The Typhoon Lover

by Sujata Massey

  As I’d anticipated, it didn’t budge. I was going to have to get a conductor to let me out. I hurried out of the compartment and into the next one. I was in about the middle of the train, so I had quite a distance to travel to reach the engineer. As I ran through each compartment, heads turned in surprise at the sight of me. I tried more doors without luck. Two compartments later, I was met by a blue-uniformed conductor.

  “Is there some trouble?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m sorry to bother you, but the thing is that I must get off this train now, rather than return to Ofuna. I noticed we’re just a few feet from the Kita-Kamakura platform—”

  The conductor pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry, but we can’t go farther. We’re waiting for another train to pass, and then we’ll go backward.”

  “Would it be possible for you to release the control on the door and I’ll just hop down?” It couldn’t be more than four feet’s distance to the ground.

  “But there is no platform.”

  “I’ll watch out.”

  The conductor looked distracted. “That is against rail policy—”

  “This is an emergency!” I struggled to keep my voice controlled. “If the train were in danger, people would go out the windows to safety. Look, there are stickers demonstrating how to do it.” I gestured to the window next to an elderly gentleman. “If I open a window, I’ll get everyone wet. Please, if you just release the catch on the door for me, I’ll be able to leave without causing anyone trouble.”

  The volume of my voice, and my growing histrionics, must have convinced him that I was more trouble onboard than off. Keeping his face grim, he lifted a handheld radio to his lips and spoke a jumble of quick commands and codes that I didn’t understand, but that I gathered had something to do with alerting all other trains that a passenger was on the tracks. After he was finished, the conductor pressed a button that released the lock on the door.

  Wetness rushed toward me as I carefully sat down on the edge of the train, letting my legs drop down into space. There were about three feet to the wooden railway ties below. The easiest thing to do was to slide down

  “Please watch for danger!” he cried as I stepped carefully across the tracks, which were under six inches of water. When I reached the grassy bank on the western side, I turned and bowed my thanks. But the train had already started its backward course. Nobody was watching me anymore.

  It was truly just a few minutes’ slog to Kita-Kamakura station, which I found was in the process of closing when I walked in.

  “No more trains,” the ticket taker said. The usual courtesies—honorable customer and the like—seemed to be slipping away as the weather had worsened.

  “I’m just going out to get a taxi,” I said.

  “Taxi? There are no taxis! No customer, no taxi!”

  “Well, maybe I can call from the pay phone—” already I’d spotted a trusty lime-green NTT phone on the platform.

  “Telephones don’t work.” The ticket taker seemed almost gleeful about the bad news. Maybe he had heard the “passenger on the tracks” signal my train’s conductor had issued and was annoyed to have that passenger in his station. Or maybe things were just so bad outside that he was starting to crack.

  “Are any buses running?” I ventured.

  “Service suspended! Just as this station is closing, the bus system is closed, too.”

  I cleared my throat and attempted the girlish falsetto that Japanese women used to powerful effect. “I very badly need to go in the direction of Hayama. Is there any chance you will be driving home?”

  “Not that way. And the beach road is already flooded in that section by the marina, I must warn you. The station manager is the one with a car here, and he’s just about to drive to Zushi to gather some other employees who need transportation—”

  “Please, could he let me out there, at Zushi station?” I asked quickly.

  “But you are going to Hayama. Even from the turnoff, it’s a four-kilometer walk. You cannot make it in this rain.”

  “I’m sure I can. I know it very well. I’m so close by,” I said, running through the route in my mind. I’d taken it by bus before, past marine supply stores, antique shops, and restaurants. I was sure I would recognize these landmarks and know the turns.

  He hesitated. “I can’t let you stay in this station, because it’s closing. Maybe I can ask.”

  “I’m willing to pay!” I cried again.

  But it wasn’t necessary. The station manager, a frazzled-looking man in his sixties, would not accept payment, even though he took me slightly past the station, to the main road that led into Hayama.

  The roads didn’t even look like roads anymore, I thought as we inched along. The rain lashed at a sideways angle because of the wind, a force so strong that it was making trees wave about. At some street corners, backed-up storm drains had created pools so deep that water stretched all the way up to the shop entrances. After we’d seen the second intersection like this, the station manager stopped his car.

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no point in going on,” he said. “I will call the employees and tell them I can’t continue on. I’m turning back. Perhaps you can take shelter at the nearest police box—”

  The police were the last people I wanted to see. “Thanks, but I think I can get through on foot. I can get out here.”

  “But you can’t! How will you cross the bridge ahead?”

  “It’s so short—I’m sure I’ll make it,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. I knew the little half-moon-shaped bridge the station manager had mentioned. It was about twenty feet long. I could make it now, but there was no time to waste, if the flooding continued.

  I said good-bye to the uneasy stationmaster and got out. The rain was being pushed hard by the wind, so hard that it seemed to be raining upward, over my rain shoes and onto my jeans, which within a few minutes were plastered to my legs. My breath came in gasps as I sloshed as quickly as I could through the water.

  The bridge over the canal lay just past a deserted bus stop. It was a beautiful little upwardly curved bridge with short red handrailings—the kind immortalized in Japanese woodblock prints. I’d walked over this bridge before and taken photographs of the Zushi canal and the pretty antique shops and surf gear shops that lay along it.

  I couldn’t see the bridge today, because it was covered with water, but the handrails were still visible. I started across, clinging to the slippery wooden rail. Gusts of wind tore at me, and it felt as if the water was rising.

  The water was up to my waist by the time I’d gotten over and was on land. I was shaking, but as I ran on, my pulse leveled out. I’d crossed the worst of Zushi’s water, and now I was headed on the four-kilometer route into Hayama, running toward the mountain tunnels that would keep me dry for a few blessed minutes. I ran past restaurants, antique stores, and a post office and, finally, down to the beach road that led to Takeo’s house.

  From the left at the wall surrounding the emperor’s palace, I still had two kilometers to go. I reminded myself about the seawall that would keep the sea from rushing inward, but in fact there was so much rain that the road was marked by deep pockets of water—flash floods like those I’d seen in Zushi.

  As I ran, I held my head down because my eyes kept filling with rain. It was like crying in reverse. And the truth was that looking around was frightening. Things were clearly out of order everywhere; no cars drove along the road below me, although I did see some float by.

  The back of my raincoat and jeans were as wet as if I’d been soaking in a bathtub. The front of me was a little less wet because I used my new umbrella like a shield, until it blew out about halfway down the hill that sloped down to what used to be the beach road. The road was now a fast-running river.

  I stood at the edge of it, water up to my knees, wondering how deep it was in the middle. Merchandise from a beach souvenir shop—an array of life preservers, floating toys, and plastic buckets—bobbed past in the
fast-flowing water. As a raft with the head of Doraemon, the magic cat from a popular children’s television program, sailed by, I was hit by inspiration. I could travel the road on the raft.

  Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I reached out and grabbed for the rubber cat’s head. I connected with the head, but found it harder than I’d expected to mount the small raft. My body swished through the water like a fish flailing on the end of a line, but I was able to keep hold of the raft with my arms. After a couple of failed lunges, I got my legs and the rest of me on top of the raft.

  My weight was more than the child’s raft was designed for, so it sank slightly in the water, but thankfully not all the way. We continued south past my old favorite restaurant, Chaya, then past the Morito Shrine, where I saw that the tori gateway was half-submerged. As we approached a big intersection, I realized that the stoplights were out, as in fact were lights everywhere. A power outage. Good thing there was no traffic at all.

  Another two kilometers and I was drifting past the high wall of the emperor’s summer palace. I wasn’t sure of the palace’s elevation—the grounds were landscaped in such a way that it was impossible to spy on the palace—but I had to imagine that it had been built, just like Takeo’s family home, as high as possible. The gray police bus that always guarded the palace wall was gone. I imagined that the police had driven it somewhere safe for the duration of the storm. And surely none of the imperial family would be on the coast during this typhoon.

  The street that led to Takeo’s house was too small to have a name; it was really just a long, stone-covered driveway that led upward from a small group of cypress trees that marked the intersection. As the raft slowly sailed on, I saw the trees bent over like hunchbacked grandmothers—a situation caused by both the ruthless wind and the heavy wisteria vines on them, which were dragging in the water. Many people would have seen the vines as an overgrown weed, but Takeo had refused to let the city landscapers remove them. Now I was glad for it, because I reached out to the vines to help steer the raft to the trees. I grabbed hold and scrambled onto the bank. The raft sailed on.

  As I scrambled up the path made of river stones, the water level dropped and my spirits rose. One kilometer to go. I scanned the few other old, great prewar villas on each side of the path. Heavy brown wooden shutters covered all their windows, and the luxury cars I remembered seeing in most of the carports were all shrouded in protective covers. I had made a fool of myself on the train and at Kita-Kamakura Station, but there was no chance that anyone in this area would notice me.

  The long bamboo fence surrounding Takeo’s house finally came into view. I could see rain cascading off its tiled roof, creating a small flood right outside the front doors. Some of the tiles were gone, smashed to bits on the ground amid dozens of knocked-over potted plants.

  I unlatched the gate and hurried around to the back of the house. As I’d feared, there were plenty more smashed pots, and the potted hydrangea that was supposed to be on the veranda was nowhere in sight. It could have been blown away—or, I realized, it might have outgrown its pot and been planted somewhere. Takeo would have found another place for his spare key, or changed his habits and decided against leaving it outside.

  The house key was nowhere on the veranda, but it could easily have been lost in the grass. I bent my head toward the grass and realized the impossibility of the situation. I really did not want to break and enter.

  Was there an alarm system? There hadn’t been in the old days, but given the value of what was in the house since Takeo’s renovation, an alarm would seem like a smartthing to have. I pressed my face against the glass of the sliding windows that led to the living room. The paper shoji screens that normally would have shielded the room from the outside were not closed, so I could see into the darkened room, though not very well. It didn’t look as if there were motion sensors.

  Suddenly, I caught a blur of movement close to my face. To my shock, the sliding door was opening. As I tripped off the veranda in my haste to get away, the door was opened and a flashlight shone straight in my face.

  Instinctively, I shut my eyes against the light. I knew I looked as gruesome and bedraggled as a mythical sea monster that had been thrown up out of the raging bay beyond the cliffs. And like a monster, I wanted to roar out my anguish at the trip I’d taken, only to be caught as a failure. But instead, all that came from me was a hoarse whimper.

  The flashlight beam dropped, and I blinked my eyes to look at Takeo.

  “Rei?” His voice was incredulous.

  “Yes.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Then Takeo said something I never expected to hear. “Come in.”

  17

  Fifteen minutes later, I was in water again. But this time it was hot, surrounding me and still cascading out of a faucet. Takeo had sent me to his bathroom and had lit the candles, turned on the taps, thrown a towel and a robe at me, and left. I’d showered quickly, scrubbing off the dirt that had splashed over me outside, and entered the deep, hot bath. As I gazed at the candles on the bath’s edge, illuminating the room like the Kannon’s temple, I could admit to myself how foolhardy my journey had been. But I’d reached the end, I’d faced Takeo, and he’d let me inside.

  I’d hoped to be alone, but if I played things carefully, I could still complete my mission. I was probably within a few rooms’ distance of the vessel. Of course, the rooms all looked so different now, full of furniture and new things. Just like this bathroom, which had been redone with tiny tiles of amber, gold, and cream-colored glass that winked in the soft candlelight. There was a new sink that looked like a raku pottery bowl perched on a slate ledge. The bath’s Grohe faucet was bronze and very modern, designed so that water tumbled out in a wide, flat sheet.

  The sensual comfort of my bath made me feel guilty. The typhoon hadn’t reached its apogee. The bathtub should be used as a collecting device for cold water, not for soaking myself.

  After I’d toweled off and wrapped myself in the quilted winter yukata robe that Takeo had given me, I went out, following the banging noises to find Takeo outside on the thin ledge of veranda that ran around the house, pulling closed heavy wooden shutters. He waved at me, looking oddly happy, although he was now the bedraggled one, with wet clothes and leaves stuck in his hair.

  “I’m almost done,” he shouted, so I could hear him through the glass. “Just a few more rooms and all the shutters will be closed.”

  He came in a few minutes later, and I helped him get off his wet raincoat and boots in the flagstone entryway.

  “You look like you need to warm up. I left the bath full,” I said. It was Japanese custom to enter a bath clean, as I’d done, and reuse the same bathwater for the whole family. And if Takeo relaxed in a bath, I’d have the perfect opportunity for a quick look around the house.

  “Okay, I’ll go in. It could be the last hot bath for a while, if the town shuts off the gas supply,” Takeo said, running a hand through his wet hair.

  “I’d like to clean it out afterward and fill it with clean water,” I said. “You’ll want to have water stored, just in case.”

  “You’re right. There was flooding here back in the seventies, when I was a child,” Takeo said. “The house wasn’t damaged, but we were without water and electricity for days. It was exciting for me then, but not so exciting for my father. I seem to remember we had houseguests who wound up stranded with us for a week.”

  “I don’t want to do that to you,” I said quickly. “But things are pretty bad outside—”

  “You must stay overnight,” Takeo said shortly. “You said the trains have stopped.”

  “Well, I’ll do what I can to help you. I’m going to go through the rooms to make sure no delicate ceramics are near the windows, and so on. Would that be all right?”

  Takeo smiled. “Thank you. You always remember the things I forget about.”

  “I hope Emi won’t misinterpret my being here. Did she drive down with you?” My questio
n was automatic, out of courtesy. I was certain that Emi wasn’t around.

  “No. She’s back in Setagaya at her parents’ house.”

  “Did she go there to stay during the storm?” I remembered how Norie had wanted me nearby.

  “No, she’s always there. It’s her home until after the wedding, of course.”

  “Oh, of course.” I was relieved to know she wouldn’t be stumbling upon me in Takeo’s robe. “But that’s rough on the two of you, I suppose, all that parental control.”

  “We find our moments, here and there.” Takeo winked at me and then went off to the bathroom.

  After he left, I pondered what he’d said. This wasn’t the way an arranged marriage was supposed to operate. But I’d caught a strong sexual current flowing between Emi and Takeo. It was a relief, really; I wouldn’t have to worry about any unwelcome advances from him, though I hadn’t understood why Takeo had winked at me. Was it because he now saw me as a buddy, an old friend with whom he’d share gossip about his girlfriend?

  I reminded myself of what I really needed to be thinking about, and I got to work in the living room, going first to the sliding-door cabinet along an interior wall. I’d always admired this particular cabinet, which was covered in hand-painted paper that showed two girls, one in kimono and the other in a modish 1920s dress, sitting on a cliff overlooking water—a view similar to that of the east side of Takeo’s garden. I thought, looking at it more carefully, it had to be the house’s garden.

  As I continued my flashlight tour of the various reception rooms, I found plenty of vases, small and large, but no ibex vessel. I was fortunate that I’d have the night hours to keep looking. If the vessel really were in the house, I’d definitely find it.

  By the time I was done putting away the breakable items I’d mentioned to Takeo, the wind was at a nightmare pitch outside and there were frequent, ominous bangs against the closed shutters. Out of curiosity, I opened the front door a crack and felt myself stagger backward from the force of the sea wind.