Tuvalu

by Andrew O'Connor

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Harry massaged his ample belly.

  ‘No. She loves black foreigners—male or female. They get the best the place has to offer. The rest of us are an economic necessity.’

  ‘You’re serious. How about that.’

  At that moment, appearing from nowhere, Lin Huang slunk past in one of her moods. As always, she appeared not to have a rumple of fat on her emaciated frame. Bones jutted out beneath her skin as they do from drought-stricken cattle, scarcely hidden by her nightgown. Her hollow face spoke of a deep mistrust and both her feet dragged beneath her dolefully, like runty animals beaten in their infancy.

  Harry gave her a warm smile. ‘Hello,’ he said. But she dropped her head and hurried on upstairs, arms clasping tightly at her torso.

  ‘You’ll get used to her,’ I said. ‘She’s in the room opposite us. I don’t know why you’ve been put up there with me. It’s sort of the International Floor. Nakamura-san normally puts the Americans downstairs.’

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t consider Hawaii part of America.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You know,’ he said without warning, ‘I’m thinking about working my way into international trade.’ Harry began examining random objects with the fierce but fleeting interest of a child—a Japanese magazine, a power point, an empty Asahi ‘Aqua Blue’ beer can. ‘I just need to find things I can—’ he broke off mid-sentence and peered behind the TV, but seemed not to discover anything especially novel.

  ‘Find?’

  ‘Ideas. I’ve got plenty of capital,’ he said, ‘presuming the damn banks get on and make my transfer. What is it with the banks here?’

  ‘They’re not easy.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘soon I’m going to export those toilet seats, the ones at the airport—the heated ones. They’re perfect. I have a friend who’s a builder. He’ll include them in his projects as a sort of extra.’ He paused. ‘What about this place? Any hidden gems?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Mind showing me around anyway?’

  ‘What, now? Okay.’

  I started the tour by leading him down to the basement—dark and dank. Ground water had seeped through thin walls and stale air hung thickly. I pointed out splotches of black, tumour-like moss on the roof and other discolourations smattered across the plaster. Harry nodded at each, then pulled at a tattered cord hanging from the ceiling. He stared expectantly at the room’s one bare bulb as if, being Japanese, it might prove saleable. It remained dead and he shrugged.

  ‘Smells musty,’ he said.

  ‘This is the kitchen section.’ I pointed out a rectangular gas stove atop a rickety card table. Harry examined it carefully. He turned all the buttons, one at a time, then picked at blackened noodles scorched to the metal and made unintelligible observations. Inside the griller he found only flakes of aluminium, melted cheese and rubbery chunks of meat.

  ‘What about that?’ he asked, pointing to the basement’s only other feature—a ping-pong table. It stood unevenly in a far corner of the room. Missing a leg, this table looked set to collapse at any moment, though in truth it was still quite stable. Moisture had curled the corners of the playing surface, giving it the look of a bizarre Asian antique. The net had been stolen, and both poles had been snapped off and tossed to one side like discarded butter knives.

  ‘That’s for ping-pong, but there aren’t any bats.’

  We made our way back up the creaky staircase to the American Floor. The rapper 50 Cent roared inside one room but there were no gangstas when we passed, only a weedy, pale boy shooting monsters on a PC. Further up the corridor a fat, black woman and middle-aged man with a basketball were attempting to compile a list of actors with the initials D.Z.

  ‘Notes of interest on the American Floor,’ I said softly. ‘They have the TV room, obviously. They also have sinks in their rooms. And one or two of them have balconies. We have nothing like that.’

  We climbed another set of stairs to the International Floor. These stairs were in worse repair than those coming from the basement. I pointed out that one or two of the steps were broken, leaving gaping holes which were difficult to remember when drunk. Harry climbed the last step and came to a halt beside me, panting. We stared along the stark grey corridor.

  ‘Welcome to the International Floor,’ I said, just as Moaning Man stepped from his room.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Harry asked.

  ‘We call him Moaning Man. We suspect he’s related to Nakamura-san. Otherwise it’s hard to see why she’d put up with him. Normally he just sits and smokes or walks round the block.’

  Moaning Man set off in his usual strolling gait. He only ever broke this stroll to slap a wall, normally with the sole of his shoe.

  ‘Is he dangerous?’

  ‘Moaning Man? No,’ I said without conviction. ‘He’s harmless. He lives in his own little world, although walls irritate him.’

  Moaning Man passed us, mumbling to himself and lighting a cigarette. His name—which was used by the entire hostel—was a misnomer. His moans contained words. He was perpetually engaged in conversation with himself and now seemed displeased with everything he had to say. His face was set in the deep frown of a man waiting anxiously to counter sustained reproof.

  ‘Don’t ever stand between Moaning Man and a nasty wall,’ I said, with a small smile.

  ‘How am I meant to know which walls are nasty?’

  ‘There’s no way to tell. Assume all walls are nasty.’

  Behind us Moaning Man booted a wall and shouted at it.

  We hurried on, stopping when we reached the bathroom.

  ‘This is the only bathroom in the place,’ I said. ‘There’s a urinal on the American Floor, tucked inside a sort of broom closet. But for everything else, you have to come up here.’

  The taps interested Harry. He examined each in turn, then tried to straighten a crooked wall mirror.

  ‘It’s filthy,’ he said.

  Having been in the hostel a year, I had grown used to what Harry now recoiled at: permanent stains inside the pit toilet, black hair-like grit around the plugholes and mould between every tile. None of it overly perturbed me, except perhaps for toe-prints gouged from the layer of grey slime in the shower recess.

  ‘Get shower shoes,’ I said. ‘And now, if you’ll follow me down this corridor to the grand finale …’

  My grand finale was nothing more impressive than a bulky vending machine. It sat at the end of the International Floor corridor. Leading Harry to it, I explained the unit had a right to feel cheated. There were over six million vendors in Japan, which meant six million possible locales. Yet this old machine had been placed in a sort of vending machine purgatory. No one used it, but no one wanted to scrap it, either.

  ‘Left to rot, it’s become somewhat confused,’ I said. ‘It rejects 1000 yen notes and can’t recognise the newer 500 yen coin. Often it gives out Diet Coke instead of CC Lemon, or Pokari Sweat instead of Aquarius. And that’s if it does anything at all, which normally it doesn’t. I should add, though, it’s been known to give out large amounts of loose change. So if you like to gamble, it beats those yakuza casinos in Shinjuku.’

  ‘That’s it?’ he asked, laughing. ‘That’s your grand finale? There’s no temple or anything?’

  ‘Welcome to Nakamura’s.’

  Harry suggested we celebrate my tour with a drink. I tried to include Phillip but he was absorbed in lacquering a new model—a small biplane—and wanted nothing to do with me. Probably he was still upset. He seemed to have taken my eating noodles with Mami as a slight, and I regretted sharing the detail.

  It was already dark out. Harry and I walked quickly to keep warm, arms folded. Since we had no idea where we wanted to go we quickly ended up in side streets which offered little hope of a salubrious bar. Most bars around here, I suspected, would include feminine company in the drink bill. I explained this to Harry and he listened with interest as a woman on an unadorned, single-gear bicycle, wearing
a pleated skirt and conservative high heels, overtook us in the half-light. An intelligent-looking child wrapped in a red coat sat in the booster seat behind her. This child, eyes blank but seeing all, reminded me of a palace guard.

  ‘And these bars are really everywhere?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Snack bars? Yeah.’

  ‘Are they brothels?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve told you pretty much all I know, sorry.’

  Harry looked frustrated by my haziness. He lined up a lidless plastic bottle, but when he tried to kick it his small foot and stumpy leg sailed harmlessly over top. He stumbled forward and the bottle rolled once, mockingly. Above us an old man taking in his washing paused to watch, so I took a short run and booted the bottle up the empty street, listening to the hollow rattle.

  ‘That’s how you kick it!’ I yelled.

  ‘Thanks,’ Harry called, running after it, then changing his mind and turning. ‘Hey,’ he called back, ‘since we can’t find a normal bar, let’s just go to one of those bars with women.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. They’re not my scene. Anyway, I can’t afford ichi man en for a bottle of cheap whisky.’

  Harry was confused by the number. ‘How much is that in US dollars?’

  ‘About a hundred.’

  He shrugged as if this was no expense, and walked on ahead.

  A moment later, somewhere in a room high above me, a woman cried out, not in fear but happily, as if play-fighting or lovemaking. It stopped me dead. I wondered if I had even heard it—it was that kind of fleeting, otherworldly sound. At home people’s lives had been tucked away inside two-storey forts, but here they hung out over me, carried by coughs or small children crying, by silhouettes passing behind closed curtains—even by blaring TV sets. There were literally thousands of people surrounding me and I wanted to linger, to peer into one lit room after another. But the idea of skulking on the edge of other people’s happiness only exacerbated my loneliness. I thought of Mami’s hotel room, how appealing it was to look in on a life and how different to step inside.

  Irritated by the thought, I jogged to catch up to Harry.

  To my surprise Harry attached himself to me. I became his letter of introduction to far more than just the hostel. Three days after meeting him I watched him pull a saucer from the conveyor belt, position both chopsticks in his left hand with his right and, like a man arranging a puppet, try to find a hold on a portion of tuna.

  ‘We’ve kind of become good friends, haven’t we?’ he said.

  I nodded, thinking how little I knew him.

  ‘Then I want to make you an offer.’ His voice was businesslike. ‘The fact is, I need a small loan and I’m in a position to offer an excellent rate of return. Normally I’d go through a financial institution. This is not how I operate. But I’m eating with chopsticks and nothing is normal.’

  We were in a small sushi restaurant. The tall wooden stool upon which I sat, feet off the ground, was rickety. I felt as if it might collapse at any moment. The boy preparing rice behind the U-shaped conveyor belt—moulding it into rectangles with practiced, wet hands—threw me frequent, nervous glances.

  ‘This loan would be short term,’ Harry continued. ‘Three days tops.’ He sipped at his steaming green tea and his eyes hardened.

  ‘How much do you need?’ It was my intention to plead poverty after hearing a figure—any figure.

  ‘No more than 20,000 yen. This morning I learnt the transfer from America will take three days. I should have brought more cash. I’ll repay you 25,000 for the favour of a three-day loan.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be necessary,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘I insist. I don’t want to hassle with a foreign bank, and even if I do they’ll ask for something like that. Why not give it to you?’

  I nodded, unconvinced, and tried to think of a way to let him down.

  ‘Then we have an agreement?’ he asked.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Only if you’re comfortable with it.’

  I ran some rudimentary figures in my head. I had saved almost 350,000 yen living in Nakamura’s. What Harry wanted was only a small portion of this total, but instinct told me to decline. The problem was I felt somewhat awkward turning him down over lunch. I would be trapped with him afterwards and it seemed easier to buy a speedy end to the matter.

  ‘It’d be a pleasure,’ I said at last. ‘I’ll give you the money tonight.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate that. I can’t believe the banking over here. I have a card, but I can’t get it to work in a single Japanese ATM. How about that.’

  ‘I’ve had the same problems moving money,’ I said. It’s common when you first arrive. Like I said, I’m happy to help.’

  I was not at all happy to help, but could see no way out of it. Harry nodded. He seemed to be planning what he would say next—selecting his words in advance and running them through his head silently.

  ‘I’m moving a smaller portion first—to live on—then a larger portion later in the month. The latter will take a hell of a lot of organising, but it’s a better rate. It is worth the fuss since I’m bringing over my life savings.’

  To this I said nothing. Harry struggled to get a slab of tuna to his mouth. Having raised it halfway he dropped it, and a portion of rice fell to the floor, breaking into pieces as it went, like a tiny snowball. Neither of us moved to clean it up. I focused on a pile of empty, stacked plates, counting and recounting them. The sum total seemed to be different each time.

  Now that my gesture was made I felt I had been cheated. I looked around as if for witnesses. There were only three other customers in the restaurant: a salaryman, his ugly middle-aged wife and their thin but voracious teenage son. All three were seated on the opposite side of the conveyor belt. They shovelled sushi into their mouths and chewed like cattle, eyes inert, jaws moving in methodical circles.

  ‘There’s definitely money in sushi,’ Harry said.

  Suddenly I wanted to be left alone. There was something unsettling about his constant talk of money. I thought about retracting the impulsive offer, but could not. I stood up. ‘Let me get the bill,’ I said, trying to soften the effect of such an unexpected departure.

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘I have to, sorry. I forgot something.’

  ‘Well, I might stay on a while,’ he said, remaining seated. ‘I’ll get the bill.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  We shook hands.

  I wandered back towards the hostel, stopping at a stand to buy skewered chicken so I would not have to venture out a second time for food. The enormous, grinning man inside thought he knew me, presumably having mistaken me for some other, significantly more social foreigner. Waving off smoke from the grill he asked after my daughter in broken but confident English.

  ‘She’s well,’ I said, as it began to rain.

  He gave me a free skewer, fresh off the grill.

  ‘For the daughter,’ he said.

  Walking on, the pavement steadily darkening, sauce spilt from the skewer onto my shirt and I swore, trying to wipe it off before it seeped through the material. All the way back, people crossed the street at the sight of my enraged face, and my mood was in no way improved by the arrival of a letter from home.

  My father never embraced the internet or e-mail. His neat, handwritten letters always arrived in the same bland envelopes with a pretentious wax seal that read ‘Charles and Diane Tuttle’. My father believed in those wax seals almost as firmly as he believed in God. He could not post even a card without first putting it in an envelope, stamping it with the seal and protecting it against all evil.

  Every letter was more or less the same. Penned in his firm but cursive hand, they opened with a sort of stilted disclaimer. Something like: ‘Please do not take the following as indication I have rejected your perspective outright. I have not. However—’

  After this opening he was invariably limited to a single page.
One A4 sheet onto which he crammed lectures on God, the church, marriage, family and the exact state of my beleaguered soul. Souls fascinated my father. Somehow—and it really did puzzle me how—he melded them into his assessment of all things. Shortly after I fled to Japan, he wrote:

  Japan is a well-developed nation boasting an admirable standard of living, but its origins cannot be ignored. Save for its small Christian (non-Catholic) population, it is, at heart, a heathen country. It will do little to steel your soul and much to coax it awry.

  Needless to say I never replied to such musings. And since he had little space for day-to-day news, we had fallen out of touch.

  I read the letter lying on my bed listening to the tick of my plastic wall-clock. I always opened my father’s letters beneath this clock. That way, afterwards, I could follow its steady tick until my fury abated (sometimes I even managed to put my worries so far out of mind I fell asleep to the sound). Around me the hostel room was neat and smelt clean. In one corner there was a broom and dustpan, into which I had swept a large pile of hair, dust and grit. The wax seal crumbled.

  Dear Noah,

  Your mother is presently missing. This is the only way I have to contact you. Please ring. Please come home immediately.

  Sincerely,

  Your father

  I sat up. I considered for a moment, distractedly, the likelihood of my mother having been abducted. Stranger things had happened in the world. Of this much I was certain. But I could not believe anyone would want to abduct my mother. The letter made no sense. I kicked over the dustpan, outraged at the thought of returning home. Then, worried and wanting news, I rang my father. His voice, when the call finally connected, sounded familiar, despite my not having heard it in two years.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, swapping the receiver to my opposite ear. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Noah?’

  ‘Dad. Hi.’ I did not want to ask how he was. It seemed an asinine question considering the letter. But without this familiar starting point I could not think where to begin. My jaw kept opening suddenly, only to close, like a fish in the final throes of death.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ I asked eventually. There was a long silence.