“The problem is that your partner only spends half a minute thinking about your gift, when before they used to plan it out for days.”
“There was a time . . . ,” I wanted to rebut this immature idea of love. “There was a time when you didn’t even know your beloved had holes in his socks. That kind of knowledge comes with living together, and it’s natural that a relationship should move on to more run-of-the-mill things.”
As a man who’d been left by his partner without ever having lived with her, I could see that my little speech wasn’t very convincing. But I was defending millions of people who turn new underpants, T-shirts and socks into an act of love.
Just then the bar door opened and out came Okamura. He seemed to be drunk, and this was confirmed when he started shouting.
“What the hell you are doing out here? This poor old man does not want to drink by himself.”
“Come on, let’s go in,” I said, happy to be able to change the subject. “Anyway, you owe me a song.”
“And I expect something in return.”
Puzzled by those words, I followed the two of them inside the tiny karaoke bar. Mizuki ordered cold, unfiltered sake and then asked the woman to put on “I Look Up when I Walk.”
With its xylophone and violin intro, it sounded like a ballad from way back when. The melody was naively cheerful.
Ue wo muite aruko
Namida ga koborenai yo ni
Omoidasu haru no hi
Hitoribotchi no yoru
Mizuki’s voice was sweet and delicate, giving the song a feel of an old-fashioned cartoon theme tune. That was only the first of the songs she and her uncle sang that night, while bottles of sake kept emptying so fast that even the woman behind the bar looked pleased for once.
Give the Idiot a Night of Pleasure
When we left the bar at three in the morning, walking was a major problem. Perhaps because I’d never had a bunch of friends to fool around with, I couldn’t remember ever being so drunk.
“You should drink sake more often,” Mizuki laughed, slipping her arm round my waist as Okamura vanished down the street with a drunken wave of the hand. “Tonight you’ve dropped that boring professor disguise—the one who’s mad at the world.”
“I don’t know who I am tonight.”
“So much the better. It’s good to get carried away sometimes. How do you want to end the night?”
Under the haze of sake-induced psychedelia, too many possibilities were floating through my mind. I didn’t want to be the one to decide. Mizuki had made it clear she was no longer married, and the lack of any message from Gabriela showed that I no longer mattered to her. I was free, but I wasn’t the type to make the first bold move, so I tossed the ball into her court.
“Imagine you’re the screenwriter and director of a movie starring a main character who’s a lot like me.”
By now we were at the entrance to my ryokan. She smiled, amused, her hair tousled.
“It’s nice of you to give me the job. Tell me more about the movie.”
“The man in your story is very square and always afraid of making mistakes. He’s used to doing the right thing. When it comes to love too.”
“Keep going.”
“Without really knowing why, this man ends up in Japan. His girlfriend has told him she wants to take a break and he’s hardly heard anything from her since then. But being so far from home immediately makes him feel better.”
“You mean his girlfriend is sleeping with someone else but hasn’t dared tell him yet. And then?”
Under normal circumstances, that comment would have cut deep, but I was too numbed by alcohol to feel anything.
“During his travels, this boring man meets a beautiful, eccentric Japanese woman who was raised in the United States. She’s probably the most attractive woman he’s ever met in his life, and he even starts dreaming that he might have a chance with her.”
“Life throws up many chances.” She hiccuped. “Someone said that once.”
