Chapter 3 – Mozambique

A RAG-TAG band of Mozambican soldiers dozed under an ironwood tree.  A half a dozen AK-47 rifles lay in the dust nearby.  Only the two oldest soldiers had boots; the rest wore tattered sneakers or rubber sandals.  They occasionally glanced over at the white man but the heat had dried out their curiosity and he didn’t linger long in their thoughts.
    A convoy of battered Mercedes lorries sat on the shoulder of a dirt road in front of the soldiers.  Each truck carried a load of maize under a green tarp.  The grain was destined for Caia on the Zambezi river.  If it arrived a few outlying villages might last another week.  But the sun seemed hot enough to burn the paint off the trucks and the soldiers were in no hurry to leave the shade of the tree.
    Sam Murphy read the telegram from the lawyer in Japan a second time and put it in his pocket.  He walked over to the soldiers, explained he was leaving and shook a few hands.  No one said very much as he left; they had their own worries.
    Underpaid, underfed and outgunned, the soldiers were tired of beating villagers off the trucks with the butts of their rifles.  They were sick of women holding dirty babies in their faces.  The women seemed to think their children were unique, as if the soldiers had never seen starving babies before.  That was just about all they had seen; the drought was eating up southern Africa and dying children were everywhere.
    The women and the babies made the youngest soldiers uncomfortable.  But the Renamo guerrillas and the bandits terrified everyone.  Burned out carcasses of relief trucks littered the road.  The bandits came at night to steal the grain.  The guards that didn’t run away were found dead at dawn, shot or hacked to death.
    The white reporter from the south had rode with the soldiers for three days.  At first, they’d thought he was American—he’d talked and moved like people they’d seen at the cinema.  Later, an officer claimed to have seen his passport and said the reporter was Japanese.  That had been too ridiculous to believe and everyone had laughed.  Embarrassed, the officer had demanded the platoon sergeant back him up.
    “He might be Japanese,” the old man had said, not wanting to disagree with the officer.  “I don’t think I’ve ever met any.  I ran into a Chinese patrol once, but he doesn’t look much like them.  Somehow I thought they all looked the same.”
    Nobody had been satisfied with the explanation but they’d let the matter drop.  Now someone had come to fetch the reporter in a Land Rover and it was too hot to care if he was American, Japanese, both or neither.

    “I’m not going to cry and I’m not going to make a scene,” May Takagi promised herself over and over as she waited for Sam’s China Airlines flight to clear customs.  But it took so long, it seemed like the passengers would never come out.  She’d nervously watched the plane land from the observation deck on top of the terminal but that seemed like hours ago.  Impatient and a little guilty for cutting school, May blamed the entire problem on Haneda airport.
    When Sam called, she’d been too happy to hear his voice to pay much attention to his actual words.  He’d said something about politics, South Africa, Taiwan and China.  All she’d really understood was that she’d have to pick him up at Haneda instead of Narita, an airport she knew like the back of her hand.  She’d thought only domestic flights used Haneda and couldn’t figure out why some planes had to sneak into this dinky little airport.
    It was old and boring and she didn’t like it at all.  That it was far closer to downtown didn’t count for much as far as she was concerned.  She’d never been to Haneda and had ended up calling half her friends before she’d found one who knew which subway to take.
    It was a lot more fun, like a little adventure, to ride the train from Ueno Station to Narita.  She’d made the trip a bunch of times and had always enjoyed it.  The countryside was pretty and the men and women working in the rice paddies surrounding the big airport were interesting.
    Viewed through the window of a fast train, the women seemed very proper in their old-fashioned bonnets and blue pajamas.  They looked like people on postcards.  Unfortunately, these women and their skinny little husbands wouldn’t stay put.  Nearly every day shiny buses would dump one farm co-op or another in front of the gates of Sensoji temple in Asakusa.
    May found them terribly embarrassing, especially since there were always lots of foreigners in the temple compound.  The farmers never even bothered to change clothes.  They were unfashionable and seemed to have no idea how to act in the city.  The women who looked so serene from the train had loud voices and country accents.  They said totally dumb things and always bought the junkiest souvenirs.
    After much discussion, she and her friends decided that the country people shouldn’t be allowed into the city until they could be taught to behave like everyone else.
    May looked around at the arrivals terminal, prepared to glare at any farmer who might spoil Sam’s homecoming.  He hadn’t been home in a long time and she wanted him to like Japan enough to stay.
    At last the China Airlines passengers started to dribble out of the customs area.  A man behind May tried to push past her to get a better look.  She jabbed him with her elbow and held her ground.  Nobody was going to see Sam before she did.  He looked down at her more surprised than annoyed—schoolgirls in sailor suits were usually more docile.
    May couldn’t help herself, she began to cry when Sam walked through the swinging doors.  Her tears splashed into a bouquet of roses clutched in her hand.  Despite her small size and her promises, she caused a rather large commotion.  Heads turned as she shouted and charged across the floor.  She leaped like a panther and grabbed her brother around the neck.
    May didn’t weigh much but Sam was half-dead from jet lag and a 25-hour flight from Johannesburg.  Still, he might have stayed on his feet; her choke hold wasn’t too bad—he could almost breathe.  Just as he was finding his balance she let go with one arm and pushed a bunch of flowers in his face.
    “Here,” she shouted.  “These are for you.”
    Blinded, Sam slipped on something and fell.  The crowd laughed as May dropped the roses and scrabbled across the floor on her hands and knees.  She retrieved another gift, crawled up on his chest, and waved a foil-wrapped box in his face.
    “You stepped on your chocolates,” she accused, and whacked him gently in the heart with the damaged gift.  She cried and laughed and kissed him over and over again.

    “What are you waiting for?” May demanded.  “Get on the train.”
    Sam took a step forward and hesitated—a wall of bodies blocked the door, there wasn’t the slightest space left in the subway car.  Crushed by the crowd, young women were bent at unnatural angles, their faces pressed into the window glass.  Above an undulating mass of dark suits and pastel frocks, heads attached to the tallest commuters looked elongated, as if compressed to save space.
    “It’s too crowded,” Sam said, afraid to board the train.
    May pushed him in the back.  “It’s rush hour.  What’d you expect?”
    A petite woman stepped around Sam and May, put one foot aboard the train and did a well-practiced pirouette.  A klaxon blared on the platform as she shoved herself backwards into the car, leading with her hips and elbows.  The doors hissed shut and the train began to move.
    “See?  She knows how to do it,” May chided.  “It’s easy.”
    The train picked up speed and the lead car disappeared into the tunnel, aiming for east Tokyo.  The trains seemed a lot more crowded than Sam remembered but May was right, they couldn’t stand there forever.
    “OK, we’ll get on the next—”
    A whistle blew and an alarm screamed.  The train slammed to a halt and a couple of platform workers came running.  The last car stopped in front of Sam.  An arm wriggled, trapped in the door.  A small blue shoulder bag dangled from slim fingers with delicate pink nails.  The workers pried open the door and shoved the arm inside.
    “That’s it,” Sam said.  “We’re taking a taxi.”
    May laughed.  “Boy, are you a wimp.  This is nothing, hardly anybody rides the Ginza line.  Wait until I take you on the Odakyu.  That one’s ten times worse.”
    May led Sam through the labyrinthine passageways under the streets of Ginza.  They surfaced next to Mitsukoshi department store, rising into a crowd notable less for its density than its opulence.
    Middle-aged housewives, tired after a day of shopping headed for the subway entrances.  Sweating slightly in mink and sable, their hair fluttered in the evening breeze.  Gold necklaces graced their necks, diamonds glittered on their fingers.  Thinking of long train rides back to the suburbs and what to fix their kids for dinner, they waded through groups of office girls chatting on broad sidewalks.
    May slid through the shoppers and commuters with ease, reaching back for Sam’s hand to guide him past teenagers laughing in front of Mikimoto’s.  Their faces were nearly translucent, as clean and shiny as the pearls on display.
    It was just dusk and one by one the lights of Ginza came to life.  Towering buildings engaged in dazzling combat astride the most expensive real estate on earth.  Gaudy neon images flickered and flashed—Sony, Toshiba and IBM.  Nissan and BMW sedans moved slowly down Chuodori.  Reflected in the windshields, ads for Nestle and Kanebo merged with Dairy Queen and Samsung.
    May waved at a cab stopped below a TV screen bigger than a billboard.  Children gazed up in wonder as electric dragons danced with pink pandas.  Sam shook his head—this was not the Japan he remembered.
    May’s courage began to falter as the taxi moved slowly through the rush-hour traffic.  She snuggled under Sam’s arm and closed her eyes.  Her mom’s death hurt her every second.  It was a cruel lie devised by strangers and distant relatives who didn’t care about her.  She couldn’t imagine what was going to happen and was very afraid.
    Sam pulled May closer and watched tears slide down her cheeks.  He remembered the day his father had died.  His bedroom, a warm place filled with familiar things, had suddenly become a tall skyscraper without walls or floors.  Everyone could see him sitting on an I-beam miles and miles above the ground.  He’d wanted to cry but couldn’t, afraid if he let go he’d fall and never stop.
    Sam had never cried and today he still wasn’t sure if he’d ever really forgiven his father for leaving.
    Halfway to Asakusa, May looked up, tried to speak but became confused.  There was so much she wanted to say, she didn’t know where to begin.  Sam smiled and hugged her.  He dried her tears and whispered, “I’ll never leave you, May.  Never.  Cross my heart and hope to die.  I’ll take care of you, always and forever.”
    May sniffed a little, trying on smiles until she found one that fit.  The taxi driver made a noise and she directed him past Tawaramachi Station and down Kokusaidori.  They turned onto a narrow street and then another.  The cab slowed to a crawl to avoid kids delivering L.A. and Chicago pizzas on motorbikes, teetering bicyclists and strolling women with babies sleeping on their backs.
    “This will be fine,” May said, and the cab stopped in front of a small shrine.  A tabby cat sat on top of a red torii gate and watched Sam pull his suitcase from the trunk.  A yellow dog backed out of a garbage can and yipped at May.  Sam smelled garlic, sesame and raw sewage.
    May pointed across the street at a six-story building faced with new red brick.  “What do you think?  Do you like it?”
    Sam looked down at his sister.  He knew an important question when he heard one.  For May’s benefit, he examined the building carefully.  The bay windows on the corner apartments were large, the neon signs on the second floor bars discrete.  But aesthetics had given way to commerce on the ground floor.  The Chinese restaurant looked like a greasy spoon, the Korean bar was a dive and the book shop appeared to deal exclusively in pornographic comics.  Only his mother’s coffee shop managed an air of respectability.
    Sam said, “I love it,” and almost meant it.  This was his neighborhood; he’d been raised here.  It looked different but felt much the same.  He’d stayed away far too long.
    Reassured, May smiled broadly and pointed at an antenna dish on the roof.  “Every apartment has satellite TV.  We can watch the Simpsons every week.  It’s my favorite show.”
    Sam had only vaguely heard of the program and had never seen it.  He grabbed May’s hand and pulled her down the street.  It seemed every other building was new.  The Asano’s fish shop was gone, as was the home of the tatami makers.  As a kid, he’d sat for hours watching two old men, brothers with strong hands and sharp eyes, producing grass mats on wonderful machines.  For generations the Usui family had covered the floor in all the neighborhood houses.  It was hard to believe they were gone.
    “What happened to the tatami shop?”
    May pointed at a pink stucco castle replete with fake ramparts, spires and gargoyles.  A sign invited lovers to drive over a cement drawbridge into an underground parking area where they could check in unobserved.  Rooms at 8,500 yen for a two-hour “rest” were advertised as luxurious and imaginative.
    May looked at Sam uncertainly.  “They sold their land and moved to Saitama.  Lot’s of people did.  I guess the area’s changed a little, huh?”
    Sam pulled his sister back toward their apartment.  “Not so much.  The love hotels and the bars were always here, there’s just more of them.”
    May hopped in the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor.  “Lots of people are gone but we’re not going anywhere, are we?”
    “No, we’re not.  We’re going to stay here as long as you want.”  He laughed.  “The neighborhood’s a little sleazy but it always was.  We can be sleazy together.”
    May clapped her hands and jumped up to kiss him.  He leaned down so she could reach, happy to see her smiling again.
    Standing outside the door of the apartment, May whispered, “There’s one more thing...”
    “What?”
    She pointed at the door.  “They’re really gross.  I didn’t tell you because I thought you might get upset.”
    “They” were May’s aunt and uncle.  The uncle was the older brother of Elena’s second husband.  Shopkeepers from Kochi on the southern island of Shikoku, they’d flown up two weeks before to take care of May after her mother’s death.
    “Have they mistreated you?”
    May pulled on his sleeve.  “Shhh, they’ll hear you.”
    A woman screamed inside the apartment, glass broke and a man shouted over a TV turned up too loud.
    “Hell,” Sam said.  “They’re not going to hear anyone.  Have you got your keys?”
    She hesitated.  “Maybe we should ring the bell.  They won’t like it if we just walk in.  There might be trouble.”
    May’s eyes were frightened, she looked like she wanted to run.  Sam held out his hand for the keys.  Something was wrong, there was a lot she wasn’t telling him.
    “Did they hit you?”
    “No.”  She held her purse tight across her chest like a shield.
    Sam felt an adrenalin rush and heat on his face.  “Are you sure?”
    “Maybe just a little,” May whispered, beginning to cry again.  The look on his face was scary.  “It didn’t hurt, Sam, it was really just slaps.”  She begged, “Don’t start trouble, please.”
    “I won’t.”
    May held out the keys.  “Do you promise?”
    “I promise.  “I’ll be good.”  He looked around.  “Do you have anywhere you can go for a little while?”
    “What do you mean?”
    The woman was screaming again, the man bellowed in return.  More glass shattered.
    “I want to talk to them alone.  Is there anyone in the neighborhood you can go visit?”
    May glanced down the corridor.  “I’ve got a key to Helen’s apartment.  She lives right there.  Is that OK?”
    Sam had no idea who Helen was but now wasn’t the time to find out.  “Sure, that’ll be fine.  Go on down there now, honey.  I’ll pick you up as soon as I can.”
    May retreated, watching him over her shoulder.  She rang the bell, waited for a moment and then let herself into the apartment.
    Sam had promised not to start trouble but as he unlocked the door he decided the word was relative.  They’d hit May and anything short of killing the son-of-a-bitches seemed reasonable.  He wondered how high they would bounce when he tossed them down the stairs.