The Secret Life of Sam Holloway

by Rhys Thomas

  33

  FIELDS ROLLED AND gave to winter woods, then flat marshlands with wide expanses of water; pylons marched back to the horizon. Sometimes the train passed along the side of highways standing on tall concrete pillars, and towns and villages on hillsides, until the Earth spun away and in the darkness orange-and-white lights suggested lives out there in the black.

  Sam had never experienced jet lag. He’d dozed in and out of sleep on the plane and now didn’t feel tired at all. The lights in the countryside became brighter as the train bore them toward Tokyo. The city was massive, stretching far, far back as the train carved its route between a hotchpotch of architecture, sixties-looking buildings with balconies stuck on here and there, buildings put up between other buildings, wide roads and thin, jagged alleyways. Sam jumped as another train passing in the opposite direction slammed past and he got a real sense of how fast they were going.

  They arrived in Shibuya Station and collected their things.

  “We will catch another train to our hotel, but first I want to show you something,” said Mr. Okamatsu.

  They made their way through the throngs and Mr. Okamatsu spoke over his shoulder.

  “Tokyo is too busy for me. Too many people.”

  Sam watched the lights flicker on the lenses of Mr. Okamatsu’s glasses. He led Sam out of the station onto a big plaza that he recognized from films, the Shibuya Crossing, the idea of Tokyo most people carry in their heads with the bright lights, the swarms of people, the mysterious, otherworldly glyphs on the signs, the banks of brilliant screens set into the side of buildings.

  “All this,” said Mr. Okamatsu, turning and leaning on the pullout handle of his suitcase, “is only part of Japan.”

  He went over to a circular slab of concrete stuck onto the edge of the plaza, surrounded by low bushes and trees. In the center of it was a bronze statue of a dog on top of a stone plinth. The sound of the city was deafening and Sam had to lean in to hear Mr. Okamatsu.

  “This is Hachikō.”

  The dog was resting on its hind legs and was big, bearlike. One of its ears flopped forward.

  “Hachiko¯’s owner lived near this station. When he came home each day on the train, Hachiko¯ would wait for him. One day his owner did not return. He had died in work. Hachiko¯ arrived on time, but his owner was not there. The next day the same. Hachiko¯ came back every day, at the exact time the train was due, but his owner was never there. But he still came back. Every day. For nine years.”

  Sam looked up at the statue of the dog and felt his throat go heavy.

  “He was very loyal. He was...a good friend,” said Mr. Okamatsu.

  * * *

  Wide-awake in the middle of the night, Sam dived into the empty swimming pool of the hotel. As a child he would swim down to the bottom and touch his chest to the floor, kicking his legs, seeing how far he could make it without surfacing for air.

  * * *

  The next morning, Mr. Okamatsu knocked on his door. They were both wearing suits and, though he looked smart, Sam felt absolutely terrible. He was sick with tiredness and his hand throbbed with dull pain. Outside their hotel they walked with their suitcases along a busy four-lane expressway until Mr. Okamatsu took them down a quiet alleyway, a secret cut-through lined with thick-trunked, winter-bare trees that leaned over like crooked old men.

  Sam looked out between the gaps of the trees at the quiet backstreets. He was struck by the telephone wires and electrical lines that crisscrossed the sky at every angle. There was a gentleness in the air; even with the bustle of the city, there was a calmness beneath it that Sam, in his state of fatigue, was able to sync with.

  They came out, at last, onto another wide road with tall buildings either side. The Electronica Diablique HQ was near the big Sony building in Shinagawa, and when they reached the atrium—a wide space with tiles shined to a high gloss and potted trees standing sentinel, each equidistant from the next—Mr. Okamatsu turned to Sam.

  “Okay, we go in now. You remember what to say?”

  “Ohayou gozaimasu,” said Sam, pronouncing each syllable slowly. It was a Japanese greeting.

  Okamatsu nodded his approval.

  Sam then bowed just a little and said, “Oh-aye dic-tish-te ko-ee dis.”

  “Very good.”

  Mr. Okamatsu inspected Sam, and he detected the nervousness in the big man.

  “Sam,” he said. “Do not mention the air shipping costs at all.”

  Over at the desk a woman in a smart red suit answered a telephone.

  Okamatsu stepped toward Sam and said conspiratorially, “You are here to meet Mr. Takahashi. Nothing else. For all the good work you have done.”

  Sam didn’t understand.

  “Come,” said Okamatsu, moving across to the lifts.

  They were ushered into the president’s office and a short, stocky man stood up from behind a huge maple desk, the grand panorama of Tokyo stretching out behind him as far as the horizon.

  “Ah,” said the president, sidling round to greet them.

  His face was impressively ugly, seemingly wider than it was long, and like it was made of granite. He came over to Sam, and Sam only just remembered to recite his lines.

  “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Takahashi, shaking Sam’s hand warmly and smiling. “I hope you don’t mind if I speak English,” he said, perfectly. “I don’t get to use it much these days. When did you fly in?”

  “Today,” said Sam. “No, yesterday, sorry.”

  Mr. Okamatsu said a long sentence in Japanese and Mr. Takahashi nodded and said, “Ah,” several times.

  “Sam,” he said, “come and look at this.”

  He took him to the side of the room where a big display cabinet stood. Inside was a collection of gleaming electrical components. Mr. Takahashi took a key from his pocket, unlocked the glass doors and removed, from the lowermost shelf, a samurai sword. There was a steadiness in his every movement, an assured dignity that countered his ugliness and made him appealing.

  “You know what this is?” He drew the sword from its sheath with a metallic hiss.

  Sam said he did not.

  “This sword belonged to Mr. Yoshimoto, the founder of this company. He made it himself in his smelting shop, many hundreds of years ago. And with all the developments of the world, it is still here. In this room.”

  The blade reflected silver light across Mr. Takahashi’s cheeks.

  “It is a great treasure. Sometimes, when I am feeling a little...glum, I will take out this sword and hold it and remember that everything passes.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Mr. Okamatsu tells me you are an excellent employee, a true asset to our company.”

  Sam glanced across to Mr. Okamatsu, who was staring out the window at the building opposite.

  Was he hallucinating all this? Mr. Takahashi opened one of the drawers in the cabinet, removed a black lacquer box and presented it in both hands to Sam. Sam stared at it, then up at Takahashi, who was grinning at him expectantly. Sam remembered the etiquette, bowed and took the box.

  “We do not give these to many people,” said Mr. Takahashi.

  Sam opened the box. Inside, on a bed of silk, was a perfect, miniaturized replica of Mr. Yoshimoto’s katana. Sam blinked his heavy eyelids and removed the tiny sword from the box. He took it out of its scabbard and the steel was so shiny it hurt his tired eyes.

  “You open letters with it,” said Takahashi, lowering his head into Sam’s eyeline and nodding.

  Sam inserted the little katana back into its sheath and closed the box. Nothing seemed real.

  “It’s wonderful,” he said.

  He noticed Okamatsu and Takahashi exchange curt nods and the sunshine of realization blew away the fog.

  * * *

  Nothing was as it seemed. They weren’t, as Mr. Okamatsu had told Mr. Takahashi, going to o
ne of their Chinese plants after the visit to HQ.

  Instead, they took a train out to the suburbs, where Mr. Okamatsu wanted Sam to meet his family. As the train bumped over the tracks, Sam fell asleep and was woken up by his boss when they reached their stop. It was much quieter here. They wheeled their suitcases up and down some narrow, hilly streets, past houses with all sorts of strange protrusions. The gardens were neatly kept, with evergreen bushes manicured into orbs and curlicues. The thick telephone wires were like scribbles on the gray sky.

  Okamatsu’s house was set back off the long, deserted street, at the summit of several steep, heavily vegetated terraces, only the windows of the top floor and the curved tile roof were visible. The stone steps were lined with long grasses that shimmered like spirits in the low breeze. The house was wide, with a low, generous wooden porch area; lanterns hanging from the eaves of the roof. Large plated windows looked out over the terraces to the prefecture below. It reminded Sam of a giant toad lying in wait.

  A woman came out onto the porch and waved. She was tall and thin and neat, with short black hair combed into a side parting and a small pointed nose. Mr. Okamatsu nodded to her and kissed her on the cheek, an unshowy display of affection. He said something in Japanese and she nodded and turned to Sam, and when she smiled her efficient face lit up.

  “This is my wife, Miho,” said Mr. Okamatsu.

  Miho curtsied and nodded. Sam smiled and bowed.

  The house was clinically clean, which instantly put Sam at ease. He was shown into a dining room, a plain space with black wooden plank flooring, a simple table and chairs, and some fresh flowers in a vase standing in a stone alcove, giving the room a burst of color. Sam could see the kitchen next door, with the smell of spices and the heat of pans boiling. There was some thumping from upstairs and two children came running down. They were young—younger than ten—a boy and a girl. They threw their arms around Mr. Okamatsu, and Sam watched his shoulders relax and, just discernible through the light-sensitive glasses, his eyes close in a serenity that sent a shudder through Sam.

  After getting cleaned up they sat at the table and Miho brought out the dishes: a bowl of sticky white rice, a steaming bowl of vegetables, some miso soup and a plate of shredded pickled ginger. The food was simple but delicious. Nobody spoke English, apart from Mr. Okamatsu, and when they tried to include Sam in the conversation it was to explain to him how to pronounce the names of certain foods, and the kids loved it when he got it wrong. The family chatted quickly and loudly in Japanese and Sam didn’t have a clue what they were saying, though it didn’t matter. This was the first family meal he’d been involved in for a long time, the unguarded nature of the unit. He should have felt like an interloper, joining Mr. Okamatsu on his first visit home in almost a year, but they didn’t allow him to.

  After dinner they went out to the garden at the back of the house. It was a large space, a fortunate accident of how the other houses built around it were positioned. A tall wooden fence hemmed the garden, with bamboo trees and cherry blossoms, and a small wooden teahouse on the left-hand side. A stream meandered over round pebbles, with two little red bridges for crossing over and crossing back. Stone lanterns led the way around a path and they walked together, Mr. Okamatsu with his hands behind his back.

  “Be careful you don’t slip,” he said. “We design the path to be bumpy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you need to look down all the time. Then, when you look up, the garden has changed and you are looking at a new scene.” He nodded at a patch of white sand, raked neatly, with a few sharp rocks sticking up. “It is the world. The sand is the oceans and the rocks are the land.”

  Part of the path was moss with stepping-stones embedded in it. At one point they came to a stone washbasin that had started freezing over. It was distractingly beautiful. Islands of shrubs were dotted here and there and it was hard to comprehend how lonely Okamatsu must feel, stuck in his flat in the UK.

  “Mr. Okamatsu, what’s happening with the air invoices?”

  “It is nobody’s fault,” he said. “They pay half, we pay half. This is fair, no? The cost always has to land somewhere.”

  “I’m sorry for what I did.”

  “I am sorry too. For being angry.”

  And that was that. They crossed the second red bridge that led back up toward the house and they sat on the porch, heated by lamps and blankets, drinking warm sake that Miho had brought out.

  “You see that?” said Mr. Okamatsu, pointing at a tall stone lantern inscribed down the side with some Japanese characters:

  物

  の

  哀

  れ

  “It says mono no aware. Have you heard this?”

  “No,” said Sam.

  “We have it in Japan. In Britain you have it, but you don’t have a word for it. We worship the cherry blossom here. It is beautiful, but it is sad too. The cherry blossom will not last, and that is what makes it even more beautiful. Do you understand?”

  Sam felt numb. “Everything is transient,” he said to himself.

  “Everything must pass.” Mr. Okamatsu took a drink of sake and they sat in silence for a moment before Mr. Okamatsu said, “Sam, you have many problems.”

  The lights in the lanterns flickered, and Sam said nothing.

  “I know about your family, Sam. And I know about the superhero.”

  The trees ached in the breeze, and in that moment Sam felt himself open up.

  “Is that why you brought me here?”

  “You needed to fly, Sam. I knew you would not come unless you thought it was for me. But you need to understand. Everything must pass.”

  “I know,” he said.

  The red lights on the wing of a passing airplane blinked in the distance.

  “My father died when I was fifteen. It made me very sad. But I am older than you and I can tell you something you maybe don’t know. Your family are still there.” He spoke so kindly—modulating up and down, as he did when talking in detail about a set of technical drawings. “They are in your heart always. When someone dies, you must change. But it is not bad. You change and you grow around that death. Later on, it becomes not sad. It makes you stronger, not weaker.”

  Sam dried the corner of his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

  “You are a good man, yes?” Mr. Okamatsu’s eyes remained steadfast on the garden. “And it is like the dog Hachikō. People will always help good people. My father used to say something to me, about people. He used to say, if you look closely, you can see the magic.” He finished his cup of sake and poured himself another. “You must accept help. It is how you heal.” And after that he said nothing more on the matter.

  They sat and drank in silence for a long time, and over the course of those moments Sam’s emotions flattened, and he started to move past something.

  * * *

  His bedroom was simple and sparse.

  He lay down and pulled the cotton sheets over him. He did not need to put on the radio to block out his thoughts, for he had none.

  As soon as his head hit the thin pillow, he slept the sleep of ages.

  34

  THE STOOL THROUGH the middle of his TV had slumped in the few days he’d been away. Shards of glass in the carpet in front of it glowed in the blue twilight. He turned on all the lights. He’d tracked mud right through the house, and it was all over his sheets upstairs. He called a professional carpet cleaner and felt much better with the thought of his carpet being restored to near show house standard. He pulled the stool out of the TV and put it back under the breakfast bar. He washed his sheets and pillowcases, and returned to the tip, where he deposited his TV, and then went to Tesco to buy a new one. The vivid brightness of the store was a balm for his soul. The sight of all those TVs, of how much happiness they would bring to so many families, made him feel joyous. In the cavernous store he
told himself feeling joyous in Tesco was something he had to move away from now.

  On his way home he stopped off at his favorite chip shop and bought a chicken and mushroom pie and chips with gravy and a can of Coke, which he ate silently in the kitchen.

  This wasn’t so bad. He could live like this quite happily forever.

  It was when he was setting up his new TV that he heard voices and footsteps coming up the driveway and a knock at the door. For a moment he thought about ignoring it, but then something spurred him to answer; the will to be normal.

  As he opened the door, Blotchy raised his hand.

  “Just listen,” he said.

  Standing next to him, Tango said, “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Japan.”

  They stared at him.

  “Bloody hell,” said Tango, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head dramatically. “We saw the stool through the TV and...”

  “I’ve been on a business trip to Japan,” he said.

  Blotchy was being very quiet, and Sam deliberately didn’t look at him.

  “Well, you’re back now,” said Tango. “And you’re coming with us.”

  “I can’t, I’m busy.”

  “Quasar.” Tango opened his eyes wide and stared into Sam’s soul.

  “I’m not going to Quas—”

  “No!” Tango reached forward and curled his fingers around Sam’s wrist. “Quasar.”

  * * *

  Down a dark corridor Sam raised his laser gun. Futuristic neon lights flashing on and off illuminated the shoulder of somebody crouching behind a barrier. He moved toward the target in the same way FBI SWAT teams do it on TV, side on, leg crossing leg. His back vibrated, and he swung around as a little kid punched the air and scampered into the darkness.