«Hey, are you there? Hello? Hello?»
«I'm here all right.»
«Your voice sounds strange.»
«I ... I'm nervous,» I explained. «I've got to see you or I can't talk. I've been on edge all day. I've got to see you.»
«I think I can see you tomorrow night,» she said after a moment's thought. I could just picture her pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.
Receiver fast to my ear, I lowered myself onto the floor and leaned back against the wall. «Tomorrow's a long way off. I kind of think it'd be better to meet tonight. Right
away, in fact.»
A negative air came to her voice. Even if that voice hadn't said anything yet, the negative came across. «I'm too tired now. I'm exhausted. I just got back. And since I'm on duty tomorrow morning, tonight I just want to sleep. Tomorrow, after I get off, let's get together. How about that? Or won't you be around tomorrow?»
«No, I'll be here for a while. And I do sympathize with your being tired. Only, honestly, I'm worried. Like maybe by tomorrow you'll have disappeared.»
«Disappeared?»
«Disappeared. Vanished.»
Yumiyoshi laughed. «I don't disappear so easily. I'm not going anywhere.»
«No, it's not like that. You don't understand. We keep moving. And as we do, things around us, well, they disappear. I know I'm not entirely coherent, but that's what worries me. Yumiyoshi, I need you. I mean, I really need you. Like I've never needed anything before. Please don't disappear on me.»
Yumiyoshi paused for a moment. «Golly,» she said. «I promise. I won't disappear. I'll see you tomorrow. So please just wait until then.»
«Okay,» I said. I had no choice but to be satisfied—though I wasn't—with her assurances.
«Good night then,» she said, and hung up.
I paced around the room, then went up to the lounge on the twenty-sixth floor, the lounge where I'd first seen Yuki. The place was crowded. Two young women were drinking at the bar, both very fashionably dressed, one with beautiful legs. I sat, nursing my vodka tonic, and eyed them with no special intentions. Then I turned my gaze to the night skyline. I pressed my fingers to my temples, though I did not have a headache. Then I felt the shape of my skull, slowly tracing the shape of bone matter beneath the skin, imagining the skeletons of the women at the bar. Skull, vertebrae, sternum, pelvis, arms, legs, joints. Beautiful white bones inside those beautiful legs. Pristine, white as clouds, expressionless. Miss Legs looked my way, undoubtedly aware of my stare. I would have liked to explain. That I wasn't looking at her body. That I was only thinking about her bones!
I had three drinks, then returned to my room. Having reached Yumiyoshi at last, I slept like a dream.
Yumiyoshi showed up at three in the morning. The doorbell rang, I turned on the bedside lamp, and looked at the clock. Then throwing on a bathrobe, I went to the door, innocently, three-quarters asleep. I cracked it open. And
there she was, in her light blue uniform blazer. She stepped into the room through the narrow opening, like she always
did.
She stood in the middle of the room and breathed deeply. Without a sound she removed her blazer and folded it carefully over the back of the chair. The same as ever.
«Well, I haven't disappeared, have I?» was the first thing
she said.
«No, it doesn't look like you've disappeared,» came my voice from somewhere. I couldn't quite grasp whether this was actually happening or not.
«People don't disappear so easily,» she spoke deliberately.
«You just don't know. Lots of things can happen in this world. You name it.»
«Perhaps, but I'm here. I haven't disappeared. You
admit that, don't you?»
I glanced around the room and looked Yumiyoshi in the eye. This was real waking reality. «Yes, I admit it. You don't seem to have disappeared. But what brings you to my room at three in the morning?»
«I couldn't sleep,» she said. «I went to bed right after you called, but my eyes popped wide open at a little past one and I didn't sleep a wink after that. What you said kind of got to me. So I called a taxi and came here.»
«Didn't anyone think it was strange, you showing up at three in the morning?»
«Nobody noticed. Everyone's asleep. The hotel keeps going twenty-four hours, but the only people awake at three a.m. are the front desk and room service. Nobody's hanging around the employees' entrance. And nobody keeps track anyway. You can always say you came to sleep in the sleep room. I've done it plenty of times before.»
«You've done this before?»
«Yes, when I couldn't sleep. I come and wander around. I know this sounds strange, but it's very restful. And, well, I like it. No one ever notices. It's not a problem. Of course, if they found me in this room, that's another story. But don't
worry, I'll stay until morning and slip out to work. Okay?»
«Of course it's okay by me. What time do you have to be on duty?»
«Eight,» she said. «Another five hours.»
Yumiyoshi nervously removed her watch and laid it down on the table. Then she straightened her skirt. I sat down on the corner of the bed, having slowly awakened to the circumstances. «So now,» said she, «did I hear you say you need me?»
«Like crazy,» I said. «I've been all around. I've made a complete revolution. And I've come back to the fact that I need you.»
«Like crazy,» she reminded me, tugging at the hem of her skirt.
«That's right, like crazy.»
«Just where all around have you been?»
«You wouldn't believe it if I told you. I've made it back to reality—that's the important thing. I've come full circle. And I'm still on my feet, dancing.»
She looked at me quizzically.
«I can't go into details. Just believe me. I need you. That's very important, to me anyway. Maybe it could be important to you too.»
«So what do you want me to do?» said Yumiyoshi, with no change of expression. «Fall into your arms? Be moved to tears? Tell you how wonderful it is to be wanted?»
«No, no, nothing like that,» I said quickly, but then couldn't find the right words to go on. As if there were right words. «What can I tell you? I've known it all along and never doubted it. I knew that we would sleep together. Only at first we couldn't. The timing wasn't right. It had to wait until it was right.»
«So now I'm supposed to sleep with you? Just like that?»
«I know the argument's short-circuited. And I know it's the worst possible way to convince you. But to be honest, that's what it comes down to. I can't help how the words come out. I mean, with me too, if these were normal circumstances, I'd try to do things in the proper order. I'm not that much of a dud. But this is a very simple thing, and this approach is truer. I know it. Which is why I can't express it any other way. I've always known that we would sleep together. It's decided, it's fact. And we shouldn't go fiddling around with that. That might ruin everything. Honest!»
Yumiyoshi eyed her watch. «You do realize you're not making much sense, don't you?» she said. Then she sighed and began to unbutton her blouse. «Don't look.»
I lay back on the bed and gazed up at a corner of the ceiling. There's another world somewhere, but now I'm here, in this one. Yumiyoshi undressed slowly. I could hear soft sounds of fabric against skin, then the sound of folding. Then the sound of her glasses being set down. A very sexy sound. And then she was turning out the bedside lamp and sliding under the covers next to me. As quietly as she'd stolen into my room.
We touched. Her body and mine. Smooth, but with a certain gravity. Yes, this was real. Unlike with Mei. Mei
