The Elephant Vanishes Part 14

"It's supposed to be a joke," grumbled my sister. "He likes to say things like that."

"Just a joke," I concurred. "We share the housework. She does the laundry and I do the jokes."

The computer engineer-his name was n.o.boru Watanabe-gave a little laugh, as though this had solved a problem for him.

"You two are so bright and cheery," he said. "That's the kind of household I want to have. Bright and cheery is best."

"See?" I said to my sister. "Bright and cheery is best. You're too uptight."

"Not if the jokes are funny," she said.

"If possible, we'd like to marry in the autumn," said n.o.boru Watanabe.

"Autumn is is the best time for a wedding," I said. "You can still invite the squirrels and bears." the best time for a wedding," I said. "You can still invite the squirrels and bears."

He laughed. She didn't. She was starting to look seriously angry. I excused myself and left.

Back at the apartment, I phoned my mother and summed up the afternoon for her.

"He's not such a bad guy," I said, scratching my ear.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"He's a serious individual. At least, more serious than I am."

"But you're not serious at all."

"I'm glad to hear that. Thanks," I said, looking at the ceiling.

"So, where did he graduate from?"

"Graduate?"

"Where did he go to college?"

"Ask him yourself," I said, and hung up. I was sick of all this. I took a beer from the refrigerator and drank it alone.

THE DAY AFTER the spaghetti argument with my sister, I woke up at eight-thirty. It was another beautiful, cloudless day, just like yesterday. In fact, it was like a continuation of yesterday, and my life seemed to be starting up again, too, after a halftime break. the spaghetti argument with my sister, I woke up at eight-thirty. It was another beautiful, cloudless day, just like yesterday. In fact, it was like a continuation of yesterday, and my life seemed to be starting up again, too, after a halftime break.

I threw my sweat-dampened pajamas into the hamper, took a shower, and shaved. While shaving, I thought about the girl I hadn't quite been able to get last night. Ah, well, it just wasn't in the cards. I did my best. I'll have plenty more opportunities. Like next Sunday.

I toasted two slices of bread and warmed up some coffee. I wanted to listen to an FM station but remembered the stereo was broken. Instead, I read book reviews in the paper and ate my toast. Not one of the books reviewed was something I thought I'd want to read: a novel on "the s.e.x life of an old Jewish man, mingling fantasy and reality," a historical study of treatments for schizophrenia, a complete expose of the 1907 As.h.i.+o Copper Mine pollution incident. It'd be a lot more fun to sleep with the captain of a girls' softball team. The newspaper probably chose books like this just to annoy us.

Munching on my toast, I laid the paper on the table; then I noticed a memo under the jam jar. In my sister's tiny handwriting, it said that she had invited n.o.boru Watanabe for dinner this Sunday and she expected me to be there.

I finished eating, brushed the crumbs off my s.h.i.+rt, and put the dishes in the sink. Then I called the travel agency. My sister took the phone and said, "I can't talk right now. I'll call you back in ten minutes."

The call came twenty minutes later. In the meantime, I had done forty-three push-ups, trimmed all twenty finger-and toenails, picked out my s.h.i.+rt, necktie, jacket, and pants for the day, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and yawned twice.

"Did you see my note?" she asked.

"Yup. Sorry, but I've got a date this Sunday. Made it a long time ago. If I had known, I would have left the day open. Too bad."

"You expect me to believe that? I know what you're going to do: go somewhere and do something with some girl whose name you hardly know. Well, you can do that on Sat.u.r.day."

"Sat.u.r.day I have to be in the studio all day with an electric-blanket commercial. We're busy these days."

"So cancel your date."

"I can't. She'll charge me a cancellation fee. And things are at a pretty delicate stage with her."

"Meaning things are not so delicate in my case?"

"No, I don't mean that at all," I said, holding the necktie I had chosen next to the s.h.i.+rt hanging on a chairback. "But don't forget: We've got this rule not to trespa.s.s on each other's lives. You eat dinner with your fiance and I'll have a date with my girlfriend. What's wrong with that?"

"You know what's wrong with that. Look how long it's been since you've seen him. You met him once, and that was four months ago. It's just not right. Every time I arrange something, you run away. Don't you see how rude you're being? He's your sister's fiance. It wouldn't kill you to have dinner with him once."

She had a point there, so I kept quiet. In fact, I had been trying to avoid crossing paths with him, but to me it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. We had nothing in common to talk about, and it was exhausting to tell jokes using my sister as a simultaneous interpreter.

"Will you please please just join us this once? If you'll do that much for me, I promise I won't interfere with your s.e.x life till the end of the summer." just join us this once? If you'll do that much for me, I promise I won't interfere with your s.e.x life till the end of the summer."

"My s.e.x life is pretty feeble at the moment. It might not make it through the summer."

"You will will be home for dinner this Sunday, though, won't you?" be home for dinner this Sunday, though, won't you?"

"How can I say no?"

"He'll probably fix the stereo for us. He's good at that."

"Good with his hands, huh?"

"You and your dirty mind," she said, and hung up.

I put on my necktie and went to work.

The weather was clear all that week. Each day was like a continuation of the previous one. Wednesday night, I called my girlfriend to say we couldn't get together on the weekend. She was understandably annoyed: We hadn't seen each other for three weeks. Receiver still in hand, I dialed the college girl I had made a date with for Sunday, but she was out. She was out again on Thursday and on Friday.

My sister woke me up at eight o'clock on Sunday morning. "Get out of bed, will you? I have to wash the sheets."

She stripped the sheets and pillowcase and ordered me out of my pajamas. My only refuge was the bathroom, where I showered and shaved. She was getting to be more and more like our mother. Women are like salmon: In the end, they all swim back to the same place.

After the shower, I put on a pair of shorts and a faded T-s.h.i.+rt, and with long, long yawns I drank a gla.s.s of orange juice. My veins still carried some of last night's alcohol; opening the Sunday paper would have been too much for me. I nibbled a few soda crackers from the box on the kitchen table and decided that that was all the breakfast I needed.

My sister threw the sheets into the was.h.i.+ng machine and cleaned our two rooms. Next, she put some soap and water in a bucket and washed down the walls and floors of the living room and kitchen. I sprawled on the sofa all this time, looking at the nude photos in a copy of Hustler Hustler that a friend of mine in the States had gotten past the postal censors. Amazing, the variety in shape and size of the female s.e.x organ. They can be as different as people's heights or IQs. that a friend of mine in the States had gotten past the postal censors. Amazing, the variety in shape and size of the female s.e.x organ. They can be as different as people's heights or IQs.

"Stop hanging around and do some shopping for me, will you?" She handed me a list crammed full of things to buy. "And please hide that magazine. He's very proper."

I laid the magazine down and studied the list. Lettuce, tomatoes, celery, French dressing, smoked salmon, mustard, onions, soup stock, potatoes, parsley, three steaks ...

"Steaks? I just had steak last night. Why don't you make croquettes?"

"Maybe you you had steak last night, but we didn't. Don't be so selfish. You can't serve croquettes when you have a guest for dinner." had steak last night, but we didn't. Don't be so selfish. You can't serve croquettes when you have a guest for dinner."

"If some girl invited me to her house and fed me fresh-fried croquettes, I'd be deeply moved. With a nice pile of julienned white cabbage, a bowl of miso clam soup ... that's real life."

"Maybe so, but I have decided on steak. Next time I'll feed you croquettes till you drop, but today you'll have to make do with steak. Please."

"That'll be fine," I told her rea.s.suringly. I can be a pain in the neck, but finally I'm a kind, understanding human being.

I went to the neighborhood supermarket and bought everything on the list. On the way home, I stopped off at a liquor store and bought a 4,500-yen bottle of Chablis-my gift to the young couple. Only a kind, understanding human being would think of something like that.

At home, I found a blue Ralph Lauren polo s.h.i.+rt and a spotless pair of cotton pants neatly folded on the bed.

"Change into those," she said.

With another silent sigh, I did as I was told. I couldn't have said anything to her that would have brought me back my pleasantly messy, peaceful Sunday.

n.o.bORU WATANABE came riding up at three. Astride his trusty cycle, he arrived with the gentle zephyrs of springtime. I caught the ominous put-put of his 500CC Honda from a quarter mile away. I stuck my head out over the edge of the balcony to see him parking next to the entrance of our apartment house and taking off his helmet. Fortunately, once he removed that white dome with its STP sticker, his outfit today approached that of a normal human being: overstarched b.u.t.ton-down check s.h.i.+rt, baggy white pants, and brown loafers with ta.s.sels-though the color of the shoes and belt didn't match. came riding up at three. Astride his trusty cycle, he arrived with the gentle zephyrs of springtime. I caught the ominous put-put of his 500CC Honda from a quarter mile away. I stuck my head out over the edge of the balcony to see him parking next to the entrance of our apartment house and taking off his helmet. Fortunately, once he removed that white dome with its STP sticker, his outfit today approached that of a normal human being: overstarched b.u.t.ton-down check s.h.i.+rt, baggy white pants, and brown loafers with ta.s.sels-though the color of the shoes and belt didn't match.

"I think your friend from Fisherman's Wharf is here," I said to my sister, who was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink.

"Keep him company for a while, will you? I'll finish up here."

"Bad idea. I don't know what to talk to him about. You talk to him-I'll do this."

"Don't be silly. It wouldn't look right for me to leave you in the kitchen. You talk to him."

The bell rang, and I opened the door to find n.o.boru Watanabe standing there. I showed him into the living room and settled him onto the couch. His gift for the evening was a selection of Baskin-Robbins's thirty-one flavors, but cramming it into our tiny, already-stuffed freezer took a major effort on my part. What a pain. Of all the things he could have brought, why did he have to pick ice cream?

"How about a beer?"

"No thanks. I think I'm allergic to alcohol. One gla.s.s is enough to make me sick."

"I once drank a whole washbasinful of beer on a bet with some college friends."

"What did it do to you?"

"My pee stank beer for two whole days. And I kept burping up this-"

"Why don't you have n.o.boru look at the stereo set?" interjected my sister, who had come along in the nick of time, as if she had smelled smoke, with two gla.s.ses of orange juice.

"Good idea," said n.o.boru.

"I hear you're good with your hands," I said.

"It's true," he confessed unabashedly. "I always used to enjoy making plastic models and radio kits. Anytime something broke in the house, I'd fix it. What's wrong with the stereo?"

"No sound," I said. I turned on the amp and put on a record to show him.

He crouched down in front of the stereo like a mongoose ready to spring. After fiddling with all the switches, he announced, "It's definitely in the amplifier system, but it's not internal."

"How can you tell?"

"By the inductive method."

Oh, sure, the inductive method.

He pulled out the mini-preamp and the power amplifier, removed all the cords connecting them, and began to examine each one. While he was busy with this, I took a can of Budweiser from the refrigerator and drank it alone.

"It must be fun to be able to drink alcohol," he said as he poked at a plug with a mechanical pencil.

"I wonder," I said. "I've been doing it so long I wouldn't have anything to compare it with."

"I've been practicing a little."

"Practicing drinking?"

"Yes. Is there something odd about that?"

"No, not at all. You should start with white wine. Put some in a big gla.s.s with ice, cut it with Perrier and a squeeze of lemon juice. That's what I drink instead of fruit juice."

"I'll give it a try," he said. "Aha! I thought so!"

"What's that?"

"The connecting cords between the preamp and the power amp. The connection's been broken at the plugs on both channels. This kind of pin plug can't take much movement. In addition to which, they're cheaply made. I'll bet somebody moved the amplifier recently."

"I did the other day, when I was cleaning," said my sister.

"That's it."

She looked at me. "We got this thing from your your company. It's their fault for using such weak parts." company. It's their fault for using such weak parts."

"Well, I I didn't make it," I muttered. "I just do the commercials." didn't make it," I muttered. "I just do the commercials."

"Don't worry," said n.o.boru Watanabe. "I can fix it right away if you've got a soldering iron."

"A soldering iron? Not in this house."

"Never mind. I'll zip out and buy one. You really ought to have a soldering iron in the house. They come in handy."

"Yeah, I'll bet. But I don't know where there's a hardware store."

"I do. I pa.s.sed one on the way."

I stuck my head out over the balcony again and watched n.o.boru Watanabe strap on his helmet, mount his bike, and disappear around a corner.

"He's so nice," sighed my sister.