Reiko's guitar

Reiko's guitar is more than a substitute for the piano she cannot keep in her room: it is a practical, intimate instrument through which Reiko makes music, shares pleasure with Naoko and Toru Watanabe, and eventually gives their grief for Naoko a shape. Its repertoire travels from Bach and Beatles requests in the sanatorium to a fifty-one-piece performance in Tokyo, where familiar songs become the substance of a private funeral. The guitar's modest scale and portability suit Reiko's circumstances, but its significance lies in the relationships and memories its sound makes present.

A Small Instrument and a Daily Practice

Reiko explains that she began playing guitar at the sanatorium because there were no pianos in the rooms. Self-taught, and in her view lacking the hands to become highly accomplished, she nevertheless loves the instrument: it is small, simple, and, as she describes it, like a warm little room. That affection is audible in her playing. She tunes the guitar fondly, and although her fingers sometimes miss, her Bach has genuine feeling. Her playing matters not as a display of technical perfection but as a form of pleasure she can make and share within the constraints of her surroundings.

The instrument also makes music available as a social practice. During an evening with wine and candlelight, Reiko plays a slow Bach fugue, followed by another short piece from a suite. The performance eases the tension Toru has been carrying. At Naoko's request, Reiko then plays Beatles songs, including "Michelle," "Nowhere Man," and "Julia." Her initial protest that Naoko makes her play Beatles every day is affectionate rather than a refusal: music is part of their shared routine, and the guitar lets Reiko answer a request immediately.

Songs, Requests, and Naoko's Memory

The exchange around "Norwegian Wood" makes the guitar's emotional function especially clear. Naoko asks for the song and pays a hundred-yen coin into a porcelain beckoning-cat bank, following an arrangement in which she pays whenever she requests her favourite. Reiko jokes that the money becomes cigarette money, but the small ritual also marks the request as deliberate: Naoko pays when she truly wants to hear the song. Reiko plays with feeling without letting the performance become sentimental. Naoko explains that the music makes her imagine herself alone in a deep, cold, dark wood, with nobody coming to save her; Reiko therefore does not play it unless Naoko asks.

The guitar's repertoire keeps particular memories in circulation. At a later gathering, Reiko finds the opening chord of "Scarborough Fair" after several false starts, then plays the whole song through; by the third attempt she has added flourishes. Much later in Tokyo, after months without hearing her play, Toru experiences the sound of the guitar as an old, warm feeling. Reiko plays "Desafinado," and the instrument's return reconnects him to the earlier period of intimacy with her and Naoko. The object does not erase the distance opened by time and death; its familiar sound makes that distance perceptible while briefly restoring a sense of continuity.

From Sanatorium Music to a Private Funeral

After Reiko leaves the sanatorium and comes to see Toru, the guitar becomes central to their farewell to Naoko. Reiko proposes a funeral of their own, one that will not be so sad, and asks Toru to lay down a match for every song she plays. She begins with "Dear Heart," a song Toru had given Naoko for Christmas and that Naoko liked. From there she moves through Beatles songs, including "Norwegian Wood," "Yesterday," "Michelle," and "Something," and plays and sings "Here Comes the Sun." Toru places seven matches in a row. Reiko reflects on the Beatles' understanding of life's sadness and gentleness, joining the music's warmth to the sorrow the ritual is meant to hold.

The performance continues far beyond those first seven songs. Reiko plays one piece after another, while the accumulating matches give the music a visible count and a deliberate ceremonial structure. For her fifty-first piece, she chooses her favourite Bach fugue. The scale of the sequence transforms the guitar from a companionable instrument into the means by which Reiko and Toru enact a memorial together. She asks Toru to forget the sad funeral he saw and remember theirs instead. The request does not deny death or undo the loss; it offers a different way to remember Naoko, through music, companionship, and the time they spend listening.

Portability and Continuing Connection

The guitar remains part of Reiko's life as she prepares to leave Tokyo. In the conversation about her journey to Asahikawa, she insists on travelling by train and says she likes the ferry to Hokkaido and does not want to fly. At Ueno Station, she carries the guitar while Toru carries her suitcase. The instrument's presence in this departure links the music of the sanatorium and the memorial to Reiko's future beyond it: she takes with her something associated with her daily practice, her friendship with Naoko, and her encounter with Toru.

Across these scenes, Reiko's guitar joins ordinary use to remembrance without becoming a magical remedy for grief. It helps Reiko express enjoyment and skill, gives Naoko a way to request a song whose sadness she recognizes, and lets Toru encounter an old warmth after months of absence. In the private funeral, its songs organize a goodbye that is neither silent nor simply solemn. The guitar's meaning accumulates through who plays it, who listens, which songs are requested, and what those songs recall; its most consequential work is to make shared memory audible.