氷男の翻訳

　　　I happen to have encountered Ice Man at a ski resort. It is probably reasonable to call this the most suitable place for making acquaintance with him. At a lively hotel lobby filled with young people, Ice Man was quietly reading a book on a chair in a corner that was furthest from the fireplace. It was already near noon, but I could feel that the brilliant and chilly light of the winter morning remaining around him. “Hey, that’s Ice Man,” my friend whispered to me. However, I did not know at all why he was called such a name, and neither did my friend. Only that he is called so. “He is made out of ice for sure. That’s why he’s called by that name,” she said in a serious tone. It seemed as if she was telling the story of a ghost or a patient with contagious disease.
　　　Ice Man was tall, and his hair looked hard. His face still looked young, and yet traces of white that looked like melted snow were visible at places on his stiff wire-like hair. His tense cheekbones were formed like frozen rocks and frost that were by no means melting were floating on his fingers. Still, besides these, he was like any other common man in his appearance. Although he can’t exactly be called handsome he looked rather charming. There was something that pierces people’s hearts, especially his eyes. They had the brilliant shine and coldness of a winter morning, the look of silence and transparency, the only sparkle of real life in the body. I stood there for a while, and gazed at Ice Man from a far distance. But, he did not raise his head even once. He read his book without making even a single movement. It was as if he tried to persuade himself that there was no one around him.
　　　The next day, in the afternoon, Ice Man was still reading a book in the same way at the same place. Even when I went for lunch in the cafeteria, when I returned from skiing with everyone before sunset, he was still sitting in the same chair as the day before, looking at the same page of the same book in the same way. It was the same even the day after that. Even after sun has set, even after dark, he was still quietly sitting like the winter outside the window, reading the book alone.
　　　On the afternoon of the fourth day, I made up an excuse to not go out to the ski slope. I stayed in the hotel alone, and wandered aimlessly around the lobby. Everyone has gone for a ski. The lobby was deserted like an abandoned town. The air in the lobby was warmer and damper than necessary. There was a mix of curiously gloomy scent. That’s the smell of the snow that has been brought back under everyone’s shoes which has been melted unwillingly by the fireplace. I looked outside through the various windows, and flipped through the newspaper. Then, I went over to Ice Man, and tried boldly to start a conversation. I do not start conversations with strangers very often. However, I wanted to talk to Ice Man no matter what. That was my last night at the hotel, and I wouldn’t be given a second chance to talk to him if I let this chance escape.
　　　“You’re not going to ski?” I asked Ice Man in a tone as casual as possible. He slowly raised his face, a face with the expression that seemed as if he could hear the wind in the distance. He looked at me with those eyes, motionlessly. Then, he quietly nodded his head. “I don’t ski. I’m fine with looking at snow this way while reading my book,” he said. His words became white clouds in the air like they were being blown out of a manga. I could see his words so clearly with my own eyes. He lightly brushed off the frost on his fingers.
　　　I didn’t know what to say after that. I just stood there, turning red. Ice Man looked into my eyes. There seemed to be a barely noticeable smile, but I wasn’t sure. Did he really smile? It might have been just a feeling. “Would you like to take a seat here?” he asked. “Let us talk a little. You seem to have an interest in me, do you not? Don’t you want to know what Ice Man is?” Then he smiled, just a little. “It’s fine. There isn’t anything to worry about. You won’t get a cold by talking to me.”
　　　In this way I started talking to Ice Man. We sat side by side on the sofa in the lobby’s corner, and looked at the dancing snow outside the window while we talked with restraint. I ordered a cup of warm hot chocolate. He did not drink anything. To add to this, we did not have any common conversation topic. First, we talked about the weather. The, we talked about the comfort of the hotel. “Did you come here by yourself?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered. He asked me whether I liked to ski. I told him not really. “My friends invited me and wanted me to come no matter what so I came, but I hardly ski.” I really wanted to know what Ice Man meant. Is it really because his body is made of ice? What does he usually eat? Where does he live in the summer? Does he have any family? Things like that. However, Ice Man did not talk about himself. As for me, I dared not ask him. I thought perhaps he did not want to talk about these kinds of things.
　　　Instead, Ice Man talked about me, as a human. It was really unbelievable, but Ice Man for some reason had a thorough knowledge of me. He knew anything from my family composition, age, interests, health condition, the school I attended, to the friends that I go out with. He knew perfectly things from a long time ago that I had long forgotten.
　　　Turning red, “I don’t understand,” I said. I had the feeling that I was somehow naked in public. “How do you know me so well?” I inquired. “Can you read people’s mind?”
“No, I can not read people’s mind. But, I know. I just know, as if I am peering into the interior of the ice. By staring at you like this I can clearly see things about you,” he said.
　　　“Can you see my future?” I tried to ask him.
　　　“I can not see the future,” he replied expressionlessly, and shook his head slowly. “I do not have any interest in this thing called the future. To be accurate, I do not have any concept about the future. There is no future in ice. There is only the past sealed in tightly. All things are locked in there as so vivid as if they were alive. Ice preserves all sorts of things in that way. Very clean. Very clear. They are the truth. That is the role of ice, its nature.
　　　“That’s great,” I said, and smiled. “I’m relieved to hear that. I don’t want to know my future yet.”
　　　Ever since coming back to Tokyo we have been meeting a lot. Before long, we were always on a date on the weekends. But, we didn’t go to the movies or café together. We didn’t even eat together since Ice Man did not eat. We always sat on benches in the park and talked about a lot of things. Even though we talked a lot, Ice Man did not talk about himself at all even if I requested it. I asked him why. “Why is it that you don’t talk about yourself? I want to know more about you. Where were you born? Who are your parents? What made you Ice Man?” Ice Man looked at my face for a while, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in a quiet voice, and his breath was hard and white. “I don’t have anything called the past. I know every past. I protect every past. But, I do not have a past myself. I don’t know where I was born. I don’t know my parents’ faces. I don’t even know if I have parents. I don’t even know my own age. I don’t know if I have an age.”
　　　Ice Man was in solitude like icebergs in the darkness.
　　　I truly fail in love with this man. He had neither a past nor a future. He just loved me, at this time. And I had neither past nor future, but simply loved him. What a wonderful thing! We even talked about marriage. I was almost twenty. Ice Man was the first man I had ever loved since birth. I could not imagine at that moment what it meant to love him, the Ice Man. 　　　However, even if it wasn’t him, I don’t think I would have understood it anyway.
Mom and old sister strongly opposed my marriage to Ice Man. They said I was too young to get married. “Besides, you don’t even know his true background. You don’t even know where and when was he born. The relatives are going to gossip if you marry someone like that.” “You don’t seem to understand, but responsibility is crucial in a marriage. Can he really take on the responsibility of being a husband?”
　　　Their concerns were unnecessary. Ice Man wasn’t made of ice. He was just a little cold like ice so even if his surroundings get warmer he won’t melt. His coldness was indeed like ice, but his body was different. He was very cold, but not the kind of coldness that robs of others their warmth.
　　　We got married. It was a marriage without blessings. Not friends, not sisters, no one came to congratulate us. No one came to our wedding. I didn’t enter Ice Man’s family register since he held none. The two of us simply decided to get married. We bought a small cake and ate it together. This was our modest wedding. We borrowed a small apartment, and Ice Man worked at a refrigeration company that stored beef for a living. He was strong in the cold, and did not get tired no matter how much he worked. He didn’t even eat. For that reason the employer was very pleased with him, and paid him more than everyone else. We didn’t bother anyone, neither did anyone bother us. We lived happily, just the two of us.
　　　When Ice Man hugs me I think of a block of ice that exists somewhere in absolute silence. I thought he probably knew where that ice block was. They were hard, harder than anything else there is. That’s the biggest block of ice in the world. But, it was somewhere far away. He brought to this world memories of that ice. In the beginning, I was in wonderment when he hugged me. Slowly, though, I got used to it. I even came to love those hugs. As usual he did not talk about himself. Not even why he became the Ice Man. I also stopped asking. We held each other amidst the darkness, and shared the gigantic ice in silence. In that ice exist every single memory of the world’s past extending several billion years, kept in purity and truth.
Our married life did not have any problems like others would experience. We were deeply in love so did not have any trouble from that. People around us were not familiar with people like Ice Man, but even they started talking to him as time passed by. “You are called Ice Man, but you are no different from normal people, huh?” they told him. In the bottom of their hearts, however, they still could not accept Ice Man so they couldn’t accept me either, the person who married him. We were a species different from them. No matter how long it takes this gap between us will never close.
　　　We did not have child easily, possibly because it is hard to combine the genes between an Ice Man and a human. At any rate, I found the time that I had without a child completely unmanageable. After finishing chores in the morning I had nothing else to do. I didn’t have any friends to talk to or to go out with or any acquaintances in the neighborhood. Mother and older sister were still offended by the fact that I married Ice Man so did not talk to me. They thought of me as a shame for the family. I didn’t even have anyone that I could call. While Ice Man worked at the warehouse I was all alone, reading books and listening to music. I preferred staying home than going out. I think my personality prevented me from being pained by solitude. But, because I was still young I thought the same routine that I performed everyday was painful. I couldn’t bear the repetitiveness of it. In that repetition I seemed to have become a shadow, repeating after myself.
　　　One day, I made a suggestion to my husband, “how about traveling somewhere for a change of mood?” “Travel,” Ice Man repeated. He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “What in the world are traveling for? You don’t feel happy being with me anymore?”
“No, that’s not it,” I argued, “I am happy. There’s nothing wrong between us. But, I’m bored. I just want to go somewhere to see things that I haven’t seen before. To breath in air that I haven’t breathed before. Get it? Beside, we didn’t have a honeymoon, right? We have savings and paid vacation. It would be nice to go a trip without worries.”
　　　Ice Man’s breathe were so deep they seemed frozen. His sigh crystallized in the air. He put together his long fingers filled with frost on the top of his knee. “Alright, if you say you want to go on such a trip then I don’t have any objections. I don’t think traveling is a good thing, but if it makes you happy then I’ll do anything and go anywhere. I think I can take a break from the job at the warehouse if I want to since I have been working every hard until now. There shouldn’t be any problem. But, where do you want to go?”
　　　I asked him how about the South Pole. I chose the South Pole because I thought Ice Man must be interested since it is such a cold place. To be honest, I have always wanted to go there for once. I wanted to see aurora and penguins. I imagined myself playing with penguins under the aurora while wearing a fur coat with a hood.
　　　After I told him Ice Man stared at me. He did not even blink. It was like a sharp icicle piercing through my eyes and head. He thought about it for a while silently, but he finally said okay in a flickering voice. “Alright, if you wish to go then we should go to the South Pole. It’s really what you want, right?”
I nodded.
　　　“I think I’ll be able to take a long break in two weeks. Until then we can probably do the budget. There shouldn’t be a problem.”
　　　But I couldn’t say anything. My brain froze under Ice Man’s cold gaze.
　　　As time passed, I regretted mentioning the trip. I didn’t know why. Ever since I said “South Pole” I sensed that something in him had changed. His eyes became sharper and colder than before, his breath whiter, his fingers covered with even more frost. He became more silent than before, more stubborn than before. He ate absolutely nothing. All of these made me terribly uneasy. Five days before we were set to departure made a decision. “Let’s not go to the South Pole,” I said. “I thought about it and it really is too cold. Probably not good for the body either. I have a feeling that it’s better to go to some place more common. Wouldn’t Europe be good? We can travel around Spain. Drink wine, eat paella, and watch bullfight.” He didn’t respond. For a while he only looked into the distance. He then turned to look at my face, and peeked deeply into my eyes. A glance so deep I thought my body had disappeared. “I don’t really want to go to Spain,” he said plainly. “I’m sorry, but I think Spain is too hot and dusty. The food’s too spicy. And we already bought our tickets to the South Pole. I bought the fur coat and leather boots for you. We can’t do such pointless things. We can’t back out at this time.”
　　　I was scared by such a serious speech. If we go I have the intuition that maybe something will happen. I had a reoccurring nightmare. It was always the same. I was taking walk when the earth opened and I fell into a deep hole. I froze while no one found me. I was shut away in the ice motionlessly looking at the sky. I was conscious, but couldn’t move a single finger. It was such a strange feeling. I was well aware of the changes that accompanied each passing moment. I had no such thing called a future. I had only the past, accumulating. Then I saw everyone. They were looking at the past. I was the scene in the past that they turned their back on.
　　　Then, I woke up. Ice Man was sleeping next to me. He slept without a single breath. He looked as if he has frozen to death. Still I loved him. I wept. My tears touched his cheeks, and he woke up and held me. “I had a bad dream,” I told him. He slowly shook his head in the dark. “It was just a dream,” he comforted me. “Dreams are from the past, not from the future. They can’t bind you. You can bind them. Understand?”
　　　“Hmn,” I replied, but I did not believe him.
　　　In the end we went on the plane that took us to the South Pole. I could not find any reason to cancel the trip. Everyone, the pilot and the stewardess were all very quiet. I wanted to see the scenery outside the window, but I couldn’t see anything behind the thick clouds. The window was getting covered with a thick layer of ice. At the same time, he was quietly reading a book. I did not have any of the excitement and happiness that accompanied this trip. I was just doing what was already decided.
　　　When we landed on the runway and our feet touched the earth of South Pole I felt his body was shaking. It was shorter than an instant, perhaps half of that, which is why no one noticed. Neither did he show any change on his face, but I couldn’t help but notice. Something in his body was quietly but violently shaking. I stared at his face. He stood there looking at the sky, looking at his hands, and deeply exhaled. Then he looked at my face and smiled sweetly. “This is the land that you wished for?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered.
　　　Even though I did have some expectations South Pole was a land more lonely than my every imagination. It was place uninhabited by most people. It had only one small unrecognizable town. That town had a similarly unrecognizable small hotel. South Pole was not a tourist attraction after all. I didn’t even see any penguins or aurora. I occasionally asked passersby where I could see penguins, but everyone was silent and shook their heads. Perhaps they didn’t understand my language so I drew pictures of penguins on a piece of paper and showed it to them. Still they remained silent and shook their heads. I was so lonely. Ice was the only thing even one step outside of the town. No trees. No flowers. No river or ponds. No matter where I went ice was the only thing there. Icy plain was all that I could see.
　　　On the other hand, Ice Man energetically walked about town from place to place without losing any interest with his white breath, fingers covered with frost, and cold eyes that gazed at the distance. Soon he recalled the language of the land, and started talking to towns folks in voices as hard and resonating as ice. They talked with such serious faces all the time, but I couldn’t understand what they were talking so enthusiastically about at all. He was becoming completely like being in a dream at that place. That place brought out something that had already existed in him. In the beginning I found the place irritating. I felt as if I was going to be the only person left. I felt betrayed and neglected by my own husband.
　　　But, before long, I lost all my strength in that silent world surrounded by thick ice. Little by little, I lost my strength. Soon, I lost even the strength to feel irritated. It was as if I lost the compass that guided my feelings somewhere. I lost sight of my direction, time, and my own existence. I didn’t know when this started or when it was going to end, but when I finally realized it I was numbly shut away in that world of ice having lost all my color in that eternal winter. Even after I lost all my feelings I understood one thing. The husband at South Pole was not the same husband that I had before. He was by no means different. He always cared for me like always, and treated me nicely. I understood well that all were his true feelings. Still I knew. Ice Man was different from the Ice Man that I met at the ski resort’s hotel, but I couldn’t tell anyone. Everyone at South Pole befriended him, and they did not understand a single word that I said. Everyone had white breath, faces covered with frost, in their flickering South Pole language they joked, argued and sang. All the while I was alone confined to the hotel room, looking at grey sky that had not cleared for who knows how many months, and studying complicated South Pole language grammar.
　　　The airport no longer had any more planes. After the plane that took us here quickly took off not a single plane has landed there. Then the runway was covered with a thick layer of ice, like my heart.
　　　“Winter’s here,” he said, “its’ a long winter. Neither planes nor ships can get here. 　Everything’s frozen. We have no choice but to wait for the spring.”
　　　We had been in South Pole for three months when I realized that I was pregnant. I knew. I knew I will give birth to a small Ice Man. My womb is frozen, and the amniotic fluid is mixed with thin ice. I could feel the coldness inside my own womb. I knew. I knew this child will have the same eyes as his father, and the same fingers that are covered with frost. And then I knew. I knew that this new family would never step outside of South Pole ever again. The eternal past and the extraordinary weight caught our feet. We could no longer shake off them off.
　　　Right now, I have nothing left of my heart. My warmth had left me in a distance. Sometimes I even forgot about that warmth. Yet, I could still cry. I was really alone. I was in a place colder and lonelier than anyone else. Whenever I cried, Ice Man would kiss my cheeks, and my tears would change into ice. He would then take those tears in his hands and put them on his tongue. “I love you,” he would say. This wasn’t a lie. I understood that perfectly. Ice Man loved me, but the wind that blew from nowhere had blown his white cold words into the past. I cried. In large drops, my icy tears continued to flow. In the home made of ice. In the forever frozen South Pole.