Hiromi Kawakami - Strange Weather in Tokyo

“Oh.”

“These kaki no tane are from Niigata. They’re good and spicy.”

The piquant burn of the crackers really did go quite well with saké. I sat there silently for a while, eating them with my fingers. Something fluttered in a treetop outside. It must have been a bird. I heard a faint chirping and the sound of the leaves on the branches rustling for a moment, and then it was quiet again.

“Are there birds’ nests?” I asked, but there was no answer. I turned around, and Sensei was gazing at a newspaper. Not today’s paper, but one that he had randomly taken from the ones strewn about. He was intently reading a page from the foreign news service that had a photograph of a woman in a bathing suit. He seemed to have forgotten that I was there.

“Sensei,” I called, but still there was no response. He was completely absorbed.

“Sensei,” I said again in a loud voice. Sensei looked up.

“Would you like to read the newspaper, Tsukiko?” he asked me abruptly. Without waiting for me to reply, Sensei laid the open paper on the tatami, slid open the fusuma, and went into the next room. He came back carrying several things he had taken from an old bureau. They were small pieces of pottery. Sensei made a few trips back and forth between this and the next room.

“Yes, here they are.” Sensei crinkled the corners of his eyes, carefully lining up the ceramics on the tatami. They each had a handle, a lid, and a spout. “Look at them!”

“I see.” But what were they? I stared at them, thinking to myself that I had seen something like these before. They were all roughly made. Were they teapots? But they were so small.

“These are railway teapots,” Sensei said.

“Railway teapots?”

“These are from trips I took. I bought bento boxes at the station or on the train that came with these teapots. Now the teapots are plastic, but they used to sell them with ceramic railway teapots like these.”

There were more than a dozen railway teapots lined up. Some were amber-colored, some were other pale shades. They were all different shapes. This one had a large spout, that one a big handle, this pot had a tiny lid, that pot was fat and round.

“Do you collect them?” I asked, and Sensei shook his head.

“They just came with the bento boxes I bought while I was on whatever trip I was taking.

“This one is from the year I started university, when I was traveling around Shinshu. Here is one from when I went to Nara with a colleague during summer vacation—I got off the train at one point to get lunch in the station for both of us, and the train departed just as I was about to get back on! That one was bought in Odawara on my honeymoon—my wife carried it for the whole trip, wrapped in newspaper and stuffed among the clothes in her suitcase, so that it wouldn’t break,” Sensei explained, pointing to each of the railway teapots lined up in a row. I could only nod and murmur a response to each story.

“I hear there are people who collect these kinds of things.”

“Is that why you still have them?”

“Of course not! I would never engage in such a crazy whim!”

Crinkling his eyes again, Sensei went on to say, “I was simply showing you some things that I’ve had for a very long time.

“I just can’t seem to throw anything away,” Sensei said, going again to the room next door and this time bringing back several small plastic bags.

“See here…,” he said as he untied the knot at the opening of one of the plastic bags. He took out what was inside, which were all old batteries. Each of them had written on the side things like electric shaver, wall clock, radio, or flashlight in black magic marker. He took a size-C battery in his hand.

“This battery is from the year of the Ise Bay typhoon. The typhoon hit Tokyo much harder than expected, and that summer I used up the batteries in my flashlight.”

He went on, explaining, “The first cassette recorder I ever bought required eight C batteries, which it ate right through. I would listen to Beethoven’s symphonies over and over again, and I used up the batteries in just a few days! Of course, I couldn’t keep all eight batteries, so I decided to just save one, which I picked out from the bunch with my eyes closed.

“I feel pity for these batteries that worked so hard for my benefit, and I can’t throw them away. It seems a shame to get rid of them the moment they die, after these batteries have illuminated my lights, signaled my sounds, and run my motors.

“Don’t you think so, Tsukiko?” Sensei asked, peering at me.

I wondered how to answer, as I murmured acknowledgment for the umpteenth time that evening. I touched one of the dozens of batteries of all sizes with the tip of my finger. It was rusty and damp. This one had Casio calculator written on it.

“The moon has really sunk low,” Sensei said, craning his neck. The moon had emerged from the haze and was glowing clearly.

“I bet the tea from the railway teapots tasted good,” I said softly.

“Shall we have some tea now?” Sensei said, suddenly reaching out his hand. Rummaging around where the large saké bottle had been, he pulled out a tea canister. Nonchalantly, he put some tea leaves into the amber railway teapot, then took the lid off of an old thermos that was beside the table and poured in some hot water.

“A student gave me this thermos. It’s an old American model, but the boiled water I put in there yesterday is still hot. That’s pretty impressive.”

Sensei poured tea into the cups out of which we had been drinking saké and then rubbed the thermos as if it were a precious item. There must have been a little saké left in my cup, because the tea had an odd taste. All of a sudden I felt the effects of the alcohol, and I became thoroughly pleased by what I saw around me.

“Sensei, may I take a look around?” Without waiting for Sensei to answer, I delved into the universe of things strewn about the tatami room. There was scrap paper. An old Zippo lighter. A rusted-over pocket mirror. There were three large black leather bags, each with well-worn creases. They were all exactly the same. There were floral shears. A stationery desk. And a black plastic thing shaped like a box. It had calibrations on it and a needle.

“What is this?” I asked, picking up the black calibrated box.

“Let me see… Oh, that. It’s a tester.”

“A tester?” I repeated, as Sensei gently took the black box from my hand and rummaged among some things. Once he located a black and a red cord, he attached each of them to the tester. Both cords had terminals on the ends.

“Go like this,” Sensei said, putting the red cord’s terminal on one end and the black cord’s terminal on the other end of the battery that said ELECTRIC SHAVER.

“See, Tsukiko, look at that!” Since both of his hands were full, Sensei gestured with his chin at the battery tester’s calibrations. The needle was just barely vibrating. He moved the terminals away from the battery and the needle went still, and when he touched them again, it quivered.

“There’s still a charge left, isn’t there?” Sensei said softly. “It’s not enough power to run a motor, but there’s still a bit of life in it.”

Sensei measured each of the many batteries with the tester. Most of them didn’t register on the meter when he touched the terminals, but every so often the needle would move. Each time it did, he would utter a little “Oh!”

“The slightest sign of life,” I said, and Sensei gave a vague nod.

“But they will all die out eventually,” he said languidly, in a faraway voice.

“They’ll live out their time inside the dresser.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

We both sat there for a moment, staring silently at the moon, until Sensei finally said cheerfully, “Shall we have another drink?” He poured saké into our cups.

“Oops, there was still some tea left.”

“Saké cut with tea, right?”

“But saké doesn’t need to be cut with anything.”

“It’s quite all right, Sensei.”

As I murmured “Quite all right, quite all right,” I drank the saké in one gulp. Sensei was sipping his. The moon shone brightly on.

Suddenly, in a clear, resonant voice, Sensei recited,

“What is that, some kind of sutra?” I asked.

Sensei was indignant. “Tsukiko, you never paid attention in Japanese class, did you?” he said.

“You didn’t teach us that,” I replied.

“That was Seihaku Irako, you see,” Sensei answered in a lecturing tone.

“I’ve never heard of Seihaku Irako,” I said as I took it upon myself to refill my own teacup with saké.

“It’s unusual for a woman to pour her own saké,” Sensei chided me.

“Oh, Sensei, you’re just old!” I retorted.

“Yes, I’m old, and hairy now too!” he mumbled as he too filled his own teacup to the brim.

Then he continued with the poem:

His eyes were closed, as if he too were listening attentively to his recitation. I gazed vacantly at the different batteries. They were silent and still in the pale light. The moon was once again enveloped in haze.

SENSEI INVITED ME to go along with him on a market day walk.

“Market days are the eighth, the eighteenth, and the twenty-eighth. This month, the twenty-eighth is a Sunday, so I thought that would suit your schedule,” Sensei said, taking his datebook out of the black briefcase he always carried with him.