I informed the archivist of the Scottish Theatre collection of this account of a communication with Robert Trotter any historian of his company would have to read before concluding why the company collapsed; and the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology of an instance from which telepathy could be proved.
Alan, a friend, read this, in its preceding version. He said it came down-to-earth in the last three pages, not that that was bad! He assumed it was all set at the party. There was nothing I could do about that without omitting the reference to the party I’d thought at the beginning.
He said it was difficult to read but easier because he’d read ‘the book’, my realization of childhood from unconscious memory. A passage I hadn’t understood on reading, I did at a second reading to decide should I cut it out as incomprehensible even to me.
He wasn’t offering to prove telepathy from this instance, probably couldn’t, and isn’t the best person to try to.
He promised not to tell anybody about this story. I made it clear he could; it was the contents he mustn’t divulge.
He thought I wanted Robert Trotter to read it. I might—it’s one of two pieces of writing about somebody else I haven’t first sent to the person concerned—but not before I’ve made every effort to have telepathy proved from it. His saying to a third party my account of the instance is true is as valueless as his account, before being apprised of the content of mine, is indispensable to proof.
I’ve written to his lawyer, not ideal either, saying he knows what I want: for him to write out his account of our meeting, characterizing the singular mode used and when, and for the lawyer to send it sight unseen to the Koestler Chair.
Kago Ai, or The End of the Night
Ralph Doege
(Translated by Richard Kunzmann)
“No place is quite as infamous for its suicides as the Aokigahara Forest on the north-west face of Mount Fuji, Japan’s holy mountain. It’s a dark impenetrable place, barely touched even by a summer day’s sunlight. Because it’s grown over porous lava rock, you easily break through the crusty surface hiking through it; even compasses don’t work in its depths. These aren’t the only reasons why the police warned people years ago not to enter that ‘sea of trees’ as it’s called. Once a year dozens of them comb the area and pull out on average more than a hundred bodies.”
SZ, 19.06.2008
What else could Jason say? “Shabondama.”
He made a popping sound with his lips. He’d have loved to say, “We’re all broken,” but he didn’t know how. He barely spoke Japanese, and she only a little English. Kago-chan slapped at a mosquito and swore. She clearly looked uncomfortable in the forest, especially at that time of night. The cameraman hung back at a discreet distance; Jason could almost convince himself that he was alone with her. Their conversation was being recorded, so it didn’t matter much if Kago-chan and Jason couldn’t understand each other in the least. He felt locked into a greenish-black cocoon surrounded by chirruping crickets, the close heat of the night, the rush of traffic in the distance. The light of the camera didn’t reach very far: weathered, bent, moss-covered trees were everywhere. How was a person supposed to find his way out of here, so deep in the night?
He took in Kago-chan’s pink nurse outfit and longed to take the girl into his arms. She looked so vulnerable in that outfit, out here in the wilderness. And she was slenderer than he’d first thought. “Watashi wa...” she began, then, “I know what you feel.” She was a little embarrassed speaking English. Her expression gave her away. Still, she told Jason that about a year and a half ago she’d slit her wrists. She’d thought at the time that she wasn’t needed any more, that her life had no more meaning.
“Nan desu ka?” What is it? Jason asked, thinking he was saying, “Why?”
A superstar since she was twelve, Kago-chan had been a role model for kids everywhere, someone who lived out their dreams on their behalf and showed them that the good life could be theirs. Her duty in life consisted of being happy and making others happy through her actions. Whether she was performing at concerts or appearing in TV shows and music videos, she gave back to her fans the energy they offered up to her. Then she was photographed smoking at the age of seventeen. It might sound ridiculous, and Kago-chan chuckled quietly about it, but in Japan one has to be twenty to smoke, as she explained when she saw that Jason couldn’t understand what the problem was. Anyway, she was supposed to have been a role model for kids, an idol. As a result she was given a year’s house arrest and an admin job: working in reception, serving tea—menial work. Shortly before the end of her sentence the next paparazzo came along and snapped her smoking again, this time in the company of a thirty-seven-year-old.
“I’m thirty-seven,” Jason said, depressed. Kago-chan laughed quietly. She was grown up now and could do anything she pleased, but back then she was fired because of it, to protect the image of the world of Japanese idols. Jason knew her story from a number of interviews. Kago-chan had seen no future ahead for herself and tried to take her own life. It had been a desperate cry for help. But now she was back. She had a bit part in a mediocre Hong Kong movie and the latest sequel in the Ju-On series; she was busy working on a new album and appearing on talk shows again; she even had her own broadcast.
“So,” she said, “things can change. Mistakes can get you ahead.”
Jason thought she was being naive. “Fair enough,” he said, not wanting to sound too dismissive. He had, after all, fulfilled some part of his dream; he’d finally met her. “But I want to tell you my story,” he went on, “at least the part that brought me here...”
*
He stood on the institution’s roof, at a time when it was still tolerated, if not strictly allowed, which is to say a few days before Miss C had her ‘accident’ (that’s what they called it, Jason said in that peculiar mumbling way of his, an ‘accident’), her fall... her jump. He stood there, enjoying the spring sunshine on his face and hearing Annie’s preaching waft up to him from an open window, one storey down.
Charming words like ‘shame’ and ‘forbidden’ and ‘evil’ rose up to him, and it angered Jason that he should care for such a simpleton, who dared to treat another adult as if he was a little child and weigh him down with such morally sour words.
“Chou, chou, chou,” he said, throwing his day’s ration of pills, one by one, into the depths below. He tried a ninja-disappearance move, but found himself in the same place and the same position. So he went on listening to Annie’s preaching—we all of us must make do with what we’re given; it’s all we can do. Annie’s counterpart tried to make headway against the tide of admonitions: ‘could’, ‘might’, ‘would’—these words were distinctly Miss C’s; Jason would have identified her by them, even if he hadn’t recognized her voice.
He waited a little, until the chemical household of his body had moved close enough to his normal state of being to make life interesting again. If he couldn’t vanish, then he could at least make the world itself disappear!
By the time he came down to the recreation room, the sun was already setting.
“Have you seen Annie?” he asked the old postman but got no answer, as usual. The old man just went on licking his fingers raw—even the bandages didn’t help much.
“Hey Frank, did you maybe see Annie?”
Frank looked like a Buddha in his usual seat. A benevolent sigh. His friend of course had to give a sigh at this question—after all, he knew that Jason was ruining himself over her.
“Did you take your medication?” Frank asked, not even making the effort to look up from his book. He knew what made Jason tick, so didn’t have to go out of his way to make eye contact.
“Threw ’em up,” Jason said; it sounded better than: “threw them from the roof.”
Frank shook his head. Jason shook his.
Outside the windows the naked trees swayed in the wind. Here it comes, Jason thought.
“And Annie?” he asked.
“Check the time.”
A jumble of cogs and mechanical parts; he loved this moment when he switched over from what so-called ‘normal’ people saw to what he could see when he wasn’t taking drugs. He found it ironic how he could see the things for which others needed to take LSD.
“Exactly; too late. She will have gone home already.”
“Oh,” Jason said. “By ‘too late’ I actually meant I barely recognize things.” And then came the realization. “She didn’t even say bye!”
Frank’s irritated face blurred then dissolved. It was all happening pretty damn quickly today, thought Jason. The things that withdrawal symptoms could do to you were insane!
A silent cry in his chest. “Was she unwell?”
Frank looked up from his book for the first time. His skull was white bone and the eyes glowered at Jason; there was no trace of the Buddha.
“Possibly,” he said—his voice betrayed that Frank thought Jason was pretty sick, mentally, which was probably not too far from the truth.
Miss C came by. She said little, but, when she spoke, she used a disproportionate number of conjunctives, which is why they called her Miss C. “If you were to take a step to the right,” she said to Jason, “I’d be able to pass.”
Jason debated whether she wanted him to step out of the way right this minute, or if it was already too late. He tried to meet her gaze but her eyes were hidden behind a black fringe, which even Jason’s vision couldn’t penetrate.
Miss C placed a hand on Jason’s elbow and pushed him aside, turning a deep red in the process. She wasn’t used to such intimacy, and neither was Jason, at least not from her. Miss C went on her way.
The door was opened. Nurse Georgia entered the room. Under the skin everyone looks more or less the same, but Jason could recognize Georgia by her lumbering gorilla skeleton. For some reason he could still see the nurse’s cap on top of her grinning skull. As she walked in, the other skeletons scattered like Mikado Sticks then froze. The first one to move would lose.
Uwe sneezed.
Georgia grabbed him by what was to Jason an invisible part of his clothes, he guessed by the height of her arm that it must have been his collar. Uwe let out a sound like a martial artist from a Kung Fu classic, making a quick movement with his hand, but free himself he did not.
“I don’t want you infecting everyone!” Georgia dragged him from the room.
Jason saw his chance to get to the telephone in the corridor. No one in sight; only Axle, who was messing around again with his invisible twin, seeing who could throw coins as close to the wall as possible. Axle always lost, but he was just as loudmouthed anyway.
Jason took a blanket from one of the chairs and pulled it over his head so that no one could see him—then he made his move. When Axle wasn’t looking, because he was arguing with his brother, Jason stole two 50 cent coins. After all, he needed to make a call.
Hitting the right buttons wasn’t easy. All he could see was a snarl of cables and circuits. Still, he’d had some practice.
The phone rang twice before Annie picked up.
“Are you well?”
“Jason! How…” Her voice didn’t sound as angry as before, when he’d been up on the roof and heard her yelling.
“You didn’t say goodbye; it got me worried…”
“We’ll have to talk about that tomorrow.”
“Yes,” he was thrilled. “Everything OK?” he asked again.
“Of course.”
“Really?”
He heard her sigh, and this time it didn’t sound as compassionate as it had with Frank. I shouldn’t exaggerate, he thought. “My money’s running out.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Stay we—” She’d hung up. Or the receiver had fallen from her hands because things weren’t so good after all; or maybe she’d been kidnapped or…
Axle began to scream in the recreation room. He was accusing his brother of stealing his money.
Soon a horde of orderlies would invade, running skeletons like in old fantasy films.
Time to disappear. He wanted to get back to his daily dose of W anyway; at the very least he wanted to listen to ‘Robo Kiss’ to stay in the mood. Or maybe Morning Musume’s ‘Shabondama’. He felt a little confused. In love with Annie, sure, but his encounter with Miss C had thrown him off. Did she like him?
*
After lunch came the usual handcraft sessions. Ergotherapist Schulze was of the opinion that the inmates needed to create Easter bunnies. That adults were being forced to do something like this was an insult, Jason thought. However, any sign of resistance meant a demolition charge called ‘Georgia’.
Frank sat next to Jason with an open book under the table.
“Annie should be here soon,” Jason said.
“Quiet at the back there!”
“Forget about it,” Frank said.
“How am I supposed to forget the love of my life?”
“What is it that you see in her?”
“How can I… she makes me… whole.” It was true. When she was around, he felt he didn’t need medication. It was as if his chemical make-up became normal in her presence.
“She isn’t just a nur—”
“Quiet! Make me some nice bunnies!”
“Does she think we’re stupid?” Jason knew he was making a mistake. “What for?”
The Schulze-skeleton sprang up and clattered over.
Swearing, Frank let the book slip from his hands and grabbed a handful of the green paper.
Uwe tried to snort the glue, but the tube had already become stuck to his nose. His distressed screams saved Jason.
*
“…like a superhero. Chou chou chou… What am I saying: she is a superhero! Positively a Jesus figure!”
“What do you mean by ‘positively a Jesus figure’?”
“Well, Jesus suffered for us. Kago-chan and Tsuji-San are happy for us; they live out our dreams…”
Archangel Michael, Jason’s therapist, head of the clinic and, on top of that, his rival when it came to the pursuit of Annie, threw his hair back in that particularly gay way of his and said, “It always comes down to psychological stressors…” He coughed as if his lungs could explode at any moment. Please yes, please yes, please, please, please. But Jason’s pleas went unheard.
“Asthma!” Michael barked. “That’s it for today!”
With that the session ended. Thank God. Jason scuttled out of the room. He definitely had better things to do with his life than listening to that crap. Adrian comes towards him in the corridor.
“How’s Annie?” He held out his hand to Jason: give me five, buddy.
“Same bullshit as always,” Jason said. “At least she smiled at me today, and swapped a few words. I almost asked her if she wants to go to the movies with me…”
Miss C came by, brushing Jason’s arm. “Hi Jason,” she sang shyly and went on her way, eyes covered by a few strands of hair. She’d changed her hairstyle a little, Jason noticed. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but he liked what he saw.
Adrian said something, but Jason wasn’t listening; besides, at that moment, an almighty laugh broke out: Wannabe Coolio, others called him ‘the janitor’, let rip with one of his bad jokes further down the corridor and Archangel Michael complimented it with his false laughter; main thing was that it was loud—after all, he also wanted to be cool. It was nothing more than a dick-swinging contest—man, aren’t we both big! Disgusted, Jason fled.
But there was barely a chance to escape the two of them. Especially Archangel Michael who was always hanging around Annie. Jason hated seeing the way she would sit at her desk and how Michael would approach slowly from behind, to stand so close to her that they almost touched, then bend forward and examine what she was up to. He’d ask, “What’s that you’re doing?” and let her explain something needlessly. “Oh, it’s a ballpoint pen, is it? And what do you do with that?” (“St
ick it up your ass, what else?” But no one ever asked Jason his opinion.) The man had two girlfriends, five kids and a wife that was busy divorcing him. What did he want from a twenty-year-old beauty with long hair, even longer legs and the most beautiful rear in the world, eh? What? Damn!
And there it started again:
Annie got up and disappeared in the direction of the medicine store. Michael trailed after her and the door closed slowly behind them.
Jason passed by the closed door several times, and every now and again he heard muffled voices, but nothing he could make out. Slowly he realized how conspicuous he was being. He’d been repeatedly walking up and down the corridor, always slowing down the closer he came to the door in question. But then again, this was a mental asylum, so it was filled with people that had uncontrollable urges.
One of Annie’s laughs penetrated the thick door and stabbed him in the heart; her dark laugh.
Maybe he should just take a peek inside?
That the bastard couldn’t control himself, even at work! In a manner of speaking, Jason was here on a voluntary basis; he could flirt if he wanted to, with whoever he wanted… but Michael. It was time to go on the offensive. The summer was coming—everything was a lot easier then, in any case.
*
Jason put on a live version of ‘Mr Moonlight’, the 2004 version sung by W. It should have been enough to give him the energy and self-confidence to set his plan in motion.
Then she came in: Nurse Annie.
“Can you sing?” he asked.
“Hm?”
“How about we go to karaoke one night?”
“That could be fun.”
“I could sing you a few love songs.”
She laughed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Jason was of the opinion that he couldn’t sing to save his life, but the idea still amused him. “We don’t have to go sing. How about dinner?”
“Hm,” she said. At least it was better than a No, thought Jason.
“Sushi?”
Dadaoism (An Anthology) Page 33