The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl Read online

  “Oh, I’ve heard so much about faux electric brandy. I’d love to try it.”

  “Easier said than done. I’m pretty sure it’s bootleg, so they won’t have it at any of the places around here. I don’t know much about it myself. But I know he has lots of money and faux electric brandy.” Mr. Higuchi took a cigar from the breast pocket of his yukata and brought it to his mouth.

  “Why does he have so much money?”

  “He’s a lender.” He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. “I owe him a bit of a debt myself, so I’m not too keen on meeting him anytime soon.”

  A man came crawling out of the lawless zone, which was now under the rule of Ms. Hanuki.

  “So who are you anyway?” he asked.

  “I don’t know you, either,” answered Mr. Higuchi.

  The two stared at each other blankly for a time.

  Eventually, the man exhibited some generosity: “Well, it doesn’t matter who you are.” He was already plastered. Perhaps that’s why he said, “Hey, you know…,” and continued slurring, “If you have a choice between marrying a man you love and a man you don’t love, a man you don’t love is the better choice, right?”

  It was a random thing to bring up so abruptly.

  “That’s a novel theory.”

  “Well, if you’re in love, you lose all reason and ability to make accurate judgment calls. By choosing a man you don’t love, you can make more rational decisions. You need to exercise caution on top of caution to choose the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with. Romantic feelings can’t be explained rationally, which means they’re a poor way to pick your partner.

  “Also, when you marry a man you love, you have to experience the sad decline of your passion over time, whereas if you marry a man you don’t love, there is no decline—because there was no passion to begin with. An added bonus is that if you’re not in love with him, you don’t suffer if he cheats on you—because there’s no jealousy. You’d be free of that useless agony. If you think about this logically, I’m sure you’ll understand. Women should marry men they don’t love. So why do they do the opposite? Can none of them see the truth?!” The man drunkenly slobbered.

  I used a hand towel to wipe away his drool and gave it to him. He kept repeating the name of a woman, Naoko.

  “I shouldn’t be at this going-away party. Naoko is celebrating her marriage tonight, so I should be there.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? Get going.”

  “I can’t. This is my going-away party.”

  “What? So you’re the one going to study in the UK?”

  “Plus, what could I possibly say to Naoko if I saw her now? It’s pointless to say anything to an illogical woman who’d go and marry a guy she’s in love with, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?”

  The man was grasping at Mr. Higuchi, who pushed away and caused him to tumble into a corner of the tatami with a strange groan, something like “Hoogya!” He stopped moving. As he lay there like a sea lion sulking in bed, he seemed so pitiful from behind. It seemed his sophistry hadn’t been effective when he confessed his love.

  “Now theeen, it’s about tiiime to encourage Kosakaaaa with the Sophism Sambaaaa!” A woman who seemed to be presiding over the event stood up as she made the announcement.

  “Where’s Kosaka?”

  “What are you doing sulking over there? You think you can make us dance by ourselves?”

  “What idiot came up with this dance anyhow? This will be our eternal shame.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Get him up.”

  “Whoa, Kosaka, you’re drooling like an ox, man.”

  The immobile Kosaka roared like a lion, spraying drool everywhere, screaming, “Waaagh! Naokoooo!”

  The club members surrounding him all jumped back.

  “Naoko’s not here. And she’s married now.”

  “C’mon, let’s do the Sophism Samba. Make a clean break and go abroad!”

  His associates consoled him as they helped him up until he stood there swaying on the tatami. He was surrounded by younger club members, but it seemed less as if they were encouraging him and more as if they were relentlessly making jabs at him.

  “Go get ’em, Kosaka.”

  “Thanks, gentlemen. I’m glad to be sent off by such a fine crew.”

  “Make something of yourself—and never come back!”

  “We’ll be fine without you. Please don’t worry about us.”

  “We shall never meet again—how wonderful! Good-bye.”

  As the joyful voices rang out, Kosaka was bumped and jostled by the younger club members as he walked through them, eventually raising his hands over his head, placing his palms together, and wriggling his hips. He began to parade around the room. That was the Sophism Samba.

  It actually looked like fun. Mr. Higuchi and I were more than happy to slip into the line of dancers. And so we celebrated Kosaka’s most glorious departure with our bodies and souls until Ms. Hanuki appeared and dragged us wriggly dancing fools out into the hallway.

  Sneaking out of a party before the end—during the height of its chaos—was the closing act of her free-booze technique.

  Upon exiting the restaurant onto Ponto-cho, we walked north atop the stone pavement.

  Looking up, we could see only a thin slice of night sky between the buildings with lots of electrical lines running through them that were crowding the street. Light leaked from bamboo blinds drawn over second-story restaurant windows.

  Crimson paper lanterns, illuminated signs, lanterns fixed to the eaves of buildings, vending machines, and display windows glowed all along the narrow road like festival lights. And passing through the midst of all that were small groups of merrymakers.

  I even saw a group of men with stately physiques casually enter an establishment that had pillars as high as the Great Wall of China. So this is the elegance of Ponto-cho. I was sure unimaginably stylish adults (at least from our perspective) were enjoying amusements for and by adults just a little way through these gates and down to the end of the stone-paved alleys. Yes, indeed. It was so very exciting.

  “So what should we do now?” Ms. Hanuki murmured.

  “You’re out of ideas?”

  “No… I guess we should go back to Kiyamachi.”

  A cat ran past my feet.

  Turning to chase it with my eyes, I saw a geisha apprentice down the street. She passed in front of a giant paper lantern before slipping into an alley stretching west.

  When I looked back, Ms. Hanuki and Mr. Higuchi were gone.

  I wondered if they’d gone down an alley, but when I checked, I couldn’t find them. Without those two, there was no one in the Ponto-cho area I could rely on. I had no idea how to continue my voyage through the night. This was no good.

  “Hey, you. All alone?”

  A drunk man spoke to me, but I remembered Mr. Higuchi’s warning not to let my guard down around shady people on the street, so I bobbed my head quickly and hurried past.

  Out of the blue, a big apple fell onto the stones in front of me.

  I instinctively looked for an apple tree, but it’d be weird for one to be growing in the middle of Ponto-cho.

  First of all, it wasn’t an apple. I stared back at the pouting Daruma doll—a round, red Japanese doll of a grouchy, bearded man.

  All right, wise readers. Long time no see. It’s me, the one flustered by an unusual liberation of my lower body in a dimly lit alleyway. Sorry to interrupt.

  Todou saved me from the brink of getting convicted for exhibiting my bodily obscenities after he’d been kicked out of the bar.

  He came staggering down the alley, and when I asked for help, he left, saying, “Just a minute,” and came back with an old, faded pair of pants. He’d gotten the secondhand garment from a used bookseller he knew who lived in the Ponto-cho district.

  Todou had a grim look on his face and seemed liable to hang himself at any moment. He told me to come with him, saying he’d show me a good time because he didn’t ca
re about anything anymore and our meeting must be fate. His desperation made him formidable. I was mildly frightened. In the end, he forced my hand, so I ended up going for drinks with the creepy old man who’d groped the girl’s breasts—although, of course, I didn’t know that yet.

  We exited the alley, and he brought me to a Ponto-cho bar facing the Kamo River. It was on the second floor of a small building, a real hole-in-the-wall. It had nothing but a bar that was crawling with cats and Daruma dolls for some reason or another.

  Todou suddenly broke down crying before me and his drink. “Dammit! This sucks, this sucks,” he wailed. “Ahhh, what should I do?” he murmured. But he immediately answered himself: “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Then he tearfully recounted the same story he’d rambled off to her. Perhaps it was difficult to rein in his anger? He repeatedly cursed some elderly fellow named Rihaku. He said Old Man Rihaku was hounding him for some money he owed. “That dirty nobody!” Todou denounced him loudly but glanced around to make sure no one heard.

  I figured running into the girl again was a dream within a dream, stuck as I was with this middle-aged stranger. I started to feel like crying myself. Shedding tears for our respective reasons, we made a sad spectacle not unlike that one Eigo Kawashima song. How did it go? “Booze and tears and man and man”?

  As Todou got drunker, he became more boisterous, which led to him constantly getting on my case like “Don’t hold back!” and “Drink!” I can’t actually tolerate alcohol, so I got predictably wasted.

  The entire bar rocked as if it had floated out onto the Kamo River.

  Eventually, Todou’s bookseller friend showed up, and the number of middle-aged dudes suddenly doubled.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late. My water heater’s broken, so I’m fresh from a dip at the Sakura bathhouse.”

  The bookseller drained his craft beer, relishing it, before leaning in. “So you’re really going to sell them?”

  Todou nodded and opened his bundle to line up some shunga. He said he’d decided to sell his precious stash by auctioning it off to the Bedroom Investigation Commission. It was a distressing choice brought on by his current financial troubles. He figured he could manage to earn a little money from this, then make his break from Rihaku.

  “What’s the Bedroom Investigation Commission?” I ventured.

  “It’s a club for people who collect articles of amour. You know, things like erotic toys and antiques, smutty films, or shunga like what this guy’s carrying. Stuff like that,” the bookseller explained.

  “Investigation Commission? It sounds to me like it’s just a bunch of perverts,” I muttered.

  “How dare you. These things are keepsakes of cultural heritage.”

  “They’re what I live for,” stated Todou.

  I don’t actually care.

  I was too drunk for this, so I went to the window facing the street to get some air and try to sober up a bit. Standing unsteadily, I opened the window and looked down on Ponto-cho’s cobblestones. As I was resting my chin on the cool window frame and breathing deeply, a familiar petite maiden came waltzing down the path below. When I realized it was her, I wanted to call out to stop her, but my voice wouldn’t work. In a panic, I grabbed a Daruma from a corner of the bar counter. I paid no attention when the bartender asked, “What do you think you’re doing?” as I leaned out the window and threw it.

  She stopped. She picked up the Daruma in front of her and gazed at it curiously. I turned to go to her, but I was so drunk, I couldn’t quite find my footing. The floor was pitching and rolling. And just like that, my stomach did a loop as if I’d dropped off a cliff.

  “So who’s this guy?” the bookseller asked, pointing at me.

  I’m not that drunk—she’s right there. If I don’t go to her now, all of this will have been for nothing.

  I groaned and collapsed onto the dirty floor where the cats were scampering around.

  And there I was forced to once again make an exit.

  As I was strolling along hugging the Daruma to my stomach, I saw Mr. Higuchi pop his head out of an alley leading to Kiyamachi. “Hey, this way, over here,” he beckoned. I happily raced over.

  “Oh, good. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “What’s with the Daruma?”

  “I found him.”

  “That’s a one.”

  He showed off some English.

  I proceeded down that narrow alley after him.

  At our feet, paper lanterns lit the way.

  Maple trees planted in huge flower pots rested in front of a wooden fence, and a pair of cats crouched beneath their verdant leaves as if trying their best to hide.

  A round window like the kind you’d expect to find on a submarine was set in a wall decorated with tiles. There was light on the other side. Mr. Higuchi opened the door. Behind the bar, bottles sparkled like a chandelier, while the interior was filled with a whiskey-colored glow.

  Ladies and gentlemen sat in a row down the long bar, and they all stared at us when we entered.

  Ohhh, how awful, I thought, feeling terribly inadequate, but when we slipped past the bar, I noticed Ms. Hanuki in a dimly lit hideaway chatting with four attractive middle-aged men.

  All the men, sitting on red sofas, wore red ties. Ms. Hanuki was as carefree as always and took every opportunity that came her way and turned it into alcohol, so she was already getting along with them famously.

  “Your son got married? Congratulations.”

  Cheers.

  “Is it something to be congratulated for? Dammit.”

  “Well, well…”

  Cheers.

  “I raised him, but now he acts like he raised himself.”

  “Children grow up even without their parents.”

  “So you’re saying it wouldn’t have made a difference if I was there or not?”

  “No, of course I’m not saying that, Mr. President.”

  Cheers.

  I quietly asked Mr. Higuchi, “Why is everyone wearing red ties?”

  “Apparently, it’s someone’s sixtieth birthday.”

  They were all friends from their university years and made time in their busy schedules to gather in Kyoto for the occasion.

  Dr. Uchida from Kamigyo Ward said, “We have plenty, so don’t be shy,” and poured me some Akadama Port Wine from its iconic bottle emblazoned with a red circle.

  “Thank you. I love Akadama Port Wine.”

  “We got a bunch to go with the whole sixtieth birthday theme, you know, symbolizing a new start, rebirth, and a time for reflection on life, but…we actually can’t drink that much, so we have a lot left over.”

  “Boy, life sure goes by fast.” “Don’t even go there. You’ll ruin the mood.” “This fellow’s always been more philosophical than political.” “It’s a bit late to talk like such a young man. Are you regressing?” “It’s our sixtieth birthday, after all.” “Oh, is that what turning sixty is all about?” “In other words, it’s time for us to relive our youth.” “It’s a perpetual cycle.” “But no actual youth, just the angst? That’s just hell, isn’t it?” “It’s only because it’s nighttime.” “What is?” “You’re only thinking such dark thoughts because it’s nighttime.” “I think about this stuff even during the day.” “That’s no good. A dangerous sign.” “Your children have grown up fine, haven’t they? That means all is well.” “Their lives are their own. They have nothing to do with me.” “What an absurd thing for a parent to say.” “I’m shocked.” “I’m turning sixty, and I still don’t know: What is life?” “What’s the purpose of life?” “Give birth and multiply.” “Don’t be an idiot.” “What’s the use of debating now? We’ll die partway through.” “I’m scared to die.” “I thought it would be less scary as I got older, but it only scares me more.” “Oh? That’s not how it works for me.” “You’ve always been like that.” “It’s strange if you think about it, isn’t it? Before being given life in this world, we were dust. Then once we die, we return t
o dust. We’re dust for a much longer period of time than we’re human. Which actually means it’s normal to be dead, and being alive is a brief exception. Why are we so afraid of death?”

  Our corner of the bar grew quiet and seemed to be sinking like a luxury ocean liner. “Well, it’ll all be fine if we drink,” said Dr. Uchida. The men lost themselves in their own thoughts and sipped their Akadama Port Wine.

  Ms. Hanuki had dozed off, but this was the moment she opened her eyes and broke the silence. “So much of this boring talk and nothing else! C’mon, Higuchi, entertain us!”

  He stood up from the sofa and firmly planted his feet.

  Taking a cigar out of the breast pocket of his yukata, he frowned in concentration, then began puffing up a storm.

  Thick purple smoke filled the air and wafted out of our corner to lap at the bar under the amber light.

  The people over there who’d been drinking quietly turned around in confusion.

  “Now, step right up. Those without anywhere to go, stay a while and have a look. Though I shall humbly perform my unmastered trade, I do not accept any coins, whether thrown or tossed. That said, if you enjoy my show and would like to treat me to food or drink, there would be no reason for me to refuse. Well then, feast your eyes on this.”

  Amid the billowing smoke, Mr. Higuchi began moving as if busily working an invisible pump with both hands, pretending to inflate a balloon at his feet.

  Suddenly, the men sat up on the couches.