‘So you work fifty-one weeks a year?’
‘Yes. That is why I am surfing all day. Not stopping for lunch.’
‘How do you stand it? Fifty-one weeks a year… Only one week to live.’ The irony of this question strikes me as I ask it. Here I am, all the time in the world, not the faintest idea how to enjoy it.
‘It is what I must do. That is my life.’
She sounds so fatalistic, serene even. I lean forward. ‘But how? How do you accept that?’ The words fall from my mouth. ‘How do you learn to stop wanting?’
‘I enjoy simple pleasures–food, company. Like you and me, here. It is pleasure talking to you, Misaki.’ She gives a shy smile.
Pleasure. ‘It is a pleasure talking to you too, Miss Iida.’ This is almost true, she is undemanding company. My eyes flicker to the platform edge. Five steps. I tune back in to find Miss Iida talking about pencils. It seems that she works in a pencil factory.
‘… Japanese pencils are best in the world,’ she says, not boastfully, but as if it is an undisputed fact.
I have never contemplated a pencil before. Never imagined a competition, real or imagined, where pencils might play a part. ‘What makes them the best?’
‘They are smooth writing, very sharp. They are pleasure to look at. Pleasure to hold.’
I like the idea of taking pleasure from something so simple. From a pencil. It seems a particularly Japanese thing to do.
We both look at our watches.
‘Train is very late now, I think?’ says Miss Iida. ‘Almost time for soba noodles.’
She is right. I pull out my timetable, check it again.
She does the same. Like mine, her timetable is crumpled and faded. It is only then that I notice the fine print down the bottom. Train service discontinues May 2004. I read it twice, disbelieving, then hold it out to her. A silent howl wells up – can I do nothing right? Why did they leave an eight-year-old train timetable in my motel room? Only a woman with a tenuous grip on reality would wait for a train on a disused station. And a Japanese tourist. I look at my companion. Aren’t the Japanese supposed to be organised?
Miss Iida laughs uproariously. ‘No train?’ She looks at the timetable in her hand. ‘I take from backpackers. I didn’t know was so old.’
I shake my head; crease the timetable in my hand. What now?
‘I will catch bus to Brisbane tomorrow, I think.’ She giggles. ‘I came down on bus, but I thought something different to go back. What about you, Misaki? Are you in hurry?’
I glance at the edge of the platform. ‘I don’t know. I thought I was. Now…’ Now I am not sure. I breathe deeply and catch a faint scent of frangipani.
‘You can catch bus too. On New Year’s Day we do something lucky. Something with friend. Then we have good year.’
‘Why not?’ Catching the bus seems as good a plan as any. I have no reason to be back in Sydney. No reason to be in Byron Bay. There are plenty of trains in Brisbane. I can jump under one any time I want.
‘My plane goes in afternoon. We can look around?’
I nod in a vague way, hedging my bets.
Miss Iida pours noodles out of a thermos into two plastic bowls, also decorated with cherry blossoms. ‘Noodles mean long life,’ she says.
We eat soba noodles, sitting on the platform. I slip them in my mouth with my chopsticks. They are salty and chewy. ‘Here’s to long life.’ Or not, as the case may be.
‘Soon we will say prayer. For peace and happiness.’ Her glasses sparkle in the station’s lights.
‘Here’s to peace and happiness.’
‘No train.’ Miss Iida giggles. ‘But I met you, Misaki.’
‘And I met you.’ I find I am smiling.
* * *
I hold my New Year’s present as Miss Iida and I walk out of the station and across to the bus stop. My seven lucky Shinto gods look a little like the seven dwarfs. They are all plump and smiling. They sit in a row on a black base, which is exactly the length of my hand.
Good things come in sevens. The seven wonders of the world, the seven dwarves, the seven colours of the rainbow, the seven stages of man, the seven deadly sins. Well, maybe bad things come in sevens too; the dance of the seven veils, the seven gates to the underworld… Is that just a coincidence? I don’t think so.
Seven is strangely significant in all religions. The world was created in seven days; the biblical Egyptians had seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. There are seven worlds in the Hindu universe, seven Chakras in the body, seven doors to the Islamic hell… This seven thing could be the tip of an iceberg. I move on.
Miss Iida inspects the timetable in the corner of the bus shelter. ‘Bus come at six am.’ We sit down. ‘Maybe?’ she adds.
The streets are quiet now. The night revellers are sleeping it off on the beach or in their beds, or those more sturdy may have climbed to the lighthouse for the sunrise. All is quiet. We could be in an alternate universe where the bus will never come. ‘Maybe,’ I agree.
Miss Iida puts out her finger and touches one of the gods. ‘Hotei, the laughing Buddha.’
Hotei is fat and happy. Just looking at him makes me smile. His plump stomach is bare.
‘You rub for good luck.’ She places her finger on Hotei’s belly.
A strong scent of flowers wafts towards me in the humid air as I rub Hotei’s belly.
‘On New Year’s Day lucky gods travel together on treasure ship, visiting houses,’ Miss Iida says as the bus sways around a corner. ‘Before go to bed, you should put picture of lucky gods under pillow. If you dream about good luck, then you will have lucky year. Don’t tell anyone your dream, or it won’t come true.’
‘Thank-you. I’ll do that.’ I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. As I sit beside her on the bus, I don’t feel anything unusual. No tingle, no presentiment. I see a round-faced, pale-skinned girl in a button-up shirt. I am too wrapped up in myself to realise what I have found. We make small talk. The usual.
‘You are married?’ she asks.
I hesitate. ‘Yes.’ Loosely speaking.
‘Children?’
‘No.’ If I had a daughter she would be about your age.
The girl regards me through her glasses. Did I speak out loud? Apparently not, as she makes no comment.
‘What is your first name, Miss Iida?’ I say as we reach the outskirts of Brisbane.
She smiles at me, exposing the gap between her teeth. ‘Haruko.’
Queen Street looks like a vision of purgatory when we get off the bus. Washed out bodies flop in cafes and slump on benches. It is New Year’s Day after all. Those who haven’t stayed up all night pondering suicide have obviously been partying hard. It is almost thirty degrees and it isn’t even ten o’clock.
Haruko and I sit down in a cafe and I put my lucky god statues on the laminex table. They have been in my hand ever since she gave them to me. I touch them with my finger, one by one while we wait for our breakfast. I pause when I get to the middle. The only goddess in this group wears pink. Her black hair is piled up on top of her head in a bun and a gold heart adorns her chest.
‘Benzaiten,’ says Haruko, as the waitress arrives with our orders. ‘She is very… amiable.’
Amiability. A most female virtue, and one that I seem to have misplaced along with my husband. I don’t like myself as much as I used to. These days I am brittle, impatient, quick to find fault.
‘Benzaiten is very brave.’ Haruko looks up from her coffee. ‘When she met dragon that was eating children, she married it and used good influence to subdue it. They have fourteen sons and one daughter.’
Amiability, fertility, and wifely competence. Yes, Benzaiten has everything I do not. She would never be so foolish as to lose her husband.
‘Sometimes she has eight arms, to protect from disaster,’ says Haruko.
‘That’s a good feature.’
We lock eyes across the table and I feel it then. A tickle. A tease. There is somethi
ng between us. Something I haven’t felt before with anyone else. Not sex. I know what that feels like. Haruko looks away. She isn’t going to let herself fall in deep with a woman who was contemplating suicide only hours before. I am certain, now, that she knew. Of course she knew.
‘How old are you, Haruko?’
‘Twenty.’
‘I just need to go to the bathroom,’ I say.
* * *
In the bathroom, I drink some water and run my hands under the tap. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. For a moment I don’t recognise myself. Can that person be me? I look deranged, bright-eyed. Haruko is twenty. I press my forehead against the mirror as it hits me.
Soon after I met David, I got pregnant. I was too young, I thought. I hadn’t finished my degree. There would be a better time. Only, as it turned out, when the time was right, when I stopped taking the pill and waited expectantly, it never happened.
While the abortion was almost painless and soon dismissed, as the infertile years went on I began to remember it more. That lost child grew in my imagination. I dreamed of a ten-year-old, a twelve-year-old, her thirteenth birthday–she was always a girl.
That phantom baby would be exactly Haruko’s age now.
My hand drops into my handbag and I pull out my lucky gods. I notice for the first time that Benzaiten looks a little like Haruko. I am yet to see Haruko in a pink kimono with her hair in a bun, but I think she might carry it off with panache.
Haruko is studying a tourist brochure when I come out. ‘Can we go to South Bank?’ she says. ‘We can catch bus.’ She looks at her watch. ‘I have four hours until plane leaves.’
We walk outside to the bus stop. Haruko turns on her iPod and inserts the ear buds while we wait.
I hear a yap. A small, white dog runs along the footpath towards us. It is peculiar looking–a mixture of breeds–with a fox-like nose and black button eyes. Its hair is short and rough. It is not wearing a collar and looks thin and unkempt. The dog approaches me, pushing its nose into the hand which holds my lucky gods. It wags its fluffy tail as a pink tongue emerges and licks Benzaiten.
‘Benzaiten rides on magical white fox. Inari.’ Haruko has taken out her ear buds and is looking at the dog. ‘Inari can take shape of human too. She is tricker but can also be good friend. Naughty Inari possesses people through fingernails.’
I note that my current companion is a girl dog – a girl dog with a very foxy face. The dog’s wet nose sniffs along my fingernails. I curl them back out of reach. ‘What happens if you are possessed by Inari?’
‘You go little mad,’ says Haruko. ‘In old times, possession by fox is most common diagnosis for lunatic.’ She doesn’t sound perturbed.
There is a roar in the distance, our bus is coming.
On the short bus ride to South Bank, Haruko falls asleep. It has been a long night. Even with her face half-squashed against the window and her glasses sliding down her nose, Haruko looks beautiful. Even in sleep, she clutches her briefcase. I wonder what else she has in there.
As if she has heard my thoughts, Haruko sits up with a start as we near our stop. She blinks and opens her briefcase. ‘I have more present for you.’ She rummages around and brings out a carefully wrapped parcel.
‘Thank-you. I wasn’t expecting that.’
Haruko smiles. ‘Open.’
I tear off the wrapping. Inside is a cloth doll. Its face and hair are drawn on with a black pen and it is wrapped in a plain blue kimono. I look at Haruko for explanation.
She smiles. ‘This doll, you throw in water, it takes bad luck with it.’
‘Thank-you Haruko.’ I am touched.
She shrugs and glances out the window. ‘It is nothing. I have more.’
I study the doll. It is going to have a heavy burden to carry.
We alight at South Bank next to the sand-lined swimming pool which masquerades as a beach. The brown and sluggish Brisbane River is in front of us. It is not long since it broke its banks; the mangroves along the edge are covered in mud.
‘Now we go for walk with doll?’ says Haruko.
I nod, although I am not sure what this might entail. We are going to throw it in the water, that much I know, the rest is a mystery.
Haruko smiles and pushes her glasses up her nose. She looks at the pool. ‘First doll, then swim. I get changed.’ She disappears into the changing room behind the swimming pool.
Five minutes later, Haruko emerges. She is wearing a blue kimono-like wrap. It must have been in her briefcase, although it is hard to imagine how. She has gathered her hair up behind her head. She smiles when she sees me. ‘Now, I am proper Japanese girl.’ She gestures at the pink pattern on the base of her wrap. ‘In Japan, will soon be cherry blossom time.’ Haruko has two more dolls dangling from her hand. She tucks her dolls inside the top of her kimono and picks up her surfboard.
Haruko and I walk along the path that leads to the river. It is busy with people dog-walking, power walking, cycling, and jogging. I don’t suppose they’ve ever seen a girl in a kimono carrying a surfboard and a briefcase before, but they try not to stare.
We walk along the riverfront path for some time. Eventually Haruko stops. ‘Here, I think.’ She puts down her surfboard and briefcase and looks over the edge. ‘Come on, Misaki.’ Haruko picks up the edge of her kimono. Beneath it she is wearing black basketball shoes. She takes my hand, her thumb brushing over my fingernails, and clambers down over the large boulders.
Soon we are perched on rocks which are half-covered by water. Haruko glances at me, then without any ceremony, flings one of her dolls into the river. It floats, rising and falling on the chop, moving slowly towards the sea.
‘Just like that?’
She nods.
‘Do I have to think of anything special?’
‘Think of bad luck floating away with it,’ says Haruko.
With a swing of my arm, I toss the doll. It rotates above the water, its blue kimono flaring, then lands with a faint splash. It bobs up and down as the river sweeps it towards the sea and soon it has vanished.
Haruko smiles. ‘Feel good?’
‘Yes.’ Somehow I do feel lighter.
Haruko is still holding her other doll. This one wears a red kimono.
‘So, what’s that one for?’
Haruko looks down at the doll as she speaks, turning it slowly in her hands. ‘In Japan, we have shrine for children who die. Or babies who aren’t born. They are called water children–mizuko.’ Her eyes flicker towards me and back to the doll. ‘Sometimes the shrine has statue of Jizo Buddha who cares for children.’ Haruko looks at me. ‘Do you want?’ She holds out the doll.
‘For me? But…’ How did Haruko know? I don’t really need to ask that question. Haruko has the lucky gods whispering in her ear. And besides, I am a forty-one-year-old woman with no child. I take the doll.
‘Just put where you want,’ says Haruko.
I place the doll in a crack between two rocks where it can see the river; a place where it won’t blow away or get wet with rain. Like a little cave. And I think about the water child who would have been the same age as Haruko.
‘Good spot,’ says Haruko. ‘Like shrine.’ She reaches inside her kimono, pulls out a red scarf and tucks it around the doll. ‘Keep spirit warm.’ She touches her hands together and bows her head briefly.
I bite the inside of my lip. ‘Thank you.’
We clamber up the rocks to the top and then walk back to the sand-lined swimming pool.
‘Now, I swim.’ Haruko peels off her kimono to reveal a pink one-piece swimsuit beneath. I settle myself on the sand while Haruko paddles, splashes and glides. She is very dainty for a surfer. Her hair stays dry.
A few metres away from me, a mother watches her child dig holes in the sand. I think of the doll in the cave on the other side of the wall and find my hands pressed together in what might be a prayer.
* * *
That evening, after Haruko has caught
her flight to Tokyo, I walk around the city streets. Brisbane comes mainly in shades of grey it seems. There are the buildings– greyish, the streets– greyish, and the river… Brisbane comes in shades of brown and grey. But as I cross the road towards the Botanic Gardens, I see a splash of vivid pink.
I keep my eye on it as I draw closer. I stop at the perimeter fence and peer through. It is a cherry tree. In full bloom. The cars behind me fade to nothing as I stare at the tree. It is at least four metres tall and its spreading branches are crowded with blossoms.
I walk up to the gate, keeping my eye on the tree to make sure it doesn’t vanish, at least half-convinced I have conjured it up from my imagination.
I walk briskly through the fence and back, half jogging, to the tree. As I get closer, I see the red tape surrounding it–not an apparition then. Someone else has noticed it, taped it off, this intruder from another hemisphere.
And then I see the security guard. He is leaning against a nearby tree, chewing gum, bored. He eyes me with mild interest. I don’t suppose I look the vandal type. I look from him back to the tree. Some of the flowers are quite low. If I reach up I could… I look back to the security guard. His eyes are still on me.
‘Can I pick one?’ I say.
He shakes his head. ‘They’re silk,’ he says.
‘Silk?’ I look back to the flowers. ‘They look real.’
‘Well, they’re not. Don’t get cherry blossoms here, do we?’
I couldn’t argue with that. ‘So, why is it here?’
‘Japanese beer commercial,’ he says. ‘Starts filming tomorrow.’
I study the tree before moving on.
That night, I follow Haruko’s instructions and draw a picture of the lucky gods. I place it under the pillow in my cheap inner city hotel room and listen to the trains go by.
If a tree full of cherry flowers can appear in the middle of a Brisbane summer, if a doll can take my bad luck with it, if noodles can give you long life, and if my name can mean beautiful blossom then who knows?
Perhaps time might bend like melted cheese.
Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 2, Issue 5 Page 7
