KAZUO ISHIGURO

Never Let Me Go - fragments
 

Anyway, that’s why I was so secretive about my tape. I even turned the cover inside out so you’d only see Judy and her cigarette if you opened up the plastic case. But the reason the tape meant so much to me had nothing to do with the cigarette, or even with the way Judy Bridgewater sang—she’s one of those singers from her time, cocktail-bar stuff, not the sort of thing any of us at Hailsham liked. What made the tape so special for me was this one particular song: track number three, “Never Let Me Go.”
It’s slow and late night and American, and there’s a bit that keeps coming round when Judy sings: “Never let me go… Oh baby, baby… Never let me go…” I was eleven then, and hadn’t listened to much music, but this one song, it really got to me. I always tried to keep the tape wound to just that spot so I could play the song whenever a chance came by.
I didn’t have so many opportunities, mind you, this being a few years before Walkmans started appearing at the Sales. There was a big machine in the billiards room, but I hardly ever played the tape in there because it was always full of people. The Art Room also had a player, but that was usually just as noisy. The only place I could listen properly was in our dorm.
By then we’d gone into the small six-bed dorms over in the separate huts, and in ours we had a portable cassette player up on the shelf above the radiator. So that’s where I used to go, in the day when no one else was likely to be about, to play my song over and over.
What was so special about this song? Well, the thing was, I didn’t used to listen properly to the words; I just waited for that bit that went: “Baby, baby, never let me go…” And what I’d imagine was a woman who’d been told she couldn’t have babies, who’d really, really wanted them all her life. Then there’s a sort of miracle and she has a baby, and she holds this baby very close to her and walks around singing: “Baby, never let me go…” partly because she’s so happy, but also because she’s so afraid something will happen, that the baby will get ill or be taken away from her. Even at the time, I realised this couldn’t be right, that this interpretation didn’t fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn’t an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.
There was one strange incident around this time I should tell you about here. It really unsettled me, and although I wasn’t to find out its real meaning until years later, I think I sensed, even then, some deeper significance to it.
It was a sunny afternoon and I’d gone to our dorm to get something. I remember how bright it was because the curtains in our room hadn’t been pulled back properly, and you could see the sun coming in in big shafts and see all the dust in the air. I hadn’t meant to play the tape, but since I was there all by myself, an impulse made me get the cassette out of my collection box and put it into the player.
Maybe the volume had been turned right up by whoever had been using it last, I don’t know. But it was much louder than I usually had it and that was probably why I didn’t hear her before I did. Or maybe I’d just got complacent by then. Anyway, what I was doing was swaying about slowly in time to the song, holding an imaginary baby to my breast. In fact, to make it all the more embarrassing, it was one of those times I’d grabbed a pillow to stand in for the baby, and I was doing this slow dance, my eyes closed, singing along softly each time those lines came around again:
“Oh baby, baby, never let me go…”
The song was almost over when something made me realise I wasn’t alone, and I opened my eyes to find myself staring at Madame framed in the doorway.
I froze in shock. Then within a second or two, I began to feel a new kind of alarm, because I could see there was something strange about the situation. The door was almost half open—it was a sort of rule we couldn’t close dorm doors completely except for when we were sleeping—but Madame hadn’t nearly come up to the threshold. She was out in the corridor, standing very still, her head angled to one side to give her a view of what I was doing inside. And the odd thing was she was crying. It might even have been one of her sobs that had come through the song to jerk me out of my dream.
When I think about this now, it seems to me, even if she wasn’t a guardian, she was the adult, and she should have said or done something, even if it was just to tell me off. Then I’d have known how to behave. But she just went on standing out there, sobbing and sobbing, staring at me through the doorway with that same look in her eyes she always had when she looked at us, like she was seeing something that gave her the creeps. Except this time there was something else, something extra in that look I couldn’t fathom.
I didn’t know what to do or say, or what to expect next. Perhaps she would come into the room, shout at me, hit me even, I didn’t have a clue. As it was, she turned and the next moment I could hear her footsteps leaving the hut. I realised the tape had gone on to the next track, and I turned it off and sat down on the nearest bed. And as I did so, I saw through the window in front of me her figure hurrying off towards the main house. She didn’t glance back, but I could tell from the way her back was hunched up she was still sobbing.
When I got back to my friends a few minutes later, I didn’t tell them anything about what had happened. Someone noticed I wasn’t right and said something, but I just shrugged and kept quiet. I wasn’t ashamed exactly: but it was a bit like that earlier time, when we’d all waylaid Madame in the courtyard as she got out of her car. What I wished more than anything was that the thing hadn’t happened at all, and I thought that by not mentioning it I’d be doing myself and everyone else a favour.
I did, though, talk to Tommy about it a couple of years later. This was in those days following our conversation by the pond when he’d first confided in me about Miss Lucy; the days during which—as I see it—we started off our whole thing of wondering and asking questions about ourselves that we kept going between us through the years. When I told Tommy about what had happened with Madame in the dorm, he came up with a fairly simple explanation. By then, of course, we all knew something I hadn’t known back then, which was that none of us could have babies. It’s just possible I’d somehow picked up the idea when I was younger without fully registering it, and that’s why I heard what I did when I listened to that song. But there was no way I’d known properly back then. As I say, by the time Tommy and I were discussing it, we’d all been told clearly enough. None of us, incidentally, was particularly bothered about it; in fact, I remember some people being pleased we could have sex without worrying about all of that—though proper sex was still some way off for most of us at that stage.
Anyway, when I told Tommy about what had happened, he said:
“Madame’s probably not a bad person, even though she’s creepy. So when she saw you dancing like that, holding your baby, she thought it was really tragic, how you couldn’t have babies. That’s why she started crying.”
“But Tommy,” I pointed out, “how could she have known the song had anything to do with people having babies? How could she have known the pillow I was holding was supposed to be a baby? That was only in my head.”
Tommy thought about this, then said only half jokingly: “Maybe Madame can read minds. She’s strange. Maybe she can see right inside you. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
This gave us both a little chill, and though we giggled, we didn’t say any more about it.


I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them.
I suppose I lost Hailsham too. You still hear stories about some ex-Hailsham student trying to find it, or rather the place where it used to be. And the odd rumour will go round sometimes about what Hailsham’s become these days—a hotel, a school, a ruin. Myself, for all the driving I do, I’ve never tried to find it. I’m not really interested in seeing it, whatever way it is now.
Mind you, though I say I never go looking for Hailsham, what I find is that sometimes, when I’m driving around, I suddenly think I’ve spotted some bit of it. I see a sports pavilion in the distance and I’m sure it’s ours. Or a row of poplars on the horizon next to a big woolly oak, and I’m convinced for a second I’m coming up to the South Playing Field from the other side. Once, on a grey morning, on a long stretch of road in Gloucestershire, I passed a broken-down car in a lay-by, and I was sure the girl standing in front of it, gazing emptily out towards the on-coming vehicles, was Susanna C., who’d been a couple of years above us and one of the Sales monitors. These moments hit me when I’m least expecting it, when I’m driving with something else entirely in my mind. So maybe at some level, I am on the lookout for Hailsham.
But as I say, I don’t go searching for it, and anyway, by the end of the year, I won’t be driving around like this any more. So the chances are I won’t ever come across it now, and on reflection, I’m glad that’s the way it’ll be. It’s like with my memories of Tommy and of Ruth. Once I’m able to have a quieter life, in whichever centre they send me to, I’ll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head, and that’ll be something no one can take away.
The only indulgent thing I did, just once, was a couple of weeks after I heard Tommy had completed, when I drove up to Norfolk, even though I had no real need to. I wasn’t after anything in particular and I didn’t go up as far as the coast. Maybe I just felt like looking at all those flat fields of nothing and the huge grey skies. At one stage I found myself on a road I’d never been on, and for about half an hour I didn’t know where I was and didn’t care. I went past field after flat, featureless field, with virtually no change except when occasionally a flock of birds, hearing my engine, flew up out of the furrows. Then at last I spotted a few trees in the distance, not far from the roadside, so I drove up to them, stopped and got out.
I found I was standing before acres of ploughed earth. There was a fence keeping me from stepping into the field, with two lines of barbed wire, and I could see how this fence and the cluster of three or four trees above me were the only things breaking the wind for miles. All along the fence, especially along the lower line of wire, all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled. It was like the debris you get on a sea-shore: the wind must have carried some of it for miles and miles before finally coming up against these trees and these two lines of wire. Up in the branches of the trees, too, I could see, flapping about, torn plastic sheeting and bits of old carrier bags. That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn’t let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Anamaria Comes

Kazuo Ishiguro
 

Oricum, acesta era motivul pentru care am fost asa de secretoasa in legatura cu caseta mea. Ba chiar am intors coperta invers ca s-o vezi doar pe Judy cu tigara atunci cand deschideai cutia de plastic. Dar motivul pentru care caseta insemna atat de mult pentru mine n-avea nici o legatura cu tigara sau cu felul in care Judy Bridgewater canta—ea e unul dintre acei cantareti din vremea ei, care cantau muzica de genul “cocktail-bar”, gen pe care nici unul dintre cei de la Hailsham ar fi ascultat. Ceea ce facea caseta sa fie atat de speciala pentru mine era piesa a treia, “Sa nu ma parasesti.”
E lenta, nocturna, americana, si are un ritm care se tot reia cand Judy canta: “Sa nu ma parasesti…baby, baby….Sa nu ma parasesti.” Pe atunci aveam unsprezece ani si nu prea ascultasem eu multa muzica, dar cantecul asta m-a marcat. Intotdeauna incercam sa pastrez caseta derulata pana la melodia aceea ca s-o pot asculta atunci cand se ivea ocazia.
Nu prea aveam eu ocazii; asta se intampla cu cativa ani inainte sa apara casetofoanele portabile tip walkman la Solduri. Era o masinarie in salonul de billiard, dar rareori am ascultat caseta acolo deoarece era intotdeauna plin de oameni. Clasa de Arta avea deasemenea un casetofon, dar si acolo era de obicei forfota. Singurul loc in care puteam sa ascult caseta linistit era in dormitorul nostru.
Pe atunci ne mutaseram in niste dormitoare mici, cu sase paturi, de la casutele separate, iar in al nostru aveam un casetofon portabil pe un raft deasupra radiatorului. Acolo obisnuiam eu sa merg, in zilele cand nimeni nu bantuia pe acolo, sa-mi ascult melodia iar si iar.
De ce era atat de deosebita aceasta melodie? Ei bine, adevarul e ca nu ascultam cu atentie cuvintele; asteptam doar partea aceea cu “Baby, baby, sa nu ma parasesti …” si-mi imaginam o femeie careia i se spusese ca nu putea sa aiba copii, dar care si-i dorise tare mult toata viata. Apoi se intampla o minune, iar ea are un copil, pe care-l tine strans la pieptul ei plimbandu-se in timp ce canta: “Baby, sa nu ma parasesti…” pe de o parte, pentru ca e foarte fericita, pe de alta parte, deoarece se teme sa nu se intample ceva, sa nu se imbolnaveasca bebelusul sau sa nu-i fie luat. Chiar si pe vremea aia, mi-am dat seama ca interpretasem gresit, deoarece nu se potrivea cu restul versurilor. Dar nu ma deranja pe mine asta. Melodia era despre ce v-am spus si o ascultam iar si iar, de una singura, ori de cate ori aveam ocazia.
Tot cam in perioada asta a avut loc o intamplare bizara despre care ar trebui sa va povestesc. Pe mine m-a tulburat foarte tare si, desi n-aveam sa-i aflu semnificatia decat abia dupa cativa ani, cred ca am inteles, inca de pe atunci, ca avea o insemnatate profunda.
Era o dupa amiaza insorita si ma dusesem in dormitor dupa ceva. Imi amintesc ce soare puternic era, deoarece perdelele din camera noastra nu fusesera trase bine, astfel ca puteai sa vezi cum soarele patrundea in camera cu raze mari, in care se pluteau fire de praf. Nu intentionasem sa ascult caseta, dar daca tot eram acolo de una singura, ceva m-a manat sa iau caseta din cutia in care le colectionam si s-o pun in casetofon.
Poate volumul fusese lasat mai tare de cel care il folosise ultimul, nu stiu. Dar era mai tare decat il reglam eu de obicei si poate de asta n-am auzit-o. Sau poate ca imi convenea pur si simplu. Oricum, ma leganam usor pe ritmul muzicii, tinand la piept un copil imaginar. Ca situatia sa fie si mai stanjenitoare, era una din datile acelea cand strangeam o perna in brate ca pe un copil si dansam lent, cu ochii inchisi, inganand incet de fiecare data cand urmau versurile acelea:
“Oh baby, baby, sa nu ma parasesti…”
Cantecul aproape ca se terminase cand ceva m-a facut sa-mi dau seama ca nu eram singura, asa ca am deschis ochii doar ca s-o vad pe Madame stand in cadrul usii.

Am ramas locului, socata. Apoi, intr-o secunda sau doua, am inceput sa ma alarmez dintr-un alt motiv, caci observasem ca ceva nu e in regula. Usa era aproape pe jumatate deschisa – era un fel de regula ca nu aveam voie sa inchidem complet usa dormitoarelor decat atunci cand dormeam - dar Madame nu se apropiase nici macar pana la prag. Era pe corridor, nemiscata, capul inclinat intr-o parte ca sa poata vedea ce faceam inauntru. Iar lucrul cel mai bizar e ca plangea. Poate chiar un suspin de-al ei care-a trecut prin cantec m-a trezit din visare.
Cand ma gandesc la asta acum, mi se pare ca , desi nu era unul din paznici, ea era adultul si ar fi trebuit sa spuna sau sa faca ceva, chiar si doar sa ma mustreze. Atunci as fi stiut cum sa reactionez. Dar ea a continuat sa ramana acolo, suspin dupa suspin, holbandu-se la mine din prag cu aceeasi privire pe care o avea cand se uita la noi, de parca ar fi putut vedea ceva ce o infiora. Doar ca de data asta mai era ceva in privirea aceea, ceva nou ce nu puteam deslusi.
N-am stiut ce sa fac sau sa zic sau la ce sa ma astept. Poate ca va intra in camera, va tipa la mine, poate chiar ma va lovi, habar n-aveam. Cum statea, s-a intors iar in clipa urmatoare i-am auzit pasii iesind din casuta. Mi-am dat seama ca era melodia urmatoare, asa ca am oprit-o si m-am asezat pe patul cel mai apropriat. Si in timp ce faceam asta, am vazut pe fereastra in fata mea silueta ei grabindu-se spre cladirea principala. O clipa nu s-a uitat inapoi, dar mi-am dat seama dupa felul in care spatele ei tresalta ca inca mai plangea in suspine.
Cand m-am intors la prietenii mei cateva minute mai tarziu, nu le-am spus nimic despre ce s-a intamplat. Careva a observat ca nu eram bine si-a zis ceva, dar eu am doar ridicat din umeri si am ramas tacuta. Nu eram tocmai rusinata: imi amintea putin ziua aceea cand toate am mers inspre Madame in curte tocmai cand cobora din masina. Ce-mi doream mai mult decat orice era ca asta sa nu se fi intamplat niciodata, asa ca m-am gandit ca daca n-o sa pomenesc despre asta o sa-mi fac mie si celorlati un serviciu.
Totusi, am vorbit cu Tommy dupa vreo cativa ani. Asta se intampla in zilele acelea de dupa conversatia noastra de la iaz cand mi se destainuise pentru intaia oara in legatura cu Miss Lucy; zilele in care – dupa cum vad – am inceput sa ne punem intrebari despre noi, lucru care a continuat de-a lungul anilor. Cand i-am povestit lui Tommy despre ce s-a intamplat cu Madame in dormitor, a gasit o explicatie foarte simpla. Pe vremea aia, desigur, cu totii stiam ceva nu stiusem pana atunci, si-anume ca nici una dintre noi nu putea avea copii. E posibil sa fi preluat de undeva ideea cand eram mai mica fara sa o constientizez si de aceea auzeam acea poveste cand ascultam melodia. Dar cu siguranta cu n-aveam cum sa stiu astea pe atunci. Dupa cum spuneam, pe vremea cand Tommy si cu mine vorbeam despre asta, ni s-a spus tuturor destul de clar. Intamplatori, pe nici unul dintre noi nu il deranja acest lucru; de fapt, imi amintesc ca unele personae erau chiar multumite ca pot face sex fara sa mai aiba nici o grija — desi sexul adevarat era inca ceva indepartat pentru majoritatea in stadiul acela.
Oricum, cand i-am povestit lui Tommy despre ce s-a intamplat, a spus:

“Probabil ca Madame nu e o fiinta rea, desi e cam sinistra. Deci cand te-a vazut dansand astfel, tinandu-ti copilul in brate, i s-a parut tragic ca nu poti avea copii. De aceea a inceput sa planga.”
“Dar Tommy,” am subliniat eu, “de unde era sa stie ca melodia era legata de oameni care nu pot avea copii? Cum putea sa-si dea seama ca perna pe care o tineam era de fapt un copil? Toate astea erau doar in imaginatia mea.”
Tommy s-a gandit la ce-am zis, apoi a zis pe jumatate in gluma: “Poate Madame stie sa citeasca gandurile oamenilor. E ciudata. Poate vede in interiorul tau. Nu m-ar mira.”
Gandul asta ne-a infiorat un pic si, desi chicoteam, n-am mai pomenit nimic despre asta.


Acum cateva zile stateam de vorba cu unul dintre donatorii mei, care se plangea de felul in care amintirile, chiar si cele mai dragi, se estompeaza incredibil de repede. Dar nu sunt de acord cu asta. Nu mi s-a intamplat niciodata sa-mi pierd amintirile pe care le pretuiesc cel mai mult. Am pierdut-o pe Ruth, apoi pe Tommy, dar n-am sa pierd amintirea lor.
Banuiesc ca am pierdul si Hailsham-ul. Inca mai auzi zvonuri despre cum un fost student de la Hailsham incearca sa-l regaseasca sau mai degraba locatia unde a fost. Iar zvonul asta ciudat va circula o vreme despre ce s-a ales din Hailsham in zilele noastre — un hotel, o scoala, o ruina. Eu una, desi calatoresc cu masina foarte des, n-am incercat niciodata sa-l gasesc. Nu vreau sa-l mai vad, indiferent in ce stare o fi acum.
Vezi tu, desi spun ca niciodata nu pornesc in cautarea Hailsham-ului, am descoperit ca uneori, in timp ce conduc prin tara, ma gandesc brusc ca am gasit ceva din el. Vad sala de sport in departare si sunt sigura ca e a noastra. Sau un sir de plopi la orizont in apropierea unui stejar mare bogat si pret de o clipa sunt sigura ca ma aproprii de terenul sudic din partea opusa. Odata, intr-o dimineata mohorata, pe o fasie lunga de strada din Gloucestershire, am trecut pe langa o masina defectata oprita pe marginea drumului si sunt sigura ca fata care statea in fata ei, cu privirea pierduta la masinile care treceau era Susanna C., care era cu cativa ani mai mare decat noi si era unul dintre supraveghetorii de la Solduri. Aceste momente vin ca o lovitura cand ma astept cel mai putin, cand sunt cu mintea in alta parte conducand. Poate ca la un anumit nivel, sunt in cautarea Hailsham-ului.
Cum spuneam, nu pornesc in cautarea lui, si-apoi oricum pana la sfarsitul anului, n-o sa mai conduc prin tara ca acum. Sansele sunt deci sa nu mai dau de el pe drum si daca stau sa ma gandesc, ma bucur c-o sa fie asa. E la fel e si cu amintirile mele cu Tommy si Ruth. Odata ce reusesc sa am o viata mai linistita in orice centru ma trimit, o sa port cu mine in gand Hailsham-ul, iar asta nu mi-o poate lua nimeni.
Un singur lucru mi-am ingaduit o data, la cateva saptamani dupa ce-am aflat ca Tommy s-a sfarsit, am mers cu masina pana la Norfolk, desi n-aveam de ce. Nu cautam nimic in mod deosebit si n-am mers pana sus pe coasta. Poate doar am simtit nevoia sa ma uit la toate acele intinderi goale si norii uriasi cenusii. La un moment dat, m-am trezit pe un drum pe care n-am mai fost niciodata, iar pret de o jumatate de ora n-am stiut unde ma aflu dar nici ca mi-a pasat. Am trecut pe langa campii intinse, goale, singura deosebire fiind cate un stol de pasari care la auzul motorului meu zburau in sus de pe brazde. Apoi, in sfarsit, am zarit cativa copaci in departare, nu foarte departe de drum, asa ca am mers pana aproape de ei, m-am oprit si-am coborat.
In fata ochilor se intindeau hectare de pamant arat. Eram despartita de camp de un gard cu doua siruri de sarma ghimpata; mi-am dat seama ca acest gard si palcul de trei sau patru copaci de deasupra mea erau singurele obstacole din calea vantului mile intregi. De-a lungul gardului, mai ales de-a lungul firului de sarma de jos, erau tot felul de gunoaie prinse, agatate. Ca si resturile aduse la mal: pe unele, vantul le-a adus mile intregi inainte ca ele sa se incurce in copaci si cele doua fire de sarma. In crengile de sus ale copacilor vedeam fluturand ambalaje rupte de plastic si resturi de pungi de hartie. Atunci a fost singura oara, cum stateam eu acolo, uitandu-ma la gunoaiele acelea ciudate, simtind vantul sufland peste campiile acelea goale, cand am inceput sa-mi inchipui o mica fantezie, in fond ma aflam la Norfolk la doar cateva saptamani dupa ce-l pierdusem pe el. Ma gandeam la gunoaie, la pungile de plastic fluturand printre crengi, la malul plin de lucruri bizare prinse de-a lungul gardului si mi-am inchis ochii pe jumatate imaginandu-mi ca acesta era locul unde fusesera aduse la mal toate lucrurile pe care le pierdusem vreodata din copilarie, iar eu ma stateam aici in fata lor, iar daca asteptam suficient de mult, o figura marunta avea sa apara la orizont peste camp si avea sa creasca treptat mare pana cand imi dadeam seama ca era Tommy, iar el avea sa-mi faca cu mana, poate chiar sa ma strige. Fantezia n-a mai continuat – eu n-am mai lasat-o – si desi lacrimile-mi siroiau pe fata, nu plangeam cu suspine neintrerupte. Am mai asteptat putin, apoi m-am intors la masina si-am pornit-o la drum oriunde ar fi fost nevoie de mine.