I could feel the liquid build-up under my left eye as the noise assembled into words, loud and fast. My mind was shocked into consciousness, the music mingling with the low buzz of an electric razor and the acute pounding in my cerebral cortex. Oh God. 50 Cent, shut up. I like you, but honestly, now is not the time. My body was stuck to the mattress like poured cement. Soon Matt was smooching my face, telling me I had to get up to finish shaving his head. ‘C’mon, I gotta go to work soon.’
‘Just a minute, please. Chotto matte kudasai!’ Give me one second to scrape myself into something that resembled an actual living organism. So he turned up the volume and sat on the edge of the tub, talking about some custom rims on a something-or-other car he saw somewhere. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. All I could think of was getting back to sleep. I mean, fifteen hours? That wasn’t enough.
As soon as the door closed, my eyes were shut.
I wonder what Yoshi is doing. It would have been compulsory for him to show up to the office this morning, all Valentino suit and Armani tie. I bet he’d felt terrible, and without a doubt he’d be on something, but he’d look impeccable. The crazy bastard. I wonder when he’ll call again. He’d left massive latitude for variation over lunch in Kyoto. Something about a really busy week ahead. No, he’d said incredibly busy. An unprofitable golf course outside Barcelona was having major employee problems, and since he’d been there three months ago to try to iron things out, the situation had only got worse. Yoshi hated the whole thing, but as an obligation of his father’s it meant that he, the dutiful son, had to sort it out. Of course he blamed the Spanish and their laziness for the golf course’s problems, but he obliged his familial contract. Yoshi was a good boy, and he loved his mommy.
The phone rang. ‘Hey, you awake?’ It was Matt. ‘What does Yoshi look like? I think he’s sittin’ right next to me. He wears Armani, right?’
‘Yeah, sure, but so do a lot of Japanese. What kind of criterion is that?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve just got a sixth sense it’s him. Small glasses?’
‘Yeah, he has little eyes, small glasses, receding hairline but slick hair. His watch is a Rolex GMT Master II, the one with the red and blue bezel. Can you see it? What else? Let me think ... perfect shoes? Does he have a tiny phone?’
‘A what? Tiny phone? No, it’s not tiny. Yeah, I think it’s him. He’s sittin’ with a Japanese girl in Starbucks, but he’s inside and I’m outside.’
‘I don’t think it would be him. I doubt Yoshi’s interests lie in Japanese women, or that he’d take them to Starbucks. He’s probably still at the office. He is Japanese.’
‘Hmmm, he’s tanned, like dark Japanese, with small, brown-rimmed glasses ...’
‘Yeah maybe. He’s got a million different pairs ...’
‘And he’s got an attitude. He’s kind of arrogant, right?’
‘Yeah. Well, that sounds like him. Maybe that’s his secretary he’s with. He did say he has an office somewhere in the area.’
‘I don’t know why, I just really have this feeling that it’s him.’
‘And he’s not trying to kill you?’
‘What? He’s not trying to what?’
‘Never mind. Okay, bye.’
I know it’s impossible for any of the Japanese men I know to recognise Matt, but it still makes bells go off should one isolated player in the game recognise another. Maybe I should start walking home alone rather than meeting Matt after work. It would be safer. What if, by some obscure chance, Nori were to see us together and become ‘very angry’ like the irrational maniacs in his favoured stories of unrequited love? He might watch the apartment building. Who knew? The guy counted Hitler and various other sociopaths as heroes. But what was I talking about? Matt is my husband. No one even suspects his existence. Why would they? I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. In fact, I shouldn’t be thinking about a good stiff drink either, not when I just woke up thirty minutes ago.
Warped. Warped. Warped. This place is going to nail me to the wall.
Matt was sitting outside Food Magazine guzzling a one-litre carton of vegetable juice when I walked by on the way to the internet cafe before work. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ He squinted, as if to bring me into better focus. ‘They look really puffy.’
‘Puffy? I don’t know. Why would they?’ I stretched them open wide as I sat down.
Matt studied me closely. I wondered if he could see the microscopic shake that had started to invade my fingertips. I couldn’t feel two of them when I woke up. I needed a coffee, but I was going to be late for work, so before Matt could analyse me further I drank a long gulp of his juice and smooched him goodbye.
Abie and Nicole were still at the internet cafe when I got there. ‘You know we have to work in ten minutes,’ Abie warned, squinting suspiciously as I signed in to Hotmail. What was it with my eyes? No wonder people wear sunglasses.
‘I know, but I really have to check something. I’ll be two minutes.’
I had two emails. One from my mom — something refreshingly normal yet simultaneously whacked about plush toy Popples selling on eBay for $20 — and this, from Matt:
Sent: Saturday, 9 October 2004 7:33:22 PM
Subject: I love you
I love you, love bird
that’s what I know
I want the sun, the moon
the stars to show
my love is purest
at one with the way through rain, hail, sunshine,
and even a typhoon today!
Our skin will age
but forever we will be young,
true love is all that’s needed
for life to be fun.
The typhoon has passed
fallacies have shredded
true love has prevailed
our love has not ended
At your side forever dynamic souls
pushing our potentials together
we now lay a golden path through life
wuv birds
husband and wife
Oh no. It was beautiful. My first instinct was to cry. This was so unlike him. Matt didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. He didn’t write love poems. Even cute, crappy ones. Why start now, at this moment? Did he doubt me? That thought was so heavy. Did he doubt me?
Then I noticed the date. Matt had sent the email even before I’d left for Kyoto. It is my fault that he wrote me this love poem. It is my fault.
I like to be part of my ‘we’. But now it’s an unavoidable fact that here in Tokyo I tend to think singularly more often than not. Perhaps in this environment it is a survival mechanism, but for long periods each day I am moving through my life alone. Only when it’s time to go home does he slot back into my life and ‘I’ becomes ‘we’ again, but somehow colder, and more distant. I know that he can feel me receding. I can feel me receding.
And now he is sending me love poems. What am I doing?