Number9dream

by David Mitchell

  “The bird can’t be that dead. Look at your wife.”

  “The bird is dead. Look at my wife.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll see what I mean one day, my boy.”

  I’m about to go upstairs when three high school boys march in. The leader asks me: “You got Virtua Sapiens?”

  “Never heard of it,” says Buntaro. “The sequel of Homo?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a video game,” I explain. “Out last week.”

  The second-in-command ignores me. “Got Broadsword of Zyqorum then?”

  “No software. All videos.”

  “Told ya!” says the leader, and they troop out.

  “You’re welcome, guys.” Buntaro watches them go. “Y’know, Miyake, I have it on reliable authority—Baby and You, no less—that the average Japanese father spends seventeen minutes per day with his kid. The average grammar school boy spends ninety-five minutes per day inside video games. A new generation of electronic daddies. When Kodai is born, he is getting his bedtime stories from his parents, not from sicko druggo psycho freako programmers. I’m already getting ready my big fat ‘No’ for when Kodai comes running for a video game machine thing.”

  “What if he comes running in tears because none of the kids in his class will talk to him because his daddy’s too mean to buy him a game system?”

  “I—” Buntaro frowns. “I never thought of that. What did your dad do?”

  “He was in another part of the country.”

  “What about your mom, then?”

  One little lie leads to another. “I had my soccer club. Anyway, I need to, uh, get cleaned up.” I climb up to my capsule, shower—by the time I towel myself dry I am sweaty enough for another shower—and unroll my futon. I lie down, but sleep is not coming. Ai Imajo keeps floating up. Her supple neck, her smile. She says my name. I get up and try to do some bottleneck guitar chords, but my fingers are rusty. I check the cockroach motel. Only one guest—a baby. Cockroach has spread the word about motel hospitality. Cat comes back and laps her water dish dry. I fill it up, but she laps it dry again.

  Later I go out to buy the Tokyo Evening Mail. I take the submarine into Ueno, and find a quiet place in the park to fill out the classified ad box. I make several false starts—it is crucial that I don’t write anything that will provoke my stepmother or make it look like I want money. Finally I’m satisfied with Plan C: a short, simple message. I’ll post it tomorrow during my lunch break. I suck a champagne bomb. Ueno Park is full of families, kids, couples, old people, rings of foreigners—Brazilians maybe, Chinese, each nationality on its own patch of territory. Museumgoers, photographers, skateboarders. Cicadas in the trees, babies under the trees, an amusement park through the trees. Oily pigeons. Velocidrome motorbikes rip around the far perimeter. The air is cotton candy, incense, zoo, and octopus dumpling–flavored. I walk down to Shinobazu Pond to watch people feed the ducks. I lie down against a tree and put Mind Games on my Discman. It is the hottest afternoon in the history of September. I watch clouds. Here comes Picture Lady, arguing with an invisible companion. I wonder if I will ever find the guts to ask Ai Imajo out on a date. I watch a young woman feeding the ducks bread crusts from a paper bag. She has a stack of library books on her bench. I drowse. The woman wheels her bicycle over, as if she wants to talk to me. She studies my face. I press STOP on my Discman and park noises flood back. “No,” she finally says, “this is not just one of those coincidences.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She shakes her head in disgusted disbelief. “Daimon is actually spying on me.”

  I prop myself up. “Who are you?”

  She sets her face hard. “I do not need this.”

  Uh?

  Her finger curses me as she hisses. “Tell him to go fuck himself! Tell him to sell his elopement fantasies to his squeaky schoolgirls! Tell him he is worth nothing! Tell him my country stopped being a Japanese colony at the end of the last war! Tell him if he tries to call I’ll change my number! Tell him that if he shows his face at my apartment I’ll drive a fork into it! Tell Yuzu Daimon to slime away and die! And all of this applies to you, too.”

  Ducks honk.

  All at once I understand. This woman is Miriam, the hostess at Queen of Spades. The woman who didn’t meet Yuzu Daimon at the video arcade yesterday evening. The woman I helped Daimon get even with. This is awful. “I swear,” I begin, “I—I had no idea, I wasn’t spying on you just now, I—” ducks flap by “—I never realized, I mean, this is all a mistake, I had no idea you would be here—how could I? I mean, I don’t even know Daimon, really—”

  First, the sycamore tree blips spokes. Second, it sinks in that she kicked me hard and straight and true, in the balls. Third, I writhe on the ground as acorns of agony spatter down around me. Fourth, I hear her voice, cold enough to freeze the pond. “I know exactly who you are, Eiji Miyake. You are a leech who tells lies for a living. Exactly like your father.” She walks to her bike. I try to ignore the pain and replay her last line. “Wait!” She is already cycling away. I wobble to my feet. Your father, she said. “Wait!” She is pedaling away, over the causeway between the duck pond and the boating lake. I try to run but the pain takes my breath away. “Miriam! Wait!” Mothers with pushchairs turn to look, a bunch of motorbike kids watch and laugh. Even the ducks laugh. “Miriam!” I crouch down, defeated, and watch her disappear into mirages and spray from the fountains. She knows my father! I want to feel hope but I want to bawl with frustration. I hobble back to my stuff, where I find one thing more, lying in the dust between the roots of the sycamore. A library book that fell when Miriam crippled me. What book is it? I can’t read a word—it is in Korean.

  In the Shibuya backstreets I am lost in no time. Last night and this afternoon seem weeks, not hours, apart. This grid of narrow streets and bright shadows, and the pink quarter of midnight seem to be different cities. Cats and crows pick through piles of trash. Brewery trucks reverse around corners. Water spatters from overflow pipes. Shibuya’s night zone is drowsing, like a hackneyed comedian between acts. My eyes begin to get lost in the signboards—WILD ORCHID, YAMATO NADE-SHIKO, MAC’S, DICKENS, YUMI-CHAN’S. Even if I happened to find Queen of Spades, search fatigue would probably stop me seeing. I left Shooting Star without my watch, and I have no idea how fast the afternoon is passing. My feet are aching and I taste dust. So hot. I fan myself with my baseball cap. It makes no difference. An old mama-san waters marigolds in her third-story window box. When I look back at her she is still watching me, absently.

  The phone booth is a safari of porn and smells of never-washed trousers. You don’t need to buy sex mangas in Tokyo—just find the nearest pay phone. I and my cousins would have saved a fortune. All the shapes and sizes I ever imagined, and lots of others, too. Threesomes, foursomes, S&M, high school revue, special silver service for octogenarians. “Information,” answers a woman. “What city, please?”

  “Tokyo.”

  “What area, please?”

  “Shibuya.”

  “And the name, please?”

  Miss Manila Sunrise pouts over two beach balls—no, surely—

  “Name, please?”

  —they can’t actually be her actual, bodily—

  “Name, please!”

  “Uh, sorry. I’m trying to track down a bar. Queen of Spades.”

  “Queen of Spades . . . one moment, please.” Keyboard taps.

  Miss Whippy Cream licks the froth off her stilettos.

  Keyboard taps. “Queens of England . . . Queer Sauna . . . sorry. Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? It was there last night. Could it be a new number?”

  Mrs. Mopp rides a broom, speech ballooning: “In! Out! Shake it all about!”

  “New numbers are added to the computer as they are registered.”

  “So if Queen of Spades isn’t on your computer . . .”

  “Then it must be unlisted.”

  Weird. “What kind of bar wants to hide its
telephone number?”

  “A very exclusive one, I imagine. Sorry, but I can’t help you.”

  “Oh well. Thanks for trying.”

  I hang up. One big card is handwritten in childish letters. It has no telephone number. “If you want sex with me, I’m standing outside.” I look around. She looks right at me through the glass. Sixteen? Fifteen? Fourteen? Her eyes have a damaged look. She presses her lips softly against the glass. I scuttle away, faster than Cockroach.

  The police-box door is stiff. I have to grind it open. Ancient Aum Shinrikyo wanted posters, Dial 110 posters, Join-the-Police-and-Serve-Japan posters. One offer I’ll pass, thanks. Filing cabinets. The same black-and-white clock with the gliding second hand you get in all government buildings. A Citibank calendar, rustling in the breeze from the paddling fan. The cop is tilted back with his hands behind his head, deep in meditation. One eyelid rises. “Son?”

  “Excuse me. I’m looking for a bar.”

  “You’re looking for a bar.” His words leak from the side of his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “Will any bar do? Or does it have to be one bar in particular?”

  “I’m looking for one bar in particular.”

  “You’re looking for one bar in particular.”

  “Yes.”

  A sigh as long as the end of the world. The other eyelid rises. Two bloodshot eyeballs. A long silence. He leans forward, his chair screeches, and he slowly unfolds a map on the desk. Upside down. “Name?”

  “Eiji Miyake.”

  A long stare. “Not your name, genius. The name of the bar.”

  “Uh, sorry. Queen of Spades.”

  The cop focuses and darkens. “You are a member of this bar?”

  I swallow. “Not exactly. I went there last night.”

  He frowns as if I am being evasive. “Somebody took you?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  He peers at me from another angle. “And you want to go back? Why?”

  “I need to speak to a sort of—friend—who works there.”

  “You need to speak to a sort of friend who works there. How old exactly did you say you are?”

  “I, uh, didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t, genius. That is why I asked. How old are you?” What is this about? “I’m twenty.”

  “ID.”

  Nervously, I open my wallet and hand over my driver’s license. The cop scrutinizes it. “Eiji Miyake, resident of Kagoshima Prefecture. In Tokyo to work?” I nod. He reads. “Date of birth, September ninth. You were twenty yesterday, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So upon visiting said bar you were under the minimum legal drinking age. Correct?”

  “I went to Queen of Spades yesterday. On my birthday.”

  “You went to said bar yesterday. On your birthday.”

  “All I want is the address of this place, Officer.”

  He searches my face for clues for a long time. Eventually he hands back my license. “Then all I can suggest is you obtain said address by calling said sort of friend. Queen of Spades is not listed on any map of mine.” The end. I bow and leave, struggling to slide the door shut as he memorizes my face.

  I admit defeat. My legs are about to unscrew and fall off. I explored every street and alley in Shibuya, twice at least, but Queen of Spades is no longer here. I buy a can of Calpis and a packet of Seven Stars and sit down on a step. Could I find Daimon back at the pool hall? No. He will avoid the place for a long time, to avoid me. If only Miriam had said she knew my father last night. How did she know my name? Because Daimon mentioned it several times. “Miyake” is pretty common, though. Daimon signed me in, and she must have seen the weird kanji for “Eiji.” My father must have talked about me. I swig from my can and light a Seven Star. My father moves in these exclusive club circles—about the only thing I know about him is his wealth. I imagine smoke swirling in my lungs, dust in sunny mine shafts. Bumping into Miriam at Shinobazu Pond—not so outlandish, really. She feeds ducks, how many places can you feed ducks in Tokyo? I balance my cigarette on the lip of the can and flick through Miriam’s dropped library book. Wow. Being kicked in the balls by the same woman who hostesses my father. No. Something is wrong. All these coincidences are too weird. Still. Finding where they join into an explanation is a sort of Plan D. I wonder if my father is a womanizer, like Daimon’s father seems to be? I always imagined him as a sort of faithful adulterer. Still, I am here to meet him, not judge him. The cigarette rolls off the can, which, all on its own, has begun to vibrate, wobble, and . . .

  . . . fall over, the ground groans, windows sing, buildings shake, shit I shake, adrenaline seeps, a million sentences drop dead, elevators die, millions more Tokyoites dive under tables and into doorways—I curl into a sort of ball, already flinching under the mass of falling masonry— and the whole city and I hurl up shining prayers to anyone—anyone — God, gods, kami, ancestors—who might be listening: stop this stop this stop this now, please, please, please don’t let this be the big one, not the big one, not today, not now, not another Kobe, not another 1917, not today, not here. Calpis runs in a delta over the thirsty sidewalk. Buntaro told me you get vertically oscillating earthquakes and horizontally oscillating ones. Horizontal ones are okay. Vertical ones floor cities. But how do you tell one from the other? Who cares, just STOP!

  The earthquake stops.

  I uncrouch, newborn and dumb, not believing it quite yet. Silence. Breathe. Relief tests its feeble muscles. People switch on their radios to find out if it was just a local snore or if Yokohama or Nagoya has been rubbled off the map of Japan. I right my can and light another cigarette. Then I see something else I can’t trust myself to believe, quite yet. Across the road from my step is the entrance to a passageway. The passageway runs into the building and ends at an elevator. Next to the elevator is a signboard. On the signboard, next to number 9, two trapezoid eyes stare straight back at me. I know those eyes. The eyes of the queen of spades.

  The elevator doors open with a bronze gong. A bucket of soapy water stands beside the projector. A woman in dungarees is cleaning tiny holes in the planetarium with a toothpick. She glances at me from her stepladder, obviously not worried by the possibility of aftershocks. “We open at nine, I’m afraid, sir.” Then she sees how scuzzy my clothes are. “Not another trendy young sales geek, please.” So I skip the pleasantries too. “I was hoping I could have a quick word with Miriam.”

  I am scanned. “Who are you exactly?”

  “My name is Miyake. I was here last night with Yuzu Daimon. Miriam was our hostess. I just need to ask her one question. Then I’ll go.”

  The woman shakes her head. “I think you’ll go right now, actually.”

  “Please. I’m not a psycho or anything. Please.”

  “Miriam isn’t working tonight, anyway.”

  “Can I just have her telephone number?”

  She toothpicks a hole. “What is this question of yours?”

  “A personal one.”

  I have never been so looked at until today. She jerks her thumb toward the curtain door. “You’d better speak to Shiyori.” I thank her and make my way through to the smoking chamber. The tapestries are rolled up and sunlight leans against the windows in solid bars. Women in T-shirts and jeans sit around slurping somen noodles. A mechanical parrot is being operated upon by a fragile lady. When I enter, all conversation stops. “Yeah?” asks one of the girls.

  “The girl in the entrance told me to ask for Shiyori.”

  “That’s me.” She pours herself some oolong tea. “What do you want?”

  “I need to speak with Miriam.”

  “She isn’t working today.”

  Another girl rearranges her chopsticks. “You were here last night. One of Yuzu Daimon’s guests.”

  “Yes.”

  The vibes turn from indifference to hostility. Shiyori washes out her mouth with tea. “So he sent you over to see how his little prank went down, did he?” “I don’t understand
,” says another, “how he gets a kick out of the way he treats her.” Another girl chews a chopstick blunt. “The way I see it, if you think Miriam is going to want to be in the same room as you, you are crazy.”

  “I had no idea there was anything between them.”

  “Then you are a blind moron.”

  “Fine. I am a blind moron. But I have to speak to Miriam about something.”

  “What is so urgent exactly?”

  “I can’t talk about it. Something she said.”

  The women fall quiet as the parrot woman puts down a tiny screwdriver. “If you wish to speak with Miriam, you need to become a member of this club.” I realize she is the mama-san from last night. “Prospective members must collect nine nominations from existing members, excluding Yuzu Daimon, who is now barred. The application fee is three million yen—nonreturnable. If the selection committee approves your application, the first annual payment is nine million yen. Upon receipt of this, you are free to ask Miriam anything you wish. In the meantime, tell Yuzu Daimon he would be wise to leave the city for a long time. Mr. Morino is most displeased.”

  “Could I just leave a note for—”

  “No. You can just leave.”

  I open my mouth—

  “I said, you can just leave.”

  Now what?

  “Masanobu Suga?” The receptionist at Imperial University looks blank. “A student? But it’s four in the afternoon on Sunday! He’ll probably be having breakfast.”

  “He’s a postgraduate. Computers.”

  “In that case he won’t have gotten out of bed yet.”

  Her colleague leans over and mouths, “Flake-face.”

  “Oh! Him. Suga, yeah. Go on up. Nine-eighteen.”

  Another elevator. The doors open at the third floor, and some students get in. I feel as though I am an enemy intruder. They carry on their conversation. I had imagined students only ever talk about philosophy, engineering, and whether love is something sacred or merely sexual programming: they are discussing the best way of getting past the hydra in Zax Omega and Red Plague Moon . So this is where the top students in my high school were bound. I summon the courage to tell the students to attack the hydra with the flamethrower, but the doors open for the ninth floor. I always thought universities were wide and flat. In Tokyo they are tall and thin. The corridor is deserted. I walk up and down a few times, trying to figure out how the room numbers work. Perhaps this is a part of the entrance examination. Finally I see “Masanobu Suga. Abandon hope, all Microsofters who enter here.” I knock. “Enter!” I push the door open. The air stinks of armpit, and the Doraemon bedspread over the window keeps the room as dank and dark as one. Bongo drums, manuals, magazines, computer equipment, a Zizzi Hikaru poster, a pot containing a stump, a complete set of manga entitled Vulvavaders from Cloud Nine, a pile of dead cup-ramen packs, and a mountain range of paper files. At Ueno lost property, Suga was forever harping on about paperless offices. The man himself is in the corner, hunched over his keyboard. Tappetty-tap-tap-tap-tappetty-beepetty-beep-beep-beep. “Shit!” He swivels around and peers at his visitor. He works to access my face and name, though only nine days have passed since Suga quit Ueno. “Miyake!”