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Authors: Andrew O'Connor

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Tuvalu (9 page)

BOOK: Tuvalu
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‘And these bars are really everywhere?' Harry asked.

‘Snack bars? Yeah.'

‘Are they brothels?'

‘I don't think so. I've told you pretty much all I know, sorry.'

Harry looked frustrated by my haziness. He lined up a lidless plastic bottle, but when he tried to kick it his small foot and stumpy leg sailed harmlessly over top. He stumbled forward and the bottle rolled once, mockingly. Above us an old man taking in his washing paused to watch, so I took a short run and booted the bottle up the empty street, listening to the hollow rattle.

‘That's how you kick it!' I yelled.

‘Thanks,' Harry called, running after it, then changing his mind and turning. ‘Hey,' he called back, ‘since we can't find a normal bar, let's just go to one of those bars with women.'

I shook my head. ‘No. They're not my scene. Anyway, I can't afford
ichi man en
for a bottle of cheap whisky.'

Harry was confused by the number. ‘How much is that in US dollars?'

‘About a hundred.'

He shrugged as if this was no expense, and walked on ahead.

A moment later, somewhere in a room high above me, a woman cried out, not in fear but happily, as if play-fighting or lovemaking. It stopped me dead. I wondered if I had even heard it—it was that kind of fleeting, otherworldly sound. At home people's lives had been tucked away inside two-storey forts, but here they hung out over me, carried by coughs or small children crying, by silhouettes passing behind closed curtains—even by blaring TV sets. There were literally thousands of people surrounding me and I wanted to linger, to peer into one lit room after another. But the idea of skulking on the edge of other people's happiness only exacerbated my loneliness. I thought of Mami's hotel room, how appealing it was to look in on a life and how different to step inside.

Irritated by the thought, I jogged to catch up to Harry.

To my surprise Harry attached himself to me. I became his letter of introduction to far more than just the hostel. Three days after meeting him I watched him pull a saucer from the conveyor belt, position both chopsticks in his left hand with his right and, like a man arranging a puppet, try to find a hold on a portion of tuna.

‘We've kind of become good friends, haven't we?' he said.

I nodded, thinking how little I knew him.

‘Then I want to make you an offer.' His voice was businesslike. ‘The fact is, I need a small loan and I'm in a position to offer an excellent rate of return. Normally I'd go through a financial institution. This is not how I operate. But I'm eating with chopsticks and nothing is normal.'

We were in a small sushi restaurant. The tall wooden stool upon which I sat, feet off the ground, was rickety. I felt as if it might collapse at any moment. The boy preparing rice behind the U-shaped conveyor belt—moulding it into rectangles with practiced, wet hands—threw me frequent, nervous glances.

‘This loan would be short term,' Harry continued. ‘Three days tops.' He sipped at his steaming green tea and his eyes hardened.

‘How much do you need?' It was my intention to plead poverty after hearing a figure—any figure.

‘No more than 20,000 yen. This morning I learnt the transfer from America will take three days. I should have brought more cash. I'll repay you 25,000 for the favour of a three-day loan.'

‘That wouldn't be necessary,' I said cautiously.

‘I insist. I don't want to hassle with a foreign bank, and even if I do they'll ask for something like that. Why not give it to you?'

I nodded, unconvinced, and tried to think of a way to let him down.

‘Then we have an agreement?' he asked.

‘Well …'

‘Only if you're comfortable with it.'

I ran some rudimentary figures in my head. I had saved almost 350,000 yen living in Nakamura's. What Harry wanted was only a small portion of this total, but instinct told me to decline. The problem was I felt somewhat awkward turning him down over lunch. I would be trapped with him afterwards and it seemed easier to buy a speedy end to the matter.

‘It'd be a pleasure,' I said at last. ‘I'll give you the money tonight.'

‘Thanks. I appreciate that. I can't believe the banking over here. I have a card, but I can't get it to work in a single Japanese ATM. How about that.'

‘I've had the same problems moving money,' I said. It's common when you first arrive. Like I said, I'm happy to help.'

I was not at all happy to help, but could see no way out of it. Harry nodded. He seemed to be planning what he would say next—selecting his words in advance and running them through his head silently.

‘I'm moving a smaller portion first—to live on—then a larger portion later in the month. The latter will take a hell of a lot of organising, but it's a better rate. It is worth the fuss since I'm bringing over my life savings.'

To this I said nothing. Harry struggled to get a slab of tuna to his mouth. Having raised it halfway he dropped it, and a portion of rice fell to the floor, breaking into pieces as it went, like a tiny snowball. Neither of us moved to clean it up. I focused on a pile of empty, stacked plates, counting and recounting them. The sum total seemed to be different each time.

Now that my gesture was made I felt I had been cheated. I looked around as if for witnesses. There were only three other customers in the restaurant: a salaryman, his ugly middle-aged wife and their thin but voracious teenage son. All three were seated on the opposite side of the conveyor belt. They shovelled sushi into their mouths and chewed like cattle, eyes inert, jaws moving in methodical circles.

‘There's definitely money in sushi,' Harry said.

Suddenly I wanted to be left alone. There was something unsettling about his constant talk of money. I thought about retracting the impulsive offer, but could not. I stood up. ‘Let me get the bill,' I said, trying to soften the effect of such an unexpected departure.

‘You're going?'

‘I have to, sorry. I forgot something.'

‘Well, I might stay on a while,' he said, remaining seated. ‘I'll get the bill.'

‘You're sure?' I asked.

‘Absolutely.'

We shook hands.

I wandered back towards the hostel, stopping at a stand to buy skewered chicken so I would not have to venture out a second time for food. The enormous, grinning man inside thought he knew me, presumably having mistaken me for some other, significantly more social foreigner. Waving off smoke from the grill he asked after my daughter in broken but confident English.

‘She's well,' I said, as it began to rain.

He gave me a free skewer, fresh off the grill.

‘For the daughter,' he said.

Walking on, the pavement steadily darkening, sauce spilt from the skewer onto my shirt and I swore, trying to wipe it off before it seeped through the material. All the way back, people crossed the street at the sight of my enraged face, and my mood was in no way improved by the arrival of a letter from home.

My father never embraced the internet or e-mail. His neat, handwritten letters always arrived in the same bland envelopes with a pretentious wax seal that read ‘Charles and Diane Tuttle'. My father believed in those wax seals almost as firmly as he believed in God. He could not post even a card without first putting it in an envelope, stamping it with the seal and protecting it against all evil.

Every letter was more or less the same. Penned in his firm but cursive hand, they opened with a sort of stilted disclaimer. Something like: ‘Please do not take the following as indication I have rejected your perspective outright. I have not. However—'

After this opening he was invariably limited to a single page. One A4 sheet onto which he crammed lectures on God, the church, marriage, family and the exact state of my beleaguered soul. Souls fascinated my father. Somehow—and it really did puzzle me how—he melded them into his assessment of all things. Shortly after I fled to Japan, he wrote:

Japan is a well-developed nation boasting an admirable
standard of living, but its origins cannot be ignored. Save for
its small Christian (non-Catholic) population, it is, at heart,
a heathen country. It will do little to steel your soul and much
to coax it awry.

Needless to say I never replied to such musings. And since he had little space for day-to-day news, we had fallen out of touch.

I read the letter lying on my bed listening to the tick of my plastic wall-clock. I always opened my father's letters beneath this clock. That way, afterwards, I could follow its steady tick until my fury abated (sometimes I even managed to put my worries so far out of mind I fell asleep to the sound). Around me the hostel room was neat and smelt clean. In one corner there was a broom and dustpan, into which I had swept a large pile of hair, dust and grit. The wax seal crumbled.

Dear Noah,
Your mother is presently missing. This is the only way I have
to contact you. Please ring. Please come home immediately.

Sincerely,
Your father

I sat up. I considered for a moment, distractedly, the likelihood of my mother having been abducted. Stranger things had happened in the world. Of this much I was certain. But I could not believe anyone would want to abduct my mother. The letter made no sense. I kicked over the dustpan, outraged at the thought of returning home. Then, worried and wanting news, I rang my father. His voice, when the call finally connected, sounded familiar, despite my not having heard it in two years.

‘Hello?' I said, swapping the receiver to my opposite ear. ‘Hello?'

‘Noah?'

‘Dad. Hi.' I did not want to ask how he was. It seemed an asinine question considering the letter. But without this familiar starting point I could not think where to begin. My jaw kept opening suddenly, only to close, like a fish in the final throes of death.

‘Where's Mum?' I asked eventually. There was a long silence.

‘Tell me,' my father said, ‘has your mother ever spoken to you about a women named Celeste?'

‘No,' I lied.

‘Well, it seems she's safe.'

‘Who? Mum?'

‘Yes.'

‘How do you know?'

‘It seems, Noah. I didn't say I know.'

‘Can you tell me what you do know?'

‘Not on the phone, no. Come home.'

I nudged at a piece of chewing gum with the tip of my sneaker, trying to conjure a prudent reply. The hostel phone booth was no larger than a refrigerator. To its dull walls tenants had affixed all manner of ads, some for phone cards, others for sex. I ran my eyes over each, one after the other, as if for inspiration.

‘Okay,' I said, relenting. ‘I'll get a flight home.' I could see no alternative.

‘For good?'

‘No, just to visit.'

‘Ring me when you've booked it.'

‘Okay. Bye.'

‘Goodbye.'

After hanging up I could not stand to be in the hostel. My room felt like a dank cave. I walked to the train station and sat inside its rumbling frame. Japanese people passed me by. Most wore suits and looked to be in a hurry. They left a cold impression.

I had set myself down opposite a payphone where an elderly woman now dropped a handful of coins. They clattered loudly. When she stooped to pick them up, talking into the receiver as she did so, she could not reach even one. A few metres away a six- or seven-year-old boy broke free of his mother's grip and stood staring at the scattered change. His hands were at his sides, fingertips twitching as if about to draw unseen pistols. His eyes never left the money. He took one step towards the closest coin. The woman on the phone peered at him. Then his mother called his name and he shot up the stairs like a startled lizard.

The elderly woman finished her call, unconsciously bowing as she said goodbye to the person on the other end. She collected the money and methodically climbed a wide staircase to the train platform, leaving me staring at the payphone. I envied her—envied her having someone to call. Before Tilly returned to Australia we had agreed not to waste money on international calls and not to e-mail more than once a week. Tilly had initiated this and I had agreed, unaware how lonely Japan would become without her.

I needed to speak to her. I could not hold off until I was back in Australia. Strings of thought had clogged my mind like dental floss in a drain, forming a solid, putrid blockage. I could untangle nothing. Everywhere I looked I saw only strangers. Even my parents were strangers. There was no one but Tilly. I decided to call, to tell her about Phillip's moodiness, about Harry, the loan, my father's letter and my mother's disappearance. I would tell her about my trip home and ask if I could visit her, perhaps even suggest we drive north.

The call connected without delay.

‘Hello,' she said softly.

But I remembered Mami's blue slip, her sleepy breath on my neck and, afraid to lie, hung up.

BOOK: Tuvalu
8.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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