Parade

by Shuichi Yoshida

  Mirai was the one asking this, while Koto just stood there, silent, head down.

  ‘Thathsman?’ My mouth was still too numb to work well. I tried to say it again and this time drooled. I wanted to hear more and motioned them back into the living room. It was a Saturday morning, but surprisingly Ryosuke was there drilling Satoru on maths problems.

  Koto began explaining what had happened. Ryosuke and Satoru took a break from their studying, Mirai was downing an energy drink, and I just sat there, holding my chin.

  Yesterday Koto had had a date with Tomohiko Maruyama for the first time in eleven days, she said. After she left the hotel in Ebisu, she was strolling near Dogenzaka when this young guy called out to her. Thinking she’d just kill some time, she followed him to a beauty salon where they made her buy some expensive cosmetics. One after another, customers at other tables were signing agreements to buy the cosmetics, and Koto wound up buying ¥400,000 worth of salon treatments and cosmetics, payable in instalments. When she woke up in the morning she tried to convince herself it was a legitimate purchase, that she hadn’t been swindled, but this was too much money for her to keep quiet about. She woke up Mirai, who was groaning about her hangover, and they discussed what she should do. And right then was when I came back from getting my tooth pulled.

  ‘Since you signed the agreement yesterday you should be fine,’ I managed to say. ‘If you call the Consumer Affairs Bureau and send a notification of cancellation by certified mail, you’ll be okay. There’s no need to worry.’

  Koto’s pale face began to get some colour back in it.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Give the Consumer Affairs Bureau a call.’

  I stood up from the sofa. I wanted to check out what the inside of my mouth looked like in the bathroom mirror.

  As I stood in front of the mirror the sound came back to me – the clink my extracted tooth made when it dropped onto the stainless-steel plate. I didn’t actually see the tooth once it was out, but it felt like right now, covered with blood and saliva, it dropped into the sink I was holding on to. Naturally there was no bloody tooth in the sink. Instead there was a long black hair – Koto’s, would be my guess – in the shape of a question mark.

  I had my mouth open and was staring into the mirror when the door opened behind me.

  ‘I called them and they said I was okay,’ Koto’s reflection in the mirror said. ‘I’m going to get a notification of cancellation now.’ Mouth wide open, I looked into the mirror and nodded back.

  I carefully rinsed my mouth a few times, watching as the water, mixed with blood and spit, ran down the drain. I left the bathroom and found Ryosuke and Satoru, who should have been studying, gone, and Mirai there, holding her head and groaning. As I stood in front of her she said, ‘Did you get it pulled out?’

  ‘Take a look,’ I replied, opening wide.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘I can’t feel a thing.’

  ‘Won’t it hurt once the anaesthesia wears off?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘You want me to be with you tonight?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Unless you have some drinks, it’ll hurt so much you won’t be able to sleep.’

  I was amazed she could suggest this. I mean, here she was moaning and groaning after drinking too much the night before. Was she being kind? Or did she just want to drink some more herself?

  ‘Where’s Ryosuke and the others?’ I asked.

  ‘Who knows,’ Mirai said. ‘Maybe they went with Koto?’ She got up from the sofa and, scratching her bum, disappeared into the girls’ room.

  I don’t think Koto acts particularly like an older sister, but Satoru and the others are strangely attached to her.

  I went from the living room to the kitchen and gulped down some Volvic. It tasted like watered-down blood. I went into the guys’ room, thinking I’d do some laundry, and I saw Ryosuke out on the balcony. So apparently only Satoru went out with Koto. He probably used it as an excuse to get away from the strict regimen Ryosuke had imposed on him.

  As I carried the laundry basket out to the balcony I called out to Ryosuke, who was facing away from me. ‘What’re you doing out here?’ He was leaning against the railing, staring down at the Kyukoshu Kaido Boulevard below.

  ‘Hm? Oh, I was just thinking how weird it is,’ he said, not turning around.

  ‘What is?’

  I went up beside him and looked down at the street below. Nothing looked odd to me. As always cars were moving down the one-lane asphalt road, coming to a halt when the traffic signal directly below us turned red.

  ‘What is?’ I asked again.

  ‘See how they never crash into each other?’

  I had no idea what he was getting at. I shot him a glance but the answer wasn’t exactly written on his face.

  ‘See? They’re driving along like that and when the light turns red they all stop, a set distance from each other. Several thousand cars pass by here every day and stop at the light but never hit each other. Don’t you find that strange?’

  Ryosuke, chin on the railing, continued to gaze down at the street below. ‘Yeah, it really is strange,’ he repeated. It was sort of strange, I suppose, but nothing to be so impressed about. I didn’t reply, walked away from the railing and started doing the laundry. Somebody had left behind a single sock in the washing machine.

  I watched the water fill up in the washing machine for a while, then went to the lavatory. I picked up the air-freshener at my feet, started to crush the mushy container in my hands, and when the gel inside was about to spill out I hurriedly stopped. I suddenly remembered that I promised Momochi I’d lend him my suitcase. Next week Momochi and the boss are travelling to the Cannes Film Festival.

  Counting the time in college when I worked part-time, I’ve been with this company for a full eight years. I’ve never been to the Cannes festival, but to the ones in Berlin and Venice twice each. The Cannes office sent us a pamphlet last month and it looks like there are a lot more interesting films than last year. Momochi and my boss expect David Lynch’s new film to win the Palme d’Or, but being more pro-Japan myself, I’m hoping the Japanese master director Shohei Imamura will win an unprecedented third time, despite the fact that his recent works, The Eel and Dr Akagi, are not his best. The goal in going to festivals, of course, is to purchase distribution rights for films in Japan. But we decided that our budget is such that, unless we get a great deal on a film at Cannes, we’re not going to submit any bids.

  I left the bathroom and went into the guys’ room, opened the wardrobe, and got out my suitcase. I could still see Ryosuke out on the balcony, staring down at the traffic. Next to him the washing machine was chugging away.

  Shoving aside Ryosuke’s tennis racket and skateboard, I pulled out the suitcase. I think the last time I used it was last year when I went to the AFM film festival in LA. I laid it out in the middle of the room, flipped open the lid and found a Banana Republic shirt inside, with the price tag still attached. It was a woman’s shirt, probably a present I bought for Misaki.

  Besides the shirt there were some toiletries from the hotel I stayed at, and some books I’d read on the round-trip flight. On the back cover of all three books I’d written down, with a ballpoint pen, the date I’d finished them. In chronological order they were: Crash, by J.G. Ballard, Apollinaire’s Lez Onze Mille Verges, and The Fall of Macias Guili, by Natsuki Ikezawa.

  I squatted down on the floor and flipped through the pages until the buzzer for the washing machine went off. Our washing machine is the one that Umezaki, who was below me in high school, gave to Ryosuke, who was below him in college. It’s the old kind, with separate compartments for washing and wringing out, so you have to take the wash out by hand and put it in the spinner.

  The sound of a crash from the street down below came just as I was putting the wash into the spinner. I heard Ryosuke shout and I looked over to see him with his chin resting on the railing. I jumped up and ran over
to him. Peering past him, I could see a white saloon that had rammed into a business van. The bonnet of the saloon was crumpled up a bit and grey smoke was faintly drifting up from the engine. The back window of the van, rammed from behind, had a series of fine cracks running through it.

  Ryosuke’s face looked just like that of the boy in the waiting room of the dentist’s office.

  ‘Th-th-they hit each other.’

  ‘That’s ’cause you said that weird thing.’

  Naturally what he said and this accident had nothing to do with each other.

  The driver of the van was the first to get out, and he seemed unhurt. He walked over to the white saloon and tapped on the window to get the attention of the middle-aged woman driver, who was sitting there looking stunned. She appeared to be resting her chin on the steering wheel, gazing vacantly at the crumpled bonnet, but at the knock on the window she raised her head and suddenly began bowing her head in apology. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear them.

  ‘So you saw it?’ I said, tapping Ryosuke’s shoulder.

  ‘I – I saw the whole thing,’ he said excitedly. ‘I th-thought traffic was moving normally and they’d stop like they normally do, then there was this loud crash . . . I’ve seen car accidents before, but never from above like this. I – I reached out my hand to them.’

  ‘Reaching out your hand to do what?’

  ‘I felt like I could stop it!’

  The cars behind the white van circled around the car, forming a new stream of traffic. Traffic from the opposite direction started moving normally again, as Ryosuke would put it, stopping when the signal was red, moving again when it changed to green, despite the accident.

  I couldn’t stand there all day, so I went back to my laundry. I was pushing down the inner lid in the spinner when Ryosuke called out again, and I rushed to his side. I followed his finger to the crowd of bystanders around the accident and saw, among them, Koto and Satoru.

  ‘Heeey!’ Ryosuke yelled out to them. The eyes of the bystanders all moved as one to look up at him, and I unconsciously slipped out of sight behind him. ‘Did you see it!?’ I could hear Koto yell out clearly. Unconcerned with the stares of the bystanders, Ryosuke yelled back, waving, a proud look on his face, ‘I did! I saw it!’

  By the time three policemen had begun their efficient investigation of the accident, the laundry had all been spun dry.

  Back in the living room Koto was copying out a clean version of the text the Consumer Affairs Bureau had given her onto the notification of cancellation, and next to her Satoru had a study guide open in front of him and Ryosuke was running him through some trigonometry problems. In the beginning Satoru would find excuses to get away from Ryosuke, but the last few days he’s been in the living room, working through the books himself even after Ryosuke goes off to his part-time job.

  I hung up the laundry to dry outside and when I went back to the living room, Koto had gone off to the post office, leaving Ryosuke and Satoru across the table from each other, pouting and exchanging sullen looks. ‘We did this problem last night!’ Ryosuke said. ‘No we didn’t!’ Satoru retorted. I stuck my finger in my mouth to feel my gums. Still no feeling, though there was a faint taste of detergent.

  ‘Okay then. Look at the answer page!’ Ryosuke shot back and headed off to the bathroom. Satoru obediently turned to the answer page.

  ‘It must be hard,’ I said, trying to encourage him.

  ‘It’s more than that!’ he replied, taking it out on me. ‘We’re doing this day after day.’

  ‘Are you really going to go to college?’ I asked, casually flipping through one of the study guides piled up on the table.

  ‘How can I? I don’t have that kind of money,’ Satoru replied.

  ‘Then what are you studying for?’

  ‘You saw how he is. I can’t refuse.’ Satoru motioned with his chin towards the bathroom.

  ‘You mean you’re studying for Ryosuke?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Ryosuke emerged from the bathroom, glanced into the guys’ room and saw my suitcase. ‘You going somewhere, Naoki?’ he asked. He’d apparently been so worked up over the accident that when he came in from the balcony he hadn’t noticed it the first time.

  ‘I’m lending it to someone at work.’

  Satoru, looking through the answer page, asked, ‘What are you lending someone from work?’

  ‘Momochi’s going to Cannes next week, so I’m lending him my suitcase.’

  ‘To Cannes? By himself?’

  ‘No, the boss is going with him.’

  ‘Won’t you need help while they’re away? Do you think I can work part-time there again?’

  ‘You want to work for us again? Are you really quitting your job?’

  Satoru slowly looked away. ‘I haven’t actually decided yet . . .’ he answered vaguely, tossing the study guide onto the table.

  ‘I’ll ask my boss,’ I told him, patting him on the shoulder.

  Just then Mirai stumbled out of her room and glanced into the guys’ room as she made her way to the kitchen.

  ‘You going somewhere, Naoki?’ she asked, the same question as Ryosuke. I was about to give the same reply, but before I could Satoru said, ‘A person from work is going to Cannes and he’s lending it to him.’

  ‘Someone from work?’ Mirai asked.

  ‘A person named Momochi,’ Satoru said, again answering for me.

  5.2

  It was a Sunday but in the morning, I went to work anyway. Next week our company is handling the advertising for a Korean film and the lead actress is coming to Japan. There’ll be interviews with magazines such as Esquire and Elle Japan at the Capitol Hotel Tokyu, and we had to readjust the schedule today.

  The anaesthesia wore off late last night, and as expected my gums started to ache. I immediately took a couple of aspirins, but Mirai’s prediction was spot on – without a drink I wasn’t able to sleep – so I waited for her to come back from work and then we went out drinking at a tofu speciality restaurant near the station. Alcohol was, of course, strictly off limits for me, but thanks to the drinks I was able to sleep soundly until morning. But in the morning, even though I took some more aspirins, as I sat in front of my PC my gums started to ache again.

  It was just before six p.m. when Misaki called me at the office. I’d finished work and since, unusually, there was no one else in the office, I’d rented the Taiwanese movie that Misaki had actually recommended, Dust in the Wind, from a nearby video store, had watched it on our office’s widescreen monitor, and was about ready to go home.

  ‘My mum was here to visit until last night,’ Misaki said on the phone. Her mother had brought some gifts for me, and Misaki wanted to meet somewhere for dinner. We each suggested a few restaurants, finally settling on a small Italian restaurant in Yotsuya. Misaki had come by our apartment last week. There’s only one reason she wants to see me this often, but listening to her complaints about her boyfriend isn’t much fun, I can tell you.

  It was after seven when I left the office. I powered down my PC, added more paper to the copier, and was about to leave when a fax came in. I felt like I couldn’t ignore it so I went back inside and waited for the sheet to emerge. The fax was a proof of our ad in next month’s temp job magazine for a part-timer. The ad was for someone to do office work (including answering the phone), for three or more days per week, at ¥800/hour, with college students welcomed to apply. I recalled how my boss said she might hire a temp to answer the phone, since we were often out of the office. On the back of the fax I scrawled I have someone in mind. Please keep this pending, laid it on the boss’s desk, and left.

  Misaki was already waiting for me when I got to the Italian restaurant. A Ralph Lauren paper bag was on top of the red checked tablecloth. She seemed in a good mood, and even before I got a chance to sit down she started telling me about her mother, who was staying for two or three days in a hotel in Shinjuku. Inside the Ralph Lauren bag was a navy-blue lightweight summer jumper.
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  ‘Did your mother say anything?’ I asked, holding the jumper up to see how it might fit.

  Misaki gave me a knowing look and laughed, ‘She did. Why doesn’t he come to see you? she asked. She said you’re a real jerk.’

  ‘Think it’ll look good on me?’ I asked.

  ‘You don’t mind that I already ordered?’ she replied.

  Occasionally I’ll get a phone call from her mother. Of course she knows that Misaki moved out. Her mother will rant on, her usual litany of complaints, for about fifteen minutes, then say, ‘Ah! Now I feel better!’ and hang up. And just as she’s hanging up she’ll say, ‘Naoki, you probably have a new girlfriend by now?’ Misaki’s mother’s complaints fall into three categories. Complaints about her husband, who runs an accident insurance agency. Complaints about her only daughter living with a boring old fart. And then complaints about worthless me, who’d let her daughter get away.

  After we broke up, we would still see each other two or three times a month, so even if we have dinner together there’s little new to talk about. I only went out with her for two years, but still I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other in the future. I think she assumes that too. Sometimes she’ll say, ‘You know, we’re pretty efficient. We’re making just two years of memories last a lifetime.’

  Misaki had ordered pasticho for us, a kind of meat pie. I was carefully cutting into the juicy pie when Misaki asked, ‘Is something wrong?’ I did feel some pain in my gums as I ate, so I could have laid it to rest by telling her I got a wisdom tooth pulled the day before, but for some reason I couldn’t say this, and just said, ‘No, I’m feeling okay.’ I can’t explain it well, even to myself, but I had this kind of vague feeling that I didn’t want to easily explain away my attitude by blaming it all on getting a tooth pulled.

  We enjoyed a leisurely dessert and it was nine-thirty by the time we left the restaurant. We’d already decided to go somewhere for a drink, but after we cut through an alley and came out onto the main street we found ourselves right at a subway entrance. Somehow the mood was deflated, so we decided instead to go on home and walked down the stairs to the subway.