Parade

by Shuichi Yoshida

  So even though I’d only done things that would benefit me, whenever any of them – be it Koto, Ryosuke, Mirai, or Satoru – have a problem they always come to me for advice, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Never once have I really been kind and considered the other person’s situation, but still they come to me, like Koto’s asking my advice this evening. Even so, perhaps through some twisted part of their personalities, they view this detachment as consideration, and I find my stock, despite my unwillingness, rising in their eyes.

  Before I knew it, my lack of genuine concern led them to treat me like some great elder brother figure. If they’re satisfied with selfish consideration like this, then how does the rest of the world treat them? The thought has me worried. No – I’d better stop thinking that way, otherwise they’ll just ask me to help with something else.

  5.4

  For the first time in a long while, I jogged every single day for a week. It feels much more refreshing to run in the morning, when the air’s crisp, rather than after I come back from work. Ryosuke jogged with me for two days, but on the third morning when I asked him to join me, he didn’t even try to crawl out of bed. When I’m in good shape and feel a sort of pleasant exhaustion, strangely enough it makes me long for physical contact. On Sunday, by coincidence, Misaki came to stay over. She had on a long skirt of thin, flower-patterned material, and a T-shirt that made her breasts stand out. This is the outfit of hers I like the best of all. As she was enjoying the yokan sweets she’d bought she said, ‘Sometimes don’t you want to do it in a weird place?’

  ‘Weird place? What do you mean? Like in Ryosuke’s bed?’ I kidded her.

  ‘Are you kidding? With his slobber all over the covers?’

  ‘Okay, so where, then?’

  We were talking this over for a while when Koto came back from a rare trip outside the apartment.

  Three days before, I’d met Tomohiko Maruyama in a small coffee shop in Ebisu. He wore a hat pulled down low, but even so three of the waitresses in the shop pestered him for his autograph. He looked a lot younger in person than on TV. I figured TV personalities like him must be pretty disagreeable people, and I didn’t want things to get too complicated, plus I was sure he had a tight schedule, so I went right ahead and told him what was going on.

  ‘I see,’ he said in quiet voice, adding, ‘I need a little time to think about it.’

  I was almost about to tell him that Koto isn’t planning to keep the baby, but seeing how terribly earnest he was, I couldn’t very well tell him Don’t you think Koto would be relieved if you told her to get rid of it?

  ‘I’ll get in touch with her within a week,’ he said and left the coffee shop. If he did tell her to keep the baby, I thought worriedly, I wonder what she’d do? Probably in a couple of days Koto would get the fateful call.

  As Koto was getting a bottle of Volvic out of the fridge I asked her, ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘To vote in the election,’ she said, as if it were nothing.

  ‘To vote? You mean you transferred your registration to here?’

  ‘No, not yet. Mirai said she couldn’t go, so I went to vote for her,’ Koto said and disappeared into the girls’ room. No matter how tired she might be from waiting for Tomohiko to call, she didn’t seem to have an inkling of the fact that she’d just committed a serious crime.

  Right then, next to me, Misaki called out, ‘Ah! I’ve got it! I know a great weird place!’

  Where Misaki took me was a neighbourhood elementary school that was also being used for voting.

  ‘Here?’

  I started to edge backwards. ‘It’s okay. If we sneak in quietly,’ Misaki said, full of confidence. She gave me a nudge and I stepped over the off-limits rope and trespassed onto the school grounds. As she’d said, once we were inside, nobody was going to find us. We went down the hallway, keeping our heads low, and went up the stairs to the second floor. The first classroom we came to was a fourth-grade classroom, Class No. 1, and I carefully slid open the door so as not to make any sound. In the hushed classroom the beige curtains were closed and the afternoon sunlight was faintly shining in. I hadn’t seen elementary school desks and chairs for a long time and they looked like toys. Misaki and I sat down next to each other in the tiny chairs.

  ‘What kind of child were you in elementary school?’ she asked.

  ‘Just an ordinary kid,’ I replied. I stuck my hand inside the desk and came out with a slice of rock-hard bread. Misaki was leafing through a music textbook.

  I went over and sat down in the seat in front of her, twisted around and kissed her.

  ‘This is really turning me on,’ she said. She was right – the excitement was getting to me, too.

  We couldn’t bring ourselves to strip completely naked, but when I saw her white breasts spill out when she pulled up her T-shirt it was so sexy and obscene I wanted to trample on them. She pulled her lips from mine and suddenly asked, ‘Do you still love me?’

  I thought it over for a moment, then replied, ‘That’s a bit of a burden to lay on me don’t you think? But I guess I do still love you.’

  She laughed through her nose, and muttered, ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

  ‘What do you mean, I haven’t changed at all?’

  ‘It means what it means,’ Misaki said, readjusting her bra. Just then we heard a sound out in the hallway and we looked at each other and held our breath. The sound of the footsteps proceeded at a steady pace, apparently going down the stairs.

  ‘Did you hear about Mirai?’ she asked.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘I don’t know if she’s serious, but she said she’s going to Hawaii.’

  ‘Hawaii? With who?’

  ‘Not on a trip, but to move there.’

  ‘To move there?’

  ‘Yeah, but you know her. I don’t know how much to believe. She was at some bar drinking with Satoru and the others and she met the president of a confectionary company from Kobe. Apparently they have a company holiday place in Oahu and they were talking about having her be the manager.’

  ‘What do you mean, manager?’

  ‘I don’t know. But she showed me pictures of the place and it’s a pretty high-end condo.’

  ‘But that was just something they talked about over drinks, right?’

  ‘I can’t really say.’

  As she said this, I stood up from the tiny chair and went over to check out the hallway. I looked down the long hallway but there didn’t seem to be anybody walking there. It felt like if I listened carefully I could make out the echo of children’s laughter.

  That night Misaki and I went out for dinner, just the two of us. We invited Koto, in the living room as always, but she turned us down flat, saying that at ten there was a drama on TV that Tomohiko was in. Mirai wasn’t back yet from work, Ryosuke was at his part-time job, and as usual, we hadn’t heard from Satoru.

  We had dinner at a new place near the station that specialised in beef tongue, then had some wine at a bar run by a Frenchman. It was after ten when we got back home, a bit tipsy, and when we went into the living room Tomohiko Maruyama himself was sitting there, a serious look on his face. ‘Ah! Ah!’ Misaki exclaimed, pointing back and forth – first at the real-life Tomohiko, then at him on the TV screen, where he was running underneath some cherry trees.

  Sensing the atmosphere in the room I tugged Misaki by the hand and we slinked off to the guys’ room. ‘Wow – Koto really is dating Tomohiko Maruyama,’ Misaki said blithely, and stuck her ear against the door. ‘Knock it off,’ I said, roughly pulling her away by the arm.

  For a while all we could hear from the living room was the TV. From what I knew of last week’s episode, the young guy that Tomohiko was playing had started to live in an old apartment together with Ryo Ekura, who was still heartbroken from having her friend steal her boyfriend away from her. I can’t stand holding you while I know you’re thinking of him – this corny line in his voice came out of the TV speakers, f
iltered out through the living room where the actual person who spoke it was, and reached the guys’ room.

  ‘This feels kind of weird,’ Misaki said.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘It’s like he’s actually there saying that,’ she laughed. And she was right. Who needs the TV? I thought.

  We could hear what Koto and the real Tomohiko were saying only when the programme went to an ad break. Despite my warning, Misaki had her ear plastered against the door.

  To summarise the conversation in the living room: Koto said she didn’t want to ‘cause him any trouble’ so she didn’t want to have the baby, to which Tomohiko tried to persuade her that ‘No, it’s not causing any trouble. I’m sure things will work out.’ This was his way of putting on a good face – what they were really desperately searching for was a credible reason to choose an abortion. If the popular actor was telling her to ‘Get rid of it!’ while the young fan was insisting that he ‘Let me have it!’ you could pretty much figure out how things would work out, but here, with the opposite happening – the popular actor telling her to keep it while the young fan wants the abortion – it’s hard to know how the story will end.

  Misaki, ear pressed against the door, laughed. ‘It’s like an anti-melodrama. Soap operas in Spain, though, sometimes play out like this.’ I knew nothing about Spanish soap operas – instead what came to mind was Almodóvar’s film What Have I Done to Deserve This? I recalled how in an interview in a magazine the director said, ‘A person’s face filled with joy and one twisted in agony are identical . . . I made this movie as if the Franco regime never existed.’

  When the TV drama finished Tomohiko said, ‘Nice seeing you,’ to me and Misaki, and left. His manager was apparently waiting for him. At least as far as what we heard through the door, the two of them hadn’t resolved their problem.

  I didn’t want to go out to the living room and hear Koto rehash the whole conversation, so I stayed in the guys’ room. Misaki went instead, and prefacing her remarks with the comment that ‘I didn’t intend to overhear anything,’ she said, in a rather severe tone, ‘You’d better make a decision soon. The baby won’t wait for you.’ Koto was silent and Misaki went on: ‘Tomohiko’s acting nice to you, so you’re trying to make it last as long as possible, right?’ The sort of coup de grâce comment you’d only find between two women, something I can’t imagine me ever saying.

  Misaki went home that night without staying over. Mirai came back, drunk, after two a.m. She came into the guys’ room and though I knew she turned on the light I pretended to still be asleep. But she shook me so hard I finally gave in. ‘What d’ya want?’ I said, blinking my eyes in the white fluorescent light.

  ‘I was at Brodsky, in Shimokita, drinking with Ryosuke,’ Mirai said.

  I checked below my bed and sure enough Ryosuke’s futon was still neatly folded up.

  ‘He was with Kiwako. They seem pretty tight.’

  ‘Um,’ was all I said.

  ‘They said Satoru’s left. They said he took his belongings and left.’

  Did Satoru even have any belongings? I wondered.

  ‘Where do you think he’s gonna sleep tonight?’

  ‘Maybe at a friend’s place?’ I replied kind of bluntly and turned my face to the wall. Oblivious, Mirai went on talking.

  ‘Once Satoru took me to Hibiya Park. It was the middle of the night and we snuck into an outdoor concert hall. He sleeps there when he doesn’t have anywhere else to stay. There were these long benches around the stage and we lay down on them. They were awfully cold. Those benches will make your back hurt they’re so cold at night. It was the middle of Tokyo but it was quiet – just the sounds of cars far away – and it made me feel kind of lonely . . . He’s only eighteen, you know. Yet he’s slept at that kind of place many times.’

  As I listened to her from behind me, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t told Satoru about the part-time job I had for him. Before, when he was helping paste the labels for the invites to the film preview and I told him he could go home, he said he wanted to help out a little more. I recalled how he looked trying, and messing up a few times, to use the copy machine.

  ‘Are you sleepy?’ Mirai sounded a little lonely.

  ‘No, not really,’ I replied.

  ‘Have you seen Satoru’s face when he’s asleep on the sofa? He’s still just a child . . . Still a child, yet he doesn’t have any place to live, and he sleeps on a bench in a park.’

  I rolled over and found Mirai’s face right next to me. We gazed at each other, and an odd silence came over us.

  ‘Naoki, you think I’m some lesbian who hates guys, right?’

  ‘Huh? Where did that come from?’

  ‘No need to be so afraid . . . Oh, did you think I was going to kiss you?’

  Her breath reeked of vodka.

  ‘You won’t know unless you try, right? You remember that fortune teller next door, how he said you’re looking for a change? Maybe tomorrow something will change.’

  ‘It’s okay. I don’t need to force things.’

  ‘And here I was trying to help you.’ With this she switched off the fluorescent light and left the room.

  If you break out of this world you’ll find this world again, only one size larger . . . I’m pretty sure this is what the fortune teller had said.

  5.5

  Koto phoned me at the office. ‘Satoru just called me a while ago and I told him to call you there about the job. Did he call?’ She sounded strangely happy.

  ‘No, not yet,’ I answered curtly, since I was busy.

  ‘I see. So you haven’t asked him yet?’

  ‘Asked him what?’

  ‘Where he’s staying now.’

  With my boss and Momochi on a business trip to Cannes, I was spending the whole day answering the phone. Wanting to get off, I asked her, kind of brusquely, ‘So where’s he sleeping?’ To which Koto, sounding a little self-important, laughed, ‘Satoru’s sleeping every night in Momoko.’

  ‘Not at a friend’s place?’

  ‘He was in the beginning. But his friend got arrested for marijuana possession.’

  Just then another phone rang. ‘Sorry,’ I said, about to hang up.

  Koto said, ‘Why don’t you stop by the car park tonight and bring Satoru back?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll do that,’ and I hung up. But right after that, I answered a call from an illustrator and while we discussed the details of colour selection I completely forgot what I’d promised to do.

  After this the phone rang incessantly. Questions from the media about the preview showing, a publisher asking for colour positive film, a magazine wanting to do a report, proofs from the printer that needed checking. As I answered all four office phones my hand and tone of voice both grew mechanical, and I felt an odd uplifting feeling surge through me. The moment I hung up one phone another would start ringing, like it was lying in wait. If I didn’t reach out for it, the comical ringing would just continue. Soon another phone would start up ringing, the two bells like musical sound. I let out a deep breath and from the pit of my stomach laughter rose up. Right then a shudder ran up my spine. I wasn’t at Cannes making a film deal, and I wasn’t at some planning session giving a presentation. I was simply in a tiny, deserted office, trying to keep up with all the phone calls. Even so, the situation gave me a certain sense of joy, which sent a chill through me.

  The phone kept on ringing. I faced the phone and murmured, ‘I’m fed up.’ My voice didn’t sound real. Once again, in a louder voice, I yelled out, ‘I’m fed up!’ As it echoed in the cramped office, though, to me it sounded more like I’d shouted out I’m happy!

  I left work early for the first time in a long while, and when I got home Ryosuke and Koto were in the living room, side by side, watching TV together. I was sure it was some love drama again, but it was actually an NHK documentary detailing how the Matsushita Corporation, which had purchased MCA, had withdrawn from the Hollywood entertainment business. I ended up sit
ting down with them and watching it to the end.

  The programme ended and I was heading to the guys’ room to change when I heard Koto behind me say, ‘I’m going to the hospital next Tuesday.’

  I answered with a reflexive ‘Um’, and headed into my bedroom. Then I came to a halt. ‘The hospital?’ I said, and whirled around. ‘So you’re going to get rid of it?’

  Koto, still watching TV, gave a deep nod.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay with that?’ I asked the back of her head.

  ‘Yeah. Thanks,’ she replied. What she was thanking me for I had no idea. But maybe there was no need for me to poke my nose into it any further. I went into the guys’ room without saying anything more, and took off my suit. As I changed into a jersey I asked myself if I would act the same way if Koto were my kid sister. That’s stupid, I reconsidered. She’s not my sister.

  The fluorescent light in the bedroom was on the blink. In the flickering white light, my naked upper body was reflected in the sliding glass door. As the light flickered, my image would appear clearly, then disappear, on and off. As I stared at this succession of images, a vague, pale shadow that seemed right in between remained in my field of vision. Suddenly I thought of the foetus inside Koto’s belly. And how she had nodded without looking in my direction.

  I switched off the annoying, flickering light, and the room, now pitch black, seemed to be swallowed up in the night outside.

  After standing there for some time, I realised there was light from the living room at my feet. It was Koto, looking through the slightly ajar door, an embarrassed look on her face as she gazed at me standing there vacantly in the middle of the dark room. Caught unaware, I hurriedly explained: ‘The fluorescent light’s not working well,’ pulling the cord for the light. When Koto saw how the light flickered, she seemed relieved.

  As I tied the belt on my jersey I asked her what she wanted. It turned out Koto and Ryosuke were going to rent a video and wondered if I had any recommendations for new films.