Number9dream

by David Mitchell

  “Hovel?” a voice shot back from the apex of the pyramid. “Gimme my hovel an’ stuff yer geriatric rust-bucket bus, any day o’ da month!”

  “Aha! The thief sits in residence! Unhand m-my m-manuscript forthwith!”

  “Take a hike, ya sewerchewer JoeSchmo☝!”

  “Soap and water!” gasped Mrs. Comb.

  Goatwriter lowered his horns. “Fiend! Ladies are present!”

  A tiny hand appeared and flashed the finger. “If dat scrawny bird is a lady I am Frank Sinatra’s gallstone, ya hear? Dis is yer last warning! If ya ain’t skedaddled by da time I count to five I’ll slap harassment suits so fast—”

  “Legality! Indeed! A point m-most m-moot! You are the breaker, enterer, thiever of Zanzibar kippers and m-my truly untold tale! We d-demand justice and by Gideon we d-don’t intend to leave empty-handed!”

  “Magnificent, sir,” whispered Mrs. Comb.

  “Oooh, a threat!” the thief responded. “Ain’t I wetting my didgeridungarees!”

  Pithecanthropus grunted impatiently, waded deeper into the garbage pyramid, and with a single karate chop removed its top. Inside was a shocked, and then a furious, rat. “Are ya deranged, ya knuckle-dragger? Ya nearly lobotomized me!”

  Goatwriter peered through his pince-nez. “Remarkable—the thief would appear to be a Mus musculus d-domesticus.”

  “Ain’t nuffink domestic or mousey about me, punk! I am da ScatRat! Yeah, so I sampled yer moldy kippers—wassa big balooey, Huey? I never lifted no stories or pages! I got Scientific Whalers’ Weekly to wipe my •hole! Ya slander my good name once more, I swear, my lawyer’ll sue ya all da way to Alcatraz!” Then he spewed a chain of expletives so dire that Mrs. Comb shrieked and covered her ears with her wings. ScatRat hollered all the louder. “Act yer age, not yer egg size! Yer in da margins of da real world here!” With a final one-fingered salute, the rodent vanished into his pile’s bowels.

  The marginal wind blew a forlorn note.

  Pithecanthropus grunted a question.

  “I agree, sir,” added Mrs. Comb. “Don’t-Care should be made to care.”

  Goatwriter turned away stiffly. “Certainly, friends, this ScatRat is an abominable character, but a lack of m-manners per se is no crime. Such a crude d-degenerate would have no need of stealing m-my truly untold tale. He m-may be too ignorant to read. This m-mystery m-must go unsolved. Let us return to the Venerable Bus. M-my arthritis is telling m-me we shall be leaving these uninviting parts tonight.”

  Mrs. Comb baked a burdock troll cake to cheer Goatwriter up. Pithecanthropus repaired a hole in the roof. Goatwriter proofread his rewrite, and laid it to rest in his manuscript tray. He was unhappy with it. It lacked the magnificent glow that the earlier two versions had seemed to possess. “Dinnertime, by and by,” called Mrs. Comb. “You must be starving, sir. You haven’t had a bite all the livelong day.”

  “Peculiar to pronounce, Mrs. Comb, I could not entertain a m-morsel.”

  “I wish you’d give over fretting about your story, sir.”

  “No, no, Mrs. Comb—I just feel exceedingly full.”

  Pithecanthropus grunted urgently through the hole in the roof.

  “Clap that savage trap!” shot back Mrs. Comb. “Sir is out of sorts!”

  Goatwriter frowned as his jaws worked. “My d-dear fellow, whatever is distressing you so?”

  Mrs. Comb’s cookbook thudded. “Sir! What are you eating?” “Why, only a little paper cud—” Goatwriter’s mouth froze as he bit on the hard truth. Mrs. Comb fluttered. “Sir! Nobody stole your pages! You were eating your own pages as you wrote them!”

  Goatwriter’s words stuck in his throat.

  In the parched fog and half-light I wake with a yell. An old woman in black leans over me. I fall off the sofa. “Steady,” the old woman says. “Steady, child. You were dreaming. It’s me, Mrs. Sasaki, from Ueno Station.” Mrs. Sasaki. I unclench, breathe in, breathe out. Mrs. Sasaki? Fog blows away. Eiji Miyake, King of Cool. She smiles and shakes her head. “Sorry I startled you so. Welcome back to the land of the living. Buntaro neglected to mention I would be visiting this morning, am I correct?”

  I get to my feet and sit down straightaway. “Morning . . .”

  She puts down a sports bag. “I brought you some items from your apartment. I thought they might make your stay here more comfortable. Though had I known about your black eye, I would have brought a T-bone steak.” I am embarrassed that Mrs. Sasaki saw the mess I live in. “I must admit, I thought you would be up by now. Why don’t you sleep in the guest room, you foolish youth?”

  My mouth is dry as a sandbox. “I feel safer down here, I guess. Mrs. Sasaki—you, Buntaro—how did he know your number at Ueno? How do you know Shooting Star, and Buntaro?”

  “I’m his mother.” Mrs. Sasaki smiles at my astonishment. “We all have a mother somewhere, you know. Even Buntaro.”

  Pieces slot into place. “How come neither of you said anything?” “You never asked.”

  “It never occurred to me to ask.”

  “Then why should it occur to us to tell you?”

  “My job?”

  “Buntaro got you the interview, but you got the job yourself. None of this matters. We shall discuss your position at Ueno over breakfast. One thing at a time. First, you are to clean yourself up. I suggest you shave. You look as if you spent the week camping out with the homeless people in Ueno Park. It is high time you stopped yourself going to seed. While you are in the shower, I will cook your breakfast. I will expect you to eat more than me.”

  I stay in the shower until my bone marrow is hot and my fingerpads wrinkle. I body shampoo myself three times from scalp to toe. When I come out even my cold is better and I weigh less. I clip my fingernails. Now I shave. I am lucky, I only need to shave once a week. The boys in my class at high school used to boast about how often they shaved, but there are a hundred other things I would rather do with my time than drag steel over my hair follicles. Uncle Yen gave me an electric shaver a couple of years ago, but Uncle Tarmac laughed when he saw it and said real men use blades. I am still on my first packet of Bic disposables. I use the electric one only when I stay with Uncle Yen. I splash on cold water, and rinse my blade under the cold tap—Uncle Tarmac says the cold makes the razor contract and sharpen. I think of him every time I shave. I smear on Ice Blue shaving gel, especially the groove between the upper lip and the nose—why is there no name for that?—and my chin cleft, and the lower jaw hinge where I usually cut myself. Wait until the gel stings. Then start on the flatlands near the ears where it hurts least. I sort of like this pain. Tugged, uprooted. Some pain is best conquered by diving into it. Around the nose. Rinse away, stubbly goo. I chase it down the drain. More cold water. I touch my black eye until it hurts. Clean boxers, T-shirt, shorts. I can smell cooking. I go downstairs and put my shaving stuff back in the sports bag. I catch the eye of the lady in the shell photograph. “There, feeling better now? You worry too much. You are quite safe here. Tell me what happened. Give me your story. Speak. Give it to me.”

  So. The Mongolian disappeared into thin air. The burning Cadillacs broke into fresh applause. My senses struggled back from wherever, and I knew I had to get away from that place as soon as possible. I started jogging down the bridge. Not running—I knew I had a long night in front of me. I did not look over the parapet again, and I did not look over my shoulder. I was not even tempted. The thick smoke spun with plutonium fumes. It made me cough but it hid the bodies. I willed myself to become a machine whose product was distance. I jogged a hundred paces, and walked a hundred, over and over, along the perimeter road, scanning the moonlit distance for cars. I could hide down the embankment if anything came—the slope was built of those shorefront prefabricated concrete blocks with big hollows—but I had the track to myself. Horror, shock, guilt, relief: all the predictable things, I felt none of them. All I could feel was this urge to put distance between me and everything I had seen. Stars weakened. The fear that I would be caught an
d nailed to the crimes on the reclaimed land opened emergency reserves of stamina, and I kept my hundred-hundred regime up until the perimeter road curved through the roadblock and onto the main coastal road that led back to Xanadu. The dawn was scorching the horizon and the traffic on the main thoroughfare toward Tokyo was thickening. I was off the reclaimed land now and could pretend to know nothing about what had happened. The aspirin moon was dissolving in the lukewarm morning. Drivers and passengers stared at me—nobody walks out there, there is no sidewalk, just a sort of bulldozed-up ridge of ground. I thought about hitchhiking, but figured this would attract attention to me. I could not cope with small talk. How would I even explain how I came to be there? I heard a fleet of police sirens approach. Luckily I was passing a family restaurant, so I could hide in the entrance and pretend to make a phone call. I was wrong—no police cars, only two ambulances. What should I do? My fever was taiko -drumming my brain and my eye throbbed where Lizard had hit me. I had no plan of action beyond calling Buntaro and begging for help, but he wouldn’t be at Shooting Star until eleven and I did not have his home number, and I was afraid he would dump my stuff on the sidewalk when he found out what sort of company I kept on my evenings out. Who could blame him? Could Daimon help? I called my own number, but the only response was my own answering machine. I hung up. “Are you okay, dear?” asked a waitress behind the register. “Do you need anything for that eye?” She looked at me so kindly that the only way I could stop myself from blubbering was leaving rudely without answering. I envy her son. The route passed an industrial zone—at least I had a sidewalk to walk on. Every streetlight switched off simultaneously. The factory units went on forever. They all made things for other factory units: stacking shelves, packing products, forklift gearboxes. The drumming was subsiding, but the fever was now steaming the contents of my skull. I had used everything up. I should try to get back to the family restaurant, I thought, and collapse in the lap of the angel of mercy. Collapse? Hospitals, doctors, questions? Twenty-year-olds don’t collapse. The restaurant was too far behind me. There was a bench in front of a tiling-sealant factory. I don’t know why anyone put a bench there, but I sat down gratefully, in the shade of a giant NIKE sneaker. I hate this world. NIKE. THERE IS NO FINISH LINE. Across a weed-strewn wasteland I could see Xanadu and Valhalla. One great circle. A starter pistol went off somewhere, and the sun sprang up, running. A bird was singing—a long, human whistling note, then a starburst of bird code at the end. Over and over. Same bird lives on Yakushima, I swear. I willed myself to get up and make it as far as Xanadu, where I could find some air-conditioning and a place to sleep until I could phone Shooting Star. I willed myself, but my body wouldn’t move. A white car slowed down. Beep, beep. Beepy white car. Go away. The door opened from the inside, and the driver leaned over the passenger seat. “Look, kid, I’m not Zizzi Hikaru but unless you know of a better offer coming along, I suggest you climb in.” An uncoupled moment as I realized the driver was Buntaro. A haggard, stressed Buntaro. I was too drained to even wonder how, who, when, why. I was asleep in thirty seconds.

  HUNGER

  Mrs. Comb laid her final egg for the week, nestled it in cotton wool, placed it in her wicker basket, and added the finishing touches to her shopping list. Polish polish, Parmesan marzipan, toucan candles, and nit lotion “for the muckster.” A knock on her boudoir door preceded a nervous “Ahem . . .”

  “Yes, sir?”

  The door creaked open and Goatwriter squinted. “I believe m-market d-day is with us again, Mrs. Comb?”

  “That it is, sir. I’m off shortly to sell my eggs.”

  “Splendid. I, ahem, sense a dearth of stories hereabouts. I thought perhaps you m-might take along some recent scribblings to the m-market, and see if a storybroker comes along. You never know. Supply, demand, and all that . . .”

  “Right you are, sir.” In fact Mrs. Comb doubted very much that anyone would pay money for Goatwriter’s tales in a century of Sundays, but she slipped the stapled volume into her apron pocket so as not to hurt his feelings. The door banged open and the wind sprang in. Pithecanthropus stood on the threshold and grunted a question to Mrs. Comb. “Aye,” she replied, “I am going now, and no, you aren’t welcome. You’ll scare the customers off.” Pithecanthropus grunted a request, and opened his cupped palms to Mrs. Comb, who nearly dropped her basket in shock. “Worms! In my boudoir! Respectable folk live in these parts! Nobody eats worms! How dare you even think about putting those slimy articles in with my fresh eggs! Get out with you, this instant! Be off with you!”

  Mrs. Comb pecked her way across the blasted heath. This land had once been lush and green, but now cauliflowers rotted in rows, trees were stripped leafless, and craters pocked the scorched earth. A pipe dribbled sewage into a mire of wire, the stench from which forced Mrs. Comb to smother her mouth with her headscarf.

  Without warning, the sky screamed at the top of its lungs.

  Mrs. Comb just had time to shelter her basket of eggs and cover her ears before the sonic boom hit, blowing her apron over her head and ballooning her knickerbockers. When, finally, the shock waves subsided and Mrs. Comb got to her feet, she saw a most unusual sight: a hippie and his psychedelic surfboard falling from heaven. Mrs. Comb barely had time to scramble behind a large barrel labeled AGENT ORANGE before impact. Stones and assorted crash noises showered from the crater. Mrs. Comb, too buffeted to say a word even to herself, could only watch the dust settle. She heard a loud groan. “Oh, man . . .” The hippie heaved himself over the edge. His dreadlocks were ginger, his sunglasses wraparound, and his halo crooked. Seeing Mrs. Comb, he made the peace sign.

  “Two what?” asked Mrs. Comb, finally finding her tongue.

  “Two Phantoms on a bombing raid, ma’am, they totally blew me away. Never even saw ’em coming. Surprised they can find anything standing to demolish.”

  “That was a nasty tumble you took. Is anything broken?”

  “Only my pride, ma’am. A perk of immortality.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  The hippie swung his dreadlocks. “Name of God, ma’am.”

  This was becoming a very unsettling morning for a respectable old hen. Should she curtsy? “Charmed, I’m sure. But if those thundering machines are off dropping bombs, shouldn’t you try and stop them?”

  God wiped his halo on his shirt. “Would if I could, ma’am, but once the military decides to blast the living bejesus out of a country it takes more than divine intervention to change their minds. Time was, we had a veto on genocide, but now the generals don’t even bother letting us know . . .”

  “So how do wars ever get stopped?”

  “That, ma’am, is one sticky spittoon of guacamole. Tell you the truth, I never wanted to be a god. My daddy insisted, and when he insisted there wasn’t no arguing. I flunked the Ivy League colleges, and wound up at a divinity school in Big Sur. Surf was up, sand was golden, and oh, so were the babes, begging your pardon, ma’am. I skipped most of the seminars and just scraped by, mostly thanks to the old man’s string-pulling. Only miracle I learned was the water-to-wine scam. This war zone is my first posting. Heaven, ma’am, is another word for nepotism, you dig? Cronies of the Almighty get the stable democracies, leaving us nobodies to stick Band-Aids over the never-ending tribal revenge tragedies and the mafia statelets. It sucks, ma’am, well and truly suck-a-roos. Say, you got the time there?”

  Mrs. Comb checked her wristwatch. “Five and twenty to twelve.” “Bonymaronie! I gotta get my videos back to the store by noon or they’ll fine me again!” God clicked his fingers, his surfboard rose from the ashes, and he leapt aboard. “Mighty fine passing the time with you, ma’am. If you run into trouble on my turf, send me a wing and a prayer, you hear?” Crouching in a kung fu position, God surfed away. Mrs. Comb watched the divinity dwindle. “Aye. Well. I won’t be holding me breath.”

  Mrs. Sasaki ladles my miso soup from the pan into a lacquer bowl. Koiwashi fish and small cubes of tofu. Anju loved koiwashi—our grandm
other used to serve it this way. The miso paste swirls at the bottom, deep-sea sludge. Yellow daikon pickles, salmon rice balls wrapped in seaweed. Sheer comfort food. I exist on toast and yogurt in my capsule, assuming I get up early enough: real food is too much hassle to make. I know I should be ravenous, but my appetite is still in hiding. I eat to please Mrs. Sasaki. When my grandmother’s dog Caesar was dying, he ate just to please his mistress. “Mrs. Sasaki, I have some questions.”

  “I imagine you do.”

  “Where am I?”

  She passes me the bowl. “You didn’t ask Buntaro?”

  “Yesterday was weird all day, I wasn’t thinking straight. At all.”

  “Well, you are staying in the house of my sister and brother-in-law.”

  “Are they the couple in the seashell photo above the fax?”

  “Yes. I took that photograph myself. My sister is fond of it.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “In Germany. Her books sell very well there, so her publisher flew her over for a publicity tour. Her husband is a scholar of European languages, so he burrows in university libraries while she tends to her writerly duties.”

  I slurp my soup. “This is good. Does your sister work in the attic?”

  “I was wondering if you would find her study.”

  “I hope it was okay to go up there. I, uh, even began reading some stories I found on the writing desk.”

  “I don’t think my sister would object. Unread stories aren’t stories.”

  “She must be a special person, your sister.”

  “I trust you will finish those rice balls. Why do you say that?”

  “This house. In Tokyo, but it feels as though it could be in a forest during the Kofun period. No telephones, no TV, no computer.”

  Mrs. Sasaki purses her lips when she smiles. “I must tell her that. She’ll love it. My sister doesn’t need a telephone—she was born deaf, you see. And my brother-in-law says the world needs less communication, not more.” Mrs. Sasaki slices an orange on the chopping board, and zest stings my nostrils. She sits down. “I do not think it would be wise if you returned to Ueno. We have no proof those people or their associates are looking for you, but nor do we have any proof that they are not. I vote that we shouldn’t take any risks. They knew where to find you on Friday. As a precaution, I ensured your Ueno records were misfiled. Poor Assistant Stationmaster Aoyama was the only person who might have noticed. I think you should sit tight here, until the end of the week—if anybody comes asking for you at Shooting Star, Buntaro will tell them you have left Tokyo for good. If not, the coast is clear enough.”