Hikikomori and the Rental Sister Read online

  Three

  At 9:55 a.m., Megumi steps onto the floor of the Hamamoto Wagashi Boutique. She leans over to Naoko. “You feel as shitty as I do?”

  “Worse,” Naoko says.

  “My throat still tastes like beer and squid.”

  “Mine still tastes like that white guy.”

  “You went home with him?”

  Hamamoto appears from the back room. “Good morning, girls,” she says. She is taller than Megumi and wears a tight cerulean dress with her hair pulled back, smoky makeup shading her sharp eyes. She looks young, unless you look really close, and every day Megumi wishes a little wish that she, too, will look as beautiful as Hamamoto when she’s that old.

  “Megumi, I want you to make room in the case on the middle shelf for the new tsuyaguri we’re getting in today.”

  “Better than last time, I hope.”

  “Let’s try it together when it comes in and if it’s good enough you can make a nice countertop display.”

  Hamamoto examines the display cases to make sure the delicate wagashi are perfectly arranged. Cakes, cookies, jellies, everything is in order. She pulls up the blinds, flips the sign, and unlocks the door. Ten a.m. exactly. Midnight back home.

  After a time, while Megumi is squatting behind the display case polishing a spot for the new shipment of tsuyaguri, the first customer of the morning walks in from the cold, a blond woman, seemingly tall, but from Megumi’s low angle down by the floor it’s hard to tell. Hamamoto comes out to greet the woman. Megumi watches through the display case glass. It looks like the woman has stumbled into the wrong place. She doesn’t have the typical wide-eyed giddiness at being suddenly surrounded by all things delicious, and in fact she doesn’t look at the colorful wagashi at all. Her smile is forced and there is shame in her eyes.

  Megumi shifts her squat to get a better angle through the glass. Hamamoto gives the blond customer a slight bow, basically just a polite nod of the head, since foreigners never know what to do with a real bow. Megumi can’t make out what they’re saying, but just from the tone she knows this must be the one they’ve been waiting for. The one she never thought would actually come. The woman’s hands are for a few moments clasped between Hamamoto’s. She’s younger than Megumi expected. The woman follows Hamamoto behind the counter, where they disappear into the back room.

  Megumi stands up. Her head pounds from last night’s beer and sake. Naoko gives her a confused look, but Megumi just shrugs. She steps outside for some fresh air.

  The winter morning tightens the skin on her face. The sun peeks through holes in the passing clouds, thick and heavy as though they are about to burst with snow. A cold breeze lifts and twists her hair, sending strands into her face, but she doesn’t brush them away.

  Across Minetta Street is a small wedge of park, just enough space for a narrow path, a couple of frozen benches, some overgrown bushes and trees, among them a single cherry. She wonders if Hamamoto chose this location for her shop because of the cherry tree or if she even sneaked in long ago and planted it herself. Now the tree is just a frozen black skeleton, but in springtime it blooms like a proud pink beacon. How sad, she thinks, this beautiful tree in such a small space next to trees that do not bloom, trapped by streets and traffic, breathing fumes, choking. Just then the breeze blows chilly air onto her scalp.

  The door opens. “It’s time,” Hamamoto says. “Let’s go.”

  But Megumi doesn’t move. “I listened,” she says, “but I never agreed.” She can get away with talking like that only because she is in New York, and not Japan. She didn’t come all the way here to act like she’s still at home.

  “Let’s sit,” Hamamoto says, grabbing Megumi’s arm. She pulls her across the street. They sit next to each other in the park, on one of the wooden benches. They are alone. A patch of sky opens up and sunlight strikes the concrete, but then it is gone and the park goes gray. “If you were having second thoughts, you should have told me sooner.”

  “Why does it have to be me? Naoko could—”

  “Naoko wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Megumi blows on her hands. The cherry tree slices the breeze. It whistles.

  “You’re the only one who knows what it’s like,” Hamamoto says.

  “I’m trying to forget.”

  “It’s a chance to put to use everything you learned from your brother.”

  “I learned that if I set birthday presents outside his door, they will sit there for days and days and never get opened. How should I put that to use?” Those presents are probably still sitting on the shelf in her old bedroom in Tokyo, behind the vase, wrapped, waiting, collecting dust.

  “Her husband needs our help.”

  “I never heard of an American hikikomori. Americans don’t get quieter, they get louder. They go crazy and start shooting everyone.”

  “That’s exactly why he needs us. This country doesn’t know what to do with him.”

  “But I’m not a rental sister.”

  “There’s nobody else. He’s not back home, he’s here. It doesn’t matter if you’re not perfect—you’re all there is, all he has. All she has.”

  An old man enters the park, pulling a small, wheeled suitcase. The suitcase is dented and stained. The straps are frayed. One of the wheels is locked. It scrapes against the concrete. His face has a large scab. The crust is yellow. His mittens are brand new. He lies on a bench. His sneakers have no laces.

  “When I heard about them, I could’ve kept quiet. I could have kept eating my arugula salad, but I stuck my neck out and said we could help. I gave my word.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me first?”

  “Because time is always running out. And because I knew you would do the right thing.”

  With cold fingertips Megumi presses her temples. She sucks in the wintry air. Maybe her vocal cords will go brittle and crack.

  “Megumi, I need an answer.”

  “It was different with my brother. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “She’s up in my office right now, waiting.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “What should I tell her?”

  “Tell her I can’t do it.” The empty park swallows her refusal. There are no lingering echoes. The old man does not stir.

  “If that’s your decision, you’re going to have to tell her yourself. You’ll have to look her in the eye and tell her you won’t help.”

  She could quit. She could walk out of the park and down the cold street and never come back, she could just walk and walk, away, alone.

  “Don’t you wish someone would’ve been there to help your brother?” Megumi’s arm twitches, her hand flies open, she nearly slaps Hamamoto across the face. Not because she’s wrong, but because she is exploiting the fact that the heart’s sorest spot is also its softest. “By the way, about it being different from your brother, you’re right. It’s worse.”

  “I’m supposed to ask how it’s worse.”

  “Imagine it wasn’t your brother. Imagine it was your husband.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “She’s putting up a brave front in there. But time is always running out.”

  The old man on the bench coughs. He doesn’t put his hand to his mouth or press his chest. He just coughs into the winter morning, as though coughing is breathing.

  “Hama-neesan, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s just talking. All you’d have to do is go to his door and talk. If it doesn’t work out—if there’s something bad about him—you can stop. But first you have to try. Please.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Hamamoto doesn’t go with her; she stays on the bench. As Megumi is about to cross the street, Hamamoto calls her over to the fence. “Tell Silke I apologize. Tell her good luck.”

  Megumi climbs the narrow staircase to the loft office. She steps lightly, but the stairs still creak. Silke’s pretty green eyes are bloodshot.

  At the side table she prepares two cups of tea, pouring hot water
from an electric kettle. The water steams. Her movements are not steady. She holds the tray with both hands and sets it between them on Hamamoto’s desk. The room is sparsely furnished, windowless, a soft yellow glow from two floor lamps in opposite corners. In the heavy, undisturbed silence, the outside world seems far away. Silke presses her mouth into a tight smile. But then it’s gone.

  “These cups are over one hundred years old,” Megumi says. Foreigners never understand the significance, but she says it anyway. It’s not that the age itself is important or that one hundred years is particularly old, but that for one hundred years people have been sitting across from each other drinking tea out of these same cups, a long string of moments that have come and gone never to return, and in that whole time the only thing that hasn’t changed is the cups.

  “What kind of tea is it?”

  “Hojicha. Gently roasted green tea from a special shop in Kyoto.”

  “I’ve never been to Japan.” She takes a sip. Americans have such large mouths.

  “It’s a beautiful country. But, Mrs. Tessler, I’m afraid that Hamamoto was a little pre . . . prema—”

  “Premature?”

  “I’m sorry. My boss was a little premature with you.” Silke’s bloodshot eyes burrow into hers, into her head, downward, through the knot in her throat, all the way to her stomach. She sickens. She knows Silke’s expression. She, too, wore it, when her brother was a hikikomori. Her mother wore it. Her father wore it worst of all. Fear. Shame. Hopelessness. And something else, too: exhaustion. No matter when, no matter where, that person alone in his room never left their minds. In a way, he wasn’t missing at all, he wasn’t withdrawn. He was stuck in their brains, pounding their skulls with his fist. Every dream fell into a nightmare.

  “Your English is very good. How long have you been here?”

  “I thank my father for my English. He spoke English at his job, and he thought foreign language was so important. Every day when he came home from work—even if it was late—he made me tell him about my day, using English only. Fifteen minutes, every day. I hated it at first, but now . . .”

  “All I have is a couple years of high school French.”

  “Je m’appelle Megumi,” she says with an exaggerated accent, arching her eyebrow, trying to coax a smile.

  “You speak French, too?” There is no smile.

  “A little. And Korean. But I’ve never been to France, so I’m not a good speaker.”

  Silke doesn’t savor her tea. She sips like she’s smoking a cigarette at an interrogation, and she can’t sit quite still, little shifts back and forth, side to side, like she’s in the midst of swirling winds.

  Her father’s expression seemed normal outside, but at home, as he chewed his rice, as he thumbed through the newspaper, his eyes would not focus. And if a stray sound leaked from her brother’s room, they’d all turn their heads and freeze, like a family of deer in the meadow, alert for what comes next. But nothing came next. Only silence. They went back to their newspaper or television or homework.

  What does Silke do when she hears a stray sound from her husband’s room? Does she tilt her head, perk up her ears, cry? And when no more sound slips out, what activity does she return to, what fills her empty hours?

  “Premature?” Silke asks.

  The day is too cold, the air too bitter and merciless to send this woman outside with no hope, with only fear and exhaustion. “I just meant that I’m afraid I can’t help you unless I know a little more about you and your husband.” Just a few questions, Megumi thinks, a few questions before she decides.

  Silke looks around the room. She squeezes her own shoulder. The air is perfectly still. The tea no longer steams.

  “How long has he been withdrawn?”

  Now Silke’s body goes quiet. She sits still and takes a slow sip of tea. “It’s been three years.”

  “And does he ever come out to see you?”

  “Never.”

  “And do you ever go into his room?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Why are you afraid?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  When they were growing up, she and her brother slept together on the floor, on the same futon, next to their parents on their big futon. Their apartment had only one room. Sometimes, in the dark, when they thought she and her brother were asleep, her mom and dad’s futon would rustle. They were all so close then. When years later their apartment had six rooms, though, she became afraid to enter or even look into her brother’s room. Afraid of what she might find. Afraid to upset the balance.

  “Do you have an idea about why he’s in his room?”

  “It’s because—”

  “No no no, not the actual reason, just if you think you know what the reason is.”

  “I am his wife.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “But why don’t you want to know?”

  “Sometimes the reasons aren’t what we think they are. So I’ll make like he’s a friend I’m getting to know. A blank slate. Better chance of getting him out.”

  “A friend . . . not . . . a brother?”

  Megumi understands Silke’s meaning. “Yes,” she says, “brother. Brother and friend.”

  “Maybe this is a bad idea.” Silke’s eyes dart toward the door.

  “But don’t you want him out?” Her tide is turning. These green eyes are pulling her out to sea.

  Silke sets down her cup and kneads her hands together as though numb. “It’s been so long. . . . I don’t know how it got this way. It’s embarrassing.”

  “You aren’t alone, Mrs. Tessler.”

  Silke stares into her teacup. “Are you sure about that?” she says.

  She is so young, barely thirty, Megumi guesses, thirty to her own twenty-two. They are silent for a time. Silke reaches for her teacup but then puts her hands on her lap. “He was such a nice guy. An amazing guy. If he wasn’t, I’d have never . . . everything was fine, really, we were happy . . . I just don’t want you to think he’s a bad guy. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “I’m sure he’s wonderful,” Megumi says. Silke gives her an odd look. Megumi knows her words don’t always come out right. She considers them for a moment before trying again. “The fact that you’re here right now proves he’s a good guy,” she says, and the odd look disappears.

  “But to be honest, Me-g—”

  “Megumi.”

  “Megumi. To be honest, I don’t know who’s behind that door. Is he still . . . see, that’s the thing: I need to know who’s in there. At this point I can’t just stay living like this, but—maybe this sounds crazy—but I can’t just leave yet, either.”

  “It’s not crazy.”

  “Not that I’m blameless, I’m not saying that, but . . . do you understand? And not that he’s perfect, but I can’t just abandon him, not until I know who’s in there. And even then, I don’t know, because . . . how did I let things go so far? It’s scary how good you get at covering it up. Lies, excuses . . . until it’s completely natural and you don’t even think you’re lying anymore.”

  “I understand, trust me I do. I’ve been there. But you’re doing the right thing.”

  Again Silke presses her mouth into a smile. Megumi notices that for the first time Silke is looking at her in the comparative way women look at other women. There is silence for a time, and they both take long drinks of tea.

  “What is it, exactly, that you would do?” Silke asks.

  “Very simple. You give me a key, I go to your home, I go to his room, I spend time with him.” On such a biting day, nobody deserves to be sent away without hope. One visit, that’s all. She’ll go to him once, and if anything isn’t right, she’ll never go back. It’s too cold to promise anything less.

  “Spend time?” She shifts in her seat.

  “Talk. I talk to him. And listen.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to talk to you? He hardly ever talks.”

  “They want to live in t
heir room forever and be left alone. They don’t want me coming around, but that doesn’t matter, because I won’t stop coming.” It could be a lie, but it’s a lie she needs to hear.

  “How often?”

  “Maybe once or twice a week at first. All depends on how he responds.”

  “Does it work?”

  Before the teacup reaches her lips she sets it down. “All I can say is that after three years in his room, not much else is going to work. Not if you want things back to normal. The way they were.” Silke’s eyes are big and round and sad, like two spent stars, their final flicker before going dark and inert forever. Those two spent stars start crying. She expects Silke’s crying to grow into sobbing, bawling even, but quiet tears are all she has left, no energy for anything more. “You want him back,” she says, wearing a gentle expression. “You want to see him and you want your life back, it’s natural. But he’s been in there for so long, your husband probably doesn’t know how to come out of his room. So long that he’s not sure if he knows how to live out here anymore.”

  From the desk drawer she takes a stationery set. For a few minutes she writes, then folds the paper and seals it inside an envelope. “Give him this,” she says.

  That night she has a hard time falling asleep. She lies on the floor on her futon, searching through the darkness for the web of cracks in the plaster ceiling, all the time seeing the image of Silke Tessler’s green eyes glittering with tears. She thinks of Thomas Tessler, unseen Thomas, somewhere out there, all alone in his room, perhaps at this very moment reading her letter, thinking about her as she thinks about him.

  Four

  Entire afternoons go missing. I sit cross-legged on the bed or on the floor reading magazines, sometimes unfolding and melting into supine sleep, but sleep is not what steals the hours. They go missing while I am awake, wide awake, so wide that I am rendered unaware. The walls of my room, what tricks they play: boxing in my wilted soul, paralyzing the clock then suddenly lurching it forward hours, even days. Sometimes weeks. Months.

  My walls are not completely solid, not without two weaknesses, window and door. Through the window there are trees and buildings and cars and children playing and even the sun arcing through the sky, but I see none of those things, as I keep the shade pulled down to the sill, always. The door separates and connects. It is flimsy, but one day with drill and screwdriver I fortified it with a thick dead bolt, so strong that the door will rip off its hinges before the lock gives way.