“Yeah, better not tell a soul.”
“But what am I supposed to do? Whenever I get into an elevator now, I’m scared that I’m going to end up in darkness. And in a hotel like this, you have to ride the elevators a lot. What am I going to do? I can’t talk to anybody but you about this.”
“So why didn’t you call sooner?” I asked.
“I did, several times,” her voice hushed to a whisper. “But you were never in.”
“But my machine was on, wasn’t it?”
“I hate those things. They make me nervous.”
“Fair enough. Well, let me tell you what I know about what’s going on. There’s nothing evil about that darkness. It doesn’t harbor any ill will, so there’s no need to feel threatened. But there is someone who lives there. This guy heard your footsteps, but he’s someone who’d never do you any harm. He’d never hurt a fly. So I think that if you find yourself in that darkness again, you should just shut your eyes, get back in the elevator, and leave. Okay?”
Yumiyoshi chewed silently on my words. “May I say what I honestly think?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all. When I think about you, I realize I don’t know a thing about you, really.”
“Hmm. I’ve told you already how old I am. But I guess for someone my age, I’ve got a lot of undefined territory. I’ve left too many loose ends hanging. So now, I’m trying to tie up as many of those loose ends as I can. If I manage to do that, maybe then I can explain things a little more clearly. Maybe then we can understand each other better.”
“We can only hope,” she said with third-person detachment. She sounded like a TV anchorwoman. We can only hope. Next on the news …
I told her I was going to Hawaii.
“Oh,” she remarked, unmoved. End of conversation. We said good-bye and hung up. I drank a shot of whiskey, turned out the light, and went to sleep.
Next on the news. I lay on the beach at Fort DeRussy looking up at the high blue sky and palm fronds and sea gulls and did my newscaster spiel. Yuki was next to me. I lay face up on my beach mat, she lay on her belly with her eyes shut. Next to her a huge Sanyo radio-cassette deck was playing Eric Clapton’s latest. Yuki wore an olive-green bikini and was covered head-to-toe with coconut oil. She looked sleek and shiny as a slim, young dolphin. A burly Samoan trudged by carrying a surfboard, while a deep-brown lifeguard surveyed the goings-on from his watchtower, his gold chain flashing. The whole town smelled of flowers and fruit and suntan oil.
Next on the news.
Stuff happened, people appeared, scenes changed. Not very long ago I was wandering around, nearly blind, in a Sapporo blizzard. Now I was lolling on the beach at Waikiki, gazing up at the blue. One thing led to another. Connect the dots. Dance to the music and here’s where it gets you. Was I dancing my best? I checked back over my steps in order. Not so bad. Not sublime, but not so bad. Put me back in the same position and I’d make the same moves. That’s what you call a system. Or tendencies. Anyway my feet were in motion. I was keeping in step.
And now I was in Honolulu. Break time.
Break time. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but apparently I did. Yuki rolled over and squinted at me suspiciously.
“What’ve you been thinking about?” she said hoarsely.
“Nothing much,” I said.
“Not that I care, but would you mind not talking to yourself so loud that I can hear? Couldn’t you do it when you’re alone?”
“Sorry, I’ll keep quiet.”
Yuki gave me a restive look.
“You act like an old geezer who’s not used to being around people,” said Yuki, then rolled over away from me.
We’d taken a taxi from the airport to the hotel, changed into T-shirts and shorts, and the first thing we did was to go buy that big portable radio-cassette deck. It was what Yuki wanted.
“A real blaster,” as she said to the clerk.
Other than a few tapes, she needed nothing else. Just the blaster, which she took with her whenever we went to the beach. Or rather, that was my role. Native porter. B’wana memsahib with blaster in tow.
The hotel, courtesy of Makimura, was just fine. A certain unstylishness of furniture and decor notwithstanding (though who went to Hawaii in search of chic?), the accommodations were exceedingly comfortable. Convenient to the beach. Tenth-floor tranquillity, with view of the horizon. Sea-view terrace for sunbathing. Kitchenette spacious, clean, outfitted with every appliance from microwave to dish-washer. Yuki had the room next door, a little smaller than mine.
We stocked up on beer and California wine and fruit and juice, plus sandwich fixings. Things we could take to the beach.
And then we spent whole days on the beach, hardly talking. Turning our bodies over, now front, now back, soaking up the rays. Sea breezes rustled the palms. I’d doze off, only to be roused by the voices of passersby, which made me wonder where I was. Hawaii, it’d take me a few moments to realize. Hawaii. Sweat and suntan oil ran down my cheek. A range of sounds ebbed and flowed with the waves, mingling with my heartbeat. My heart had taken its place in the grand workings of the world.
My springs loosened. I relaxed. Break time.
Yuki’s features underwent a remarkable change from the moment we touched down and that sweet, warm Hawaiian air hit her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at me. Tension seemed to fall off her. No more defensiveness, no irritation. Her gestures, the way she ran her hands through her hair, the way she wadded up her chewing gum, the way she shrugged, … She eased up, she slowed down.
With her tiny bikini, dark sunglasses, and hair tied tight atop her head, it was hard to tell Yuki’s age. Her body was still a child’s body, but she had a kind of poise far more grown-up than her years. Her slender limbs showed strength. She seemed to have entered her most dynamic phase of growth. She was becoming an adult.
We rubbed oil on each other. It was the first time anyone ever told me I had a “big back.” Yuki, though, was so ticklish she couldn’t stay still. It made me smile. Her small white ears and the nape of her neck, how like a girl’s neck it was. How different from a mature woman’s neck. Though don’t ask me what I mean by that.
“It’s better to tan slow at first,” Yuki told me with authority. “First you tan in the shade, then out in direct sun, then back in the shade. That way you don’t get burned. If you blister, it leaves ugly scars.”
“Shade, sun, shade,” I intoned dutifully as I oiled her back.
And so I spent our first afternoon in Hawaii lying in the shade of a palm tree listening to an FM station. From time to time I’d go in the water or go to a bar at the beach for an ice-cold piña colada. Yuki didn’t swim a single stroke. She aimed to relax, she said. She had a hot dog and pineapple juice.
The sun, which seemed huge, sank into the ocean, and the sky turned brilliant shades of red and yellow and orange. We lay and watched the sky tint the sails of the sunset-cruise catamarans. Yuki could hardly be budged.
“Let’s go,” I urged. “The sun’s gone down and I’m hungry. Let’s go get a fat, juicy, charcoal-broiled hamburger.”
Yuki nodded, sort of, but didn’t get up. As if she were loath to forfeit what little time that remained. I rolled up the beach mats and picked up the blaster.
“Don’t worry. There’s still tomorrow. And after tomorrow, there’s the day after tomorrow,” I said.
She looked up at me with a hint of a smile. And when I held out my hand, she grabbed it and pulled herself up.
The following morning, Yuki said she wanted to go see her mother. She didn’t know where she was, but she had her phone number. So I rang up, exchanged greetings, and got directions. Amé had rented a small cottage near Makaha, about forty-five minutes out of Honolulu.
We rented a Mitsubishi Lancer, turned the radio up loud, rolled down the windows, and were on our way. Everywhere we passed was filled with light and surf and the scent of flowers.<
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“Does your mother live alone?” I asked Yuki.
“Are you kidding?” Yuki curled her lip. “No way the old lady could get by in a foreign country on her own. She’s the most impractical person you ever met. If she didn’t have someone looking after her, she’d get lost. How much you want to bet she’s got a boyfriend out there? Probably young and handsome. Just like Papa’s.”
“Huh?”
“Remember, at Papa’s place, that pretty gay boy who lives with him? He’s so-o clean.”
“Gay?”
“Didn’t you think so?”
“No, I didn’t think anything.”
“You’re dense, you know that! You could tell just by looking at him,” said Yuki. “I don’t know if Papa’s gay too, but that boy sure is. Absolutely, two hundred percent gay.”
Roxy Music came on the radio and Yuki turned the volume up full blast.
“Anyway, Mama’s weakness is for poets. Young poets, failed poets, any kind of poets. She makes them recite to her while she’s developing film. That’s her idea of a good time. Kind of nerdy if you ask me. Papa should’ve been a poet, but he couldn’t write a poem if he got showered with flowers out of the clear blue sky.”
What a family! Rough-and-tumble writer father with gay Boy Friday, genius photographer mother with poet boyfriends, and spiritual medium daughter with … Wait a minute. Was I supposed to be fitting into this psychedelic extended family? I remembered Boy Friday’s friendly, attractive smile. Maybe, just maybe, he was saying, Welcome to the club. Hold it right there. This gig with the family is strictly temporary. Understand? A short R&R before I go back to shoveling. At which point I won’t have time for the likes of this craziness. At which point I go my own way. I like things less involved.
Following Amé’s instructions, I turned right off the highway before Makaha and headed toward the hills. Houses with roofs half-ready to blow off in the next hurricane lined either side of the road, growing fewer and fewer until we reached the gate of a private resort community. The gatekeeper let us in at the mention of Amé’s name.
Inside the grounds spread a vast, well-kept lawn. Gardeners transported themselves in golf carts, as they diligently attended to turf and trees. Yellow-billed birds fluttered about. Yuki’s mother’s place was beyond a swimming pool, trees, a further expanse of hill and lawn.
The cottage was tropical modern, surrounded by a mix of trees in fruit. We rang the doorbell. The drowsy, dry ring of the wind chime mingled pleasantly with strains of Vivaldi coming from the wide-open windows. After a few seconds the door opened, and we were met by a tall, well-tanned white man. He was solidly built, mustachioed, and wore a faded aloha shirt, jogging pants, and rubber thongs. He seemed to be about my age, decent-looking, if not exactly handsome, and a bit too tough to be a poet, though surely the world’s got to have tough poets too. His most distinguished feature was the entire lack of a left arm from the shoulder down.
He looked at me, he looked at Yuki, he looked back at me, he cocked his jaw ever so slightly and smiled. “Hello,” he greeted us quietly, then switched to Japanese, “Konnichiwa.” He shook our hands, and said come on in. His Japanese was flawless.
“Amé’s developing pictures right now. She’ll be another ten minutes,” he said. “Sorry for the wait. Let me introduce myself. I’m Dick. Dick North. I live here with Amé.”
Dick showed us into the spacious living room. The room had large windows and a ceiling fan, like something out of a Somerset Maugham novel. Polynesian folkcrafts decorated the walls. He sat us on the sizable sofa, then he brought out two Primos and a coke. Dick and I drank our beers, but Yuki didn’t touch her drink.
She stared out the window and said nothing. Between the fruit trees you could see the shimmering sea. Out on the horizon floated one lone cloud, the shape of a pithecanthropus skull. Stubbornly unmoving, a permanent fixture of the seascape. Bleached perfectly white, outlined sharp against the sky. Birds warbled as they darted past. Vivaldi crescendoed to a finish, whereupon Dick got up to slip the record back in its jacket and onto a rack. He was amazingly dexterous with his one arm.
“Where did you pick up such excellent Japanese?” I asked him for lack of anything else to say.
Dick raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I lived in Japan for ten years,” he said, very slowly. “I first went there during the War—the Vietnam War. I liked it, and when I got out, I went to Sophia University. I studied Japanese poetry, haiku and tanka, which I translate now. It’s not easy, but since I’m a poet myself, it’s all for a good cause.”
“I would imagine so,” I said politely. Not young, not especially handsome, but a poet. One out of three.
“Strange, you know,” he spoke as if resuming his train of thought, “you never hear of any one-armed poets. You hear of one-armed painters, one-armed pianists. Even one-armed pitchers. Why no one-armed poets?”
True enough.
“Let me know if you think of one,” said Dick.
I shook my head. I wasn’t versed in poets in general, even the two-armed variety.
“There are a number of one-armed surfers,” he continued. “They paddle with their feet. And they do all right too. I surf a little.”
Yuki stood up and knocked about the room. She pulled down records from the rack, but apparently finding nothing to her liking, she frowned. With no music, the surroundings were so quiet they could lull you into drowsiness. In the distance there was the occasional rumble of a lawn mower, someone’s voice, the ring of a wind chime, birds singing.
“Quiet here,” I remarked.
Dick North peered down thoughtfully into the palm of his one hand.
“Yes. Silence. That’s the most important thing. Especially for people in Amé’s line of work. In my work too, silence is essential. I can’t handle hustle and bustle. Noise, didn’t you find Honolulu noisy?”
I didn’t especially, but I agreed so as to move the conversation along. Yuki was again looking out the window with her what-a-drag sneer in place.
“I’d rather live on Kauai. Really, a wonderful place. Quieter, fewer people. Oahu’s not the kind of place I like to live in. Too touristy, too many cars, too much crime. But Amé has to stay here for her work. She goes into Honolulu two or three times a week for equipment and supplies. Also, of course, it’s easier to do business and to meet people here. She’s been taking photos of fishermen and gardeners and farmers and cooks and road workers, you name it. She’s a fantastic photographer.”
I’d never looked that carefully at Amé’s photographic works, but again, for convenience sake, I agreed. Yuki made an indistinct toot through her nose.
He asked me what sort of work I did.
A free-lance writer, I told him. He seemed to show interest, thinking probably I was a kindred spirit. He asked me what sort of things I wrote.
Whatever, I write to order. Like shoveling snow, I said, trying the line now on him.
Shoveling snow, he repeated gravely. He didn’t seem to understand. I was about to explain when Amé came into the room.
Amé was dressed in a denim shirt and white shorts. She wore no makeup and her hair was unkempt, as if she’d just woken up. Even so, she was exceedingly attractive, exuding the dignity and presence that impressed me about her at the Dolphin Hotel. The moment she walked into the room, she drew everyone’s attention to her. Instantaneously, without explanation, without show.
And without a word of greeting, she walked over to Yuki, mussed her hair lovingly, then pressed the tip of her nose to the girl’s temple. Yuki clearly didn’t enjoy this, but she put up with it. She shook her head briskly, which got her hair more or less back into place, then cast a cool eye at a vase on a shelf. This was not the utter contempt she showed her father, however. Here, she was displaying her awkwardness, composing herself.
There was some unspoken communication going on between mother and daughter. There was no “How are you?” or “You doing okay?” Just the mussing of hair and the touch of the nose. Then Amé came
over and sat down next to me, pulled out a pack of Salems and lit up. The poet ferreted out an ashtray and placed it ceremoniously on the table. Amé deposited the matchstick in it, exhaled a puff of smoke, wrinkled up her nose, then put her cigarette to rest.
“Sorry. I couldn’t get away from my work,” she began. “You know how it is with pictures. Impossible to stop midway.”
The poet brought Amé a beer and a glass, and poured for her.
“How long are you going to be in Hawaii?” Amé turned to me and asked.
“About a week,” I said. “We don’t have a fixed schedule. I’m on a break right now, but I’m going to have to get back to work one of these days.”
“You should stay as long as you can. It’s nice here.”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s nice here,” I responded, but her mind was already somewhere else.
“Have you eaten?” she then asked.
“I had a sandwich along the way,” I answered, “but not Yuki.”
“What are we doing for lunch?” she directed her question toward the poet.
“I seem to remember us fixing spaghetti an hour ago,” he spoke slowly and deliberately. “An hour ago would have been twelve-fifteen, so that probably would qualify as what we did for lunch.”
“Is that right?” she commented vaguely.
“Yes, indeed,” said the poet, smiling in my direction. “When Amé gets wrapped up in her work, she loses all track of everything. She forgets whether she’s eaten or not, what she’d been doing where. Her mind goes blank from concentrating so intensely.”
I smiled politely. But intense concentration? This seemed more in the realm of psychopathology.
Amé eyed her beer glass absently for a while before picking it up. “That may be so, but I’m still hungry. After all, we didn’t eat any breakfast,” she said. “Or did we?”
“Let me relate the facts as I remember them. At seven-thirty this morning you had a fairly large breakfast of grapefruit and toast and yogurt,” Dick recounted. “In fact, you were rather enthusiastic about it, saying how a good breakfast is one of the pleasures in life.”