Death By Choice

by Masahiko Shimada

  Shinobu’s voice on the other end of the line brought him back. “You mean it was a dream to meet me?”

  Kita gave a quiet, simple nod. “If I realized that dream, I’d be able to remember it till the day I died, see.”

  “I’m just so moved that you think of me like that,” Shinobu said, in exactly the voice she’d been using in the television commercial. “Is there anything you’d like me to do for you? You listened to my tale earlier, and paid a hundred thousand for the experience, so I feel I should compensate you somehow.”

  “Well I’m really happy to hear that. But…”

  “Would you meet me again now? Those guys aren’t around any more. Shall we go for a drive somewhere? I’ll hop in the car and come right over and get you. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Wait for me in the lobby.”

  Those guys must be taking advantage of this urge of hers to serve others, thought Kita. Of course she should by rights have been suspicious about the motives of a guy who’d pay a hundred thousand to meet her, and be wary of the connections he might have. In fact, though, she was being remarkably honest with him. Kita accepted the invitation. He was inclined to let her purify his heart a little more.

  Shinobu arrived outside the Moon Palace Hotel lobby in a yellow Alfa Romeo with a black hood. Kita lowered himself awkwardly into the passenger seat. To ride around with a star driving a sports car with the hood back…he’d had such impossible fantasies in the past, of course, but he’d never dreamt he’d actually do it. It seemed like Shinobu was taking it into her head to fulfil his dreams for him.

  “I know nothing about you, Kita, so tell me.”

  At this, she whipped the engine into a high nasal groan, and began to hurtle along the left bank of the imperial palace moat.

  “I’ve lived a really normal life. I could exchange myself with just about anyone else, really.”

  “That’s not true, Kita. You’re different from other people, just like Jesus’ disciples were all different from each other.”

  “Most of the people in this world are pretty much like me.”

  “You really think so? Most people are all greasy with desire, but I get the feeling that you’ve cut through all that somehow.”

  The truth was rather that he’d never been able to find an outlet for his desires. Here he was at last, trying to live the high life, and all he could summon up to show for it was a hangover and a sense of futility. Maybe his desires were lacking cultivation. The high life was actually an exhausting business. He couldn’t last beyond three days. He’d love to be able to suddenly feel the kind of sense of fulfilment that led him to praise God, but he never had. He recalled some Olympics, he couldn’t remember which, where an athlete who’d just broken the world record in the decathlon sank to his knees, hung his head, slumped down and covered his face with his hands, and wept. Just then he could easily have been mistaken for someone who’d lost. The fact is, when someone is deeply moved, they get the urge to pray. That athlete’s mind must have been flooded with light at that moment.

  Shinobu gunned her baby Alfa Romeo and snaked through the traffic along the metropolitan expressway, heading for the bay. The bridge was lit up in rainbow colours, and trembled like the strings of a harp. The bridge lights reflected in the water below spread out like the tentacles of a sea anemone, threatening to swallow up all the motor boats, pleasure boats, and barges that floated there. Though the night was late, the sky still emanated a faint grey light, which dappled the bay. On the shore was a park where square-eyed, four-wheeled animals gathered to graze. Couples out for a night drive made their way here to talk of love and – if they reached an agreement – to rub mucous membranes together. Shinobu drew up in the parking area. “Kita,” she said in a hushed voice. Maybe she was planning on observing the couples’ biological activity, in the spirit of a bird watcher. “You can fulfil your dreams now.”

  “Eh?” he said. He turned and saw that she’d leaned her seat back down and was lying there face up beside him.

  “I’ll let you touch, just once.”

  Kita’s heart thundered in his chest. The valley between her breasts, that object of lust for men all over Japan, was peeping from her gaping neckline. The breasts beneath her crimson dress glowed a faint white in the dim light, and a scent of tulips wafted up from them. With the fingertips of his trembling right hand, he touched her, whereupon she took his hand and slid them into the valley. It was a moment of pure bliss. His fingertips ran over her nipple, brushing the faint tulip scent.

  “Thank you. Really. Thank you,” said Kita, his expression grave, as he bowed his head over and over, until Shinobu giggled.

  Chancing to glance at the dashboard, Kita suddenly noticed the Bible Shinobu had shown him in the bar. Wherever she went, it obviously went with her.

  “The Bible must serve as a charm against traffic accidents,” he said.

  “It’s a kind of Linus blanket,” she said with a laugh.

  “I’ve got one more request.” Kita turned meekly to face her again.

  “What? What is it?” asked Shinobu, intrigued, as she raised her seat back to sitting position again.

  “Could you read me something from the Bible?”

  Shinobu didn’t speak for a few seconds, then she reached for the book. “Sure,” she said in a singsong voice, and began to turn the pages.

  I’m moving to some town or village in the next world soon, Kita said inside himself, so I guess I should take this opportunity to repent my sins.

  “Got it. Here it is, OK, I’ll read to you from the Gospel of Saint John.”

  There was a man named Lazarus who had fallen ill. His home was at Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

  Kita listened, his eyes on the light coordinates shining across the bay.

  The sisters sent a message to him: “Sir, you should know that your friend lies ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death: through it God’s glory is to be revealed and the Son of God glorified.”

  “It’s a bit dark,” she added. “Let’s turn on the light,” and she flicked the switch. The reading continued in the glow of the orange light.

  On his arrival Jesus found that Lazarus had already been four days in the tomb.

  Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” “I know that he will rise again,” said Martha, “at the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever has faith in me shall live, even though he dies; and no one who lives and has faith in me shall ever die. Do you believe this?”

  Shinobu seemed to be asking him the question directly. Kita spluttered. If you believed that, you’d never manage to die. For a man like him, about to die by self-execution, the words had a certain encouraging ring to them.

  Having told Jesus she believed in him, Martha returned to the village and called her sister Mary. The Jews of the village followed her. Now wherever he went, Jesus was persecuted by the Jews, driven out and half killed. He was proposing a new interpretation of their laws, which they completely misunderstood. So Jesus entered the tomb of Lazarus, in front of his disciples, Lazarus’ sisters, and the village Jews.

  Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Sir, by now there will be a stench; he has been there four days.” Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you have faith you will see the glory of God?”

  Then they removed the stone.

  Jesus looked upwards and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me, but I have spoken for the sake of the people standing round, that they may believe it was you who sent me.”

  Then he raised his voice in a great cry: “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with linen bandages, his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said, “Loose him; let him go.”

  Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.

  Shinobu snapped the Bible shut. “Tha
t’s all,” she said. Embarrassed to look at each other, they sat together in silence for a while, staring at the lights on the water. Here they were, two people who in different ways had sold off their bodies, snuggled together in an Italian sports car reading the world’s bestseller. And it wasn’t in nineteenth century Petersburg, but at the end of the twentieth century in Tokyo. Was it his decision to carry out self-execution that brought about these strange twists of fate, Kita wondered?

  “How could he have been resurrected after being dead for four days?” Kita turned over in his mind this old question that no one any longer seriously pondered.

  “It’s impossible in terms of modern medical science, isn’t it? But dead people might have quite often been resurrected like that at the time.”

  “Maybe the dead back then were in really good shape.”

  “Still alive even when they were riddled with worms.”

  Simultaneously they both began to snicker, and soon the little car was filled to bursting with an explosion of laughter.

  As the laughter wound down, Kita asked, “So was there any special reason why you purposely chose that bit to read?”

  “Yes. I told you in the bar, didn’t I? I used to contemplate suicide every night.”

  “Yes, you did say that.”

  “I decided to give up the idea when I read about Lazarus being brought back from the dead.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  Shinobu massaged her temples, struggling for words. “I can’t really express it,” she began. “I decided to give up the idea because if I committed suicide now I wouldn’t be resurrected. Lazarus was raised from the dead because he was loved by his sisters and the villagers and Jesus, wasn’t he? But in Japan, when you

  die of course it’s sad at the time, but after the prescribed forty-nine days are up everyone forgets about you. The only people who can be resurrected are the ones who live on in people’s memories forever.”

  “You believe in the resurrection of the dead?”

  Shinobu nodded hard, her eyes alight with firm conviction.

  “It’s essential to believe. I mean, if you doubt, you’ll never be resurrected, will you?”

  “You won’t have any fleshly body to return to if you’re cremated, you know.”

  “It’s true. But the soul doesn’t burn.”

  “I guess. The soul’s not flesh, after all. But if only the soul is resurrected, it’s not visible, is it? It’s scary to think of coming back to life as a half-rotted body, mind you. I think what you’re really talking about is memories of the dead.”

  Kita was just trying to help her express things, but Shinobu shook her head stubbornly. “No, it’s not,” she declared. “The dead really communicate with us. They appear in dreams. They speak. They grow, they progress, they love and hate. I think the souls of the dead are maybe like the trees in a forest or water in a river or air in a city. They’re a part of nature. A dead soul might come creeping into this car here. If you turn on the radio you’ll hear Mozart or John Lennon. Or think of our own dead, pop stars like Yukiko Okada or Yutaka Ozaki. Their voices are still echoing somewhere. Now isn’t that some sign of the dead? Lazarus threw off his rotted body after his resurrection, and became a follower of Jesus, you know. Even if you die, you don’t disappear. You just turn into something different. The voice of them, the sense of them, their thoughts and form when they were in the world – it’s all put back together at random and something else is born from it. That’s resurrection. A resurrected person doesn’t have a name or a job or a self. They just are. People get resurrected only among folks who have the ability to feel that. But everyone believes

  it’s the end when you die, so the poor resurrected dead get ignored. You have to have a really strong soul to be resurrected in our world.”

  “So are you in touch with the dead? How do you do that?”

  “You need a bit of training. But it’s easy really. You just have to remember that person. Just keep remembering them all the time. The dead get stronger when the living remember them. When you’re desperately struggling with something, just stop and relax for a moment, look at the dandelion on the roadside, open your ears to the sound of the wind. The souls of the dead have become part of the natural world, so if you do this, you’ll always get the sense that they’re there.”

  As he listened, Kita was thinking of the mother he’d left earlier that day. She’d begun to lose her mind without his noticing. Maybe that was why she was still living with her husband, though he died four years ago. Maybe she was actually communicating with a dead soul, just as Shinobu described.

  Shinobu straightened her back. “That’s the end of Mass,” she announced.

  “I’ve started to feel people really do come back to life,” Kita said with a laugh.

  “You’re weird,” Shinobu murmured, as she started the engine of her little sports car.

  “So in fact, Kita, you haven’t told me a thing about yourself.” They were back at the front lobby of the hotel, so late the bellboy was asleep. Shinobu spoke in a low, querulous voice. Kita felt he’d behaved quite honestly with her, but evidently he hadn’t managed to dispel her doubts. Though maybe it was the luxury of having paid a hundred thousand yen that spared him from talking about himself.

  “I’ll just tell you one thing. But you have to promise me two things first. One is that you won’t tell anyone. The other is that you won’t ask why.”

  Shinobu gave a slight nod to indicate that she promised.

  “I’m going to die this Friday. So fate brought us together only to part.”

  Kita hid the smile on his face as he spoke, but Shinobu said, “It’s a joke, right?”

  “I’ll come and see you if I’m resurrected.”

  “Why are you going to die?”

  “You promised not to ask.”

  “That was sneaky,” Shinobu murmured, and she suddenly seized Kita’s wrist and held it so hard she almost stopped his pulse.

  “Let go.”

  “No. If I let go, you’ll go to hell.”

  She’d already said Mass. Was she going to cast a spell on him now? He put his lips to her slender white hand, and whispered as if murmuring words of love, “I don’t mind if I go to hell.” Then he removed her hand, and got out of the car. Shinobu got out too, and tried to hold him back.

  “You mustn’t go to the next world! It’s terrible! It’s just the worst place!”

  You’d have thought she’d been there on a holiday and seen it herself. Well, if it really was the worst possible place, and he couldn’t face living there, he’d rely on Jesus’ words and ask to be resurrected.

  But in fact Kita even doubted if there was such a thing as the next world.

  “Still, I have to go. You’ve given me fresh courage to die, Shinobu.”

  “But why?” Shinobu couldn’t conceal her disappointment.

  “I was in luck tonight. Let’s meet again, eh?” Kita spoke his farewell with all the freshness of someone just out of the bath. He smiled. Shinobu released his arm, with a look that said she could see through that smile of his. She was left with nothing but an overpowering sense of futility after this fateful meeting with a man who could never appear in the Bible.

  Tuesday

  The Flowers are Running!

  After the Mass of the night before, when he’d found himself caught between a star and the Bible, Kita slept soundly. It was as though he’d been given a respite from some vague despair.

  He woke at eight. After eating the room service breakfast in bed and taking a shower, he shaved carefully and took time to do his hair. His old girlfriend’s husband left their house every morning at eight, he knew, and set off for his workplace at Kasumigaseki. Kita’s plan was to follow the opposite route, and make a direct attack on the house while the husband was absent.

  He gathered that housewives usually saw off the husband and children, then did some housework till around ten, when they took a break and went out, either for shopping, or to the bea
uty parlour, sports gym, or to work on some hobby. If he didn’t make his raid early, he might miss his only opportunity to see her; if he got lost en route, he might very well never fulfil his wish of seeing her once more in this life. Unfortunately, the day was fine. She’d probably be in the mood to head out the door for a joyride once she’d hung out the washing.

  He had to catch her before she did so. He would ring the doorbell and announce the arrival of an express delivery; both the sender and the deliverer, not to mention the package, would, of course, be himself. Choosing a different deliverer might well prove more effective at catching her off her guard, but he didn’t have the time to arrange it. She might also decide to refuse the delivery, consigning the unopened package to oblivion.

  He left his room empty-handed just past nine. The most suitable attire for sneaking in behind the back of the Finance Ministry employee was probably a dark suit, but the shops weren’t yet open, so he made do with yesterday’s free fashion ensemble.

  It was now the fifth day since he’d decided on his execution, and there were only three more to go. Now at last he felt he had escaped the clutches of all those people who were just after his money, the death merchants, and the professional would-be suicides, and become his own master. If Yashiro hadn’t stolen his taxi last Friday, all this would never have happened. It was thanks to the men and women that that guy had introduced him to that he had wasted two nights in Atami, not to mention signing away his corneas, his organs and his life. But hey, forget all that, he thought. Let’s just assume that I’ve been purified of everything by last night’s Mass.