Death By Choice

by Masahiko Shimada

  “You’ve got money?”

  “Not a whole lot…”

  “Are you prepared to go to jail?”

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  Yashiro seemed a little downcast by this news. “I see,” he murmured. He shovelled in the deep fried tofu, then went on with his mouth full, “Well anyway. You’re after a huge shot of adrenaline, hey? If you don’t have that, you could suddenly find yourself dead, after all. I really let my hair down when I was young, but I survived thanks to my nerves.”

  “Oh I don’t mind if I die.”

  Startled, Yashiro looked him up and down from head to toe, then took a swig of beer and, in a low, menacing voice, asked, “Why?”

  “I’m planning to kill myself next Friday, thanks.”

  “Thanks? Are you asking me to do something?”

  “No, nothing. Well, I’ll be off now.”

  “Hold on a minute. You’ve made me suddenly sad, telling me you’re going to kill yourself.”

  “We’ve only just met. You’ll soon get over it.”

  Kita got to his feet, but Yashiro seized his arm. He went through the motions of pondering something, then he suddenly declared in a low voice, “Let me introduce you to a great girl – Mitsuyo Kusakari, the porn star who took the world by storm five years ago. You must remember her? She’s working in my office these days. She’s the kinda girl who likes sex more than money. How about it? You’d like her to give you a good time, eh? Look at this.”

  Yashiro produced a piece of paper with the contact number for the former porn star. “I’ll do the talking,” he added.

  “How much?” Kita asked.

  “Depends on the guy, but a token amount will do,” Yashiro replied. He was assuming Kita was talking about payment for the porn star’s services, so Kita reframed the question.

  “I mean, what do I owe you for the beer?”

  Yashiro shook his head, and instead of answering he launched into a bizarre business discussion.

  “You know, it’s a poor show to just commit suicide. Can’t you come up with a kind of suicide that’s some benefit to others? There’s no shortage of folks like you that want to kill themselves these days, But the fact is, you just die a dog’s death as far as the world’s concerned. Every life’s got to have a certain worth to it. It’s too bad to go handing it over for nothing. Think of the people out there who’d be grateful for your life. That’s the reality. But you just need to use your head a bit and you can sell that life of yours for quite a bit. Life insurance, now there’s a profession that talks in terms of how much a life’s worth.”

  “You’re telling me to take out life insurance before I die?”

  “Now don’t go being petty-minded and putting me down as someone who’s after your life insurance. But hey, let me give you some money. You’ll need it so as you don’t leave any regrets behind when you die. And in return, like, how about letting me in on things?” Watching Kita carefully, Yashiro tapped his aluminium case.

  “If you’re suggesting shooting a record of me going through the whole process of committing suicide, you’re wasting your time.”

  Yashiro made a great show of hanging his head despondently, as if to say that Kita had caught him out there. “Too bad!” he murmured. Then he immediately perked up again, and pulled out his wallet. “Not that I’m forcing you or anything,” he remarked with a smile, as he thrust thirty thousand yen into Kita’s coat pocket.

  “Hey, what’re you up to?”

  Kita hated the idea of any money tied up with someone else’s schemes finding its way into his pocket even for an instant, and he shoved the notes back almost violently. Instantly, Yashiro’s face grew grave. Gazing up at him earnestly from under his brows, he whispered in a surprisingly gentle voice, “You must accept people’s goodwill with gratitude.”

  “Not if it’s a deposit or advance I won’t. I don’t intend to let myself become a spectacle.”

  “You’ve got me wrong. There’s no need to feel any obligation just because you’ve accepted thirty thousand yen, you know. This is my funeral offering, see. It’s a bit odd to be giving it to you before you die, I’ll admit, but you could get yourself something good to eat with it.”

  Kita simply wasn’t up to parrying this with some smart joke, so he decided to accept the money meekly. He bowed his head deeply in thanks, and attempted to leave, but Yashiro only increased his urgent attempts to detain this prospective suicide. “Just one more minute,” he said, opening his case. He produced a Polaroid camera, and quickly caught a snap of Kita’s bewildered face. Then he called over the man behind the counter to take a photo of both of them to remember the occasion by. He kept back the first photograph of Kita, and handed him the other together with the camera. “You’ll see a different world if you look through the viewfinder,” he said. “Sorry to burden you, but do take it.”

  “Thank you for everything. May I go now?” said Kita.

  Yashiro gave him a parting wave. “Be seeing you,” he smirked, with the apparent implication that he planned to meet Kita again soon.

  He was the sort of guy that Kita suspected had had to do with prospective suicides before. He seemed to know how to deal with them, to have some special knowhow. The funeral money, the gift…did he mean for Kita to use this camera to record his final week? He’d taken the funeral money, so maybe he had to return the favour somehow. But why should someone who’s planning to die have to distract himself with this sort of thing? This Heita Yashiro fellow was no ordinary guy. Kita realized he’d been putty in the man’s hands ever since the moment the guy had tried to steal a taxi on him. Everything Yashiro said and did had a peculiar persuasive power to it – he couldn’t resist him, even though he was aware there was something odd going on. He was insolent, but at the same time oddly polite. He came on strong with the moralizing sermons and proverbs, but on the other hand he made no attempt to talk Kita out of suicide. Maybe he’d just been part of the evening’s entertainment for Yashiro, a tasty morsel to snack on over a beer? He’d believed Tokyo was full of nothing but simple folks, but no sooner did he make the decision to kill himself than up had popped this bizarre fellow. Anyway, Kita told himself as he set off down the hill, let’s do something positive and get him out of my mind.

  Dinner’s Ready

  Kita counted up how many meals he had left before next Friday. Even allowing for the full three meals a day, he made it only twenty-two. He suddenly felt somehow bereft and sorrowful. At any rate, he decided, he’d set off to find himself a place where he could warm his heart and his belly. He was reasonably hungry, but he felt what he needed was the kind of food that satisfied the heart as much as the stomach, and that would relieve him of this empty sadness that had overtaken him. Up until now, Kita had only ever been interested in filling his belly, and had been content to eat just about any rubbish. He was on a different wavelength from the types who worried themselves about chemical food additives, and took special pains over which brand of sake or miso to use, or the precise thickness of dough in a piece of pasta or a meat dumpling. Although all food probably did have an appropriate season and a particular taste, as well as different effects on the body. The reason why labourers liked to eat offal roasted in salt after a day’s work, after all, was because their body needed energy and salt. Yoga practitioners didn’t eat onion or chives because these dulled the lower half of the body. Well then, what kind of food was good for getting rid of the blues?

  Ice cream? Potato chips? Oolong tea and rice balls? These were all things he often ate. Kita realized suddenly that he was a guy who’d lived his life on convenience shop meals and fast food. People who don’t worry over food have strong stomachs. Still, it certainly wouldn’t do to die with heartburn. If there was one time in your life when you should cleanse your body, it was surely before death. There was no need to be stingy about food, of course. The reason why he hadn’t eaten any of the dishes at the drinking place just now was because he was planning on cleansing
his body with something a bit tastier, but here he was thirty minutes later, still puzzling over what to eat. There were all sorts of things he’d like to have, but then he only had twenty-two more meals. He mustn’t eat just any stupid thing, he decided. He wouldn’t go for the usual packed meal from a convenience store, for instance, or a hamburger.

  He’d wandered into the Maruyamacho love hotel area, and as he went up and down the hilly roads he passed seven couples walking along in search of the best place to have sex. He momentarily met the eyes of several lovers who were strolling along discussing the pros and cons of various establishments – this one didn’t have karaoke, that one offered a free bag of toiletries like they do in airplanes, another allowed extended stays for the same price. One couple he locked eyes with was a pair of high school girls, another was a bald cameraman sporting a moustache and round sunglasses with a tall girl on his arm. It was dinnertime, but quite a few of the hotels had red lamps indicating the rooms were full. In these parts, people had sex the way they had a cup of tea or a meal.

  Sure they might come back to a hotel later, but what Kita was interested in right now was someone to eat with. On his own, his feet naturally set off in the direction of a convenience store or a curry house or noodle stand. He intended to give this habit up, so he stepped into a telephone booth with the idea of starting by getting in touch with the porn star that Yashiro had told him about. He dialled the number on the piece of paper, and after two rings her voice came on the phone. “Er, I’ve just—” Kita began, when she cut him off.

  “You’re quick,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “It’s only fifteen minutes since I heard from Yashiro.”

  Kita asked her to show him somewhere to eat, with the offer to treat her to anything she wanted there. Mitsuyo giggled flirtatiously into the receiver. “Hey, let’s party!”

  There was a jazz coffee shop in a street leading from Maruyamacho into Hyakkendana, she said. She’d meet him there. He sat down obediently on one of its wooden benches to sip a tequila and wait. He didn’t recognise the piece they were playing, but it was a combination of a rush of wild sax, accompanied by trumpet and piano. A man was sitting alone in a dim corner, jiggling his hand and feet in time to the music, like someone on the verge of having some kind of fit. He looked like it would cheer him up to have someone there with him, beating out the rhythm together, but he was used to this lonesome feeling of not quite knowing what to do with his own body. Normally, Kita would have dismissed him as one of those gloomy, slightly weird types, but tonight he felt as if they were in the same boat.

  Come to think of it, there’d been someone just like this guy back when he was in college. He hailed from somewhere like Oita down in Kyushu, a shabby fellow who talked in a low, monotonous voice. But he had amazing powers of concentration, and he could get right inside a piece of music. What his name now? Nikaido was the family name, maybe, and his other name was something like those rough spirits they drink down in Kyushu, Shochu or something of the sort. He was a fan of classical music. He used to listen to Dvorak and Tchaikovsky on his Walkman, conducting with his hand, although he’d get a bit embarrassed at being caught doing it. Next door to the jazz coffee shop where Kita was sitting there was one called Lion that played the classics. He imagined Nikaido sitting there with a bowl of green tea, eagerly awaiting the Bruckner’s fifth symphony he’d put in a request for. As soon as Knappersbusch’s performance began, he’d be deep inside wartime Vienna.

  Where was he and what was he up to now? Kita wondered.

  He hadn’t known Nikaido that well, but now he tried imagining a likely scenario for him in the present. He’d have joined some respectable company, and be striving earnestly to increase the pieces he could conduct. If he did hang out in Lion, maybe Kita would run into him on the third day. Even if he realized Kita was there, he wouldn’t greet him – he’d just sit there with his eyes closed and go on conducting. In amongst his repertoire he must have a few funeral marches and requiems. Maybe he conducted them for the dead occasionally. When he passed on, Kita thought, he’d rather like to have Nikaido conduct something for him too.

  Through the pauses in the music, a bittersweet scent of perfume sidled into his nostrils. Before his eyes stood a woman, wearing an expression that suggested she was about to burst into laughter. “Miss Kusakari?” he asked, and she sat down beside him with a simpering little laugh.

  “I hear you want to kill yourself.”

  She moved right in without going through the conversational formalities. Kita was annoyed. He’d have a stern word to that Yashiro about this. “I’d rather you didn’t spread the news, thanks,” he replied.

  “Oh come on, what’s the problem? You’re not the only one, after all. I know someone who’s failed to kill herself four times – she’s normally perfectly cheerful. I’ll introduce you if you like.”

  “I’m not looking for anyone to share the experience with, thanks. Anyway, what would you like to eat?”

  “Mmm, I guess I’m in the mood for Chinese today. But we wouldn’t be able to order many dishes with just the two of us, would we? Come on, let’s call in some others.”

  “Whatever you like,” replied Kita, whereupon Mitsuyo informed him with a shamefaced little pout that she’d already invited them. It was a good thing she was so well prepared. Kita was eager to get on with things.

  Mitsuyo’s friends turned up at the Chinese restaurant in Udagawacho, three women and two men. All seven of them settled themselves around the big circular table. Without pausing a moment to establish who they were and how they were connected, they all broke into various conversations together, glancing occasionally in Kita’s direction to check whether he seemed to be enjoying himself. They ordered a large number of dishes – assorted hors d’oeuvres, fish fin and crab soup, abalone in cream, whole carp dressed with thick starchy sauce, beef sautéed with chives, Dongpo pork, fried rice with seafood, prawns in chilli sauce, tofu and bamboo shoots in a black soy sauce, noodles with mustard greens, Xiaolongbao, fried rice with fish and vegetables, and almond jelly.

  Kita seemed to be the oldest among them. The youngest-looking was a lad of sixteen or seventeen, and his appetite was quite intimidating. He didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh on him, however. His face was childlike, and smooth and white as a boiled egg. Mitsuyo referred to him as Calpis. In reply, he referred to her with casual deference by her first name, in a voice still hoarse from having only just broken. Kita later learned they were cousins.

  “Why are you called Calpis?” Kita asked him casually. “That’s the name of a milky soft drink, right?” All four girls promptly burst into laughter.

  Calpis was a shy lad who seldom spoke, just ate, and occasionally nodded to others with a face innocent of any wrongdoing. But the other man both ate a lot and talked a lot. He wasn’t as good-looking as Calpis, but his dexterous way of seeing to the needs of the girls with talk and attention was a great hit. Still, they sometimes ignored him. Whenever this happened he looked hugely put out, and did his best to get in on their conversation at every opportunity with a constant flow of “Why?” or “I see,” or “Really?” As if this wasn’t annoying enough, his cell phone would ring every half hour or so. The girls called him Daikichi. Daikichi was obviously senior to Calpis in the way they related. As for the girls, one by the name of Takako was Calpis’s girlfriend, while another, who they called Poo, a girl barely five feet high with a thirty-six-inch bust, evidently worked part-time in the same place as Takako did. Then there was a rather unassuming girl who lurked in the background, who had the name Zombie. This was apparently the girl of the four failed suicide attempts that Mitsuyo had mentioned, who was usually so cheerful. She was fine-boned and her voice was frail, but she looked at people with a calm gaze.

  It seemed odd to Kita to find himself in among this bunch of people, but it was only for tonight, he told himself, so he sat letting the conversation flow on around him, watching and comparing faces.

  Daikichi: I went along to one of t
hose cheap Osho restaurants that do Chinese dumplings the other day, and ordered up a great big dish of noodle stew. Usually those Chanpon stews cost around seven hundred yen, yeah? But this one was only three sixty!

  Poo: Wow, that’s cheap!

  Daikichi: Usually you get lots of shellfish in Chanpon, but this one had pork and bean sprouts and meat dumplings and all sorts of things. It was kinda fun fishing around in it to see what you pulled out. There was even some fried chicken in there. It had tooth marks in it.

  Takako: What? You mean to say they topped it up with other people’s leftovers?

  Poo: Cheap can be pretty nasty.

  Takako: Good thing there weren’t any cigarette butts, at least.

  Daikichi: You hear of gangsters bringing along a cockroach and popping it in the food they’re eating, you know.

  Poo: Yeah, one did that in the bar where I work. Hey, he says, what kinda place is this? You put cockroaches in the food here or something? Trying to make trouble.

  Daikichi: To hell with ’em. They must breed the things at home.

  Zombie: I never saw a cockroach till I came to Tokyo. We never had them in Hokkaido.

  Daikichi: That so? You get them in ramen noodle shops, I heard.

  Takako: Talking of ramen, I heard there are lots of Iranians that just love pork. They can’t believe how delicious it is, apparently.

  Daikichi: But Moslems aren’t allowed to eat pork, surely?

  Poo: Yeah, but the more you’re not supposed to eat something the more you want to eat it, see? Like me, whenever I’m on a diet I dream of ice cream.

  Daikichi: I wonder if there’s some religion where you’re not allowed to eat cucumbers or aubergines.

  Mitsuyo: Some girls just go all wet as soon as they see a cucumber or one of those long aubergines. And there are guys who come just looking at an oyster or a shellfish, or konyaku jelly.

  Calpis: Not me!

  Daikichi: But when you want a shit you always get a hard-on, don’t you?