I had to think about this for a second. ‘OK, you’re right,’ I said. ‘But I can’t get over all those things. I can’t decide whether I think there’s something suspicious going on.’
‘Don’t go getting paranoid on me,’ she said like somebody off the television. ‘That’s one thing no girl needs. You’re pretty cool and funny, but you’re going to have to get over the fact that we’ve got things in common. Normal people find that kind of thing positive.’
‘But this all started because you said you needed a light.’
‘So what?’ Her eyes followed mine down to the lighter in her hand. ‘I was looking for it in my bag when I saw you smoking. It was easier to ask you. And then you had a cute accent, and a treasure hunt, and a dead friend. That’s quite an interesting combination for a midweek lunchtime.’
‘OK.’
‘And then you asked me to go for coffee and suddenly I was wondering if your whole story was part of an elaborate trick. It seemed too improbable to be made up, though, and you look too innocent.’
‘The innocence thing’s just a ruse.’ My brain was still unsatisfied, but I had to stop thinking about it.
‘I’m going to have to go after this wine, though,’ she said. ‘I still have things to do and I’m worried about getting blind drunk before it’s even the end of the afternoon.’
‘OK.’
‘Besides, I think you want to read that notebook we found.’
We went back inside and ate the food we’d ordered and drank the wine. Beatrice was tipsy and talked a lot. She had an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music, she’d read the same books I had and knew all Paris’s best cafés and bars from Montmartre to La Butte aux Cailles. I liked her. And after five minutes and a second bottle of wine, three hours had passed and Beatrice looked at the time and said, ‘Oh shit, I have to go. Can you ask for the cheque while I make a quick phone call?’ Then she got up and went outside.
When she got back I’d paid.
‘You paid for everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me give you some money.’
‘No, I’m getting this if that’s OK.’
‘OK. Thank you. It’s my turn next time, though.’
‘Good.’
‘I really have to go, I’m afraid. Give me a call and let me know how you’re getting on with your treasure hunt, and we’ll get that coffee.’
‘I don’t actually drink coffee.’
‘What?’ she said with fake shock. ‘You never had any intentions of getting coffee with me?’
‘No, sorry.’
She leaned over and kissed my cheeks like we were French and then said, ‘See ya later.’
‘Bye,’ I said.
I thought about staying in the café to read Butterfly’s notebook, but my legs were aching from the morning’s hike and my head was woozy from the wine. I wanted to be on my own so I went back to the hotel.
Keiko Sasaki (1941–1999)
One day, once upon a time in New York, a woman named Keiko Sasaki (known to me as Komori) went in a taxi to a private clinic in New Jersey where she would die.
Ever since I was a child, Komori had been preparing me for her death. She explained her will. It wasn’t complicated; just about everything was for me. She told me I could sell, throw away or do whatever I wished with most things, but there were a few special objects I was instructed to distribute to people, and there were a couple of others that I had to guard preciously as keepsakes. She lived in a large apartment in the West Village. It is the apartment where I grew up and it is from here that I write, in this most improbable of gardens, surrounded by Komori’s endless potted plants perched on every surface and before each window, the bathroom, kitchen, even the closets (for sprouting bulbs). As well as the flowers and shrubs there is a smallish Japanese tree (a blood willow, or Katsura tree—too large for the apartment) that Komori had potted on the day of my birth. It had been a present to her from my father. I was brought up caring for these plants—feeding and pruning and catering to their specific needs. In some respects it was quite a normal relationship between a woman and a young girl. In others it was unusual.
The precision of her will was not the only aspect of her death to be planned in detail. The other substantial part of the preparations was the death itself. Cancer was eating her from within. There were months and years of remission followed by new tumors in new organs. At times when she was so weakened by her chemotherapy I would be taken away and placed in the care of my delighted mother, then returned as soon as my nanny could stand again. But death was not to get the better of Komori. When the time came she had planned to go with dignity and (even if her judgment failed) I would assure that end. I was raised and educated for the single task of killing the person I loved the most.
Despite the innocence of my years, I knew that this was not normal and I kept it a (mortal) secret. Even now, committing it to paper seems like treachery, but somewhere is the hope that this may buy me peace.
Although appropriately vague, she first approached the subject when I was six, carefully implanting the notion that a strong person should follow strict ideals in death. It wasn’t until I was nine or ten that she first mentioned that I would be involved; that when the time came, it would be important I help her die with honor, and I agreed. Komori meant to steal her own death from the hands of fate, God or whatever else could dictate her end. Her dignity was her control of all situations and it was as important to me as life itself. It still is. And thus these words are intended to go no further than the closed cover containing these pages, and yet even now, I know this is not the end of their journey; that the illusion of confession cannot work without the hope of an audience.
At times of weakness she would need assurance. “Promise me you will, Butterfly,” “Promise me you’ll be here when I need you,” “Promise that you won’t be afraid, that you won’t back out.” And I promised.
It was five years before her death when we started to get into specifics. She felt the inexorable draining of her life and knew now that she couldn’t recover. It was time to get organized. “Let’s make sure everything is clear while I still have my mind,” she would say. “Let’s run through it again.” Komori’s death was to be executed with calm precision and without fault. Last-minute nerves or momentary loss of clarity were not to cloud this moment of utmost importance, not least because I didn’t want to go to prison. So, like a soldier or an assassin, I prepared, acting through every detail in my head, training my mind to resist fear or revulsion for the task, I learned the movements of my muscles so that even were my head to be cut off I could still perform this one last task to perfection, and I was not a death virgin—that would have simply been irresponsible.
And time’s elastic contracted, pulling me closer to the moment, and I emptied my mind, concentrating as I had never done before. My daily life became a façade, hollow actions, running on autopilot while I meditated and rehearsed; keeping the adrenaline down, becoming cold and rational. We come from dust and to dust we will return, a promise is a promise and I will do what I have prepared. Would that I could ever refind that clarity and determination. Would that I could reapply myself to anything else with the same dedication. But I fear that I was born to do just one thing and now that it is done, I am lost.
One day, once upon a time in New York, my nanny, Komori, said goodbye to her home and her adopted Manhattan island and went to the clinic in New Jersey where her longtime medical advisor, Dr. Bastide, was the resident physician. She told everybody she was going for intensive treatment, but she would die there. That was the plan.
“We could perform a mastectomy, but it is not the cancer in her breast that will kill her,” Dr. Bastide told me in private. “Although the surgery probably would.”
I spent my days at her bedside, accompanying her discomfort. She didn’t bother with a wig now and her skin was gray. I read to her. My father came once, and while they talked Dr. Bastide took me to his office and explained that
her organs were shutting down one by one and that it was time to say goodbye. I had two, maybe three days. When my father left he nodded at me. That was our only exchange. I walked back into the room and she told me she was feeling better.
The day after, she told me that she might be strong enough to undergo the mastectomy soon. She asked about her plants. At shift change, a nurse came in, changed the drip and fluffed the pillows. Then Dr. Bastide came and sat for about a quarter of an hour, asking her questions and listening with a stethoscope.
“This is to keep you comfortable during the night,” he told her, and gave her an injection. “I’m leaving for the evening, but I’ll be in the area. Call me on my cell if you need anything, Butterfly.”
When he had shut the door we sat looking at each other without speaking and I stroked her hand. Her skin was like satin. Her eyes rolled back. She was old beyond her years.
“Let’s get you sitting up.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s time for your medicine,” I said, and took out a series of packets from my bag.
“I can’t swallow very easily,” she said. “They normally give me medicine through the drip.” Her voice was helpless, like a child’s.
“These are supplementary tablets. It’s best for you to try to swallow.”
“I’ll try, my darling,” she said, and I fought down the lump in my throat. That wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t supposed to call me darling.
I found the button to raise the back of the bed until she was upright and I put my arm around her to hold her steady. She weighed nothing.
“Are you ready, Komori?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I popped a capsule out of its packaging and placed it on her tongue, then lifted a glass of water to her mouth. She swallowed obediently and although it caused her pain, she was quiet. I gave her two of each kind and then two more and two more. Each time there would be a pause as she gathered the strength to swallow. Sometimes her frail arm would rise up to help me tip the water.
“There are a lot,” she whispered.
“Come on, nearly there. Let’s take the rest.”
We carried on for five minutes; each time I put a pill in her mouth it became harder to swallow.
“I expect the alstroemeria bulbs are ready for potting in the large tubs,” she said.
I counted the remaining pills.
“Butterfly?”
“Yes, Komori?”
“They’ll need plenty of water.”
She had taken enough to kill a horse, but I wanted to make sure. After two more tablets, the water dripped back out of her mouth. She rested her head on me. I stroked the wisps of her hair and soothed her brow.
“Shhh,” I said.
She stood wearing an embroidered kimono, motionless, watching. Not a child anymore, not an adult either. Before her was a green slope and from the left and the right silent figures arrived and spread out along three terraces. There were her birth parents and her brothers and sisters, and her adopted mother and aunts and uncles. In the center of the highest level was her father. He bowed formally, respectfully, but in his eyes was love and delight. “Welcome home, Keiko.” The figures were now trees decorated in bright colors and a gentle breeze lifted the blossom from their branches, filling the air with a million tiny petals that rained gently down onto the terraces, onto her head, and into the palms of her hands.
I opened her mouth and found three tablets inside and then I stuck my fingers down her throat to make sure there was nothing stuck. Then I carried on sitting with my arms around her skeletal body. But this was all just functional. I was simply going through the motions of making her death pleasant. A promise is a promise and I had done what I had prepared. Emotion had no part in this. Emotion could come later or whenever. Whatever.
I lowered the head of the bed to a comfortable position, wiped the saliva from her mouth, straightened her clothes and the cover. I carefully put all the packaging back in my bag. There was nothing you couldn’t buy over the counter from any drugstore, although I had done my shopping at three different stores, as any observant pharmacist would have noticed the toxic combination. I called Dr. Bastide. “Could you come, please?” I asked.
As soon as he arrived I left. Outside and out of view I lay facedown, flat, on the cold concrete. Occasional spasms pumped my chest, but I held my mind solid.
I couldn’t make it all the way home. The dark growing inside me was too strong, treacle in my veins, black liquid behind my eyes. I went into a bar and drank four gins in twenty minutes and then went to another place for two more. On my empty stomach I hazed enough to make it back to Manhattan and the safety of Komori’s apartment, where I could let the darkness come, and it came. It came.
15
Mr. C. Streetny
‘Hello, Beatrice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hi, it’s Ben, you may remember me from yesterday. I’m the English guy you met on the steps of the New York Public Library.’
‘Oh yes, I remember. What’s up?’
‘I don’t know how to answer that question. In British English “What’s up?” means “What’s the matter?”. I know in American it means “How are you?” but “Very well, thank you, and yourself?” doesn’t seem to be the right response.’
‘I see the problem. You could say “Nothing” and that would be like saying “Everything is tickety-boo, thank you very much”.’
‘Tickety-boo?’
‘Yes, it’s British English. It means running perfectly, or according to plan, and portrays a sense of contentedness with the current situation.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Don’t tell me that you don’t say tickety-boo.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t think anyone has for a very long time. I could be wrong.’
‘Jeez, couldn’t you just pretend?’
‘Look, I’ll try to be more British, but I’m not promising that I’ll start saying tally-ho and tickety-boo.’
‘Well, so long as you’re making an effort, I suppose that’s something.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘are you likely to have time for a coffee ever?’
‘Er, yeah. When were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking today, but I can do whenever you like,’ I said.
‘What if we meet for an aperitif at six?’
‘Perfect. Where?’
‘I know an interesting New York place for you. In the West Village there’s a French café at the intersection of Fourth and Eleventh Streets, usually frequented by ladies in pairs discussing ladies’ matters. The streets in Manhattan are supposed to run parallel and never cross; so it’s an anomaly. You should try and find it without looking on a map.’
‘I don’t even know where the West Village is.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find it.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Well, you’ve got my number if you get lost.’
* * *
I wandered across the Brooklyn Bridge and lost myself in streets that felt curiously like home. I ordered fizzy water in a bar and got them to squeeze lime in it. I sat scribbling in my notebook and watching the world go by in the afternoon sun.
Who are you, Tomomi Ishikawa, and what have you done with my friend? Who else can I tell about all this? Who else would laugh? Who else would care? Don’t be dead, Tomomi Ishikawa—come and hang out with me.
I don’t understand the things you’re giving me to read. How many people have you killed? Or do you just write stories?
Here’s my question (the question that comes before ‘Why?’ or ‘What is truth?’): What if I decide not to read what you write?
Ever since writing was invented, people have been documenting the contents of their brains, giving names to ideas, noting their dreams, and distorting their memories and making up new ones. Lifetimes of scribbling, and oceans of ink. Whole forests of trees reduced to pulp for us to collect our words. What if nobody reads them? I think we write to be read, even if we tell o
urselves we don’t. But the vast majority of everything written fails in its most basic purpose and has never been read by another. Where are you to read my words, Tomomi Ishikawa? Are we talking to ourselves?
Then I headed back, this time across the Manhattan Bridge, and wandered left and right through the streets until I found a place where I could see computers through the window.
I had new mail and didn’t know what to think. I printed out the message and, as I paid, asked the man on the desk to point me towards the West Village. I was an hour early when I got to the French café. I ordered a beer because I was on holiday and read the email over and over.
Beatrice arrived bang on time, looking as if someone had just told her a joke.
‘What’s up?’ she said.
‘I’m very well, thank you, and yourself?’
‘Oh, everything’s just tickety-boo.’
‘Do you want a beer?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ I ordered two more beers and she said, ‘So what did it say in the notebook?’
I had a tiny attack of confusion. ‘What notebook?’ I wondered whether she was talking about my notebook, the one I write in.
‘The one from the piano.’
‘Oh.’ It was supposed to be private. But Butterfly was dead and she had said that I could even write a book about her. I didn’t suppose that it would matter. I was desperate to tell someone. I sat up straight, leaned in towards her and took a deep breath. ‘It was the story of how she killed somebody.’
‘She killed somebody?’
‘That’s what it said in the book.’
‘Who?’
‘Her nanny.’
‘How did she kill her?’
‘It’s not as bad as it sounds.’
‘Are there ways of killing people that aren’t bad?’
‘Well, this was a kind of euthanasia.’
‘OK.’
I clacked my teeth together a few times, thinking. ‘My head’s a bit of a mess,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ She nodded.
‘I’ve already found two other pieces of writing where Tomomi Ishikawa talks about killing people and they all sound vaguely like acts of mercy, but it’s crazy. There was no real need. The nanny was going to die anyway. The others, well, I don’t know. There was just no need for any of them. They would have either died or they wouldn’t. It was nothing to do with her.’
Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa Page 13
