“I couldn’t be with her.”
“Of course you could.”
“I couldn’t, Butterfly. I wasn’t able to watch her die. It was draining the life from me. I would have died too. The pain was unbearable. Putting distance between us was the only way I could survive.”
“So she loved you and existed for you while you gave her nothing when she needed it most, for fear that you would suffer?”
“It sounds stupid, but that was the reality.”
“Oh my God, that’s pathetic.”
“I know.”
“That’s like having a flower that makes your life wonderful, but refusing to water it because you’re afraid there will be none left for yourself. So the flower dies and you are miserable. Your life has been ruined by your own selfishness.”
I turned to the door and walked out into the yard. He came out as far as the front step but wouldn’t go farther. “Wait,” he said. “Are you going?”
“I don’t know. I need a couple of minutes on my own.”
“You should wear a hat to protect your head from the sun.” He stretched out a hand as if he might be able to touch me from where he stood, but he couldn’t. I remembered him coming to collect me from ballet, waiting in the street. And I remembered him watching from the car as I walked into school. I remembered him watching through the railings of the community garden as I weeded, dug and planted, always a barrier between us. But it was too late to change that now.
I walked farther up behind the house and out of sight, making loud crunching noises with my feet so any rattlers could get out of my way. And on this lunar landscape I learned something about silence that I had never known existed. The tiniest sounds, my shoes on the ground, my breathing, my heartbeat dissolved in the sun, never making it far enough to bounce back or to be absorbed by the porous dust. They just evaporated into the air around me.
A thousand generations can pass in the blink of an eye and civilizations rise and fall (like time-lapse photography) in the time that the desert takes just one breath. Life and death are meaningless. God doesn’t cry at the loss of every living creature; if he did, the desert would be flooded with his tears. God has not even noticed us as he shuffles the tectonic plates, watching the mountains ripple up and crumble down. And I am nothing. Nothing.
I found him sitting motionless in a large armchair. Waiting for me to come back in again, I guess.
“And so you gave her a job as my babysitter and she ended up with a standing befitting to her class.”
“She wasn’t your babysitter, Butterfly.”
“Isn’t that what komori means? You weren’t there, neither was Mom. She brought me up, alone, with no help from either of you.”
“Sit down, my darling.”
“I’m not your darling.”
“Sit down. I need to tell you something. I need to explain and it’s not easy.”
I sat and waited while he tried to get his thoughts in some sort of order.
“Keiko wanted a child. Her condition made becoming pregnant an impossibility. There was nothing I could do to ease her suffering. So I gave her the only thing I had that could improve her life. You were my present to her. You belonged to her.”
I started to cry. “Was I just something to be given away? Didn’t I have any value?”
“I’m sorry.”
“But Daddy, what about me as a person?”
“You were the most precious thing in the world. But I’m not trying to justify myself. I’m just trying to explain, and to apologize for not being in your life, to say sorry for not sharing the love that I felt. I only hope you can understand that all this came from a good place, from a wish to help somebody I cared for deeply. And I am proud that you have grown beyond anything that was planned for you into a full and rounded young woman. You were right. You have turned out all right, and I am so proud to have a daughter like you. I’m so happy to find you after all this time.”
“But why? How could you have a child and not wish to give her the best possible life?”
“Keiko needed somebody. But nobody could have survived watching her die unless they were educated in a different way. You were brought up to do something that I didn’t know how to. You were brought up to live with loss that none of the rest of us could accept. You would be harder, stronger than us. You would be able to survive where we could not.”
“And what makes you think that I can? What makes you think that I am not injured by the pain and even more so by the fact that you planned it, that I was given away at birth in order to deal with shit you couldn’t handle. What about my mother? Why did she accept to just be a walking womb for your little death servant.”
“She was young. It was difficult for her, but she understood.”
“Why were you even having children with other women if you were so fucking in love with Komori?”
“I told you. I had you in order that Keiko could have a child. I know this can’t be easy for you, Butterfly. But I wanted you to understand why.”
“Thanks. That’s put my mind completely at rest. Have you got anything to drink here?” I stood up and moved toward the kitchen.
“Yes. There are a few bottles in the cupboard on the left. Let me help—” He made to stand but I cut him off.
“Stay where you are. I can make a drink.” I breathed deep, calming myself down and finding my cool. “Do you want one?”
“No, thank you. It’s a little early for me.”
“Well, after this I’m going to leave and never come back. You’ll never see me again. So, if you ever want to have a drink with your precious daughter, now’s the time. I’m having a gin and soda. Sure I can’t tempt you?”
“OK. I’ll have a gin and soda too.”
I looked back to where he was sitting. There were tears rolling down his face.
I picked up my bag and as I prepared the drinks I pulled out three packets of pills—medication you can buy over the counter at any drugstore. I’d brought them with me. The idea was already in my head. I may not have planned to kill him, but I’d made provision should the need arise. I broke three capsules into his gin and made sure they were fully dissolved. I had the obscene confidence (or complacency) of the experienced. All he had to do was turn around. He would have seen me, but he just sat still.
“Here you are.” I handed him a glass and sat down with my own.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Cheers.” I raised my glass.
“Yes, to your good health.” He took a sip. “It’s very bitter.”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s a funny aftertaste in your gin. It’s drinkable, though, and I don’t fancy whiskey.”
We sat in silence, sipping our drinks and smoking.
“I feel like shit, Daddy. I never really felt the warmth of family love, but now I feel nothing. Just a pawn in your twisted plot, because you were too racist to be with the woman you loved and too scared to face death. It’s the singularly most natural thing, the most common experience in our existence.”
“You were brought up to understand death. For the rest of us it is painful beyond comprehension.”
“What makes you think you are so special? What makes you imagine that you feel more pain than me? I don’t know you. I don’t understand who you are or what your values are, if you have any.”
“I don’t know what my values are either. Maybe fear of pain, and self-loathing. At least I haven’t passed them on to you. For the first time, I can see that you are a real person. I imagine that you value people and their feelings. That you value art and beauty. I imagine that you want good, and that you have understood that the world is bigger than just your ego. You are different to me. If I have done nothing else, at least I have not passed on my pathological fear of life.” His voice was starting to slow down like an unwinding musical box.
“We may be more alike than you think. Have you ever killed anybody, Daddy?”
“No. Thank God. That’s at least one crime I haven’t committed.�
��
“I killed her, you know? Komori. I gave her an overdose.”
“I didn’t know how you did it, but it was always the plan that you would be there to end her life if need be.”
“Oh fuck, it just keeps getting worse.”
“Butterfly. I love you,” he said even slower. “Do you know what love is?”
“No. I’m not sure that it even exists.”
“That’s a shame. I hope you find out one day. I hope you learn what a wonderful thing love is.”
“Well, that’s a beautiful sentiment. But I think we’re just animals, trying to save our asses or our species. We are big piles of self-obsessed meat with lust for physical pleasure and chemical impulses driving us to procreate. Hormones provoking emotions that incline us to protect our young. Jealous need of possession. That’s what I think love is. We think we are higher beings, but we’re just running around constrained by our animal bodies and superstition. It’s all chemical.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said.
“That’s how it seems.”
“Do you think this is the first real conversation we’ve ever had?”
“Maybe.”
And so, strangely, a few minutes before his death, my father and I made some kind of contact, and I don’t think I could have asked for more.
I searched through the kitchen cupboards and found some candles. In an enclosure at the back of the house was a collection of propane canisters. I dragged one inside and opened the valve.
“Are you still awake, Daddy?” I asked.
“Mmmm.” His head was slumped to the side. I lit all the candles and stood them up well out of reach on a table. Then I kissed his head.
“Goodbye, Daddy. I’m going.”
I got in the car and drove.
From nowhere a torrent of rain fell and the sun shone through, illuminating each drop. Takeo knocked on the door of the house, trying to stay dry. He was a boy. A woman answered. “I can’t let you in,” she said, “an angry fox came looking for you. You have offended the foxes. Go to where they live and ask their forgiveness.” “But I don’t know where they live,” he cried. “On days like this there are rainbows,” she said. “Foxes live under the rainbows.” And so he walked down through a meadow full of flowers and a bright arc filled the sky ahead. He could smell the rain and ground and flowers of every color. So many beautiful flowers.
The house was still in sight. I stopped and got out of the car and stared. All I could see was a reflection in the distance under the rippling heat and then it burst into flames. My stomach spasmed and I choked, tears pouring freely for a second. A low rumbling sound rolled across the dust toward me and a plume of smoke mushroomed up, marking the position. I wiped my face on my top and my body filled with energy like warm liquid flowing over me. A car pulled up and the window lowered. An overweight suntanned couple asked me whether I knew what it was.
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “I was just standing here and it went up.”
Then there was a second, much bigger explosion and the couple let out a gasp. “Pass me the video camera, Jan.”
I wished them good day and left before I ended up on tape.
22
Unfinished Things and a Goodbye
I knew Streetny would have something to say about all this, but when I checked my email the next morning he was more formal than he had been of late.
To: Benjamin Constable
From: [email protected]
Subject: Impressed
Sent: 08-27-07 07:21 (GMT -6)
Dear Mr. Constable,
It appears that you are ahead of the instructions Miss Ishikawa has left for you. The clue for the treasure under the Katsura tree in McCarthy Square had not even been given. One can only imagine that she would be very impressed at your treasure-hunting skills. Congratulations on your determination and intuition.
There is something for you at the Chelsea Hotel. The clue to its position is: Low trees somewhere high up.
Low like broccoli.
Good luck.
Mr. C. Streetny.
‘He knew about our conversation in the Japanese restaurant.’
‘Yes.’ Beatrice was seething but trying to hold it in.
‘And he signed it Mr C Streetny; that’s a street. I’m the only person in the world stupid enough to think that it would be a name. He knows about me. He knows what I do, when I do it, and now he knows what I think. He knows all the things about me that only you know.’
Beatrice measured a couple of heavy breaths. ‘She’s got somebody listening to everything you say.’
‘She?’
‘Butterfly.’
I looked all around me. I really looked, for a minute or more, but I couldn’t see anyone.
‘Butterfly’s dead,’ I said. ‘Somebody is sending me things from her and that person is you, or has something to do with you.’
She bit her lip. ‘It’s not me, I swear. None of this is what it seems.’
‘What is it then? I think you should explain some stuff.’
‘I can’t, Ben.’ She leaned forwards, looking straight in my eyes. Hers were wet with tears, but she kept control. ‘It’s not coming from me,’ she said; ‘I’m not doing this. But it’s all there for you to work out. You just have to open your eyes.’
‘Work what out?’
She shut her mouth and looked at me as if she would say no more. Maybe she was telling the truth and she wasn’t doing any of this, but it was to do with her and she knew what was going on. My stare was accusing. She was uncomfortable. I’d come back to this later. I tried to breathe for a moment and let her welling tears subside.
‘Where’s the Chelsea Hotel?’ I asked nicely.
‘Chelsea.’ She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a napkin.
‘Is it well-known or something?’
‘You haven’t heard of the Chelsea Hotel?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘That surprises me.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s famous. It’s a hotel for artists and musicians. I guess it’s been there since the late sixties and it hasn’t really changed since. Lots of famous people have lived there.’
‘Like who?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Bob Dylan. Janis Joplin. Probably Hendrix for all I know. Sid Vicious died there.’
‘Will you show me where it is?’
Beatrice sighed. ‘OK.’
‘You sound like you’re just saying OK, but you don’t really want to.’
‘I think it’ll be easier if I go with you.’
I didn’t argue.
Beatrice was no longer a random stranger; she’d just admitted it, although what she was I had no idea. My understanding of everything was about to change and it made me feel sick. I didn’t show it, though, because Beatrice looked sicker than me. She was quiet as she led the way to the Chelsea Hotel. She didn’t look for landmarks, check street names or house numbers. She knew this place well. I should have guessed.
The walls of the foyer were crowded with colourful paintings. A horse’s head stared at me unnervingly and a figure on a swing hung above my head.
‘Most of these were given in lieu of unpaid rent,’ Beatrice informed me casually.
We walked past a man behind the reception desk who smiled and said hello and we turned left and waited for the lift.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Shhh,’ said Beatrice. When we were in the lift and the doors closed she said, ‘To the roof.’
We got out on the tenth floor and climbed some stairs to a door with a sign clearly stating that it was alarmed and that there was no public admittance.
‘We’re not allowed up here,’ said Beatrice, pushing the door.
‘Won’t the alarm go off?’
‘There isn’t an alarm.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know someone who stays here sometimes.’ Her voice was soft and measured.
‘Does the guy on recept
ion know you?’
‘He recognises me.’
‘Why are you pissed off?’ I asked.
‘Because I feel like I’m being manipulated.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘By who?’
‘By whoever is sending you up here.’
‘Butterfly?’
‘I thought you said she was dead.’ There was a hint of bitterness in her mocking.
‘She is.’
‘How did she think you were going to find your way to the roof without me?’
‘I’m not totally incapable of doing things by myself.’
‘You wouldn’t have even known there was a roof to come to if it wasn’t for me.’
The roof was divided up by changes of level, chimneys, ducts and vents, and a water tower. Parts of it were separated into little gardens and parts were just bare. The view was of a different New York. I could see down onto the roofs of lower buildings and was on the same level as the raised turrets of water towers perched on the buildings in every direction. There were brown-coloured tower blocks like the ones by the Manhattan Bridge, and grey-white towers (among them the Empire State Building) stretching towards the sky above me. New York was suddenly more three-dimensional from here. Taller, dirtier, older, newer.
‘I need to find a small tree.’
‘You’d better look around then.’
‘I don’t want to go into the garden bits. I might not be allowed.’
‘You’re not allowed up here anyway. I’d look around for a small tree if I were you. It’s not hard to find.’
‘You know where it is!’ I accused.
‘I think so.’
‘Show me.’
‘No. You have to find it.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Mmmm. That’s rebellious.’ Now she was sneering.
‘Show me.’
‘No.’
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
She stared at me. ‘What, really?’
‘Yep.’
‘And I thought I was in a bad mood. Why won’t you look for it?’
‘Because you know where it is. I don’t feel like playing anymore. There’s too much stuff in front of my eyes I haven’t asked about, stuff that I’ve let go of for the sake of playing the game, or to not upset you. But I’m not playing anymore; I’m being played with. I’ve become the toy, not the playmate. You said you were pissed off because you felt manipulated, but the questions I haven’t asked are for you. There are things I don’t know that you do and you’re not telling me. There’s something else. It’s you playing the game; it’s you doing the manipulating and I don’t know why.’
Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa Page 20
