by Tobias Hill
He practised erasure in the long afternoons of August. He tattooed the skins of white radishes, then burnt out the designs. The acid wormed and steamed. The trailer stank of vinegar and burnt radish-skin. Mosquitoes got into the bedroom through rust-holes in the floor. The sound of them filled his dreams with images of blood. He wondered if it would be heroic to burn off the tattoos. Nothing would change in him. No one would pardon him. He thought of the war, the samurai officer at the train window. He sat on the soiled sheets of his bed and wondered if it was possible to be a hero in the cause of evil.
By late August the soy-bean pods were splitting open on their stems. He cooked a harvest feast of beef grilled on hot stones, raw salmon and tuna-belly, and soy-beans boiled with rice and rice wine. He opened a can of beer and sat listening to the drip-drop of rain. When it stopped he opened up the deck-chair and sat outside, drinking. It was cold and he wrapped a blanket round him, like an old man. The dog wanted bones. He fed it the last of the meat instead. The sky cleared and he could see the stars. He didn’t know their names, he tried to remember if he ever had. He recalled the Star Festivals. Somewhere up there were Vega and Altair, the lovers. He tried to recall if he’d ever been in love. Then he drowsed, the beer in his hands, thinking about what the skin-digger had said. He felt how much he wanted to live. It was a hunger. Hunger was a part of it.
When it became too cold he went inside, lay back on the bed. He dreamed of the tattoos. They were growing, covering his neck and face. The stems of tattoo flowers wrapped around his arms and legs. On his back, the skin around Fudo the guardian began to sear and furl.
He woke. His body was drenched with sweat, the tattoos shining. He felt the moisture between his fingers. The moon was already past its apex. Still half-asleep, he walked into the mini-kitchen, switched on the striplight. From the icebox he took a bottle of fortified rice wine and a box. He opened the wine and poured some into a chipped blue mug. He set the mug and the bottle between his feet and opened the box. He took out the first flask. It was half-full.
He took off his shirt. His right arm was scarred where he had cut himself with the pruning-saw. He laid it across the draining board. The skin seared away from the damp mouth of the flask. He held the arm steady. The smell made his nostrils flare and tighten. The pain helped him concentrate. He moved the flask up from the dragon’s belly to its jewelled head and it disappeared. Slowly, he moved on to the other designs. A scroll of cloud. Blue sky. The velvet-black wings of a butterfly. He began to feel giddy and he paused, heart banging against his ribs. He took a long drink from the blue mug. The rice wine was cold inside him. He damped the blood off his arm with a dishcloth. Hauled himself around to face the door. Put his left arm up on the board and picked up the flask.
Outside, the yellow dog began to bark. The headlights of a car scoured the walls of the trailer through the small windows. The man felt Fudo the guardian on his back, gripping him. Always out of reach. He heard the dog’s rope snicker, a car door closing.
The dog stopped barking abruptly. The man could still hear it panting, somewhere outside.
‘Tom.’ A foot chuffed the top step. ‘Tom-chan. Tomoyasu, are you there?’ The door opened. The man was taller than Tomoyasu, and broad. ‘It’s me. Kozo. Do you remember? You shouldn’t have done this.’ He ducked his head to enter, looking left and right as if crossing a road. Cautious. There was something in his hand, almost hidden in the calloused fist. Tomoyasu could only see the black lacquered tip of a muzzle. He sat in the chair, waiting.
‘I didn’t know you used guns.’
‘We. That was always the problem with you. You were never really one of us. You never followed our way of thinking. And god knows, I never knew what you were thinking. Anyway, times change. Guns? Shooting’s an art. Elegant, like sword-fighting. And they’re a commodity. What’s so bad about that? Better than cleavers.’
His eyes were alert, intelligent. Not unkind. Tomoyasu could see the carcass of the dog in the light from the open door.
‘You must’ve known we’d find you, eh? Why did you run? We were pleased with the way you kept quiet in court. Why didn’t you come to see me, your friend? Explain to –’
He saw the flask and registered the pickled-pork smell at the same time. He raised the gun like a club. ‘What are you doing?’ He recoiled, terrified. The trailer vibrated as if a lorry were passing on the expressway. Tomoyasu gazed back at him. ‘I am making myself naked again.’ He tried to remember the face of Kozo the boy. They had swapped shoes, and no one had noticed. But the face was gone. This Kozo had tightly permed hair and a linen jacket. The man backed into the door. He raised the gun sharply. ‘You fucking animal!’ He kicked the door closed. Swung back.
‘You were always a stupid bastard. That skin was the best part of you and you’re nothing to us without it, nothing –’ The floor vibrated again. It bucked sideways and up as he shot. The powder-flash singed Tomoyasu’s face. It smelt of mustard. Kozo had lost his footing. The earth shook twice and the trailer lurched up off its blocks, fell back. Dishes smashed against the wall and Kozo twisted upright athletically. Tomoyasu sat watching him. He wanted Kozo to go away. He stood up to push the man back.
His hands thumped into Kozo’s chest. There was a crash as something fell over in the next room. The taller man staggered backwards and the trailer jolted to meet him. The iron hemisphere of the wok smacked against the back of his head as he shot again. He collapsed, clutching his head. He didn’t scream. Breath escaped between his teeth in a hiss.
Tomoyasu looked down. The gas canister from the cooker and two bottles of acid had fallen together, cracking the acid-ware. The floor steamed and roiled. The box lay on the ground in a corner. He knelt down. Drew out the last two containers. The white ceramic was slippery in his hands. He walked over to the fallen man. Opened the bottles. Listened to the man scream. It went on for some time.
When it was done he took the gun, went outside, got into the car. The waterlands shuddered as if a typhoon was passing. He remembered the first picture, the photograph’s monotone. The spy, the boy’s light hair. Brightness and darkness. He sighed and turned the ignition.
8: Missing Persons
‘Excuse me, please.’ They looked down at him. Carefully, he unfolded the printout picture. ‘Have you seen this man?’ One of the men removed his construction helmet, took the photo, nodded. He handed it back.
‘Fu Manchu, ain’t it? Haaaa. He’s in Madame Tussaud’s, most probably, isn’t he, Ev? Oy, Everton.’ The second man put down his sandwich. Yasuhiro noticed how sweat emphasised the blackness of his skin, the angularity of his cheeks. Everton swallowed the last of his sandwich while he studied the picture. He took a breath. ‘Nah, seriously man, listen. You are never gonna find this guy. Never!’ Both the builders laughed. ‘I mean! I mean look!’
He swung his arm out at the crowds outside Tower Records. Pigeons and tourists competed for space around the aluminium-grey statue of Eros in the centre of Piccadilly Circus. The builder spoke slowly, his eyes wide and sympathetic. ‘London is crowded with many of you nice Japanese people. Innit, Tel? You are not going to find this man.’ He stood straight, turned away to unwrap another sandwich. ‘Like looking for the prawn in fucking prawn chow mein, yeah?’
The first builder stretched. ‘Now excuse us. Everton, get that sarnie down you, will you? Time’s money.’ Yasuhiro apologised but they were already moving on.
The pavement was full. He had to walk half in the gutter and listen out for bike couriers. London exhausted him. It was worse than Tokyo, more unpredictable, like a natural force. An earthquake. On the Underground he had sat and watched while a young boy tugged a poster out of its frame, rolled it up and stuffed it in his puffa-jacket. The poster had advertised plastic surgery. Yasuhiro wondered if the Yakuza had money to buy facial treatment. The thought depressed him. In Oxford Street a woman had followed him through the crowd and pushed a piece of paper at his face. He had tried to read it but the writing was a diagonal scraw
l of broken English. At the bottom there had been a pound sign. He hadn’t given her money, because he didn’t have money left to give. There seemed to be as many people living in the streets as in houses. He stayed at the YMCA and ate supermarket canned tuna in his room. His room-mates were from Inverness and they were both called Ian. They had nicknamed him Fish. Apart from that, he couldn’t understand them. He had been in London for eighteen days.
The sun set early between the high buildings. He walked up Air Street. Grey arches of old stone cut out most of the daylight and he stumbled against a pile of rubbish sacks. He came out into Brewer Street. The pavements were lined with fashionable Japanese restaurants, elegantly designed. Yasuhiro went into each one. Two of them had posters in the windows from his previous visits; the man’s face, reward information and the YMCA telephone number. Most of the restaurants had refused to put up the posters. They didn’t want to be linked with the Yakuza. It was bad for business. No one had called him.
In the second restaurant the owner asked if he could take down the poster. Some of his customers had complained. He apologised to Yasuhiro and made him a bowl of red-bean soup. He drank the soup greedily. It was hot and sweet and for a moment he felt his old confidence return. He took down the poster and left, promising to come back whenever he had time. Depression settled back on him as he walked. He tore up the poster and threw it down on the pavement among the burger wrappers and Coke cans.
He came out into Wardour Street. Already it was getting dark and the pubs were filling up. Across the busy road was a narrow alleyway. There was illumination at the far end, emphasising its length and the height of the buildings on each side. He craned his head, trying to see the far end. As he did so there was a sizzle of radio static to his left. He looked up. There was a police car parked outside the Dog House club. A woman sat at the wheel, watching Yasuhiro, while her partner spoke into the two-way. Yasuhiro had been to Tottenham Court Road police station on his second day. He had worn his only suit and good shoes. He had explained about the Yakuza and the killing in north Japan. They had held him overnight while they checked his visa. There had been three other men in the small cell, two of them passed out on the bunks and stinking of vomit. Yasuhiro had crouched in a corner, back against the cold wall. The other man had sat opposite him, breathing through a harmonica. The wheezing discordance had gone on all night. Yasuhiro still dreamed of it sometimes. There had been two metal buckets instead of a toilet. By morning they had been slopping over. Yasuhiro’s good shoes had been soaked and he’d thrown them away.
Avoiding the police car, he crossed the road between grid-locked traffic. The alleyway was filled with soapy water from an overflow pipe. His sneakers slapped and echoed on the concrete. Metal dustbins higher than his head blocked the way. He wheeled them to one side, squeezed through.
Behind the blank backs of inner-city buildings was a courtyard. The ground had been concreted over and whitewashed. There was nothing to see except bulging bin-liners and a British Telecom stand in the far corner. Yasuhiro walked over and picked up the receiver. It felt clean, as if newly installed. He realised he couldn’t remember Keiko’s number. He fumbled in his jacket for his Filofax, found the number. He dialled without allowing himself to think if it was what he had planned.
Her mother answered. ‘Ah, Yasuhiro! Is that you? Oh, I’m so glad to hear you’re all right. That’s the most important thing, eh? Yes.’ Suddenly he felt like crying. He pinched his eyelids shut, hunched under the cold shelter of the telephone stand. He didn’t register the silence until she spoke again. ‘Keiko’s asleep, it’s a little early here. I’ll go and wake her, all right? Just a moment.’ He panicked, trying to remember what he wanted to say. He imagined Keiko’s mother, slow in her house-slippers. Then the phone clicked as Keiko picked it up. Her voice was furry with sleep but clearing fast. ‘Hello, Yasuhiro?’ He had frozen, unable to speak. ‘Yasuhiro. Are you there?’
‘Keiko. It’s me. I’m in London.’ He heard her sigh. It sounded like relief but it could’ve been anger. He felt the panic melt back. ‘I’ve been here for a long time, it feels like. Looking for him. How are you?’
‘OK.’ He didn’t want the conversation to stop. He tried to think of something else to say. ‘Is Murasaki looking for me?’
‘No. At first you were a missing person. Then you sent the postcard. I told them where you were. So then you weren’t a missing person.’ Her voice was neutral, almost monotone. Yasuhiro shifted his back against the courtyard wall. ‘Have you solved it yet? Whatever you’re trying to solve. Yasuhiro?’
He closed his eyes again. ‘I’ve lost him, Keiko.’ She didn’t say anything. He listened to the empty line. He wondered if the sound he could hear was outer space or the bottom of the sea. ‘It’s too big. I don’t even know if I want to catch him. If he should be killed for what he did. I used to know all that. How are you, Keiko? Are you well?’
‘I’m fine.’
Her voice was sharper. His card ran out and he struggled to insert a new one before the line was cut. The receiver swung on its cord. He grabbed it again. ‘Hello, Keiko?’
‘I’m still here. How are you, Yasuhiro? Are you well?’
Her tone was formal. He stood for a moment, desolate. ‘Keiko. I’ve lost him. And I’ve lost myself.’ There was a rat in the rubbish sacks. Its tail had been eaten away. ‘I don’t know what to do, Keiko. I don’t know, I don’t. Tell me what to do.’ He was whispering. ‘I love you.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ The line went dead. Her voice had been harsh. Brittle, as if she had been trying not to cry. Yasuhiro slid down the wall until he was crouched, a small figure in the corner of the empty courtyard. He cried gently, smiling. He wiped his face and pulled himself up. Then he dialled the operator and asked for Heathrow.
She is on the tube every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On the eighth Thursday she smiles at him. She’s beautiful. Her hair is strawberry-blonde. Not like the phrase, he decides, strawberry like strawberries. A pale copper, red in the Underground light. English words are often like that for him. They eel through his thoughts or stick, harsh and inaccurate. For years, before, he barely spoke his own language, but now he misses it. In his language there is no word for ‘Miss’. He yearns for that absence.
He washes dishes every night in the Mayflower Sichuan restaurant in Edgware. They don’t pay him much, but they let him sleep in a room on the third floor. None of them ask him where he comes from. The room has a freezer-cabinet against one wall and it smells of fish. Every day he rides the Northern line from end to end. He never tries another line. He sits in the soft, dirty seats, miming sleep, large white hands folded in his lap. He considers it the perfect way to learn English. People speak carefully on the Underground, deafened by speed as he is deafened by distance. They leave silences between words, in which he can think. He isn’t stupid, he finds, but his mind is slow and methodical. Sometimes the silences grow until he’s sure that the carriage is empty. He opens his eyes and finds the seats and aisles full. Then he mimes sleep again, listening to their confinement.
She always gets on at Hendon. She always reads the same book, too. The cover shows an old oil painting of lovers in a forest. The title is French Romantic Poets. She rarely gets beyond the first chapter and when she reads, she starts by picking her teeth and ends up sucking her thumb. On the eighth Thursday the carriage is full of sunlight. Two young men get on after her. He moves slightly in his seat, so he can see her properly. Her eyes are several colours at once, grey and green and tawny. It puzzles him. Then she looks up quickly from her book and smiles at him.
He looks down and tries to concentrate on his English. He holds the ticket in his hands, hands on his thighs. Listens. ‘Man, I can’t wait for summer. Know what I’m going to do? I’m going to chill out in the park every day, yeah. Watch the people, you know? Maybe some football. On the sweet hot green grass. But mostly I’ll watch. Just lie back and watch the people.’ He watches the foreign country outside the windows. Str
eets of pebble-dash houses approach the railway and come to deadends against the high fencing. He sees a woman in a sweatshirt cleaning a jeep. Then the woman is gone. He sits back. The train descends into darkness.
At Tufnell Park the doors are open before she stands up. She has to run to block them before they close. He watches the doors reopen and she gets out. He sees her book, two seats away. He moves quickly for a man of his age. His jacket pulls back along his arm as he reaches for the door. It reveals the puckered, rippled skin of a major burn victim. The flesh is a uniform grey, anonymous. He pulls the sleeve back down as he jumps out.
The platform lighting is a faint blue flicker. The train pulls out before he realises that there is no one else but them, they are alone together. He feels embarrassed and he stops for a moment before walking to catch her. Their footsteps are very loud, his faster and longer than hers. Before he reaches her she turns round, her face drawn harsh with fear. He stops. The echoes fall away into silence. He looks down at the book. He wants to throw it away. He holds it up because he can’t think what else to do. Her face breaks into a smile of relief. He waves it and she laughs. They walk towards each other. The muscles of his arms relax under their sheaths of skin.
A Honeymoon in Los Angeles