Lullaby

by Ryu Murakami

I was shocked when they announced his name on television, and when he suddenly started talking, beads of sweat oozed out on my temples. To keep Toru from noticing anything, I slipped into the bathroom. Toru was spreading marmalade on another piece of bread. Guys like this, I heard him say, just looking at 'em makes me want to puke. My face in the mirror over the toilet looked just like when I was a little girl and my parents discovered some lie I'd been trying really hard to cover up. Cold drops of sweat rolled down from my temples to my cheeks. They were like the last traces of a treasure I'd buried deep inside me, a treasure that had already melted away. On TV, the musician was talking about his family.

Well, the thing is, each of us is completely independent. It's weird, but most people don't believe me when I tell them I'm a married man. They assume I'm a bachelor. And my wife has the same sort of thing happen to her. She's taking some time off right now because of the kids, but she's always worked, and people have always taken her for a single career woman. She tells me she's had old friends come up to her at class reunions and say things like, "Isn't it about time you found a husband?" We put our first son in daycare almost as soon as he was born, and the result is that he's a hell of a lot stronger than his parents. He's in, what, second grade I guess, but ... Usually first sons have this image of being timid and namby-pamby, right? He's not like that at all. He's almost too much not like that. His grandparents say he's as self-reliant as an orphan . . .

I just wished the musician would hurry up and vanish from the TV. I'd been doing dishes in the kitchenette, and the faucet was still running, and since I didn't need to pee or poop and felt stupid just standing there, I came out and walked back to the kitchenette, not looking at Toru, who was saying, What a creep. Creeps like this, they go around seducing young chicks on the sly, then brag about how great their family life is. Toru's a year younger than I am, and he loves bread. He loved it even more when he was a little kid, but his family didn't even own a toaster, poor thing, so he developed this habit of eating marmalade on untoasted bread.

Personally, I don't see any need for a family to be always together, always on top of one another, but I do think it's important to stay close in a physical way. That's why I make sure we get to take vacations together. . .

On the TV screen now were photos of the musician and his family frolicking on some South Sea island, then playing in the snow at some foreign ski resort, and so on.

I was trying not to look at the TV and was shifting my gaze around, looking at things that didn't have anything to do with anything, and my head started spinning, so I turned off the water and sat down facing away from the television. The musician's voice behind me sent a chill up and down my spine, and I felt like I was going to scream. Not with my mouth, but with every pore on my body--a high-pitched scream like those Incan flutes I once heard. Why did things have to turn out this way? He's romping with his family on some beautiful beach or mountaintop, and I'm here on the carpet next to Toru, who's sitting there with his chin on one knee. Watching him coat that soft white piece of bread with marmalade, then roll it up like a jelly donut and cram it into his mouth, I started to hate him so much I wanted to kill him.

The next thing I knew I was crying. Toru just goggled at me for a minute, then slid over next to me--still hugging his knee--and said, What are you crying about? He touched my shoulder, with bread crumbs on his hand. What's wrong? Did I do something to hurt your feelings? How am I supposed to know why you're crying if you won't say anything? What I told you about last night was the truth, honest. Look, I'm going to quit the job in Kabukicho anyway. A friend of mine from high school--I told you, right? -he's got a little company, what do they call it, direct mail? Anyway, it's a desk job. I'll be sitting at a desk all day. It's gonna be way better. Toru was shaking my shoulder and practically shouting in my ear, which meant I couldn't hear the musician's voice, and when I thought about how I'd never see that man again, never in my life, I started to get frightened. I remembered how it felt when he stopped calling me, how my body started to feel like a disintegrating leftover cake, and how scary that was, and now I started to cry uncontrollably, the way a newborn baby cries. I turned to face Toru and held out my hands, and he thought I wanted a hug, so he smiled a little and moved his face closer to mine, but I dug my nails into the pale skin of his neck and tried to strangle him. Toru wasn't expecting that. He tried to say something but it came out all gargly, and his face turned bright red, and finally he shouted LET GO! and hit me on the side of the face, and I went down and scraped my forehead on the yucky-smelling tatami, by which time the musician was gone from the TV screen.



The full story can be found in our current issue, Fiction 56. Please follow the 'subscribe' link for information on ordering.