in a dark silver suit, appeared to have just returned from work. He looked somber and tired, with faint shadows under his eyes. He had short, lightly waxed hair and wore fashionable black-framed spectacles. Slightly off to the side of his left eye was a black beauty mark—a feature that this me was lacking. All in all he was quite a hunk. And yet my gut feeling remained that this was still me. Yes, it was. There wasn’t any doubt about it.
Recovering from the initial shock, the other ME now closed in, angrily roaring: “Get lost! You’re a total nuisance!”
“Who are you?” I asked. I knew it was a foolish question but I felt compelled to pose it anyway.
“I’ll ask the same of you!”
“I’m Hitoshi Nagano, of course!”
The other ME gave me a doleful look and a faint smile as he shook his head. “Do you really want a repeat of last week? This is totally absurd. What do you think you’re doing by trying to impersonate me?”
“What? Last week? I wasn’t even here last week!”
“I told you to drop this farce.”
“It’s no farce. I haven’t been here in two years!”
“Then who was here last week?”
“How the hell should I know?”
The other ME fell silent, gave me a once-over with pouted lips and tilted head, and then muttered: “Hmmm . . . Not quite the same . . . The last two weeks, someone resembling you came barging in here, claiming to be a university student and insisting that this was his home.”
In the shadow of the door Mother was looking on. She nudged ME and said, “Why are you letting him put you on like this? Get a grip! It’s the same guy, with same trick! There couldn’t be anyone else. He’s just playing dumb.”
Looking displeased, the other ME restrained her. “Let me handle this!”
She nodded but then turned to me and added: “If you don’t scram this instant, we’re really going to call the police.” With a contorted expression of loathing on his face, the other ME offered an outstretched palm and said, “Your card.”
“What?”
“You’ve got at least a card, haven’t you? If you give it to me and leave, I won’t call the police.”
“Why should I present a card in my own—” I stopped myself, as I saw the other ME give me a knowing wink, as though attempting to convey a message. I did not understand but was somehow persuaded. I vaguely grasped that he was trying to get me to play along with this charade in order to dupe Mother.
And so I acquiesced, taking out a Megaton card from my wallet. It was my last one. On it was unmistakably printed: Hitoshi Nagano. I handed it over with a bit of a flourish.
The other ME examined it carefully, then thrust it back. “Write down your cell phone number too.”
I looked at ME and glimpsed another silent appeal; he nodded slightly. Taking a pen from Mother, I did as requested.
As I raised my eyes to return the pen, I was momentarily blinded by a flash of light. Mother had snapped a photo of me with a digital camera—a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35, no less.
“Photographic evidence, just in case . . .” she said.
“All right. Go now!” The other ME shooed me away with one hand, but his left hand, hidden from Mother’s view, now mimicked a cell phone with thumb and pinkie. Again I nodded slightly, while making a show of disgust. I headed out the door without looking back.
* * *
I had not quite reached the station when, less than ten minutes later, the other ME called, saying that he was close on my heels and would meet me anywhere in the area. I suggested the nearby McDonald’s.
I had just checked the time—7:13 p.m.—when he appeared. I was sitting upstairs at a counter by the windows, sipping oolong tea I had no desire to drink, my eyes glued to the street. I had nevertheless managed to miss him, so that when he suddenly sat down next to me on my left, saying, “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” I was given quite a scare.
I struggled to meet his determined gaze, then instead lowered my eyes. On his tray as well was a cup of oolong tea.
“So explain it all to me,” I said softly, as if in a packed elevator. I had no desire to quarrel with him, but the mere fact that we were having this tête-à-tête was causing me enormous shame.
He took his eyes off of me and glanced toward the front window. “Just as I said before, there was a guy like you who came around twice, claiming that he was back for spring break. Again, like you, he had unkempt hair parted in the middle, narrow eyes, uneven eyebrows, a thin voice, boringly conventional clothes . . .” The other ME pointed to my Uniqlo flannel shirt. “But his hair was dyed brown, and he had stubble on his chin and a slightly protruding jaw. He was slightly taller and also had a dimple—here.” He motioned to his right cheek.
“So it wasn’t me.”
“I understand that.”
We both fell silent, and I fiddled with my cell phone, which was lying on the tray. The other ME was likewise opening and closing his own phone. Yasokichi had the same popular Docomo model. When a call came in, the entire body flashed red. Attached to it was blue whale-shark strap. Yasokichi’s was again the same, and so was mine. Minami-san had brought the straps back as souvenirs from a trip he and his wife had taken to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.
I prodded him for details: “So what was with that student?”
“At first I just turned him away. And when he tried to barge in, I wouldn’t let him. He was making quite a fuss, and that brought down Masae-san, who ranted and raved about calling the police. And so when the neighbors came out, he took off.”
“Masae-san . . .” I involuntarily grimaced. The other ME now had the exact same expression, as he realized how he had just referred to Mother. We both dropped our eyes, unwilling to look at each other.
I was in middle school when, on her fortieth birthday, she declared that she was renouncing her title as “Mother,” that she was commencing a second life—not as Mother but rather as “Masae Nagano”—and would insist on having everyone in household, including her son, call her Masae-san.
“Every time I’m addressed as ‘Mother,’ I feel like I’m becoming a grannie. I don’t feel that my life ends with being a mother. I’m still young and so wish to be addressed as Masae-san, as though I were, say, an upperclassman in a school club. And, if possible, I think Father should be called Toshio-san.”
My father thought the idea was totally absurd and adamantly refused, but eventually I gave in to her demand. For a while I put up some resistance and went on calling her Mother, but when she either ignored me or gave me a tongue-lashing (“Don’t treat me like an old lady!”), I threw in the towel. Once I became independent, I stopped calling her anything at all and so now had no form of address or reference.
“The guy who came around the other day frantically called her Maasa: Hey, Maasa, look me in the eye! That really set her off: Who are you? How dare
