Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa

by Benjamin Constable

  I thought of all the names of streets in the area that refer to water, like rue des Cascades and rue des Rigoles. But if this was a clue, I had no idea where to start looking. Although the next file I clicked on seemed more likely to yield treasure.

  Improbable Gardens

  Paris’s dense structure has left little room for private gardens. But nature has a way of pushing through in the midst of intense urban development and Paris has become home to a fine array of improbable green spaces. Some have been redeveloped into the infrastructure as afterthoughts, like the wonderful Jardin Atlantique on the roof of Gare Montparnasse, or the Promenade plantée (also known as the Coulée verte): a disused railway with viaducts, cuttings, and tunnels running from Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes, the length of which has been converted into a walkway with trees, shrubbery, benches, cycle paths, and even wireless Internet access. Some of the most improbable gardens are the work of individuals, like pendulous jungles dripping down buildings from balconies or window pots. There are also community gardens that sprout from vacant lots, filled with the aromas and colors of whatever fancies the residents choose to cultivate. Papilles et Papillons (Tastebuds and Butterflies) sits on terraces on Paris’s steepest slope, rue Gasnier-Guy in the 20th arrondissement. Then a short walk up the hill, you reach the Jardin des Soupirs (“sighs” or “sweet nothings,” depending on the translation you prefer), where there is little more satisfying than to sit and contemplate the day as the walls reflect the rose-colored light of the setting sun.

  I felt slightly jealous of Butterfly for knowing these places when I did not. It was as though I had not engaged in my responsibility to explore the place I lived in, but she had learned of secret things and somehow gained value or privilege for her curious wanderings. But then Tomomi Ishikawa had had an unusual relationship with the city.

  ‘I love Paris,’ she told me once.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ I said.

  ‘No you don’t.’ Now she was accusing.

  ‘Of course I do. I wouldn’t live here if I didn’t.’

  ‘What, you love it like you want to kiss it?’

  ‘OK, you’re right. I don’t love Paris after all.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I want to kiss it and touch it and sometimes when nobody’s looking I rub my body against it.’ We both laughed raucously.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, you dirty girl, you’ll scuff your clothes.’

  Tomomi Ishikawa was generally funnier than I was, and generally more drunk too.

  * * *

  The next day I stayed in bed until eleven. After a bowl of cereal, I went on the Internet and looked at maps, trying to work out where the things Tomomi Ishikawa had talked about were, and the day drifted on as I skipped from one thought to another, allowing myself the luxury of not being in a rush for anything.

  It was the second half of the afternoon by the time I got to Gambetta metro station near to the top of Père Lachaise cemetery. I wandered downhill a hundred yards and found myself at a leafy road junction, where my eye was drawn to two streets heading upwards that just disappeared as though they were on a cliff, falling away out of sight and into the sea. Surely I’d been here before, as a child maybe, or no, I was driving a car up that road, taking a shortcut. I had to remind myself that I had never had a car in Paris. This place was an image from a dream or my imagination. The right-hand of the two dream streets was rue Gasnier-Guy. I crossed at the traffic lights and walked up the hill, feeling light in my stomach as I reached the top, like driving quickly over a humpback bridge. I was almost disappointed to find just a steep decline and not a view of a hidden kingdom or some other magic. There was a small terraced garden on the right-hand side. The sign on the gate said ‘Papilles et Papillons’. I stared through the railings for a moment and then walked in. This was nothing like the slick parks and manicured gardens around the city that I had come not to notice. There was a mural on the wall and small plants with labels. There was one big shrub with cones of hundreds of tiny purple flowers sticking out in all directions and two butterflies flitting round it. I stood and watched for a second and then saw another, no, four butterflies.

  I crossed back over the road and walked up the steps that would have once led to rue de la Cloche, the street that Tomomi Ishikawa had said was demolished. This was the edge of her territory. I was walking into her neighbourhood. Instead of the old street there was another garden, new and soulless. I think it had opened only weeks before. I guess gardens need years to mature. I carried on walking up to rue des Pyrénées and crossed, looking out for the tiny stairway leading to Passage des Soupirs. I went up the steps and fell in love with the narrow passage with each of its buildings a different shape. Some modern boxy apartments made from wood and older houses set back with overgrown front gardens and other doors that opened directly onto the street (if that’s what you could call it—it was barely wide enough for a car).

  Jardin des Soupirs was on the right: long and narrow and overshadowed by neighbouring buildings. The plants on either side overhung the path and there were a couple of sheds with printed memos on them that I didn’t read, cupboards for storing seeds and things, and a scarecrow. A man appeared to be repairing some kind of gardening tool. He looked up at me and I smiled as I walked between the miniature plots of flowers and herbs. I walked past a purple wall with ivy growing up it and arrived at the end, where a bench and some chairs waited in a small paved area. I sat down next to a pond made out of an old sink with tall, white-flowered reeds growing from it and I watched the afternoon sunlight reflect off the walls high above me. Two women approached, one of them pointing things out to the other. As they neared, the older woman knelt down and uprooted a couple of weeds. When she rose again, she smiled and said, ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘Bonjour, madame,’ I said politely. ‘He is magnificent your garden.’

  ‘Thank you, but he belongs not to me. He is a community project. We are many neighbours who occupy ourselves with the garden.’

  (We were speaking French.)

  ‘Well, he truly is a marvel.’ I smiled. I had nothing more to say, but she waited expectantly as though something in my tone of voice indicated that I had not yet finished. So I carried on.

  ‘I especially love the plants in this small lake-type thing.’ (The word for pond had momentarily escaped me.)

  ‘Ah yes, they are beautiful, are they not? It is Monsieur Girault who has created this little corner. He will be delighted to know that it has so pleased you. Monsieur Girault?’ She called up the garden to the man I had passed earlier. He was now ambling towards us. ‘This monsieur was just praising your pond.’ (I blushed, suddenly realising that I had all along known the word for pond.)

  ‘A friend has spoken to me about your garden.’ I felt shy and didn’t really want to be talking to strangers. ‘I am just passed by curiosity, and it makes a real pleasure. I am very happy to be come.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you. And tell me how did your friend call itself?’

  ‘Oh, she was an American who called herself, er, Butterfly.’ Though it seemed a little informal to refer to her as Butterfly to a stranger, ‘Tomomi Ishikawa’ seemed more complicated than the conversation warranted.

  The man frowned. ‘And you are Mr . . . ?’ he asked me.

  ‘Constable. Ben Constable.’

  ‘Philippe Girault.’ He held out his hand and I shook it. ‘Perhaps you would be interested to see a corner of flowers I have been tending these last few months for a friend absent. Please, follow me.’

  I wasn’t in the least bit interested in seeing his friend’s flowers, but couldn’t really refuse. I followed the man down a narrow stone path, through beds of herbs and wildflowers, to a brightly coloured patch. The man stopped.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  ‘Very good,’ I said. And then, for fear of disappointing, I added. ‘Really, very beautiful.’

  ‘Perhaps I will leave you a moment to contemplate them,’ he said, and stepped away, making his way back to the
two women, where he spoke in a lowered voice. What was I supposed to be doing? Did they think I was some kind of travelling flower connoisseur?

  Knowing nothing about plants, I was surprised at how many I could recognise. There were foxgloves and some tall daisies and snapdragons and flowers hanging from a shrub that I knew as dancing ladies. How did I know those names? After about fifteen seconds’ intense contemplation, I decided to leave. I called over to the group, ‘Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the day.’ I waved and headed for the exit as fast as I could without seeming like I was trying to make a quick getaway.

  ‘Wait, monsieur!’ the man called after me. I stopped. And he moved hastily towards me. ‘Monsieur, excuse me. I believe you have not yet finished regarding the flowers.’

  ‘It’s true?’

  ‘Yes, look.’ He held out his hand, directing me to look again at the flowers.

  I looked down and stared very hard at the petals for nearly a minute. I had no idea how long would be enough to please him. Then I looked up questioningly.

  ‘At the side of the plants is a tag saying the name of each one,’ he offered.

  I squatted down and looked closely at the plastic tags sticking out of the ground. The words were written in tiny letters in fading felt tip. All of them were Latin and had no more meaning to me than Martian words, but I silently mouthed them to show I was taking the whole thing seriously. One of the taller plants had a tag wrapped around the stalk. I carefully turned it so I could see the words: ‘HELLO BC’.

  I jumped slightly and said, ‘Oh.’ Then I turned the tag over and it said, ‘What kind of plant would attract a butterfly?’

  I looked up at the man and he was pleased with himself.

  I started to speak and then stopped. ‘You have seen this?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said the man. I thought for a moment.

  ‘You know Butterfly?’ I said.

  ‘Bof . . .’ The man made a good-natured Gallic gesture, signalling that he had nothing to say on the matter.

  ‘Do you know what kind of plants attract butterflies?’

  ‘Yes, there is a plant called a buddleia. It’s very common.’

  ‘And do you have one here?’ I asked.

  ‘Sadly, no,’ said the man.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a shrub with small purple flowers that make cones like this.’ He showed me the size with his hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much. I think I know where to find that.’

  ‘What . . . ?’ he said, and he gestured with his head to see whether I was thinking the same direction that he was (but without giving anything away if I didn’t know).

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  The man nodded at me and then turned and nodded at the women behind, who were watching the proceedings with great interest.

  * * *

  I walked along rue du Retrait and then went and sat on one of the low concrete bollards in Cité de l’Ermitage and lit a cigarette. This was the cobbled street where Tomomi Ishikawa and I had smoked late at night a couple of times. Then I walked down rue Ménilmontant and turned left towards a little square where there was a bar I liked.

  When I left the bar it was dusk and I was a little drunk; that suited my purpose. I walked back up the hill towards Gambetta and found the dream street quite easily. When I got to ‘Papilles et Papillons’ I looked quickly left and right and climbed over the fence and ducked out of clear view. I took out my lighter to examine the butterfly plant with purple flowers. There was a tag on it confirming that it was definitely a buddleia, but there was no obvious clue or treasure. I scraped at the dirt in front of the base and then rummaged in my bag for something to dig with. All I could find was Butterfly’s blue on/offable pen. It would do. I poked the soft earth and scraped until a few inches down I hit plastic and carefully uncovered a notebook-sized package.

  7

  Jay

  A shadow or a movement in the corner of my eye is where Cat usually comes from. And as I closed the door to the apartment he skulked out of my peripheral vision towards me and jumped onto the work surface. I prepared food and then sat on a stool to eat and he pretended the buried package was a bird or a mouse (or whatever prey Cat likes to toy with before he kills it—probably much bigger things, like baby goats). I pushed it onto the floor and he looked at me and then down at the package. I picked it up again and opened it. There was a notebook inside and I read as I shovelled spaghetti into my mouth and Cat supervised.

  Jay Hara (1970–1998)

  I remembered Jay from my childhood. He was a distant relative of Komori, my nanny, and lived in Pasadena, CA, but for some reason he had come to New York for a few months when he was eight or nine. After that he was sent to Tokyo.

  Now at the age of twenty he had come back to New York and my nanny asked me to look out for him. I was sixteen. His real name was something Japanese that didn’t sound like Jay at all, but Jay was how he introduced himself, although my nanny called him “Young Nephew,” even to his face.

  For the first few months, I made various efforts to see him. He was short, skinny, and slightly uncomfortable in his gestures. His hair was dyed light brown and his dress sense kind of manga. He was obviously street smart but had incongruous traits of Japanese body language and was a little camp. He didn’t fit in with the perfection-obsessed sixteen-year-old girls I was hanging out with at the time, and neither did I particularly, so I quickly worked out that it was easier to see him by myself. I had presumed him to be little more than a not-unpleasant obligation, but as he settled into New York life I was surprised to observe that he found it easy to get along with people and he quickly established a social scene with older artsy types who treated him with respect, and I realized that I, as much as the others around him, admired him. He had a dry and dark sense of humor and in my sixteen-year-old eyes he was quite simply a lot cooler than me. It was with slight regret that we gradually lost contact for no particular reason.

  Eight years later, I bumped into him in the New York Public Library. He’d been working there since he’d arrived in New York. I was embarrassed not to have known, but I felt genuinely pleased to have found him again.

  From then on we met up occasionally for coffees or after-work drinks. He seemed to find me easier (and I guess I had grown up a bit). He had filled out and came across as more self-confident, yet I felt he had somehow deteriorated into something weaker since we had last spent time together. And as we talked I discovered he lived a cycle of an extreme manic depression, whisking him from dizzying heights to destructive lows and back again in the space of a few days. Our conversations became increasingly centered on his imagined woes, or embarrassing optimism. And so, for all the warmth of admiration I felt for him, I started to develop a taste of revulsion at his weakness.

  The last couple of months of his life started with him disappearing. At first, this came as a relief from the frustration at not being able to help him. I hoped next time we spoke he would be a bit more stable and his company would be easier. But after six weeks without contact I became concerned. I called him several times, but there was no answer. So reluctantly I mentioned his disappearance to my nanny, who instructed me to go immediately to his apartment and report back to her.

  He opened the door as if expecting me and turned back toward the kitchen, leaving me to let myself in and follow him through. He was unshaven, wearing powder-blue pajamas, and he smelled of alcohol. It was the first time I’d seen the apartment. It was a big, empty space and definitely not paid for on librarian wages. The décor wasn’t so much minimalist as bare, as though he’d never really moved in. The living room was devoid of decoration and furnished solely with cardboard boxes along one wall and hundreds or maybe even thousands of books stacked on their sides in towers as tall as could remain balanced. There was a quilt slung on the floor and an open paperback lying spine-up next to it. I guess he had been reading before I arrived.

  I sat on a fold
able wooden chair at a makeshift table in the kitchen and lit a cigarette while he reheated old coffee in a pan on the stove. He looked in a cupboard to find cups, but there were none clean, so he rolled up his sleeves to wash a couple sitting in the half-full sink. His forearms were covered in neat, fine razor lines of self-harm.

  “So, what’s become of you, Jay?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual.”

  “It’s not usual that you disappear for six weeks,” I said.

  “No, I’m going through a bad patch at the moment, that’s all.”

  “What kind of bad?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  I paused for a moment, thinking. “Family?” I asked. “Work? Love? Health?”

  “It doesn’t matter what the subject is, Butterfly; I’ll always find something. I’m infected with depression. It’s a disease eating away at me and I’m going lower and lower.”

  “Have you been like this for a long time?”

  “Years. I have ups and downs, but the ups are just a sign of how deep the lows will go to compensate and so are just as unbearable. I’m tired of this constant moving of mood; there’s no rest.”

  “But I haven’t seen you up for a long while.”

  “It’s true. Even my ups are low these days. I’m stuck rotating in dark circles.”

  “What are you going to do? Have you got some kind of plan to help yourself?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know; you could go back to LA, or maybe you’d be happier in Tokyo.”

  “I’m just fine here, thank you.”

  “Or maybe you could see an analyst?”

  “Not my thing, Butterfly.”

  “Couldn’t you do exercise or take up a hobby?”

  “Butterfly, shut up.”

  “Sorry.” I stared at the floor.

  “But, there’s a strange thing that I’ve noticed.”

  “What?” I asked.