Coin Locker Babies (46 page)

“At last!” he shouted. “This was the heart! My mother’s! The sound I heard every second of my life until the day I was born!” He gave thanks, thanks to that heart, that sound which had filled his own heart with joy, with the strength to grow, and as he did so, all trace of anger vanished. How could he hate that sound? How could he not forgive his mother? He thanked the old writer and her peacock; and as his mind retreated, back through the maze of veins, back up the dark hole, past the rigid tongue, he realized he no longer wanted to kill the woman he held in his hands. Please, he pleaded, drain this strength from my body, drain every last drop of blood; wrap me back up in a straitjacket, but please don’t let
me kill her. Frantically, he searched every corner of himself for some organ, some part of him that hadn’t been affected by that smell, that couldn’t be made to do the bidding of the burning oil. He pleaded with himself, every atom of him from the tips of his toes to the end of each hair, but the oil seemed to have power over every cell. Then, at the last moment, something somewhere gave a twitch. His mind ran desperately through his body once again, searching until he found it: his tongue. But not the part that remained; the last free bit of Hashi’s body was the memory of the tip he had cut off his tongue a long time ago. At once, the memory began probing the spaces between his clenched teeth, then further inside, little by little regaining control over the rest of the tongue. I won’t give in, he chanted to himself. I won’t kill this woman. I won’t stop the beating of her heart. As the mutinous tongue forced its way out, his teeth bit down, trying to sever it, but the pain slowly spread through his mouth, gradually dissolving the oil that coated his vocal chords. Hashi knew then that the madwoman’s heart was still sending its message, the same message as always, still reaching the child deep inside her. He took a deep breath, soothing his tongue and throat with the cool air. The message that the heartbeat carried to the child within was one that never changed. He drew another breath, feeling it refresh his lips, and then a sound emerged—the cry of a newborn baby. Never, he told himself, will I forget what my mother’s heart was telling me. Live! it said. You shall not die! Live! Yes, live! Each beat drummed out the message, imprinting it on my muscles, and veins, and on my voice.

Hashi let his hands fall from the woman’s mouth. Leaving her, he walked into the heart of the deserted city, his cry melting into a song.

“Can you hear?” he whispered to the towers in the distance. “Can you hear? It’s my new song.”

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Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, R
YU
M
URAKAMI
is the
enfant terrible
of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. His novels include
Coin Locker Babies, Sixty-Nine, From the Fatherland, with Love
and
Popular Hits of the Showa Era
, all published by Pushkin Press, as well as
Audition
and
In the Miso Soup
. Murakami is also a screenwriter and director; among his films are
Tokyo Decadence, Audition
and
Because of You
.