by Dean Koontz
“What is May-gee?” I asked.
“A period of Japanese history. The rule of Emperor Mutsuhito, from 1868 to 1912. Meiji means enlightened peace. Are you bored?”
“No, sir. I really like the tigers and the court lady.”
“I am not an interesting man,” he said. “Sooner or later, I will bore you. Be certain to tell me when I do.”
“All right. But I don’t think you will.”
“I will,” he insisted. “The Meiji artists continued to produce in that style long after Mutsuhito’s reign ended. My sainted father and precious mother collected Meiji and from the earlier Edo period. They owned hundreds of pieces. Objects of art. I grew up in rooms filled with Meiji magic.”
“Hundreds? What happened to them?”
“Lost. All lost except the court lady carved from ivory, which I found.”
“Why were your folks always losing things?”
He shrugged. “It was nobody’s fault.”
“Were they artists?”
“My mother was, of a kind. She worked with thread and needles on elaborate embroidered scenes. My father was a humble tailor. Your mother’s cookies go with tea.”
“So do these cakes,” I said, and took a third, though I didn’t really want it. The tea was better with honey, but it wasn’t Co-Cola.
“Your mother has great talent.”
“You’ve heard her sing?”
“Yes, at the club where she works.”
I couldn’t picture him in such a place. “You mean … Slinky’s?”
“That is correct. I only went there once. They wanted me to order alcoholic beverages. From time to time, as seemed required, I asked for a martini.”
“I think martinis are pretty potent.”
“Yes, but I do not drink. I paid for the martinis but left them untouched. For some reason, this disturbed the management. I felt that I should not go back again.”
Something about the way he spoke, the formality of his sentences and the lack of slang, was familiar to me, as if I’d known someone else who spoke in this manner, not stilted but with grave restraint.
“Did Mom see you at Slinky’s?”
“No. I sat in a corner table, far from the stage. I did not wish to intrude, only to listen. I am boring you.”
“No, sir. It’s pretty much the opposite of boredom. Where did you and your folks live in California?”
“First in Los Angeles. Later in a place called Manzanar.”
“Palm trees and beaches and always warm. I might want to live there when I’m grown up. Why did you leave?”
He was quiet, staring into his tea as though he could read the future in it. Then he said, “I was able to get work here. Work is life and meaning. Sloth is sin and death. At the end of the war, I was eighteen and needed work. I came here from California to work.”
“You mean World War Two?”
“Exactly, yes.”
I calculated. “You’re almost forty, but you don’t look old.”
Raising his stare from tea to me, he smiled. “Neither do you.”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“It sounded honest. Honest is good.”
I was blushing again, but still black, so he couldn’t know.
“Now I am boring myself,” he said. “I must be boring you.”
I thought maybe this worry about boring me was his way of politely putting an end to our visit, and I realized that I hadn’t even raised the subject that had inspired me to bring him cookies.
Looking at the ceiling, I said, “It’s so quiet here, so peaceful. I hope the new lady in Six-C doesn’t ruin your quiet.”
“Why should she?”
“Stripping up linoleum, scraping off wallpaper …”
“Most likely she will be doing that while I am away at work.”
“Yeah, but she looks …”
He cocked his head, his black eyes as inquisitive and direct as those of a wary crow. “Yes? Looks? How does she look?”
“Noisy.”
He studied me over his raised teacup, as he tilted it and took a sip. Then he said, “You do not mean noisy.”
“I don’t?”
“You do not.”
“Then what do I mean?”
“I await the revelation.”
“Nasty,” I said. “Maybe a little crazy. She’s a little nasty-crazy.”
He put down his teacup and leaned forward. “I met this woman on the stairs yesterday. I said good afternoon, but she did not.”
“What did she say?”
“She made a suggestion I will not repeat. Nasty—I am sorry to say, yes. Crazy—maybe.” He leaned forward even farther. “May I share this with you, Jonah Kirk, and be certain you will never quote me?”
I raised my right hand. “Swear to God.”
“The best word to describe her is dangerous. I have known dangerous people in my life. Please believe me that I have.”
“I believe you, sir.”
“If you are intrigued by this Eve Adams, resist your curiosity. She is only trouble. We must hope she will be gone without damage.”
For a moment, I considered sharing my experience with the woman, but it seemed that if I told him about her threats, I’d have to tell him also that I had seen her in a dream, strangled and dead. I didn’t want him to think that the best word to describe me was nutcase.
I allowed myself to say only, “I think maybe she’s a witch.”
He raised his eyebrows. “How extraordinary. Why do you think this?”
“Sometimes she just … appears.”
“Appears what?”
“You know, sort of like out of thin air. In places where she couldn’t be.”
“I myself have not observed this.”
Having said too much, I rose to my feet and added only, “It’s freaky. Anyway, if you hear anything funny up there … I mean anything suspicious …”
“I expect to hear many suspicious things, Jonah Kirk. But I will not listen.”
“Huh? Won’t listen?” I tried to puzzle out his meaning. “Don’t you care if she’s up to no good?”
“I am concerned. But I want no trouble. I have had enough of trouble, you see. More than enough.”
“Well … okay, sure, I guess.” As he rose from the couch, I said, “Thanks for the little cakes. And the tea. And the honey.”
Half bowing, he said, “Thank you, Jonah Kirk, for sharing your mother’s delicious cookies. It was most kind of you.”
Walking down to Mrs. Lorenzo’s apartment, I carried a weight of disappointment. I had hoped Mr. Yoshioka and I might join forces to discover the truth of Fiona Cassidy. He was a small man, perhaps five foot six and slender, but during our visit, I had become convinced—I don’t know why—that he was brave, even courageous. Maybe I had been too impressed by the fact that he had tigers on his walls.
26
I don’t recollect what I expected to happen next. Perhaps memory has failed me after all these years. Or perhaps I didn’t anticipate any specific act of evil, but instead lived in the shadow of general apprehension regarding both my father and Fiona Cassidy.
The Labor Day weekend arrived. I would be back in classes at Saint Scholastica School on Tuesday. Saturday, after a long piano session at the community center, I returned to our apartment at 5:20 P.M., after my mother had left early for Slinky’s.
In the bathroom, I washed my face and hands at the sink. Then I went to my room, took the chenille spread off the bed, folded it, put it on a shelf in the closet, and then turned down the bedclothes, so that I wouldn’t have to do all that later. The day was warm, the room stuffy. I put up the lower sash of the window for ventilation.
In the kitchen, a note was fixed to the refrigerator with a magnet: Tell Donata when you’re home. She’ll bring dinner and stay so you can sleep in your own bed. Love you more than anything. Mom.
A couple of days had passed since I’d had tea with Mr. Yoshioka, and I had not seen Fiona Cassidy ag
ain. I considered going up to the attic for a few minutes, to listen for whatever I might hear in 6-C. Just as I decided not to be stupid, the doorbell rang, and through the fish-eye lens, I saw Mr. Yoshioka.
When I opened the door, he said in a whisper, “Good evening, Jonah Kirk. Has the day been gentle with you?”
Taking my cue from him, I also whispered. “Gentle? I guess so. What about you, sir?”
“I have known worse, thank you. I wish to have a word.”
Stepping back, I said, “Oh, sure, come in.”
“A word alone,” he whispered.
“There’s no one here but me.”
He entered, closed the door, and stood with his back to it, as if to brace it shut against some hostile force. “I am sorry for the intrusion.”
“No problem,” I assured him. “You want to sit down and have something to drink? I can’t make tea, but I can make hot chocolate or maybe open a root beer or something.”
“You are very kind, but I can only stay a moment. My apologies.”
“What’s up?”
“Miss Eve Adams has not been noisy, not at all. However, on two occasions, each lasting an hour, there has been a most disturbing”—he looked pained, as though by the necessary crudeness of his next word—“stink.”
“A stink?”
“Yes. Quite strong.”
“What kind of stink?”
“A chemical smell. It is like but not precisely the same as trichloroethylene. That is the fluid used by dry cleaners. Being a tailor, I know it well.”
“Maybe it’s something she’s using to take up the old linoleum.”
“I do not think so. Not at all. No.”
His brow was furrowed, his lips pinched.
I said, “You seem worried.”
“It is like trichloroethylene but I believe more volatile.”
“Volatile? I know some piano, nothing about chemicals.”
“More flammable,” he explained. “Possible fire, explosion, catastrophe. I do not mean to be an alarmist.”
“Volatile,” I said, and I thought the word applied to the woman as well as to whatever chemical Mr. Yoshioka had smelled. “You sure it came from Six-C?”
“Last evening, I went to the sixth floor to smell.” His skin was not dark enough to conceal his blush. I wasn’t sure what embarrassed him—maybe that he’d been snooping on a neighbor, maybe that I would think he was an alarmist. “The odor was strongest at her door.”
“Did you tell Mr. Smaller?”
“I decided to wait and see if it happened a third time, this evening. But minutes ago, when I came home from work, I found this in my kitchen.”
From a pocket, he produced four pieces of a photograph taken with a Polaroid camera. He handed them to me, and I didn’t have to fit them together correctly to see they constituted a photo of the six-panel painted-silk screen that featured two tigers.
Mr. Yoshioka said, “The pieces were stacked and then pinned to my cutting board with a knife taken from one of my kitchen drawers.” I returned the scissored photo, and his hand shook as he accepted the pieces. “I believe it to be a threat. I am being warned not to come smelling around her door again—or to complain about the stink.”
“You think Eve Adams saw you at her door?”
“I do not know what to think.”
“How’d she get into your apartment to take a Polaroid?”
“How indeed,” he wondered, his hand trembling as he returned the fragments of the picture to a suit-coat pocket.
“Your door was locked?”
“Yes. And like you, I have two deadbolts.” He started to say something more, but then looked around the room, focused on one of the street-view windows, and finally looked down at his right hand, first at the palm, then at the back of it, at his slender well-manicured fingers, as he continued. “I have come here only to tell you that I intend to stay away from this woman, stay away from the sixth floor, and give her no reason to be angry. I believe you should do the same, for your sake and your mother’s.”
A voice in memory: I like to cut. You believe I like to cut?
“What is it?” he asked.
“I haven’t told you everything about this woman.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
Surprised, I said, “You are? How?”
“What do they call the face of a good poker player?”
“A poker face,” I said.
“Yes, I believe that is correct. You do not have one. I have no idea what you have withheld, but I am aware you are withholding.”
I hesitated but then said, “She threatened me with a knife.”
Although I thought he was shocked, I couldn’t tell for sure, because he did have a poker face. “Where did this occur?”
“Here in the apartment. Remember how I said she can appear like magic, where she wasn’t a moment ago.”
“Why would she threaten you with a knife?”
I cleared my throat, wiped my nose on one sleeve even though it didn’t need to be wiped, laced my fingers together and cracked my knuckles, and at last said, “Well, see, she left the door open to Six-C, and I kind of like took a tour of the place.”
Poker face or not, he couldn’t quite conceal the fact that my nosiness struck him as offensive. “Why would you do that?”
I was not ready to tell him that I had seen her strangled and dead in a dream. “I don’t know. She’s … different. I kind of … maybe I had a crush on her. A crush at first sight.”
His stare was direct, and somehow I met it, and after a moment he said, “That will be good enough for now. We all have things to say that can be said only when the time is right to say them.”
Although I considered telling him more, I shrugged and looked at my feet as if they were fascinating, as if I might break into a dance at any moment.
Mr. Yoshioka sighed. “I keep my head down, Jonah Kirk. I do not make a great noise as I pass through the years. I do not allow myself curiosity about women … like Miss Eve Adams. Head down. Head down. I do not wish to shine. I prefer shadows, quiet, periods of solitude. I do not wish to be noticed. If one is all but invisible to others, one cannot be envied, inspire anger or suspicion. Near invisibility is a way of life that I recommend.”
“You think Eve Adams might really kill you?”
Although his hands hardly trembled now that he’d put away the pieces of the photograph, he remained disquieted—and too embarrassed to look at me. “There are worse things than death. I do not think the threat was to me. It is, as it appears, to the tiger screen. I cannot risk the screen. It is too valuable.”
“Valuable? But didn’t you say it was just some kind of copy, not the original?”
“It is more valuable than the original.”
“How can that be? I mean, if it’s not an antique.”
Raising his head, he met my eyes. He seemed to want to reveal something of importance, but then he said, “I only came to warn you.”
He stepped into the hallway and quietly pulled the door shut between us.
I heard no receding footsteps.
After a beat, through the door, Mr. Yoshioka said, “Jonah Kirk?”
“Yes?”
“Lock the deadbolts.”
“All right.” I did as he asked.
With one ear to the door, as I listened to the tailor walk away, I thought perhaps his embarrassment arose from his lack of courage, from his determination to keep his head down, to be nearly invisible. That possibility made me sad. And worse than sad.
In those days, when you were, like Mr. Yoshioka, an American of an ethnic group whose former homeland had in the not-too-distant past waged and lost a world war, or if you were of a people who had only recently begun to emerge from a century of segregation following generations of slavery, the heroes in books and movies tended not to be like you. We could believe in the characters John Wayne inhabited and admire the grace and humility with which he played heroic men; we could agree that the honor and integrity and
courage that were the essence of his image should be values we, too, embraced, but we couldn’t see ourselves as John Wayne or imagine he was us. Sure, there was Sidney Poitier, but in those days he played mostly in self-consciously liberal films, raising awareness of injustice rather than taking down bad guys. Taking down bad guys is fundamentally what you want in your model of a hero. Bill Cosby, on TV in I Spy, had the physicality and attitude to make bad guys wish they’d been good, but he mostly did so with humor, wit, and smarts, and you never felt he was at risk, therefore didn’t need courage. My generation of blacks had two main sources of heroes—sports stars who broke through race barriers and famous musicians—who neither beat up nor shot down villains as part of their job description. When it came to inspiring ethnic icons of heroism in pop culture, Mr. Yoshioka had fewer men to emulate than I did. Japanese American sports stars were unknown in those days, and the only Japanese singer to make the charts was Kyu Sakamoto, whose “Sukiyaki” went to number one in 1963, even though the lyrics were entirely in Japanese.
Back then, I had a narrow definition of heroism. My conclusion that Mr. Yoshioka lacked courage arose from ignorance, as later I would learn. After you have suffered great losses and known much pain, it is not cowardice to wish to live henceforth with a minimum of suffering. And one form of heroism, about which few if any films will be made, is having the courage to live without bitterness when bitterness is justified, having the strength to persevere even when perseverance seems unlikely to be rewarded, having the resolution to find profound meaning in life when it seems the most meaningless.
27
When I called to tell her that I was home, Mrs. Lorenzo came up to the fourth floor with what she said was a “special secret dessert” on a covered plate. Earlier, she’d left a pan of saltimbocca in our refrigerator, prepared but uncooked, as well as the fixings for two side dishes.
As she made potato croquettes and peas with walnuts, I set the table and told her about my day. There wasn’t much to tell, because I left out Fiona Cassidy, aka Eve Adams, and Mr. Yoshioka. I was leading a life more secret than the dessert on the covered plate.
As she cooked, she gave me other small tasks, and I assisted as best I could while she told me all about what the three kids in her little day-care business did and said. “I’m afraid I can’t keep up with them quite like before I got so fat.”