Didn’t mean to talk about…
sorry.
Silence.
I reached across the table, my hand on his, and he did not pull away.
I felt the blood in the veins on the top of his hand.
I felt the tendons under his skin.
Was this pulse in my fingertips his heart, or mine?
He looked down, like a man ashamed, and did not pull away.
“I have a terror,” he said at last. “I… fear.”
I waited. All he needed was silence.
“I fear sometimes that… she isn’t real. That she does not exist. It is irrational, of course; we have evidence, DNA, prints, her face, her MO, we have everything we need to convict her. But everywhere we go, every crime she commits, people cannot remember her. Is she a trick, an illusion? A fabrication, a puppet show performed for our delight, a cover for a conspiracy, an experiment, a witch? Why can’t people remember? I can describe her every feature to you and yet… the description is just words, rehearsed for hours on end in briefings — hair, height, weight, colouring — just… words. I look at you and you could be her, you fit the words, but I studied her picture, I know her face, you are not her, I would recognise her, I would know her instantly, I would know!”
Voice rising; pain, fear, confusion.
I pressed my hand tighter against his, my reality, his skin, my warmth, his blood.
“I received a file,” he went on. “I thought perhaps it was from her. How did she know about me? Perhaps she had it ready to send, in case the exchange went wrong. Perhaps she is using me from beyond the grave, vengeance against the men who killed her.”
“There’d be some justice in that, I think.”
The slightest of smiles. “Yes,” he conceded. “Perhaps a little.”
Justice. In Chinese the symbol is 
, yí, a pictogram I always thought looked rather joyous, full of hope. If I were to sign my name with a symbol, I think I would want it to be 
.
“Just because no one remembers seeing her doesn’t mean she died,” I said, and as he smiled at nothing, I added, “It seems like an extraordinary series of events.”
He looked at me again, or perhaps for the first time, and I wondered if now he was listing words that matched my features. My height, weight, skin, eyes, the slightly bulbous end of my nose, ears a little too large, high forehead, thick brows, deep black hair pulled back into a loose knot, a suggestion of freckles under my eyes. All these things could be described, annotated, he could stand in front of my photo every day and recite these qualities, and now he looked at me and perhaps, for the first time, attempted to annotate my face, categorise it and find a match. Did he see who I was?
Perhaps he did.
But he believed too much in his own rationality, and so at the very moment that his eyes widened and his lips parted in realisation, he turned his head to one side, pulled his gaze away, and informed himself perhaps that no, no — he knew the face of the thief, it was impossible to meet her now and not recognise her, not him, not after all this time.
And so the moment passed, leaving only him, me, now.
I said, “Do you want another drink?”
He shouldn’t.
He was… it wasn’t… he wasn’t that kinda guy.
“I was alone last night, I’ll be alone tomorrow,” I replied. “How about you?”
His hand, still beneath mine.
“Okay,” he said. Then, “Okay.”
Chapter 41
Forget to count.
Forget to remember.
I have forgotten my age; every document with my face is a lie.
I have forgotten my friends, as they forgot me.
I have forgotten the turn of the years, for what are they to me?
The years will not remember me.
My face fades from the minds of men.
Only my deeds remain.
Chapter 42
On his seventh day in Tokyo, I followed Rafe Pereyra-Conroy to a sumo match.
Traditional arts in Japan: sumo, karate, kendo, judo, kyudo, kabuki, origami, flower arrangement.
Hierarchy. A sumo stable is organised with military discipline. At the bottom are the jonokushi, then makushika and juryo. Only forty-two elite makuuchi exist at any time, their matches broadcast on television, life expectancy at least ten years lower than the national average.
Nomi No Sukuni, Shinto god of sumo. Once upon a time, the wrestlers performed their rites on temple grounds, to ensure good harvest, and the referees still made the dohyo sacred with sprinkled salt.
Did Rafe care, as he took a seat in a private area of cushions and clean tatami mats right by the ring? Probably not. I watched him through a small pair of binoculars from a wooden bench high in the auditorium. He was a foreign dignitary being taken to sumo to entertain and enthral, to have an anecdote to tell his friends when he returned home. I saw a sumo match, yes, yes I did; understand it? No, of course not, but I was there, I’ve experienced Japan now, yes, oh yes I have.
In the reception afterwards, I listened to the chatter as I circled the room.
I was getting better at recognising those who had Perfection.
She: her perfect teeth, her perfect hair, her perfect smile, her perfect clothes, fashionably chosen, gracefully worn.
He: silk and cotton, the white of his shirt sharp as thorns, the perfect drink in his hand, the perfect woman on his arm.
Do you have Perfection?
(“Oh my,” said the woman with the surgery-enhanced waist. “It’s changed my life.”)
(“It’s not just about looking after myself,” added the man whose champagne I refilled. “It’s about meeting people like me. The best of the best.”)
A polite smattering of applause, a man dressed in full Shinto robes, oranges and yellows, a high black lacquered hat, stood on the dais and in formal, steady Japanese thanked everyone for attending.
“In the way of the gods,” his translator limped through the words, “we seek to purify ourselves from unclean rituals and sins. We wash away sinful thought, unclean practice, guilty deeds, and emerge radiant at last. Every child who is born in Japan, regardless of their creed, is welcomed into the shrine and made a family child, their name given to the spirits for blessing and protection. It is in this spirit — welcoming, and purification — that I am proud to call Mr Pereyra-Conroy a friend, and say that the work he does in Japan helps men and women in their souls.”
First Dubai, now Tokyo. Rafe was a busy bee.
“Perfection,” he continued, after the pause, “makes people better.”
Turning to walk away, and there she was, Filipa Pereyra-Conroy, dressed in black, a glass in one hand, nails trimmed short, hair tied high. She stood in my path and said, “Hello. I saw you alone. Do you know anyone here?”
Not accusatory, not angry; a woman who has seen a stranger and wonders if she needs company.
Just like Dubai.
“Hello,” I replied, offering my hand. “My name is Hope.”
“Filipa.”
“I know; I’ve studied your work, Dr Pereyra.”
A flicker of an eyebrow, a nervous tug at the end of her sleeve.
“Have you? I didn’t think… What aspect of it?”
“I read your paper on cognitive reconstruction and reinforcement. Very interesting, even to an outsider.”
“Are you an outsider?”
“I read, for company.”
A smile, sudden, strong, that flashed away as quickly as it had come, locked down beneath manner and etiquette. “So do I.”
“I understand you’re working on treatments?”
Too fast, too much prodding for information, suspicion, a slight angling of her body. It’s fine: if this should occur, I will walk away, do a lap of the room, return to her side, try again, build a little more trust. This is an opportunity too good to miss.