Hiromi Kawakami - The Briefcase

“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.

“The twenty-eighth?” I repeated, slowly leafing through my own datebook, despite the fact that there was nothing at all in my schedule. “Yes, that day is fine,” I said with an air of importance. With a big round fountain pen, Sensei wrote on the twenty-eighth in his datebook, MARKET DAY, TSUKIKO, NOON, MINAMI-MACHI BUS STOP. He had excellent penmanship.

“Let’s meet at noon,” Sensei said as he put the datebook back in his briefcase. It would be unusual to see Sensei in the light of day. Sipping saké side by side in the dimly lit bar while we used our chopsticks to carve away at either chilled or warm tofu, depending on the season—that was how we usually saw each other. We never made plans, but always happened to meet by chance. Weeks went by when our paths didn’t cross, and there were stretches when we’d see each other every night.

“What kind of market did you say it is?” I asked while pouring saké into my cup.

“There’s only one kind of market, of course. You know, where they sell any kind of household item.”

I found it strange to imagine shopping for domestic things with Sensei, but I thought we would be able to get through the day. I too wrote NOON, MINAMI-MACHI BUS STOP in my datebook.

Sensei slowly drained his cup and refilled it himself. He tipped the saké bottle just slightly, which made a gurgling sound as he poured. But he didn’t aim the saké bottle right over his cup. Instead, he raised the bottle high over the cup, which sat on the bar, before tipping it. The saké fell in a thin stream, as if being drawn into the cup. He never spilled a drop. It was quite a skill. Once, I tried to imitate Sensei, lifting the saké bottle high and trying to pour, but I spilled almost all of it. It was such a waste. Since then, I grasp my cup firmly with my left hand and pour with the bottle in my right hand, just barely hovering over the cup. I’ve resigned myself to such gracelessness.

In fact, a former colleague once said to me, “Tsukiko, the way you pour really lacks allure.” The word “allure” seemed old-fashioned to me, but then again, the fact that it’s always the woman who is expected to pour, and to have “allure” when doing so, seemed antiquated too. I stared at my colleague with surprise. He must have gotten the wrong idea, though, because after we left the bar, he tried to pull me into a dark corner to kiss me. “Cut it out!” I said as I caught his looming face with both my hands and pushed him away.

“There’s nothing to be af raid of,” he whispered, peeling my hands away and coming in for another try. Everything about him was old-fashioned. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into laughter.

With a deadly serious expression and in an earnest tone, I said, “But today is such an unlucky day.”

“Unlucky?”

“Yes, today is a tomobiki day. But tomorrow is a red-letter day, a kanoe-tora!”

“Huh?”

I took that opportunity to quickly run off toward the subway entrance, leaving my colleague standing agape in the dark street. Even after I was down the stairs, I kept running. After making sure that he wasn’t following me, I ducked into the ladies’ room. I went to the bathroom and thoroughly washed my hands. As I looked at my reflection in the mirror, with my hair slightly out of place, I started to giggle.

Sensei did not like anyone to pour his drinks for him. Whether it was beer or saké, he meticulously poured for himself. One time, I filled Sensei’s first glass of beer for him. The moment I tipped the beer bottle toward his glass, I felt him flinch slightly—actually, more than slightly. But he didn’t say a word. When the glass was full, Sensei calmly raised it to his lips, offering a terse “Cheers,” and drank it down in one swallow. He downed the whole glassful, but he choked a little. I could tell that he had gulped it down in haste. No doubt he had wanted to finish it off as quickly as possible.