David Cronenberg - Consumed

Certainly Roiphe, after his major song and dance about wanting a lawyer-certified, bulletproof contract binding them together in secrecy and artistic collaboration in such a way that liability and patient-abuse litigation and other such medically inspired legal chicanery would be made impossible, seemed quite nonchalant about dropping the whole matter once Nathan agreed to move in. He had even dropped, for the moment, his demand that they funnel their book deal through a credible literary agency—“I figure maybe Oliver Sacks’s own Wylie Agency”—before he allowed Nathan to record a word or take a photograph. He now seemed perfectly content with some vague understanding whereby they would magically fuse into an alternate-reality incarnation of Sacks, with a movie, an opera, some delicious parodies, and of course vicious attacks by colleagues fueled by jealousy following the release of their book, tentatively entitled Consumed: A Curious Case History . The doctor rehearsed defending himself against accusations of exploitation: “It’s in the hallowed tradition of the clinical anecdote, what we’re doing. Freud did it, Charcot did it, Luria did it. And we’re doing it! It’s an educational procedure, intended to provoke discussion, perfectly legit.” Nathan was happy to let Roiphe’s enthusiasm carry them as far as it might without the complication of paperwork, lawyers, book deals, agents. He needed to feel that he could walk away, literally, in the middle of the night, trundling his camera roller after him, with no goodbyes and no regrets.

To seal the deal, Roiphe had brought his home office’s Pixie—with two sleeves of gray-coded Roma capsules—down to Nathan’s subterranean domain after Nathan had confessed his addiction to Nespresso. He had never seen a Pixie in the flesh. This one was the adorable titanium-colored version, which spookily matched the shag carpeting. “It’s okay, don’t thank me, I have the big mother deluxe one in the kitchen. I won’t go caffeineless.” Nathan was drinking a Roma right now out of the supplied cup and saucer, both in elegant white ceramic with the swooping split-N logo embossed within a beveled square recess, green capped letters on the bottom of each proclaiming “Nespresso Collection, Made in Portugal,” which of course evoked the poster on the wall and the former housekeeper. Synchronicity? Nathan took it to mean that what he was doing there in Roiphe’s basement had cosmic support. There was an undeniable shape to it.

He had decided to keep the Pixie in the bedroom—on the dresser for now—instead of the tiny but workable nanny’s kitchen just around the corner from the slate-floored sitting room. He wanted it to feel like a European hotel-room adventure rather than a move-in-completely- and-hopelessly situation—move in with your recently widowed father, for instance. Nathan had done that, and it had been bitter and desperate in too many ways to bear experiencing it again, even analogically. Picking up on Naomi’s line of thought, Roiphe had joked that there was no separate entrance to the embedded reporter’s suite, the better to keep an eye on him, but everything worked, including the bathroom with shower.

It had to be admitted: he was down here because of Chase. He wanted to be in the same house with her. He was not sure why. She was certainly attractive, but immediately gave off those convulsive, anaphrodisiac waves of looniness that tell you not to bother fantasizing. But where in the house was she? Did she know yet he had moved in? Would he be able to hear her? Could she hear him? Would she visit him down here? After finishing the Roma, he tried several times to email, text, and phone Naomi, without success. Then he called Dunja’s Slovenian mobile number, also without success; her phone disconnected after nine rings without accepting any messages, and a disconsolate Nathan wondered if, overwhelmed by guilt at infecting him, she had committed suicide.

ON THE HONGO CAMPUS of the University of Tokyo, familiarly known as Todai, Naomi walked down the broad, tree-lined avenue leading to the fortress-like Yasuda Auditorium with its dark-red tiles and incongruous stone-arched entranceway, then turned right on the heavily wooded path that would take her to Sanshiro Pond. She could walk with confidence because, of course, she had Google Mapped and YouTubed her route to death before venturing outside Yukie’s flat, whose wireless signal was surprisingly robust. Yukie had insisted on covertly entering the flat’s wireless network password on Naomi’s various machines herself, not letting Naomi watch, a touch of paranoid strangeness that chilled Naomi’s feelings for her. She had to shrug it off. So, experiencing that comforting but oppressive net-preview déjà vu, down the curving series of stone steps she went, past a group of students sitting on large rocks in the pond feeding the carp and koi, past the tiny waterfall, and on to the simple wooden bench upon which sat Professor Hideki Matsuda of the Faculty of Law. In their email exchange brokered by Yukie, Matsuda had made it clear that he did not want to meet Naomi anywhere too public, but he also wanted to be respectful, and the ancient pond seemed a fitting compromise. In response to his wariness, Naomi carried only her iPad in its dedicated Crumpler shoulder bag, and a black nylon shopping bag from La Grande Epicerie in Paris for her mundane stuff and her Sony RX100 compact camera, just in case.

The professor rose from the bench as Naomi approached and bowed slightly, not extending his hand. “Naomi, so nice to meet you.”

“Thank you, Professor Matsuda. I’m very grateful for your help.”

An awkward beat of silence filled by the shouts of students talking to the fish and one another which rose from the other end of the pond. It was obvious to Naomi that there was considerable stress involved in their meeting for this neat, delicate man of about fifty, his suit and tie impeccable, his glasses of fine stainless steel. Eventually, he took a card from an inside jacket pocket and offered it to Naomi with both hands as though it were a business card. She took it similarly with two hands, but it was just a note card, and completely in Japanese—perhaps intended to convey to her that Matsuda did not want her to know anything about him beyond what she already knew. She would need Yukie’s help with the card. They sat down together opposite a tiny, lush island.

“The philosopher can be found at this address, at the time I have written on the card. It is his current home. He is interested to meet you.”

Naomi was sure that Matsuda would be happy to leave it at that, to say goodbye right then and there, or perhaps stroll around the pond a bit, elaborating on its creation in 1615, its special heart shape, and its informal renaming to reference the 1908 campus novel Sanshirō by Natsume

Sōseki—all safe topics, all charming and congenial. But Naomi was not charming and congenial.

“Professor, you are a personal friend of Aristide Arosteguy, is that correct?”

“I would not say personal friend, no. We are colleagues in philosophy; he, professionally, and I, well, philosophically, as an outgrowth of my interest in justice and international law. We have run into each other occasionally at various venues.”

In her face, which she felt sure was burning red, Naomi could feel the wet vegetable heat coming off the pond. Matsuda looked cool. “Have you seen him recently?”

“No, not recently. We correspond by email. He is a controversial figure on campus, as one might imagine.”

“As controversial as the cannibal Issei Sagawa?”

Matsuda flinched away from Naomi a few centimeters, as though the words had shoved him in the chest, but his expression did not change. “That is… not a valid comparison, Naomi.”