ME: A Novel by Tomoyuki Hoshino & Tomoyuki Hoshino

Author:Tomoyuki Hoshino & Tomoyuki Hoshino [Hoshino, Tomoyuki]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2017-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Disintegration

As I was eating breakfast before work the next morning, the doorbell rang. It was too early to be a delivery. On high alert, I peered through the peephole and called out loudly: “Yes? Who is it?” The person I saw on the other side of the door was a late-middle-aged woman—and a ME.

“It’s me,” came the reply. “I forgot my key.”

I inquired again: “Who is it?” This time I let my wariness become apparent.

“It’s me. Your mother. Are you still asleep? And isn’t it time you were off to work?”

“I’m sorry, you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”

The woman raised her voice and said, “I’ve done no such thing! I’m not so senile that I don’t know my own house! Hurry up and open the door!”

“I live here alone. You’ve made a mistake.” I was terrified by the delusion that Hitoshi would instantly come flying at me.

The woman began pounding. “Enough of this nonsense! Open up! I’ve just come off the night shift. I’m exhausted and in no mood for games.”

“I tell you, you’ve got the wrong address. My mother lives in Saitama.”

“What are you saying? Who are you? Aren’t you Mak-kun? Makoto? Are you some sort of intruder, squatting in someone else’s house? I’m going to call the police!”

“Be my guest. It’s you they’ll arrest.”

“So you want to bar your weary mother from coming inside? What’s wrong with you?”

“Don’t you have a cell phone? You should call home and have someone come get you.”

“My home is here! Who are you? Let me see your face!”

Thinking it might be a good idea for her to see me, I turned the lock, while keeping the chain in place, and as I opened the door a crack I watched her step back. I put my face to the opening and said, “This is me.” I watched her agitated red face drain of color.

“I’ll call the police about an unlawful intruder!” she declared, her voice trembling with fright. She backed away from the door and made a hasty retreat.

I locked the door again and returned to my room. From the balcony I could glimpse the woman running. But then she paused in her tracks and turned around, glancing back toward the apartment building. She stood there for a moment, her head slightly tilted in apparent bewilderment, then turned once again and plodded off.

She looked so forlorn that I felt a slight twinge of compassion. I was painfully aware of the feeling she was experiencing, for it was not that of another: I sensed that I had been through it myself. I wondered whether she could, in fact, be my mother, a woman who had gone on working alone to bring me up, along with my older sister, after our father hanged himself in the wake of his factory’s bankruptcy. Through an acquaintance she had obtained part-time work and paid my tuition for photography school. She had at first encouraged me, saying that while she had given up on herself, I should persevere for her sake.

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