by Nick Hurst
NINE
I woke deeply unrested. My head seemed to be spinning whether awake or asleep, the tunnel I was in getting darker. I thought again about trying to escape. If I could be tracked down buying a plane ticket, I could always get on a train. I tried to imagine how that would pan out. It would probably take a month going stir crazy in a small-town ryokan before my money ran out. Then I’d be forced back to face music even more unpleasant than the present tune – if Takata wasn’t planning to kill me already, he certainly would be by the time I returned. I decided not to get a train.
I kicked a cupboard door in frustration and regretted it instantly, although the pain distracted me from my finger at least. I was tempted to look but the doctor had told me to leave it alone. Judging by the oscillations between numbness and pain I guessed it was still some way from healing.
I looked around me. Rest and relaxation isn’t easily achieved when you suspect you’re on a countdown to your own murder. It’s even trickier when stuck in a studio flat. Even if I wasn’t going to do any more sleuthing, I needed to get out.
I jumped on a Yamanote Line train without thinking and soon found myself in Shibuya. I couldn’t face the crowds at Scramble Crossing so I turned right under the tracks and made my way into Nonbei Yokochō – Drunkard’s Alley – instead.
I clambered up the steps at the end of the row of bars into Miyashita Koen. I remembered the park before it had been renovated, when the astroturf pitches had still to replace haphazard patches of gravel and grass. I’d watched trainee baton men there once, being drilled in the tool of their trade. From overseeing car parks to maintaining order at roadworks, legions of them were considered essential to health and safety in Japan. In reality it was a government ruse to keep people in work. If the UK was as generous in its employment, I’d have been told to hire assistants instead of getting the sack.
But the thought wasn’t bitter. I liked the pride taken in Japan, whatever the job; the fact you could talk to people rather than automated machines; the taxi drivers with their automatic doors and lace-covered seats. I liked the friendliness beneath the formality; the way people got drunk in the evening and dismissed their behaviour the following day. I liked their art and their sports, their history and culture. As I strolled along, the walk became testimony to my love-in with Japan.
And my love for Tomoe.
That took me by surprise. I hadn’t considered her in those terms before.
I’d left the park and was walking towards Harajuku, down Cat Street with its fashionable stores and funky boutiques. The last time I’d been there was with Tomoe. We’d strolled along in the late-morning sun, her arm tucked tightly through mine. She’d been teasing me, telling me I was in for a day of shopping instead of the brunch she’d promised when she called. The half-smile always seeking escape had broken into full beam at my indignant response, shining so brightly that to passers-by I was thrown completely into shade. But she’d been blind to them. The smile was only for me.
While I’d loved every minute I’d never thought it was love. Perhaps I was commitment-phobic but I think it was as much a consequence of being a foreigner, the thought never far away that at some point I’d return home. Whatever the reason, I’d never taken the emotional step. Considering everything that had happened and everything I’d found out, it seemed highly inappropriate to do so now.
A tear trickled down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly and checked to make sure no one had seen. All of a sudden I felt completely alone, more so than I’d ever felt before. And then I realised that I was. My friends in Japan thought I’d gone home, and I’d fobbed off my family telling them all was well here.
A month ago I would have had Tomoe to console me. But that was no longer the case. Now all I had were my fears for myself. And my fears for her, wherever she was.
I slumped in front of the TV when I got home, hoping for something comforting to watch. NHK was showing the sumō bashō and it was nearing six o’ clock. That meant the two yokozuna grand champions would be entering soon. On cue, the cameras focused on Hakuho as he swaggered to the ring, a Mongolian who had been destroying all before him for years. Then there was even more excitement for Tatsuzan. He had just been promoted, the first Japanese yokozuna in over a decade. Dashing despite his menace, he carried his muscular bulk with surprising elan.
And that’s when I realised. I would have loved to be the strongman but it wasn’t me. Tatsuzan was the rikishi in my dream.
I arrived while it was still dark, a large bottle of sake in my hand. I could already hear the sound of the rikishi inside, their joint shout followed by the synchronised shiko stamp of their warm-up routine.
‘I’m sorry, but we don’t accept visitors during competition times,’ said the boy as he slid the door open.
While the senior rikishi may have looked intimidating on TV, he was more like an oversized baby with his round belly and spiky, dishevelled hair. His chunky mawashi looked like a giant nappy.
‘I completely understand,’ I said. ‘But I was hoping to give this to the oyakata when he comes down – we have a mutual friend.’
I thought it better to lie and pretend I was there to see the coach – I imagined the yokozuna was subject to constant attention. Baby Rikishi hesitated, a naïve mistake.
‘Really – I’m friends with a good friend of his. He’d be far more upset if you turned me away than if you let me in.’
I felt guilty but it didn’t stop me shouldering partway through the door.
‘I’ll be incredibly quiet – you won’t even know that I’m here.’
He let me in and I slipped off my shoes and slid across the floor to a low platform on the right. I received some curious looks but I wasn’t concerned – they were the juniors in the heya, the sumō stable where they all lived and trained. They had to start and finish their practice early to allow the seniors extra sleep.
It was an hour later when the bigger guns started filing in. The intensity of training immediately stepped up. Mountains of muscle and flesh pounded into each other, propelled from tree trunks for legs. They were accompanied by a soundtrack of deep, sickening slaps, the kind of sound you feel as much as you hear. The shockwaves surged through the dohyō into the stage, sending shudders up through my spine. Over and over they crashed into one another. Sweat and blood flowed freely as new welts and bruises piled on old lumps and scars.
Suddenly the room quietened and for a moment everything stopped. I looked over and saw Tatsuzan, massive even by the standards of the giants already there. Then, as if on a hidden signal, the carnage resumed. Baby rushed to help Tatsuzan from a yukata kimono as big as a tent. He nodded towards me. Baby started to speak but didn’t get beyond a few words before Tatsuzan turned and started to make his way over. He moved with a swaggering grace but the ground still shook like the approach of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
‘You have a friend in common with Oyakata?’ he boomed.
‘Well, actually, no,’ I said, my voice as comparatively small as I was to his size. ‘It’s my girlfriend. And she doesn’t know the oyakata. She’s friends with you.’
At that point, even more than the moments leading up to it, I very much hoped it was true.
‘Hey, Fatman!’ I yelled at the TV in a moment of exuberance. ‘I’ll take you down with my Ray Clarence one-punch special. POW!’
I mimed my imagined knockout move with a vigour I hoped would compensate for its lack of style and technique.
Tomoe giggled.
‘Ray Clarence one-punch,’ she mocked. ‘I could probably beat you up.’
I proved her wrong by putting her in a half-nelson but she still wasn’t particularly impressed.
‘So you can beat up a girl,’ she said, in contempt of my strongman pose. ‘You’d still get destroyed by any rikishi.’
‘You really think so? Look at them – they’re all quivering fat.’
‘There’s fat on them but it’s muscle underneath. Look,’ she pointed at the TV. ‘Look at his l
egs and shoulders. They’re even more impressive when you see them in the flesh.’
‘You know rikishi?’ I asked, intrigued by yet another in her endless array of new facts.
‘My parents were friends with the parents of Tatsuzan,’ she said, his name not catching as he was yet to hit the yokozuna rank. ‘We knew each other when we were young.’
My dream suggested they were closer than that, although it was a flimsy premise on which to base any assumptions. I wasn’t happy at the thought of this alpha male spending time with my girlfriend, but now a small part of me wanted it to be true. Tatsuzan was intimidating even before he thought me a madman babbling about imaginary friends. And at that moment, he was all that I had.
‘I’m Chōshi Tomoe’s boyfriend,’ I said, and waited for the inevitable look of surprise. He was subtle at least.
‘Is she OK?’ he asked with obvious concern. ‘Do you know where she is?’
It was my question. I tried another.
‘You already knew she was missing?’
‘Of course I did. She’s like a sister to me.’
I allowed myself an inward smile.
‘In any case, we both live in the floating world. We hear what happens to one other.’
‘Do you know why she’s missing then?’ I asked, hoping the floating world’s suspended grapevine might help.
Before he could answer, a deep, grumpy voice rumbled across the room.
‘What’s going on? Why have we got a gaijin with us, upsetting training and disturbing Tatsuzan?’
The oyakata was an ex-yokozuna himself and the authority he’d carried didn’t seem to have dissipated since he retired.
‘It’s OK, Oyakata,’ Tatsuzan assured him. ‘He knows a friend of mine. He just wanted to come by to wish me luck and bring a bottle of sake for you.’
He wheeled around with the sake. The oyakata looked at it, pleased despite himself. He grunted appreciation but the feelings of gratitude didn’t seem to last long.
‘Well, now you’ve given your best wishes, my yokozuna needs to train – he has a bashō to win.’
Tatsuzan turned back to me. ‘I need to get going or he’ll chew my ear off and most likely tear you apart. Meet me at Ryōgoku Kokugikan after today’s bouts. I’ll arrange things – just tell them you’re there to see me.’
According to Sumida I was as easy to follow as a child so I’d been as evasive as I could when visiting the sumō beya. I took a similarly roundabout route to get to Ryōgoku Kokugikan Stadium, changing trains more than I needed to and darting onto the final one with only seconds to spare.
I was ushered in as soon as I said my name – if the Kokugikan was sumō’s temple then Tatsuzan was its god. The attendant led me into the building, through the entrance hall and then around a corridor where cheering from the last bouts of the day could be heard. Abruptly he pulled me to the right and down a flight of stairs. I came out of the door at the bottom to find myself in the stadium’s hallowed inner grounds.
It was a different world to the one above, a land of giants where anything less than massive was positively small. Its inhabitants lumbered through passageways that struggled to contain them, announcing themselves in advance through the sweet-scented camellia oil used on their elaborate hair.
As I did my best to avoid being crushed, I heard grunts and slaps from a doorway. The attendant indicated I should enter, then turned and expertly wove his way off.
Inside, a rikishi was thrusting his palms at a thick wooden pillar that shuddered at every strike. To his right, a long platform of tatamis was split by a thin passageway in its centre. It was empty except for a few rikishi readying themselves for home, and Baby, who was waiting for me.
‘Sorry if I got you in trouble earlier.’
‘That’s OK,’ he grinned. ‘I get shouted all the time – it actually feels better when there’s a reason.’
Before he could say anything else, something in the atmosphere changed and a murmur of voices grew to a clamour outside the door. It opened, and a sweaty Tatsuzan squeezed through the wide frame. He nodded at me while he was towelled down, his chest heaving as he fought for breath.
‘Did he win?’
‘Yes. He’s got a perfect record so far!’
Baby’s excitement was palpable but it had different foundations to mine. Tatsuzan had been clear he didn’t know where Tomoe was, but he’d said enough to suggest the floating world might. If it really was so well connected, surely I could hope I would soon see her again.
My heart sank. Was that it?
We were in a small restaurant near the stadium eating chankonabe, the hotpot dish favoured by rikishi that’s reasonably healthy when eaten by the bowl instead of the bucket. It had been a promising start.
‘Tomo-chan came to me a month or two ago,’ he said. ‘She told me about her father and wanted to find out if there was anything I knew.’
‘Why would you have known anything?’
‘Sumō might not be as popular with the younger generation,’ he explained. ‘But it still is with the old guard, and they run things in Japan. They support sumō in all sorts of ways – it’s not just about turning up to the tournaments. They sponsor us, take memberships at heyas and so on. We meet them and get to hear things as a result.’
‘And did you know anything? Could you help her?
‘I knew a little, but not very much,’ he said, as he emptied another ladle of chankonabe into the oversized bowl the owner seemed to keep especially for him. ‘But now I’m worried it was enough to get her in trouble and that her disappearance was my fault.’
‘But if it was something you said that caused her to go missing, you must have some idea of where she is.’
‘You don’t think I’d have done something about it if that was the case?’ he said sharply, showing irritation for the first time.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and his expression softened at my dejection. ‘I’ve been worrying about her so much I can’t think straight.’
I tried to exhale my disappointment and started again.
‘What was it you told her? And why do you think it got her in trouble?’
‘At the last bashō in September, the head of the Takata-gumi dropped by the changing rooms.’
He returned a fish ball he’d been about to scoop into his mouth.
‘You know who the Takata-gumi are?’
‘I’ve heard of them.’
‘Their oyabun, Takata Eiji, I don’t think I’d trust him but to talk to he’s a reasonable guy. We chatted a while but after five minutes or so Fujiwara Daisuke popped his head around the door. It’s like that sometimes; powerbrokers come in, celebs – some days they all turn up at once. Anyway, he asked if Takata would mind stepping into the room next door to have a word with a mutual friend. That was it for a while, but after a few minutes I heard raised voices and whoever the other person was stormed off. Takata, cool as you like, stuck his head back in, apologised for the disturbance and wished me luck in my bout. But I had to wonder about the other guy. I mean, what kind of man raises his voice at Takata Eiji?’
It was the question I wanted him to answer. Wasn’t it the sort of thing the floating world was supposed to know?
‘Why do you think this had anything to do with Tomoe’s disappearance?’
‘Because when she came to me asking questions, I told her about it. You know what she’s like – once she has her mind set on something there’s no way she’ll let up. And a couple of weeks after I told her, she was gone.’
‘What do you think she did?’
He looked at me.
‘She must have gone to see Fujiwara. And whatever she found out must have got her in trouble. I’ve tried to contact him but he won’t speak to me – we’ve had some difficulties in the past. I can’t have pressure put on him either – he knows powerful people too.’
It had been bothering me since he first said the name, but there had been so much else to take in.
‘Who is Fujiwara Daisuk
e?’
He looked at me incredulously.
‘You don’t know him?’ he said. ‘He’s an actor. Haven’t you seen any of his films?’
TEN
‘I’m afraid he doesn’t know anyone of that name,’ she said politely. ‘Perhaps you have him confused with somebody else.’
‘No, it’s certainly him,’ I said. ‘Would it be possible to try again? Cho-u-shi To-mo-e.’
‘I’m afraid that was the name I gave him and he had no idea who she was. I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help.’
She was cutting me off, and with it ending the trail and blocking my path to Tomoe. I’d probably only got this far by being a gaijin, an unusual, intriguing voice on the other end of the phone. She seemed keen to get back to more standard enquiries.
‘But perhaps—’
‘Thank you for calling, I’m so pleased you enjoy his films,’ she said, and hung up.
However much of a proactive catalyst you are, there are limits to what you can do when a film star brushes you off. The only thing I could think of was to go through the Takata-gumi but there were two problems with that: one, I’d been told very clearly to stop catalysing and get some rest; and two, it seemed Fujiwara Daisuke was on the side of whoever had the will, inclination and power to face down Takata. Using the Takata-gumi would likely bring more trouble than help.
It wasn’t just the logistics of getting through to Fujiwara that troubled me – I was disturbed by the fact I was trying to reach him at all. To this point, my dreams had made a strange kind of sense – my brain sifting through the insanity that had overtaken my life. But I wasn’t a movie buff and when I did go to the cinema I usually settled for Hollywood fare. I hadn’t heard of Fujiwara. I didn’t have any experiences involving actors. Recently I hadn’t even seen any films. So dreaming about an actor was already odd. Having one enter my life – or avoid doing so more precisely – was unsettling in the extreme.
The phone rang.
‘Hurry up, we’re outside.’