But I didn’t. My head was full of Sachi.
Other customers came and left, staying just long enough to have their noodles and pay for them. It was a functional place, after all. But Lily wanted to talk and we chatted through the afternoon, mostly about her apartment. She was delighted with her new home and gave me all the credit, as if I’d built it for her with my own hands. She told me of all the little things she’d bought—a mosquito-killing machine, a rice cooker. I listened but I was not enjoying myself in this uncomfortable clashing of my life’s zones. I wanted to get Lily out of the shop, but Teiji was there. I couldn’t leave him. My fingertips twitched, as they do when I’m annoyed, and I kept them pressed hard against the table leg.
At about five o’clock Teiji finished work and suggested we go for a beer together. I willed Lily to refuse, but knew she wouldn’t. Since meeting Lucy she seemed to have no need for other friends.
“I think Lily wants to get back home.”
“No, no. I’d love to go for a drink. Is there a bar near here?”
Teiji nodded. I was irritated but the only way out would be for me to go home alone. I wanted to be with Teiji so I couldn’t leave. Teiji seemed happy for Lily to join us. I wondered if he was afraid of being alone with me, scared that I would start to ask about Sachi again.
We walked out into daylight and Teiji led us to an izakaya, a large bar with long low tables and tatami floors. We slipped off our shoes and stepped up into the dark room. Several waiters shouted their welcomes to us and one led us to a corner table. Teiji and I sat at one side, Lily at the other. We ordered large bottles of beer and a bowl of salty green soybeans. When the food and drink arrived, Lily’s eyes were shining.
“Have you been out much in Tokyo, Lily?” I asked, knowing that she hadn’t.
“Not really. I’m working in the bar almost every afternoon and evening. I don’t like to go out with colleagues all the time either so… Now I’m living by myself, though, it’s a bit lonely sometimes. Not that I don’t like my apartment or anything, I love it.” She smiled gratefully at me. “The other people I meet are all teachers, you know. You’ve met some of them, of course. Bob’s nice. I don’t think we’ve got much in common, though. I mean, you’re a translator, I know, but you’re different. Maybe it’s because we come from the same place.”
I explained to Teiji, through a tense jaw, that Lily and I were from the same part of the same county. This seemed to interest him, though he was fast becoming drunk and unfocused, as was Lily. It takes more than a couple of glasses of beer to affect Lucy and so I drank heartily to catch up with them. Teiji said to Lily, “You don’t seem like other foreigners in Japan.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I think you weren’t so ready to come here. Perhaps you were happier at home.”
“I wasn’t happy at home, but it’s true, I’m different from the other Westerners I meet. They’re brainier.”
Neither of us refuted the observation, but Teiji stared at her thoughtfully.
“You were a nurse in Britain? That takes skills not many people have.”
“Perhaps.”
“You must be very patient, and very practical.”
“I do try. I don’t always get it right of course. I miss the hospital though, lots.”
“But working in a bar. That’s not so bad, is it? I think it’s a good kind of work. The noodle shop gives me all the time I need for thinking because my body just gets on with the job by itself.”
“I’m so bad at bar work. I have to concentrate all the time, otherwise I’d be even worse.”
They talked more, but I have no idea where the conversation went next. I was surprised by Teiji. He’d never told me about his love for mopping floors and washing up. We didn’t discuss such mundane notions. We talked about typhoons, volcanoes, about the light on a winter morning. Mostly, I think, we didn’t talk. And that was my favorite thing. Not talking. Not feeling the need to fill up beautiful and valuable silences with unnecessary noise.
Lily was a chatterbox. I’d wanted her to make me ordinary in front of Teiji—talking about everyday things—so he’d forget my act of treachery. Instead, in taking on Teiji in conversation, she was making him into something ordinary. I didn’t like it—for me Teiji was made of magic—so I didn’t listen. I settled into thinking about Lily in her white uniform, tending to patients in a hospital ward. She would have seen deadly illnesses, bloody injuries, grief. From nowhere the seven brothers marched into my mind with their fishing nets, and then Noah’s final trip to the hospital with his blood-matted curls, though he was almost dead. The doctors and nurses rushed and fought to save his life. They fought with all their might, but they lost. And somewhere from the battlefield a nurse was coming to take Lucy away, a beautiful nurse with crinkly eyes.
“Did you ever have to deal with dead children?” The question slipped out.
Teiji stared at me. He looked as if something had stuck in his throat. Lily was unfazed.
“Yes. Dead everything, really. It’s my job. That doesn’t make it easy when a kid dies, but—” She sipped her beer and frowned.
“But?”
“I can’t remember what I was going to say. This beer’s gone right to my head. I’m pissed.”
“Me too.”
If Teiji was alarmed by my question, he soon recovered. He was now laughing. His face was pink from the alcohol. He looked as if he’d been tickled. I had never seen him even slightly tipsy before and I felt confused. He was relaxed and his smile was sweet but it was different from the smile I knew. I touched his cheek with the backs of my fingers. His skin was burning. He took my wrist to keep my hand in place.
“You’re very hot, Teiji.”
“Yes. I have too much to drink and then I boil up. I need air to cool me down again. Let’s go somewhere else for the next drink. I’d like to sit in the park.”
“Is there a park near here?” Lily practically squealed.
“Not especially near,” Teiji replied, “but it’s nice outside. We can walk.”
Night had fallen while we were in the bar. In Yoyogi Park we sat on plastic bags from a convenience store and stacked cans of beer around us. We opened packages of small rice crackers with tiny dried fish and spread them on the grass. The lights from the city twinkled through the high trees. Lily watched and began to sing.
“Sometimes I walk away, when all I really wanna do—”
“You’ve got a nice voice.” My compliment was genuine. Her singing voice was rich and pure, without a trace of the whine she used when she spoke.
“Thanks—is love and hold you right. There is just one thing I can say…”
“This is a perfect summer evening.” I lay back on the grass and let the insects feed on my blood.
“It’s all right. Can’t you see—the downtown lights.”
“Downtown lights,” Teiji murmured. “In every city in the world. I’d like to see London’s downtown lights.”
Lily piped up, “So would I. I’ve only been to London twice and both times I was there in the daytime. But I’ve never seen city lights like Tokyo’s before. So big and so bright. All those big words everywhere, flashing on and off. What I like best is when city lights are shining on water, you know, when it’s raining, or if there’s a river in the city. I love that.”
Teiji put his arm around me and with his other hand reached for a beer and snapped it open, handed it to me, kissed the side of my neck. I thought of Sachi’s neck, long and soft.
“Singing is good,” Teiji announced. “It’s like breathing from a deep place, not your lungs but your spirit. I don’t know any English songs, though, except the Beatles and I haven’t learned the words to those.”
I’d never heard him sing before, or say that he wanted to. But then, I’d never heard his speech slur with drunkenness before, either.
“Teach me a Japanese song.” Lily was standing now, swaying a little as she sipped from her can. “I want to learn a Japanese song
.”
Teiji closed his eyes and I thought he was drifting off into his own world. After a few seconds he opened them, smiled at Lily.
“All right. I’ll teach you an easy one. Everyone in Japan knows this song.”
And, slowly, the three of us sang “Ue o Muite Arukou” together. Lily couldn’t grasp the words but sang loudly with meaningless approximations and didn’t listen when I tried to translate the meaning for her.
Ue o muite
Arukou,
“Walk with your face upward,” I chopped in.
Namidaga koborenaiyou ni,
“So as not to let the tears fall,”
Omoidasu, haru no hi,
Hitori botchi no yoru.
“When, on a lonely evening, you are reminded of a spring day.” I repeated the last line in my head. “Or is it the other way around? It’s difficult to translate.”
Lily didn’t mind what the lyrics were, but she sang several times.
“I’m really too drunk.” Teiji opened another can of beer and started the next verse of the song.
“Let’s walk around. The night is beautiful.” Lily spun on her heels and giggled.
We collected our things and began to walk. As we stood I noticed that Teiji had left his camera on the ground. He never forgot his camera. I picked it up and slung it around my neck. I would produce it when he noticed it was missing. Lily started to sing again and Teiji tried to correct her mistakes.
Behind them, I slipped the lens cap off the camera, raised the camera to my eye and, though it was harder to focus my own eyes than it was to focus the lens, I managed to catch them both in the square of the viewfinder. The flash was bright but they continued walking and singing as if they’d noticed nothing. I put the camera away and chased after Teiji. Suddenly it seemed vital that I return it to him.
Now I have changed my mind and I see that it was probably this photograph in Yoyogi Park, rather than the one in the noodle shop, that was my downfall. Or else Lucy is too superstitious, looking for clues in everything when in fact there are none in anything.
In the early hours of the morning we were walking the streets, following a road uphill toward Teiji’s apartment. Lily kept falling to the ground and saying she would sleep on the pavement and we were not to worry. Each time, we picked her up between us and hauled her a few steps farther. Lily was not heavy but alcohol had depleted Teiji’s usual strength and coordination. He kept walking into me and I found I was doing most of the work. Teiji spotted a small dolly at the side of the road, the kind used for moving boxes around a warehouse or unloading goods from a van. He motioned for me to follow him. We lifted Lily onto it and pushed her farther up the road. Her head rolled backward and her red tuft of hair hung over the side of the platform. Her legs and arms seemed to fall in every direction. She looked like a crushed spider. The sky was the prickly darkness of early morning just before dawn.
Five minutes later Lily was walking again and I was lying on the dolly. By the time we reached the top of the street, the sky was lighter and now I was pushing the dolly with Teiji and Lily squashed on it together. I stopped to rest and enjoy the view. Ahead of me, between the buildings on the almost empty road, the sun hung in the sky, a huge pink ball, swelling and glowing before my eyes. I pushed the dolly to an alley that ran between two shops, wedged it against a wall so it couldn’t slide around, and collapsed on top of Lily and Teiji. My head was full of the noise of our voices singing in the park, and the dawn chorus.
How could I have known, in the midst of that cacophony, the size of the silence that would soon fall upon Tokyo, upon Lily, Teiji, and Lucy?
8
A week or two after our night in the park, Lily came to visit. It was late and I wasn’t expecting her but I recognized her finger on my doorbell in the same way that I knew Teiji’s. Teiji’s ring was soft but even. Lily pressed too hard and too long, a statement of nervousness, a lack of self-control.
I opened the door. She’d been crying.
“Come in. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not disturbing you, am I? I don’t want to get in your way if Teiji’s here.”
“He isn’t. He’s working late tonight. The restaurant’s busy.”
“Oh, right.”
She followed me into my main room, hovered in the middle.
“Sit down.”
“Ta. I’m really sorry about this. I don’t know why I didn’t phone first. I just got up and came out. I didn’t know who else to go to. This is a lovely apartment. Nice and uncluttered.”
“Bare. It’s the way I like it.” I wished she would get to the point. What was she doing in my apartment so late at night?
“You don’t have photos of your family anywhere?”
“None.”
“What about Teiji’s photos? Don’t you like to put them on the walls?”
“I keep them in a drawer. A couple I use as bookmarks or whatever. I write shopping lists on the backs of some, but I don’t throw them away afterward.”
“Why do you scribble on the back of a perfectly nice photograph? I’ll buy you a notebook if you’re short of paper.”
“No, no. Thanks. I like things around me to be useful. Otherwise, why would I keep them?”
It was not a truthful answer, but Lily wouldn’t have understood the truth. I kept Teiji’s pictures in a drawer that I opened every night and every morning. Seeing myself through his eyes was the best way to see him when he wasn’t with me. I made notes on the backs of his photographs because sometimes I didn’t feel like writing on anything that wasn’t his.
I sat on the floor, waited for Lily to explain herself. She said nothing, walked to the window and stuck her head out.
“Noisy with the windows open.”
“Yes, but it’s too hot otherwise.”
“How do you manage without air conditioning?”
“I sweat a lot.”
She sat on a cushion, curled her legs beside her, leaned against the wall.
“I feel strange.”
“Has something happened?”
“Yes, well. Yes it has and no it hasn’t.”
“You mean?”
“I had a letter from Andy. He wants me to go back.”
“He’s got your address? I thought you’d kept it top secret.”
“No, he hasn’t got it. He sent a letter to my friend and she’s forwarded it to me. The thing is that she’s the one I stayed with before I came out to Japan. She helped me get the job and everything. That means that he’s traced me to her at least. The next step will be to find out I’m in Tokyo. There are people in the pubs near her house who could tell him that much.”
“Yes, but even if he discovers you’re here, how on earth would he find your tiny apartment in Tokyo?”
“I know you’re right but it just frightened me when I got the letter. I feel stupid panicking about it. The truth is, I was just starting to feel good without him. I’m getting used to working here and living here. I’d almost forgotten all about England. It was quite nice, actually. And now here he bloody is again.”
“Is he really that bad? What are you so frightened of? You’ve left the country—surely that’s evidence enough that you’ve left him too.”
Lily said nothing. She shook her head.
“Is he violent?”
“Not with me. Only with men he thinks are talking to me too much, or looking at me. I mean, what a joke. Who’d be looking at me?”
Anyone would rather look at Lily’s pretty face than at Lucy, but I didn’t want to point this out while she was feeling so sorry for herself with such success.
“Even if he did get your address, would he seriously come all the way to Japan? It’s a long way to travel just to be dumped by a woman who’s already left you.”
“If he’s got the money, he’ll come. That’s a big if, mind you.
“So tell him to get lost, get back on his plane.”
She laughed, picked at her cuticles. “You know what he did once? It’s em
barrassing. He wanted to hire a private detective to snoop on me but he couldn’t afford it. So instead he bought a cheap bugging device from some dodgy bloke in a pub and put it in the lining of my handbag.”
“He spied on you?”
“Yes, but I spotted it straight away. He’d ripped the lining to put the thing in and then tried to sew it up again, but made a right pig’s ear. I found it when I was hanging my bag in my locker at work. I didn’t know what it was for weeks, mind you, and I didn’t like to ask. I just put it on the shelf in my locker and forgot about it. I suppose the only thing he picked up was the door opening and closing and the sound of the key in the lock.”
“So how did you find out what it was?”
“I caught him going through my bag a couple of times. In the end it dawned on me what he was looking for. I showed it to someone at work and they told me what it was. I chucked it away, not before toying with the idea of attaching it to an ambulance siren, mind you, give the bugger something to listen to.”
I looked at her.
“I know what that look means. Why didn’t I leave him sooner?”
“Well, why?”
“Because I knew he’d follow me and then I’d have to deal with the fights and everything. It was just less hassle to stay with him until I could get so far away he wouldn’t find me.
“Logical.”
“I know, I know. If I was you I’d have said get lost and he would’ve gone away for good. You can do that sort of thing. I can’t. I really admire you but I’m not like you.” Her eyes glazed over for a second and then she blinked. “I’m so sorry to barge in like this.”
The Earthquake Bird Page 9
