23 to 22 Days
My Mother as a Maid in a Karaoke Club
‘Anniiiiie aime les sucettes, les sucettes à l’anis . . .’
We were in a karaoke bar in Shibuya, the trendy district that never sleeps, and I think the surreal image of my mother, dressed up as a saucy maid, screeching France Gall’s cute Lolita number about loving lollipops, a song which she hates, surrounded by Japanese in high spirits, chorusing ‘Kanpai!’ at the end of every line, will remain etched in my memory forever.
Naturally, it occurred to me to capture that magic moment for posterity. I had difficulty filming because I was in fits of giggles, which made the camera wobble. At one point, one of our fellow drinkers grabbed the camera, and his friends gave me a second mic and pushed me on to the mini stage. My mother, who generally doesn’t drink and who’d been downing glasses of umeshu – a moreish plum liqueur – yelled that she was very happy to sing this duet with me, grabbing me by the neck, like a drunkard at a village beer festival in Alsace, and shrieking even louder when Johnny Hallyday’s ‘Que je t’aime’ came on. That night, we discovered that Japanese karaoke bars, as well as being places of wild drinking, are veritable museums of international music hits, and that the French pop songs of the Sixties to the Nineties are a big favourite.
The day had begun a great deal more calmly. We’d followed Louis’s plan to the letter, and I piqued my mother’s curiosity by disclosing each stage only as we came to it. So, for her, the day had been a series of surprises. It was the first time she’d been outside Europe, and only her third time out of France, and she was like a kid, impatient to find out what was next. She relied on me, because I both had the schedule and spoke English – for want of Japanese – and I had the feeling that our roles had been reversed: I was the mother, travelling with her child who was carrying a senior citizen’s card.
The first stage was the Pokémon Center megastore, in Ikebukuro, where we bought thirty or so super-rare cards and posed in front of giant statues of Pikachu and his friends. People dressed as strange creatures, in cosplay outfits, greeted us: teenagers disguised as characters from the Studio Ghibli, candyfloss-pink schoolgirls, punk Lolitas, superheroes going around in noisy groups. I recognized a Sailor Moon, two Hello Kittys, a Totoro and a few Pokémon heroes, but I’m certain that Louis would have identified most of the characters.
Next, we went for a stroll in the vast gardens around the Meiji Jingu. We were awestruck by this oasis of nature and history in the heart of the city’s hustle and bustle. A surprising change of scene. We gave in to the temptation of taking a selfie in front of the majestic collection of ancient sake barrels that greets visitors, then we captured the special atmosphere of the shrine by placing the camera on a low wall for some minutes. Louis would be able to listen at leisure to the special peacefulness of Tokyo’s nature, the murmur of the city providing a subtle soundscape. The foreground was made up of birds twittering and rustling foliage. We stayed there for a long time, listening. Waiting for the next step of our adventure.
A traditional wedding was going to be celebrated at the Meiji Jingu. I had no idea why Louis wanted to attend a Japanese wedding; it was most likely something he’d read about in a manga magazine, the extraordinary beauty of which he’d intuited. The procession approached. I gestured to the bride to ask if we could film, and she agreed with a smile. She seemed to be imbued with the magic of the Meiji Jingu and of the moment, utterly still in her immaculate cocoon-like dress, a chrysalis of purity. Time was suspended in the reds of the kimonos, the copper roofs, the slow, coordinated steps, the weight of tradition. Leaning towards the camera, I quietly described the scene, mindful of the solemnity of the moment: ‘It’s a stunning sight, darling. You have to see it for yourself. Thank you for having brought us here.’
After this moving interlude, we decided to dive straight into the buzzing Shibuya district. Shibuya – everyone knows it, without knowing it. It’s that crazy intersection, with a tangle of pedestrian crossings and tall buildings covered in giant screens, screaming noise and lights. The Japanese Times Square. I’d read that this legendary crossing is the epitome of Japanese discipline: when the lights change to green for pedestrians, hundreds of people cross at the same time, carefully avoiding one another. ‘Imagine what chaos it would be if Parisians were thrown in there,’ Mum remarked with her usual tact. She couldn’t have spoken a truer word. I was a little afraid of what Louis had planned, but I had to follow everything to the letter. We had to follow everything to the letter.
We waited by one of the pedestrian crossings, surrounded by a hundred or so people. A hundred or so others stood facing us. Ignoring her protests, I attached Louis’s camera to my mother’s forehead with a ‘Take it or leave it’ that made her laugh and mutter that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and that I was well and truly my mother’s daughter. I switched on the camera and took her wrinkled palm in mine.
‘On the count of three, we close our eyes.’
‘You’re joking, I hope? Are you trying to kill me, or what?’
‘On the count of three, we close our eyes, Mum.’
‘Mary, mother of Jesus, what have I done for God to punish me like this—?’
‘Mum, you’ve never believed in God!’
‘Maybe that explains it.’
I laughed, and she laughed. I said, ‘One, two, three – close your eyes!’
The pedestrian light must have turned green, because we surged forward with the crowd, our eyes closed. My mother yelped in a panic each time someone brushed against her, and I laughed all the more. Then my foot hit what must have been a kerb, I stumbled and Mum steadied me. I regained my balance, and we opened our eyes again. We were on the other side. We’d just crossed the busiest intersection in the world with our eyes closed, and not been jostled once. These Japanese were disarmingly disciplined and well mannered. We looked at one another and burst out laughing. I think we felt alive.
We decided to take a well-earned break in a café overlooking the Shibuya Crossing, watching (and filming) the ballet of pedestrians for some time, with what we guessed were the latest Japanese hits playing in the background. Dusk was about to fall and we hadn’t noticed the time go by. It was already almost five and we still had a lot to do.
We took a taxi to the Shinjuku district, the hub of Tokyo nightlife, where I’d read you had to be careful. In the heart of Kabukicho, the red-light district where gaming rooms, hostess bars, restaurants, jazz clubs and meetings of the yakuza – the local mobsters – mingle, it was better not to follow just any person, anywhere. We dived headlong into the bustle, the crowd, the vertical luminous signs with incomprehensible ideograms. After locating – with difficulty – the address on Louis’s list, which was very precise, when it came to Tokyo, we found ourselves in the waiting room of Tomohiro Tomoaki, alias Tomo: the celebrities’ tattoo artist. I had to ask him to ink a part of my body, in order to check off this item on my son’s motley Japanese wish list.
The walls were covered with photos of international stars proudly posing, one with an eagle on their hip, another with a greedy mouth at the top of their pubis (really classy – I won’t reveal who it was, even under torture) . . . and I started to wonder what I’d got myself into. Mum was having fun acting the interviewer, filming me while asking me what it was like to be on the point of getting a penis tattoo on my right cheek – ‘You never know what you’ll end up with, with your level of Japanese.’ Ha, ha, very funny. I’d decided to be restrained and have a plain capital L tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. It would be hidden by my watch most of the time.
I closed my eyes while Tomo was tattooing me and, in the end, I was very pleased with the result. Bearable pain, a discreet and beautiful Japanese-style L. We thanked him with a reverential bow that was probably inappropriate – I don’t think I’ll ever understand the complex codes of Japanese greetings – and emerged into the turmoil of Kabukicho.
After drinking a first umeshu in the Golden Gai district, full of microhouses concealing bars which can only cram in five or six people, we entered an izakaya – a traditional restaurant. We removed our shoes and sat on the floor, kneeling on a tatami. Our adventures had given us an appetite. Next on Louis’s list was an exciting and scary command:
Eat in an izakaya, ask for a menu in Japanese, with no photos, order five random dishes and eat them all!
‘You can count me out, pussycat. After all, you’re the one who must follow Louis’s instructions, not me.’
‘You’ve got a nerve, Mum! If you decide you’re going to be my guest – well, you’re my guest to the end! Come on, let’s both have another umeshu – that’ll perk you up!’
My mother raised her eyes to the heavens, feigning exasperation with a broad smile, and answered in her best accent: ‘Go for the oo-me-shoe . . .’
We ordered from a waiter who didn’t speak a word of English, pointing to indecipherable words on the menu. As we made our choices, the waiter sometimes asked questions, sounding surprised – a rather unobtrusive Japanese surprise. Of course, we understood nothing and nodded foolishly while clucking like two impatient hens. I felt as if I was Obelix, waiting for the dishes of Mannekenpix, the chef who cooked meals for the Titans, as I buckled down to one of the many tasks concocted by my son.
Various fish and shellfish sushi soon appeared on our table: we identified salmon, tuna, eel, fish roe (but what kind?), as well as a type of octopus. We didn’t recognize a slightly sharp-tasting white fish, nor a viscous shellfish. Then came a large noodle soup that we gathered was called udon, with shrimp fritters, mysterious vegetables, fried tofu and seaweed. So far, so good. Then we were served a bowl of plain rice, which on closer inspection turned out to be dotted with tiny whole fried fish, including the eyes. My mother protested, but we ate everything (and crunched, because those little fish were crispy), wincing as we did so.
The pièce de résistance was served by the chef himself. He came to our table with a live squid in his left hand and a large knife in his right. We stopped laughing like silly geese and the booming chef gratified us with an incomprehensible speech as he laid the creature on a wooden board. Then he calmly sliced it, placing the thin transparent strips in small bowls. Mum looked away; I laughed and pointed out that, since she ate live oysters, she could try the ‘almost live’ squid. Then the chef stood there in front of us. We thanked him, but he didn’t leave. He was obviously waiting for us to try it. We had no option. I grabbed the camera and caught my mother’s grimace and gag reflex as she put a piece of quivering squid in her mouth.
We washed it all down with some sake, then squandered a few thousand yen (a few tens of euros) in a smoke-filled pachinko – a sort of jam-packed casino, echoing with the sound of jangling, flashing machines, where thousands of workers seeking an adrenaline rush come to forget the emptiness of their lives. To round off our foray into Shinjuku in style, we tried a beer with wasabi at the Robot Restaurant, watching a cabaret show that was a cross between an episode of Bioman on speed, a cardboard cut-out parody of an American musical, and a Bollywood movie with ear-piercing singing, dancing and screeching.
Back in Shibuya, we joined a bunch of particularly tipsy Japanese for this group karaoke, and competed singing Eurovision songs and wearing absurd costumes.
I had to support my mother on the way back to the hotel – she could no longer walk straight – and the receptionist welcomed us with a smile in which I could discern a hint of anxiety.
‘Everything’s fine, don’t worry. Goodnight.’
It was four o’clock in the morning. I lay Mum on the bed and removed her socks and the maid’s hat she had forgotten to return with the rest of her costume. I ‘mentally defenestrated’ myself one last time, then I too lay down.
In seeking to awaken my son, I fell asleep, a little girl snuggled up to her mother.