Actually, the telephone looked rather irritated.
It—or let’s call it a “she”—seemed pissed off at being less than pure idea. Angered at the uncertain and imperfect grounds upon which volitional communication must necessarily base itself. So very imperfect, so utterly arbitrary, so wholly passive.
I propped myself up on my pillow and watched the telephone fume. A perfectly pointless exercise. It’s not my fault, the phone seemed to be telling me. Well, that’s communication. Imperfect, arbitrary, passive. The lament of the not-quite-pure idea. But I’m not to blame either. The phone probably tells this to all the boys. It’s just that being part of these quarters of mine makes her—it—all the more irritable. Which makes me feel responsible. As if I’m aiding and abetting all the imperfection.
Take my ex-wife, for example. She’d just sit there and, without a word, put me in my place. I’d loved her. We’d had some really good times. Traveled together. Made love hundreds of times. Laughed a lot. But sometimes, she’d give me the silent treatment. Usually at night, subtle, but unrelenting. As punishment for my imperfection, my arbitrariness and passiveness.
I knew what was eating her. We got along well, but what she was after, the image in her mind, was somewhere else, not where I was. She wanted a kind of autonomy of communication. A scene where the hero—whose name was “Communication”—led the masses to a bright, bloodless revolution, spotless white flags waving. So that perfection could swallow imperfection and make it whole. To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-imperfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that’s nobody’s fault. It’ll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle.
I explained it to her. Over and over again.
Then one day she left.
Or else I’d magnified that imperfection, and helped her out the door.
I looked at the telephone and replayed scenes of me getting it on with my wife. For the three months before she left, she hadn’t wanted to sleep with me once. Because she was sleeping with the other guy. At the time, I didn’t have the least idea.
“Sorry dear, but why don’t you go sleep with someone else? I won’t be mad,” she’d said. And I thought she was joking. But she was serious. I told her I didn’t want to sleep with another woman, which was true. But she wanted me to, she said. Then we could think things over from there.
In the end, I didn’t sleep with anyone. I’m not a prude, but I don’t go sleeping with women just to think things over. I sleep with someone because I want to.
Not long after that, she walked out on me. But say I had gone and slept with someone like she wanted me to, would that have kept her from leaving? Did she really believe that that would’ve put our communication on even slightly more autonomous grounds? Ridiculous.
Already past midnight, but the drone of the expressway showed no sign of letting up. Every now and then a motorcycle would blast by. The soundproof glass dampened the noise, but not much. It was right out there, up against my life, oppressing me. Circumscribing me to this one patch of ground.
I grew tired of looking at the phone and closed my eyes.
And as soon as I did, the surrender I must have been waiting for silently filled the void. Very deftly and ever so quick. Sleep came over me.
After breakfast, I thumbed through my address book for the number of a guy in talent management I’d met when I needed to interview young stars. It was ten in the morning when I rang him up, so naturally he was still asleep. That’s showbiz. I apologized, then told him I had to find Gotanda. He moaned and groaned, but eventually came across with the goods. The number for Gotanda’s agency, a midsize entertainment production firm.
I called up and got his manager on the line. I said I was a magazine writer and wanted to talk with Gotanda. Was I doing a piece on him? Not exactly, this was personal. How personal? Well, I happened to be a junior high school classmate of his, and this was urgent. Fine, he’d pass the message on. No, I had to talk to Gotanda directly. Me and how many others?
“But this is very important,” I insisted. “So if you’d be so kind as to put us in touch, I’m sure I can return the favor on a professional level.”
The manager considered my proposition. Of course it was a lie. I didn’t have any strings to pull. My whole claim to editorial sway consisted of going out and doing the interview I was assigned to do. A glorified gofer. But the manager didn’t know that.
“And you’re sure this isn’t coverage?” he said. “Because all media have to go through me. Out front and official.”
No, this was one-hundred-percent personal.
The guy asked for my number. “Junior high school classmate, eh?” he said with a sigh. “He’ll call tonight or tomorrow. If he feels like it.”
“Of course,” I said.
The guy yawned and hung up. Couldn’t blame him. It was only ten-thirty.
Before noon I drove to Aoyama to do my shopping at the fancy-schmancy Kinokuniya supermarket. Parking my Subaru among the Saabs and Mercedes in the lot, I almost felt as if I were exposing myself, the twin of this narrow-shouldered old chassis of mine. Still, I admit it: I enjoy shopping at Kinokuniya. You may not believe this, but the lettuce you buy there lasts longer than lettuce anywhere else. Don’t ask me why. Maybe they round up the lettuce after they close for the day and give them special training. It wouldn’t surprise me. This is advanced capitalism, after all.
At home, there were no messages on my answering machine. No one had called. I put away the vegetables to the “Theme from Shaft” on the radio. Who’s that man? Shaft! Right on!
Then I went to see Unrequited Love yet again. That made four times. I couldn’t not see it. I concentrated on the critical scene, trying to catch every detail.
Nothing had changed. It was Sunday morning. Everything bathed in peaceful Sunday light. Window blinds drawn. A woman’s bare back. A man’s caressing fingers. Le Corbusier print on wall. Bottle of Cutty Sark on table at side of bed. Two glasses, ashtray, pack of Seven Stars. Stereo equipment. Flower vase. Daisies. Peeled-off clothes on floor. Bookshelf. The camera pans. It’s Kiki. I shut my eyes involuntarily. Then I open them. Gotanda is embracing her. Gently, softly. “No way,” I say. Out loud. A young kid four seats away shoots me a look. The girl lead comes into frame. Hair in a ponytail. Yachting windbreaker and jeans. Red Adidases. She’s holding a container of cookies. She walks right in, then dashes out. Gotanda is dumbfounded. He sits up in bed, squinting into the light, following the girl with his eyes. Kiki rests a hand on his shoulder, her words drenched with world-weariness. “What was that all about?”
After I left the theater, I walked around the streets of Shibuya.
I walked, through the swarming crowds of school kids, as Gotanda’s slender, well-mannered fingers played over her back in my mind. I walked to Harajuku. Then to Sendagaya past the stadium, across Aoyama Boulevard toward the cemetery and over to the Nezu Museum. I passed Café Figaro and then Kinokuniya and then the Jintan Building back toward Shibuya Station. A bit of a hike. It was getting late. From the top of the hill, I could see the neon signs coming on as the dark-suited masses of salarymen crossed the intersection like instinct-blinded salmon. When I got back to my apartment, the red message lamp on my answering machine was blinking. I switched on the room lights, took off my coat, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. I sat down on my bed, took a sip, and pushed PLAY.
“Well, been a long time.” It was Gotanda.
Well, been a long time.”
Gotanda’s voice came through bright and clear. Not too fast, not too slow. Not too loud, not too soft. Not tense, not inordinately relaxed. A perfect voice. I knew it was Gotanda in a second. It’s not the sort of voice you forget once you’ve heard it. Any more than his smiling face, his sparkling white teeth, his finely sculpted nose. Actually, I’d never paid any attention to Gotand
a’s voice before, couldn’t really recall it either, but obviously it’d stuck subconsciously to the inside of my skull, and it came back to me immediately, as vivid as the tolling of a bell on a still night. Amazing.
“I’m going to be at home tonight, so call. I don’t go to bed until morning anyway,” he said, then enunciated his telephone number, twice. “Be talking to you.”
From the exchange, his place couldn’t have been so far from here. I wrote the number down, then carefully dialed. At the sixth ring, an answering machine kicked on. A woman’s voice saying, “I’m out right now, but if you’d care to leave a message.” I left my name and the time and said that I’d be in all evening. Complicated world we live in. I hung up and was in the kitchen when the phone rang.
It was Yuki. What was I up to? My response: Chewing on a stalk of celery and having a beer. Hers: Yuck. Mine: It’s not so bad. She wasn’t old enough to know things could be a lot worse.
“So where are you calling from?” I asked.
“Akasaka,” she said. “How about going for a drive?”
“Sorry, I can’t today,” I said. “I’m waiting for an important business call. How about another time? But first I got a question. When we talked yesterday, you said you’d seen a man in a sheep suit? Can you tell me more about that? I need to know.”
“How about another time?” she said, then slammed the phone down.
I munched on the celery and thought about what to have for dinner. Spaghetti.
First slice two cloves of garlic and brown in olive oil. Tilt the frying pan on its side just so, to pool the oil, and cook over a low flame. Toss in dried red peppers, fry together but remove before oil gets too spicy. Touch-and-go. Then cut thin slices of ham into strips and sauté until crisp. Last, add to al dente spaghetti, toss, sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with salad of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes.
Okay, let’s do it.
The water for the spaghetti was just about to boil when the telephone rang. I turned off the gas and went to pick up the phone.
It was Gotanda. “He-ey, long time. Takes me back. How’re you doing?”
“All right, I guess.”
“So what’s up? My manager said you had something urgent. Hope we don’t have to dissect a frog again,” he laughed.
“No, nothing like that. I know this call is out of the blue, but I just needed to ask you something. Sorry, I know you’re busy. Anyway, this may sound kind of strange, but—”
“Listen, are you busy right now?” Gotanda interrupted.
“No, not at all. I had some time on my hands, so I was about to fix dinner.”
“Perfect. How about a meal? I was just thinking about looking for a dinner partner. You know how it is. Nothing tastes good when you eat alone.”
“Sure, but I didn’t mean to … I mean, I called so suddenly and—”
“No problem. We all get hungry whether we like it or not, and a man’s got to eat. I’m not forcing myself to eat on your account. So let’s go have a good meal somewhere and talk about old times. Haven’t seen you in ages. I really want to see you. I hope I’m not imposing. Or am I?”
“C’mon, I’m the one who wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, then, I’ll swing by and pick you up. Where are you?”
I told him where my apartment building was.
“Not so far from here. Maybe twenty minutes. So get yourself ready to go. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
I’d hop to it, I said, and hung up. Old times?
What old times could Gotanda possibly have to talk about? We weren’t especially close back then. He was the bright boy of the class, I was a nobody. It was some kind of miracle that he even remembered who I was.
I shaved and put on the classiest items in my wardrobe: an orange striped shirt and Calvin Klein tweed jacket, an Armani knit tie (a birthday present from a former girlfriend), just-washed jeans, and brand-new Yamaha tennis shoes. Not that he’d ever think this was classy. I’d never eaten with a movie star before. What was one supposed to wear anyway?
Twenty minutes later on the dot, my doorbell rang. It was Gotanda’s chauffeur, who politely informed me that Gotanda was downstairs. In a metallic silver Mercedes the size and shape of a motorboat. The glass was also silvered so you couldn’t see in. The chauffeur opened the door with a smart, professional snap of the wrist and I got in. And there was Gotanda.
“Who-oa, been a while, eh?” he flashed me his smile. He didn’t shake my hand, and I guess I was glad.
“Yeah, it has, hasn’t it?” I said.
He wore a dark blue windbreaker over a V-neck sweater and faded cream corduroy slacks. Old Asics jogging shoes. Impeccable. Perfectly ordinary clothes, but the way he wore them was perfect. He gave my outfit a once-over and offered, “Trés chic.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Just like a movie star.” No irony, just kidding. We both laughed. Which let us relax.
I sized up the interior of the car.
“Not bad, eh?” he said. “The agency lets me use it whenever I want. Complete with driver. This way there’re no accidents, no drunken driving. Safety first. They’re happy, I’m happy.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“But if it were up to me, I would never drive this baby. I don’t like cars this big.”
“Porsche?”
“Maserati.”
“I like cars even smaller,” I said.
“Civic?”
“Subaru.”
“Subaru,” he repeated, nodding. “You know, the first car I ever bought was a Subaru. With the money I made on my first picture, I bought a used Subaru. Boy, I loved that car. I used to drive it to the studio when I had my second supporting role. And someone got on my case right away. Kid, if you want to be a star, you can’t drive a Subaru. What a business. So I traded it in. But it was a great car. Dependable. Cheap. Really terrific.”
“Yeah, I like mine too.”
“So why do you think I drive a Maserati?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“I have this expense account I got to use up,” he said with a tilt of his eyebrow. “My manager keeps telling me, spend more, more. I’m never using it up fast enough. So I went and bought an expensive car. One high-priced automobile can write off a big chunk of earnings. It makes everybody happy.”
Good grief. Didn’t anyone have anything else on their mind but expense account deductions?
“I’m really hungry,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I feel like a nice, thick steak. Are you up for something like that?”
“Whatever you say.”
He gave directions to the driver, and we were off. Gotanda looked at me and smiled. “Don’t mean to get too personal,” he said, “but since you were fixing a meal for yourself, I take it you’re single.”
“Correct,” I said. “Married and divorced.”
“Just like me,” he said. “Married and divorced. Paying alimony?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. She didn’t want a thing.”
“You lucky bastard,” he said, grinning. “I don’t pay alimony either, but the marriage broke me. I suppose you heard about my divorce?”
“Vaguely.”
It’d been in all the magazines. His marriage four or five years ago to a well-known actress, then the divorce a couple years later. But as usual, who knew the real story? The rumor was that her family didn’t like him—not so unusual a thing—and that she had this cordon of relatives who muscled in on every move she made, public and private. Gotanda himself was more the spoiled, rich-kid type, used to the luxury of living life at his own pace. So there was bound to be trouble.
“Funny, isn’t it? One minute we’re doing a science experiment together, the next thing you know we’re both divorced. Funny,” he forced a smile, then lightly rubbed his eyes. “Tell me, how come you split up?”
“Simple. One day the wife up and walked out on me.”
“Just like that?”
“Yup. No warning, not a word. I didn’t have a clue. I thought she’d gone out to do the shopping or something, but she never came back. I made dinner and I waited. Morning came and still no sign of her. A week passed, a month passed. Then the divorce papers came.”
He took it all in, then he sighed. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but I think you got a better deal than I did.”
“How’s that?”
“With me, the wife didn’t leave. I got thrown out. Literally. One day, I was thrown out on my ear.” He gazed out through the silvered glass. “And the worst part about it was, she planned the whole thing. Every last detail. When I wasn’t around, she changed the registration on everything we owned. I never noticed a thing. I trusted her. I handed everything over to her accountant—my official seal, my IDs, stock certificates, bankbooks, everything. They said they needed it for taxes. Great, I’m terrible at that stuff, so I was happy for them to do it. But the guy was working for her relatives. And before I knew it, there wasn’t a thing to my name left. They stripped me to the bone. And then they kicked me out. A real education, let me tell you,” he forced another smile. “Made me grow up real fast.”
“Everybody has to grow up.”
“You’re right there. I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time,” said Gotanda, peering into my face. “But it’s not like that. It happens overnight.”
The place we went to was a steak house in a remote corner of Roppongi. Expensive, by the looks of it. When the Mercedes pulled up to the door, the doorman and maître d’ and staff came out to greet us. We were conducted to a secluded booth in the back. Everyone in the place was very fashionable, but Gotanda in his corduroys and jogging shoes was the sharpest dresser in the place. His nonchalance oozed style. As soon as we entered, everyone’s eyes were on him. They stared for two seconds, no longer, as if it were some unwritten law of etiquette.
We sat down and ordered two scotch-and-waters. Gotanda proposed the toast: “To our ex-wives.”
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