Death by Choice

^{Chapter 4} MONDAY

By the time he left Atami, Kita had spent three hundred thousand yen. It had taken him two days to spend what he’d normally spend in six weeks. Living sumptuously takes it out of you, though. Even if this decadence suddenly tipped him into insolvency, come what may, it was no big deal. He’d always had the habit of doing things on the cheap, so he couldn’t be bothered letting expense worries overshadow things now. Besides, luxury was no doubt an irrational pleasure. What meaning beside irrational pleasure could there be for a guy to choose to drink an eighty thousand yen bottle of French Romanée-Conti wine rather than an eight hundred yen bottle of Chilean? If you were curious about the difference, why not at least try them both? Mind you, if you downed three bottles of each on your own and ended up defiling the Bible with your vomit, it would be all the same anyway. Yes, it was all irrational. A real connoisseur probably would regret nothing even if he drained three bottles of Romanée-Conti then threw the lot up again. Irrationality is the very thing he’s after.

So what about himself, wondered Kita? He was still scared of the irrational.

He bought a gift box of assorted dried fish at the station shop, and hopped on the bullet train. He had to be systematic about how he spent his time from now on. Sure, other people’s expectations were part of it, but he’d begun to think it would be a waste to idle away his remaining time like that old couple in the noodle house. If he met up with Heita Yashiro again, it would set the clock ticking smartly towards the appointed hour of his death, he decided. The guy was eager to make some money out of Kita’s voluntary death. Before long, Kita would become a valuable item for a death merchant. He didn’t mind that much. After all, he was the one who got to die, and Yashiro was the businessman who used him. It was only right that their perspective on death should differ. If Kita didn’t die, Yashiro wouldn’t turn a profit. Kita, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about Yashiro’s interests. Nevertheless, while Kita was alive, Yashiro could apparently be helpful in all sorts of ways, so why not put himself in his hands for a while? After all, come Friday Kita would be released from all such worldly calculations, and he wouldn’t give a damn what happened after that. This was the freedom of the dead.

Still, it was only Monday today, and Kita was still alive. He couldn’t go about like he was dead yet. He decided to get himself some new clothes for his remaining days, something cool that he could use as his death clothing as well. He headed for Ginza, Mitsuyo’s survival backpack still on his back.

First off, he looked for some shoes that would put a spring in his step for the remaining days. Smooth leather ones would be too slippery. On the other hand, his tread would be too heavy with thick caterpillar-type soles. The best kind would allow him speed lightly towards his destiny. His eye happened to fall on a pair of zebra-striped basket shoes. They had a layer of air in the sole, and he liked the sinewy feel of the tread. He threw away the old shoes that had kindly seen him through until now, and set off right away walking down Ginza mounted on his new “zebras.” Just the difference in feeling underfoot gave a lift to his mood. Wherever he might find himself flying away to, these shoes seemed to promise to give him a good strong run-up before takeoff.

He headed for the menswear section of a department store. It was still morning, and there was only a smattering of customers there. He bought a shirt with the same zebra stripes as his shoes, then at the urging of the salesgirl he added a cream jacket to the combination. This went perfectly with the tropical fish necktie that Zombie had given him, and gave him the air of one of those exotic gamblers who showed up in the casinos of Lido or Monte Carlo. The salesgirl added in a pair of mustard-coloured cotton trousers. When he turned up the cuffs over his basket shoes he looked, if not like someone about to commit Death by Choice, at any rate like some neurotic playboy. Then, adding the backpack to this attire, he was transformed into a vagrant with a touch of good taste. The sensibility revealed itself in the little clank of the aluminium pan at every step he took. Next, box of dried fish in hand, he added in for good measure a huge pair of Infinity sunglasses. Deciding against a hat, he instead bought a bright red umbrella. The whole thing came to eighty-two thousand three hundred yen.

He also popped his head into the basement food hall. His father often used to slip in the department store food halls on his way home from work to catch the closing-time sales, and would buy a cylinder of fish paste or some baby dried sardines, dried fish, or sukiyaki beef. He would just buy whatever was on special offer. Spurred on by his new outfit, Kita decided to follow his dead father’s example, and scooped up whatever food his hand fell on. To begin with, he limited himself to dry goods – dried cuttlefish, edible algae, kelp, dried white radish slivers and dried scallops – but before long he found himself on the kind of roll that shopping excitement induces, and he bought a kilo of high-grade Matsuzaka marbled beef, a box of early white peaches, and three skewers of roasted eel. The total set him back twenty thousand yen.

He glanced at his watch and saw it was right on noon. Manoeuvring his great pile of shopping into a taxi, he ordered the driver to take him to Takashima Daira.

There was somewhere he wanted to drop in on before his execution. Anybody in his position would do the same, as the hour of their execution approached. Not because the place was famous for its suicides, but because the woman who had brought him into this world was there. He hadn’t done much for her while he was alive, and now he was going to give her further grief by preceding her into the next world. Thus, he wanted to go and humbly express his regret, without putting on any airs about what he was going to do. Most people under sentence of Death by Choice make their way to their mother’s sitting room, driven by the same compulsion.

He decided not to talk to the driver. He couldn’t take another dose of any contradictory philosophising on life. But there, coming from the car radio in a sleep-inducing murmur, was a voice harping on about that very theme. The road was jammed with traffic. Kita closed his eyes, and did his best to shut out the distracting sound. He began to think of the various things he had to do.

He’d need papers in order to apply for the insurance. He’d better go to the local Ward Office and get an abridged copy of his family register and a document certifying his registered signature seal. He owed money to friends, so he should write a will leaving them an appropriate sum from the insurance money after his death. When would he do that? Where should he leave the will once he’d written it? He’d better ask Yashiro later. Where would he stay tonight? Surely there was no way he’d be spending it with Shinobu Yoimachi.

He stopped off at the Ward Office, then hailed another taxi, and called in on his Mum. Each time he went there, the sitting room seemed to have gotten smaller. His mother didn’t seem either delighted or put out by his calling in unexpectedly like this. She just said lightly, “Hi, welcome back. You been somewhere?”

“Not really, I just went down to Atami for a bit.”

“Atami, eh? A school trip?”

“What?” said Kita with a laugh, and he sat down. His mother gazed fixedly at the clothes he was wearing and looked as if she was about to say something, but remained silent. Unloading all the food he’d bought item by item and laying it on the table, Kita said, “Put the fresh stuff in the fridge, would you?”

His mother looked dubiously at the meat and peaches, then back to Kita’s face. “Who did you get all this from?” she asked.

“I bought it. At a department store.”

“I wonder why you’ve started acting like your father.”

“I’ll get more and more like him as time passes.”

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry. You’ll be in danger of being mistaken for him.”

His mother had this tendency to say really stupid things with a straight face. He hadn’t dropped in on her like this more than about once every six months for the last few years, and even then, he’d come along like some guest with a gift for her, just stayed for a meal, and hardly really spoken to her. He guessed she’d be feeling lonely since his father died, but she’d carried on living alone and always put up a brave front, assuring him she didn’t want to be a burden on him by moving in together. Most parents would let themselves be overheard murmuring to themselves that they wished their son would hurry up and marry, and give them the blessing of a grandchild. But Kita’s mother never said a thing. She chose to act as if it was no problem. Kita was aware of all he owed her, but he too found himself playing dumb, and just keeping an eye on her from a strategic distance.

“You won’t have had lunch yet, I guess. I’m just about to have some, so you’ve come at the right time. I’ve got some cold rice, so shall we grill some of this dried fish to have with it?”

“Sure. And let’s have some eel. How about making miso soup?”

His mother went into the kitchen. Her movements were listless, and quite confused. This mother of his, who used to slip constantly back and forth between kitchen and sitting room so swiftly and efficiently, now seemed to have shrunk as though the air had been let out of her, and had grown sluggish. Her life had been reduced to a painstaking repetition of the tiny day-to-day rituals of life alone in this thirty-year-old sitting room.

He looked in on the bedroom. There was a row of potted plants out on the balcony, pansies and mini tomatoes and so on. There was quite a lot of stuff about considering her solitary life, with tea chests and cardboard boxes crammed into the tiny room. Opening the drawers and top closets, he came across boxes marked “Yoshio’s summer clothes” or “Daddy’s formal wear”. Why did she keep clothing belonging to these two men who had left? What’s more, she had carefully kept the set of illustrated reference books that Kita had treasured back when he was a grade schooler. One whole area of the closet was exactly as it had been twenty years ago.

The smell of grilling fish came wafting down the corridor together with his mother’s voice. “Food’s ready, Yoshio.”

On the table was an extra rice dish and plate of fish. “Is someone else coming?” Kita inquired.

“It’s your father’s portion,” his mother said.

She’d never in the past gone through this kind of performance. Perhaps she just wanted to pay her respects to the dead there today?

Kita stirred the miso soup about with his chopsticks. It contained some slivers of the dried white radish, sliced onion leaves, and seaweed flakes. His mother had made this soup without a saucepan. She had just put the stock powder and miso into a bowl, added the reconstituted white radish, then poured boiling water from the kettle over it all and stirred, finally adding the onion leaves and seaweed.

“This was the way to make miso soup that you came up with so that Dad could make it even on his own, wasn’t it Mum?”

“That’s right. He really liked it.”

“I guess you used to make it this way before they ever started selling instant miso soup in packets, eh? It’s quite an invention.”

“In the days before stock powder, I used to use Ajinomoto. This mackerel’s good. So who’d you get the food from?”

“I bought it at Atami. Like I told you.”

“What did you go to Atami for? You’re not into shoplifting again, are you?”

“Shoplifting dried fish? I’m not a cat, you know.”

“You on holiday today?”

“I’ve taken some time off. Till Friday.”

“What’ll you do with all that spare time? Planning to get up to some mischief, I’ll be bound.”

What could she be imagining? The conversation wasn’t going too well so far. “Come on, let’s stop messing about, eh?” he said, forcing a smile. “You’re throwing me off.” Then he looked at her face. He hadn’t really gotten a good look at her face when he first arrived, but now he saw that his mother’s eyes were somehow misty, and when she looked at her son’s face, she did so with the kind of straight gaze a child would use. She was close to sixty, so no doubt her eyesight was getting poorer and her field of vision narrowing, but there was something completely innocent about her look. Then there was that bewildered look on her face, as if she wasn’t quite catching on.

When he was fourteen, Kita had realized there was no fooling his mother. He’d fallen in with bad friends, and gotten into shoplifting. At the time, he’d felt his survival hinged on his loyalty to these friends. He was balanced precisely on the boundary between the bullies and the bullied, and every action was monitored and judged by the “gang.” Ultimately, what it amounted to was that Kita had managed to ensure his own safety by committing a series of deeds encouraged by the gang, but it had not been without pain. He had of course felt guilty when the gang first enticed him into shoplifting, but once he’d complied with their demands, he’d have been branded a traitor if he attempted to pull out again, so he could only do his best to stick with them and not make any blunders.

If I’m going to shoplift, Kita thought, I should go for something cheap at least. He’d also got it into his head that it was somehow less sinful to steal a book than food or clothing or stationery. He was probably simply balancing appetite for food against appetite for learning, judging that it was better to sate the latter. He was in this thing unwillingly, and he wanted at least to be able to make distinctions where he could. In contrast, his friends were only interested in shoplifting for its own sake, and saw greater value in stealing something difficult.

Still, it was amazing how his mother had picked up on his shoplifting. He didn’t think he’d been acting particularly guiltily around the sitting room.

He tried asking his mother about it now, as she poked at her dried fish. “How did you know I was shoplifting? Back when I was in second grade, remember?”

“Intuition. Your feelings always show on your face. If you’ve got anything to hide, you suddenly clam up and lose your appetite. You’ve been that way since you were little. If you didn’t like someone’s question, your nose would twitch. You get that honesty from your father. When you were doing that shoplifting you had no appetite at all, did you? You did eat up all the eel, it’s true, but you left the rice with the gravy on it. Then you went straight off to your room after dinner. Then there was this book that you wouldn’t have been able to buy on your pocket money.”

“Oh yeah, that book of Dali’s paintings. That was really hard to steal.”

“It was a real shock to me. But you gave it up right away, didn’t you? You started Zen meditation instead. You must have had a guilty conscience.”

“No, actually I was doing it as a kind of sport.”

“But that zazen gave you a bit more staying power, don’t you agree? You had that classmate who committed suicide. Miura, wasn’t it? If he’d done some zazen he’d still be alive today, instead of going off and killing himself on a passing impulse. Such a pity, when he could’ve had good things happen in his life. It was a great shame.”

Let’s change the subject, thought Kita uncomfortably. Still, come to think of it, why was she hauling out this long-gone incident right now?

“I don’t care whether it’s for sports or whatever, but you should keep up the zazen.”

“I gave it up long ago.”

“How come? You’ve only just begun.”

It was twenty years ago that he’d gone along to the temple in Azabu to do zazen. It was exactly twenty years ago that Miura had committed suicide. Had she remembered it through an association with shoplifting leading to the zazen?

Could it be possible that she suspected he was planning to kill himself this coming Friday, he wondered a trifle uneasily as he sipped his cold miso soup. The taste of the soup was just as it used to be. He could guarantee that it was made by his mother. Only his mother would be capable of making a soup like this. So it stood to reason it could only be his mother sitting in front of him now, he thought.

His mother seemed to be harbouring some doubts about whether this man was her son or not, as well. There’d been no particular strangeness there when he’d called in four months ago. Of course, there’d never been any hint of a need to reconfirm that they were indeed and undoubtedly mother and son. They just were, without saying so.

No, maybe what was disturbing her so much now was the kind of sharp intuition that came precisely from her being his mother. Did he really look so suspicious?

Whatever, he couldn’t stay long. His plan had been to just drop in, have a meal, and leave again. But his mother seemed to find something dubious in the way he was behaving. She drew a deep breath, and finally decided to speak.

“You’re very quiet. What are you hiding? You’ve been acting strange ever since you got here.”

Rather than go over the same conversation again, Kita said, “Do I look to you as though I want to die?”

There was no way to guess what his mother was thinking, but she looked like she’d seen through him somehow. Kita pulled a funny face, in an attempt to cover up his thoughts. But his mother barely glanced at him. Eyes down, she murmured, “No, I was just thinking how quickly people age. You must be tired, surely? You seem to have aged six years in three months. Is anything worrying you?”

“I feel like I look about normal for my age really. Surely you haven’t forgotten how old I am?”

His mother looked puzzled, and said nothing. She picked up the thermos and topped up the teapot with hot water in an apparent attempt to fill the silence. Then she turned over the two cups that were sitting face down on the tray and, pouring tea by turns into each, she murmured, “I thought you were your father when you first arrived.”

“Just walking in out of the next world to say, ‘Here I am,’ huh? I had a look in the cupboard in there just now and found that collection of our old clothes, Dad’s and mine. I even came across those old reference books you bought me when I was a kid.”

“Well I can’t get things organised properly. There’s mountains of stuff I’d like to throw away, but if I just did it without asking, you and Daddy would complain.”

“Dad couldn’t complain if he wanted to. OK, if you want to keep things Mum, go right ahead. This house is too big for you on your own, after all. Having some junk around won’t bother you, I imagine.”

“What are you saying!” exclaimed his mother, astonished. “Your father’s due back at any moment.”

“You’re living with a ghost, I see. Good thing ghosts don’t take up any room.”

His mother made no attempt to smile at the joke. She simply looked as if she couldn’t follow his thread. She didn’t even seem to recognize that it was a joke. Could it be that she wasn’t putting it on, that she really was going senile?

“Dad died four years ago, right?” The only thing for it at this stage, if she really did have the illusion that he was still alive, was to come straight out with it.

“Yes, I guess he did, didn’t he? Four years ago already?” His mother turned her empty gaze to left and right, like a puzzled child groping for the answer to a math problem.

“Hey come on, pull yourself together.”

“But it’s very strange. He came home as usual last night. And when he went out this morning he said he’d be able to come home by three today.”

“Where did he go?”

“He said he had something to do in Shibuya.”

Shibuya was precisely where Kita was headed next himself. Did she dream it? Or was she still playing out the dream now in her sitting room? Or had the clock inside her head broken, so that the past tense had changed into the present continuous? No wonder she couldn’t figure out what was going on, if her son of around twenty suddenly turns up looking thirty-five.

Had living alone done this to her? Was she watching television? Was she communicating with the neighbours? He’d telephoned from time to time, but their only conversation had been of the “How are you?” “Same as usual, thanks” variety. And now this “same as usual” life had somehow become one in which the son had come to announce his self-appointed execution, while the mother had grown senile.

“You haven’t been in hospital with some problem like a stroke or a brain tumour or something, have you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I forget.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You can’t live on your own if you go senile, you know.”

“If I go senile, you and Daddy will come back and look after me. We’ll be able to live here all together just like the old days, won’t we?”

“Why are you like this? Go and get some treatment, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got to get a grip on reality again. Dad’s dead, OK? And I can’t come back home. So I’m begging you… please.”

“Please what?”

“Please don’t go senile, I’m saying.”

Here he was begging his senile mother not to go senile, he thought. He felt like going down on his knees and praying, although he knew prayer wouldn’t get his mother’s brain back to the active brain it had been fifteen years ago.

“Is it wrong to go senile?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I just stay here in the house, you know, I don’t bother anyone. What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s because you stay in the house all the time that you’re going senile.”

“I go out shopping. If you’re worried about me, come back and live here. There you are just messing about, not getting married. I’ll bet you don’t think about anything much.”

“I’ll look after you in your old age, Mum.”

“I don’t need you to. I’ll freeze being looked after by such a cold fish of a son. No, I’m the one who’ll look after you. You can’t do anything on your own, Yoshio. Just when I think you’re improving yourself with some zazen, you go and give it up—”

“Stop talking about stuff that happened twenty years ago. The problem is how you’re going to cope with the present.” A fine thing for an intended suicide to say, he heard a little voice saying inside him. Still, he went on berating her.

“When you get up in the morning, check your face in the mirror. Put on a bit of make-up. And go out for walks. Take a good look at the world getting on with things all around. Talk to children whenever you get the chance. Children grow up fast, you know. And keep a constant check on where you are right now and what you’re doing. You can do that, can’t you?”

Tears began to flow from his mother’s misty eyes. She didn’t attempt to wipe them away. She sighed, with an expressionless face that registered no particular sadness or pleasure. Maybe her tear ducts just leaked a bit these days.

“What can it be, I wonder? My face looks weird when I look in the mirror, and this area’s all changed too – there are all sorts of faces around that I don’t know. It’s like I’m left behind all alone somehow. Though there’s nowhere else to go, mind you.”

If his Dad was still alive they could go off on a trip together, have a few quarrels, make up again, drink sake, make love. Maybe while they were in Atami someplace eating dried fish or noodles his father would suddenly declare, “It’s splendid weather, darling. Why don’t we commit suicide?” If his Dad showed up right now and made such a suggestion, his Mum would probably go off with him with pleasure.

“Right, I’d better be off.”

“Where to, dear? You’re not staying here the night?”

“There’s somewhere I have to go.”

“You don’t have to go there today, surely?”

“No, I can’t put it off.”

“You won’t be back for months again, I guess. My mind may well be in a worse way by then, you know.”

Was she trying emotional blackmail on him? Or was this perhaps her only means of resistance? Probably his presence would be her best form of rehabilitation. If there was someone else around to keep making clear to her that her husband was dead, she’d get the message and scramble back out of the past in panic. It didn’t seem like she was having problems with the housework, so things weren’t too bad yet, after all.

Maybe, on the other hand, it was better for her senility to grow worse. At least that way she’d have a happy old age. If you’re senile, your pleasures halve, but so do your sorrows. If the pleasures and sorrows to come in her life were weighed in the balance, the sorrows were probably greater. This son of hers who’d do her so much good if he stayed around was going to be dying this week, sure, but in his mother’s hazy mind he probably wouldn’t be dead. Her son would simply turn into a ghostly young man of around twenty who came and went in the house. He and his Dad together could settle back in to become a family for her again. That was a better outcome. If she underwent some kind of half-baked rehabilitation and got her mind back together again, the next thing that loomed in her life was double the sorrow over losing her son, after all. The only way to escape from this was senility.

“I’ll be back. Soon. Say hi to Dad for me.”

Kita hoisted on his survival backpack and slipped his feet back into the new zebra shoes. Next time he came, he’d be without form or shape, no more than a hint in the air. Nevertheless, thanks to her fine intuition, his mother would no doubt sense her son’s presence, and cook him up his favourite croquettes. Though all you would see would be plates of croquettes and chopsticks on the table, Yoshio and his Dad would be there in a corner of her brain, remembering things with an occasional laugh together, smoking, clipping their nails, flipping through the newspaper, and easing out an occasional silent fart.

Kita wandered about for over an hour before he found the address printed on Yashiro’s name card. His father was hanging out there in Shibuya too, in fact. It wasn’t that he had any intention of conniving with his mother’s delusions, he just happened to cross paths with numerous elderly men loitering on street corners. They were the kind of guys who wouldn’t be given the time of day in this part of town normally, but for some reason today they all seemed full of a wordless self-confidence.

Close to six in the evening, Kita finally located the block of assorted shops and offices containing the one marked “Thanatos Movie Productions”. Across the way was a private hospital, while next door on one side was a grilled meat restaurant and on the other a florists. The first floor of the building held a sake shop. He took the elevator, which stank of raw rubbish, up to the fourth floor, where he emerged into a corridor stacked with piles of videos all the way up both walls, forming a passage just wide enough for a single person to pass. The scent of perfume hung mysteriously in the air. When he knocked on the door at the end, Zombie came out to greet him.

“Well, well, Kita. Long time no see. How’ve you been?”

Could it really be only twenty-six hours since they’d seen each other last? The sight of her made him oddly nostalgic even.

“You’re late, you know. We were getting sick of waiting for you.”

Seated on the sofa beyond, Yashiro waved him over. A man in his thirties in a businesslike dark blue suit interrupted what may have been chat or some business discussion to stand and greet Kita, as did a pink-suited woman of around the same age, who was providing smiles and the scent of perfume gratis to all around. Kita immediately sensed from their behaviour that there was business involved for them, and he returned the greeting without enthusiasm.

“Hey Kita, that get-up suits you. Sporty, speedy, cool. Got a whiff of Mexican coriander about it somehow,” said Zombie.

Kita sniffed his jacket sleeve. “I can’t smell anything,” he said.

“What’s that backpack for?” Yashiro asked with a serious face. “Something’s rattling around in there. Some kind of emergency bag?”

“I thought I’d carry it round with me so I could start sleeping on the streets any time I feel like it,” said Kita, saying the first thing that came to him. He lowered the backpack to the floor. The man and woman in their thirties were both nodding. Yashiro introduced him to them. It seemed he’d suddenly become the company’s head planning officer. The pair took turns to proffer their name cards to him.

“Organic Transport: Coordinator, Kazuya Koikawa”

“Pacific Insurance Mutual Company, Shibuya Office, Yoshiko Koikawa.”

“You’re husband and wife?” he asked, raising his eyes from the business cards bearing the same family name, and looking from one to the other.

“No,” Yoshiko replied. “Brother and sister.”

“We’ve learned from Mr. Yashiro that you wish to take out life insurance from us,” she went on. “Thank you very much.”

“I see. No, no, I’m the one to thank you.” Kita lowered his head in a slight bow, keeping an eye on Yashiro as he did so. They’d be making quite a loss if they had to pay out the insurance money to his mother a mere four days after he’d taken it out. He planned to apologize to them for it.

When Kita had sat down on the sofa, Yoshiko Koikawa spread out a brochure on the table before him and set about explaining the insurance. She proceeded to talk about how it would give him peace of mind to add a special clause covering the possibility of cancer or Aids, how the version that allowed you to convert the amount into a monthly pension once it had almost reached full term meant that you could plan for your old age, while there was a type that was popular with young people whereby you could take out the money for your own use if you knew you didn’t have long to live. Kita listened with only half an ear. There was something more important than all this that he needed to ask.

“What happens if I decide to commit suicide?”

Yoshiko’s smile froze into an expression of astonishment, but she quickly pulled herself together. “Don’t even think of it,” she said.

“Eh?” said Kita.

The explanatory tone returned. “You shouldn’t consider suicide. There’s no profit in it at all. We do occasionally get young people of this sort among our customers. Someone who asks whether there’s a payout if they commit suicide. Actually, accident and suicide are major causes of death in the twenties and thirties. Suicide’s the top cause in the forties, maybe because it’s a hard time in a lot of lives. My brother and I are about to enter our forties, actually, so we’re being very careful. I would guess you’re in your mid-thirties, Mr Kita, so that’s why the word springs so easily to your lips. I do understand how you feel.”

Yoshiko leaned forward on the sofa and gazed at him, as if speaking to a child. He in turn scrutinized her more closely. She had a rather blank face, a bit like a badger and with moles under the eyes to match, and her plump lips seemed to emanate a confidence in her continuing ability to maintain her popularity with men.

“Come on Kita, cut the scary talk,” Yashiro chimed in with a laugh, wiping a fine sweat from his forehead. “You’re making it sound like this company’s giving you a really hard time. Leave the suicide to Zombie here. You can rely on her. She can commit suicide and still stay alive, after all.”

“That’s right. I’m immortal.”

Everyone laughed. Then, the mirth still hovering at the corners of his mouth, Kita asked, “So if you do commit suicide, is there an insurance payout?”

“It’s all here in detail in the Contract Guide. The fundamental rule is, if the insured commits suicide within one year of signing the contract, no life insurance can be paid. However, there are cases of payout if the insured was of unsound mind at the time.”

So there he had it. No payout if you kill yourself four days later. Kita looked at Yashiro. There was no point in taking out insurance, if that was the case. Yashiro knew this when he arranged for Kita to sign on for life insurance. He was telling Kita to make it look like an accident.

“So you don’t get anything from it if you kill yourself, Kita. Better give the idea up.” Yashiro stuck out his thumb and sent Kita a warning signal as he spoke. He looked satisfied, however. Kita had just been presented with one good argument for changing his mind about suicide. But Kita was still determined on his plan. He just had to change his tactics a little.

“So what other situations are there where the money doesn’t get paid?” This time, Kita thought he ought to find out all the facts.

“Well, I don’t imagine this would apply to you Mr Kita, but if for instance you were condemned to death by the courts, that’s another example. Or if you died in the course of committing a crime. If, say, you hijacked a plane, or holed up in a bank or hotel with hostages, and got yourself shot in the process. The same applies if you try to kill someone and get killed yourself – the other party’s acting in lawful self-defence, and you were asking for it. Certain conditions also apply if you’re injured in a war or a terrorist attack. I believe we limit payment to situations in which general damage is relatively limited – if the damage is widespread, there can be more claims than the company’s capable of paying, see. If you take out a contract with special conditions attached, I’d also mention that there are conditions related to damage from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunami. By the way, Mr, Kita, do you drink?”

“Yes, a bit.”

“There is no payout if you die in a condition of extreme drunkenness. As in the case of death in a car accident in which you were driving while under the influence or without a licence. Also, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there’s no payout in a situation in which the recipient of the insurance causes the death of the insured.”

“That’s Kita’s Mum in his case, and it’s her own son who’s the insured, so I don’t think we need to worry there. Now if it was me who was either the insured or the recipient, there might be room for suspicion.” Yashiro was the first to laugh at his own joke again.

Kita signed the necessary parts of the contract, and inserted his mother’s name as recipient. When he’d paid the first instalment with his credit card, Yoshiko urged him to drop in to the medical clinic across the way and get a check-up. For some reason, her brother came along too. “Are you in the insurance business too?” asked Kita.

“Not directly, but she and I do support each other in our work. Mr Yashiro asked me along today, that’s why I’m here. I’ll explain in more detail after your check-up. The truth is, I’m extremely interested in your state of health. It’s kind of my business, you might say.”

It’s none of your business at all, thought Kita, but he said nothing.

The check-up should have been a simple and straightforward matter, but the doctor took pains to listen with his stethoscope, take his pulse, and even take an X-ray, even though the results would take time to process. He also took a blood sample. It really got to Kita that thanks to Yashiro he was in the ironic position of getting a health check-up four days before his death.

Once the doctor had signed the check-up form, the insurance contract was finalized. “The money will be paid out even if you die in an unexpected accident this evening,” Yoshiko told him. Her brother congratulated him on his clean bill of health with innocent delight.

As soon as Kita was back inside the office of Thanatos Movie Productions, Kita inquired about the puzzling line of business of the brother.

“Well, you know about organ transplants, don’t you? The official term is ‘organic transplant.’ We’re in the business of organic transport. Our main job is to coordinate the transplant operation. You’ll be aware that there are a great many patients these days who need organ transplants. Traditional organ banks can’t keep up with demand, so we’re doing our best to help increase the supply of available organs. We use our own independent network to find people willing to donate an eye cornea, say, or bone marrow, or a kidney or liver, and organize the transplant for patients who are members of our club. To date, we’ve been able to coordinate one hundred and twenty-three transplants.”

“You’re telling me I should donate my organs? But if you take my liver out, I’ll die, won’t I? If I donate a cornea I’ll lose the sight of that eye, surely. And the kidney, now—”

“You have two of them,” the brother chipped in with a businesslike smile.

“So has Mr Yashiro here, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, mine are getting pretty tired. Your engine’s in much better condition than mine.”

It really did appear that Yashiro was out to sell Kita’s organs. But he couldn’t go selling things he was still using. The brother went on with his explanation.

“Naturally, the donation itself would take place only after your death, but we need the donation recorded while you’re still alive, you see.”

“Sure, I can see that. You can’t go stealing organs from dead bodies, after all. Even if the guy’s made you a verbal promise, eh?”

“But of course.” The brother spread out a brochure. “Over ninety percent of those requesting organ transplants are Japanese, but the majority of donors come from South-East Asia, China, and India. To tell the truth, we encourage people engaged in dangerous work to donate.”

In other words, the Japanese are buying Third World organs cheap just like they do with timber and oil and seafood, thought Kita.

Yashiro broke in, “His sister hopes her customers will live as long as possible, while he wants them to die as quick as they can. The younger and healthier the organs the better, after all. And Japanese organs are less of a worry, too. You’d pay more for Japanese organs than Chinese or Indian ones, wouldn’t you?”

“All organs donated to us are equally precious.”

The brother and sister exchanged a quick glance and an embarrassed if somewhat eerie smile. It was just as Yashiro had said, the two were in the same game from polar positions. Surely they already knew this. Why on earth were they siblings, when it came down to it?

“I get the feeling I’m the only person who’s not quite getting all this,” Kita remarked, and though it wasn’t particularly funny, he laughed.

Yashiro explained. “If you die, what would be the point of burning your healthy organs, after all?”

“Well no one’s going to want to eat them, are they? I guess if I was in Tibet or somewhere the vultures would, of course.”

“In Japan, there are patients with kidney or liver problems who’ll happily use them for you. They may be second-hand, but these folks will take them over and treat them well. You’re a very lucky man, you know.”

“So you’re telling me to sell ’em, that’s what you’re saying.”

“Not without payment, of course. We wouldn’t have the nerve to do that. There’s nothing that costs you more than something free, as the saying goes. No, the patients want to pay. And you can’t go offering them for a bargain, either, like they were bananas or antiques or something. That’s why I called in Mr Koikawa here.”

Mr Koikawa bowed. “I’m honoured,” he said.

To shut Yashiro up, Kita shot him a question. “You’re after something, aren’t you?”

“We’d like your corneas, liver, and kidneys.”

“How much?”

“Well it rather depends on the results of the medical check-up, but I believe we could offer you a total of one million one hundred twenty thousand yen. Just to itemize it—”

“No need to itemize. And I could get the money now?”

“We can finance at time of contract.”

“I guess that means I mortgage my organs to borrow the money.”

“Precisely.”

“The debt’s cancelled in return for the organs when I die, right?”

“Correct.”

“And if I don’t die?”

“No interest for the first month, and from then on three percent a month. We use the same repayment plan as for home loans, so you pay interest accordingly. Of course, it may be that you change your mind at some later point. You can cancel the contract if so, but this will incur an additional charge of ten percent of the original amount borrowed. That’s Plan A. In Plan B, we pay the sum for organ donation directly to the recipient of your life insurance, at the time of your death. In that case, there’s a big increase in organ price paid. Oh, and I forgot to mention that you need a guarantor if you choose Plan A.”

Kita turned to Yoshiko. “I get the feeling there’s something more to this,” he said ironically.

She responded with a look that said she had nothing to hide. “I also register clients for organ donation you know,” she said.

Her brother followed this up with a confession. “I’ve taken out insurance with my sister as designated recipient, actually.”

Was this all supposed to mean they got on well together or something?

“There’s nothing suspicious going on,” Yashiro said softly.

Well, even if there was, they’d be hiding it from him. He had nothing to gain by doubting them. “OK,” he said lightly, “I’ll sign. Mum’s going to get fifty million yen from the life insurance, so I’ll go with Plan A.”

When the brother and sister left the office, bowing constantly as they retreated, Zombie, who had been silently watching the proceedings, said excitedly, “Kita, you’ve gone and sold your life away! A total of fifty one million, one hundred and twenty thousand yen – wow!”

“Yeah I guess so,” said Kita, rubbing his upper lip to cover for his embarrassed pleasure. He suddenly felt like tasting the delights of the nouveau riche. In fact, the amount at his disposal totalled one million six hundred sixty thousand, adding in what was left in his own account. If the blood test and X-ray came up clean, the money would be paid into his bank tomorrow afternoon. He wondered what the real price on the organ market was like. One million one hundred twenty thousand was surely too cheap. If he considered that he wouldn’t have earned a single yen without registering, he’d definitely come out ahead in the deal, but on the other hand someone eager for the organs would quite likely add another zero to that sum.

Yashiro, who’d acted as his guarantor, assured him the price was probably pretty normal. He’d taken on joint liability for the handover of Kita’s organs. Kita felt he had to clarify just what Yashiro stood to gain and what risks were involved for him in this.

“So I mustn’t commit suicide, eh?”

“I wouldn’t advise it if you want the money to be paid, no. We need to come up with a plan. Firstly, it has to be an accident. Don’t you dare write a will of any sort, now, will you? Next, you can’t die from drink driving or a fight. The insurance payout gets lowered. Next, don’t try a traffic accident or falling to your death or burning to death. They wouldn’t be able to use your organs. I’m requesting this as your guarantor.”

“What if my internal organs are damaged?”

“I’d have to shoulder your debts.”

“I see. Sorry about that.”

“No, it just means you can’t damage your organs. And you have to die in what appears to be an accident.”

This was a tall order. He’d handicapped himself considerably in that moment he sold over his life, now he came to think of it. He had a few complaints about what Yashiro had let him in for that he needed to air.

“Oh and another thing, don’t go anywhere too far away. Everything hangs on an organ’s freshness. Do your best to breathe your last in a hospital, please. They need to be flown to the recipient right away for the transplant.”

Kita felt his anger rising. Zombie, the suicide specialist, muttered “Life’s tough, eh, even when you’re trying to get rid of it.” She suppressed a smile.

Kita turned to her for advice. “What’s the best way to do it?” he asked.

“I should think the best plan would be to be killed by someone,” she replied lightly without a moment’s thought. “You’ve got lots of dough, so why don’t you hire a killer? I should think Yashiro could introduce you to someone good.”

“Sure, sure. It’ll cost you five hundred grand with commission included,” muttered Yashiro.

Kita was lost for words. This guy might really come up with a killer, it seemed. He decided to have no more to do with him, and set about preparing to leave. Observing him, Yashiro cut in, his voice suddenly cold and quite unlike his previous tone.

“Go to the Moon Palace Hotel bar at nine. Shinobu Yoimachi will meet you there.”

“A date with your favourite star, Kita! Go for it, boy! Tomorrow’s the assault on Mizuho, right? I’ve uncovered the address of that Finance Ministry couple. Seems like your Mizuho is enjoying the high life of an upper class suburban lady. She spends her days at home busy with her hobbies. Drop in and disturb her for a while.”

Zombie passed Kita a piece of paper containing an address and telephone number.

“Good luck! This really is the last time we’ll meet. Let’s have sex if we meet in the next world, eh?”

Yashiro stood beside her as she waved Kita goodbye. “Wait a minute,” Yashiro broke in, handing Kita a cell phone. “Let me give you this. Keep in touch. I’ll give you a call as well, to keep an eye on things.”

Kita took the phone without a word and then, preparing to face his difficult sentence of Death by Choice once more, he stepped, a little pigeon-toed, out through the door. That business about the killer was a joke, wasn’t it? Unable to dispel a touch of uneasiness, he hurried off down the slope with a sense that he was being followed.

“Those guys sell whatever they can lay hands on. They even put a price on what they can’t sell. From one day to the next you’re sold off like a cow – sirloin here, fillet there,” murmured Shinobu with unconcealed distain. She made a blatant gesture with her chin towards the two men in dark suits perched at the counter of the Moon Palace Hotel bar, glancing in her direction from time to time.

Kita had just come from his meeting with the Koikawa siblings, in which he’d sold his life to the sister, and an organ set of corneas, liver, and kidneys to the brother. He was feeling just like a cow at a meat market himself, and her words made him feel suddenly close to her.

“I paid one hundred thousand yen to those guys to have tea with you, you know,” he whispered in her ear.

“Eh?” she exclaimed, loud enough to make the other customers turn and look, then quickly brought her hand to her mouth when she realized how loudly she’d spoken.

“Payment in advance.”

“Oh God,” moaned Shinobu, like a little calf, and then glared from a distance at the two sitting at the counter. “They do a ruthless trade all right. I was just told to go have tea with the son of the programme schedule head.”

“It’s a million to spend the night with you apparently.”

Shinobu sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said, bowing her head. When he asked why she felt the need to apologize, she said, “Those guys are…” and made a slicing action with her forefinger down one cheek. Kita looked more closely at the men’s profiles, to see if there really were scars there. The faces of both were oddly smooth.

“They must be hard up for money,” he remarked sympathetically. Shinobu leaned her head back and laughed.

“Money’s all they think about.”

Well if you decided to die, you could make forty or fifty million without lifting a finger, thought Kita. Though mind you, there was no guaranteeing whether you could use the money while you were still alive. But here was Shinobu, who could simply lay down her body on some bed for a night, or drink eleven rounds of tea, without selling her cornea and liver and kidneys, and she made someone the same money as Kita just had for his cornea and internal organs. So how much money would change hands if she actually sold her life? Those yakuza businessmen over there were keeping a vigilant eye on this prize piece of goods. They were playing the same role as the armed guards of some van transporting gold bullion.

The real Shinobu Yoimachi struck Kita as a rather faded version of the star who had seared herself into his brain four or five years ago. This girl, who he’d only ever seen on television or in photos till this moment, was sitting so close he could pinch or rub her, and talking to him in her real voice. But then why was it that she somehow didn’t feel alive? Maybe it was because he’d spent so many years worshipping her surface appearance that he couldn’t quite believe she was alive in the same way he was. This voice was indeed the same one that had sung ‘Italian George’ and ‘One Rainy Day,’ but he felt as if he was hearing something pre-recorded when she spoke. Her smiling face was just the same as in all those images, but now that she was here in three-dimensional reality, with expressions playing on her face, she looked in fact like some exquisite doll.

The Shinobu Yoimachi that Kita knew was someone without feelings, personality, or past – a flower in a florist’s. It was true, of course, that Kita had never smelled the tulip scent of her. He could now smell the herbal scent of her hair, and the French perfume sprayed on her flesh, but still, the real thing just didn’t connect with the impression he’d had of her.

When she’d come over to the table where he sat idly waiting, led by one of her guards, and shook hands with him, Kita had found himself asking, “Are you really Shinobu Yoimachi?”

“Actually, I’m a look-alike,” she’d replied with mock innocence. They talked a while about her recent performances, and after a while she appeared to revert to some previous bad mood, and began to complain about how she was being “sold off piecemeal.”

“My face, my legs, my breasts, my hair – they’ve all been taken over by others. I think that must be why I don’t feel any pain when I get hurt any more. But if you stick a pin in my calf, or give my cheeks a good hard pinch, that hurts. That really makes me sad. I mean, I’m the only one feeling the pain, right? Those guys just make money, they don’t feel the pain. And I’ve got nothing but pain, and not much money.”

“Shall we have a drink?”

Kita called the waiter over, and ordered wine and cheese for himself. Shinobu went on talking, without glancing at the menu.

“The fact is, I’m one of those dolls you can dress up. I always have been, ever since I was a child. My Mum used to put me in kimonos, or dress me up like a countess or like a boy, to suit her whim. She sent off applications to little girl contests without telling me, gave me a bit of pocket money and put me up on stage there. By chance I passed an audition for some TV drama, and they coaxed me into singing and I made a hit recording, and my bust was growing bigger and bigger so they started taking heaps of photos of me in swimsuits. I wanted to run and hide whenever I saw a photo of me in a magazine or a poster in the station, smiling in a bikini. Still do. I wonder why all this happened to me? There’s no going back, but I’d just love to spend my life in some quiet little corner of the world instead of this. Is that asking too much?”

“You’re only twenty-four. Things are only just beginning for you.”

“I feel incredibly old already. I feel like my life’s growing shorter and shorter, always exposed to these masses of unknown eyes. I was just a kid when I made my debut, but now I’m an old lady. I want to believe I’ve just gone along unthinkingly, doing what’s natural, but actually if I do anything a bit different, the media beats me up, and all these young stars are coming up now and starting to lower my stocks for me, and those guys are getting to think it’s about time to play the last trump card.”

“What’s the last trump card?”

“Nude. They’re after a one strike come-from-behind home run on this. Gangsters all think the same way. God, I want to be free! I’d love to wash my hands of all this, maybe do some study. I never studied when I was in high school, I can’t even read properly. I’ve got no clue what’s happening out there in the world, but if I take off my clothes, I can make a living. But seems to me something’s wrong here. Things shouldn’t be this way. Seems to me like God shouldn’t allow this sort of thing.”

Kita nodded silently, and filled her wineglass. She bobbed her head like a pigeon in thanks, then gulped it noisily down. Maybe she’d mistaken it for juice.

“What God do you believe in?” He’d been amazed to hear the word come from her lips.

“I read the Bible in between jobs. Here, see?” She drew from her bright red handbag a suede-covered pocket-book Bible, and showed it to him. “I go everywhere with it,” she said.

Remembering how he’d thrown up on the Bible in the drawer two days earlier, Kita muttered, “A washable Bible would be a good idea.”

“The Bible can wash the heart clean,” Shinobu said with a nod, then went on, her eyes on Kita’s face to see his reaction, “My singing teacher gave it to me. ‘Everything’s in the Bible,’ he told me, ‘so just read a little every day.’”

“Is it interesting?”

“I’d say there’s no one quite like Jesus. I wish I’d lived two thousand years ago. I might’ve got to be one of his disciples, who knows?”

“Do you go to church?”

“No, what’s the point? Jesus isn’t there in church. But he’s in the Bible. When I read it, I get the feeling he’s going be reborn in our world. Or at any rate, that’s what I want to believe. I can’t believe in myself, or my Mum. And if I believed in those guys there, who knows what’d become of me. But I feel like if I just believe in Jesus, I’ll be saved. He’s a superstar, he gives me hope, he’s my idol.”

Kita felt he hadn’t come across such innocence in a long time, and he found himself placing his hand over Shinobu’s where it lay on the Bible. She came to herself with a start, and gazed at him with serious eyes, making him feel so awkward that he withdrew his hand again.

“I’m so sorry. What have I been saying? I’ve just rambled on about myself without thinking. You wouldn’t care about any of this, would you Kita?”

“There’s no salvation for me I’m afraid.”

“That’s not true. Actually, when I looked in your eyes I just suddenly wanted to blurt out everything that was in my heart – all my troubles. I don’t know why.”

“What sort of eyes do I have, I wonder?”

“I can’t really express it, but they’re completely different from those guys’. Gentle eyes, quiet eyes…”

She might think so, thought Kita, but in fact he was quite unqualified to play the role of counsellor. To hide his embarrassment, he smiled and crossed his gentle right eye and his quiet left one at her. A short silence followed, which he filled by pouring more wine. It suddenly struck him that he’d never seriously prayed to God or Buddha. This was followed by a sudden urge to bludgeon her with something cruel.

“So what exactly has Jesus ever done for you?”

Her right hand on the Bible and her left on the wine glass, Shinobu was stumped for an answer. Her lips opened and closed like a goldfish. Kita followed through with, “Was it Jesus who led you into the performance world, for instance?”

“No way,” Shinobu responded in a low, indistinct voice. Then her voice suddenly grew high, and she spoke normally again. “But he may have been testing me, I guess.

“Jesus will do anything for us. Anything to do with the soul. I’m convinced he’s protected my soul from being dirtied by money and fame and hatred. I have to throw off my old self as soon as I can, and take on a new self, one that’s like Jesus – that’s what I believe.”

“You’ll shed your skin?”

“I must learn to become naked body and soul, atone for my sins, and love my fellow man. My aim is to free myself through the teachings of Jesus.”

Why was she confessing her faith to him like this? And why was he moved by it, condemned to self-appointed execution though he was? He’d been planning on spending a much more frivolous, not to say vulgar time with Shinobu than this was turning out to be. Things had gone seriously awry here.

Shinobu had begun to look as though possessed while she was making her confession of faith. The girl who’d sat down beside him in the dimly lit bar thirty minutes earlier had quite disappeared. Perhaps this possession of hers had something to do with it, but the bar seemed somehow brighter. And that girl who’d seemed like an exquisite doll had now become a real live person no different from himself, with flesh and substance and body heat that he could actually feel.

He took some more cheese, and ordered another glass of wine. Glancing over at the counter, he saw the men collapsed in loud laughter, shoulders shaking, as if they’d just invented the most stupendous joke. With those guys there, he just couldn’t get the feeling that he and Shinobu were really alone together. If this hundred thousand yen meeting was going to end in nothing more than this, it amounted to fraud. No sooner had he thought this than Shinobu said “Tell me a little about yourself now, Kita.”

“What would you like to know?” He couldn’t think of anything really worth saying. He wasn’t planning to mention either the fact that he’d just signed away his life plus a set of organs, nor that his self-appointed execution would take place this Friday. Their paths would never cross again. And as for Christ having brought them together – well, it was charming of her to explain mere coincidence in these terms, but things got a bit abstract once a man who was nailed up two thousand years ago came between them like this. It would give him greater comfort to silently worship her round breasts.

“Have you ever thought of suicide, Kita?” As he sat gazing with lowered eyes at Shinobu’s breasts, they heaved suddenly with the abrupt question. Kita reeled as if they’d landed him a sudden punch.

“Why ask me that, out of the blue?” Kita sat back.

“I’ve stopped thinking about suicide since I started reading the Bible.”

“You used to think about it?”

“Every night, without fail.”

“You’ve done well to survive, then.”

“It was touch and go for a while.”

“Was it because of those guys over there?”

“They sell my body. To the big boys over in Nagatacho.”

A moment’s silence fell over the bar’s hum of noise. The customers at surrounding tables had been gazing into space, but their ears were tuned in to this table. For some time now these anonymous people had been taking in the confession pouring forth in Shinobu’s clear voice. Their curiosity was focused on the question of the identity of the man she was with. Surely they wouldn’t be mistaking him for some Nagatacho politician?

“So which politicians have bought you?” Kita’s question was meant for the listening gallery to hear.

The two guys over at the counter rose and came towards their table.

“It’s about time to call it to a close, buddy” whispered the smaller one in his ear. His eyes blinked rapidly behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “Miss Yoimachi has another job to go to.” The anonymous spies all around resumed their interrupted conversations, poker faced. The bar was filled with a hum of conversation again.

“Go away,” said Shinobu. “I want to talk with Kita a bit longer.”

The taller of the two leaned over and whispered to her, “Don’t go shootin’ yer mouth off then.” He struck a pose like Michelangelo’s David, intended to strike fear into the public gallery, then slowly returned to the counter.

Shinobu bent forward and brought her face so close to Kita that he could feel her breath. “You remember that hardliner politician with the love child, whose legitimate son’s an actor?”

“That Minister for Construction?”

“Yeah, him. And that gangster type one who made off with two hundred million from the casino.”

“The ‘you can bet your life on Kentaro’ guy?”

“And…”

“You mean there’s more?”

“What’s his name Suzuki, the Depillatory to the Treasurer.”

“Deputy.”

“Yeah, him. I’m a sullied woman, see? I’m a sacrifice to the ruthless urge of those guys to do all the business they like. I was like a corpse till now, as good as dead. These guys and those creeps in Nagatacho, they think I’m just some doll with breasts, they think I’ve got no brain or soul. Sorry. I guess I must be drunk.”

“But why are you telling me all this, when you’ve only just met me? Surely they make sure you keep your mouth shut?”

“I don’t care. I need someone to know the truth, just in case something happens.”

“Something?”

Shinobu lowered her voice further. “I may be killed to keep my mouth shut,” she murmured, and sent him a meaningful look. “But my plan is to tell the world before I get killed, and then leave it to Jesus to protect me.”

The guys at the counter rose to their feet again. His time was up. “Thank you for the precious talk,” Kita said, holding out his hand.

“Let’s meet again soon, Kita,” said Shinobu. “Without those guys.”

“Thank you, but I don’t really have any time left.”

“You don’t have to pay another hundred thousand yen. Money shouldn’t come into it when two people meet. Please see me again. Next week, even.”

“I won’t be here any more by next week.”

“What do you mean?”

The men stepped between them. The little one bowed to Kita and thanked him, and the taller one followed suit. Kita watched them lead Shinobu away, a crooked smile frozen on his lips. Did she feel a little happier now that she’d used her hour of Cinderella time this evening to get her troubles off her chest? She walked backwards out of the bar still gazing at him, her brow furrowed in a bewildered look, and her lips pouting in the unspoken question, “Why?”

There was a vacant twin room at the Moon Palace Hotel, so he took it. Handing his backpack to the bellboy, he went up to the room, and no sooner was he inside than he ordered room service – turtle in rice stew, and champagne. As he tucked into what was probably his fourth-last supper, all alone, he savoured the aftertaste of the strange tryst he’d just had with the star.

How to describe her expression as she left the bar? It was like a child being taken back to some awful classroom against her will at the end of playtime. He felt for her. If she’d begged him to run off with her, he might have felt tempted to play the abductor. What did he care that her minders had wicked underground links with politicians, or that they dealt in violence for pleasure? He could have stayed desperately on the run with her till Friday. Or at least he could have given them a good scare, and let her enjoy the thrill of escape and the taste of freedom. But he hadn’t had the time to find out how she felt about it, nor the inclination to explain his own situation. It would have cost another nine hundred thousand to bring her up to this room, and he’d be a fool to line their pockets like that. It would be better to conduct a live burial for himself in the park, and distribute the money among a hundred vagrants, passersby, and students, to get them to attend the party.

Having polished off the mild-tasting turtle stew and dry champagne for his simple supper, he got into a tepid bath. All alone in this empty room, his flesh-and-blood self gazed at its own reflection in the mirror.

The hotel mirror wasn’t alive, but it still ate people. His stomach had suddenly begun to sag, and bags had formed under his eyes. He’d aged years. Every time he opened the bathroom door or the closet and was abruptly met with his own reflection, he was surprised to see himself there. He had forgotten his own existence completely until he saw himself in the mirror. He’d never experienced the thought, “I think, therefore I am.” When he was talking to someone, he was always sucked into their identity, and when he walked in the street he dissolved into it. But the mirror put him unequivocally centre stage. And this mirror self was a sort of other person who was just like himself, a self that was in between self and other.

Well, to start with, anyway. This mirror had reflected back the images of countless anonymous visitors, and the experience had warped it. It wouldn’t be long before the mirror gobbled him up and he disappeared. Being reflected in this mirror was as good as not being there at all.

On his own, time slowed and grew stagnant. After eating, taking a bath, and scratching an itch or two, he lay vacantly on the bed for a while, then turned on the television. It was still only eleven. But the television brought him a chance blessing. There on the screen was Shinobu Yoimachi, the girl he’d just left, staring out at him as she brushed her teeth. Maybe it was that kind of role, but she seemed to be brushing away as though ridding herself of some fierce resentment. Then she rinsed, and the star’s golden smile reappeared.

Who’d have thought that this girl held the key to a potential political scandal, Kita murmured to himself, and he raised his champagne glass to the screen.

Suddenly the cell phone he’d gotten from Yashiro rang. He was determined to have nothing more to do with the guy, so he ignored it. But whoever was on the other end wasn’t going to give up so easily. The phone rang relentlessly on and on until Kita reached the end of his tether and picked it up. He was about to simply cut the guy off, but before he knew it he’d pressed the green button instead.

Maybe his luck had turned at last, for it was Shinobu’s voice he heard. “Hi, it’s me,” he said hastily.

“Sorry for being a bother. I got this number from Yashiro. Where are you right now?”

“I’m in the Moon Palace Hotel.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Watching television.”

“I’ve just been a bit worried by what you said as I was leaving. When you say you won’t be here any more by next week, do you mean you’re going away somewhere?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Where to? Overseas?”

“Kind of, yes.”

“You’ll be back, won’t you?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to come back.”

“Why not?”

There was no way to explain. The place Kita was heading for this Friday was a one-way trip. He remained silent.

“So we really won’t be able to meet ever again?” Shinobu persisted.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied.

At this, she let out a little sigh. “Did you have some reason to meet me?” she asked.

Kita had the impression she wasn’t going to take some watered-down response for an answer. He’d have to come up with something substantial. He thought for a moment, then muttered, “A dream, I guess.”

Everyone becomes decadent to some extent once they reach thirty-five. Jesus apparently preached that we must throw off our old self and take on a new one; well, you can’t really take that on board when you’re young. Jesus was crucified before he even reached thirty-five, wasn’t he? So you could say he never experienced decadence. Even if he did, of course, he had something to believe in. Kita, on the other hand, had just used a fair portion of his savings on realizing the petty dream of trysting with a star.

Shinobu’s voice on the other end of the line brought him back. “You mean it was a dream to meet me?”

Kita gave a quiet, simple nod. “If I realized that dream, I’d be able to remember it till the day I died, see.”

“I’m just so moved that you think of me like that,” Shinobu said, in exactly the voice she’d been using in the television commercial. “Is there anything you’d like me to do for you? You listened to my tale earlier, and paid a hundred thousand for the experience, so I feel I should compensate you somehow.”

“Well I’m really happy to hear that. But…”

“Would you meet me again now? Those guys aren’t around any more. Shall we go for a drive somewhere? I’ll hop in the car and come right over and get you. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Wait for me in the lobby.”

Those guys must be taking advantage of this urge of hers to serve others, thought Kita. Of course she should by rights have been suspicious about the motives of a guy who’d pay a hundred thousand to meet her, and be wary of the connections he might have. In fact, though, she was being remarkably honest with him. Kita accepted the invitation. He was inclined to let her purify his heart a little more.

Shinobu arrived outside the Moon Palace Hotel lobby in a yellow Alfa Romeo with a black hood. Kita lowered himself awkwardly into the passenger seat. To ride around with a star driving a sports car with the hood back…he’d had such impossible fantasies in the past, of course, but he’d never dreamt he’d actually do it. It seemed like Shinobu was taking it into her head to fulfil his dreams for him.

“I know nothing about you, Kita, so tell me.”

At this, she whipped the engine into a high nasal groan, and began to hurtle along the left bank of the imperial palace moat.

“I’ve lived a really normal life. I could exchange myself with just about anyone else, really.”

“That’s not true, Kita. You’re different from other people, just like Jesus’ disciples were all different from each other.”

“Most of the people in this world are pretty much like me.”

“You really think so? Most people are all greasy with desire, but I get the feeling that you’ve cut through all that somehow.”

The truth was rather that he’d never been able to find an outlet for his desires. Here he was at last, trying to live the high life, and all he could summon up to show for it was a hangover and a sense of futility. Maybe his desires were lacking cultivation. The high life was actually an exhausting business. He couldn’t last beyond three days. He’d love to be able to suddenly feel the kind of sense of fulfilment that led him to praise God, but he never had. He recalled some Olympics, he couldn’t remember which, where an athlete who’d just broken the world record in the decathlon sank to his knees, hung his head, slumped down and covered his face with his hands, and wept. Just then he could easily have been mistaken for someone who’d lost. The fact is, when someone is deeply moved, they get the urge to pray. That athlete’s mind must have been flooded with light at that moment.

Shinobu gunned her baby Alfa Romeo and snaked through the traffic along the metropolitan expressway, heading for the bay. The bridge was lit up in rainbow colours, and trembled like the strings of a harp. The bridge lights reflected in the water below spread out like the tentacles of a sea anemone, threatening to swallow up all the motor boats, pleasure boats, and barges that floated there. Though the night was late, the sky still emanated a faint grey light, which dappled the bay. On the shore was a park where square-eyed, four-wheeled animals gathered to graze. Couples out for a night drive made their way here to talk of love and – if they reached an agreement – to rub mucous membranes together. Shinobu drew up in the parking area. “Kita,” she said in a hushed voice. Maybe she was planning on observing the couples’ biological activity, in the spirit of a bird watcher. “You can fulfil your dreams now.”

“Eh?” he said. He turned and saw that she’d leaned her seat back down and was lying there face up beside him.

“I’ll let you touch, just once.”

Kita’s heart thundered in his chest. The valley between her breasts, that object of lust for men all over Japan, was peeping from her gaping neckline. The breasts beneath her crimson dress glowed a faint white in the dim light, and a scent of tulips wafted up from them. With the fingertips of his trembling right hand, he touched her, whereupon she took his hand and slid them into the valley. It was a moment of pure bliss. His fingertips ran over her nipple, brushing the faint tulip scent.

“Thank you. Really. Thank you,” said Kita, his expression grave, as he bowed his head over and over, until Shinobu giggled.

Chancing to glance at the dashboard, Kita suddenly noticed the Bible Shinobu had shown him in the bar. Wherever she went, it obviously went with her.

“The Bible must serve as a charm against traffic accidents,” he said.

“It’s a kind of Linus blanket,” she said with a laugh.

“I’ve got one more request.” Kita turned meekly to face her again.

“What? What is it?” asked Shinobu, intrigued, as she raised her seat back to sitting position again.

“Could you read me something from the Bible?”

Shinobu didn’t speak for a few seconds, then she reached for the book. “Sure,” she said in a singsong voice, and began to turn the pages.

I’m moving to some town or village in the next world soon, Kita said inside himself, so I guess I should take this opportunity to repent my sins.

“Got it. Here it is, OK, I’ll read to you from the Gospel of Saint John.”

There was a man named Lazarus who had fallen ill. His home was at Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Kita listened, his eyes on the light coordinates shining across the bay.

The sisters sent a message to him: “Sir, you should know that your friend lies ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death: through it God’s glory is to be revealed and the Son of God glorified.”

“It’s a bit dark,” she added. “Let’s turn on the light,” and she flicked the switch. The reading continued in the glow of the orange light.

On his arrival Jesus found that Lazarus had already been four days in the tomb.

Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” “I know that he will rise again,” said Martha, “at the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever has faith in me shall live, even though he dies; and no one who lives and has faith in me shall ever die. Do you believe this?”

Shinobu seemed to be asking him the question directly. Kita spluttered. If you believed that, you’d never manage to die. For a man like him, about to die by self-execution, the words had a certain encouraging ring to them.

Having told Jesus she believed in him, Martha returned to the village and called her sister Mary. The Jews of the village followed her. Now wherever he went, Jesus was persecuted by the Jews, driven out and half killed. He was proposing a new interpretation of their laws, which they completely misunderstood. So Jesus entered the tomb of Lazarus, in front of his disciples, Lazarus’ sisters, and the village Jews.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Sir, by now there will be a stench; he has been there four days.” Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you have faith you will see the glory of God?”

Then they removed the stone.

Jesus looked upwards and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me, but I have spoken for the sake of the people standing round, that they may believe it was you who sent me.”

Then he raised his voice in a great cry: “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with linen bandages, his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said, “Loose him; let him go.”

Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.

Shinobu snapped the Bible shut. “That’s all,” she said. Embarrassed to look at each other, they sat together in silence for a while, staring at the lights on the water. Here they were, two people who in different ways had sold off their bodies, snuggled together in an Italian sports car reading the world’s bestseller. And it wasn’t in nineteenth century Petersburg, but at the end of the twentieth century in Tokyo. Was it his decision to carry out self-execution that brought about these strange twists of fate, Kita wondered?

“How could he have been resurrected after being dead for four days?” Kita turned over in his mind this old question that no one any longer seriously pondered.

“It’s impossible in terms of modern medical science, isn’t it? But dead people might have quite often been resurrected like that at the time.”

“Maybe the dead back then were in really good shape.”

“Still alive even when they were riddled with worms.”

Simultaneously they both began to snicker, and soon the little car was filled to bursting with an explosion of laughter.

As the laughter wound down, Kita asked, “So was there any special reason why you purposely chose that bit to read?”

“Yes. I told you in the bar, didn’t I? I used to contemplate suicide every night.”

“Yes, you did say that.”

“I decided to give up the idea when I read about Lazarus being brought back from the dead.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Shinobu massaged her temples, struggling for words. “I can’t really express it,” she began. “I decided to give up the idea because if I committed suicide now I wouldn’t be resurrected. Lazarus was raised from the dead because he was loved by his sisters and the villagers and Jesus, wasn’t he? But in Japan, when you die of course it’s sad at the time, but after the prescribed forty-nine days are up everyone forgets about you. The only people who can be resurrected are the ones who live on in people’s memories forever.”

“You believe in the resurrection of the dead?”

Shinobu nodded hard, her eyes alight with firm conviction.

“It’s essential to believe. I mean, if you doubt, you’ll never be resurrected, will you?”

“You won’t have any fleshly body to return to if you’re cremated, you know.”

“It’s true. But the soul doesn’t burn.”

“I guess. The soul’s not flesh, after all. But if only the soul is resurrected, it’s not visible, is it? It’s scary to think of coming back to life as a half-rotted body, mind you. I think what you’re really talking about is memories of the dead.”

Kita was just trying to help her express things, but Shinobu shook her head stubbornly. “No, it’s not,” she declared. “The dead really communicate with us. They appear in dreams. They speak. They grow, they progress, they love and hate. I think the souls of the dead are maybe like the trees in a forest or water in a river or air in a city. They’re a part of nature. A dead soul might come creeping into this car here. If you turn on the radio you’ll hear Mozart or John Lennon. Or think of our own dead, pop stars like Yukiko Okada or Yutaka Ozaki. Their voices are still echoing somewhere. Now isn’t that some sign of the dead? Lazarus threw off his rotted body after his resurrection, and became a follower of Jesus, you know. Even if you die, you don’t disappear. You just turn into something different. The voice of them, the sense of them, their thoughts and form when they were in the world – it’s all put back together at random and something else is born from it. That’s resurrection. A resurrected person doesn’t have a name or a job or a self. They just are. People get resurrected only among folks who have the ability to feel that. But everyone believes it’s the end when you die, so the poor resurrected dead get ignored. You have to have a really strong soul to be resurrected in our world.”

“So are you in touch with the dead? How do you do that?”

“You need a bit of training. But it’s easy really. You just have to remember that person. Just keep remembering them all the time. The dead get stronger when the living remember them. When you’re desperately struggling with something, just stop and relax for a moment, look at the dandelion on the roadside, open your ears to the sound of the wind. The souls of the dead have become part of the natural world, so if you do this, you’ll always get the sense that they’re there.”

As he listened, Kita was thinking of the mother he’d left earlier that day. She’d begun to lose her mind without his noticing. Maybe that was why she was still living with her husband, though he died four years ago. Maybe she was actually communicating with a dead soul, just as Shinobu described.

Shinobu straightened her back. “That’s the end of Mass,” she announced.

“I’ve started to feel people really do come back to life,” Kita said with a laugh.

“You’re weird,” Shinobu murmured, as she started the engine of her little sports car.

“So in fact, Kita, you haven’t told me a thing about yourself.” They were back at the front lobby of the hotel, so late the bellboy was asleep. Shinobu spoke in a low, querulous voice. Kita felt he’d behaved quite honestly with her, but evidently he hadn’t managed to dispel her doubts. Though maybe it was the luxury of having paid a hundred thousand yen that spared him from talking about himself.

“I’ll just tell you one thing. But you have to promise me two things first. One is that you won’t tell anyone. The other is that you won’t ask why.”

Shinobu gave a slight nod to indicate that she promised.

“I’m going to die this Friday. So fate brought us together only to part.”

Kita hid the smile on his face as he spoke, but Shinobu said, “It’s a joke, right?”

“I’ll come and see you if I’m resurrected.”

“Why are you going to die?”

“You promised not to ask.”

“That was sneaky,” Shinobu murmured, and she suddenly seized Kita’s wrist and held it so hard she almost stopped his pulse.

“Let go.”

“No. If I let go, you’ll go to hell.”

She’d already said Mass. Was she going to cast a spell on him now? He put his lips to her slender white hand, and whispered as if murmuring words of love, “I don’t mind if I go to hell.” Then he removed her hand, and got out of the car. Shinobu got out too, and tried to hold him back.

“You mustn’t go to the next world! It’s terrible! It’s just the worst place!”

You’d have thought she’d been there on a holiday and seen it herself. Well, if it really was the worst possible place, and he couldn’t face living there, he’d rely on Jesus’ words and ask to be resurrected.

But in fact Kita even doubted if there was such a thing as the next world.

“Still, I have to go. You’ve given me fresh courage to die, Shinobu.”

“But why?” Shinobu couldn’t conceal her disappointment.

“I was in luck tonight. Let’s meet again, eh?” Kita spoke his farewell with all the freshness of someone just out of the bath. He smiled. Shinobu released his arm, with a look that said she could see through that smile of his. She was left with nothing but an overpowering sense of futility after this fateful meeting with a man who could never appear in the Bible.