The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl

by Tomihiko Morimi

  Mr. Higuchi’s body had levitated, bobbing there about a foot off the ground. No matter how you looked at it, he really seemed to be floating.

  As we gazed up at him with stupefied looks on our faces, he kicked against the wall and floated all the way to the ceiling. When I threw the Daruma to him, he curled up around it and then spun around next to the big light hanging from the ceiling. He blew smoke into the lamp.

  In a pose like a great reclining Buddha, he glided toward the bar. The other customers looked up, stunned at the yukata-clad man floating over their heads.

  Ms. Hanuki started clapping her hands, and before long, we were all doing the same. Soon, it became a thunderous round of applause.

  Mr. Higuchi did a flip turn off the opposite wall like a swimmer, launching himself back our way before alighting and giving a polite bow.

  “Wow, you’re fantastic.” Mr. Akagawa, the president of a dye company, sighed. He was the one with the son who just got married. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. What are you, a magician?”

  “I’m a tengu goblin.”

  “A tengu? Amazing.” The president burst out laughing. “I hope you’ll come perform at one of my dinner parties.”

  “Here, have a drink.” Dr. Uchida picked up a bottle of Akadama Port Wine, but it was empty. He grabbed the bottle next to that, but it was empty, too. I felt my cheeks getting hot, not because of the alcohol but because of embarrassment. Shamelets, shamelets.

  “Did you drink all of this?” Dr. Uchida asked, taken back. “Are you all right?”

  “Looks like we have another goblin with us.”

  The party grew merry again. With spirits high as kites, the president and Dr. Uchida raised their hands, put their respective palms together, and did a wriggling dance. It was unmistakably the Sophism Samba.

  These were old Sophistry Debate Club members, and it was they who had invented the Sophism Samba.

  In their youth, back when they used to confound anyone who dared listen to their slippery, specious half logic, a great deal of curses were hurled their way, but the one that stood out the most was “those eel bastards.” They took a liking to it and proclaimed to all the world, “We are compelled to employ sophistry like the slimy, slippery eel.” They wove the practice of dancing like eels into the club’s mission statement at every single party they held and forced unwilling younger members to join in. That’d continued for thirty years to the point that current members said things like “By the way, which idiot came up with this dance?”

  Turns out that once, back in the day, a comrade was leaving to study abroad, so they went with him to the airport and saw him off with the Sophism Samba.

  “But he died overseas,” said the president. “Ahhh, those were the days!”

  We were all getting along so well that we Sophism Sambaed our way out of that bar and walked Ponto-cho as if we were conducting a night raid.

  The president seemed to know a lot of people. No matter where we went, everyone knew who he was. No matter which bar we meandered into, he had an acquaintance soon laughing “Bwa-ha-ah-ha!” and frothing beer at the mouth. It was now the middle of the night in Ponto-cho, so things were much quieter. Only our group remained lively as ever, weaving our way through the peaceful silence.

  I’d said I wanted to try faux electric brandy, so the president kept repeating, “Are you here, Rihaku?” hunting for him at every bar we visited, which brought to my mind the image of the mythical namahage looking for naughty children to admonish.

  There was a bar crawling with cats and Daruma dolls, a café managed by twin brothers, an elegant jazz bar, a pub like an underground jail… Drinks appeared one after the other. Door after door, drink after drink.

  It was a dizzying journey, but as long as I could savor delicious liquor, I knew I’d enjoy myself to the utmost no matter what happened.

  “You sure toss ’em back. You’re bottomless,” remarked the president. “What’s your limit?”

  I proudly puffed out my chest. “It’s however much alcohol is available.”

  “That’s the spirit. You should have a drinking contest with Rihaku. Then you can drink as much faux electric brandy as you like,” he pointed out. “I’d bet my money on you.”

  Everywhere we went, he asked about Mr. Rihaku, but no one had seen him all night. Most people seemed to think he was holed up in the vehicle he called his home, reveling in his used books, or out in the streets stealing the pants off drunkards.

  “You want to challenge him to a drinking contest? Don’t you ever learn, Akagawa? You can’t beat him.”

  “No, she’s the one who’ll drink. I’ve discovered a talent that comes only once in a hundred years.”

  “Whoa, whoa, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Don’t judge people by their appearances.”

  We were having a tough time finding Mr. Rihaku, but we did end up running into the current members of the Sophistry Debate Club, which was great. They were doing that strange Sophism Samba in a corner of the jail-themed cellar pub, so there was no mistaking them. The older and younger members were all incredibly moved to meet one another across the thirty-year gap. They danced like crazy and got along so well they threw their arms over one another’s shoulders and broke into the nonsensical “Song of Sophistry.”

  The men with the red ties fired a concentrated barrage of encouragement at Kosaka, the one headed to the UK: “Be a proud son of Japan,” “Study hard,” “Sleep four hours and pass; sleep five and fail,” “Don’t die!”

  Overwhelmed, Kosaka blinked furiously and said, “I’ll do my best.” It seemed he hadn’t given up his feelings yet, and whenever there was a free moment, he could be heard murmuring, “Naoko, Naoko.”

  We ended up taking them all with us.

  Ms. Hanuki had sunken into an abyss of silence after surrendering to her intoxication and was now being carried on Mr. Higuchi’s back. She was promptly dubbed a “sleeping lion” by the group. But as soon as she opened her eyes, she shouted, “What’s yours is mine!” and began indiscriminately drinking other people’s beers. Then she screamed, “Ponto-cho rocks!” and licked my cheek. Once our lion had awakened, we had no way to tame her.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Higuchi dragged out whole koi streamers from his mouth, flew out the window into the night sky, pulled distastefully golden lucky cats out of his ears, and generally put his outstanding tengu skills on display and basked in the resulting applause everywhere we went.

  The koi streamers went on to float down the streets of the Ponto-cho area, so they must have startled people out making the most of their night. The golden lucky cats gave birth to ever smaller lucky cats, like matryoshka, and when the bartender was furious that his establishment was crammed full of lucky cats of every size, Mr. Higuchi escaped by floating up to the ceiling and grinning where no one could catch him.

  He was less “tengu-esque” than simply “a tengu,” the long-nosed, winged creature of legend.

  As for myself, I sat in a corner of the party drinking and hoping we’d encounter Mr. Rihaku and faux electric brandy.

  Bringing such energy from bar to bar, we were like an extremely strange circus troupe wandering the night or perhaps holding our own Gion Festival.

  Soon we reached the northern edge of Ponto-cho by the Kaburenjo Theater and ran straight into a group coming out of a café that was closing for the night.

  And I’ll be damned. If it wasn’t the after-after-after-(etc.)-party of the wedding reception. It was certainly the bride and groom who’d overawed everyone with their passion, unafraid of the gods and practically glued to each other. Seeing our boisterous crowd heading toward them, their group seemed to brace itself.

  “Naoko.” Kosaka stopped dead in his tracks, and the Sophistry Debate Club members raised up a cry.

  “Oh, Yasuo!” The president sniffed, and the former members of the Sophistry Debate Club all murmured in surprise.

  Encounters on the streets of the night: a student headed west and
the woman he pines for, who is already someone’s wife; a father who is now sixty and his son who just got married. An uncanny solemnity enveloped the area, and as everyone was surely racking their intoxicated brains to come up with ways to break this bizarre silence, several scraps of old paper fluttered down out of the sky.

  Ms. Hanuki picked one up and sighed. “Ooh, I know what this is.”

  The sixty-year-olds and the Sophistry Debate Club members also gathered a few papers and examined them curiously. I grabbed one, and it turned out to be part of one of those erotic shunga prints with a man and woman entwined in the most outlandish way. And along with these papers, a piercing scream rained down on us.

  “It’s the end for meee!”

  We all looked up.

  To the west was a café; to the east was a splendid restaurant.

  On the third story, with a leg up on the railing, Mr. Todou was leaning out over the street like a Kabuki actor. With the drama of Ishikawa Goemon, he glared down at late-night Ponto-cho, ripped up his treasured shunga with a furious grimace, reached as far out into the air as his arms would allow, and scattered the bits and pieces as if he were driving off evil spirits.

  With each fistful, he let loose a pitiful “Damn it all!” A great number of men’s and women’s figures went flying into the sliver of night sky between the eaves, raining down one after the other onto the cobblestones, dancing in the narrow alley, then eventually blowing away somewhere.

  To me, it seemed as if his soul were riding the wind away.

  “What a beautiful scene,” Mr. Higuchi murmured, flabbergasted.

  There were other people up on the third floor of the restaurant. I could hear voices attempting to calm his disturbed mind, but he shouted threats like “If you come anywhere near me, I’ll jump headfirst!” and “I’ll kill myself!”

  Mr. Todou was crying.

  I shouted, “Mr. Todou!” and the one who murmured after me was the bride: “Father.”

  Wise readers, hope you are well.

  In the wee hours, I was in the corner of a traditional Kyoto cuisine restaurant called Chitoseya sulking like a sad piece of over-grilled mochi. I didn’t get to meet the girl. The bookseller who joined us was a nasty drunk, so I was having a terrible time, and I missed my opportunity to leave—I was stuck indefinitely sharing their fate.

  After several savage parties, we arrived at the Bedroom Investigation Commission’s irregular auction. Though it was after midnight, the young restaurant proprietor was a member of the commission and accepted Todou’s outrageous request. It seems people with strange tastes don’t listen to reason.

  Todou looked at the many shunga prints lined up before him with his mouth twisted into a frown.

  The sliding-door room dividers were all open, and the large space felt empty. Here and there, trays with teapots and cups all rested on the floor alongside cushions that resembled purple sweet buns. A glance out the window facing the Kamo River revealed the dark water and the lights of the area around Keihan Sanjo Station.

  After a while, shopkeepers, bankers, and more—of both sexes—entered the tatami room with sleepy faces. Apparently, there was even a barber who rode his bike down from the Kyoto U area. These commission members sat in small groups to have a smoke, sip their tea, and not speak much more than necessary.

  The bookseller called the meeting of the Bedroom Investigation Commission into session. Just as Todou’s collection of the night was about to disappear into the pockets of these people with their peculiar predilections, everyone’s phones started going off. They were all excited by the rumor going around.

  “Hey, Old Man Rihaku’s going to have a drinking contest!” the barber shouted.

  The rumor said some monster was prowling the area, ready to challenge Rihaku to a once-in-a-lifetime battle. It was said to be a giant, well over six feet, dressed in a ratty old yukata garment—a nonobservant monk known as the “sleeping lion,” a great man who spit out a never-ending torrent of koi streamers. Supposedly, he came all the way from Oshu to defeat Old Man Rihaku. He sounded less like a great man and more like a mythical monster to me.

  The commission members started chatting.

  “It’s been quite a while since Rihaku’s last drinking contest.”

  “I haven’t seen him tonight, though.”

  “I wonder where they’ll do it.”

  “I kind of want to go watch.”

  This commotion had nothing to do with Todou’s collection and filled the room.

  He’d been sitting quietly enduring the agony of Ah, I hate this. I can’t stand the idea of surrendering my beloved stash to this rabble so simply, but as the tension in the room dissipated, he snapped. The separation from his wife and child, his debt to Rihaku, his lost koi fish, his collection that was about to shrink… His feelings about everything pressed in on him, and he must have been fed up with the idea of going through with his plan.

  I don’t care about anything anymore. Rather than suffer the insult of selling my precious treasures, I should just do away with them by my own hand before I do away with myself. Maybe that’s what he had decided.

  Todou raced to the window facing the road with a handful of shunga prints, put a foot up on the railing, and leaned over. “I’m not selling these to anyone!” he shouted. Then he began ripping up the pictures.

  Everyone in the room was shocked.

  This idiot had summoned everyone in the middle of the night, and now what was he doing?

  The Bedroom Investigation Commission members rose to try to pin Todou down, but once he screamed, “If you come anywhere near me, I’ll jump headfirst!” their hands were tied. No one could stop the invaluable pieces of cultural heritage from being ripped to shreds.

  I was lounging around, languidly sipping some tea as I watched this whole affair, but when I heard her voice from the street below, I jumped up.

  “Mr. Todou!” she’d screamed.

  “Mr. Todou, weren’t you searching for your next step in life?” I shouted up at the railing. “You mustn’t give up!”

  “Do you really mean that?” He stared intensely down at me. “I’m the man who just threw shunga everywhere, the man who groped your breasts.”

  “But you shared such a wonderful perspective on life with me.”

  “Philosophizing about life is merely a way to pass the time.” Mr. Todou gritted his teeth and ripped more prints. “Will musing about life get me out of this dead end?”

  “Didn’t you say you would do anything for your daughter’s happiness?”

  “Father, calm down!”

  “Huh? What are you doing here?” He finally realized his daughter was present. “Dammit, dammit.” He grew angry again and ripped his erotic treasures. “What horrific shame! And in front of my daughter!”

  “Father, I’m not worried about that! I don’t care if you’re a pervy old man!”

  “It’s no good. I’ve had enough.”

  As this delicate exchange was going on, Mr. Higuchi was observing in his usual detached fashion, when he suddenly turned around and said, “Oh, Old Man Rihaku is coming.”

  I turned to look and gasped.

  Something like a tall train radiating bright lights was heading our way from the southern part of dark, narrow Ponto-cho. It was an eccentric triple-decker vehicle like Eizan Railway cars stacked on top of each other, and I could see a bamboo grove growing thickly on top.

  Lamps hanging from each corner of the frame illuminated the deep-red body. Streamers of all colors, including those of little koi, and a big bathhouse curtain hung like the flags of the world along its sides.

  The many windows were all filled with a glow as if they were coming from a comfy living room, and a small but splendid chandelier swayed as the vehicle proceeded. Through the first-floor windows, I could see shelves crammed with books and ukiyo-e hanging from the ceiling.

  For a second, I forgot all about Mr. Todou and was mesmerized by the magic box that drove back the dark night.

 
The people had all gone, but the train brightened that corner of dark Ponto-cho as if it were a festival. At the same time, it was frightfully quiet.

  As the train soundlessly approached, I noticed an enamel sign fixed to the front of it.

  In big, bold cursive it read RIHAKU.

  When the crowd in the street started murmuring, “It’s Rihaku,” “Rihaku’s coming,” Mr. Todou up on Chitoseya’s railing stuck his neck out.

  “What?! Rihaku?”

  The people gathered on the third floor took that opportunity to jump him and hold him down.

  As Mr. Todou flailed to free himself, he scattered the remaining shunga prints. “I don’t have any money to give him! I’m doomed! Rihaku will tear me apart!” he screamed. “Just let me die and be done with it all!”

  I reached into the air and caught pieces of Mr. Todou’s happiness as they fluttered down from the railing. The lamps from the triple-decker train cast orangey light on the indecent figure of a bewitching woman and her heavily accessorized hair. There must be some reason we met this night.

  As the decked-out triple-stacked train approached without a sound, I stood and puffed out my chest as if to ward it off.

  I looked sharply up at Mr. Todou.

  “Mr. Todou, I’m going to have a drinking contest with Mr. Rihaku, and I’m going to bet your debt,” I shouted. “I’m sure I’ll win.”

  We went up to the third floor of the traditional Kyoto cuisine restaurant Chitoseya. In the large tatami room, a pile of people restrained the still-resisting Mr. Todou.

  At the same time, Mr. Rihaku’s triple-decker train quietly parked next to Chitoseya. From just beyond the railing, a bright light streamed in—because a single lamp twinkled on the train’s garden roof.

  The room fell silent. No one tried to board Mr. Rihaku’s train.

  But I needed to meet him. I made up my mind to go ahead of everyone else, crossed the railing, and climbed aboard. Others wordlessly followed.

  The roof of the train was covered in swaying grass. An old pond brimming with water and with algae floating on top was surrounded by a thick bamboo grove.