Dance Dance Dance

silently in the depths of the night. I almost felt like I was in love.

«How did you know my name?» was the first thing she

asked.

«Don't worry. I didn't do anything I shouldn't have. Didn't pay anyone off. Didn't tap your phone. Didn't work anybody over until they talked.» I explained that Yuki had told me.

«I see,» she said. «How did it go with her, by the way? Did you get her to Tokyo safe and sound?»

«Safe and sound,» I said. «I got her to her front door. In fact I still see her now and then. She's fine. Odd, but fine.»

«Kind of like you,» said Yumiyoshi matter-of-factly. She spoke as if she were relating the most commonly known fact in the world. Monkeys like bananas, it doesn't rain much in the Sahara. «Tell me, why did you want to keep me in the dark about your name?» I asked.

«I didn't mean to, honest. I meant to tell you the next time we met,» she said. «If you have an unusual name, you tend to be careful about it.»

«I checked the telephone directory. Did you know that there are only two Yumiyoshis in all of Tokyo?»

«I know,» she said. «I used to live in Tokyo, remember? I used to check the telephone book all the time. Wherever I went, I checked the phone book. There's one Yumiyoshi in Kyoto. Anyway, what did you want?»

«Nothing special,» I said. «I'm going on a trip from tomorrow. And I wanted to hear your voice before I left. That's all. Sometimes I miss your voice.»

She didn't respond, and in her silence I could hear the slight cross talk of a woman speaking, as if at the end of a long corridor. Quiet yet crisp, strangely charged electricity, with what I took to be a tone of bitterness. There were pained breaks and jags in her voice.

«You know how I told you about the sixteenth floor in total darkness?» Yumiyoshi spoke up.

«Uh-huh,» I said.

«Actually, it happened again,» she said.

It was my turn not to respond.

«Are you still there?» she asked.

«I'm here,» I said. «Go on.»

«First, you have to tell me the truth. Did you honestly believe what I told you that time? Or were you just humor­ing me?»

«I honestly believed you,» I said.  «I didn't have the

chance to tell you, but the very same thing happened to me. I took the elevator, stepped out into total darkness. I experi­enced the very same thing. So I believe you, I believe you.» «You went there?»

«I'll give you the whole story next time. I still don't know how to put it into words. Lots of things I don't understand. So you see, I really do need to talk to you again. But never mind that, tell me what happened to you. That's much more important.»

Silence. The cross talk had died.

«Well, about ten days ago,» Yumiyoshi began, «I was rid­ing in the elevator down to the parking garage. It was around eight at night. The elevator went down, the door opened, and suddenly I was in that place again. Exactly like before. It wasn't in the middle of the night, and it wasn't on the sixteenth floor. But it was the same thing. Totally dark, moldy, kind of dank. The smell and the air were exactly the same. This time, I didn't go looking around. I stood still and waited for the elevator to come back. I ended up waiting a long time, I don't know how long. When the elevator finally got there, I got in and left. That was it.» «Did you tell anyone about it?» I asked. «You think I'm crazy?» she said. «After the way they reacted the last time? Not on your life.» «Yeah, better not tell a soul.»

«But what am I supposed to do? Whenever I get into an elevator now, I'm scared that I'm going to end up in dark­ness. And in a hotel like this, you have to ride the elevators a lot. What am I going to do? I can't talk to anybody but you about this.»

«So why didn't you call sooner?» I asked. «I did, several times,» her voice hushed to a whisper. «But you were never in.»

«But my machine was on, wasn't it?» «I hate those things. They make me nervous.» «Fair enough. Well, let me tell you what I know about what's going on. There's nothing evil about that darkness. It

doesn't harbor any ill will, so there's no need to feel threat­ened. But there is someone who lives there. This guy heard your footsteps, but he's someone who'd never do you any harm. He'd never hurt a fly. So I think that if you find your­self in that darkness again, you should just shut your eyes, get back in the elevator, and leave. Okay?»

Yumiyoshi chewed silently on my words. «May I say what I honestly think?»

«Of course.»

«I don't understand you,» she said. «I don't understand you at all. When I think about you, I realize I don't know a thing about you, really.»

«Hmm. I've told you already how old I am. But I guess for someone my age, I've got a lot of undefined territory. I've left too many loose ends hanging. So now, I'm trying to tie up as many of those loose ends as I can. If I manage to do that, maybe then I can explain things a little more clearly. Maybe then we can understand each other better.»

«We can only hope,» she said with third-person detach­ment. She sounded like a TV anchorwoman. We can only hope. Next on the news . . .

I told her I was going to Hawaii.

«Oh,» she remarked, unmoved. End of conversation. We said good-bye and hung up. I drank a shot of whiskey, turned out the light, and went to sleep.

28

Next on the news. I lay on the beach at Fort DeRussy looking up at the high blue sky and palm fronds and sea gulls and did my newscaster spiel. Yuki was next to me. I lay face up on my beach mat, she lay on her belly with her eyes shut. Next to her a huge Sanyo radio-cassette deck was playing Eric Clapton's latest. Yuki wore an olive-green bikini and was covered head-to-toe with coconut oil. She looked sleek and shiny as a slim, young dol­phin. A burly Samoan trudged by carrying a surfboard, while a deep-brown lifeguard surveyed the goings-on from his watchtower, his gold chain flashing. The whole town smelled of flowers and fruit and suntan oil.

Next on the news.

Stuff happened, people appeared, scenes changed. Not very long ago I was wandering around, nearly blind, in a Sapporo blizzard. Now I was lolling on the beach at Waikiki, gazing up at the blue. One thing led to another. Connect the dots. Dance to the music and here's where it gets you. Was I dancing my best? I checked back over my steps in order. Not so bad. Not sublime, but not so bad. Put me back in the same position and I'd make the same moves. That's what you call a system. Or tendencies. Anyway my feet were in motion. I was keeping in step.

And now I was in Honolulu. Break time.

Break time. I hadn't meant to say it aloud, but apparently I did. Yuki rolled over and squinted at me suspiciously.

«What've you been thinking about?» she said hoarsely.

«Nothing much,» I said.

«Not that I care, but would you mind not talking to your­self so loud that I can hear? Couldn't you do it when you're alone?»

«Sorry, I'll keep quiet.»

Yuki gave me a restive look.

«You act like an old geezer who's not used to being around people,» said Yuki, then rolled over away from me.

We'd taken a taxi from the airport to the hotel, changed into T-shirts and shorts, and the first thing we did