Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan (4 page)

Sex museum could be fun
, said Lars, after a pause where I could almost hear him looking up other pictures to see if it was worth it.
But too far away. Cormac’s teaching English twice a week now. We could do the Grand Moulin?

Heard it was demolished.

It had been beautiful; a hotel built three stories high and decorated like New Orleans, balconies like lacework and the floors hardwood under the peeling brocade carpet. Moss had grown on it in patches, and the gold-stamped wallpaper was peeling in wide coils like doll’s hair. There were still some desk chairs in rooms on the third floor, and you could sit and look out at the treetops and understand exactly what had happened with a hotel set so far back in the woods it felt like you were the only living soul for a hundred miles. The birds had come back, and after a few hours I saw a rabbit race from the front door into the cover of trees. They said the owner killed himself and that’s why it was empty, but no ghosts moved, there or anywhere.

I’d driven back over when I heard it was demolished, to see if it was true. Sometimes people see one fallen wing and assume the whole building is unstable, or someone will say a place is gone just to discourage others from going, you never know. But it had been eaten, a crater among the trees with a few piles of brick and lacework still waiting to be carted away. There were no birds nearby; there wouldn’t be.

:( Too bad. What about a love hotel?

With Eddie?

Lolol. He’s fine. We should try Yui.

Yui was where the murder happened. Supposedly. That room is scorched out down to the beams. Some explorers said her ghost burned it down, and the story stuck. You can’t keep explorers out of there, now, and Lars’s forum has a whole section dedicated to it with photos of the red handprints that half of them swear are paint and the other half swear are blood.

Maybe. See what Cormac says.

Cormac said the Fuurin motel was closer, and so that’s where we went. I pulled my mask up and pretended the rubber seal made it hard to talk, and halfheartedly took pictures as Cormac and Lars dared one another to get aerial shots from the roof.

I stood for a while in the Japan room, which looked like a set from a Bond movie right down to the TV in one corner, like what I remembered Japan looking like even after I had been home to meet my grandparents as a kid, before that half-memory space filled up enough for me to reconcile it.

From the medieval Europe room, Eddie and Cormac were taking turns getting their pictures with the suit of armor. There was a spider on the wall beside them. They hadn’t seen it; it was as big across as my hand and utterly still except when Eddie laughed, and then it raised one leg, as if deciding whether or not to strike.

Watch out,
I almost said, or
Behind you,
but even if they listened they’d probably just kill it. Take nothing but photographs, kill nothing but insects.

Some of the roof had fallen in, but it wasn’t yet decay, just neglect. The garden courtyard outside the Japanese room hadn’t yet been overtaken by the plants. It was one good cleanup away from being usable again, and seemed to be clinging to its chances; the sort of place that hasn’t yet gone quiet the way it needs to for me to be happy in it.

I looked over my shoulder. On every wall that was still whole, spiders, holding perfectly still.

It was almost a week before I could get the time to rent a car and go back to Greenland. By now the spine of the coaster didn’t even give me the thrill of having found it. I was just relieved it was still there, and I was the only living thing in it.

The body was breathing. I took two steps back before I did the math and remembered it was about time for the second round of insects inside him. (Or the first round, if he had been preserved before he got here. Nearly anything could disrupt decay. The more research I did the more I thought something had to be wrong with this body.) They must have been inside the stomach cavity, making homes for themselves; his lower chest shifted in and out an inch at a time.

The postcard was back in his pocket. Nothing else was written on the back. I had expected another line, some dialogue or a strikethrough when the message was received, but the only sign it had been touched was that one corner had snagged on the pocket and folded when they slid it back in. I took pictures, just to compare later. There was a dot of black marker on the front, and I couldn’t remember if it had been there before. It would probably be enough for whoever came back.

And they would come back. The only one of them who had respected the quiet was the dead man, whose wrists sometimes stretched as if there was still a pulse beneath them, thanks to the worms and the ants. He was an abandoned hotel, an empty place; he understood. It was the others who didn’t. The people who made the place had decided this place un-existed, and they had deliberately left it behind. It was cruel of them to interrupt it.

I wrote, “This place isn’t safe” on the back of the postcard, my kanji unsteady (just as well, if you’re trying to look terrified). I walked out backwards, used a branch behind me to cover the worst of my footsteps. There weren’t many. I was learning.

Inside the Ferris wheel car, hidden by brush and with a missing door in case I had to run for it, I wrapped myself in the emergency blanket I kept in my rucksack. It was cold, and it was only going to get colder, but I wanted to wait, and condensation on your eyes looked pretty enough, if you died.

They would come overnight—tonight, maybe, or the night after. They’d see the note and take him away, with the insects burrowed warmly inside him. When I came back out into the park, tomorrow morning or the morning after, there would be only the Ferris wheel behind me and the carousel horses ahead, and the kind of quiet that would slowly become birds.

When I reached to turn off my phone, Lars had sent a message:
Back to Dreamland? An overnight. Eddie’s asking.

Sure. Tonight. Meet you there.

I should call the police, I thought. All three of them should be arrested. Leave that place alone.

Greenland was beautiful in the dark. The rollercoaster snaked against the stars, and the curtain mist settled over everything along the ground. If they came to get the body, I wouldn’t even see it. If they came looking for me, I wouldn’t know until it was too late. If it was other explorers who had taken the card and put it back in a fit of conscience, then it would serve them right to piss themselves and get on a plane back home.

If there was no one, and it was just the corpse and me and some card that had gone missing and come back all by itself, I’d be waiting a long time. That was all right. It was quiet here. It was neither one place nor another, until somebody came.

A spider crawled across my shoe; then it stopped, perfectly still.

I can hear the sound of a future that never arrives.

Music from strings that are not here, from a bow that is not here. Vibrato, pizzicato, harmonics—at this moment, I am a performer, and at the same time just a listener. From scale to scale, I drift, I dive, I swim, through the sea, through the shoals of interwoven airborne sound.

That would be the music I would be playing. In a future that has been shut off.

And so, I think, this must be a dream.

The note I hear at this moment is just the tiniest bit off-pitch. A little flat, the tone turning darker. Wait … no, it was deliberate!

I open my eyes, ever so slightly. This should be a direct flight to Tokyo. I am on my way home from attending a performance competition that one of my students entered.

But what is going on now?

The airplane is shaking, and a young man is playing the violin, passionately. I cannot name the tune, in part because of his bold interpretation. It is the violin part of the Sibelius concerto.

Some of the cabin’s portholes are hung with yellow curtains. The upholstery of the seats matches the red of the carpet. But the carpet is soiled with black stains, holes, and scorch marks Someone’s old suitcase is rattling. The metal of the armrests is rough on the elbows. Water drips from the ceiling onto my shoulder. I feel something strange, and reflexively I check my cello case. Whew, it’s there. I take out my cell phone, but then I remember I am in an airplane.

I pick up the menu. All I can make out on the faded blue paper is burns, and something like cognac ads or something.

I feel chilly, but I can’t find any blankets. I hear the calm voices of other passengers, and a violin’s accelerando. It is a strange sensation, out of place in an airplane.

Someone is standing in the aisle, speaking to me: “Old man, you are very lucky.”

I don’t understand right away. I think he might be speaking French, and I stammer out,
“
Pour quoi?”

And the man responds: “Sky Spider. You can hear his performance.”

“Who are you talking about?”

The man points his chin at the young man playing the violin, and then turns back to me.

“And you are … ?”

“Takaido.”

“Chinois?”

Japanese is the pat answer. The man has very masculine features. He is buff, like someone who’s into sports. Asked his name, he replies simply, “Cerdan.”

Wine is served. I choose white.

The attendant pours into a short glass, mutters something respectful, and moves on. Her blond hair is tied up and covered with a pillbox cap. My glass is yawing precariously, and I down the contents in one gulp.

The young man, Sky Spider, continues his performance.

His movements are awkward, but his sound is refined, meticulous even. I wonder who taught him. His technique is old-fashioned, but the effect is very powerful. I feel as if, within the melody, I can hear something like an unquenchable thirst.

The young man is unlike any pupil I have ever taught. Unconsciously, I begin to lean forward. Cerdan addresses me once again: “Jump in,” he says.

Jump in where, I wonder. I wonder if I have heard him correctly, and I do not answer immediately. He looks irritated, and he points to the cello case beside me.

“You play too, don’t you?”

“Not really,” I stammer.

Several passengers turn to face me, expectantly. I feel a pain in my chest. The young man smiles wanly, and launches into the next piece. Another Sibelius. This time the Canon.

Subtitle: For Violin and Cello.

My gaze meets the young man’s. The lightbulb in my head switches on. I open the cello case, and start to rosin the bow. As long as there is no problem with the left hand, the pitches will match. We can play a few bars, and then everyone will understand.

It happened when I was 21.

I am a performer, not a teacher. And I have confidence. At some point in the future, I will have the sound of my dreams. But that future will never come. I will have a car accident, and I will injure the tendons of my right hand. I will move to protect my instrument, and lose something even more vital. This is what the doctor will say: “There will be some aftereffects, but you will have no problems with your everyday life.”

Nearly a half-century has now passed. I stopped performing, and chose the path of nurturing the next generation.

My yearning is still with me.

And that is why I am still carrying this regret, to the point of buying two tickets.

How horrible will it be to die, still carrying this future that might have been?

The expression on my face must be awful enough. A young woman looks my way, and tells me, “Everything will be fine.” I feel like I have seen her face somewhere before. But that is not possible. In no way am I fine.

The violin runs up, and I play my first note, emphatically.

That is when it happens:

The feel of the bow hits me. It is a feeling I can never forget, no matter how long it has been. No matter how often I try, each time, it drops from my hand. That thing that I had finally “got,” that runs the length of the bow, from grip to tip. That feeling in my hand when I am playing the cello properly. The high I feel when my hands are in complete harmony.

Like the slow gathering of the tide, I can feel the healing of my deep wounds. Am I able to perform again, as I thought I never would? Or …

The violin carries the melody, and I follow, and then pass it back. Sky Spider’s lips move, just a bit. Oddly, I am able to understand what he is saying. I am certain that this is what he says:

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

This is exactly what I am also thinking. Not just because it is my turn with the melody. We have each found a partner who understands us, and for the first time, harmony comes to life. We play, and over and over we return to the beginning. Here is a young man with whom I have never exchanged a word, but I am experiencing sympathetic resonance, as if I have a tuning fork inside.

What is happening here?

As I play, I look around the plane.

The plane is still shaking, but no longer can I hear the roar of the jets. Many of the passengers are dressed rather formally for the flight. One has a cigarette, relishing every puff. His clothing is dazzlingly colorful, jangly, like a black-and-white film that has been colorized. A female passenger waves. She wears a skirt with a wide hem, her hair has a soft wave, and she wears high heels. Seeing her, I remember a certain story.

There is a ridiculous urban legend musicians tell. With all their flying around, sooner or later anybody might end up wandering onto a “Ghost Ship,” or so the story goes. And when that happens, such a passenger might hear a violin with a sound like the nectar of the gods. Some such passengers might be able to take that sound home with them. And some might be possessed, or even go mad.

That is the story a student of mine told me. I chided her.
Instead of dreaming, move your hands some more,
I said. At the time, she was my best student.

“Really?” she asked. “Don’t you think you’d like to try and see for yourself?”

I thought this response was brilliant. But on the forced march of a concert tour she suffered a miscarriage. Things between her and her husband soured, and at some point she put music behind her.

I think about this often. What is the life of a musician?

A ghost ship.

Something that should never be.

What then is this scene before my eyes? The truth is communicating with my right hand, I can feel the bow.

There is just one face I recognize. Who is he? Oh, that’s right, a man I often see at concerts. Did he too wander aboard here just like me?

I look behind me. There should be an aisle leading to the rear cabin, but instead, I see nothing, as if clouds have enshrouded my head. Is that the path to the real world? Or … ?

A cold something runs up my spine.

Sky Spider suddenly plays more vigorously: Johan Halvorsen’s
Passacaglia on a Theme by Handel.
The piece was originally written for violin and viola, but there is also a version for violin and cello. It is a difficult piece, but nothing to be afraid of.

A short way into the piece, there is a passage where the cello carries the theme. It is a slow, beautiful piece of music, but it gets much more difficult as it goes along. Up-tempo arpeggios are followed by pizzicato on the cello, and then legato, in a repeating pattern. For the violin, it is the reverse. The development strains the players’ nerves. Even so, it is a piece I could go on playing forever.

Across the aisle, Cerdan is swaying.

A passacaglia is actually a dance piece, so this is not an inappropriate response.

The two of us negotiate a passage with double triplets, and move into the marcato section. I match my breathing to the young man’s, and he his to mine.

The woman who told me “Everything will be fine” looks back and forth, from Sky Spider to me, with affection. There follows a section with a number of sixteenth notes that can only be described as sadistic, followed by two measures in adagio, and then the piece is at an end. The young man extends his hand to shake mine, and says, “That was fun. Between the near shore and the far shore, the passing of years can be a lonely thing …”

I hug the young man, and pat him on the back. At the same time, my eyes are drawn to the young man’s violin. The very head of it, the scroll has a distinctive line. Unmistakable.

His violin is a Stradivarius.

“Who is your teacher?” I ask. “Must be someone famous …”

The young man does not answer.

Instead, the woman who had been watching us stands up.

“It can’t be,” I say, under my breath. “It can’t be.”

It is not that I knew her from somewhere—she is someone
any
string player would know. She has a gentle smile, and that is her disguise. I know her by the grimace she generally shows when performing. Her eyes, though, exuding quiet determination, are the same.

Ginette Neveu.

A face any string player should recognize. The violinist of the century, recognized as a teenager as a genius. Which makes it all the more surprising to see her here now.

She had died young, at the age of thirty.

She and her beloved Stradivarius were on an Air France flight from Paris to America, and it had crashed in the Azores, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Finally I understand what this place is.

All the passengers in their outdated outfits. The burned carpet, the musician who does not belong.

This is that 1949 Air France flight.

Several passengers approach, their hands extended in greeting.

I decide to sit down in the seat of one of these passengers, so I can hear what Sky Spider has to say.

He is fourteen, and is studying with Neveu. He wants to know what to learn next, what to learn after that, staring at me the whole time as he speaks. He seems sincerely desperate to play in larger ensembles. Duos just don’t do it for him.

I was unaware that Neveu had had a pupil before her accident. Somehow, though, seeing this young man’s talent, I understand.

I feel gentle waves, the after-echoes of the performance. Like after swimming in the sea.

If this is a dream, I do not wish to wake up. That is my true, unvarnished feeling.

I ask him to show me his violin. The old varnish feels soft, familiar. I play a scale on the A string. It has a surpassing, brilliant tone.

A Stradivarius—
Neveu’s
Stradivarius—must be worth at least ten million.

I reel off one phrase after another. Because I yearn, I listen to the music, and I listen to the music, and I yearn some more. I should be more restrained with this vibrato. Here is a quadruple stop, and in my imagination, I want to emphasize the empty fifth. But just because I want to doesn’t mean I can. I can say this because it’s as if I’m standing beside myself, looking at myself.

But there is no way of knowing!

And that is when it happens. Someone, or something, snatches the violin from my hands.

It is the passenger who wandered onto the flight at the same time as me. Before I can stop him he runs down the aisle toward the rear of the plane, into the haze. He had been thinking about stealing the violin ever since he got on board.

Give me back my sound!

I am surprised to realize I still have this much ego left. It is funny to be fighting over the same violin. I cannot stop him. I get up from my seat, and go after him. Cerdan taps me on the shoulder.

“It’s all right.”

“But …”

Just as I think he has gotten away, I hear a startled cry. It seems the man fell to the floor. But that isn’t it. He has
evaporated.
Simply crumpled, like a freeze-dried rose, turned to dust in an instant, leaving only his clothing, and the violin, behind. I run to the spot where he had just been.

All that is left of him is like cotton candy, wisping away at the slightest touch. Something protrudes from the breast pocket of his clothing. I pluck it away. It is an air ticket, and the flight number is the one I am supposed to be on. This is no longer just some story happening to someone else.