Stars and sit down on a step. Could I find Daimon back at the pool hall? No. He willavoid theplace for a long time, toavoid me. Ifonly Miriam had said she knew my father last night. How did she know my name? Because Daimon mentioned it several times. ‘Miyake’ is pretty common, though. Daimon signed me in, and she must have seen the weird kanji for ‘Eiji’. My father must have talked about me. I swig from my can and light a Seven Star. My father moves in these exclusive club circles – about the only thing I know about him is his wealth. I imagine smoke swirling in my lungs, dust in sunny mine shafts. Bumping into Miriam at Shinobazu pond – not so outlandish, really. She feeds ducks – how many places are there where you can feed ducks in Tokyo? I balance my cigarette on the lip of the can and flick through Miriam’s dropped library book. Wow. Being kicked in the balls by the same woman who hostesses my father. No. Something is too wrong. All these coincidences are too weird. Even so. Finding where they join into an explanation is a sort of Plan D. I wonder if my father is a womanizer, like Daimon’s father seems to be. I always imagined him as a sort of faithful adulterer. Still, I am here to meet him, not judge him. The cigarette rolls off the can, which, all on its own, has begun to vibrate, wobble, and . . .
. . . fall over, the ground groans, windows sing, buildings shake, shit, I shake, adrenalin seeps, a million sentences drop dead, elevators die, millions more Tokyoites dive under tables and into doorways – I curl into a sort of ball, already flinching under the mass of the falling masonry – and the whole city and I hurl up shining prayers to anyone – anyone – God, gods, kami, ancestors – who might be listening: stop this stop this stop this now, please, please, please, don’t let this be the big one, not the big one, not today, not now, not another Kobe, not another 1923, not today, not here. Calpis runs in a delta over the thirsty sidewalk. Buntaro told me you get vertically oscillating earthquakes and horizontally oscillating ones. Horizontal ones are okay. Vertical ones floor cities. But how do you tell one from the other? Who cares – just stop!
The earthquake stops.
I uncrouch, newborn and dumb, not believing it quite yet. Silence. Breathe. Relief rains down from heaven. People switch on their radios to find out if it was just a local snore or if Yokohama or Nagoya has been rubbled off the map of Japan. I right my can and light another cigarette. Then I see something else I can’t trust myself to believe quite yet. Across the road from my step is the entrance to a passageway. The passageway runs into the building and ends at an elevator. Next to the elevator is a signboard. On the signboard, next to #9, two trapezoid eyes stare straight back at me. I know those eyes. The eyes of the queen of spades.
The elevator doors open with a bronze gong. A bucket of soapy water stands beside the projector. A woman in dungarees is cleaning tiny holes in the planetarium with a cocktail stick. She glances at me from her stepladder. ‘We open at nine, I’m afraid, sir.’ Then she sees how scuzzy my clothes are. ‘Not another mobile phone sales geek, please.’ So I skip the pleasantries too. ‘I was hoping I could have a quick word with Miriam.’
I am scanned. ‘Who are you exactly?’
‘My name is Miyake. I was here last night with Yuzu Daimon.
Miriam was our hostess. I just need to ask her one question. Then I’ll go.’
The woman shakes her head. ‘I think you’ll go right now, actually.’
‘Please. I’m not a psycho or anything. Please.’
‘Miriam isn’t working tonight, anyway.’
‘Could I just have her telephone number?’
She cocktail-sticks a hole. ‘What is this question of yours?’
‘A personal one.’
I have never been so looked at until today. She jerks her thumb towards the curtain door. ‘You’d better ask Shiyori.’
I thank her and make my way through to the smoking chamber. The tapestries are rolled up and sunlight leans against the windows in solid bars. Women in T-shirts and jeans sit around slurping somen. A mechanical parrot is being operated upon by a fragile lady. When I enter, all conversation stops. ‘Yeah?’ asks one of