Hidden Nexus (3 page)

Thur
sday 30th December 6:43am

With a hand, cold, white and shak
ing Hideki Yamada tugged at the chord that hung from the main light in what he unhappily considered to be his undersized
front room. The light flickered slowly into action – five small
fluorescent discs surrounding a larger central one. He then pulled the light chord a further time, releasing the centre disc from its duty and the luminosity, no longer harsh and bright, allowed his eyes to gently and gradually adjust to their surroundings. The room was still freezing cold. He’d not yet put on the heater. It was the second thing he did. Lastly he turned on the TV using the remote.

As usual he’d been the first to rise and as ever he didn’t appreciate having to leave the warmth of his bed with the warmth of his duvet wrapped around him and if he was lucky, which he usually wasn’t, the warmth of his wife Eri, also wrapped around him. His feet, so quick to lose their heat, scampered across the cold wooden floor.

As routine dictated he and Eri had thirty frantic minutes or so to wash, dress, prepare and eat breakfast before they went their separate ways for the day.

There was no logic to his process. Quite why he ran through the house in his bare feet, he didn’t know. Quite why he prepared breakfast first before he dressed, he didn’t know. Breakfast first – it was what he did. He placed the thick
shokupan
(white sliced bread) under the oven toaster and arranged a selection of jams on the small circular tray along with a couple of plates and knives.

Unlike most men of by-gone generations he wasn't so clingingly traditional in his attitude towards involving himself in the daily chores that he wasn’t above all this. His father, by contrast, wouldn’t have been seen dead preparing breakfast for his wife but Hideki was made of more modern DNA. Anyway it was the little things, the little moments of consideration, that he hoped she would appreciate.

Not that she seemed to notice much now-a-days.

It wasn’t exactly haute cuisine but he was doing his bit. With a pot of ‘English Breakfast’ tea brewing, courtesy of Twinnings and purchased at some expense from the International Food Store within the basement floor of Yokohama Sogo, he sat down beneath the
kotatsu,
not before plugging it in so that its under-tabletop heater gradually began to emanate a pleasing warmth – a warmth that was captured by the huge thick blanket that was also neatly wedged between the removable table top and the heater.

He was sat, now happily warm again, when Eri joined him at the table. She had already dressed and looked stunning as usual.

He didn’t really notice.

He never really noticed!

They rarely noticed each other.

The daily news was being precisely explained by the austere presenter. Nothing much was going on - or so he thought. There were the typical political manoeuvrings that he wasn’t remotely interested in and the usual, depressing economic update. He left it on but he didn’t pay much attention. It modestly took its place, relegated to providing a background noise to break the oppression that silence could sometimes bring. On the best of days it could be said that he wasn’t a morning person. He wasn’t one for early gusto – and neither was Eri. Most things tended to pass them both by until at least ten o’clock. They munched through their toast in a thoughtless, vacant silence - a vacuum surrounded by indifference.

He eventually began to mull over several concerns he had about a meeting that he was to attend later that day, the content of which had caused him no little stress during the night. There were quite a few things that served to bring him stress during the night – work and money being the most central, particularly money.

Particularly money!

But it was
work
that had got the better of him this time in the small hours. He was certain to be quizzed about the figures that he was presenting and a nagging feeling persisted that told him that he didn’t have the numbers down to pat. He’d woken around two o’clock with the figures twirling around his mind – all except one. There was one number that he just couldn’t recall, no matter how hard he tried. The abacus in his head just didn't seem to be working. It was sure to be his undoing!

Looking back he would regret this moment and similar moments like it. Looking back he would have wished that he had said so much more. What did meetings matter? What did the numbers matter?

Perhaps everything!

So what if he was a little stressed. Later he would wish that he had more openly shown his love. Instead he sat in silence, albeit a semi-contented silence, munched his toast and watched the news that he wasn’t really interested in.

Eri also sat cocooned within her usual early morning silence but she
had
been watching the news. Initially this had been from within a mantle of sleepy detachment
but she soon jolted to attention when the name
Noboru
Nakasone had been unexpectedly mentioned.

According to the sultry news report
the head office of Yokohama Black Panther, a national logistics company, had been partially destroyed in a gas explosion late the previous night and Noboru Nakasone, Chief Executive, had been caught in the blast. He’d been rushed to hospital but had later died due to his injuries. These rudimentary events were recounted in a matter-of-fact sort of way by the announcer and to the country at large it would be an item of news that would be nothing more than a postscript to their morning. Nobody really cared, save perhaps those commuters who would have their tiresome journey to work made even more tiresome by diversions and repair works.

Not so Eri Yamada.

A couple of months back, she too, may not have cared. She cared now!

She frantically re-ran the conversation that she’d had just two weeks
before with a man she hoped she would never have the pleasure, if that was the word, to meet again. The conversation, casual at first, aggressive second and then business-like third had abruptly taken a much more severe turn. She’d suddenly seen within this man’s eye an individual who was quite capable of extreme violence and in that moment she had frantically wanted to rewind the conversation they'd just had and disregard it all together. The problem was the die had already been cast.

When she’d first been instructed by her boss to attend a meeting in Hinodecho she’d raised her eyebrows. The name of the meeting place, ‘The Millennium Amore Hotel’, had also caused her to have a suspicion or two and on arriving at the address her reservations had been resoundingly complete.

In Hinodecho the chances were that almost all the buildings would be, in some way, linked to the business of love, or sex which would be a more truthful description, and the
non-descript
building she’d patiently waited outside, w
ith her coat wrapped tightly around her to prevent the sub-zero air from reaching right down into her bones, was typical of its kind.
It was a sheer, black windowless affair and a carbon copy of its brothers that sat either side. It hadn’t been a meeting she'd been looking forward to and even less so when she’d
confirmed
exactly where the meeting was due to take place.

‘
This is a love hotel!’ she’d exclaimed to the man who'd eventually greeted her.

‘True.’

‘What are we doing
here
?’

‘We run the place – that’s why. You have a problem?’

She’d merely sniffed and had looked down her cold nose at him - a look that quite clearly indicated what it had meant to – ‘
You dirty little man!
’

He'd simply shrugged his shoulders.

It had been an inauspicious start.
Quite obviously
neither love nor sex had been on her mind and even if it had been, it wasn’t the kind of place that even at her most passionate she’d ever had the occasion to consider. Love hotels were simply not something discussed in polite society nor by those lucky people who lived in houses with walls thicker than the usual paper – of which she was one.

These hotels,
having been around in one form or another for over a century or more, varied from the pedestrian to the incredible and
offered a discrete and distracting service for young couples who, typically living within the confines of the extended family, wished for a little more privacy. Due to their often gaudy, blatantly obvious name, love hotels were part of a ‘hidden’ Japan for many Japanese and whilst not totally inaccessible like the
 ‘
flower and willow world’
of Kyoto’s Geisha district and being relatively comprehensible unlike the tea ceremony
,
which required
years of study, there were none-the-less a set of cultural barriers that made love hotels difficult to enjoy for those not aware of the protocol or who found their brashness too hard to negotiate.

However, due to the often delicate personal circumstances of a typical guest their design reflected a focus on privacy and discretion. It had been, in all honesty, the perfect place for a secret, clandestine meeting. Consequently, she and her 'companion' had ‘checked in’ without a sole seeing them. The man had simply punched in a few numbers at a key pad which had then automatically opened the main door to the building.

Sadly she could easily recall the room in all its intimate, gaudy detail.
There had been negligees, hair products, face creams, toothbrushes and bathroom necessities all laid out on the bed in front of her. A stack of condoms had also been all too evident by the bedside. There had been no décor as such - only mirrors on the ceiling and walls and
n
o more than a pane of glass separated the bedroom from the bathroom. She'd needed the toilet but had absolutely no desire to go in such public view.

It had made her feel sick and yet she had remained loyal to her task despite the feelings of disquiet that had rapidly grown within her.

‘I still don’t understand?’

‘It’s just a room, get over it. Nothing is going to happen. I was told ‘be secret’ and this is secret.’

‘You stupid little man!’

She'd sensed him bristle at this rebuke, had noticed the muscles quickly tense in his arms and had wondered, even then, if his first reaction would usually have been a violent one. She wasn’t to know what he’d really been really thinking. ‘
I’ll take her later on,
’ had been his main plan in mind.

At the time she'd remained ignorant.

‘It was for your benefit, not mine. What do I care for secrecy,’ he'd replied tersely.

Eri had remained unmoved by this assertion. In fact there'd been nothing about the
squat, ugly looking man with a mass of curly hair and wispy, black moustache that had made her feel inclined to believe anything he said.

‘Idiot!’ she'd said again.