Shi Chongming shuffled the diary together and secured it with a rubber band, his mouth in a tight bud. ‘That,’ he said, not looking at me, ‘is what you need to find out.’
49
I sat in silence, my fingers to my head as I rode back across Tokyo on the raised train tracks circling high above the city, among the neon advertising hoardings, the glinting white and chrome skyscrapers, the blue sky and the madness, looking blankly into tenth-storey offices at the secretaries in their cookie-cutter blouses and tan tights who stared back out of the windows. Sometimes, I thought, Shi Chongming made me work too hard. Sometimes he gave me a headache. In Shinjuku the train rattled past a skyscraper covered with hundreds of TV monitors, each one bearing an image of a man in a gold tuxedo, belting out a song to the camera. I stared at it blankly for a while. Then it dawned on me.
Bison?
I got up, crossed the train and rested my hands on the window, looking up at the building. It was him, a much younger and thinner Bison than the one I knew, head on one side, holding his hand out to the camera, his image repeated and repeated, reminted and reminted, hundreds of times, until he covered the building, a thousand doppelgängers moving and talking in unison. In the bottom left of each screen was a logo that said NHK Newswatch. The news. Bison was on the news. Just as the train was about to pass the skyscraper his face was replaced by a hazy shot of a police car parked outside a nondescript Tokyo house. Police, I thought, pressing my hands flat on the window, gazing back at the skyscraper disappearing behind the train. My breath steamed up the glass. Bison. Why are you on the news?
It was getting dark when I got to the Takadanobaba house, and none of the lights was on, except in the stairwell. Svetlana was outside, staring at something on the ground, the door open behind her. She was wearing go-go boots and a knee-length fluffy pink coat, and was holding a dustbin-liner full of clothes.
‘Have you seen the news?’ I said. ‘Have you been watching the television?’
‘It’s covered in flies.’
‘What?’
‘Look.’
The foliage that usually surrounded the house had been trampled. Maybe the Nurse and the chimpira had stood out there to watch our windows. Svetlana used the toe of her pink boot to hold it aside and point to where a dead kitten lay – the pattern of a shoe sole stamped into its squashed head. ‘ Suka, bitch! It only leetle kitty. Nothink dangerous.’ She dumped the bin-liners on the roadside and headed back up the stairs, brushing off her hands. ‘Bitch.’
I followed her into the house, shivering involuntarily. The smashed lightbulbs and bits of shattered doors still lay on the floor. I looked warily along the silent corridors.
‘Have you seen the news?’ I asked again, going into the living room. ‘Is the television still working?’ The TV had been tipped on its side, but it came on when I righted it and tried the switch. ‘Bai-san’s just been on television.’ I bent over the set and pressed the button that changed channels. There were cartoons, adverts for energy drinks, girls in bikinis. Even singing cartoon chipmunks. No Bison. I went through the channels again, getting impatient. ‘Something’s happened. I saw him twenty minutes ago. Haven’t you been watching…’ I looked over my shoulder. Svetlana was standing very quietly in the doorway, her arms folded. I straightened. ‘What?’
‘We getting out.’ She waved her hand round the room. ‘Look.’
Grey and white Matsuya carrier-bags, belongings poking out of them, were propped everywhere. I could see a clutch of coat hangers, toilet rolls, a fan heater in one. There were more bin-liners full of clothes on the sofa. I hadn’t even noticed. ‘Me and Irina. We find new club. In Hiroo.’
Just then Irina appeared in the corridor, dragging a whole swathe of Cellophane-wrapped clothes. She was also wearing a coat and had a foul-smelling Russian cigarette in her free hand. She dropped the clothes and came to stand behind Svetlana, propping her chin on her shoulder, giving me a glum look. ‘Nice club.’
I blinked. ‘You’re leaving the house? Where’re you going to live?’
‘The apartment we stay is, what you call it? In top of club?’ She bunched up her fingers, kissed the tips and said, ‘High class.’
‘But how?’ I said blankly. ‘How did you…’
‘My customer help. He take us there now.’
‘Grey, you don’t say nuh-think to no one, eh? You don’t tell Mama Strawberry where we going, and not any of the girls neither. ’Kay?’
‘Okay.’
There was a pause, then Svetlana bent towards me, put her hand on my shoulder and gazed into my eyes in a way that made me feel slightly threatened. ‘Now listen, Grey. You better speak to him.’ She jerked her head to where Jason’s door was tightly closed. ‘Something serious.’
Irina nodded. ‘He tell us, “ Don’t look at me ”. But we seen ’im.’
‘Yes. We see him trying to move around, trying to… how d’you call it? Krewl? Down on his hands? Like dog? Krewl?’
‘Crawl?’ A nasty sensation moved across my skin. ‘You mean he’s crawling?’
‘Yeah, crawl. He been trying to crawl.’ She gave Irina an uneasy look. ‘Grey, listen.’ She licked her lips. ‘We think it true – he need a doctor. He say he don’t wanna see one, but…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Something bad wrong with him. Something bad bad.’
The girls went, chauffeured away by a nervous-looking man in a white Nissan, a blue tartan child-seat in the back. When they were gone the house seemed cold and abandoned, as if it was being closed down for the winter. Jason’s door was shut, a chink of light coming from under it, but no sound. I stood, my hand raised to knock, trying to walk my mind through what I was supposed to say. It took a long time, and I still couldn’t decide, so I knocked anyway. At first there was no answer. When I knocked again I heard a muffled ‘ What? ’
I drew back the door. The room was freezing, lit only by the flickering blue of his small TV up against the window. In the half-light I could see strange jumbles of things on the floor, empty bottles, discarded clothes, what looked like the tall aluminium pedal-bin from the kitchen. On the TV a Japanese girl in a cheerleader’s outfit was jumping across floating islands in a swimming-pool, her miniskirt flicking up every time she jumped. She was the only sign of life. Pushed in front of the doorway, blocking the entrance, was Jason’s desk.
‘Climb over it,’ he said. His voice seemed to be coming from the wardrobe.
I put my head into the room and craned my neck, trying to see him. ‘Where are you?’
‘Climb over it, for fuck’s sake.’
I sat on the desk and pulled up my knees, swivelled round, then swung my feet on to the floor.
‘Shut the door.’
I leaned over the desk and slid the door closed, then switched on the light.
‘ No! Switch it off! ’
The floor was covered in handfuls of tissue and paper kitchen towels, all wadded and stuck down with blood. Soaking red tissues overflowed from the wastebasket. Poking out from under the bloodied futon, I could see the yellow handle of a carving knife, the tip of a screwdriver, a selection of chisels. I was looking at an ad hoc armoury. Jason was under siege.
‘ I said, switch off the light. Do you want her to see us in here? ’
I did as he told me and there was a long, bleak silence. Then I said, ‘Jason, let me get you a doctor. I’m going to call the International Clinic.’
‘I said no! I’m not having some Nip doctor touching me.’
‘I’ll call your embassy.’
‘No way.’
‘Jason.’ I took a step across the floor. I could feel the adhesive clack as my feet peeled from the sticky floor. ‘You’re bleeding.’
‘So what?’
‘Where are you bleeding from?’
‘Where am I bleeding from? What sort of dumb fucking question is that?’
‘Tell me where you’re bleeding from. Maybe it’s serious.’