Consumed (13 page)

To seal the deal, Roiphe had brought his home office's Pixie—with two sleeves of gray-coded Roma capsules—down to Nathan's subterranean domain after Nathan had confessed his addiction to Nespresso. He had never seen a Pixie in the flesh. This one was the adorable titanium-colored
version, which spookily matched the shag carpeting. “It's okay, don't thank me, I have the big mother deluxe one in the kitchen. I won't go caffeineless.” Nathan was drinking a Roma right now out of the supplied cup and saucer, both in elegant white ceramic with the swooping split-N logo embossed within a beveled square recess, green capped letters on the bottom of each proclaiming “Nespresso Collection, Made in Portugal,” which of course evoked the poster on the wall and the former housekeeper. Synchronicity? Nathan took it to mean that what he was doing there in Roiphe's basement had cosmic support. There was an undeniable shape to it.

He had decided to keep the Pixie in the bedroom—on the dresser for now—instead of the tiny but workable nanny's kitchen just around the corner from the slate-floored sitting room. He wanted it to feel like a European hotel-room adventure rather than a move-in-completely- and-hopelessly situation—move in with your recently widowed father, for instance. Nathan had done that, and it had been bitter and desperate in too many ways to bear experiencing it again, even analogically. Picking up on Naomi's line of thought, Roiphe had joked that there was no separate entrance to the embedded reporter's suite, the better to keep an eye on him, but everything worked, including the bathroom with shower.

It had to be admitted: he was down here because of Chase. He wanted to be in the same house with her. He was not sure why. She was certainly attractive, but immediately gave off those convulsive, anaphrodisiac waves of looniness that tell you not to bother fantasizing. But where in the house was she? Did she know yet he had moved in? Would he be able to hear her? Could she hear him? Would she visit him down here? After finishing the Roma, he tried several times to email, text, and phone Naomi, without success. Then he called Dunja's Slovenian mobile number, also without success; her phone disconnected after nine rings without accepting any messages, and a disconsolate Nathan wondered if, overwhelmed by guilt at infecting him, she had committed suicide.

ON THE HONGO CAMPUS
of the University of Tokyo, familiarly known as Todai, Naomi walked down the broad, tree-lined avenue leading to the fortress-like Yasuda Auditorium with its dark-red tiles and incongruous stone-arched entranceway, then turned right on the heavily wooded path that would take her to Sanshiro Pond. She could walk with confidence because, of course, she had Google Mapped and YouTubed her route to death before venturing outside Yukie's flat, whose wireless signal was surprisingly robust. Yukie had insisted on covertly entering the flat's wireless network password on Naomi's various machines herself, not letting Naomi watch, a touch of paranoid strangeness that chilled Naomi's feelings for her. She had to shrug it off. So, experiencing that comforting but oppressive net-preview déjà vu, down the curving series of stone steps she went, past a group of students sitting on large rocks in the pond feeding the carp and koi, past the tiny waterfall, and on to the simple wooden bench upon which sat Professor Hideki Matsuda of the Faculty of Law. In their email exchange brokered by Yukie, Matsuda had made it clear that he did not want to meet Naomi anywhere too public, but he also wanted to be respectful, and the ancient pond seemed a fitting compromise. In response to his wariness, Naomi carried only her iPad in its dedicated Crumpler shoulder bag, and a black nylon shopping bag from La Grande Epicerie in Paris for her mundane stuff and her Sony RX100 compact camera, just in case.

The professor rose from the bench as Naomi approached and bowed slightly, not extending his hand. “Naomi, so nice to meet you.”

“Thank you, Professor Matsuda. I'm very grateful for your help.”

An awkward beat of silence filled by the shouts of students talking to the fish and one another which rose from the other end of the pond. It was obvious to Naomi that there was considerable stress involved in their meeting for this neat, delicate man of about fifty, his suit and tie impeccable, his glasses of fine stainless steel. Eventually, he took a card from an inside jacket pocket and offered it to Naomi with both hands as though it
were a business card. She took it similarly with two hands, but it was just a note card, and completely in Japanese—perhaps intended to convey to her that Matsuda did not want her to know anything about him beyond what she already knew. She would need Yukie's help with the card. They sat down together opposite a tiny, lush island.

“The philosopher can be found at this address, at the time I have written on the card. It is his current home. He is interested to meet you.”

Naomi was sure that Matsuda would be happy to leave it at that, to say goodbye right then and there, or perhaps stroll around the pond a bit, elaborating on its creation in 1615, its special heart shape, and its informal renaming to reference the 1908 campus novel
Sanshirō
by Natsume

Sōseki—all safe topics, all charming and congenial. But Naomi was not charming and congenial.

“Professor, you are a personal friend of Aristide Arosteguy, is that correct?”

“I would not say personal friend, no. We are colleagues in philosophy; he, professionally, and I, well, philosophically, as an outgrowth of my interest in justice and international law. We have run into each other occasionally at various venues.”

In her face, which she felt sure was burning red, Naomi could feel the wet vegetable heat coming off the pond. Matsuda looked cool. “Have you seen him recently?”

“No, not recently. We correspond by email. He is a controversial figure on campus, as one might imagine.”

“As controversial as the cannibal Issei Sagawa?”

Matsuda flinched away from Naomi a few centimeters, as though the words had shoved him in the chest, but his expression did not change. “That is … not a valid comparison, Naomi.”

“Professor Matsuda, I will be seeing Monsieur Arosteguy alone. Completely alone.”

“Yes.”

“Should I be worried?”

Matsuda adjusted his glasses with both hands. “There are so many levels to that question.”

“The level that I'm concerned about is the physical safety level. Will I be in danger from the philosopher? I don't mean philosophical danger, or emotional danger. I mean physical danger.” Matsuda seemed unable to answer. He just stared at Naomi, blinking as a small flock of birds swept over the pond. Naomi pushed. “Some French policemen consider him capable of murder.”

It was apparent now that Matsuda could not bear these words. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. He stood up. “Please give the philosopher Monsieur Arosteguy my regards when you see him.” He bowed, turned, and strode off along the verge of the pond, a briefcase, which Naomi had somehow not noticed before, held stiffly at his side, not swinging.

6

NAOMI STOOD IN A
residential street in Western Tokyo that looked more like an alleyway than a street. Yukie had assured her that, yes, there were houses in Tokyo and they were much more common than, say, houses in Paris, some of them very large and luxurious, some of them miniature modernist jewels. But as her cab left her, picking its way gingerly past the bicycles, potted plants, baby strollers, plastic garbage cans, and random furniture lining the street, she could see that Arosteguy's house was neither luxurious nor jewel-like.

It was after 8
P.M
. and the light was fading fast. Naomi pulled out her camera—the compact Sony RX100 again; better to look like a tourist for now—and began snapping off shots in all directions. She steadied the camera against whatever wall or pole was handy to compensate for the low light levels and the resulting slow shutter speeds. The gathering twilight combined with the mercury-vapor street lamps and the incandescent light spilling from house windows made for pleasingly surreal 3D-feeling images. She could almost hear the little camera's computers buzzing madly in their attempt to balance the color temperatures of the varied light sources.

After documenting the shop across the narrow street, its steamed-up windows displaying mysterious aluminum, ceramic, and glass containers, Naomi turned her attention to Arosteguy's gray-stuccoed two-story house with its sad garden just inside the entrance. It was streaked with dirt and crumbling, its ironwork gate pocked with rust and its garden a rotting, garbage-strewn mess. There was some thin light showing through the second-floor windows, but the first floor was dark. After exhausting every imaging possibility she could think of, scrolling through her shots to see if anything jumped out at her, Naomi put the camera in her bag and crossed the street, trailing her roller behind her.

On the outer wall, just beside the open gate, a stainless-steel mailbox featured stenciled white numbers—“13-23”—on a blue rectangle. Another blue rectangle contained impenetrable white Japanese characters. Walking through the gate and into the courtyard, which was fitfully lit by stained orange garden lights built into its raw concrete walls, Naomi was tempted to take out her camera and start snapping again—so many wonderful depressing details expressing the decay of this man's life (as the accompanying copy would have it)—but she resisted. There would be time.

Facing the sliding wooden doors, Naomi vainly tried to see through their narrow, full-length vertical panes of pebbled glass. She thought she saw a security camera in a hat-like galvanized steel housing above and to the right of the doors, but it proved to be an electricity meter. Electrical wiring crawled haphazardly all over the building's stucco, many of the corroded screws and clamps barely hanging on. She looked for a buzzer or a doorbell, but there wasn't one, so she knocked on the glass, which rattled at her touch. After a moment, a dim, watery light came on somewhere deep in the room beyond, there was a scuffle of locks, and the door slid open.

Arosteguy stood in the doorway, his face hidden in shadow, a large, imposing, shaggy presence. This surprised Naomi; from her YouTube
experience of the philosopher, he was small and fastidious about his appearance. She wondered for a moment if this man at the door was someone else, or even if she had the wrong address, but after warily looking her up and down, he spoke, and the voice and the accent were Arosteguy's.

“You've brought your suitcase. That is good.”

Naomi glanced down at her camera roller, nervous. “Oh, this? It's my equipment roller. I keep my camera and flashes and things in it. I thought it'd be okay to bring it. We talked about photo shoots, documenting your life here …”

Arosteguy reached down and picked the roller up by its top handle. “Heavy. Heavy equipment.” He hunched his shoulder to move the roller out of Naomi's way and slid the door open wider with his knee for her to enter ahead of him. “Take your shoes off and come in,” he said, assuming she would be oblivious of that protocol despite his stockinged feet and the presence of his own oxblood brogues sitting in the
genkan
just before the step up into the house.

Arosteguy served green tea to Naomi, who sat floor level in a dumpy beanbag chair in a generally dumpy small living room. The light remained as sickly as it had looked through the front-door panes, adding to Naomi's tightening unease. Greasy sliding glass back doors opened out into darkness. Naomi could now see that he was haggard and unshaven, his long hair—gray with some black streaks still—unwashed and wild, his clothes rumpled and slept in. It all somehow made him even more attractive, and Naomi was aware that this, not fear, was the source of her unease.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the tea.

Arosteguy sat opposite her on a futon folded into a couch and sipped his own tea, cradling the cup as if for warmth. A fragrance, vaguely Japanese in character and not unpleasant, seemed to emanate from him. “And so, yes, you brought your camera. That's good. You'll want photos. I've taken some photos myself. Very strong photos.”

It was the last phrase that added intimidation, and perhaps now at last fear, to the established substratum of unease. Naomi had to work hard not to imagine this man, still trailing a fragrant effluvium, meticulously photographing his wife's half-eaten head. Were some of those photos she found on the net posted by him, posted in defiance, perhaps, or perversity?

She had to hasten to fill the lapsed moment, almost stuttering. “Have you? Photos? Um, were they journalistic photos or art photos?”

Arosteguy laughed a ropey laugh. He lit a Japanese cigarette that he had some trouble shaking out of a pack beside him on the couch, then laughed some more, emitting short snorts of smoke towards her.

“I only smoke Japanese now. I want to become Japanese. I'll never speak French again. Never. They say that Tolstoy learned classical Greek very quickly once he put his mind to it. I'm learning Japanese very quickly. Until then, I speak English or German. For philosophy, at least, you have to speak German. Perhaps I will make Japanese essential for contemporary Western philosophy. If I live long enough.”

Naomi was groping. “Photography has no language. Is that why you're so interested in it?”

“I think you've seen some of my photographic work,” said Arosteguy. “You can tell me whether it's journalistic or artistic. I myself think that it's both.”

“I've seen your work?”

“On the internet. Those famous photos of my wife. I posted them from Todai, from the university.” Another small laugh, a phlegmless one this time. “They don't know it yet.”

“Your wife?” said Naomi. She wanted it to sound lame, and it did, but she was positioning herself for the moment as the naïve and easily shockable North American—familiar journalistic role-playing.

“Before, and after. Mostly after. Those are the ones everybody's
interested in. I'm sure you've found them. On the arosteguyatrocity dot com website.”