Bicycle Days (30 page)

“Please excuse me, but I am looking for the iris garden.”

The gardener paused, cocking his head as if he had heard an animal in the woods. Then he raised his face to Alec, but looked past him and into the sun. His face was as smooth and ageless as his bald head.

“It is growing late.”

Alec could hardly hear him, his voice was so soft. He turned and followed the gardener’s gaze. The sun had dropped and was now only partly visible above the tea house. He wondered whether the young man with the mustache had been able to complete his painting in time.

“Yes, it is,” Alec agreed.

“This is an iris garden.”

“Yes, but perhaps this is the wrong one. I am looking for the
famous iris garden. I think it is supposed to have forty thousand flowers.”

The gardener squatted on his haunches, his bare toes curling into the soil. “There are many flowers here.”

“These flowers are all dead.”

“They are not dead,” the gardener said. “They are resting. You are almost two months late. This is the time of year when the iris rests.”

“I did not know.”

“Now you will know. For next season.”

“The iris is my mother’s favorite flower,” Alec said, but the gardener had resumed his digging, the trowel tearing at the dead leaves.

“Have you been the gardener here for many years?” Alec asked after a while.

The man pointed to the soil beneath his trowel. “Yes, and now I am working on this row of flowers.”

“It must be hard work.”

“It does not matter,” the gardener said. “When I finish this row, I will begin another. Perhaps you should return next season. The irises will be back then.”

Alec studied him for a moment. “Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will do that. Well, good-bye.”

Nodding, the man went back to his work. Alec carefully picked up his duffel bag and set off again. After a minute he looked over his shoulder. The sun had fallen below the line of the tea house roof, and its light, while still visible, could no longer be traced. The man’s T-shirt and shining head stood out against the shadowy garden. A crescent moon was ascending the sky above him.

The woods were empty of people. A chill seemed to fall straight from the green-dark leaves above. Alec hardly felt it. He was thinking of the letter he had tried to write to his mother just after his accident, of how he had torn it up without ever putting down a word. And it was as if the blank page were still waiting in front of him, large and white as a sheet, a flattened-out ghost
hovering in the gathering darkness. Now, as he made his way stiffly through the trees, their trunks carved with hearts and the names of lovers, he thought he might be able to try again. This letter would start simply. It would tell his mother what the land looked like just then, with the sun fading to purple and the green chill settling on him like frost. It would sit her down at the kitchen table and describe for her the decaying flowers of the iris garden and the soft voice of the bald man. It would be nothing special, this letter. But it would be real. It would fill his mother with his own words until she could paint the picture herself, the light dissolving but not gone, the moon rising over a wood full of hand-carved hearts, a tunnel of hearts, leading him up to the white gravel path and home.

A
wind had come suddenly to Tokyo, surprising everyone with its force. Thunder clouds were pushed ahead of it, unfurled over the city. There was talk of an electrical storm. Television weathermen warned their viewers to take the necessary precautions. People began to change their plans.

It was Sunday afternoon, and Alec had the streets almost to himself as he walked the last few blocks to the Imperial Palace. He walked slowly and imagined that the city had been given over to him for the day, his own private museum. A veil of mist ranged over the wide avenues like a flying carpet. The near empty streets had the air of a playground. Wind ripped around corners and down into subway tunnels. It hummed against the large window fronts of stores and banks and restaurants. The few pieces of trash to be found held their own kind of rush hour, dancing wildly with the wind, swirling up into the mist, mocking all the street cleaners who had ever picked up a broom in Tokyo.

A light rain began to fall. Alec squinted and fastened the top
button of his raincoat. The moat and stone wall that marked the outer boundaries of the palace grounds loomed in front of him. The boulders in the wall’s surface had turned dark and medieval. Boon stood alone on the broad lawn in front of the massive gate and drawbridge. He was dressed in a yellow Windbreaker and faded blue jeans and hugged a canvas bag to his chest. He waved once when he saw Alec.

“The palace is closed.”

Alec shrugged. “That’s okay.”

“I knew it would be. Thought we might play some catch instead.”

“Hmm?”

“Catch. Baseball.”

Boon reached into the bag, brought out two worn gloves and a nicked-up baseball. He offered one of the gloves to Alec.

Alec didn’t take it. “You know my ribs still hurt. From the accident.”

“I know. Maybe you could try throwing underhanded.” He paused. “I thought it would be fun to toss the ball around a bit.”

“It would. But I can’t. I’m still pretty beat-up.”

Boon put the gloves and baseball back into the bag, which he let drop to the wet ground. “Some other time, then.”

“So. How have you been?”

“Keeping busy. The semiconductor deal in Taiwan looks as if it’s going to come through for us.”

“That’s good. But how about you?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine. And you? You look all right, considering everything.”

“I feel all right, more or less. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last couple of weeks.”

“Did I tell you about your high-tech report? It was terrific. One of the best I’ve read in a long time.”

“Look, I’ve decided to go home. Back to New York.”

The wind gusted. Boon wiped rain from his face with the back of his hand. “And do what?”

“I don’t know. Just be there for a while. At home, with my family.”

Boon shook his head. “That’s too uncertain. I can give a call to the head office. Maybe they can offer you a position in New York. There’s this guy you should see.”

“No.”

“Alec, listen to me. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.”

Alec put up his hands, as if to push him away. “Can’t
you
listen to
me
—just for once? I’m going home to be with my family. That’s it. I don’t know any more than that. I have no plans to be in business, go to law school, anything. And you know something? I don’t care if it sounds uncertain, because it doesn’t feel that way to me. For once it’s not ‘I guess’ this, or ‘maybe’ that. I’m going home, to be at home. No big plans, but done. Decided. And if you care about me, you’ll accept that—the same way I’ll accept who you are.”

Boon’s short hair was wet and dark, rain trickled down his face. The wind rose up again, and Alec almost didn’t hear the soft “You’re right.” He waited a long time before Boon continued.

“I’m a lot older than you are. And sometimes it’s harder to accept things when you’re older. You get used to having your own way. If I talk business most of the time, it’s because I’m not very good at talking about other things, personal things. The rules don’t apply. Work is easier for me that way. And safer. I usually get my own way at work. I make the decisions, and people are supposed to accept those decisions. I saw you and I guess I thought we could really connect through work, that you would understand why I spend so much of life involved with it, and that maybe through work you would gain some confidence in yourself, learn to make your own decisions the way I did. I misjudged you, and I’m sorry for it. I called you selfish, but I have been too, trying to make you into who I thought you should be. Don’t think that I agree with everything you’ve done and are doing. Because I don’t. I still think you’re throwing away a great opportunity. But the fact is you came to an important decision by yourself, without my help or anyone else’s. And had
a hell of a tough time, by the looks of it. That’s something I have to respect.”

Alec ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the water run down his neck and face, tasting it on his tongue. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

Boon waved the idea away. “None of that’s important.”

The rain grew heavy. In an instant the drops seemed to double and then triple in size until they no longer danced but roared, pulsing against the soft ground and hard fortifying wall of the palace. With an effort, Alec lowered himself to the ground. He removed the baseball and one glove from the bag at Boon’s feet, then stood up again.

“Are you still up for some catch? I’m good for at least one pop fly.” He tossed the glove.

Surprised, Boon almost dropped it before pacing off and turning around. He pounded the glove with his fist.

“Okay, give me a good one now,” he shouted. “Nice and high.”

Alec took a hard look at him through the rain. Taking three steps for momentum, he put his entire body behind the throw. His chest heaved and his ribs felt for a moment as if they might cut a hole right through him.

But it didn’t matter. He watched the ball take off from his fingertips up into the dark sky, its scarred form cutting a swath of its own kind of light. It had height, but distance too, and Boon took off under it, glove extended, his face turned up into the edge of the storm. Alec saw the beauty of it then, and, breathless, he watched Boon dive for the ball and catch it, his long body full out and flying, laughing as he came back to earth, leaving a body-length gash of mud directly in front of the Imperial Palace.

A
lec woke into the rich, purple darkness of the end of the night. The air in his room was cool and damp. He lay in bed for a moment longer, eyes open, wrapping himself more tightly in the warm comforter. And then he got out of bed, turned on the light, and started to pack.

He worked methodically, folding each piece of clothing and placing it around him on the floor and futon. He emptied the closet and the cupboard drawers. He untacked photographs and Japanese magazine clippings from the wall. He gathered his books in tall, leaning stacks. Soon he had become an island in his own room, surrounded by his possessions. He paused to look at them, wanting to place each one. He picked up the tea bowl Kiyoko had given him. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over its simple, elegant surface and felt for a moment as if it were her he was touching with his blindman’s hands. Across a river, she came back to him. Full-bodied, she filled him with her
warmth until he was holding the tea bowl like a sweetheart, slow dancing to unheard music in the crowded little room.

Grandfather’s black sleeping yukata lay folded on the futon behind him. Grandmother had given it to him before he had left to return to Tokyo. Like the waders he had worn fishing, the yukata was too short for him. He buried his face in the worn cotton and breathed in the smells and tastes of another world. He wondered whether he would ever again feel as close to it all—whether one day in New York he might fold himself into the dark cotton only to find that it no longer smelled of the sharp, green land and the people who had lived and died there.

He stopped moving and the room was quiet, as though it were listening. He looked through the glass doors and out over the city. Suspended in nothingness, solitary lights shone like stars from distant apartment towers. Others were awake at this hour, caught as he was in the unresolved time between night and morning. Alec pulled out his suitcases and began to fill them with his possessions.

When he had finished, he wrote his name and address in script on a sheet of paper, looked at it, then tore it up. He did this four times, changing from script to block print, gradually creating letters that resembled those written by grade-school teachers on classroom blackboards. He took the paper and went downstairs.

Mrs. Hasegawa already looked fresh and awake when he saw her. A portable heater blew warm air into the room. The room’s only light came from a goose-necked lamp standing in the corner. Alec thought her skin looked smooth and cool in a way that it never had in the fluorescent light of the eating room.