That rather vague reply put an end to our conversation about the monkeys.
Eels and Hope
The trip back to Kyoto took ages, because I had to get the slow train to Utsunomiya and then two bullet trains. It was dark when I arrived. Although the futuristic architecture of the station surprised me again, I had the sensation of coming home after my week of traveling. Nikko is a small place surrounded by forests and Tokyo is an endless concrete forest where one can feel equally lost.
Kyoto is the perfect size for a city, I thought as I got into a taxi and set off for The Blue Frogsryokan. Although it was an extravagance, I’d decided to go back there because I liked staying in the same street as the karaoke bar for the lonely.
The tiny receptionist bowed and led me to the same room I’d occupied six nights earlier. Under the lukewarm shower I had the sense that my trip had been only a dream. Everything seemed to be in the same place, and so was I.
This time, however, I had a mission: I’d promised Okamura’s niece that we’d meet that evening. I was going to keep my promise, and if she turned up at the karaoke bar, she would be keeping hers too.
At half-past nine I saw that the bar still bore my name. What had first seemed offensive and then ridiculous now seemed to be a sign that harmony reigned in my little Kyoto universe.
I pushed open the black door and, as if in a new round of an old game, the impassive owner pointed at the stool I’d occupied the first two nights. Once again, I was the only customer in the place, but the music was turned up full blast with a song that was even more raucous and harder on the ear than the mushroom one.
If I’d known a bit more Japanese than a couple of greetings, I would have used it to ask the lady to turn off this annoying music immediately. Instead, I sat there stock-still, watching as she served my Asahi.
The door opened and Okamura came in. This time he was dressed in a pin-striped navy-blue jacket with a sky-blue tie. His gray hair was neat—the first night I saw him he must have been battling the memory of his wife with sake and the microphone.
“Konbanwa,” I said, then added: “Can you ask her to turn down the volume, please?”
“Why? It is almost finished . . . You do not like eels?”
“Is it a song about eels?” I said, surprised.
“Yes, it’s about eels and hope. This is a very popular song.”
I held my tongue. This was really a nation of eccentrics if a song about wild mushrooms and another about eels were top of the hit parade.
The black door opened again. Mizuki had not only safely returned from the mountains, but she was dressed to kill.
The Happiness of the Ainu
I was led along the same route out of the district of old cobbled streets to the more modern neighborhood of low houses by this woman I barely recognized. It was as if instead of spending a week in the mountains, Mizuki—who was today dressed in a black miniskirt, fishnet stockings and high heels—had been doing the rounds of the boutiques in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya shopping district.
Once again, I was walking a few feet behind her so I could admire her long legs and the opening at the back of her red top, which revealed black bra straps. This time she didn’t have a ponytail; her hair was braided into a high chignon. The Japanese girl from San Francisco had gone from suicidal to fashion victim, and I was disconcerted.
On the way to the barbecue place she offered no explanation. She ignored me until we arrived in front of the wooden door with the grille. After ringing the bell, she turned around and winked at me.
The skinny man opened the sliding door wide as soon as he saw us. Although we’d come quite a lot earlier this time, we were still the only customers in the place. We sat down at the same barrel. Apart from the radical change in Mizuki’s appearance, I thought everything would be exactly the same as last time. She, however, took it upon herself to prove me wrong.
A large bottle of cold sake landed on top of the barrel just as she was saying: “Now we have to celebrate the fact that we’ve both come back.”
“Did you doubt it?”
“I knew you’d be here,” she said, staring at me with a strange, fixed expression on her face. “I wasn’t so sure about myself.”
I drank half a glass of the unfiltered sake, while analyzing her first statement. Her conviction that I would be there either meant that she was very well aware of how attractive she was, or that she had detected in me a fearful soul that didn’t want to feel guilty about a suicide.
From my side of the barrel I watched the lamplight shine playfully over her face. My gaze dropped for a moment below her shoulders.
“Tell me what you did in Hokkaido.” I said, recovering my composure. “Is it true that the monkeys there bathe in the hot springs?”
“You mean the macaques? If you want to see them in the hot springs, you have to go there in winter, when it’s freezing cold.”
“Of course. I forgot—it’s summer now.”
“I went to this amazing cultural museum, where you can see how the Ainu indigenous community used to live,” she said, savoring the aroma of her glass of sake.
