Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

  One time I was sure he had come. A cool guy in his late thirties. He wore desert boots and a dark-tan suede jacket. One ear was pierced. I knew I recognized him from somewhere, but I thought he was a musician. He looked around the shop, and asked for a Chick Corea recording that we happened to have. He bought it, I wrapped it for him, and he left. Only afterwards did I realize that he reminded me of me.

  Then I tried calculating what the odds against a random meeting like that were in a city the size of Tokyo, but the calculator ran out of decimal places. So I thought perhaps he’d come to see me incognito, that he was as curious about me as I was about him. Us orphans spend so much time having to be level-headed about things that when we have the time and space to romanticize, wow, can we romanticize. Not that I’m a real orphan, in an orphanage. Mama-san has always looked after me.

  I went outside for a moment, to feel the rain on my skin. It was like being breathed on. A delivery van braked sharply and beeped at an old lady pushing a trolley who glared back and wove her hands in the air as if she was casting a spell. The van beeped again like an irritated muppet. A mink-coated leggy woman who considered herself extremely attractive and who obviously kept a rich husband strode past with a flopsy dog. A huge tongue lolled between its white teeth. Her eyes and mine touched for a moment, and she saw a high school graduate spending his youth holed up in a poky shop that obviously nobody ever spent much in, and then she was gone.

  This is my place. Another Billie Holiday disc. She sang “Some Other Spring,” and the audience clapped until they too faded into the heat of a long-lost Chicago summer night.

  • • •

  The phone.

  “Hi, Satoru. It’s only Koji.”

  “I can hardly hear you! What’s that racket in the background?”

  “I’m phoning from the college canteen.”

  “How did the engineering exam go?”

  “Well, I worked really hard for it.…” He’d walked it.

  “Congratulations! So your visit to the shrine paid off, hey? When are the results out?”

  “Three or four weeks. I’m just glad they’re over. It’s too early to congratulate me, though.… Hey, Mom’s doing a sukiyaki party tonight. My dad’s back in Tokyo this week. They thought you might like to help us eat it. Can you? You could sleep over in my sister’s room if it gets too late. She’s on a school trip to Okinawa.”

  I ummed and ahhed inwardly. Koji’s parents are nice, straight people, but they feel it’s their responsibility to sort my life out. They can’t believe that I’m already content where I am, with my discs and my saxophone and my place. Underlying their concern is pity, and I’d rather take shit about my lack of parents than pity.

  But Koji’s my friend, probably my only one. “I’d love to come. What should I bring?”

  “Nothing, just bring yourself.” So, flowers for his mom and booze for his dad.

  “I’ll come around after work then.”

  “Okay. See you.”

  “See you.”

  It was a Mal Waldron time of day. The afternoon was shutting up shop early. The owner of the greengrocery across the street took in his crates of white radishes, carrots, and lotus roots. He rolled down his shutter, saw me, and nodded gravely. He never smiles. Some pigeons scattered as a truck shuddered by. Every note of “Left Alone” fell, drops of lead into a deep well. Jackie McLean’s saxophone circled in the air, so sad it could barely leave the ground.

  The door opened, and I smelled air rainwashed clean. Four high school girls came in, but one of them was completely, completely different. She pulsed, invisibly, like a quasar. I know that sounds stupid, but she did.

  The three bubbleheads flounced up to the counter. They were pretty, I guess, but they were all clones of the same ova. Their hair was the same length, their lipstick the same color, their bodies curving in the same way beneath their same uniform. Their leader demanded in a voice cutesy and spoiled the newest hit by the latest teen dwoob.

  But I didn’t bother hearing them. I can’t describe women, not like Takeshi or Koji. But if you know Duke Pearson’s “After the Rain,” well, she was as beautiful and pure as that.

  Standing by the window, and looking out. What was out there? She was embarrassed by her classmates. And so she should have been! She was so real, the others were cardboard cutouts beside her. Real things had happened to her to make her how she was, and I wanted to know them, and read them, like a book. It was the strangest feeling. I just kept thinking—well, I’m not sure what I was thinking. I’m not sure if I was thinking of anything.

  She was listening to the music! She was afraid she’d scare the music away if she moved.

  “Well, have you got it or haven’t you?” One of the cutout girls squawked. It must take a long time to train your voice to be so annoying.

  Another giggled.

  Another’s pocket phone trilled and she got it out.

  I was angry with them for making me look away from her.

  “This is a disc collector’s shop. There’s a toy shop in the shopping mall by the metro station that sells the kind of thing you’re looking for.”

  Rich Shibuya girls are truffle-fed pooches. The girls at Mamasan’s, they have all had to learn how to survive. They have to keep their patrons, keep their looks, keep their integrity, and they get scarred. But they respect themselves, and they let it show. They respect each other. I respect them. They are real people.

  But these magazine girls have nothing real about them. They have magazine expressions, speak magazine words, and carry magazine fashion accessories. They’ve chosen to become this. I don’t know whether or not to blame them. Getting scarred isn’t nice. But look! As shallow, and glossy, and identical, and throw-away, as magazines.

  “You’re a bit uptight aren’t you? Been dumped by your girlfriend?” The leader leaned on the counter and swayed, just a few inches away from my face. I imagined her using that face in bars, in cars, in love hotels.

  Her friend shrieked with laughter and pulled her away before I could think of a witty retort. They flocked back toward the door. “Told you!” one of them said. The third was still speaking into her pocket phone. “I dunno where we are. Some crappy place behind some crappy building. Where are you?”

  “You coming?” the leader said to the one still staring into space, listening to Mal.

  No, I thought with all my might. Say no, and stay with me in my space.

  “I said,” said the leader, “are—you—coming?”

  Was she deaf?

  “I guess so,” she said, in a real voice. A beautiful, real voice.

  Look at me, I willed. Look at me. Please. Just once, look straight at me.

  As she left, she looked at me over her shoulder, my heart trampolined, and she followed the others into the street.

  ————

  The cherry trees were budding. Maroon tips sprouted and swelled through the sealed bark. Pigeons ruffled and prilled. I wish I knew more about pigeons. Were they strutting about like that for mating purposes, or just because they were strutty birds? That would be useful knowledge for school syllabuses. None of this capital of Mongolia stuff. The air outside was warmer and damp. Being outside was like being in a tent. A jackhammer was pounding into concrete a few doors down. Takeshi said that yet another surf and ski shop was opening up. How many surfers and skiers are there in Tokyo?

  I put on a Charlie Parker anthology, with the volume up loud to drown out the ringing of metal. Charlie Parker, molten and twisting, no stranger to cruelty. “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” “How Deep is the Ocean?,” “All the Things You Are,” “Out of Nowhere,” “A Night in Tunisia.”

  I dressed the girl in calico, and she slipped away through a North African doorway.

  Here, being as different as I am is punishable.

  I was in Roppongi one time with Koji. He was on the pull and got talking to a couple of girls from Scotland. I just assumed they were English teachers at some crappy English school, but they t
urned out to be “exotic dancers.” Koji’s English is really good—he was always in the top class at school. English being a girl’s subject, I didn’t study it much, but when I found jazz I studied at home because I wanted to read the interviews with the great musicians, who are all American. Of course reading is one thing, but speaking is quite another. So Koji was mostly doing the translating. Anyway, these girls said that everyone where they come from actually tries to be different. They’ll dye their hair a color nobody else has, buy clothes nobody else is wearing, get into music nobody else knows. Weird. Then they asked why all girls here want to look the same. Koji answered, “Because they are girls! Why do all cops look the same? Because they’re cops, of course.” Then one of them asked why Japanese kids try to ape American kids. The clothes, the rap music, the skateboards, the hair. I wanted to say that it’s not America they’re aping, it’s the Japan of their parents that they’re rejecting. And since there’s no homegrown counterculture, they just take hold of the nearest one to hand, which happens to be American. But it’s not American culture exploiting us. It’s us exploiting it.

  Koji got lost trying to translate the last bit.

  I tried asking them about their inner places, because it seemed relevant. But I just got answers about how tiny the apartments were here, and how houses in Britain all have central heating. Then their boyfriends turned up. Two bloody great U.S. marine gorillas. They looked down at us, unimpressed, and Koji and I decided it was time for another drink at the bar.

  • • •

  But yeah, it’s certainly different here. All through my junior high school days people hassled me about my parents. Finding parttime jobs was never easy, either: it was as tough as having Korean parents. People find out. It would have been easier to say they’d died in an accident, but I wasn’t going to lie for those knob-heads. Plus if you say someone’s dead, then it tempts fate to kill them off early. Gossip works telepathically in Tokyo. The city is vast, but there’s always someone who knows someone whom someone knows. Anonymity doesn’t muffle coincidence: it makes the coincidences more outlandish. That’s why I still think one of these days my father might wander into the shop.

  So, from elementary school onwards I used to be in fights. I often lost, but that didn’t matter. Taro, Mama-san’s bouncer, always told me it’s better to fight and lose than not fight and suffer, because even if you fight and lose your spirit emerges intact. Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards don’t respect cowards. Taro also told me how to headbutt taller adversaries, how to knee in the balls, and how to dislocate a man’s hand, so that by high school nobody much bothered me. One time a gang of junior yakuza were waiting outside school for me, because I’d given one of their kid brothers a nosebleed. I still don’t know who tipped Mama-san off—Koji, most probably—but Mama-san sent Taro along that day to pick me up. He waited until they had formed a ring around me down an alley, and then he strolled along and scared seven shades of shit out of them. Now I think about it, Taro’s been more like a dad to me than anyone else.

  A leathery man in a blood-red jacket came in, ignoring me. He found the Charles Mingus section and bought about two thirds of the stock, including the collectors’ items, peeling off ten-thousand yen notes like toilet paper. His eyeballs seemed to pulse to the bass rhythm. He left, carrying his purchases in a cardboard box that he assembled himself on the counter. He hadn’t asked for a discount, though I would have gladly given him one, and I was left with a wad of money. I phoned Takeshi to tell him the good news, and that it might be best if he came to pick the money up himself that night. I knew he had a cash-flow problem.

  “Ah,” gasped Takeshi. “Baby! That’s the way. That is very, very, very good!”

  There was hallucinogenic music on in the background that sounded like a migraine, and a woman being tortured by tickling.

  Feeling I’d phoned at a bad time I said goodbye and hung up.

  And still only eleven in the morning.

  Koji was the class egghead at high school, which made him an outsider, too. He should have gone to a much better high school, but until he was fifteen his dad was always being transferred, so it was never that easy for him to keep up. Koji was also diabolically bad at sports. I swear, in three years I never saw him manage to hit a baseball once. There was one time when he took an almighty swing, the bat flew out of his hands and hurtled through the air like a missile, straight into Mr. Ikeda, our games master, who idolized Yukio Mishima even though I doubted he’d ever got through a whole book by anybody in his entire life.

  I was doubled up laughing, so I didn’t realize nobody else was. That cost me school toilet-cleaning duty for the whole term, with Koji. That’s when I learned Koji loved the piano. I play the tenor saxophone. That’s how I got to know Koji. A winded games teacher and the foulest toilets in the Tokyo educational system.

  One of our regulars, Mr. Fujimoto, came in during the lunch hour. The bell rang and a gust of air rustled papers all around the shop. He was laughing as usual. He laughed because he was pleased to see me. He put a little parcel of books down on the counter for me. I always try to pay for them, but he never lets me. He says it’s a jazz disc consultancy fee.

  “Mr. Fujimoto! How’s work today?”

  “Terrible!” Mr. Fujimoto only has one voice, and that is very loud. It’s as though his greatest fear is to not be heard. And when he really laughs the noise almost pushes you backwards.

  The shop is smack bang between the business district of Otemachi and the publishing district around Ochanomizu, so our salaryman customers usually work in one or the other. You can always tell the difference. There’s a certain look that megamoney bestows on its handlers. A sort of beadiness, and hunger. Hard to put your finger on, but it’s there all right. Money is another of those inner places, by the way. It’s a way to measure yourself.

  The publishing salarymen, however, often have a streak of manic jollity. Mr. Fujimoto is a prime specimen. He puns regularly and appallingly. For example:

  “Afternoon, Satoru-kun! Say, couldn’t you get Takeshi to give this place a new coat of paint? It’s looking kind of run-down.”

  “Do you think so?” I can smell the payoff approaching.

  “Definitely! It’s positively seedy!”

  Uh?

  “Seedy! CD! See-Dee!”

  I wince in genuine pain and Mr. Fujimoto gurgles appreciatively. The worse the better.

  This lunchtime Mr. Fujimoto was looking for something Lee Morgan-ish. I recommended Hank Mobley’s “A Caddy for Daddy,” which he promptly bought. I know his tastes. Anything on the loony side of funky. As I handed over his change he suddenly became serious. He switched to a more formal mode of speech, took off his heavy glasses, and started cleaning the lenses.

  “I was wondering whether you might be planning to apply for college next year?”

  “Not really, no …”

  “So, would you be thinking about entering a particular profession?”

  He’d rehearsed this beforehand. I guessed what was coming. “I don’t really have any plans at the moment. I guess I’ll just wait and see.”

  “Of course, Satoru, it’s absolutely none of my business, and please forgive me for interfering in your plans, but the only reason I’m asking is that a couple of positions in my office have just become available. Very humble. Just glorified editorial assistants, basically, but if you were interested in applying then I’d be happy to recommend you for one of them. Certainly I could get you to the interview stage. And it would be a foot in the door. I started out myself this way, you know. Everybody needs a step up, occasionally.”

  I looked around the shop.

  “That’s a very generous offer, Mr. Fujimoto. I’m not sure how to answer.”

  “Think it over, Satoru. I’m going to Kyoto for a few days on business. We won’t start interviewing until I get back. I’d be happy to have a word with your present employer on your behalf, if that’s what’s worrying you.… I know Takeshi has
a lot of respect for you, so he wouldn’t stand in your way.”

  “No, it’s not really that. Thank you. I’ll think seriously about it. Thank you … How much are the books?”

  “Nothing. Your consultancy fee. They’re just a few samples, we give ’em out free to people in the trade. These pocket paperback classics, they walk off the shelves. I remember you said you enjoyed The Great Gatsby—there’s a new Murakami translation of Fitzgerald’s short stories we’ve just brought out, Lord of the Flies, that’s a laugh a minute, and a new García Márquez.”

  “It’s very kind of you.”

  “Nonsense! Just give the idea of publishing a serious think. There are worse ways to make a living.”

  I’d thought about the girl every day since. Twenty or thirty or forty times a day. I’d find myself thinking of her and then not want to stop, like not wanting to get out of a hot shower on a winter morning. I ran my fingers through my hair and contemplated my face, using a Fats Navarro CD as a hand mirror. Could she ever feel the same way back? I couldn’t even remember accurately what she looked like. Smooth skin, highish cheekbones, narrowish eyes. Like a Chinese empress. I didn’t really think of her face when I thought of her. She was just there, a color that didn’t have a name yet. The idea of her.

  I got angry with myself. It’s not as if I’m ever going to see her again. This is Tokyo. And besides, even if I did see her again, why should she be in the least bit interested in me? My mind can only hold one thought at a time. I may as well make it a worthwhile thought.

  I thought about Mr. Fujimoto’s offer. What am I doing here? Koji’s getting on with his life. All my high school classmates are in college or in a company. I am unfailingly updated on their progress by Koji’s mom. What am I doing?