by Arturo Silva
– Quick – my arrows!
– Which?
– Of Desire!
***
I saw a child in a crowded ceramics shop, Arlene recalls, something dropped, a cup or vase or some such object. The shop owner came up to the mother and apologized to her for having been so foolish as to have put a delicate piece in the way of a child. He then gave the kid a piece of candy. The mother slightly scolded her child. Now you know you would never see that happen in any other country.
***
–Zonar – is that what Cafferty told us to look out for?
–Sounds like a porno star – the snake-lady – no, that was Zora –
–Whoosh!, through the glass you replicant.
–But what is this place?
–God-awful. The groves of the nation’s future leaders. Typical Tokyo campus: fast food, pachinko, Mom and Pop shops. You go down Kagurazaka – hey, I had a dream about a “Number 14-Slope” recently! – and Miracle Queen, an ice cream and perfume shop, does it still flourish? – so … you go down past the SDF
–If you can – you’re getting a little shakey there, VZ.
–Had a bit too much?
–Me?
–You thought you could make it to Roberta’s from Kagurazaka, huh?
–Wait, now where was I? Oh yeah: ya’ know, Mishima’s last meal was in Shimbashi, he did himself in ... no, it wasn’t here – look, from the bottom of one bowl to – look! – that light on the river and those trees: the city disappears! – like in Ochanomizu – and past that apartment building with a swimming pool, no less! – there’s the bottom of the other bowl.
–Man, what’s he talking about?
–Beats me. Memories, I guess.
–Half made up, it sounds to me.
–Nah, not VZ, he’s got a lot of shit we ain’t half aware of.
–Ichigaya, the Spanish bookstore – did the Italian one move from Jimbocho, or just close? – up a bowl and down – voilá – Yotsuya!
–Like I said, a lot of shit.
***
Why did they take that cruise round the world? Couldn’t they just have taken a walk across the city?
***
Arlene is in grade-school. Puberty. The classroom is large. For twelve- and thirteen year-olds, these kids seem to be adult-sized. The boys are either extra-shy, or they are crudely attempting to raise the girls’ skirts. Typical classroom chaos. Arlene sits at her desk, observing the teacher who has no control whatsoever over his students. Arlene’s glance goes from one boy to another; in between, she focuses on a couple of the older girl students. No one talks to her. She is curious, and not unhappy as she rubs herself. A glance out the window shows her shopping arcades, pachinko parlors, people dressed as film actors; in between the public announcements exhorting shoppers she catches snatches of the voice of Billie Holiday accompanied by Lester Young.
That evening, Van Zandt had gotten drunk on tequila at a gallery reception for an exhibition of drawings by Mika Yoshizawa. In the background Billie Holiday records were playing. The reception had been held in Kamata, the former Hollywood of Japan. Lang had once “explained” Yoshizawa’s work to VZ. In his dream, VZ is still at the reception where so many young Japanese women seem to be walking in circles around him as he tries to cut a path across them in order to talk with one in particular who is talking with Lang about Yoshizawa. The work, like eyes and breasts and machine parts or instruments to be employed in sacred and/or sexual rituals whirl around VZ. The Kamata associations don’t help. As he sleeps he is aware that he is drunk, and he is happy about it, except for the gnawing frustration he feels at his inability to reach the woman whom he feels genuinely attracted to. When he wakes up he thinks that a Yoshizawa drawing of a circle whose right half is taken up by a circle whose right half is taken up by a circle could also resemble Tokyo whose right half is taken up by the Yamanote loop whose right half is taken up by the Palace. Tokyo then as an eye, a breast, a Mika Yoshizawa drawing.
***
brown walls
behind blue curtains
fragile world
fragile woman
blown walls
beneath blue tiles
***
Of all the shops she loved, she loved this one best.
***
R’n’L!!!!
There are more than 2,000 magazines titles published in Tokyo. Isn’t that a happy thought? And then their titles!
I’ve ordered my new computer but it doesn’t arrive for a few weeks, and I am almost paranoid to do anything on this one on its last legs. Ya know, my favorite button used to be “delete,” but now it’s “Yes to all.”
Ya’ know, the other day I realized that in the last couple of years I have attended one funeral (Ikuko), two weddings, and half a dozen couple friends have had kids. Not too bad for the Life Goes On [or Doesn’t] Dept.
Song of the Week: “Bossa Nova Baby” (1963), with these immortal lyrics:
I said, Hey Little Mama, let’s sit down, have a drink and dig the band.
She said, Drink, drink, drink, oh fiddleydink, I can dance with a drink in my hand.
She said, Hey Bossa Nova Baby, keep on workin,’ ‘cos I ain’t got time to drink.
She said, Hey Bossa Nova Baby, keep on dancin,’ ‘cos I ain’t got time to think.
Oh, Ann Margaret, we love you!
A style to accommodate chaos – that’s what we want here.
Parentheses, like vaginas (and both, like the city), are a matter of lips opening and closing, quivering if you like, all the meanwhile maintaining their delicate order within the frenzy of all they are expressing. I limit myself to three on either side (Roussel’s five!) and then work my way back in. Anyway, but how do you explain this to anyone? “Hey, Roberta, Lang, what’s new?” “Oh, we were just talking about parentheses, vaginas and quoting songs in letters.” “Oh, I see, heh-heh.” Vaginally then, like some etymology, I unfold myself to you.
Cary and Carole together in one great movie! The missing link to human happiness.
Ok, how’s this for a photo project. I was talking with Junko about the three portraits idea and it suddenly occurred to me: “What about all my other friends?” So I thought about taking photos of ’em all when we go to our fave bars, and calling the thing Tokyo Twists and Hardons, “twist” of course being gangster slang for a broad, uhn, I mean a dame, uhn, I mean a chick, uhn I mean a girl, uhn – hell, what do I mean, anyway?, and “hardon” being the same for a prick, uhn I mean a guy, uhn, I mean ...
Which reminds me: years ago when I got my first 8mm camera, this camera store had a kind of amateur night. (Very) amateur models would prance around and the equally amateur photogs [ugh, I mean, I hate that word, but I equally hate typing out the whole thing – maybe I can make a macro out of it, anyway:] would shoot ’em. Anyway, I attended, and shot. Then I shot a lot of cranes around the city – and you know how I love cranes. Then I tried ever so ineptly to edit it all together in a quasi-structuralist manner. And what did I call it? Why Guys and Dolls, of course.
Am beginning to think that My Darling Clementine is my all-time fave Western; and besides, Fonda – “with a portrait as beautiful as his who wants true?” – surely has the most beautiful walk (among men) in the movies.
February is the cruellest month. Why?, you ask. Because Movieline doesn’t come out then. I think it’s my fave mag, along with October.
Crime of M. Lange tonight. Wanna see it with me?
***
Why was I so graced?, I ask myself. An eighty-year old man spoke with me on the train home about his collection of Chinese ceramics, “nothing later than Ming, of course.” Why so graced to forget you for thirty minutes? Such grace – all? – so short.
***
They make porno films on bridges and crosswalks; the buxom woman crosses Sukiyabashi on the diagonal; three takes just to get it right. Bouncey bouncey.
***
The costs of confusion notwithstanding, Kazuo thinks to
himself, to think one’s way through Tokyo is not unlike mastering any of the finer arts. I remember my first lessons in calligraphy. My parents, bless them, had insisted that I remain left-handed. And so, it was like a new language. My arm just swept across the sheet. And I am forever grateful to my teacher for starting me on sho instead of kai, to let me be fluid, never being sure what I was writing, but writing it well. Did those calligraphy lessons free me to understand the Tokyo system better? Perhaps.
***
How many more years raping his life?
***
SCENE FOUR: SHINJUKU STATION
Refreshed and disoriented, she is in Shinjuku Station. She feels like a newcomer to Tokyo. Takes twenty minutes to find an exit, climbs some stairs, and gazes on a three-story high television screen. Some Pop star is advertising “Godzilla Condoms.” She walks back down, takes another exit, and for a moment thinks herself in a Post-Modern Paris. She gazes on the towers of Notre Dame, the new Tokyo City Hall, and reminds herself that she has to get tickets to Les Miserables, and will have to go alone because all of her friends think it’s tacky. Musicals are a developed taste. “Hugo? Who’s Hugo?,” she wonders, a rambunctious boy, a hunchbank, a clothes designer. She walks back down, takes another exit and faces a porno cinema. She enters. The familiar scum and cum. A man in the third row wears a gray felt hat. Why has he thrown his jacket over himself? Oh, yes, of course. She goes up to him. “Excuse me?” He looks at her – comes – asks, awkwardly, how he can help her. She mumbles some excuse to get away as fast as possible. Definitely not her man.
***
The dreams are fulfilled. Feel no pressure. You are beautiful in the city standing on my open palm. The palm is a map – its’ name is Tokyo. The face is yours.
***
–Recovered?
–From what?
–Oh comeon, the party, the girls, Lang.
–By drinking again? Hardly.
–Well, it was an interesting evening, you have to admit. Those girls are absolute ditzes. But Hiroko seems to have some potential.
–?
–For adulthood, I mean. She seems to listen, takes things in, notices – until Hiromi butts in and it all evaporates –
–Into cuteness.
–Have you –?
–Noticed? In passing.
–Cute?
–Delicious. Hey, they’re available, they make themselves so. Arlene, they’re eager.
–Yes, I know. That’s your business; I have nothing to say.
–Jealous?
–!?
–Comeon, Arlene; I can see it in your eyes. The curiosity. It’s alright, you know.
–That’s my business, Van Zandt; I have nothing to say.
–Alright, alright. Anyway, it’s funny, you know, the happier drunk Roberta becomes, the gloomier Lang becomes.
–I don’t think it’s funny at all.
–Curious, not ha-ha. Roberta really is curious. So intelligent, and so quiet about all she knows. What does she do with it? Is she writing something? No, she’s not a writer; not an artist, or not in the usual egocentric terms. Is she a craftswoman then? Heavens no, better an artist, which in the non-usual sense I suppose she is, the living sense. I don’t know; maybe she’s just happy to be intelligent, quietly, to use her mind, but for no end, no necessary end, that is. To live quietly as she does.
–That doesn’t sound so bad.
–Oh, I’m not criticizing her at all, believe me. I suppose, when all is said and done, I admire her, actually. She seems so content.
–Well, you and I both know that hasn’t always been the case. It took her some time. Remember how lost she seemed when she first arrived? Not just the usual foreigner in shock over Tokyo; but also the dilemma of what it all meant and would mean for her, her leaving Lang like that – what was she going to do here, would she stay, would she go, go back to him? She certainly never expected him to come here.
–Yes, to “rescue” her. The man’s impossible. So grounded in reality, he thinks, and yet all these grandiose ideas.
–But he seemed to me to be more frustrated than angry. He can’t get over the fact that Roberta really is content to stay at home, do her small rewriting jobs. Isn’t she doing Zen?
–I’m not sure. I know she has a pillow, but she’s never said anything to me about it. There are certainly a number of temples nearby. But no, I don’t know. And what of it? She may sit, but I’d doubt if she’d expect anything from it.
–But isn’t that the point?
–I suppose so. So let’s say she sits ...
–... in her fashion.
–Can you imagine Lang doing Zen?
–Ha! Yes – once. And then unwrapping his legs, and ...
–... and then?
–Why, then instructing others, of course.
–Right. The Master, of the Urban Scene. But not the Master of Roberta. Can he stand it, do you think?
–Oh, he’s alright; he can bend; it just takes him time, sometimes a long time. And besides, I don’t think he has any choice but to in Roberta’s case, in this case this time.
–No, I suppose not. You’re right, she has come a long way.
–And in so short a time. I mean, she really did get over her romantic illusions about Japan real quick. Remember: She’d been here six months; she was feeling comfortable here, feeling herself making her own way; and as for Lang’s imminent arrival she was ambivalent, curious, and I suppose she felt she didn’t really have a choice but to “welcome” him, put him up for a while, see what developed – and so he got the little living room – until he up and left.
–Yes, yes, I do remember it all. I’d never seen her so anxious. She certainly did not want to be rescued – had no need of it, really – but she was nervous about what exactly his plans here entailed. Fortunately, she was grounded by the time he arrived to withstand him.
–Yes, but not grounded enough. That time she put him up was no easy job.
–For either of them. But it also made it easy for us to give her support. As for him, well, I’ve never seen him so helpless.
–Which he’d deny now.
–I’m not so sure. I suspect he’d take it as a point of pride now; how he “overcame and conquered,” or something like that. That is, if he ever allowed us to speak of that time.
–Very delicate.
–Oh, “very, very.”
–…
–…
–Oh, there were parties then!
–If “party” here means war.
–Like Roberta’s that night?
–Skirmishes. I think they are becoming friendly once again. Or as far as I can tell.
–…
–I wish I’d known them in Vienna.
–Oh, they were a wonderful couple! They were everywhere, doing everything, knew everyone. But then I suppose it was all Lang’s game. She shone – and Vienna can be very dark – but not always with her own light. But then to say they were “doing everything” in Vienna is not really to say a hell of a lot. It’s certainly less provincial than Roberta’s San Francisco, but Vienna is no great metropolis. Films and books yes, and a great place to talk. In that sense, Tokyo is exactly what Lang has needed. Not so much café talk, as this sort, walking around the city. Though of course, again, he wouldn’t admit it. The city has been preparing itself for him, preening, awaiting his arrival. I’ve always felt he’d find his real element here. I can’t see the Japanese committing suicide in the winter.
–?
–Winter in Vienna is ghastly; gray. You don’t see the sun for weeks.
–Oh. Anyway, I don’t really know if they’re making any progress –
–You mean towards getting back together permanently?
–Yes. Unless we call progress the fact that the battle lines are clearly drawn. Roberta loves her quiet life here, and she loves Lang. Lang meanwhile seems to be falling headlong in love with the whole maddening city.
–You’re right.
&n
bsp; –And he loves her.
–And the city.
–Yes, and he loves her. But he’s let himself get so caught up here. Yes, he loves both – but doesn’t seem to be able to see how easy complete reconciliation can be. Where do they go from here? And too, while it may be ours, is it their wish to get back together? Who are we to say?
–Oh, comeon, Arlene! Don’t you think they do?
–Oh, I suppose so, but I really can not say, wouldn’t dare to. Roberta’s so quiet about it all. Doesn’t say one way or another. She just waits.
–Sits.
–In her fashion.
–And we, what do we do? Sit?
–No, of course not. We walk, we talk, with each other, with them. The way friends are supposed to do.
–Do you hike?
–What do you mean?
–Lang, the Austrian.
–Oh. Yes, I can hike. Do you?
–This Amsterdamer? Of course! I also sit – in my fashion.
–Back to the girls, eh?
–Not tonight; they said something about waking up early for a sale.
–What spangles will we see them in tomorrow evening then?
–Are you going too?
–Oh, Hiromi said she’d call.
–Ah, Mona.
–Oh, she is cute, you can’t deny that. But I am still trying to locate evidence of terrestrial intelligence there.
–Well, don’t be disappointed if you don’t.