the exact same image I'd seen in that dark corridor of the Dolphin. Gotanda sleeping with
That's when I knew:
That's the only scene Kiki appears in. Sunday morning, in bed with Gotanda. That's it. Gotanda had gone to a bar on Saturday night, picked her up, and brought her home. Then they fuck one more time in the morning. That's when his love-smitten pupil, the girl lead, enters. He's forgotten to lock the door. That's the whole scene. Kiki has only one line. And it's a pretty awful line at that. This is how it goes:
KIKI
What was that all about?
After the girl lead runs out in shock and Gotanda's all in a daze, that's the line Kiki says.
I wasn't even sure if it was her own voice. My memories of her weren't very clear, nor were the movie theater speakers too sharp on audio fidelity. I could remember her body, though. The shape of her back, the feel of her neck, her silky breasts—yes, it was
Suppose Kiki wasn't acting, then that meant she really was coming on to Gotanda's lovemaking. But if she was acting, then that meant she wasn't the woman I knew. She didn't believe in acting. She wasn't meant to act. Either way, though, I was burning with jealousy.
First a swim club, now a stupid movie. Was I capable of getting jealous of anything? Was this a good sign? Now the girl lead opens the door. She catches sight of the two naked bodies embracing. She swallows her breath. She shuts her eyes. She turns and runs.
Gotanda is stunned. Kiki says: «What was that all about?» Close-up of Gotanda's dazed face. fade out.
Aside from that cameo, Kiki appeared in no other scene. Forget the dumb plot, I was all eyes at the screen, and I know she wasn't anywhere. She was destined to be a one-night stand, witness to one fleeting scene in Gotanda's life, before vanishing forever. That was her role. The same as with me. Suddenly she's there, she sees what there is to see, then she's gone.
The movie ended. The lights came up. Music played. I remained in my seat, transfixed by the blank white screen. Was this reality? The film was over, but I didn't get it. What was Kiki doing in a movie? And together with Gotanda, no less. Absurd. I must have been mistaken. Got the wrong circuit. Got my wires crossed somewhere. How else could I explain it?
I walked around again for a while after leaving the theater. Thinking about Kiki the whole time. «What was that all about?» she whispered into my ears.
What
It
It didn't make sense.
The more I walked, the less I trusted my memory. Maybe the movie was a hallucination.
An hour and a half later, I went back to the same movie theater. And I watched
Exactly the same, down to the last detail.
I'd seen it a second time and I still didn't believe it. Not at all. There had to be something wrong here. Why would Kiki be sleeping with Gotanda?
The following day, I went to the movies again. I sat stiffly through
There in the dark, I let out a deep sigh.
Okay, okay. You win. This is real. There's no mistake.
15
I sank back into my seat, folded my hands in front of my nose, and asked the old familiar: What to do? The same question. But now I knew I really needed to think things over calm and collected. Needed to put things in order. Needed to sort through the confused connections.
Something was confused here, that was for sure. Something was amiss. Kiki and Gotanda and I were all connected, in a tangle, but why? I had to untangle us. I had to recover my own sense of reality. But maybe the connections weren't confused, maybe this was a totally unrelated, new connection. Still, I had to untangle the entangled threads. In order not to break any.
Here was a clue. I had to get moving. I couldn't stand still. I had to dance. So light on my feet that it all keeps spinning.
Time to return to Tokyo. Nothing more for me here. The Dolphin Hotel had fulfilled its purpose. Once I got back to Tokyo, I'd have a lot of knots to untie.
I bundled myself up and left the theater. Snow was falling thicker than ever, nearly obscuring my way. The entire city was as icy as a corpse, and every bit as depressing.
Back at the hotel, I rang up All Nippon Airways and booked a flight to Tokyo that evening.
«Because of the snow, there's a good chance of delay or even cancellation,» the reservation lady informed me. I didn't care. I'd made up my mind and the sooner I got back to Tokyo the better. Then I packed and went down to settle my bill. My friend with the glasses was on duty at the front desk. I asked to speak to her at the car- rental desk.
«Urgent business came up and I have to go back to Tokyo,» I explained.
«Thank you very much. Please come again,» she said with a professional smile. Could she have been hurt that I was giving her so little notice?
«I plan to be back soon,» I said. «When I do get back, we'll go to dinner and talk things over. There's a lot I want to tell you. First I have things to straighten out in Tokyo. But when I'm done, I'm coming back. I don't know how many months it'll take, but I'm coming back. There's something—I don't know how to put it—special about this place. So sooner or later I know I'll be here again.» «Hmm,» she said, rather dubiously. «Hmm,» I countered, rather positively. «I'm sure what I'm saying sounds phony.»
«Not at all,» she said, expressionless. «One can't be sure about things so many months down the road.»
«It won't be so many months. We'll meet again. I really feel that we share something special too,» I said, as sincerely as I meant it. «Don't you have that feeling?»
She tapped her pen on the countertop in lieu of a response. «And I suppose you're going to tell me you're taking the next flight out?»
«Well, uh, yes, I planned to. If they're flying, that is. But with this weather, we may not get off the ground.»
«Well, if you do leave by the next plane, I have a request.»
«Of course.»
«There's a thirteen-year-old girl who has to get back to Tokyo. Her mother had to leave suddenly on
