Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

He took some more cheese, and ordered another glass of wine. Glancing over at the counter, he saw the men collapsed in loud laughter, shoulders shaking, as if they’d just invented the most stupendous joke. With those guys there, he just couldn’t get the feeling that he and Shinobu were really alone together. If this hundred thousand yen meeting was going to end in nothing more than this, it amounted to fraud. No sooner had he thought this than Shinobu said “Tell me a little about yourself now, Kita.”

“What would you like to know?” He couldn’t think of anything really worth saying. He wasn’t planning to mention either the fact that he’d just signed away his life plus a set of organs, nor that his self-appointed execution would take place this Friday. Their paths would never cross again. And as for Christ having brought them together – well, it was charming of her to explain mere coincidence in these terms, but things got a bit abstract once a man who was nailed up two thousand years ago came between them like this. It would give him greater comfort to silently worship her round breasts.

“Have you ever thought of suicide, Kita?” As he sat gazing with lowered eyes at Shinobu’s breasts, they heaved suddenly with the abrupt question. Kita reeled as if they’d landed him a sudden punch.

“Why ask me that, out of the blue?” Kita sat back.

“I’ve stopped thinking about suicide since I started reading the Bible.”

“You used to think about it?”

“Every night, without fail.”

“You’ve done well to survive, then.”

“It was touch and go for a while.”

“Was it because of those guys over there?”

“They sell my body. To the big boys over in Nagatacho.”

A moment’s silence fell over the bar’s hum of noise. The customers at surrounding tables had been gazing into space, but their ears were tuned in to this table. For some time now these anonymous people had been taking in the confession pouring forth in Shinobu’s clear voice. Their curiosity was focused on the question of the identity of the man she was with. Surely they wouldn’t be mistaking him for some Nagatacho politician?

“So which politicians have bought you?” Kita’s question was meant for the listening gallery to hear.

The two guys over at the counter rose and came towards their table.

“It’s about time to call it to a close, buddy” whispered the smaller one in his ear. His eyes blinked rapidly behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “Miss Yoimachi has another job to go to.” The anonymous spies all around resumed their interrupted conversations, poker faced. The bar was filled with a hum of conversation again.

“Go away,” said Shinobu. “I want to talk with Kita a bit longer.”

The taller of the two leaned over and whispered to her, “Don’t go shootin’ yer mouth off then.” He struck a pose like Michelangelo’s David, intended to strike fear into the public gallery, then slowly returned to the counter.

Shinobu bent forward and brought her face so close to Kita that he could feel her breath. “You remember that hardliner politician with the love child, whose legitimate son’s an actor?”

“That Minister for Construction?”

“Yeah, him. And that gangster type one who made off with two hundred million from the casino.”

“The ‘you can bet your life on Kentaro’ guy?”

“And…”

“You mean there’s more?”

“What’s his name Suzuki, the Depillatory to the Treasurer.”

“Deputy.”

“Yeah, him. I’m a sullied woman, see? I’m a sacrifice to the ruthless urge of those guys to do all the business they like. I was like a corpse till now, as good as dead. These guys and those creeps in Nagatacho, they think I’m just some doll with breasts, they think I’ve got no brain or soul. Sorry. I guess I must be drunk.”

“But why are you telling me all this, when you’ve only just met me? Surely they make sure you keep your mouth shut?”

“I don’t care. I need someone to know the truth, just in case something happens.”

“Something?”

Shinobu lowered her voice further. “I may be killed to keep my mouth shut,” she murmured, and sent him a meaningful look. “But my plan is to tell the world before I get killed, and then leave it to Jesus to protect me.”

The guys at the counter rose to their feet again. His time was up. “Thank you for the precious talk,” Kita said, holding out his hand.

“Let’s meet again soon, Kita,” said Shinobu. “Without those guys.”

“Thank you, but I don’t really have any time left.”

“You don’t have to pay another hundred thousand yen. Money shouldn’t come into it when two people meet. Please see me again. Next week, even.”

“I won’t be here any more by next week.”

“What do you mean?”

The men stepped between them. The little one bowed to Kita and thanked him, and the taller one followed suit. Kita watched them lead Shinobu away, a crooked smile frozen on his lips. Did she feel a little happier now that she’d used her hour of Cinderella time this evening to get her troubles off her chest? She walked backwards out of the bar still gazing at him, her brow furrowed in a bewildered look, and her lips pouting in the unspoken question, “Why?”

There was a vacant twin room at the Moon Palace Hotel, so he took it. Handing his backpack to the bellboy, he went up to the room, and no sooner was he inside than he ordered room service – turtle in rice stew, and champagne. As he tucked into what was probably his fourth-last supper, all alone, he savoured the aftertaste of the strange tryst he’d just had with the star.

How to describe her expression as she left the bar? It was like a child being taken back to some awful classroom against her will at the end of playtime. He felt for her. If she’d begged him to run off with her, he might have felt tempted to play the abductor. What did he care that her minders had wicked underground links with politicians, or that they dealt in violence for pleasure? He could have stayed desperately on the run with her till Friday. Or at least he could have given them a good scare, and let her enjoy the thrill of escape and the taste of freedom. But he hadn’t had the time to find out how she felt about it, nor the inclination to explain his own situation. It would have cost another nine hundred thousand to bring her up to this room, and he’d be a fool to line their pockets like that. It would be better to conduct a live burial for himself in the park, and distribute the money among a hundred vagrants, passersby, and students, to get them to attend the party.

Having polished off the mild-tasting turtle stew and dry champagne for his simple supper, he got into a tepid bath. All alone in this empty room, his flesh-and-blood self gazed at its own reflection in the mirror.

The hotel mirror wasn’t alive, but it still ate people. His stomach had suddenly begun to sag, and bags had formed under his eyes. He’d aged years. Every time he opened the bathroom door or the closet and was abruptly met with his own reflection, he was surprised to see himself there. He had forgotten his own existence completely until he saw himself in the mirror. He’d never experienced the thought, “I think, therefore I am.” When he was talking to someone, he was always sucked into their identity, and when he walked in the street he dissolved into it. But the mirror put him unequivocally centre stage. And this mirror self was a sort of other person who was just like himself, a self that was in between self and other.

Well, to start with, anyway. This mirror had reflected back the images of countless anonymous visitors, and the experience had warped it. It wouldn’t be long before the mirror gobbled him up and he disappeared. Being reflected in this mirror was as good as not being there at all.