“Did you used to take this bus when you went to high school?” my cousin asked.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Did you like school?”
“Not particularly,” I said. “But I could see my friends there, and it wasn’t such a long ride.”
My cousin thought about what I’d said.
“Do you still see them?”
“No, not for a long time,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“Why not? Why don’t you see them?”
“’Cause we live so far away from each other.” That wasn’t the reason, but I couldn’t think of any other way to explain it.
Right beside me sat a group of old people. Must have been close to fifteen of them. They were the reason the bus was crowded, I suddenly realized. They were all suntanned, even the backs of their necks dark. And every single one of them was skinny. Most of the men had on thick mountain-climbing types of shirts; the women, simple, unadorned blouses. All of them had small rucksacks in their laps, the kind you’d use for short hikes into the hills. It was amazing how much they looked alike. Like a drawer full of samples of something, all neatly lined up. The strange thing, though, was that there wasn’t any mountain-climbing route along this bus line. So where in the world could they have been going? I thought about this as I stood there, clinging to the strap, but no plausible explanation came to mind.
“I wonder if it’s going to hurt this time—the treatments?” my cousin asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t hear any of the details.”
“Have you ever been to an ear doctor?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t been to an ear doctor once in my life.
“Has it hurt before?” I asked.
“Not really,” my cousin said glumly. “It wasn’t totally painless, of course; sometimes it hurt a little. But nothing terrible.”
“Maybe this time it’ll be the same. Your mom said they’re not going to do anything much different from usual.”
“But if they do the same as always, how’s that going to help?”
“Well, you never know. Sometimes the unexpected happens.”
“You mean like pulling out a cork?” my cousin said. I glanced at him, but didn’t detect any sarcasm.
“It’ll feel different having a new doctor treat you, and sometimes just a slight change in procedure might make all the difference. I wouldn’t give up so easily.”
“I’m not giving up,” my cousin said.
“But you are kind of fed up with it?”
“I guess,” he said, and sighed. “The fear is the worst thing. The pain I imagine is worse than the actual pain. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know.”
A lot of things had happened that spring. A situation developed at work and I ended up quitting my job at a little advertising firm in Tokyo where I’d been working for two years. Around the same time I broke up with my girlfriend; we’d been going out since college. A month after that my grandmother died of intestinal cancer, and for the first time in five years I came back to this town, small suitcase in hand. My old room was just as I’d left it. The books I’d read were still on the shelf, my bed was still there, my desk, and all the old records I used to listen to. But everything in the room had dried up, had long ago lost its color and smell. Time alone had stood still.
I’d planned to go back to Tokyo a couple of days after my grandmother’s funeral to run down some leads for a new job. I was planning to move to a new apartment, too; I needed a change of scenery. As the days passed, though, it seemed like too much trouble to get off my butt and get going. To put a finer point on it, even if I’d wanted to get up and get going, I couldn’t. I spent my time holed up in my old room, listening to those records, rereading old books, occasionally doing a little weeding in the garden. I didn’t meet anybody, and the only people I talked to were members of my family.
One day my aunt dropped by and asked me to take my cousin to a new hospital. She should take him herself, she said, but something had come up on the day of the appointment and she couldn’t. The hospital was near my old high school, so I knew where it was, and since I had nothing else going on, I couldn’t very well refuse. My aunt handed me an envelope with some cash in it for us to use as lunch money.
This switch to a new hospital came about because the treatment he’d been getting at his old hospital hadn’t done a thing to help. In fact, he was having more problems than ever. When my aunt complained to the doctor in charge, he suggested that the problem had more to do with the boy’s home environment than anything medical, and the two of them went at it. Not that anybody really expected that changing hospitals would lead to a quick improvement in his hearing. Nobody said as much, but they’d pretty much given up hope that his condition would ever improve.
My cousin lived nearby, but I was just over a decade older than him and we had never been what you’d call close. When the relatives got together I might take him someplace or play with him, but that was the extent of it. Still, before long everyone started to look at my cousin and me as a pair, thinking that he was attached to me and that he was my favorite. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why. Now, though, seeing the way he tilted his head, his left ear aimed at me, I found it strangely touching. Like the sound of rain heard long ago, his awkwardness struck a chord with me. And I began to catch a glimpse of why our relatives wanted to bring us together.
The bus had passed by seven or eight bus stops when my cousin anxiously looked up at me again.
“Is it much farther?”
“Yeah, we still have a ways. It’s a big hospital, so we won’t miss it.”
I casually watched as the wind from the open window gently rustled the brims of the old people’s hats and the scarves around their necks. Who were these people? And where could they possibly be headed?
“Hey, are you going to work in my father’s company?” my cousin asked.
I looked at him in surprise. His father, my uncle, ran a large printing company in Kobe. I’d never given the idea a thought, and nobody ever dropped a hint.
“Nobody’s said anything about that,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
My cousin blushed. “I just thought you might be,” he said. “But why don’t you? You wouldn’t have to leave. And everybody’d be happy.”
The taped message announced the next stop, but no one pushed the button to get off. Nobody was waiting to get on at the bus stop either.
“But there’s stuff I have to do, so I have to go back to Tokyo,” I said. My cousin nodded silently.
There wasn’t a single thing I had to do. But I couldn’t very well stay here.
The number of houses thinned out as the bus climbed the mountain slope. Thick branches began to throw a heavy shadow across the road. We passed by some foreign-looking houses, painted, with low walls in front. The cold breeze felt good. Each time the bus rounded a curve the sea down below popped into view, then disappeared. Until the bus pulled up at the hospital my cousin and I just stood there, watching the scenery go by.
“The examination will take some time and I can handle it alone,” my cousin said, “so why don’t you go and wait for me somewhere?” After a quick hello to the doctor, I exited the exam room and went to the cafeteria. I’d barely had a bite for breakfast and was starving, but nothing on the menu whetted my appetite. I made do with a cup of coffee.