“What was the dream?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, lying. “Mostly just images.”
I could feel her looking at me. “You tell me to trust you,” she said, “but you won’t even tell me about a bad dream.”
I started to answer, then all at once felt irritated with her. I slid off the bed and walked over to the bathroom.
I don’t need her questions, I thought. I don’t need to take care of her. Fucking CIA, Holtzer, knows I’m in Tokyo, knows where I live. I’ve got enough problems.
She was the key, I knew. Her father must have told her something. Or she had what whoever had broken into his apartment on the day of his funeral had been looking for. Why couldn’t she just realize what the hell it was?
I walked back into the bedroom and stood facing her. “Midori, you’ve got to try harder. You’ve got to remember. Your father must have told you something, or given you something.”
I saw surprise on her face. “I told you, he didn’t.”
“Someone broke into his apartment after he died.”
“I know. I got a call from the police when it happened.”
“The point is, they couldn’t find what they were looking for, and they think you have it.”
“Look, if you want to take a look around my father’s apartment, I can let you in. I haven’t cleaned it out yet, and I still have the key.”
The people who had broken in had come up empty, and my old friend Tatsu, as thorough a man as I have ever known, had been there afterward with the resources of the Keisatsucho. I knew another look would be a dead end, and her suggestion only served to increase my frustration.
“That’s not going to help. What would these people think that you have? The disk? Something it’s hidden in? A key? Are you sure you don’t have anything?”
I saw her redden slightly. “I told you, I don’t.”
“Well, try to remember something, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t,” she said, her voice angry. “How can I remember something if I don’t have it?”
“How can you be sure you don’t have it if you can’t remember it?”
“Why are you saying this? Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because nothing else makes sense! And I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like the feeling of people trying to kill me when I don’t even know why!”
She swung her feet to the floor and stood up. “Oh, it’s only you! Do you think I like it? I didn’t do anything! And I don’t know why these people are doing this, either!”
I exhaled slowly, trying to rein in my anger. “It’s because they think you have the damn disk. Or you know where it is.”
“Well, I don’t! Oai nikusama! Mattaku kokoroattari ga nai wa yo! Mo nan do mo so itteru ja nai yo!” I don’t know anything! I’ve already told you that!
We stood staring at each other at the foot of the bed, breathing hard. Then she said, “You don’t give a shit about me. You’re just after what they want, whatever it is.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true! Mo ii! Dose anata ga doko no dare na no ka sae oshiete kurenain da kara!” I’ve had enough! You won’t even tell me who you are! She stalked over to the door and picked up a bag, started shoving her things into it.
“Midori, listen to me.” I walked over and grabbed the bag. “Listen to me, goddamnit! I do care about you! Can’t you see that?”
She tugged at the bag. “Why should I believe what you say when you don’t believe me? I don’t know anything! I don’t know!”
I yanked the bag out of her hands. “All right, I believe you.”
“Like hell you do. Give me my case. Give it to me!” She tried to grab it and I moved it behind my back.
She looked at me, her eyes briefly incredulous, then started hitting me in the chest. I dropped the bag and wrapped my arms around her to stop the blows.
Later, I couldn’t remember exactly how it happened. She was fighting me and I was trying to hold her arms. I became very aware of the feel of her body and then we were kissing, and it seemed as though she was still trying to hit me but it was more that we were tearing at each other’s clothes.
We made love on the floor at the foot of the bed. The sex was passionate, headlong. At times it was like we were still fighting. My back was throbbing, but the pain was almost sweet.
Afterwards I reached up and pulled the bedcovers over us. We sat with our backs against the edge of the bed.
“Yokatta,” she said, drawing out the last syllable. “That was good. Better than you deserved.”
I felt a little dazed. It had been a long time for me, a connection like that. It was almost unnerving.
“But you don’t trust me,” she went on. “That hurts.”
“It’s not trust, Midori. It’s . . . ,” I said, then stopped. “I believe you. I’m sorry for pushing so hard.”
“I’m talking about your dream.”
I pressed my fingertips to my eyes. “Midori, I can’t, I don’t . . .” I didn’t know what the hell to say. “I don’t talk about these things. If you weren’t there, you couldn’t understand.”
She reached over and gently pried my fingertips from my eyes, then held them without self-consciousness at her waist. Her skin and her breasts were beautiful in the diffused moonlight, the shadows pooled in the hollows above her clavicles. “You need to talk, I can feel that,” she said. “I want you to tell me.”
I looked down at the tangled sheets and blankets, the shadows carving stark hills and valleys like some alien landscape in the moonlight. “My mother . . . she was Catholic. When I was a kid, she used to take me to church. My father hated it. I used to go to confession. I used to tell the priest about all my lascivious thoughts, all the fights I’d been in, the kids I hated and how I wanted to hurt them. At first it was like pulling teeth, but it got addictive.
“But that was all before the war. In the war, I did things . . . that are beyond confession.”
“But if you keep them bottled up like this, they’ll eat you like poison. They are eating you.”
I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to let it out.
What’s with you? I thought. Do you want to drive her away?
Yeah, maybe that was it. Maybe that would be best. I couldn’t tell her about her father, but I could tell her something worse.
When I spoke, my voice was dry and steady. “Atrocities, Midori. I’m talking about atrocities.”
Always a good conversation starter. But she stayed with me. “I don’t know what you did,” she said, “but I know it was a long time ago. In another world.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t make you understand, not if you weren’t over there.” I pressed my fingertips to my eyes again, the reflex useless against the images playing in my mind.
“A part of me loved it, thrived on it. Operating in the NVA’s backyard, not everybody could do that. Some guys, when they’d hear the insert helicopters going off into the distance and the jungle go quiet, they’d panic, they couldn’t breathe. Not me. I had over twenty missions in Indian country. People would say I had used up all my luck, but I just kept going, and the missions kept getting crazier.
“I was one of the youngest One-Zeros — SOG team leaders — ever. My teammates and I were tight. We could be twelve guys against an NVA division, and I knew that not one of my people would run. And they knew I wouldn’t, either. Do you know what that’s like, for a kid who’s been ostracized his whole life because he’s a half-breed?”
I talked faster. “I don’t care who you are. If you wade that deeply into the blood and muck, you won’t stay clean. Some people are more susceptible than others, but eventually everyone goes over the edge. Two of your people are blown in half by a Bouncing Betty mine, their legs torn from their bodies. You’re holding what’s left of them in the last moments of their lives, telling them, ‘Hey, it’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay,’ they’re crying and you’re crying and then they’re dead. You walk away, you’re covered with their insides.