by Susan Barker
‘Splendid! Let’s make it seven thirty, Sunday evening, then.’ She beamed, with a candid, childlike joy.
‘Seven thirty, Sunday evening,’ I echoed miserably.
‘And Naoko’s favourite flowers are pink roses,’ she added with a jubilant wink.
I watched as Mrs Tanaka trotted back to her house as buoyantly as her artificial hip would allow, leaving two parallel slipper trails melting in her wake.
I was in a gloomy frame of mind all day today. Whenever I began to feel normal again I would remember the ordeal that lay ahead of me on Sunday and the gloominess would return. To make matters worse Taro, the graduate trainee, had forgotten to fax the dividend yield analysis to Head Office as I had instructed last Tuesday. How irresponsible that boy is! Deputy Senior Managerial Supervisor Murakami came down in person to ask why Head Office had been kept waiting. Though Taro hung his head as I chastened him I could tell he took none of my words to heart. He waited impatiently for the lecture to end, eager to slouch back into his leisurely routine of taking lengthy cigarette breaks and teasing Miss Hatta, the office assistant. The other day I caught him listening to pop music on a Walkman he had secreted in his desk drawer. I shudder to think that the future of Daiwa Trading rests in the hands of Taro and his ilk.
Murakami-san said not to worry about the delayed fax and that he would apologize to Head Office on our behalf. Murakami-san has been surprisingly pleasant to me since our sojourn to the hostess bar. He was obviously too inebriated to remember my bad temper at the end of the evening. To my relief he hasn’t asked me out since, though sometimes I notice him smiling at me in an inscrutable manner. Perhaps I underestimate the strength of his memory. As you always used to say: ‘A clever hawk hides its claws.’
I arrived home from work at 11 p.m. tonight and, determined not to repeat this morning’s disorganized muddle, immediately set about ironing the remainder of my shirts. Then, after a light supper of rice and miso soup, I took myself to bed. Owing to my restless exertions of the night before I fell into a deep, merciful slumber the moment my head sank into the pillow.
Hours later, I jolted upright on my futon. I awoke with a gasp for air, heart clamouring, like a man surfacing from a long time underwater. My digital alarm clock shone 3.19. I sat, trembling in the darkness, trying to resurrect the substance of my dreams.
For many minutes I waited, my pulse still quick in my ears. I remembered that you had been there – in your white cotton sundress, straw hat and gardening gloves, pale in the shade – that summer we grew tomatoes in the garden. But what had unsettled me so? Surely not that. I sank down beneath my duvet. Perhaps it was better not to know.
Then it came. A single note. The low, sepulchral product of a bow being drawn across a string of your cello. I leapt out of bed, snatched the hefty marble paperweight from the nightstand and flew, as though catapulted by adrenalin, towards the spare room. The paperweight held high above my head, I pushed aside the sliding door.
The curtains were wide open. A soft lunar glow bathed the tatami mats and illuminated the objects in the room. Moonlight winked from the burnished curves of the cello. It reclined against the bookcase, mute and regal, and seemingly undisturbed. The bow was nowhere to be seen – no doubt packed away in the box with your sheet music. I assured myself that the music I had heard could not have been produced without the aid of a bow. But despite this robust logic I remained staring at the cello for a long time, shivering as the cold made a mockery of my thick winter pyjamas.
The moon had shifted position in the sky by the time I tired of gazing at the cello. When I went downstairs to make some tea, my hands shook and fumbled with the kettle and tea leaves. The ravenous cold had made quite a feast of me, gnawing the sensitivity from my fingers and toes.
It is sunrise now. The tea has calmed me somewhat, but the fear has given way to maddening confusion. I am too old to fall for spooks and such nonsense. It couldn’t be you, could it? You would never toy with my sanity in such a way, would you?
II
I marched myself into the office this morning, caffeinated to within an inch of my life. I proceeded to plough through the accounts ledgers at my desk, a jittery whirl of enterprise. Unfortunately, at about eleven o’clock my caffeine reserves plummeted, rendering the simplest of tasks onerous. The gossip and keyboard clatter of my co-workers began to crash in my ears, like the rush of waves inside a seashell.
Miss Hatta, the office assistant, observed my behaviour with consternation and tactfully suggested that I return home to rest. I thanked her for her concern, then explained to her that this was out of the question. Summoning every last reserve of strength I managed to remain at my desk until 6 p.m., by which time my energy gauge had slumped to zero.
As I walked to the underground station I felt great relief that the following day would be a Saturday. I will rest diligently over the weekend and return to the Public Accounts office of Daiwa Trading on Monday an efficient, indefatigable worker. All thoughts of dinner at Mrs Tanaka’s on Sunday I conveniently repressed.
I took a short cut through Umeda’s brightly lit underground shopping mall. As I always commute early or late in the day I rarely pass through the mall when the stores are open. The mall swarmed with women – throngs of office ladies, and giggling high-school girls stampeding from shop to shop. They twirled before mirrors, sprayed perfume samples on their wrists, and sought out each other’s opinions on the latest fashions. Observing these frivolous hordes of women evoked a pang of nostalgia. Nostalgia for all those occasions you would return home exhilarated from a shopping spree. The way you delighted in showing off your purchases: a silk scarf or a cashmere sweater for yourself, a handsome tank-top or a pair of socks for me. The way you would nervously conceal the price tags with your thumb.
I can’t tell you how much I have come to regret my miserly reproaches.
As I neared the exit to the shopping mall I was assailed by a mobile-phone salesman, a stocky, cocksure youth with an earring and spiky, mousse-stiffened hair. Drained and enervated, I was unable to fight off his impassioned sales pitch, nor the advice on payment plans and demonstration of ring tones that followed. The youth waved the tiny piece of gadgetry about, entirely heedless of its harmful gamma radiation. When I finally freed myself from him I hurried away. It was then I heard a small voice call out, almost lost in the rowdy hubbub of the shopping mall: ‘Mr Sato! It’s Mr Sato, isn’t it?’
I looked over my shoulder. A young girl stepped tentatively towards me and smiled. Her face was framed by a glossy curtain of chestnut hair and a department-store carrier bag swung gently at her side.
‘Hello. Do you remember me? I work at The Sayonara Bar. You paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago.’
Indeed I remembered her. She was the only Japanese hostess working that night. It amused me to realize that she is actually a girl of ordinary height. Her petiteness of that evening must have been an illusion caused by proximity to such tall American hostesses.
‘Yes, of course. You took excellent care of us that evening.’
I suddenly became conscious of my haggard appearance, of the greyish bruises that encircled my eyes. In contrast, the young girl looked as fresh as a daisy. She wore a smart jacket of brown corduroy and a modest plaid skirt. On her feet were shiny red buckle shoes.
‘I must apologize for my appalling memory,’ I said, ‘but I am afraid that I have forgotten your name.’
‘It’s Mariko,’ she said. ‘And there’s no need to apologize. We weren’t introduced.’
A flurry of office ladies swept past us, homing in on a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. Reluctant to compete with their gossipy clamour, I waited until they had passed.
‘Are you working tonight, Mariko-san?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I work every night except for Sunday night.’
‘You work very hard indeed!’ I praised.
Mariko shook her head in self-conscious effacement of her labours. ‘Not nearly as hard as I ought to . . . Have you just
finished work, Mr Sato?’
‘Yes. I am on my way home now.’
‘Do you intend to visit The Sayonara Bar again?’
I shook my head. ‘No. I don’t think I will.’
Mariko tilted her head, her expression a blend of disappointment and curiosity. ‘Oh. Why?’
I was at a loss over how to reply. I did not want to insult her chosen place of work. ‘I am not a very sociable person. Neither do I take well to drink.’
Mariko nodded, seemingly accepting of this. ‘Well, if you should ever change your mind you are always welcome at The Sayonara Bar. You don’t have to sit with a hostess if you don’t want to. If you prefer to be left in peace to enjoy the music, we will be considerate of this. And I can prepare some excellent non-alcoholic cocktails.’
Well, persuasive skills as impressive as that should be put to use in a business corporation, not squandered on a hostess bar.
‘That’s very kind of you. Perhaps I will visit you again one day,’ I said. I shifted my spectacles further up the bridge of my nose, guilty in the knowledge of this unlikelihood.
Mariko brightened. ‘Well, I’m looking forward to it.’ She glanced at the clock suspended above the Uniqlo outlet. It was 6.27. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ she apologized. ‘I am late for work.’
We bid each other farewell and she squeezed from me a last-minute assurance that I would return to The Sayonara Bar. Then Mariko hurried away, her step brisk and smart, her shiny red buckle shoes disappearing into the anonymous fray.
That is about the sum of my day. Though it is barely eight o’clock, my jaw aches from yawning. I think it best that I turn in now.
But first I might go into the spare room and wrap a scarf around the neck of the cello. That should muffle the strings nicely . . . To hear me talk! Is this really what I have become? A foolish man, taking silly superstitious precautions?
Perhaps it would be better to muffle my imagination – the only logical source of this folly. Perhaps it would be better to go straight to bed.
III
I awoke on Saturday morning, grateful and rejuvenated after twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. I sat at the kitchen table for a while, rousing my stomach ulcer with a cup of coffee as chill sunlight seeped into the kitchen. After breakfast I donned a warm cardigan and a pair of casual slacks and departed for the hardware store, a pleasant fifteen-minute stroll away. As I paused at the front gate to check the contents of our mailbox, Mrs Tanaka took the opportunity to stick her head out of her upstairs bathroom window.
‘Good morning, Mr Sato,’ she called.
‘Good morning, Mrs Tanaka.’
‘I can’t come down, Mr Sato. My hair is still in curlers.’
‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Tanaka.’
‘I bought some beef at the butcher’s yesterday. Prime-cut steak. For tomorrow evening.’
‘You really shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.’
‘Nonsense! What’s a little trouble for my favourite niece and favourite next-door neighbour?’
My smile at that moment was a masterpiece of pretence.
‘And what are you up to today, Mr Sato?’
‘I am going to the hardware store to buy paint. I plan to paint the living-room ceiling.’
Mrs Tanaka’s lips shrank into a thin line of disapproval. ‘Don’t you tire yourself out, now!’ she cautioned.
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s seven thirty sharp. Don’t forget.’
‘Of course I won’t, Mrs Tanaka.’
Mrs Tanaka began to slide the upstairs window down, but then, having remembered something, she popped her roller-festooned head out once more. ‘And remember . . . pink roses!’
My day passed exactly according to plan. I went to the hardware store and purchased a tin of magnolia paint. Then I ordered some fleur-de-lis patterned tiles for the bathroom. That will keep me occupied next Saturday. It is imperative to keep oneself busy. You never lazed about watching soap operas like other housewives, you were always crocheting or baking or learning your Spanish verbs. A fine example. When I returned home I covered the furniture and tatami mats with sheets and set to work at noon.
Dusk fell as imperceptibly as dust. One moment it was daylight, and the next thing I knew I was painting in darkness. I turned on the light and had the job finished by seven o’clock. Then I stood for a while, admiring my handiwork. The ceiling didn’t look discernibly different, but it had a fresh cleanliness I found cheering.
After dinner the house became very quiet. A stillness only accentuated by the hum of the fridge and sporadic drips from the tap. I traipsed upstairs to run a bath, eager to soak my aching joints. I secured the plug and let both hot and cold taps run, dipping my hand in every so often to check the temperature.
Halfway through unbuttoning my cardigan I froze. I turned off both taps and listened carefully. From outside came the distant clanging of the level crossing, the slam of a back door, the mellow knocking of bamboo wind chimes. But nothing more. I leant over the tub, intending to resume preparations for my bath. But I froze once more. This time I had heard it distinctly. It came from a floorboard in the spare room. A loud, excruciatingly drawn-out creaking sound.
Unsteady legs took me into the hallway, where I stood, meditating beneath the sallow light. This is an old house, I told myself. Timber floorboards age. They weaken until they expand and contract at the slightest provocation, at the slightest fluctuation in temperature.
One more creak, and then another quick at its heels. I felt my pulse gallop beneath my skin. I edged towards the spare room, barefoot and clammy with dread.
From behind the screen door came a low, scraping sound, the sound of a heavy object being dragged across the reed mats. A sound that transgressed the very boundaries of my belief. Suddenly incensed, I thrust aside the sliding door, in a surge of reckless confrontation.
The empty room seemed to jeer at my outrage. The cello reclined against the bookcase as guilelessly as it had done the night before. All that was altered about the room were the shadows, which were stouter, and set at more obtuse angles. My anger quickly gave way to relief. Then to fear. I will take myself to see a doctor, I promised myself. I will even take Monday morning off work. I will tell my superiors that it is an emergency. Anything to put an end to this torment.
Abandoning my bath, I walked downstairs, put on my loafers and overcoat, and left the house.
I hovered indecisively at the entrance to the hostess bar. The butterflies in my stomach had proliferated at such a rate I was fearful that they all might come fluttering out of my mouth. What had possessed me to come here? Unaccompanied, no less! I was on the verge of fleeing when the doors opened.
‘Good evening. Can I help you?’
It was Stephanie from Florida, with her orange hair piled helter-skelter on top of her head. It pleased me to see that she had swapped her clingy black dress of the other evening for a modest silk gown the colour of crushed pearls. It was reassuringly high-necked and skimmed down to her ankles.
‘Hang on. You’re Murakami-san’s friend, aren’t you! Are you coming in?’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ I said, finding my tongue.
Stephanie took me by the elbow and gently tugged me inside. The heavy glass door thudded shut behind us. As she glided ahead of me, with a backwards smile encouraging me to follow, I reddened to the tips of my ears. Stephanie’s silk gown, so chaste and becoming when viewed from the front, was entirely backless. Her shoulder-blades and bumpy protuberance of spine were laid bare for all to see. Orange freckles danced from the nape of her neck right down to her lower back.
‘Would you like to be seated at the bar?’ she asked.
‘The bar will do nicely, thank you.’
The hostess bar was quieter than on the evening of my first visit. Salarymen must reserve the weekends for their families, I presume. Upon the stage an American man with hair teased into an Elvis quiff played an electronic keyboard. His outfit was an unhappy marriage of
snakeskin suit and white T-shirt. He warbled into the microphone: ‘Bob bob bob bob bob aran, oh bob araaan, oh bob araaan . . .’
In front of the stage a Japanese hostess moved sedately in the arms of a salaryman, his cigar clasped between teeth bared in a rictus grin. They danced beneath the colourful circles of light that swept about the dance floor.
‘Is there any particular hostess you would like to talk to?’ Stephanie asked as I hoisted myself upon a bar stool.
My thoughts turned to Mariko. The smart red buckle shoes she wore in the underground shopping mall.
‘No, no, thank you. I am quite happy to sit and listen to this American gentleman sing his songs. You girls must be very busy.’
Stephanie smiled sweetly. I noticed how pretty her eyes were: green and diaphanous, the hue of mentholated cough sweets.
‘No problem. But any time you want to talk, you let me know. Don’t be shy, now!’
She squeezed my shoulder – rather overaffectionate for a girl I scarcely know – and slipped away, many pairs of eyes monitoring the progress of her freckled back through the lounge.
On stage the voice of the Elvis-quiffed singer crept up to a falsetto. His thigh shook indecorously as the heel of his pointy shoe slapped the stage in time to the music. All around me salarymen chattered, the laughter of the hostesses tinkling along like crystal bells. Although not the environment I usually like, the lively surroundings soothed me. I began to feel foolish about my hasty departure from the house. Like a silly old man, afraid of his own shadow. Whatever would people think if they knew of my cowardice?
‘Mr Sato!’
I turned to see Mariko smiling at me from the other side of the bar. She laughed in disbelief.
‘Mr Sato. You decided to come.’
‘Yes. You will have to excuse my unkempt appearance: it was a last-minute decision and I neglected to change.’
‘You look fine,’ Mariko reassured me. ‘What can I get you to drink, Mr Sato?’
I selected from the menu a non-alcoholic cocktail called a Blue Lagoon. Mariko deftly prepared this for me, her movements lithe and graceful. She wore a beige, sleeveless dress, and her hair was held back from her face with a broad Alice band. I chuckled when she presented me with the turquoise concoction, complete with tropical parasols and glacé cherries. I took a single, tentative sip and my taste buds were instantly concussed by its staggering sweetness.