“I hear you are a writer,” said Makimura.
“Not a real writer,” I said. “I produce fill on demand. Negligible stuff, based on how many words they need. Somebody’s got to do it, and I figure it might as well be me. I’ll spare you my spiel about shoveling snow.”
“Shoveling snow, huh?” repeated Makimura, glancing over at the golf clubs he’d set aside. “Clever notion.”
“Pleased you think so,” I said.
“Well, you like writing?”
“I can’t say I like or dislike it. I’m proficient at it, or should I say efficient? I’ve got the knack, the know-how, the stance, the punch, all that. I don’t mind that aspect.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If the level of the job is low enough, it’s very simple anyway.”
“Hmm,” he mused, pausing several seconds. “You think up that phrase, ‘shoveling snow’?”
“I did,” I said.
“Mind if I use it somewhere? It’s an interesting expression.”
“Go right ahead. I didn’t take out a copyright on it.”
“It’s exactly the way I feel sometimes,” said Makimura, fingering his earlobe. “That it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It didn’t used to be that way. The world was smaller, you could get a handle on things, you knew—or thought you knew—what you were doing. You knew what people wanted. The media wasn’t this huge, vast thing.”
He drained his glass, then poured us two more glasses. I declined, said I was driving, but he ignored me.
“But not now. There’s no justice. No one cares. People do whatever they have to do to survive. Shoveling snow. Just like you say,” he said, eyeing the green net stretched between the tree trunks. Thirty or forty white golf balls lay on the grass.
Makimura seemed to be thinking of what to say next. That took time. Not that it concerned him, he was used to people waiting on his every word. I decided to do the same. He kept pulling at his earlobe.
“My daughter’s taken to you,” Makimura began again, finally. “And she doesn’t take to just anyone. Or rather, she doesn’t take to almost everyone. She hardly says a word to me. She doesn’t say much to her mother either, but at least she respects her. She’s got no respect for me. None whatsoever. She thinks I’m a fool. She hasn’t got any friends. She doesn’t go to school, she just stays in her room alone, listening to that noise she calls music. She’s got problems with people. But for some reason, you, she takes to you. I don’t know why.”
“Me either.”
“Maybe you’re a kindred spirit?”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me, what do you think of Yuki?”
This was starting to feel like a job interview. “Yuki’s thirteen, a terrible age,” I answered straightforwardly. “And from what I can see, her home environment’s a disaster. No one looks after her. No one takes responsibility for her. No one talks to her. She’s lonely and she’s hurt. She’s got two famous parents. She’s too beautiful for her own good. And she’s acutely sensitive to everything around her. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a thirteen-year-old girl to bear.”
“And no one’s giving her proper attention.”
“That’s what I think.”
He heaved a long sigh. He let go of his ear and stared at his fingers. “I think you’re right, absolutely right. But I can’t do a thing about it. When her mother and I divorced, I signed papers that said I would lay off Yuki. I can’t get around that. I wasn’t the most faithful husband at the time, so I wasn’t in any position to contest it. In fact, I’m supposed to get Amé’s permission even before seeing Yuki like this. And the other thing is, like I said before, Yuki doesn’t have a whole lot of respect for me. So I’m in a double bind. But I’d do anything for her if I could.”
He turned his gaze back toward the green net. Evening was gathering, darker and deeper.
“Still, things can’t continue the way they’ve been going,” I said. “You know that her mother flew off to Kathmandu and it was three days before she remembered that Yuki was still in that hotel in Hokkaido? Three days! And after I brought Yuki back to Tokyo, she stayed in that apartment and didn’t go anywhere for days. As far as I know, all she did was listen to rock and eat junk food. I hate to sound wholesome and middle-class, but this isn’t healthy.”
“I’m not arguing. What you say is one hundred percent correct,” said Makimura. “No, make that two hundred percent. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Why I had you come all the way down here.”
I had an ominous feeling. The horses were dead. The Indians had stopped beating their drums. It was too quiet. I scratched my temple.
“I was wondering,” he began cautiously, “if you wouldn’t like to look after Yuki. Nothing formal or anything like that. Just two or three hours a day. Spend time with her, make sure she’s all right and eating reasonable meals. That’s all. I’ll pay you for your time. You can think of it as tutoring without having to teach. I don’t know how much you make, but I can guarantee you something close to that. The rest of the time you can do as you like. That’s not such a bad deal, is it? I’ve already talked to her mother about it. She’s in Hawaii now, and she agreed that it was a good idea. Even if it doesn’t look that way, she has Yuki’s best interests at heart, really. She’s just … different. She’s brilliant, but sometimes her head’s off in the stratosphere. She forgets about people and things around her. She even has trouble with arithmetic.”
“Right,” I said, smiling without much conviction, “but what Yuki needs more than anything else is a parent’s love—you know, completely unconditional love. I’m not her parent and I can’t give her that. She also needs friends her own age. Which leads me to another thing: I’m a man, and I’m too old. A thirteen-year-old girl is already a woman in some ways. Yuki’s very pretty and emotionally unstable. Are you going to put a girl like that in the care of some guy out of nowhere? What do you know about me? I was just hauled in by the cops in connection with a homicide. What if I was the murderer?”
“Are you the killer?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then what’s the problem? I trust you. If you say you’re not the killer, then you’re not the killer.”
“But why trust me?”
“You don’t seem the killer type. You don’t seem the statutory rapist type either. Those things are pretty clear,” said Makimura. “Plus Yuki’s the key here, and I trust Yuki’s instincts. Sometimes, as a matter of fact, her instincts are too acute for comfort. She’s like a medium. There’ve been times when I could tell she was seeing something I couldn’t. Know what I mean?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“She gets it from her mother. It’s her eccentric side. Her mother focused all of it on her art. That way, people call it talent. But Yuki hasn’t got any place to direct that side of her, not yet anyway. It’s just overflowing, with no place to go. Like water spilling out of a bucket. I’m not like either of them. I’m not eccentric. Which is why neither of them gives me the time of day. When we were living together, it got so I didn’t want to see another woman’s face. I don’t know if you can imagine what it was like, living with Amé and Yuki. Rain and snow. Amé’s private joke! Frigging weather report. They wore me out completely. Of course I love them both. I still talk to Amé now and then. But I don’t ever want to live with her again. That was hell. I may have had talent once, but living like that sapped me dry. That’s the truth. But even so, I haven’t done badly, I must say. Shoveling snow, huh? I like that. But we’re getting off track—what were we talking about?”
“About whether you should trust me.”
“That’s right. I trust Yuki’s intuition. Yuki trusts you. Therefore I trust you. And you can trust me. I’m not such a bad person. I may write crap, but I can be trusted,” he said, spitting again. “Well, how about it? Will you look after Yuki? What you’ve said about the role of the parent isn’t lost on me. I agree entirely. But the kid is, well, exceptional. And as you can see, she’ll
barely talk to me. You’re the only one I can depend on.”
I peered down into the foam of the beer in my glass. What was I supposed to do? Strange family. Three misfits and Boy Friday. Space Family Robinson.
“I don’t mind seeing Yuki that often,” I said, “but I can’t, I won’t, do it every day. I have my own life to look after, and I don’t like seeing people out of obligation. I’ll see her when I feel like it. I don’t need your money, I don’t want your money. I’m not hard up and the money I spend with Yuki won’t be any different than the money I spend with friends. I like Yuki a lot and I enjoy seeing her, but I don’t want the responsibility. Do you read me? Because whatever happens with Yuki, the responsibility ultimately comes back to you.”
Makimura nodded several times. The rolls of flesh beneath his ears quivered. Golf wasn’t going to trim away that fat. That called for a whole change of life. But that was beyond him. If he’d been capable, he’d have changed long ago.
“I understand what you’re saying, son, and it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “I’m not trying to push any responsibility onto you. No need to assume responsibility at all. I just don’t have any other options, so I bow to your judgment. This isn’t about responsibility. And the money we can think about when the time comes. I’m a man who always pays his debts. Just remember that. I leave it to you. You do as you like. If you need money, you get in touch with me or Amé. Neither of us is short in that department. So don’t be a stranger.”
I didn’t say a word.
“I’d say you’re one stubborn young man,” Makimura added.
“I’m not stubborn. I just work according to my system.”
“Your system,” he said. Then he fingered his earlobe again. “Your system may be beside the point these days. It went out with handmade vacuum tube amplifiers. Instead of wasting all your time trying to build your own, you ought to buy a brand-new transistor job. It’s cheaper and it sounds better. And if it breaks down they come fix it in no time. When it gets old, you can trade it in. Your system may not be so watertight anymore, son. It might’ve been worth something once upon a time. But not now. Nowadays money talks. It’s whatever money will buy. You can buy off the rack and piece it all together. It’s simple. It’s not so bad. Get stuck on your system and you’ll be left behind. You can’t cut tight turns and you get in everybody’s way.”
“Advanced capitalist society.”
“You got it,” said Makimura. Then he fell silent.
Nearby a dog was baying neurotically. Someone was fumbling through a Mozart piano sonata. Makimura sat down on the back porch with his beer, thinking.
Darkness was swallowing the whole scene. Things were losing their shapes and melting together. Suddenly there was Gotanda, his graceful fingers stroking Kiki’s bare back; there were the snow-swept streets of Sapporo, Cuck-koo from Mei the Goat Girl, the flatfoot rapping the plastic ruler in the palm of his hand, the Sheep Man at the end of a dark corridor, … all fusing and blending. I must be tired, I thought. But I wasn’t. It was only the essence of things leaching away, then swirling into chaos. And I was looking down on it as if it were some cosmic sphere. A piano played, a dog barked, someone was saying something. Someone was speaking to me.
“Say, son—.” It was Makimura.
I glanced up at him.
“You know something about that murdered woman, don’t you?” he was saying. “The newspapers say they still don’t know who she is, and the only lead is a business card in her wallet. They were supposed to be questioning that party, but your name didn’t come out. According to my lawyer, you pulled one over on them. You said you didn’t know anything, but that’s not to say you don’t, am I right?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I just do,” he said, picking up a golf club and holding it straight out like a sword. “The more I listened to you talk, the more it kind of grew on me. You fuss over tiny details, but you’re awful generous with big things. There’s a pattern that builds up. I figure you know more than you say, maybe you’re covering for somebody. You’re an interesting character. Almost like Yuki that way. You have a hard time just surviving. This time you came through okay, but the next time you may not be so lucky. Remember, the police aren’t so nice. I’ve got no beef with your system—I actually have respect for it—but you could get hurt, sticking to your guns like that. Times have changed. You got to adapt.”
“I’m not sticking to my guns,” I said. “It’s more like just a dance. Something the body remembers. It’s a habit. The music plays, the body moves. It almost doesn’t matter what else is happening. If too many things get in my head, I might end up blowing my steps. I’m clumsy, not trendy.”
Hiraku Makimura glared at his golf club in silence.
“You’re odd, you know?” he said. “You remind me of something.”
“Same here.” Picasso’s Dutch Vase and Three Bearded Knights?
“I like you, son. I trust you as a person. I’m sorry that I have to ask you to look out for Yuki. But I’ll make it up to you someday. I always repay favors. Like I said before.”
“I heard.”
At seven o’clock, Yuki came sauntering back. She’d been walking on the beach. Would she like dinner, then? Not hungry, she said. She wanted to go home.
“Well, drop by whenever you feel in the mood,” said her father. “This month I’ll be in Japan straight through.” Then he turned to me and thanked me for making the long trip, apologizing for not being able to be more hospitable.
Boy Friday saw us out. As we turned the corner from the backyard, I spied a four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee, a Honda 750cc, and an off-road mountain bike parked in a corner of the grounds.
“Heavy-duty living, eh?” I commented to Friday.
“Well, it’s not namby-pamby,” Friday responded after a moment. “Mr. Makimura doesn’t live in an ivory tower. He’s into action, he lives for adventure.”
“A bozo,” Yuki mumbled.
Both Friday and I pretended not to have heard her.
No sooner had we gotten into the Subaru than Yuki said she was famished. I pulled into a Hungry Tiger along the coast road and we ordered steaks.
“What did you talk about?” she asked me over dessert.
There was no reason to hide anything, so I gave her a general recap.
“Figures,” she sneered. “Just the sort of thing he’d dream up. What’d you tell him?”
“I said I wasn’t cut out for an arrangement like that. It wouldn’t be bad, us getting together and hanging out, whenever we wanted to. That could be fun, but no formal arrangement. You know, I may be an old man next to you, but we still have plenty to talk about, don’t you think?”
She shrugged.
“If you didn’t feel like seeing me, you could just say so. People shouldn’t feel obligated to see each other. See me when you feel like it. We could tell each other things we can’t say to anyone else, share secrets. Or no?”
She seemed to hesitate, then nodded, “Umm.”
“You shouldn’t let the stuff build up inside. It gets to a point where you can’t keep it under control. You got to let off the pressure or it’ll explode. Bang! Know what I mean? Life is hard enough. Holding down the fort all by your lonesome is tough. And it’s tough for me too. But the two of us, I think maybe we can understand each other. We can talk pretty honestly.”
She nodded.
“I can’t force you. But if you want to talk, just call up. This has nothing to do with what your father and I discussed. And try not to think of me as a big brother or something. We’re friends. I think we can be good for each other.”
Yuki didn’t respond. She finished off her dessert and gulped down a glass of water. Then she peered over at the heavyset family stuffing their jowls at the next table. Mother and father and daughter and baby brother. All wonderfully rotund.
I planted my elbows on the table and drank my coffee, watching Yuki watch them. She was truly a beautiful girl. I could feel a small
polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all. If I were fifteen, I’d have been a goner for sure, I thought for the twentieth time.
How could her classmates be so rotten? Was her beauty too much to be around everyday? Too pointed? Too intense? Too aloof? Did she make them afraid of her?
Well, she certainly wasn’t cool like Gotanda. Gotanda had this remarkable awareness of the effect he had on others, and he held it in reserve. He controlled it. He never lorded it over people, never scared them off. And even when his presence had inflated to star proportions, he could smile and joke about it. It was his nature. That way everyone around him could smile along and think, Now there’s one nice guy. And Gotanda really was a nice guy. But Yuki was different. Yuki was not nice.
She didn’t have it in her to keep tabs on everyone else’s emotions and then to fit her own emotions in without stomping on people. It was all she could do to keep on top of herself. As a result, she hurt others, which only hurt herself. A hard life. A little too hard for a thirteen-year-old. Hard even for an adult.
I couldn’t begin to predict what the girl would do from here on. Maybe she’d find a way to express herself, like her mother did, and make her way in art. Maybe she’d channel her powers into something positive. I couldn’t swear to it, but like her father, I could sense an aura, a talent, in her. She was extraordinary.
Then again, she might become a perfectly normal eighteen-year-old. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Humans achieve their peak in different ways. But whoever you are, once you’re over the summit, it’s downhill all the way. Nothing anyone can do about it. And the worst of it is, you never know where that peak is. You think you’re still going strong, when suddenly you’ve crossed the great divide. No one can tell. Some people peak at twelve, then lead rather uneventful lives from then on. Some carry on until they die; some die at their peak. Poets and composers have lived like furies, pushing themselves to such a pitch they’re gone by thirty. Then there are those like Picasso, who kept breaking ground until well past eighty.