Strangely, the time when my mother took me to the United States from our home in Japan does not represent a dividing line, then or now. I was an outsider in both places, and the move merely confirmed that status. Nor are any of my subsequent geographic ramblings particularly distinct. For a decade after Crazy Jake’s funeral I wandered the earth a mercenary, daring the gods to kill me but surviving because part of me was already dead.
I was fighting alongside Lebanese Christians in Beirut when the CIA recruited me to train the Mujahideen guerrillas battling the Soviets in Afghanistan. I was perfect: combat experience, and a mercenary history that made possible maximum governmental deniability.
For me, there has always been a war, and the time before feels unreal, dreamlike. War is the basis from which I approach everything else. War is all I really know. You know the Buddhist parable? “A monk awoke from a dream that he was a butterfly, then wondered whether he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.”
At a little after eleven, I heard sounds of movement within Midori’s apartment. Footsteps, then running water, which I took to be a shower. She worked at night, I realized; of course she would be a late riser. Then, shortly before noon, I heard a closing exterior door and the mechanical click of a lock, and I knew she was finally on the move.
I paid for the two espressos I had drunk and walked out onto Omotesando-dori, where I began to amble in the direction of JR Harajuku station. I wanted to get to the pedestrian overpass at Harajuku. This would give me a panoramic view, but it would also leave me exposed, so I wouldn’t be able to linger.
The timing was good. I only had to wait on the overpass for a minute before I caught sight of her. She was approaching from the direction of her apartment building and made a right onto Omotesando-dori when she reached it. It was easy for me to follow her from there.
Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, her dark eyes concealed by sunglasses. She was wearing snug black pants and a black V-necked sweater, and walked confidently, with purpose. I had to admit she looked good.
Enough of that, I told myself. How she looks has nothing to do with this.
She was carrying a shopping bag that I recognized from the distinctive maple color came from Mulberry, the English leather goods manufacturer. They had a store in Minami Aoyama, and I wondered if she was on her way to return something.
Midway to Aoyama-dori she turned into Paul Stuart. I could have followed her in, tried for our chance meeting there, but I was curious about where else she was going, and decided to wait. I set up in the Fouchet Gallery across the street, where I admired several paintings that afforded me a view of the street until she emerged, a Paul Stuart shopping bag in hand, twenty minutes later.
Her next stop was at Nicole Farhi London. This time I waited for her in the Aoyama Flower Market, on the ground floor of the La Mia building. From there, she continued onto a series of nameless Omotesando backstreets, periodically stopping to browse in one of the area’s boutiques, until she emerged onto Koto-dori, where she made a right. I followed her, staying back and on the opposite side of the street, until I saw her duck into Le Ciel Bleu.
I turned into the Tokyo J. M. Weston shop, admiring the handmade shoes in the windows at an angle that afforded me a view of Le Ciel Bleu. I considered. Her taste was mostly European, it seemed. She eschewed the large stores, even the upscale ones. She seemed to be completing a circle that would take her back in the direction of her apartment. And she was carrying that Mulberry bag.
If she was indeed on her way to return something, I had a chance to be there first. It was a risk because if I set up there and she went the other way, I would lose her. But if I could anticipate her and be waiting at her next stop before she got there, the encounter would seem more like chance and less like the result of being followed.
I left the Weston store and moved quickly up Koto-dori, window-shopping as I walked so that my face was turned away from Midori’s position. Once I was clear of Le Ciel Bleu, I cut across the street and ducked into Mulberry. I strolled over to the men’s section, where I told the proprietess that I was just looking, and began to examine some of the briefcases on display.
Five minutes later she entered the store as I had hoped, removing her sunglasses and acknowledging the welcoming irrashaimase of the proprietress with a slight bow of her head. Keeping her at the limits of my peripheral vision, I picked up one of the briefcases, as though examining its heft. From this angle, I felt her gaze stop on me and linger longer than would have been warranted by a casual glance around the store. I gave the briefcase a last once-over, then set it down on its shelf and looked up. She was still watching me, her head cocked slightly to the right.
I blinked once, as though in surprise, and approached her. “Kawamura-san,” I said in Japanese. “This is a nice surprise. I just saw you at Club Alfie last Friday. You were tremendous.”
She evaluated me silently for a long moment before responding, and I was glad my gamble had worked. I sensed that this intelligent woman would be cynical about coincidences, and might have suspected, had I come in after her, that she had been followed.
“Yes, I remember,” she said finally. “You’re the one who thinks jazz is like sex.” Before I could come up with a suitable response, she continued: “You didn’t have to say that, you know. You could try to be more forgiving.”
For the first time, I was in a position to notice her body. She was slender and long limbed, perhaps a legacy from her father, whose height had made him easy to follow down Dogenzaka. Her shoulders were broad, a lovely counterpart to a long and graceful neck. Her breasts were small, and, I couldn’t help but notice, shapely beneath her sweater. The skin on the exposed portion of her chest was beautifuclass="underline" smooth and white, framed by the contrast of the black V-neck.
I looked into her dark eyes, and felt my usual urge to spar dissipate. “You’re right,” I told her. “I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “You enjoyed the performance?”
“Immensely. I have your CD, and have been meaning to catch you and your trio for the longest time. I travel a lot, though, and this was my first chance.”
“Where do you travel?”
“Mostly America and Europe. I’m a consultant,” I said in a tone indicating that my work would be a boring topic for me. “Nothing as exciting as being a jazz pianist.”
She smiled. “You think being a jazz pianist is exciting?”
She had a natural interrogator’s habit of reflecting back the last thing the other party had said, encouraging the speaker to share more. It doesn’t work with me. “Well, let me put it this way,” I said. “I can’t remember someone ever suggesting to me that consulting is like sex.”
She threw back her head and laughed then, not bothering to cover her open mouth with her hand in the typical Japanese woman’s unnecessarily dainty gesture, and again I was struck by the unusual confidence with which she carried herself.
“That’s good,” she said after a moment, folding her arms across her chest and conceding a small, lingering smile.
I smiled back. “What’s today? A bit of shopping?”
“A bit. And you?”
“The same. It’s past time for a new briefcase. We consultants have to maintain appearances, you know.” I glanced down at the shopping bag she was carrying. “I see you’re a fan of Paul Stuart. That was going to be my next stop.”
“It’s a good store. I know it from New York, and was glad when they opened a Tokyo branch.”