9781529955613 by Smakprov Media AB

HITOMI KANEHARA AUTOFICTION

T RANSLATE d f ROM THE J A p ANESE BY

David James Karashima

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This edition published in Vintage Classics in 2025 First published in Great Britain by Vintage in 2007 First published in Japan by Shueisha Inc. in 2006

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22nd Winter

‘Look! Look! It’s amazing.’

‘You’re right. It really is.’

‘Come on, though. Take a good look for yourself! See how amazing it is.’

‘All right.’

‘Wow!’

I take my pale fiancé’s hand in mine and continue to stare out the window as our plane makes its steady ascent. I pray to the orange lights below me. Pray that next year he’ll take me on another trip to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.

I don’t want to go back to Japan. That’s how wonderful our honeymoon in Tahiti had been. Anything and everything is just so much fun when the two of us are together. I close my eyes and try to etch the images from our time on the beach deep in my mind and I feel my hand getting damp from sweat. But it’s not my hand that’s sweating. It’s his. He hates planes and he always turns pale during take-off and landing. Could he be any more adorable?

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Your face is pale.’

‘I know.’

As we speak, the plane shakes and he tightens his grip on my hand. So cute! My adorable husband! What a wonderful husband he is. His eyes are dead serious, trained on the altitude counter on the big screen. My eyes are dead serious, fixed only on him.

‘What?’ he turns to me and says.

‘I love you,’ I tell him, but his face turns slightly sour.

‘How can you say that?’ he says to me. ‘At a time like this, when we could fall from the sky at any moment and die.’

Then he turns back to the big screen. His hand is soaked in sweat.

The only time I ever see him get scared is in a plane, so I keep my eyes glued on his face, determined to engrave this image in my mind. He’s too preoccupied to stop me anyway.

‘Would you like some champagne or juice?’

‘Champagne,’ he tells the Japanese stewardess who’s suddenly appeared in front of us.

‘Champagne, right?’ He turns to me. I nod, then he asks for two. What a wonderful, dependable man. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have a man like this as a husband.

I try to take the champagne from the stewardess without taking my eyes off him, but as I reach over a tiny drop of champagne spills from my glass.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ the stewardess says, flustered, and she begins wiping his knee with a hand towel. 2

‘It’s OK.’

Though he was completely pale just a moment ago, he looks completely calm as he takes the towel and wipes my hand. Maybe it’s because he’d seen the stewardess walking around the cabin. Or maybe he just didn’t want anyone other than me to see him scared. What a kind person he is.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘No, no. I’m sorry,’ she replies. I freeze when she responds to my apology with a smile.

Right away, I know what she’s up to. You have your eyes on my husband, don’t you, you bitch? I bet she spilled that champagne on purpose. So she could wipe his knee with the towel. Bet she normally doesn’t make so much fuss over just a few drops. Glaring at her back as she walks away, I casually unfold the towel. Good! I thought maybe she might have written her mobile number on it. But I was still worried and it looked as if I wouldn’t be able to catch a wink during the twelve-hour flight. She might launch her plot to snare him the moment I let down my guard. You never know where evil lies in this world. There are traps laid everywhere, ready specifically to ruin my immense happiness and plunge me into despair. So I can’t relax, no matter where I am. Everybody hates me. And everybody wants him. Where can we go where I won’t have to worry? Where can we be safe, where can we think only about each other?

‘Promise me we’ll be together forever.’

‘What are you saying all of a sudden?’

‘Does that mean you won’t stay with me?’

‘Of course I will. I was just wondering why you suddenly said that.’

‘I began to feel worried, that’s all.’

‘You always are. You worry too much.’

‘That’s not true. It’s always justified.’

‘All right, all right.’ And he holds my hand tight. Not because he’s scared, I think. But because I’m so dear to him.

‘I’m going to play solitaire now,’ I say to him. ‘Let’s play together.’

‘Together? How?’

‘How about we team up? I’ll operate the control keys and you can be in charge of the select button.’

‘I think I’ll just watch a movie.’

That was cold of him. But when I pout and tell him so, he pulls the monitor out and uses the control pad to bring solitaire up on the screen.

‘I don’t know how to work this,’ I fuss. So he translates the English control instructions for me. What a wonderful husband. Solitaire and a movie. We’re doing different things, but we are affectionate with each other and really enjoying a wonderful flight.

About ten minutes later our meal is served. I was worried that the same Japanese stewardess might come over again, but this time it’s a foreign, middle-aged stewardess.

‘Meat? Fish?’ she asks in broken Japanese.

‘One meat, one fish,’ he replies, without even asking 4

me. He’s right, though. We always order different things, then share. He knows that whenever we go out to dinner, whatever he’s eating always starts to look really good to me, so I always ask for a bite. That’s why he always orders different things for us now. We’re on the same wavelength and I’m so happy I could die.

‘Don’t you wish the plane would crash?’ I say to him. ‘Then we could be together until the very end. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’

‘Hey, you! Don’t say that! If this plane goes down, it’ll be your fault for tempting fate.’

‘I hate it when you address me like that. I’ve told you over and over not to call me “you” like that. How could you even think of calling your wife “you”? I really wish this plane goes down right now. I’m going to pray that it happens. You wait and see! If you don’t take it back, I’m going to pray that the plane falls! I’ll pray to the gods –put a curse on it! Are you ready for that?’

‘All right, I’m sorry.’ He says and calls me by my name. What a horrible guy. Unbelievable. Calling his wife ‘you’. Then, as I sit there fuming, I notice that the middleaged stewardess is still standing there holding the tray with a troubled look on her face.

‘Come on, move over,’ he says. So I stop leaning on him and shift back properly into my seat. He pulls down my table for me and the woman puts the tray on it, then leaves – all the time wearing a smile on her face. He really is a wonderful husband.

‘I’m sorry about what I said. The plane won’t crash. 5

I’ve got the power to make sure it doesn’t. Have faith in me. I promise it won’t crash.’

Another foreign stewardess comes over and asks, ‘Something to drink?’ in bad Japanese. Again, without asking me, he orders red and white wine. I’m just wondering if he could be any more perfect, when suddenly my head starts to fill up with worries again. So when the stewardess takes his glass and pours white wine into it, I seize the opportunity to flip over his coaster. I thought maybe the Japanese stewardess had used one of her colleagues to deliver her phone number to him. But it seems I was wrong.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Nothing,’ I say, while checking the coaster on my tray as well – nothing on mine either. I was wondering if maybe she’d anticipated us switching meal trays and so put the number under the coaster on my tray. Perhaps that stewardess wasn’t after him after all? Perhaps she’d simply wiped his knee out of kindness , I think to myself. Then my eyes catch sight of the napkin around the silverware. I wonder if perhaps her number is on the edge of that.

‘Let me get that for you,’ I say, picking it up and spreading it out, then laying it on his knees – all the while making sure there’s nothing written on it. I sigh with relief, then check my own napkin before spreading it on my lap.

After we finish eating both halves of our meals, we go 6

back to the movie and solitaire. Unable to finish a game I get bored and kill time by peaking in on the movie he’s watching and holding his hand. Then, all of a sudden, that stewardess reappears – coming down the aisle collecting the trays of the people who have finished eating! Well, you’d better not spill anything this time, woman. And holding his hand tightly, I repeat these words in my mind over and over again to put a curse on her. When she reaches us, she takes my tray first. I watch her hand, thinking, I’ll kill you if you dare make even the slightest contact with him. I’ll kill you, you hear?

She takes the tray without any mishaps. Good. She didn’t touch him. I feel sleepy with relief. Or maybe I’ve just had a little too much to eat. I was planning to keep my eye on her for the entire flight to make sure she didn’t try anything with him. But now I can feel myself starting to drift off.

‘Hey ...’ I call to him.

‘Yeah?’ he replies with his headphones on and still looking at the screen, but with a face that seemed to ask, ‘You say something?’

‘I said, hey!’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m about to fall asleep.’

‘Well, wrap up warm then. Aren’t you going to wear the socks?’

‘I’m fine. The blanket’s big.’ I kick my legs under the blanket to show him, and he nods ‘all right then’ and goes back to the screen. I want to kid around with him

and say, ‘Hey! What’s with that uncaring attitude?’ But I’m too comfortable with my seat reclined all the way back, so instead I close my eyes and keep hold of his hand.

I open my eyes just a little, but the cabin is dark and for a second I don’t know where I am. Oh, right. Honeymoon. Tahiti. Going home to Japan. Seeking asylum. Fake visa. Human organ trafficking ... I blink a couple of times and catch sight of his back. He’s putting on his slippers, maybe in preparation to go to the lavatory. I realise I’m clutching the pillow that was under my head and I put it back there. Then, just as I’m about to reach out for him, he stands up and goes walking down the aisle. I’d wanted to ask him to bring me back something sweet, but oh well. I was about to close my eyes again. Then I realised: I’d been tricked.

There must have been sleeping pills mixed in with my wine. That stewardess must have waited until I’d fallen asleep, then told him to meet her in the lavatory! So that’s where he’s heading. To meet her!

All is lost. Death is my only option. It’s all over. My life is over. I can’t imagine life without him. If he cheats on me even once, I will never be able to live happily with him. But at the same time, I don’t think I’ll be able to divorce him and go to court and all that. So the only path left for me is to go through a living hell, then commit suicide. Even if I survive the living hell, divorce him and try to find hope in another man, after being betrayed by 8

him I’ll probably never be able to trust a man again. I’ll be unhappy for the rest of my life. I mean, he is the only man I’ve been able to trust this much in my life. I’d never known true love until I met him. The romances before I met him weren’t even romances. They were nothing more than the primitive act of a man and a woman meeting and copulating. It was only when I met him that I was able to experience true human love for the first time. To think that all that happiness is about to be destroyed by just one stewardess!

I pray that the plane will crash. He’s probably in the lavatory by now. He may already be touching the stewardess waiting inside. His hands may already be touching her. Those hands of my precious husband. Touching. That woman. I want to die. Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps and my entire body is shaking with rage. Why should I have to go through this? Why, why, why? It’s not fair. I love him so much. I adore him. All I want is to stay with him forever. How can he even think of going with a woman like that? How could you? You just told me you’d never leave me. How could you?! I wanted to stay with him forever. That’s why I broke up with my previous boyfriend. That’s why I cut off all contact with past boyfriends and other male friends and focused all my attention on him. I told myself he was the only person in my life. And it was true. He was the only one who could understand my language. Though all my friends, my family, and everyone I work with are Japanese and speak Japanese, I could never communicate with 9

any of them. No matter who I spoke with, we misunderstood each other, resentment built and we would end up quarrelling. Perhaps my linguistic and comprehension skills are inferior. But at any rate, it was impossible for me and someone else to understand each other. I was certain this was the case.

But he was different. He understood exactly what I wanted to say and the more we talked, the more I felt in sync with him. I felt like I had finally met a creature of the same species. A natural treasure thought to be the only one of its kind left in the world, incredibly, amazingly, meeting another of the same kind for the first time. All I could think about was being with him. So naturally we got married and I was ready to give myself wholly to him – body and soul. Sure, I might have annoyed him by saying that I wanted to be with him always, that I couldn’t bear to be apart from him for even a moment. But that was proof of my love, proof that I’d never love anyone else, proof that I could only relate to him. I’d never been able to connect with anyone else. Now, finally, I’d found the one person with whom I could. It was only natural then that I would want to be with him all the time. But him? He goes off with that stewardess! Afterwards, he may well come back. But even then, he will have left something with her. That necessary something we needed to love each other.

My eyes are welling up with tears and I think I’m going to start crying. No. No, no, I mustn’t. I mustn’t cry. I want him to tell me the truth. If he cheated on me, if he really 10

did it, then I want him to tell me honestly. If he sees me crying, he might try to spare my feelings and not tell me the truth. I need to wear a serious look on my face, the look of an adult woman. Then I can just ask him, ‘What did you do?’ And he might tell me. He knows I hate lies. If he’s honest with me and tells me that he cheated on me, I’ll just smile and leave him. I might cry a little. I’ll probably feel let down. But I’ll be OK. I won’t throw a fit. If he tells me he’s cheated on me, I won’t die. No, actually, I think I might. I think I might actually die. But even so, I shouldn’t show my weakness to him. I have to smile and break up with him.

I have to tell him, ‘It’s OK.’

I have to say, ‘I won’t blame you.’

I have to tell him, ‘I won’t get angry at you. I won’t cry. So tell me the truth. I’ll even go submit the divorce papers on my own. So tell me.’ Please, please, whatever you do, don’t you do it with the stewardess then come back and lie to me that ‘There was a long line for the lavatory’.

I’ll tell him, ‘I’ll be OK. I’ll be OK, so don’t lie to me.’

I’ll say, ‘If you did it, if you did it with that stewardess, then just give it to me straight. Tell me that you did it with that stewardess.’

I wonder, has he already kissed her? Just like the first time we kissed. What am I thinking? His kiss with that stewardess couldn’t be the same as a kiss between me and him. Oh, what am I supposed to do? He might be lifting her skirt right this moment. He could be thrusting

his fingers into her hot flesh. My entire body is sizzling with anger, trembling with it. Just the thought that he might be getting aroused and getting a hard-on for another woman makes me curse and pray that the plane will crash before anything else can happen. Now, come on! Crash! Come on, crash, crash now! I pray to myself. But the plane isn’t falling from the sky and I stamp my feet in frustration. Why isn’t the world programmed so that it will self-destruct the instant he cheats on me? That way I won’t have to live in a world in which he’s cheated on me. Oh, I want to die, I want to die, I want the world in which he cheated on me to be destroyed! Now calm down and think straight, I say to myself. A world that self-destructs the moment he cheats on me? Now that doesn’t make much sense. I should be the one that automatically self-destructs the moment he cheats on me. That way we wouldn’t have to inconvenience others. I should install a bomb inside my body and have a remote detonator attached to his dick. But it’s too late to be thinking of this stuff. He’s probably already doing it with the stewardess anyway. No. Me blowing up isn’t enough. I want the whole world to be destroyed. Has he already put it inside her? I mean, how many seconds have passed since he went to the lavatory? Surely they’d have slipped into the lavatory straight away, all fired up. They’d be all over each other and he’d get it up her immediately. Aaargh! I bet his cock is already rubbing up inside her pussy. I want to die already. I’m doomed. I just want to die now. Can’t this plane fall out of the 12

sky? Can’t the whole world just come to an end? Can’t it even just be the end of me? If only I had nitroglycerin inside me.

I wonder if I can overdose on sleeping pills. Then I remember I haven’t brought enough with me for that. Oh this really can’t get any worse. There probably aren’t any knives on the plane and I don’t know where I would be able to hang myself. It’s all over, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. Going to kill myself. I can just feel my cells beginning to kill themselves off. Good for me. I hope my cells were made so that they sense the moment he cheats on me. I hope they imagine my pain and despair when I find out about his cheating and die off rather than make me endure the torment. I’ll be so glad. I could die a peaceful death. Without ever learning about his cheating. Are they passionately at it with each other right now? He’s taking far too long. It must be a minute already since he got up. He should die. Everyone should die. Die, die, die! Let me die.

‘You woke up?’

I turn my face and see him there. I feel like crying and I can’t speak.

‘I thought you might wake up soon, so I brought you a snack.’

He hands me a cookie and an orange juice, then sits down beside me and immediately fastens his seatbelt. Tears well up in my eyes as I bite into the cookie. They trickle down my cheeks as I drink my juice.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, looking into my eyes.

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