The Snow Kimono

by Mark Henshaw

  You’re wrong, he said again. I am absolutely sure it was at Serge’s.

  The young woman looked at her companion, her mouth open, her dismissed hand still raised.

  Merde, she said. She cuffed his shoulder. Why are you such a jerk, Frédéric? She looked at Jovert, shrugged her shoulders.

  It’s okay, he mouthed.

  He looked across the road to the dark archway of rue de Lesdiguières. He would be better off taking the long way home, he thought, walking through the deserted back streets, where he did not have to contend with arseholes like this.

  Twenty minutes later, when he turned the corner of rue St Paul and stepped out into rue St Antoine, Omura was standing in front of their building. He had his notebook out. He was flipping through its pages. Jovert saw him peer at the notebook, then at the keypad; watched him plug in his security code. The door opened and Omura disappeared inside.

  Then Jovert was standing outside the same door, punching in his own security code. He listened for the familiar click. Pushed the door open. The light over the lift was on. The door was ajar. He stepped in and pushed the button. As the lift began to ascend, it half-crossed his mind that Omura might be waiting for him outside his apartment. But when he arrived at his floor and stepped out into the corridor, the hallway was empty.

  Chapter 4

  THREE days later, there was a knock at his door.

  Ah, Inspector, Omura said when he opened it.

  Professor Omura.

  Omura. Just Omura, please, Omura said.

  Omura.

  Would you care to join me for dinner, Inspector?

  Professor Omura, Jovert said, that is very kind. Thank you. But I am exhausted. He looked down at his leg, held out one of his crutches. Perhaps anoth—

  I have booked a table for us, Omura said. You would be my guest. I would be honoured by your presence.

  Jovert looked at Omura’s smiling face. In a way he could not quite explain, he was aware that the decision whether to go or not had already been made for him, that the present moment contained the next, the moment in which he would reach for his coat and step out into the corridor to follow Omura down the hallway to the waiting lift. He was surprised, however, by how simply he had been caught.

  My coat, he said.

  He reached behind the door, handed his crutches to Omura, and stood on one leg pulling his coat on. He gestured with his hand for Omura to lead the way.

  Please, he said.

  Outside, it was raining again. A cool wind had sprung up. Jovert stood in the lee of the building adjusting his collar. Omura opened his umbrella, held it above Jovert’s head. The remnants of the evening rush hour, heads bowed, brushed past them.

  It’s supposed to be summer, Jovert said. Look at this weather.

  Omura nodded, looked about.

  There were tiny specks of rain on Omura’s glasses. He was holding his hat against his head with his left hand. Jovert could see two nicotine-stained fingers and the speckled skin on the back of Omura’s hand. His skin was so translucent he could see through it to the white bones and the fine network of veins beneath.

  This way, Inspector, Omura said.

  Twenty-five minutes later they stepped up out of the Metro onto the twilit streets of Belleville. This was an area Jovert knew well. It was the Algerian part of town. The rain had ceased, but the roadways were still glassy. They had barely crossed the intersection when Omura retrieved a small blue guidebook from his coat pocket. They were standing at the entrance to a narrow elbow-kinked street. At its far end, where it disappeared, a series of neon lights were blinking on and off. Their reflection spilled down the roadway to where the two of them stood. Above their heads, a familiar sinuous melody wound its way into the night.

  One moment, Professor Omura, he said. Where, exactly, are we going?

  Not far, Inspector. Just a few steps. Omura pointed to the row of neon lights.

  Yes, yes, Jovert said. He could hear the irritation in his voice. But which restaurant are we going to?

  Le Sétif, Omura said.

  Le Sétif! Jovert almost shouted. A man and a young woman walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street looked across at them. He saw the man’s arm come up to the woman’s shoulder, registered the soft collision of their bodies as he pulled her closer.

  Why Le Sétif? he said. Why there?

  It was the one recommended, Omura said.

  Recommended? Recommended by whom?

  Not by whom, Inspector.

  He reached into his inside pocket again and pulled out the guidebook. He flipped through its pages until he came to an entry which had been asterisked in red.

  See, he said, tapping the page. Le Sétif—best Algerian food. Best service. Best value. Four stars.

  Jovert took the book from him. He read the entry.

  But why there, of all places?

  I do not understand, Inspector.

  Why Le Sétif? Why Algerian?

  The other night. You said you had spent some time in Algeria. I myself have not eaten food from this part of the world.

  And that’s the only reason?

  The only reason, Inspector.

  He stood thinking about what Omura had said.

  I’m sorry, Omura, he said eventually. I can’t go there. An unhappy coincidence. Is there somewhere else?

  In the end, they went to Le Chapeau Tombé, a restaurant on the other side of town, somewhere far from the tainted streets of Belleville, somewhere Jovert took his associates. Used to take.

  Jovert recalled later that, immediately the waiter had left, Omura began asking him questions: about his life, his past, what he had done, where he had been. There was a peculiar urgency about it, a directness he had found unnerving.

  Were you ever married, Inspector? Omura asked.

  Once.

  May I ask what happened?

  We…we grew apart, he said.

  And children?

  Yes, one.

  A daughter?

  No, a son.

  Jovert shifted in his seat. He glanced across at a young woman who was sitting alone by the window. She was wearing a red scarf. Her hair was freshly cut. Her skin lightly tanned. She was twisting a ring distractedly on one of her fingers. He saw her look at her watch. She leaned forward on her elbows, looked out the window, first one way, then the other. The street outside was deserted. It had begun to rain again.

  And you see your son often? Omura asked. He lives in Paris?

  No.

  No?

  No, Jovert said evenly. He’s dead. He died as a child.

  Omura paused.

  I’m so sorry, Inspector. I did not know, he said.

  Now it was Omura’s turn to look away.

  You know, Inspector, he said after some minutes, when I was a child, my father loved jigsaw puzzles. This may strike you as odd in a grown man. But jigsaws mean something different for us. Ours is
an ancient tradition, quite distinct from what you have here in Europe. Each piece of a puzzle is considered individually. No shape is repeated, unless for some special purpose. Some pieces are small, others large, but all are calculated to deceive, to lead one astray, in order to make the solution of the puzzle as difficult, as challenging, as possible. In our tradition, how a puzzle is made, and how it is solved, reveals some greater truth about the world. Puzzles are not toys to us, but objects of contemplation. Do you understand what I mean?

  I think so, Jovert said.

  In any case, my father was fascinated by them. He was a connoisseur, an expert. He had a huge collection. All of them from China or Japan. He had a number of extremely rare, one-of-a-kind puzzles that were centuries old. They were beautiful things, made from combinations of exotic woods, with inlays of ivory, or mother of pearl, or gold and enamel. They were works of art in their own right, exquisite things.

  But the puzzles my father prized above all others were the ones he loved for the ingenuity of their construction. Perhaps you have heard of them. They are the so-called himitsu-e puzzles, puzzles so cunningly made that they have either an infinite number of solutions or solutions which are mutually contradictory.

  Then, one day—I must have been eleven or twelve at the time—my father came home waving a magazine about above his head. He called for my mother and me to come and look at what he had bought. I can still see us gathered around him, looking at an advertisement in the magazine for European jigsaw puzzles.

  Five thousand pieces, he was saying. Five thousand! Can you imagine that?

  He sent away for one. While he was waiting, he even had a wooden box specially made for it.

  In the intervening weeks our whole household became caught up in my father’s excitement. I think we all began to pace to and fro with him as he waited. Finally he received a message from the post office that a package had arrived, and he set off to fetch it.

  An hour later, my father came home carrying a large carefully wrapped carton in his outstretched arms, as though it was an offering.

  We all crowded round while my father placed it on the table. I can see him sitting there contemplating it.

  Aren’t you going to open it? my mother asked.

  Shh, my father said, holding up his hand.

  You know, it makes me laugh now. I remember when my father eventually unwrapped the box how impressed he had been with the beautiful picture of water-lilies on its lid.

  You would have to know my father, Omura said. You see, after he had emptied the contents out onto the table, in a state of ecstasy, seeing the enormous pile of pieces in front of him, he handed me the box they had come in.

  Here, Tadashi, he said. You can have this.

  My poor, dear father.

  He was so agitated, and so unfamiliar with how one put such puzzles together that his first, tentative efforts to assemble it were agonisingly laborious. He spent ages contemplating individual pieces, turning them this way and that, saying: Look at this, look at this. Then later, much later, when the picture began to emerge, he could barely contain himself. Until, of course, it dawned on him.

  Tadashi, Tadashi, I remember him calling.

  Yes, Father, I said, when I arrived.

  What did you do with the box?

  At first I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  The box that contained the puzzle, he said.

  I brought it to him. He sat for a long time looking at the picture on the cover and the partially completed puzzle that lay before him. He seemed unable to believe that they were the same.

  You cannot comprehend how disillusioned he was. The fact that these images were identical went against everything he had ever understood about jigsaw puzzles.

  The experience changed my father. He went back to the jigsaws he had known all his life. Then, one day, these too he put away. He had become obsessed with the idea that lay behind these mass-produced European puzzles.

  No matter where you start, he said. You always end up in the same place. And you always know beforehand.

  I think he felt trapped.

  Perhaps, Father, I said, there’s another way of looking at it. Perhaps it means something like this—it doesn’t matter where you start, if you keep going, you will always find completion. What is important is that you start.

  I thought that this would appeal to his way of thinking. Instead, a strange sort of pessimism seemed to take hold of him.

  What if what you discover, Tadashi, is not what you want to know? he said.

  And I had no answer for this.

  When Omura finished telling him about his father, Jovert found that, as if by magic, their meals were already there in front of them. He glanced over to where the young woman had been sitting. But she was no longer there. Her empty chair was pushed back from the table as if she had only just got up. A half-drunk glass of wine stood beside her untouched plate. He could just make out a faint smudge of lipstick at its rim.

  When they left the restaurant, the wind had died down. The rain had eased. Light still trickled in the gutters.

  I thought you might have asked about the girl, Omura said.

  They were standing at the corner of rue du Jardinet. On the truncated end of the building facing them was an enormous billboard. It showed a woman’s face. Beneath her lips, a telephone number. Call me, it said.

  What girl? Jovert said.

  The girl on the ice.

  Jovert stood looking at Omura. The street was empty. The sounds of the city had retreated.

  What would you have done? Omura said.

  What do you mean, Professor Omura?

  Would you have gone on? When I first heard the axe falling, I had a choice. I could have turned around and gone back. I already knew, instinctively, that this was no place for me. If it had been you, what would you have done?

  I don’t know, he said.

  Jovert had never liked conversations like these, conversations he did not control, which reversed the natural order of things.

  But you must know, Omura said abruptly.

  Why must I know? Jovert replied. It’s got nothing to do with me.

  Jovert watched as a gust of wind scooped up a plastic bag lying in the gutter opposite. Its ghostly form swept up through the lamp light. For a moment, it skimmed back and forth across the façade of the building opposite, as though it was pursuing something. Then, without warning, it shot up into the sky above their heads and disappeared.

  Rain had begun to mist down again.

  Listen, Omura, Jovert said. I don’t mean to be rude, but why are you asking me this?

  How else am I to know, Inspector? he said. In Japan, we have a saying: If you want to see your life, you have to see it through the eyes of another. Perhaps you can help me. And I can help you.

  What do you mean—help me? he said. Help in what way?

  That is for you to decide, Inspector.

  And if I don’t want your help, Professor Omura?

  Omura stood looking into the funnelling darkness.

  You? You hav
e no choice, Inspector. Not now. Why do you resist?

  Resist, he said. What, exactly, am I resisting?

  I do not know, Inspector, Omura said calmly. Perhaps one day you will tell me.

  Jovert could see that hundreds of tiny droplets of water had begun to gather on Omura’s shoulders, and the crown of his hat. He watched the nimbussed headlights of a taxi approach from further down the street. The taxi slowed for a moment. He caught a glimpse of the driver’s face turned briefly towards them before it sped on.

  And, Professor Omura, if I ask you to leave me alone? What then?

  Then, of course, Inspector. I will leave you alone. If that is what you want.

  Now, standing on this dimly lit corner, with rain misting down, Jovert felt the events of the last few days descend upon him like a weight. The night had been long. His shoulders were aching. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight.

  I am sorry, Professor Omura. I do not know what you want from me. But please, please, leave me alone.

  As you wish, Inspector.

  With this, Jovert stepped out from beneath Omura’s umbrella. He poled himself across the intersection and up onto the pavement on the other side. Kept going. He could see his projected shadow on the wall of the building opposite folding and unfolding like a giant calliper. When he got to the end of the street, he glanced back. Omura was still standing in the middle of the empty intersection. He had his notebook out. Half a dozen leaves were swirling eerily above his head. He could almost hear Omura saying: Four days, Inspector. I give you four days.

  Chapter 5

  FOUR days, Inspector. I give you four days. If Omura had said that, he was wrong. It was three weeks before Jovert saw him again.

  Later, Jovert asked himself why. Why had he waited so long? Not that he couldn’t guess. In his experience, strangers turning up on your doorstep, unannounced and uninvited, never augured well. How many times had he had to do this himself, knock on someone’s door? The bearer of bad tidings. Your son. Your daughter, husband, child. He no island of solace in a sea of weeping. Unable to take back the forever time-locked moment. How long did you wait before you went? Was there ever long enough?