100 Years of Vicissitude

by Andrez Bergen

  ‘I remember my grandmother lobbing salt over her left shoulder, although I believe in her case it was to dispel demons hovering there.’

  Kohana wasn’t listening.

  ‘See that remarkably revealing loincloth they’re wearing?’

  ‘Shimada was right—how could I miss anything about these people?’

  ‘Well, it’s known as the mawashi, and has a story too: it’s made of silk, is approximately thirty feet long, weighs up to eleven pounds, and sometimes bears the name of a sponsor.’

  I pictured one of the sumo boasting a logo of an H-in-a-circle on their nether regions, and pined for my grandmother’s salt.

  ‘Oh, and the competitors’ hair, which you can see is precision-slicked into topknots, is coiffed using a waxy substance called bintsuke abura, the main ingredient of which comes from the berries of the Japanese wax tree—a member of the same family as poison ivy.’ Kohana wasn’t even pushing breathless. ‘It’s been used in hairdressing in Japan for around a thousand years, and is also used by geisha as a waxy base for our makeup.’

  Straight after she finished her speech, one of the sumo competitors toppled out of the ring, down the slope, and onto a person sitting in the front row.

  ‘Itai—imagine two hundred kilograms in your lap!’

  ‘Rather brutal,’ I agreed.

  Shimada stood up, applauding. ‘Encore!’

  28 | 二十八

  I found myself alone. In a crowd.

  What I mean to say is that Kohana wasn’t with me—there was a surprise—but this didn’t mean I had time to sit and twiddle my thumbs.

  I was forced to dodge waves of pedestrians on a very busy main street, definitely still in Japan.

  Judging from the walking wardrobes, the advertising, neons, and signage, I’d say I had again been deposited in the ’60s, but also going by these surroundings and the hive of activity, you’d never have guessed only twenty years had passed since the Second World War hobbled the place.

  ‘Wolram!’

  I turned on my slippered heel.

  Kohana was seated in a white, convertible sports car, with sleek lines, that she had idling at the curb. She was dressed in a powder blue one-piece, with a matching silk scarf over her hair that lightly held it back.

  ‘Don’t dawdle,’ she called, as she leaned over and opened the passenger door. ‘Hop in.’

  ‘And why would I do that?’

  ‘I’m going to take you to see my elite ninja training school.’

  ‘I’m in no mood for juvenile quips. The one thing my esteemed mother taught me long ago was never to get into a car with a strange girl.’

  ‘Suit yourself—but Tokyo, in 1964, wasn’t the cleanest city in the world. You’ll find the pollution is aromatic.’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed, you’re driving a vehicle that doesn’t have a roof. I’m sure I would suffer either way.’

  ‘What is your problem with cars?’

  ‘None to write about. I think the Jaguar E-Type is a most stunningly designed mechanical gizmo—and, by the way, that’s a charming Toyota 2000GT you have there. But sitting in the things, driving about on dangerous, overcrowded thoroughfares, is another kettle of fish.’

  ‘Relax. I won’t kill you,’ she laughed.

  ‘This is my second life. I’d like to hang on to it.’

  Kohana tapped the open door. ‘You only live twice, deshō? Come on, Wolram. Trust me. I have something special awaiting—lip-smacking martinis.’

  My left leg moved forward, in spite of better judgment, but I kept its right-hand partner in check. ‘What kind of martini?’

  ‘A Vesper.’

  ‘Ah.’ My right leg started to give.

  ‘C’mon.’ She had a twinkle that suggested more high jinks were afoot.

  Damned woman.

  I finally did as instructed, and got in.

  Once I was seated, Kohana hit the accelerator and we shot out into the traffic, weaving past several cars. I clenched the door handle.

  The car flew past massive construction taking place over a river.

  ‘One of the new expressways they’re finishing, in preparation for the Olympic Games,’ Kohana said. ‘It seems part of their mission to modernize is to make the city hideous.’

  ‘That’s progress.’

  ‘So they claim. By the way, you might want to brush up on your Japanese with this.’

  The woman casually tossed a small book onto my lap.

  Turning over the tome, I read the title aloud. ‘Instant Japanese: A Pocketful of Useful Phrases, by Masahiro Watanabe and Kei Nagashima. Do I really need it? I thought I had this God-given gift of international gab.’

  We cut a corner, and in the process very nearly collected a street sign. ‘For Heaven’s sake, keep to the road!’

  ‘Loosen up, dearie. Here we are.’

  With no finesse whatsoever, Kohana stuck her foot on the brake pedal and I came close to careering through the windscreen. The English–Japanese dictionary ended up on the bonnet, pages dancing in the breeze.

  ‘I am never, ever, setting foot in a car again,’ I decided.

  ‘Come on. We’re late—for a very important date.’

  I followed her, grudgingly I must confess, from the automobile. ‘You never learned the art of parking in a straight line, flush with the footpath?’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘I’m inclined to think a police officer, or two, might argue the point.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s against the law.’

  ‘When you’re gorgeous like me, you don’t need to concern yourself with petty things like the law.’

  ‘Well, now. You have tabs on yourself.’

  ‘I’m ribbing you. Boy—you sure take the bait.’ Kohana pulled open a big wooden door. ‘After you, my dear fellow.’

  ‘It seems you are always holding doors for me, ushering me into places I don’t want to be.’

  ‘The martini…?’

  ‘Oh well, that’s another matter.’ I promptly pushed past her. We entered a large, cavernous space filled with chatter, and people drinking and smoking far too much. Compared with the dancehall where we had met the gangster Shashin, however, this was a more upmarket establishment. Now, the only crystal-clear crooks were the framed ones on the wall, from Japanese movies.

  From out of the crowd, the actor Shimada sidled straight up and kissed Kohana on the cheek.

  ‘You’re just in time to see two more refugees from the kaiju classics,’ he said, as he motioned to a small stage on which two pretty vocalists, who looked like twins, were singing a duet that sounded like it was affected with reverb.

  ‘Ahh, Emi-chan and Yumi-chan,’ Kohana spoke up. ‘The Peanuts. They were in Mothra and sang the theme song. A giant butterfly tale. Mothra also battled Godzilla. Did you ever see it?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I have.’

  ‘You should watch. ’Tis fun. Now—that Vesper martini I promised you?’

  ‘Never thought you’d ask.’

  ‘That was stirred, not shaken?’

  ‘Ahem. The other way round.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment, Shimada-san.’ Kohana lightly touched the man’s shoulder, and he blushed.

  I followed her through the crush.

  ‘I expect Shimada is enamoured with you.’

  ‘Nonsense. Are you referring to his scarlet complexion just now? That’s just the alcohol talking—I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘When you’re present.’

  ‘Well, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see it.’ Kohana stopped at the counter and caught a bartender’s attention. ‘A Piranha, and a dry martini,’ she told the man, ‘in a deep champagne goblet.’

  ‘Hai.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ She leaned over in order to be closer to his ear. ‘Three measures of Gordon’s, one of shōchū, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?’

  ‘Hai.�
� Dispatched, the man set about his task.

  ‘That was very professionally done,’ I admitted.

  ‘I must’ve read it somewhere in a book.’

  ‘Strikes me as something Ian Fleming would have appreciated.’

  After a minute, two drinks presented themselves for our approval.

  I lifted the martini and took a long sip. ‘Excellent,’ I said after, ‘but if you can get a vodka made with grain instead of rice, you will find it better.’

  ‘We are in Japan. Rice is a popular ingredient.’

  ‘Indeed. But isn’t this around the same time they were faking the rice in the saké? Anyhow—what are you having?’

  Kohana held up her drink. It had a blood-coloured cocktail in it, with shards of ice arranged like sharp teeth around the top.

  ‘It’s a house speciality: The Piranha.’

  ‘Ahh, of course. Well, bon appétit !’

  ‘Kanpai.’

  We clicked glasses.

  29 | 二十九

  ‘I was stabbed in February 1972.’

  We were standing on a snow-covered field, on the cusp of a shallow irrigation gully in which lay the twisted corpse of a woman, when Kohana uttered these memorable words.

  I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say, and therefore settled for a callow kind of commiseration. ‘Kohana—good Lord, I’m sorry…’

  ‘Um, Wolram, that’s not me. I didn’t say I died. In case it slipped your mind, I lived to be a hundred. But I was stabbed in the back, in the metaphoric sense as much as the literal.’

  It took me a few shakes of a lamb’s tail to process what she implied, and as my tardy grey matter refined it, Kohana rested on her haunches, using a stick to poke at the body in the ditch.

  ‘Not a time I’m proud of. This is Michiko. Michiko, this is Wolram.’

  Michiko remained speechless, and I did not have a thing to say.

  The woman’s face was difficult to see because of the way in which she lay, but I presumed she’d been dead a few hours. I’m hardly an expert. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and looked relatively pretty.

  ‘She was beaten to death for being too negative,’ Kohana said. ‘One person’s negativity is another man’s realism. Michiko cottoned on early that we were going about things the wrong way.’

  ‘Do you mind if I ask which things?’

  ‘All of it.’

  Not the kind of answer I was counting on. ‘Then who did this?’

  ‘Very stupid people. Friends of mine and hers.’

  I waited, in vain, for an expanded response. ‘Why?’ I pressed on.

  Kohana stood up straight, and flung away the stick. For my part, I shifted from one foot to the other. It was bitterly cold here. The extremes in temperature really were going to be the death of me.

  ‘Seriously? I don’t understand the whys. Michiko didn’t deserve to die like this. She was a decent woman.’

  ‘That word “decent” always concerns me.’

  ‘Well, yes, she had her flaws—and who doesn’t? For one thing, she was overly naïve and trusting.’

  ‘Something neither of us has to worry about.’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘Anyway, back to you—you said you were attacked too.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  She was keeping a million things close to her chest this time. I felt like I was deep-sea fishing without the proper tackle. ‘And so your infraction was…?’

  ‘Not negativity—I kept mine hidden, but I wasn’t cautious elsewhere.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘My crime was getting caught kissing a boy.’

  ‘Oh, that old one.’ I was perilously close to laughter. ‘One of your jealous lovers, I expect?’

  Insofar as Kohana was concerned, this was bound to happen sooner or later.

  ‘Actually, no. It was another woman—and no, she wasn’t in love with me.’

  ‘Of course, you slept with her husband, then?’

  ‘Wolram, what kind of awful opinion do you have of me? God.’

  Kohana looked up for a time, at a slate-grey sky. An apology was on my lips, but she spoke first.

  ‘More snow is on its way.’

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘No, I can tell. Can’t you? Look at those clouds.’

  ‘I’m an Australian. It rarely snowed there, and never where I lived. When I look up, all I see are clouds; no special messages.’

  ‘That’s a shame. It’s one of the few things my father taught me.’

  ‘I’m chuffed to hear the old geezer came in useful for something.’

  ‘Surprising, isn’t it? I’m not sure why it mattered to him.’

  I rubbed my hands together. They were stiff, chilled to the bone.

  ‘I swear I’m going to end up with frostbite. Might we get back to the reason we’re here, if there is one—apart from showing me corpses and intimating at a dangerous romantic interlude?’

  ‘Okay.’ Kohana fiddled with her sleeve. ‘Ten other members of our group, not counting Michiko and me, were killed for equally trivial reasons. Cleaning a gun incorrectly, wearing too much makeup, that kind of nonsense.’

  ‘Your group? What group?’

  ‘I’ll get to that. You think it’s cold today? The temperature drops below zero in the evening. Most of the people I talked about were tied to trees and froze to death overnight. It was all part of a power play by our hypocritical, increasingly paranoid leaders, Seibei and Ushitora. Within days, they reduced the membership by half.’

  There was an astringent taste in my mouth. I felt like spitting it straight out, but refrained.

  ‘Seriously disturbed men, I take it.’

  ‘Actually, a seriously disturbed man and woman. Ushitora Hiroko was nicknamed “Oni-babaa”—Devil Bitch. Rumour had it she was barren, and she had the foetus torn out of one of her peers because she was jealous.’

  ‘This insane woman was your leader? What kind of group are we discussing here? Some bizarre off-campus club? A cult?’

  ‘No, don’t fuss; it wasn’t a club or a cult. And to be honest, this might have been scuttlebutt about the pregnancy, like I said. I have no idea if it’s true. Aside from that, Hiroko is the one who knifed me, straight after she discovered me in the middle of the smooch I mentioned. I wasn’t devoting equal ardour to the revolution.’

  Kohana pointed across the frozen farmland, and I followed her index finger.

  ‘There I am, over there,’ she said, ‘scurrying for help.’ I saw a distant figure, staggering along a narrow road. ‘I’d been stabbed in the back, right between one of my dragon’s eyes, and left for dead too.’

  ‘Ahh—so that explains the split head on your tattoo.’

  ‘On the dot. I told you I’d get around to the telling of the tale.’

  ‘Well. Let’s look at the positives. You move spritely for someone so recently employed as a pin-cushion.’

  ‘Yep, I’m impressed too—though, let me tell you, the experience is far more enjoyable from this perspective. It was either run for help, or lie down, feel sorry for myself, bleed to death or die from exposure. I was lucky the knife bounced off my shoulder blade, but there was enough blood to make Hiroko think she’d done a good job.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In the southern Japanese Alps, not far from a secretive training camp for the newly formed and short-lived Rengō Sekigun—known as the United Red Army.’

  ‘Red Army?’ I stared at her. ‘Communists?’

  ‘Communists.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I know, I know—it sounds passé now, and you can laugh if you want to, but our passions ran high in the late ’60s. Not just here, but in Europe. In three former fascist countries—Japan, Germany and Italy—communism was a captivating backlash against the psychotic right-wing antics of our parents.’

  ‘You joined the Communist Party? I thought only quixotic dimwits joined those outfits. It’s just like co-opting oneself to a cult.’


  ‘This wasn’t a cult.’

  ‘Split the difference.’

  Kohana blew out a cloud of condensation. ‘You’re from a different generation. You don’t understand what we went through, or what we saw around us, and I’m not going to stand here in the cold, arguing politics. How old were you in 1972?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘I think a seven-year-old might find it difficult to relate.’

  ‘You were old enough to know better, Kohana.’

  ‘I was—I’ll give you that. And while our German and Italian brethren rallied against the imperialist state, which we hoped to do, here in Japan we killed our comrades. It wasn’t the ideals that went astray; the people we’d elected as our leaders went mad. I sometimes think the “United” part of the group’s name was a facetious addition.’

  ‘Why on earth did you hook up with these people?’

  ‘What can I say? I was infatuated with a man.’

  Again, I felt like laughing, only it was getting beyond the joke. ‘What a surprising turn of events. Well, you did warn me—you mentioned you were stabbed for kissing someone.’

  ‘Don’t be angry.’

  ‘I’m not angry. “Depressed” would be a better word for it. What about the person on the receiving end of the peck? Who the Devil was it this time?’

  ‘Kunio Yamadera.’

  ‘Oh, how many infatuations do we have now? I swear I’ve lost count.’

  ‘This was different.’

  ‘Of course it was.’

  Kohana hadn’t cottoned on to my impatience.

  ‘He was like the Japanese Che Guevara,’ she said in a breathy voice, as if I cared, ‘except he wasn’t caught, and there’s no iconic image of him to screen-print onto T-shirts. But he was such a charismatic man for his age! He was outspoken and reactionary, and after we started sleeping together, he convinced me to join him as a member of the Red Army Faction, which later became the United Red Army.’

  ‘How old was this man?’