My Translations

“Love Letter”

—a short story from Poppoya—

by Jiro Asada

translated by Paul Sminkey

INTRODUCTION: “Rabu Retaa” (Love Letter) is a moving story about a Chinese prostitute who declares her love for her Japanese husband, whom she has never met. The story is told from the point of view of Takano Goro, a porn video store manager who upon being released from jail is notified by the police that his Chinese wife has died. When Goro goes to pick up the body, he discovers a love letter that she has left him. In an afterword to the paperback edition of Poppoya (Railroad Man), Asada comments that the story is based on fact: “The story is an illustration of the proverb that truth is stranger than fiction.”

1

Getting busted for running an illegal porn video shop usually only landed you one night in the slammer, and even if got some nasty prosecutor who decided to press charges, the worst you’d ever get was a fine. On top of that, the salary was pretty good because of the risk, and even if you did by any chance get busted, you usually got some extra money for your troubles. If you can just get through those one or two times a year in the slammer, it was a hell of a lot better than working as an underpaid bartender.

As long as you didn’t snitch, you were okay. For a guy like Takano Goro, who had struggled to get by for twenty long years in the infamous Kabuki section of Shinjuku, and who had fully tasted all the tribulations of life, it was the perfect job.

After fortunately being released, Goro headed home from the Shinjuku Police Station. He could sense the scent of spring in this barren section of town that gave no indication of the changing seasons.

Sentenced to ten days in detention, Goro had really been sweating it for a while, but in the end, his case was dismissed and he was set free. The sudden arrival of spring while he was away got to him more than the lecture he had received from the police detective and prosecutor.

I’ll get out of this racket when I turn forty, he thought. But he had thought the same thing before turning thirty, and getting out of bartending had led to running the usual all-purpose shop, and he had been running the porn shop and game arcade for about eight years now. The usual next step would be managing one of those sleazy rip-off bars or out in the street pulling in customers, but how would that be? He didn’t think he was cut out for that kind of work, for in spite of his affable personality, he was really rather timid.

The Kabuki district was rather hot and humid in the evening, so as soon as Goro plunged into the crowd, he took off his favorite leather jacket. Even though he was nearly forty, it would still be possible to transform himself into a tout, but it would not do to wear the jeans and jacket that he had grown so accustomed to over the years. A suit and tie were necessary to put up the appearance of someone that could be trusted, and the very thought of spending everyday dressed like that disgusted him. Besides, it would cost a lot of money.

The porn shop, which the cops had busted into only ten days before, was already open for business—with a changed name, and a new interior.

Wondering who his successor might be, Goro peeped through a gap in the stickers stuck all over the door as a screen. Behind the counter, a young man was gazing listlessly at a video. Goro didn’t recognize him.

He sensed the presence of someone behind him, and before he knew it was being poked in the face.

“Hey, Goro, what the hell are you doing?” Standing there was the security detective that he had just said goodbye to at Shinjuku Police Station.

“Oh, so you were tailing me, huh? Well, you got me there.”

“You gotta be kidding. I don’t have time to waste trailing the likes of you,” said the detective. He jerked Goro away from the door and started walking.

“I forgot to pass on some crucial information, so I came after you in my patrol car. I got here first ’cause you were screwing around. I figured you’d be coming here.”

“Crucial information?”

Goro didn’t think he was hated so much that they would bust him again the second he got out—as if he were a member of the mob or something. But he told himself to keep quiet, just in case he was being felt out over some other case.

“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know. You should knock off this petty small shop crap, and get a piece of the real action. Then I can send you up the river once and for all.”

“I’ll never be a mobster. Those mob detectives scare the shit out of me. Not like you.”

The detective wrapped the arm of his trench coat around Goro’s neck and turned into an alley.

“Here, have a smoke.”

“I gave up smoking. It’s bad for your health.”

The detective gave a derisive snort and put a cigarette in his mouth. Then positioning himself as if to shield Goro from attention, he blew smoke into Goro’s face.

“Your wife’s dead.”

Goro didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what the guy was talking about.

“Think about it, Goro. Your wife. The one you’re married to.”

“Oh, her?”

There was nothing else to say. The wife being referred to could only be the foreign woman that a gangster friend got him to enter into his family register last summer.

“We got a call from the Chiba Police Department yesterday morning about a. . . uh, now what was that name again?”

The detective opened his notebook.

“Hakuran. Hmm, that’s a nice name. Apparently, this Takano Hakuran woman died of some illness, and they want you to come pick up the body. Damn! I don’t see why the police have to take care of this kind of shit. Well, that’s it. I gave you the information, so make sure you get your butt up there.”

The detective jotted down the phone number of the relevant police department and the name of the person in charge. Then he handed Goro the memo and turned his back as if to avoid any further connection with him.

“So, uh, I’m the one that’s gotta go?”

“Damn straight! Phony marriage or not, we don’t know anything about it. I relayed the information, so clean up your own shit!”

“Yeh, I know, but I—”

“Hey, if you don’t take care of it, the problem’s gonna be passed on to the big boys. And you get them busting in over something like this, and a little shit like you is gonna end up gettin’ his ass killed. See you around, Goro. My condolences.”

Saying this, the detective disappeared into the crowd.

Goro looked up at the small patch of sky visible from the alley, and sighed. It was completely unexpected news, but not really all that unusual. He had never met or seen the woman that died in Chiba, but according to his family register, she was indeed his wife.

“Geez, I never get a break.”

Figuring that for now he would see the man who last summer pushed the idea on him, Goro headed off to Satake’s office.

---

Satake Industries was at the lower rung of an immense mob organization and a newcomer among the estimated hundred and fifty gang offices.

In the Kabuki district, where vested interests were so intricate that not a single piece of territory remained unclaimed, and where a strange balance had been struck, it was nearly impossible for newcomers to break in. That Satake, who had set up shop in the post-bubble period, could still somehow make it with his ten young cronies was the result of his focusing thoroughly on recruitment.

Which was to say, Satake was in the talent search and dispatching business. Of course, those in the underworld knew that “talent” referred to unskilled foreign workers. Even Goro had used Satake as a broker for filling openings over the past several years. In any advent, Goro needed to make an appearance both to say hello after being released, and to see about his next job.

The office of Satake Industries was in an old apartment building on the opposite side of Shokuan Street. Of the nine apartments in the three-story building, at least three comprised the gangster office, the rest for the most part serving as hovels for the foreign girls.

When Goro first arrived in Tokyo, many hostesses and bartenders still lived in the area, bringing it a degree of cheerfulness, but now every season felt dark and depressing like the rainy season. Surely, that could not be entirely due to his having so wastefully put on the years.

Goro passed through the hallway, which had empty dishes from a cheap eat-out service piled high in front of every room, and pushed the button of the office intercom. He smiled at the surveillance camera mounted above the door.

“It’s me. Thanks for your help.”

The door was unlocked, and the same young man who had often brought stuff to Goro when he was in jail appeared.

“Sorry for all the trouble. Come on in.”

With his eyebrows and hairline shaved into inverted V’s, the youth looked like a former motorcycle gang member. Pretending to be Goro’s nephew, he had often brought in lunch and the occasional change of clothes. The police never made a stink about it.

Two six-mat rooms laid end to end in the old-style, with bunk beds to the front, formed a living space for the young members, and the office was located in the back. This, too, reflected Satake’s cautious nature, unusual in a boss so young.

“It’s Goro, Boss.”

Raising his head from the steel desk where he was typing at a word processor, Satake looked like a banker.

“Hey, Goro, sorry for all the trouble. Why don’t you take a seat? And Satoshi, put on some coffee. Goro here likes the American stuff.”

Keeping an eye on the youth in the kitchen, Goro blurted out, “I just heard from some security cop about, uh, . . . .”

“About the Chikura case, right? Yeh, they called here, too.”

“Chikura? Oh, is that where it was? Chikura in Chiba?” Goro took the memo he received from the detective out of his pocket. He had no idea where in Chiba prefecture the town might be.

“The cops up there said they wanted me, but what should I do?”

“What do you mean ‘what should you do?’ You don’t have any choice, do you? It’s got nothing to do with me, so it’s not my place to butt in.”

“But they called you, didn’t they?”

“They only asked if you were here. When they said your wife died, you know, it really blew me away for a second, but then I thought about it, and figured it had to be that, uh, foreign woman.”

The youth brought over two cups of instant coffee.

“It’s American, isn’t it, Satoshi?”

“Yes.”

“I got it! You can go with Goro. He’d be lonely going by himself, and you can just be his nephew.”

“Hold on there, boss,” said Goro, leaning forward. Considering the turn of events, this was probably the only thing to do, but the situation could not be as simple as Satake made out.

“I don’t even know what the woman looks like. And if they ask me about her at the hospital or the police station, I won’t know what to say.”

“Yeh, yeh, I know. Don’t worry about it,” said Satake, pulling a binder out of his desk. Flipping the thick pages, he spoke placatingly. “Hey, you got a lucky break. Five-hundred thousand yen just for lending your family registry? It’s like getting something for nothing, ain’t it? And if you wanna get married again, having your wife die on you looks a hell of a lot better than being divorced. If you don’t got anybody lined up, I can set you up right away. How’s another five-hundred thousand sound?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Getting something for nothing sounds good, I guess.”

“Oh, here it is. Kô Hakuran. You know how they read this in Chinese? It’s ‘Kan Pairan.’ Pretty nice name, huh? Sounds like one of those Buddhist funeral chants.”

“Kan Pairan?”

“Yeh, that was her maiden name. She got married, so now she’s Takano Pairan. I hear her old man runs a video shop in Shinjuku. Pretty tough having a wife that works. Well, uh, anyway, your wife’s history is all written down here, so just memorize it all on your way up there, and you’ll be okay. Also, we got her picture, a certified copy of the family registry, her residence card, and a copy of her passport. It’s all right here. Hold on. What have we got here?”

A light blue envelope appeared from among the other documents. In beautiful Japanese characters was written “Mr. Takano Goro.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. This was delivered the day you were busted. Maybe it’s a love letter, or maybe it’s her will. Whatever it is, I’ll just stick it in with the other stuff.”

On top of the envelope into which he had stuffed all of the documents, Satake placed a bound one-million yen wad of crisp notes. His expression turned grave for the first time.

“Five-hundred thousand is for all your troubles up to this morning. The other five-hundred thousand is for hospital bills, the crematory, and other expenses. A bit over budget maybe, but that should do it, I’d think.”

Satake didn’t smile again until Goro left the office with Satoshi.

2

Dear Takano Goro,

Yesterday morning, my stomach sudden start hurting, and I come to hospital in ambulance. It was after I say goodbye customer, so it okay. I ask someone at hotel, and ambulance come.

It look real bad, so I write letters to my family in China and you. I writing secret at night. I writing because it hurt so much I cannot sleep, but I not able write more tomorrow. So I writing secret at night.

Thank you for marrying me. Xie, xie.

October and December, immigration come. But I marry you, so I not go immigration or police. I working the whole time.

Everyone very nice here. Gang member and customer everybody nice. The ocean and mountain beautiful and nice. I want work here forever.

Xie, xie. Thank you. That all I want say. I hear sound of ocean. Can you hear ocean, Goro?

Everybody nice, but Goro nicest one because you marry me.

Xie, xie. Duo xie. Good night.

Pairan

“Did you know her?” Goro asked Satoshi as soon as the express trained pulled away from the underground platform of Tokyo Station.

“Yeh, I knew her. I brought her to Chikura myself. Pairan and two others. The other two were deported some time last year, though, ’cause their visas expired.”

Goro opened her resume. She was born in 1971. Western dates always gave him a hard time.

“How old’s somebody born in 1971?”

“Well, uh, I was born in ’78, so that would be twenty-four or twenty-five, I guess.”

“With all these unusual Chinese characters, I can’t figure this out at all. Apparently, she took Japanese classes in Shanghai. Could she speak Japanese?”

“Yeh, she was real good. She probably could’ve worked in Shinjuku instead of going to a place like that in Chiba. It must’ve been ’cause she was the sickly type.”

“She had some kind of disease?”

“Disease?! Almost all these girls got something. Not AIDS, though. It’s always the livers that go first. I’m talking about viral hepatitis. And then they don’t go to the doctor, and before long, it develops into cirrhosis, and they end up dying young. And you know what else? They got all kinds of decoctions and other Chinese medicine and shit, and they figure if they just take that, then they’ll be all right.”

“You know all about it, don’t you?”

“Yeh, it’s my job.”

Loosening the necktie that seemed unsuited to his baby face, Satoshi gloated a bit about the difficulties of his job. He said that for brokers, women were commodities, so health management was what concerned them most.

“If you get ’em to a doctor in time, it’s no big deal, but they’re scared about getting caught for being illegal workers, so they don’t wanna go. And the doctor bills are nothing to scoff at either, ’cause they ain’t got insurance. So the fluid builds up in their bellies, and they just endure it until it starts turning off the customers. By the time they’re carted off to the hospital, it’s too late.”

“I wonder if that’s how it was with her?”

Satoshi peeked at the letter.

“Wow! Her Japanese characters are really good! Not much of a letter, though.”

“Of course! They use the same characters in China.”

“This part kind of brings tears to your eyes, don’t it? ‘Thank you for marrying me.’”

“I wonder if marrying her was good or bad.”

“What are you talking about? She said thanks, so of course, it was good.”

The train came above ground. The lights of the high-rise buildings along the coast were starting to flicker on. The spring rain traced diagonal lines across the window pane.

“You didn’t bring an umbrella, did you?”

“That’s why I said we should go tomorrow instead of going off in such a rush.”

“Putting it off ’til the next morning when your wife died? No, that would look strange.”

“Can’t any of you guys drive a car?”

“Unfortunately, everyone’s busy. We’ve got work all over the country.”

“We should’ve asked the boss.”

“No way. If the cops up there checked him out, it’d be all over for him.”

The food cart came by, and Goro bought a beer.

“I can’t drink, so I’ll have an oolong tea. Listen, Goro, don’t drink too much. You’re a husband rushing to the scene after his wife died. It’s gonna look suspicious if you’re drunk.”

“You think I can handle this sober? Put yourself in my shoes. I just got out of the pen today. If it wasn’t for this, I’d be having myself a get-out-of-jail party right now.”

The beer flowed down his parched throat. It was extremely bitter, an unfair taste.

“Goddamn it! Why did this have to happen?! What the fuck did I do?! I don’t know what she looks like, and, until today, I didn’t even know her name. I can understand marrying a woman you don’t know. But I don’t know a woman I’m already married to! My first meeting’s gonna be with her corpse! It’s like something out of a comic book! A comic book!”

As Goro was spouting off, he pulled a photo out from the other documents. He was speechless.

“Wow! Hey, Satoshi, what’s this?”

It was a small passport photo.

“Pretty sexy, huh? When I took them up there, I was sitting next to her, and my heart was going like mad. And this is nothing compared to the real thing. I was thinking I’d sneak up there for some fun some time.”

The sound of that beautiful name, Kan Pairan, surged back to his ears like music.

“Mr. Satake’s pretty cold, isn’t he? Someone this good-looking, he should’ve married her himself.”

“No way, Goro. We’re a business. It’d be one thing if Satake said he’d take over her debt, including all the penalties, but that would be a shitload of money, for sure. Like the boss said, just the advance loan was three million, and then if you add in her future work and wages, you got double that. The boss don’t lie.”

“You mean Mr. Satake took a big hit on this?”

“He probably won’t lose anything, but his plans are all screwed up now. When the police first called he went crazy, and all the guys made a run for it. But you gotta hand it to him, the way he just tossed off a cold million like that. Me, I got even more respect for him now.”

The express train raced along above the tile-roofed homes of the downtown area.

The rainfall grew more intense.

3

Most of the passengers got off at Chiba or Kisarazu. The glaring light of the industrial complex faded into the distance, and the train ran alongside the pitch-dark ocean.

The last of the passengers disembarked at Tateyama, so that Goro and Satoshi were the only ones to get off at Chikura, the final stop. The misty spring drizzle curled like smoke around a searchlight.

The small waiting room was also deserted, and a gray cat was sleeping on one of the benches. Goro found it hard to believe that it was eight o’clock at night.

Only one taxi was waiting. The driver, crouched over the steering wheel, stole a glance at his customers.

Satoshi rushed back from the phone booth.

“They said to drop by the office first. That makes sense.”

“What’re you talking about? I’m in deep shit now. No matter what they ask me, I’m gonna be at a loss.”

“You don’t have to go in. I’m just gonna check in with them, so you can wait in the car.”

“A dumb fuck like you can handle it by himself?”

Perhaps annoyed at Goro’s way of putting it, Satoshi raised what was left of a shaved eyebrow.

“The bosses already worked things out, so I just gotta tell them we arrived.”

It sounded so easy. The neon lights of a few bars in front of the station burned away dimly in the rain, and the faint smell of the ocean wafted in the air.

This couldn’t be a nightmare, could it? If he woke up in his old cell, the other prisoners would surely get a big kick out of his story.

But if it was real. . . . Goro pictured his wife, whom he did not know, standing in front of the station last summer. To the girls, this dark, final station must have felt like the very pit of hell.

“Yeh, I guess it’ll be easy.” Pretending to be in agreement, Goro climbed into the taxi.

They started off, and immediately came to the end of the houses, nothing but fields and trees lining both sides of the street. The taxi descended a gentle slope and headed towards the ocean. In the recesses of the darkness, headlights darted to and fro like shooting stars. That was probably the coastline road, and beyond the pine grove must lay the ocean.

“Hey, Goro. It’s pretty nice here, ain’t it?” Wiping the window with the elbow of the double-breasted suit that ill-suited him, Satoshi tried to cheer Goro up.

“I don’t know. It’s pitch dark, so I can’t see a thing.”

“That’s ’cause there ain’t any fancy resorts or apartments or anything. Mostly just vacation homes and company lodges. When I came last summer, I spent all day swimming with them.”

“Them?”

“The girls. I bought them swimming suits, and we went to the beach right there. I think Pairan wore a navy blue bikini.”

“Oh, I appreciate that.” The words slipped out, but Goro immediately fell silent. What was wrong with him? Preoccupied with this stranger of a wife, he had become utterly depressed. Satoshi let the comment pass, no doubt taking it as a joke.

“Filipino girls are puny, but Chinese girls are tall and have long legs. They’re like models. Their skin’s beautiful, too. They said it was their first time swimming in the ocean. All three of them were really having a ball.”

Goro envisioned Pairan frolicking in the waves, her dancing navy blue bathing suit shimmering in the summer sun.

Before long, the taxi stopped in front of a shop standing off by itself just before the coastline road. It was a two-story house smeared over with bright white paint. A light bulb flickered in the bay window, and a sign that matched the place perfectly was displayed. The neon light hummed in the smoky rain.

Leaving Goro waiting in the taxi, Satoshi climbed the metal staircase along the side of the building. The first floor was a bar, and the second floor looked like a combination office and apartment. A drenched pair of underwear, apparently forgotten, hung in one of the windows facing the ocean.

“Do you get many people coming out here?”

The driver took off his hat and yawned. “Sure, we get quite a few. If I swing by here after the last train, there’s usually somebody looking to go to a motel.”

“Local people?”

“No, local people rarely come here. Somebody might see them. We usually get people on fishing trips, and some from the health lodge.”

Using a fishing trip as a pretext for spending some time with a hooker was a brilliant idea. It was a rather reasonable way to have fun: you could abscond with a girl to a motel the night before, and then get up early the next day and go out on a boat. If you and a couple of like-minded buddies used the company’s health lodge in the same way, it’d be a hell of a lot more fun than going on some bullshit spa vacation.

“You got them all over Japan, no matter where you go, don’t you? But the cops here aren’t pushy like the cops in the Tokyo entertainment district. There’s nothing else to do for fun around here, so we don’t have them cracking down or even raising their eyebrows at it.”

In a mere five minutes or so, Satoshi came back down the steps. It certainly was a brief discussion.

“They asked if you’re gonna take her stuff, but you don’t need it, do you, Goro? She didn’t have any valuables or anything, and they said her bank account was empty. Not that I really know.”

Goro doubted that she was completely penniless, but he probably didn’t have a right to make a claim anyway. So this was where the woman had, from last summer, lived for eight months.

The taxi turned onto the coastline road and headed to the police station. For some reason or other, Goro looked back through the rear window. The white house stood like an apparition in the middle of the pine grove.

---

The taxi stopped in front of the police department, and Goro braced himself. He traced the girl’s name with his finger, and repeated her birth date to himself.

He reminded himself that he had been released from the Shinjuku Police Department only half a day before.

“They’re not gonna investigate me, are they? I’d be in deep shit. You know, I just got out today.”

“No problem. It’s not like you killed her or anything. But do you got any i.d. on you?”

Goro didn’t have a driver’s license or a passport. He didn’t have any credit cards, either. He checked the inside pocket of his jacket and found his health insurance card. This wasn’t something he carried in case of sudden illness or an accident. It was something you needed to borrow money from back street moneylenders.

“Would a health card do?”

“Yeh, that’ll do. Is your wife’s name’s on it?”

It was his new national health insurance card. After Satoshi mentioned it, Goro noticed for the first time that his wife’s name, “Takano Pairan,” was entered in the “name of persons insured” column.

“I completely forgot about it, but this will come in handy. There’s bound to be hospital payments.”

It was a quiet, port town police station. The policewoman at the consultation desk came up to them and smiled like one of those young female receptionists working at a bank.

They told her why they were there, and she gave them a sympathetic look. A middle-aged police sergeant went off with forms to handle the case. The name on his nametag was not the one Goro had heard from the detective in Shinjuku. Perhaps the person in charge had finished his work and gone home.

“So, you’re the, uh, husband?”

“Yes, I’m Takano Goro. I’m sorry for all the trouble.”

The police officer looked Goro over suspiciously, and then turned an eye to Satoshi’s flashy suit.

“Who’s this?”

“He’s my son,” Goro answered promptly. This sounded more natural than saying he was his nephew, and from their ages, it was believable enough.

“Your son? He’s not the son of the deceased, is he?”

“No, he’s my ex-wife’s kid. But my wife was really fond of him.”

Goro felt Satoshi’s foot stepping on his shoe under the counter. It was a signal to keep his mouth shut.

“Do you have some kind of identification?”

“Would my health card be all right?”

The police officer jotted down the health insurance number and address.

“Hey, your son’s not listed.”

“That’s because he’s on my former wife’s family register. Her husband’s a real loser, so they aren’t doing too well. That’s why he’s more attached to my wife than to his real mother.”

Satoshi’s foot-stomping grew stronger. But even if he had to lie, Goro wanted to show that he and Pairan were a real married couple.

“I had just finished taking care of all the problems with my previous wife, and we were just about to start living together again, when this happened. We were living apart for a while, so I didn’t know her health was bad. She probably didn’t want to cause me any trouble. That’s the kind of woman she was.”

Satoshi tried to edge away, but Goro pulled him back by the hand. Satoshi was shaking.

“Well, that explains a lot. Sorry to hear it. Anyway, you need to go to the hospital next.”

Satoshi stopped trying to pull away. The police officer didn’t try to pry into things any further, and spreading out a map, he explained how to get to the hospital.

“The rest you can take care of there. Sorry for all the trouble.”

This is too easy, Goro thought. The face of the detective who questioned him about this and that, the face of the prison guard who continually made sarcastic comments, and other faces from the past ten days came to mind one after another. For both himself, and his stranger of a wife, life was a matter of being stubbornly pursued and thoroughly investigated, and death was a matter of being told, “Sorry for all the trouble.”

“That’s all? We’re done here?”

“Huh?” said the police officer, turning back to them.

“You don’t need an explanation? Or to take some records or make a report or anything?”

“No, we don’t need anything like that.”

“Why not?”

Satoshi yanked at Goro’s sleeve to settle him down.

“What do you mean, ‘why not?’ Because it wasn’t an unnatural death. The only times the police get involved, you see, is when a body is found, or when somebody is brought to the hospital for some sudden illness and dies within twenty-four hours. In other words, we only have the coroner conduct an inquest or perform an autopsy when the progress of the patient is unclear. In your wife’s case, everything was clear-cut, wasn’t it?”

Goro was about to answer when Satoshi pulled him away from the counter by sheer force.

“Excuse me, my dad’s a bit distracted. It being so sudden and all. Come on, Dad, let’s go.”

Goro barely managed to hold his tongue. “I sold my family register for five hundred thousand,” he was about to say, “and I’ve never even seen the woman. She was a small town girl from China who had never even seen the ocean. She’s been passed around amongst the mob, and then after being completely tied down by debt, she died without even seeing a doctor. That’s not unnatural? Go ahead! Tell me what’s so clear-cut about that! Tell me that’s not unnatural!”

Satoshi turned on Goro as soon as they reached the front door. “You trying to get us screwed, Goro?” he said in a low voice. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“That was way too easy, don’t you think? You’re all the same. Mr. Satake, the boss out here, and even you. A person died, for Chrissakes!”

“What’re you saying, Goro? I just want you to get a grip on yourself.”

“Everything was clear-cut? Why would a Chinese girl, come to a completely different country, to a bleak country town like this, and kick the bucket? And then a guy who says he’s her husband comes popping in. That’s not unnatural? Come on! There’s nothing clear-cut about it!”

“It’s clear-cut,” said Satoshi, pushing Goro into the taxi.

“What is? What’s clear-cut? Fucking cops, why aren’t they suspicious? I guess they figure as soon as you’re dead, they don’t have anything to do with you.”

“No, that’s not it. Of course, they know the score. Come on, Goro, think about it. They called the Tokyo police and our office. Everybody knows all about it. It’s all clear-cut.”

“So why haven’t I been busted? And why haven’t you and Satake been busted either?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we haven’t broken any laws.”

“You gotta be joking. They got you for pimping, hiring illegal labor, and kidnapping. I get locked up for ten days just for selling erotic videos to some dirty old men, but why is it that nobody gives a shit about this? All of us, we killed her.”

Satoshi clicked his tongue dismissively, and gave Goro a shove.

“Give me a fucking break, Goro. That’s so uncool. Don’t tell me you went stir-crazy from a little ten-day lockup.”

Running along the coastline prefectural road, the taxi edged ever closer to the hospital.

4

Such an impressive hospital seemed out of place in a port town.

According to the taxi driver, one of the local big shots was determined to put American-style health care into practice, so he invited first-rate medical teams and purchased advanced medical equipment. Not only patients from Tokyo University Hospital but even overseas patients were transferred here.

The attending physician’s explanation was brief: Fluid that had accumulated in the chest cavity as a result of cirrhosis had been removed, and the patient’s condition had temporarily stabilized. Three days later, however, a varicose vein suddenly ruptured, and nothing could be done. The family—in other words, Goro—had not been contacted because the patient had continued to object to their doing so for the entire time that she was conscious.

Led by an elderly nurse, they headed towards the basement mortuary. It was an unexpectedly clean and bright room. While they sat waiting in steel chairs, a stretcher was brought in from the end of the corridor.

“Don’t worry. The body’s quite well preserved. We use American-style embalming here.”

The stretcher was placed in the middle of the immaculate white room; the vinyl sheet was pulled back; and the face of a beautiful woman, that one could hardly consider a corpse, appeared.

“The blood was removed and replaced with formaldehyde. The body was in the cooler, so it’s cold, but she looks nice, doesn’t she?”

She was a beautiful woman. When it finally hit home that this was his wife, Goro could no longer control himself. He took the cold face in his arms and mourned.

The nurse pressed her hands together in prayer, and left the room.

As soon as she was gone, Satoshi nervously shook Goro by the shoulders.

“Get yourself together, Goro. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Yes, what’s the matter with me? Goro thought. He never remembered crying before as an adult.

“I feel sorry for her, too. But, come on, it’s nothing to cry about. Geez! What are you gone on her or something?”

Why did the death of a foreign woman that he didn’t even know make him so unhappy? The self-doubt only made the tears flow more uncontrollably, and moaning like a beast, Goro cried.

“We still got a lot of stuff to do. Tomorrow we gotta go file forms at City Hall. And we gotta get the body cremated. I’ll go ahead and call the funeral parlor, if that’s okay with you.”

Satoshi left the room sighing, and another nurse came in with a cot and a blanket.

“Feel free to use these if you like. You might feel better if you get some sleep.”

It finally dawned on Goro where the unhappiness was coming from. He had been acting strangely ever since he read the girl’s letter on the train.

His knees still pressed to the side of the stretcher, Goro lifted his face from the girl’s breast. Rain splashed upon the cellar windows, and he could hear the roar of the waves nearby.

The words of the letter came back to him.

Everyone is very nice here. Gang members and customers everybody is nice. Ocean and mountains is beautiful and nice. I want to work here forever.

Xie, xie. Thank you. That’s all I want to say. I hear the sound of ocean. Can you hear ocean, Goro?

Goro realized that for a whole twenty years he had been living in a town that possessed not a shred of kindness. That night he had a dream.

---

It was up north in his hometown, a place he had forsaken long, long ago.

When the tide of the Sea of Okhotsk went out, the shallows appeared and cut the lake off from the ocean. The island was plentiful in the short-necked clams and oysters that the fishermen depended on.

The ocean drift ice sometimes closed in on them, but the lake, rising and falling again and again, never froze. The fishing town offered no amusement, but its people never went hungry.

His brother spoke as he rowed back to shore.

“But, Goro, your wife’s really good-looking. It was worth the twenty-year search for her in Tokyo.”

“It’s embarrassing hearing that from you. Hey! Hey!”

Pairan waved to him from the front of a small guardhouse on the beach. Two children were playing at her feet.

“Good-looking and good-natured, too. She’s too good for you.”

“Listen, brother, I was thinking of settling down here. You think that’d be all right?”

“Yeh, I don’t mind. There’s more clams and oysters than we can catch. You, your wife, and a couple of kids wouldn’t make any difference.”

“But do you think Mom and Dad would have wanted me to stay? I didn’t even come home for their funerals.”

“That’s nothing. The only thing they regretted is not having you here. They’d have been really happy to know you came back.”

Enveloped in a low-hanging fog, the bow washed up against the beach, and the boat came to a halt.

“Huh? Where’d she go? Pairan! Pairan!”

Goro wandered the beach in search of his wife and children. He turned around, and the ocean was swallowed up in a thick, white fog.

“Goro.”

Pairan’s voice rang through like the tinkling of a small bell. Stuck up to the ankles of his boots in the dry sand, he was unable to move.

“Hey! Where are you?!”

Cupping his hands to his mouth, Goro called his wife.

“Goro.”

In pursuit of the voice, Goro crawled up a sand dune.

“Goro. I died. So I can’t live with you anymore.”

“Of course, you can. We just got back home. How can you say such a thing? I’ll work as hard as I can, and I’ll make you happy. I’ll make up for all the hard times. So you can’t die now. Come on, let’s get to the hospital. I’ll carry you, so come on. We’ll get that liver fixed.”

Goro stooped down in the fog and offered his back to her.

“It’s okay, Goro. Thank you. Xie, xie.”

Purple-pink sweetbriers were blooming at his feet.

“Why’d this have to happen to you? Can’t we live together? Can’t we eat and drink together? Can’t we hold each other?”

The flowers swayed as if whispering.

“Thank you, Goro. But it’s okay. The customers are all nice, but you, Goro, are the nicest one of all because you married me.”

Goro’s tears fell on the flowers.

“I’m not nice at all. The mob, the police, your customers, they all mistreated you. And the worst of all was me. I married you for five hundred thousand and blew the money in three days. You had to pay that back with your own flesh. Coughing up blood, you paid it back. We’re fiends. Inhuman fiends, feeding on your flesh until there’s nothing but bones. And fiends are not nice.”

Embracing the flowers, earth and all, Goro opened his heart to the full, and strained his voice.

“You don’t have to do anything else. Just marry me.”

5

Stained with rain, the dark gray ocean rushed by in the window of the express train.

The box of bones Goro held on his lap were still warm.

“Goddamn it! Give me some money for my troubles, Goro. You made everybody else do all the work!” Satoshi’s exhausted body sunk down in his seat, and he yawned.

“It’s good practice for you. You’ll be working for Kabuki recruiters for a while, so I’m sure you’ll have to do this quite a few more times.”

“Bullshit! You spend the whole time crying and you get all the money. I’m only on salary, so why was I the one that had to kiss that Buddhist priest’s ass? What a bunch of shit! How about a beer?”

The food cart came by, and they bought some beer and snacks. Gulping loudly, Satoshi poured a beer down his unaccustomed throat.

“You’re gonna get nailed for juvenile delinquency.”

“Who gives a fuck? Reform school beats this shit any day. But, really, Goro, tell me the truth. You really didn’t know her?”

Satoshi tapped the bone box with his finger.

“No, I didn’t know her.”

“I don’t believe it. Come on, out with it. I won’t tell the boss. You’ve been with her before, haven’t you? How many times did you do her?”

Goro turned his face away, and gazed at the ocean, which was fading into darkness.

“Because, really, Goro, you should get yourself to the hospital, too. Like the doctor said yesterday, the symptoms for viral hepatitis really don’t show up for a while. That’s what he told you. If you caught it, it’s pretty bad.”

“I told you I didn’t know her! I never even met her!”

“No way. You’re definitely lying. So, what was with all the phony crying? Crying on the body, moping in front of the furnace at the crematory, and then wailing away when you were picking up the bones. That was totally humiliating.”

“If I was that good an actor, I’d be a lot better off. I was crying ’cause I felt sorry for her. I couldn’t help myself.”

“That’s even harder to believe.”

“Spend another twenty years in Kabuki, struggling to get by, and you’ll understand. Or maybe you don’t have the balls to do that.”

Goro recalled the dreary funeral.

In a small room at the crematory, the Buddhist priest stood and chanted a brief sutra. The farewell service was attended only by a few of the foreign girls dressed in their regular clothes, and even they appeared to be there on orders. Not a single one of them cried.

He could still feel the lightness of the bones he had held with the chopsticks in his hands. The girls seemed repulsed by the custom and did not try to pick up any of the bones. Holding the urn under his arm, Goro picked up every last thin bone by himself.

In any case, only a day had passed since taking Satake’s orders, and the entire affair was completely over and done with. There certainly weren’t any difficulties. Eliminate all the unnecessary courtesies and customs, and that was what a person’s death came down to.

Satoshi certainly could have done without Goro’s unexpected grief. It was only natural that he was angry.

“Have a drink, Goro. You’re bound to be thirsty after all the crying you did.”

For all his anger, Satoshi was being rather nice. The quick-witted and intelligent boy was sure to lead—at the very least—a life more fulfilling than Goro’s.

Goro poured the beer down his throat, which felt parched and tired from crying. As the coldness spread in his empty stomach, the bones felt all the warmer.

“Oh,” said Satoshi, still holding the beer to his mouth as if something just occurred to him. “What do you think the boss will do with the bones? Do you think he’ll send them to her family in China?”

Goro doubted that Satake would go to such trouble. Whether the bones were sent to China, or buried in some unknown grave, Goro felt sure that the task would be his.

“I’m sure it’s part of my job. So, what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know anything about that, Goro. Leave me out of it.”

How did this all happen? Before he knew it, the fishing port outside the window had disappeared, and the industrial complex, spewing up orange flames into the distant darkness, had risen up like a fort.

“Oh, yeh, let’s check out her stuff. There might be something valuable.”

Satoshi pulled a paper bag down from the overhead rack. After picking it up from the hospital, they had never looked at the contents.

Was it the nurse that had attached the label with “Mrs. Takano” scribbled on it?

Satoshi peeled off the tape sealing the bag, and pulled out the contents one by one: a flimsy coat, a polyester dress, and a small pair of silver sandals.

“We should’ve had this stuff burned with the coffin. This shit ain’t good for nothing. Maybe we could pawn it off on one of those pestering girls.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn’t your stuff.”

Goro yanked the bag away from him. A tiny red purse tumbled out.

“Hey, a purse. There’s probably money in there. They always carried money around with them. We’re going fifty-fifty on it. Okay, Goro?”

The pursed contained a little bit of money and a contraceptive device. The lipstick was a blazing scarlet color.

“Three thousand yen and some loose change? She was pretty hard up, huh?”

“Take it.”

“Really? Thanks a lot.”

In the bottom of the paper bag, Goro found a folded envelope, the same light blue color as the previous one. His heart warmed when he saw that it was addressed to “Mr. Takano Goro.” The name was as skillfully written as before.

“Not another love letter? ‘Oh, Goro, you’re the nicest one of all.’” Satoshi was about to continue his teasing when Goro smacked him with the back of his hand.

“Hey, that hurts! What are you doing?!”

“Shut up! And get the hell away from me!”

“Geez, I’m sorry.”

Satoshi reluctantly moved to the seat across the aisle.

Goro unfolded the letter. Unlike the previous letter, the writing was thin and disheveled and crammed onto the light blue paper.

My dearest Goro,

I writing letter in secret while nobody here. Sorry about bad handwriting. I lying down, with just one free hand.

I not speak none since come hospital. If I say Japanese, they ask me many thing, so I speak Chinese.

I definitely die. Doctor think I not know Japanese, so they say thing and I hear. Also I know many girl like this, so I know. It just my turn.

A nice nurse ask me my family telephone by write Chinese character. I sorry saying Mr. Satake telephone number. I think police already know.

I know lot about you, Goro. Mr. Satake wrote me down a lot of thing about you for when I busted, and I remember all. Goro address, Goro age, Goro personality, Goro habit, Goro favorite food, and stuff. I read everyday so I not forget.

I have picture of Goro, too. Four copies same one. I carry with me always. I always looking at it, so I not forget, and before I know it, I fall in love with you. Loving you make work more hard. I always say I sorry before work. Nothing I can do, but I sorry.

If I work hard and pay back money, can I see you? Can I live with you? I work real hard thinking maybe okay. But impossible now.

You always smiling. Does not smoke, drinks a little, does not fight, does not like meat, likes fish. So I stop smoking. I drink a little, and not fight. And I not like meat, I eat fish.

Customer all nice, but when I working, I not forget you. That is truth. I pretend customer is you. That make me try more hard, and customer happy.

You grow up near ocean, yes? When I come here, I think maybe I am near Goro hometown, and search on map. I sad to see it far away. But, that just like me. You come far way to work, just like me. Right, Goro?

Will you come see me when I die?

If you come see me, I ask just one favor.

You bury me in Goro grave? Can I die as Goro wife? I sorry for asking. This my only favor.

Thanks to Goro, I work much, and send home much money. Dying scary, is painful, and very hard, but I try hard. Please listen my favor.

Can you hear ocean? It raining. It very dark. Sorry about bad handwriting. I lying down, with one free hand.

I love you. More than anybody in world. I love you more than anybody. Not scary, not painful, not hard. I think of you, and cry. Every night, when it good night time, I look at Goro picture like that, and cry. It always like that, but when I look at Goro nice face, I start cry. Not sad or difficult cry, but thank you cry.

I sorry I have nothing give you. So just this letter and bad writing I say I sorry.

I love you from heart more than anybody in whole world.

Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro, Goro.

Zaijian. Goodbye.

Half way through the letter, Goro started to cry out loud.

“What’s wrong with you now?”

Goro threw his empty beer can at Satoshi, who was anxiously trying to get a peek of the letter.

“Shut up, and get the hell away from me.”

“But, it’s not normal.”

“It is so normal. There’s nothing wrong with me. You’re the ones that aren’t normal. None of you are normal.”

The lights of the industrial complex appeared closer through the dark night of the window.

Let’s go home. I’m sure my brother will kindly welcome home the sister-in-law he never met.

“Let’s go home, Pairan. Everyone’s waiting.”

Taking the worn down lipstick, Goro wrote “Takano Pairan” on the bone box.

“I can’t write as well as you, but don’t make fun of me.”

Goro smiled through the tears, and the dry bones on his lap rattled in reply.

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