by Barry Eisler
“I don’t know. At some point, I learned not to think of it that way. I believe in karma.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. I believe in the end we get paid back what we deal out.”
I hoped that wasn’t true. “Has Kamioka been paid back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. I’m not responsible for someone else’s karma. I just want to live my life, be grateful for what I have and not be bitter about what I don’t, you know? Focus on the future, not the past.”
I nodded. “I think that’s a good attitude.”
“But you don’t share it?”
“I’d like to.”
There was a pause, then she said, “You know, you were pretty intimidating with that drunk guy the first time I saw you. You were so calm. Like hurting him or not hurting him was just a kind of…equation. But then with me, you’re awkward and sweet. I can’t figure you out.”
I shifted on the bench. “There’s nothing to figure out.”
“Yes, there is. I can tell you’re hiding something.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you do for a living here, anyway? You’ve never mentioned it.”
“Well, that’s part of this jam I’m in.”
“The one you’ve nearly sorted out.”
“Is there another one I don’t know about?”
“I don’t know—is there?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s just the one.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
I realized this was always going to be a problem if I tried to keep one foot in the dark and the other in the light. I’d been naïve in not facing it earlier, and I should have been prepared for it, because now Sayaka was asking me the most ordinary of questions and I had no answers.
“I…was in the military for three years.”
“What military?”
I was reluctant to say more. America’s war in Vietnam was hugely unpopular among young people in Japan. I didn’t want her not to like me. And I didn’t want to have to explain myself, either. But I didn’t see how to avoid the subject anymore.
“The American military. Army.”
“You mean Vietnam?”
There it was. I nodded.
“You were in Vietnam?”
I nodded again.
“What did you do there?”
How do you answer something like that? I said, “I did all the horrible things people do in wars and that they’re uncomfortable talking about afterward.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
It was weird. I was so used to feeling younger than she was. Now I felt older.
“It was a war, Sayaka. Killing people is what you do in a war. Unless you’re in the rear, which I definitely wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry. You said you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s okay.”
“But you did bring it up.”
And suddenly I felt like the younger one again. “Just to point out that what I’ve been doing here is a kind of…holdover from contacts I made there.”
“You mean spy stuff?”
I looked at her. She was just curious, she wasn’t judging me. “I don’t want to lie to you,” I said, “and I don’t want to get you in any trouble by telling you things you shouldn’t know. I don’t know how I got mixed up in it all exactly. I mean, outside what I learned in the military, I don’t have a lot of skills. I don’t have anything to fall back on. And this opportunity came along, and I just took it. And one of the things I like about you is that you’re not connected to any of it. And I…and I don’t know what I’m trying to say, and I’m going to stop.”
“Are you sure? You’re cute when you babble.”
I laughed.
She added, “And now you’re blushing.”
“Okay, I’m not going to talk anymore.”
“Bet you will.”
“Bet you’re wrong.”
“See? I win.”
I laughed again. “All right. So…you live in Uguisudani?”
“About half a kilometer from the hotel. Why?”
“I was just wondering. I mean, do you really never go far from there?”
She sighed. “No, not really. Sometimes I tell myself I should. But it’s scary not to know what I’m going to find. I’ve gotten in trouble a few times and it’s just…it’s unpleasant. To be helpless and to have to rely on the kindness of strangers. It can be…humiliating. So over time, I’ve gotten in the habit of staying where I know the layout. Where I’m comfortable.”
“So you really must have trusted me to come out with me tonight.” It was just a neutral statement, but I think there was a little wonderment in my tone.
She looked at me. “You want to know what did it?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“It’s when you told me you thought of me as the girl at the hotel.”
I tried to puzzle that out, and couldn’t. “I don’t get it.”
She laughed. “You see? You’re doing it now, stupid. The girl at the hotel. Not the girl in the wheelchair. It’s like you don’t even notice it.”
I leaned over as though to get a better view. “You’re in a wheelchair?”
She laughed and punched my shoulder. I caught her fingers in mine. Without thinking, I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed it.
She looked down. “I don’t know, Jun.”
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we could just try, and if it’s not good, we could stop.”
She laughed again, softly.
I kissed her hand again and leaned closer. She was still looking down. I let go of her hand and touched her chin. Very gently, I raised her face toward mine. She looked in my eyes.
“You really are beautiful,” I said.
She shook her head and said nothing. I liked being so near to her. I leaned closer and kissed her as softly as I could. She didn’t exactly kiss me back, but she didn’t pull away, either.
I pulled back a fraction, feeling happy and dopey. “Was it horrible?”
She shook her head again. “No, not too horrible.”
“Okay, then I’m going to do it again.” Her mouth was slightly open, and this time I kissed just her bottom lip, lingering there for a moment before I eased away.
“Still okay?” I said.
“I just…I don’t know what you want with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, look at me. What do you want with me?”
Maybe she didn’t mean it literally, but I took a long look. I liked what I saw. Her breasts were small and beautifully shaped, her neck was long and slender, and her shoulders and arms, her whole upper body looked strong and fit and graceful. Her skin was pale and smooth. And her lips…God, it had been nice to kiss her, even though it had been so soft it barely qualified.
“I’d answer that, but I think you’d slap me.”
She laughed softly. “I just don’t get it.”
“You mean, because of the wheelchair?”
“Yeah.”
I took her hand again. “I don’t know. I just like being with you. I liked kissing you just now. I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”
She laughed again. “I really don’t get you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think it’s your fault, exactly. You know, I don’t even…I don’t even know if I can…you know. I don’t know if I would feel anything.”
“You mean, you never…”
She shook her head. “No, never. Not even before the accident.”
“Oh. Well, maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, right? I mean, I haven’t even thought about that. Well not not thought about it. But I haven’t thought a lot about it. Not constantly, anyway. Sometimes I find myself thinking about something else for a few minutes before it comes back, that’s what I mean.”
She laughed. I realized I really liked making her l
augh. I’d never been the funniest guy in the world, and I was envious of people who had a talent for that kind of thing, but there was something about her that brought it out in me.
“It’s not just that,” she said. “I haven’t even kissed someone since I was a teenager.”
“Why? Did you not want to?”
“I don’t know. Most guys who want to date a girl in a wheelchair…either they pity me, or they think they’re doing something noble, or they think they can get whatever they want because I must be desperate, or some combination of those things. It’s just never made me feel good about myself. So after a while, I stopped trying.”
“I don’t know why anyone would think any of that about you. Desperate is about the last thing you seem to me.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m just trying to think of something that’ll make you want to kiss me again.”
She smiled, and then her eyes welled up. It caught me by surprise, and apparently it did her, too, because she gave a startled little laugh and turned away to hide it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to make a joke.”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, her face still averted.
I felt bad. I realized I’d been treating her more or less the way I would have treated any girl I liked, and while on the one hand she clearly responded to that, on the other hand she had wounds inside her I knew nothing about, no more than she knew about mine.
“You know,” I said, “if it makes you feel any better, I’ve only been with one girl myself.”
She laughed and wiped her eyes. “Liar. With those little ears, they must be throwing themselves at you.”
I laughed too. “No, it’s true, there’s only been one.” This wasn’t technically true, as I couldn’t claim to have eschewed all professional companionship during the war, but other than that, Deirdre Calhoun had been my first, and to that point my only. “She was my high school girlfriend,” I went on, “and I told her I was going to marry her when I got back from the war. But the marriage part never happened.”
“Why?”
I blew out a long breath. “I was gone for longer than I’d first been thinking. And war changes you. We were both different people when I got back. Everything was different.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It just didn’t work out. But I’m here now.”
She looked down. “It’s just hard for me.”
“I think I understand. At least some of it.”
“I mean, if I wanted to go home right now—and I don’t, but if I wanted to—I couldn’t just leave. I have to rely on you. I hate being helpless like that. I hate it.”
“I get it. I’d hate it, too. What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, while you try to figure it out, I’m going to kiss you again, okay?”
She looked in my eyes. Then she whispered, “Okay.”
So we kissed again. And this time, I didn’t pull back. I reached out and brushed her cheek with the backs of my fingers, and she opened her mouth and I touched her teeth with my tongue a little, just to let her know I wanted more, was ready for more if she was, and then I felt her tongue and we were really kissing, and I cupped her face in my hands and she leaned forward and did the same to me and she opened her mouth wider and put her tongue inside mine, and she made the most beautiful sound, I can’t even describe it but it was a sound of pure pleasure, the sound someone would make if she tasted something unexpectedly delicious and was nearly shocked by it. We kissed and kissed and touched each other’s faces and hair and she ran her fingers along my ears and we were laughing and holding each other and it went on and on and on. And it was the best kiss I’d ever had.
And then we were just holding each other and laughing and my back hurt because it was awkward leaning into her from the bench but I didn’t care, in a weird way it felt good. And then, all of a sudden, she stiffened and pulled back and said, “Oh, no, oh shit oh no.”
I’d been in such a reverie, I felt like I’d been slapped. “What? What is it?”
She glanced down at her lap and tried to cover it with her hands, but couldn’t. She’d peed. Not just peed, she was still peeing, and couldn’t stop it. She shook her head in helpless humiliation.
I jumped up. “Oh, let me get you someplace!”
“Just get me home.”
“Shouldn’t we—”
“Just get me home.”
“But I told you, it doesn’t—”
“Just get me home!”
I wanted to say something, to tell her it didn’t matter, I didn’t care, but I couldn’t think what to say. I felt awful. I realized I needed to piss, too—we’d been sitting out there for a long time.
And then I got a crazy idea. I started to rethink it, then thought, Fuck it, what do you have to lose?
I took a deep breath and just let my bladder go.
“Take me home, okay?” she said. “Now.”
“Okay, just one second, I’m having a little problem myself.”
She looked at my crotch, at the darkening pool of liquid running down my leg.
She shook her head incredulously. “What are you fucking doing?”
“You think I’ve never pissed my pants before? The first time I got dropped in Indian country I did. Hell, I know guys who shit themselves. Tough guys, guys it would be death to mess with. It’s just nobody likes to talk about it.”
Her mouth was agape. “I don’t believe you’re doing this.”
“What, you think you’re the only one who can? Why shouldn’t I get some relief, too?”
She put her head in her hands and started shaking. I thought she was crying, but then I realized she was laughing. She looked up at me and shook her head. “You’re crazy. You are really crazy.”
I looked at the dark spot on my pants and we both started cracking up. It was medium intensity at first, but then it just built and built. At one point, she took two quick breaths and got it under control just long enough to say, “That was…the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me,” and we were both hit with another paroxysm.
When the laughter finally started to ebb, I said, “Maybe I should get us back to the van. We’ll roll down the windows.”
We laughed again and I pushed her back along the path. I can’t say it felt good to walk with urine sloshing in my shoes, but on the other hand at least I didn’t still need to take a leak.
Back in the van and heading east, she said, “Thank you, Jun. Really, thank you.”
“I told you, it’s nothing. It doesn’t bother me.”
“I’m lucky, actually. The injury to my spinal cord isn’t complete. A lot of people need a catheter, but I don’t. But I have to be careful not to wait too long. I haven’t had a problem in a long time, but it’s still something I’m always afraid of. And tonight, I think getting excited…I’m sorry.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror, but it was dark in back and I couldn’t see her. “You don’t have one thing to apologize for,” I said. “Not one.” Then I added, “Wait, did you say you were excited?” And we both cracked up again.
Once we were in Uguisudani, she gave me directions to her apartment. I parked and opened the back of the van, and she rolled down to the pavement.
“So this is the place?” I asked. It was a soulless five-story ferroconcrete building, pretty new looking. Drab, but no more so than the one I lived in. Or used to live in. I wasn’t exactly sure of my status.
“Yeah. No stairs, see? Straight shot between here and the elevator.”
“You want me to come up?”
She paused. “I don’t know, we both need to clean up…”
“Oh, listen, if I come in, cleaning up is a requirement. Is there a bath?”
“Yeah, that’s half the reason I chose it, it’s new and the units all have their own baths. Back and forth to the sentō everyday would be a nightmare.”
�
��Well, what do you think?”
“What are you going to change into?”
I patted my bag. “I have a change of clothes right here.”
“I wondered why you’re always carrying it.”
“I just don’t have anywhere to leave it. No fixed address at the moment and all that. So…can I come up?”
I could tell she was nervous. But she said, “Okay.”
She lived on the second floor, a neat, functional 1K apartment—what in America would be known as a studio. A single bed on a platform, unlike the usual Japanese futon on the floor. Obviously easier to get in and out of. A kitchen table with no chairs. A tiny television. A nice stereo. That was about it.
We took our shoes and socks off in the genkan, but my feet were still moist with piss. “I should wipe my feet before I come in,” I said. “Do you have any towels?”
“Yeah. Hold on.” She wheeled herself in, pulled a towel out from a cabinet, and set it down on the floor. I stepped onto it. Fortunately, my pants had stopped dripping, but a bath and a change of clothes would be a welcome development.
Without thinking, I said, “Take a bath with me.”
“What? Jun, no.”
“Hey, it’s just to get clean. I have nothing but good intentions.”
She laughed a little nervously. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I…I don’t know you.”
“Yes, you do. You know me better than a lot of people.”
She looked down. There was a long pause. She said, “I don’t want you seeing my body. My legs.”
“We can turn off the light.”
“You don’t understand. They’re like…little rubber sticks. They just hang off my body.”
“You think if I see your legs, I won’t be attracted to you?”
She nodded. Christ, she looked so honest, and so ashamed…it made my heart ache.
I knelt in front of her and took her hands in mine. “Sayaka. That’s not going to happen.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Come with me,” I said. “It’ll be dark. We’ll soap up and rinse off and then we’ll sit in a warm tub and I’ll kiss you and hold you like we were doing at Kitazawa-gawa. And we won’t do anything else if you don’t want to. Okay?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know.”
“Okay?”
There was a long pause. Finally, she said, “Let me get in first.”