Number9dream

by David Mitchell

  “What happened then?”

  “Auntie Money came and led her to the bedroom. I heard her”— Anju swallows—“she was crying.”

  “Mom was crying?”

  “Auntie Money came back and told me that if I told anyone what had happened, even you, a doctor might take Mom away, because the doctor might not understand.” Anju frowns. “So I kind of made myself forget it. But not really.”

  An owl hoots.

  I must go to sleep.

  Anju rocks herself, slowly, slowly.

  A dog in the distance barks at something, real or remembered.

  “Don’t go to Kagoshima tomorrow, Eiji.”

  “I have to go. I’m in defense.”

  “Don’t go.”

  I don’t understand. “Why not?”

  “Go, then. I don’t care.”

  “It’s only two days. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Anju snaps at me. “You’re not the only one who can do grown-up things!”

  Why is she angry now? “What do you mean by that?”

  “Me to know and you to guess!”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You’ll find out when you get back from your soccer game!”

  “Tell me!”

  “I can’t hear you! You’re in Kagoshima!”

  “Tell me!” I’m worried.

  Her voice turns spiteful. “You’ll see.”

  “Who cares what you do anyway?”

  “I saw the pearly snake this morning!”

  Now I know my sister is lying. The pearly snake is a stupid tale our grandmother tells to scare us. She says it has lived out in the Miyake storehouse since before she was born, and that it only ever appears to warn of a coming death. Anju and I stopped believing her ages ago, only our grandmother never noticed. I am offended that Anju thinks she can awe me into submission with the pearly snake. I listen to the March midnight bird trying to remember the words to its song. It always loses track, and starts in again. Every year I reremember this bird, but by the rainy season I forget it again. Much later, I try to make friends with my sister, but she is asleep, or pretending to be.

  FUJIFILM smuggled three o’clock over the border without my noticing. Two more hours to dawn. I am going to be exhausted all day at work. Mrs. Sasaki warned me Saturday is busier, not quieter, than weekdays, because commuters are more careful with their baggage than weekend shoppers and Friday nighters, and because a lot of people wait until Saturday before coming in to claim lost items. I guess the media people will be snooping around for follow-up stories about Mr. Aoyama. Poor guy. Sudden and rude as a bullet through a drumskin, the telephone riiiiiiiiings. That noise drills me with guilt and dread. The telephone riiiiiiiiings. Weird. I only got my number last week. Nobody knows it. The telephone riiiiiiiiings. Suppose a pervert is out there, trawling for kicks at random? I answer, and before I know it I have a psycho in my shower. No way am I answering. The telephone riiiiiiiiings. Buntaro? Some kind of emergency? What kind of emergency? The telephone riiiiiiiiiings. Wait. Someone at Osugi & Bosugi knows my number—suppose a coworker of Akiko Kato read my letter before she shredded it, and felt an unaccountable empathy with my plight. She contacts my father, who has to wait until his wife is asleep before daring to contact me. He is whispering coarsely, fiercely, in a closed-off part of his house. “Answer!” The telephone riiiiiiiiings. I have to decide now. No. Let it die. Answer it! I dive off my futon, trap my foot in a folding peg-frame, stub my toe on my guitar case, and lunge for the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero!” A singing man.

  “. . . hello?”

  “Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero.” A mildly irritated man.

  “Yes, I thought you said that.”

  “I never wrote that stupid jingle!” A buttered voice.

  “Me neither.”

  “Look here, young man—you delivered some flyers to our office, which promise that the first two hundred people to phone up off-peak and sing ‘Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero!’ are entitled to one free medium-size pizza of their choice. That is what I just did. I’ll have my regular Kamikaze: mozzarella crust, banana, quail eggs, scallops, triple chilis, octopus ink. Don’t chop the chilis. I like to suck them. Helps me concentrate. So—am I one of the first two hundred or am I not?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “It had better not be. All-night overtime makes me ravenous.”

  “I think you misdialed.”

  “Impossible. This is Nero’s pizzeria, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “So I called a private residence after three in the morning?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I am so, so dreadfully sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Not to worry. I have insomnia tonight, anyway.”

  “But I was so patronizing! I thought you were a numbskull pizza boy.”

  “No problem, really. But you have one weird taste in pizzas.”

  He chuckles with devious pride. He is older than I thought. “I invented it. At Nero’s they nickname it the Kamikaze—I heard the telephone girl tell the chef. The secret is the banana. It glues all the other tastes together. Anyway, I mustn’t take up any more of your time. Once more—my sincerest apologies. What I did to you was inexcusable. I didn’t mean to do it, but it just happened. Goodbye.” He hangs up.

  I wake up alone at the end of night. Anju’s futon is a discarded pile. Could she be out on the roof? I slide the mosquito net across. “Anju? Anju!” The wind sifts the bamboo, and the frogs start up. Fine. She wants to sulk, let her. Fifteen minutes later, I am dressed, breakfasted, and walking down the track to Anbo harbor with my sports bag and my new baseball cap Anju bought me with her pocket money from Uncle Tarmac. I catch sight of the Kagoshima ferry lit up like a starship on its launchpad and feel a vhirrr of excitement. This day is finally here. I am leaving for Kagoshima, on my own, and I refuse to let my stupid jealous sister make me feel guilty about leaving her for one night. I refuse. How can I even be sure what she said last night about our mother was true? She’s been acting weird lately. And then a fantastic idea comes to me. It is the greatest idea of my life. I am going to train, train, and train, and become such a brilliant soccer player that I will play for Japan on my twentieth birthday against Brazil in the World Cup final. Japan will be down 8–0 in the sixtieth minute, then I will be called on as a substitute and score three hat tricks by the end of injury time. I will be in newspapers and on TV all over the world. Our mother will be so proud that she gives up drinking, but better still our father sees me, recognizes me, and drives to the airport to meet the team jet. Of course Anju is waiting there too, and our mother, and we are reunited with the world watching. How perfect. How obvious. I am burning with genius and hope. A light is on in Anbo, and crossing the hanging bridge I see a flash. A salmon leaps.

  Where the river widens into an estuary, the valley is steep and narrow. Wheatie and the Anbo old people call it the Neck. It is the most haunted place, but I’m not afraid. I half-fear and half-hope Anju will ambush me. The faces between the pine trees are not really there. Where the water floods the track in the rainy season, a torii gate marks the beginning of the path that winds up the hill to the shrine of the thunder god. Wheatie warns us not to play there. She says that apart from the jomon cedars themselves, the thunder god is the oldest on Yakushima. Show disrespect to the thunder god, and the next time you cross water a tsunami will come and drown you. Anju wanted to ask if that was what happened to our grandfather, our mother’s father, but I made her promise not to. Mrs. Oki told a kid in our class that he drowned facedown in a ditch, drunk. Anyway, the villagers never bother the thunder god with small-fry favors like exams, money, or weddings— they go to Kakimoto-sensei’s new temple next to the bank for that. But for babies, and blessings for fishing boats, solace for dead relatives, they climb the steps to the shrine of the thunder god. Always alone.

&
nbsp; I check my Zax Omega watch. Plenty of time. The road to the World Cup starts today in Kagoshima, and I will need all the help I can get. Finding our father is big fry. No fry is bigger for Anju and me. Without another thought I sling my sports bag behind a mossy rock and, fueled by energy from my stupendous brain wave, start running up the muddy steps.

  I replace the phone. Weird guy, the way he kept apologizing. Maybe the telephone call will break the insomnia spell. Maybe my body will realize how tired it is, and finally shut down. I lie on my back and stare upward, doing chess knight moves on the ceiling tiles until I forget which ones I’ve already landed on. Then I begin again. On the third attempt I am overwhelmed by the pointlessness of the exercise. If I can’t sleep I may as well think about the letter. The Other Letter. The Big Letter. It came—when?—Thursday. Yesterday. Well, the day before yesterday. I get back to Shooting Star utterly exhausted. Thirty-six bowling balls were left on platform 9, the farthest platform from the lost-property office. Suga had performed his disappearing act so I had to lug them over one by one. They were claimed later by a team that was waiting for them at Tokyo Station. I am learning that laws of probability work differently in the field of lost property. Mrs. Sasaki once had a human skeleton wind up on her trolley, stuffed inside a backpack. A medical student left it on the train after a professor’s going-away party. Anyway, I get back to Shooting Star, dripping sweat, and Buntaro is perched on his stool behind the counter spooning down green-tea ice cream, studying a sheet of paper with a magnifying glass. “Hey, kid,” he says. “Want to see my son?” This is weird because Buntaro had told me that he doesn’t have any kids. Then he shows me a page of inky fuzz. I frown at my proud landlord. “The miracles of ultrasound scans!” he says. “Inside the womb!” I look at Buntaro’s belly, and he does a “very funny” face. “We decided on his name. Actually, my wife decided. But I agree. Want to know what name we decided?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Kodai. Ko as in ‘voyage,’ dai as in ‘great.’ Great Voyage.”

  “That is a really cool name,” I tell him, meaning it.

  Buntaro admires Kodai from various angles. “See his nose? This is his foot. Cute, huh?”

  “The cutest. What’s this shrimpy thing?”

  “How do you think we know he’s a he, genius?”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Another letter arrived for you. I would rig up a special mailbox for you, but then I’d miss out on the fun of steaming open my tenants’ private letters. Here you go.” He hands me a plain white envelope, originally postmarked in Miyazaki, and forwarded by Uncle Yen in Kagoshima. I slit it open and unfold three sheets of crumpled paper. On the video screen helicopters collide and buildings explode. Bruce Willis takes off his sunglasses and squints at the inferno. I read the first line and realize who the letter is from. I shove it into my jacket pocket and climb the stairs—I don’t want Buntaro to see the shock on my face.

  On the steps to the thunder god shrine, spiderwebs tug, tear, and stick to my face. Boiled-candy spiders. I trip and muddy up my knees. I try to forget the ghost stories I heard about how dead children live on these steps, but once you try to forget something you already remember it. Colossal ferns tower over me. Freshwater crabs skitter into rooty cracks. A deer thuds and disappears into a thicket. I focus on the ultimate reunion with our father once my ultimate plan bears fruit, and run, and run, and suddenly I am standing in the shrine clearing right at the top. I can see for miles. Inland mountains heave and lurch toward the breaking sky. Light smooths the sea over. I can see the windows on the Kagoshima ferry. I approach the bell nervously and look around for an adult to ask permission. I’ve never woken a god up before. Wheatie takes Anju and me to the harbor shrine every New Year’s Day to change our zodiac amulets, but that is a jolly affair of relatives, neighbors, and having our heads patted. This is the real thing. This is sober magic. Only me and the thunder god in his mildewed drowse. I grip the rope that swings the bell hammer—

  The first gong is to slosh through the forest, scaring pheasants.

  The second gong is to make swing-wing fighters wobble in turbulence.

  The third gong is to slam shut forever the iron doors.

  I wonder if Anju heard the bell in her sulking place. When I get back tomorrow I will tell her it was me. She will never admit to it, but she will be mightily impressed by my daring. This is like something she normally dreams up. I approach the shrine itself. The thunder god scowls. His face is hatred, typhoon, and nightmare all knotted up. I can’t back out now. He’s awake. My coin clatters into the donation box, I clap three times and close my eyes. “Good morning, uh, thunder god. My name is Eiji Miyake. I live with Anju and Wheatie in the last house up the valley track, past the big Yokata farmhouse. But you probably know that. I woke you up to ask for your help. I want to become the greatest soccer player in Japan. This is a big, big thing, so please don’t give me piles like you did the taxi driver.”

  “And in return?” asks the silence.

  “When I’m a famous soccer player I’ll, uh, come back and rebuild your shrine and stuff. Until then, anything that I can give you, you can have. Take it. You don’t have to ask me, just take it.”

  The silence sighs. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  “Anything? Are you sure?”

  “I said anything, and I mean it.”

  The silence lasts nine days and nine nights. “Done.”

  I open my eyes. The fin of an airliner trails rose and gold. Doves spin predictions. Down in Anbo harbor the Kagoshima ferry sounds a solitary horn, and I can see cars arriving. The million and one clocks of the forest flutter, dart, shriek, and howl into life. I rush off, flying down the muddy steps where the ghosts of the dead children are dissolving in the first sunlight.

  Miyazaki Mountain Clinic

  August 25

  Hello Eiji,

  How do I begin this? I already wrote a bad-tempered letter, then a moaning one, then a witty one that began, “Hello, I am your mother, nice to meet you.” Then one that began with “Sorry.” They are crumpled up, near the trash can on the other side of my room. I am a lousy shot.

  Hot summer, isn’t it? I knew it would be when the rainy season didn’t happen. (I suppose it is still raining in Yakushima, though. When doesn’t it?) So, you’re nearly twenty now. Twenty. Where do all the years go? Want to know how old I’ll be next month? Too old to tell anyone. I’m at this place receiving treatment for nerves/drinking. I never wanted to come back to Kyushu, but at least the mountain air here is cool. My therapist has advised that I write to you. I didn’t want to at first, but she is even more persistent than me. That looks wrong—I want to write to you, but after all this time, it’s so, so much easier not to. But I have this story (more a serial memory). My therapist says I can stop it hurting me only by telling you about it. So if you like, I’m writing out of selfishness. But here goes.

  Once upon a time I was a young mother living in Tokyo with infant you and infant Anju. The apartment was paid for by your father, but this story isn’t about him, or even Anju. This is about you and me. In those days, it looked like I was onto a good thing—a ninth-floor split-level apartment in a fashionable quarter of the big city, flower boxes on the balcony, a very rich lover with his own wife to wash his shirts. You and Anju, I have to admit, were not part of the plan when I left Yakushima, but it seemed that the life I led twenty years ago was better than the life of orange farming and island gossip that my mother (your grandmother) had arranged (behind my back, as usual) with Shintaro Baba’s people to marry me into. Believe me, he was every bit as much a slob a quarter of a century ago as I’m quite sure he is now.

  This isn’t easy to write.

  I was miserable. I was twenty-three, and everyone told me I was beautiful. The only company young mothers have is other young mothers. Young mothers are the most vicious tribe in the world if you don’t fit in. When they found out I was a “second wife” they decided I was an immoral infl
uence and petitioned the building manager to have me removed. Your father was powerful enough to block that, but none of them ever spoke to me afterward. As you know, nobody on Yakushima knew about you (yet), and the thought of living with all the knowing glances was too much.

  Around that time your father began seeing a newer-model mistress. A baby is not a sexy accessory on a woman. Twins are twice as unsexy. It was an ugly ending, you don’t want the details, believe me. (Maybe you do, but I don’t want to remember them.) When I was pregnant, he swore he’d take care of everything. Naive young petal that I was, I didn’t realize he was only talking about money. Like all weak men, he thought that if he acted confused enough, everyone would forgive him. His lawyers took over and I never saw him again. (Never wanted to.) I was allowed to live in the apartment, but not to sell it—it was during the bubble economy, and the value of the place was doubling every six months. This was shortly after your first birthday.

  I was not a well woman. (I’ve never been a very well woman, but at least now I know it.) Some women take to motherhood like they were mothers even before they were mothers—I was never cut out to be a mother, even when I was one. I still hate little children. All the money your father’s lawyer sent for your maintenance I spent on an illegal Filipina nanny so I could escape the apartment. I used to sit in coffee shops watching people walk by. Young women my age, working in banks, doing flower arranging, shopping. All the little ordinary things I had looked down on before I became pregnant.

  Two years passed. I got a job in another hostess bar, but I was jaded. I’d already caught my rich patron, and every time I went home you and Anju reminded me where rich patrons leave you. (Diapers and bawling and sleepless nights.) One morning you and I were alone in the house—you’d had a fever, so the nanny took Anju to kindergarten. Not the local one—the young-mother mafia had threatened to boycott it if it admitted you, so we had to get a kindergarten in another neighborhood to take you. You were bawling. Maybe because of the fever, maybe because there was no Anju. I’d been working all night so I washed down some pills with vodka and left you to it. Next thing I knew you were rattling my door—you were walking by this time, of course. My migraine wouldn’t let me sleep. I lost it. I screamed at you to go away. So of course you bawled some more. I screamed. Then silence. Then I heard you say the word. You must have gotten it from kindergarten.