Parallel Rivers Read online

  We hedge around, me and Lou, these meeting places of gilded youth. And I’m talking strip joints, flower shops and espresso bars. And I keep getting strong kid urges, birth images. Today, for instance, I’m sitting on the floor of my place with no clothes on, erotic as Mrs Spry, who is in fact open in my lap, and I’m reading aloud April from Flowers in House and Garden. Ah, like the Sir says, Constance Spry’s “not preciosity, but pure sagacity.”

  And as I read, Lou’s on the other side of the wall, watching and listening.

  “Happy Easter!” he says.

  “Thanks. Same to you. I hope you have an enjoyable Easter.”

  “Mm. You really like flowers.”

  “Yes. I am in heaven when I read about flowers. Some days off I just read. I don’t even stop to eat.”

  “Mm. I like watching you read. I can see things in your face. You look like a little tyke.”

  “Lou?”

  “Mm.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t come any closer.”

  “Quid pro quo, Lou. I just want you there, man, you know? Here is too close. I would suffocate. But you there telling me you can’t come closer is good. Understand?”

  “This much.” A thumb and finger a millimeter apart push through the hole.

  “You love me?”

  “Sure, Jane.”

  “Okay. Will they leave us alone?”

  “Mr Wonderful. We’re playing into his hands.”

  Yeah. So I hug myself. I used to say sex for talk. Quid pro quo. I just wanted the chick or the guy to talk to me. This pink flower opens, fast, baby blue in the centre. And we stay silent in our rooms, till mine is dark. Utterly. We both sigh, and a long yellow laser fixes dust in air between the hole in the wall and Constance Spry’s cover.

  His back is as broad as a ship. Although he limps, he moves with grace and is unarmed. Down the street through the Japanese and American tourists who part for such a big man. Lou would not walk differently in Hong Kong. The recorder’s on my hip. I will leave the cassette at the flower shop or at the antique dealer’s — bound to pass one or the other today or tomorrow, or the next day. I’m in no hurry, after all, to admit that really I’ve nothing to say for or against him, that Lou and I are stalling.

  Mr Wonderful, would you like to be lead guitar?

  In a small brick square, in an open-air restaurant, we sit at right angles, not close: an easy distance apart. Endless battles between crows and gulls rage overhead. Ivy-covered walls and great trees shade the area. Twitching branches, green leaves, a blue sky, pale clouds. Cute women in long blue dresses with patterned hems carry red ring-binders across the space, from one building to another. Some wear headphones. Rich boys in rags crouch on zooming skateboards, crash into a cement barrier, pick themselves up, back away, zoom again. Crazy, says the waitress. Lou and I look at the sparrows, at the starlings. Toward noon, steam rises from the pavement round the tables which are filling with tourists, one guy reading a street map folded inside the Wall Street Journal. Later, we will set off down a dank arched alley, stepping on glass and beer caps, into the business section. But now we drink coffee and eat, drowned in cream, the first California strawberries. A hot day for April. Red islands in a white sea. Each terrain a pattern of geometric indentations, where the seed meteorites have landed and stuck. “If I was a primitive culture, I’d worship the strawberry.”

  “What d’you mean?” he says.

  “I’m a sybarite,” I say. “Despite my looks. I feel voluptuous, decadent. You know what that means?”

  “No. Strawberries give me gas.”

  “Poor you. What d’you do in there, behind your wall?”

  “Plan the future.”

  “Funny guy. What do you think about? What do you do with your hands?”

  “I don’t think. My hands are my business.”

  “Walls. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

  “Listen,” he says, “I’ll tell you a story, what you need to hear, something that happened to me. Listen.”

  Three

  Lou told me he was the driver. They waited outside a house off the Drive till some kid came out and wandered across the street. Mr Wonderful rubbed his hands lightly together. “This is the one.”

  The boy was young, about thirteen, a Chinese kid, and he wore real small cutoffs and a T-shirt ripped to show his brown belly. Lou eased the limo forward, into the traffic. As he pulled alongside the boy, Mr Wonderful yelled out the window.

  “Get in the car and let’s talk!”

  “Fuck off.” The boy looked the other way. The sidewalk was full of children and collectors pretending to be pedestrians.

  “Hey!” shouted Mr Wonderful. “Come on, you know you want dinero! Señor Longlegs. Señor Whiteteeth.”

  “Leave me alone, man, I’m meeting friends.”

  “Soon as we have a chat. I got friends too, see?” Mr Wonderful told Lou to honk the horn. Alexis and the antique man stepped like out of nowhere in front of the kid and the antique man grabbed his arm, the boy tried to run, Mr Wonderful climbed out of the car. The crowd eased by. That’s what Lou said. The crowd eased by. The antique man got the boy’s arms twisted behind him. Mr Wonderful flipped up his T-shirt and pinched a nipple. The boy’s face went white, Lou said. White.

  “Hurting, hurting,” said Alexis.

  Mr Wonderful told Lou to get out of the car, so Lou did. Lou stood looking at the boy.

  “Want a piece, Mr Hum?” said Alexis.

  “Lou would,” said Mr Wonderful. “Wouldn’t you, Lou?”

  “Good idea,” said the antique man. “Nice pretty little lad. Alex?”

  Alexis and the antique man held an arm each and dragged this boy over the hot sidewalk, dragged this boy right into Mr Wonderful’s arms. Mr Double-You, you smiled your big greasy smile, made your sour stomach noise. The boy squealed. You leaned on him hard. Your cheek on the boy’s cheek. The sun shone and the children’s sweat rained on the sidewalk. Lou didn’t say that, but it’s what I see. The sun shining and the children’s sweat raining on the sidewalk.

  You held the boy close and danced, gently danced him round. Kind of beautiful. You slow-kissed the boy’s lips, then bellied him toward the car, and disappeared him.

  But this story of the hot street scares me cold because I see how easy Lou gives me a story. I see Lou give me noise and hide behind it. Lou can say anything, be anyone, a liar, a man, a stone, a knife, anyone, and I will be fooled, me, easily misled, and there’ll be no end to figuring it out, and everything will landslide and spoil the peace of my life in the city, my lovely gardens and farms.

  Today I followed Lou out of the city, straight out, zoom, in yellow cabs, wham, wham, past dinky houses, into the valley, kept my eyes peeled for cows and horses, for tomatoes growing in glass houses, or acres of shiny green strawberry plants, everything a blur except our solid yellow cars, which didn’t move, stayed still, the distance between us constant. My driver told me all his problems as the meter slipped numbers. I watched Lou’s head and shoulders, dark and dumb in the other cab’s rear window. Yesterday he met with the owners of the Princess grocery. Little Father has paint-by-numbers paintings for sale on the wall behind his till, mostly of the Queen, Phillip, Chuck and Di, a few landscapes as well — blue sea and green fields, sky-blue sky. Lou and the old guy stood nodding and smiling together for about an hour while customers came and went. The punk son made change and snatched at flies, glancing at me in the shadows at the back of the store. Finally, Lou took a parcel from under his coat, the kid almost fainted, had to hold onto the counter, Little Father scrunched into the curtained doorway, and this big Chinawoman came out and gave Lou an envelope.

  “You want to play synth in an airband?” I called to the punk.

  The kid looked twitchy. “No. I can’t,” he said. “You come back in two days, I will have tomatoes. Very ripe.”

  “Not too ripe.”

  “No. But perfect.”
/>   “Okay. How about DX7? Maybe a little air Synclavier?”

  We stopped at the Texaco station off the Trans Canada past Clearbrook. That’s where he completed the exchange. A blue Toyota truck was involved, travelled east, don’t know where, but I got the license. I’m pretty sure it’s not a one-shot deal.

  My cabby, on the drive back, told me about when he worked at a slaughterhouse in the suburbs, where the manager always played baroque music over the speakers. “That guy really loved his baroque. We skinned steer to Vivaldi. I was married then. Two kids, steady job. And culture.”

  Back at my place Lou and I just fell asleep.

  And here we are all together, watching this girl, a young mulatto in tight cutoffs selling deep-fried bananas from a little machine on wheels. Lou is easing the limo out of the traffic. My cab’s on his bumper. The sidewalk’s full of pedestrians pretending to be important, and then Mr Wonderful is out of the limo, wringing his hands.

  “Fuck off, Dad.” The girl bends over her contraption and pulls out a small steaming bag which she passes through the open door. “Hi, Mr Hum.”

  “Hey, Moppy!” shouts Mr Wonderful. “Talk to your old man like that and you won’t work any street!”

  Alexis and the antique man step from the limo. Moppy sells them each a bag of banana slices. A sweet burning fills the air.

  “Wow, she cooks nice bananas, boss,” says Alex dreamily. He rubs his belly and winks over at me.

  “Yes. We should perhaps leave her be.” The antique man crumples the bag and tosses it.

  “You all contributing to keeping this girl in business?” says Mr Wonderful.

  “Eat your bananas and leave me alone. It’s good trade today.”

  “Out of the car, Lou.”

  “Yes, boss,”

  The four men stand on the sidewalk, looking at the girl.

  “O protect me!” she says, mocking. But when Mr Wonderful closes in, her face goes dark, dark. She doubles up when he touches her.

  “Want a slice, Mr Hum?” he says. He elbows Lou’s fat belly. “Mr Hum would like his own little setup. Wouldn’t you, Lou?”

  “Not a good idea,” says the antique man. “Lou’s a nice Oriental. Alex, show Lou what Mr Wonderful thinks of independents.”

  Alexis tips the girl’s machine, spilling hot fat and banana coins over the sidewalk. Mr Wonderful takes out his scissors and cuts the ends off two cigars, hands one to the antique man. As they light up, the sun comes out and rain starts to hiss loud on the road.

  Lou’s asleep. I’m asleep. Soon I’ll wake from my dream. No. Soon I’ll wake from his dream. Ever since I was little I thought Asians knew something I didn’t. I’m a little Japanese, not enough. Not separate, polite, on the look-out enough. I tell Lou he’s half white. Silence. I’m very scared and thinking that fear is a kind of consolation for losing him. With this pain everything helps, even fear. I look at myself in a mirror and think I’m too thin, not eating enough, ghoulish in the dark grey suit, my hair straight down my back. I keep seeing the truck pulling out of the Texaco station, and hearing gunshots. I’ve shopped my man, shopped my man — you hear, Mr Double-You? I dream of an island. At sunset the stag appears at the edge of the only lake, to drink. Red tide creeps up the beaches. Trudy strips at the Grand Hotel du lac for the real Mr Wonderful, who’s stolen her away to teach his daughter to be just like her. Trudy thumbs her nose at me. Bacon day at the island slaughterhouse. O, this is exotic dancing! This is deus ex machina.

  And, because you’re dying to know, Mr Double-You, the antique man inherited Flower Decoration by Mrs Constance Spry when his mom died. It was written in 1934 and published in London by J.M. Dent.

  By the way, my taxi driver was lying, or making a story. Baroque music in the abattoir is from a film by Lina Wertmüller called All Screwed Up.

  Mr Wonderful, care to sit in? (Tutto a posto e niente in ordine.) Meteorites blaze through a clear black sky; you can’t trust anyone these days; Trudy is kissing my lips, whispering: “My secret is I never think of cosmetics, or lights, or style, videos or mirrors. Only of men.”

  Lou Hum on bass. The tomato kid on keyboards. The florist on drums. Trudy on vocals. And I’m Jane Hart, playing tenor sax. Thank you all for coming out.

  FROZEN CARP

  I AM A FREQUENT RAIL COMMUTER, and today, as often on other days, I found myself charmed by the pretty women getting on, getting off, by the buzz of wheels rolling on iron as one rides away from the city into the gentle and pure winter countryside. When the train passed my house in Ebetsu — my usual stop — I settled comfortably back to plan the days ahead, my well-earned period of relaxation. I was fascinated by a poster advertising something I didn’t understand: a group of peculiar symbols with attached prices. A strange dream took me into an encounter with my wife’s friend. We were about to kiss. “Did you feel,” she said, “I mean were you going to do what I was going to do?” My wife was watching; she would leave, she told us, she would not say where. She held up her anger and jealousy like a rin gong — I can still see the door closing, the grain of the wood so sensual, her raised hand — and now I was all energy, pursuing my beloved wife (no irony in beloved!) and at the same time kissing in a very Western manner her friend whom I wanted very much.

  I believed I could hear the train staff urging me. “Hurry up, sir, we’re nearly at your station.” Gasping out loud at the projected images of these women, I guessed the trick. I was not to blame, it had nothing to do with me, this was some new gimmick by the rail company, another weapon in the war for customers between the long distance bus company and the train people. They might have thought my harmless voyeurism suggested desire, might have mistaken my fatigue and longing to be in the country for vague lust, a nostalgia for youthful passion. Still, they could not expect me to take this loss of self-control calmly. I was not an anxious teenager. Would they really want to evoke guilt? Assume guilt to be an integral part of this pleasure? Surely, yes. A moment before the long anticipated fall, away from myself, into wetness and reduction, I had a glimpse of another projection, as if shown another room. A traditional room, with tatamis, the one behind the door my wife had walked through. Here was murder, violent death, bodies jerking in an awful washitsu filling with water, stains creeping up the paper walls. But as I said, just a quick look.

  Rushed through the swaying train to my ordinary daily position again, to register the racing country, the boxed food changing hands as the caterers at Takikawa Station sped through, women boarding (of less interest now), the poster list of prices. I understood that my erotic vision would cost me 4500 yen and I would be billed later. The violent dream was more expensive, obviously. It had been a kind of preview, an advertisement. At any rate if I’m charged for it I will protest. Of course I didn’t think that then, it occurs to me only now, after I’ve had a chance to bathe, to put on a fresh kimono, to telephone my wife to tell her of my safe arrival. And thinking of the absurdity of being charged for a dream makes me smile. Standing at the open door looking over this valley filled with night and moon and orchards of undisturbed snow, alone in my favourite house, I feel calm and clear-headed. The house nestles in a grove of plum trees on the west slope of a hill a few hours east of Sapporo. Highest in price was a holocaust dream. My dream — which I decided was worth the insignificant charge — was called Topic Fantasy. I had no time to study the others, about three more there were, before the train arrived at Aibetsu. I felt sticky, uncomfortable, as though everyone was watching. The cold air of recent snow swept in to meet me as the door opened with a whir; I shivered as I stepped out; the train quickly pulled away. In the blessed silence I saw the mountains beyond the small rural station as if in a long handscroll, but instantly that scroll swallowed me.

  This morning my wife, my daughter, and my sister surprised me.

  I had organized my five day rest into units of work divided by simple meals, walks around the village at the foot of the hill; I’d had thoughts of solitude, of the project I had set myself: to m
ake a list of birds resident in the area at this season. Still, I was not displeased to see them. My equivocal sister I had not seen for two years; and my daughter, after spending last winter at University in Tokyo, had been travelling in Canada and had returned only three days ago. My wife’s placid, down-to-earth face is always satisfying to see. We laughed a great deal at our reunion. Today has been a precious day, one I feel I will always remember. A completely shadowless day of indoor fires, familial love, easy talk. I showed my usual impatience to see the gifts they’d brought me. A soapstone seal from my daughter, my favourite tea from my sister, a new book of poems from my wife. How they giggled when I recounted yesterday’s journey; though my wife, after we made love in the afternoon — the others had taken the skidoo to town to buy cakes — asked me if there was truth in the dream, did I feel attracted to her friend? I told her of course it was true, but that there was equal truth in the anxiety I’d felt at her uncharacteristically abrupt behavior, the loneliness of her raised hand, the violence associated with her retreat from the scene. And together we held our breaths and looked past the open door, at the blue sky beyond the breakfast room, the top branches of stark trees.

  “How peaceful it is here,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  It is night again, and late, but I am no longer a commuter on the Hakodate Main Line, nor a successful businessman, nor even a respected amateur ornithologist. I’m deeply content. A father, brother, husband. Tomorrow I will watch for birds, but tonight, as the others sleep, I will try to capture this most perfect day. My desk and room are flooded with light reflected from the snow — the moon not yet above the trees. The house sighs with life, with the shifting bodies of three women, so full of the real gift they brought. For a while this afternoon as the sun set we were spellbound; my sister had remembered for us one spring, one blossom time years ago, when we all had been together here. We now lacked my mother and father, my wife’s mother, my son, but as we ate our cakes they felt close.