I Am a Japanese Writer

THE TROJAN WAR

I SEE A guy going by with three souvlakis tightly wrapped in transparent paper. I know what his problem is. He goes there to see Helena. She’s the reason I rented this room across from the park and next to the bookstore. She’s the landlord’s daughter, and a waitress at Zorba’s. Helena’s game is so subtle it took me a hell of a long time before I could make the link between the souvlaki and my horrible nightly heartburn. When she can, she sits at the back of the restaurant, by the bathroom. She’s never in a hurry; she takes all the time she needs to cast her big dark eyes on you. And then you’re paralyzed. At the beginning, I was dumb enough to think that, at last, my charm was having an effect on her. Since she moved so slowly, I pictured myself as the patient fisherman. Until the day I understood that I was the fish wriggling on the end of her line. I’ll never know what made me get up in the middle of the night and go out to buy a souvlaki without a prescription. Her eyes are so dark you think it’s midnight when it’s noon, but all she has to do is turn her face in your direction and dawn breaks anew. I’d do anything to hear the sound of her voice.

“Nice day, don’t you think so?”

Not a word of reply.

“I always have the lamb souvlaki. That’s because I don’t like chicken.”

A pause.

“Maybe I should try the chicken. What do you think?”

Silence.

“I know your name is Helena. I live across the street. Your father is my landlord.”

She goes back to her spot without a word. There’s only one way to get her to come back.

“I’d like another souvlaki, please.”

She’s like one of those dealers who never give you the crumb of attention you crave.

“It’s to go.”

Unhurried, she slips it into a brown paper bag. I didn’t even want the first souvlaki, and now I’m stuck with a second.

“See you soon.”

She goes back and sits down without an answer. The down on the back of her neck. A bandage on her left elbow. I cross the park again, by night, with the moon hidden by leafy trees. Basho inhabits me fully.

A guy stops me.

“I’m hungry… Why don’t you give me your souvlaki?”

I hand it over. He looks me in the eye to keep me from leaving.

“Not so fast! At least give me the chance to do my spiel.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That’s no reason, man.”

He starts dancing circles around me, pretending to wave a tomahawk above his head. He’s no more Indian than I am.

“Okay, that’ll do.”

“You know something, man? Everybody calls you Mr. Souvlaki.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re not the only one who’s taken the bait.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I sold my dog last summer, just to see Helena… To see her, you have to buy at least one souvlaki,” he says, wolfing down mine. “Now I don’t have a penny left. . and I’m addicted to souvlaki.”

He takes a step towards me. He smells like onions.

“This one, my friend, is the souvlaki that broke the camel’s back…. If you go there one more time, you’re a dead man.”

“Is that a threat?”

He starts laughing.

“No, man, she’s the drug. She’s the baddest dealer going, she’s worse than any pusher. You’ll start buying souvlakis and end up throwing them away, into the garbage. All of us here feed off them, you know. We’re not going to start complaining. We dumpster-dive like pigeons and we fish out the souvlakis Helena’s customers throw away. You won’t get a smile out of her before 356 of them. She won’t answer you when you say hi until 1,823 souvlakis.”

“Where do you get those figures?”

He pulls out a tiny notebook where everything is written down in pencil.

“Look. . Here you are. . Since the beginning of the week, you’ve bought eight souvlakis, and it’s only Wednesday. Last week you went into Zorba’s eighteen times.”

“Why are you counting people’s souvlakis? What does it matter to you if I eat souvlaki or not?”

“I have your chart too. . Look, it shows an even progression. You even go there late at night. If you want my opinion, you’ll start picking up the rhythm next week….. Look, Réjean is already at thirty-six souvlakis a week and climbing. In two weeks he’ll hit fifty. He could even beat Leblanc’s record, which was fifty-three before he had his accident. You’re not up with the leaders yet, but it won’t be long.”

“Are you telling me those guys had something to do with her?”

“They were Agamemnon’s army, coming to free her.”

“Now what are you talking about?”

“See that guy over there with the six dogs? That’s Achilles. No joke, he took that name. And that guy who looks like he’s thinking, over by the tree? That’s Ulysses. They’re all here. Ajax too. Our gods accompany us.”

“What did you do for a living before this?”

He smiles.

“I knew you were going to ask me that. I was a teacher, just down the hill. I taught history to teenagers. I used to go through the park twice a day and not notice a thing. One day a kid who could have been one of my students sold me some heroin. I wanted to have the experience. I figured that, since it was only an experiment, it wouldn’t change me. But it wasn’t an experiment — it was reality. One day I just didn’t see the point of going in to teach anymore. What could I teach those kids when I didn’t know anything about life? I bought myself a sleeping bag. It was the only thing I needed. I settled in under that tree across from Helen of Troy… Now, I have to go and sleep.”

He curls up on a bench. He makes me think of Basho. To live beneath a tree. To change your life. Could I do it? I watch him for a minute, then decide to go back to salmon. There is no danger at the big fish market at the next corner.

Any minute now, night will fall and the park’s fauna will change. The girls from the tourism school will go home and be replaced by young prostitutes who, most of them, are former students from the same school, the big building across the way whose only interest is the subway station underneath it. The souvlaki-eaters will be replaced by coke dealers. The businessmen from downtown will drive in slow circles around the little park under the watchful eye of the policeman, who gets a percentage for every customer — not for every car, the way it used to be.