Dance Dance Dance (33 page)

42

I had a dream about Kiki. I guess it was a dream. Either that or some act akin to dreaming. What, you may ask, is an "act akin to dreaming"? I don't know either. But it seems it does exist. Like so many other things we have no name for, existing in that limbo beyond the fringes of con-sciousness.

But let's just call it a dream, plain and simple. The expression is closest to something real for us.

It was near dawn when I had this dream about Kiki.

In the dream as well, it was near dawn.

I'm on the phone. An international call. I've dialed the number that Kiki apparently left me on the windowsill of that room in downtown Honolulu. Beepbeepbeep beep beepbeep beepbeep ... I can hear the phone lines connect-ing. I'm getting through. Or so I think. The numbers are linking up in order. A brief interval, a short dial tone. I press the receiver to my ear and count the muffled reports. Five, six, seven, eight rings. At the twelfth ring, someone answers. And in that instant, I'm in that room. That big, empty death chamber in downtown Honolulu. It seems to be daytime. Noon, judging from the light pouring straight down through the skylight. Flecks of dust dance in these upright shafts of light, bright as a southern sun and sharp as gashes from a knife. Yet the parts of the room without light are murky and cold. The contrast is remarkable. Like the ocean floor, I'm thinking.

I'm sitting on a sofa there in the room, receiver at my ear. The telephone cord trails away over the floor, across a dark area, through the light, to disappear again into the gloom. A long, long cord. Longer than any I've seen. I've got the phone on my lap and I'm looking around the room.

The furniture in the room is the same as it was. The same pieces in the same places. Bed, table, sofa, chairs, TV, floor lamp. Spaced unnaturally apart. And the room has the same smell as before. Stale and moldy, a shut-in air of disuse. But the six skeletons are gone. Not on the bed, not on the sofa, not in the chair in front of the TV, not at the dining table. They've all disappeared. As have the scraps of food and plates from the table. I set the telephone down on the sofa and stand up. I have a slight headache. The kind you get when there's a high-pitched hum in your ears. I sit back down.

I detect a movement from the farthest chair off in the gloom. I strain my eyes. Someone or something has gotten up and I hear footsteps coming my way. It's Kiki. She appears from out of the darkness, cuts across the light, takes a chair at the dining table. She's wearing the same outfit as before. Blue dress and white shoulder bag.

She sits there, sizing me up. She is quiet, her expression tranquil. She is positioned neither in light nor in darkness, but exactly in between. I'm about to get up and go over to her, but have second thoughts. There's still that slight pain in my temples.

"The skeletons go somewhere?" I ask.

"I suppose," says Kiki with a smile.

"Did you dispose of them?"

"No, they just vanished. Maybe you disposed of them?"

Eyeing the telephone beside me, I press my fingers to my temples.

"What's it mean? Those six skeletons?"

"They're you," says Kiki. "This is your room. Everything here is you. Yourself. Everything."

"My room," I repeat after her. "Well, then, what about the Dolphin Hotel? What's there?"

"That's your place too. Of course. The Sheep Man's there. And I'm here."

The shafts of light do not waver. They are hard, uniform. Only the air vibrates minutely in them. I notice it without really looking.

"I seem to have rooms in a lot of places," I say. "You know, I kept having these dreams. About the Dolphin Hotel. And somebody there, who's crying for me. I had that same dream almost every night. The Dolphin Hotel stretches out long and narrow, and there's someone there, crying for me. I thought it was you. So I knew I had to see you."

"Everyone's crying for you," says Kiki, ever so softly, in a voice to soothe worn nerves. "After all, that whole place is for you. Everyone there cries for you."

"But you were calling me. That's why I went back, to see you. And then from there ... a lot of things started. Just like before. I met all sorts of folks. People died. But, you did call me, didn't you? It was you who guided me along, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't me. It was you who called yourself. I'm merely a projection. You guided yourself, through me. I'm your phan-tom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more."

But I wasn't strangling her, I was strangling my shadow. If only I could choke off my shadow, I'd get some health.

"But why would everyone cry for me?"

She doesn't answer. She rises, and with a tapping of foot-steps, walks over to stand before me. Then she kneels and reaches out to touch my lips with her fingertips. Her fingers are sleek and smooth. Then she touches my temples.

"We're crying for all the things you can't cry for," whis-pers Kiki. Slowly, as if to spell it out. "We shed tears for all the things you never let yourself shed tears, we weep for all the things you did not weep."

"Are your ears still. . . like they were?" I'm curious.

"My ears—," she breaks off into a smile. "They're in per-fect shape. The same as they were."

"Would you show me your ears again, just one more time?" I ask. "It was an experience like I've never known, as if the whole world was reborn. In that restaurant that time, you knocked me out. I've never forgotten it."

She shakes her head. "Maybe sometime," she says. "But not today. They're not something you can see at any moment. It's something to see only at the right time. That was a right time. Today is not. I'll show you again sometime, when you really need it."

She stands back up and into a vertical shaft of illumina-tion from above. She stays there, her body almost decompos-ing amid the specks of strong light.

"Tell me, Kiki, are you dead?" I ask.

She spins around in the light to face me.

"Gotanda thinks he killed me," says Kiki.

"Yes, he does. Or he did."

"Maybe he did kill me. For him it's like that. In his mind, he killed me. That's what he needed. If he didn't kill me, he'd still be stuck. Poor man," says Kiki. "But I'm not dead. I just disappeared. I do that. I move into another world, a differ-ent world. Like boarding a train running parallel. That's what disappearing is. Don't you see?"

No, I don't, I say.

"It's simple. Watch."

With those words, Kiki walks across the floor, headlong toward the wall. Her pace does not slacken, even on reach-ing the wall. She is swallowed up into the wall. Her foot-steps likewise vanish.

I keep watching the wall where she was swallowed up. It's just a wall. The room is silent. There's only the specks of light sifting through the air. My head throbs. I press my fin-gers to my temples and keep my eyes on the wall. When I think of it, of that time in Honolulu, she'd vanished into a wall too.

"Well? Simple enough?" I hear Kiki's voice. "Now you try."

"You think I can?"

"I said it's simple, didn't I? Go ahead, give it a try. Walk straight on as you are. Don't stop. Then you'll get to this side. Don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid about."

I grab the telephone and stand up, then walk, dragging the cord, straight toward the wall where she disappeared. I get wary as the wall looms up, but I do not slacken my pace. Even as I touch the wall, there is no impact. My body just passes through, as it might a transparent air pocket. Only the air seems to change a bit. I'm still carrying the telephone as I pass through and I'm back in my bedroom, in my own apartment. I sit down on the bed, with the phone on my lap. "Simple," I say. "Very, very simple."

I put the receiver to my ear, but the line is dead. So went the dream. Or whatever it was.

43

When I got back to the Dolphin Hotel, three female receptionists stood behind the front desk. As ever, they were uniformed in neatly pressed blazers and spotless white blouses. They greeted me with smiles. Yumiyoshi was not among them. Which upset me. Or rather, it tipped over all my hopes. I'd been counting so much on being able to see Yumiyoshi right away that I could hardly pronounce my own name when asked. As a result, the recep-tionist wavered slightly behind her smile and eyed my credit card suspiciously as she ran a computer check.

I was given a room on the seventeenth floor. I dropped my bag, washed up, and went back down to the lobby. Then I sat on the sofa and pretended to read a magazine, while casting occasional glances at the front desk. Maybe Yumiyoshi was on a break. After forty minutes she still had not shown. Still the same three indistinguishable women with identical hairstyles on duty. After one hour, I gave up.

I went out into town and bought the evening paper. Then I went into a cafe and read the thing from front to back over a cup of coffee, hoping for some article of interest.

There wasn't. Not a thing about either Gotanda or Mei. Notices of other murders, though, other suicides. As I read, I was hoping Yumiyoshi would be standing behind the counter when I got back to the hotel.

No such luck.

Had she for some unknown reason suddenly vanished? Walked into a wall? I felt a terrible uneasiness. I tried calling her at home; no answer. Finally I telephoned the front desk. Yumiyoshi had taken "a leave of absence." She'd be back on duty the day after next. Brilliant, I thought, why hadn't I called her before I showed up?

I'd worked myself up into such a state that it hadn't entered my mind to do something as obvious as that. What a dummy! And when was the last time I'd called her anyway? Not once since Gotanda died. And who knows when before that. Maybe not since Yuki threw up on the beach. How long ago was that? I'd forgotten about Yumiyoshi. I had no idea what might have happened with her. And things do happen.

I was suddenly shaken. What if Yumiyoshi had disap-peared into a wall, and I'd never see her again? Yes, one more corpse to go. I didn't want to think about it. I started hyperventilating. I had trouble breathing. My heart swelled big enough to burst through my chest. Did this mean I was in love with Yumiyoshi? I had to see her face-to-face to know for sure. I called her apartment, over and over, so many times my fingers hurt. No answer.

I couldn't sleep. I lay in my hotel bed, sweating. I switched on the light and looked at the clock. Two o'clock. Three-fifteen. Fourtwenty. After that, I gave up. I sat by the window and watched the city grow light to the beating of my heart.

Yumiyoshi, don't leave me alone. I need you. I don't want to be alone anymore. Without you I'll be flung out to the far corners of the universe. Show your face, please, tie me down somewhere. Tie me to this world. I don't want to join the ghosts. I'm just an ordinary guy. I need you.

From six-thirty in the morning I dialed her apartment at half-hour intervals. To no avail.

June in Sapporo is a wonderful time of year. The snow has long since melted, the plains that were frozen tundra a few months earlier are dark and fertile. Life breathes every-where. The trees are thick with foliage, the leaves sway in the breeze. The sky is high and clear, crisply outlining the clouds. An inspirational season. Yet here I was in my hotel room dialing Yumiyoshi's number like a maniac. She'll be back tomorrow—what was my rush? I must have told myself this every ten minutes. I couldn't wait. Who could guarantee she'd come back tomorrow? I sat by the phone and kept dialing. And then I sprawled out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Here is where the old Dolphin Hotel used to stand. It was the pits of a hotel. Untold others stayed there, stepped in the grooves in the floor, saw the spots on the wall. I sat deep in my chair, feet on the table, eyes closed, picturing the old place. The shape of the front door, the worn-out carpeting, the tarnished brass keys, the corners of window frames thick with dust. I'd walked those halls, opened those doors, entered those rooms.

The old Dolphin Hotel had disappeared. Yet its presence lingered on. Beneath this new intercontinental Dolphin, behind it, within it. I could close my eyes and go in. The cr-cr-crr-creaking of the elevator, like an old dog wheezing. It was still here. No one knew, but it was here. This place was my nexus, where everything tied together. This place is here for me, I told myself. Yumiyoshi had to come back. All I had to do was sit tight and wait.

I had room service bring up dinner, which I accompanied with a beer from the mini-bar. And at eight o'clock I tried Yumiyoshi's number again. No answer again.

I turned on the TV and watched baseball, with the sound off. It was a lousy game. I didn't want to watch baseball anyway. I wanted to see live human bodies in action. Bad-minton, water polo, anything would have done as well.

At nine o'clock I tried calling again. This time, she picked up after one ring. At first I couldn't believe she was actually there. I was cut to the quick, a lump of air stuck in my throat. Yumiyoshi was actually there.

"I just got back this minute," said Yumiyoshi, utterly cool. "I went to Tokyo to see relatives. I called your place twice, but nobody answered."

"I'm up here in Sapporo and I've been calling you like crazy."

"So we nearly missed each other."

"Nearly missed," was all I could bring myself to say, tightly gripping the receiver and peering at the muted TV screen. Words would not come. I was caught off-guard, impossibly confused.

"Hey, are you there? Hello? Hello?"

"I'm here all right."

"Your voice sounds strange."

"I ... I'm nervous," I explained. "I've got to see you or I can't talk. I've been on edge all day. I've got to see you."

"I think I can see you tomorrow night," she said after a moment's thought. I could just picture her pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

Receiver fast to my ear, I lowered myself onto the floor and leaned back against the wall. "Tomorrow's a long way off. I kind of think it'd be better to meet tonight. Right away, in fact."

A negative air came to her voice. Even if that voice hadn't said anything yet, the negative came across. "I'm too tired now. I'm exhausted. I just got back. And since I'm on duty tomorrow morning, tonight I just want to sleep. Tomorrow, after I get off, let's get together. How about that? Or won't you be around tomorrow?"

"No, I'll be here for a while. And I do sympathize with your being tired. Only, honestly, I'm worried. Like maybe by tomorrow you'll have disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Disappeared. Vanished."

Yumiyoshi laughed. "I don't disappear so easily. I'm not going anywhere."

"No, it's not like that. You don't understand. We keep moving. And as we do, things around us, well, they disap-pear. I know I'm not entirely coherent, but that's what wor-ries me. Yumiyoshi, I need you. I mean, I really need you. Like I've never needed anything before. Please don't disap-pear on me."

Yumiyoshi paused for a moment. "Golly," she said. "I promise. I won't disappear. I'll see you tomorrow. So please just wait until then."

"Okay," I said. I had no choice but to be satisfied—though I wasn't—with her assurances.

"Good night then," she said, and hung up.

I paced around the room, then went up to the lounge on the twenty-sixth floor, the lounge where I'd first seen Yuki. The place was crowded. Two young women were drinking at the bar, both very fashionably dressed, one with beautiful legs. I sat, nursing my vodka tonic, and eyed them with no special intentions. Then I turned my gaze to the night sky-line. I pressed my fingers to my temples, though I did not have a headache. Then I felt the shape of my skull, slowly tracing the shape of bone matter beneath the skin, imagining the skeletons of the women at the bar. Skull, vertebrae, ster-num, pelvis, arms, legs, joints. Beautiful white bones inside those beautiful legs. Pristine, white as clouds, expressionless. Miss Legs looked my way, undoubtedly aware of my stare. I would have liked to explain. That I wasn't looking at her body. That I was only thinking about her bones!

I had three drinks, then returned to my room. Having reached Yumiyoshi at last, I slept like a dream.

Yumiyoshi showed up at three in the morning. The door-bell rang, I turned on the bedside lamp, and looked at the clock. Then throwing on a bathrobe, I went to the door, innocently, threequarters asleep. I cracked it open. And there she was, in her light blue uniform blazer. She stepped into the room through the narrow opening, like she always did.

She stood in the middle of the room and breathed deeply. Without a sound she removed her blazer and folded it care-fully over the back of the chair. The same as ever.

"Well, I haven't disappeared, have I?" was the first thin she said.

"No, it doesn't look like you've disappeared," came my voice from somewhere. I couldn't quite grasp whether this was actually happening or not.

"People don't disappear so easily," she spoke deliberately.

"You just don't know. Lots of things can happen in this world. You name it."

"Perhaps, but I'm here. I haven't disappeared. You d admit that, don't you?"

I glanced around the room and looked Yumiyoshi in the eye. This was real waking reality. "Yes, I admit it. You don't seem to have disappeared. But what brings you to my room at three in the morning?"

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "I went to bed right after you called, but my eyes popped wide open at a little past one and I didn't sleep a wink after that. What you said kind of got to me. So I called a taxi and came here."

"Didn't anyone think it was strange, you showing up at three in the morning?"

"Nobody noticed. Everyone's asleep. The hotel keeps going twenty-four hours, but the only people awake at three a.m. are the front desk and room service. Nobody's hanging around the employees' entrance. And nobody keeps track anyway. You can always say you came to sleep in the sleep room. I've done it plenty of times before."

"You've done this before?"

"Yes, when I couldn't sleep. I come and wander around. I know this sounds strange, but it's very restful. And, well, I like it. No one ever notices. It's not a problem. Of course, if they found me in this room, that's another story. But don't worry, I'll stay until morning and slip out to work. Okay?"

"Of course it's okay by me. What time do you have to be on duty?"

"Eight," she said. "Another five hours."

Yumiyoshi nervously removed her watch and laid it down on the table. Then she straightened her skirt. I sat down on the corner of the bed, having slowly awakened to the cir-cumstances. "So now," said she, "did I hear you say you need me?"

"Like crazy," I said. "I've been all around. I've made a complete revolution. And I've come back to the fact that I need you."

"Like crazy," she reminded me, tugging at the hem of her skirt.

"That's right, like crazy."

"Just where all around have you been?"

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you. I've made it back to reality—that's the important thing. I've come full circle. And I'm still on my feet, dancing."

She looked at me quizzically.

"I can't go into details. Just believe me. I need you. That's very important, to me anyway. Maybe it could be important to you too."

"So what do you want me to do?" said Yumiyoshi, with no change of expression. "Fall into your arms? Be moved to tears? Tell you how wonderful it is to be wanted?"

"No, no, nothing like that," I said quickly, but then couldn't find the right words to go on. As if there were right words. "What can I tell you? I've known it all along and never doubted it. I knew that we would sleep together. Only at first we couldn't. The timing wasn't right. It had to wait until it was right."

"So now I'm supposed to sleep with you? Just like that?"

"I know the argument's short-circuited. And I know it's the worst possible way to convince you. But to be honest, that's what it comes down to. I can't help how the words come out. I mean, with me too, if these were normal circumstances, I'd try to do things in the proper order. I'm not that much of a dud. But this is a very simple thing, and this approach is truer. I know it. Which is why I can't express it any other way. I've always known that we would sleep together. It's decided, it's fact. And we shouldn't go fiddling around with that. That might ruin everything. Honest!"

Yumiyoshi eyed her watch. "You do realize you're not making much sense, don't you?" she said. Then she sighed and began to unbutton her blouse. "Don't look."

I lay back on the bed and gazed up at a corner of the ceil-ing. There's another world somewhere, but now I'm here, in this one. Yumiyoshi undressed slowly. I could hear soft sounds of fabric against skin, then the sound of folding. Then the sound of her glasses being set down. A very sexy sound. And then she was turning out the bedside lamp and sliding under the covers next to me. As quietly as she'd stolen into my room.

We touched. Her body and mine. Smooth, but with a cer-tain gravity. Yes, this was real. Unlike with Mei. Mei had been a dream, fantasy, illusion. Cuck-koo. But Yumiyoshi existed in the real world. Her warmth and weight and vital-ity were real. I caressed her and held her.

Gotanda's fingers trailing down Kiki's back was also illu-sion. It was acting, light flickering on a screen, a shadow slipping between one world and another. It was not reality. Cuck-koo.

My real fingers were stroking Yumiyoshi's real skin. Yumiyoshi buried her face in my neck. I felt the touch of her nose. I searched out every part of her body. Shoulder, elbow, wrist, palm, the tips of ten fingers. My fingers explored and my lips kissed. Her breasts, her stomach, her sides and back and legs, each form registered and sealed. I needed to be sure. I ran my fingers over her pubis. I moved down and kissed it. Cuck-koo.

We did not speak. We held each other. Her breath was warm and wet. Words that were not words hung in the air. I entered her. I was hard, very hard, and full of desire.