I Am a Japanese Writer

THE BJORK VOODOO DOLL

THE CROWD KEPT its eyes on the Kiss Inc. trio, who’d given the same show in Berlin, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, London and New York. I knew as much because I had seen their poster in the bathroom. There wasn’t room to add Rome, Amsterdam and Sydney. Those cities too had seen Kiss Inc.’s act; Montreal was the last on the list. The world is crawling with market systems in which people and things are bought and sold. It used to be the silk road, the sugar road, the spice road. Now we have the professional tennis circuit, the golf tour, the environmentalists and the all-powerful heads of state. Complex networks. Impossible to lose yourself in the natural world — nature’s slice of the pie keeps dwindling and dwindling. Workers have their own subway line. The line that runs from the workers’ neighborhood to the factory doesn’t change on the way back. Fifty years of round trips, looking at the same sights every day. Kiss Inc. studies fashion shows, the paths taken by rock stars who want to marry models. Kiss Inc. doesn’t move in the world of rock stars and Kate Moss, but hangs around the edges, hoping for a few crumbs. The whirlwind of fashion and music carries in its golden path a colorful, living, cool, non-conformist crowd awaiting the slightest signal from its leaders to pack up and move from the Sarajevo to Olympic Stadium, where Bjork is putting on a show. Bjork could have been at the Sarajevo. Bjork at the Sarajevo — what a poster that would have made! With Kiss Inc. as the warm-up band. But for that to happen, chance would have had to wave its magic wand. Bjork coming to town a day early because she absolutely had to see the big voodoo art show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The great masters of Haitian painting. The peasant painters celebrated by Malraux. The first worldwide show since the one organized at the Mellon, in Manhattan, in the 1950s. Bjork intrigued by voodoo. Bjork, as a little girl, receiving a voodoo doll as a gift. Bjork identifying with the doll, putting herself in the shoes of a little black girl who had to hide her doll because pleasure was forbidden. Bjork talking to the doll, and the doll answering her. Look at the strange turn of Bjork’s mouth and you’ll understand you’re not dealing with a pure-hearted, well-behaved little Icelandic girl, but a voodoo doll bloated with blood. The doll has taken the girl named Bjork’s place.

Bjork hasn’t grown an inch since. Bjork is the doll. And Bjork absolutely wants to see the show and meet the voodoo painters discovered in the 1940s. They’re still alive — how can that be? The doll’s eyes glow from deep within the shadows. Paging through a magazine, Bjork comes across an ad for the Montreal show. Is she in Paris, or London, or New York or Berlin (don’t forget Berlin), or is it Rome? A hotel room, in any case. A hotel room is a universal space. White sheets. Magic number. Incognito, Bjork chooses room 17 wherever she goes. She calls her producer and orders her to cancel the Melbourne show so she can get to Montreal in time to see the museum. The producer thinks the best solution is to extend the show so Bjork can see it. The producer gets on the line to Montreal. She speaks the name “Bjork” and is immediately put through to the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts, relaxing in Bermuda. The curator is “profoundly touched.” A call from Bjork — actually, it’s her producer, but on behalf of Bjork. He’s a fan, well, not really, his wife is, not really his wife, but their daughter. The curator stammers and stumbles. The producer, very amused, waits on the other end of the line. You never get enough of that sort of pleasure. Just the name of that tiny sliver of a woman can stupefy one of the major thinkers of modernity. Just say “Bjork.” Such an ugly sound—Bjork. So (with the right authoritarian tone), will you be extending the show for Bjork? Of course, I can’t make a decision of that sort all on my own. Not without the board of directors. What the hell? How many are there? Seven. And where are they? On vacation, as I am. Where? I have no idea, Madame. All right, leave it to me. The producer calls an agency that specializes in this kind of emergency. It’s said they could find Bin Laden, no problem, and put him on the line with George Bush. The last miracle the agency pulled off was tracking down the daughter of one of the heads of Canadian Pacific, even though she was in Tangiers and they had no clues to go on except the fact that she liked sun, sand and solitude. She wasn’t carrying her cell phone, and none of her friends knew where she was. To catch up to her, the agency contacted an enormous number of people, from the Dalai Lama to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, the French writer.

In no time at all, this agency gets a hold of the members of the board of directors of the Museum of Fine Arts (the famous group of seven). They will be delighted to cooperate, and all want to meet Bjork. The producer calls her. “Everything’s okay. The museum will keep the show up for you.”