decline in March, he stopped saying that he would die in that month. . . . He
doesn’t say that he’ll die anymore. He’s completely forgotten about death.
Or maybe that’s not right—maybe he just goes on dying naturally, since
from what I hear he spends all of his time asleep. He does eat quite a lot.
But he just moves his mouth, he just chews—so everyone figured that
really good sweets and so on would be like poison to him, that quantity
should be more important than quality, but if they gave him cheap biscuits
or something like that he’d grumble when he woke—Can’t you people give
me something better? He’s able to taste things. In villages in the country
they say that an old person who’s become senile—whose arms and legs no
longer work properly, who’s always needing other people’s help—they say
that he’s become a nidoaka. Nidoaka means someone who’s turned into a
baby for the second time.”
“Nidoaka—that’s a nice way of putting it.”
“Momosuke’s ghost seems to have come. Ever since the old man said
that I’ve thought of him every time I’m in pain or in trouble, and I’ve
grown fond of him—nostalgically fond. Mr. Kishiyama was an amazing
man, but of course he died early. If he was alive and in this room now I
think I’d want to ask him to live on to ninety-seven, to grow senile.” “Yes,
but only one person in a thousand lives to be ninety-seven. If I live to be
that old I think I’d like to be able to say, and to say naturally—I’ve
forgotten the novels I wrote back then, all of them.” I hadn’t meant much
by this, but Uryu was still a riddle to me, so I asked, “When you say that
you had become a woman ... do you mean that you were a specialist in
female roles? Did you dress as a woman?”
Uryu lowered his beautiful eyes.
“I wasn’t a specialist in female roles, I was an actress. I was living as an
actual woman.”
“Why” . . .” I asked foolishly. Imagining that something of Uryu’s odd
gender might be revealed in the area about his waist, I glanced towards it.
