by S. J. Parks
There were still two empty places laid at the table and she longed for a diversion. Just then doorbell went and Noru got up. Hana heard an American voice in the lobby, apologizing.
‘Yeah. Sorry it’s late. No, I won’t eat. Just going straight to sleep, thanks.’
Piles of dark unruly hair and a girl with olive skin appeared in the door and Hana noticed the energy in the house had changed. After an exchange of smiles, the girl said, ‘I’m Jess. Dead tired so I’ll see you later. I’m gonna head up.’
‘Bikyhikibiri!’ a man’s voice boomed from the back of the house.
As the diatribe continued Ukai turned his milky eyes towards Hana, followed by Noru and then Jess until she was the focal point of everyone’s stare.
‘You washed with soap in the bath?’ Jess whispered.
Hana nodded.
‘They never do this here.’ She was matter of fact; she was obviously not new to the house. ‘We share the water.’ It was not good news.
Hiding in the shadow of the doorway clutching a towel, a bare-chested man in his thirties appeared, rattling on in complaint until Noru’s response sent him into retreat.
Hana remembered the bathrobe and winced. Moments later he returned wearing a fresh cotton yukata gown over his heavy frame. He was newly shaven and his damp skin shone.
‘Kombanwa,’ he said to the room, acknowledging the girls before he sat down heavily beside old Ukai, and began again a low, gravelling rant.
‘Night,’ the American said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
She seemed very much at home and very content to leave Hana with the growling man who must, she assumed, be Noru’s son.
Noru deferentially placed sticks of startling luminous fish and sticky rice in front of the young man and it had a beneficial effect.
He turned to look at Hana as if she reminded him of someone.
‘So, welcome to Tokyo. I am Tako. You met my mother and grandfather?’ He had once got lucky with a gap year student.
His dark hair was wet and he looked like an overgrown cuckoo. It was no surprise that Noru was stretched, cooking for two generations and guests.
‘Hana, right? Japanese for flower.’ He smiled benignly like a prince appeased. ‘Ukai can write your name in kanji alphabet sometime.’ He jabbed his chopsticks at the old man enthusiastically, revealing his bare chest beneath the yukata and a lurking breastplate tattoo.
‘Thanks.’ Who would refuse such an offer?
‘You know Chelsea?’ he asked, pointing at the line of football mugs.
‘Yes.’ It was drawn out and unconvincing. The Chelsea she knew was a place where her grandparents had lived until she’d gone to senior at the City of London School for Girls. They would take her to St Luke’s playground off Sydney Street, and then, later, on those Sunday-lunch visits she and her mother were obliged to make, they would go to the Physic Garden. When she was older she would meet friends at the Goat pub, before trekking home to East London. Chelsea did not mean a football club to her and he could see that.
‘So, you are gonna see the sights, right?’
‘And lots of temples.When I find them.’
This sent him ricocheting to be of assistance. He retrieved a map and laid a hand on it ceremoniously as if it might be a passport to friendship. Opening it at his end of the table he strategically identified the areas marked and then promptly dashed it away, clearly having an Einstein moment.
‘I myself can show you.’
Too fatigued to give him anything but a lukewarm response she hesitated. ‘Thank you.’ Should she say it? ‘Very much.’
‘You are British. British and –’ he paused ‘– British Asian?’
This caught her off-guard, for while she was used to people turning over guessing stones – the game had long since ceased to irritate – but she had assumed foolishly, that possibly they might get it right here in Japan.
‘Japanese.’
‘So. I see,’ he said, more winded than intrigued.
Had she expected to walk off the plane and fit in? Outside there was just enough light to see the old wooden house opposite through the heavy dirt on the insect netting. Could she belong here? Idly, she prodded the pink seafood round the bowl with her chopsticks.
‘Chelsea is my club,’ he continued beaming indulgently and she tried hard to reciprocate the smile. For some reason nothing fitted. Perhaps she might be happier in a different homestay? She wouldn’t jump to a rash decision, but tomorrow she could look at different places to stay; maybe the American could suggest one.
She made her excuses and was sorry for not managing to eat what they had presented. She could sense their disappointment but, at the noise of her chair, as she pushed her seat back under the table, they broke from their disenchantment and wished her goodnight.
‘Oyasuminasai,’ Noru chimed with her son.
Upstairs in the twin room the American girl, despite the humidity, was hidden under a floral sheet. Hana’s room was now their room. She had, considerately, left the light on but the air-con was off and there was no remote control. The solution hung pendulously over her bed. She climbed gingerly on to the bed base and reached for the switch until the girl stirred.
‘Hospital soap,’ she mumbled sleepily.
She would leave it tonight.
As Hana closed her eyes thoughts of home drifted in. Tom would be at lunch now. It was only yesterday he had seen her off from the platform in Paddington and brought her case all the way, in an unusually generous gesture for him. He had given her The Pillow Book as she stepped onto the train. It was only as he receded with the station that the realization she was leaving him behind had hit. She had hoped for larger assurances that he would miss her; she wanted him to say it would hurt and preferably badly. She wanted him to work on what she meant to him until her return. But he was not demonstrative; he could be needy and that display of affection was entirely different, veering as it did towards his own requirements, not hers. Did she trust Sadie with him? How could she begin to taunt herself and so soon when she felt so very off-centre already? She would be away for nearly two months and to begin counting the days was a poor start. A poor start. A poor start.
She fell asleep with unexpected ease.
Chapter 6
Populationof Tokyo : 37.8 million
The next morning, bending over with the curvature of the earth, time prodded at her ribs, calling for a start to the day that was much too early. But she was used to broken sleep. For a while, when her mother had been ill, her own sleep patterns had been affected and she had wandered around the house at odd hours, drying the last of the cups on the draining board or aligning cookery books. Since she had gone, Tom could wake to find her tidying or cleaning as if she had a responsibility to keep her mother’s flat more pristine than it had ever been, as if she might walk in unexpectedly and find Hana was coping okay; that it was all under control.
Her damp bedclothes clung and on waking in the half-light her mouth felt dry – could she safely drink the water here? In the single bed beside her, Jess, the American girl, was still asleep. Hana could hear birdsong, loud birdsong, in the heart of the city. Wide awake but unable to move from the bandage of sheets, she willed her roommate to surface but she was no more compliant than she had been the night before. So Hana lay a little longer, planning her day. She would find the teahouse at the temple. She had read of the wooden structures and the Buddhist temple Asakusa Jinja, and the Shinto shrine at the Meiji Jingu. She would head at some stage for Kyoto, which, though high on her list, would be a push to afford.
Finally Jess stirred and pulled herself up to sit against the wall, crowned in a bird’s nest of hair. She looked across at Hana with dark circles under her eyes.
‘Coffee!’ Her arms stretched as she broke away from the deep sleep of her first night. ‘It’s good to be back.’
Back from where? Hana wondered but didn’t yet say it.
Jess stretched some more.
‘This is the best place in To
kyo,’ she continued, as if to someone else.
Hana blinked back at her as if a strange creature had joined the room. The best? This was hardly believable and she couldn’t bring herself to agree even out of politeness.
‘Bit of shouting last night,’ Hana contended
Jess nodded.
‘Bikyhikibiri. Bikyhikibiri.’
‘Which—’ Jess looked over a virtual set of glasses professorially ‘—translates as pubic hair. Don’t leave it in the bath.’ She waved any concern away and giggled.
Hana’s lips soured.
Jess was laconic but friendly and gave Hana the facts quickly: she had been working up north on an aid project and had come back down to Tokyo for a few weeks before returning to Seattle. Though younger than Hana she was a seasoned traveller, happy living out of a rucksack for months. It was the second year she had come to the homestay and the formula worked well for her.
Jess put her arm round her in a welcome squeeze. ‘I’m back in Tokyo to make some good money. And you? Why are you here?’
Hana began a vague meandering on the cultural attractions of Tokyo but Jess cut her short.
‘You’re part Japanese, right? And you chose my favourite homestay?’
Hana nodded and then broached what was uppermost in her mind. She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘I am going to have to change homestay.’
‘Great, then I get the room to myself.’ Jess was deadpan and Hana wondered whether she should take her seriously. ‘No, you’ll like it here. The family goes out of their way to help. Why leave when you just got here?’
The fact that it felt as cloying as a home for the elderly was too difficult to put into words, too ungenerous, and so she just said, ‘Well … money.’
‘Money? This is cheap. I start my bar work this week. Great money and it’ll see me through a whole semester. You should think about it. They always need people.’
Younger but so aware, Hana thought. Jess urged her to come and see the club with her that morning. A club? Hana had worked in a bar but a club? It was a hostess bar. And it didn’t appeal. Charity Aid and club hostess. Jess was interesting.
‘Emiko will give you a job. And then I could show you round Tokyo. ’ It sounded like a bribe.
‘No. No, thanks.’ Objections that she was here only for a short time were irrelevant. There was no doubt she could do with the money. ‘This morning I plan to find the local temple.’
‘Local temple? I can show you better temples.’
‘Well, you see … when she lived here, my mother worked on a project at the teahouse, somewhere in the grounds of one of the temples.’
Jess nodded encouragingly, while at the same time mentally counting the number of small temples that littered each small district of Tokyo. It seemed a little futile to her.
‘Did she give you the address?
‘No. Well, no.’ It was too long to explain.
‘You know which one?’ she added to make sure.
‘Not yet.’ Assured that six or more weeks was ample time to discover it.
‘So that shouldn’t be too difficult to find.’
‘Exactly,’ Hana replied, misreading the cynicism.
‘What’s the hurry? The temple will be there tomorrow. Be there the next day. Been there a while,’ Jess urged. ‘You work nights with me, go sightseeing during the day go home with more money than you transferred. Including the flight.’
She could see Hana warming.
‘I need to get a black dress for the job. Will you come? We’ll go meet Emiko.’
‘Okay, I’ll think about it.’ She would have to hold her own with this one.
Chapter 7
Seismological measurement of Fukushima earthquake magnitude 9 on the Richter scale
Birdsong came from the same deck that the folk music had the night before. Breakfast was laid out as self-service, and Hana and Jess ate rice and then wedges of sliced white bread, twice the size of a paperback and half as nutritious, that they covered in sugared orange jam. Between mouthfuls they discussed their plans for the day and then headed out.
Before they reached the station Jess pointed out the dormant neon nightclub sign.
‘Try it? There’s no commitment.’
Hana could see she was never going to take no for an answer.
Jess ran down to the basement, leaving her at the sign.
She quickly returned.
‘Emiko – the manager – can see you at the end of the week.’ She couldn’t have been more pleased with herself.
Hana didn’t want to be ungrateful, ‘I’ll see,’ was all she said.
Jess drew her towards the rail tracks.
‘Come to Ziggy’s to meet my good friend Miho.’
And they headed up the main street with its tiny stores; pottery spilling towards the fresh noodle makers calling beside loud carousels of ‘anime’ covers for any accessory.
Hana waited patiently in a din of local music as Jess fingered lollipop pens and fake-fur key rings with ears. All this from the home of Zen, she thought, as she waited too long under the awning of sound. She considered her new companion a little critically but in the assault of the unfamiliar she was already attached to her.
‘Have you chosen yet?’ Hana was surprisingly irritable given they had met so recently.
Jess emerged manga-eyed with a cartoon bag of irresistibles and she was back on message. ‘It’ll be fun and it’s the only temp job a foreigner will get in Tokyo.’
She was as short as a haiku poem but without the poetry.
‘And the clients?’ hana was worried about dodgy clubs.
‘It is tame. It’s safe,’ she reassured.
Hana’s nose wrinkled. She was far from convinced.
‘Remember I worked here all last summer.’
‘How did you find it?’ Hana twisted at her woven bracelet.
‘The homestay. Ukai, the old man, once had a share in the business that owned a chain of clubs across the city. Apparently did very well property dealing in the eighties. That was until a big deal in Guam nearly ruined him. It’s why Noru takes in foreigners. The house is their only remaining asset and the old man isn’t as well connected as he was.’
‘So they were an important family?’
Jess surprised Hana by laughing, as if the idea were ludicrous. ‘Well, let’s say influential. They’re Etahin.’
‘Etahin?’ Hana hadn’t a clue.
‘Low class,’ Jess said confidentially. Hana threaded her cotton art bag over her shoulder, engaged. Jess knew Noru and the family quite well. So they had hit hard times and Noru was whittled away by the workload and the responsibility. This all seemed to mitigate against an early move from the homestay; they would probably be relying on the income?
‘And the old man’s health has taken a dive since last year,’ Jess added unsentimentally, as if she could hear Hana weighing up her decision. And that swayed it. Hana saw she shouldn’t really contemplate moving homestay now, leaving them so early on.
On the way to the café Jess explained that she had worked with the same volunteer group as last year.
‘Yes, straight down from Fukushima.’
‘Same charity programme?’ Hana asked.
‘Same programme with the same volunteer group’ Jess conceded proudly.
Hana turned in admiration. And a memory suddenly flew to mind. One weekend last month she and Tom had walked along Regent’s Canal, and, after getting drenched in an English monsoon, once home Hana had used old newspaper to stuff Tom’s wet boots as they dried. Later, when making supper she had unfurled the paper to catch the vegetable parings, smoothing the corners until she was disturbed by a photograph under a headline. It was of a large merchant ship, a cargo vessel, resting incongruously on a landscape of debris: afloat on shards of wood, sections of wall, severed concrete platforms and flimsy girders. A sea of detritus. The bric-a-brac of a town destroyed. The vernissage of a ship – resting on kindling, once houses and stores, garden fences and scho
ols – that had now been washed clean and was drying in the sun. The caption read Tō hoku – After the tidal wave. Across the hulk was a great expansive sky of hopeful blue on a cloudless, unthreatening day; well after the force of nature had taken its random hit on the Japanese coastline. There were no harrowing details. It was majestic; a great feat of engineering resting on the fragments of a community. It presented like a life raft to a culture, the ship ashore resting easily back on the land where it had first been constructed. A huge piece of flotsam cut it loose from its securing lines by the nihilistic force of a tidal wave. It seemed to be a monument to the survival of something grander than destruction and, like a sorrow, rested heavily on the obliterated scene of what once was. In some way she did not understand, it belonged to her. She felt a kinship then with Japan that she had never before felt with such intensity. She too was a survivor of her own family tragedy.
‘That was in Fukushima,’ Jess reconfirmed.
Hana snapped out of her reverie and was immediately honest with her. ‘I couldn’t do it. You’ve seen so much.’
‘We get to see the wastelands.’ Jess conceded. ‘But you rebuild.’
Jess bordered on glib and Hana gave way to a creeping skepticism. She eyed her petite figure. Jess would be particularly ineffective in rebuilding the havoc she had seen.
‘You. You are rebuilding?’ Hana offered tentatively.
‘I don’t have a truck license,’ Jess drawled amusingly. ‘We counsel. We don’t get close to the affected communities or their grief, but we counsel the counsellors. To be more accurate, we organize their entertainment: films, music nights. As they are the ones who work with the families, day in day out and they need a programme of events to take their minds off what they have seen and heard. They need to be fresh to counsel the survivors. Many have nothing left to hold on to but the promise of that counselling.’
It was a serious choice for a summer programme. Jess held on to Hana’s admiration.
‘Last year I was also teaching at Berlitz Language School.’ She let this slip casually, as if looking for more approbation.
