“You must be joking. Why don’t you just leave it alone?”
“Okay, but then why did you show it to me?”
“Why did I? Well, I guess I felt like it’d lift the curse. ‘Cuz if it was just me, it seemed like I’d stay cursed.”
“A curse, huh? You showed me a curse?” I didn’t feel good about that. Especially since now that I’d seen it, my intuition told me there was no going back. “What are you going to do now that I’m cursed?”
“I’ll just expose someone else to it, and you’ll be fine.”
“You’ll expose someone else to it? A curse isn’t something you can treat lightheartedly like somebody else’s cold that doesn’t affect you.”
“You were being weird, so I was just dishing it back.”
“You’re not funny.”
“You neither.”
Even while our conversation trickled on like that, each of us stared at our camera monitors like they were compasses and wandered around the Shinjuku Chinese-Town. So our unrelated conversation was recorded along with the neighborhood scenery. When I look back on the rawness and energy in those shots of Iroha and me, I experience a burning self-hatred, shame, and contempt. Tangled up in the lines cast by the saccharine intentions between us, we look hideous. It’s painful to watch. But still, my relationship with Iroha continues, and the bond between us now boils down to resisting the pull of self-contempt. Because a camera has usually been running between us, we have always risked creating distance in our relationship and ending up with the lifeless bond of strangers. Just watching how disgusting I am when hanging out with her pushes me to the brink of being an onlooker. But I always manage to clear that hurdle and remain a player, as Iroha’s friend. I think that kind of friendship is the real thing.
Seeing as it was a holiday, few people were out and about in the neighborhood. That said, there weren’t any significant changes. I spend a lot of time filming around Shinjuku Chinese-Town, so I’d notice any difference. As you’d expect, almost no one was out to view the flowers. We proceeded along with our own mood in tact and at a relaxed pace, pausing, buying things to eat, veering off into alleys, and venturing up to high points where we could look down on the city, which was in a cherry blossom-induced stupor. We ate Taiwan Beef Noodles at a stall, got some take-out peach rolls for dessert, went into a back alley where we climbed the emergency stairway of a lead pipe building, and, from the fifth floor, looked out on the world. The sky covering the rows of houses looked completely yellow and hazy. And once again, with a carefree attitude, we went on and on about what a lovely spring day it was.
We then headed to a porcelain shop, where Iroha bought two scorpion shaped chopstick holders and I bought two cobalt blue noodle bowls. I didn’t have a special reason for getting two, but Iroha was uncharacteristically curious and asked, “Why did you get two items, too? Aren’t there three people in your house? Are you giving one to someone?”
“What’s it matter how many I get?”
“It doesn’t really, but if there is someone, I think you’re being really secretive about it.”
“How come you’re asking about that all of a sudden? Have I ever given you the third degree over Mikoto?”
“No. But it has been a while since we went out filming together.”
“It may have been a while, but before we were only getting together once every couple of months or so.”
“Yeah, but ...”
“Iroha, what’s up with you? You’re so needy all of a sudden.”
“I guess.”
“You want me to get a bowl for you too?”
“No, it’s okay. Well, actually, that’d be nice.”
I added one more, which incidentally had a painted pale blue fish and a matching porcelain soupspoon. Of course, it goes without saying that episode was recorded from start to finish on Iroha’s camera.
The woman in the shop warned us, “The yellow sand started blowing outside, so be careful.” But we were so high on the thrill from buying the bowls that we weren’t prepared. We opened the door to leave the shopping building and were immediately assaulted by a gust of completely yellow wind. My face was pelted with tiny stones, and my eyes were battered. Iroha wears hard contacts and was even more miserable. She cried like she was about to collapse from the barrage of sand in her face and made a speedy retreat back into the building’s bathroom. I’d never seen a sand storm that fierce.
A while back, we started getting terrible yellow sand storms that would blow in from the Chinese continent when winter would begin to give way to spring. Forest fires on the continent were strong enough to expand the deserts, and dire predictions abounded about how with no rain to lift the drought, the overflow of sand would be stirred up more and more until it filled in the entire East Chinese Sea and connected these ancient islands to the continent.
Looking semitransparent like a mirage about to vanish, everything in sight would be obscured in yellow on days when the sand blew. Identifiable things were draped in a turmeric veil. Even though everyone called it sand, what crossed the sea was actually dust produced by the forest fires that was fine enough to invade any crevice. And it would hurt like hell when that dust got into your eyes, nose, or mouth, where it would suck the moisture out of mucous membranes where it settled. It would work its way through fabric, even getting into your underwear, causing crotch sores and rashes. Your hair would be as brittle as dried seaweed. You’d be itchy everywhere the yellow sand touched you, and there was a rise in the prevalence of yellow sand-related allergies.
Iroha came back with the capillaries all over her face, not to mention her eyes, puffy and red. I concurred with her suggestion that, while we did have the option of trying to wait out the storm in that building, people were saying it would only get worse, so we should take off now and make our way to the dim sum restaurant where Mikoto would meet us. I covered my nose and mouth with a handkerchief, hunkered down, and flew outside. Because I’d forgotten my glasses, I held onto the hand of Iroha, who was equally blinded, and we did our best to turn our backs to the onslaught of sand and make progress backwards. The dry wind filled with yellow earth was hot enough to make you sweat like you had a fever, like you were standing under an enormous dryer.
Luckily, the dim sum place wasn’t far. A server quickly handed us moist towels and said, “You’ll have to share a table.” Of course, there was no room to be picky. I nodded, and Iroha went straight to the powder room.
“Was this in today’s forecast?” Iroha spewed frustration as she returned from the powder room and I was getting up from my seat to go to the bathroom next. Before I could reply, a voice cut in and said, “No, but there were signs, weren’t there?” It was the server who’d just given us the moist towels.
“Yeah, actually everything was yellow when we looked out from the building. We should have noticed then,” I responded without missing a beat. But the woman didn’t even so much as make a move to look at me, and, instead, faced Iroha, saying, “You are pretty slow on the uptake, aren’t you? Iroha, you never were the sharpest knife in the drawer.” Iroha had looked like she was bewildered in the middle of an oil slick up until that point, but suddenly the strain in her face disappeared, and she said, “Hey, Mokuren! What the hell?”
“Sorry, it’s just me.”
“What are you doing, working in a place like this?”
“A place like this? That’s really nice.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Weren’t you helping out at your family’s shop in Yokohama?”
“You expect me to catch you up on everything that’s happened in my life over the past five years while I’m on the job?”
“Okay, so when’s good for you?”
“When do you have the free time?”
“I could meet you whenever. Only not today.”
“Okay, how about tomorrow night? What’s your cell number.”
After they exchanged numbers, Mokuren put her work face back on.
The shop wasn’t part
icularly big, so the people pushing inside to seek shelter quickly had the place filled to capacity. The wind shrieked through gaps in the door, and because of the sand mixed in with it, people were sneezing here and there. After washing my face, straightening my hair, gargling, and blowing my nose in the bathroom, I returned to my seat and gave my order for a strong twenty-five year old Pu-erh tea and a lotus seed bun to a server who wasn’t Mokuren. Iroha asked for Eastern Beauty Oolong tea and a daikon radish rice cake.
“That’s a pretty rude friend you’ve got there.”
“You think so? She’s always like that.”
“Well, that was quite the lovers’ quarrel you two had. Were you close?”
“Who knows? We’d skip school and go to movies together, but I haven’t heard from her since graduation.”
“It sure didn’t seem like it’d been five years.”
“Are you interested in her?” Iroha had a gleam in her eyes.
“She definitely didn’t seem interested in me.”
“That’s because she’s the type of person who doesn’t seem interested in anybody.”
“But she did seem interested in you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just that she’s a piece of work, too.” I said that to change the subject and turned my attention to the TV in front of me. Iroha had to twist her body around to see it.
The live broadcast of the State Funeral meant there was no holiday for the news reporters. The only thing you could make out on the dark screen was a rough yellow wind. If you struggled to look closely, you could almost discern the people in the procession who were enduring the storm. They looked like they were trying with all their might not to be blown over by the sand, and the funeral procession seemed to be backed up in a logjam.
Why couldn’t the weather bureaus have predicted a sand storm of this magnitude? At this rate, the funeral procession would be buried underneath the sand like a party of mountain climbers caught in a blizzard. His Majesty’s casket would be covered. With time, the entire funeral party would turn to stone like the ruins of a city buried under volcanic ash. Could it be that today these very islands will meet their end only to be discovered in their original form in an excavation thousands of years down the road? Imagining all this, I felt as terrified and helpless as if I’d been ejected from a space ship.
I muttered, “Now that’s a real burial.”
“There’ll probably be an earthquake too.”
“Maybe His Majesty is calling.”
“Not again! You are not funny.” Iroha was vexed. As she spoke, an employee called out, “Is there an Iroha here?” Startled, Iroha looked at me.
“I’m over here,” she said and waved her hand.
“You have a phone call.”
The employee passed the phone to Iroha, who put it up to her ear without saying so much as hello. Then, she said, “Oh, Miko. What’s up?” Apparently he’d been trying to call her on his cell, but couldn’t get any reception, so he finally called the restaurant from a public pay phone. The sand storm was so bad that he couldn’t handle being outdoors, and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to meet up with us, so he said he was going to catch a cab to get here.
I was a little surprised. I had assumed that, since the funeral procession was still plugging along, Mikoto would stay to see it through to the end. If he was going to let the likes of a sand storm deter him, he may as well have joined us from the beginning.
Iroha and I waited for Mikoto in silence. For want of an activity to ease the awkward anticipation, we turned to the TV, where all we could see was the earthy yellow wind. Perhaps all the people outside had already sought refuge, but whatever the case, no new customers were coming into the restaurant. Luckily for us, the couple sharing our table suddenly broke into an odd conversation, providing a brief reprieve from our boredom.
The man said, “Motherfuckin’ sand storm on the day of His Majesty’s funeral! It’s gotta be some kind of Chinese plot.”
The woman said, “Where do you think you are, you idiot? This is Chinese-Town.”
“So what? I can say whatever the fuck I want. It’s my country. And I ought to speak my mind. If you just smile while people let themselves into your house, they’ll keep coming in and taking as much as they please.”
“Give me a break! Who do you think you are? And who do you think is paying for you to be here anyway?”
“It was your idea to come in here.”
“But you were the one bitching about not wanting to walk around in the sand.”
“Fine. I’m not eating. Go ahead and spend your money on Chinese shit.”
The guy left in a huff after that last remark. The woman hissed after him, “Big baby… son of a bitch,” and followed him out. That opened up room for Mikoto at our table.
Mokuren sat down in Mikoto’s place. The customers were all taken care of, so the staff had a little break.
“My treat,” she said as she set down a plate of sesame balls. She looked at me for the first time and asked, “You’re the boyfriend?”
I shook my head and replied, “The boyfriend’s on his way.”
“Whose?”
“Mine,” Iroha said.
“Hmmm, so you’ve got a sweetheart?”
“I guess you’ve moved on from romance considering how much you used to get around, Mokuren.”
“It’s not that I’ve moved on or anything like that. It’s just that I can’t manage room for a love life right now. What about you?” She asked again of me. “Do you have a special someone?”
I shook my head.
“Right.... Iroha, do you like your boyfriend?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Trust him?”
“I suppose.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer. You’re a likable nihilist, Iroha. I was always jealous of that.”
“That’s news to me!”
“It just occurred to me to describe you that way. But it’s the truth. You should be careful.”
“Other people can say what they like.”
Mokuren went back to the kitchen singing, “Someday, I’ll find my love....”
“Iroha, don’t you get pissed off?”
“Sometimes.”
“Hey, you have to introduce me to Mikoto properly.”
“Uh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Because I’m a likable video camera.”
Actually, I was filming that entire episode.
Within seconds of Mikoto’s entrance, Mokuren had swiftly glided up to greet him. She brought him to our table and said, “This is him, right?” She handed him a moist towel. Mikoto eyed Mokuren suspiciously, and then looked at us. Having the real Mikoto look at me was a strange sensation. I stood up and introduced myself, “I’m Shôji Inoue.” Then, I directed him to the bathroom. It could have been because I had several cups of very strong vintage Pu-erh on an empty stomach, but in any case, I felt dizzy.
“The cherry blossoms are falling because of all that wind. They bloomed in the morning and will be scattered by night. It’s such a shame. Or I suppose it’s just too hard to live in a restless world like this.” As Mikoto was returning, I had started to chatter away about meaningless things like that.
“I said this was like a sign that a big earthquake was coming, didn’t I?”
“My theory was that His Majesty was calling, but Iroha didn’t appreciate that.”
“That subject is off-limits!”
“Inoue, do you really think His Majesty is calling?” Mikoto spoke slowly. I thought, “Yes! He took the bait.” Mikoto followed up with, “It’s all a bit too much though, don’t you think? That cherry blossoms should suddenly bloom on the day of His Majesty’s state funeral and that dirt would fall all over his coffin. With all that, do you truly believe His Majesty is calling?”
“Well, no. It was just a thought I had.” I was unsteady, and even my speech became more polite. I sipped some Pu-erh. “And how was it? H
is Majesty’s funeral procession?”
“Just like it looked on TV. You could barely stand. And even if you could open your eyes, it was so cloudy with dust that you couldn’t see a thing.”
“Was there much of a crowd?”
“Maybe. Before the sand started blowing, all the people and cherry blossoms made everything as rosy as a baby’s butt.”
“Ho ho!”
“What’s there to ‘ho ho!’ about? I swear you two sound like a couple of old men on a porch.” Iroha cut in, clearly having lost her patience.
“You’re right. I thought it was a little strange too,” I said in agreement.
Mikoto forced a smile and said, “I have the bad habit of psyching myself up too much when I first meet someone.” I thought, “This bastard’s still acting like a stranger.”
I looked at Iroha and said, “Well, I’m just happy we managed to pull off this get-together without any mishaps.” Iroha nodded.
“Everything’s okay now. We’re immune from mishaps. When His Departed Majesty passed by me, I was able to pray for his happiness in the next world.”
“And that’s how you’d escaped en route to make it here? I was a little worried that maybe it had gotten too dangerous and you’d slipped away because of that.” Iroha’s voice was relieved.
“As a matter of fact, I actually feel the same as Inoue, that His Majesty is calling out to us. You see, when I was close to him, I actually felt something like a heart flutter. Only this time, I wasn’t spirited away and was able to get through it.”
We were speechless. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. But Iroha’s previously crabby disposition softened into cheerfulness. Even though she’d been hoping the funeral would be a kind of conclusion for Mikoto, maybe she was relieved he hadn’t changed that much.
“So, you call that being spirited away?” I broke the silence.
“Seems that way. That’s what they called me when I went back to work.”
“I wonder if all the people who were spirited away turned out for the State Funeral?”
“I got the sense a lot did. There were people who seemed like they’d come by themselves, showing up here and there, milling around without talking.”
Lonely Hearts Killer Page 6
