Andrew Miller - One Morning Like a Bird

The legs are stirring. ‘Give me a pull!’

Yuji grips the canvas heels, leans back his weight. A stocky, moon-faced, middle-aged man appears, Grandfather’s neighbour, Mr Fujitomi.

‘Try her now.’

In the cab, the ignition is a button on the floor. The first time Yuji tries it the engine rasps, sputters, dies. He tries again. This time it fires.

‘Tough as tanks,’ says Fujitomi, jumping up beside Yuji and using a sheet of newspaper to wipe the oil from his hands. ‘You could drive one of these all the way to Moscow.’ He swings shut the door. The policeman’s face floats in the wing mirror. Fujitomi frowns. ‘Let’s go,’ he says. ‘The river. Nice and gently.’

After Grandfather’s illness, that event in the middle of the night that had left him for a few hours paralysed and barely able to call for help (‘It was,’ said Sonoko, ‘like the cawing of a bird’), Mr Fujitomi had made several neighbourly visits, each time bringing with him some little luxury — a half-dozen Californian lemons, a parcel of good tea or, on one occasion, a box of pharmaceuticals that Grandfather’s doctor had assured them were no longer available — and on each visit he sat for an hour by Grandfather’s head to listen, carefully, to the unintelligible sounds he made. On the third or fourth of these visits he found Yuji in the vegetable garden, prodding tentatively at the dry earth with one of Grandfather’s hoes. He had laughed at him, told him the garden would take care of itself until the spring then — after a pause in which he seemed to study Yuji carefully, to weigh him up — added that his son, Tamotsu, had received his red paper a month ago and was now with the Thirty-fifth Regiment somewhere in central China.

‘I hope he comes back soon,’ said Yuji.

‘You’re supposed to offer your congratulations,’ replied Fujitomi, ‘but I too hope he comes home soon. Tell me something. You know how to drive?’

An hour later, on land at the back of Fujitomi’s house, Yuji was at the wheel of the blue Nissan receiving his first driving lesson. Driving, so it turned out, was quite a pleasurable activity. It was not even that difficult, as long as all he had to avoid was a few trees.

‘Tamotsu was my driver,’ explained Fujitomi. ‘And I have no other sons. Perhaps you could fill in for a while? Unless you have something better to do. There’s money, of course. You won’t be short.’

‘You want me to drive for you?’

‘Pick-ups and deliveries.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Pick-ups and deliveries. No heavy work.’

There was one more afternoon driving circuits round the cedar trees, then early the following morning, a light mist on the road, they set off for the centre of Tokyo. Somehow — and even Fujitomi’s imperturbability was tested — they survived the near-miss with the bus in Akasaka, the many near misses with angry cyclists, the terrifying moment when Yuji came within the width of a sandal from reversing into a canal in Kyobashi.

They picked up — sacks, boxes, sealed cases, crates, barrels. And they delivered — to hotels, to large houses, to the backs of businesses, to men who, looking somewhat like Mr Fujitomi, handed over grubby bundles of yen. Of these, at the end of the day, Yuji always received his share. By the first week of November, he could, had he wished it, have eaten at Kawashima’s three nights a week. He could even have afforded the Snow Goose if there had only been someone to take there. He forgot about Horikawa, about scribbling for a living. He found it amusing, though slightly disconcerting, that money could be made so simply. Pick up, deliver. Pick up, deliver. No heavy work.

At the river (the engine has cut out twice more and twice more Fujitomi has crawled between the wheels), they cross at the Ryogoku Bridge. Their next collection is in Honjo, somewhere deep among its web of wires and chimney shadow. They pass temples, slums, little chaotic factories, then pull up beside a gate in a blackened wall. Yuji sounds the horn.

‘Got a new boy?’ asks the man who unlocks the gate.

‘Helping while Tamotsu’s across the water.’

‘The Thirty-fifth, isn’t it?’ asks the man. ‘Not a bad outfit. Long as he keeps his head down.’

Under his coat — a civilian coat of black and white twill — the man is in puttees, breeches, a tunic with five brass buttons down the front. So too are the men who load the van. It’s not the first time in his new work that Yuji has seen this, and though Mr Fujitomi has offered no explanation, none, perhaps, is required. Rice, fuel, tobacco — even items like paper and soap — the army has them in abundance. All over the city there are depots, all over the country, soon, perhaps, all over Asia, each barracks, each camp, a new outlet, a fresh business. Is this what war is about? Not abstract concerns like racial destiny but the making of more and more money? A yen block to counter the dollar block, the sterling block? It is a view of things Yuji is not accustomed to, not yet. The soldiers, Mr Fujitomi, the likeable, practical men they meet in yards who snap open crates with a crowbar, who drag tarpaulins, who do impressive sums in their heads, seem part of a different system, a kind of parallel circuitry that has no more to do with sacrificial battles than it does, say, with poetry.

The last job (a customer for the Korean brandy) is finished an hour after dark. Half an hour later Yuji drops down from the Nissan outside Grandfather’s gate. ‘Give the old fellow my regards,’ says Fujitomi, sliding across to the driver’s seat. ‘You’re staying the night?’

‘I have duties at home,’ says Yuji.

‘More of this fire-watching nonsense? Someone needs to sort that crank out.’ He pulls the day’s takings from the pocket of his coat, peels off the outermost note, passes it through the window. Yuji reaches up, takes the note between his fingers. There is something about the feel of this kind of money, money that does a job, that keeps itself busy. Some of the notes are worn soft as antique cotton. Crushed in the hand, they do not crease.

‘Until tomorrow, then!’

‘Until tomorrow.’

Grandfather is in the eight-mat room, a buttressing of small cushions around his hips, a slate-coloured blanket over his shoulders. Sonoko is beside him, holding a bowl of tea, or something medicinal perhaps. On the other side of the brazier, Father, looking both bored and anxious, is smoking a cigarette. When Yuji comes in, Grandfather says something, then says it again.

‘Yes,’ says Yuji, hoping he has made sense of those knotted sounds. ‘It was good business today.’

Grandfather nods, smiles a lopsided smile.

Sonoko shuffles to the brazier, busies herself with the kettle.

‘There’s a train at quarter past,’ says Father, dropping the end of his cigarette onto the coals. ‘If we want to catch it, we should leave soon.’ He sits up, kneels formally. ‘Will you be all right?’ he asks the old man. ‘One us could probably stay if you wished it. And please remember the doctor will be here at nine tomorrow. He will want to take some blood. And please, give some consideration to my suggestion. The garden room in Hongo could be made most comfortable. It goes without saying that Sonoko would be welcome to accompany you.’

Grandfather is waving an arm, angrily. He is saying something angrily. Father blinks at him, confused for a moment. ‘Noriko . .? Yes. Please do not concern yourself. I will take care of Noriko.’

‘You want to do the first shift tonight?’ asks Yuji as they follow the path through the garden.

‘It would be better for you to have it,’ says Father. ‘And I’ll come an hour earlier. Your rest is more necessary than mine.’

‘I wouldn’t say so.’