I trust you appreciate the sensitive nature of this matter, and understand my reluctance to provide you with my contact details at this time. Should you be another Eiji Miyake with identical kanji, please accept my sincerest apologies for raising your hopes unnecessarily. Should you be the Eiji Miyake I hope you are, we have many matters to discuss.
Yours faithfully,
Takara Tsukiyama
For the first time since I came to Tokyo I feel clean, clear happiness. My grandfather wrote a letter to me. Imagine, meeting my grandfather as well as my father. ‘We have many matters to discuss’! Here I was, despairing at the impossibility of it all, when contacting my father really was as straightforward as I always imagined. Monday – only two days away! My grandfather uses educated language – surely he holds more sway over family politics than my paranoid stepmother. I make myself a green tea and take it into the garden to smoke a Kent, Buntaro’s brand of choice now all the Marlboros are gone. Tsukiyama – cool name – uses the kanji for ‘moon’ and ‘mountain’. The garden hums with beauty, rightness and life. I wish Monday could start in fifteen minutes. What is the real time? I go back in and check the clock which Mrs Sasaki brought me mid-week. Still three hours until Buntaro gets here. My absentee host in her seashell frame catches my eye. ‘Your luck has turned, at last. Call Ai. It was her idea to place the personal ad, remember? Go on. Shyness at the break of day is attractive in a way, but shyness buried in its shell will never serve you very well.’
‘Was that supposed to rhyme?’
‘Stop changing the subject! Go out, find a telephone and call her.’
Supermarket row is no different since my last visit, but I am. The world is an ordered flowchart of subplots, after all. Look at all these cars – driving past and never colliding. The order is difficult to see, but it is here, under the chaos. So, I lived through twelve hellish hours – so? People live through twelve hellish years and live to tell the tale. Life goes on. Luckily for us. I find a callbox under the emergency stairs in a Uniqlo. As mobile phones take over the world these things will become as rare as gaslights. I pick up the receiver and freeze. You coward! I decide to get a haircut first – you spineless worm, Miyake – and walk up the steps to Genji the Barber’s. It has one of those red, white and blue stripy poles – Anju despaired of ever getting me to understand where the stripes unwound from and wound to. It was crystal clear to her. Genji’s is a poky joint, wintry with air-con – I am the only customer – and was last painted when Japan surrendered. A silent TV shows horse-racing. The air is so thick with hairspray and tonic fumes that if you lit a match you would probably fire-bomb the whole building. Genji himself is an old man sprouting nasal hair, sweeping the floor with shaky hands. ‘C’mon in, son, c’mon in.’ He gestures towards the empty chair. I sit down and he flourishes a tablecloth over my shoulders. In the mirror my head seems amputated from the rest of me. I flinch as I remember Valhalla bowling alley. ‘Why the long face, son?’ asks Genji, dropping his scissors. ‘Whatever’s itching you, life can’t be as bad as it was for my last customer. A businessman, doing pretty well for himself judging by his suit, but such a miserable old bugger I never saw!’ Genji drops his comb. ‘I said, “Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, sir, but is anything on your mind?” The customer sighs, and finally says: “Chintzywoo died last week.” “Who was Chintzywoo – your poodle?” I ask.’ Genji snips. ‘“No,” the customer answers. “My wife.”’ Genji pauses to open a bottle of sake. He drinks half the bottle in one swig, and balances it on the shelf of the mirror. ‘“How tragic, sir,” I say, “I hope you can find solace in hard work.” “I was fired yesterday,” the customer says. “How awful, sir,” I say. “Were you fired in connection, y’know, with depression brought on by your bereavement?” “Not exactly,” he sighs, “I was fired in connection with my espionage activities.”’ Genji pauses to finish his sake – he gropes for the bottle of hair tonic and drinks most of it without noticing. ‘Well, this takes me aback, I can tell you! “Espionage? I never had a spy in my chair before. Who did you work for? China? Russia? North Korea?” “No,” he confesses, with some pride. “The most powerful country on the face of the globe. The Kingdom of Tonga.”’ Genji switches on the electric clippers – nothing happens, so he twirls the cord and whacks the head against the counter. They growl into life. ‘So I say, “The Kingdom of Tonga? I never even knew they had a, y’know, secret service.” “Nobody knows. Brilliant, isn’t it?” “Well, sir, I guess you’re a national hero over there. Why not emigrate? They’ll welcome you with open arms.”’ Genji shaves around my ears. ‘The customer frowns. “There was a palace coup three days ago. The militarists now in charge denounced me as a double agent, and I was sentenced to death by hanging yesterday.” “Well, sir, at least you still have your health.”’ Genji hangs up the shaver and picks up his scissors. ‘Well, at that moment the customer has this hacking coughing fit and I have to wipe blood off the mirror. “Mmm. Maybe you should go back to your old job, before you became a spy, y’know.” He brightens up for the first time. “I used to be an airplane pilot,” he says. “There you go, sir, why don’t you apply for a position with an airline?” I suggest. He sneezes and, I swear, son, his right eyeball flies out! Rolls right across the room, it does! “Bugger!” he says, “that was my best one!” I’m getting pretty desperate by now, you can imagine. “How about writing your autobiography, sir? Your life could turn tragedy to Oscars.” Genji snips, snips, snips. “The movie they made about me won three Oscars.” “How wonderful, sir! I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel!” “It won three Oscars, eighteen months
after
the agent ran off with with my screenplay. A multimillion-dollar smash hit, and I never saw a yen. Worst of all, who do you think they got to play me? Johnny Depp I could have handled, but Bruce Willis?” Do you want me to cut it short, son?’
Meanwhile, back in the forest of moss, Mrs Comb and Pithecanthropus found themselves caught between a rock, a hard place and sheaves of leaves. Pithecanthropus scratched his head and grunted. The truth was, Goatwriter’s tracks had become confused with sacred cows and white elephants, but Pithecanthropus had said nothing for fear of disheartening Mrs Comb. Mrs Comb perched on a fungi-feathery tree-stump. ‘It must be way past Sir’s elevenses by now . . . if only he’d warned me he were off gallivanting, I could have rustled something up—’
A man crashed through the impenetrable vegetation and sprawled at their feet. Mrs Comb squawked up the hard place in surprise, and Pithecanthropus bounded to position himself between Mrs Comb and the man. He seemed no threat, climbing to his feet, brushing the leaf mould off his tweed jacket with leather elbow pads, and readjusting his sticking-plaster-fixed horn-rimmed glasses. Nor did he register any surprise at meeting a highly sentient hen and a long-extinct ancestor of
Homo sapiens
in this primeval forest. ‘Have you seen them?’
Mrs Comb was mildly offended by his offhand manner. ‘Seen who?’
‘The word hounds.’
‘Not those brutish, slavering, talking dogs we saw out in the margins?’
‘That would be them.’ Afraid, he pressed a finger to his lips and looked at Pithecanthropus. ‘Hear anything?’ Beams of silence you could bang your head on. Pithecanthropus grunted a ‘No’. The writer slid out a long thorn from his crown. ‘Many years ago I wrote a successful novel. I never thought anyone would actually want to publish it, you see, but they did, it was snatched from me, and the more I wished every extant copy would explode like a puffball, the more copies the lamentable thing sold. Its errors, its posturing, its arrogance! Oh, I would sell my soul to pyre the entire run. But alas, Mephistopheles never returned my fax, and the words I unloosed have dogged me ever since.’
Mrs Comb resumed the audience from her tree-stump. ‘Why not retire?’
The writer rested against the rock. ‘If only it were that simple. I hid in schools of thought, in mixed metaphors, in airport lounges of unrecognized states, but sooner or later I hear a distant braying, and I know my words are hunting me down—’ His face changed from doleful weariness to suspicion. ‘But what, exactly, brings
you
this deep into the forest of moss?’
‘Our friend came gallivanting – have you seen him? Horns, a beard, hoofs?’
‘If he isn’t the Devil himself he must be a writer or a lunatic.’
‘A writer. How do you know?’
‘To be so deep in the forest he must be one of the three. Shhhhhhhhh!’ The writer’s eyes were wide with dread. ‘A baying! Don’t you hear that baying?’ Pithecanthropus grunted softly and shook his head. ‘Liars!’ hissed the writer. ‘Liars! You’re in league with the hounds! I know your game! They’re in the trees! They’re coming!’ And he tore off, crashing through the overgrowth. Mrs Comb and Pithecanthropus looked at one another. Pithecanthropus grunted. ‘Bonkers,’ agreed Mrs Comb, ‘as a balmy balaclava!’ Pithecanthropus examined the hole in the sheaves of leaves. He grunted. Beyond was a stream without sound.
‘Hurry, slowcoach!’ Mrs Comb fluttered from rock to rock, while Pithecanthropus waded against the tea-tinted current over the clattery dinner plates. So it was that Mrs Comb reached the sacred pool first. A second later she noticed Goatwriter’s respectable spectacles lying on the marble rock. Third, she saw the body of her best and dearest floating in the water. ‘Sir! Sir! Whatever’s to do!’ She flew forth across the pool without noticing the upwards waterfall or the glove of silence muffling. On her fifth flap she reached Goatwriter’s head. Pithecanthropus’s sixth sense told him that the sacred pool was death, and roared a warning – but no sound carried, and he could only watch in despair as his beloved slipped, dipped a tip of her wing and slapped lifeless into the water alongside Goatwriter. In seven bounds Pithecanthropus was atop the marble rock, where his body tore with eight howls of mute grief. He pounded the rock until his fists bled. And suddenly, our early ancestor was calm. He picked the sticky burrs from his hair, and climbed the rock face until the overhang browed. He counted to nine, which was as high as Goatwriter could teach him, and dived for the spot between the bodies of his friends. A beautiful dive, a perfect ten. No thought bothered his head as Pithecanthropus entered the sacred pool. Serenity was never a word he knew, but serenity was what he felt.
‘Good afternoon. Jupiter Café. Nagamimi here.’
Donkey. I think. ‘Uh, hello. Could I speak to Miss Imajo, please?’
‘Sorry, but she isn’t working today, see.’
‘Oh. Could you tell me when her next shift is, then, please?’
‘Sorry, but I can’t do that.’
‘Oh. For, uh, security reasons?’
Donkey hee-haws. ‘No, not that. Miss Imajo’s last shift was Sunday, see.’
‘Oh . . .’
‘She’s a music student, and her college term is starting again, so she had to quit her part-time job here to concentrate on her studies, see.’
‘I see. I was hoping to get in touch with her. I’m just a friend.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that, if you’re her friend and all . . .’
‘So, might you have her telephone number? On a form or a record?’
‘We don’t keep forms or records here. And Miss Imajo was only here for a month, see.’ Donkey hums as she thinks. ‘We don’t keep files and stuff like that here, see, ’cos of space. Even our cloakroom, it’s got less room than one of those boxes what magicians put swords through. It isn’t fair. At the Yoyogi branch, see, they have this cloakroom big enough to—’
‘Thanks anyway, Miss Nagamimi, but . . .’
‘Wait! Wait! Miss Imajo
did
leave me her number, but only if someone called Eiji Miyake phoned.’
Kill me now. ‘Yes. My name is Eiji Miyake.’
‘Really?’ Donkey hee-haws.
‘Really.’
‘Well, really! Isn’t that a funny coincidence?’
‘Isn’t it just.’
‘Miss Imajo said only if somebody called Eiji Miyake calls. And you call, and your name is Eiji Miyake! Like I always say, see. “Truth is stranger than reality.” I saw you hit that nasty man with your head. It must have hurt!’
‘Miss Nagamimi, please could you give me Miss Imajo’s number?’
‘Right, hang on a moment, where did I put it, I wonder.’
Ai Imajo’s number is ten digits long. I get to the ninth, and feel the paralysis of fear creeping down my arm. What if my call embarrasses her? What if she thinks I’m some slimeball who won’t leave her alone? What if her boyfriend answers? Her father? What if Ai Imajo answers? What do I say? I look around Uniqlo. Shoppers, sweaters, space. My index finger presses the final digit. The number connects. A telephone in a distant apartment begins to ring. Somebody is getting up, maybe pausing the video, maybe putting down their chopsticks, cursing this interruption—
‘Hello?’ Her.
‘Uh . . .’ I try to speak but a sort of dry spastic noise comes out.
‘Hello?’
I should have planned this better.
‘Hello? Do I get to know who you are?’
My voice comes back all on its own. ‘Hello, is this Ai Imajo?’ Stupid question. I know this is Ai Imajo. ‘I, uh, my, uh . . .’
She sounds sort of pleased. ‘My knight in shining armour.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I recognized your voice. How did you get my number?’
‘Miss Nagamimi at Jupiter Café told me. Eventually. If this isn’t a convenient time to call, I can, uh . . .’
‘Nope, this is perfectly convenient. I tried to track you down at Ueno lost property office, where you said you worked, but they told me you suddenly left town.’
‘Yeah, uh, Mrs Sasaki told me.’
‘Was it to do with your relative?’
‘Sort of. I mean, no. In a way, yes.’
‘Well, that’s that sorted out, anyway. Where did you disappear to at Xanadu the other weekend?’
‘I figured lots of, uh, organizer people and music people would want to come and talk with you.’
‘Exactly! I needed you to head-butt some for me. How is your head, by the way? No lasting brain damage?’