The Earthquake Bird (4 page)

Yesterday, I went back to the noodle shop. I knew that I was moving farther away from Lily and Teiji with each hour that passed,
and so I returned, ludicrously hoping that I would see Teiji. I wasn’t going to speak to him. I just wanted to catch a distant
glimpse of his shoulder blades under his T-shirt, or his profile as he wiped the tables. But I knew perfectly well that the
shop had changed hands and Teiji would have no reason to be there. I knew that but, as any good stalker will appreciate, it
did not stop me looking.

I could see from the outside that the shop had changed. It was cleaner, brighter, and there was a new name over the door.
The grime had gone from the windows and the slanting doorstep had been leveled out.

I went inside and sat nervously at a counter that ran along the back wall of the shop. A young, fresh waiter took my order
for tamago udon. While I waited I mopped my forehead with my hand towel. I took a pair of wooden chopsticks and snapped them
apart. The steaming bowl arrived and I began to eat. The noodles were delicious but, perhaps because of the nature of recent
events, when I looked into the bowl I found myself thinking of a murder case I’d read about here a few years ago.

The killer had a street stand selling noodles. He also had a dead body to dispose of. In order to avoid the fingerprint problem
he had hacked off the corpse’s hands. He then proceeded to boil the outer layers of skin off the hands by dropping them into
the hot noodle broth, on the street, under the unknowing eyes of his hungry customers. I don’t know how he was caught but
I wondered about it. Did a passerby notice, out of the corner of his eye, a human hand floating to the surface of the delicious
bubbling soup? Did a customer find that the noodles tasted a little gamier than they should?

I thought of Lily and my noodles tasted sweeter for a few seconds. Then I sensed Teiji behind me, watching and frowning upon
my act of metaphysical cannibalism. I dropped my chopsticks. One of them fell and hit the floor. I bent to reach it, feeling
tears accumulating, and knocked the bowl off the counter. It smashed and the noodles and soup splashed across the tiles. I
felt the eyes of everyone in the restaurant studiously avoiding my direction. Perhaps in Britain I would have had a round
of applause. I tried to call for a waiter but my voice was taken up with quiet, deep sobs that sounded as if they were coming
from someone else.

A waiter rushed toward me with a dustpan, brush, and mop. He told me that there was no problem though I could see he hardly
knew which implement to use first. Before I could say no thank you, another waiter had slipped a full bowl of noodles onto
the counter in front of me, compliments of the shop. I had no choice but to start again. After a few minutes my childish crying
came to a stop. I dried my eyes and nose with my hand towel and, feeling a little better, began to eat.

By the time the last inch of noodle was inside me, my eyes were only slightly sore. I felt as if I had been bandaged up. By
whom? By the noodles, though I caught myself thinking of a kind nurse in my childhood, and then of the other nurse I knew,
Lily. I left the shop feeling fed and satisfied.

I will try to sustain myself now on the memory of the taste. My back is beginning to ache from sitting in this uncomfortable
chair. I suppose I am allowed to stand for a moment and stretch. I move, and feel a little better. The policemen stare at
me with identical expressions of weariness. I ignore them.

As I have said, I agreed to meet Lily and help her find a home. So, though I had no interest in her at all, I waited for her
at the station in Itabashi. She was ten minutes late and apologized about it for the next fifteen. She rabbited on about the
awfulness of her current accommodation and expected me to listen. I paid attention to some of it but not all. I find it hard
to concentrate for long in conversation and my mind wandered to other things. I started to think about the first time I tried
to rent an apartment in Tokyo and was turned down by streetfuls of real-estate agents because I was foreign. It took weeks
to find a place. In the end I settled for a poky room above a noisy garage because I was tired of hunting. I have come to
love that room, though, and had hoped I would never have to move. These days it is easier for foreigners and easier still
for Lily because she had me to help her.

She rattled on.

“Andy wanted to get married and I did too but I didn’t want to hurry and I thought we should wait till we had more money saved
up. He thought that meant I was seeing someone else and I was just trying to put off the wedding so he got more and more jealous.
I mean, jealous of a man who didn’t exist! It got to be embarrassing because he’d start to suspect people, you know like the
milkman and that. He had a go at one of his friends once for saying hello to me in the street and that was too much so I left
him and went to stay with a friend. Anyway, he guessed where I was so I moved to her sister’s and then another friend’s and
finally someone told me I could get work here, and I did. Sorry, am I really boring you with all this?”

“Not at all.” I was not answering to be polite but because it was true. I wasn’t bored because I wasn’t listening to much
of it. I was somewhere in my own thoughts while her words covered the air around us like wallpaper. I paid just enough attention
to have a grasp of the topic for future reference.

“What about you?” She turned her head to me. “Have you got a boyfriend?”

I couldn’t demean Teiji by referring to him with such a common and banal term. On the other hand, I supposed he was my boyfriend.
We didn’t exactly date but I couldn’t say he wasn’t my boyfriend. Lover, perhaps. But what was I to him? I didn’t know and
for some reason I didn’t feel comfortable thinking about it.

“Mm,” I said quickly and changed the subject. “There are several real-estate agents along here.”

I suggested Lily find an apartment near a station, on a high floor. Even in Japan a woman living alone can’t be too careful.
But Lily wanted to be somewhere quiet, away from stations, and on the ground floor because it would feel more like a house
and not an apartment.

“It’ll be a bit cheaper then,” I conceded.

One-room apartments in Tokyo are pretty much like each other. All the places we looked at had polished wooden floors, were
six tatami mats in size. The kitchens were small but clean and new. They had narrow balconies and unit bathrooms, a big plastic
bubble of a room where each facility is part of the mold. Some apartments were older than others, some noisier. I enjoyed
looking. Lucy cannot visit a home, occupied or not, without imagining herself into it.

One had a balcony that overlooked a crooked old house with flowerpots on the garage roof and several cats asleep among them.
I thought it might be possible to climb down to the roof without the residents of the house noticing. It would be a good place
to sit and read on a warm afternoon.

The next apartment was so dark that even with all the lights on there was just an eerie yellow dinge. The balcony faced a
dirty gray apartment building. When I looked down from the balcony I could see through the windows into the rooms. I spied
on a kitchen.

A middle-aged man was putting a pan on the stove. He lit the gas, stood and stared at it. A woman—his wife, I guessed—came
and stood with her back to him, fiddled around in a cupboard. It looked as if neither knew the other was there but the room
was so small they must have known. The woman left the kitchen and I went back into the apartment where Lily was now inspecting
the bathroom. She had her tongue out in concentration, like a child painting a picture.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“The place is a goldfish bowl and there’s no natural light. Let’s go.”

It was the right answer for Lily. Had it been my choice I would have taken it. Lucy could imagine crouching on her balcony
at night, peering from behind a drying towel into the lives of her neighbors. From the windows of my own apartment that is
impossible. The gas station beneath my balcony provides me with day-long entertainment, but at night it’s quiet. I would have
liked to be able to see into a kitchen or living room.

Finally Lily chose a place that had big wide windows and a small park outside. Its only drawback was that it was old and so
more vulnerable in an earthquake.

“Bob said there haven’t been any tremors for ages,” Lily said.

“But that’s when you have to worry. When you have a series of small ones it means that everything’s OK. If there’s nothing
for a long time then you know that the big one could hit.”

“I didn’t know that.”

We went to the real-estate agent’s and I helped Lily sign documents. I was tired and ready to go home but Lily was intent
on thanking me.

“Let me at least buy a cuppa somewhere. Go on.”

I didn’t want to be with her. I didn’t dislike her and yet I saw her as a representative of the place of my childhood. I couldn’t
like her. I knew that if we spent more time together she would start to talk about Yorkshire again and its godforsaken beauties
and comforts.

“I really am tired. You go. One of the nice things about Japan is that it’s perfectly OK to be in a café or restaurant alone.
No one will pester you or stare at you.”

“I don’t even know how to order a cup of coffee. I don’t know any Japanese at all. Sure you won’t come with me?”

Her blank eyes flickered suddenly with fear.

“I’ll come, then. Just to show you how to order in a café.”

We found a small, ferociously air-conditioned coffee shop. Lily sat and put her bag on the floor beside her. It was a refreshing
sight. I had forgotten that people put bags on floors in Britain. In Japan the floor is considered too dirty. I rarely carry
a bag. I like to stuff the things I need into my pockets, so it is not an issue that touches me. A handbag is part of a femininity
I have never felt I had the right to aspire to. Still, I liked to see Lily put her bag on the floor.

When the waitress came, Lily whispered to me that she wanted coffee. I told the waitress that we weren’t ready.

“Lily, you’ve got to be able to order for yourself. It’s no good looking at me. How will you eat and drink if you can’t ask
for anything?”

“But I don’t know what to say. How can I speak Japanese? I don’t know anything at all.”

I found her wimpishness irritating but at the same time felt a sisterly protectiveness. She was helpless.

“I bet you do. There are some Japanese words that everyone knows. How about shogun?”

“Oh, OK. Yes, I’ve heard of that. I don’t know what it is, though. Origami. I know that one. Or is that Chinese? No, it’s
Japanese, isn’t it. Is it? I don’t know.”

“It’s Japanese. Kamikaze?”

“Yes. Those pilots in the war. Erm. Sumo. Karaoke. Futon.”

“See. You do know some.”

“Karate. Noodle.”

“That’s not Japanese. There are lots of words for noodles. I’ll teach you some time. I want tea and you want coffee, right?”

“Right.”

“So tea is
kohcha
and coffee is
koohii
.”

“Kohcha. Koohii,” she repeated with a strong Yorkshire
o
.

“Yes. Now, when you want to say ‘one’ you add
hitotsu
.”

“Hitotsu kohcha—”

“No. Kohcha o hitotsu. Koohii o hitotsu.”

“So it goes backward. What’s ‘o’?”

“It’s just a particle. It doesn’t really mean anything—”

“So why do I need to say it?”

“You just do. Are you ready?” I was never meant to be a teacher.

“No, wait. Let me have a little practice first. Kohcha o hitotsu. Koohii o hitotsu. How do I say ‘please’?”

“Just add
kudasai
on the end. OK, I’m calling the waitress.”

Lily said her piece to the waitress who, fortunately, understood.

“Wow. Me speaking Japanese. Wait till Andy finds out.”

“I thought you weren’t in touch with him anymore.”

“No, I’m not. He doesn’t know that I’m here. Hardly anyone knows. I don’t want to see him again but at the same time, I don’t
believe I never will.”

“How come?”

“He was so possessive, as I said. I think he’ll either track me down and come after me or he’ll meet someone else and be obsessive
about her instead.”

“That would be better.”

“Didn’t you say before that you had a boyfriend? What’s his name?”

“Teiji.”

“Is he a translator too?”

“He’s a photographer. Well, he works in a noodle shop.”

“But he wants to be a photographer. Brilliant. I love taking photographs but I’m not very good. I like pictures of views—you
know, sunsets and that. I wish I had a camera here now. Does he sell his pictures or what?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“But he will in the future?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But it’s a hobby. So he can put them on the walls to brighten them up, and give them to people and stuff. That’s nice.”

Why did Teiji take photographs? He gave a few of them to me but mostly he did nothing with them. I realized it must have sounded
odd to Lily but I didn’t want to talk about it with her.

“Do you think you’ll stay in Japan long?”

“I don’t know. It’s funny because I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, but I’m a bit homesick. There are things I miss that
I probably wouldn’t even want if I was back at home now. Do you find that?”

“This is home now so all I can think of is how homesick I would be if I ever left Japan.”

“I miss fish and chips. And shops where I can buy what I want. I’ve noticed the shoes here are all too small for me. I could
just do with a walk down Whitefriargate to look at shoes.”

“That’s true. With my big feet I have a shoe problem too.”

“Do you miss the Yorkshire coast?”

“No.”

“There must be something about it you like.”

“There is. Erosion. That part of the coast has some of the worst erosion in the world. It’s falling into the sea as we speak.
A foot or two every year falls off the edge and drowns itself. Or swims southward and becomes part of East Anglia. That’s
something I like.”