And I stayed in that position, more or less, for three days. I made occasional trips to the kitchen or bathroom, but mostly I lay on the floor, listened to the garage. Sometimes my fridge seemed noisier than the cars and vans, sometimes I didn’t hear it. I’m not sure whether I slept at all during those days and nights, or whether I lay there awake. It wasn’t despair that kept me on the floor, or bitterness. All I felt was nothing. A complete and perfect emptiness. I had been in possession of a lover and a friend. Now I had neither. They had stolen themselves and each other from me. There was nothing to be done and so I did nothing. I can’t believe, when I cast a glance of hindsight from the police station to my apartment during those three days, that I intended to lie there forever, until unconsciousness or death. I suppose I was waiting for something but I don’t know what it was. I had no intention of speaking to Lily or Teiji again.
On the fourth day, the phone rang. I let it go on all morning. I knew it was Lily—no one would try my number so often if they were at work—but I couldn’t bring myself to unplug the phone. I wanted to know she was trying to speak to me, even if I refused to let her succeed. In the evening I walked out of the house toward the station. I didn’t have any destination or route in mind but I couldn’t stay in the apartment with the telephone whining at me like Lily’s voice.
I walked and walked all night. From Gotanda I set off toward the next station on the Yamanote line, going counterclockwise. The road to Osaki was quieter and darker, all houses and no neon. I was glad to be outside and let the fresh air tingle against my stiff body. But when I stopped walking in Osaki, I thought of Lily and Teiji again, the handkerchief and ice cream that changed hands, their desertion of Lucy on the cliffs. I continued to walk because while I was moving my thoughts moved faster, and were less clear, less able to cause fresh wounds. I found myself following the train tracks to the next station and then the next.
Arrival at each station was a kind of homecoming for Lucy that night because she knew them so well, had lived different zones of her life in these parts of the city. There are twenty-eight stations in the ring around Tokyo, twenty-eight beads in the necklace. To me, each one has always been a unique gem. At Shinbashi I passed the old steam engine where I’d once waited for Natsuko before we caught another train to Odaiba. There we rotated in a little capsule on the huge Ferris wheel, looked out at Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower, industrial plants and the gray sea. At Yurakucho station I ran my fingers along the sooty bricks of the railway arches. Under these broad curves are small restaurants. Bob and I sometimes met in one for dinner. He would ask my advice on every aspect of his life. I think, because my Japanese was fluent, he credited me with knowledge and understanding I didn’t have, but I always did my best. Over spicy Chinese food he told me of his plan to become a rock star although, at forty-one, he knew it was getting late. He confessed that the dental treatment that brought our paths together had included cosmetic work with this aim. I’d never heard him sing so I had no advice that day.
Tokyo station came and went quickly. Many train lines converged here, undistinguishable, a row of nameless soldiers lying flat in a box. I couldn’t guess which was the Yamanote, but when the lines separated again, I followed my feeling and was right. The next set of lights and platforms belonged to Kanda.
By the time I had come to the ninth or tenth station it seemed pointless going back the same way. I paced on. Akihabara, Electra Town where Teiji and I had looked at cameras, though he never bought any, strangely calm at night. Ameyoko where I went shopping with Natsuko to buy cheap food from the sprawling street market. It was quiet but I could almost hear the daytime voices of the gruff men shouting about their wares: slippery squid, fish, tea, coffee, shoes. Under the railway arches, yakitori bars, now closed. At Ueno the park where I’d gone to view the cherry blossoms in my first year, not realizing that it would be so packed with revelers I would hardly see the treetops. Yanaka, the cemetery where I’d sat before I went to Mrs. Yamamoto’s house. It rose uphill from the train tracks and beyond. At night the tombstones looked like silhouettes of people, sitting there on the hill, whispering secrets in the dark. Then, garish pink love hotels advertising rates for a night, cheaper rates for a “daytime rest.” I went over the top of the loop past a dark old shrine at Komagome, around to Ikebukuro, and toward Teiji’s territory. If I’d ever looked at this on a map I would have noticed that Takadanobaba and Shin-Okubo lie in the northwest of Tokyo, but there is no reason why that should surprise me now.
Hours passed. Though I was already miles from home, my landscape didn’t change so much, only the features in the foreground: nightclubs, love hotels, tombstones, parks, markets, shops, embassies. These were all contained inside an endless corridor of anonymous rectangular buildings and railway tracks. I looked up at windows. Most were dark, showing just the dull outlines of curtains and blinds. Here and there bright squares of yellow glowed like feline eyes. Occasionally a figure moved inside. I looked to try and see the person, get an impression of their age or clothing, their movements within the room. Each time, I wondered who the person was. Of all the millions of people who worked, woke, slept in this city, stacked up individually and in groups, inside little boxes of home and work, which one was I spying on? I wanted to know these strangers who moved from one box to the next, transporting themselves around the city on such vast structures of rail and road. I wanted to know them because I was one, too.
Sometimes I lost sight of the Yamanote tracks and had to make my way around shadowy side streets until I found them again. Bright vending machines displaying drinks and cigarettes provided light in dark alleys and corners. At other times I was able to walk for a few miles without losing sight of the railway. On I marched, and in the early hours of the morning found myself in Shinjuku, meters from the spot where I’d first seen Teiji. I thought of Sachi. The small theater where Teiji found her could be a street or block away from me, for all I knew. I wondered how much time had passed between Sachi walking out and Lucy walking in. I’d imagined her to be buried in the deep past, the way her photographs were buried in the box, but perhaps Teiji had moved from Sachi to me without stopping and then from me to Lily, as though we were three stations along a track.
I walked down the road that passes by Yoyogi Park. I couldn’t see inside but the treetops stood tall and feathery above the walls. I heard the song again that we sang that night. “Ue o Muite Arukou.” I cried but didn’t bother to lift my head to stop the tears falling out—as the song instructs—because there was no one around and I might as well let them fall as they wanted. I came to my office in Shibuya. I’d never been there at nighttime and was pleased to see it. Perhaps it was the only place in Tokyo where I could feel at home now, without Teiji or Lily. I might return to work in a day or two. It would put my mind at rest to know that the blast furnace translation had been completed on time and to a satisfactory standard. As the sun grew bolder and people left their houses for work and school, I was walking from Ebisu to Meguro and finally I arrived where I’d started. Gotanda. I had walked the distance of a marathon. I had circled Tokyo.
* * *
The phone was still ringing as I entered my flat. I ignored it and filled a bathtub of hot soapy water. My feet were throbbing and burning. I sat in the bath with water up to my neck and shut my eyes to the sights of the clubs and bars, the graveyard, the apartments and their washing lines, the railway track endlessly crisscrossing other lines heading all over Tokyo and Japan. And the carriages and engines that slept at the sides of the tracks, tucked away, empty.
My feet still hurt when I emerged from the bath. They were pink and purple, swollen. I walked as if I were trying on ice skates for the first time and was hobbling from the changing room to the ice rink. The phone rang and rang. I picked up the receiver, didn’t speak but waited. Lily’s shrill voice was loud and clear.
“Lucy. Are you there? I’ve tried to ring you so many times. Erm. I wanted to tell you that I’m so sorry about what you saw. What happen
ed with Teiji—we never planned it.”
You accidentally arranged to meet him at the station after I’d gone? I couldn’t open my mouth to speak but the words screamed inside my head.
“And I feel awful. I don’t know what I can say to you.”
So why did you call me?
“I know it must have broken your heart.”
My pulse quickened. My face and neck burned. What did Lily know about my heart? I inhaled two lungfuls of air so that I could say my next sentences without stopping for breath.
“My heart is a complex organ consisting of muscles, valves, and blood. It can be weakened, it can have an attack, and it can even stop altogether. But it can’t break. So don’t phone to tell me that you’ve decided my heart is broken.” My eyes were swimming in tears. I blinked to see better and hot water fell all over my cheeks. “My heart is fine.” My voice cracked. “But I can’t move my feet.”
“Your feet? Lucy?”
I put the phone down and immediately the doorbell rang. Since I knew it couldn’t be Lily, I blew my nose, wiped my eyes, crawled to the door, and hauled myself up to unlock it.
Natsuko stood before me with an armful of yellow poppies. The petals brushed against the ends of her hair.
“Lucy, what’s going on? Are you sick?”
“I’m not so well. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“You look terrible. For God’s sake go and see a doctor, find out what’s wrong. Have you been crying?”
“I don’t need to see a doctor. Anyway, I don’t believe in them. It’s tempting fate to see a doctor when there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“In that case see your friend, Lily. Isn’t she a nurse? Why don’t you ask her to drop round?”
I stared at her.
“Lucy, what is it? What’s happened?”
I wanted Natsuko to know, but I wanted her to know without my telling it because I couldn’t bear to hear myself recount the story. I couldn’t do telepathy so I shook my head.
“It’s something to do with Lily. What’s she done?”
“Leave me, please.”
“All right.” She sighed, kindly. Her voice sounded Irish today. I don’t know which years or months of her life she spent in Ireland but this accent emerged only occasionally. “I miss you at work. I’ll call you every day till I’m satisfied you’re all right. Oh, I brought you these flowers. I saw them in the shop and thought they were such an incredible color they’d have to make you feel better. I hope they work.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Me too.”
She left and I was at a loss. I didn’t want to sleep but I lacked the energy to walk again. The flowers were sunny and friendly. I decided to put them in water. I had no vase because I’d never thought of buying cut flowers for myself and I’d never been presented with a bouquet. I put them in a bucket. They didn’t look good. I found an old plastic bottle and cut the top off, filled it with water. It was better than the bucket but the poppies didn’t seem as beautiful as when Natsuko had held them. I took an old piece of black wrapping paper from my kitchen bin and glued it around the bottle. It made a perfect vase for the flowers but since all my curtains were closed—I hadn’t opened them for four days—the room now seemed dingy. I opened the curtains, then the windows. Sunlight flooded in, the same color as the poppies.
I rubbed cream into my feet until they were soothed. Then there was no stopping me. I went onto the balcony, loaded the washing machine with stale, dirty clothes and switched it on. I scoured away the tide mark in the bath, threw away the three empty toilet-paper rolls that had been lying on the floor, damp and soggy, for weeks. I sprayed the mirror, wiped away dust and flecks of toothpaste till it sparkled. I wasn’t ready to face my own reflection yet, but I was coming closer to that moment. In the kitchen I washed cups and plates, scraped gray scabby mold into the bin. On my hands and knees I swept away thick furry dust that lay behind bookshelves and in the corners of the room. I wiped the television remote control, button by button. I squirted and rubbed away a stain that had been on the television screen for months. I hadn’t disturbed it before because it looked like Teiji’s dried semen and therefore it was precious, though I couldn’t see how it had got on the television. It was probably spilled food.
The washing machine beeped. I took my damp clothes and hung them on the line. I dragged my futons from their cupboard and flung them over the balcony railing to air. I bashed them with my pink plastic futon beater and watched the dust rise in little clouds then disappear. I vacuumed the whole apartment. Finally, when I could think of nothing else to do, I vacuumed the balcony.
I drank tea and listened to Dvořák. I went to the greengrocers’ and bought shiny red apples to put on the table with my yellow poppies. Then I curled up on the floor and slept, a deeper, calmer sleep than I’d known for days.
And in the early evening a cool breeze entered through the balcony door, crossed my apartment and went out of the window at the back. It woke me gently and I sat up. Slowly, not entirely awake, I went out and began to unpin the washing.
The doorbell rang once more. I’d had Lily and Natsuko today, could this be Teiji? I guessed not. I already believed I wouldn’t see him again. But I found myself wanting it to be Teiji. I had just unpinned a pair of stockings and, rather than walk five paces along the balcony to my washing basket, or attempt to repin them, I put them over my shoulder. It was not a big deal, not a conscious decision. I just put them there while I went to answer the door.
Lily faced me in the doorway. She was shaking nervously. Her hand went up to her cheek and down again, several times. I fixed my eyes upon hers. She made her case; she hadn’t wanted to hurt me, she just got caught up in the excitement of the weekend. If anything she’d done it to hurt Andy, not that he would ever know of course, but that might have been what was in the back of her mind, she thought. She wasn’t sure if she and Teiji had a future together but if I wanted to be friends still, she would give up Teiji. She would go and tell him now that it was over.
“So is it OK? We’re still friends?”
“No, we are not. Goodbye.”
And I closed the door.
I am confused about my feelings at that moment. I know that there was a part of me that felt sorry for her. She was a pathetic sight, standing on my doorstep quivering before me. I am sure that she was shocked by what she’d done and I also acknowledged that it was brave of her to come and face me. I know I had those feelings. But I know that I was also disgusted, and freshly angry. She would give up Teiji if we could be friends, but if not she wouldn’t? Hearing her say Teiji’s name sent me back to Tokyo station, to the moment I cried out, the way they turned to stare at me. My pity for her dissolved. I hated her, for stealing my lover and deserting me as a friend. I stood behind the door wondering why I had let her off so lightly. My anger grew until I shouted out in rage. I don’t know what words I bellowed to my four walls but after a few seconds I could hear my neighbor’s vacuum cleaner above my voice.
I went down into the street to find her. It was only a couple of minutes after she’d gone, but she wasn’t there. I thought I heard a quiet burst of laughter but I didn’t see anything and the noise stopped as soon as it had started. I walked a little farther along toward the station. My eyes were opened as wide as they would go and I used them like searchlights, beaming from one side of the road to the other, shining in every corner and nook. The muscles ached but I didn’t want to blink or narrow my eyes for a second, not until I’d found her. I arrived at the station but she wasn’t there. I turned back. It was odd. Even if she’d run to the station she couldn’t have had time to get there, buy a ticket, and get on the train. It was a long, straight road and I would have seen her ahead of me. A couple of cars sped past and then the world went quiet. I heard nothing but my footsteps on the pavement.
I won’t deny it. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to wring her neck and kick her till she stopped moving. I wanted her to know how much pain I could cause in return for her betraya
l. But I didn’t want to stab her. I didn’t want to dismember and decapitate her, throw the pieces into Tokyo Bay. It never even went through my mind.
13
The officers are back. There is a new one. He is older, bigger, looks tough. His name badge says Suzuki (“bell tree”).
“We are investigating the murder of a young, innocent woman.”
Not so innocent. “I know, but I didn’t do it. I could never have done that to Lily.”
“You know what’s strange about you?”
I meet his stare. Go ahead.
“It’s interesting. Normally when a corpse turns up, the friends and family of the victim are determined to believe that it cannot be the body of their loved one. Until formal identification takes place, they will not accept what may be obvious to everyone else. And sometimes even then they do not accept it. In your case, though, there seems to be an unstinting willingness to believe that the body found in Tokyo Bay belonged to your friend Lily Bridges. Strange.”
I don’t understand him.
“The body wasn’t Lily’s?”
“No, it was not. And yet you were so sure.”
He doesn’t know my track record, the number of corpses scattered through my life, and that this next one seemed natural enough, inevitable even. I wasn’t surprised when I read the newspapers. As soon as her boss had reported her missing, I knew Lily was dead. I don’t mention this, though. It could be used in evidence against me. Found guilty. The accidental serial killer. The serial accidental killer.
“Then whose was it?”
“We don’t know. It’s not identifiable. The newspapers were a bit carried away when they made their assumption that it was Lily Bridges. Of course, it suited you to believe that. Anyone can see you could not have chopped up a whole body in a different part of Tokyo in so little time.”
The Earthquake Bird Page 14
