I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar

wondered whether it had all been a dream. But then I knew: The dry feeling in my mouth came from talking so much, the stale smell in my hair from all the smoke. Both were connected. As I was to him. When I stood up and knocked the damp earth off my legs, I thought: And what if he were to jump in front of the train today? I was convinced he would drag me down with him, to death on the humming rails. The stripes of his tie before my eyes, I set off.
    Good morning.
    He overtook me.
    Bad night?
    I followed him. Fell into step. Every once in a while he stopped. Looked for something. Found it. Walked on, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, slower. Stopped again. Walked on. So slowly that at some point we were no longer walking, but we sauntered idly along like two people strolling through rushing crowds. I saw our shapes reflected in a shop window, beyond the rhythm of the world. After rain the light is always at its clearest. He spoke to me over his shoulder. There was the park. We reached our bench. Good to be here again. He stretched out his legs.
76
    Do you believe in an afterlife?
    The question came rushing out.
    I mean: Yukiko. Last night when I was lying in bed, I wondered whether she would be reborn. Let’s say, in Mexico. She would be two, three years old by now. She’d be talking already. Spanish. She learns fast. As soon as you’ve told her a word she babbles it back. She has two brothers. Jorge and Fernando. You can see them playing. The two older ones make sure their sister doesn’t swallow any of her building blocks. The girl reincarnated. I mean, just imagine. Yukiko, with all the knowledge that’s already in her, could now be in a house in Puebla, in a room, in a body called Isabella, picture her, as she places one block on another, she could suddenly realize she has been here before. She knows the sun that falls through the blindson her hands as they play. She knows her mother’s call. There’s a recognition. With this picture in my head I fell asleep. That we, reincarnated, are here to recognize something. A stunning idea. Don’t you think? You could meet her. One day. In Mexico. Or somewhere else. A chance moment in time, her sleeve touches yours and it would be a great pity to miss such a moment. An incomparable loss. And furthermore: With us it could be the same. I mean. Today on the platform, surrounded by so many people, I asked myself whether I would miss any one of them if they weren’t here, and then: Whether they would miss me if I weren’t here. Whether we are not all somehow here in order to touch one another. When the train finally came and I saw my reflection in its windows and in the sleeping faces rolling by behind them, there was no question, only an insight: We must all, every one of us, relate to one another.
77
    If I could choose. He drew a circle in the gravel with the toe of his shoe. There are two people I would like to meet again. May I? A clearing of the throat, he scratched his head. Two people I’d like to encounter again in passing.
    One is my teacher. Watanabe-Sensei* . I just called him teacher. When I was ten years old, my parents got it in their heads that I should take piano lessons. They hoped I had a hidden talent. Dressed in shirt and trousers and with a ridiculous tie round my neck, I wore things like that even then, they sent me up to the teacher, full of hope. I say up. Because the teacher’s house stood a bit to one side on the hill, you had to walk up an unpaved road, through a thick forest. The teacher lived there, above the town and its smoke, with his wife who had lung disease.The pure air should be good for her, they said down below. It was a big house. When you entered you had the impression it would breathe you in. The light fell first through this window, then through that one, depending on the time of day. At any hour the teacher’s house was flooded with light.
    But there was something else. A slightly sour smell. Like in a hospital. I remember. The