I Am a Japanese Writer

THE MAN WITH THE SNAKE TATTOOS

JUST DOWNSTAIRS, BENEATH the hotel: the underground city. Stores crowded with old ladies in flowered hats making themselves useful by watching out for shoplifters. Restaurants where you can get something quick before going back to work. I sit down at a free table. A newspaper is lying there. A half-naked girl on page 7. That’s how you attract readers. For thirty-five cents, you get your money’s worth. The coffee costs twice as much. Since I didn’t pay for the paper, I come out all right. On page 36 is the picture of one of my old neighbors from back when I lived next to the deaf and blind school (it took me a while before I realized the girls couldn’t hear me). I read the story and learn that my neighbor has changed his address: he’s been transferred to a maximum security prison. He’s a star in the world behind the walls. It’s rare that someone looks exactly like what he is: a killer. It’s a form of honesty. His body is entirely covered in tattoos of snakes, tigers and dragons. And plenty of girls’ names inside big red hearts — tough guys are so sentimental. A few men’s names too — guys unfortunate enough to have crossed his path. What happened? His face is closed. I insist. Mute reaction. He used to spend hours just sitting there, without a word. At first that intimidated me. As time went by, I learned to tolerate his presence and not try to drag any information out of him. I did it out of curiosity, without moral judgment. As far as I was concerned, he could have killed them all. Or he might have just been a Sunday killer: what did I know? We all want to meet someone exceptional. Sometimes he would come upstairs to see me and tell me how his day went, down to the smallest detail. At times like that, he couldn’t stop talking. In the middle of a sentence, he’d get up and walk away. He’d keep his mouth shut for a month afterwards. I liked to watch him. Always on the alert. He missed nothing: not a sound, not a movement. Once in a while he’d go to the window to see what was happening in the street. He’d call me over.

“You know him?”

“No.”

He couldn’t understand how someone could live this way. In his opinion, I just didn’t realize we were living in a jungle. Such insouciance impressed him in the end. We met by chance, but he distrusted chance and fled it like the plague. For mystics, God is manipulating the whole show. For him, Inspector Tremblay of the rcmp is behind it all — the one who ended up busting him. If you ask me, there’s nothing unusual about neighbors meeting each other. I had just rented an apartment in this rotting building. I had occupied room 7 on the second floor for exactly three days. I was still greeting people in the stairway, even if they ignored me. Him, most of all. I didn’t know that the word hello could embarrass people to such a point. One evening he came knocking at my door. I opened up, and there I was, face to face with a killer. Someone had paid him off to eliminate me. Suddenly he put out his hand. I backed off: I was sure he was going to stick a knife into my gut. His malevolent laughter — and total lack of humor — did nothing for the atmosphere. He stepped into my place without an invitation. Right away he began going over the apartment with a fine-toothed comb. I kept an eye on his powerful forearms. I was caught in a cage with a starving tiger. Who had paid for my death? A jealous writer? I thought the competition was content with destroying their enemies at the literary cocktail parties that infested the city. He moved through the apartment, paying no attention to me. I was not his center of interest. He went and opened a window, looked suspiciously down on the street, then came back and sat down next to me on the couch. He finally turned and gave me a long look.

“Who do you work for?”

“What?”

Suddenly his face turned crimson, as if he had sat down on a snake by accident.

“Never answer me that way. You understand?”

I almost said What? a second time.

“I’m not part of any group.”

More silence. I heard my breathing, but not his. My neighbor was noisily rehearsing Hamlet. The killer (I don’t know what else to call him) listened a while, then pointed at the wall.

“He’s an actor,” I said, to head off any faulty interpretations.

He went over to where my books were spread out on the table and stroked them with the palm of his hand.

“You read all these?”

I didn’t have very many.

“Yes…. But I don’t keep them.”

“What do you do with them?”

“I give the ones I like to people I like. I throw away the rest.”

His eyes had a strange glow as he looked my way. I had set something off in the mind of the beast. He smiled. His white fangs. For a split second, I saw a little window open inside him.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a beer?”

I opened two bottles. We drank slowly.

“What about another?”

I had filled up yesterday. Every time I took out two beers, I put two more in the fridge. Night fell without us noticing. Suddenly he got to his feet and headed for the door.

“You’re an okay guy. I live downstairs, number 3. Anyone gives you shit, you come and tell me. The name’s Réjean.”

We shook hands. Réjean was missing two fingers. Instead of pity, I felt mostly fear. The proof I was dealing with a real pro. We were both manual laborers. I needed my fingers to write. I hoped we wouldn’t reach such extremities: cutting off the hand of a writer.

Now I’m looking at his photo. Surrounded by a dozen cops, chains on his feet, he’s climbing into an unmarked van. I wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t looked at the photographer at the last second. That hard face, those small eyes, that vicious smile. I know another Réjean. The guy who told me how he used to go fishing with his father. His Gaspé childhood. I could see the trout flashing silver in his eyes.