Escape

The glowing of the skulls grows faint with the light of dawn. Hazy gray, it washes down, as one by one the sparks die away. Until the very last ember fades, my fingers must race over the skulls, drawing in their glow. How much of the total light will I manage to read this single night? The skulls are many, my time short. I pay no heed to the hour as I ply my attentive touch to skull after skull. Her mind is at my fingertips, moment by moment, in distinct increments of heat. It is not a question of quantity. Not number nor volume nor ratio. There is no reading everything of a mind.

The last skull returned to the shelves, I collapse. I can tell nothing of the weather outside.

A subtle gloom drifts noiselessly through the stacks, lulling the skulls into their deep slumber once more. I yet feel a glimmering of their warmth when I put my fingers to my cheeks.

I sit until the calm and cool has quieted my thoughts. Time is advancing with fitful irregularity, yet it is a constant morning that filters in, the shadows unmoving. Fleeting fragments of her mind circulate through my mind, mingling with all that is me, finding their way into my being. How long will it take to render these into coherent form? And then, how long to transmit that to her, to let it take root? I know I must see her mind returned to her.

I leave the stacks to find her sitting alone in the reading room. In the half-light, her silhouette seems somehow faint. It has been a long night for her, too. Without a word, she rises to her feet and sets the coffeepot on the stove. I go to warm myself.

"You are tired," she says.

My body is an inert lump; I can scarcely raise a hand. I have been dreamreading an entire night, and the fatigue now sets in. It is as she told me the first day: no matter how tired the body gets, one must never let the exhaustion enter one's thoughts.

"You should have gone home to rest," I tell her. "You needn't have stayed."

She pours a cup of coffee and brings it to me.

"It was my mind you were reading. How could I leave?"

I nod, grateful, and take a sip of coffee. The old wall clock reads eight-fifteen.

"Shall I prepare breakfast?"

"No thank you," I say.

"You have not eaten since yesterday."

"I feel no hunger. I need sleep. Could you wake me at two-thirty? Until then, would you sit here, please, and keep watch over me? Can I ask you to do that?"

She brings out two blankets and tucks them in around me. As in the past—when was it?—her hair brushes my cheek. I close my eyes and listen to the coals crackling in the stove.

"How long will winter last?" I ask her.

"I do not know," she answers. "No one can say. I feel, perhaps, it will not last much longer."

I reach out to touch her cheek. She shuts her eyes, she savors the touch.

"Is this warmth from my mind?"

"What do you feel in it?"

"It is like spring," she says.

"It is your spring, you must believe. Your mind will be yours again."

"Yes," she says, placing her hand over my eyes. "Please sleep now."

She wakes me at exactly half past two. I don my coat, scarf, gloves, and hat.

"Guard the accordion," I tell her.

She takes up the accordion from the table as if to weigh it in her hands, then sets it back down.

"It is safe with me," she says.

Outside, the wind is slackening, the snow diminished to small flurries. The blizzard of the previous night has blown over, though the oppressive gray skies hang low still. This is but a temporary lull.

I cross the Old Bridge southward, then the West Bridge northward. I see smoke rising from beyond the Wall. Intermittent white swatches at first, gradually thickening into the dark billowing gray masses that burning corpses make. The Gatekeeper is in the Apple Grove. I hurry toward the Gatehouse. Everything holds its breath, all the sounds of the Town are lost under the snow. The spikes of my snow boots crunch into the newfallen powder with a disproportionately large sound.

The Gatehouse is deserted. The stove is extinguished, but it is still warm. Dirty plates litter the table. The Gatekeeper's pipe is lying there as well. It seems that at any moment he will appear and place a giant hand on my shod-der. The rows of blades, the kettle, his smell, everything undermines my confidence.

I carefully lift the keys from their wall hook and steal out the back door to the Shadow Grounds. There is not a footprint to be seen. A sheet of white extends to the one lone dark vertical of the elm tree in the center. It is too perfect, too inviolate. The snow is graced with waves written by the wind, the elm raises crooked arms in sleeves of white. Nothing moves. The snow has stopped, this whisper in the air but the afterthought of a breeze.

Now is the moment I defile this peaceful but brief eternity.

There is no turning back. I take out the keys and try all four in order; none fits. A cold sweat seeps from my armpits. I summon an image of the Gatekeeper opening this iron gate. It was these four keys, there can be no mistake. I remember counting them. One of them must be the right key.

I put the keys into my pocket to warm them by hand; then I try again. This time, the third key goes in all the way and turns with a loud dry clank. The metallic sound echoes across the deserted enclosure, loud enough to alert everyone in the Town. I look nervously around me. There is no sign of anyone. I ease the heavy gate open and squeeze through, quietly closing it behind me.

The snow in the enclosure is soft and deep. My feet advance across the enclosure, past the bench. The branches of the elm look down with menace. From somewhere far off comes the sharp cry of a bird.

The air in the lean-to is even more chill than out. I open the trapdoor and descend the ladder to the cellar.

My shadow sits on his cot waiting for me.

"I thought you'd never come," say his white puffs of breath.

"I promised, did I not?" I say. "We need to get out of here, quick. The smell in here is overpowering."

"I can't climb the ladder," sighs the shadow. "I tried just now, but couldn't. I seem to be in worse shape than I thought. Ironic, isn't it? Pretending to be weak all this time, I didn't even notice myself actually getting weaker. Last night's frost really got to my bones."

"I'll help you up."

My shadow shakes his head. "It won't do any good. I can't run. My legs will never make the escape. It's the end of me."

"You started this. You can't bow out now," I say. "If I have to carry you on my back, I will get you out of here."

My shadow looks up with sunken eyes. "If you feel that strong, then of course I am with you," says he. "It won't be easy carrying me through the snow, though."

"I never thought this plan would be otherwise."

I pull my exhausted shadow up the ladder, then lend a shoulder to walk him across the enclosure. The dark heights of the Wall look down on our two fleeing figures. The branches of the elm drop their heavy load of snow and spring back.

"My legs are almost dead," says my shadow. "I exercised so they wouldn't wither from my being prone all the time, but the room was so cramped."

I lead my shadow out of the enclosure and lock the gate. If all goes well, the Gatekeeper will not notice we have escaped.

"Where to from here?" I ask.

"The Southern Pool," the shadow says.

"The Southern Pool?"

"Yes. We escape by diving in."

"That's suicide. The undertow is powerful. We'll be sucked under and drowned."

My shadow shakes and coughs. "Maybe. But that's the only possible exit. I've considered everything; you'll have to believe me. I'm staking my life on it. I'll tell you the details along the way. The Gatekeeper's going to be coming back in another hour, and the ox is sure to give chase. We have no time to waste."

There is no one in sight. There are but two sets of footprints—my own approaching the Gatehouse and those of the Gatekeeper leaving. There are also the ruts left by the wheels of the cart. I hoist my shadow onto my back. Although he has lost most of his weight, his burden will not be light. It is a long way to the Western and Southern Hills. I have grown used to living free of a shadow, and I no longer know if I can bear the umbrage.

We head east on the snowbound roads. Besides my own earlier footprints, there are only the wayward tracks of the beasts. Over my shoulder, the thick gray crematory smoke rises beyond the Wall, a malevolent tower whose apex is lost in the clouds. The Gatekeeper is burning many, many carcasses. The blizzard last night has killed scores of beasts. The time it will take to burn them all will grant us distance. I am grateful to the beasts for their tacit conspiracy.

The snow packs into the spikes of my boots. It hinders my every step, causing me to slip.

Why did I not look for a sleigh of some kind? Such a conveyance must exist in the the Town. We have already reached the West Bridge, however, and cannot afford to go back.

I am sweating from the difficult trek.

"Your footprints give us away," says my shadow, casting a backward glance. I imagine the Gatekeeper on our trail, all muscle and no one to carry, charging over the snow. We must flee as far as we can before he returns to the Gatehouse.

I think of her, who waits for me in the Library. Accordion on the table, coals aglow, coffeepot steaming. I feel her long hair brush my cheek, her fingers resting on my shoulder. I cannot allow my shadow to perish here, cannot allow the Gatekeeper to throw him back into the cellar to die. I must press onward, onward, while the gray smoke still rises beyond the Wall.

We pass many beasts on our journey. They roam in vain search for such meager sustenance as remains under the snow. Their limpid blue eyes follow our struggle. Do they understand what our actions portend?

We start up the Hill. I am out of breath. I myself have been without exercise. My panting forces out white and hot into yet new flurries of snow.

"Do you want to rest?" asks my shadow from over my shoulder.

"Just five minutes, please."

"Of course, it's all right. It's my fault for not being able to walk. I've forced everything on you."

"But it is for my own good, too. Is it not?"

"You must never doubt that."

I let my shadow down. I am so overheated, I cannot even feel the cold. But from thigh to toe, my legs are stone.

"And yet," muses my shadow, "if I had said nothing to you and quietly died, you would have been happy. In your own way."

"Maybe so," I say. "But I am not sorry to know. I needed to know."

The shadow scoops up a loose handful of snow and lets it crumble.

"At first, it was only intuition that told me the Town had an exit," he says. "For the very reason that the perfection of the Town must include all possibilities. Therefore, if an exit is our wish, an exit is what we get. Do you follow me?"

"Yes. I came to understand that yesterday. That here there is everything and here there is nothing."

My shadow gives me a firm, knowing look. The flurries are picking up. Another blizzard is moving in.

"If there has to be a way out, it can be found by process of elimination," he continued.

"We can count out the Gate, where the Gatekeeper would be sure to catch us. Besides, the Gate is the first place anyone would think to escape from; the Town would not allow an exit so obvious. The Wall is impossible to scale. The East Gate is bricked up, and it turns out there is an iron grating where the River enters. That leaves only the Southern Pool. We will escape where the River escapes."

"How can you be sure about that?"

"I just know. Only the Southern Pool is left unguarded, untouched. There is no fence, no need for a fence. They've surrounded the place with fear."

"When did you realize that?"

"The first time I saw the River. I went to the West Bridge with the Gatekeeper. I looked down at the water. The River was full of life. I could feel this. There is nothing bad about it. I believe that if we give ourselves over to the water, the flow of the River will lead us out. Out of the Town and back to a real world. You must trust me."

"What you say does make sense," I respond. "The River connects with whatever is out there, with our former world. Lately, I don't know why, I am starting to remember things about that world. Little things. The air, the sounds, the light. I am reawakened by songs."

"It's not the best of all worlds," says my shadow. "I make no promises, but it is the world where we belong. There will be good and bad. There will be neither good nor bad. It is where you were born and where you will live and where you will die. And when you die, I too will die. It's the natural course of things."

We look out upon the Town. The Clocktower, the River, the Bridges, the Wall, and smoke. All is drawn under a vast snow-flecked sky, an enormous cascade falling over the End of the World.

"We should be moving," says my shadow. "The way the snow is coming down, the Gatekeeper may have to stop and return early."

I stand up, brushing the snow from the brim of my hat.

Popcorn, Lord Jim, Extinction

EN route to the park, we stopped by a convenience store to buy some beer. I asked her preference, and she said any brand that had a head and tasted like beer.

I had money to spare, but Miller High Life was the only import I could find.

The autumn sky was as clear as if it had been made that very morning. Perfect Duke Ellington weather. Though, of course, Duke Ellington would be right even for New Year's Eve at an Antarctic base. I drove along, whistling to Lawrence Brown's trombone solo on Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me, followed by Johnny Hodges on Sophisticated Lady.

Pulling to a stop alongside Hibiya Park, we got out of the car and lay on the grass with our six-pack. The Monday morning park was as deserted as the deck of an aircraft carrier after all the planes had flown.

"Not a cloud," I said.

"There's one," she said, pointing ta a cotton puff above Hibiya Hall.

"Hardly counts," I said.

She shaded her eyes with her hand to take a better look. "Well, I guess not. Probably should throw it back."

We watched the cloudlet for a while. I opened a second can of beer.

"Why'd you get divorced?" she asked.

"Because she never let me sit by the window on trips."

She laughed. "Really, why?"

"Quite simple, actually. Five or six summers ago, she up and left. Never came back."

"And you didn't see her again?"

"Nope," I said, then took a good swig of beer. "No special reason to."

"Marriage was that hard?"

"Married life was great," I said. "But that's never really the question, is it? Two people can sleep in the same bed and still be alone when they close their eyes, if you know what I mean."

"Uh-huh, I believe so."

"As a whole, humanity doesn't lend itself to generalizations. But as I see it, there are two types of people: the comprehensive-vision type and the limited-perspective type. Me, I seem to be the latter. Not that I ever had much problem justifying my limits. A person has to draw lines somewhere."

"But most people who think that way keep pushing their limits, don't they?"

"Not me. There's no reason why everyone has to listen to records in hi-fi. Having the violins on the left and the bass on the right doesn't make the music more profound. It's just a more complex way of stimulating a bored imagination."

"Aren't you being a tad dogmatic?"

"Exactly what she said."

"Your wife?"

"Yes. 'Clear-headed, but inflexible'. Her exact words. Another beer?"

"Please," she said.

I pulled the ring on a can of Miller and handed it to her.

"But how do you see you?" she asked.

"Ever read The Brothers Karamazov" I asked.

"Once, a long time ago."

"Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."

Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third.

"When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said, "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Neither do I," I said. "Not yet."

She laughed and stood up, brushing the grass from her slacks. "I'll be going. It's almost time anyway."

I looked at my watch. Ten-twenty-two.

"I'll drive you home," I said.

"That's okay," she said. "I've got some shopping to do. I'll catch the subway back. Better that way, I think."

"I'm going to hang around a bit longer. It's so nice here."

"Thanks for the nail clippers."

"My pleasure."

"Give me a call when you get back, will you?"

"I'll go to the library," I said. "I like to check out people at work."

"Until then," she said.

I watched her walk straight out of the park like Joseph Cotten in The Third Man. After she'd vanished into the shade of the trees, I turned my gaze to a smartly dressed woman and her daughter throwing popcorn onto the grass, pigeons flying toward them. The little girl, three or four years old, raised both hands and ran after the birds. Needless to say, she didn't catch any. Pigeons are survivors by their own pigeonness. Only once did the fashionable young mother glance in my direction. It took her no time to decide that she wanted nothing to do with anyone lying around with five empty beer cans on a Monday morning.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember the names of the Karamazov brothers. Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha—and then there was the bastard Smerdyakov. How many people in Tokyo knew the names of all these guys?

I gazed up at the sky. I was in a tiny boat, on a vast ocean. No wind, no waves, just me floating there. Adrift on the open sea. Lord Jim, the shipwreck scene.

The sky was deep and brilliant, a fixed idea beyond human doubt. From my position on the ground, the sky seemed the logical culmination of all existence. The same with the sea. If you look at the sea for days, the sea is all there is. Quoth Joseph Conrad. A tiny boat cut loose from the fiction of the ship. Aimless, inescapable, inevitable.

So much for literature. I drank the last can of beer and smoked a cigarette. I had to think of more practical matters. There was little over an hour left.

I carried the empty cans to the trash. Then I took out my credit cards and lit them with a match. I watched the plastic curl, sputter, and turn black. It was so gratifying to burn my credit cards that I thought of burning my Paul Stuart tie as well. But then I had second thoughts. The well-dressed young mother was staring at me.

I went to the kiosk and bought ten bags of popcorn. I scattered nine on the ground for the pigeons, and sat on a bench to eat the last bag myself. Enough pigeons descended upon the popcorn for a remake of the October Revolution.

It had been ages since I'd last eaten popcorn. It tasted good.

The fashionable mother and her little girl were at a fountain now. For some reason, they reminded me of my long-gone classmate, the girl who married the revolutionary, had two children, disappeared. She could never bring her kids to the park. Granted, she may have had her own feelings about this, but my own vanishing act made me feel sad for her.

Maybe—very likely—she would deny that we shared anything at all in common. In taking leave of life, she'd quit her life of her own will; I'd had the sheets pulled out from under me in my sleep.

She'd probably give me a piece of her mind. What the hell have you ever chosen? she'd say. And she'd be right. I'd never decided to do a single thing of my own free will. The only things I'd chosen to do were to forgive the Professor and not to sleep with his grandaughter. And what was that to me? Did my existence offer anything against its own extinction?

There was almost nothing left in frame at this point. Wide shot: pigeons, fountain, mother and child. I didn't want to leave this scene. I didn't care which world was coming next. I don't know why I felt this, but how could I just walk out on life? It didn't seem like the responsible thing to do.

Even if no one would miss me, even if I left no blank space in anyone's life, even if no one noticed, I couldn't leave willingly. Loss was not a skill, not a measure of a life. And yet I still felt I had something to lose.

I closed my eyes, I felt a ripple run through my mind. The wave went beyond sadness or solitude; it was a great, deep moan that resonated in my bones. It would not subside. I braced myself, elbows against the backrest of the park bench. No one could help me, no more than I could help anyone else.

I wanted a smoke, but I couldn't find my cigarettes. Only matches in my pocket and only three left at that. I lit them one after another and tossed them to the ground.

I closed my eyes again. The moaning had stopped. My head was empty of everything but a drifting dust of silence. Neither rising nor sinking, motion without dimension. I blew a puff of air; the dust did not disperse. A driving wind could not blow it away.

I thought about my librarian. About her velvet dress and stockings and slip on the carpet.

Had I done the right thing by not telling her? Maybe not. Who on earth wanted the right thing anyway? Yet what meaning could there be if nothing was right? If nothing was fair?

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life.

Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.

I had my regrets, sure. Another form of rendering fairness, of tallying fairly. Yet why regret? Was it fair to everything I was leaving behind? Wasn't that what I wanted?

I bought a pack of cigarettes, then phoned my apartment. Not that I expected anyone to answer, but I liked the idea of this being the last thing I did. I pictured the phone ringing on and on in an empty apartment. The image was so clear.

After only three rings, however, the chubby girl in pink came on the line.

"You still there?" I blurted out in surprise.

"You've got to be kidding," she said. "I've gone and come back already. I wanted to finish the book I was reading."

"The Balzac?"

"Right. It's really fascinating. It was destined for me."

"Tell me, is your grandfather all right?"

"Of course. Nothing to it. Grandfather was in top spirits. Sends his regards."

"Likewise," I said. "So what did your grandfather decide to do?"

"He's gone to Finland. Too many problems if he stayed in Japan. He'd never get any research done. He's going to set up a laboratory in Turku. Says it's nice and quiet there. They even have reindeer."

"And you didn't go with him?"

"I decided to stay here and live in your apartment."

"In my apartment?"

"Yes, that's right. I really like the place. I'll have the door fixed, put in a new refrigerator and video and stuff like that. Lots of broken things here. You wouldn't mind if I changed the sheets and curtains to pink?"

"Be my guest."

"I think I'll subscribe to a newspaper. I'd like to know what's on TV."

"You know, it might be dangerous there. The System boys and Semiotecs might show up."

"They don't scare me. They're only after Grandfather and you. What am I to them? Just now I sent away some gorilla and his little twerp of a trainer. Weird team."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I shot the big guy's ear off. Probably busted his ear-drum."

"Didn't people come running at the sound of a gun?"

"No," she said. "One shot could be a car backfiring. More than one shot would draw attention, but I know my stuff. One shot is all I need."

"Oh."

"By the way, once you lose consciousness, I'm thinking of putting you in deep freeze."

"As you see fit. I sure won't know," I said. "I'm going to head out to Harumi Pier, so you can come and collect me there. I'm driving a white Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo. I can't describe the model, but there'll be Bob Dylan on the stereo."

"Bob Dylan?"

"He's like, standing at the window, watching the rain—" I started to tell her, but then dropped it. "A singer with a rough voice."

"With you in deep freeze, who knows? In time, maybe Grandfather will find a way to bring you back. I wouldn't get my expectations up, but it's not outside the realm of possibility."

"With no consciousness, I won't be expecting anything," I pointed out. "But who's going to do the freezing? You?"

"No problem. Deep freezing's my specialty. I've frozen dozens of live dogs and cats. I'll freeze you nice and neat and store you where no one will find you," she said. "And if all goes well and you regain consciousness, will you sleep with me?"

"Sure," I said. "If you still feel like sleeping with me by then."

"Will you really?"

"Using all available technologies, if necessary," I said. "Though I have no idea how many years from now that might be."

"Well, at least I won't be seventeen."

"People age, even in deep freeze."

"Take care," she said.

"You too," said I. "Good I got to talk to you."

"Have I given you hope for returning to this world?"

"No, it's not that. Of course, I'm grateful, but that's not what I meant. I was just glad to be able to talk to you, to hear your voice again."

"We can talk longer."

"No, I don't have much time left."

"Listen," she spoke. "Even if we lose you forever, I'll always remember you, until the day I die. You won't be lost from my mind. Don't forget that."

"I won't," I said. Then I hung up.

At eleven, I went to a park toilet and did my business, then left the park. I started the car and headed out toward the Bay, thinking about the prospect of being deep-frozen.

Crossing Ginza, I looked for my librarian friend among the crowds of shoppers. She was nowhere to be seen.

When I got to the waterfront, I parked the car beside a deserted warehouse, smoked a cigarette and put Bob Dylan on auto-repeat. I reclined the seat, kicked both legs up on the steering wheel, breathing calmly. I felt like having a beer, but the beer was gone. The sun sliced through the windshield, sealing me in light. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my eyelids. Sunlight traveled a long distance to reach this planet; an infinitesimal portion of that energy was enough to warm my eyelids. I was moved. That something as insignificant as an eyelid had its place in the workings of the universe, that the cosmic order did not overlook this momentary fact. Was I any closer to appreciating Alyosha's insights? Some limited happiness had been granted this limited life.

I wanted to think I gave the Professor and his chubby granddaughter and my librarian friend a little happiness. Could I have given happiness to anyone else? There wasn't much time left, and I doubted anyone would dispute those rights after I was gone, but how about the Police-reggae taxi driver? He'd let us ride in his cab, mud and all. He deserved his share of happiness. He was probably bdhmd the wheel right now, cruising around to his rock cassettes.

Straight ahead was the sea. Freighters, riding high in the water, their cargo unloaded.

Gulls everywhere, like white smears. I thought about snails and suzuki in butter sauce and shaving cream and Blowing in the Wind. The world is full of revelations.

The early autumn sun glinted on the water, an enormous mirror ground to powder and scattered.

Dylan's singing made me think of the girl at the car rental. Why sure, give her some happiness too. I pictured her in her company blazer—green, the color of baseball turf— white blouse, black bow tie. There she was, listening to Dylan, thinking about the rain.

I thought about rain myself. A mist so fine, it almost wasn't rain. Falling, ever fair, ever equal, it gradually covered my consciousness in a filmy, colorless curtain.

Sleep had come.

Now I could reclaim all I'd lost. What's lost never perishes. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to sleep.

Bob Dylan was singing A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, over and over.