The Changeling Read Online Free PDF Page B

stanza: “Well, I shall ask forgiveness for having lived on lies. And that’s that. But not one friendly hand! and where can I look for help?”
    The topic of lies was a major element in the continuing criticism of Kogito that Goro had recorded on the Tagame tapes. Was Goro giving up on finding “one friendly hand,” too? If that was the case ... Kogito couldn’t stop voicing this question to himself, even though he was fed up with his own endless, obsessive stewing about it. Anyway, if that was the case, as Goro was preparing to ring down the curtain on the final act of a long friendship (albeit one that had clearly grown distantin recent years), why did he give Kogito the Tagame apparatus for the second time and then follow up by sending a slew of long, fervent monologues, recorded on tape for Kogito’s ears only?
    As he continued reading the poem, all the way to the final stanza, the passage that filled Kogito with nostalgic yearning was the one he and Goro had been most taken with when they were in high school. It was this line: “And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.” But what sort of meaning could he and Goro, in their extreme youth and inexperience, have been reading into the phrase “cities of glory”? Again, while they certainly found encouragement and inspiration in the concluding line (“and I will be able now to possess the truth within one body and one soul”), what on earth did that have to do with their everyday schoolboy lives on earth? And if Goro happened to be pondering that passage just before he took the final leap into space, what vision of his own future did he see in those words?
    In truth, it was always quite a while after the conclusion of each of his Tagame sessions with Goro before Kogito was able to think about the contents of their “discussion” in this sort of lucid, analytical way. Then on the following night, when he once again hit the PLAY button, the quotidian things that had been occupying Kogito’s midday mind would recede into the distance as the strangely live-sounding words poured out of the diminutive speakers, like a real-time, real-space dispatch from the mysterious dimension where Goro now dwelled. Kogito would immediately fall under the spell of Goro’s words, and eagerly pressing the STOP button, he would launch into a spirited reply.
    Whatever Goro may have said about his reasons for recording the tapes, the fact was that he used them primarily as a forum for continuous rants about Kogito’s myriad flaws, faults, and shortcomings. When Kogito thought about it later, he realized that it must have been the urgency in his own voice, when he was lying on his army cot trying to defend himself against Goro’s attacks, that had made Chikashi decide it was time to have a candid talk about Kogito’s growing addiction to the Tagame ritual.

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    Of course, Kogito was always the one who started the conversations with Tagame, but sometimes, just before he pressed the PLAY button, he had the uncanny feeling that the chunky little tape recorder was actually psyching itself up for the next round of combat. For some reason this made Kogito think about the way the real tagame s—the large, oddly shaped water beetles that lived in the mountain streams of Shikoku—must have amorously bestirred themselves, almost in slow motion, during mating season. All these years later, that image (which may have been pure conjecture) was perfectly sharp and vivid in Kogito’s mind.
    Kogito always left the tape cued up at the end of the previous night’s conversation, and whenever Kogito picked Tagame up he always felt as if he were answering an incoming call on the ultimate long-distance mobile phone. And the moment Goro’s voice began to speak, with its distinctive Kyoto/Matsuyama accent, Kogito was repeatedly struck by the fact that whatever the topic might turn out to be, it always seemed to be uncannily relevant to his current situation.
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