Sayonara Bar

by Susan Barker

  Well, as you can imagine, I kept Taro under close supervision all day. I will just have to wait until Mr Takahara returns from Hawaii before booking myself a doctor’s appointment. To leave the office in the hands of young Taro would spell disaster for Daiwa Trading.

  I returned home at 11.15 p.m. Having eaten nothing since lunch, my stomach has clenched into an angry fist, which I am now attempting to pacify with some clam soup. Preoccupied all day with the affairs of Daiwa Trading, I’d had little time to reflect on Mrs Tanaka’s report of cello music. However, on the train home tonight I hit upon a technique to determine the truth of the matter. Tonight, before retiring I will sprinkle talcum powder on the floorboards beside my bed. This will expose me at once if I am the culprit.

  I had best turn in now. But first I have a gift to lay by the family altar; some sugared almonds purchased from a subway kiosk on my way home from work. Though your mother, blighted throughout her life by diabetes, may object, I think you will enjoy them. You were always notorious for your sweet tooth, weren’t you?

  III

  The bamboo forest at night thrums with manifold noises. Does the forest come alive after dark, or are our ears just boorishly imperceptive during the day? Though I took a stroll here just this Sunday, it is now an altered place – the dominion of beating insect wings, and snakes winding stealthily among the trees. Earlier I walked into the sticky, gossamer kiss of a spider’s web suspended across the path. I swiped at my shoulders and head, fearful a vengeful spider had landed there.

  A few kilometres along this path is the site where we camped. Do you remember? We hadn’t been married long and it was your first camping trip. How excited you were! You waded in the stream as I fished, the legs of your dungarees rolled up, plucking from the riverbed any pebble that took your fancy. Later you cooked over the campfire the fish I caught, steaming rice in accompaniment. You declared it the most delicious fish you had ever eaten, remember?

  A breeze stirs the calm night air. The cotton of my pyjamas is cool against my skin. It is strange how at ease I am as the forest floor crunches underfoot. Walking out here clears my head. It offers reprieve from the torment encountered within our four walls.

  When I woke this morning the first thing I did was inspect the talcum powder I had sprinkled round my bed. There were no footprints, not even a toe smudge. I must have lain in bed all night. As I swept the camellia-scented powder into the dustpan, the dream I had dreamt came back to me in bittersweet shards. I had been at the hostess bar, sitting on a bar stool. Mariko placed a cocktail before me, her glossy hair held back by two silver butterfly clips. The liquid swirled in the glass, a maelstrom of bewitching colours. I debated for a moment or two whether to drink it – such a kaleidoscopic beverage would surely be poisonous – then I lifted the glass and sipped. I do not recall the sensation of taste. But I do recall looking up to ask Mariko what I had just drunk. You were in her place.

  As expected, today was another hectic day at work. To my dismay Mr Takahara sent us a fax informing us that negotiations in Hawaii were trickier than he had anticipated, and that he would be delayed for another week. Deeply concerned, I telephoned his Honolulu hotel room and left urgent messages on his answer machine.

  After lunch, Deputy Senior Managerial Supervisor Murakami-san paid the finance office a visit. He had come to brief me on a new micro-management strategy for the transport department, but ended up staying for a couple of hours to look over some accounts. Needless to say I was still upset by his gossiping about us, and nettled by his presence. Fortunately my professionalism kept me civil.

  Murakami-san’s behaviour was not what one would expect from senior management. He whistled jazzy tunes as he flipped through the account ledgers and teased poor Miss Hatta, the office assistant, until she blushed to the roots of her hair. He also encouraged Taro’s malingering ways by inviting him for frequent cigarette breaks. Before he left the office, Murakami-san asked if he could take the Kawamoto files for closer inspection. When I insisted that the files were in perfect order, Murakami-san chuckled and said: ‘I’m sure they are, Sato-san. A meticulous book-keeper such as yourself would never let these files fall into disrepair . . . Hey, how about joining Taro and myself for a few drinks tonight?’

  I mumbled my excuses, and Murakami-san nodded understandingly before walking to the door, praising my tight management skills and clutching the Kawamoto files to his chest.

  I was immersed in the micro-management spread sheets when Miss Hatta alerted me to a telephone call at about 4 p.m. I picked up the receiver, expecting Kojima-san from the loans department at the Fujitsu bank.

  ‘Yes? Mr Sato speaking,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Sato, this is Mariko from The Sayonara Bar.’

  The fever of shame crept up my cheeks. What could be more improper than a hostess contacting me at my workplace? I glanced about the office. Matsuyama-san, Assistant Accounts Adviser, was talking to a client on the other phone. Taro was staring into his Donald Duck screen saver. Only Miss Hatta was nearby, reloading the stapler on top of the filing cabinet. What if she had intuited the nature of this call?

  ‘I . . . I am so sorry to bother you while you are at work . . . but it was the only way I could think to contact you.’ There was a timorous tremor in Mariko’s voice. She seemed only too aware of her transgression.

  ‘How did you get my phone number?’ I asked, at pains to keep my voice low. ‘Did Murakami-san give it to you?’

  ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘I got the number for Daiwa Trading from directory enquiries . . . I went through your company operator.’

  ‘I see . . . I am afraid that I cannot talk now. I am very busy. In fact, I think it is best that you never call me here again.’ I was sorry to speak to Mariko in so cold and impolite a manner, but I thought it very bad form to contact me at the office.

  ‘OK,’ Mariko said. ‘But we must arrange a time to talk. Can you come by the hostess bar? I have something I want to tell you.’

  What could Mariko, so remote from my day-to-day life, possibly have to tell me? I was impatient to terminate the phone call as Miss Hatta was still within earshot, now tending to the spider plants on the windowsill.

  ‘What does this matter concern?’ I asked.

  There was a silence at Mariko’s end of the line. Then a calm voice said: ‘It concerns your wife.’

  I left work at 8 p.m. with an ineptly feigned migraine. My briefcase knocked against my legs as I was borne along by the after-work revellers thronging their way through Shinsaibashi. What enticed them so was beyond me. Everything was drowning in brightness, each bar more crassly eye-catching than the next. Pachinko balls ricocheted and games arcades blared machine-gun fire. In the foyer of the Sea Breeze restaurant a girl clad in a shell bikini and scaly mermaid’s tail swam about a giant fish tank. She stared vacantly at passers-by, her inky hair swishing about her head.

  I approached The Sayonara Bar, my pulse unsteady. Mariko’s telephone call had unsettled me as a fox does a henhouse. What could a child like Mariko possibly have to say? I replaced the handset when she mentioned you. Then I told Miss Hatta I would accept calls only from the Fujitsu bank. But it was too late. Mariko had robbed me of the ability to concentrate. I knew I wouldn’t be at peace until I had spoken to her.

  I lingered outside the noodle shop next door to the hostess bar. People jostled past, treading on my toes without apology. Inside the steamy window a chef prepared meat dumplings with thick, callused hands. I wondered what Mariko could possibly know about you. Nothing more than what Murakami-san has told her. And he only knows what he heard from the cruel Chinese Whispers that circulated after your death. No one knows you as well as I. No one knows you well enough to be certain you would never take your own life.

  I decided that there was no need to speak to Mariko after all. I turned from the noodle-shop window and set off for home.

  When I got back I took a hot bath and listened to the radio. Then I went to bed, eager to succumb to the soporific effects o
f my bath.

  But at 2 a.m. the telephone began to ring, wrenching me from my contented slumbers. I got up and stumbled through the dark towards the hallway phone.

  ‘Hello? Mr Sato’s residence,’ I said, my voice furred with sleep.

  There was a click, then an empty dial tone.

  This made me very cross. The gall of some people! They could at least have had the decency to apologize for their mistake. I began my ascent of the creaking stairs, grumpy as a bear disturbed during hibernation. It seemed unlikely I would sleep after this – my mind had been irritated into wakefulness. This will cost me dearly tomorrow, I thought bitterly.

  The house was very still and quiet. On the upstairs landing I noticed that the door to the spare room was open a snatch. How odd, I thought: I always shut that door tight. I decided to take a quick peek inside.

  The door slid smoothly open. The moon spread its muted glow through the parted curtains. I looked to the centre of the room and my heart gave a sickening lurch. Your cello had been moved.

  It lay on its side, an air of decadence about the posture, as though it had been basking in the moonlight. My head swam with incomprehension. Had someone broken in and moved it? Who would do such a thing? My breath came in jagged rasps as I fumbled blindly for the light switch. Stark light leapt to every corner, and the cello was back in its usual place, against the bookcase.

  So it had been a hallucination. I was astonished. Never have I been subject to such a vivid, convincing hallucination before. My feet were rooted to the tatami. I was scared to turn my back, or walk out of the room, lest the cello engage in further mischief. But one cannot stand about all night. To take a walk struck me as the most rational thing to do.

  Once again daybreak finds me talking to you. I have wandered much farther than I intended – it will be a good hour’s hike home. And just look at how high up I am! I scarcely noticed my uphill progress until first light showed me the bamboo forest, lush and green, blanketing the world beneath me. I had better start back now, or I shall be late for work. What a bizarre sight I will make for passing drivers as I hurry along the roadside in my pyjamas and mud-caked moccasins. I will have to sneak quietly back into the house to avoid Mrs Tanaka. I will be in too much of a rush to speak to her. I have a shirt to iron and a train to catch; a doctor’s appointment to make and a cello to sell.

  If I hurry I can still make the 7.45.

  10

  MARY

  We talked all night and passed out at daybreak on sheets damp with sake and sweat. Neither of us could sleep past noon, so we came here for breakfast. Men in boiler suits line the counter, smoking, bantering, excreting tarmac and toil. A whiskery woman mans the noodle vats, garnishing lunch-time specials with cremains of the cigarette stuck to her bottom lip. We are unshowered, dazed by a dearth of sleep. Tiny red cobwebs thread Yuji’s eyes, and his hair is pillow-pummelled. He takes a pair of disposable chopsticks and snaps them apart at the join. I watch him hoist his breakfast mouthwards; beautiful, even when his face swarms with noodles.

  Last night he sent a message to my phone asking me to meet him at a bar in Namba. I took a cab there after work, out of sorts because the last place I wanted to be headed was a British theme pub where the carpets give off the stodgy fug of battered cod and real ale. Yuji and his friend Shingo were in a back room, playing pool. I sat on a tall stool, drinking beer and watching them whittle down the number of balls on the table. While Shingo was leaning over the table, lining up a shot, Yuji came over and said, casually: ‘They trashed my flat today.’

  I asked him what he meant. Who trashed his flat? He said he didn’t know. They had broken his stereo and slashed his mattress with a knife, but taken nothing. He was bemused by my reaction, smiling at Shingo as if to say, ‘Women, eh? Always stressing.’ Shingo laughed at me. He told me that Yamagawa-san would soon get to the bottom of it.

  Later, walking back to my apartment, Yuji was subdued. His arm was slung over my shoulder, and I leant against him, breathing in tobacco and the leather of his jacket. I was chattering drunkenly in not-so-quiet, broken Japanese, when we heard a heavy thud behind us. We jumped and looked round. Beneath the halogen glow of the street light was nothing more than cracked paving and recycling bins.

  I laughed. ‘Must have been a cat.’

  ‘That scared the shit out of me . . .’ Yuji said.

  He surprised me. Yuji always acts like fear isn’t part of his emotional spectrum. And walking the streets at night in Japan is safe, even on your own. The crime rates are low, and I’ve never seen any violence here, not once. Then I remembered why Yuji had reason to be jumpy.

  ‘You thought it was the people who broke into your flat, didn’t you?’

  A motorbike revved on the other side of the railway tracks. Steeped in shadow Yuji’s face was hard to read.

  ‘What did Yamagawa-san say when you told him? Does he know who it was?’

  ‘He didn’t say much. Things haven’t been good between us lately.’

  ‘What do you mean? You were getting on fine that night at the club.’

  My heels struck a drain cover, steel echoes denting the night. Yuji let his arm slide down from my shoulders.

  ‘Something is wrong. I’ve pissed him off in some way. The other guys – Shingo, Toru – they sense it too. Everyone has been acting weird lately. And the jobs he’s been giving me have been getting worse.’

  ‘Worse how?’

  Yuji shunned my gaze. I told him once about the yakuza films I saw before coming to Japan – the gunfights, punch-ups and amputated digits. Yuji had laughed and told me it wasn’t like that, but seeing him so shaken up I had to wonder.

  ‘This is not good, Yuji,’ I said. ‘You should leave. I mean, you don’t have to work for Yamagawa-san for ever, do you?’

  ‘It’s not that easy,’ Yuji said. ‘He’s invested time and money in me. It would make him angry.’

  ‘So let him be angry. If you don’t want to work for him any more, then you shouldn’t. What can he do? Force you?’

  ‘He will see my leaving as betrayal.’

  ‘Betrayal of what?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Yuji said. ‘He will lose his temper and make things difficult.’

  We fell into a silence. He was right: I didn’t understand. Why would Yamagawa-san kick up a fuss? Any high-school drop-out this side of Amerika-mura can be trained to make deliveries and collect loan repayments. But since that night in the karaoke booth I could see how Yamagawa-san can make things difficult for a person.

  ‘Sometimes I just want to take off and lie low for a while. It’s been done before.’

  ‘Where would you go?’ I asked.

  We were approaching the foyer of my apartment building. Cheap flyers for discount pizza delivery and call-girls spilt from the mailboxes onto the salmon floor tiles. Yuji shrugged, too tired to answer.

  ‘You could leave Japan with me,’ I said, ‘when I go travelling.’

  The silence said it all. To hide the hurt in my eyes I walked ahead of him, over the leaflet litter to the entryway. I jabbed my swipe card into the slot by the door. The door jerked open and the recorded voice urged us to enter. I went inside, but Yuji did not move. He stood, hands in pockets, staring in the direction of the car park.

  I smiled tentatively. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  And he looked at me and said: ‘If I got the money together we could leave next week.’

  Yuji pushes away his empty bowl and reaches across the table for my hand. I smile at him, full of doubt and insecurity. Last night was the first time I’d ever heard Yuji complain about his job. I’d always thought it was important to him. What if he only said what he did because he was demoralized by the break-in?

  ‘Won’t you miss your friends when we go?’ I ask. ‘And your mother? Everyone you know is in Japan.’

  This is his get-out clause. A reminder of all that he is leaving behind. I brace myself for a change of heart. Plots hatched in the middle of the night are o
ften fuelled by insanity.

  ‘My friends are the property of Yamagawa-san,’ Yuji says. ‘And my mother is tough. We don’t have to worry about her.’

  ‘Will you tell her that we are leaving?’

  Yuji shakes his head. ‘We can’t tell anyone. Not even her. She will be mad I kept it from her, but it’s not worth the risk. And I want you to keep working at her hostess bar until it’s time to go – everything has to stay normal.’

  ‘I feel awful about not being able to say goodbye to anyone,’ I say.

  ‘Tell Katya and Mariko, then. Tell them that you are going back to England. But don’t say anything until we are ready to go. It might take me a week or two to get the money together. Just be ready when I do.’

  ‘I will.’

  So he waived the get-out clause. I break into a smile, which Yuji cuts short by leaning across the table and kissing me. He tastes of salt, the cracked asphalt of his lips tender and coarse. He pulls back too soon for my liking. Two of the boiler suits pitch Yuji a lewd grin. The noodle-shop owner pulls a wire basket from the vat and cackles. You don’t often see a Japanese guy with a Western woman; the reverse is more common. We sometimes find ourselves magnetic north of the public gaze. Yuji usually gets a kick out of it, but for once he is oblivious. I see my reflection in his eyes, dark and slick as pools of oil.

  ‘We are not going to regret this one bit,’ he tells me.

  Yuji has to report to Yamagawa-san, so I go home and hum tunelessly beneath a scalding shower. I am not usually of the humming disposition, but I feel like I’ve just had an intravenous fix of happiness. After my shower I put on a second-hand kimono and wrap my hair in a towel. I badly want to talk to someone – though the only subject I want to talk about is off limits. I pad down the hall to Mariko’s room, a grande dame in my towel headdress.