‘IRASHAIMASE!’
The door slid open to an echo of assault-rifle shouts as Shin turned to mirror my wide-eyed delight. A waiter in traditional indigo yukata was pitched horizontally before us, spreading the grin on our faces only wider as he barked a second shout of welcome, which reverberated deep within the belly of the restaurant, Inakaya.
Constructed almost completely in wood, the centrally staged eating platform transported us back in time. We sat at the edge of a raised display of vegetables on bamboo trays and ice buckets overflowing with fresh seafood and skewered meats. Two costumed chefs kneeled at the back, tending to sunken open fire grills with twisted hachimaki bands tied around their heads.
‘They are yakikata,’ Shin explained. ‘Grill person. And there,’ Shin said, pointing to a wooden plaque, ‘is name tag.’ The row of handwritten paper above the chefs was the menu, but the distinct lack of prices indicated something I now took for granted in any restaurant I attended with a Japanese customer. Inakaya was incredibly expensive.
As Shin selected an endless list of dishes, our server shouted each one to the next waiter, and on until the order reached the chef. Even though we were the only customers, the noise multiplied around the room. I could only imagine how loud it might be when the restaurant reached capacity.
Shin seemed to be intimately familiar with the restaurant, and I wondered how many times he had delighted young foreign women with this culinary gem. Regardless, he seemed to enjoy every ounce of the experience as much as I did. He nearly cried as he watched me obstinately insist on using chopsticks, laughing as gingko nuts fell repeatedly from my grasp, and gave in and offered advice only when a skewered red snapper appeared, looking as if it had been electrically shocked out of motion. ‘It is looking at you,’ Shin teased. ‘Don’t eat me, Chelsea, it says.’ I tried to jab Shin with my chopsticks and he nearly fell off his stool in retreat, but soon I was being schooled in peeling apart the little orange body, and it was absolutely delicious.
Every morsel was stunning, delivered straight from the grill on a wooden paddle by a chef with Popeye forearms. Each dish was announced with a booming big shout. It was hilarious, taking your dinner off the paddle as everyone around you shouted out in Japanese, ‘SHITAKE MUSHROOMS! THESE ARE SHITAKE MUSHROOMS!’ When your teacup was refilled, the tea boy would shout, ‘OCHA! OCHA DESU!’ and so would six others. With Shin beside me explaining every detail and putting me in stitches, I was absolutely enthralled with the magic of the place.
‘This restaurant very famous,’ Shin revealed. ‘Last time I saw Yoko Ono, sitting over there.’ He sounded unimpressed. ‘Do you know meaning of inakaya? It is “country house”, but maybe, I think not. Is mistake. Japanese house not usually so big,’ he smirked. ‘Maybe name should be “country mansion”, but maybe it is right size for you. You eat so much!’
‘You ordered it! Gimme a break. I haven’t eaten anything since I woke up. You’ve been dragging me around Harajuku all day. What do you expect?’
‘Yes,’ Shin agreed solemnly. ‘But how eat so much? You are so skinny.’ He leant over to check under the bench. ‘Where everything go?’
One block away from the restaurant Shin stopped abruptly to hand over the shopping bags and my arms fell slightly under the weight. ‘How far to your house?’
‘Ten minutes walking, maybe fifteen.’
‘You are okay with bags?’ Shin asked, and once I’d reassured him I could cope he took two steps backwards and casually raised his right hand. ‘Okay, I go home now. By train. See you,’ he said, shoving both hands into his pockets and turning to walk briskly up the street.
I was knocked speechless. What? Who did this? I’d met Shin less than twenty-four hours ago, and even though I already felt like we’d been pals forever, the way he just left me, so casually, after all of this was ... what was it? Who knew? It wasn’t even a work night and this hadn’t even been a dohan, but it was completely unthreatening and devoid of any expectation. Shin definitely wasn’t like any other customer I’d met at Greengrass. I couldn’t even think of him in the same context. But he wasn’t a friend. I couldn’t place him. All I could do was splutter lamely after him, ‘See you! And THANK YOU!’
Shin simply raised his right arm in reply without looking back.
I was walking in the door with my shopping when Nori called. He sounded terrible. ‘My patient died in hospital, and I ... could not save him. It is most difficult situation for me. What are you doing now? I want to come to Tokyo.’
I agreed to meet him outside the apartment building at eight o’clock.
Nori pulled the car into a parking lot just up from Greengrass at five past eight. It was Sunday and all the clubs were closed, so I wondered what we were doing in Roppongi.
‘We will go to one restaurant that is, uh, peculiar, and it will be a surprise. It is Japanese, but not regular. It is very ... odd.’
A knot sprung into my stomach. It couldn’t be ...
‘What do you mean odd? Where is it?’
Nori seemed reluctant to say more. ‘Very close to here. It is funny place and ... very noisy place.’
‘Why is it noisy?’ I prodded as we continued towards Roppongi Crossing.
‘Because everyone repeating your order, and shouting,’ he laughed. ‘It is very odd place, but very famous.’
Oooohh, shit. I could not return to the same restaurant with a different man. Shin and I had left Inakaya less than an hour ago.
‘Umm, you know, I’m not really that hungry. Do you want to just go somewhere for coffee instead?’ I suggested, and Nori stopped in his tracks. His face fell.
‘Not hungry? But it is very entertaining! Maybe you can be hungry, when you see it.’ I started to protest, but Nori took an unexpected turn. ‘This is it,’ he announced. ‘Inakaya.’
It wasn’t the same place I’d had dinner with Shin, but it was still Inakaya, just a second, smaller version of it. Impossible. I couldn’t believe I was going to the same restaurant twice in the same night! As we were greeted by the ubiquitous ‘Irashaimase!’ my stomach turned.
I did my best to pretend everything was new, but the hour we spent at Inakaya was barely tolerable. It wasn’t the chefs. It wasn’t the food, although I felt like I needed a vomitorium when we left. It was Nori. As we drove frustratingly around Ginza looking for a bar that he knew, it was apparent that Nori had begun to creep out of the sphere of interesting companion and into the outer realms of the delusional, pressing for impossible answers and scowling if I wasn’t providing them. I was finding it harder not to laugh at his bizarre notions or ignore them altogether.
‘How about this one bar, here?’ Nori asked, and I sighed.
‘Sure, let’s go inside.’
‘I have great interest in Adolf Hitler, because, uh ... he wrote that book Mein Kampf, you know?’ Somehow Nori felt it the appropriate time to bring up another of his unusual inspirational figures. Last time it had been Alain Delon, whose role as a sociopathic murderer in Plein Soleil had influenced him greatly. It was Nori’s dream ‘to become like him’. But Hitler? This just got better.
‘Mein Kampf? Uh-huh. He wrote it in prison. Why do you think he’s so great? He was a terrible, evil man who brought horrific death and suffering to millions of people. What, please tell me, is so great about that?’
‘Heh heh, yes, I know, he was very bad man, but he had great ... great ... how do you say? Psychological influence over people. I want to learn that influence, from him.’
I looked over at him dubiously and his eyebrows shot up. ‘He was bad, I know, but I ... I can be good.’
‘And what are you supposed to learn from such an evil maniac?’
‘Well, for instance, he used to look at himself in the looking glass ...’
‘Mirror,’ I corrected.
‘Yes, in the mirror, and he would practise speaking powerfully, and to make the face expressions so that people would listen, and I also am doing the same. Because he made for himself a strong mind, Hitler could have power over people of weak mind and make them to listen to him. For me that is important, because I am a businessman, and now I want to own many more businesses so I can be rich and powerful, and I ... I want people to listen to me.’
‘What kind of businesses do you want to own?’ I asked quickly. I wasn’t really interested, but I’d rather not continue a discussion about the supposed merits of Adolf Hitler and his ‘strong mind’, and I didn’t know whether the driver of the car I was currently in would get angry if I tried to criticise his backward way of thinking.
‘Many kinds, because I am not only doctor, I am businessman. Most important for me is to build more old people’s homes because, uh ... well, it is not nice to say, but in Japan they are good business. Many citizens are now becoming old and it is making good prospects.’
Yes, maybe you could use your powerful mind technique over their weak, feeble old brains. I didn’t reply, and Nori let the silence slip by until he looked over at me and laughed. ‘I like you, because you are never looking at your watch,’ he said admiringly.
‘I don’t have a watch,’ I said flatly.
‘I know,’ he laughed,’and ... that is why I like you. You are clever I think. Other hostess are always looking at watch and asking to go home. I think they want only to go shopping, or thinking only of money. They cannot be successful, but you can have much success in Japan. Why don’t you open hostess club in Yokohama? You could be Mama-san.’
‘Hah, I don’t think so.’ Wouldn’t Matt be thrilled? Maybe he could be a waiter. I wondered what had led Nori to this point in his life, where he spent almost every night travelling to Tokyo from Yokohama in his imported Benz to spend hours in Roppongi’s hostess clubs and grasp at the spider webs he pretended to see.
Nori wasn’t a bad man, just a pitifully lonely one. He’d worked so hard to achieve so much, but his lack of happiness permeated everything. Nori claimed that his visits to hostess clubs were only innocent fun, but I was finding that hard to believe. He seemed to think if only he could find a hostess to love him, to move to Yokohama with him, everything would be spectacular.
Nori’s belief in this idealised future was a sad skewing of reality, but what I found saddest of all was his predictability. He dropped me off outside my apartment just short of midnight, another crisp ichiman in my hand, and I left him to drive back to Yokohama alone, no doubt with crazy visions dancing in his head. We’d do it all again the next time he called. And later so would the next girl. And the next. And the next.