An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful (29 page)

He found a glass case displaying a couple of items relating to Kawabata. A black and white photograph, a simple head-shot
of the frail man with his small, pointed features and remarkable swept-back mane of hair. The hair was everything. It was so thick it seemed to have sucked up all the power of its owner through its roots, leaving the rest of the man weak and fragile. The case also contained a page from the original manuscript of
Snow
Country
,
complete with edits by the author. And that was it. Here was Japan’s first recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, yet hardly a mention compared to the other Kamakura literati honoured in the room. It had to be the stigma attached to the suicide. What else could explain this paltry shrine to such a great writer? In a Museum of Literature of all places. He peered back into the case, saw his own image reflected there, an eerie spectre between himself and the photograph of Kawabata. He felt Sumiko’s presence beside him, saw too her reflection in the glass.

‘I want to leave,’ he said.

‘I have Kawabata-sensei’s address,’ she said, inserting a
folded-up
piece of paper into his jacket top-pocket. ‘One of the guards told me. The house is closed to the public but we could still walk by and take a peek. It is not far.’

‘Good. We can complete that journey we started so many years ago.’

The walk back down the hill was perilous with the damp leaves underfoot and he had to use his cane just to keep from wobbling ahead of himself. Sumiko took his arm again, kept him steady on his feet.

‘What is that noise?’ she said, tugging him to a halt.

He could hear the wailing, mixed in with the tinny bark of urgent instructions. He was reminded of the air raids on the
Clydeside
shipyards as a child. ‘Sirens,’ he said. ‘I can hear sirens.’

‘They usually only have them for earthquakes. I didn’t feel any tremors, Eddie. Did you?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

New York
•
1971

Edward abandoned a slightly ruffled and apologetic Miss Desai on a crowded street corner, took a taxi to his hotel but decided against going up to his room. Instead, he chose to walk the two blocks north along the tree-lined avenue by the river to Macy’s mother’s apartment. It was a miserable afternoon harbouring a blue-less sky and a spitting rain. A couple of enormous barges slipped past low and silent on the grey, swollen waters of the Hudson, the sight for some reason filling him with an enormous sadness. Then a police car swooped into the avenue, its yowling siren and frantic lights shattering his sombre mood. The rain came heavier now.
Umbrellas
went up as pedestrians hastened by and he cursed himself for not letting the taxi take him these two extra blocks. His head ached and the acids in his stomach burned from lack of sustenance. His late rising had forced him to skip breakfast and his hurried departure from the bookstore meant he had missed out on the scheduled lunch with Miss Desai and his publishers. Despite his protestations that the incident at the bookstore had not affected him, the reality was quite different. Never before had he experienced such a violent reaction from his reading public. Any previous criticism had always come in
the form of a review, a newspaper article or even a letter. But never this. This aggressive link between himself and his audience as
symbolised
by the thrown egg. He felt violated. As if he had been dealt an actual physical blow.

Another police car screamed by. Then a fire engine, its silver ladders swaying as the red monster weaved through the traffic,
belting
out seal-like honks in pursuit of its escort. A drop of water from an overhanging awning slithered down his neck. He tried to push back his memories of the reception at the store. New York felt like a very hostile place to him as at last he reached the grand,
marble-pillared
entrance that bore the number of his destination.

Given the plush foyer, the uniformed doorman who asked to be called Tony and an elevator laid with thick, thick carpet, he had half-expected a butler to be first in attendance at the massive double doors of the apartment. But no, there was Macy, her cheeks flushed, swaying in uncharacteristic girlish fashion with her back against the brass door handle as she beckoned him in.

‘Welcome to New York,’ she said. ‘You finally made it.’

He kissed her on one hot cheek. ‘So this is your American life,’ he said.

‘That’s me. A New York gal.’

‘How strange to discover this part of you so late on.’

‘Well, you know whose fault that was.’

‘Let’s not get started.’

‘Come on. I’ll show you around.’

The view was virtually the same as from his hotel room. But the apartment was absolutely enormous. A couple of the reception rooms boasted chandeliers and tall gilt-edged mirrors that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Palace of Versailles. He didn’t actually feel he was in an apartment at all, just in some rambling house that went on forever on the same level. He couldn’t help but think that this chunk of Manhatten real estate must be worth a fortune.

‘Can I make myself a sandwich?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t eaten all day.’

‘Oh, poor Eddie,’ she said. ‘You must be in a foul mood then. Don’t worry, I’ll sort you out.’ She poked her head inside a giant fridge. ‘Chicken OK?’

‘Chicken’s fine.’

She brought out a plate with slices of white meat, then a couple of beers, uncapped them on an opener on the wall, passed him one. Macy was the only woman he knew who drank beer. And straight from the bottle at that. She took a deep swig then told him her news.

It was cancer, of course. Now passed the stage of whether it could be contained, spreading fast, killing her mother molecule by molecule, second by second. The hospice was a wonderful,
peaceful
place, she reported, even saying she wouldn’t mind dying there herself when the occasion arose. And it was only a few blocks away. She could walk there to see her mother whenever she wanted.

As the afternoon light began to fade, they moved on to hard liquor. The apartment hosted a cocktail bar full of the stuff. Macy stuck to her usual gin and tonic, while Edward fussed over the choice of malts. She took him through to the lounge with its
panoramic
views of the river, sofas as long as railway carriages, and he could swear that was a Miro original hanging on the wall opposite a couple of Macy’s own canvasses. He dropped down into an
armchair
, the drama of his morning’s performance slowly fading. Macy sat curled up on a sofa opposite, sipping her drink, the crystal of her glass sending out sparks of reflections from the flames of the
imitation
coal fire. Her hair streaked grey-white, stark against the black of her polo neck. A handsome woman in her mid-forties. That was how he would describe her if he had to write her into one of his novels. Handsome. Still attractive to him. Even after all these years. Even after all the hurt.

He watched her as she worried at a thought, the two lines of concentration between her eyes reflecting her unspoken concern. He considered all his intimate knowledge of this woman garnered over the years in the pendulum swing of their relationship. Her body smells, her body cycles, her pruning and plucking and
scraping
and scrubbing, her fingering and fucking. After all, she was only skin and blood, bone and tissue, muscles and organs. That was all. A piece of warm decaying matter pulsing away there on the sofa at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet what an impact she had made on his life. On his own piece of decaying matter.

‘There’s something I need to tell you, Eddie.’

‘Uhuh?’ He was tired now. Jet-lagged or just emotionally drained or just a bit drunk. He could happily sink back in this mammoth chair and be swallowed up in sleep.

‘I don’t know what it’ll do to you.’

‘You have nothing left to say that could possibly hurt me.’

‘Don’t be so smug.’

‘Look. I’m tired. The reading was not a particular success. And I don’t want a fight with you. Can’t we just be friends for the few days I’m here? Let’s leave this until tomorrow.’

‘I need to tell you now.’

‘It’s that important?’

‘Yes. Right now. While I still have the courage.’

‘All right, all right.’

‘Thank you.’ She ran her finger around the rim of her glass as if she were casting a spell on the conversation. Creating a sacred space with the slight hum of the friction. She spoke softly.

‘You know when you’re a kid and you try to draw a spiral on a piece of paper. You start in the middle and you draw outwards and in a circle, and you make this little bump on the page so that when you come round again that little bump would become
bigger
, bigger and bigger each time till the whole damn thing goes out of control, loses its shape, runs haywire.’ She stopped for a breath, looked across at him.

He sort of half-shrugged in his chair. ‘What are you telling me?’

‘I’m telling you there was one thing that happened in the past I never told you about. And that one thing just grew bigger and
bigger
until everything between us went out of shape. Became a lie. It was all my fault. And yet I punished you for it.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you remember after those first few months we met, I left to go back to America?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you ever think why I left so quickly?’

‘I thought you’d had enough of me. Because of that argument we had down in Brighton.’

‘The fight we had. You hit me really hard.’

‘It was just a slap.’

‘It was violent abuse.’

‘Whatever you say. It was a long time ago.’

‘Well, it made my mind up.’ She paused, took a sip of her gin.

‘Come on, Macy. About what?’

‘I was pregnant, Eddie. I found out the day after Brighton. And after what had happened, I decided not to tell you. Instead I went back to America for an abortion. Mother arranged it. But there were complications. The surgery, if you could call it that, scarred the walls of my uterus. That was why I could never have children again. That was my bump on the page. I killed our first child
without
telling you. Then I lost another one because of the surgery. Then I spent the rest of my life blaming you for it. I couldn’t help myself. Until here we are. Resentful of each other. Snatching a few moments of peace. But bitter nevertheless.’ She drank back the rest of her glass in one gulp. ‘Can you forgive me?’

He set his own glass down on a side-table. He noticed that he did this slowly, that his hand was steady. He then stood up. He felt cold. As if all the anger inside him that had raged so intensely during her confession, had ended up totally consuming itself. Until there was nothing. He walked over to where she sat on the sofa. Again he did this with remarkable control and clarity. She looked up at him, a slight smile flickering on her lips. Then with a quickness that surprised even himself, he hit her. Hard. A vicious, slashing slap to the face. The crystal glass flew out of her hand, smashed on the wooden floor. He remembered thinking that if it had only landed a few inches shorter, the rug would have probably saved it. He felt the sting of the slap on his palm and fingers. Macy’s head had jerked to the side with the blow, and there she held herself, displaying her cheek, red with the welt. He was frozen in the moment, as was she. Such a profound moment, this irreparable rip he had just made in their lives. There was no going back from this. He felt anger and relief all in the one ball of emotion.

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’ he roared.

She turned to face him. Her mascara had smeared, leaving dark smudges under her eyes, reminding him of one of her paintings. His handprint scarlet, like an ugly birthmark, across her cheek.

‘Now I remember.’ Her voice came out in a snarl. ‘Now I remember why I didn’t tell you. Because underneath all your
self-righteousness
, you’re a violent, violent bastard.’

He hit her again. This time on the other cheek. With such a force that she fell off the sofa on to the floor. ‘Go on,’ she taunted from her prostrate position. ‘Why don’t you kick me now? Go on. Do it.’

He looked down at her sobbing body. Then calmly he turned, walked slowly out of the room, careful to avoid the broken glass. He searched around for his coat, found it lying over a chair in the hallway. As he moved to open the apartment door, he felt
something
sharp glance off his forehead. He looked round to see a small object spinning gold on the marble floor.

‘Take it,’ Macy shouted from her stance in the lounge doorway. ‘Fucking take it.’

He stooped, picked up the ring. He wanted to say something to her, something final and dramatic. But looking at her, her hair
matted
against her wet cheeks, her skin still blotched from his blows, her mouth distorted by tears and anger, he realised words were pointless. He left the apartment, left the building, left New York, left America, left Macy for good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Kamakura, Japan
•
2003

‘Do you know where you are going?’ Edward asked. Since they had heard the sirens, she had been dragging him from one empty sidestreet to another without a word. He had a constant shooting pain down his left leg and he was sweating under his heavy
overcoat
. His body was telling him to return to the hotel, soak in a hot bath. But he was determined to see the house.

‘You have the address,’ she said.

‘I do?’

‘Yes, I put it in your pocket back at the museum. Wait. I’ll ask someone.’

He was grateful to stop walking, to rest against a gatepost while she crossed the street to speak to an elderly gentleman sweeping leaves off his driveway. The man wore a pair of spotless blue
overalls
, the open collar revealing a shirt and tie underneath. He leaned gracefully on the handle of his brush as he listened to what Sumiko had to say, then he pointed down the street.

‘The sirens,’ she said on her return. ‘It’s a tsunami warning.’

‘It can’t be very serious. If he’s still brushing up leaves.’

‘There’s been a huge earthquake in the Pacific. I don’t like it. I want to go back to the station.’

‘We must be very near the house.’

‘The gentleman said about ten minutes.’

‘Well, let’s go there first.’

‘But I want to leave Kamakura now.’

‘We’ll just walk past the house. Come on. We don’t want to miss out again.’

‘It’s no use. We need to keep listening out for the news
bulletins
. We might have to move up to higher ground. These things scare me.’

‘But it’s only a warning. Even if it were real, these waves can take hours to cross the ocean.’

‘Eddie,’ she said, stamping her feet. ‘For once in your life, can you stop thinking of yourself.’

‘But we’re nearly there.’

‘I cannot swim. All right? Does that satisfy you?’

They found a taxi in the next street. The driver had his radio on and Sumiko relayed the news as they travelled back to the station.

‘The tsunami will hit Chile first,’ she said. ‘Then Japan. Hawaii. California.’

The driver leaned forward in his seat, turned up the volume, grumbled loudly at what was heard.

‘About two hours,’ Sumiko reported. ‘Two hours before it reaches here.’

Suddenly, he heard that tune again. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da. What was it? The Japanese national anthem?

‘Eddie. I think that’s your phone.’

‘Christ, so it is.’ He tried to fish it out of his pocket but the seat belt was trapping it inside his coat. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da.

‘Here, I’ll get it.’ Sumiko slipped her hand under his belt, inside his coat, pulled out the phone. She punched one of the buttons, handed it to him.

‘Hello? Hello? Sir Edward. Is that you?’

‘Yes, Enid. I am here.’

‘Is everything all right? Takahashi-san told me there are tsunami warnings all along the coast.’

‘I am fine. We are on a taxi to the station. We will be leaving Kamakura shortly.’

‘Please don’t come back to the hotel.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve booked you in somewhere else. If you pass me over to Sumiko, I’ll give her all the details.’

‘What’s going on there, Enid?’

‘Oh, Sir Edward. It’s the tabloids. They’ve picked up on the story.’

‘Just tell me. What are they saying?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘For fuck’s sake, woman. Tell me.’

Silence.

‘I’m sorry, Enid. I apologise. I realise you are trying to protect me. But please, I want to know.’

‘All right. Here’s one headline. It says:
“Who’s In Denial Now,
Sir Edward
?”’

‘Any more?’

‘“
Famous US-Berater Exposed As Wife Beater
”.’

‘I don’t think “berater” is a word. Go on.’

‘The Sun runs with “
Yankee Ex-Wife Nukes Novelist Sir Ed
”.’

‘I see.’

‘There’s been hundreds of emails. And I don’t know how they tracked you down but the hotel has been inundated with phone calls. You shouldn’t come back here. Reporters are on their way for comments. Oh, Sir Edward. I’m so sorry.’

He hung up, closed his eyes, listened to the frantic Japanese chatter on the radio. He found it quite soothing. He knew enough about tidal waves to appreciate that all this excitement would
probably
be about nothing. Yes, a thirty-foot monster of a wave could assault the beach at Kamakura but more than likely the quake would turn out to produce little more than a swell a few inches higher than normal. Out there in the Pacific, this potential tidal wave would be just a broad energy pulse flashing deep through the ocean away from the epicentre of the quake, running faster than a bullet train. Yet a boat in its path would hardly feel a thing. Just a
ripple, as if a giant whale had passed under its hull on the way to tastier targets. A woman might rock slightly in her stateroom bed, a cocktail glass might slip an inch along the bartop, an alert sailor might raise his head momentarily from his navigation chart. But that was all. It was only when that pulse honed in on land, when the ocean bed reared up shallow, when the coastline swept up the pulse into its grasp, that the same energy could be squeezed into a dark wall of water. Into a moving mountain of raw, destructive power. He opened his eyes, looked out of the window as the taxi eased through the traffic. This was not a city in panic. This was no rush for the last helicopter out of Saigon. This population was
sitting
back calmly waiting for the false alarm to pass.

But he could see straight away that the situation at the
station
was different. While residents could flee if necessary to their evacuation points, tourists were abandoning Kamakura altogether. Yet there was still no rush or urgency. Just a well-behaved crowd massing at the station entrance, quietly obeying instructions barked through megaphones by Japanese Railway employees.

‘I have the tickets,’ Sumiko said. ‘Try to stay close.’

The task facing them was to enter this stream of bodies in its flow to the mid-point of the tunnel under the station where either of the two main flights of steps would lead them up to the
platforms
. He hardly had to do anything, just give himself up to this crowd as it swept him along. His hands were pinned to his side, his cane useless, his feet hardly touching the ground. Sumiko had been pushed slightly ahead of him, but he kept her fur-trimmed hat in sight. His situation was not unpleasant, surrounded as he was by warm, supportive bodies, guiding him to his objective like a
departing
football crowd happy with their team’s result. It was only when his little posse drove him past the entrances to the stairways that he realised he might be in trouble. He could see Sumiko’s hat bobbing up the flight of steps, but he had already gone past the opening. He was on his way out of the tunnel through the opposite exit and there was nothing he could do to stop himself. Even a younger man would have been impotent against such a tide of humanity. He had no choice but to go with the flow. Go with the flow. Not
to panic. Just go with the flow. Towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Go with the flow. Until he was deposited breathless outside the rear entrance.

It was quieter on this side of the station. He brushed down his coat, blinked in the light of the sun disappearing behind the hills. He loved this time of the day, this suffusion of colours that the dusk brought. Especially in the autumn when the sky was shot through with that pale, pale blue. And there was always a certain melancholy to these November sunsets tinged as they were with the approach of winter. He bought a bag of chestnuts from a nearby vendor who had set up a little brazier of hot coals outside the station. Just one bite through the shell into that bitter-sweet softness was enough to draw him back for an instant to his childhood.

‘
Doko desu-ka
?’ A taxi driver shouted to him through the open window of his cab. ‘Where you go?’

‘One moment, please.’ He put his hand into his jacket
top-pocket
, plucked out the piece of paper, handed it to the driver. The man scanned the sheet.

‘
Abunai-desuyo. Tsunami ga kimasu
. Very dangerous. Back way only.’

‘Back way only?’

‘No seafront.’ The driver held up four fingers. ‘
Yon-sen en
.’

Four thousand yen. That was twice the amount he’d been charged for the journey to the station.

‘All right then.
Yon-sen en
.’

As if by magic, the taxi door flew open and Edward lowered his tired limbs on to the plastic sheeting covering the back seat. The door closed by itself, followed by the clunk of the locks. The driver bent forward, muttering close to his windscreen as he edged his vehicle though the crowds until he could finally break free and shift up the gears.

‘
Tsunami ga kimasu
,’ the driver said, leaning back now to talk to him half over his shoulder. ‘Tsunami come. Back way only.’

‘Back way only,’ he repeated with a tired sigh that he hoped would discourage any further conversation. The driver nodded and turned his attention to the road. The piece of paper with Kawabata’s
address was wedged into a heating vent on the dashboard, vibrating in the flow of warm air.

The ‘back way only route’ was quite pleasant. Dark lanes skirting the base of the hills surrounding the city. Earthy embankments. The smell of burning leaves. Temple gates. Roadside shrines. Sometimes even a temple itself lit up by rows of lanterns. It felt good just to sit back and relax. Perhaps, he should tell the driver to continue on like this all the way back to the hotel. Or just to keep driving on. Driving on in the back of a taxi. Forever. Such a comforting thought in its own way. He bit into another chestnut. Delicious.

‘
Kochira ni narimasu
,’ the driver said, pulling to a stop in the
middle
of a residential area. ‘We are here.’

‘Where is the house?’

The driver tapped his finger on the piece of paper. ‘Here I know.’ And then he shrugged. ‘House I don’t know.’

Yes, of course. He had forgotten the Japanese way of organising addresses. Houses were numbered according to when they were built within a particular area rather than according to their order in a particular street. Sometimes these two elements would coincide and a Japanese street would be numbered like any other street. But more often than not, they didn’t. Then it would be a search on the basis of time rather than space. He would have to get out and ask or otherwise just look around. He paid the driver, thanked him, took back the piece of paper.

‘One hour,’ the driver said, holding up a nicotine-stained digit. ‘
Tsunami kimasu
. Tsunami come one hour.
Kyoskete-ne
? Be careful.’

It was dusk now. Streetlights blinking on. The wind had picked up, the temperature had dipped. He buttoned up his coat, tightened his scarf. Sirens still wailing somewhere in the distance. He stood all alone in a residential area, not a soul on the streets, not a light on in a house, a single piece of paper flapping in his hand. He searched for his glasses, tapping each of his pockets. He thought back. He must have left them in the
soba
shop, lost them in the tunnel. He walked over to a street lamp, held out the paper in the glow. He could just make out the numbers of the address. 2-6-3. Assuming the sequence moved left to right as it narrowed down the location,
the house number must be ‘3’. He walked over to the gatepost of the nearest residence. A sign on the wall said 2-6-21. ‘Good’, he thought. ‘I am on the right track.’

The street appeared to continue in a regular sequence – 2-
6-20
, 2-6-19, 2-6-18 – and he felt heartened at the prospect of being so close to his destination. Yet these houses were quite modern, bungalows in the European style, too modern, he worried, to be around in Kawabata’s time. Too modern to accord with what he imagined to be Kawabata’s aesthetic. Whatever that was.
Something
exquisitely carved and crafted, full of light, full of ancient pottery. By house number 2-6-9, the street began to narrow. Ahead of him, he could see a thin wedge of two-storey wooden buildings looming in the dusk, forming a narrow lane. He stopped at the entrance to this alleyway. There were no more street lights. He was tired now, hot and out of breath. He could hear the sirens wailing louder. Perhaps he should have remained in the taxi, instead of embarking on this wild goosechase. He gulped in some air, wandered into the lane.

There were only six houses in this short narrow stretch, three on either side, tall wooden structures shutting out any natural light. No lights either from any of the windows. An airless little alleyway, impossible to see any house numbers, hardly possible to see where he was going. He was glad to emerge from the other side. But instead of any continuation of the original broad residential street, he realised he had arrived at the seafront.

First there was the coast road and beyond that the beach. Not a car in sight. Not another person in sight. Traffic lights jammed on green. A full moon high in the sky. Loud speakers on lamp posts spewing out siren sounds intermingled with tinny warning messages. ‘Please move to higher ground. Please move to higher ground.’ He wandered across the road to the railings separating the pavement from the beach. Where he was confronted by an
awesome
sight. The sea had retreated. Not just drawn back as at low tide. But sucked out so far that the ocean bed stretched bluish and exposed as far back as he could see, as far back as the horizon. The huge bay was empty of water. That’s what chilled him. It was like
coming across an empty swimming pool. But on a vast scale. This void where there should be the fullness of the ocean. This silence where there should be the lick-lapping of the tide.