Roaring along as though we were on the Nijo-hamatama expressway, we headed toward Miyazaki on Route 268, a road which, though entirely carved through the mountains, nonetheless had a yellow line running down the exact middle of it.
The city suddenly appeared. As we came down a gentle slope in the direction of the river, it was glimmering from the other side like a mirage.
“Wow!” both of us simultaneously exclaimed. It was as though we had in an instant sobered up. My foul mood and Nagoyan’s irritation had been swept away.
“’Tis a real city!”
“There are buildings… buildings!”
“7-Eleven!”
“Ah, there’s a Royal Host!”
We called out with each such discovery, guffawing with glee.
“Where have we come from?!”
“Seems like Miyazaki’s awright. I thought it’d be quite rustic.”
“I had no idea it would be such an exciting place!”
The next instant, I gave a shout, even as Nagoyan wrenched the steering wheel around. “A Mazda dealer!”
Nagoyan carefully edged his “Hiroshima Mercedes” right into the middle of the rows of new red and silver vehicles in the parking lot and stopped. He handed the key to a mechanic, and we then waited in the air-conditioned, glass-paneled showroom, looking at the shiny cars.
“They ain’t got any new Luces?”
“They haven’t been making them for some time now.”
“Is that so?”
I was beginning to feel an affectionate attachment to the square-shaped car. So they didn’t make them anymore… A pity. We sat in the leather chairs used by customers when negotiating with the sales agents. What would we do if we had to cool our heels for several days or even a week? I didn’t feel in any particular hurry; I had no sense of being pursued. But I still didn’t want to be stuck there.
The mechanic returned sooner than we expected.
The hose, he explained, had a hole in it, the result of the usual wear and tear, so that the gas had leaked out. He’d repaired it and put in new gas. As he was clearly from the southern part of the island, even I could barely understand him
Rolling his eyes, Nagoyan interrupted, “So it’s all right then?”
“Aye,” the man went on but said that if we had let it go, we might have wound up having oil leaking onto the compressor and burning, and that would have required more time and money.
All Nagoyan heard was “Aye.” “Good!” he exclaimed, breathing a deep sigh of relief. I didn’t really understand what the two were talking about, but was glad that it was nothing really dreadful.
The Luce was waiting for us at the exit, the air conditioner humming away in fine form. It seemed to be saying, “I still have some life in me!” I thought that as it was a product of Hiroshima, it ought to be speaking the dialect there. But then I wouldn’t have understood it.
“Wow! It’s cool!”
“Enough t’ give ye goosebumps!”
We were back in high-tension mode.
We had no need at this point for the fast track and so drove on past the Eastern Kyushu Expressway interchange, quite ignoring it. Nagoyan drove into a shopping district along Route 10. Pulling up to the walkway in front of a most attractive building, he stopped the car.
“Let’s stay here.”
It was a hotel, with the emblem of Japan Airlines on display. As we walked in, I was enveloped by a sudden coolness, so different from all we had been experiencing. Nagoyan walked up to the receptionist and leaned his elbow on the counter, quite as though we had come into a shot bar.
“Two double rooms.”
I said bye-bye to Nagoyan as I went into the room next to his. I opened the door and saw that it was tastefully arranged, with a lowboy, an oval table, and, most importantly, a double bed. Drinking in the joy of having it all to myself, I threw myself onto the firm, broad mattress. Until the morning, this room would be mine.
But then, when I had undressed and gone into the immaculate bathroom, turned the shiny faucets, and felt the strong spray of the shower, I remembered the low water level in the reservoir that we had left behind that morning. The naïve pleasure of brushing up against civilization is indeed short-lived.
The towels were thick and snowy white. I wanted to steal them. Thievery had now become second nature to me, and here there was everything. There were toothbrushes and coffee. Nagoyan could even turn over to a laundry service the same clothes he had risked his life to wash himself.
I put on the vertically striped, turquoise nightshirt and, like a slice of sandwiched ham, got in between the well-starched sheets of the snugly made bed. I wondered whether a baby kangaroo still longs for its mother’s pouch even after it’s grown up.
Lying there, staring up at the pure white ceiling, I reflected that the day I would lose Nagoyan was probably near. He was not the sort of person to hang about in Kyushu forever. I would deliberately use Saga dialect as I said goodbye. Nagoyan would then know my meaning. Not that it would matter much…
I hadn’t taken any medication, but as I was mulling everything over, I drowsed off. Two hours later, I awoke and happily thought about all the time I could still spend in the room. I watched a bit of TV and was relieved to see that there was no news about any search for us. The Fukuoka Daiei Hawks had won three games in a row. I downed my barbiturates with beer and fell into a deep sleep.
I was startled awake by the ring of the telephone. It was morning. I hoped that the call was from neither my parents nor the police.
“Were you asleep?” It was Nagoyan’s voice.
“Jus’ woke up.”
“I slept soundly too. Let’s have some breakfast and then go shopping.”
The tone of his voice was buoyant. I bundled out of bed.
“Aye, I’ll git ready!”
Nagoyan was waiting for me, sitting on a black leather sofa in the lobby, wearing the polo shirt he had washed in the river and puffing away on a Salem Light, something he normally did only just before bedtime. We took full advantage of the hotel’s buffet breakfast and then popped off into the brilliant light of Miyazaki’s shopping district. The sunlight was indeed brighter than in Fukuoka, beaming directly down on us.
“Is there something you particularly want?”
“Whit about ye?”
“I’ve been needing to buy some clothes.”
“I’d like to take a peek at Prada.”
“I’ll buy you something.”
“No thanks. It’s aw too dear. It’ll be fun jus’ to window-shop.”
“We can use all this money. I don’t think I’ll be buying a Porsche anyway.”
Hearing the word “Porsche,” I was reminded of our hit-and-run experience in Aso, but then thought that the man and his moll wouldn’t be on our trail. We were far away, and the car in question had had Chikuho plates.
Nagoyan, having bought a Brooks Brothers shirt, was in an expansive mood, saying we should now head for Prada. For the first time in quite a while, he was having fun just strolling through the streets.
I wanted a Prada bag. After our miserable odyssey, I wanted what for once would be a happy souvenir. I wanted something to remind me, with whomever I might travel in the future, of this particular journey. But then I immediately sensed that it was all self-deception, that I merely wanted a present to console me for the loss of Nagoyan.
“I’ve changed me mind. I don’t want it.”
“Why?”
“It’s awright.”
“After going to all the trouble…” exclaimed Nagoyan with an air of dissatisfaction. “Well then, at least put on some makeup. After all, we’re here in town.”
Nagoyan took me to Yamakataya, where there was a complete assortment of Max Factor products. The saleswoman helped give me a “natural” look. As it was Nagoyan who was watching the process and not a female friend, I felt awkward, embarrassed, bedazzled. The last time I had worn makeup was before being hospitalized, and that had been so long ago that I couldn’t remember exactly when it was.
“Fine,” said Nagoyan as he saw the result. “Now then, let’s have a bit of a timeout and meet up again in the hotel lobby at seven.”
“We’re to stay ower then?”
“Yes, let’s do that. One night’s not enough to deal with our fatigue.” So saying, he happily disappeared into the back streets.
Having nothing else to do, I wandered about the arcade, went into a bookstore where I bought a magazine and then went into a Mister Donut for a cup of coffee. I was feeling quite normal, with no hint of the voice. I’d lost track of where I was.
Back at the hotel, I took a most luxurious bath. Hot springs are pleasant too, but in this private bath, I could relax. In this intimate solitude, there was no need to engage in conversation with anyone.
At seven, having put on my makeup, I went down to the lobby, where I found Nagoyan waiting for me; he was dressed in his new button-down shirt and had even had his hair cut. We went into the restaurant for dinner. Was this all some sort of mistake? Was everything that had happened so far a mistake? That we had escaped from the hospital and were now contentedly enjoying a French course menu – was that a mistake? If we had been in Fukuoka, it might have been otherwise, but now here in my mouth was unmistakably the roast Hyuga chicken of which I had dreamt at the Tashirobae Dam.
“Did you know that from here you can take a ferry to Kawasaki?”
“Nope.”
And I had no wish to take that ferry. For some reason, my ardor for escape had cooled. Nagoyan likewise seemed to have no particular attachment to Kawasaki.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the necktie crowd.” Nagoyan’s expression slightly clouded over. “They must come here a lot on business. The airport is close.”
“An’ if ye fly, ye ha no trouble gettin’ to Tokyo.”
“No. The distance from Tokyo to Fukuoka is more than twice the distance from Fukuoka to Tokyo.”
“Huh? It’s no th’ same?”
“It feels longer.”
“Aye.”
“My ex told me when I got transferred to Kyushu that she felt sorry for me being sent off to bumpkinsville. And it was a bit of shock all right.”
“How can ye call Fukuoka anythin’ but urban? If it’s bumpkinsville ye want…”
The rest went without saying, as we were probably both thinking of the nightmarish road we had recently driven.
“Tokyoites don’t see Fukuoka in particular; they see Kyushu as a whole. From their point of view, it’s like a foreign country. I hate to admit it, but that’s the way I thought too, and so I understand the mentality.”
Yet, in so saying, he was as much as conceding that he was now himself a semi-Fukuokan.
“So yer ex was misled.”
“Yes, she had it wrong. But so what? It can’t be helped.”
Human beings see what they want to see. Nagoyan had told me that, and I wondered whether that might be true. I had no desire to give Nagoyan’s ex a tour of Fukuoka. It occurred to me that I would have happily dumped her at Tashirobae Dam. I also realized that I had missed the chance to ask Nagoyan whether his Nurse Shimada looked like her.