You see! We were only defending ourselves.
My fingernails are coming loose.
I spent the afternoon walking to the lighthouse. I sat on a rock and watched the waves and the birds. A typhoon was moving up the coast of China, skirting Taiwan, and looming over the Okinawan horizon. Clouds were piling up in the west, winds were unravelling. I was being discussed, and decisions were being taken. What had gone wrong? A few more months, and my alpha quotient would have been 25, putting me in the top two hundred on Earth — His Serendipity had assured me, in person. I had ingested some of His Serendipity’s eyelashes. After winning converts on the Welcome Programme I was rewarded with a test tube of the Guru’s sperm to imbibe. It boosted my gamma resistance. I had been taken off the lavatory docket and been made a cleanser. For the first time in my life, I was becoming a name.
The corrugated iron roof of an abandoned shed clattered to and fro in the wind.
Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has gone wrong, Quasar. It was your faith that brought you to His Serendipity’s notice. It is your faith that will guide you through the Days of Persecution, through the terrible days of the White Night to the New Earth. It is your faith that will nourish you now.
Everything around me on this godforsaken island is crumbling. I should have stayed in Naha. I should have hidden in snow country, or deep-frozen Hokkaido, or lost myself amid a metropolis of my own kind. What happened, I wonder, to Mr Ikeda? Where do people who drop off the edge of your world end up?
Typhoon weather.
The curtains I keep drawn. Our Minister of Defence received some reports that the government of the unclean had developed micro-cameras which they implanted in the craniums of seagulls, which were then trained to spy. Not to mention the Americans’ secret satellites, scrolling over the globe, scanning for the Fellowship at the behest of the politicians and the Jews, who long ago had set up the Freemasons, and funded Chinese to pollute the well of history.
I was sitting with my back to the lighthouse on the lonely headland. Headlights approached, seeking me out. I looked for a place to hide. There was none. A seagull watched me. It had a cruel face. A blue and white car pulled up. Too late, I looked for a place to hide. A door opened, and a dim light lit up the interior.
They’ve found me! The rest of for ever in a cell...
And then, so strangely, I’m relieved it’s all over. At least I can stop running.
A hand was already clearing stuff from the front seat. Its owner leant forwards. ‘Mr Tokunaga, I presume?’
Grimly, I nodded, and walked towards my captor.
‘I’ve been searching for you. The name’s Ota. I’m the harbourmaster. You spoke with my brother just the other day, about giving a lecture at my wife’s school. How about a lift back to town? You must be tired, after walking all the way out here, all on your own?’
I obeyed, and still trembling I climbed in and put on my seatbelt.
‘Lucky I was passing... there’s a typhoon warning, you know. I saw a figure, all hunched like it was the end of the world, and I thought to myself, I wonder if that’s Mr Tokunaga? Not feeling too chipper, this evening?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you’ve been overdoing it. The island air is good for clearing the head, but at the rate you’ve been tramping around... Terribly sorry to hear about your wife.’
‘Death is a part of life.’
‘That’s a sound philosophy, but it can’t be easy to keep your thoughts focused.’
‘I can. I’m a good focuser.’
He braked and beeped a couple of times at a goat standing in the middle of the road. Magisterially, the goat sniffed at us, and wandered into a field.
‘Must tell Mrs Bessho that Caligula’s escaped again. You name it, goats eat it! So, you’re a good focuser, you were saying. Splendid, splendid. It would be a crime not to try diving while you’re here, you know. We have the finest Pacific reefs north of the equator, I’m told. By the way, the youngsters are delighted at the prospect of a real computer man coming to talk to them. No great scholars, I’m afraid, but they’re keen. My wife would like you to join us for dinner tomorrow, if you’re free. So, Mr Tokunaga. Tell me a little about yourself...’
The road looped back around to the port, as all the roads on this island eventually do.
Clouds began to ink out the stars, one by one.
Tokyo
Spring was late on this rainy morning, and so was I. The commuters streamed to work with their collars and umbrellas up. The cherry trees lining the backstreet were still winter trees, craggy, pocked, and dripping. I fished around for my keys, rattled up the shutters, and opened the shop.
I looked through the post while the water was boiling. Some mail orders — good. Bills, bills — bad. A couple of enquiries from a regular customer in Nagano about rare discs that I’d never heard of. Bumf. An entirely ordinary morning. Time for oolong tea. I put on a very rare Miles Davis recording that Takeshi had discovered in a box of mixed-quality discs which he’d picked up at an auction last month out in Shinagawa.
It was a gem. You never entered my mind was blissful and forlorn. Some faultless mute-work, the trumpet filtered down to a single ray of sound. The brassy sun lost behind the clouds.
The first customer of the week was a foreigner, either American or European or Australian, you can never tell because they all look the same. A lanky, zitty foreigner. He was a real collector, though, not just a browser. He had that manic glint in his eyes, and his fingers were adept at flicking through metres of discs at high speed, like a bank teller counting notes. He bought a virgin copy of ‘Stormy Sunday’ by Kenny Burrell, and ‘Flight to Denmark’ by Duke Jordan, recorded in 1973. He had a cool T-shirt, too. A bat flying around a skyscraper, leaving a trail of stars. I asked him where he was from. He said thank you very much. Westerners can’t learn Japanese.
Takeshi phoned a bit later.
‘Satoru! Have a good day off yesterday?’
‘Pretty quiet. Sax lesson in the afternoon. Hung around with Koji for a bit afterwards. Helped Taro with the delivery from the brewery.’
‘Any vast cheques for me in the post?’
‘Sorry, nothing that vast. Some nice bills, though. How was your weekend?’
This was what he had been waiting for. ‘Funny you ask me that! I met this gorgeous creature of the night last Friday at a club in Roppongi.’ I could almost hear his saliva glands juicing. ‘Get this. Twenty-five,’ which for Takeshi is the perfect age, making him ten years her senior. ‘Engaged,’ which for Takeshi adds the thrill of adultery while subtracting any responsibility. ‘Only shag women who have more to lose than you do’ was a motto of his. ‘Clubbed until four in the morning. Woke up Saturday afternoon, with my clothes on back-to-front, in a hotel somewhere in Chiyoda ward. No idea how I got there. She came out of the shower, naked, brown and dripping, and damn if she wasn’t still gasping for it!’
‘It must have been heaven. Are you seeing her again?’
‘Of course we’re seeing each other again. This is love at first sight! We’re having dinner tonight at a French restaurant in Ichigaya,’ meaning they were having each other in an Ichigaya love hotel. ‘Seriously, you should see her arse! Two overripe nectarines squeezed together in paper bag. One prod and they explode! Juice everywhere!’
Rather more than I needed to know. ‘She’s engaged, you say?’
‘Yeah. To a Fujitsu photocopier ink cartridge research and development division salaryman who knew the go-between who knew her father’s section head.’