, one rung at
a time. No matter how far I went, though, there was no bottom. My descent seemed to take
forever. I reminded myself of the sound of the pebble hitting bottom. The well did have a
bottom! Working my way down this damned ladder was what took so much time.
When I had counted twenty rungs, a wave of terror overtook me. It came suddenly, like an
electric shock, and froze me in place. My muscles turned to stone. Every pore of my body
gushed sweat, and my legs began to tremble. There was no way this well could be so deep.
This was the middle of Tokyo. It was right behind the house I lived in. I held my breath and
listened, but I couldn't hear a thing. The pounding of my own heart reverberated in my ears
with such force I couldn't even hear the cicadas screaming up above. I took a deep breath.
Here I was on the twentieth rung, unable either to proceed farther down or to climb back up.
The air in the well was chilling and smelled of the earth. It was a separate world down here,
one cut off from the surface, where the sun shone so un-stintingly. I looked up to the mouth of
the well above me, tiny now. The well's circular opening was cut exactly in half by the half of
the wooden cover I had left in place. From below, it looked like a half-moon floating in the
night sky. "A half-moon will last for several days," Malta Kano had said. She had predicted it
on the telephone.
Terrific. And when the thought crossed my mind, I felt some strength leave my body. My
muscles relaxed, and the solid block of breath inside me released and came out.
Squeezing out one last spurt of strength, I started down the ladder again. Just a little
farther down, I told myself. Just a little more. Don't worry, there is a bottom. And at the
twenty-third rung, I reached it. My foot came in contact with the earth in the bottom of the
well.





The first thing I did in the darkness was to feel around the surface of the well bottom with
the tip of my shoe, still holding on to the ladder in case there was something down there I had
to get away from. After making sure there was no water and nothing of a suspicious nature, I
stepped down to the ground. Setting my pack down, I felt for the zipper and took out my
flashlight. The glow of the light gave me my first clear view of the place. The surface of the
ground was neither very hard nor very soft. And fortunately, the earth was dry. A few rocks
lay scattered there, where people must have thrown them. The one other thing that had fallen
to the bottom was an old potato chip bag. Illuminated by the flashlight, the well bottom
reminded me of the surface of the moon as I had seen it on television so long before.
The well's cylindrical concrete wall was blank and smooth, with few irregularities other
than some clumps of mosslike stuff growing here and there. It shot straight upward like a
chimney, with the little half-moon of light at the opening far above. Looking directly up, I
now could grasp how very deep the well was. I gave the rope ladder another hard tug. In my
hands, it felt firm and reassuring. As long as it remained in place, I could go back to the
surface anytime I wanted. Next I took a deep breath. Aside from a slight smell of mold, there
was nothing wrong with the air. My greatest worry had been the air. The air at the bottom of a
well tends to stagnate, and dry wells can have poison gases that seep from the earth. Long
before, I had read in the paper about a well digger who lost his life from methane gas at the
bottom of a well.
Taking a breath, I sat on the floor of the well, with my back against the wall. I closed my
eyes and let my body become accustomed to the place. All right, then, I thought: here I am in
the bottom of a well.