Astrid and Veronika (19 page)

I remained there, watching, and when I left the woman was still going about her work, the cat beside her.

I went into the small guest bathroom and undressed. There were mirrors along the entire length of the room on one side, and I stood in front of them, naked. I looked at myself and could see no major changes. My skin was still tanned, with my breasts and a triangle over my pubic area a contrasting white. I ran my palms over my flat stomach and felt the emptiness behind the unblemished skin. I turned around and looked into the mirror over my shoulder. My buttocks were white and a thin white line ran across my back just under my shoulderblades. My hair had grown and fell over my shoulders. But there was no major difference, no visible sign. I turned to the mirror and put my hands on my breasts, then hugged my shoulders, closing my eyes. But there were no tears.

After my shower, I went for a walk. The map was detailed, with precise notes in my father’s tidy handwriting along the margins and on the back. It outlined the way to the station, the nearby shops and restaurants, Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine. It explained the system for numbering houses and gave some useful phrases in Japanese. It finished with his phone numbers. He had signed it in Swedish, ‘Pappa’. I walked downhill, with no particular destination in mind. The weather was clear, but the light seemed faint, as if filtered through gauze. I walked past the park and on to the shrine. There were people here, families and couples, some tourists, but mostly Japanese visitors, moving unhurriedly, stopping along the gravel road to pose for photographs.

Inside the shrine a procession of young men dressed in white, with black headgear and black clogs, crossed the courtyard and disappeared into one of the buildings. I walked up the stairs to the main shrine, where a few visitors were praying and throwing coins into the wooden container in front of them. I stood in the shade, leaning lightly against the wall, watching. An old lady was right in front of me, her hands raised in prayer, handbag dangling on her arm. A young couple stood further away, a small baby in the father’s arms. I passed the counters selling religious paraphernalia and walked down to the stand with wooden prayer tablets. There must have been hundreds, hanging in layers on a large four-sided structure. Mostly, the scribbled messages were prayers for world peace, health and happiness, good exam results, babies. But some were more personal, some very moving. Some were lighter, funny or flippant, like the one that stated:
I wish that next year I will get to see Naomi in her thong.
I smiled, but I couldn’t think of anything to wish for.

In the evening my father took me to a small restaurant in Shibuya. We decided to walk, as the evening was crisp and clear. In darkness the city was transformed. Where in daylight I had seen awkward modern buildings entangled in cables hanging from concrete pillars, there were now mysterious, dimly lit alleys with paper lanterns swaying lightly in front of half-open doors. The air smelled of cooking; we passed laughing young couples. At the main crossing in Shibuya we stopped and allowed the throng of people to flow past. Bodies drifted by, seamlessly, nobody bumping into anybody else, nobody even brushing against us. We walked on, surrounded on all sides by moving people. Faces, mouths that talked, laughed, exhaled cigarette smoke. Hands gesticulating, smoothing hair, closing over a match flame, holding other hands. So close we should have been able to feel the warmth of the bodies, smell the odours. But we were separate. Separate from the surrounding crowd, and also from each other. Cocooned in conjoined bubbles, bobbing along in the crowd, but not belonging. Together in an alien world, but solitary.

The restaurant was a simple okonomiyake place, hot and smelly. We were each given a bowl containing vegetables and chicken in a mixture of egg and rice flour, which my father showed me how to cook on the hotplate on the table between us. His hands moved expertly, emptying our bowls onto the greased plate, flattening the resulting mounds with a spatula, making two perfect circles. I watched, sipping cold beer. He worked with focus, turning the pancakes with an easy flick of the spatula, sprinkling them with fish flakes and seaweed. I suddenly remembered him teaching me to fish. How he would put up the oars, set me between his legs and let me hold the handle of the fishing rod as he cast, his hand over mine. His hands were soft and always warm. I watched him now, and like an attack of intense physical pain it struck me that my father would never know the man I had loved. He would never know, and this would always separate us.

He suddenly looked up at me, as if alerted. He raised his glass, waited for me to raise mine, then gently let them clink. And the pain faded.

‘Let’s eat,’ was all he said, but his grey eyes lingered on my face for a moment.

I stayed in Tokyo almost a month. Long enough for us to settle into a daily routine. We ate dinner out every night, usually at one of the small restaurants nearby. Some days we met for lunch in town, often at the National Museum of Modern Art, where even in winter we could sit outside on a sunny day. I sometimes took the train into town, usually just to walk the streets and watch people. I went to Asakusa several times, stopping for lunch at the same small restaurant where my father had taken me the first weekend. I would sit on the floor in the dark room, surrounded by Asian artefacts, transported into a world where I had no history and no future.

One day after lunch I walked to the Tokyo Tower. I stood at the base of the mock Eiffel structure and watched the crowds, but I didn’t enter. I strolled on and came by a large Buddhist temple. At the back was a terraced area with hundreds of little stone figures, many dressed in crocheted red hats and bibs and surrounded by colourful pinwheels, teddy bears and dolls. A middle-aged European woman dressed in a heavy sports jacket and walking boots was taking pictures with a long-lens camera. I stood still, watching, and after a little while she lowered her camera and turned to me.

‘Mitzuko,’ she said. ‘It means water child. These are the children who never made the transcendence from water to human life.’ She drew a wide semi-circle in the air, indicating the rows of red-capped stone figures. ‘And this is their protector,’ she said, pointing to a large statue of a man holding a staff in one hand and a baby on the other arm. ‘Jizo, the Buddhist deity who looks after the unborn.’ She looked at me with a shy smile. ‘Sorry, I am sure you know all this. It’s just that it moves me so. All those children. The sadness. And you know, there is no real comfort for them, in spite of Jizo. Ever. The water children play on the shore of the river that runs between this world and the other side. They build towers with pebbles, it’s their penance. Guarded by a monster. For ever. And there is this terrible double guilt. The child having caused the parents such grief by not being born. And the parents having caused the child to be in eternal limbo by not giving it life. Double guilt.’ She looked down, kicking the gravel with the toe of her boot. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and started to put her camera back into its case. She nodded goodbye and left, her steps loud on the path. I walked along the rows of mitzuko, hands in my pockets. The pinwheels whistled softly and the odd crow cawed.

The last weekend before I left, my father and I took the train to Nikko on the Saturday morning. We had booked to stay the night at a traditional Japanese inn. We got off the train in the small town itself, deposited our bags in lockers at the station and wandered uphill to the main temple area. We let ourselves drift with the crowds around us, not ambitious enough to explore anything more closely. A pale sun shone, the air was warm and dry and we removed our jackets. I walked behind my father up the steep stone steps, watching his back. He climbed slowly, panting, stopping every now and then for a little rest, yet somehow not acknowledging the need for a pause. I suddenly saw him as he would look to other people: a man approaching sixty, a little overweight, balding. Well dressed and well kept, polite and private. Was I like him? Would I come to resemble him more and more as I aged? As a child I had wanted to look like my mother, my beautiful, glamorous mother. But I had been told I looked like my father. Now, suddenly, I took comfort from the likeness. It was soothing to realise that the man in front of me was my father. That I was his daughter.

We arrived at the inn in the late afternoon. It was utterly lacking in immediate appeal. The brochures had been absolutely correct, yet at the same time absolutely inaccurate. It was our equating ‘genuinely Japanese’ with ‘charming’ that had misled us. But after our initial disappointment at the large scale of the place and the conference hotel atmosphere, we gradually began to enjoy ourselves. Our room was small and unadorned, but overlooked a peaceful garden with large trees. We installed ourselves and donned the provided yukata robes. We had booked to have a traditional bath before dinner. I found myself alone in the ladies’ baths. I had no idea of the rituals, and was relieved to be left alone to manage as best I could. After washing, I slid naked into the hot water, where I sat on the ledge that ran the length of the pool, my feet floating in front of me. The water was very hot, dark and smelled of sulphur. With my body carried by the hot water, alone in the spacious room, I again felt as if I no longer existed in the real world. As if I had entered a strange space in between life and death.

Later, we were seated in our own small dining room, just the two of us. We knelt by the table side by side, with the waitress emerging now and then through the slit in the curtain, presenting us with the courses one at a time. We talked a little about my father’s work and for the first time he mentioned retirement. He thought he might take early retirement, should the offer come up. Then, suddenly, he looked at me and asked if I had talked to my mother recently. After an awkward pause I told him no. It struck me that he looked disappointed.

After dinner we went up to our room. We rang room service, ordered a beer each and sat on the laid-out futons to drink them. I told him I had decided to leave at the end of the following week. I had confirmed my ticket and would fly to Stockholm on the Friday. I knew he had long since made plans to go to Bali over Christmas, and I thought he might have worried about what to do with me if I stayed on.

He nodded, but said nothing.

We turned off the lights and lay down under our duvets. I lay on my side, looking towards the window. It was still and quiet. When later I turned onto my other side I saw my father’s back, the duvet pulled up so that only the top of his head was visible. His breathing was light, but occasionally there was a slight pause, a hiccup in the flow of air. I turned onto my back, and I was suddenly overcome by such sadness. A gentle, unspecific sadness, not the raw physical pain of before. I rolled over on my side and curled up. And for the first time since I had left Auckland I cried.

In the morning we checked out after breakfast and went to see the waterfalls before taking the train back to Tokyo.

On the last morning I packed, showered and dressed. I had brought a small piece of carved greenstone from New Zealand for my father and I went into his bedroom to leave it on his bedside table. As I put it down, I noticed a copy of my book sitting underneath a couple of business magazines. I picked it up, weighing it in my hands. It was worn and tattered, as if having been read and reread, thumbed and carried around. I opened it and looked at the inscription.
To my father, my fellow traveller.
I put it back, and set the small pouch with the greenstone on top.

My father had tried to insist on driving me to the airport but I had refused. The compromise was that he was coming back from the office to drive me to the bus station. I stood ready, looking out the window, watching him drive up to the front door of the building, and I was just closing the door to the apartment when he stepped out of the lift to take my bag. We had agreed to allow time for lunch after checking my luggage in at the bus depot. We sat at a small table up against a glass wall, with an atrium space on the other side. Light through a glass dome high above illuminated an arrangement of smooth granite stones and tall grass. We ordered champagne and orange juice and sat sipping, as we waited for our food.

‘I wish . . .’ he began, but the sentence was left unfinished and he looked through the glass and out over the stones. Then he cleared his throat and started again. ‘Let me know if you need anything.’ Just then the waitress arrived with our food and we started to eat.

I convinced him to leave before the bus arrived. We said goodbye in the hotel lobby. He embraced me, then let his hand slide down my arm and take hold of my hand. He gave it a small squeeze, then abruptly let go. He turned once to wave, before disappearing around a corner.

I flew to Stockholm, still not knowing where I was going.

They drove home in the afternoon heat and agreed that the idea of a swim seemed a good one. After a quick change they got back in the car and left for the lake.

This time there were two cars parked at the end of the road, and they found a group of teenagers noisily splashing in the water and chasing one another on the sand. Still, once they sat down, there seemed to be enough space to allow almost complete privacy.

Astrid smiled a tight-lipped smile and removed her blouse and skirt. She stood awkwardly, showing none of her earlier confidence. The gaudy swimsuit sat uncomfortably with the expression of uncertainty, even fear, on the old woman’s face. Veronika dropped her shorts and stretched out her hand.

‘Come, let’s get in the water,’ she said, and pulled Astrid along. They waded into the smooth, dark lake, their steps a little wobbly as they crossed the strip of pebbles before reaching the soft sand further out.

‘It’s all about breathing,’ Veronika said. ‘It’s often about the simple things, isn’t it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.’ She scooped water into her hands and splashed her face. ‘And swimming is about breathing. Remember to breathe.’ She sank her knees, so that only her head and the tops of her shoulders were visible, and beckoned to Astrid to do the same. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’