The girl was there, too, swimming naked on her back, buoyed along by the currents.
I made myself some green tea and watched the steam rise into the disturbed afternoon. Koji was knocking on the window, grinning at me berkishly, and pressing his face up against the glass so he looked like a poison dwarf.
I had to grin back. He came in, walking his loping bumpy walk.
‘You were miles away. I came via Mister Donuts. Vanilla Angel Donuts okay?’
‘Thanks. Let me make you some tea. This great Keith Jarrett record came in yesterday, you must give it a listen. I can’t believe he makes it up as he goes along.’
‘A hallmark of genius. Fancy a couple of drinks later?’
‘Where?’
‘Dunno. Somewhere frequented by nubile girls on the prowl for young male flesh. The Students Union bar perhaps. But if you’re busy sorting out the meaning of existence we could make it another night. Smoke?’
‘Sure. Pull up a chair.’
Koji likes to think of himself as a ruthless womaniser like Takeshi, but really his emotions are as ruthless as a Vanilla Angel Donut. That’s one reason I like him.
We lit up. ‘Koji, do you believe in love at first sight?’
He rocked back on his chair and smiled like a wolf. ‘Who is she?’
‘No no no no. No one. I was just asking.’
Koji the philosopher gazed upwards. At length he blew a smoke ring. ‘I believe in lust at first sight. You gotta keep a certain hardness, or you just turn to goo. And goo isn’t attractive. And whatever you do, don’t let her know how you feel. Or you’re lost.’ Koji went into Humphrey Bogart mode. ‘Stay enigmatic, kid. Stay tough. You hear?’
‘Yeah, yeah, like you, for example. You were as tough as Bambi when you were last in love. But seriously?’
Another smoke ring. ‘But seriously... well, love has got to be based on knowledge, hasn’t it? You have to know someone intimately to be able to love them. So love at first sight is a contradiction in terms. Unless in that first sight there’s some sort of mystical gigabyte downloading of information from one mind into the other. That doesn’t sound too likely, does it?’
‘Mmm. Dunno.’
I poured my friend’s tea.
The cherry blossoms were suddenly there. Magic, frothing and bubbling and there just above our heads filling the air with colour too delicate for words like ‘pink’ or ‘white’. How had such grim trees created something so otherworldy in a backstreet with no agreed-upon name? An annual miracle, beyond my understanding.
It was a morning for Ella Fitzgerald. There are fine things in the world, after all. Dignity, refinement, warmth and humour, where you’d never expect to find them. Even as an old woman, an amputee in a wheelchair, Ella sang like a girl who could still be at high school, falling in love for the first time.
The phone rang. ‘It’s Takeshi.’
‘Hi, boss. Are you having a good day?’
‘I am not having a good day. I’m having a very bad day.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I am a fool. A bloody fool. A bloody, bloody fool. Why do men do this?’ He was drunk, and me still on my morning tea. ‘Where does this impulse come from, Satoru? Tell me!’ Like I knew but was refusing to grant him enlightenment. ‘A sticky wrestle in an anonymous bedroom, a few bitemarks, about three seconds’ worth of orgasm if you’re lucky, a pleasant drowse for thirty minutes and when you come to you suddenly realise you’ve become a lecherous, lying sleazebag who’s flushing several million sperm and six years of marriage down the toilet. Why are we programmed to do this? Why?’
I couldn’t think of an answer that was both honest and consoling. So I went for honesty. ‘No idea.’
Takeshi told the same story three times in a loop. ‘My wife dropped by to pick me up for lunch. We were going to go out, talk things over, maybe sort things out... I’d bought her some flowers, she’d bought me a new striped jacket she’d seen somewhere. Hopelessly uncool, of course, but she remembered my size. It was a peace-pipe. We were just leaving when she went to the bathroom and what did she find?’
I almost said ‘a nurse’s corpse’, but thought better of it. ‘What?’
‘Her bag. And dressing gown. The nurse’s. And the message she’d written to me, in lipstick. On the inside of the mirror.’
‘What was the message?’
I heard ice cubes crack as Takeshi poured himself another drink. ‘None of your business. But when my wife read it she calmly walked back into the living room, poured vodka on the jacket, set it alight, and left. The jacket shrivelled up and melted.’
‘The power of the written word.’
‘Damn it, Satoru, I wish I was your age again. It was all so bloody simple back then! What have I done? Where does this myth come from?’
‘What myth?’
‘The one that plagues all men. The one that says a life without darkness and sex and mystery is only half a life. Why? And it was hardly like I’d been rooting Miss Celestial Beauty Incarnate. She was just some stupid slag of a nurse... Why?’
I’m only nineteen. Graduated from high school last year. I don’t know.
It was all pretty pathetic to listen to. Luckily at that moment Mama-san and Taro came in so I could leave Takeshi’s unanswerable questions unanswered.
If Mama-san were a bird she would be a kind, white, crow.
Taro would not be a bird. Taro would be a tank. For decades, long before I was on the scene, he has escorted Mama-san everywhere. Their relationship has depths to it that I’ve certainly never sussed. I’ve seen old photos of them from the sixties and seventies. They were a beautiful couple, in their way. Now they make me think of a frail mistress and a faithful bulldog. Taro, the rumours go, used to do odd jobs for the yakuza in his youth. Debt collection, and suchlike. He still has some versatile friends in that world, which is very useful when it comes to paying protection money on The Wild Orchid. Mama-san gets a sixty per cent discount. Another of those friends with connections at city hall managed to obtain my full Japanese citizenship.
Mama-san brought me my lunch box. ‘I know you overslept this morning,’ she crackled, ‘because of all the bloody racket.’
‘Sorry. What time did the last guests leave last night?’
‘The Mitsubishi men: 3.30 a.m., or so... One of them has a real thing for Yumi-chan. He insisted on a date next Saturday.’
‘What did Yumi-chan say?’
‘The Mitsubishi men pay on time. They have a whacking entertainment budget they need to use up every month. I promised her a new outfit from somewhere plush if she said yes. Besides, the man’s married, so it won’t get complicated.’
‘Go out with Koji last night?’ Taro cased the joint like a bodyguard looking for escape routes.
‘Yes. I drank a bit too much. That’s why I overslept.’
Taro guffawed. ‘He’s a good lad, that Koji. He’s got his shit together. Meet any chicks?’
‘Only ones who want to know whether your sportscar has tinted windows.’
Taro harrumphed. ‘Brains aren’t everything in a woman. Ayaka was saying only this morning, a lad your age should be stoking the poker more, it’s not healthy to—’
‘Taro, put Satoru down.’ Mama-san smiled at me contentedly. ‘Aren’t the cherry blossoms outside a picture? Taro’s taking me on a shopping expedition, and then we’re going to see the blossoms in Ueno Park. Mrs Nakamori’s girls have invited ours along to a cherry-blossom party this afternoon, so we’re going along to make sure they don’t get up to too much mischief. Oh yes. That reminds me. Mrs Nakamori asked if you and Koji might be free to play in their cocktail lounge next Sunday. Apparently the trombonist in their regular band was involved in some sort of accident involving a bent pipe and some zoo animals. I thought it best not to pry. The poor man isn’t going to be able to unbend his arm until June, so the band has had to cancel their fixtures. I told Mrs Nakamori that I wasn’t sure when Koji started back at college. Maybe you could give her a ring today or tomorrow? Come along now, Taro. We must be off.’