Number9dream

by David Mitchell

  “I could have told you that.”

  “I always thought of her as a magazine cutout who did this and did this but who never actually felt anything. Today, I saw her as a woman in her forties who has not had as easy a life as the rumor mill on Yakushima reckons. When she talks, she is sort of in her words. She told me about alcoholism, about what it does to you. Not blaming it or anything, just like a scientist analyzing a disease. An alcoholic, she says, is three things: a wounded person who desperately needs love and support; a person controlled by a parasite that lives in that person but is not that person; and a wounded person who will devour love and support until nobody and nothing remain. I am talking a lot.”

  “Talk, Miyake, talk.”

  “And guess what—my guitar? It turns out it was my mother’s—all these years, my guitar was her guitar, and I never even knew she could play.”

  “Was the hotelier from Nagano there?”

  “He visits every other weekend: not today. I said I’d go back next Saturday.”

  “Good. Ensure his intentions are honorable. And your real father?”

  “Ah, yes. That was one of the minefield issues. She didn’t mention him once. And what could I say? ‘Yeah, incidentally, I tracked down my father. Yes, still married, yes, still porking any gullible woman he can dazzle with gleaming bullshit and later bribe with luxury crap.’ I was enjoying the conversation too much to screw things up. She asked how I liked Tokyo, and if I had any friends. I boasted about my one friend, the genius pianist bound for the world-famous Paris Conservatoire.”

  “One friend. What an elite club. Where are you staying tonight?”

  “Dr. Suzuki offered to find a futon in a corner somewhere, but I’m catching a train down to Kagoshima to stay with my uncle—”

  “Uncle Yen, right? And tomorrow morning you board the Yakushima ferry and visit Anju’s grave. And the day after tomorrow, you decide tomorrow.”

  I am lost for words. Ai is so cool sometimes. “How did you know?”

  Urgent clouds stream across a cinema sky. I know Ai’s face has its “so what?” expression on. “I have perfect pitch,” she says.

  The bored horizon yawns down the coast south from Miyazaki. Only the swaying carriages tell you that the train is even moving. These tidal mud flats belong to the Hyuga Nada Sea, south of the Bungo Strait, where my great-uncle sailed on his first and last mission aboard I-333. If binoculars were powerful enough to bring the last year of the war into focus, we could see each other across these waters. I wonder if I will meet him in a dream one of these nights. Time may be what stops everything happening at once, but rules are different asleep. I smell autumn fruit. “What a small world it is,” says Mrs. Persimmon, without a flicker of surprise. “This seat is free?”

  “Sure.” I dump my backpack on the rack.

  She sits as if she is easily bruiseable. “Did you enjoy my fruit?”

  “Uh, delicious, thanks. How was my dream?”

  “Not particularly flavorsome, I am sorry to say.” She pulls her knitting out.

  “What do you do with the dreams you, uh, acquire?”

  “What do you do with persimmons?”

  “I eat them.”

  “You think old ladies do not require a little nourishment too?”

  I wait for an explanation, but Mrs. Persimmon gives none. I am about to ask, “Are you saying that you eat dreams?” but stop myself. Too stupid a question. I look out of the window instead. An atomic power plant, a frigate, a lone windsurfer. I feel pressure to make polite conversation. “Are you going to Kagoshima?”

  “Between here and there.”

  “Seeing relatives?”

  “A conference.”

  I wait for further explanation. Flower arranging? Needlework? Chairlifts? But she concentrates on her knitting. It appears to be a pair of gloves, but she has made way too many fingers. “Are you a dream interpreter?”

  “A less stupid guess than usual. My younger sister, who handles the business side of things, describes our profession as ‘channeling.’ ”

  I assume I mishear. “You collect Chanel accessories?”

  “What a ridiculous notion. Do I look like I do?”

  “Sorry . . . ‘Channeling.’ Is that, uh, the same as irrigation?”

  Mrs. Persimmon holds up a thumb to silence me while she counts a row of stitches. “Waterless irrigation. I rather like that. But you prove my point. This word-meddling confuses people. I told my sister, ‘We are witches, plain and simple, and witches are what we should call ourselves. Why be ashamed of our true nature?’ How annoying. I dropped a stitch. I shall have to begin this line again or my grandmother will belittle me.”

  “Excuse me—did you say ‘witch’?”

  “Semiretired. I believe in making room for the young ones.”

  Why me? “I, uh, would never have guessed.”

  “Of course not. Not in a world lit by television, threaded by satellites, cemented by science. The idea of elderly women fueling their life spans in perpetuity by absorbing energy released in dreams is insane, is it not?” I hunt for something appropriate to say, and fail. “Disbelief is good for business. We can get on unhindered. When the age of reason reached these shores it was us witches who breathed the most heartfelt sigh of relief.”

  A girl in a JR uniform wheels a refreshments cart past. I want help, not tea or coffee. “So, uh, how do you eat a dream?”

  “I never said I did. I said ‘absorb.’ A dream is a fusion of spirit and matter. Fusions release energy, which is why sleep invigorates. If you do not dream you will not hold on to your mind. Channelers, witches, what you will, are able to absorb the dreams of healthy youngsters such as yourself. The way sunflowers draw strength from the sun.”

  “Is it wise to go around telling people this?”

  She grins at me nastily. “Anyone insisting it was true would be locked up.”

  I regret eating that persimmon. “I, uh . . . need to use the bathroom.” Walking to the toilets I try to piece together an elaborate no-offense escape plan: I should say goodbye and leave our compartment at the next station, and then sprint up the platform to a carriage farther back before the doors close again. Coming back, I am made giddy by the illusion that the train is quite stationary but I am strolling over the landscape at Zax Omega speeds. When I reach my seat I find she has vanished.

  Red plague eradicated all human life except Ai and myself, who survive thanks to natural immunity. We have made ourselves a home in the Amadeus Tea Room. We go on long walks through the parks and stores of postapocalypse Tokyo. The end of the world has improved the city. She performs a Debussy arabesque at the empty Budokan, although it sounds similar to “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I run through my Lennon repertoire on the finest guitars stocked by the music store near Suga’s university. Ai makes delicious salads and serves them in TV satellite dishes. We live as brother and sister for a long time until we hear a meeeeeeeeep noise from the balcony. We peer out, through the half-open window. A hideous bird strolls along the railing toward us. Pig-big, turkey-necked, condor-shaggy. Its beak is a hacksaw. Its eyes are alcoholic and snotty. “Quick!” cries Ai. “Close the window! It wants to get inside!” She is right, but I am scared of that beak and I hesitate. Too late! The bird thing hops onto the window frame, onto a chair, and rolls on the carpet. Ai and I are still afraid but also curious. Great evil may follow, but also great good. The bird peers at the decor with the eye of a potential buyer. It finally roosts on the wedding cake and speaks. “The cat in the wig on the ceiling will have to go.”

  Ai answers on the third ring. “You again.”

  “Yeah. I want to be your prank caller.”

  “I saw on the news, Kagoshima has a typhoon warning. Are you there already?”

  “Not yet. I have to change trains here.”

  “Where is here?”

  I read the peeling sign. “Miyakonojo.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Only train drivers and the people who
live here have. Am I interrupting anything more interesting than waiting around on a deserted platform?”

  “Me? I’ve been floozying around with Scarlatti.”

  “You loose woman. First Debussy, now . . . Who?”

  “Domenico Scarlatti. He wrote five hundred and fifty-five harpsichord exercises. The more he felt death breathing down his neck, the faster and more magnificently he wrote his sonatas. I find geriatric prodigies much more interesting than child prodigies. What kicked his creative booster rockets into life? Kirkpatrick, his biographer and the finest American harpsichordist in history, suspects Scarlatti’s patron extorted the sonatas from him in return for paying his gambling debts. A fabulous story, if it’s true. All this miraculous music gets bequeathed to humanity just because its creator was lousy at poker.”

  I would rather avoid talk about card games. “I dreamed about you on the train just now. There was you, and this scabby turkey thing.”

  “Eiji Miyake and his killer charm.”

  “I love you.”

  What?

  Ai actually splutters. “What?”

  What?

  I am hurled clean out of the ring by the sumo wrestler of embarrassment. “Uh . . . I didn’t mean to say that. Oh. Uh, I am so sorry, I didn’t plan it or anything, it just came out all on its own. I am so sorry. I haven’t known you long enough, Ai, I mean, we haven’t even, uh . . . done anything. No, I didn’t mean you have to do, uh, anything to feel what I just said, I know, before, I mean. But. Uh . . . I don’t understand myself sometimes. I really don’t. I can hang up if you want. How can I—”

  “Calm down, Miyake.” I cannot calm down but I do shut up. I can hear distant traffic in Tokyo coming down the line. “Did you mean what you just said?”

  “What part?”

  Is she smiling? “You know what part.”

  “Uh . . . what do you think?”

  “Oooh, no. You’re the man. You take your dignity to the pawnbroker.”

  “That’s so unfair.”

  “Unfair? Try being a woman sometime.”

  I take a deep breath. I am gambling with my only friendship. “I dunno, Ai. Really. It just slipped out, just then.”

  “Let me try again. Did you mean what you just said?”

  “Well, I know I can’t say I didn’t mean it.”

  “That must be one of the most romantic affirmations I ever heard.” Ai’s irony is sort of therapeutic. “And to think it all began with a dream of a putrid chicken.”

  “Scabby turkey. And it was a cute scabby turkey. Sort of.” I think she is smiling, and I begin to feel sure of myself for the first time since . . . who knows? “So say something back, Miss Imajo.”

  “Okay.” Her piano lid clunks open. “This is Scarlatti’s K. 8 in G minor. Allegro.” Ai performs until my phone card dies. I think she likes me.

  The crowded train pulls into Kagoshima JR station under an end-of-the-world sky. Ghosts of K. 8 in G minor tango in the atmosphere. I should be thinking about Mom, or even my anticlimax father, but the truth is, right now, nothing can remove Ai. Sometimes the thought of her burns even brighter and my heart sort of squid-propels itself toward the sun. I can remember her perfume. How she looked that first rainy day I saw her washing up. So this is why love changes the course of history. Love. Love? Love! The conductor announces that due to typhoon eighteen all train services are canceled until further notice. That means tomorrow morning, at the earliest, and half the passengers moan in unison. The conductor adds that all bus and streetcar services have been suspended, which gets the other half of the passengers groaning. So I have an immediate problem that not even love can fix, because Uncle Yen lives over the ridge of hills to the northeast of Kagoshima, way past the university, and it takes two hours on foot. At the station I call him, hoping to cadge a lift, but the line is busy. I guess I should walk to the port and camp out in the ferry terminal. They have a cheap noodle joint and a cleanish bathroom. Powerful gusts of wind kickbox across the bus square. Palm trees take up the strain, banners flap stiff, cardboard boxes cartwheel. People run as if a bomb is about to drop, and businesses are closing up early. Turning the corner into Harbor Road, I nearly get picked up and half-volleyed to Nagasaki. The wind god is driving a juggernaut this evening. I have to lean to walk. Sakurajima, the volcano island, is there across the bay but not quite real. The dark sea is crazed with waves. A hundred meters later I see my problem is worse than I thought— the entire harbor is closed because of possible tsunamis. Right, what now? There are no taxis running. I could stay in a hotel, and then not be able to pay in the morning. I could find shelter in a doorway? Not much shelter, not tonight. Beg mercy at a police station? When I remember that yesterday morning I anonymously informed on a massive organ-extraction and smuggling syndicate undoubtedly involving the participation of high-ranking law enforcers, I decide to give police stations a miss. Just sometimes, I wish I was as rich as Yuzu Daimon. Right now, for example. I decide to brave the walk to Uncle Yen’s, hoping—against my better judgment—that we are in injury time of the typhoon as opposed to shortly after kickoff. I take a shortcut across the school soccer field where I scored the only goal of my cut-short career, nine years ago. Nine years! It seems only . . . nine years. Time has so many gears. I walk back past the JR station and push on down the coastal road, but walking is wading and progress is slow. This feels as if I dreamed it. I have the road to myself, or I might try to hitch, even though mainlanders rarely pick you up. Nonaerodynamic objects soar gracefully past my head—car shrouds, beer crates, tricycles. The wind assaults and batters, the sea banzai-charges the defenses, lashing up spray to slap my face. I walk past a bus shelter without a roof. I seriously consider stopping at any of these houses and asking if I can sleep in the entrance hall. I walk past a tree with a bus-shelter roof embedded in its trunk. Then I hear a whooooooooosh a meter from my head. I crouch on reflex, and it was lucky I did. A screaming pterodactyl—no, an enormous tire with a diameter wider than I am tall—bounces off the road and leaps over the seawall. It might have fallen off a Chinook helicopter. Now I am afraid of winding up as roadkill. I draw level with Iso Garden, where I had intended to turn inland, but the typhoon is growing so I decide to jump over the wall and find shelter inside. I was brought here on school outings and remember some brick buildings with protected alcoves. The wind flips me over the wall, and I land in thrashing bougainvillea. The peaceful Japanese garden I remember is now a demonic-possession movie. A madwoman is banging doors over and over. Over there— I scramble through stinging twiggy nails—up a steep slope, and I trip into the gardener’s hut. Compost, tarpaulin, twine. The latch is smashed, but I drag a sack of soil and succeed in wedging shut the door. I am alone with spades, trowels, rakes. A narrow partition runs down one wall, too dark to see behind. First, I straighten out chaos caused by the typhoon’s forced entry. Second, I arrange a makeshift bed from the tarpaulin. Third, I finish the bottle of Java tea I bought in Miyakonowherever. Fourth, I listen to the typhoon rhino-whip this old crate of a shed and worry about tsunamis and a certain scene from that old movie Anju loved, The Wizard of Oz. Fifth, I stop worrying and try to single out voices in this symphony of roaring.

  My bladder sags painfully from my navel. Liverpool is much as I imagined. Those minicars with surprised headlamps, haircuts like Julian Lennon’s, although the PanOpticon comes as a surprise. In the entrance lobby Lao Tzu is grinning on one leg. “Need the toilet, Captain?” I nod. “Fifty thousand yen.” The price is exorbitant, but my bladder is puffing up, balloonlike, so I pay, complaining that I already paid at the unfinished airport. Lao Tzu crawls ahead on his belly because the stalactites hang down so low. Water drips down. I have to proceed on my back to avoid rupturing my bladder, which wails “Are we nearly there yet?” with the voice of a marine mammal being dragged inland. “Here,” says Lao Tzu, occupying the only unoccupied urinal in a row of nine. I wait, but the men appear to have calcified. Careworn Mrs. Marui bobs an apology and withdraws. “Colonel Sanders
!” General MacArthur claps my shoulder. “One of these goddamn yellow monkeys stole my platinum lighter. Heard anything?” I shake my head, which is difficult in this asbestos-molded fat Kentuckyman costume. “I see. Heard anything about a top-secret project called Kaiten?” Now I have a dilemma. “No, General.” That wasn’t so difficult. He leads me up shelves that are not shelves, but steep stairs. A knotted rope hangs down to help you haul yourself up. I find myself in the ferry building in Kagoshima, which I had mistakenly thought closed due to a typhoon. The place has been renovated. Where is the toilet? All the signs are in braille. I imagine my aunts reading the headline “Local Boy Miyake Forgets Toilet Training in Tokyo!” My bladder is now a child-shaped wobbling mass of urine that clings around my middle. “Over there, Daddy!” it squeals. I follow its erect finger and find myself in a men’s room as big as a soccer field. The only other patron is a speck in the distance. I unzip my jeans, aim my single-mindedly asexual Godzilla at the urinal, and—the patron whistles the whistling part from “Jealous Guy” in my ear. I hadn’t felt him move this near! His voice crackles with hatred. “So where is she now, hey? Up her tree? On the whalestone? In the guitar case? How do you sleep? How do you sleep at night?” He is trying his best to make me afraid, but suddenly I am the one crackling with hatred. “Oh, fuck off!”