Haruki Murakami - After Dark (Vintage International)

Haruki Murakami After Dark

First published in 2004

TRANSLATED FROM THE JAPANESE BY Jay Rubin

yes mark the shape of the city. Through the eyes of a high-flying night bird, we take in the scene from midair. In our broad sweep, the city looks like a single gigantic creature--or more like a single collective entity created by many intertwining organisms. Countless arteries stretch to the ends of its elusive body, circulating a continuous supply of fresh blood cells, sending out new data and collecting the old, sending out new consumables and collecting the old, sending out new contradictions and collecting the old. To the rhythm of its pulsing, all parts of the body flicker and flare up and squirm. Midnight is approaching, and while the peak of activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the city's moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding. Our line of sight chooses an area of concentrated brightness and, focusing there, silently descends to it--a sea of neon colours. They call this place an "amusement district." The giant digital screens fastened to the sides of buildings fall silent as midnight approaches, but loudspeakers on storefronts keep pumping out exaggerated hip-hop bass lines. A large game centre crammed with young people; wild electronic sounds; a group of college students spilling out from a bar; teenage girls with brilliant bleached hair, healthy legs thrusting out from microminiskirts; dark-suited men racing across diagonal crossings for the last trains to the suburbs. Even at this hour, the karaoke club pitchmen keep shouting for customers. A flashy black station wagon drifts down the street as if taking stock of the district through its black-tinted windows. The car looks like a deep-sea creature with specialised skin and organs. Two young policemen patrol the street with tense expressions, but no one seems to notice them. The district plays by its own rules at a time like this. The season is late autumn. No wind is blowing, but the air carries a chill. The date is just about to change. W e are inside a Denny's. Unremarkable but adequate lighting; expressionless decor and tableware; floor plan designed to the last detail by management engineers; innocuous background music at low volume; staff meticulously trained to deal with customers by the book: "Welcome to Denny's." Everything about the restaurant is anonymous and interchangeable. And almost every seat is filled. After a quick survey of the interior, our eyes come to rest on a girl sitting by the front window. Why her? Why 11:56 P.M. not someone else? Hard to say. But, for some reason, she attracts our attention--very naturally. She sits at a four-person table, reading a book. Hooded grey parka, blue jeans, yellow sneakers faded from repeated washing. On the back of the chair next to her hangs a varsity jacket. This, too, is far from new. She is probably college freshman age, though an air of high school still clings to her. Hair black, short, and straight. Little make-up, no jewellery. Small, slender face. Black-rimmed glasses. Every now and then, an earnest wrinkle forms between her brows. She reads with great concentration. Her eyes rarely move from the pages of her book--a thick hardback. A bookstore wrapper hides the title from us. Judging from her intent expression, the book might contain challenging subject matter. Far from skimming, she seems to be biting off and chewing it one line at a time. On her table is a coffee cup. And an ashtray. Next to the ashtray, a navy blue baseball cap with a Boston Red Sox "B." It might be a little too large for her head. A brown leather shoulder bag rests on the seat next to her. It bulges as if its contents had been thrown in on the spur of the moment. She reaches out at regular intervals and brings the coffee cup to her mouth, but she doesn't appear to be enjoying the flavour. She drinks because she has a cup of coffee in front of her: that is her role as a customer. At odd moments, she puts a cigarette between her lips and lights it with a plastic lighter. She narrows her eyes, releases an easy puff of smoke into the air, puts the cigarette into the ashtray, and then, as if to soothe an approaching headache, she strokes her temples with her fingertips. The music playing at low volume is "Go Away Little Girl" by Percy Faith and his Orchestra. No one is listening, of course. Many different kinds of people are taking meals and drinking coffee in this late-night Denny's, but she is the only female there alone. She raises her face from her book now and then to glance at her watch, but she seems dissatisfied with the slow passage of time. Not that she appears to be waiting for anyone: she doesn't look around the restaurant or train her eyes on the front door. She just keeps reading her book, lighting an occasional cigarette, mechanically tipping back her coffee cup, and hoping for the time to pass a little faster. Needless to say, dawn will not be here for hours. She breaks off her reading and looks outside. From this second-storey window she can look down on the busy street. Even at a time like this, the street is bright enough and filled with people coming and going--people with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward. After a long, steady look at this jumbled street scene, she holds her breath for a moment and turns her eyes once again towards her book. She reaches for her coffee cup. Puffed no more than two or three times, her cigarette turns into a perfectly formed column of ash in the ashtray. The electric door slides open and a lanky young man walks in. Short black leather coat, wrinkled olive-green 11:56 P.M. chinos, brown work boots. Hair fairly long and tangled in places. Perhaps he has had no chance to wash it in some days. Perhaps he has just crawled out of the underbrush somewhere. Or perhaps he just finds it more natural and comfortable to have messy hair. His thinness makes him look less elegant than malnourished. A big black instrument case hangs from his shoulder. Wind instrument. He also holds a dirty tote bag at his side. It seems to be stuffed with sheet music and other assorted things. His right cheek bears an eye-catching scar. It is short and deep, as if the flesh has been gouged out by something sharp. Nothing else about him stands out. He is a very ordinary young man with the air of a nice--but not very clever--stray mutt. The waitress on hostess duty shows him to a seat at the back of the restaurant. He passes the table of the girl with the book. A few steps beyond it, he comes to a halt as if a thought has struck him. He begins moving slowly backwards as in a rewinding film, stopping at her table. He cocks his head and studies her face. He is trying to remember something, and much time goes by until he gets it. He seems like the type for whom everything takes time. The girl senses his presence and raises her face from her book. She narrows her eyes and looks at the young man standing there. He is so tall, she seems to be looking far overhead. Their eyes meet. The young man smiles. His smile is meant to show he means no harm. "sorry if I've got the wrong person," he says, "but aren't you Eri Asai's little sister?" She does not answer. She looks at him with eyes that could be looking at an overgrown bush in the corner of a garden. "We met once," he continues. "Your name is Yuri sort of like your sister Eri's except the first syllable." Keeping a cautious gaze fixed on him, she executes a concise factual correction: "Marl" He raises his index finger and says, "That's it! Mari. Eri and Mari. Different first syllables. You don't remember me, do you?" Mari inclines her head slightly. This could mean either yes or no. She takes off her glasses and sets them down beside her coffee cup. The waitress retraces her steps and asks, "Are you together?" "Uh-huh," he answers. "We are." She sets his menu on the table. He takes the seat across from Mari and puts his case on the seat next to his. A moment later he thinks to ask Mari, "Mind if I sit here a while? I'll get out as soon as I'm finished eating. I have to meet somebody." Mari gives him a slight frown. "Aren't you supposed to say that before you sit down?" He thinks about the meaning of her words. "That I have to meet somebody?" "No" Mari says. "Oh, you mean as a matter of politeness." 11:56 P.M. "Uh-huh." He nods. "You're right. I should have asked if it's okay to sit at your table. I'm sorry. But the place is crowded, and I won't bother you for long. Do you mind?" Mari gives her shoulders a little shrug that seems to mean "As you wish." He opens his menu and studies it. "Are you through eating?" he asks. "I'm not hungry." With a scowl, he scans the menu, snaps it shut, and lays it on the table. "I really don't have to open the menu," he says. "I'm just faking it." Mari doesn't say anything. "I don't eat anything but chicken salad here. Ever. If you ask me, the only thing worth eating at Denny's is the chicken salad. I've had just about everything on the menu. Have you ever tried their chicken salad?" Mari shakes her head. "It's not bad. Chicken salad and crispy toast. That's all I ever eat at Denny's." "So why do you even bother looking at the menu?" He pulls at the wrinkles in the corner of one eye with his little finger. "Just think about it. Wouldn't it be too sad to walk into Denny's and order chicken salad without looking at the menu? It's like telling the world, 'I come to Denny's all the time because I love the chicken salad.' So I always go through the motion of opening the menu and pretending I picked the chicken salad after considering other things." The waitress brings him water and he orders chicken salad and crispy toast. "Make it really crispy," he says with conviction. "Almost burnt." He also orders coffee for afterwards. The waitress inputs his order using a handheld device and confirms it by reading it aloud. "And I think the young lady needs a refill," he says, pointing at Mari's cup. "Thank you, sir. I will bring the coffee right away." He watches her go off. "You don't like chicken?" he asks. "It's not that," Mari says. "But I make a point of not eating chicken out." "Why not?" "Especially the chicken they serve in chain restaurants --they're full of weird drugs. Growth hormones and stuff. The chickens are locked in these dark, narrow cages, and given all these shots, and their feed is full of chemicals, and they're put on conveyor belts, and machines cut their heads off and pluck them" "Whoa!" he says with a smile. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. "Chicken salad a George Orwell!" Mari narrows her eyes and looks at him. She can't tell if he is making fun of her. "Anyhow," he says, "the chicken salad here is not bad. Really." As if suddenly recalling that he is wearing it, he takes off his leather coat, folds it, and lays it on the seat next to his. Then he rubs his hands together atop the table. He has on a green, coarse-knit crew-neck sweater. Like his hair, the wool of the sweater is tangled in places. He is 11:56 P.M. obviously not the sort who pays a lot of attention to his appearance. "We met at a hotel swimming pool in Shinagawa. Two summers ago. Remember?" "Sort of." "My buddy was there, your sister was there, you were there, and I was there. Four of us all together. We had just entered college, and I'm pretty sure you were in your second year of high school. Right?" Mari nods without much apparent interest. "My friend was kinda dating your sister then. He brought me along on like a double date. He dug up four free tickets to the pool, and your sister brought you along. You hardly said a word, though. You spent the whole time in the pool, swimming like a young dolphin. We went to the hotel tea room for ice cream afterwards. You ordered a peach melba." Mari frowns. "How come you remember stuff like that?" "I never dated a girl who ate peach melba before. And you were cute, of course." Mari looks at him blankly. "Liar. You were staring at my sister the whole time." "I was?" Mari answers with silence. "Maybe I was," he says. "For some reason I remember her bikini was really tiny." Mari pulls out a cigarette, puts it between her lips, and lights it with her lighter. "Let me tell you something," he says. "I'm not trying to defend Denny's or anything, but I'm pretty sure that smoking a whole pack of cigarettes is way worse for you than eating a plate of chicken salad that might have some problems with it. Don't you think so?" Mari ignores his question. "Another girl was supposed to go with my sister that time, but she got sick at the last minute and my sister forced me to go with her. To keep the numbers right." "So you were in a bad mood." "I remember you, though." "Really?" Mari puts her finger on her right cheek. The young man touches the deep scar on his own cheek. "Oh, this. When I was a kid, I was going too fast on my bike and couldn't make the turn at the bottom of the hill. Another inch and I would have lost my right eye. My earlobe's deformed, too. Wanna see it?" Mari frowns and shakes her head. The waitress brings the chicken salad and toast to the table. She pours fresh coffee into Mari's cup and checks to make sure she has brought all the ordered items to the table. He picks up his knife and fork and, with practised movements, begins eating his chicken salad. Then he picks up a piece of toast, stares at it, and wrinkles his brow. "No matter how much I scream at them to make my toast as crispy as possible, I have never once got it the way I want it. I can't imagine why. What with Japanese industriousness and high-tech culture and the market principles that the Denny's chain is always pursuing, it 11:56 P.M. shouldn't be that hard to get crispy toast, don't you think? So, why can't they do it? Of what value is a civilisation that can't toast a piece of bread as ordered?" Mari doesn't take him up on this. "But anyhow, your sister was a real beauty," the young man says, as if talking to himself. Mari looks up. "Why do you say that in the past tense?" "Why do I? I mean, I'm talking about something that happened a long time ago, so I used the past tense, that's all. I'm not saying she isn't a beauty now or anything." "She's still pretty, I think." "Well, that's just dandy. But, to tell you the truth, I don't know Eri Asai all that well. We were in the same class for a year in high school, but I hardly said two words to her. It might be more accurate to say she wouldn't give me the time of day." "You're still interested in her, right?" The young man stops his knife and fork in midair and thinks for a moment. "Interested. Hmm. Maybe as a kind of intellectual curiosity." "Intellectual curiosity?" "Yeah, like, what would it feel like to go out on a date with a beautiful girl like Eri Asai? I mean, she's an absolute cover girl." "You call that intellectual curiosity?" "Kind of, yeah." "But back then, your friend was the one going out with her, and you were the other guy on a double date." He nods with a mouthful of food, which he then takes all the time he needs to chew. "I'm kind of a low-key guy. The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish--coleslaw or French fries or a Wham! back-up singer." "Which is why you were paired with me." "But still, you were pretty damn cute." "Is there something about your personality that makes you prefer the past tense?" The young man smiles. "No, I was just directly expressing how I felt back then from the perspective of the present. You were very cute. Really. You hardly talked to me, though." He rests his knife and fork on his plate, takes a drink of water, and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin. "So, while you were swimming, I asked Eri Asai, 'Why won't your little sister talk to me? Is there something wrong with me?' " "What'd she say?" "That you never take the initiative to talk to anybody. That you're kinda different, and that even though you're Japanese you speak more often in Chinese than Japanese. So I shouldn't worry. She didn't think there was anything especially wrong with me." Mari silently crushes her cigarette out in the ashtray. "It's true, isn't it? There wasn't anything especially wrong with me, was there?" Mari thinks for a moment. "I don't remember all that well, but I don't think there was anything wrong with you." 11:56 P.M. "That's good. I was worried. Of course, I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. I'd hate to think they were obvious to anybody else. Especially at a swimming pool in the summer." Mari looks at him again as if to confirm the accuracy of his statement. "I don't think I was aware of any problems you had inside." "That's a relief." "I can't remember your name, though," Mari says. "My name?" "Your name." He shakes his head. "I don't mind if you forgot my name. It's about as ordinary as a name can be. Even I feel like forgetting it sometimes. It's not that easy, though, to forget your own name. Other people's names--even ones I have to remember--I'm always forgetting." He glances out of the window as if in search of something he should not have lost. Then he turns towards Mari again. "One thing always mystified me, and that is, why didn't your sister ever get into the pool that time? It was a hot day, and a really nice pool." Mari looks at him as if to say, You mean you don't get that, either? "She didn't want her make-up to wash off. It's so obvious. And you can't really swim in a bathing suit like that." "Is that it?" he says. "It's amazing how two sisters can be so different." "We live two different lives." He thinks about her words for a few moments and then says, "I wonder how it turns out that we all lead such different lives. Take you and your sister, for example. You're born to the same parents, you grow up in the same household, you're both girls. How do you end up with such wildly different personalities? At what point do you, like, go your separate ways? One puts on a bikini like little semaphore flags and lies by the pool looking sexy, and the other puts on her school bathing suit and swims her heart out like a dolphin..." Mari looks at him. "Are you asking me to explain it to you here and now in twenty-five words or less while you eat your chicken salad?" He shakes his head. "No, I was just saying what popped into my head out of curiosity or something. You don't have to answer. I was just asking myself." He starts to work on his chicken salad again, changes his mind, and continues: "I don't have any brothers or sisters, so I just wanted to know: up to what point do they resemble each other, and where do their differences come in?" Mari remains silent while the young man with the knife and fork in his hands stares thoughtfully at a point in space above the table. Then he says, "I once read a story about three brothers who washed up on an island in Hawaii. A myth. An old one. I read it when I was a kid, so I probably don't have the story exactly right, but it goes something like this. Three brothers went out fishing and got caught in a storm. They drifted on the ocean for a long time until 11:56 P.M. they washed up on the shore of an uninhabited island. It was a beautiful island with coconuts growing there and tons of fruit on the trees, and a big, high mountain in the middle. The night they got there, a god appeared in their dreams and said, 'A little farther down the shore, you will find three big, round boulders. I want each of you to push his boulder as far as he likes. The place you stop pushing your boulder is where you will live. The higher you go, the more of the world you will be able to see from your home. It's entirely up to you how far you want to push your boulder.' " The young man takes a drink of water and pauses for a moment. Mari looks bored, but she is clearly listening. "Okay so far?" he asks. Mari nods. "Want to hear the rest? If you're not interested, I can stop." "If it's not too long." "No, it's not too long. It's a pretty simple story." He takes another sip of water and continues with his story. "So the three brothers found three boulders on the shore just as the god had said they would. And they started pushing them along as the god told them to. Now these were huge, heavy boulders, so rolling them was hard, and pushing them up an incline took an enormous effort. The youngest brother quit first. He said, 'Brothers, this place is good enough for me. It's close to the shore, and I can catch fish. It has everything I need to go on living. I don't mind if I can't see that much of the world from here.' His two elder brothers pressed on, but when they were midway up the mountain, the second brother quit. He said, 'Brother, this place is good enough for me. There is plenty of fruit here. It has everything I need to go on living. I don't mind if I can't see that much of the world from here.' The eldest brother continued walking up the mountain. The trail grew increasingly narrow and steep, but he did not quit. He had great powers of perseverance, and he wanted to see as much of the world as he possibly could, so he kept rolling the boulder with all his might. He went on for months, hardly eating or drinking, until he had rolled the boulder to the very peak of the high mountain. There he stopped and surveyed the world. Now he could see more of the world than anyone. This was the place he would live--where no grass grew, where no birds flew. For water, he could only lick the ice and frost. For food, he could only gnaw on moss. But he had no regrets, because now he could look out over the whole world. And so, even today, his great, round boulder is perched on the peak of that mountain on an island in Hawaii. That's how the story goes." Silence. Mari asks, "Is it supposed to have some kind of moral?" "Two, probably. The first one," he says, holding up a finger, "is that people are all different. Even siblings. And the other one," he says, holding up another finger, "is that if you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price." Mari offers her opinion: "To me, the lives chosen by the two younger brothers make the most sense." 11:56 P.M. "True," he concedes. "Nobody wants to go all the way to Hawaii to stay alive licking frost and eating moss. That's for sure. But the eldest brother was curious to see as much of the world as possible, and he couldn't suppress that curiosity, no matter how big the price was he had to pay." "Intellectual curiosity." "Exactly." Mari went on thinking about this for a while, one hand perched on her thick book. "Even if I asked you very politely what you're reading, you wouldn't tell me, would you?" he asks. "Probably not." "It sure looks heavy." Mari says nothing. "It's not the size book most girls carry around in their bags." Mari maintains her silence. He gives up and continues his meal. This time, he concentrates his attention on the chicken salad and finishes it without a word. He takes his time chewing and drinks a lot of water. He asks the waitress to refill his water glass several times. He eats his final piece of toast. "Your house was way out in Hiyoshi, I seem to recall," he says. His empty plates have been cleared away. Mari nods. "Then you'll never make the last train. I suppose you can go home by taxi, but the next train's not until tomorrow morning." "I know that much," Mari says. "Just checking," he says. "I don't know where you live, but haven't you missed the last train, too?" "Not so far: I'm in Koenji. But I live alone, and we're going to be practising all night. Plus if I really have to get back, my buddy's got a car." He pats his instrument case like the head of a favourite dog. "The band practises in the basement of a building near here," he says. "We can make all the noise we want and nobody complains. There's hardly any heat, though, so it gets pretty cold this time of year. But they're letting us use it for free, so we take what we can get." Mari glances at the instrument case. "That a trombone?" "That's right! How'd you know?" "Hell, I know what a trombone looks like." "Well, sure, but there are tons of girls who don't even know the instrument exists. Can't blame 'em, though. Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton didn't become rock stars playing the trombone. Ever see Jimi Hendrix or Pete Townshend smash a trombone on stage? Of course not. The only thing they smash is electric guitars. If they smashed a trombone, the audience'd laugh." "So why did you choose the trombone?" He puts cream in his newly arrived coffee and takes a sip. "When I was in middle school, I happened to buy a jazz record called Blues-ette at a used record store. An old LP. 11:56 P.M. I can't remember why I bought it at the time. I had never heard any jazz before. But anyway, the first tune on side A was 'Five Spot After Dark,' and it was great. A guy named Curtis Fuller played the trombone on it. The first time I heard it, I felt the scales fall from my eyes. That's it, I thought. That's the instrument for me. The trombone and me: it was a meeting arranged by destiny." The young man hums the first eight bars of "Five Spot After Dark." "I know that," says Mari. He looks baffled. "You do?" Mari hums the next eight bars. "How do you know that?" he asks. "Is it against the law for me to know it?" He sets his cup down and lightly shakes his head. "No, not at all. But, I don't know, it's incredible. For a girl nowadays to know 'Five Spot After Dark'Well, anyway, Curtis Fuller gave me goose bumps, and that got me started playing the trombone. I borrowed money from my parents, bought a used instrument, and joined the school band. Then in high school I started doing different stuff with bands. At first I was backing up a rock band, sort of like the old Tower of Power. Do you know Tower of Power?" Mari shakes her head. "It doesn't matter," he says. "Anyhow, that's what I used to do, but now I'm purely into plain, simple jazz. My university's not much of a school, but we've got a pretty good band." The waitress comes to refill his water glass, but he waves her off. He glances at his watch. "It's time for me to get out of here." Mari says nothing. Her face says, Nobody's stopping you. "Of course everybody comes late." Mari offers no comment on that, either. "Hey, say hi from me to your sister, okay?" "You can do it yourself, can't you? You know our phone number. How can I say hi from you? I don't even know your name." He thinks about that for a moment. "Suppose I call your house and Eri Asai answers, what am I supposed to talk about?" "Get her to help you plan a class reunion, maybe. You'll think of something." "I'm not much of a talker. Never have been." "I'd say you've been talking a lot to me." "With you, I can talk, somehow." "With me, you can talk, somehow," she parrots him. "But with my sister, you can't talk?" "Probably not." "Because of too much intellectual curiosity?" I wonder, says his vague expression. He starts to say something, changes his mind, and stops. He takes a deep breath. He picks up the bill from the table and begins calculating the money in his head. "I'll leave what I owe. Can you pay for us both later?" Mari nods. He glances first at her and then at her book. After a moment's indecision he says, "I know this is none of my 11:56 P.M. business, but is something wrong? Like, problems with your boyfriend or a big fight with your family? I mean, staying in town alone by yourself all night" Mari puts on her glasses and stares up at him. The silence between them is tense and chilly. He raises both palms towards her as if to say, Sorry for butting in. "I'll probably be back here around five in the morning for a snack," he says. "I'll be hungry again. I hope I see you then." "Why?" "Hmm, I wonder why." " 'Cause you're worried about me?" "That's part of it." " 'Cause you want me to say hi to my sister?" "That might be a little part of it, too." "My sister wouldn't know the difference between a trombone and a toaster. She could tell the difference between a Gucci and a Prada at a glance, though, I'm pretty sure." "Everybody's got their own battlefields," he says with a smile. He takes a notebook from his coat pocket and writes something in it with a ballpoint pen. He tears the page out and hands it to her. "This is the number of my cellphone. Call me if anything happens. Uh, do you have a cellphone?" Mari shakes her head. "I didn't think so," he says as if impressed. "I sorta had this gut feeling, like, 'I'll bet she doesn't like cell-phones." ' The young man stands and puts on his leather coat. He picks up his trombone case. A hint of his smile still remains as he says, "See ya." Mari nods, expressionless. Without really looking at the scrap of paper, she places it on the table next to the bill. She holds her breath for a moment, props her chin on her hand, and goes back to her book. Burt Bacharach's "The April Fools" plays through the restaurant at low volume. The room is dark, but our eyes gradually adjust to the darkness. A woman lies in bed, asleep. A young, beautiful woman: Mari's sister, Eri. Eri Asai. We know this without having been told so by anyone. Her black hair cascades across the pillow like a flood of dark water. We allow ourselves to become a single point of view, and we observe her for a time. Perhaps it should be said that we are peeping in on her. Our viewpoint takes the form of a midair camera that can move freely about the room. At the moment, the camera is situated directly above the bed and is focused on her sleeping face. Our angle changes at intervals as regular as the blinking of an eye. Her small, well-shaped lips are tightened into a straight line. At first glance, we can discern no sign of breathing, but staring hard we can make out a slight--a very slight--movement at the base of her throat. She is breathing. She lies with her head on the pillow as if looking up at the ceiling. She is not, in fact, looking at anything. Her eyelids are closed like hard winter buds. Her sleep is deep. She is probably not even dreaming. As we observe Eri Asai, we gradually come to sense that there is something about her sleep that is not normal. It is too pure, too perfect. Not a muscle in her face, not an eyelash moves. Her slender white neck preserves the dense tranquillity of a handcrafted product. Her small chin traces a clean angle like a well-shaped headland. Even in the profoundest somnolence, people do not tread so deeply into the realm of sleep. They do not attain such a total surrender of consciousness. But consciousness--or its absence--is of no concern as long as the functions for sustaining life are maintained. Eri's pulse and respiration continue at the lowest possible level. Her existence seems to have been placed upon the narrow threshold that separates the organic from the inorganic--secretly, and with great care. How or why this condition was brought about we as yet have no way of knowing. Eri Asai is in a deep, deliberate state of sleep as if her entire body has been enveloped in warm wax. Clearly, something here is incompatible with nature. This is all we can conclude for now. The camera draws back slowly to convey an image of the entire room. Then it begins observing details in search of clues. This is by no means a highly decorated room. Neither is it a room that suggests the tastes or individuality of its occupant. Without detailed observation, it would be hard to tell that this was the room of a young girl. There are no dolls, stuffed animals, or other accessories to be seen. No posters or calendars. On the side facing the window, one old wooden desk and a swivel chair. The window itself is covered by a roll-down window 11:57 P.M. blind. On the desk is a simple black lamp and a brand-new notebook computer (its top closed). A few ballpoint pens and pencils in a mug. By the wall stands a plain wood-framed single bed, and there sleeps Eri Asai. The bedclothes are solid white. On shelves attached to the opposite wall, a compact stereo and a small pile of CDs in their cases. Next to those, a phone. A dresser with mirror attached. The only things placed in front of the mirror are lip balm and a small, round hairbrush. On that wall is a walk-in closet. As the room's only decorative touch, five photographs in small frames are lined up on a shelf, all of them photos of Eri Asai. She is alone in all of them. None shows her with friends or family. They are professional photographs of her posing as a model, photos that might have appeared in magazines. There is a small bookcase, but it contains only a handful of books, mostly college textbooks. And a pile of large-size fashion magazines. It would be hard to conclude that she is a voracious reader. Our point of view, as an imaginary camera, picks up and lingers over things like this in the room. We are invisible, anonymous intruders. We look. We listen. We note odours. But we are not physically present in the place, and we leave behind no traces. We follow the same rules, so to speak, as orthodox time travellers. We observe but we do not intervene. Honestly speaking, however, the information regarding Eri Asai that we can glean from the appearance of this room is far from abundant. It gives the impression that preparations have been made to hide her personality and cleverly elude observing eyes. Near the head of the bed a digital clock soundlessly and steadily renews its display of the time. For now, the clock is the only thing in the room evidencing anything like movement: a cautious nocturnal creature that runs on electricity. Each green crystal numeral slips into the place of another, evading human eyes. The current time is 11:59 p.m. Once it has finished examining individual details, our viewpoint camera draws back momentarily and surveys the room once again. Then, as if unable to make up its mind, it maintains its broadened field of vision, its line of sight fixed in place for the time being. A pregnant silence reigns. At length, however, as if struck by a thought, it turns towards--and begins to approach--a television set in a corner of the room: a perfectly square black Sony. The screen is dark, and as dead as the far side of the moon, but the camera seems to have sensed some kind of presence there--or perhaps a kind of foreshadowing. Wordlessly, we share this presence or foreshadowing with the camera as we stare at the screen in close-up. We wait. We hold our breath and listen. The clock displays "0:00." We hear a faint electrical crackling, and a hint of life crosses the TV screen as it begins to flicker almost imperceptibly. Could someone have entered the room and turned on the switch without our noticing? Could a pre-set timer have come on? But no: our ever-alert camera circles to the back of the device and reveals that the television's plug has been pulled. Yes, the TV should, in fact, be dead. It should, in fact, be cold and hard as 11:57 P.M. it presides over the silence of midnight. Logically. Theoretically. But it is not dead. Scan lines appear, flicker, break up, and vanish. Then the lines come to the surface of the screen again. The faint crackling continues without let-up. Eventually the screen begins to display something. An image begins taking shape. Soon, however, it becomes diagonally deformed, like italics, and disappears like a flame blown out. Then the whole process starts again. The image strains to right itself. Trembling, it tries to give concrete form to something. But the image will not come together. It distorts as if the TV's antenna is being blown by a strong wind. Then it breaks apart and scatters. Every phase of this turmoil is conveyed to us by the camera. The sleeping woman appears to be totally unaware of these events occurring in her room. She evidences no response to the outpouring of light and sound from the TV set but goes on sleeping soundly amid an established completeness. For now, nothing can disturb her deep sleep. The television is a new intruder into the room. We, too, are intruders, of course, but unlike us, the new intruder is neither quiet nor transparent. Nor is it neutral. It is undoubtedly trying to intervene. We sense its intention intuitively. The TV image comes and goes, but its stability slowly increases. On screen is the interior of a room. A fairly big room. It could be a space in an office building, or some kind of classroom. It has a large plate-glass window; banks of fluorescent lights line the ceiling. There is no sign of furniture, however. No, on closer inspection there is exactly one chair set in the middle of the room. An old wooden chair, it has a back but no arms. It is a practical chair, and very plain. Someone is sitting in it. The picture has not stabilised entirely, and so we can make out the person in the chair only as a vague silhouette with blurred outlines. The room has the chilling air of a place that has been long abandoned. The camera that seems to be conveying this image to the television cautiously approaches the chair. The build of the person in the chair seems to be that of a man. He is leaning forward slightly. He faces the camera and appears to be deep in thought. He wears dark clothing and leather shoes. We can't see his face, but he seems to be a rather thin man of medium height. It is impossible to tell his age. As we gather these fragments of information from the unclear screen, the image breaks up every now and then. The interference undulates and rises. Not for long, however: the image soon recovers. The static also quiets down. Without a doubt the screen is moving towards stability. Something is about to happen in this room. Something of great significance. The interior of the same Denny's as before. Martin Denny's "More" is playing in the background. The number of customers has decreased markedly from thirty minutes earlier, and there are no more voices raised in conversation. The atmosphere suggests a deeper stage of night. Mari is still at her table, reading her thick book. In front of her sits a plate containing a vegetable sandwich, virtually untouched. She seems to have ordered it less out of hunger than as a means to buy herself more time at the restaurant. Now and then she changes the position in which she reads her book--resting her elbows on the table, or settling further back into her seat. Sometimes she raises her face, takes a deep breath, and checks out the restaurant's dwindling occupancy, but aside from this she maintains her concentration on her book. Her ability to concentrate seems to be one of her most important personal assets. There are more single customers to be seen now: someone writing on a laptop, someone text-messaging on a cellphone, another absorbed in reading like Mari, another doing nothing but staring thoughtfully out of the window. Maybe they can't sleep. Maybe they don't want to sleep. A family restaurant provides such people with a place to park themselves late at night. A large woman charges in as if she could hardly wait for the restaurant's automatic glass door to open. She is solidly constructed, not fat. Her shoulders are broad and strong-looking. She wears a black woollen hat pulled down to the eyes, a big leather jacket, and orange pants. Her hands are empty. Her powerful appearance draws people's attention. As soon as she comes in, a waitress asks her, "Table for one, ma'am?" but the woman ignores her and casts anxious eyes around the restaurant. Spotting Mari, she takes long strides in her direction. When she arrives at Mari's table, she says nothing but immediately lowers herself into the seat across from Mari. For a woman so large, her movements are quick and efficient. "Uhmind?" she asks. Mari, who has been concentrating on her book, looks up. Finding this large stranger sitting opposite her, she is startled. The woman pulls off her woollen hat. Her hair is an intense blonde, and it is cut as short as a well-trimmed lawn. Her face wears an open expression, but the skin has a tough, weathered look, like long-used rainwear, and although the features are not exactly symmetrical, there is something reassuring about them that seems to come from an innate fondness for people. Instead of 12:25 A.M. introducing herself, she gives Mari a lopsided smile and rubs her thick palm over her short blonde hair. The waitress comes and tries to set a glass of water and a menu on the table as called for in the Denny's training manual, but the woman waves her away. "Never mind, I'm getting outta here right away. Sorry, hon." The waitress responds with a nervous smile and leaves. "You're Mari Asai, right?" the woman asks. "Well, yes" "Takahashi said you'd probably still be here." "Takahashi?" "Tetsuya Takahashi. Tall guy, long hair, skinny. Plays trombone." Mari nods. "Oh, him." "Yeah. He says you speak fluent Chinese." "Well," Mari answers cautiously, "I'm okay with everyday conversation. I'm not exactly fluent." "That's fine. Can I getcha to come with me? I've got this Chinese girl in a mess. She can't speak Japanese, so I don't know what the hell is going on." Mari had no idea what the woman was talking about, but she set a bookmark in place, closed the book, and pushed it aside. "What kind of mess?" "She's kinda hurt. Close by. An easy walk. I won't take much of your time. I just need you to translate for her and give me some idea what happened. I'd really appreciate it." Mari has a moment of hesitation, but, looking at her face, she guesses that the woman is not a bad person. She slips her book into her shoulder bag and puts on her jacket. She reaches for the bill on the table, but the woman beats her to it. "I'll pay this." "That's all right. It's stuff I ordered." "Never mind, it's the least I can do. Just shut up and let me pay." When they stand up, the difference in their sizes becomes obvious. Mari is a tiny girl, and the woman is built like a barn, maybe two or three inches shy of six feet. Mari gives up and lets the woman pay for her. They step outside. The street is as busy as ever despite the time. Electronic sounds from the game centre. Shouts of karaoke club barkers. Motorcycle engines roaring. Three young men sit on the pavement outside a shuttered shop doing nothing in particular. When Mari and the woman pass by, the three look up and follow them with their eyes, probably wondering about this odd couple, but saying nothing, just staring. The shutter is covered with spray-painted graffiti. "My name's Kaoru," the woman says. "Yeah, I know, you're thinking, 'How did this big hunk of a woman get a pretty little name like that?' But I've been Kaoru ever since I was born." "Glad to meet you," Mari says. "Sorry for dragging you out like this. Bet I threw you for a loop." Mari doesn't know how to respond, and so she says nothing. "Want me to carry your bag? Looks heavy," Kaoru says. 12:25 A.M. "I'm okay." "What's in there?" "Books, a change of clothes" "You're not a runaway, are you?" "No, I'm not," says Mari. "Okay. Good." The two keep walking. From the brightly lighted avenue they turn into a narrow lane and head uphill. Kaoru walks quickly and Mari hurries to keep pace with her. They climb a gloomy, deserted stairway and come out to a different street. The stairs seem to be a short cut between the two streets. Several snack bars on this street still have their signs lighted, but none of them suggests a human presence. "It's that love ho over there." "Love ho?" "Love hotel. For couples. By the hour. See the neon sign, 'Alphaville'? That's it." When she hears the name, Mari can't help staring at Kaoru. "Alphaville?" "Don't worry. It's okay. I'm the manager." "The injured woman is in there?" Walking on, Kaoru turns and says, "Uh-huh. It's kinda hard to explain." "Is Takahashi in there, too?" "No, he's in another building near here. In the basement. His band's practising all night. Students have it easy." The two walk in through the front door of the Alphaville. Guests at this hotel choose their room from large photos on display in the foyer, press the corresponding numbered button, receive their key, and take the lift straight to the room. No need to meet or talk to anyone. Room charges come in two types: "rest" and "overnight." Gloomy blue illumination. Mari takes in all these new sights. Kaoru says a quiet hello to the woman at the reception desk at the back. Then she says to Mari, "You've probably never been in a place like this before." "No, this is the first time for me." "Oh, well, there are lots of different businesses in the world." Kaoru and Mari take the lift to the top floor. Down a short, narrow corridor they come to a door numbered 404. Kaoru gives two soft knocks and the door opens instantly inwards. A young woman with hair dyed a bright red nervously pokes her head out. She is thin and pale. She wears an oversized pink T-shirt and jeans with holes. Large earrings hang from her pierced ears. "Oh, cool, it's you, Kaoru!" says the red-haired young woman. "Took you long enough. I was going crazy." "How's she doing?" "Same old same old." "The bleeding stop?" "Pretty much. I used a ton of paper towels, though." Kaoru lets Mari in and closes the door. Besides the red-haired woman there is another employee in the room, a small woman who wears her hair up and is mopping the floor. Kaoru does a quick introduction. "This is Mari. The one who can speak Chinese. The 12:25 A.M. redhead here is Komugi. Yeah, I know it sounds like 'Wheat,' but it's the name her parents gave her, so what're ya gonna do? She's been working for me for ever." Komugi produces a nice smile for Mari and says, "Glad to meet ya." "Glad to meet you," says Mari. "The other one over there is Korogi. Now, that's not her real name. You'll have to ask her why she wants to be known as 'Cricket.' " "Sorry about that," says Korogi in the soft tones of the Kansai region around Osaka. "I got rid of my real name." Korogi looks a few years older than Komugi. "Glad to meet you," says Mari. The room is windowless and stuffy and all but filled with the oversize bed and TV. Crouching on the floor in one corner is a naked woman in a bath towel. She hides her face in her hands and cries soundlessly. Blood-soaked towels lie on the floor. The bedsheets are also bloody. A floor lamp lies where it was knocked down. On the table is a half-empty bottle of beer and one glass. The TV is on and tuned to a comedy show. The audience laughs. Kaoru picks up the remote and switches it off. "Looks like he beat the crap out of her," she says to Mari. "The man she was here with?" Mari asks. "Uh-huh. Her customer." "Customer? She's a prostitute?" "Yeah, we mostly get pros at this time of night," Kaoru says. "So sometimes we have problems. Like they fight over the money, or the guy wants some perverted stuff or something." Mari bites her lip and tries to gather her thoughts. "And she only speaks Chinese?" "Yeah, she knows like two words of Japanese. I can't call the cops, though. She's probably an illegal alien, and I don't have time to go and testify every time something like this comes up." Mari sets her shoulder bag on the table and goes to the crouching woman. She kneels down and speaks to her in Chinese: "Ni zenme le?" (What happened?) The woman may not have heard her. She doesn't answer. Shoulders quaking, she sobs uncontrollably. Kaoru shakes her head. "She's in some kind of shock. I bet he really hurt her." Mari speaks to the woman again. "Shi Zhongguoren ma?" (Are you from China?) Still the woman does not answer. "Fangxin ha, wo gen jingcha mei guanxi." (Don't worry, I'm not with the police.) Still the woman does not answer. "Ni bei ta da le ma?" (Did a man beat you up?) The woman finally nods. Her long black hair trembles. Mari continues speaking, quietly but persistently, to the woman. She asks the same question several times. Kaoru folds her arms and watches their interaction with a worried look. Komugi and Korogi, meanwhile, share the clean-up duties. They gather the bloody paper towels and stuff them in a vinyl trash bag. They strip the bed and put 12:25 A.M. fresh towels in the bathroom. They raise the lamp from the floor and take away the beer bottle and glass. They check replaceable items and clean the bathroom. The two are obviously accustomed to working together. Their movements are smooth and economical. Mari goes on kneeling in the corner, speaking to the woman, who seems to have calmed down somewhat at the sound of the familiar language. Haltingly, she explains the situation to Mari in Chinese. Her voice is so faint, Mari has to lean close to her in order to hear. She listens intently, nodding. Now and then she says a phrase or two as if to encourage the woman. Kaoru gives Mari's shoulder a little tap from behind. "Sorry, but we need this room for the next customer. We're gonna take her to the office downstairs. Come along, okay?" "But she's completely naked! She says he took everything she had on. Shoes, underwear, everything." Kaoru shakes her head. "He stripped her clean so she couldn't report him right away. What a bastard!" Kaoru takes a thin bathrobe from the closet and hands it to Mari. "Just get her to put this on for now." The woman rises weakly to her feet and, looking half-stunned, drops the towel, exposing her nakedness as she puts on the robe, her stance unsteady. Mari quickly averts her gaze. The woman's body is small but beautiful: well-shaped breasts, smooth skin, a shadowy hint of pubic hair. She is probably the same age as Mari, her build still girlish. Her steps are uncertain. Kaoru puts a supporting arm around her shoulders and leads her from the room. They take a service lift down, Mari following with her bag. Komugi and Korogi stay behind to clean the room. The three women enter the hotel office. Cardboard cartons are piled along the walls. One steel desk and a simple reception area with couch and armchair. On the desk are a computer keyboard and a glowing liquid crystal monitor. On the walls hang a calendar, a framed piece of pop calligraphy by Mitsuo Aida, and an electric clock. There is a portable TV, and on top of a small refrigerator stands a microwave oven. The room feels cramped with three people in it. Kaoru guides the bathrobed Chinese prostitute to the couch. The woman seems cold as she clutches at the bathrobe, drawing it closed. Kaoru aims the light of the floor lamp at the prostitute's face and examines her wounds more closely. She brings over a first-aid kit and carefully wipes away the dried blood with alcohol and cotton wool swabs. She puts Band-Aids on the cuts. She feels the woman's nose to see if it is broken. She lifts her eyelids and checks to see how badly bloodshot the eyes are. She runs her fingers over the woman's head, feeling for bumps. She performs these tasks with amazing deftness, as if she does them all the time. She takes some kind of cold pack from the refrigerator, wraps it in a small towel, and hands it to the woman. "Here, press this against your face for a while." Recalling that her listener understands no Japanese, Kaoru shows her with gestures where to put it. The woman nods and presses the cold pack under her eyes. Kaoru turns to Mari and says, "That was some pretty 12:25 A.M. spectacular bleeding, but it was mostly from the nose. Luckily, she doesn't have any big wounds, no bumps on her head, and I don't think her nose is broken. She's cut at the corner of her eye and on the lip, but nothing that needs stitches. She'll probably be out of business for a week with black eyes." Mari nods. "The guy was strong, but he's obviously a total amateur when it comes to beating somebody up. He just threw a lot of wild punches. I'll bet his hands are killing him now, the bastard. He swung so hard he dented the wall in a few places. He really lost it. He didn't know what he was doing." Komugi comes in and takes something from one of the cartons piled against the wall--a fresh bathrobe to replace the one from room 404. Mari says, "She told me he took everything--her handbag, her money, her cellphone." "Just so he could skip out without paying her?" Komugi interjects. "No, not that. I meanher, uh, period started all of a sudden before they could do anything. It was early. So he got mad and" "Well, she couldn't help it," says Komugi. "When it starts, it starts--bang!" Kaoru clucks and says, "Okay, that's enough from you, Komugi. Go and finish cleaning 404." "Yes, ma'am. Sorry," Komugi says and leaves the office. "So he's all set to do it, the woman gets her period, he goes crazy, beats the shit out of her, grabs her money and clothes, and gets the hell out of there," Kaoru says. "That guy's got problems." Mari nods. "She says she's sorry for getting the sheets all bloody." "That's okay, we're used to it," Kaoru says. "I don't know why, but lots of girls' periods start in love hos. They're always calling downstairs and asking for napkins 'n' tampons 'n' stuff. I wanna say, 'What are we--a chemist's?' But anyhow, we've gotta get this kid dressed. She's not goin' anywhere like this." Kaoru searches in another carton and pulls out a pair of panties in a vinyl pack--the kind used in vending machines in the rooms. "These are cheapies for emergencies. They can't be laundered, but let her put on a pair. We don't want her to have any draughts down there making her nervous." Next Kaoru hunts in the closet and comes out with a faded-green jersey top and bottom she hands to the prostitute. "These belonged to a girl who used to work here. Don't worry, they're clean. She doesn't have to give them back. All I've got is rubber flip-flops for her feet, but that'll be better than nothing." Mari explains this to the woman. Kaoru opens a cabinet and takes out a few sanitary napkins. She hands them to the prostitute. "Use these, too. You can change in that bathroom." She motions towards the door with her chin. The prostitute nods and thanks her in Japanese: "Arigato." Then she takes the clothing into the bathroom. 12:25 A.M. Kaoru lowers herself into the desk chair, shakes her head slowly, and says, "You never know what's gonna happen in this business." "She tells me it's just over two months since she came to Japan," Mari says. "She's here illegally, I suppose?" "I didn't ask her about that. Judging from her dialect, she's from the north." "Old Manchuria?" "Probably." "Huh. I suppose somebody's gonna come and pick her up." "I think she's got a boss of some kind." "A Chinese gang," Kaoru says. "They run prostitution around here. They sneak women in by boat from the mainland and make them pay for it with their bodies. They take phone orders and deliver the women to hotels on motorcycles--hot 'n' fresh, like pizza. They're one of our best clients." "By 'gang,' you mean like yakuza?" Kaoru shakes her head. "No, no. I was a professional wrestler a long time, and we used to do these national tours, so I got to know a few yakuza. Let me tell you, compared to these Chinese gangsters, Japanese yakuza are sweethearts. I mean, you never know what's coming with them. But this kid's got no choice: if she doesn't go back to them, she's got no place to go." "Do you think they're going to be hard on her for not making anything this time?" "Hmm, I wonder. With her face looking like that, it'll be a while before she can have any customers, and she's worthless to them if she can't make money. She's a pretty thing, though." The prostitute comes out of the bathroom wearing the jersey outfit and rubber thongs. The top has an Adidas logo on the chest. The bruises remain distinct on the woman's face, but her hair is now more neatly combed. Even in this well-worn outfit and with her lips swollen and face bruised, she is a beautiful woman. Kaoru asks her in Japanese, "I'll bet you want to use the phone, right?" Mari translates into Chinese. "Yao da dianhua ma?" (Would you like to use the telephone?) The prostitute answers in fragmented Japanese. "Hai. Arigato." Kaoru hands her a white cordless phone. She presses the buttons and, speaking softly in Chinese, she makes a report to the person on the other end, who responds with an angry outburst. She gives a short answer and hangs up. With a grim expression, she hands the phone back to Kaoru. The prostitute thanks Kaoru in Japanese: "Domo arigato." Then she turns to Mari and says, "Mashang you ren lai jie wo." (Someone is coming to pick me up. Right away.) Mari explains to Kaoru: "I think they're coming to get her now." Kaoru frowns. "Come to think of it, the hotel bill hasn't been paid, either. Usually the man pays, but this 12:25 A.M. particular son-of-a-bitch left without paying. He owes us for a beer, too." "Are you going to get it from the one who picks her up?" "Hmm." Kaoru stops to think this over. "I hope it's that simple." Kaoru puts tea leaves in a pot followed by hot water from a thermos jug. She pours the tea into three cups and hands one to the Chinese prostitute. The woman thanks her and takes a drink. The hot tea hurts her cut lip. She takes one sip and furrows her brow. Kaoru drinks some tea and says to the prostitute in Japanese, "But it's hard for you, isn't it? You come all the way from China, sneak into Japan, and you end up with those goons sucking the life outta you. I don't know what it was like for you back home, but you probably would've been better off not coming here, don't you think?" "You want me to translate that?" Mari asks. Kaoru shakes her head. "Nah, why bother? I'm just talking to myself." Mari engages the prostitute in conversation. "Ni ji sui le?" (How old are you?) "Shijiu." (Nineteen.) "Wo ye shi. Jiao shenme mingzi?" (Same as me. What's your name?) The prostitute hesitates a moment and answers, "Guo Dongli." "Wo jiao Mali." (My name is Mari.) Mari offers the woman a little smile--her first since midnight. A motorcycle comes to a halt at the front entrance of the Alphaville: a big, tough-looking Honda sports bike. The man driving it wears a full-face helmet. He leaves the engine running as though he wants to be ready to get out fast if he has to. He wears a tight-fitting black leather jacket and blue jeans. High-top basketball shoes. Thick gloves. The man takes off his helmet and sets it on the petrol tank. After a careful scan of his surroundings, he takes off one glove, pulls a cellphone from his pocket, and punches in a number. He is around thirty. Reddish dyed hair, ponytail. Broad forehead, sunken cheeks, sharp eyes. After a short conversation, the man hangs up and puts the phone back into his pocket. He pulls his glove back on and waits. Soon Kaoru, the prostitute, and Mari step outside. Rubber sandals flapping, the prostitute drags herself towards the motorcycle. The temperature has fallen, and she seems cold in her jersey outfit. The motorcycle man barks something at the prostitute, who responds softly. Kaoru says to the motorcycle man, "Ya know, fella, I still haven't been paid for my hotel room." The man stares hard at Kaoru, then says, "I don't pay hotel bills. The john pays." His speech is flat, unaccented, expressionless. "I know that," Kaoru says in a hoarse voice. She clears her throat. "But think about it. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. That's how we do business. This has been a drag for us, too. I mean, this was a case of assault with bodily injury. We could've called the cops. But then you guys would've had a little explaining to do, right? So just 12:25 A.M. pay us our sixty-eight hundred yen and we'll be satisfied. Won't even charge you for the beer. Call it even." The man stares at Kaoru with expressionless eyes. He looks up at the neon sign: Alphaville. He takes off a glove again, pulls a leather billfold from his jacket pocket, counts out seven thousand-yen bills, and lets them drop to his feet. There is no wind: the bills lie flat on the ground. The man puts his glove back on. He raises his arm and looks at his watch. He performs each movement with unnatural slowness. He is clearly in no hurry. He seems to be trying to impress the three women with the sheer weight of his presence. He can take as much time as he likes for anything. All the while, the motorcycle engine keeps up its deep rumbling, like a skittish animal. "You're pretty gutsy," the man says to Kaoru. "Thanks," Kaoru answers. "If you call the cops there might be a fire in the neighbourhood," he says. A deep silence reigns for a time. Arms folded, Kaoru keeps her eyes locked on the man's face. Her own face marked with cuts, the prostitute looks uneasily from one to the other, unable to comprehend their give-and-take. Eventually the man picks up his helmet, slips it on, beckons to the woman, and seats her on his motorcycle. She holds on to his jacket with both hands. Turning, she looks back at Mari and at Kaoru. Then she looks at Mari again. She seems to want to speak but finally says nothing. The man gives the pedal a strong kick, revs the engine, and drives off. The sound of his exhaust reverberates heavily through the midnight streets. Kaoru and Mari are left standing there. Kaoru bends over and picks up the thousand-yen bills one at a time. She turns them so they face the same way, folds the wad in half, and stuffs it into her pocket. She takes a deep breath and rubs her palm over her short blonde hair. "Man!" she says. Eri Asai's room. Nothing has changed. The image of the man in the chair, however, is larger than before. Now we can see him fairly clearly. The signal is still experiencing some interference: at times the image wavers, its outlines bend, its quality fades, and static rises. Now and then a completely unrelated image intrudes momentarily. But the jumble subsides, and the original image returns. Eri Asai is still sound asleep in the bed. The artificial glow of the television screen produces moving shadows on her profile but does not disturb her sleep. The man on the screen wears a dark brown business suit. The suit may well have been an impressive article of clothing in its day, but now it is clearly worn out. Patches of something like white dust cling to the sleeves and back. The man wears black, round-toed shoes which are also smudged with dust. He seems to have arrived at this room after passing through a place with deep piles of dust. He wears a standard dress shirt and plain black woollen tie, both of which share that look of fatigue. His hair is tinged with grey. No, it just may be that his black hair is splotched with the white dust. In any case, it has not been properly combed for a long time. Strangely, however, the man's appearance gives no impression of poor grooming, no sense of shabbiness. He is just tired--profoundly exhausted--after unavoidable circumstances have conspired to smear him, suit and all, with dust. We cannot see his face. For now, the TV camera captures only his back or parts of his body other than his face. Whether because of the angle of the light or through some deliberate arrangement, the face is always in a place of dark shadow inaccessible to our eyes. The man does not move. Every now and then he takes a long, deep breath and his shoulders slowly rise and fall. He could be a hostage who has been confined to a single room for a very long time. Hovering around him there seems to be a drawn-out sense of resignation. Not that he is tied to the chair: he just sits there with his back straight, breathing quietly, staring at one spot directly in front of him. We cannot tell by looking at him whether he has decided for himself that he will not move or he has been placed into some kind of situation that does not permit him to move. His hands rest on his knees. The time is unclear. We cannot even tell if it is night or day. In the light of the banked fluorescent lamps, however, the room is as bright as a summer afternoon. Eventually the camera circles round to the front and shows his face, but this does not help us to identify him. 12:37 A.M. The mystery only deepens. His entire face is covered by a translucent mask. Perhaps we should not call it a mask: it clings so closely to his face, it is more like a piece of plastic wrap. But, thin as it is, it still serves its purpose as a mask. While reflecting the light that strikes it as a pale lustre, it never fails to conceal the man's features and expression. The best we can do is surmise the general contours of his face. The mask has no holes for the nose, mouth, or eyes, but still it does not seem to prevent him from breathing or seeing or hearing. Perhaps it has outstanding breath-ability or permeability, but, viewing it from the outside, we cannot tell what kind of material or technology has been used to make it. The mask possesses equal levels of sorcery and functionality. It has been both handed down from ancient times with darkness and sent back from the future with light. What makes the mask truly eerie is that even though it fits the face like a second skin, it prevents us from even imagining what (if anything) the person within is thinking, feeling, or planning. Is the man's presence a good thing? A bad thing? Are his thoughts straight? Twisted? Is the mask meant to hide him? Protect him? We have no clue. His face covered by this precision-crafted, anonymous mask, the man sits quietly in the chair being captured by the television camera, and this gives rise to a situation. All we can do, it seems, is defer judgement and accept the situation as it is. We shall call him the Man with No Face. The camera angle is now fixed. It views the Man with No Face straight on, from just below centre. In his brown suit, he stays perfectly motionless, looking from his side of the picture tube, through the glass, into this side. He is on the other side, looking straight into this room where we are. Of course his eyes are hidden behind the mysterious glossy mask, but we can vividly feel the existence--the weight--of his line of vision. With unwavering determination, he stares at something ahead of him. Judging from the angle of his face, he could well be staring towards Eri Asai's bed. We trace this hypothetical line of vision with great care. Yes, there can be no doubt about it. What the man in the mask is staring at with his invisible eyes is the sleeping form of Eri. It finally dawns on us: this is what he has been doing all along. He is able to see through to this side. The television screen is functioning as a window on this room. Now and then the picture flickers and recovers. The static also increases. The noise sounds like an amplified sonic version of someone's brain waves. It rises with increasing density, but at a certain point it peaks, begins to degrade, and eventually dies out. Then, as if changing its mind, it emerges again. The same thing repeats. But the line of vision of the Man with No Face never wavers. His concentration is never broken. A beautiful girl sleeping on and on in bed. Her straight black hair spreads over the pillow like a deeply meaningful fan. Softly pursed lips. Heart and mind at the bottom of the sea. Whenever the TV screen flickers, the light striking her profile wavers, and shadows dance like inscrutable signals. Sitting on a plain wooden chair and staring at her in silence, the Man with No Face. His 12:37 A.M. shoulders rise and fall unobtrusively in concert with his breathing, like an empty boat bobbing on gentle early-morning waves. In the room, nothing else moves. Mari and Kaoru walk down a deserted backstreet. Kaoru is seeing Mari somewhere. Mari has her navy blue Boston Red Sox cap pulled down low. In the cap, she looks like a boy--which is probably why she always has it with her. "Man, am I glad you were there," Kaoru says. "I didn't know what the hell was going on." They descend the same stairway short cut they climbed on the way to the hotel. "Hey, let's stop off at a place I know--if you've got the time," Kaoru says. "Place?" "I could really use a nice cold beer. How about you?" "I can't drink." "So have some juice or something. What the hell, you've gotta be some place killing time till morning." They are seated at the counter of a small bar, the only customers. An old Ben Webster record is playing. "My Ideal." From the fifties. Some forty or fifty old-style LPs 1:18 A.M. are lined up on a shelf. Kaoru is drinking draught beer from a tall, thin glass. In front of Mari sits a glass of Perrier with lime juice. Behind the bar, the ageing bartender is involved in cracking ice. "She was pretty, though, wasn't she?" Mari says. "That Chinese girl?" "Yeah." "I suppose so. But she won't be pretty for long, living like that. She'll get old and ugly overnight. I've seen tons of them." "She's nineteen--like me." "Okay," Kaoru says, munching on a few nuts. "But age doesn't matter. That kind of work takes a lot out of you. You've gotta have stainless-steel nerves. Otherwise you start shootin' up, and you're finished." Mari says nothing. "You a college kid?" "Uh-huh. I'm doing Chinese at the University of Foreign Studies." "University of Foreign Studies, huh? What're ya gonna do after you graduate?" "If possible, I'd like to be a freelance translator or interpreter. I don't think I'm suited to a nine-to-five." "Smart girl." "Not really. From the time I was little, though, my parents always told me I'd better study hard, because I'm too ugly for anything else." Kaoru looks at Mari with narrowed eyes. "You're plenty damn cute. It's true: I'm not just saying it to make you feel good. Let 'em get a load of me if they wanna see ugly." Mari gives an uncomfortable little shrug. "My sisters older than me and she is just amazing to look at. As long as I can remember they always compared me to her, like, 'How can two sisters be so different?' It's true: I don't stand a chance if you compare me to her. I'm little, my boobs are small, my hair's kinky, my mouth is too big, and I'm nearsighted and astigmatic." Kaoru laughs. "People usually call stuff like that 'individuality.' " "Yeah, but it's not easy to think that way if people have been telling you you're ugly from the time you're little." "So you studied hard?" "Yeah, pretty much. But I never liked the competition for grades. Plus I wasn't good at sports and I couldn't make friends, so the other kids kind of bullied me, and by the time I got to the third grade I couldn't go to school any more." "You mean, like a real phobia?" Kaoru asks. "Uh-huh. I hated school so much, I'd throw up my breakfast and have terrible stomach-aches and stuff." "Wow. I had awful grades, but I didn't mind school all that much. If there was somebody I didn't like, I'd just beat the crap out of them." Mari smiles. "I wish I could have done that" "Never mind. It's nothing to be proud of So then what happened?" "Well, in Yokohama there was this school for Chinese kids. I had a friend in the neighbourhood who went there. Half the classes were in Chinese, but they didn't go crazy over grades like in the Japanese schools, and my friend 1: 1 8 A.M. was there, so I was willing to go. My parents were against it, of course, but there was no other way they could get me to go to school." "You were a stubborn little thing, I bet." "Maybe so," Mari says. "So this Chinese school let Japanese kids in?" "Uh-huh. They didn't have any special requirements or anything." "But you probably didn't know any Chinese then?" "None at all. But I was young, and my friend helped me, so I learned right away. It was good: people weren't so driven. I stayed there all through middle school and high school. My parents weren't too happy about it, though. They wanted me to go to some famous prep school and become a doctor or a lawyer or something. They had our roles picked out for us: the elder sister, Snow White; the younger sister, a little genius." "Your sister is that good-looking?" Mari nods and takes a sip of her Perrier. "She was already modelling for magazines in middle school. You know, those magazines for teenage girls." "Wow," Kaoru says. "It must be tough having such a gorgeous elder sister. But anyhow, to change the subject, what's a girl like you doing hanging out all night in a place like this?" "A girl like me?" "You know what I mean Anybody can see you're a respectable sort of girl." "I just didn't want to go home." "You had a fight with your family?" Mari shakes her head. "No, that's not it. I just wanted to be alone for a while some place other than my house. Until morning." "Have you done this kind of thing before?" Mari keeps silent. Kaoru says, "I guess it's none of my business, but to tell you the truth, this is not the kind of neighbourhood where respectable girls ought to be spending the night. It's got some pretty dangerous characters hanging around. I've had a few scary brushes myself. Between the time the last train leaves and the first train arrives, the place changes: it's not the same as in daytime." Mari picks up her Boston Red Sox hat from the bar and begins fiddling with the visor, thinking. Eventually, she sweeps the thought away and says, gently but firmly, "Sorry, do you mind if we talk about something else?" Kaoru grabs a few peanuts and pops them into her mouth. "No, that's fine," she says. "Let's talk about something else." Mari pulls a pack of Camel Filters from her jacket pocket and lights one with a Bic. "Hey, you smoke!" exclaims Kaoru. "Once in a while." "Tell you the truth, it doesn't become you." Mari reddens but manages a slightly awkward smile. "Mind if I have one?" Kaoru asks. "Sure." Kaoru puts a Camel in her mouth and lights it with Mari's Bic. She does, in fact, look much more natural than Mari smoking. 1:18 A.M. "Got a boyfriend?" Mari gives her head a little shake. "I'm not much interested in boys at the moment." "You like girls better?" "Not really. I don't know." Kaoru puffs on her cigarette and listens to music. A hint of fatigue shows on her face now that she is allowing herself to relax. Mari says, "You know, I've been wanting to ask you. Why do you call your hotel Alphaville?" "Hmm, I wonder. The boss probably named it. All love hos have these crazy names. I mean, they're just for men and women to come and do their stuff. All you need is a bed and a bathtub. Nobody gives a damn about the name as long as it sounds like a love ho. Why do you ask?" "Alphaville is the title of one of my favourite movies. Jean-Luc Godard." "Never heard of it." "Yeah, it's really old. From the sixties." "That's maybe where they got it. I'll ask the boss next time I see him. What does it mean, though--'Alphaville'?" "It's the name of an imaginary city of the near future," Mari says. "Somewhere in the Milky Way." "Oh, science fiction. Like Star Wars?" "No, it's not at all like Star Wars. No special effects, no action. It's more conceptual. Black-and-white, lots of dialogue, they show it in art theatres" "Whaddya mean, 'conceptual'?" "Well, for example, if you cry in Alphaville, they arrest you and execute you in public." "Why?" " 'Cause in Alphaville, you're not allowed to have deep feelings. So there's nothing like love. No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas." Kaoru wrinkles her brow. " 'Irony'?" "Irony means taking an objective or inverted view of oneself or of someone belonging to oneself and discovering oddness in that." Kaoru thinks for a moment about Mari's explanation. "I don't really get it," she says. "But tell me: is there sex in this Alphaville place?" "Yes, there is sex in Alphaville." "Sex that doesn't need love or irony." "Right." Kaoru gives a hearty laugh. "So, come to think of it, Alphaville may be the perfect name for a love ho." A well-dressed, middle-aged man of small stature comes in and sits at the end of the bar. He orders a cocktail and starts a hushed conversation with the bartender. He seems to be a regular, sitting in his usual seat and ordering his usual drink. He is one of those unidentifiable people who inhabit the city at night. Mari asks Kaoru, "You said you used to be a professional wrestler?" "Yeah, for a long time. I was always on the big side, and a good fighter, so they scouted me in high school. I went straight into the ring, and played bad girls the whole time 1:1 8 A.M. with this crazy blonde hair and shaved-off eyebrows and a red scorpion tattoo on my shoulder. I was on TV sometimes, too. I had matches in Hong Kong and Taiwan and stuff, and a kind of local fan club--a small one. I guess you don't watch lady wrestlers?" "I never have." "Yeah, well, that's one hell of a way to make a living, too. I hurt my back and retired when I was twenty-nine. I was a wild woman in the ring, so something like that was bound to happen. I was tough, but everything has its limits. With me, it's a personality thing. I don't know how to do things hallway. I guess I'm a crowd pleaser. They'd start roaring and I'd go crazy and do way more than I needed to. So now I get this twinge in my back whenever we get a few days of rain. Once that gets started, I can't do a thing but lie down all day. I'm a mess." Kaoru turns her head until the bones in her neck crack. "When I was popular I used to pull in the money and I had people crawling all over me, but once I quit there was nothing left. Zip. Where'd all the money go? Well, I built a house for my parents back in Yamagata, so I was a good girl as far as that goes, but the rest went to pay off my younger brother's gambling debts or got used up by relatives I hardly knew, or disappeared into fishy investments that some bank guy came along with. Once that happened, people didn't wanna have anything to do with me. I felt bad, like, what the hell have I been doing with myself the past ten years? I'm getting ready to turn thirty and I'm falling apart and I've got nothing in the bank. So I'm wondering what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life when somebody in my fan club puts me in touch with the boss of this house and he says, 'Why not become a manager of a love ho?' Manager? Hell, you can see I'm more like a bouncer or bodyguard." Kaoru drinks what is left of her beer. Then she looks at her watch. "Don't you have to get back to work?" Mari asks. "In a love ho, this is the time you can take it easy. The trains aren't running any more, so most of the customers now are gonna stay the night, and nothing much will happen till the morning. I guess you can say I'm on duty, but nobody's gonna give me a hard time for drinking a beer." "So you work all night and then go home?" "Well, I've got an apartment I can go back to, but there's nothing for me to do there, nobody waiting for me. I spend more nights in the hotel's back room and just start work when I get up. What're you gonna do now?" "Just kill time reading a book somewhere." "Y'know, you can stay in our place if you don't mind. We can put you up in one of the empty rooms--we've got a few tonight. It's a little sad to spend a night alone in a love ho, but it's great for sleeping. Beds are one thing we've got plenty of." Mari gives a little nod, but her mind is made up. "Thanks, but I can manage by myself." "Okay, if you say so." "Is Takahashi practising somewhere nearby? His band, I mean." "Oh yeah, Takahashi. They'll be wailin' away all night 1:1 8 A.M. in the basement. The buildings right down the street. Wanna go and have a peek? They're noisy as hell, though." "No, that's okay. I was just curious." "Oh, okay. He's a nice kid. He's gonna be something some day. He looks kinda goofy, but he's surprisingly solid underneath. Not bad at all." "How did you get to know him?" Kaoru purses her lips out of shape. "Now that is an interesting story, but you'd better get it straight from him instead of from me." Kaoru pays the bill. "Mari, aren't your folks gonna get mad at you for staying out all night?" "They think I'm staying at a friend's house. My parents don't worry that much about me, whatever I do." "I'll bet they think they can leave you alone because you've really got it together." Mari does not respond to this remark. "But maybe sometimes you don't really have it together," Kaoru says. Mari gives her a slight frown. "What makes you think that?" "It's not a question of what I think. It's part of being nineteen years old. I used to be nineteen myself once. I know what it's like." Mari looks at Kaoru. She starts to say something, but decides she can't make it come out right, changes her mind. Kaoru says, "The Skylark is near here. I'll walk you there. The boss is a buddy of mine, so I'm gonna ask him to take care of you. He'll let you stay there till morning. Okay?" Mari nods. The record ends, the automatic turntable lifts the needle, and the tone arm drops on to its rest. The bartender approaches the player to change records. He carefully lifts the platter and slips it into its jacket. Then he takes out the next record, examines its surface under a light, and sets it on the turntable. He presses a button and the needle descends to the record. Faint scratching. Then Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" begins to play. Harry Carney's languorous bass clarinet performs solo. The bartender's unhurried movements give the place its own special time flow. Mari asks the bartender, "Don't you ever play anything but LPs?" "I don't like CDs," he replies. "Why not?" "They're too shiny." Kaoru butts in to ask the bartender: "Are you a crow?" "But look at all the time it takes to change LPs," Mari says. The bartender laughs. "Look, it's the middle of the night. There won't be any trains running till morning. What's the hurry?" Kaoru cautions Mari, "Remember, this fella's a little on the weird side." "It's true, though: time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night," the bartender says, loudly 1:1 8 A.M. striking a book match and lighting a cigarette. "You can't fight it." "My uncle used to have lots of LPs," Mari says. "Mostly jazz records. He could never get himself to like the sound of CDs. He used to play his stuff for me when I went over there. I was too young to understand the music, but I always liked the smell of old record jackets and the sound of the needle landing in the grooves." The bartender nods without speaking. "I learned about Jean-Luc Godard's movies from that same uncle, too," Mari says to Kaoru. "So, you and your uncle were kinda on the same wavelength, huh?" asks Kaoru. "Pretty much," Mari says. "He was a professor, but he was kind of a playboy, too. He died all of a sudden three years ago from a heart condition." The bartender says to Mari, "Stop in any time you like. I open the place at seven every night. Except Sundays." Mari thanks him and from the counter she picks up a book of the bar's matches, which she stuffs into her jacket pocket. She climbs down from the stool. The sound of the needle tracing the record groove. The languorous, sensual music of Duke Ellington. Music for the middle of the night. The Skylark. Big neon sign. Bright seating area visible through the window. Equally bright laughter from the youthful group of men and women--college students, likely--seated at a large table. This place is far livelier than the Denny's. The deepest darkness of the night-time streets is unable to penetrate here. Mari is washing her hands in the Skylark restroom. She is no longer wearing her hat--or her glasses. From a ceiling speaker at low volume an old hit song by the Pet Shop Boys is playing: "Jealousy." Mari's big shoulder bag sits by the sink. She washes her hands with great care, using liquid soap from the dispenser. She appears to be washing off a sticky substance that clings to the spaces between her fingers. Every now and then she looks up at her face in the mirror. She turns off the water, examines all ten fingers under the light, and rubs them dry with a paper towel. She then leans close to the mirror and stares at the reflection of her face as if she expects something to happen. She doesn't want to miss the slightest change. But nothing happens. She rests her hands on the sink, closes her eyes, begins counting, and then opens her eyes again. Again she examines her face in detail, but still there is no sign of change. 1:56 A.M. She straightens her fringe and rearranges the hood of the parka under her varsity jacket. Then, as if urging herself on, she bites her lip and nods at herself several times. The Mari in the mirror also bites her lip and nods several times. She hangs the bag on her shoulder and walks out of the restroom. The door closes. Our viewpoint camera lingers in here for a while, observing the restroom. Mari is no longer here. Neither is anyone else. Music continues to play from the ceiling speaker. A Hall and Oates song now: "I Can't Go for That." A closer look reveals that Mari's image is still reflected in the mirror over the sink. The Mari in the mirror is looking from her side into this side. Her sombre gaze seems to be expecting some kind of occurrence. But there is no one on this side. Only her image is left in the Skylark's restroom mirror. The room begins to darken. In the deepening darkness, "I Can't Go for That" continues to play. The Hotel Alphaville office. Kaoru sits at the computer looking grumpy. The liquid crystal monitor shows videos taken by the security camera at the front entrance. The image is clear. The time of day is displayed in a corner of the screen. Checking her pencilled notes against the time on the monitor, Kaoru uses the mouse to make the image fast-forward and stop. The procedure does not seem to be going well. Now and then she looks at the ceiling and sighs. Komugi and Korogi walk in. "Whatcha doin', Kaoru?" Komugi asks. "Whoa, you sure don't look happy!" Korogi adds. "Security-camera DVD," Kaoru answers, glaring at the screen. "If I check right around that time, we can probably tell who beat her up." "But we had all kinds of customers coming and going then. Think we can tell which one did it?" Komugi says. Kaoru's thick fingers tap clumsily at the keys. "All the other customers were couples, but that guy came alone 2:19 A.M. and waited for the woman in the room. He picked up the key to 404 at 10:52, and she got delivered on the motorcycle ten minutes later. We know that much from Sasaki at the reception desk." "So all you have to do is look at the frames from ten fifty-two," says Komugi. "Yeah, but it's not as easy as it sounds," says Kaoru. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing with these digital gizmos." "Muscles don't help much, do they?" says Komugi. "You got it." With an earnest expression, Korogi says, "I think maybe Kaoru was born at the wrong time." "Yeah," says Komugi. "By like two thousand years." "Right on," says Korogi. "Think you've got me all figured out, huh?" says Kaoru. "Can you guys do this stuff?" "No way!" they chime in together. Kaoru types the time she wants in the search column and clicks her mouse, but she can't bring up the correct frames. She seems to be performing operations in the wrong sequence. She clucks in frustration. She picks up the manual and flips through it, but can't make sense of it, gives up, and throws it on the desk. "What the hell am I doing wrong? This ought to bring up the exact frames I want, but it doesn't. I wish to hell Takahashi were here. He'd get it in a split second." "But still, Kaoru, even if you find out what the guy looks like, what good's it gonna do? You can't report him to the cops," Komugi says. "I don't go anywhere near the cops if I can help it," says Kaoru. "Not to boast or anything." "So what're you gonna do?" "I'll think about that when the time comes," says Kaoru. "It's just the way I'm made: I can't stand by and let a son-of-a-bitch like that pull shit like that. He thinks 'cause he's stronger he can beat up a woman, strip her of everything she's got, and walk away. And on top of it he doesn't pay his damn hotel bill. That's a man for you--a real scumball." "Somebody oughta catch that fuckin' psycho and beat him half to death," says Korogi. "Right on," says Kaoru with a vigorous nod. "But he'd never be stupid enough to show his face here again. Not for a while, at least. And who's got time to go looking for him?" "So what're ya gonna do?" Komugi asks. "Like I said, I'll think about that when the time comes." All but punching the mouse in desperation, Kaoru double-clicks on a random icon, and a few seconds later the screen for 10:48 appears on the monitor. "At last." Komugi: "If at first you don't succeed" Korogi: "Betcha scared the computer." The three of them stare at the screen in silence, holding their breath. A young couple come in at 10:50. Students, probably. Both are obviously tense. They stand in front of the room photos, settling first on one, then another, and 2:19 A.M. finally choosing room 302. They push the button, take the key, and after wandering in search of the lift, they get on. Kaoru: "So these're the guests in room three-oh-two." Komugi: "Three-oh-two, huh? They look innocent enough, but they went wild in there. You shoulda seen the place after they were through with it." Korogi: "So what? They're young. They pay to come to a place like this so they can go wild." Komugi: "Well, I'm still young, but you don't see me goin' wild." Korogi: "That's 'cause you're not horny enough." Komugi: "Think so? I wonder" Kaoru: "Hey, here comes number four-oh-four. Shut up and watch." A man appears on the screen. The time is 10:52. He wears a light grey trench coat, is in his late thirties, maybe close to forty. He has on a tie and dress shoes like a typical company man. Small wire-frame glasses. He is not carrying anything; his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his trench coat. Everything about him is ordinary--height, build, hairstyle. If you passed him on the street, he would leave no impression. "Looks like a totally ordinary guy," says Komugi. "The ordinary-looking ones are the most dangerous," says Kaoru, rubbing her chin. "They carry around a shitload of stress." The man glances at his watch and, without hesitation, takes the key to 404. He strides swiftly towards the lift, disappearing from the monitor. Kaoru pauses the image and asks the girls, "So what does this tell us?" "Looks like a guy from some company," says Komugi. Kaoru shakes her head, looking at Komugi with apparent disgust. "I don't need you to tell me that a guy in a business suit and tie at this time of day has got to be a company guy on his way home from work." "Sorrreeee," says Komugi. Korogi offers her opinion: "I'd say he's done this kind of thing a lot. Knows his way around. No hesitation." "Right on," says Kaoru. "Grabs the key right away and heads straight for the lift. No wasted motion. No looking around." Komugi: "You mean this ain't his first time here?" Korogi: "One of our regular customers, in other words." Kaoru: "Probably. And he's probably bought his women the same way before, too." Komugi: "Some guys like to specialise in Chinese women." Kaoru: "Lots of guys. So think about it: he's an office worker and he's been here a few times. There's a good possibility he works in a company around here." Komugi: "Hey, you're right" Korogi: "And he works the night shift a lot?" Kaoru scowls at Korogi. "What gives you that idea? He puts in a day's work, stops off for a beer, starts feelin' good, gets hungry for a woman. That could happen." Korogi: "Yeah, but this guy wasn't carrying anything. 2:19 A.M. Left his stuff in the office. He'd be carrying something if he was going home--a briefcase or a manila envelope or something. None of these company guys commute empty-handed. Which means this guy was going back to the office for more work. That's what I think." Komugi: "So he works all night?" Korogi: "There's a bunch of people like that. They stay at the office and work till morning. Especially computer-software guys. They start messing around with the system after everybody else goes home and there's nobody around. They can't shut the system down while everybody's working, so they stay till two or three in the morning and take a taxi home. The company pays for the cabs with vouchers." Komugi: "Hey, come to think of it, the guy really looks like a computer geek. But how come you know so much, Korogi?" Korogi: "Well, I wasn't always doing this stuff. I used to work at a company. A pretty good one, too." Komugi: "Seriously?" Korogi: "Of course I worked seriously. That's what you have to do at a company." Komugi: "So why did you--" Kaoru snaps at them: "Hey, gimme a break, will ya? You're supposed to be talking about this stuff. You can yap about that shit somewhere else." Komugi: "Sorry." Kaoru reverses the video to 10:52 and sets it to play frame by frame, pausing it at one point and enlarging the man's image in stages. Then she prints the image, producing a fairly good-sized colour photograph of the man's face. Komugi: "Fantastic!" Korogi: "Wow! Look what you can do! Like Blade Runnerl" Komugi: "I guess it's handy, but the worlds a pretty scary place now if you stop and think about it. You can't just walk into a love ho any time you feel like it." Kaoru: "So you guys better not do anything bad when you go out. You never know when there's a camera watching these days." Komugi: "The walls have ears--and digital cameras." Korogi: "Yeah, you gotta watch what you're doing." Kaoru makes five prints in all. Each woman studies the man's face. Kaoru: "The enlargement is grainy, but you can pretty much tell what he looks like, right?" Komugi: "I'd definitely recognise him on the street." Kaoru twists her neck, cracking and popping the bones, as she sits there, thinking. Finally, an idea comes to her: "Did either of you guys use this office phone after I went out?" Both women shake their heads. Komugi: "Not me." Korogi: "Or me." Kaoru: "Which means nobody dialled any numbers after the Chinese girl used the phone?" Komugi: "Never touched it." Korogi: "Not a finger." 2:19 A.M. Kaoru picks up the receiver, takes a breath, and hits the redial button. After two rings, a man picks up the other phone and rattles off something in Chinese. Kaoru says, "Hello, I'm calling from the Hotel Alphaville. You know: a guest of ours beat up one of your girls around eleven o'clock? Well, we've got the guy's photo. From the security camera. I thought you might want one." A few moments of silence follow. Then the man says in Japanese, "Wait a minute." "I'll wait," says Kaoru. "Till I turn blue." Some kind of discussion goes on at the other end. Ear on the receiver, Kaoru twiddles a ballpoint pen between her fingers. Komugi belts out a song using the tip of her broomstick as her mike: "The snow is fa-a-a-a-lling But where are yo-o-o-o-o-u?I'll go on wa-a-a-a-iting Till I turn blu-u-u-u-e" The man comes back to the telephone. "You got the picture there now?" "Hot off the press," says Kaoru. "How'd you get this number?" "They put all kinds of convenient features into these modern gizmos." A few more seconds of silence follow. The man says, "I'll be there in ten minutes." "I'll be at the front door." The connection is cut. Kaoru frowns and hangs up. Again she pops the bones in her thick neck. The room falls silent. Komugi speaks hesitantly. "UmmKaoru?" "What?" "Are you really gonna give those guys the picture?" "You heard what I said before: I'm not gonna let that bastard get away with beating up an innocent girl. And it pisses me off he skipped out on his hotel bill. Plus, look at this pasty-faced salaryman son-of-a-bitch: I can't stand him." Komugi: "Yeah, but if they find him, they might hang a rock on him and toss him into Tokyo Bay. If you got mixed up in something like that, there'd be hell to pay." Kaoru is still frowning. "Nah, they're not gonna kill him. The police don't give a shit when those Chinese guys kill each other, but it's a different story when they start bumping off respectable Japanese. That's when the trouble starts. Nah, they'll just grab him and teach him a lesson, and maybe cut off an ear." Komugi: "Ow!" Korogi: "Kinda like van Gogh." Komugi: "But really, Kaoru, d'you think they can find the guy with just a photo to go on? I mean, it's a big town!" Kaoru: "Yeah, but once those guys make up their minds, they never let go. That's the way they are with stuff like this. If some guy off the street gets away with making them look bad, they can't keep their women in line, and they lose face with the other gangs. They can't survive in that world if they lose face." Kaoru takes a cigarette from the desktop, puts it in her mouth, and lights it with a match. Pursing her lips, she 2:19 A.M. slowly releases a long stream of smoke at the computer screen. On the paused screen the enlarged face of the man. Ten minutes later. Kaoru and Komugi wait near the hotel's front door. Kaoru wears the same leather jacket as before, her woollen hat pulled down almost to her eyes. Komugi wears a big, thick sweater. She clutches herself across the chest to ward off the cold. Soon, the man who came to pick up the woman arrives on his big motorcycle. He stops the bike a few paces away from the women. Again he keeps the engine running. He takes off his helmet, rests it on the petrol tank, and deliberately removes his right glove. He stuffs the glove into his jacket pocket and stands his ground. He is obviously not going to move. Kaoru strides towards him and holds out three copies of the photo. "He probably works in a company near here," she says. "I think he works nights a lot, and I'm pretty sure he's ordered women here before. Maybe he's one of your regulars." The man takes the photos and stares at them for a few seconds. They don't seem to interest him especially. "So?" he asks, looking at Kaoru. "Whaddya mean, 'So?' " "Why are you giving me these?" "I kinda figured you'd wanna have 'em. You don't?" Instead of replying, the man unzips his jacket and puts the photos, folded in half, into a kind of document sack hanging across his chest. Then he raises the zipper to the base of his neck. He keeps his eyes fixed on Kaoru the whole time. The man is trying to find out what Kaoru wants in return for supplying him with this information, but he refuses to ask the question. He holds his pose, mouth shut, and waits for the answer to come to him. But Kaoru faces him with arms folded like his, aiming her cold stare at him. She is not going to back down, either. This suffocating stare-down goes on for some time. Finally Kaoru breaks the silence with a well-timed clearing of her throat. "Just let me know if you find him, okay?" The man grips the handlebar with his left hand and rests his right hand lightly on his helmet. "Just let you know if we find him," he echoes mechanically. "That's right." "Just let you know?" Kaoru nods. "Just a little whisper in my ear. I don't need to know what you do to him." The man is thinking hard. He gives the crown of his helmet two light taps with his fist. "If we find him, I'll let you know." "I look forward to the news," Kaoru says. "Do you guys still cut ears off?" The man's lips twitch slightly. "A man has only one life. Ears, he has two." "Maybe so, but if he loses an ear, he's got nothing to hang his glasses on." "Most inconvenient," the man says. 2:19 A.M. This brings their conversation to an end. The man puts his helmet on, gives his pedal a big kick, turns the bike, and speeds off. Kaoru and Komugi silently watch the motorcycle go, standing in the street long after it has disappeared. When she speaks finally, Komugi says, "I don't know, he's kind of like a ghost." "Well, it is the right time of day for ghosts, you know," Kaoru says. "Scary." "Yeah, really." The two walk into the hotel. Kaoru is alone in the office. Her feet are on the desk. She picks up the photo and studies it again. Close-up of the man. Kaoru lets out a quiet moan and raises her eyes towards the ceiling. Aman is working at a computer. This is the man who was photographed by the surveillance camera at the Hotel Alphaville--the man in the light grey trench coat who took the key to room 404. He is a touch typist of awesome speed. Still, his fingers can barely keep up with his thoughts. His lips are tightly pursed. His face remains expressionless, neither breaking into a smile of satisfaction nor frowning with disappointment at the results of his work. The cuffs of his white shirt are rolled up to the elbows. His collar button is open, his tie loosened. Now and then he has to stop typing to scribble notes and symbols on a scratch pad next to the keyboard. He uses a long, silver-coloured eraser pencil stamped with the company name: VERITECH. Six more of these silver pencils are neatly lined up in a nearby tray. All are of roughly the same length and sharpened to perfection. The room is a large one. The man has stayed late to work in the office after everyone else has gone home. A Bach piano piece flows at moderate volume from a compact CD player on his desk. Ivo Pogorelich performs 2:43 A.M. one of the English Suites. The room is dark. Only the area around the man's desk receives illumination from fluorescent lights on the ceiling. This could be an Edward Hopper painting titled Loneliness. Not that the man himself feels lonely where he is at the moment: he prefers it this way. With no one else around, he can concentrate. He can listen to his favourite music and get a lot of work done. He doesn't hate his job. As long as he is able to concentrate on his work, he doesn't have to be distracted by practical trivia. Unconcerned about the time and effort involved, he can handle all difficulties logically, analytically. He follows the flow of the music half-consciously, staring at the computer screen, moving his fingers at full speed, keeping pace with Pogorelich. There is no wasted motion, just the meticulous eighteenth-century music, the man, and the technical problems he has been given to solve. His only source of distraction is an apparent pain in his right hand. Now and then he interrupts his work to open and close the hand and flex the wrist. The left hand massages the back of the right hand. He takes a deep breath and glances at his watch. He grimaces ever so slightly. The pain in his right hand is slowing his work. The man is impeccably dressed. He has exercised a good deal of care in choosing his outfit, though it is neither highly individualised nor especially sophisticated. He does have good taste. His shirt and tie look expensive--probably name-brand items. His face gives an impression of intelligence and breeding. The watch on his left wrist is elegantly thin, his glasses Armani in style. His hands are large, fingers long, nails well manicured. A narrow wedding band adorns the third finger of his left hand. His facial features are undistinguished, but the details of his expression suggest a strong-willed personality. He is probably just about forty years old, and the flesh of his face and neck, at least, show no trace of sagging. In general appearance, he gives the same impression as a well-ordered room. He does not look like the kind of man who would buy a Chinese prostitute in a love hotel--and certainly not one who would administer an unmerciful pounding to such a woman, strip her clothes off, and take them away. In fact, however, that is exactly what he did--what he had to do. The phone rings, but he doesn't pick up the receiver. Never changing his expression, he goes on working at the same speed. He lets the phone ring, his line of vision unwavering. After four rings, the answering machine takes over. "Shirakawa here. Sorry, but I am unable to take your call. Please leave a message after the beep." The signal sounds. "Hello?" says a woman's voice. It is low and muffled and sleepy sounding. "It's me. Are you there? Pick up, will you?" Still staring at the computer screen, Shirakawa grabs a remote control and pauses the music before switching on the speakerphone. "Hi, I'm here," he says. 2:43 A.M. "You weren't there when I called before. I thought maybe you'd be coming home early tonight," the woman says. "Before? When was that?" "After eleven. I left a message." Shirakawa glances at the telephone. She is right: the red message lamp is blinking. "Sorry, I didn't notice. I was concentrating on my work," Shirakawa says. "After eleven, huh? I went out for a snack. Then I stopped by Starbucks for a macchiato. You been up all this time?" Shirakawa goes on tapping at the keyboard as he talks. "I went back to sleep at eleven thirty, but I had a terrible dream and woke up a minute ago. You still weren't home, soWhat was it today?" Shirakawa doesn't understand her question. He stops typing and glances at the phone. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes momentarily deepen. "What was what?" "Your midnight snack. What'd you eat?" "Oh. Chinese. Same as always. Keeps me full." "Was it good?" "Not especially." He returns his gaze to the computer screen and starts tapping the keys again. "So, how's the work going?" "Tough situation. Guy drove his ball into the rough. If somebody doesn't fix it before the sun comes up, our morning net meeting's not gonna happen." "And that somebody is you again?" "None other," Shirakawa says. "I don't see anybody else around here." "Think you can fix it in time?" "Of course. You're talking to a top-seeded pro here. I score at least par on my worst days. And if we can't have our meeting tomorrow morning, we might lose our last chance to buy out Microsoft." "You're gonna buy out Microsoft?!" "Just kidding," Shirakawa says. "Anyhow, I think it'll take me another hour. I'll call a cab and be home by four thirty, maybe." "I'll probably be asleep by then. I've gotta get up at six and make the kids' lunches." "And when you get up, I'll be sound asleep." "And when you get up, I'll be eating lunch at the office." "And when you get home, I'll be settling down to do serious work." "Here we go again: never meeting." "I should be getting back to a more reasonable schedule next week. One of the guys'll be coming back from a business trip, and the kinks in the new system should be ironed out." "Really?" "Probably," Shirakawa says. "It may be my imagination, but I seem to recall you saying the exact same words a month ago." "Yeah, I cut and pasted them in just now." His wife sighs. "I hope it works out this time. I'd like 2:43 A.M. to have a meal together once in a while, and maybe go to sleep at the same time." "Yeah." "Well, don't work too hard." "Don't worry. I'll sink that last perfect putt, hear the crowd applaud, and come home." "Okay, then " "Okay." "Oh, wait a second." "Huh?" "I hate to ask a top-seeded pro to do something like this, but on the way home can you stop by a convenience store for a carton of milk? Takanashi low-fat if they've got it." "No problem," he says. "Takanashi low-fat." Shirakawa cuts the connection and checks his watch. He picks up the mug on his desk and takes a sip of cold coffee. The mug has an Intel Inside logo. He restarts the CD player and flexes his right hand in time to Bach. He takes a deep breath and sucks in a new lungful of air. Then he flicks a switch in his head and gets back to his interrupted work. Once again the single most important thing for him is how to get consistently from point A to point B over the shortest possible distance. he interior of a convenience store. Cartons of T Takanashi low-fat milk line the dairy case. Young jazz musician Takahashi softly whistles "Five Spot After Dark" as he inspects the contents of the case. He carries only a shopping basket. His hand reaches out, grasps a carton of milk, but he notices that it is low-fat, and he frowns. This could well be a fundamental moral problem for him, not just a question of the fat content of milk. He returns the low-fat to its place on the shelf and picks up a neighbouring regular. He checks the expiry date and puts the carton into his basket. Next he moves on to the fruit case and picks up an apple. This he inspects from several angles beneath the ceiling lights. It is not quite good enough. He puts it back and picks up another apple, subjecting it to the same kind of scrutiny. He repeats the process several times until he finds one that he can at least accept, if not be wholly satisfied with. Milk and apples seem to have a special significance for him. He heads for the checkout counter, but on the way he notices some plastic-wrapped fishcakes and picks one up. After checking the expiry date printed on the corner of the bag, he puts it into his basket. He pays the cashier and, shoving the change into his trouser pocket, leaves the store. Sitting on a nearby guard rail, he carefully polishes the apple with his shirt-tail. The temperature must have dropped: his breath is faintly white in the night air. He gulps the milk down, almost all in a single breath, after which he munches on the apple. He chews each mouthful with care, thinking. It takes time for him to eat the whole apple this way. He wipes his mouth with a wrinkled handkerchief, puts the milk carton and apple core into a plastic bag, and goes over to throw them away in a rubbish bin outside the store. The fishcake he puts into his coat pocket. After checking the time on his 2:43 A.M. orange Swatch, he reaches both arms straight up in a big stretch. When he is through with all this, he chooses a direction and begins walking. Our viewpoint has returned to Eri Asai's room. A quick scan reveals nothing changed. The night has deepened with the passage of time, however, and the silence is one degree heavier. No, something has changed. Greatly. The change is immediately obvious. The bed is empty. Eri Asai is gone. The bedding is undisturbed, but it is not as if she woke up and left while we were away. The bed is so perfectly made, there is no sign she was sleeping in it until a few moments before. This is strange. What could have happened? We look around. The TV is still on. It displays the same room it was showing before. A large, unfurnished room. Ordinary fluorescent lights. Linoleum floor. The picture, however, has stabilised, almost to the point of unrecognisability. The static is gone, and instead of bleeding into each other, the images have clear, sharp outlines. The channel connection--wherever it might be tuned in to--is steady. Like the light of the full moon pouring down on an 3:03 A.M. uninhabited grassland, the TV's bright screen illuminates the room. Everything in the room, without exception, is more or less under the influence of the magnetic force emitted by the television set. The TV screen. The Man with No Face is still sitting in the chair. Brown suit, black shoes, white dust, glossy mask adhering to his face. His posture, too, is unchanged since we last saw him. Back straight, hands on knees, face angled slightly downwards, he stares at something straight ahead of him. His eyes are hidden by the mask, but we can tell they are locked on something. What could he be staring at with such intensity? As if responding to our thoughts, the TV camera begins to move along his line of vision. At the point of focus stands a bed, a single bed made of unadorned wood, and in it sleeps Eri Asai. We look at the empty bed in this room and at the bed on the TV screen. We compare them in detail. The conclusion is inescapable: they are the exact same bed. The covers are exactly the same. But one bed is on the TV screen and the other is in this room. And in the TV bed, Eri Asai lies asleep. We suppose that the other one is the real bed. It was transported, with Eri, to the other side while we were looking elsewhere (over two hours have passed since we left this room). All we have here is a substitute that was left in place of the real bed--perhaps as a sign intended to fill the empty space that should be here. In the bed in that other world, Eri continues sleeping soundly, as she did when she was in this room--just as beautifully, just as deeply. She is not aware that some hand has carried her (or perhaps we should say her body) into the TV screen. The blinding glare of the ceiling's fluorescent lamps does not penetrate to the bottom of the sea trench in which she sleeps. The Man with No Face is watching over Eri with eyes that are themselves hidden from view behind their shroud. He aims hidden ears towards her with unwavering attention. Both Eri and the Man with No Face intently maintain their respective poses. Like animals hiding in camouflage, they curtail their breathing, lower their body temperature, maintain total silence, hold their muscles in check, and block out their portals of awareness. We seem to be looking at a picture that has been paused, which is not in fact the case. This is a live image being sent to us in real time. In both that room and this room, time is passing at the same uniform rate. Both are immersed in the same temporality. We know this from the occasional slow rising and falling of the man's shoulders. Wherever the intention of each might lie, we are together being carried along at the same speed down the same river of time. skylark interior. Fewer customers than before. The noisy student group is gone. Mari is sitting by the window, reading again. Her glasses are off. Her hat is on the table. Her bag and varsity jacket are on the next seat. The table holds a plate of little square sandwiches and a cup of herbal tea. The sandwiches are half gone. Takahashi comes in. He is not carrying anything. He looks around, sees Mari, and heads straight for her table. "Hey, how's it goin'?" Mari looks up, registers that it is Takahashi, and gives him a little nod. She doesn't say anything. "Okay if I join you?" he asks. "Fine," she says, her voice neutral. He sits down facing her. He takes off his coat and yanks up the sleeves of his sweater. The waitress comes and takes his order: coffee. Takahashi looks at his watch. 'Three a. m. This is the darkest part of the night--and the hardest part. You're not sleepy?" "Not especially." "I didn't sleep much last night. Had a tough report to write." Mari doesn't say anything. "Kaoru told me you'd probably be here." Mari nods. Takahashi says, "Sorry for putting you through that. The Chinese girl, I mean. I was practising and Kaoru called me on my cellphone and asked me if I knew anybody who spoke Chinese. None of us could, of course, but then I thought of you. I told her she'd find this girl named Mari Asai in Denny's, and what you look like and that you're fluent in Chinese. I hope it wasn't too big a pain for you." Mari rubs the marks her glasses left on her skin. "No, don't worry." "Kaoru says you were a tremendous help. She was really grateful. I think she likes you." Mari changes the subject. "You finished practising?" "Taking a break," Takahashi says. "I wanted to wake myself up with some hot coffee--and say thanks to you. I was worried about the interruption." "What interruption?" "I don't know," he says. "I figured it must have interrupted something you were doing." "Do you enjoy performing music?" Mari asks. "Yeah. It's the next-best thing to flying through the air." "Oh? Have you flown through the air?" Takahashi smiles. He holds the smile while inserting a pause. "Not all by myself, no," he says. "It's just a figure of speech." 3:07 A.M. "Are you planning to be a professional musician?" He shakes his head. "I'm not that talented. I love to play, but I could never make a living at it. There's a big difference between playing well and playing really creatively. I think I'm pretty good on my instrument. People say they like my playing, and I enjoy hearing that, but that's as far as it goes. I'm gonna quit the band at the end of the month and basically cut my ties with music." "What do you mean, 'playing really creatively'? Can you give me a concrete example?" "Hmm, let's see You send the music deep enough into your heart so that it makes your body undergo a kind of a physical shift, and simultaneously the listener's body also undergoes the same kind of physical shift. It's giving birth to that kind of shared state. Probably." "Sounds hard." "It is hard," Takahashi says. "That's why I'm getting off. I'm gonna change trains at the next station." "You won't even touch your instrument any more?" He turns his hands palm-upwards on the table. "Maybe not." "Gonna take a job?" Takahashi shakes his head again. "No, that I'm not going to do." After a pause, Man asks, "Then what are you going to do?" "Study law seriously. Take the National Bar Exam." Mari keeps silent, but her curiosity seems to have been piqued. "It'll take a while, I suppose," he says. "Officially, I've been in pre-law all along, but the band is all I've ever thought about. I've been studying law like it was just another subject. Even if I change my attitude and start studying hard now, it won't be easy to catch up. Life's not that simple." The waitress brings his coffee. Takahashi adds cream, clanks his spoon around in the cup, and drinks. Then he says, "To tell you the truth, this is the first time in my life I've ever wanted to study something seriously. I've never had bad grades. They weren't especially good, but they weren't bad, either. I could always get the point of things where it really mattered, so I could always manage with the grades. I'm good at that. Which is why I got into a pretty good school, and if I keep up what I'm doing now, I can probably get a job at a pretty good company. So then I'll probably make a pretty good marriage and have a pretty good homeyou see? But now I'm sick of the whole thing. All of a sudden." "Why?" "Why did I suddenly start thinking I wanted to study seriously?" "Yeah." Holding his coffee cup between his hands, Takahashi narrows his eyes and looks at her as if peeking into a room through a crack in a window. "Are you asking because you really want an answer?" "Of course. Don't people usually ask questions because they want answers?" "Logically, yes. But some people ask questions just to be polite." 3:07 A.M. "I don't know. Why would I have to ask you questions just to be polite?" "Well, true." Takahashi thinks about this a moment and returns his cup to his saucer with a dry clink. "Okay. Do you want the long version or the short version?" "Medium." "You got it. One medium-size answer coming up." Takahashi takes a moment to get his thoughts in order. "I attended a few trials this year between April and June. In the Tokyo District Court in Kasumigaseki. It was an assignment for a seminar: to sit in on a number of trials and write a report. Uhhave you ever been to a trial?" Mari shakes her head. Takahashi says, "The court is like a cinema complex. They've got this big board near the entrance where they list all the trials and their starting times like a programme guide, and you pick one that looks like it might be interesting to you and you go and sit there as an observer. Anybody can get in. You just can't bring in any cameras or tape recorders. Or food. And you're not allowed to talk. Plus the seats are cramped, and if you doze off the bailiff gets after you. But you can't complain: the admission is free." Takahashi pauses before continuing. "I mostly attended criminal trials--assault and bodily injury, arson, robbery, and murder. Bad guys who did bad things and got caught and put on trial and punished. Those are the easy ones to understand, right? With economically or ideologically motivated crimes, you have to know the background, and things can get complicated. It's hard to tell good from bad. All I wanted to do was write my paper, get a halfway decent grade, and that would be that. Like a grade-school lad's summer homework assignment: keep a morning-glory observation diary." Takahashi breaks off talking at that point. His hands are on the table. He looks at his own palms. "After I'd been to the court a few times, though, and observed a few cases, I started to become strangely interested in viewing the events that were being judged and the people who were involved in the events. Maybe I should say I found myself less and less able to see these as other people's problems. It was a very weird feeling. I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first. I mean, there's no way I'm gonna commit those vicious crimes. I'm a pacifist, a good-natured guy, I've never laid a hand on anybody since I was a kid. Which is why I was able to view a trial from on high as a total spectator." Takahashi raises his face and looks at Mari. Then he chooses his words carefully. "As I sat in court, though, and listened to the testimonies of the witnesses and the speeches of the prosecutors and the arguments of the defence attorneys and the statements of the defendants, I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: 3:07 A.M. that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mThe second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed. That's how I started to feel. It's hard to put into words." Takahashi runs his finger round the perimeter of his coffee cup. "So once I started having thoughts like this, everything began looking different to me. To my eyes, this system I was observing, this 'trial' thing itself, began to take on the appearance of some special, weird creature." "Weird creature?" "Like, say, an octopus. A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean. I'm sitting there listening to these trials, and all I can see in my head is this creature. It takes on all kinds of different shapes--sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and their faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers." Mari's eyes are locked on his. Takahashi takes a sip of his coffee. "Am I being a little too grim here?" "Don't worry, I'm listening," Mari says. Takahashi returns his cup to its saucer. "Two years ago, there was this case of arson and murder in Tachikawa. A guy killed an old couple with an axe, grabbed their bankbook, and set fire to their house to get rid of the evidence. It was a windy night, and four houses burned down. The guy was sentenced to death. In terms of current Japanese legal precedent, it was the obvious sentence for a case like that. Any time you murder two or more people, the death sentence is almost automatic. Hanging. And this guy was guilty of arson, too. Plus, he was a real bastard. He had been locked up any number of times, usually for something violent. His family had given up on him years ago. He was a drug addict, and every time they let him out of jail, he'd commit another crime. In this case, he didn't show an ounce of remorse. An appeal would have been rejected for sure. His lawyer, a public defender, knew from the start he was going to lose. So no one could be surprised when they came back with a death sentence, and in fact nobody was surprised. I sat there listening to the judge read the verdict, taking notes, and thinking how obvious it was. After the trial, I took the underground home from Kasumigaseki, sat down at my desk, and started putting my notes in order when all of a 3:07 A.M. sudden I got this absolutely hopeless feeling. I don't know how to put it: it was like the whole world's electricity supply suffered a voltage drop. Everything got one step darker, one step colder. Little tremors started going through my body, and I couldn't stop shivering. Soon I even felt my eyes tearing up. Why should that be? I can't explain it. Why did I have to lose it like that just because that guy got the death penalty? I mean, he was a total scumbag, beyond any hope of redemption. Between him and me, there shouldn't have been anything in common, no link at all. And yet, I had this deep emotional upset. Why should that have been?" His question remains just that--a question, hanging in the air between them for a good thirty seconds. Mari is waiting for him to go on with his story. Takahashi continues: "What I want to say is probably something like this: any single human being, no matter what kind of a person he or she may be, is all caught up in the tentacles of this animal like a giant octopus, and is getting sucked into the darkness. You can put any kind of spin on it you like, but you end up with the same unbearable spectacle." He stares at the space above the table and heaves a long sigh. "Anyhow, that day was a turning point for me. After that I decided to study law seriously. I figured that's where I might find whatever I was looking for. Studying the law is not as much fun as making music, but what the hell, that's life. That's what it means to grow up." Silence. "And that's your medium-size answer?" Takahashi nods. "Maybe it was a little long. I've never told this to anybody before, so I had trouble gauging the size Uh, those little sandwiches you've got sitting on your plate: if you're not planning to eat them, mind if I have one?" "All that's left are tuna fish." "That's okay. I love tuna fish. You don't?" "No, I do, but mercury builds up in your body if you eat tuna fish." "Yeah?" "If you've got mercury in your body, you can start having heart attacks in your forties. And you can start losing your hair." Takahashi frowns. "So you can't have chicken, and you can't have tuna?" Mari nods. "And both just happen to be some of my favourite foods." "Sorry." "I like potato salad a lot, too. Don't tell me there's something wrong with potato salad?" "No, I don't think so," Mari says. "Except, if you eat too much it'll make you fat." "That's okay," Takahashi says. "I'm too skinny as it is." Takahashi picks up a tuna sandwich and eats it with obvious pleasure. "So anyhow, are you planning to stay a student until you pass the bar exam?" Mari asks. 3:07 A.M. "Yeah, I guess so. I'll just be scraping by for a while, I suppose, doing odd jobs." Mari is thinking about something. Takahashi asks her, "Have you ever seen Love Story? It's an old movie." Mari shakes her head. "They had it on TV the other day. It's pretty good. Ryan O'Neal is the only son of an old-money family, but in college he marries a girl from a poor Italian family and gets disowned. They even stop paying his tuition. The two manage to scrape by and keep up their studies until he graduates from Harvard Law School with honours and joins a big law firm." Takahashi pauses to take a breath. Then he goes on: "The way Ryan O'Neal does it, living in poverty can be kind of elegant--wearing a thick white sweater, throwing snowballs with Ali Mac Graw, Francis Lai's sentimental music playing in the background. But something tells me I wouldn't fit the part. For me, poverty would be just plain poverty. I probably couldn't even get the snow to pile up for me like that." Mari is still thinking about something. Takahashi continues: "So after Ryan O'Neal has slaved away to become a lawyer, they never give the audience any idea what kind of work he does. All we know is he joins this top law firm and pulls in a salary that would make anybody envious. He lives in a fancy Manhattan high-rise with a doorman out front, joins a WASP sports club, and plays squash with his yuppie friends. That's all we know." Takahashi drinks his water. "So what happens after that?" Mari asks. Takahashi looks upwards, recalling the plot. "Happy ending. The two live happily ever after. Love conquers all. It's like: we used to be miserable, but now everything's great. They drive a shiny new Jaguar, he plays squash, and sometimes in winter they throw snowballs. Meanwhile, the father who disowned Ryan O'Neal comes down with diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, and M's disease and dies a lonely, miserable death." "I don't get it. What's so good about a story like that?" Takahashi cocks his head. "Hmm, what did I like about it? I can't remember. I had stuff to do, so I didn't watch the last part very closely Hey, how about a walk? A little change of atmosphere? There's a tiny park down the street where the cats like to gather. We can feed them your leftover tuna-mercury sandwiches. I've got a fish-cake, too.