weakness for such pretensions. But after two years of the same old stuff, even they got tired of him. His talent was gone, but he persisted, like a once-virile hound sniffing the tail of every bitch in the neighborhood. By that time, he and Ame had divorced. Or more to the point, Ame had written him off. At least that was how it played in the media.
Yet that wasn't the end of Hiraku Makimura. Early in the seventies, he broke into the new field of travel writing as a self-styled adventurer. Good-bye avant-garde, time for action and adventure. He visited exotic and forbidden destinations in far corners of the globe. He ate raw seal meat with the Eskimos, lived with the pygmies, infiltrated guerrilla camps high in the Andes. He cast aspersions on armchair literarians and library shut-ins. Which wasn't so bad at first, but after ten years, the pose wore thin. After all, we're no longer living in the age of Livingstone and Amundsen. The adventures didn't have the stuff they used to, but Makimura's prose was pompous as ever.
And the thing of it was, they'd ceased to be real adventures. By now he was dragging around whole entourages, coordinators and editors and cameramen. Sometimes TV would get into the act and there'd be a dozen crew members and sponsors tagging along. Things got to be staged, more and more. Before long, everyone had his number.
Not such a bad person perhaps. But like his daughter said, no talent.
Nothing more was said about Yuki's father. She obviously didn't want to talk about the guy. I was sorry I brought him up.
We kept quiet and listened to the music. Me at the wheel, eyes on the lights of the blue BMW in front of us. Yuki tapped her boot along with Solomon Burke and watched the passing scenery.
«I like this car,» Yuki spoke up after a while. «What is it?»
«A Subaru,» I said. «I got it used from a friend. Not many people look twice at it.»
«I don't know much about cars, but I like the way it feels.»
«It's probably because I shower it with warmth and affection.»
«So that makes it nice and friendly?»
«Harmonics,» I explained.
«What?»
«The car and I are pals. We help each other out. I enter its space, and I give off good vibes. Which creates a nice atmosphere. The car picks up on that. Which makes me feel good, and it makes the car feel good too.»
«A machine can feel good?»
«You didn't know that? Don't ask me how, though. Machines can get happy, but they can get angry too. I have no logical explanation for it. I just know from experience.»
«You mean, machines are like humans?»
I shook my head. «No, not like humans. With machines, the feeling is, well, more finite. It doesn't go any further. With humans, it's different. The feeling is always changing. Like if you love somebody, the love is always shifting or wavering. It's always questioning or inflating or disappearing or denying or hurting. And the thing is, you can't do anything about it, you can't control it. With my Subaru, it's not so complicated.»
Yuki gave that some thought. «But that didn't get through to your wife? Didn't she know how you felt?» she asked.
«I guess not,» I said. «Or maybe she had a different perspective on the matter. So in the end, she split. Probably going to live with another man was easier than adjusting her perspective.»
«So you didn't get along like with your Subaru?»
«You said it.» Of all the things to be talking about to a thirteen-year-old.
«And what about me?» Yuki suddenly asked.
«What about you? I hardly know you.»
I could feel her staring at me again. Much more of this and pretty soon she'd bore a hole in my left cheek. I gave in. «Okay, of all the women I've gone out with, you're probably the cutest,» I said, eyes glued on the road. «No, not probably. Without question, absolutely, the cutest. If I were fifteen, I'd fall in love with you just like that. But I'm thirty-four, and I don't fall in love so easily. I don't want to get hurt anymore. So it's safer with the Subaru. All right?»
Yuki gave me a blank look. «Pretty weird,» was all she could say.
Which made me feel like the dregs of humanity. The girl probably didn't mean anything by it, but she packed a punch.
At eleven-fifteen we were back in Akasaka.
Yuki kept her part of the bargain and told me how to get to the apartment. It was a smallish redbrick condo on a quiet back street near Nogi Shrine. I pulled up to the building and killed the engine.
«About the money and all,» she said before opening the door, «the plane and the dinner and everything —»
«The plane fare can wait until your mother gets back. The rest is on me. Don't worry about it. I don't go dutch on dates.»
Yuki shrugged and said nothing, then got out and dropped her wad of gum into a convenient potted plant.
She snapped up the card, glared at it a second, then buried it in her coat pocket.
I pulled her overweight suitcases out of the car, and we took the elevator to the fourth floor. Yuki unlocked the door, |nd I brought the suitcases in. It was a dinette-kitchen-bedroom-bath studio. Practically brand-new, spick-and-span as a showroom, complete with neatly arrayed furniture and appliances, all tasteful and expensive and without sign of use. The apartment had the unlived-in charm of a glossy magazine spread. Very chic, very unreal.
«Mama hardly ever uses this place,» Yuki declared, as she watched me scan the place. «She has a studio nearby, and she usually stays there when she's in Tokyo. She sleeps there, and she eats there. She only comes here between jobs.»
«I see,» I said. Busy woman.
Yuki hung up her fur coat and turned on the heater. Then she brought out a pack of Virginia Slims and lit up with a cool flick of the wrist. I couldn't say I thought much of a thirteen-year-old smoking. Yet there was something positively attractive about that pencil-thin filter poised on her sharp knife-cut lips, her long lashes luxuriating on the updraft. Picture perfect. I held my peace. If I were fifteen years old, I really would have fallen for her. As fatefully as the snow on the roof comes tumbling down in spring. I would have lost my head and been terribly unhappy. It took me back years. Made me feel helpless, a teenage boy pining away again for a girl who could almost have been Yuki.
«Want some coffee?»
I shook my head. «Thanks, but it's late. I'm heading home.»
Yuki deposited her cigarette in an ashtray and showed me to the door.
«Mind the cigarette and heater before you turn in.»
«Yes, Dad,» she replied.
Back in my own apartment at last, I collapsed on the sofa with a beer. I glanced through my mail. Nothing but business and bills. File under: later. I was dead, didn't want to do anything. Still, I was on edge, too pumped up with adrenaline to sleep. What a day!
How long had I stayed in Sapporo? The images jumbled together in my head, crowding into my sleep time. The sky had been a seamless gray. Implicating events and dates. Date with receptionist with glasses. Call to ex- partner for background on Dolphin Hotel. Talk with Sheep Man. Movie showing Gotanda and Kiki. Beach Boys, thirteen-year-old girl, and me. Tokyo. So how many days altogether?
You tell me.
I went into the kitchen and poured myself a whiskey. Straight, neat, and otherwise unadulterated. Plus some crackers. A bit damp, like my head, but they'd have to do. I put on an old favorite of the Modernaires singing Tommy Dorsey numbers. Nice and low. A bit out-of-date, like my head. A bit scratchy, but not enough to bother
