Tuvalu (37 page)

‘It's damn hot in here, Phillip.'

‘I know. It takes a bit of getting used to. The best thing to do is step outside when it really gets to you. Wipes away any sweat.'

‘It's zero degrees.'

‘Exactly.'

I wandered to the far end of the room and back again, running one hand along enormous plastic pots.

‘Still getting those headaches?' I asked.

‘Yeah.' Phillip shrugged. ‘Sometimes.'

‘Seen a doctor?'

‘No point here. They all do the same—give me those hopeless headache tablets that just clog me up.'

I said nothing, but I knew at that moment I could not live with Phillip long. I had to move on. He was no doubt still smoking himself into a half-stupor to counter pain, and it seemed likely he would pay for it with prison time. Why he was still in Japan was beyond me. There were better countries for a drug habit. But then again, he had landed an apartment without set-up costs and could expect absurdly high returns for any grass he sold. While it was stupid, it was not entirely irrational.

‘You got brothers and sisters?' I asked.

‘Yeah. Two older brothers.'

‘What do they do?'

‘They run the farm. Why?'

‘Farmers?' I asked, surprised.

‘Yep.'

‘And your parents?'

‘Why?'

‘I was wondering.'

‘Mum and Dad help my older brothers. It's a sheep place.'

‘So they're all living happily on the farm, huh?' I laughed.

‘What?' he asked, moving between the rows. The fluorescent lights hung from adjustable chains and, though a less than salubrious enterprise, I was impressed by Phillip's ingenuity. Everything was well built and looked sturdy and planned. There were sketches piled up in one corner— possibly designs for the deodoriser.

‘What?' he asked again.

‘Nothing,' I said. ‘I shouldn't laugh because it's not funny. But I just never picked you as being of farming stock. Now I understand how you made all this.'

‘No. I was never a farmer.'

‘Well you are now.'

‘Whatever. And don't be bringing people over, Tuttle. This has to be kept a secret.'

But Phillip, stoned or drunk or both, broke his own rule three nights later. He headed out after dinner while I watched TV. I waited up for him but finally slept fitfully, sweating like a roast duck until sometime just before sun-up when a girl put her ear to my mouth to check if I was breathing. I got a glimpse of her but pretended to be drowsy and then fast asleep. She had seemed young, possibly even a high school student, but she undressed and screwed Phillip in the kitchen, whimpering throughout. Later, when she finally left, Phillip hardly stirred.

‘You're here,' he said at midday, groggily.

‘Yeah.'

‘You were here all night?'

‘Where else would I be?'

‘We didn't wake you though, right?'

‘No.'

‘Good.'

‘What happened to keeping secrets?'

‘A slip-up. She saw nothing.'

I left him there with his absurd crop and hangover and went out for lunch. It was a nice enough town despite the frigid mountain air. It was walled in on all sides by forested hills too jagged to climb and yet with peaks that never seemed far away. Most of the apartments and houses were simple two-storey jobs, and the hulking department stores at either end of town were the main hubs. They welcomed and farewelled the steady traffic which ground through on a smoggy four-lane freeway, exhaust multicoloured in the midafternoon sun.

I sat in a dim restaurant beside this freeway watching vans pass me by like little bread loaves. I felt like a tourist. I wondered what Tilly would have made of it all, then forced her from my thoughts. There was absolutely nothing I could do about Tilly now and I hated it, hated even to think of her. I tried to picture Mami. I remembered, of all things, the way she put her finger in my mouth, the way she led me home that night and her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she turned back to face it.

The Emperor's
Bluegill

I
decided to pay a visit to Mami's hotel. Although all reports had her as exiled somewhere in Hokkaido, the ease with which she had paid the deposit on and furnished our apartment nagged at me. If in exile, how had she been able to access the money? I had to know for myself if she was still in Tokyo.

When I asked for Mami at the hotel's front desk— I had been careful to dress well and use polite Japanese—a small, delicate woman with the first signs of greying hair led me to a couch, where she gestured towards a number of magazines. She said she would make a call. Stupidly, I presumed this call would be to Mami and so thought nothing of the man who appeared a moment later, smoothing down his suit.

‘Noah Tuttle?' he asked.

‘Yes.' I quickly stood.

‘I am Mr Kaketa.'

Mr Kaketa offered his hand, which felt soft and moisturised against my own. He smelt all at once like fruits, plants and something almost chemical—no doubt the result of various shower and shaving products.

‘Pleased to meet you, sir,' I said, staring blankly into Mr Kaketa's face, which was pleasant even without a smile. Though a man well into his fifties, Mr Kaketa had a youthfulness about him. His skin shone and his eyes were those of a far younger man. They were alert, the whites unstained by red tentacles.

‘So, you're a friend of my daughter's?' he said without much trace of a Japanese accent.

‘That's correct.'

‘You want to see her?'

‘If possible.'

‘Sorry, no. She is no longer here. I'm not sure when she'll be back.'

‘Where can I contact her?'

‘You can't. She is what you might call … indisposed.'

‘I see.'

‘Tell me,' said Mr Kaketa, ‘do you live in Tokyo?'

‘No, Niigata.'

‘Niigata? A long journey. I'm sorry to disappoint you now you're here, but please, travel back safely.'

He reached out and shook my hand before I could ask anything more. A beautiful woman was crossing the lobby nearby, her head up, her high heels echoing loudly, but she did not distract the staff from Mr Kaketa. They all watched him from the corners of their eyes with a mixture of reverence and fear. They seemed to work doubly hard now he was around, doing everything too quickly and half-running from one task to the next. When I let go of his hand, the woman who had seated me rushed over and led me towards the doors. I saw Mr Kaketa turn to walk to the elevators. He paused to answer a staff member's question, head down, staring at the marble floor as if it were a flower bed.

I decided not to take the bus back to Niigata right away, but to remain in Tokyo for a few hours. The trip down had not been cheap and, since I was now using the last of the money Mami had given me, I felt an urge to wring value from it.

Outside, unsure what to do with myself, I walked towards the Imperial Palace. I had the beginnings of a headache, which I attributed to dehydration. There was nowhere to buy water, but since I had no desire to turn back I pressed my hand to my head and trudged on through the East Garden, out onto the bridge on which Mami first told me about her ‘feeling'. I envied the carp below, lazily thrashing along the same stone walls, churning up the same water without concern.

Behind me two boys, backs to the bridge railing, stared gloomily down at matching sneakers while their grandparents, motionless, gazed into the water. I nodded hello, then returned to peering from my side of the bridge. I stared along the moat to the tall, sharply angled wall Mami claimed to have leapt from. Again I pictured her jumping. And this time I could see it. She was calm. She did not flail limbs or open her mouth. She did just as she said she had, and when she hit the surface there was not a splash or sound. She was swallowed up.

I walked to the spot in question and, stepping across a low chain fence, crept to the edge to look over. Due to the angle of the stone wall the water seemed a long way off, a fifty–fifty target at best. I could never have made such a jump—not into unknown, murky waters.

‘I would not jump in if I were you,' said a foreigner behind me. I spun and was amazed to discover the voice belonged to an elderly Japanese woman.

‘I wasn't going to, actually.'

The woman nodded and took a step towards me. Her thin white hair and crumpled skin both outlined her skull: dimples on top, eye sockets like deep, dark pits, and the jaw so sharp it could have belonged to a dog. She wore a grimy kimono that might once have been red, and blue Nike sneakers. In her veined, rutted hands she clutched a framed photograph of a young Japanese soldier. His expression was arrogant, hers amused. I had not heard this woman approach and momentarily entertained the notion she was a ghost. But others were staring too, young people power-walking or jogging, housewives being pulled along by their family pets.

‘I am Mrs Onoda,' she said, carefully stepping over the chain fence. ‘How nice it will be to speak English with someone who understands me.'

‘Nice to meet you.'

‘Nice to meet you, too,' she said, putting the photograph down against a tree. ‘And you are?'

‘Noah.'

‘Noah. A good name.'

‘Thank you. Onoda's Japanese, right?'

‘It is.' She followed my gaze down to the photograph. ‘My husband, Mr Onoda. He's what I think you call a straggler.'

‘He's still coming, is he?' I looked about for an old man and Mrs Onoda laughed heartily. She pulled the base of her kimono taut around hairy, stockinged shins, then nudged her husband aside and eventually laid him flat on the grass. In all my years in Japan I had never seen anyone—of any age—sit on the ground without first putting down some sort of a protective cover, even just a page from a newspaper, but Mrs Onoda went ahead and knelt anyway without regard for grass, dirt or insects, giving me a friendly, toothless smile.

‘I am old but strong. I can touch my toes,' she said. ‘He,' and she again nodded towards her husband, ‘is three years younger. The straggler.'

‘Straggler?'

‘Never came back.'

‘From the war?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Oh no, don't be.' She waved me off. ‘He didn't bother to come back. After it ended, he plain forgot. He was alive, they saw him, but he stayed away.' She nodded towards the Imperial Palace. ‘Maybe he didn't believe the Emperor had surrendered. I was a translator then. English mostly—some German. I waited but he didn't come back. That's a straggler. You've never heard the term?'

‘No.'

‘You do know there was a war though, which is something.'

I smiled.

‘It's so nice to speak English with someone who understands,' Mrs Onoda repeated. A butterfly swooped in low, busily sewing an unseen quilt.

‘I'm on my walk,' she said. ‘I am in a home. They think I've lost my marbles.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Because I don't speak Japanese to them, only English or German.'

‘Can you speak Japanese?'

‘Of course. It's my language. My parents were Japanese. They were ambassadors before the war.'

‘Then why don't you use Japanese?'

‘It's bad luck. Worse than bad luck. If I use Japanese people in the home die.' She paused. ‘You don't believe that. I can see you don't. But they do. I spoke to Mr Miyake last Monday. On Tuesday they found him dead in his bed, cold as a rock. It's not the first time that's happened.'

‘What did you say to him?'

‘ “Pass me the pepper.” I was so tired of gesturing.'

‘I'm sure it wasn't your fault.'

‘He choked on a carrot.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You're quick to say that.'

I again smiled and decided to ask a question that had been bothering me. ‘So why do you have the photograph?'

‘Fresh air is the only excuse I have. Now and then I like to get it out.'