The Cat and The City E-Book

Nick Bradley

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 'Ingenious ... touching, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking.' Guardian 'If you're itching to read a new novel by David Mitchell ... try this.' The Times _______________ In Tokyo - one of the world's largest megacities - a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers - from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer. 'Masterfully weaves together seemingly disparate threads to conjure up a vivid tapestry of Tokyo### its glory, its shame, its characters, and a calico cat.' David Peace, author of THE TOKYO TRILOGY One of the Independent's best debuts

Leseprobe

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2020 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Nick Bradley, 2020

Illustrations © Mariko Aruga

The moral right of Nick Bradley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 988 2Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 989 9E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 990 5

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic BooksAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondon WC1N 3JZwww.atlantic-books.co.uk

To my parents, for everything . . .

. . . and my brothers, for the rest

Contents

Tattoo

Fallen Words

Street Fighter II (Turbo)

Sakura

Detective Ishikawa: Case Notes 1

Chinese Characters

Autumn Leaves

Copy Cat

Bakeneko

Detective Ishikawa: Case Notes 2

Omatsuri

Trophallaxis

Hikikomori, Futoko & Neko

Detective Ishikawa: Case Notes 3

Opening Ceremony

Acknowledgements

青猫

萩原朔太郎（大正１２年）

この美しい都會を愛するのはよいことだ

この美しい都會の建築を愛するのはよいことだ

すべてのやさしい女性をもとめるために

すべての高貴な生活をもとめるために

この都にきて賑やかな街路を通るのはよいことだ

街路にそうて立つ櫻の竝木

そこにも無數の雀がさへづつてゐるではないか。

ああ　このおほきな都會の夜にねむれるものは

ただ一疋の青い猫のかげだ

かなしい人類の歴史を語る猫のかげだ

われの求めてやまざる幸福の青い影だ。

いかならん影をもとめて

みぞれふる日にもわれは東京を戀しと思ひしに

そこの裏町の壁にさむくもたれてゐる

このひとのごとき乞食はなにの夢を夢みて居るのか。

A Blue Cat

by Hagiwara Sakutaro (1923)Translation by Nick Bradley

To be in love with this city is a good thing

To love the city’s buildings, a good thing

And all those kind women

All those noble lives

Passing through these busy streets

Lined with cherry trees on either side

From whose branches countless sparrows chirp.

Ah! The only thing that can sleep in this vast city night

Is the shadow of a single blue cat

The shadow of a cat that tells the sad history of humanity

The blue shade of happiness I long for.

Forever I chase any shadow,

I thought I wanted Tokyo even on a snowy day

But look there – that cold ragged beggar in the alleyway

Leaning against a wall – what dream is he dreaming?

Tattoo

Kentaro held the hot cup of coffee to his lips and blew at the rising steam. The back office of his tattoo parlour was dimly lit, and the light from his laptop screen gave his dirty white stubble a blueish hue. Reflected in his glasses, a long list of links on an open webpage scrolled up slowly. His hand gripped a Bluetooth mouse, the buttons covered with greasy finger marks. His coffee was still too hot to drink. He put it down, just to the right of a coaster on his desk, and idly scratched his crotch.

He clicked on a link and was faced with a loading bar.

A short pause, then a webcam live stream loaded. The screen showed the interior of someone’s bedroom. A small apartment, with lots of legal textbooks on a shelf – perhaps a university student. On the bed a couple was kissing. Naked. Oblivious.

Kentaro sat and watched. Then he unzipped his trousers and reached inside.

The shop’s doorbell sounded. Kentaro froze.

‘Hello?’ a girl’s voice called out from the waiting area.

‘Sorry, just a minute.’ He shut the laptop quickly, composed himself and walked out to greet the customer.

Standing at the doorway was a high-school girl. At first glance there was nothing remarkable about her. She was wearing the typical sailor-style uniform with the standard bobbed haircut and baggy socks. She’d dyed her hair blonde to stand out, but that’s what they all did these days. She looked to be in her final year. Probably made some kind of mistake coming in here.

‘How may I help you, miss?’ Kentaro did his best to put on his customer-care voice.

‘I’d like a tattoo, please,’ she said, her chin raised high.

‘Ah, miss. Excuse me, but how did you find this parlour?’

‘A friend recommended it.’

‘And your friend is . . . ?’

‘That doesn’t matter. I want a tattoo.’ She made to walk into the rear of the parlour.

Kentaro placed a hand on the wall to stop her. ‘Miss, don’t be silly. You’re too young.’

She looked at his arm. ‘I’m eighteen. And don’t call me miss.’

He lowered his arm awkwardly. ‘Have you thought about this properly?’

‘Yes, I have.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I want a tattoo.’

‘Maybe you should go away and give it a few days’ thought.’

‘I’ve already thought long and hard about it. I want a tattoo.’

‘But maybe there are some things you haven’t thought about. You won’t be able to go to onsen.’

‘I don’t like hot springs.’

‘People will think you’re yakuza. Could be a bit scary for a nice young girl like you.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t care what people think. I want a tattoo.’

‘It’s expensive – can cost as much as three million yen.’

‘I have money.’

‘Listen, I do it the traditional way here – tebori – all of it’s done by hand. I’m not one of these upstarts you find in Shibuya with their cheating methods. Even the gangsters I tattoo can’t handle this kind of pain.’

‘Pain, I can handle.’ She looked directly at Kentaro, and he saw then something in her eyes, a soft brightness, a light green colour – almost transparent – that he had never seen before in a Japanese person.

‘I wonder.’ He flipped the sign on the front door over to CLOSED, then gestured for the girl to follow him. ‘Come through to the back room and we’ll have a chat.’

He flicked on the top lights as they entered the back room, and now the bed-like table his customers lay on was visible, as well as the photos of the various clients he’d had over the years – hissing dragons, gawping koi carp, topless women, Shinto gods and elaborate kanji sprawling across the naked backs, buttocks and arms of his customers. Most of whom were yakuza.

Kentaro had learnt his trade from one of the old masters of Asakusa, and was famous for his skill and dedication to his art. He loved nothing better than to tattoo a fresh piece of skin, elaborating scenes from ink onto small spaces of bare flesh. The only thing that came close to the satisfaction of creating a masterpiece on another human was the feeling of dominance over the gangsters he worked on.

‘This might hurt a bit,’ he’d tell them.

‘I can take it,’ they would reply.

That’s what they all say.

And then he would begin work on them, and he’d feel the pain in their movements, in the subtle shift of their muscles and bodies, in the sound of their gritted teeth, as he gouged away gently at their bodies with his metal needles in the traditional style he had learnt from his old master, leaving his mark on them indefinitely. It gave him great pleasure to think of his mastery over these kings of men, these lords of the criminal underworld. His creative control was supreme; he alone decided the images and stories that would be a part of his client forever – sometimes even after death. If the client donated their skin to the Museum of Pathology it would be cut from their cadaver before cremation, then treated correctly and stored. Many pieces of Kentaro’s work were on display behind glass at the museum.

He knew he was the best – as did the yakuza who respected him greatly as an artist. But he’d never had many female customers – not even the female yakuza came to him for their tattoos. They all went elsewhere.

But here was a female customer now, standing right in front of him.

‘Where shall I sit?’ she asked.

‘Oh! Hold on.’ He pulled a chair from the corner closer to his own. ‘Here, take a seat.’

She sat down gingerly and put her hands in her lap.

‘So, what would you like a tattoo of ?’

‘The city.’

‘The city?’

‘Tokyo.’

‘That’s not very . . . conventional.’

‘So what?’ Her eyes flashed again.

‘Where do you want it?’

‘My back.’

‘That’s going to be tricky . . .’

‘Look, mister. Can you do it or not?’

‘Sure. I can. No need to be sassy. I just need to figure out how.’ He put his chin on his hand, looked at his closed laptop, then it hit him. ‘Oh! Just a minute.’

He opened his laptop and tapped his fingers on the keyboard, impatient for it to come to life again. It did, just in time to depict a girl facing the webcam, bent over, getting pounded hard from behind. The speakers of his laptop let out a low moaning sound.

He closed the browser window as fast as he could.

Kentaro’s face was red as hell. He shot a furtive glance at the girl sitting next to him, but she was looking at the photos of his previous customers on the walls. Maybe he’d got away with it. Close shave.

He opened up a new browser and clicked on a saved bookmark that took him to Google Maps. The software loaded up and he typed ‘Tokyo’ into the search bar. The map zoomed in, and then the city filled the browser window. He clicked on satellite view, then zoomed in further, the detail getting larger and larger. Gridlines of buildings divided by roads, canals winding along thin alleyways, the sprawling bay, and the veins and capillaries of train tracks pumping people throughout the city.

‘That’s amazing,’ she said. ‘I want that on my back.’

‘No, that is impossible,’ he said.

‘I came to you because you’re supposed to be the best.’ She sighed. ‘I guess they were wrong.’

‘No one could do this.’

‘I’m sure I could find someone for the right price.’

‘It’s not about price, it’s about skill. I’m one of the few true horishi left in Tokyo.’

‘So what’s stopping you?’

‘It’ll take time. Could be a year, could be four.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his face with a sweaty palm.

‘I’ve got time.’

‘It’ll be painful too.’ He fought back a smirk.

‘I told you already: pain is not an issue.’

‘You’ll have to get naked and lie face down on the table.’

‘Sure.’ She began to unbutton her shirt straight away with no hint of shyness.

Kentaro felt a hot twist in his stomach and quickly looked down at the floor. He ran to the bathroom to get some baby oil. It definitely wasn’t necessary, but he’d had an idea that he would use it as an excuse to touch her body. He imagined his master who’d trained him when he was an apprentice – he’d be turning in his grave seeing him pulling this baby-oil trick. When he came back into the main room she was already naked, lying face down on the table. Kentaro couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Her skin was perfection, unblemished. The muscles of her lower back led perfectly down to her round buttocks, swelling briefly into powerful thighs. He swallowed as he walked towards her.

‘Uh, I just need to rub your back with oil.’

‘Whatever.’ She shifted slightly.

He squeezed out a glob of the oil onto his right hand – the bottle made a farting sound, which he almost apologized for, then thought better of it. He snapped the cap back on and began to rub the oil into her skin. It glistened under the lights, and the heat he’d felt in his stomach earlier began to spread downwards.

‘So . . . what’s your name?’

‘Naomi.’

‘Mmm . . . Naomi . . . Pretty name. And . . . do you have a boyfriend?’

She rolled over slightly to face Kentaro and looked straight at him again, her eyes a soft flash of green. He could see her breasts.

‘Look, mister. I’m not gonna put up with any funny stuff. I came here for a tattoo, and that’s all I want. I saw you looking at some weird stuff on your laptop earlier, and I’m fine with that – each to their own – you know. I don’t know how that couple would feel about you spying on them through their webcam though. Maybe that’s something you should have a think about. But I’m not gonna have you perving on me. I’m paying you for a service, so be a professional. Okay?’

Kentaro held his oily hands limply in the air. ‘Spying? Webcams? I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Save the bullshit. I don’t want to hear it.’ She lay back down. ‘And by the way, your flies are undone.’

Kentaro looked down at his trousers, did up his flies, then got to work.

Work was something Kentaro had always been good at. He could concentrate for hours at a time – the client usually asking for a break before he himself ever grew tired. When he was tattooing a customer, he threw everything he had into the task, and his work had always been highly praised by fellow artists.

Naomi came to visit him over the course of several months, whenever she had the time. And he was always glad to see her. He had some superfine needles especially made by the best knife-seller in Asakusa.

He began inking out the entire city all over her back, shoulders, arms, buttocks and thighs. He started with the roads, the outlines of buildings, the rivers – tracing the outline before he even started thinking about the colouring of the tattoo. He had to complete the ghostly shell-like skeleton of Tokyo, and only once this was finished could he begin shading and colouring. The entire tattoo would take a couple of years to complete and would require regular visits over that period, in which he would work on a portion each time – there was also the small matter of how much pain the customer could take in a single session.

He jumped straight into the task of inking the city, which he always did in the traditional tebori manner, carving and inking lines deeply into Naomi’s skin with his metal needles. She was truly one of the toughest customers he’d ever had. She didn’t even blink at the pain. He used a pair of loupes attached to his glasses to draw the finest of detail in the tattoo and created microscopic features of the city, which retained its overall structure when viewed from afar.

Kentaro struggled only in one matter: it was impossible for him to hold the entire city in his mind while he worked. He would have to work on small levels and refer to a zoomed-in portion on his laptop. Unlike all his previous designs, which he had been able to visualize fully while working, the size and scale of the macroscopic city was just too much to retain in any human brain.

It took several visits to ink the outline. The last part he finished was his very own parlour in Asakusa. He planned on leaving the roof of his parlour blank as the final space to sign his name – keeping to tradition.

Once he had completed the outline of the city in black ink, he then faced colouring, the shading and the detail. He decided to start with Shibuya.

‘Hmmm.’ He paused in thought.

‘What’s wrong?’ Naomi asked, lifting her head.

‘Oh, I’m just trying to decide whether to have people actually crossing the intersection at the Shibuya scramble crossing, or whether to have them waiting for the green light.’

‘I don’t want any people.’

‘What do you mean?’

She lowered her head back to the table and closed her eyes. ‘I just want the city. I don’t want any people.’

‘But it won’t be a city without people.’

‘I don’t care. It’s my back, it’s my tattoo. I’m paying.’

‘Hmmm.’

Kentaro felt a twinge of pride. It was true that Naomi had paid regularly, and was a good customer. But he was one of the finest tattooists in Tokyo. His customers agreed to his designs. They never told him what to do. His inner artist flared, but as the Japanese saying went: kyaku-sama wa kami-sama desu – the customer is a god.

Well. She had said no people. Animals weren’t people, were they?

He smiled to himself and shaded in a small cat – two blobs of colour, like a calico – just opposite the statue of Hachiko the dog in Shibuya. And then he went about his work.

It was during the shading of the tattoo that Kentaro really began to lose his mind.

Naomi would talk during their sessions, asking him to describe the parts of the city he was working on. She would tell him the season she wanted for each location, and he would then colour the maple trees red for autumn, or the bright yellow of the gingko trees, or shade in the soft pinkish white of the sakura in Ueno Park in spring.

‘Where are you now?’ she’d ask.

‘Ginza. I’ve just done the Nakagin building.’

‘Good. It’s winter in Ginza.’

‘I see.’ And he would begin shading and colouring the fine white snow that had fallen overnight. The city was becoming like a patchwork quilt of the seasons.

Often when Kentaro had been working on a part of Tokyo and talking to Naomi about that place, she would come back for her next session having visited that part of the city. She would bring a small present or souvenir for him – sweets from Harajuku, gyoza from Ikebukuro – and he would feel his face going red in embarrassment.

They’d sometimes drink green tea together and she would tell him stories of things that had happened, or things she’d seen – how the building of the new Olympic stadium was progressing each time she walked past it – she told Kentaro stories of all the people she saw going about their lives in the city, and he would listen quietly without interrupting.

One time, during a break in a session that had gone on for hours, as Kentaro was cleaning his instruments, Naomi had pointed at a large art book of Utagawa Kuniyoshi ukiyo-e prints and asked about it. Kentaro had got it down from the shelf and let her take it to an armchair and sit down with it. Utagawa had always been an artistic inspiration for Kentaro – his master had introduced his work to him and had made him practise for months copying Utagawa’s paintings before he was allowed to even touch a piece of skin. Naomi sat with the book on her lap, turning the pages slowly.

‘These are so great,’ said Naomi, examining each painting in detail, her finger on the page sometimes tracing the lines of numerous cats and skeleton demons.

‘He was a legend.’ Kentaro sighed.

‘I love this one.’ She tapped her finger on the page, and Kentaro looked across to see the courtly scene with a ghostly cat head floating in the background. Cats stood on their hindlegs and danced like humans with handkerchiefs on their heads and arms flung wide.

‘Yeah.’ Kentaro swallowed a chuckle at the thought of the trick he had played on Naomi by tattooing the cat on her back.

‘And look at these ones.’ She held up the book to him. ‘He’s turned these kabuki actors into cats!’

‘Now that’s an interesting story,’ said Kentaro, pausing while putting away his tools and coming over to look at the book over Naomi’s shoulder.

‘Go on.’ She looked up at him with her strange eyes.

‘Well, back then, kabuki had become a raucous and decadent affair – almost like an orgy.’

‘Fun,’ she said, grinning cheekily.

‘Well, the government didn’t think so. They outlawed any artistic depictions of kabuki actors.’

‘That’s crazy!’

‘It is. Anyway, Utagawa replaced the human actors with cats. That was his way of sidestepping the censorship.’

‘Clever guy.’ She glanced back down at the image of three cats dressed in kimono, sitting around a low table playing shamisen.

‘My old master was obsessed with him.’

‘Where is your master now?’

‘He passed on.’ Kentaro pointed at a photo on the wall. ‘That’s him.’

Naomi looked at the photo of the gruff-looking man standing with a younger Kentaro in front of the same tattoo parlour they were both in now. ‘Looks kind of serious.’

‘He was. So strict. Had me waking up at 4 a.m. and sweeping and cleaning the parlour all day. Wouldn’t let me so much as touch a needle or a bit of skin until I’d done that for two years. Mad old bastard.’ He shook his head and smiled.

Naomi gazed at Kentaro thoughtfully. ‘How come you don’t have a disciple?’

He sighed, softly, without the usual condescension. ‘Where to begin . . .’

‘At the beginning?’ She shrugged.

‘Well, the government did another great job of giving irezumi a bad name – just like the old kabuki censorship. They’ve associated the practice with criminals, so fewer people want to get into the trade. You know, it was once an honourable thing to get a tattoo in the old days – it was the mark of a fireman. The public loved and respected firemen – not like these crude gangsters who show off their tattoos these days. Anyway, I’m getting off the point . . . what was I saying?’

‘You were saying why no one wants to be a horishi anymore.’

‘Oh, yes. Now, of course you’ve got your amateurs in Shibuya who use all this new-fangled technology to tattoo. No one wants to learn the old tebori method. No one wants to do hard work. Everyone wants to do things the easy way. But none of them are true artists.’

‘Like you.’ She smiled at him.

Kentaro blushed and looked at the floor. ‘Come on, Naomi,’ he said, finishing his tea. ‘We’d best continue.’

And that was the day it first happened.

When Kentaro was halfway through colouring the tattoo, his eyes happened to pass over the Shibuya section of the city that he had already completed. He saw the statue of Hachiko the dog, his eyes carried on to the shopping streets of Harajuku, but then something clicked in his mind. He flicked his eyes back to the statue.

The cat was gone.

He blinked and shook his head. Maybe tiredness was finally getting to him. But he looked again: no, the cat was not there anymore.

Perhaps he had imagined drawing the cat on her body? Yes, that was the simplest explanation for its absence. He had probably dreamt of drawing the little cat in, and it had seemed so vivid he had imagined it to be reality. Yes. Everything was surely fine. Dreams could sometimes invade reality, couldn’t they?

But that very same day, when he was about to shade the area around Tokyo Tower, he caught sight of something that gave him a cold shiver. He was making his way with his eyes up the street from Hamamatsucho Station towards the area around Tokyo Tower. And just down a side street branching off the main road, he saw the cat.

‘What the . . .’

‘Is everything all right?’ Naomi stirred.

‘Oh, yes,’ he replied. The needle in his hand was shaking a bit, but he steadied himself. Perhaps he had misremembered the location he had originally put the cat in. Surely that was the explanation. He ignored the cat and began to work again, colouring the red and white pattern of Tokyo Tower.

But the next session, before working, he searched for the cat in the side streets near Hamamatsucho Station again, and could not find it. And then when he was colouring in the trees of Inokashira Park in Kichijoji, he saw the cat lurking by the lake in the middle of the park.

It was definitely moving.

Kentaro began to dread his regular sessions with Naomi. He couldn’t begin work until he had first found the cat, and he would sometimes spend an hour scouring the city in search of it before he could get to work with his needles and ink. This, in turn, was delaying the overall progress of the tattoo, which had begun to take longer than he had planned. Naomi never commented on how much time he took, and gradually their sessions grew exhausting as he became haunted by the spectre of the cat. He would dream about it roaming the city, and he would spend most of the night in a waking nightmare, sweating in dread at the scramble to find the elusive cat. Can’t catch me, the cat taunted, blinking its steady green eyes at him. Stupid old man. Can’t can’t can’t. He wanted to grab it by the scruff of the neck and shake it, carve it out, pluck it clean away from his work – his art, his Tokyo and his Naomi most of all.

Because she was his, wasn’t she? Sprawled out before him day after day.

One session, he spent most of the afternoon looking for the cat, scanning the streets and alleyways, but it was nowhere to be found. The relief soaked over him like warm water – he must have been imagining the cat’s existence from the beginning.

But as his eyes flickered through Roppongi his heart fell: the cat was there, emerging from a subway exit. Its tail raised high, as though taunting him.

He only managed thirty minutes of hurried work on the tattoo that day before Naomi had to leave.

It was when Kentaro was nearing the end of his work on her that he understood what he must do. He had black rings under his eyes; he had lost his appetite, was finding it hard to swallow food and had grown skeletally thin. His dirty stubble had grown out into a shaggy beard, and his eyes, like black inked dots sunken deeply into his skull, stared vacantly at the walls of his parlour. Even before, he’d rarely gone out much or been hugely social. He’d usually spent most of his time on the Internet, looking at art books or drawing and painting designs on paper. But now he made his way along the old streets of Asakusa, muttering to himself as he went. He walked quickly, bumping into a homeless man wearing a purple bandana. Kentaro lost his temper and shouted uncontrollably at the stranger, who apologized profusely until he continued on his way. He bought a knife from the famous blade master of Asakusa he always visited. The blade master looked at him a little strangely, but didn’t comment on his haggard appearance or the fact that Kentaro usually bought only needles from him, never blades.

Kentaro took the knife home and sharpened it. He tested the blade against his finger and it drew a burst of blood from his skin with only the slightest pressure. He taped the knife to the underside of the table, where Naomi wouldn’t see it. And he waited.

Naomi came for what they both knew would be her final session, undressing quickly as usual. Kentaro did his best to act naturally as she talked to him about a summer fireworks festival she had been to, showing him photos of the yukata she had picked out. He nodded and smiled, pretending to listen.

He worked well, in a kind of giddy contentment that this waking nightmare would soon be coming to an end. He finished a final section of shading Kita-Senju on her arm, then he cast his eyes around the Asakusa area, looking for that last blank space to fill – the roof of his very own tattoo parlour. He traced his way from the Kaminari gate at Sensoji Temple to his parlour. Here’s what he would do: he’d sign his name on the roof of the building declaring the tattoo as finished. And then he would reach for his knife and begin.

But as soon as he went to sign his name, he saw the cat sitting outside his shop.

He knew then, with a terrible certainty, that if he were to glance up from the tattoo on Naomi’s body and look outside the door, he would see the cat sitting there, its green eyes watching him.

He gulped and closed his eyes.

The city was still there though. Like he was seeing it from space. His mind’s eye was a camera looking down on it. Then the camera began to zoom in, down onto the globe, onto Japan, onto Tokyo, all the way down to street level. It flew through the red roof of his tattoo parlour, and there he saw himself working on Naomi’s perfect back, on the tattoo of the city. The camera didn’t stop. He’d lost control. It flew once again into the tattoo, and kept going down: through Japan, through Tokyo, into Asakusa, through the roof of his parlour and into the tattoo once more. And on and on endlessly.

Unless he opened his eyes, he would be stuck like this. Looping round and round, zooming in on the city forever, trapped. But he kept them shut.

For when he opened them, he would see that there was no longer space for him to sign his name in the roof of his parlour. It would be filled with a real red roof. He’d be faced with a city, with the millions and millions of people moving in and around, through subway stations and buildings, parks and highways, living their lives. The city pumped their shit around in pipes, it transported their bodies around in metal containers, and it held their secrets, their hopes, their dreams. And he’d no longer be sitting on the other side watching through a screen. He’d be part of it too. He’d be one of those people.

With his eyes still shut, he reached under the table, hand scrambling desperately for the knife.

He trembled as he opened his eyes.

The muscles in Naomi’s back flexed and came to life.

And so too, did the city.

Fallen Words

‘There once was a shrewd antique dealer named Gozaemon.’

Ohashi paused, and his eyes gleamed in the low light. He had tied back his grey hair under a purple bandana, and wore his beard long and shaggy on his wrinkled face. A thin man, for his age, but with just a tiny paunch belly forming, he knelt on a cushion with his hands held in front of him, in the customary stance of the rakugoka.

‘He was a sly and cunning man,’ he continued, his voice echoing softly around the silent room, ‘who thought nothing of disguising himself as a poor monk and visiting the houses of the elderly, on the hunt for treasures to sell in his antiques shop at hiked-up prices.’

Ohashi had performed rakugo in crowded venues, to the rich and poor, and every time he treated each story as if it were his last – as though his words might be carried into the crowd on his dying breath. He had selected today’s story specifically for his current audience. He cleared his throat and continued.

‘One day, after swindling a woman of an expensive bookcase, this crooked man Gozaemon stopped by a sweet dumpling shop to eat. He sat on a stool outside the shop and waited for his food. As he was waiting, he spied a dirty old cat lapping milk from a bowl. But it was not the cat that interested him. The bowl, which the cat lapped greedily from, was an antique – one he was certain he could sell for 300 gold pieces. Gozaemon felt a cool sweat and the familiar sense of excitement at the prospect of a steal. He composed himself as the old woman who owned the shop came out with his food.’

When Ohashi took on the words of his characters, his voice and mannerisms transformed completely, so one would think the character he was portraying had possessed him. When he played Gozaemon, he shifted to face the right, clasped his hands together and spoke glibly. When he played the old woman he shifted to the left, hunched over and contorted his features, appearing to have aged thirty years in a split second. He faced the audience in between these snippets of dialogue to perform the jovial voice of the narrator.

‘“What a lovely cat you have,” said Gozaemon.

“What? That old mog?” replied the old woman in surprise.

“Yes. It’s a darling cat.” Gozaemon knelt down to pet the cat. It hissed at him, back arching. “Reminds me of my own, who sadly . . . no, it’s too painful to even talk about . . . My children loved that old cat so . . .”

Gozaemon pretended to stifle a sob, and the old woman tilted her head to one side.

“Perhaps . . . Oh, it would be too much to ask.” He looked up.

“What?” asked the old woman, jutting out her lower lip.

“Well, would you be willing to sell this cat?”

“That old flea bag?”

“Yes, this charming cat.”

“I’m not sure. It keeps mice away from my shop.”

“I would be willing to pay . . .” said Gozaemon, his voice wavering slightly.

“Oh yeah?” The woman raised an eyebrow.

“Three . . . no, two gold pieces?”

“You said three.”

“All right, you drive a hard bargain, madam. Three it is.”

“Done.”

Gozaemon smiled. He handed the old woman three gold pieces, then knelt down to pick up the cat, who promptly bit him on the hand. But Gozaemon ignored the pain. He swooped down on his real target, the expensive bowl the cat had been drinking from.

“Oi,” the woman said sharply. “What you doing?”

“Oh, just taking the cat’s bowl.”

“Why?”

“The cat will need it.”

“I’ll give you another one.” And she went inside her shop, coming out with a cheap old thing. She wiped it on her apron, leaving a brown smear.

“But surely the cat will miss its own, ah, special bowl.”

“That cat will drink from anything. Besides, you can’t have that bowl. It’s worth 300 gold pieces.”

Gozaemon was shocked, but did his best to hide it.

“Three hundred gold pieces? That’s an awfully expensive bowl to let a cat drink from.”

“Yes, but it helps me sell mangy cats for three gold pieces a pop.”

The old woman gave a sly grin.’

Ohashi let the end of his story fall perfectly. He bowed low to his audience and smiled. He wiped the perspiration from his brow. It had been a flawless rendition of ‘Neko no sara’ – ‘The Cat’s Dish’.

His audience let out a meow.

Ohashi got up from his filthy cushion and walked towards the calico cat. It had been sitting silently all the while. The only audience member today, watching upright with its paws down in front – the same stance as Ohashi’s, when he had performed his tale. He gave the cat a little scratch behind the ear.

‘Now, let’s get you something to eat.’

They left the meeting room of the abandoned capsule hotel and walked through the decaying corridors to where Ohashi slept. It was dark in the old hotel, but Ohashi had been squatting here so long he could navigate through the place with his eyes closed. The cat, similarly, had no problems. The dark also helped hide some of the hotel’s more disagreeable elements: the fungi that grew on the walls, the rotten floorboards, the peeling wallpaper and the ghoulish faces on the old Kirin beer advertisement posters, smiling faces torn to shreds, curling away slowly over time.

It had been the cat that first led Ohashi to the empty hotel ten months ago, when he’d been lost in the city, looking for somewhere to sleep. Ohashi had been shivering under a bridge on a freezing night when the little cat had licked him on the hand, looked him in the eye and then walked on a few paces before stopping to wait for the old man to follow. The hotel had closed many years ago, and no one had bothered with it since. Another victim of the burst bubble economy – too much supply and not enough demand. If he’d told the story to anyone, they wouldn’t have believed him, but the cat had saved his life.

Now, the cat and Ohashi walked through rows of empty capsules: tiny sleeping pods stacked one on top of the other. Each was like a truncated coffin, with a small curtain to pull across at bedtime to cover the entrance. Drunk salarymen of more decadent times would’ve slept here after missing their last trains home. But now the capsules were unused – all except one.

Ohashi ducked inside his capsule to turn on a small battery-powered lamp. Surrounded by empty spaces, he’d decorated the inside of his little pod with old photos, carefully curated to remind him of better times. The photos depicted a younger, slimmer Ohashi, performing rakugo dressed in a stylish kimono, signing autographs, greeting fans, appearing on television, meeting famous people – from the days when he’d been able to fill theatres and hang out with movie stars and artists. From the days before.

He kept his old family photos in a copy of No Longer Human by Dazai Osamu, and rarely opened the book to look at them anymore. He’d never really liked Dazai Osamu much, anyway.

Kneeling on his futon, he reached inside the capsule and pulled out some canned fish from a shopping bag, popped the ring-pull open, and placed it on the floor for the cat. The cat meowed and nibbled at the fish while Ohashi stroked it idly and flicked through a newspaper.

After eating its fill, the cat watched Ohashi holding the newspaper and staring off into thin air. But the cat wanted his attention. It rubbed its head against Ohashi’s baggy sleeves and trousers, marking him with its scent, a gesture Ohashi understood to mean you’re mine. He dug out a salmon onigiri, peeled off the wrapper and chomped at it slowly, washing it down with a cold bottle of wheat tea from the same bag.

‘We’ll go out for a wander in a minute, you and I,’ he said to the cat, speaking between mouthfuls. ‘And then I might meet some friends this evening.’

The cat licked its paw and blinked.

Ohashi slipped out quietly through the window into the back alley – the way he always came in and out of the capsule hotel, the same way the cat had first shown him. He never used the front door, so as not to arouse suspicion from the police, or the nosier inhabitants of the neighbourhood. He let the cat out too. It went roaming by itself during the day, on the hunt for better food than Ohashi could provide.

Ohashi also went out during the day to hunt.

He crossed the road, slipped down an alleyway and pulled the blue tarpaulin off the wooden cart he’d painstakingly made from bits of wood and two old bicycle wheels. He pushed it out onto the main streets, and the wheels made the familiar rattle that accompanied him when he went foraging.

He spent his days scouring the city for cans to recycle. He rummaged in small bins placed next to the hundreds of thousands of vending machines dotted throughout the streets of Tokyo. He would empty each bin, and flatten the aluminium cans with a heavy metal cudgel to fit more in his cart. It had become a mechanical routine, punctuated by the rattling wheels of his cart and the clang clang of the cudgel crushing cans against the pavement. When he’d collected as many as he could, he would smash them down even smaller, pack them up in bags and take them to a weighing station in exchange for money.

The streets had been a maze to him when he’d first begun this life. The endless convenience stores and chain restaurants all blended into one long street, which threaded its way in and out of the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, the clothes shops of Harajuku, through the department stores of Ginza, all the way out to the high-rise apartment blocks that lined Tokyo Bay. Walking the city wasn’t something he’d ever had to do in his old life – he’d always taken taxis, or ridden the subway – but now he had to navigate the entire city on foot, and it had taken him a while to get his bearings.

Tokyo gyrated around him at such a high speed these days. The cars whisked by, the trains zoomed overhead, even the people swarming out of the subways zipped past him as he pushed his cart slowly through the streets. In his old life, he’d been one of those fast movers, unafraid of the pace and pulse of Tokyo. But now, he could no longer board the subways or ride the elevators to the tops of skyscrapers to admire the views. Now these skyscrapers served only as landmarks on the horizon to get his orientation. Those beautiful sunset views of the city from high were a fading memory. When he closed his eyes to picture the city these days, he could only see it from street level.

After a long day collecting cans, with bent back and tired feet, he stopped by a Lawson convenience store and approached the rear entrance. He sat down on the pavement by his cart and waited patiently. Right on time, the door opened and a boy in his late teens walked out. He was wearing the blue and white striped Lawson uniform.

‘Ohashi-san!’ the boy called out.

‘Ah! Makoto-kun.’ He stood to greet the boy. ‘How are you today? How are your studies?’

‘Oh, fine, fine.’ The boy looked tired, and ran an awkward hand through his slightly unkempt hair. Ohashi liked that he didn’t spike it with gel like most of the other kids his age. Makoto held a plastic bag slightly out of sight in his other hand.

‘Excellent. And you’ll graduate soon?’ Ohashi stood very straight and still, hands held formally at his sides, his body positioned in front of his cart as if trying to hide it.

‘Yes. Well, I just did.’

‘So, what’s next?’

‘I’ve applied for an internship at a legal department in a big PR company that’s dealing with the Olympics.’ Makoto shrugged. ‘My parents’ idea.’

‘They must be proud of you. And I am too.’

Makoto smiled, and then remembered the plastic bag hanging awkwardly from the fingers of his other hand. ‘Oh, here you are.’ The bag clinked as he handed it over. ‘It’s not much, but this is all I could get for you this week.’

‘Makoto-kun! This is more than enough, thank you so much.’ Ohashi began rifling through the contents: tins of fish, bottles of wheat tea and onigiri – all out of date and due to be thrown away. He paused when his hand brushed against a bottle of alcohol. ‘Ah . . . Makoto-kun?’

‘Yes?’

‘This shochu . . . I’m afraid, I don’t need it.’ He took the bottle from the bag.

‘Sorry. I forgot you didn’t . . . Well, you can take it anyway. Perhaps one of your friends might like it?’

‘I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.’ Ohashi held out the bottle to Makoto. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I can’t . . . Why don’t you have it? You’re a . . . good . . . um . . .’

There was an awkward silence as Ohashi looked at the wall, avoiding Makoto’s eyes.

‘Well . . . if you’re sure you don’t want it.’ Makoto took the bottle. ‘Thank you so much, Makoto-kun. Have a lovely evening.’

‘You too, Ohashi-san. Will I see you next week?’

‘That sounds perfect, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Take care.’

‘Goodbye.’

Ohashi hung the bag from a hook on his cart and pushed it down the street away from the convenience store. Makoto looked on until the older man had turned a corner out of view. He thought for a moment about how sad it was to see a good man like that, down on his luck. Always so polite and formal. He looked a bit like Gen from the Street Fighter II series with his grey beard and hair.

He shook his head, and then went back into the shop.

In the evenings, after a hard day of work, Ohashi would meet up with his friends at the camp – a little village of blue tarpaulins and cardboard boxes nestled by the train tracks in a park only the homeless visited. Those who lived there made an effort to keep the camp orderly – anyone not tidy enough would likely be ejected. The smell in winter was not so overpowering, but in the height of summer, local residents complained about the odour of urine. The trains that rumbled by served as a kind of clock tower for the community, the clanks of the wheels on the tracks a constant reminder of time passing. Those who lived in the camp kept to themselves, living quietly, and, for the most part, the police left them alone.

Ohashi made his way along the neat rows of compact houses, looking for his buddies.

‘Over here!’ a voice called out to him.

He turned to see a group of three men huddled around a small fire beneath one of the few trees in the park. He strolled towards them, gait dignified.

‘Evening, gentlemen,’ said Ohashi. He took off his shoes, placed them with the others, and sat down on the blue tarpaulin they’d laid out. Four pairs of shoes were now neatly lined up on the grass.

Shimada greeted Ohashi with a little nod and his usual serious expression.

‘Evening, Ohashi-san.’ Taka’s round face was set in its permanent warm smile.

‘What have you been up to today?’ asked Hori, thin and toothy.