The geisha on the giant electronic billboard gazes off into the near distance, a discreet smile playing on her lips. Kanji spell out her message to the commuters, but I cannot make sense of them. The white background on the advertisement is backlit and surreal. It makes the geisha look as though she has been painted onto enamel.
A train rushes towards the station. The warning jingle plays over the tannoy, letting commuters know that their ride is almost here. The train rushes and then slows, gliding to a stop, precisely lined up with the door markings on the platform. The guard is hanging out of his window, signalling to the driver somehow, letting him know when he is close to the markings. The train stops. The guard is opposite me, in his tiny room in between the ordinary and green cars. He looks at me and smiles. To him, I am a tourist, mesmerised by the precision of Japanese train travel. He must have seen the same expression on countless faces. That he smiles at me humanises him.
This is not my train, though, so I will never find out if he enters and leaves each carriage with the same humanity on show. I sit on the cold metal bench and admire the gleaming white of the train. Shinkansen Nozomi, barred to me with my tourist’s JR Pass, the same shape as the Hikari on which I plan to ride, stopping at fewer stops on its way to the same destination. I have not paid the premium, and so I cannot ride.
Almost imperceptably, the train begins to move. The doors have closed, the electronic clock registers the time shown on the timetable, and this mechanical bullet begins to gather speed. Even before the end carriages have passed me, the train is blurred with the speed of its movement and suddenly gone, leaving the geisha before me again.
School children in their immaculate black uniforms have gathered on the opposite platform. They stand beneath the giant geisha, oblivious to her existence. They pay no attention to her message. It isn’t a message aimed at them. The boys are all dressed in suits, their jackets with Chinese collars. The girls are in pleated skirts, the sailor collars of their blouses lying flat against the backs of their jackets. Hair is cut into different styles, but all is black and gleaming. They stand in groups. Their teacher is nowhere to be seen.
The warning jingle plays again. A man in khaki trousers and a blue windcheater rushes along the platform towards the school children. A woman follows behind him. I grab my camera as another bullet train rushes towards me, from the opposite direction this time. I snap and capture the sense of movement, the speed of the thing appearing cartoonlike in the image. People are sleeping in their seats, their faces at the small aeroplane-style windows. I see the children getting on the train, finding their seats in the green car. School trips must cost a fortune. I wonder how far they are going. Is it a trip to the gilded splendour of
The train pulls out and once more I face the geisha. The opposite platform is empty again. My platform is filling up once more, and I check my watch, look at the electronic clock, the overhead dot matrix noticeboard. The Hikari which will carry me to
The train approaches, snub nosed and brilliantly white, and he runs over carrying a Kiosk bag. He comes to a halt beside me and half pulls a tube of ChipStar from the bag, waggling it at me by way of explanation. He is slightly breathless.
“I wondered where you had got to,” I say.
“I thought I’d get some snacks for the journey,” he replies.
I look into the bag and see rice balls with their nori wrappers next to the ChipStar. There are two Soy Joy bars as well, and bottles of green tea and CC Lemon. I smile into the bag, and he closes it.
The train doors have opened. We get on and find our seats, arranging our bags around us, stretching out our legs and reclining the seat backs. It is still early, although not that early. We will reach
Announcements begin to play over the in-train message system. The recorded woman’s voice tells us in careful English where we are now and where we will be next, then repeats it all again in Japanese. Messages scroll across the display panel above the door, a mixture of kanji and kana with a sprinkling of English. The internal door slides open and the guard appears. He bows, enters the car, bows again and walks along the aisle towards the rear of the train.
We begin to move. The buildings seem to bend slightly as the train gathers speed. I turn my face to the window and watch the city whizz past, skyscrapers being exchanged for houses and apartment blocks as we move from city to suburb. The suburbs eventually give way to fields, with only a few blue, green and orange roofed houses dotted here and there.
I hear a voice behind me. The guard has returned. He will have bowed twice and now is welcoming us to the train, explaining that he will check our tickets. He makes his way through the car, clipping tickets. He reaches us and does the same, checking our JR Passes too. With each action, he performs a minute bow. His hands are gloved in white cotton. His uniform is dark. He wears a peaked cap.
As he leaves the car, he turns to face us and bows once more. He says something in Japanese, bows again and reverses out through the door. In the connecting passage, he will turn round and then repeat the ritual at the next car.
There is something calming about all this ceremony, even though it seems meaningless to me. A woman pushing a refreshment cart enters the car. Like the guard, she bows and speaks to us, then bows again, before slowly moving her cart along the aisle. The woman is dressed in sugar pink gingham, with a bow in her hair. People buy drinks and snacks from her. Someone buys a bento box. She demonstrates the three different kinds available, and he chooses the long slim one. We let the cart go by. We have enough in our Kiosk bag. I gaze, intrigued, at the bento boxes as the cart makes its way past, wishing I was brave enough to try one out.
Beside me, my companion has begun to doze already. Despite the speed, the movement of the train is minimal. Not too much swaying. Travellers here are quiet, unlike at home. There is no tinny hiss from someone’s mp3 player. There are no loud conversations, no screeching children. He looks tired. We were up late into the night, neither of us able to sleep.
I had suggested that we go to the jazz club round the corner from the apartment, but he thought it too risky. Neither of us speaks Japanese very well, and he was wary of drawing somebody’s, anybody’s, attention. Instead, he had lounged on the bed, reading through the documents again, and I had stood out on the balcony, looking down on the shrine in the walled garden across the street. During the day I had gone down and tried to go in, but a barrier was across the entrance and the gate was locked. I had gone back to the apartment and watched a man arrive on a bicycle, who then swept the steps at the entrance. It looked different at night, lit as it was by the street lights and a few lanterns strung up in the trees. The twin foxes that guarded the shrine itself looked larger in the half light.
Eventually, I had tired of looking, waiting for something to happen. I had gone back into the bedroom to find my companion sleeping, papers scattered across the bed. I had pulled the documents together and put them back into order, scanning them briefly to make sure that I remembered what we were to do, then gone to the other bedroom and fallen asleep myself.
Since he is sleeping, I decide to look through the documents again, even though I am sure I know the sequence things will move in today. I check which subway line we need to take to get to
We are dressed appropriately. I look every inch the affluent Western woman. He has the distracted look of an eccentric rich man. To all intents and purposes, we are married, and I am as cold and indifferent as any woman who has married for money. Ill-gotten or otherwise.
I am thirsty. I reach for the Kiosk bag. It rustles and he stirs in his sleep. He has combed his hair differently today, but resting his head against the seat has encouraged an attempt to regain its usual style. Dark hair sticks out at strange angles, pulled partly by static, partly by its natural bend. I will have to remind him to straighten it out in the train bathroom when he awakes.
I take a bottle of green tea from the bag. I sip, and it is bitter and not cold enough inside my mouth. It tastes better fresh from a chiller or a vending machine, but I am too thirsty for the fizz of the lemonade. I place the bottle on the window shelf and stare past it at the landscape we are passing through. We have moved towards the coast. Buildings litter the horizon, a higgle-piggle of heights and styles. Orange and white striped pylons poke out from hillsides, carrying electrical current through the wires they support. We cut in and out of tunnels, travelling through hillsides which are almost mountainsides. In the gaps between buildings and hills I catch glimpses of the sea. I would like to get off the train and wander through the streets to the shore, to see if it is like the seaside at home. I imagine something greyer, more granulated, less sandy. I don’t know why. I have never seen a picture of the Japanese south coast between
I remember the trip north we made on one of the days when we were playing tourist. We travelled on a single train, but somewhere along the way it switched allegiance and we had to pay for the last stage of the journey. We arrived at a small station, oddly out of step with the town, and were given a photocopied map showing the way to the shrines and temples that stood alongside the bay. One of the three most beautiful parts of
And yet, even though I have seen a Japanese sea and Japanese sand, for some reason I imagine this coast differently. There is no way of knowing, without leaving the train, because the view never affords an actual glimpse of the shore. Just the petrol blue sea stretching away to the horizon.
I take another sip from the bottle of green tea, then turn to select a rice ball from the bag. As I turn I see that he has woken up and is watching me. He has been watching the back of my head, my exposed neck with the tendrils of hair escaping from my chignon. My skin warms at the thought. I say nothing and concentrate on the contents of the bag.
As I unwrap the nori and flip the pyramid of rice onto it, I tell him that he needs to straighten his hair. From the corner of my eye, I see his hand go to his head, trying to smooth the hair down again.
“No,” I say. “You’ll need to use the bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror.”
I still haven’t looked at him and I don’t know why. Something in his sleepy regard has chastened me. I try to tell myself, remind myself, that this is business, and that consequently we have no business turning it into something else. He leaves his seat, and I bite into the nori wrapped rice with its heap of crab meat cocooned in the centre. The nori crunches between my teeth, then the rice begins to disintegrate in my mouth and my tongue tastes the sweetness of the crab. I close my eyes and luxuriate in the flavours and the textures. I never feel healthier than when we are in
He returns to his seat and I look at him at last. His hair is smoothed down, slicked into place. He is the same but different. Our eyes meet and I have to look away quickly before I begin to swim. Damn heart, damn emotions, damn everything. I am as cold and indifferent as I need to be. The more I tell myself that this is true, the truer it must surely become.
So why doesn’t it feel true?
We eat in silence. The man across the aisle, who bought the bento box, is wielding chopsticks, expertly moving sushi pieces from box to mouth. He has a can of beer in the cup rest on the flip-down table. I want to call across to him, ask him how his food is. I want to break the rules.
“What is it?” my companion asks.
I realise that I have been sitting with the remains of my rice ball halfway to my mouth for too long. I eat, and shake my head. It is nothing. I don’t know what it is. I have had enough of this life. I want to tell him that I have had enough of this life, but we have a job to do, and if we don’t do it then this life will be over. So what choice do I have but to shake my head at this man that means nothing more to me than money on the table and a roof over my head?
Of all the places to have a change of perspective, after all these years. On a speeding bullet train in the Japanese countryside. I am no Holly Golightly. He is no Paul Varjak. This is no low-level kleptomaniac romp and we will not kiss in the rain.
I pull out the documents, look through them again.
“Memorising them?” he asks.
“Making sure I have everything fixed in my mind,” I reply.
He looks at his watch. “Only an hour before we get there,” he says.
He pulls a box from his pocket. “Here,” he says, “you might as well have this now.”
I don’t open the box, which is small and dark. I know what it contains. I know what I must do with it, in just over an hour’s time. I am not nervous. I have done it before, will probably do it again. A wave of tiredness washes over me, and I know that I never want to do this again.
“Enough,” I whisper to myself.
“I’m sorry?” he says, leaning his head towards mine.
“I’ve had enough,” I whisper into his ear, turning my head just enough to do so.
He moves his head so that he can look at me. His eyes are flinty like the petrol blue sea I glimpsed earlier between buildings. Flecks of hazel in each iris dance around the pupils like flecks of cruelty.
“Pull yourself together,” he says.
I look away. I look out of the window. All romantic notions of giving this up, of having a normal life, dissipate, disappear, dissolve. I close my eyes and sleep.
When I awake, we are pulling into
“You okay?” he asks abruptly.
I nod. He raises an eyebrow, so I nod again.
“Yes,” I say. “It was nothing.”
We leave the train. The small box is safely in my handbag. We have left behind the Kiosk bag for the cleaning staff to remove. I put on my sunglasses and tighten the belt on my coat. We walk side by side, barely touching, just like the married couple we purport to be.
We find the subway line we need to take, buy our tickets and hop onto a train. He has found a tie from somewhere and put it on. His hair is straining against its new restraints, aching to return to normal. I reach across and smooth down a strand that is beginning to snake.
“Thank you, dear,” he says, getting into character.
“You’re welcome, darling,” I reply.
We are the only people speaking on this subway train. Everyone else reads, or stares at the floor, or plays on a handheld computer console. I fold my hands around the strap of my handbag, hold my knees together and stare straight ahead. He has his legs splayed out and his knee keeps threatening to bang into me, but somehow he avoids physical contact and I am at once grateful for it and frustrated.
Another disembodied female voice intones the name of our station. The LCD display tells us on which side of the carriage the doors will be opening. We rise and move towards the doors and wait for the train to stop.
It is a short walk from the station exit to the Wako Department Store. Strange bubbles and metal waves are in the window, interspersed with telescopes. Inside the glass of each telescope is a small image of a person. The display is advertising Seiko watches. We pause and peer through the window at the display. I want to hang back, to delay this for as long as possible. For once it is me that is about to panic.
He takes me by the elbow.
“Come along, dear,” he says firmly, gripping the small bone tightly and digging his fingers into the thin skin at the joint. “Let’s have a look at a few trinkets.”
He walks me into the store and we make our way to the exclusive jewellery boutique that is our target. A lot is riding on this. A lot, but not enough for this to be the last time. Not for him, and not for me either.
He lets go of my elbow, confident that I am calmer now, that I am not going to be any trouble. He relaxes, assumes the air of a rich man out on a shopping trip with his wife. I fall into line and play my part too.
We approach the boutique. A member of staff greets us. We let it be known that we don’t speak Japanese, and he switches to perfect English. My supposed husband talks about wanting to buy his wife a little trifle. The word confuses our host.
“A gift,” my companion explains. “A small trinket, expensive enough to show that I love her, small enough not to shout it.”
The man understands. He busies himself with seeking out baubles and trinkets galore, laying them out on a cloth, stepping back as we inspect them. I affect boredom. It isn’t too difficult.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly, looking away, looking around the shop, casting my eyes this way and that. “Perhaps a necklace.”
“A necklace?” says my companion, a little too crisply.
I decide to play with him a little.
“Yes,” I say. “I think I would like a necklace.”
The item we have brought, hidden in its little box in the depths of my handbag, is not a necklace, could never be a necklace. My companion looks at me, as if to say “What are you playing at?” and I smile at him.
“Don’t you think a necklace would look pretty, Charlie?”
He flushes slightly. Although it isn’t his actual name, he doesn’t like it that I have used it. Not in the middle of a job.
“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “You have plenty of necklaces already. I was thinking more of a ring.”
“Oh, but rings are boring,” I say, moving to another display case and looking down at the diamond and platinum chokers, collars and garlands. “A necklace catches the light so much more pleasantly.” I drum my fingernails against the glass. “There are some real sparklers in here,” I say.
He moves across to stand beside me. Too slow, though. I move away before he has chance to catch hold of any part of me. I move to a third display case. I am aware that the attendant is watching us. Although he does not show it, he would never be so indiscreet, I can tell that he thinks us a little strange.
The third case contains charms to hang from a bracelet.
“Oh, how lovely!” I exclaim. “Charles, dear, come and look! So sweet, so pretty.” I look at him, allowing false tears to prick my eyes. “My mother gave me a charm bracelet when I was sixteen. One of these would look so pretty on it.”
“That old thing?” he says, deciding to play along. “You want to put something exquisite onto that piece of cheap gold plate?” He looks at me. “Darling, you’ve moved up in the world now.”
The attendant relaxes slightly. He has formed an understanding of the situation. Clearly, I am some piece of trash made good. I smile coldly at my companion.
“Don’t be so tacky, darling,” I say. “You are embarrassing the help.”
He crosses the floor and is beside me in seconds. He grips my hand, crushing my knuckles. I try to extricate myself, but he is too strong.
“Don’t make a scene,” he hisses.
“I’m not the one trying to break my wife’s hand,” I hiss back.
My game has gone awry. We are close to failure, and I find myself wondering what the consequences would be if we were to leave this place empty handed. For a split second I think it would be worth the risk. The salesperson is looking anxious, but trying to hide it. I look at my companion, and something in that look persuades him to release my hand. The knuckles are red and will later be purple, bruised by the pressure he has applied. The fingers are too swollen already for me to risk trying on rings. He sees what I see, looks where I am looking. I feel him stiffen as he realises that everything might soon be falling away from him.
But my other hand is fine. He takes a calculated risk that the finger on my left hand is the same size as the one on my right, the one that the ring is measured to.
“How long have we been married now?” he asks, and I think I see where he is going.
“Three years,” I adlib.
“Three years,” he says, putting his arm around me and steering me back to the attendant, who is looking more concerned than confused. Something about us isn’t right, but he can’t quite place it. “Has it really been that long?”
We stand in front of the assistant, and my alleged husband of three years says, “I think I’d like to get my wife a ring, to mark three years of marriage. What do you think?”
The man breathes out and says, “Very good, sir.”
He has put us back on track. He has found a way out of the disaster I almost wrought, and he fills with pride. I feel it puff him up from the inside out. My right hand is throbbing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t broken a few bones on my behalf.
Rings appear. None match the one hidden in the box inside my bag. The one the local jeweller, who is in the pay of someone in the pay of someone else who is in the pay of the man who has commissioned this job, made based on sketches stolen from the designer, copied and returned. That ring doesn’t appear, and I wonder whether it has already been sold.
My companion is murmuring something about a ring that is perhaps a little more unique than the ones we have been shown already. Our man disappears into the back. When he returns he has it. The ring we are here to acquire. My heart flips. I prepare to slip the box from my handbag and, through sleight of hand, while my companion talks cut and carat and exquisite craftsmanship, switch the ring in the box for the one I am handling, trying on, gazing at with awe and wonder.
I have the box in my hand. I slip the ring onto my finger. It is slightly too big. The fingers on my left hand are slimmer than those on my right, but it doesn’t matter. I look at the ring, nestling against my fake wedding and engagement rings. I show it to my supposed husband and the shop attendant. My companion draws the attendant to one side, to talk money, to effect payment. Now is the time for me to work my magic, to fool the cameras that are undoubtedly trained on us, and make the switch just in time to change my mind, remove the ring and leave the shop before cash is handed over. But I can’t do it. I put the ring back onto the baize. My companion looks over at me, to see whether I am done. I give my head the merest shake. He frowns, begins to sweat.
“You stupid bitch,” he says.
The salesperson looks at him, and then at me. I shrug.
“Bitch!” He says it louder this time. I smile, begin to laugh, catch the gleam of metal beneath his jacket and laugh harder.
I am still laughing as I slump against the display case. My outflung hand, grappling for support, pushes the baize askew, scattering rings and baubles and trinkets over the floor of the boutique. I laugh as I feel the searing heat of the bullet enter my body. I maintain consciousness for just long enough to see a security guard strong-arming my alleged husband out of the shop and into a back room.
I wake up in a hospital. I am bandaged around my midriff, and my side aches. A nurse sees that I am awake, and hurries off to find a doctor.
The doctor assures me as best she can that I will be fine, that I will be well enough to leave soon. I thank her, and tell her that I have a flight booked for the next day. She frowns. She doesn’t think I will be able to fly.
“Oh,” I say. “Do I need to recover some more?”
“No,” she says. “Police. They want to talk.”
I nod. Of course. Before I’m allowed to leave I must sing like the bird I suddenly feel I am.
And sing I do. Loud and clear. I turn stool pigeon, telling all. I give names, addresses, dates, events. I claim protection for sharing these secrets and bringing down the people who can hurt me most.
It is over a month before I am allowed to leave, clothed in a new identity, my appearance altered as best it can be without resort to surgery. I leave with the tainted blessing of various law enforcement agencies, and settle myself into the seat of an aeroplane that will take me to a new life and freedom from the old.
In my pocket is a small box. In the box is a small ring. Now that my right hand has healed, it will fit the ring finger well. If I don’t sell it, that is.
Before I boarded the flight, I made a phone call. He will be waiting for me when my plane lands in my future. Finally I will be able to discard cold indifference as my default emotion. Finally I will be free to be the person I was born to be. Too late for us to start a life together in
(c) J R Hargreaves August 2009
