Go

by Kazuki Kaneshiro

  I found Sakurai, and we boarded the elevator and went up to the twelfth floor. We walked past the floor receptionist, down the long corridor, and stood in front of the door of our room. I opened the door, and we went inside.

  When the door closed behind us, Sakurai and I let out a sigh almost at the same time.

  “Wow, that was nerve-racking,” she said, smiling.

  I nodded.

  The tastefully decorated hotel room was larger than any I’d ever stayed in. There was a sturdy-looking wood writing desk, a sturdy-looking sofa set, and sturdy-looking picture frames hanging on the walls. Restless, Sakurai and I lost interest in the sturdy-looking furniture and furnishings and went to the bed.

  We took off our shoes and hopped up on the double bed, as if it were expected, and jumped up and down like kids. Sakurai nimbly slipped off the red cardigan she was wearing and tossed it toward the wall. Dressed only in a white dress now, she kept on jumping without caring that her panties peeked out from beneath her dress every time she landed. She looked really happy.

  After we’d jumped up and down about thirty times and started to lose our breath, Sakurai dove into me. I caught her in midair, and we landed back on the bed together. We stood on the bed, breathless, and stared into each other’s eyes. Suddenly, Sakurai planted her lips on mine. We kissed long and hard, our tongues tangling. A couple of times we unlocked lips to come up for air and then went back to kissing again.

  I placed my hands on her waist and moved my thumbs up and down, which made her pull her lips away from mine and rest her head on my chest. A breathy gasp escaped her lips. Slowly I ran my hands down her body, grabbed the hem of her dress, and slowly hiked it up. Sakurai raised her arms above her head in a banzai pose. I lifted the dress over her head and tossed it toward the wall.

  Stripped down to her underwear and bra now, Sakurai put her hands on the front of my shirt. She undid each button carefully.

  I let Sakurai take off my shirt and tank top. She dropped them next to the bed and reached for my belt.

  “I’ll get out of these myself,” I said.

  Sakurai chuckled and jumped off the bed. She went to the wall, reached for the light switch and turned off the light. She sat down on the bed and unhooked her bra.

  I stepped down from the bed and took off my pants and socks in the dark. I wondered about my boxers but decided to keep them on. When I turned to the bed, I found Sakurai lying on her back. My eyes were getting used to the dark.

  Lying down on the bed next to Sakurai, I gently traced the curves of her face with my right thumb. Her forehead, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, lips. Afterward, I kissed each of those parts gently. Sakurai’s breathing was steady and light.

  Holding her by the shoulders, I slowly turned her over so she was lying on her stomach. First I ran my tongue over the nape of her neck, occasionally giving her ear lobes a light nip. Sakurai’s breathing grew erratic, rough.

  Taking my lips off the nape of her neck, I put my left thumb there instead and moved it up and down, right and left. Then I put my lips on the dip of her back and licked it. She tasted more gamy than grassy. My tongue ran down the dip, making her body twitch occasionally. Her midriff heaved up and down every time she took a heavy breath, my head going up and down along with her.

  Sakurai’s right hand, which was stretched out above her, slowly crept down the bed. Once her hand reached bottom, it moved right and left in search of something. When I brought my free hand closer to hers, she grabbed my hand with surprising force and brought it up toward her face. She turned her head to the side and bit my hand hard. As the sharp pain registered in my brain, my tongue moved faster on her back. I felt Sakurai’s breath on the back of my hand.

  I removed my tongue from the hollow of her back and propped myself up. I put my hand on her shoulder and rolled Sakurai over on her back. She quit biting my hand and said, “I’m crazy about you.”

  For an instant, Sakurai’s eyes seemed to flash red. I was madly in love with this woman, this luminous body lying before me. I had to tell her. I didn’t want to hide anything from her.

  I sat up on the bed with my legs folded beneath me.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Sakurai.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sakurai let go of my right hand.

  I said, “There’s something I want you to know.”

  Propping her elbows against the bed, Sakurai slowly brought herself up to a sitting position.

  “Know what?”

  “There’s something I’ve been hiding.”

  “What is it all of a sudden?” Sakurai’s voice was filled with worry. “What is it?”

  “I . . .”

  Seeing me struggling to get out the words, she said half-jokingly, “Do you have a criminal record or something?”

  “I’ve been reprimanded a bunch of times, but no record yet.”

  “Oh, okay,” Sakurai said. “Is it about your family?”

  “I can’t say that it isn’t.”

  “Does your father have a criminal record?”

  “My father can be rough, but he’s also righteous.”

  “Your mother has a record?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Sugihara,” Sakurai said, letting out a sigh. “Can you imagine how awkward this would be if I wasn’t kidding just a little?”

  “I guess.”

  “Come on, you can tell me. Then we can go back to what we were doing.”

  For an instant I considered sweeping it all under the rug by saying, “It’s nothing. Now, where were we?” But I was afraid that I might never tell her if I missed this chance. Besides, I believed she would accept anything I told her. And then she would say this: So what? Now let’s go back to what we were doing.

  I took a breath so deep that Sakurai noticed, and I said, “I—I’m not Japanese.”

  The silence must have gone on for only about ten seconds, but to me it seemed much longer.

  “What . . . do you mean?” asked Sakurai.

  “My nationality isn’t Japanese.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “South Korean.”

  Sakurai drew her legs, which had been stuck straight out at me, back to her chest and sat with her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her body looked terribly small. I said, “But I was North Korean until the second year of junior high. Three months from now, I may be Japanese. In a year, I may be American. And I may be Norwegian when I die.”

  “What are you saying?” Sakurai asked in a flat voice.

  My heart began to beat faster. “That nationality doesn’t mean anything.”

  Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence.

  Finally, Sakurai opened her mouth. “You were born in Japan and raised in Japan?”

  I nodded and said, “I grew up breathing pretty much the same air as you did and eating pretty much the same foods you did. But we were educated differently. I went to North Korean school until high school. That’s where I learned to speak Korean.” After getting out that much, I joked, “I’m actually bilingual. Although I guess in Japan, you only call someone who speaks English bilingual. When I’m watching the Olympics, I can cheer on both Japanese and Korean athletes in their language. Don’t you think that’s great?”

  Sakurai didn’t even crack a smile. She was looking at me, emotionless. The silence was terrifying. My heart beat even faster. Faster even than the first time a knife was drawn on me. I searched desperately for something to say. But I was out of luck. A terrible feeling of uneasiness came over me and spread through my entire body, weighing me down. Slowly I stretched my hand out toward her. Sakurai’s body flinched. My hand stopped in midair even though my brain was telling it to move. I lowered my hand and asked, “Why?”

  Sakurai’s mouth opened and closed slightly, as though she were trying to say something. Whatever that something might be, I just wanted to hear her voice. I gently asked her what was wrong to try to coax her.

  Lowering her eyes, Sakurai said, “My father
. . . since I was little, my father told me that I couldn’t go out with Korean or Chinese men.”

  After I managed to take that in, I asked, “Is there a reason why?”

  Sakurai fell silent, so I continued. “Was your father treated badly by a Korean or Chinese person or something? Even if that were the case, I’m not the one who treated your father badly.”

  “It’s not that,” Sakurai said weakly.

  “Then what?”

  “He told me . . . that Korean and Chinese people have tainted blood.”

  Her words didn’t shock me. They were merely words uttered from ignorance and prejudice. It was all too easy to deny such irresponsible words.

  I said, “Tell me—what’s the distinction? How do you decide he’s Japanese or she’s Korean or he’s Chinese?”

  “How . . . ?”

  “Is it nationality? Like I said before, you can change your nationality, easily.”

  “Where they were born . . . or the language they speak . . .”

  “Then what about returnee kids, born and raised in another country because of their parents’ work, who have citizenship in another country. Are they not Japanese?”

  “I guess if their parents are Japanese, they’re Japanese, too.”

  “So basically who you are has to do with your roots. Then maybe I should ask how far you have to go back to know your roots. If you found out that your great-grandfather had Chinese blood in him, would you stop being Japanese?”

  Sakurai didn’t speak.

  “Or are you Japanese anyway? Because you were born and raised in Japan, and you speak Japanese? Then that would mean I’m Japanese, too.”

  “It isn’t possible my great-grandfather had Chinese blood,” she said with a hint of displeasure in her voice.

  “You’re wrong,” I said a bit firmly. “Your family name, ‘Sakurai,’ was a name given to people who originally came from China. It’s all in the New Selection and Record of Hereditary Titles and Family Names compiled during the Heian period.”

  “I thought that in the past, people didn’t have family names, and they randomly gave them to themselves. So there’s no way to tell if my ancestors were Chinese at all.”

  “Exactly. It’s also possible that one of your ancestors was adopted into the Sakurai family. Then let’s go back further. Your family can’t drink alcohol, right?”

  Sakurai nodded slightly.

  I continued. “The Jomon people are believed to be the direct ancestors of modern Japanese, and there wasn’t a single person among them that couldn’t drink alcohol. That was proven by DNA research. In fact, all Mongoloids were capable of drinking in ancient times. But then, about twenty-five thousand years ago, a human with a gene mutation was born in Northern China. That human was born with a low tolerance for alcohol. At some point, that person’s descendants came to Japan and spread the low-tolerance-for-alcohol gene. And you’ve inherited that gene. Does that mean your blood containing this Chinese-born gene is tainted?”

  Silence.

  I sat motionless and waited for Sakurai to speak.

  Finally, she let out a long, long breath and said, “You know so much about so many things. But this isn’t about any of that. I get what you’re trying to say intellectually, but I can’t. I’m scared. When I think about you entering my body, I’m scared.”

  My heart gradually went back down to its normal beat, and the uneasiness weighing me down began to fade at the same time. I let out a much, much longer breath than Sakurai’s.

  I turned my back to her and climbed off the bed. I picked up the white tank top, which stood out in the darkness, and put it on.

  Sakurai said, “Why did you keep this from me for this long? If you didn’t think it was such a big deal, you could’ve told me.”

  I picked up my shirt and slipped my arms through the sleeves. Then I buttoned up the front.

  Sakurai continued. “It’s not fair . . . the way you just dropped this on me and ruined everything.”

  I looked for my socks, thinking to put them on before my pants, but I couldn’t find them. I crouched down and combed the floor with my hands. They were nowhere to be found.

  Seeing my confusion, Sakurai said, “They’re probably in the legs of your pants.”

  I grabbed my pants and stuck my hand in the legs. There they were.

  Sakurai said, “Boys usually panic and rush to take off their pants and socks at the same time. That’s why they usually get lost in there.”

  I sat on the floor and put on my socks. When I finished getting on one sock, she said, “That phone call earlier? That was my sister. When I told her that we were spending the night, she told me about the socks. So I could tell you if you couldn’t find your socks. She said that if I did that, that would keep me in the driver’s seat in our relationship. And that if a girl didn’t act confident on her first night of sex, the guy might walk all over her.”

  I finished putting on my other sock. I grabbed my pants and got to my feet. When I put one leg into the pants, Sakurai said, “This was going to be my first time. Even if it wasn’t, I still would have been scared.”

  I finished zipping up my pants. I took the room key out of my pants pocket and left it on the side table next to the bed. Sakurai said, “Please say something.”

  As I walked toward the door, Sakurai said toward my back, “My given name is Tsubaki. Like Tsubaki from La traviata. A name that has the kanji characters for cherry blossom and camellia sounds so Japanese that I didn’t want you to know.”

  I put my hand on the doorknob. After wavering a bit, I turned around and said, “My real name is Lee. Like Bruce Lee. My name sounds so foreign that I didn’t want you to know because I was afraid of losing you—like I just did.”

  I opened the door and went out into the corridor. As I slipped out the door, Sakurai seemed to say something, but I couldn’t make out what.

  When I went back to the front desk, the young clerk seemed a bit wary about my sudden reappearance. I settled the bill and informed him that I would be the only one checking out. I expected his suspicion to grow stronger, but it didn’t. The clerk was probably very well trained.

  “How did you find the view?” he asked, after I’d paid the bill. I’d actually forgotten to take a look at the magnificent view. I lied and said it was fabulous. The clerk thanked me, smiled politely, and bowed.

  Although the trains were still running, I decided to walk home.

  I walked on a street parallel with the JR tracks and headed for Tokyo. When I reached Tokyo Station, I realized that I’d left my school uniform jacket in the locker. It was a chilly October night.

  I went past Tokyo Station and continued along the tracks toward Kanda. I went inside the convenience store in front of Kanda Station and bought myself a pack of Short Hopes and a cheap lighter. The young cashier took one look at me and opened his mouth to say something but gave up when I glared at him. He handed me the cigarettes.

  It was the first cigarette I’d smoked in four years. I coughed at first, but soon found my old groove and smoked the whole pack by the time I got to Ueno. The first convenience store I tried refused to sell me another pack, but the second store did not. I bought two packs just in case.

  Smoking my cigarettes, humming a tune, and walking across the guardrail like it was a high wire, I continued moving at a good clip. By the time I reached Nishi-Nippori Station, it was past three in the morning. My house wasn’t too much farther. Sometime after four, I was back near my neighborhood of Hakusan. As I walked down the deserted residential street, I spotted a bike with its light on coming toward me. I let out a deep sigh. From the speed at which it was approaching, I instantly recognized the breed of human behind the wheel. I had a truly long relationship with these guys. In The Long Goodbye, Philip Marlowe said this about cops: “No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.”

  I wondered what to do with the cigarettes and lighter. Once in my first year of junior high, I was questioned by the police and had my belongings
searched. Thanks to a pack of matches, I nearly was framed for being a serial arsonist who was going around starting fires at the time.

  The cop had asked, “What are you doing with these matches?”

  And I came up with a quip that Ikkyu-san might say: “I’m in charge of keeping the stove warm.”

  Well, that seemed to sour the cop’s mood and got me hauled down to the station and nearly framed for arson.

  I thought of ditching the cigarettes and lighter on the side of the street, but I stayed put, not wanting to arouse suspicion. The bicycle sped up a bit and made a beeline for me. At times the bike light shone directly in my eyes and blinded me.

  “Hey, what are you doing here at this hour?” asked the cop, climbing off the bicycle. His face was clouded with a dark look of suspicion and the cold-bloodedness of a predator eying his prey. Anticipating what might come next, I casually shifted position so the cop had to stand in front of his parked bike.

  “I was out with some friends and missed the last train, so I’m walking back home.” I gave him a straight answer.

  “Where are you coming from?”

  When I told him Yurakucho, the young cop said, “That’s far,” and nodded as though he appreciated my efforts. Normally the conversation would end here with, “Be careful getting home,” but the guy was a pro. Maybe he’d gotten a scent of my junior high school days.

  “Where do you live?” he asked with a stern face. It was another textbook question.

  Now let’s say I gave him my address. The young cop would get on the radio and have someone at the station check the resident register. At that point, it would come out that I’m Zainichi Korean. The young cop would be so informed. Then he would ask, “Do you have your alien registration card?” Japan used to have a law called the Alien Registration Law, which oversaw the foreigners living in Japan. Although “oversaw” had a nice ring to it, the law was basically there to put a collar on so-called “bad” foreigners. Despite being born and raised in Japan, I was still considered a foreign resident, so I was required to be registered as one and have an alien registration card. You were supposed to have this card on your person at all times and not having it could get you a year of penal labor or imprisonment or a fine of 200,000 yen. Anyone who took off his collar would get disciplined. Since I wasn’t some farm animal kept by the state, I refused to wear my collar. And I wasn’t about to start now.