I supposed it was strange to feel the urge to say goodbye to any of this. After all, none of it had ever been mine. I had understood even as a child that to be half Japanese is to be half something else, and to be half something else is to be… chigatte. Chigatte, meaning “different,” but equally meaning “wrong.” The language, like the culture, makes no distinction.
I also went to Kyoto. I had found no occasion to visit the city in over twenty years, and was struck to find that the graceful, vital metropolis I remembered was nearly extinct, disappearing like an unloved garden given over to vapid, industrious weeds. Where was the fulgent peak of Higashi Honganji Temple, sweeping upward among the surrounding tiled roofs like the upturned chin of a princess among her retainers? That magnificent view, which had once greeted travelers to the city, was now blotted out by the new train station, an abomination that sprawled along a half-mile length of tracks like a massive turd that had plummeted from space and come to rest there, too gargantuan to be carted away.
I walked for hours, marveling at the extent of the destruction. Cars drove through Daitokuji Temple. Mount Hiei, the birthplace of Japanese Buddhism, had been turned into a parking lot, with an entertainment emporium on its summit. Streets that had once been lined with ancient wooden houses accented with bamboo trellises were now tawdry with plastic and aluminum and neon, the wooden houses dismantled and gone. Everywhere were metastasizing telephone lines, riots of electric wires, laundry hanging from prefabricated apartment windows like tears from idiot eyes.
On my way back to Osaka, I entered the Grand Hotel, more or less the geographic center of the city. I took the elevator to the top floor, where, with the exception of the Toji Pagoda and a sliver of the Honganji Temple roof, I was confronted in all directions by nothing but interchangeable urban blight. The city’s living beauty had been beaten back into clusters of cowering refugees, like the results of some inexplicable experiment in cultural apartheid.
I thought of the poem by Basho, the wandering bard, which had moved me when my mother had first related it, on my earliest visit to the city. She had taken my hand as we stood upon the towering scaffold of Kiyomizu Temple, looking out upon the still city before us, and, surprising me with her accented Japanese, had said:
Kyou nite mo kyou natsukashiya… Though in Kyoto, I long for Kyoto…
But the meaning of the poem, once a paean to ineffable, unfulfillable longing, had changed. Like the city itself, it was now sadly ironic.
I smiled without mirth, thinking that, if any of this had been mine, I would have taken better care of it. This is what you get if you put your trust in the government, I thought. People ought to know better.
I felt my pager buzz. I unclipped it and saw the code Tatsu and I had established to identify ourselves, along with a phone number. I’d been half expecting something like this, but not quite so soon. Shit, I thought. Things are so close.
I took the elevator down to the lobby, and walked out into the street. When I had found a pay phone in a suitable innocuous location, I inserted a phone card and punched in Tatsu’s number. I could have just ignored him, but it was hard to predict what he might do in response to that. Better to know what he wanted, while maintaining the appearance of cooperation.
There was a single ring, then I heard his voice. “Moshi moshi,” he said, without identifying himself.
“Hello,” I replied.
“Are you still in the same place?”
“Why would I want to leave?” I asked, letting him hear the sarcasm.
“I thought that, after our last meeting, you might choose to… travel again.”
“I might. Haven’t gotten around to it yet. I thought you’d know that.”
“I am trying to respect your privacy.”
Bastard. Even when he was busily ruining my life, he could always coax a smile out of me. “I appreciate that,” I told him.
“I would like to see you again, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I hesitated. He already knew where I lived. He didn’t have to arrange a meeting elsewhere, if he’d wanted to get to me. “Social visit?” I asked.
“That is up to you.”
“Social visit.”
“All right.”
“When?”
“I’ll be in town tonight. Same place as last time?”
I hesitated again, then said, “Don’t know if we’ll be able to get in. There’s a hotel very near there, though, with a good bar. My kind of place. You know what I’m talking about?”
I was referring to the bar at the Osaka Ritz-Carlton.
“I imagine I can find it.”
“I’ll meet you at the bar at the same time we met last time.”
“Yes. I will look forward to seeing you then.” A pause. Then: “Thank you.”
I hung up.
7
I TOOK THE Hankyu train back to Osaka and went straight to the Ritz. I wanted to be sure I was in position at least a few hours early, in case there was anything I would want to see coming. I ordered a fruit and cheese plate and drank Darjeeling tea while I waited.
Tatsu was punctual, as always. He was courteous, too, moving slowly and letting me see him to show he didn’t intend any surprises. He sat down across from me in one of the upholstered chairs. He looked around, taking in the light wood paneling, the wall sconces and chandeliers.
“I need your assistance again,” he said, after a moment.
Predictable. And right to the point, as always. But I’d make him wait before responding. “You want a whiskey?” I asked. “They’ve got a nice twelve-year-old Cragganmore.”
He shook his head. “I’d like to join you, but my doctor advises me to refrain from such indulgences.”
“I didn’t know you listened to your doctor.”
He pursed his lips as though in preparation for a painful admission. “My wife, too, has become strict about such matters.”
I looked at him and smiled, faintly surprised at the image of this tough, resourceful guy deferring sheepishly to a wife.
“What is it?” he asked.
I told him the truth. “It’s always good to see you, you bastard.”
He smiled back, a network of creases appearing around his eyes. “Kochira koso.” The same here.
He gestured to the waitress and ordered chamomile tea. Because he wasn’t drinking, I stayed away from the Cragganmore. A small pity.
Then he turned to me. “As I was saying, I need your assistance again.”
I drummed my fingers along my glass. “I thought you said this would be a social visit.”
He nodded. “I was lying.”
I had already known that, and he knew that I knew. Stilclass="underline" “I thought you said I could trust you.”
“On the important things, certainly. Anyway, a social visit doesn’t preclude a request for a favor.”
“Is that what you’re asking for? A favor?”
He shrugged. “You are no longer obligated to me.”
“I used to get paid a lot of money when I did favors for people.”
“I am pleased to hear you say ‘used to.” ’
“I was able to say it pretty accurately, until just recently.”
“May I continue?”
“As long as we’re clear from the outset that there’s no obligation here.”
He nodded again. “As I have said.” He paused to withdraw a tin of mints from inside his coat pocket. He opened the tin and extended it toward me. I shook my head. He withdrew a mint and placed it in his mouth without dipping his head or stopping to look at what he was doing. It wasn’t Tatsu’s way to take his eyes off what was going on around him, and it showed in the little things as well as the more significant.