Death By Choice

by Masahiko Shimada

  The Shinobu Yoimachi that Kita knew was someone without feelings, personality, or past – a flower in a florist’s. It was true, of course, that Kita had never smelled the tulip scent of her. He could now smell the herbal scent of her hair, and the French perfume sprayed on her flesh, but still, the real thing just didn’t connect with the impression he’d had of her.

  When she’d come over to the table where he sat idly waiting, led by one of her guards, and shook hands with him, Kita had found himself asking, “Are you really Shinobu Yoimachi?”

  “Actually, I’m a look-alike,” she’d replied with mock innocence. They talked a while about her recent performances, and after a while she appeared to revert to some previous bad mood, and began to complain about how she was being “sold off piecemeal.”

  “My face, my legs, my breasts, my hair – they’ve all been taken over by others. I think that must be why I don’t feel any pain when I get hurt any more. But if you stick a pin in my calf, or give my cheeks a good hard pinch, that hurts. That really makes me sad. I mean, I’m the only one feeling the pain, right? Those guys just make money, they don’t feel the pain. And I’ve got nothing but pain, and not much money.”

  “Shall we have a drink?”

  Kita called the waiter over, and ordered wine and cheese for himself. Shinobu went on talking, without glancing at the menu.

  “The fact is, I’m one of those dolls you can dress up. I always have been, ever since I was a child. My Mum used to put me in kimonos, or dress me up like a countess or like a boy, to suit her whim. She sent off applications to little girl contests without telling me, gave me a bit of pocket money and put me up on stage there. By chance I passed an audition for some TV drama, and they coaxed me into singing and I made a hit recording, and my bust was growing bigger and bigger so they started taking heaps of photos of me in swimsuits. I wanted to run and hide whenever I saw a photo of me in a magazine or a poster in the station, smiling in a bikini. Still do. I wonder why all this happened to me? There’s no going back, but I’d just love to spend my life in some quiet little corner of the world instead of this. Is that asking too much?”

  “You’re only twenty-four. Things are only just beginning for you.”

  “I feel incredibly old already. I feel like my life’s growing shorter and shorter, always exposed to these masses of unknown eyes. I was just a kid when I made my debut, but now I’m an old lady. I want to believe I’ve just gone along unthinkingly, doing what’s natural, but actually if I do anything a bit different, the media beats me up, and all these young stars are coming up now and starting to lower my stocks for me, and those guys are getting to think it’s about time to play the last trump card.”

  “What’s the last trump card?”

  “Nude. They’re after a one strike come-from-behind home run on this. Gangsters all think the same way. God, I want to be free! I’d love to wash my hands of all this, maybe do some study. I never studied when I was in high school, I can’t even read properly. I’ve got no clue what’s happening out there in the world, but if I take off my clothes, I can make a living. But seems to me something’s wrong here. Things shouldn’t be this way. Seems to me like God shouldn’t allow this sort of thing.”

  Kita nodded silently, and filled her wineglass. She bobbed her head like a pigeon in thanks, then gulped it noisily down. Maybe she’d mistaken it for juice.

  “What God do you believe in?” He’d been amazed to hear the word come from her lips.

  “I read the Bible in between jobs. Here, see?” She drew from her bright red handbag a suede-covered pocket-book Bible, and showed it to him. “I go everywhere with it,” she said.

  Remembering how he’d thrown up on the Bible in the drawer two days earlier, Kita muttered, “A washable Bible would be a good idea.”

  “The Bible can wash the heart clean,” Shinobu said with a nod, then went on, her eyes on Kita’s face to see his reaction, “My singing teacher gave it to me. ‘Everything’s in the Bible,’ he told me, ‘so just read a little every day.’”

  “Is it interesting?”

  “I’d say there’s no one quite like Jesus. I wish I’d lived two thousand years ago. I might’ve got to be one of his disciples, who knows?”

  “Do you go to church?”

  “No, what’s the point? Jesus isn’t there in church. But he’s in the Bible. When I read it, I get the feeling he’s going be reborn in our world. Or at any rate, that’s what I want to believe. I can’t believe in myself, or my Mum. And if I believed in those guys there, who knows what’d become of me. But I feel like if I just believe in Jesus, I’ll be saved. He’s a superstar, he gives me hope, he’s my idol.”

  Kita felt he hadn’t come across such innocence in a long time, and he found himself placing his hand over Shinobu’s where it lay on the Bible. She came to herself with a start, and gazed at him with serious eyes, making him feel so awkward that he withdrew his hand again.

  “I’m so sorry. What have I been saying? I’ve just rambled on about myself without thinking. You wouldn’t care about any of this, would you Kita?”

  “There’s no salvation for me I’m afraid.”

  “That’s not true. Actually, when I looked in your eyes I just suddenly wanted to blurt out everything that was in my heart – all my troubles. I don’t know why.”

  “What sort of eyes do I have, I wonder?”

  “I can’t really express it, but they’re completely different from those guys’. Gentle eyes, quiet eyes…”

  She might think so, thought Kita, but in fact he was quite unqualified to play the role of counsellor. To hide his embarrassment, he smiled and crossed his gentle right eye and his quiet left one at her. A short silence followed, which he filled by pouring more wine. It suddenly struck him that he’d never seriously prayed to God or Buddha. This was followed by a sudden urge to bludgeon her with something cruel.

  “So what exactly has Jesus ever done for you?”

  Her right hand on the Bible and her left on the wine glass, Shinobu was stumped for an answer. Her lips opened and closed like a goldfish. Kita followed through with, “Was it Jesus who led you into the performance world, for instance?”

  “No way,” Shinobu responded in a low, indistinct voice. Then her voice suddenly grew high, and she spoke normally again. “But he may have been testing me, I guess.

  “Jesus will do anything for us. Anything to do with the soul. I’m convinced he’s protected my soul from being dirtied by money and fame and hatred. I have to throw off my old self as soon as I can, and take on a new self, one that’s like Jesus – that’s what I believe.”

  “You’ll shed your skin?”

  “I must learn to become naked body and soul, atone for my sins, and love my fellow man. My aim is to free myself through the teachings of Jesus.”

  Why was she confessing her faith to him like this? And why was he moved by it, condemned to self-appointed execution though he was? He’d been planning on spending a much more frivolous, not to say vulgar time with Shinobu than this was turning out to be. Things had gone seriously awry here.

  Shinobu had begun to look as though possessed while she was making her confession of faith. The girl who’d sat down beside him in the dimly lit bar thirty minutes earlier had quite disappeared. Perhaps this possession of hers had something to do with it, but the bar seemed somehow brighter. And that girl who’d seemed like an exquisite doll had now become a real live person no different from himself, with flesh and substance and body heat that he could actually feel.

  He took some more cheese, and ordered another glass of wine. Glancing over at the counter, he saw the men collapsed in loud laughter, shoulders shaking, as if they’d just invented the most stupendous joke. With those guys there, he just couldn’t get the feeling that he and Shinobu were really alone together. If this hundred thousand yen meeting was going to end in nothing more than this, it amounted to fraud. No sooner had he thought this than Shinobu said “Tell me a little about yourself now, Kita.�
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  “What would you like to know?” He couldn’t think of anything really worth saying. He wasn’t planning to mention either the fact that he’d just signed away his life plus a set of organs, nor that his self-appointed execution would take place this Friday. Their paths would never cross again. And as for Christ having brought them together – well, it was charming of her to explain mere coincidence in these terms, but things got a bit abstract once a man who was nailed up two thousand years ago came between them like this. It would give him greater comfort to silently worship her round breasts.

  “Have you ever thought of suicide, Kita?” As he sat gazing with lowered eyes at Shinobu’s breasts, they heaved suddenly with the abrupt question. Kita reeled as if they’d landed him a sudden punch.

  “Why ask me that, out of the blue?” Kita sat back.

  “I’ve stopped thinking about suicide since I started reading the Bible.”

  “You used to think about it?”

  “Every night, without fail.”

  “You’ve done well to survive, then.”

  “It was touch and go for a while.”

  “Was it because of those guys over there?”

  “They sell my body. To the big boys over in Nagatacho.”

  A moment’s silence fell over the bar’s hum of noise. The customers at surrounding tables had been gazing into space, but their ears were tuned in to this table. For some time now these anonymous people had been taking in the confession pouring forth in Shinobu’s clear voice. Their curiosity was focused on the question of the identity of the man she was with. Surely they wouldn’t be mistaking him for some Nagatacho politician?

  “So which politicians have bought you?” Kita’s question was meant for the listening gallery to hear.

  The two guys over at the counter rose and came towards their table.

  “It’s about time to call it to a close, buddy” whispered the smaller one in his ear. His eyes blinked rapidly behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “Miss Yoimachi has another job to go to.” The anonymous spies all around resumed their interrupted conversations, poker faced. The bar was filled with a hum of conversation again.

  “Go away,” said Shinobu. “I want to talk with Kita a bit longer.”

  The taller of the two leaned over and whispered to her, “Don’t go shootin’ yer mouth off then.” He struck a pose like Michelangelo’s David, intended to strike fear into the public gallery, then slowly returned to the counter.

  Shinobu bent forward and brought her face so close to Kita that he could feel her breath. “You remember that hardliner politician with the love child, whose legitimate son’s an actor?”

  “That Minister for Construction?”

  “Yeah, him. And that gangster type one who made off with two hundred million from the casino.”

  “The ‘you can bet your life on Kentaro’ guy?”

  “And…”

  “You mean there’s more?”

  “What’s his name Suzuki, the Depillatory to the Treasurer.”

  “Deputy.”

  “Yeah, him. I’m a sullied woman, see? I’m a sacrifice to the ruthless urge of those guys to do all the business they like. I was like a corpse till now, as good as dead. These guys and those creeps in Nagatacho, they think I’m just some doll with breasts, they think I’ve got no brain or soul. Sorry. I guess I must be drunk.”

  “But why are you telling me all this, when you’ve only just met me? Surely they make sure you keep your mouth shut?”

  “I don’t care. I need someone to know the truth, just in case something happens.”

  “Something?”

  Shinobu lowered her voice further. “I may be killed to keep my mouth shut,” she murmured, and sent him a meaningful look. “But my plan is to tell the world before I get killed, and then leave it to Jesus to protect me.”

  The guys at the counter rose to their feet again. His time was up. “Thank you for the precious talk,” Kita said, holding out his hand.

  “Let’s meet again soon, Kita,” said Shinobu. “Without those guys.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t really have any time left.”

  “You don’t have to pay another hundred thousand yen. Money shouldn’t come into it when two people meet. Please see me again. Next week, even.”

  “I won’t be here any more by next week.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The men stepped between them. The little one bowed to Kita and thanked him, and the taller one followed suit. Kita watched them lead Shinobu away, a crooked smile frozen on his lips. Did she feel a little happier now that she’d used her hour of Cinderella time this evening to get her troubles off her chest? She walked backwards out of the bar still gazing at him, her brow furrowed in a bewildered look, and her lips pouting in the unspoken question, “Why?”

  Mass

  There was a vacant twin room at the Moon Palace Hotel, so he took it. Handing his backpack to the bellboy, he went up to the room, and no sooner was he inside than he ordered room service – turtle in rice stew, and champagne. As he tucked into what was probably his fourth-last supper, all alone, he savoured the aftertaste of the strange tryst he’d just had with the star.

  How to describe her expression as she left the bar? It was like a child being taken back to some awful classroom against her will at the end of playtime. He felt for her. If she’d begged him to run off with her, he might have felt tempted to play the abductor. What did he care that her minders had wicked underground links with politicians, or that they dealt in violence for pleasure? He could have stayed desperately on the run with her till Friday. Or at least he could have given them a good scare, and let her enjoy the thrill of escape and the taste of freedom. But he hadn’t had the time to find out how she felt about it, nor the inclination to explain his own situation. It would have cost another nine hundred thousand to bring her up to this room, and he’d be a fool to line their pockets like that. It would be better to conduct a live burial for himself in the park, and distribute the money among a hundred vagrants, passersby, and students, to get them to attend the party.

  Having polished off the mild-tasting turtle stew and dry champagne for his simple supper, he got into a tepid bath. All alone in this empty room, his flesh-and-blood self gazed at its own reflection in the mirror.

  The hotel mirror wasn’t alive, but it still ate people. His stomach had suddenly begun to sag, and bags had formed under his eyes. He’d aged years. Every time he opened the bathroom door or the closet and was abruptly met with his own reflection, he was surprised to see himself there. He had forgotten his own existence completely until he saw himself in the mirror. He’d never experienced the thought, “I think, therefore I am.” When he was talking to someone, he was always sucked into their identity, and when he walked in the street he dissolved into it. But the mirror put him unequivocally centre stage. And this mirror self was a sort of other person who was just like himself, a self that was in between self and other.

  Well, to start with, anyway. This mirror had reflected back the images of countless anonymous visitors, and the experience had warped it. It wouldn’t be long before the mirror gobbled him up and he disappeared. Being reflected in this mirror was as good as not being there at all.

  On his own, time slowed and grew stagnant. After eating, taking a bath, and scratching an itch or two, he lay vacantly on the bed for a while, then turned on the television. It was still only eleven. But the television brought him a chance blessing. There on the screen was Shinobu Yoimachi, the girl he’d just left, staring out at him as she brushed her teeth. Maybe it was that kind of role, but she seemed to be brushing away as though ridding herself of some fierce resentment. Then she rinsed, and the star’s golden smile reappeared.

  Who’d have thought that this girl held the key to a potential political scandal, Kita murmured to himself, and he raised his champagne glass to the screen.

  Suddenly the cell phone he’d gotten from Yashiro rang. He was determined to have nothing more to do wi
th the guy, so he ignored it. But whoever was on the other end wasn’t going to give up so easily. The phone rang relentlessly on and on until Kita reached the end of his tether and picked it up. He was about to simply cut the guy off, but before he knew it he’d pressed the green button instead.

  Maybe his luck had turned at last, for it was Shinobu’s voice he heard. “Hi, it’s me,” he said hastily.

  “Sorry for being a bother. I got this number from Yashiro. Where are you right now?”

  “I’m in the Moon Palace Hotel.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Watching television.”

  “I’ve just been a bit worried by what you said as I was leaving. When you say you won’t be here any more by next week, do you mean you’re going away somewhere?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Where to? Overseas?”

  “Kind of, yes.”

  “You’ll be back, won’t you?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to come back.”

  “Why not?”

  There was no way to explain. The place Kita was heading for this Friday was a one-way trip. He remained silent.

  “So we really won’t be able to meet ever again?” Shinobu persisted.

  “I’m afraid so,” he replied.

  At this, she let out a little sigh. “Did you have some reason to meet me?” she asked.

  Kita had the impression she wasn’t going to take some watered-down response for an answer. He’d have to come up with something substantial. He thought for a moment, then muttered, “A dream, I guess.”

  Everyone becomes decadent to some extent once they reach thirty-five. Jesus apparently preached that we must throw off our old self and take on a new one; well, you can’t really take that on board when you’re young. Jesus was crucified before he even reached thirty-five, wasn’t he? So you could say he never experienced decadence. Even if he did, of course, he had something to believe in. Kita, on the other hand, had just used a fair portion of his savings on realizing the petty dream of trysting with a star.