‘I was born on Black Thursday.’
‘Oh, indeed?’ I scratched my chin, beneath the straggly beard.
‘You know it?’
‘That depends. If you are trying to frighten me, it’s not working. Black Thursday—boo! I’m tempted to toss a “humbug” right back.’
‘You’re peculiar. I’m not trying to scare you. Black Thursday was on October 24, 1929. The first day of the Wall Street Crash in the United States, and the beginning of the Great Depression.’
I seized the moment right after the girl finished giving her pint-sized speech to return a warm round of applause.
‘Wonderful! What a way to recall one’s birthday. It’s highly unlikely friends and relatives could forget a date like that, by gosh. In my case, I was nowhere near so fortunate. I shared my birthday with Armenian Independence Day, on the 21st of September, and wouldn’t be able to point out Armenia on a map.’
Kohana had her eyes fixed on the placid water far below. What she thought, I couldn’t tell, and to be honest I did feel the tiniest amount chastened by her silence.
‘Oh well, I must apologize,’ I ventured. ‘Did that rain on your parade?’
In answer, the woman ignored me.
‘I was not born alone,’ she took up, acting as if my babbling had never transpired. ‘I arrived four minutes after my sister. And the only thing that crashed for us on that date was our mother’s uterus. Seconds before, I had no name, and my mother was alive. Then, my sister had a twin. I came out screaming, and my mother’s womb collapsed. She died giving birth to me.’
‘Yes, I see.’ I felt a minor chill. ‘I do get your point.’
Spread out, on the sandy lawn beside us, was a thin mattress on which a dead woman lay. Of course, I recoiled.
The skin around this woman’s bare chest and neck had an ashen tinge to it, but I could not make out her face, since it was shrouded beneath a mess of black hair. The lower half of her body was covered with a quilt drenched in blood and sweat. Two lively, naked, screaming babies lay next to the woman.
‘Really, Kohana, this is too much. If you want an apology for my impertinence—you have it.’
I looked away, but after some seconds passed, I sneaked another glance at the diorama. It had packed up things and vanished. I assumed I had to make a comment of some kind. My remaining semblance of good manners demanded it.
‘So, you had a twin sister.’
‘I did.’
‘Did you look the same?’
‘Are you asking if we’re identical? Yes. On the outside. But our innards were cast in completely different foundries—she had my mother’s healthy ones; I often think I inherited her dismembered, post-natal self.’
‘Eloquent? For sure. Far-fetched? Extraordinarily.’
‘Most likely you’re right.’ Kohana examined her lap and used fingers to smooth out the material of her dress.
‘I suppose death in childbirth was a far more common occurrence back in—when was this? 1929, you said? Ancient times?’
Again the girl ignored me. This was getting to be a diabolical habit.
‘My father refused to be called “Papa”. He held to the more formal Oto-sama, and he regarded me with an expression that said “You killed my wife”, or something close to it.’
There was no poignant, carefully choreographed picture-show this time. To all appearances, Kohana preferred to keep the old man out of frame.
‘How does one do that?’ I asked.
Deathlike silence, like talking to a wall.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Hmm?’ The girl looked over.
‘Aren’t we having a discussion here?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then how does one do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘My original question, of course—devise a facial bearing that conveys so much? It would be rather useful. The poker face was a breeze for me to master, but I’m certain I could have closed the odd engaging business deal, with a filicidal scowl.’
‘I doubt it’s something you can flip on and off.’
‘Surely there’s a switch?’ I meant something emotional, but the woman went off tangent for material.
‘Wolram, my father wasn’t a power point.’
‘Do tell.’
‘But now I think of it, he had only that one expression—sustenance enough for the remainder of his life. Yes, the switch was left on. That would make Mama fortunate. Not only did she escape an exceptionally negative marriage partner and a brace of clutching kids, but she was in good company.’
‘How so?’
‘She relinquished life on the same date Christian Dior did in 1957—though I’ve heard tell that this is debatable. May I use your word? Scuttlebutt has it Dior died on October 23, not October 24 as reported.’
I honestly didn’t care one jot which day Dior kicked the bucket. I feigned interest for a couple of infuriating seconds, and then gave up. Bad enough that she’d tarnished scuttlebutt’s good name.
‘What does some Frenchie fashion designer have to do with your mother? Unless I’m missing an elemental clue here? If so, pray enlighten me.’
Kohana refused to answer, and I couldn’t tell whether this was because she was being truculent, or just damned well depressed. Either way, it made me irritable, so I turned my attention elsewhere.
‘There are no seagulls here,’ I muttered. ‘In fact, I’ve seen not a single bird since I arrived. Aren’t ravens and crows and other carrion supposed to be signifiers of death? All we have are those ibises on the kimono in there.’
I shifted in my squatting position to place my hands on my thighs. My lower spine was aching—an old complaint I’d come to term ‘art gallery back’, principally because I suffered it at insufferable exhibition opening parties.
A cold, gusty breeze had started up and I spied white tips on the waves below. Despite its non-committal nature to this point, the weather looked like it was about to turn brutish.
‘Shall we go indoors?’ I had in mind velveteen pillows and warm saké.
As I pushed to my feet, I could have sworn I heard the old bones creak. Once I’d achieved the amazing, I looked down at my hostess, but she hadn’t moved a muscle.
Her choice. I shelved any plans of playing it suave and walked unsteadily back to the hovel. Once I reached the door, I took off my slippers and went inside.
Somehow, the fire in the centre of the room had restarted and it gave off enough light to see by—if you didn’t mind a stubbed toe.
I felt hungry for the first time in an eternity, ravenously so.
I popped over to the pantry against the wall, the one where the rice crackers lived, and searched for a treat. There was a bar fridge set into the woodwork beside it, and inside that I discovered perfection. Sushi. A whole platter of raw fish of various colours, assembled purely for my satisfaction.
I took out the plastic tray, placed it on the table, and snapped apart a convenient pair of wooden chopsticks. I had no idea where to find soy sauce, but the situation offered deficient impediment.
Without further ado, I dug in—or gave it my best shot, anyhow. One chopstick strained, and then snapped, while the other slipped from my unprofessional fingers. I do believe I swore out loud.
‘What are you up to?’ Kohana asked from the doorway.
‘Trying my best to look competent.’
I picked up the stray chopstick, wondering whether I should give it a rinse, or go with the flow. I doubted bacteria would indulge in an afterlife and tried to use the utensil as a scale-model harpoon on an enticing chunk of orange—the salmon—beached atop a bundle of white rice. The devil was hard like leather, and I had all the competence of Captain Ahab.
‘You do know, that’s plastic?’
I stopped mid-lunge, to glance at her. ‘What do you mean, plastic?’
‘It’s fake. Made at Kappabashi-dori, a place we call Kitchen Town, near where I used to live in Tokyo. They specialized in realistic plastic display food for restaurants—like the sushi.’
‘Then why the blazes do you have it in your refrigerator?’
Kohana shrugged. ‘Where else would I put the thing? I don’t exactly have a restaurant, and it looks out of place on the secretaire.’
I thought this over for a moment. ‘True.’
The girl waltzed my way, whisked from my hand the counterfeit cuisine, and placed it back on its shelf in the fridge. ‘Are you really suffering from an empty stomach, or just bored?’ I heard her ask.
‘How could I ever get bored, my dear, with all the surprises you keep dropping off in my lap? It’s busier here than a department store bargain sale.’
Openly yawning, I leaned over so I could better see the framed photo of the military man and geisha that was propped next to the altar.
‘You and your inamorato Y,’ I deduced at this closer angle—but then checked myself. ‘Just a moment. How do I know the girl in the picture is you? Didn’t you just mention an identical twin?’
When I looked to my hostess, the doubt was hardly abated.
She had her head tilted to one side and gazed at me with a fathomless expression. One could imagine dropping depth charges there and never hearing them explode. Being reminded of the sham sushi, the whole package struck me as unnerving.
‘There’s a fine question,’ she said, at last.
Ill at ease, I returned my attention to the photo.
‘So, now we potentially have three people who all look the same—this is bound to become confusing. Or is this fake too?’
In the photo, I noticed a classic Japanese triple-storey villa on the other side of a pond behind the couple, and even in monochrome it boasted an unnatural iridescence.
‘Kyoto, right? I believe I recognize the building.’
Kohana had sidled up next to me.
‘That’s Kinkaku-ji and, yes, it was in Kyoto. It’s likely you remember the place from a computer wallpaper image that once popped up everywhere—you’re old enough for that. But, like the sushi you were poking just now, the building in the wallpaper was a phony. The one in this photograph is real.’
You’re losing me.’
‘I suspected as much—hang in there, tiger.’ Kohana smiled one of her big, rich numbers, and I felt my legs go unsteady. She knew how and when to allocate those prizes.
‘You really are dangerous,’ I grumbled.
The girl winked at me. ‘Deshō?’
‘What?’
‘Deshō—um, how do I put this? Deshō has many meanings, usually things like “right?”, or “isn’t it?”; it’s used as a confirmational tag, for agreement, or when one isn’t sure. In this case, I was agreeing with you.’
‘Well, yes, whatever.’
‘Deshō.’ She laughed to herself. ‘Getting back to Kinkaku-ji, let me also explain that a little clearer. You do know the twentieth-century Japanese writer Yukio Mishima?’
‘One Q&A I can tackle, with complete conviction—he killed himself via ritual suicide, am I correct?’
‘Seppuku. That’s right. Kudos, Wolram. How did you know?’
My invisible victory punch fizzled in midair. I ought to have been accustomed to that.
‘Denslow, again. Remember the Japanophile? He always had his nose in a book by some Japanese author. Mishima popped up. One of his favourites, he said, when we were sharing a cup of tea and the conversation was flailing.’
‘Did you look at any pages inside?’
‘No need, my dear. I answered your question. Deshō?’
Kohana looked dubious. ‘Delightful. Mishima penned a famous novel called The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. You wouldn’t have heard of it.’
‘Sorry. Not on any of my reading lists.’
‘Don’t worry, I assumed as much. The story revolves around a mad monk who adores beauty—yet, at the same time, loathes it—and he ends up setting fire to one of the most beautiful buildings in Japan. A place that, until then, had survived six hundred years, some particularly violent centuries. Mishima based the novel on real life. Kinkaku-ji burned down in 1950, and was rebuilt in 1955. The building on the Apple wallpaper is the remake, but in the photograph here, you can see the original.’
‘Which you visited? Or was it your sister?’
‘No, no, me. Tomeko never went to Kyoto.’
So. The sister did have a name.