I finished Basho’s travels to the north of Japan only to discover that the sly monk was still traveling within me. The inventory of my inner landscape provided by a vagabond poet. My veins were the pathways he traveled, alone (“Wayfarer” will be my name; first winter showers). The girl appeared. I hadn’t moved from the bath. She sat down behind my head like a psychoanalyst.
“Do you read all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Even when there’s a woman in the room?”
“Sometimes…… If I feel comfortable, then I read.”
“And you feel comfortable now?”
“Yes.”
“How is that?”
“I feel you’re familiar.”
“And you’ve never seen me. . No, no, don’t turn around. You can look at me afterwards.”
“After what?”
“Close your eyes.”
I did. I heard the rustling of fabric. She was undressing. I pictured myself in the subway again. The Chinese girl across from me. And Basho in my head. The people around us were like shadows. I heard her step into the water.
“You can open your eyes, but only when I tell you to.”
“Is this a game?”
“No. I don’t play games.”
She caressed me, but without gentleness. An angry caress.
“It’s the first time I’ve touched a man.”
“We like it gentle too.”
She laughed, embarrassed.
“Sorry… I thought your world was violent.”
“We’re in the realm of generalizations. You’re making love to a man for the first time, and I’m making love to an Asian woman for the first time.”
“Be quiet now.”
She made love to me. I just happened to be there. A body available and responsive. In water.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Not yet. Let me get dressed.”
She stepped out of the bathtub and slowly got dressed: a striptease in reverse. My ears took in everything. The voyeur must keep his eyes closed. I expected no less from an Asian girl. Then I opened my eyes. Noriko stood before me.
“Noriko!”
“I’ve been following you for three days. I’m exhausted…”
“Why? Why me?”
She sat down heavily.
“I’m. . I’m horribly jealous. All Midori talks about is you since you left. What did you do to her? She’s completely changed. She’s talking about leaving too.”
“Maybe she wants to focus herself again.”
“That’s not it….. You’re a devil. I’m sure you did something to her. She’s broken in two. If she doesn’t find herself soon, she’s going to leave.”
“A little traveling never hurt anyone.”
“You fool! What she calls traveling is really. . She’s in a dangerous place.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And you think she’s in love with me?”
“Not at all. But you’ve ground her into dust and scattered her ashes through the city. For three days I’ve followed you. You wander like a demon. There’s no logic to it. You stop for no good reason. You talk to people you don’t know. You turn left when you should turn right. You are the demon that has struck down Midori. I used to belong to Midori. She owned my heart, my soul and my spirit. You have turned all that to ash. Without her I’m nothing. I hate you…… What happened to Bjork will never happen to Midori.”
She stopped, completely out of breath.
“I’m exhausted now.”
She fell from her chair without a sound. I got out of the water, picked her up and carried her to the bed. She weighed nothing at all. I watched her a moment as she slept, like a child, her tiny fists clenched.
THE FINAL LEAP
A SHARP NOISE awoke me in the middle of the night. The window was open. The sound of the wind. I ran to see what was happening. Noriko, stretched out on the sidewalk, was lying in a pool of blood. On the table, she’d left a letter for her mother in a stamped envelope — so she had planned her suicide by coming here. She bequeathed her earrings to Midori and, in an angry scribble, wrote these words: A song for Midori. She could have been carrying this letter for days or weeks, seeking a reason to kill herself. Or a place to do it. We didn’t know each other. Our paths crossed. She didn’t want to get the other girls involved, or burden Midori’s conscience. But nor did she want to do it in some unconnected place that would deprive her death of any link to the group. By killing herself in my house, she sent a message to her girlfriends. Why had she made love to me? Her last time. Was that the real message she sent Midori? To make love to a man was taboo in her group. Noriko transgressed at the last possible moment. A final doubt: was it really a transgression? Maybe she’d imagined she was making love to Midori. But she knew very well I wasn’t Midori. Maybe, but I didn’t know she was Noriko. Look at it from another point of view. In the exchange, Noriko is me. And the Noriko on top of me was none other than Midori. That’s how she pictured the love scene. In the bathtub, with Midori on her. She would keep her eyes closed, too fearful of Midori’s gaze. It would have paralyzed her. She finally united with Midori. Just before the final leap.
A SONG FOR MIDORI
THE POLICE SHOWED up an hour later. The questioning began with a straightforward accusation. I had my work cut out for me. What was a Negro doing with an Asian girl in this filthy room in a seedy neighborhood? I didn’t know what to say. First they accused me of being her pimp. Then they questioned me at length about the Asian connection which, apparently, is taking on big proportions in Montreal. Finally they cast their eyes on the table and saw Noriko’s earrings and the letter addressed to her mother. The evidence was examined before being slipped into a small plastic bag.
On his way out, one of the two policemen told me, “That letter’s what got you off. We were sure you threw her out the window.”
It was clearly an expression of regret.
They looked me right in the eye. I suppose it was their way of adding a last helping of intimidation. The hardest part was behind me. It had happened so fast. But death would not go away. It was a suicide. She must have explained everything in the letter to her mother, which could have been her way of clearing my name, since she knew I’d had no part in her troubles. And what was the point of having at least three separate levels of meaning in her game? The letter was obviously not written to her mother, but the police. And, certainly, to Midori.
“What’s going to happen?”
“We’ll call you if we need you.”
I’d heard those words more than once during my glorious career as a seasonal worker. No one ever called me back. I wanted to be polite all the same.
“I never knew the police took such care.”
“It’s the new policy. We have to be civil to the civilians.”
They left, and I went back to bed. I couldn’t get that sharp cracking sound out of my head, the one Noriko made when she hit the sidewalk.
One of the policemen actually did call back. He told me Noriko was from Vancouver, and that they’d been looking for her. She had escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Toronto. Her parents were Japanese workers who had come to Canada just three years earlier. She had invented a twin sister for herself, completely different: Tsuki. As gentle as Noriko was, Tsuki was violent. Which one had I had? Sweet Noriko — that’s for sure. But who killed her? The other sister, maybe. Both were in love with Midori. Tsuki had enough time to leave a note on the table, requesting that the earrings be sent to her mother. She scribbled these words at the bottom of the page: A song for Mother.