I Am a Japanese Writer

A HOTEL ROOM

SHôNAGON CHOSE the hotel, and she also set the date and the time of our rendezvous. A small hotel in the West End, made of red brick and covered with ivy. I wasn’t late, but she was already there. I gave my name at the desk and was told I was expected in room 12. Shônagon was sitting quietly by the window. She didn’t look embarrassed or intimidated. She smiled and motioned for me to sit next to her. This wasn’t the same woman I had met the other evening.

“Have you eaten?” she asked, in her gentlest voice.

Now I was embarrassed.

“No.”

“May I?”

She placed the basket on a low table at the foot of the bed and began unpacking every possible kind of seafood.

“I always thought you were a man of the sea. . François is earthbound. I am of the sea too. That’s why François attracted me. They say that opposites attract, don’t they?”

She prepared our little picnic as she chatted about small things. I understood that for her, conversation is like music. There is no subject. We could imagine a world run by someone as subtle as Shônagon, but that much delicacy inevitably attracts brutality. Our balance depends on a mixture of things. Our meal progressed in orderly fashion, and she slowed time to such a point that I could feel her impact on the city’s energy. I felt as though the city were turning around a single central axis: this room. The room was full of sunlight, and the window looked onto a small inner garden. The white sheets. The colorful fruit. The white wine. A daytime feast. She rose with unbearable grace and went to lie on the bed. I joined her without haste. I didn’t want to make the first move. I waited. She brushed my forearm.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll understand if you say no.”

Good Lord! Is that how a Japanese woman asks a man to honor her?

“I would like you to talk to me about François. I would like to love him, but through your voice. I want your voice to flow into my body and enter my heart. My heart can belong only to François.”

“I see.”

“All François talks about is you, ever since I’ve known him. Everything he does has a link to you. The other day when you were at our house, I thought his heart would burst. I’ve never seen him that way. Normally he’s so taciturn. I know he’s different with his colleagues. At the house, sometimes I think he’s following the manual for the perfect Japanese husband. He can say what he wants — my Spanish side doesn’t interest him at all. When I become passionate, it shocks him.”

“You hardly know me.”

Her voice nearly broke.

“But I eat with you, I listen to music with you, I’m sad with you, I’m happy with you, I sleep with you, and when my husband makes love to me, I feel you’re there too. . What am I saying? I know you’re there. Maybe even more than he is. . You can’t imagine the life I live.”

Softly, she began to cry.

“As soon as I met François, I knew this would be a triangle.”

“But you stayed.”

“It was a challenge. But how can you compete with memories from the teenage years? He doesn’t have a single unhappy memory with you. Even the dark days grow bright in his mind. You are his sun. I can’t take that away from him. Memories help him survive the winters. When it’s twenty below, he climbs into a tub of hot water with his little suitcase full of memories. And that’s enough for three days’ happiness for him.”

“You love him very much.”

She looked me in the eye, the first time she’d done that.

“Do I love him? As much as he loves you. I think only of him, I breathe only for him, I dream of him alone, I love only him… and to understand what he feels, I’m ready to love the man he loves.”

She laughed, then pressed against me.

“Talk to me about him,” she whispered. “I want to know him a little.”

“The only thing I know is that half of what he gives me credit for belongs to him. When he talks about me, he’s talking about himself.”

“I don’t want to hear logical things. . I know all the stories by heart. I want to hear his name, because François never says François. He always says your name, never his. Sometimes, when I want him to listen to what I have to say, I slip your name into the conversation.”

I glanced out the window, long enough to see a bird fly past. I turned and looked at her. She was at the end of her rope: running up against a wall for so many years.

“I’ve forgotten it all, you know.”

“How could you forget? No one can forget everything. Memory goes on working without our help.”

“I’m sure you know more about me than I know myself.”

“Just tell me one little story that’s about him, and him only. . Do it for me. Some little detail, some insignificant thing. Something he could never remember.”

Silence. More silence. We listened to the birds in the garden.

“There was something… We were supposed to meet on the main square. I was late, very late. He was sleeping on a bench.

There were four or five birds perched on his chest, as if they were watching over him. I stood there for a long time and watched him. I didn’t want to disturb him. I waited for the birds to fly away on their own before going to his side.”

“There,” said Shônagon softly. “A story he couldn’t know. And you were watching him, instead of him studying you. Thank you, my love. . I have to go now, but you can stay as long as you like. If you’re hungry, order something from downstairs. I’ll tell the front desk.”