Something Strange Across the River Read online

  “Have you been here a long time?”

  “About a year, maybe a little longer?”

  “But you’re not new to the area, are you? Were you a geisha or something?”

  I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear me over the sound of the bubbling water or if she had simply feigned a sudden auditory impairment, but she said nothing, just sat down in front of the mirror, still undressed. She pulled her hair up and began powdering her shoulders.

  “Where’d you come from? You can’t just keep that secret.”

  “I know… but it wasn’t Tokyo.”

  “The suburbs?”

  “No, much further…”

  “China?”

  “I was in Utsunomiya. All my kimonos are from thereabouts too. I’d rather not talk about it.” She stood up and pulled on a robe that had been hanging on a hook. The under-sash was lined with thin red stripes and finished with a large knot in the front, which was just large enough to give balance to her nearly oversized chignon with its silver threads. She appeared to me just as a courtesan from a previous age. She sat down beside me and fiddled with her robe until it was just right before opening a package of cigarettes.

  “We’re already here, so the amount doesn’t matter. But do see to it that you show your appreciation, just to keep up appearances.” She passed me a lit cigarette.

  I couldn’t claim total ignorance of the area’s reputation. “50 sen for the tea, isn’t it?”

  “Naturally. I’d say that’s about standard,” she said with a smile. She moved her hand closer to mine.

  “Well, let’s decide on a time. About an hour?”

  “It just doesn’t seem right. I’m terribly sorry about all this—really I am.”

  “Well, in exchange…” I said and took her hand. I pulled her close to me and whispered in her ear.

  “I don’t know about that!” she glared at me, eyes blazing, and slapped my shoulder. “Dummy.”

  Readers of Tamenaga Shunsui will be familiar with the author’s tendency to break from his narrative to apologize on behalf of himself or his characters. So when a young girl, hopelessly in love for the first time, forgets her shame and throws herself at the man she loves, the author interjects on her behalf and warns the reader not to think her a harlot or flippant. Indeed, he says, the simple girl, when deeply in love, can move with the allure and seduction of a geisha. Furthermore, the world-weary professional woman, well known in the ways of love, can, upon an encounter with a childhood friend, squirm and blush like a fresh faced virgin.

  Anyone with sufficient experience in such matters can attest to the truth of his statements, and I would not be one to declare his observations deficient.

  Taking a cue from Shunsui, I will elaborate further here, perhaps more than necessary. The reader may note my description of this woman, and the overly familiar way she behaved upon meeting me in the street. The reader might find this odd, even suspicious. But I would beg the reader keep in mind one thing: I have simply stated exactly what happened when we met, with absolutely no elaboration on my behalf. I have no unscrupulous intentions. There may even be a reader or two who smirks to themselves upon reading my account of what occurred just after the sudden downpour on that day. However, due to my desire to give proper and true consideration to the preceding events, I would not wish to build castles in the air for my enjoyment. But what happened that night, just as the sun went down, was so traditional, so conventional, that truthfully I can find nothing of interest to say about it.

  In truth, the reason I began to write this very text you hold in your hands was to see if I could find the interest in the action.

  The brothel women in that town must have numbered near eight hundred, but probably only one in ten had their hair tied up in elaborate chignons. Most of them dress up in an imitation of traditional Japanese style, some of them affect the air of a western dancer. This woman, the one who ran to get out of the rain, belonged to the small group of them who carried on the old ways, but even my attempts to describe her seem trite, hackneyed, and affected. I cannot avoid doing the description harm.

  The rain didn’t stop.

  When she first let me into the house it was raining so hard that I’d had to raise my voice to be heard over the din, but the wind howling at the door and the booming thunder had died off, leaving only the sound of the raindrops battering the roof and the heavy drops pooling and dripping to the ground. For the first time in a while the street was cleared of people’s chattering and the sounds of their feet on the pavement, and then, suddenly:

  “Oh, dear!” came the shriek of a passing woman.

  “There are guppies swimming around out here!”

  The woman stood up and peeked out between the ribbons. “The house is fine. If the embankment overflows the water will come up to here.”

  “Sounds like it’s letting up a bit.”

  “If it pours in the evening like this then it doesn’t matter if it clears up. Please just make yourself at home. I’m going to go ahead and eat.”

  She opened the tea shelves and pulled out some pickled radishes, which she piled on a plate before reaching in again and taking out some bowls and a little aluminum pot. She removed the lid and tentatively sniffed the interior of the pot before setting it, satisfied, on the brazier. A sideways glance showed the pot was filled with sweet potatoes.

  “Hey now—I’d forgotten. I’ve got something good here,” I said rummaging through my things. When I had changed trains at Kyobashi, I’d bought a package of dried Asakusa seaweed. I pulled it out and passed it to her.

  “You must have bought it for your wife,” she said.

  “I’m not married. I need to do my own shopping.”

  “Then you must live in an apartment with your girlfriend,” she giggled.

  “If that was true I wouldn’t be hanging around here. I’d have gone home a while ago, to hell with the rain and thunder.”

  “I suppose so.” She smiled contentedly to herself, as if she approved of my response. The pot was warming up, so she pulled off the lid and peeked inside. “Care to have some with me?”

  “I already ate.”

  “Then turn and look over that way.”

  “You cook your own rice?”

  “They bring it from the main house at lunch time and at midnight.”

  “What do you say we make some new tea? It’s gone cold.”

  “Oh, dear, that wasn’t very hospitable of me was it? Tell me something,” she said. “You like to have conversations over dinner?”

  “It’s preferable to eating alone.”

  “Oh, come now. You mean you really are all alone? You poor thing!”

  “Spare me your sympathy.”

  “It’s fine, I’ll find you some.”

  She made two bowls of tea rice. She seemed excited, giddy, as she carefully placed the chopsticks over the bowls before hurrying to put the small plates and pots back in the tea cabinet. She rolled her chin back and forth as if trying to keep down a radish-smelling burp.

  Outside the door came the sound of feet on pavement and the raucous laughter of a man.

  “Looks like the rain has stopped. I’d like to come by again someday soon.”

  “Please do. I’m here in the afternoon too.”

  She saw me pull on my coat and soon she had rushed behind me and straightened my collar. She set her cheek on my shoulder. “See you soon then.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “I’ve got a card. Hold on a minute.”

  When I was pulling on my shoes she rushed to the small window, where there was a box sitting. From the box she produced a small card, in the shape of a shamisen pick. The address said Terajima, 7-chome, No. 61, and her name was Yukiko Ando.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Head straight home.”

  Chapter Four

  An excerpt from Disappearance:

  Near the center of Azuma Bridge, Junbei Taneda pressed himself against the railing and gazed at the Matsuya cloc
k. His mind was on the people passing him. He was waiting for Sumiko, who would come to meet him after she closed up her shop. He made sure to take the long way around to meet her.

  The bridge was free of taxis, trains, and buses, but there were some people walking by (in short, thin shirts to fight off the warming days), and the girls had bundles tucked under their arms, probably on their way home. Junbei planned to spend the night at Sumiko’s apartment and use the time to consider where he would go next. He had not thought of what the woman would do after he left, and he didn’t have the time or composure to think of it now. All he could think of was the 20 years of his life, up until that point, that he had wasted on his family. A boiling discontent stirred within him.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting!” Sumiko trotted over much earlier than expected. “I normally come by Komagata Bridge, but I was with Kaneko today. She can be so annoying.”

  “I think the trains have stopped.”

  “It’s only three stops or so. But we can catch a taxi over there.”

  “I hope they have a room.”

  “If not, why don’t you just stay at my place tonight?”

  “You sure that’s okay?”

  “Don’t think anything of it.”

  “But don’t you see those articles in the paper? So- and-so caught in an apartment…”

  “That depends where you are. I’m sure of it. I have a lot of freedom at my place. The girls beside and across from me both work the brothels. I see people coming and going from the girl next door’s place all the time.”

  Before they finished crossing the bridge they picked up a taxi for Akiha Shrine. They agreed to 30 sen.

  “This area sure has changed. How far does the train go now?”

  “Mukojima. Right in front of Akiha. The buses go all the way out to Tamanoi though.”

  “Tamanoi…That was just down that way, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I went there once. Just for some sightseeing. Must have been five or six years ago.”

  “It’s a great place. Bustling. They set up shops every night and even put on shows in the fields.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Junbei watched the towns slide by the car window, and soon the vehicle came to a stop in front of the Akiha Shrine. Sumiko pulled at the door handle.

  “This is just fine. Right,” she said, passing a pinch of change to the driver. “Let’s turn in down there. Better to stay away from that police box.”

  They followed the stone wall of the shrine around a corner and Junbei found himself in a small alleyway, lined on both sides with lanterns covered in the names of various brothels. At the darkened corner of a large, empty lot stood a square cement building. A lantern lit the front. Azuma Apartments was scrawled over the paper. Sumiko slid the door open, stepped inside, brushed off her shoes, and slid them into a box with a number that matched that of her apartment. Junbei made to do the same when she stopped him.

  “Let’s bring them upstairs. Someone will notice them here.”

  She passed him her own slippers and, slipping her fingers between the thongs of his wooden shoes, hurried up the stairwell.

  The walls and windows looked western-styled, but the interior pillars were thin and rounded in the Japanese style. The softly creaking stairs led to a hallway, at the corner of which was a small kitchen. A woman in a slip was drying her hair and filling a kettle on the stove with water.

  Sumiko gave her a polite, “Evening,” and turned a key to open the second-to-last door on the right.

  It was a small room with dirtied tatami mats. One wall was dedicated to the closet, while at another stood a wardrobe. The remaining wall was covered with hanging bathrobes and nightgowns. Sumiko slid a window open. “It’s cool here.” She set out cushions. Socks and belts hung from the window.

  “It must be nice to live this way. It must be free. Makes marriage look ridiculous by comparison.”

  “They keep asking me to come back home. But I can’t do that anymore.”

  “If only I’d come to my senses earlier. It’s too late now,” said Junbei as he set his weight against the windowsill and gazed out at the sky. And then, as if he suddenly remembered it, he asked “Can you ask if they have any open rooms?”

  Sumiko appeared as though she was waiting to prepare the tea. She stepped out into the hallway to get the hot water and paused. She spoke to another woman and hurried back into the room.

  “Sounds like the room across the hall is open. But the landlord isn’t here tonight.”

  “So I suppose they won’t rent it out to me? Tonight I mean.”

  “Why not stay here for a night or two? As long as you’re not bothered by it.”

  Junbei was taken aback. “I’m fine, but what will you do?”

  “I’ll sleep here. Or I can go next door for the night. As long as her boyfriend isn’t staying over.”

  “No one comes here looking for you?”

  “Nope, at least not yet. So I don’t mind you staying. Of course, I wouldn’t want to expose you to any unwanted… temptation.”

  Junbei’s face quickly went through a series of contortions, as if he wanted to laugh, then as if he was very sad and shamed. He said nothing.

  “You say you have a wife and daughter after all…”

  “I’m not worried about that kind of thing. I’m starting over now. A new life.”

  “You’ll live separately?”

  “Yes, or just separate completely.”

  “You know that doesn’t go over very well most of the time.”

  “That’s why I’m thinking it over. I don’t care if it involves a little violence, I just need to disappear for a little while. If I can do that I’m sure I’ll find a way out of all this. Listen, Sumiko—if there aren’t any open rooms then I don’t want to put you out. I’ll go find another place to stay tonight. Why don’t we go look around the town?”

  She paused. “I have something I’d like to discuss too. I’m worried about something, and I don’t know what to do. Can’t you just stay up talking with me tonight?”

  “Dawn is coming earlier and earlier this time of year.” “I went for a drive out to Yokohama recently. The sun was already coming up by the time we made it home.”

  “If we talk about all that, from the beginning, it must have been tough for you to work as a maid at my house. Not to mention all that you must have been through since you started your new… profession.”

  “That’s true. We might not get through all of it in one night,” she laughed.

  The second floor had been nearly silent the whole time, but suddenly the voices of a man and woman came floating down the hall, along with the sloshing of water down by the kitchen. Sumiko appeared set on talking the whole night through. She unwrapped her belt and neatly folded it before removing her socks and filing them away in the closet. She wiped the table down with a cloth until it was spotless and began to brew tea before speaking. “And why do you think it is that I’ve chosen this life?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose you had always harbored an interest in the work?”

  “Well, I suppose there was a little bit of that. But there were other motivators. I despise my father’s business.”

  “Which was?”

  “He likes to say he takes care of people, he thinks himself valorous,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper.

  “Anyway, he runs some sort of gang…”

  Chapter Five

  The rainy season came to an end with an oppressive wave of heat, and perhaps it was because every single door of every single house stood open to try and fight it that normally unnoticed sounds seemed to fill the hot air. Among these sounds, none gave me more trouble that the persistent sound of the radio, which emanated from my neighbor’s house. We were separated only by a thin, wooden fence.

  Waiting for the evening air to cool, I made to sit at my desk under the light when I was startled by the sudden, shrill sound of cracking and splitting from the speaker. It did
not cease until past nine o clock. Among the noise came the blaring, obnoxious sound of political debate in the Kyushu accent, followed quickly by some type of drama read in the affected tone of a school play. The producers had mixed in western orchestration to ‘enrich’ the drama. As if the sound of the radio was not enough to satisfy them, plenty of other houses blared popular songs from their gramophones. Whenever summer comes and the doors slide open, to spare myself the annoyance of their cacophony, I have made a point of eating my dinners early, or skipping them all together, and leaving my house when six o’ clock draws near. This is not to imply that just leaving the house will get me far enough away from the radios to spare my ears their wretched influence. Putting some distance between them and myself may spare me the intensity of people’s radios and the bustling of shops, but it is replaced by the chugging of trains and the whirring of cars to the extent that the whole town seems to be buzzing and clicking with noise. Yes, the noise is there, but compared to sitting alone in my study, I find that it doesn’t bother me so much when I am walking. It’s actually quite nice.

  My work on the Disappearance manuscript ceased with the end of the rains and the emergence of the radios. It had been ten days since I gave it up. I could feel my interest evaporating.

  This year, just as last year and the year before that, I left my house while the sun still hung on the horizon, but my walks were directionless. When Kojiro was alive I would have gone to Ginza, so cool at night, and I could have spend the whole night there without running out of things to see. But he has already passed on, and the lights of Ginza no longer hold my interest. Furthermore, there was an event that led me to avoid Ginza on my aimless wanderings. Before the earthquake there was a rickshaw driver who showed his face in all the geisha houses, and it was a face like a murderer—disheveled and snarling. He got along with no one, and bullied others. He wandered the streets of Owari and when he saw a face he remembered from somewhere he chased them down and pestered them relentlessly for money.

  Once, when this business had just started, I ran into him in front of Kurosawa’s and I gave him 50 yen. The kindness proved to be a mistake, after which he was sure to cause a scene the next time we met if I refused him another 50. I gave it to him once more. Moreover, it seemed I wasn’t the only one buying him drinks. Thinking it over, I once tricked him into accompanying me not to a bar, but to a police box down the street. The officers on duty were apparently old friends of his though, and they made no effort to assist me. Another time I saw him laughing with the officers at the police box in Izumo… but no, they’ve gone and renamed that area now. I believe it’s called the 7th district now. Regardless, the police seemed to prefer his company to mine.