SAM PULLED off his boots and stepped into the hall. The odor of dried fish, spilled beer and unwashed bodies grew stronger as he approached the living room. He paused to listen to May’s aunt and uncle.
“All I’m askin’ is that you don’t hit the kid anymore,” the uncle said. He sounded both drunk and petulant.
“Why not? I’m taking care of the brat, aren’t I? You’re no help, all you do is sit around on your ass and drink beer all day.” Also drunk, the woman’s voice was thick with slang, expletives and anger.
The man shouted over the TV. “You’re one to talk, you old sow. Why can’t you get it through your head that nothing’s settled yet? You know we gotta be nice to the girl if we’re gonna get custody.”
The women growled, “What are you talking about? We’re here aren’t we? Look around you, dummy. What do you see? This is our place now. Hey, gimme some of that fish.”
Sam struggled to follow the conversation. Both were slurring their words and speaking in a dialect unique to Kochi prefecture.
“Here, take it and shut up,” the uncle said. “How many times do I have to tell you Elena left everything to the brother and as soon as he gets back we’re out on our asses. Our only chance is to use the kid as leverage.”
“What good is that?”
“If we can get our hands on her maybe we can make a trade—the kid for the building.”
“Shit, if he was coming back he’d already be here. Screw you, I ain’t goin’ nowhere. All these Tokyo people look at me like I’m shit. We’re rich now and I’m going to rub their noses in it.”
A scuffle erupted. The woman snarled, “Hey I was watching that. Put it back on.”
“Get your hands off me, you bitch, I’m watchin’ the movie. I’m sick of your game shows. Go buy some more beer.”
Sam stepped around the corner. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of the room. They opened on a large roof garden that overlooked the street and the shrine below. The carpet was Persian, the leather couch Italian. A Ming dynasty vase rested next to an affable pair of figurines from Holland.
A quick glance might have missed the relatives from Kochi. Hunkered down in a corner, they were about the size of large dogs.
The aunt wore an unbelted blue and white yukata over a black lace slip. She had too much skin for her frame, it hung on her bones like a wrinkled sack. Much of her hair had been lost. What little remained fell far down her spine in a gray tangle.
Her soul mate’s head was too small for his ears; the back of his neck sported a pair of boils and a leaking tumor. His hair had been oiled and fashioned to resemble a supermarket bar code. He wore a tubular stomach sweater over a greasy singlet and a pair of yellow polyester trousers. Both had prominent beer bellies and fuzzy pink mules on their feet.
They’d pushed the imported couch to the side and sat cross-legged in front of a low table apparently retrieved from a neighbor’s garbage pile. It overflowed with fish skeletons, chopsticks and open tubes of ointment. A few feet away, a 33-inch Pioneer TV floated on a sea of empty beer bottles and discarded Cup-O-Noodles containers.
May’s aunt yelled and dived at her husband, trying to rip the remote control unit from his hand. He whacked her a glancing blow with a beer bottle and scuttled backwards. Blood dripped off her nose; she screamed in frustration and pummeled him in the face with her slipper.
Sam crossed the room and turned off the TV. He remembered his promise to May and tried to speak in a normal tone of voice. “I’ll give you thirty minutes to pack your things and get out of here.”
The Kochi relatives upended the table and rolled across the floor. The husband screamed as his wife tried to impale him with a chopstick. Sam reached down and tossed the pair on the couch. The woman shrieked, “Gaijin!” and frantically covered her head with a scarf. Speechless, her husband cowered in a corner, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
It took the best part of ten minutes and a good deal of intimidation to get the pair settled down. They glared at him silently. The woman, in a ludicrous display of modesty, closed her yukata and poked her husband in the side. He looked down, zipped up his fly and scrunched further back on the couch.
Sam checked his watch and smiled. “In seventeen minutes I’m going to throw you out of this building. It’s pretty chilly outside. I think you’d better change your clothes so you don’t catch cold. I’ll help you pack if you like.”
Tears rolled down the uncle’s cheeks; May’s aunt hissed. Sam placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed ever so gently.
He carried the old people’s suitcases down to the lobby and hailed a cab. Still jittery with fear, their eyes were black with malice. The aunt started to object as he told the driver to take them to Ueno Station, thought better of it, and pushed her husband into the taxi.
Sam leaned in the window. “I don’t want to see either one of you again. Is that clear?” Neither had the courage to meet his eyes and the cab drove off. The driver swerved to avoid a pack of drunk office workers and Sam walked into the building. A chair seemed to be in his way—he kicked it over. A small trash basket stuffed with advertising circulars sat below a bank of mail boxes. He kicked that over, too.
One of the building’s residents stepped into the lobby. He was a young man, unmarried, thin and stylish in a dark double-breasted suit. His eyes widened when he saw the gaijin sitting in the corner of the floor amid crumpled ads touting overpriced condominiums, massage parlors and local politicians. He crossed the lobby cautiously, treading uneasily on the scattered papers.
The elevator was on the fifth floor and he watched the man out of the corner of his eye while he waited. Foreigners were frustratingly difficult to categorize and this one was worse than usual. Long dark hair, jeans and leather jacket. Boots and dark eyes. He could be dangerous or simply hip, it was impossible to be sure. But muggers didn’t stare blankly at flyers for discount furniture, did they? And he’d never seen one that looked tired enough to cry.
The tenant relaxed his grip on his Gucci briefcase and thought he should say something. He considered himself an international person. But he was shy and afraid his English might be misunderstood. The elevator arrived and he stepped inside, whispering good evening to the closing doors.
Sam spent the next two hours removing all trace of the relatives from the apartment and went to fetch May. She opened the door wearing pink and blue flannel pajamas and a yellow flower behind her ear.
“What took you so long?” she complained and tried to pull him inside. “Come and meet Helen. We ordered pizza. There’s some left. You like mushrooms, don’t you?”
Sam felt like he’d been traveling forever. Africa seemed a lifetime away, the return to Tokyo more of a shock than expected and he detested mushrooms. He didn’t want to meet anyone.
May locked both hands around his wrist and tried to drag him like a stubborn mule. He dug in his heels.
“Is he always this shy?” a low voice asked.
Startled and embarrassed, Sam relaxed just as May yanked as hard as she could. He flew past her, staggered like a drunk across the room and landed face down on a big double bed.
He looked up—into a pair of very serious gray eyes.
May laughed and the woman leaned closer, her blonde hair caressing his cheek. “You stepped on the pizza and kicked over the Monopoly game,” she whispered.
Sam dangled his head over the edge of the bed. She was right—red hotels and green houses lay demolished. A silver slipper gleamed in a mushroom-and-black-olive footprint. He groaned and tried to bury his head in the quilt but May wouldn’t allow it. She was still laughing as she tugged him to his feet.
“What a jerk,” she said helpfully. “I told Helen you were really cool. Now what’s she going to think?”
Helen kept her thoughts to herself. She sat calmly on the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees.
Sam tried to apologize. In the middle of the first sentence he noticed her pajamas were identical to May’s and that both wore apple-green Godzilla slippers with claws for toes. It was suddenly quite warm in the room. He lost his place and started again.
Helen watched him curiously. She pushed her hair from her eyes; her neck was long and graceful. Her hands...
The thought slid out of reach. The apartment was only a studio and seemed to be growing smaller by the second. She had the slightest hollows in her cheeks and...
Sam took a step back, bumped a bookcase and brushed a basket of FTD flowers with his elbow. He whirled and grabbed wildly—too late. The basket slipped off the shelf.
May giggled and congratulated herself. She’d wanted to see Sam’s reaction to Helen and hadn’t warned him. This was far better than anything she could have imagined. Helen had fascinated her from the moment they’d met. She never talked much but she had a lot of power, just like the wonderful witches in the old folk tales.
Indeed, Sam stood bewitched and becalmed, clutching a handful of blossoms. He drifted in Helen’s haunted eyes, until, at last, she smiled. It lit up the room and Sam fell—for the third and final time that day.
