Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

The telephone rang – the hotel telephone, not the cell phone. The blinking light told him he had a message. He picked up the receiver, and there was Shinobu’s voice.

“Kita? Where’ve you been? I’ve telephoned again and again. I couldn’t get you on your cell phone – I thought you might be dead.”

“No, it’s still only Tuesday.”

“You OK? What are you planning on doing now?”

“I haven’t decided. I thought maybe I’d have a meal.”

“Buy me one please. OK? I’m in the studio right now doing a shoot. I’ll come round there at five.”

Kita had a premonition that she was up to something.

“Yashiro and those yakuza guys aren’t involved, are they?”

“No way. This isn’t to do with business.”

“Why do you want to spend time with me? It’s weird.”

“Don’t you want to see me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well then, don’t argue, just meet me.”

He was only too happy to do as she told him. He was inclined to do all he could for Shinobu – after all, she’d promised him rebirth, even if it was only a joke.

Shinobu turned up in the hotel lobby unaccompanied. She was dressed casually, in jeans with ripped knees and a red yachting parka, with a bandana around her head and no make-up, giving her a completely different look from the night before. “I’d love to go somewhere far away,” she said in a wheedling tone.

There was a limit to how much he was inclined to indulge her, but he asked anyway just to see what she’d say.

“A mountain hot spring resort.”

Hot spring resorts again! Why did women love going to these places? At Kita’s bitter smile, Shinobu’s expression became pleading.

“I’ve just felt so empty and forlorn since last night. It’s your fault, Kita. I wanted to pack everything in, work included, and run away somewhere. Let’s run away together.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it.”

But her eyes were laughing as she spoke. Kita stalled by inviting her to eat with him at the hotel, but she held her ground. “We’re going to the mountains,” she insisted. Kita couldn’t guess what her plan was, but he allowed himself be sent back to his room to pack, and then checked out of the hotel. “Look at you,” Shinobu said when she saw him with the backpack on his back. “You’re all set for the mountains with that on.”

They hopped in a taxi and set off for Tokyo Station. The only plan was to head for the mountains, they didn’t have any particular destination in mind. “Let’s just get on the bullet train and get out of Tokyo,” Shinobu insisted. “Once we’re out of the city there’ll be hot springs all over the place.”

They took seats in the first class carriage of the six thirty-five northbound bullet train, heading for Niigata. Before boarding Shinobu went crazy at the station kiosk, buying chocolate-coated cracker sticks, silverberry juice, cheese paste, banana cake, vinegared squid, persimmon peas, strawberry rice-cakes and so forth, and then settled down to pig out on them. She was just trying to cheer herself up from the miseries and rage of normal life, she explained. Her hands and mouth never paused for an instant; she ate with the vigour of someone literally eating the house down. Kita noticed that she had her own particular style of getting through the food. First off she consumed five cracker sticks. Next was a mouthful of cheese paste. Then came one vinegared squid tentacle, after which she demolished a rice cake. Then she spent a while picking out the persimmon peas from the packet, after which she’d suddenly remember and take a deep swig of the silverberry juice. When the food wagon came around in the carriage, she bought beer and Oolong tea, and after slaking her thirst with these she set in on the banana cake. Finally, she returned to the crackers.

Sitting beside Shinobu with her blatantly terrible eating style, Kita contented himself with picking at the contents of a local specialty bento. He couldn’t summon much of an appetite.

Once the train was past Takasaki, Shinobu’s blood sugar levels seemed to have returned to normal. She heaved a sigh and said, “Let’s get off at the next stop.” They’d bought tickets as far as Echigo Yuzawa, but they hopped off one stop short, at Jomo Kogen.

The carriage had been nearly empty since Takasaki. Only five others besides themselves got off at Jomo Kogen. Both the station and the street in front were silent and deserted. Mountains rose in the distance, lit by the moon. Apparently this was the closest mountain hot spring resort area to Tokyo.

They made inquiries at the station about whether there was some secluded hot spring hotel in a nearby village. “A secluded hot spring hotel?” repeated the young station attendant, and thought for a while, his eyes following Shinobu as she danced around in the empty station, humming and looking at the posters on the wall.

“Hoshi Hot Springs is the best. But it’s too late to get there now. The last bus has gone. You’ll have to get a taxi.”

“No problem,” Kita said. He got the telephone number, and made the call from the public phone booth. The man from the hot springs sounded rather reluctant, but he agreed to let them stay without an evening meal.

The taxi ride into the mountains took about an hour. A little before nine, they arrived at the lone hotel building in the woods, an area reputed to provide frequent sightings of monkeys. They were shown to a room with two sets of bedding already laid out for them on the floor; the table held little dishes of boiled vegetables, grilled fish, pickles and rice balls that seemed intended as side dishes for sake. The waitress informed them that they could take a bath any time of day or night, and there were drinks in their refrigerator.

A stream flowed beneath the window, spanned by a corridor leading to a wing on the far bank. Apparently this wooden hot spring hotel was over a hundred years old, built in the early years of the Meiji era, and was closed during the winter months.

“OK if we sleep in the same room?” Kita asked.

Shinobu looked much more cheerful than she had when they were in Tokyo. “Shall I read you some more from the Bible?” she said.

“No, that’s enough Bible. But is it really OK for you to be in this remote place? You must have work tomorrow, surely?”

“It’s fine. I’ve sent those spooks packing. I want to give them a hard time, you see.”

“You ran away?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I’m serious. I’m taking my revenge on the world.”

“It’s like I’ve kidnapped you or something.”

“I’m the one who’s kidnapped you.”

“No one’s going to see it that way. What do you get out of kidnapping me, after all? But if someone abducted you, everyone’d go crazy. And there’d be money in it.”

“No one would pay the ransom.”

“I bet they would. The production guys would.”

“No way, not that stingy company boss.”

“Well the politicians you’ve been with would then. You’re in a position to cause the downfall of two members of parliament plus a top bureaucrat from the Treasury. You’re a walking bomb for them.”

Shinobu was sitting up on one of the beds like a little god of happiness. “Kita, would you abduct me please?” she said, gazing flirtatiously up at him as he stood by the window. In the hotel the night before, Kita had dreamed of running away with Shinobu. Needless to say, it had only been a fantasy. And yet here she was, begging him to abduct her. Maybe a whole new life had begun for him suddenly.

“I’ve got two things I absolutely must do before I die. One of them’s a ski jump.”

Professional ski jumpers looked as though they just went bouncing gaily along, but apparently they were white with fear when they first started. The beginning was like a prison sentence or death dash to escape. The criminal hurls himself from the prison down the perilous cliff face in the swirling snow, not knowing if he’ll live or die, and if by pure luck he lands safely, he grasps both life and freedom. No one can believe they’ll survive, that first time. Sure they’d die, and the prison guards wouldn’t bother pursuing them. That “freedom or death” leap had become a competitive sport that judged participants on their form and the length of their jump.