Falling From the Floating World

by Nick Hurst

The thought had struck me as we lay on miles of deserted golden sand at Yonehara beach. As we made our way back to our rental car, passing eyes drawn uncontrollably to Tomoe’s curves, the sense it made had seemed limited again.

  Despite being a bachelor without ties or commitments, it had been surprisingly hard setting off to Japan. Having spent time away before, I knew I’d come back to friends doing much the same as when I left. But saying goodbye to my parents, who insisted on seeing me off, brought a lump to my throat and the sense of enormity that comes with major change.

  Tokyo also disorientated me subtly – so similar to when I’d been there ten years before that its differences felt like optical illusions, like seeing something familiar through warped glass. There were new buildings and some areas had changed but it no longer had the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ feeling of rapid advance.

  There was still enough to throw me off guard – in an increasingly homogeneous planet it had remained one of the few places able to provide the jolt of a culture shock. Even normal things felt that little bit different, whether being bamboozled by the functions of a high-tech toilet or seen out of a barber’s by five bowing staff. Just as when I’d first arrived, it left me wondering if I hadn’t flown to another country but been transported to a parallel world.

  My response was to seek familiar ground, finding a flat in Takadanobaba in the centre of Tokyo, just around the corner from where I’d previously lived. The students from nearby Waseda University continued to give the area its lively buzz, whether thronging the streets in daytime or drunkenly revelling through the night. They helped keep it pleasingly rough at the edges and ensured it retained a welcome affordability for such a central spot.

  I quickly found work that wasn’t outside my comfort zone either. I contacted the high school I’d taught at after my degree and had a stroke of luck. Their English teacher had just left and they were delighted to take me back on a generous wage that saved them on agency fees. With days that ended at three o’clock, I had time to take on private students and still work fewer hours than I had in my office job. I might not have found the way to maximise my intellectual potential, but I was earning well with minimal stress.

  With home and employment providing the reassurance of the old, I had the freedom to enjoy the excitement of Tomoe’s new. Add to that six months’ redundancy pay sitting in my bank account and life felt pretty good.

  My financial comfort paled beside Tomoe’s resources, though, not that she seemed to care. She was certainly willing to spend her money, as her impressive wardrobe, perfectly coiffed hair and readiness to pay any bill could attest. But she never gave the impression she needed it. For her, being in possession of money seemed to be an unpleasant necessity that spending it could relieve.

  The best description I could get for the job that allowed her this lifestyle was ‘cultural curator’. Rather than work for any specific museum or gallery, she was employed by a specialist agency that contracted her out.

  She was certainly impressive. A visit to her apartment would introduce you to the greatest ukiyo-e woodblock prints – a framed Hokusai leaned against a cupboard, a Kuniyoshi on her desk, a Yoshitoshi on the living-room wall. She could provide histories for all of them, accompanied by explanations of technique, artistic innovation and symbolism within the designs.

  She might receive a text asking her opinion from a novelist one day, then have her view sought by a musician the next. Such was her span of contacts I learned to curb my tongue after offending her with an ill-informed opinion on a dancer who turned out to be a friend.

  ‘Why can’t I find you online?’ I asked her once.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve googled your name but I can’t find a thing.’

  ‘Why are you trying to find me online?’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘There’s no need to be defensive. You’re my girlfriend. I just wanted to find out about the things you’ve done.’

  ‘You won’t find anything,’ she said, turning back to the kabuki theatre catalogue whose introduction she was writing. ‘Japanese artists and performers go by inherited names. It’s the same for me – even then I’m normally not announced. People in the industry know me, but there’s no reason the public should.’

  Before we could discuss it further she was off, her whirr of energy taking her to an exhibition in Hokkaido this time.

  Before I first went out, people talked about Japan as a losers’ paradise for gaijin foreigners, especially males. But I never found it was really the case. Admittedly, there were men with girlfriends they wouldn’t have stood a chance with at home. But the real catches tended to be on the arms of suave Japanese men. There was also the prospect of creeping into a higher social stratum, or getting a better package on an ex-pat deal with work. But I’d seen a bit of both and neither seemed the epitome of Eden to me.

  Yet here I was, coming straight from the sack into an untaxing job that left me free of financial concerns. I had friends and a place to live that was convenient, even if it was a little compact. And if my girlfriend could be more elusive than the floating world in which she worked, it was more than compensated by a personality that matched her looks. In fact, her sense of mystery only attracted me more.

  For all my doubts I might have been the mythical gaijin, the one winning in a losers’ paradise. It certainly felt like everything had come good. Unfortunately, when you’re at the top there’s only one way to go.

  THREE

  ‘Who killed him?’ I asked, shocked. I couldn’t say our relationship wasn’t complicated but this was a disturbing new turn. ‘What happened? Have you called the police?

  ‘Yakuza,’ she spat. ‘It happened two weeks ago but I just found out. I couldn’t even go to his funeral.’

  The words were cold and hard where normally her voice was sweet and soft.

  ‘But what happened? What are the police doing?

  ‘Nothing!’ Her lip curled. ‘“Our investigation concluded this was an unfortunate event, a suicide. Please accept our condolences for your sad loss,”’ she mimicked bitterly.

  It was a branch of normality. I grasped at it. ‘So it was a suicide? He wasn’t murdered?’

  Now she aimed her contemptuous look at me. ‘Chōshi is a samurai name. We’re descendants of a high-ranking family. If there was a serious matter of honour my father might have taken his life. But to jump from a bridge with a note saying he was unhappy?’

  Her disdain prevented her from continuing. I wasn’t going to contest her. I didn’t know her father. As for the samurai thing – a ruling class of warriors who lived by a code of honour formed by art and war that reached its zenith in death? It had seemed best to back away when she pulled out that card.

  But if I’m honest, the real reason I held back was the look on her face. It scared me.

  ‘But why are you so sure it was the yakuza?’ I asked tentatively, stroking her shoulder. ‘If you’ve got information maybe you could go to the police and get them to reopen the case?’

  ‘The police?’ she snapped. ‘The police are part of it. Why else would they conclude the investigation before it could even start? Why would they pretend they could find no relatives, not contact me, and have him cremated within a week?’

  I was hoping it was a case of incompetence but I didn’t venture the thought.

  ‘But what makes you think it was the yakuza?’ I asked again as gently as I could. ‘Was he, uh, did he come across them in the course of his work?’

  She stopped as she was about to answer and a half-smile brought a glimpse of the old Tomoe.

  ‘Ray-kun, I appreciate you trying to be sensitive, but no, he wasn’t a yakuza. And while you can never know what they’re into, there was no reason for them to be involved in his work. He’d had some debts but they were paid off. He was just a regular businessman. He had no connection to crime.’

  ‘So there shouldn’t be any reason for them to kill him should there?’ I asked softly, not wanting the other
Tomoe to return. ‘Why are you so sure it was them?’

  Her face became a mask again. ‘I know someone who knows that world. He’s the one who told me about my father’s death.’

  We were back on the murder track rather than the sad but reassuring suicide. I had a bad feeling about where it would go.

  ‘Could you not put him in touch with the police?’ I asked, trying to lead her away.

  ‘I told you the police are involved,’ she said, scary Tomoe once more. ‘He’d be in danger if he went to them.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to find out what happened. That’s why I need you to go to soapland.’

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  ‘Then I’m going to make them pay.’

  Tomoe had a complicated family dynamic. I didn’t fully understand it, which wasn’t surprising given my lack of understanding about much of her life. But whereas the rest was an intriguing enigma, I knew some difficult facts lay behind this particular door. She’d allowed me a glance in once and I hadn’t been anxious to open it again.

  We’d gone away for the weekend to Hakone, a town in the mountains south-west of Tokyo, famous for its onsen hot springs. We’d spent the afternoon strolling the hills of the open-air art museum, then soaked out our exertions in an onsen before heading back to our traditional ryokan inn.

  When we had finished the feast brought to our room, the table was cleared and thick futons with puffy duvets rolled out on the tatami mats. Another eye-opening experience later and we were spent; minds and bodies entwined around a perfect day.

  ‘Ray-kun,’ Tomoe said, her limbs draped around mine. ‘Doesn’t your family worry about you living so far away? Don’t they mind you changing your career?’

  ‘I don’t think they were delighted by the latest change, but that was more because it wasn’t exactly my choice to leave. And I’m sure they’d prefer it if I was in England, or at least somewhere closer than here. But I’m not a kid any more and they accept that. Once you leave the nest there’s no knowing where you’re going to end up.’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘I suppose they just want me to be happy. And if being out here makes me happy, then, for the most part, they’re happy too.’

  ‘Mm, that sounds nice …’ she drifted off.

  ‘It’s not like that with you?’ I ventured cautiously.

  ‘It’s different.’ She was silent a short while. ‘My mum died when I was a baby. I’ve seen pictures and my dad told me about her – apparently she was a lot like me. But I don’t have any memories of my own.’

  She sighed and stared out at the stars that twinkled through a gap in the sliding door. A chorus of frogs serenaded us with lusty song from the garden below.

  ‘And your dad?’ I prompted.

  She stayed as she was, as though she hadn’t heard me, but two rapid blinks – to prevent a tear or clarify a thought? – made me leave the subject alone.

  ‘We had a falling out,’ she said softly, just as I was starting to drop off. ‘He’s very traditional. He never showed his emotions even when I was a kid, but he doted on me in his own way. I think he saw my mother in me and that made him love me even more.’

  She paused.

  ‘But I upset him.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I did something to let him down and he can’t forgive me. We haven’t spoken for over two years.’

  ‘But he’s your dad,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what you did to upset him but you’re his daughter. It’s not the kind of love you can switch off.’

  ‘I’m sure he does still love me.’ She was now on the verge of tears. ‘But what I did, the kind of upbringing he had, the kind of man he is – he can’t just pretend everything’s fine. He isn’t to blame. It’s my fault.’

  I brushed the tears from her cheeks.

  ‘Even if it is, I’m sure you can do something to put it right, something to show him it was a mistake.’

  I said it to soothe her and bring a less melancholy end to the day. But then, before I could stop myself, I asked, ‘What did you do that was so bad?’

  She buried her face in my neck. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it. Not yet.’

  I stroked her hair, silently cursing myself.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. You don’t owe me an explanation. But I’m here if you do ever want to talk about it.’

  With that ineffectual piece of counselling we’d slowly drifted off to the sound of the frogs under the moon and the stars. Drifted off to a place of melancholy, but a place of peace nonetheless. A place it would have been ridiculous to even contemplate murder and revenge.

  FOUR

  Who really knows another person’s mind? While Tomoe was adamant her father wouldn’t have killed himself, it seemed that every time a suicide was in the news it was inevitably accompanied by people saying the same, all reflecting on how happy the person had been only the day before. We each have our darker side and some hold it closer. A traditionally minded man in Japanese society would seem likely to do just that.

  So I held on to a sense of hope that Tomoe was just distressed and would become more rational as time went on. Trying to second-guess her wasn’t wise, so I needed a backup. A way to avoid being drawn into a murder mystery, if that’s what it was going to become.

  This wasn’t a classically heroic response, but I’d seen plenty of films where the lead was forced into action only when he was the last one left. That wasn’t the case here. There were 130 million people in the country – their country – a legal system, a police force. I was just a lost gaijin trying to get my life back on track, a visitor in their land.

  For all the vicarious heroism you may feel at the cinema, facing a real murder sobers you up. It forces you to examine yourself and your depths of bravery. It provides a blunt assessment of who you really are. This might bruise your self-esteem but it’s very helpful in determining your propensity for life-threatening risk.

  I loved being with Tomoe. She made me laugh when I was happy and comforted me when I was down. She was intelligent and she was interesting and she made me look at things in different ways. But I’d only known her a year and there was more I didn’t know about her than I did. So when talk turned to murder I had to ask questions about her state of mind.

  If it hadn’t been unsettled by her father’s death, helping her would mean seeking out a killer. And by looking for a murderer you give yourself a chance of finding one. I’d spent my life trying to stay out of harm’s way. I wasn’t keen to put myself in the firing line for a man I didn’t know, even if that man was Tomoe’s father.

  ‘So, Rei-kun, when can you go to Matsubaya?’

  It had been a couple of days since Tomoe had first made the request. We were curled up on her sofa and until that point my focus had been on her tattoo – a small black fox that fascinated me with the way it seemed to leap and dance around her ankle.

  ‘Tomoe, are you sure you want to do this? I know you need to find out what happened to your father, but taking on the yakuza, it’s, it’s …’ I struggled to find the right words. ‘It’s dangerous. I mean, they hurt people – they kill them. I know you said the police are involved but there must be some who aren’t corrupt. We could speak to them, let them know something’s wrong.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she replied. ‘Of course there are policemen who aren’t corrupt, but what am I going to say to them? “I think my father was killed by yakuza because it wasn’t in his nature to kill himself? Your colleagues are involved so you’ll need to take over their investigation – oh, but I don’t have any proof.” Even you don’t believe me and you’re my boyfriend.’

  I started to protest but she silenced me with a kiss.

  ‘I’m not blaming you. I know it must sound crazy and we haven’t known each other long enough for you to have blind faith in me. Maybe I haven’t let you know me enough …’

  She looked distracted for a moment before she snapped back.

  ‘This is my pr
oblem. I don’t want you involved and I certainly don’t want to put you in danger—’

  ‘I’m not afraid for myself,’ I cut in as an internal voice tried to scream me down. ‘I’m worried about you. I just want to make sure you’re safe. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.’

  It was not what I’d been planning to say. My moment of clarity seemed to have been missed by my pride.

  ‘No. I don’t want you involved,’ she said again. ‘But this time it’s impossible for me. It needs a man.’

  ‘I’ll pay,’ said Tomoe the next day after her inevitable victory in our battle of wills. ‘You’re doing this for me.’

  ‘Tomoe, you can’t pay for me to go to a prostitute. It’s weird.’

  ‘You’re not going to a prostitute. You’re going to soapland to help find out what happened to my dad. It’s different.’

  I was still struggling to get my head around the idea of a first-time visit to the sex trade at my girlfriend’s request. We’d avoided discussion of the lengths I should go to maintain my cover, but I had to assume my fidelity would be in doubt. Her taking the cost didn’t seem right.

  ‘I don’t care how you put it. I’m paying.’

  It was a straightforward plan. I was to visit Matsubaya and ask for Sakura. At an appropriate moment I would subtly elicit what information I could on Takata Eiji, head of the Takata-gumi, Tokyo’s largest gang. It was obviously a sensitive subject and the chances of getting detailed information were negligible to none. What I needed to find out, most likely by gauging the reaction to my light-touch prompting, was whether the man himself had been there.

  ‘How’s that going to help us find out about your father?’ I asked.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that, Ray-kun. I need to know if Takata’s connected to the place, that’s all. If you can find out it will help.’

  Despite my initial reservations, I’d slowly come to terms with my new role. It seemed I might be able to help without imperilling anything but my morals, and on the scale of risks that didn’t seem too bad.