The Typhoon Lover

by Sujata Massey

  So he’d taken my warning seriously—despite acting with me as if he weren’t worried. This gave me a faint rush of pride.

  “Why don’t you get old Chiba-san to do it? That’s his job, isn’t it?” Emi’s voice squeaked with irritation.

  “Unfortunately, Chiba-san stays in Hayama only from spring to the end of summer. He’s in Kyoto right now with my father and sister working on that installation at the Golden Pavilion.”

  “But you can’t go to the country tonight. My parents expect us at the dinner for the French delegation.”

  “That’s right. I’m sorry.” Takeo sighed. “Well, then, you’ll just have to tell the art dealer it’s going to take a few more days to decide. He’ll probably close up shop himself, because of the weather. If things are really so bad, I suppose we’ll have to close the Kaikan.”

  “Ah so desu ka. With the Kaikan closed, will you be…less busy?” Emi sounded coquettish.

  “Actually, I’ll have lots of time. Now come here, Emi-chan. You haven’t even kissed me hello yet.” I heard a rustling and a laugh, and then the slow, unmistakable sound of someone’s zipper going south.

  Lolita in Humbert’s lap. I tiptoed away, thoroughly disgusted with the two of them—and with myself, for the way I felt.

  15

  During the twenty minutes I’d been in the Kaikan, the rain seemed to have become harder. Torrents of water streamed out of the heavens, and when I stepped recklessly off a curb without looking, a swell of water rushed into the top of my rain shoes.

  Miserably, I took shelter in the vestibule of an electronics shop to pull off the shoes and drain them. Through the store window, I caught a glimpse of television sets, small to large, all displaying the Japanese weather channel. After I’d gotten my shoes back on my feet, I went in to get a better view.

  The screens displayed images of a swirling red circle moving across southwest Japan. The edge of the storm was now just seventy kilometers from Shikoku Island and predicted to arrive in full force by mid-evening. Several fishermen had been swept away and drowned in the swelling waves, and people living in small houses along the beach had been told to evacuate. Once the typhoon hit Shikoku, it might travel inland, wreaking havoc in Kobe and Osaka; or, if the wind changed, it might roll its way up the east coast, toward Yokohama and Tokyo. The government was urging that all possible safety precautions be taken in all towns along the coast.

  The next shot showed Shikoku islanders preparing for the typhoon by boarding up windows and waiting in long lines for gasoline. There were film close-ups of grocery stores with bare shelves, and of housewives scrubbing their bathtubs with disinfectant before using them to store water.

  Tokyo was inland, I reminded myself. No reason to panic. I returned to the rainy street, where I noticed, for the first time, how few people were around.

  Well, it wasn’t exactly a day for strolling. At mid-afternoon, the sky was as dark as if it were early evening; and the rain lashed relentlessly down. I wondered if my aunt’s dire predictions about the storm would come true, since she’d been right about so much else.

  Every taxi that passed had its “occupied” light on, and the unlucky pedestrians on the street all seemed to be running for shelter. My funky spotted umbrella blew inside out when I was still on Gaien-Higashi-Dori, a long five blocks from the Hyatt. I struggled in vain to fix it, but I was powerless against the wind. But at the end of the block, a lighted subway signpost showing six trees—the kanji symbol for Roppongi—had been knocked to the ground by the strong wind. But the signpost reminded me of another possible walking route. I could use the shelter of the subway to walk the rest of the way straight into Roppongi Hills.

  The steep stairway leading down was slick with rain, so I had to tread carefully. A couple of times people bumped into me in their own haste to get out of the rain. I paid 160 yen to get down to the train platform, where I began my trek for exit 4, the way up to Roppongi Hills.

  As I walked along, I listened to snatches of conversation. Two men were talking about how they were going to get to a business meeting, and then I overheard somebody else talking to a companion about hoping the line would be open again the next day. As I climbed the stairs up to the exit and passed through the turnstiles, I saw a hand-lettered sign in Japanese and English: HIBIYA LINE CLOSED EASTBOUND DUE TO FLOODING.

  There was an attendant in the booth, so I stopped to ask him about it.

  “Excuse me, but where’s the flood?”

  “Tsukijii. Twenty minutes ago, enough water rose to cause an electric short. The subway authority has closed the line until the storm passes.”

  He was talking about the fish market, where I’d gone the previous day. Of course, a station close to water would be vulnerable. How fortunate that Roppongi was farther inland.

  I walked on and upward, out the Roppongi Hills exit. There were no teenagers congregating at the giant spider at the open-air Roku-Roku plaza; and while shops were open and glowing with light, nobody seemed to be inside. The escalators were turned off, for some reason, so I had to hustle up the stairs, then down a covered stretch until I’d made it to the Grand Hyatt.

  At last, real shelter. As I kicked off the rain shoes just inside the entrance to my room, I saw that a folded note in a hotel envelope had been pushed under the door. I read the message that my aunt had left with reception. She hoped that I’d had a nice conversation with my friend, and she wanted me to remember to call her about when I’d be arriving in Yokohama. She’d decided to see her son at St. Luke’s hospital first, but expected to be home by six.

  Not likely, I thought, remembering what I’d learned about the flooding at Tsukijii, the stop closest to St. Luke’s. I wondered if Norie had gotten there before the subway line closed down, or if she’d been trapped underground.

  I kicked off the rain shoes, turned on the bath taps, and picked up the bathroom telephone receiver to dial my aunt’s cell phone. A recording of a high-pitched woman’s voice told me that all networks were busy; the call hadn’t gone through.

  It was rare for the Japanese phone system to have trouble, but at least I still had my American phone. I hadn’t wanted to waste it on local calls, but this was a necessity.

  I rummaged through all the wet clothes to get to my dripping black nylon backpack. Everything inside was damp: my hairbrush, my address book, my makeup case…I fished around for the phone, but it wasn’t there.

  No need to panic, I repeated for the second time in half an hour, as I began to work my way through every zippered pocket. When had I last used the phone? At the Canadian embassy, when I’d talked to Norie. I’d placed it in the outside zippered pocket, so it would be handy in case my aunt called again. In that same space I found the visa application I’d started filling out to avoid suspicion. It was still there, along with my passport. But not the phone.

  I used the hotel telephone to dial information, and I was quickly put through to the embassy. Nobody had found a cellular phone. Next, I tried the Kayama Kaikan. I recognized the voice of the fashion-loving receptionist and told her that I was missing a phone. She didn’t have it either. I was too discreet to mention that I might have lost it in Takeo’s office. I could only hope he’d contact me if he found it.

  After I hung up, I looked out the window into the pouring rain, and wondered whether it was soaking my cell phone, somewhere or other. I could have lost the phone during my wild dash through the rain back to the hotel. Or maybe it had been taken out of my bag by someone. Now I thought about the people who’d seemed overly interested in me since the job had started. The man next to me on the plane, Jürgen in the bar, even the unseen person hovering behind me at the sushi bar. I’d just thought of them as annoyances, never imagining that they were a threat to my security. Any one of them could have been following me during the storm, when the rain had been so loud I couldn’t possibly have heard someone run up behind me.

  I leaned on the glass and shut my eyes against the avalanche of water outside. What a mess! I was
stuck without my lifeline to Washington, Takeo was stuck with his ditzy fiancée, and my aunt was possibly stuck in a flooded subway tunnel. I’d almost forgotten the original reason I was looking for my cell phone.

  I took out my little address book and dialed the Shimura family’s number in Yokohama. Unlike my earlier attempt to reach Norie’s cell phone, this call went through.

  “I’ve been waiting to hear from you! Are you coming to us tonight?” my cousin Chika demanded.

  “I don’t think so, Chika. The train lines are flooded. That’s why I’m calling, really, about Aunt—I mean, about your mother—”

  “She’s not here yet. She telephoned to say that she couldn’t get back to Shibuya station, so she had to go a whole roundabout way using the Keikyu line. She’s still traveling, I believe.”

  “I hope she gets home soon. You must let me know.”

  “Of course she will come home.” Chika spoke with all the confidence of a Japanese child who was sure her mother would always be around to help. “But when are you coming to stay, Rei-chan? With this rain, I think you should travel tonight, before the floods tomorrow.”

  “I actually think it’s safer to stay in place rather than travel.” As I spoke, I flipped on the television, which was, unsurprisingly, showing a vista of heavy rain over rice paddies.

  “Nobody’s safe anywhere if there’s flooding,” Chika said darkly. “It’s such a shame for you to be here now. And with this weather, I don’t know when Angus-san and the band can arrive. They were supposed to fly in tomorrow, but I heard that all the airlines have stopped flying to Tokyo and Yokohama.”

  “When’s the typhoon supposed to end?” I asked.

  “Well, the worst of the winds and rain will be tomorrow, they think. Is the place you’re staying safe?”

  I looked around my room uneasily. I was so high up. I was sure the building was structurally sound and would not topple over, but I wasn’t as sure about the safety of the windows as I’d made out to Aunt Norie. There was something spooky about being alone, in a tall hotel, with no one I knew nearby. And now I didn’t even have a cell phone to use to call for help if the phone lines went dead.

  I told Chika to please convey to Norie my gratitude for all her help, and to let her know that I’d lost my cell phone—so if she wanted to get in touch, the hotel line was best.

  I hung up the telephone and crawled into bed. Then I remembered Hugh, and the bad way things had ended. This might be my last chance to talk to him, if, as it seemed, the phone connections would all go down. What time was it there, three or four in the morning? I always got confused about daylight saving time.

  I dialed the apartment, and the phone rang eight times. Then the answering machine picked up in my voice. I left a message for Hugh apologizing for the hour of the call, but saying that I’d called early because of the typhoon—and if he didn’t hear from me for days, not to worry.

  It was a relief to have reached the answering machine, I thought after I’d hung up and settled down between the sheets. I could say exactly what I wanted and not worry about being interrupted and taken in other directions.

  It was only when I was halfway to sleep that I thought about how strange it was that at three or four in the morning, Hugh hadn’t been there to pick up the bedside phone.

  I woke with a start while it was still dark and found that I’d soaked the thick cotton sheets with my sweat. In my dream, the moisture had been rain: I had been getting wetter and wetter, running through a downpour, with Michael Hendricks and Mr. Watanabe chasing after me. Ahead I could see a woman whose skin glowed gold; she had downturned eyes and a peaceful expression. Her right hand was lifted, with its palm toward me. In my dream, she seemed immensely comfortable, like someone I’d seen before, indeterminately Asian and of indefinable age.

  I pulled myself up to a sitting position and turned on the television. The news showed smashed hotels and cottages throughout Shikoku. The electricity was gone, and hospitals were full of people who’d been hit with flying debris. The only blessing was that there hadn’t been a tidal wave, because the storm had turned inland.

  Inland. This meant it was heading up the Miura Peninsula toward Yokohama and Tokyo. What a time to be here, I thought, watching the footage of rain lashing the giant bronze Buddha in Kamakura. The newscaster droned on about how a storm of similar magnitude had swept the existing temple away from that Buddha some eight centuries earlier. I caught him saying something about how the electricity was gone in Kamakura and most of the Miura Peninsula, but then I stopped listening, because I’d clicked back to my dream.

  Now I knew the identity of the golden woman: she was the goddess Kannon, the goddess of mercy revered by Buddhists. Kannon-sama was the savior of people in distress. Her image was a focal point in many Buddhist temples throughout Asia, but the Kannon I knew best was the thirty-foot-high gilded camphorwood image at the Hase Kannon temple in Kamakura, just a few miles from Takeo’s summer house in Hayama.

  She was calling me to go. And suddenly I realized that the typhoon itself would make the mission possible. Takeo was not going to be at the country house in Hayama, and his neighbors would be holed up in their tightly shuttered houses. Nobody would notice me borrowing the key that he kept under a potted hydrangea on the veranda or, if it was gone, gently lifting a window to get inside. I put my past conviction of breaking and entering firmly out of mind. Thanks to the power of the storm, and with Kannon-sama’s protection, I’d be able to accomplish what needed to be done.

  16

  The 8:02 train out of Tokyo Station was still scheduled to run, although the government was urging people to stay inside. Only a few people boarded the train along with me in Tokyo, and it was easy to figure out who they were: workers who couldn’t afford to upset their bosses. In short, people like myself.

  I’d chosen Japan Railway’s Yokosuka line, which was a slightly slower trip, because the JR rails were older and farther inland than its competitor, Keihin-Kyuko Railways. The only risky part of the trip was at the very end, the port of Yokosuka, but I’d be out six stops before that point. I was going to disembark at Kannon-sama’s home—Kamakura—and take a taxi into Hayama, which didn’t have its own station.

  Japan Railway had upgraded the cars, which now had long inward-facing bench seats, rather than the cozy booth-style seating I remembered from my last time in Japan. You could pack more people into a train this way, but I hated sitting sideways on a train; not being able to look at the horizon made me nauseated. Sideways seats were another reason I had avoided the Keihin-Kyuko line. Now, I pulled out a little package of sembei crackers I had in my backpack and, despite the disapproving glances of people around me, began to munch. I couldn’t afford to have an empty stomach in this situation. I also turned my head sharply to the left, intent on seeing what I could of the horizon. It was impossible to see buildings or trees—just vague, hazy lights were visible. The route passed apartment buildings I remembered, an amusement park, a string of love hotels and small businesses. Everything looked so strange without the usual bright lights.

  I checked my watch. The trip from Tokyo to Kamakura was usually fifty-four minutes, but we’d already traveled ninety minutes and were only at the halfway mark, Yokohama. I was feeling predictably queasy, so I took some deep breaths.

  A new group of travelers had boarded in Yokohama: people who were leaving work, unusually for nine-thirty in the morning. Usually, a commuter train was silent, but today, people were talking about the storm. Someone said that large sections of Shizuoka prefecture were flooded. Shizuoka was a little more than an hour’s drive away. And at the pace at which the train was moving, it seemed possible that the storm’s brunt would arrive in Kamakura before we did.

  The train seemed to be moving more slowly, and it kept pausing, inexplicably, for varying lengths of time—sometimes two minutes, sometimes ten. I imagined that the conductor was getting information about flooded tracks ahead, and was waiting for the trains on those tracks to be diver
ted to other tracks.

  The train lurched on, and finally we were approaching Kita-Kamakura: north Kamakura, the last station before Kamakura, where I would get out. But as we approached, there was a sliding sensation, as if the train were no longer connected to the track. Then the train jerked hard and stopped.

  I’d shut my eyes when I’d thought the train was hydroplaning, but now I opened them and looked out the window. I could see nothing but rain.

  A disembodied voice spoke from the public address system. “We have received word that there is flooding ahead at Kita-Kamakura Station, which makes it unsafe for the train to proceed. After we are granted permission, this train will return to Ofuna station, where our honored passengers may kindly disembark. Alternative transportation to points north and south will be provided for you as it becomes available. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

  I looked out the window again; through the rain I could see what looked like the Kita-Kamakura train station a short distance ahead. North Kamakura was almost within my reach, but the train wouldn’t go there.

  I stood up and turned to look at the bedraggled bunch of travelers in the car. I debated the danger of calling attention to myself, deciding it was a must in this situation, and waved a hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “Excuse me, but I was going to leave at this station…. Does anyone else live nearby and want to disembark as well? I think that perhaps we could…ask the conductor to open the door.”

  Nobody said yes. However, someone said, “But it’s dangerous!” and another person, the man who’d given the weather report before, advised, “It’s better to stay onboard for the return trip to Ofuna. There will surely be buses after a while.”

  After a while? That could be hours, maybe even the next day. I shook my head, gathered up my umbrella and backpack, and pushed on the door that opened down to the tracks.