Tokio Whip

PART ONE (A)

THE YAMANOTE

Chapter 1

KANDA–TOKYO

Lang hadn’t wanted to come to Tokyo; but once he got here – well.

we began walking somewhere around sunset

– Hey! This building wasn’t here yesterday.

across the city

– Say it again: the two most beautiful words: sunset, –

to Shinjuku and Roberta’s party around Midnight

– Better lost in Tokyo than found in any other city.

and then further west, talking our way

into the

Sun-

r

i

s

e

!

***

Rich and strange, strange and rich, Marianne muses, and once more rich and strange. Oh, Tokyo, damn you! Where am I? Here, yes, and one more step – there. Now I’m here, now there. Rich and strange you are, Marianne, a here and there myself. Bless you, Tokyo. Walking in step like a waking dream. A girl in her dreams talking to herself.

***

–Oh, comeon, it’s not modern at all, all this brick, that wood. And look at those dives right under the tracks, that yakuza-type over there eyeing me – what a racket!

–Still, if we can stay steady –

–As she goes!

–On yer feet!

–Aye aye, Sir!

–Tokyo Station should be just ahead.

But Hiromi does not stay steady, thinks a detour will help, and though the tracks are generally still in sight, she and her friends have lost their way. She stares in the window of a shop selling medical equipment – all of it made of glass.

–Orange Card, IO card, and why SF Metro card? – this isn’t San Francisco.

–And mine’s all run out, now it really looks like we have to walk.

–Well, try to enjoy yourself, Dear.

–Eh?

–That’s what my Granny used to tell me every morning when I left for school.

–Let’s see, she says, as she finds the page in her compact Tokyo map-book. This must be that real old bridge; homeless people sleeping there now around all these banks. My city!

–And mine!

–Mine too!

***

Tanizaki’s Dream: Orderly thoroughfares, shining, newly-paved streets, a flood of cars, blocks of flats rising floor upon floor, level on level in geometric beauty, and threading through the city elevated lines, subways, street cars. (But see also Tanizaki on Asakusa: Its constant and peerless richness preserved even as it furiously changes in nature and in its ingredients, swelling and clashing in confusion and then fusing into harmony.)

***

Van Zandt is himself, that is, as he is now, though in the dream he is back in high school in Amsterdam, where he sees a classmate, Jenny, blonde and thin, whom he wishes he were not too shy to approach. (VZ often has this dream, and it is the one he hates most, because it reminds him of that long period that no one would ever guess now when he was shy and inarticulate, and rarely spoke to a female.) He sees the school auditorium; it is the night of the senior prom (and this scene looks as if it were taken from an American teenage genre film ((VZ in fact never attended any such dance; in fact, had never even known of the thing till he saw Carrie.)) ) The prom goes on, people dancing, and Van Zandt feels lonely. Then all the girls are told to get on stage. It’s time for boy’s choice, instead of the usual ladies’ choice. VZ asks Jenny to dance. They walk away (however much one would think the occasion demanded a dance). She takes his hand. They walk out of the auditorium and in the dark alley she stops and kisses him. He is surprised. They are walking through Akitsu, in Kiyose, in northeastern Tokyo, just there at the border with Saitama Prefecture. There are white box houses with pink motorcycles for Mom and that always mean the suburbs. The suburbs, a Frankenstein for the 1990s, with the rent of a 4LDK two-thirds of a 1LDK just west of the Yamanote. On a wall someone has spray painted the title of a favorite song "kimi ni mune kyun kyun by YMO. There is much greenery, a clear stream – he sees fish in it as he peers from Maebara Bridge. And then in the dream where he sees the long rows of houses that look like military barracks (did he live in one once, see them in a home movie? ((these are private plots)) ), he sees a map made of books, and in a park public art the likes of which one does not usually see in Tokio: a Peace Monument (Showa 49), abstract, steps, two monoliths almost meeting as if hands closed in prayer. VZ and Jenny go to the house of some friends. They are no longer in high-school, but as they are now – or as he is and she as how he dreams of a girl whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years. Jenny takes him into a corner and kisses him, forcefully, deeply. Her hand reaches down and grabs his crotch. Then Van Zandt is walking swiftly, muttering to himself, How could this happen? How could my trip be so suddenly cancelled? It is another city, another time. He walks into his home; the entire family is there, but everyone is busy and so they ignore him. (Throughout this last scene his siblings are as they are now, and all scurrying about the room.) VZ’s mother appears. Her hair is cut very short (like Falconetti’s, but that’s where any resemblance ends). She rushes up to her son, sobbing, Why do they all say I’m guilty? What have I done? I’m not guilty. I swear. You believe me, don’t you?" And then VZ awakes.

In the background of VZ’s dream, as in the following dream, he hears the black death lyrics of Howlin’ Wolf: Smokestack Lightnin’ shines like gold / I found my baby layin’ on the cooling board // Don’t you hear me talkin’ Pretty Mama // Don’t the hearse look lonesome rollin’ ’fore your door / She’s gone – oowhoo – won’t be back no more.

In Kazuo’s dream he is walking in Akitsu, turns, and there is a valley, and a river below. A group of people are happily swimming, gamboling. They are all strong swimmers, and the image is an almost ideal one of human physical grace. There are some steps, a large rock, a bridge down-river. It is a short, idyllic dream. And then Kazuo wakes.

***

Kazuyoshi Miura: Murder in the Media

With very few exceptions – most notably the Abe Sada story of 1936, known to most people through Nagisa Oshima’s film In the Realm of the Senses (1976), and the Imperial Bank Robbery of 1948 – murder in Twentieth Century Tokyo has been an unexciting affair. In recent years there have been the usual sushi-knife slashings, the occasional dismembered body parts (in one case, in thirty-four separate bags just around the corner from the author’s home), and the fortunately more rare true horror story (infanticide, cannibalism). One pop star (idol) did throw herself off of a building – to include suicide for a moment – after being jilted by another singer; that may have been romantic of her, but the jilter himself was so uninteresting, so predictably cute, hardly worth the adolescent gesture. Even with the brief wave of copycats, that story too soon lost public interest. A much more talented singer, Yutaka Ozaki, took a few pills too many one night mixed with too much alcohol and was found in the street next day near his home – no, contemporary murder has little glamour and less imagination these days in Tokyo.

Perhaps the most interesting modern murder was that of Kazumi Miura, a murder that was allegedly set up by her husband Kazuyoshi. While having some interesting complications, the case is especially compelling for the huge role the media played in it – or roles, for it has doted on Kazuyoshi Miura as much as he has courted it; it has also been attacked by him in court; and eventually it was the media – or one of its representatives – that cracked the case open. The story of Kazuyoshi Miura is a particularly relevant tale for our times.

Los Angeles, November 18, 1981. The clothes importer Kazuyoshi Miura, age 34, and his wife of two years, Kazumi, 28, are on their second honeymoon in Los Angeles. (The Miura’s have a young daughter.) While taking photos in a parking lot – Miura will claim he just happened to spot a possible advertising location – Kazumi is robbed and shot in the head, and her husband in the leg. Kazumi falls into a permanent coma, and two months later returns to Japan. Within a year of the shooting she dies. Despite some suspicions, the Los Angeles Police Department is helpless – no evidence, no suspects.

On March 31, 1994, Miura, by now 46, is sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to murder his wife. He is so judged on circumstantial evidence, the judge saying that it is logical to assume that Miura was the mastermind behind the death of Kazumi. The judge describes Miura as being selfish and cold-blooded, a man who has shown no signs of remorse over the death of his wife.

The murder plot was simple enough; Miura is said to have hired an employee to do the job, including shooting Miura himself. Miura’s testimony however was shot through with holes (if we may be pardoned the expression). To take only one important example: Miura claimed that the assailants fled in a green car; witnesses of the scene – though not of the murder – saw only a white van. The suspected assailant had hired a white van the day before the murder.

Miura is also believed to have made two other attempts on Kazumi’s life before his final success. Three months earlier in Los Angeles, Miura had asked a former mistress and porno actress to kill Kazumi in Tokyo in August 1981 by bludgeoning her with a hammer. The actress did so, but Kazumi recovered. He is also supposed to have asked two former employees to kill Kazumi.

With Kazumi’s death, Miura collected one hundred-fifty million yen in insurance money.

Apart from the details, Kazumi Miura, sadly, is lost in the story. The murder was one thing; the follow-up was another.

Crimes involving Japanese abroad are big news in Japan. While still in Los Angeles, Miura was holding interviews with the press from his hospital bed. He was an immediate media favorite and national hero for the fortitude with which he bore his pain and loss. Like a good Japanese, he even sent letters to President Ronald Reagan, the Governor of California, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the U. S. Ambassador to Japan decrying the violence of the American way of life. He even had photos of his daughter distributed, bearing the caption, Give Me My Mommy Back!.

For two years Miura was off scot-free (and rich). In the autumn of 1983, thanks to a tip concerning the insurance payment, a team of reporters from the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun began to investigate him. The following January it ran a series of articles detailing Miura’s past, which included: three marriages; seven years in prison for more than one hundred petty robberies; assorted other crimes (arson, assault, possession of a sword); and the story of a former employee and lover who had suddenly disappeared after having received 4.3 million yen in a divorce settlement. (The money had been taken out of her account shortly after she had left the job in March 1979; her body was later found in May 1979 in Los Angeles).

The police reopened the case.

The articles were called Bullets of Suspicion. Miura responded with a book called Bullets of Information. From then on there was no let up. Articles and interviews flowed back and forth. Miura courted as much as he evaded the media. It was a mutual affair. He was said to have charged anywhere from five to fifty million yen per interview. He signed an exclusive contract with one television network to film his latest marriage – he was engaged within six months of Kazumi’s death – in Bali in April 1985. He even played himself in a movie. As one Los Angeles detective remarked, Miura was pouring gasoline on the fire.

Finally in September 1985 Miura and the porno actress/would-be murderess were arrested for the August 1981 murder attempt. The arrest was broadcast live on television. (As many arrests are in Japan, the police tipping the media off shortly before.) The woman confessed. (She received two-and-one-half years.) In May 1987 Miura was finally sentenced to six years. In October 1988, after further investigations by the LAPD, Miura was charged in Tokyo with the murder of Kazumi. (So too was his accomplice, the man in the white van who did the actual shooting. He was eventually acquitted for insufficient evidence.) Now the Miura-media tug-of-war grew in fury. He began to sue newspapers and magazines for libel. And not only did he defend himself, he usually won. He even sued one paper for writing that he sued too often! By summer 1994 he was involved in 230 different suits. Of the first hundred cases, of which he won seventy, he was awarded more than thirty-three million yen in damages.

Unrepentant and litigious to the end, Miura blames all his misfortunes on the very media whose willing darling for a time he was.

***

Yes, I believe it’s perfectly alright if he loves the city as he says he does. Who am I to doubt him, or to deny him? No love can be judged. I can’t agree with Roberta, for example, who simply calls him mad. But then perhaps she is intending a pun. I don’t know, but in this case I do doubt. No, I only wonder what the nature of his love is (again, without in any way judging it). It can, after all, be as rough a city as it can be a tender one. And we know that while he usually treats us all rather fairly – I really have few complaints, and most of those small – he can, well, have his moods. But can his love match the city, then? Can his love be strong, consistent over the years and adapt to the changes that must inevitably occur? Is he a faithful partner? (He does say this has been his most successful relationship – his relationship with the city, that is.) Is he capable, by my standards, of loving the city lightly, softly? It does seem to me sometimes that he is a bit too aggressive in his declarations of love, as if he were afraid of any doubt making itself known. Perhaps even an unconscious doubt. He seems occasionally to press his love, to forward his suit, to crush the city to his heart. Well, we shall see. In the meantime, too, the evidence of his love lies all about us. – So the kindly Kazuo.

***

Hiromi and friends had begun somewhere around sunset, somewhere east of Kanda, on the way to Roberta’s. They finally made it to Tokyo Station without too much discomfort. Then to Marunouchi where she sometimes worked at the Palace Hotel.

–Ohh, give me the huddled homeless ’stead of all these three-piecers.

–So, this is where they all come from, eh?

–All those banks we just walked past, rich Japan – ecch!

–Bricks for brains.

–Yeah, but some of ’em are gold-bricks.

–No way!

–Sure, why do you think they call us rich?

–Whadda’ya’ mean, call us rich? I ain’t rich, you ain’t rich.

–I mean we Japanese.

–We Japanese?

–Ok, the country.

–But the station is kinda’ nice, you can take a bath after watching a porno movie. And it’s made out of brick. Kind of Euro-looking.

–Gee, just think of it too, the old man – just over there – asleep for a thousand years –

–No, that’s that monk guy on Koya-san.

–Whatever, still the Emperor …

–???

–… asleep, I tell you, for a thousand years. Strange family.

–Yeah, and all that money.

–And he can’t spend it! It’s all locked up somewhere.

–Him too – locked up at home.

–Hey, Michiko-san!

–Yeah, Michiko-san, wanna play tennis with us?

–Hey, Michiko? Comeon out and play!

–Oh, why doesn’t she answer?

–Who’s that knocking?

–Go away! Go away!

–We’ll blow your door down!

–Michiko!

–Michiko-o-o-!

–Think of it, guys, we’re just walking around here, lighting cigarettes, making stupid talk, and Michiko’s over there all alone –

–– trying on her hats.

–One after the other.

–Hat after hat.

–All of ’em the same.

–But to her, don’t ya’ think, they’re all different?

–Could be.

–Do you think she knows how to rumba?

–Michiko-o-o-o-o-!

***

Jeez (VZ thinks to himself), they just pee all over the place. There’s this lady in my neighborhood, everyday, the same time she takes her dog out for a walk. They always stop at the same spot, she lays some tissue down on the sidewalk, the dog shits on it, she wraps it up, puts it in a plastic bag, puts that back in her purse, and walks the dog home. Really, I’ve seen it. I also saw a woman jack her dog off once. And you’ve heard about how mothers relieve their sons when they’re tense about their exams? A-fucking-mazing. Jeez.

***

The Way

clouds are torn

a skirt is worn

sentences form

live near the sea;

sleep before sunrise

***

What is this shit? This movie isn’t moving!

And thus Roberta created the great wall in her relation with Van Zandt. For two or three years they’d talked at least three or four times a week about his Tokyo film. She’d seen him overcome every financial and linguistic disadvantage that the city could offer; seen him hire his small staff (the photographer’s assistant who took the lead, and whom he never touched); helped him choose the twelve select sites; had even provided him with his title. And tonight he was finally showing the film. He’d chosen a small gallery in Yanaka, wanted to be near the River and away from the uptown artsy crowd. Many friends had come, plus the few art and film people he respected in Tokyo. And then her shout, exactly thirty-six minutes into the 144-minute film. He shut the projector off, mumbled an angry apology-cum-explanation (The point is that the excitement of the city is in the stillness of the images, the man, the woman and their location in the various sites are both a praise and a critique of the city) – and made his exit. Roberta and Van Zandt didn’t speak again for a month. No one could intercede. She felt horrible, of course, but stood her ground – The film really was not interesting. I only wanted to excite him, to make him go further; really, he could have done so much more. That wasn’t a city he’d filmed, it was two machines – three if you include the city, she explained herself too late. When they did meet again, he smiled her apology away. They didn’t speak of the film again, or what new project he might be working on.

And work on he did. Stealthy, alone. (The photographer’s assistant stayed enlisted, however. She was beautiful in that early 80s Tokyo sort of way, that slow, smooth walk; that curt pout that belied a real friendliness; that readiness to help on any experiment.) He remade the film, all of it, new locations, new setups; it was the same film as before but different, new. It premiered in Amsterdam, and then made the circuit of competitions and festivals. He figured she’d come across an article about it someday, and then the regrets would flow – and the pride, and friendship, restored. And so it came to be. (And she did see it when it played six weeks at Euro-Space.)

He called it

Guys and Dolls

A VZ Film

It’s shot in black and white on color stock. It’s stark, radiant (bright blue and gold aureoles around some images), sometimes bursting into flames at frames’ edges, the film falling apart as it reassembles itself, with briefly caught glimpses of texts and maps in the background. The story may be about a woman trying to find a man in some buildings; or a conversation among friends (the only dialogue in the film, and in color); or maybe it’s about sexual (re)union; or even possibly irreparable separation and the impossibility of union and conversation. Or maybe it’s just about two people walking around the city, looking at this or that building. But it is Tokyo –VZ’s Tokyo – Tokyo as film.

The story is simple enough. As is the structure: twelve scenes, each twelve shots and minutes, preceded by a brief prologue, and with an interlude between scenes Six and Seven. But this structure is not so very strict, as there seem to be some miscellania, unaccountable items scattered about that at first mislead the viewer, but are in fact a somewhat charming chaos that alleviates the order.

PROLOGUE

We see the feet and hands of people on a not very crowded train at about two in the afternoon; glimpses of magazines, of dozing heads at shoulders; print advertisements all about, flapping in the train’s aisle; the soundtrack is the regular rhythm of a Tokyo train, like the sound of any Ozu train. A station name is called; the train comes to a halt. We see the torso of a man (somehow we recognize that he is a foreigner) suddenly jerk awake, he quickly gets off the train, leaves the frame, and we see in his now abandoned seat, a large, black portfolio. Cut to a Japanese woman, slightly tall (by Japanese standards), dressed in a black Commes des Garçons suit with white blouse; short, bobbed hair; a round face, big cheeks. an almost childish face but for her eyes that speak experience. Her movements are lithe and determined. About 27 years old, she has had some experience of Europe, and is not wary of foreigners. She quickly reaches for the portfolio and then calls to the man (Excuse me!, we see her lips say), but too late, the doors have closed. She opens the B-4 size portfolio, leafs through the black and white photographs quickly – twelve photographs of twelve different buildings, or Tokyo sites – notices there is no address or further identification, but seems to recognize most of the places, and then – close-up – makes a determined face: she will find her man!

The camera slowly zooms in on the first photograph.

SCENE ONE: RIKUGIEN GARDEN

The Woman enters the garden, after losing her way somewhat. Left or right? It is obviously one of those gardens that requires a certain knowledge of the Chinese classics. With its wayward paths, its empty center, hills and valleys, and its ease and immediacy, it is like a miniature and metaphor of Tokyo: if the city were a garden, she thinks, it would be Rikugien. It offers refuge – a bench; transport – some stepping stones; memory – elderly couples; plus an occasional sight of the buildings and madness just outside. She crosses the thin stream of legend, reads the old poem (wakasekogakubekiyoinarisasaga ...), sheds a wistful tear (she has a grasp of the classics) – and knows that she is alone. It’s closing time; the attendant tells her that a tall, foreign gentleman has just left.

***

And then I thought to myself of those many unexpected signs – a chance meeting, an appointment cancelled, a woman’s rejection in so few words – and time is given, restored, a surprise and display of something quick and solid; the path redirected, honest now – I never expected the meeting, was unprepared for the appointment, didn’t really want the woman – and for a moment joy, an opportunity, as if I have been promised something more now, and the path is that much more – just a bit, but oh so much! – opened. And I stop and wonder to myself, am I equal?

***

The costs of confusion notwithstanding, Arlene thinks, where did I read that? Someone complained that the city seemed to be built like a cow’s wandering path. Hey, that isn’t unnatural. Don’t all our footsteps trace the pattern of the universe or spell the name of god or something? I’ll take the cow’s path anytime. I know my way around. The city milks me.

***

All she knew. She knew he loved her, she loved him, and love was strong. Wasn’t it?

Hiroko tells him, My head is not a hatstand.

A new alliance, the trembling widow. Her wing, her heart, her hair.

***

Where oh where oh? And with whom and when oh? So deeply ponders Hiro. How long – that’s the easy part. I had to fight for the extra three days. Fight? Hey, I surrendered; that many more hours come October. Well, it’ll be worth it. Bye-bye Tokyo. But where? One of the islands? Guam or Okinawa, Thailand, Bali. I guess they’re pretty used to Japanese tourists, so I shouldn’t have too many problems. The beaches, the bungalows. And those enormous Germans and Australians. People wonder how sumo wrestlers do it – they should ask how two sumo wrestlers do it, that’s what those couples look like. Australia, that’s an idea. Maybe a whole week on a beach, no matter how much sex. Besides, the islands aren’t known for their clothes boutiques. Hmm, maybe Australia. Nice cities and beaches, I hear. But Australian women, I don’t know. Pretty big women; noisy too. And all that hair, like Americans. They might think me small. Of course, some older women like young guys. Fifty-fifty. No, when you come down to it, our own yamato-nadeshiko really are the best, the true Japanese girl. Neat hair, nice clothes, and they don’t mind serving a guy no matter how unruly he is. And those huge cans of beer. Maybe another time, when I have a girl to go with and who speaks English. Gu’dai! Maybe better, Hawaii. It’s half Japanese anyway, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about speaking English. I’d better think about that too, otherwise I’m never gonna get anywhere in this company, no matter who my father is. Hawaii, sure. Beaches, girls, good shopping: Japanese!

***

–Hmmm ...

–… mmm ...

–They really are nice ...

–Yes, yes they are.

–Ohhh ...

–Hm?

–Oh, it would be so nice if they could stay together.

–Hmm ...

–Wouldn’t it?

–Yes, of course.

–If they could – then who could ever be apart?

–Hm?

–If they could, who could ever be apart?

–You mean –?

–Hm, I just mean that, well, I wish they could stay together, and then I’d feel better about ...

–About?

–Oh, you know – any one of us ...

–Us?

–Mm!

–And if they don’t, or can’t?

–Hm. Well, we all try all the harder then.

–All?

–Of course.

–Then let’s hope ...

–That’s what I’ve been saying –

–Oh.

–But, I mean it – really hope – for all of us. After all ...

–After all?

–We’re all a part of it; after all, they, Roberta and Lang, love us – and we love them.

–Us?

–Oh, Kazuo! We can’t abandon them. Nor we one another.

–You mean ...?

–No, I don’t – you should see what I mean.

–Sorry ... You’re right.

–?

–But I don’t.

–It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that no one abandons anyone in this. We are together; I see it now – radiantly – even if no one else does. And that’s all I have to say.

–That’s all?

–Well, not quite. I must speak with Marianne – oh, she is so odd! – but lucid in her way. She’s told me so much already. For example, did you know this?

–What?

–Lang hadn’t wanted to come to Tokyo; but once he got here – well.

–No, really?

–Yes. Marianne told me. Roberta and Van Zandt have also, sort of, said similar things.

–Yes, he certainly behaves it sometimes.

–Yes, but he did come here – for her sake, or at least that of their relationship – he did come here, let’s not forget that.

–Yes.

–Yes – we have a lot of work to do.

–Oh?

–Yes – the work we have to do, Kazuo, if successful, should bring and keep us all together. My sweet embraceable … In the meantime ...

–Yes? No, I know: to work! Oh, what an odd couple!

–Kazu – I thought you were fond of them?

–I’m referring to ourselves, Kazuko.

–But –

–Oh, here you talk of the foreigners’ shenanigans, and ... What did Van Zandt tell me once? That Americans have to be reminded every twelve hours that they are loved; and we Japanese say it once and it’s supposed to last forever.

–And you can’t stand that? Well, my man, as even Arlene would say, you’re going to have to take it like a man. Ohh, what ever’s happened to my speech? No, I don’t mean that, of course. If it weren’t for my foreign friends I feel sometimes I’d leave next time for good – back to Kyoto – or to Lang’s Vienna.

–Ah, Kazuko, your always elegant speech is only enlivened by the occasional slip into the vernacular.

–?

–It is one of your charm points.

–I hope you don’t expect me to say naughty things in bed!

–No, Dear, I do not. Another drink?

–You have one. I’ll have a coffee.

–So what shall we do?

–What do you mean? I just decided to have another drink, and you a coffee.

–No, silly, I’m referring to your plan to fix the universe in a permanent state of love.

–Oh, stop it now. ... Well, we just, uhn, we ... why, we ... establish ourselves in a state of benign benevolence! And, uhm ...

–Ohh, it sounds very easy, very clear, my General. Our divine love sets an example for all to emulate. Our divine, platonic love, I might add. Ha!, our example would lead the human race to extinction.

–Kazuo! Living with my aunt is not conducive to ...

–Kazuko: the city provides means.

–Means that I do not, uhn, that I …uhn ...

–Too high-bred, eh? Well, what if I rented a tea ceremony room?

–Oh, Kazu, stop it. I’m sorry. And stop that high-bred talk, please. You know that I’m not, and that that’s not the reason.

–But you are, and yes, I am sorry. I just wish we had more time – time alone, I mean.

–Oh, Dear, we have time, will have ...

–I know. Anyway, back to our benevolent society.

–Yes. Well ... uhm, well, why we just – oh, you know what to do! We talk, we take walks. Oh, maybe I am being unrealistic, as unrealistic as Shakespeare, as Marianne might say, but I believe that, that ...

–That our love for each other and our love for them shall lead them into loving one another again.

–Well, I’d hardly put it into a formula, but yes, something like that.

–Easily done. Perhaps we should start by taking advantage of the city’s provisions.

–Ka – ... perhaps that wouldn’t hurt –

–And perhaps it might.

–Kazuo! I mean that it might help.

–It certainly shall. Finish up.

–I already have. I’ve been waiting for you.

–Kazuko?!

***

Fifty, sixty, seventy years old, the red and white ribbons get larger, the magnifying glasses and rulers more useful, he’s the third man to thank everyone for taking time out from their busy schedules, to congratulate the happy couple, the graduate, the new president, the budding author, the elected official; the waiters bustling around now, refilling glasses, must be the last speech, getting ready for the toast. Hiroko lights cigarettes, makes polite conversation, giggles when it seems appropriate to do so. Three or four nights a week like this, six to nine, gives her her spending money, though she still hasn’t yet mastered her kimono or her hair style. The hotel provides old women to help her get dressed. (The women help young girls too on mornings after so that they’ll look just the way they did when they left home when they return home.) She glances across the room, notices Hiromi accepting a namecard; no wonder she has twice as much money as I do!, Hiroko pouts. Maybe two hours more to go, a quiet night. When she wonders at how smoothly these parties go – a few broken glasses at the most, a foreigner acting silly – they never realize how silly they really are – the whole point is to be polite, to see that nothing goes wrong; it’s certainly not to have a good time, to party as a verb – she happily recalls the day when Roberta had called her to help her organize a party she was going to give Lang and VZ. Her husband – was that right? – had been staying with her awhile, and was now going to stay in Japan longer, but on his own; and then there was something about making peace with VZ; she never got that right either. They were passing acquaintances, parts of overlapping circles, she figured Roberta’d noticed her with Van Zandt, knew nothing of her hotel and hostessing job, but called her nonetheless. She said something about getting to know her better, knew she’d grown up in shitamachi. Those few days were pleasant, but the subsequent events of the party itself had sort of put a halt – over now, it seemed – to any further friendship. There’d been a lot of coordinating to do, especially of schedules, messages going back and forth, maps – Roberta had made an excellent one, simple, and fun what with the tofu and soba shops marked – and last-minute phonecalls. She and Roberta together had made the food; the neighborhood liquor store brought over the beer, wine, and saké. That certainly didn’t help matters, too much too soon, and then another phonecall just before closing time. The day itself was wonderful, uncommonly warm, the windows open and Roberta singing to herself. A mood all too brief.

***

Never felt so weak and alone. Went shopping.

It’s hard to fight after a Lubitsch film.

City only feels a bit crowded at rush-hour.

***

Ah, this city, Kaoru pauses, thinks to himself, well, you put up with the commute, get to work early and leave late. Thank the gods for the drinking afterwards. Come home, the rice and dinner ready – and the wife, what’s-her-name. An occasional screw, for whatever that’s worth. Sleep and back to work. Good kids. It’s just a city. Have to remember O-Bon.

***

–Eyes getting weak – want to see you.

–Damn you.

–Brain getting soft – have to talk.

–Damn.

–The soul freezes over – need to kiss you.

–You.

–Roberta.

–Damn you, Lang.

***

R’n’L!

What did my brother say? That in a hundred years if all the numbers continue the same as now, a tenth of the world’s population will be Elvis imitators? So the world will become a better place, after all.

Ach, I want to close my eyes and count to twelve and when I reopen ’em all the platform shoes in the world will have disappeared. Be warned: By their shoes shall ye know them.

Yippie! I have found a way to unite the world. Or at least the quotable world. Start with a song, say: Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust / show me a woman a man can trust / she’s gone but I don’t worry / ’cos I’m sitting on top of the world. Which leads, of course, to James Cagney in White Heat, Top’a the world, Ma!, which in turn takes us to Dylan, It’s Alright, Ma. Get it? And on and on and on. Wanna play? Anyway, it might cure me of all this constant quoting and name-dropping. But then what happens to all the quotes left out? Do they form a kind of anti-system, one that cannot be controlled or fit anywhere, all the loose miscellania? (Sounds great.) Does it all ultimately derive from my boyhood reading of Superman?

Anyway, hope your August is as you like it – me, I like it hot as hell.

And my dreams: First there’s an hysterical nurse, explaining she’s only so ’cos of her recent divorce, and why should everyone blame her? Then the school caretaker – a sort of sad guy whom I always remember; maybe he had a lowly job, but he was getting his daughter a good education – anyway, he comes in and starts shouting, Goddam Catholics! They say they’ll leave but they never really do, the Catholics keep coming back, there’s no getting rid of them! Why now, why back in school, now, just when I thought I was becoming an adult?

Some people want to read all of Dostoevski. I want to see all of Carole Lombard’s films. Speaking of CL, you know that great Walker Evans photo – well, I finally found a reference to the film; it sounds ok, but the title apparently has zilch to do with the story.

So, whadda’ya’ think – is it a pink city or a gray city? A pink and gray city? A light yellow city (like Baudelaire’s gloves – he also had pink ones) or a sky blue city? A pastel city, to be sure. Blue roofs and vegetables.