The Elephant Vanishes (36 page)

N
OT ONCE SINCE
then have I mowed a lawn. Someday, though, should I come to live in a house with a lawn, I’ll probably be mowing again. That’ll be a good while yet, I figure. But when that time comes, I’m sure to do the job just right.

—translated by Alfred Birnbaum

S
O I TURNED
to Ozawa and asked him, had he ever punched out a guy in an argument?

“What makes you want to ask something like that?” Ozawa squinted his eyes at me. The look seemed out of character on him. As if there’d been a sudden flash of light only he had witnessed. A flare that just as quickly subsided, returning him to his normal passive expression.

No real reason, I told him, only a passing thought. Hadn’t meant anything by it, just asked out of curiosity. Totally uncalled-for, probably.

I proceeded to change the subject, but Ozawa didn’t exactly rally to it. He seemed to be somewhere else in his thoughts, holding back or wavering. I gave up trying to engage him in conversation and gazed instead out the window at the rows of silver jets.

I don’t know how the subject came up. We’d been killing time waiting for our plane, and he started talking about how
he’d been going to a boxing gym ever since he was in junior high school. More than once, he’d been chosen to represent his university in boxing matches. Even today, at age thirty-one, he still went to the gym every week.

I could hardly picture it. Here was this guy I’d done business with a lot; no way did he strike me as your rough-and-tumble boxer of close to twenty years. The guy was a singularly quiet fellow; he hardly ever spoke. Yet you couldn’t ask for anyone more clear-cut in his work habits. Faultlessly sincere. Never pushed people too far, never talked about others behind their back, never complained. No matter how overworked he was, he never raised his voice or even arched his brows. In a word, he was the sort of guy you couldn’t help but like. Warm, easygoing, a far cry from anything you could call aggressive. Where was the connection between this man and boxing? Why had he taken up the sport in the first place? So I asked that question.

We were drinking coffee in the airport restaurant, waiting for our flight to Niigata. This was the beginning of November; the sky was heavy with clouds. Niigata was snowed in, and planes were running late. The airport was full of people milling about, looking more depressed with each announcement of flight delays. In the restaurant, the heat was too high, and I kept having to wipe off the sweat with my handkerchief.

“Basically, no,” Ozawa suddenly spoke up after a lengthy silence. “From the time I started boxing, I never hit anyone. They pound that into you from the moment you start boxing. Anyone who boxes must absolutely never, without gloves, hit anyone outside the ring. An ordinary person could get into trouble if he hit someone and landed a punch in the wrong place. But if a boxer did it, it’d be intentional assault with a deadly weapon.”

I nodded.

“To be honest, I did hit someone. Once,” Ozawa said. “I was in eighth grade. It was right around the time I was starting to learn how to box. No excuse, but this was before I learned a single boxing technique. I was still on the basic bodybuilding
menu. Jumping rope and stretching and running, stuff like that. And the thing is, I didn’t even mean to throw the punch. I just got mad, and my hand flew out ahead of me. I couldn’t stop it. And before I knew it, I’d decked him. I hit the guy, and still my whole body was trembling with rage.”

Ozawa had taken up boxing because his uncle ran a boxing gym. This wasn’t just the local sweat room; this was a major establishment that had launched a two-time East Asia welterweight champion. In fact, it’d been Ozawa’s parents who suggested he go to the gym to begin with. They were worried about their son, the bookworm, always holed up in his room. At first, the boy wasn’t keen on the idea, but he liked his uncle well enough, and, he told himself, if he didn’t like the sport, he could always quit. So all very casually, he got in the habit of commuting regularly to his uncle’s gym, an hour away by train.

After the first few months, Ozawa’s interest in boxing surprised even himself. The biggest reason was that, fundamentally, boxing is a loner’s sport, an extremely solitary pursuit. It was something of a discovery for him, a new world. And that world excited him. The sweat flying off the bodies of the older men, the hard, squeaky feel of the gloves, the intense concentration of men with their muscles tuned to lightning-fast efficiency—little by little, it all took hold of his imagination. Spending Saturdays and Sundays at the gym became one of his few indulgences.

“One of the things I like about boxing is the depth. That’s what grabbed me. Compared to that, hitting and getting hit is no big deal. That’s only the outcome. The same with winning or losing. If you could get to the bottom of the depth, losing doesn’t matter—nothing can hurt you. And anyway, nobody can win at everything; somebody’s got to lose. The important thing is to get deep down into it. That—at least to me—is boxing. When I’m in a match, I feel like I’m at the bottom of a deep, deep hole. So far inside I can’t see anyone else and no one can see me. Way down there in the darkness, doing battle. All alone. But not
sad
alone,” said Ozawa. “There’s all different kinds of
loneliness. There’s the tragic loneliness that tears at your nerves with pain. And then there’s the loneliness that isn’t like that at all—though in order to reach that point, you’ve got to pare your body down. If you make the effort, you get back what you put in. That’s what I learned from boxing.”

Ozawa paused a moment.

“Actually, I’d just as soon not talk about it,” he said. “I even wish I could wipe the story out of my mind entirely. But of course, you never can. Why is it you can’t forget what you really want to forget?” Ozawa broke into a smile. Then he glanced at his watch. We still had plenty of time. He began his deliberation.

The guy Ozawa hit was a classmate. Aoki was his name. Ozawa hated the guy from the very beginning. Why, he couldn’t really say. All he knew was that he hated his guts from the moment he set eyes on him. It was the first time in his life he despised anyone.

“But it does happen, right?” he said. “Maybe once, but everyone has that experience. You loathe someone for no reason whatsoever. I’m not the type to have blind hate, but I swear there are people who just set you off. It’s not a rational thing. But the problem is, in most cases, the other guy feels the same way toward you.

“This kid Aoki was a model student. He got good grades, sat at the head of the class, teacher’s pet, all that. And he was pretty popular, too. Granted, we were an all-boys’ school, but everyone liked him. Everyone except me. I couldn’t stand him. I couldn’t stand his smarts, his calculating ways. Okay, if you asked me what exactly bugged me about him I wouldn’t be able to say. The only thing I can tell you is that I
knew
what he was all about. And his pride, that headstrong stink of ego he gave off, I couldn’t stand it. Purely physiological, like how someone’s body odor will turn you off. But Aoki was a clever guy and knew how to cover his scent. So most of the kids in the class thought he was clean and kind and considerate. Every time I heard how great people thought he was—of course, I wasn’t about to go against everyone—it burned me up.

“In almost every way, Aoki and I were polar opposites. I was a quiet kid and didn’t stand out in class. I was happy to be left alone. Sure, I had friends, but no real friends for life. In a sense, maybe I was too mature too soon. Instead of hanging around with my classmates, I kept to myself. I read books or listened to my father’s classical records or went to the gym to hear the older guys talk. I wasn’t much to look at. My grades weren’t so bad, but they weren’t so hot. Teachers would forget my name. So, you know, I was the type you never got to know. That’s how I was, never quite surfacing. I never told anybody about the boxing gym or books or records.

“With Aoki, though, whatever the guy did he was like a white swan in a sea of mud. The star of the class, his opinions valued, always on top of things. Even I had to admit that. He was amazingly quick-witted. He could pick up on what others were thinking, and he could redirect his responses to match in no time whatsoever. He had a well-tuned head on his shoulders. No wonder everyone was impressed with Aoki. Everyone but me.

“I figure Aoki had to be aware of what I thought of him. He wasn’t dumb. I could tell he wasn’t too crazy about me. After all, I wasn’t stupid, either. I mean, I read more than anybody else. But you know, when you’re young you gotta show it, so I’m sure I came off stuck-up, even condescending. Plus, the way I kept to myself probably didn’t help.

“Then once, at the end of the term, I got the highest marks on an English exam. It was a first for me, scoring the highest. But it wasn’t an accident. There was something I really wanted—I can’t even remember what it was anymore—and I made this deal with my folks that if I got the best grade in the class they’d buy it for me. So of course I studied like mad. I studied anything that could possibly be covered in the exam. If I had a spare moment, I went over verb conjugations. I practically memorized the whole textbook. So when I aced the test, it was no surprise. It was even predictable.

“But everyone else was caught off guard. The teacher, too.
And Aoki, I mean, he was shocked.
He
had always been the best student in English. The teacher even kidded Aoki about it when he announced the test grades. Aoki turned red. Probably thought people were laughing at him.

“A few days later, someone told me Aoki was spreading a rumor about me. That I’d cheated on the exam, how else could I have scored so high? When I heard that, I got really pissed off. What I should have done was laugh and let it go. But a junior-high-school kid doesn’t have that kind of cool.

“One noon recess, I confronted Aoki. I said I wanted to talk to him alone, away from everybody else. I said I’d heard this rumor, and what was the meaning of it? But Aoki could only show his contempt. Like, why was I getting all bent out of shape? Like, if by some fluke I happened to get the best score, why was I being so defensive, and what right did I have to act so uppity, anyway? After all, everyone knew what really happened, right? Then he tried to brush me aside, probably thinking that since he was in good shape and taller than me he had to be stronger, too. That’s when I hauled off and punched the jerk in the face. It was pure reflex action. I didn’t realize I’d slugged him square on the left cheek until a second later when Aoki fell back sideways and hit his head on a wall. With a hard conk. Blood was running out of his nose and onto his white shirt. He lay there, dazed, not knowing what had happened.

“On my part, I regretted hitting him the instant my fist connected with his cheekbone. I shouldn’t have done it. I felt miserable. It was a totally useless thing to have done. Like I said, my body was still trembling with rage, but I knew I’d done something stupid.

“I considered apologizing to Aoki. But I didn’t. If it had been anybody else but Aoki, I probably would have apologized. I simply couldn’t bring myself to apologize to the creep. I was sorry I hit Aoki, but not sorry enough to say I was sorry. I didn’t feel one iota of remorse toward the guy. Jerks like him deserved to get punched out. He was a worm, and worms get stepped on. Still,
I shouldn’t have hit him
. A truth I knew deep down,
only too late. I’d already slugged him. I left Aoki there and walked off.

“That afternoon, Aoki didn’t show up in class. Probably went straight home, I thought. But for the rest of the day, a horrible feeling ate at me. It didn’t give me a moment’s rest. I couldn’t listen to music, couldn’t read, I couldn’t enjoy a thing. I felt this murky substance coagulating in my gut, and it wouldn’t let me concentrate. It was like I’d swallowed something slimy. I lay in bed staring at my fist. And it dawned on me, how lonely I was. I hated Aoki even more for making me realize this.

“From the next day on, Aoki ignored me. He acted like I didn’t exist. He went on scoring the highest on exams. Me, I never again poured my heart and soul into studying for a test. I couldn’t imagine what difference it would make. The idea of competing seriously with anyone bored me. I did enough schoolwork to keep my head above water and did what I wanted to the rest of the time. I kept on going to my uncle’s gym. I was getting heavy into my training. For a junior-high student, I was beginning to show results. I could feel my body changing. Shoulders broadening, chest thickening. My arms got firm, my cheeks taut. I thought, This is what it’s like to become an adult. I felt great. Every night, I stood naked in front of the big mirror in the bathroom, I was so fascinated with my body.

“The following school year, Aoki and I were in different classes. I was glad not to have to see him every day, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. So I thought the whole affair would fade away like some bad memory. But it wasn’t so simple. Seems Aoki was lying in wait to get his revenge. Waiting for the right moment to cut everything out from under me. The bastard was full of spite.

“Aoki and I advanced together grade by grade. It was the same private junior high and senior high, but every year we were in different classes. Until the very last year—boy, did it feel ugly when we came face-to-face in that classroom. The way he looked at me, it pried open my gut. I could feel that same slime come oozing out again.”