Tuvalu (30 page)

Escape

P
hillip and I took work in hotels—work procured by Mami. We taught English to the staff and occasionally helped out with the foreign guests, but neither one of us could get more than twenty hours a week. Initially Phillip embraced this sustained state of poverty as he had his previous hiatuses from clubs and drugs, throwing himself into high-rep weights. But when this particular hiatus did not end he began to despair.

There was no question of him modelling, even after the bandages came off. There was a nasty gash crossing his face. It started to the right of his hairline, crossed his forehead, passed between his eyes just above the nose, and ended in the middle of his left cheek. It was healing well, though the scar would require plastic surgery. Slowly, we watched the swelling and bruising surrounding it falter and vanish.

But there was another injury too, one Phillip rarely discussed. He had sustained a bruise on the top of his head. This bruise had faded, but well after everything seemed back to normal he continued to suffer debilitating headaches. If anything, they worsened with time. To my way of thinking, the blow to his head and the headaches were linked, but Phillip would not concede the point. He self-medicated with painkillers which he became all too adept at conning from doctors citywide. Somehow he avoided going to hospital and paid only what he had to for an almost constant supply of drugs. Anyone could see this was a patch-up job but Phillip would not listen. Medicated, he did sit-ups and push-ups until exhausted.

Meanwhile, Tilly was gone. I could feel it. There had been no sign of her since the killing of the cats, and those things she would never have parted with—a photo of her mother on a plane, her passport, her leather wallet, a faulty silver watch and a Soseki novel—were all missing from the pile of belongings she had left just inside the apartment door.

Faced with this reality, I thought about striking out for Europe, for a cheap but somewhat central city—Bratislava, say—where I could start over. But even if I could find the money and arrange a work permit, Tilly's abrupt departure and refusal to say goodbye had rattled me. I was suddenly reluctant to be any more alone than I already was.

Our eviction—or escape—from Nakamura-san's apartment marked the start of colder weather. It took place on a dim, rainy day. Tokyo had pulled in all the bedding which normally hung from its countless identical balconies, and the dripping apartment blocks were hulking and drab without colourful splotches of linen. In the end it was probably our use of the amenities that was our undoing. The police appeared at our door at around one p.m. I heard the doorbell and crept to the peephole. Phillip followed, making unintelligible gestures.

‘Who?' he hissed.

‘Police.'

‘Shit it.'

The doorbell rang a second time. Outside, the two officers exchanged comments. Phillip signalled that we should escape via the balcony, then changed his mind, whispering that there might be a police unit in the alley below and anyway, it was too high. He was woozy from painkillers regardless. I agreed it was a bad idea.

The police rang the doorbell a third time. We both pulled back from the tiny peephole. The handle moved, but luckily the door was locked.

The officers, grumbling softly, started back down the staircase.

‘This is our chance,' I said.

‘How?'

‘If they had a key they'd already have used it. More than likely they have to go to the landlord for it. We wait one minute, then we run.'

‘We've got to pack.'

‘We've got one minute.'

Together we bundled up our various belongings, mine into my suitcase, Phillip's into his backpack. When he dropped his passport in, however, I grabbed it back out and thrust it into my little pack, along with other essentials, mostly documents. We limited ourselves strictly to clothing, blankets and food from the fridge. Finally we hoisted it all up, dropped the keys into the sink and paused in front of the door to listen.

‘Nothing,' I said. ‘Is there anything left here that can identify us?'

‘My pills!'

‘Do they have your name on them?'

‘No.'

‘Then forget them.'

‘No.'

Phillip searched both the living rooms then returned, sagging beneath his backpack and out of breath already. I threw open the door and we ran. One or two people pruning pot plants stared, but no one said a word or tried to stop us. We ran for five minutes without seeming to go all that far. Reaching a large road we tried to flag a taxi. Two cruised by but neither stopped. Back at the apartment we could see a police car pulling up. One officer started towards the building without looking in our direction, but the other noticed us. They hurried back towards the car and climbed in. A second later the lights flashed and a knife-edged siren sounded. The car jolted forward out of the car park.

‘We're in trouble,' I said.

Our situation was unfavourable but not impossible. We were standing at a T-intersection with traffic blocking our path. There was an alley ahead leading to a far larger, far busier road a hundred or so metres up. We had one chance.

‘If we can cross this street and cut through that alley to the main road up ahead, we might beat them through the traffic. We could get a cab before they catch up.'

‘Not a chance,' said Phillip dejectedly.

‘No, it's possible. Come on, dump your pack.'

We both sprinted across the street into the alley, sealed off from traffic and loosely lined with wooden fences. Phillip's voice echoed off each slat differently. ‘They can't prove it was us, Tuttle.'

‘They can. The neighbours can identify us.'

‘Shit it.'

Halfway up the alley I turned to see the police car stuck beside our luggage at the pedestrian crossing, and I let out a whoop. My arms felt heavy and cumbersome, and my legs began to protest. I kept having to pull the little pack up onto my shoulder as I ran. Ahead, cars, trucks and taxis flicked past, all oblivious to our flight. I could smell carbon monoxide.

As we exited the alley, gasping for air, I ventured a quick look behind. The police were crossing the intersection, siren still blaring, and pulling up at the alley entrance. My heart sank as I grabbed Phillip by the shirt and dragged him along the busy street to a bus stop. I casually waved one arm, trying not to look desperate. But when I turned Phillip was waving with both, as though signalling a far-off plane.

‘What the fuck are you doing?'

‘What?'

‘Act normal.'

The police were in the alley now, running. In the distance I heard shoes on concrete. Whoever was coming was serious.

I was about to give up when a taxi veered sharply left and skidded to a halt in front of us.

‘In,' I said to Phillip, who only nodded.

The driver smiled. He was a young Japanese man with long oily hair—not at all the typical Japanese taxi driver. There was no comb-over, no starched white gloves.

‘Where?' he asked in English.

‘Anywhere,' said Phillip.

‘Shinjuku,' I cut in. ‘Shinjuku Station.'

‘Okay.' The driver put the car into gear and activated his right blinker. There was a steady stream of traffic and for a moment we went nowhere. I glanced back. There was no one there. Then the officers appeared, both lurching as they ran and out of breath. They stopped dead at the main road and looked left and right. One pointed towards the cab. I snapped my head back to the road, watching the driver who, with one eye on the rear-view mirror, tapped his index finger on the steering wheel. His mouth was curved in a smile, and without warning he punched the accelerator.

I let out a lungful of air.

For a while we worried our bags might have contained something that could identify us, but we could think of nothing inside them that did and no one tried to contact or arrest us. Not that anyone could have. We took time off work, checked into a cheap love hotel under false names— after convincing the manager we were straight—and became invisible to the authorities. Not even we knew where we were.

From here we moved into a far smaller box, taking a room on the eighth floor of an apartment block in outlying Saitama prefecture. The elevator was broken and we were only allowed to stay for two months, filling in for foreigners holidaying in Eastern Europe. Mostly it was an awful place to live. Entering, you stepped into a dark, narrow hallway which led past a sink and bathroom to a room the width of a sedan. This room ended in a frosted window, jammed shut.

Phillip slept in a three-foot-square loft above the hallway, a sort of tube he slid himself in and out of and derived a sense of privacy from. The loft was accessed by a ladder and Phillip, once nestled inside, would pull it up and lean it against one wall. He also had a small curtain, rarely open. As far as I could tell he spent most of his time up there high on grass—God knows where he got it— shivering on the fetid mattress.

We both returned to work, and on my days off I tried to get out and walk. There was a factory nearby and I made it my habit to watch bored, blue-clad workers letting themselves in and out of a small gate, all punching timecards. Judging from the smell, this factory made vinegar. It was a raw smell, almost like a detergent, which sanitised the indistinct smog of outer Tokyo.

Though I e-mailed Tilly daily, she never replied.

In between missing Tilly I also missed Mami. I had fallen out of touch with both and, though I could not contact Tilly without another flight home, it was always in the back of my mind that I could find Mami.

One cold cloudless pre-dawn, unable to sleep in the new apartment, I commuted back to the familiar Tsukiji fish markets and wandered beneath yellow bulbs with green tin shades and alongside jobbers pulling carts, cigarettes hanging from their down-turned lips. These were men so tired of tourists I felt like a ghost in their presence. I followed the long reflections of the bulbs on the wet concrete, moving between cluttered, boxy stalls and squeaking polystyrene to the tuna bidding, where I was told to hang back by someone in uniform. I was thankful to be away from the endless sameness of square-box living, no longer surrounded by a stranger's belongings. Here there was again that modicum of mess, chaos and clutter that I missed about the hostel.

I found my way to Tsukiji Station—to the Naka-Meguro-bound platform, where I waited for a train and thought about the sarin gas attack of several years ago. Some foreigner had told me the story and every time I stood on the platform details returned. The train had come to a halt here a full five stops after the release of gas at Akihabara. People had collapsed from the doors. Although one passenger had kicked the deadly package from the train at the previous stop, Kodenmacho—where it killed four passengers waiting on the platform—a puddle of sarin remained inside on the floor of the carriage. Eight had died and hundreds were injured. As always, the thought made me nervous.

I travelled on to Roppongi, wandered in the stark remnants of the previous night's unfettered festivity, then took the Toei Oedo Line to Shinjuku. From Shinjuku, finally aware I was circling in on someone, I found my way to Tokyo Station, enduring Phillip's unscarred face beaming down from countless JR posters. The smiling man featured bore no resemblance to the sour dope addict I now lived with. He was the old Phillip. Staring at the ad I was struck by how little I knew him. He came without a past, as if born fully grown.