This is my first fanfic here :S my style is quite drawn out and poetic – I like to elaborate on my scenes and characters, so I'm sorry if you find it a bit slow! Please take the time to review; if the response is good I'll get working on Chapter 2. This is a very long chapter, don't get too high expectations, I just wanted to give this story a good kick-start. Peace! x
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Today, I'm thinking of Laika.
My gaze drifts out over the lulling ocean. Something, the change in season, maybe, has stirred my mind to heave itself up out of its cosy slumber and brush the dust off some almost-forgot, browning volume of old memories. I nurture scenes of some far off time and place, many lives ago, to grow, quivering, from fog and shadowy forms, into vivid tableaus that swallow up my mind's eye, ringing with clarity.
Somewhere and how, a faceless old man is telling me of the female dog the Russians sent into space in a tiny tin can of a ship, the satellite, little Sputnik. My younger equal would lay in her bed in wonder, thoughts saturated with this brilliant tale, of Laika's adventure, handsome men sending her off with the fondness with which a young boy will see off a ship he's clumsily built on an anonymous beach.
Suddenly, the colour drains from this vision. Suddenly, my heart is crystallising into a searing cold lump for this profoundly helpless, gentle creature, marooned in its impossibly tiny tin embryo, a nothing against the huge, ancient, creaking structure of the Earth. A creature sent to die the loneliest of deaths, farther from warmth than any creature has ever been before.
Bartolo calls me over from the seafront Ristorante in his deep, lazy continental rasp, and the air is now heavier in anticipation of cold and night. He tells me they always give the evening shift to foreigners, as they don't cope well with in the choking, dusty heat of midday.
"Michelina, prepare a table for Dino and Agnese, who are here for supper. They are good patrons, give them good wine," he says, in Italian twinged with a faint Sardinian lull.
"Certainly, signore".
My skin pressed against the cool rust of the balustrade as I lean out over the sea, I delicately remove one small moonstone earring. I drop it into the darkening evening ocean below.
A memorial to something warm and beautiful swallowed up by darkness.
-
Dino and Agnese rest beneath the sun-bleached cotton awning. The salty breeze stirs.
"We'll both have a Seafood risotto, and share a salad and dry white wine," muses the elderly man, in the same cigarette-softened husk as Bartolo.
"I will bring you bread, oil and your wine while you wait, signore. It is a good night for eating in the open air, no?" I make small talk in Italian.
"Ah, your accent and skin; a foreigner, signorina? Then, surely, Michelina is not your name?" asks the elderly woman, indicating my shirt tag.
"Oh, that. My name is Michiru. I'm from Japan and will return in a week for the commencing school year. Bartolo suggested I use an Italian name to help the local patrons; they might find using unusual foreign names bewildering," I smile. I lay out some cutlery on the peeling surface of the wobbly wrought-iron table. The legs clatter gently against the cobbled stones of the street.
"And you come here? Your Italian is lovely. Why Sardinia, why such a sleepy, stubborn old seaside village? Many of the people here are adverse to foreigners".
I lean against their table, twirling the frayed edge of my cotton apron in my fingers. The old man passes his cane between his quivering, knotted-veined hands with care.
"I am a painter and a musician. I like the quiet and the peace here; I can clear my head. I make a modest living to keep me going for the summer at this café. Bartolo has me work from 8 until 3 in the morning, and I walk back in the night to my villa and read in bed until I hear the fishermen arrive to begin their day at the docks. I wake at 7, eat a small breakfast, and then paint or compose on the violin on my balcony until the evening. As for the villagers, I like being left alone".
The old man wheezes out a dry chuckle.
"Pretty girl like you? You're too young to be living the slow life. A place like this, well, you come back in ten, twenty, a hundred years, we'll all be doing the same things, eating the same food, listening to the same music on our old radios".
I smile at him. I always enjoy the gentle philosophies of the European continentals, almost as much as their wines.
"Well, good thing too," I say, as seabirds chime out over the docks, "I like your food the way it is". Bartolo comes out in his stained chef's shirt and takes the tab from me, nodding to the elderly customers.
"The summer is over, signorina. The change in season, there's no better time to be moving on. There are only so many paintings you can paint form one balcony, only so many compositions one view can inspire. Now, I would like some olives with my bread and oil before my meal," Agnese winks at me. I love the browned lines that form warmly around her eyes. I take that image, and carefully fold it away to deposit soundly in my memory, for safekeeping.
I go back inside to Bartolo. He is preparing stews and sauces with the precision of an alchemist in his tiny stonewalled kitchen. The air has the heady thickness of a toyshop at Christmastime as his rusted old pots and pans clatter and bubble in lively chorus.
"Don't listen to the old people's small talk, signorina, they all nuts round here. Cheerful, but crazy, no?" he grins, holding a lobster in each hand.
I smile back. That man needs a shave and a decent washing machine, I think to myself.
Outside, the darkness sinks in, like an ink stain spreading on a shirt. I hear the soft rabble of lazy Italian chat from the customers inside the restaurant. The streetlights along the waterfront are like stars. Or the glossy, trusting eyes of animals.
-
I collect the dishes from the old couple's table. The only indication that the sea is still there, and is not just another extent of the night's blackness, is the gentle lapping and hushing sound and the tang of salt suspended in the cool, still air.
"You must come back at Christmas, signorina, and take a boat out to the crag in the evening. Take a Thermos of hot wine and some blankets; the night air is fresh in winter and wonderful to sleep in. It is good for the health. The lights of the streets in the dock is a lovely sight, you will certainly not forget, no?" drawls the old man. There is a distance in his voice as he gazes out across the black water.
"It's even lovelier if you have a man with you," winks the old woman again, giving me a rather toothless grin. There is a third of their wine still left, so I wrap the bottle in brown paper and hand it to them. Bartolo is extinguishing candles one by one inside.
"I'll see you then, then," I reply, unsure if I'm joking.
"Ah, you must, signorina. And play your violin, yes?"
"Certainly. Enjoy your wine, with Bartolo's compliments". I hand her her coat. The old man, Dino, is still gazing out, entranced, through the blackness as I hand him his. As I disturb him, his private spell is broken. Though, in the glow of the streetlamps reflected from the worn cobbles of the road, there is an old sadness burning quietly in his eyes. What was he drawing up, as slowly and wearily as a sailor heaving a rotted anchor from unsettled depths, from the deep pool of his memory?
"Buona notte, signorina," he smiles gently. I see his age more now than at any other point this evening.
"Buona notte, signore".
They left a handsome tip, and the silent remains of a quiet evening held in the caskets of two empty wine glasses.
Bartolo comes out from the deserted restaurant with a worn sheepskin coat over his chef's shirt, keys swinging in his grubby fingers.
"We're locking up now, Michiru. No work tomorrow, eh? Sunday is for prayer and drinking," he grins. He looks up at the sky. A still, velvet inkiness, punctured with stars. "Hey, signorina, I'm gonna miss you when you're gone".
I'm lost in thoughts as his words drift through to me.
"You're a quiet girl. But a quiet village like this just doesn't suit you. See many things in life, okay? Though, come back and have a meal with me someday, yes? I'll cook you your favourite pumpkin cappelletti, with the asparagus, like you like it".
"Buona notte, Bartolo".
He winks at me and hands me my wages.
"The end of summer is always so sad. Buona notte, Michiru".
The light of the village is swallowed by the night as I make my way, alone, along the waterfront.
-
My first reaction to JFK was "Ants' Nest". Unflattering, but fitting. Though, I didn't feel in the least bit guilty about my deduction, since my lifelong experience of Americans could be summed up as "stubborn, ineloquent and adverse to honesty". Though America had given me, of course, my delightful red Ducati leather jacket.
I pulled my jacket tighter around my shoulders as I selected the seat closest to the panoramic glass window in the noisy, sterile boarding lounge. The word "lounge" brings about the image of a ravishing French siren, adorned head to toe in velvet, reclining on an elaborately carved, pre-Revolution antique chaise-longue in a haze of expensive cigarette smoke. Very flattering, and not fitting at all.
I watched the people around me. All had been sure to select a seat as far away from whoever else was killing time on these plastic monstrosities. Japanese businessmen's shoes squeaked on the polished tile floor as they adjusted their weight (I understood their discomfort), pecking away noisily at laptops with epic purposefulness. The highly polished floor reflected the cavernous ceiling; it was some kind of iron-girder-and-glass cathedral, though its impressive height did nothing to absorb the incredible buzz and hum of human chatter.
I picked at the worn, whitened knees of my jeans. All I had against the huge monolith of air conditioning unit (I swore, the biggest I'd ever seen) two rows away was my wear-softened leather jacket and a thin, loose, white shirt.
Glancing at the board above, I was relieved to see that the Tokyo flight was, indeed, on time. Thank God, the sooner I'd gotten out of this hellhole, all the damn better. I'd been away in America for two years, but Japan was still home. It was where I'd been raised, after all. Oh, very much so. America was a complete culture shock, especially since I had made a stubborn policy to travel alone. Now there was the one thing my dad told me I'd inherited from him, the American side of the bargain, besides the blond hair: stubbornness. It seemed I'd always be an American on that account, though my fine mother's Japanese virtues had kept me on form.
"Hello there, stranger. Now, are you coming or going?"
I turned, and suspiciously eyed a middle-aged westerner stood to my right, bag in hand, who sported thick glasses and a well-kept salt-and-peppered beard. I immediately assessed his physique, distances, build.
"What do you mean by that?" I inquired warily. He took a seat beside me, heaving as if he'd returned to Terminal 2 after climbing Everest.
"Well, son, where's your home? Here or there? You see, and I don't mean to be rude, but I'm stuck on you. See, you're blond all right, but those sharp eyes, sitting up straight backed…surely you aren't an American?"
Son? Okay, he wasn't all that sharp then; nothing but an old gossip. The edges of my mouth curled faintly.
"I've been here for 2 years, but I'm returning to Japan, where I was raised. I'll attend a High School in Tenth Street District of Tokyo".
"Mmm," he nodded, gazing out the glass at the humdrum comings and goings of small jets, "well now, good luck with that".
"And you, sir? You are not an American".
He grinned, eyes twinkling, "oh no, son, I'm Australian. Visiting my niece in Nara. Lovely place, ever been?"
"I can't remember if I have," I mused as I held out my hand. I was sure Australians greeted as did Americans and Englishmen, "Haruka Tenoh".
He took it in both of his browned hands warmly.
"Michael French," he winked, "though I'm anything but".
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. I hope you enjoy Japan. The food there will certainly be a detox to whatever pig-feed they've had you on here: it is delicate and satisfying". I hoped small talk would put him off, but still he seemed to draw immense pleasure from our inane exchange. What was the point? It was likely we wouldn't meet again.
"Oh, it's a real mixture here. Though the waitresses are always very…pleasant, shall we say?" he winked.
"Just wait 'til you reach Japan. Visit a real nice restaurant; now that's service. Best in the world, the epitome of class," I replied, recalling a meal my mother took me to one summer evening in Kyoto when I was much younger. The quietly poised, yukata-clad serving girls seemed to handle every object with the ease as if it were air; breathless, efficient, mysterious women.
"Tenth Street in Tokyo, did you say?" he turned to me, eyes set.
"That's right".
He opened his hand luggage, and retrieved a newspaper clipping from an inner pocket. He turned it over in his hands as if it were some ancient relic.
"Would that High School be, by any chance, Mugen Gaken?" he locked onto my gaze, searching through those thick glasses.
"Damn!"
"Call it a small world!" he chuckled, handing me his clipping.
Just as my eyes scanned the slightly smudged black-and-white, a crackling drone announced over the speaker that Flight 152A at 19:38 for Tokyo would be departing on time, and Would all passengers please proceed to board?
"She was absolutely wonderful, you know," he smiled with a wink, before dissolving into the busy hive of passengers making their way to board.
I gazed at the clipping in my hand. It was from almost two months ago. Ragged-edged, it had been torn hastily from some newspaper somewhere that was now lying around an anonymous New York suburb, no doubt. I entertained the idea that he'd ripped it from a newspaper at a kiosk and run off without buying when the vendor wasn't looking, though he seemed too nice a guy.
"KOLDENHOFFEN AND KAIOH DELIGHT AT THE LITTLE THEATRE
New York's The Little Theatre, famous for showcasing up and coming young musical talent, were proud last night to deliver a wonderful stirring performance by two rising international musical starlets.
Dimitra Koldenhoffen, of Barnes Academy in West London, Britain, performed her piano pieces, both duet and solo, with vigour and a raw, daring flare, though never surrendering her astounding technical ability. Her performance was matched by the astonishing Michiru Kaioh, a young violin virtuoso who attends Mugen Gaken High School in Tokyo's Tenth District, Japan. Her moving, delicate performances offset Ms. Koldenhoffen's perfectly, and her solos were tremendously received.
Unfortunately, this duo could perform for one night only before both leaving the States. The Little Theatre hopes to welcome them back soon and asks that patrons stay in touch, as they release more details of up and coming exclusive international performances."
The article said only that. Absolutely wonderful…the man must've meant the Kaioh girl. After all, she was the one he'd thought I'd be interested in. I'd never been to Britain. Below the text was a small black-and-white photo of two girls standing side-by-side. One was dark in her colouring, with black hair, dark eyes and olive skin. She had a long face, with deep, heavy brows, and seemed rather bored by the whole proceedings.
Next to her, however, stood a slightly shorter fair girl, with paler hair, and glittering, searching eyes. Despite the still photo, those eyes held a life and intensity. Her waving hair rested lightly on her shoulders, and she wore a simple, knee-length cocktail dress. She held a violin.
After slipping the clipping into the breast pocket of my jacket, I slung my bag over my shoulder and shrugged my hands into my jeans, flicking my fringe over my eyes. Plane lights twinkled outside and I thought of Christmas. I craved the air of Christmas: fresh winds that almost pierce the lungs with a searing, blind coolness. Let the summer be gobbled up by the frost and the sharp slicing of cold, I thought; let the wind and snow and sleet descend ferociously upon the houses in the dead of night, like some almighty crashing orchestra. It was freedom I craved. The wind and freedom. Like a painter itches for a pure white canvas, like the itch to spoil a perfect sheet of new snow with the first muffled, crunching footprint. I itch for an open road, where the dust hadn't been stirred for millennia.
For wind and freedom.
I boarded the plane to a home I'd deserted two years ago.
-
The soft echo of the latch clunk reminds me of the emptiness of my apartment. I grope against the cool, bare wall for the plastic light switch, and the apartment is illuminated.
What is illuminated? Nothing. I might as well've left the lights off, I muse, there is nothing here to see. Cream jute sofa. Timber floor. Glass coffee table. The vase is empty on the breakfast bar.
I close my eyes and let my brainwaves slip away into the same deep, lazy wavelength of the low, soft hum of the plumbing. I am dislocated, estranged. Like checking into a hotel without business to attend to nor a lover. God, what am I doing here?
I think of Bartolo, Alessandro, the Czech girl who let me share her room in Milan. Dimitra & Mr. Douwe in New York. The tramdriver in Lyon.
My sterile, hospital-room of an apartment seems now a thousand times quieter, a thousand times colder. A hospital room where the last occupant died long ago, and no one has occupied it since. The white coats came and disinfected in silence, then left without a word.
In my mind's eye, my synapses are now mush. Muscles, none to speak of. Clunk and thud goes my luggage on the wooden floor, though the sound reaches me with a distinct delay, much like being shouted at, at the bottom of a very deep well, by someone at the top. I am stuck down my own well. No one is reaching me. Well, if they are trying, I apologise for the delay. My well is quite deep, you see.
I slide my Apple laptop from the inside compartment of my hand luggage and gently set it upon the fine veneer of dust that obscures what was a very clear glass coffee table at the beginning of the summer. I turn it on.
I think of pouring myself a glass of red wine from one of the brown-paper-wrapped bottles in the wooden crate Bartolo gave me, but I decide against it. I want a clear head and a clear, bright morning.
Instead, I go to the deserted kitchen, rinse out a dusty wine glass, and fill it with tap water.
I gaze out across the lights of the city; apartments, traffic, advertisements. The lights that trace the outline of the city aren't warm nor human, just medical beeps and flashes, the buildings wastelands of warehouses for robots and machines. The mathematical precision of perfectly right-angled streets and rows of apartment block is so awkward and artificial. The smiling Coca-Cola girl is a cold, cardboard cut-out affixed to the side of a deserted multi-story car park by long-gone aliens.
Where have the people of the city gone? All I know has quietly abandoned Tokyo over the summer. Here are the hollow remains. The evacuation party has long since left this planet. Hollow lights and hollow sounds. I call out from my well, but there is no one there to hear me.
The loneliest of deaths, swallowed by darkness.
The stars twinkle perfectly.
I notice how different Tokyo water tastes to that village's in Sardinia. Then I remember how they got theirs plumbed through from a hot spring.
-
My glass rests on a pile of torn envelopes, my laptop next to it on the coffee table. I am in a bathrobe on my sofa, with the TV on quietly to give some distraction to the loud clatter of keys.
The swarthy game-show host flirts with his red-lipsticked assistant as the audience chime in with a hollow laugh. It seems like some transmission sent from another planet.
I open my emails.
There's something from Takeo, a notice about school books and equipment required for returning second-year students, a uniform list, a notice about the new academic year's orchestral banquet for returning second years, an email from Mr. Abe and something from Alessandro.
Feeling the distinct need for some human warmth, I go first to Alessandro's email.
Click, ber-bong.
"Michiru,
It's me! Ha! The Fraud!"
I call him 'The Fraud' as a nickname since his heritage is purely Spanish, but he has lived all his life in Italy, and tried to kid me he was purebred Italian when we met. He has a way of teasing girls.
"Are you back in Tokyo? Now there's somewhere I'd like to go. Would you have me to stay, hmm? Hmm? :) I hope you have an apartment to yourself (do you? I can't remember if you said), as maybe we'd get a bit closer, ne? Ah, I've always been fond of you pale women, I'm bored of brown Italian girls, you know.
And be sure to play your violin for me. Oh, you're so secretive over your compositions! Just like my sister! She draws and draws and won't ever let me see her pictures. Maybe they're naughty, I suppose. But you can't use that excuse: no, my friend, no such thing as pornographic violin playing. Though you could try and pioneer it. That I'd love to hear.
Well, I've never complained about a woman of mystery such as your lovely self. Let's have another drinking party sometime soon, okay? Maybe we could have one on webcam, the world's first cross-global drinking party!
Your friend,
Alessandro"
A small warmth flares gently in my chest. Nothing like friends, I think. I take a sip of water and replace the glass gently.
I open Takeo's email. It's just standard how-was-your-holiday drawl, a recount of some biking incident and a few tired flirtatious comments, plus a deeply touching "Miss you, babe!".
I swiftly move on to Mr. Abe's email.
"Hello there Ms. Michiru,
I hope your travels have gone well! I enjoyed Alaska immensely – I was lucky enough to see some Killer Whales.
I'm sure you'll see in the school issued email the details of the orchestral banquet we're having 2 days before the beginning of the new academic year. I know full well you've not been to orchestra practise over the summer, and I expect you to perform sharper than any of the students who have, Ms. Michiru! I've attached the sheet music for the pieces we'll be doing, not that I expect you'll need it. And hey, why don't you choose a solo and surprise us, just for good measure?
I look forward to seeing you then,
Toru Abe"
I imagine the sweet old man rocking gently to and fro in bumbling nervousness before his decrepit old brick of a monitor, fretting over the attachment file. He is a good friend of mine, my favourite teacher by a measure. Head of Music; a humble, very patient man who demands a damn lot to be impressed.
I close my laptop and pick up my glass, reaching down to turn off the table lamp. The orchestral recital must be Saturday. What day is it, Friday? So it is.
I decide I shall bring my Italian wine for Mr. Abe tomorrow, to celebrate. It wouldn't be the first time we had engaged in the well-discouraged practice of private student-faculty drinking parties. To my success in New York, and my future success tomorrow. Inflated self-confidence is a concert-standard musician's greatest weapon, after all.
I slip into my cold bed. The mattress is too firm, the sheets too cool and crisp. The switch on my bedside lamps clicks too loudly, too much like a brand new lamp. I am overwhelmed by the impression I'm in an anonymous hotel room again.
I lay awake. I miss exasperating student loudness and Mr. Abe and my orchestra peers more than ever.
I look forward to tomorrow, to Tokyo by morning light.
-
The powerful friction between the tyres and the tarmac of the road made my throat dry.
Oh, how long had I missed my car? I'd only had enough money to get my bike across to America. The force of the huge, whirring weight of that warm, metal hunk as I turned it at speed drove adrenaline faster and harder through my veins.
Yes! I thought, two years' abstinence from the steering wheel was worth this, this feeling. The wind and freedom. The mighty, heavy growl and groan of rubber that quenched my lust. The force, the noise, the kick, the deep surge in my stomach that a bike just wasn't powerful enough to give me.
I remembered what the letter had said. Orchestral banquet for second year Mugen Gaken students. 5.30pm in the Event Hall if you wished to attend the dinner. 6.30pm in Mugen Gaken Auditorium for 7pm start if you could only make the orchestral recital.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard as the wind whipped at my hair with a cool, refreshing violence.
6.42pm. I smirked gently for myself.
I screeched in at a crossroads, just catching the temporary red light for some road-works. I cursed, but caught the eye of the driver of a red convertible next to me. A composed older girl, university student maybe, with sunglasses, coolly focused on the road. The other three seats were occupied by girls sporting the uniform for a local Junior High School, all Asian in colouring except one, who had a short blonde ponytail and pale eyes.
The trio spied me and began to giggle, vying for my attention girlishly. I took my hand off the wheel and turned to them, leaning back in the seat of my yellow convertible, raising my sunglasses and letting the smallest of smirks tighten the corners of my mouth.
"Hey there!" called one of the Asian girl, who had a short bob, over the drone of heavy road-work equipment. Immediately her friends fell to her, giggling and mock reprimanding her for her daring. The other Asian, who had very long hair, whispered, grinning, to her blonde friend, holding my eyes.
"Hey, kittens," I called lazily back. I was by far more interested in the aloof, older driver, from whom I detected the smallest of smiles as she concentrated on the lights, but I enjoyed the light flirtation with the younger girls.
"Well, where are you going?" called the short-haired Asian callously, smiling and touching her hair with her hand in a very deliberate manner. Her friends giggled.
"Mugen Gaken. And yourselves, ladies?"
"Well, do you like Ice-Cream Sodas?"
"Only if I'm with a pretty girl or two," I replied loudly, waiting just for disappointment to coolly tint their smiles before continuing, "…but I guess that wouldn't be a problem, would it now, kittens?" I smirked faintly, enjoying the tease.
"Well, I'm so curious," continued the short-haired girl, "why isn't there already a gorgeous girl in that cool car with you? Guys like you can never keep the beauties away for long!"
"Continue flattering me like that and it looks like I'll buy two rounds of Ice-Cream Soda".
The girls fell back into their seats giggling and tossing their hair.
"That doesn't sound too bad! Follow us!"
"Only if your lovely elder sister there will be joining us".
The older girl's cheeks blossomed faintly with a delicate pink flush. I felt her eyes on my face through those over-sized designer sunglasses.
"Now, do any of you pretty things have a cell phone?" I called, reaching for my red Ducati racing jacket on the dashboard. I retrieved my mobile phone from the breast pocket. A newspaper clipping drifted gently onto my lap.
Michiru Kaioh was gazing up at me, those eyes electric through the fuzzy black and white gauze of smudged print. This week I'd wondered in my more bored and empty hours what her violin must sound like; the tone, pace and spirit of her play. Melancholy, I'd decided, from the gentle mystery of her appearance. Would she be there tonight? A budding curiousity hushed me; I felt drawn by its small force.
"Sorry ladies, looks like I'll be having to attend to my previous engagement," I winked, as the rusted temporary traffic lights flickered amber. The girls looked quite put out, but lit up again with giggles and called out in hysterical appreciation when I revved my engine. I tipped my sunglasses back onto my face and gave a small wave and smirk, before the green light replaced amber.
With a loud screech of engine, I tore away from the girls' convertible across the crossroads, soaking up the sensation of roar against tarmac, the palpable feeling of speed that the ringing of wind in my ears gave me.
Chancing and daring myself with last-minute turns, I took the street corners at speed. Throngs of passers-by watched placidly, the occasional wolf-whistle or cat-call barely reaching me through the thick roar of wind. I wailed past surprised couples, sat on outdoor tables of restaurants and ice-cream parlours, under striped awnings and the pure early evening sky. Old, haggardly, bent-backed widows, who had gathered in gossiping clusters outside grocery stores or tobacconists, gave me tired glares of disappreciation as I flew past them, rustling the hems of bright-eyed schoolgirls' long skirts. Dogs barked; a greying, pocked-skinned old man gazed, hypnotised, at me, blank as a brick wall, from the tattered saloon doorway of derelict, flickering-signed Italian Takeaway, pipe drooping from his thin lips. The road was jammed with businessmen in silver estate cars and smart, pastel-cashmere-clad women with designer bobs in expensive 4x4s, returning from shopping trips. I wove my way between them, in the fresh, snappy smell of early evening, towards the High School.
Pulling up at the open gates for Mugen Gaken, I slowed down, soaking in the campus. The buildings were sympathetically modelled, with a pleasant red brick and subdued detailing around the tall windows. The gushingly green lawns were healthy and well kept, interspersed with softly-coloured flowering beds which gently hummed with sleepy insect life: the calm, otherworldly sound that was the sign of the approaching dusk. Roaming paths, the edges well-kept and sharp, transversed the seas of luscious green and lead between the red, old-styled buildings with a casual meandering. Old-styled, tar-black, wrought-iron lamps complemented the red-bricked buildings, lending their gentle, orange glow to the surrounding trees and pathways.
I pulled up in a free space between a silver 4x4 and a deep, wine-red, impeccably shiny Mercedes. Clearly those who attended Mugen weren't doing too badly.
I clicked my key underneath the steering wheel, and pulled my Ducati jacket over my shoulders as I pushed the handbrake into place. I got out, shutting the heavy car door behind me with a clunk, and wandered up onto the verge, following a concrete path over a lawn towards the centre of the complex. I passed lush, well-manicured trees which whispered gently when stirred by a rustling wind. The air was beginning to cool and settle pleasantly. Cool, bright air, with just the faintest, sharp sting of melancholy; the air that sombrely announced the ending of summer.
I could hear human rumble and chatter, muffled, a short distance away. Turning a red-bricked corner, I saw a mixed group of students ahead of me in Mugen Gaken uniform. They were standing on a greenery-framed redbrick patio decorated with a small ornamental mosaic fountain, near a large glass door; a door belonging to a large, dome-roofed building, clearly one of the oldest buildings in the complex. I spied a violin.
I took in breath a little, but followed the hand that held the instrument to a tall, gangly Asian boy listening tight-mouthed to the conversation of two girls in the group. They turned and quietened as I approached them.
"Excuse me, is this the Auditorium? I'm here for the recital".
"This door here, it's starting in ten minutes though," replied a sour-faced girl. The boy holding the violin looked at his watch. A pair of birds duetted in a low whistle, hidden in a nearby apple tree.
"I'd better be getting inside. They'll want me for tuning," he said meekly to his friends, before raising a hand to me, "you can follow me". He walked up to the large dome-roofed building,
The boy held the glass door open for me, and we crossed the parquet entrance hall quietly. I gazed at the high carved ceiling, hands in pockets. The rabble of the people gathered in the auditorium ahead was now louder and very clear, absorbing the clip-clack of our footsteps. The skylights revealed the deepening blue outside.
As the boy silently held one of the opposite wooden doors open for me, I felt the tiniest of twinges tighten my stomach. I was slightly tense at the prospect of seeing, in flesh, the stranger who, for the past week, had only made herself known to me by way of a newspaper photograph. A newspaper photograph that, by some strange behind-the-scenes string-pulling of fate, had found its way into my hands on the other side of the planet, the gift of a man I would never see again in my life. And she didn't even know I existed. It was strange.
I stepped through the tall, heavy, carved-oak door the boy held open.
The auditorium was huge: grand, sweeping tiers of velvetted seats (all nearly filled with chattering, multi-coloured clusters of students) lead my gaze to the large, brightly-lit, polished wood stage, where an arrangement of deserted seats and sheet music stands stood; a series of delicate, spindly, silver-glinting objects that had, for many years, soaked up so many performances, the spirit of so many musicians, and now almost quivered in the spotlights with anticipation of the performance to come. The stage was framed with swooping velvet curtains, draped over almost three storeys, that blended a thousand deep shades of red from the glow of many sources of lighting within the huge room. I looked up, and was met by the sight of the grand dome, carved ornately in many shades of red wood, with panels of glass allowing glimpses of brilliant evening blue. The room rang with noise.
Hands still in pockets, I made my way down the auditorium steps, unnoticed by the crowds of excited students bulging from velvet-red rows to my left and right, and slipped into a row to my left that was clear for a good few spaces. I leaned back in the chair, letting my hips slide forward as I tipped my head and traced the patterns in the dome's woodwork with my eyes. The dome held up a huge chandelier effortlessly, as if the glittering clear jewels that tiny, white, winking candles nestled in were but air.
What kind of place is this? I thought to myself, Middle-English Finishing School for Back-Stabbing Venomous Debutantes Living 50 Years in the Past? Prepare yourself for billionaire scandal and seduction, Haruka.
However, my train of thought was halted when I noticed a young brunette in the row in front of me looking up at me. When I clocked her gaze, her girlish cheeks immediately flushed a delicate rosy colour which complemented her green eyes a treat.
"Ah, I like green-eyed girls," I winked at her, "you're in luck tonight".
Her two friends turned in their seats to look at the mysterious speaker. I played it cool, my arms draped over the two empty seats either side of me, sunglasses poised on top of my fringe. While brunette was wearing a modest beige uniform, her two friends sported a blue-and-red, long-skirted ensemble I recognised to be the same worn as the Junior High School girls from the convertible at the stoplights.
"Junior High Schoolers, ladies?" I asked lightly, "and what brings you here?"
A blue-eyed girl, with a short, dark bob mumbled in a timid, patient voice that her friends were performing as part of Mugen Gaken's affiliation with local Junior High schools. Brunette was gazing at me with a small smile inspired by my compliment. The other girl, who had long, blonde, bunched hair she'd fashioned into a style that resembled two dumplings, stood up, staring at me curiously. She bowed with elaborate purpose.
"I'm Tsukino Usagi, it's very nice to meet you," she said brightly and boldly. A grand smile broke sweetly when I responded by standing and bowing to her too.
"Tenoh Haruka".
"Mako here is a brilliant cook, she's always making me things to help me study," sang the blonde, blue eyes casting warmth over her brunette friend, "and she's amazing at housework, she's already a much better housewife than my mom!"
"Kino Makoto, a p-pleasure," breathed the brunette as she stood. She bowed gracefully to me, and once she'd risen back to her full height, I was surprised by how tall she was, "and don't you tell you mom that, Usagi!"
"Heh, trying to marry her off, dumpling?" I chuckled, "you advertise her as an excellent catch indeed". Makoto's flush deepened considerably.
"Dumpling?" blinked the blonde, with a hint of indignation. I nodded at her head with a smirk, before resuming my seat leisurely after the third girl had introduced herself as 'Mizuno Ami'.
"Don't kid me, kitten, I sure like dumplings," I replied, as the brunette cooled off her flustered friend, embarrassed slightly.
"Oh, good, I do too!" smiled Usagi, all resentment dissolved, "Every kind! Mako makes great ones, though Ami never seems to eat much, which is a shame as my mom says we should enjoy our food while we're young and we don't gain weight, though my mom says also that I ought to study more…". Usagi sank in her seat, looking genuinely put out, eyes glazed over sorrowfully, Makoto still embarrassed by her easily-distracted friend. I chuckled.
"Come now, kitten, life's too good to waste moping". Makoto smiled at me.
"Yes, it'd be more productive to spend your time studying," Ami Mizuno advised in what was barely a whisper. Her eyes in some faraway hypnosis, she returned to her forward-facing, straight-backed position, hands clasped in her lap. Usagi and Makoto gave her a look of mild amazement. These three were a real comedy act.
"Hey, Watanabe!" I felt a soft thud land purposefully between my shoulder blades. I stood and turned, and was accosted by a trio of grinning Asian males, all my age. As I met their grins with my suspicious eyes, they all immediately looked taken aback.
"Oh, hey, sorry, I thought you were someone else," said the tallest of the boys. He renewed his former wide grin and bowed casually to me, "Hideyoshi Takeo. I haven't seen you about before. These two are Aoyama Ryuu and Tomino Hideki," at which he indicated his friends, who bowed also.
I returned his bow with a swift one of my own, before replying, "Tenoh Haruka. I've been in America for the past two years and am joining this school for the coming academic year".
"Sweet," the boy grinned, "though it seems everyone's going abroad. Michiru left me for the whole summer," at which he made a mock face of desperation.
"It's your own fault, asshole," nudged Hideki, smirking, "she saw you trying to look up Nayu's skirt, man!"
"She did not! And that wasn't what I was doing, idiot!" sniggered Takeo, catching his shorter friend on the back of the head with a light palm.
"Wait," I interrupted them, "is this Michiru as in Kaioh Michiru?"
"Sure thing," winked Takeo, "saw her name on the program, did you? First Violin. That's my baby". He high-fived Ryuu. I felt a small disappointment harden inside me. This image of an artistic, melancholic girl I'd pieced together from my newspaper cutting melted away in light of her choice of romantic companion. This Takeo guy wasn't a bad one, and easily the most good looking out of his crowd of friends with his broad, athletic body and firm-set jaw, but he did seem a bit of a jerk. And not in the least bit artistic or melancholic.
Suddenly, a clear voice announced fluidly over the ringing speaker that the performance would begin shortly. Takeo turned to me.
"Come with us to Michiru's dressing room afterwards if you're a fan," he smiled toothily, "Boyfriends get automatic backstage-pass privileges". I thanked him and nodded, before setting back down in my seat as Hideki made some very rude comment about Takeo's "other privileges", which I'd rather not heard.
The chattering crowds of students disbanded as everyone in the vast hall took a seat, and soon what had been a disjointed, blocked view of the stage became an ocean of multicoloured human heads. As I cast my gaze out over the quietening audience, the lights around the room, and the floating, icy chandelier, dimmed and a warm blackness, fizzing with electric anticipation, washed over the audience. It brought with it a profound hush. The lack of sound was dense; the weight of anticipation pressing down on my lungs as if some had just came and sat on me.
With a low clunk, a huge floodlight erupted upon the stage, throwing a sea of whiteness down upon a lone keyboardist, a Junior High-schooler, who poised her small hands with deliberation on the keys.
A mechanised beat began, clocking and jolting, before being met with a chirpy, uplifting, jaunty melody on the keyboard that carried the song. The hook was sickly and felt painfully contrived compared to the calibre of music I'd expected from this event, but suddenly two spotlights fell down upon either side of the stage as the floodlight dimmed, and two long-haired girls appeared from the wings, grinning and strutting with purpose. A gushing, pretty blonde with laughing blue eyes, and a stoic, elegant Asian whose body language dripped with confidence and passion for her act, commanding the room. As they met centre stage under the spotlight, they clasped hands, and smiled to each other, before raising their microphones to their lips.
They projected their pop piece with a youthful vibrancy, beaming out their duet as if they were sending a desperately important message somewhere far off.
I leaned forward, my head between Makoto's and Usagi's. I could feel the burn from the tall brunette's cheek in the darkness, as I whispered in a hiss to Usagi, "are these two your friends, kitten?"
"Yes. The dark-haired girl is Hino Rei; the other one is Aino Minako," she breathed back to me. Turning, her eyes met mine in the darkness, locking on, clasping. A flooding, burning blue.
The intimacy of such as gaze suggested boldness, confidence, but as those eyes claimed me all the more, I was hypnotised by something else rising up, quivering, from those two blue pools: wavering, uncertain, a force that found something in me it recognised. Her vulnerable eyes betrayed her strength of character; she unfolded, unfurled, un-enveloped herself, unveiling a weakness and a fear.
Yet, there was a profound strength in her for allowing herself to pour into me that wordless confession. Behind strength, weakness, and behind that weakness a deeper strength.
It felt like forever she gazed into me, as I gently unravelled these delicate, petal-thin veneers of her innermost consciousness, her presence flooding into me, those eyes burning their mark upon my heart. Two perfect, round blue bruises that branded themselves onto my memory like two cigarette burns. Clear and full. And beautiful.
Only when Usagi's small mouth spread into a wide smile and she turned to enthusiastically applaud her friends, with elated, zealous cries of, "Rei! Minako! Amazing!", did I realise that the song had finished and the lights around the auditorium had risen back to a low glow to mark the interim between songs.
I leant back in my chair, and politely applauded Usagi's, Makoto's and Ami's friends, my mind distorted with a heady fog. I rested in my seat for a moment, eyes closed, to allow the fog to dissolve away into clear black. The projection of those wide blue pools shivered faintly against my eyelids before, too, dissolving into the swallowing black.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that a smart procession of students my age, in Mugen Gaken uniform, were making their way steadily onto the stage, assembling quietly amongst the maze of chairs. Some carried violins, violas, flutes, oboes, clarinets, French horns, trombones and other orchestral instruments. I spotted the gangly Asian boy from outside before, eyes nervously glinting and darting about him. As students assembled behind double basses or other larger instruments, a muffled screech of chair legs against polished wood filled the quiet, anticipating auditorium with a bizarre and somewhat macabre chorus of unearthly wails and groans. Then, quiet. One chair, at the front of the violins, was empty, as was the small wooden podium that had been moved to the front of the stage.
First violin and conductor.
A hush even deeper than quiet dropped like a huge, suffocating blanket over the audience. I heard Takeo whisper something incomprehensible breathlessly to one of his friends behind me. The heads of the musicians of the orchestra turned and looked across to the left wings. I drew an airless, noiseless breath. I was still.
And there she was.
Striding smoothly, without making a sound or creak, along the wooden floor; her hair was bright, moving, real under the glow of stage lights. She held a violin in one white hand, and then, lifting her chin, she looked up at the audience, her face full and vivid. Every soft, brushing shadow and highlighting glimmer framed and announced each feature, drawing her out, out from the black-and-white picture I had in my coat pocket, into three dimensions. Fleshy and red-blooded.
Those electric, feeling eyes stirred with a blue so blue I could feel myself sinking into it, and, if it were possible, they were even more intense than they had been in the photograph. It was as if the hazy, frosted, grey gauze of the newspaper photograph had been removed as simply as if it had been but a sheet of glass, or a wall, and there she was, standing, sure as ever, on the other side.
Sliding a cool tendril of feathery hair behind her ear, she placed herself squarely on the one empty chair, with a nod to the audience, and raised her violin, as if it were nothing but air, to her chin, posing her bow with deliberation and patience. Waiting.
My eyes continued to study her as a short, balding old man, with soft eyes under his thick glasses and warm, browned skin strolled towards the conductor's podium. He gave Michiru a knowing wink, who replied with a small smile. Her concentration was utterly composed, as if she were about to perform some life-saving, unfathomably complicated surgery.
He reached his small wooden podium and hopped onto it, then turned, gave the audience the grandest and most beaming of smiles, before bowing low and turning to face his orchestra. He raised the arm holding his conductor's rod, and then, with drama, let it fall, falling into a passionate and soulful leading of his orchestra, hands sweeping and diving with an infectious energy that betrayed his old age.
As if the room were silent, as if time had slowed, Michiru's bow fell deftly to her strings, and one slender hand drew it back with a poise and concentration so profound.
She began to play.
-
"Ah, Ms. Michiru, you do know how to make an old man happy," sighs Mr. Abe with the deepest and most practised of grins. He sinks back into his chair and draws his glass up to his nose, inhaling its deep perfume with a satisfaction and enjoyment that can only be learnt with age. Here is a man, I think, who knows how to get the most out of life.
"If you weren't married, Mr. Abe, I'd be quite worried by that," I smile, allowing myself to draw, with length, another smooth sip of Bartolo's wine. Its deep flavour burns a gentle coolness in my throat, fresh and fragrant.
"Heh, you are such a rude girl. I had you down as the most straight-up, straight-laced, conscientious…" he draws a long sip"…of girls".
"Well, I'm pleased I give that impression".
"Only straight-up, straight-laced, conscientious girls don't invite their teachers to regular drinking parties," he observes. He leans forward and gives me a good, long look.
"Well, I only supply the best" -I indicate my glass with a nod- "Complain and here's what'll become of all that alcohol of mine with your name on it". I tip my glass right back and drain the last mouthful from it.
"Blackmail me and you won't find yourself in my good books anymore! Oh no, it'll be the Yamagata girl on first violin". I laugh gently into my glass at his remark.
"I doubt that," I respond, reaching for the half-empty bottle to fill my glass once more. Mr. Abe drains his, and holds out his glass to me in with his firm, seasoned conductor's grip.
"You doubt right, my girl". I fill his glass too, and set the bottle back on the sideboard, amongst scattered plastic cases of make-up.
"Now," he begins, savouring again the aroma of his fresh glass, "tell about New York, Ms. Michiru".
I rest back into my dressing room armchair and begin to recount my concert with Dimitra Koldenhoffen. The light bulbs around the make-up-smudged mirrors wink and flicker precociously, threatening to extinguish completely. They lend the tender impression of candlelight to the white-painted brick walls of the windowless, underground room. Metal coat racks stand silently in one corner, empty wire hangers suspended lifelessly from them. These forms are like the bizarre metal skeletons of animals, unmoving monoliths.
Suddenly, the flashing intercom beside one of the mirrors rouses me from my story. I press a dusty button. Mr. Abe tips his glass back with vigour.
"Yes?"
Some visitors are here to see you in your dressing room. Hideyoshi Takeo and his friends.
"That's fine". I release the button. The soft click resonates in the small room.
With a satisfied sigh, Mr. Abe heaves himself from the chair, stretching his legs as he sets his nearly-empty glass on the side. He turns to me and winks.
"Best be off, Ms. Michiru. It's quite late. School on Monday! Thank goodness it's not tomorrow, two glasses of wine is more than enough to make me grumpy the next day".
"There's enough for another glass left over, would you like to take the bottle for Mrs. Abe?"
"Ah, most kind". He gives me a gentle smile and a wink, before slipping into his brown mac, accepting the bottle from me with a nod. I rise from my chair, and walk with over to the white door, opening it for him with a click.
"Thank you, Mr. Abe," I say quietly. He gives me another wink.
"Not at all. It's your wine. Goodnight".
I watch him stroll down the concrete, underground, catacomb-like corridor under the harsh, flickering UV striplights. He hops up the bare grey stairs, and nudges open the firedoor. A small gust of cold night air reaches me, and then is gone with the slam of the door.
"Michiru!"
I turn and Takeo is striding up the white-walled corridor, making the Mugen Gaken uniform look good, with three other boys in tow.
"Oh, hello, Takeo. Would you like to come inside? I'm just packing my things away, I'm quite tired". Once he reaches me, he leans in, resting one hand lightly on my shoulder as he kisses my cheek. After he has redrawn to his full height, I manage a smile and lead him by the hand into my dressing room. His friends follow.
Back within my low-ceilinged, bare room, I recline into my armchair, gathering my scattered, half-used remains of dusty, oily make-up into a clear wash bag. Takeo and his friends gather in the doorway.
"You were brilliant, Michiru. Everyone's really, really impressed. Mr. Abe seemed pretty thrilled with you, didn't he?"
"Thank you, Takeo," I state with a certain degree of flatness. I turn in my chair and gesture to a rather old, tattered sofa next to a pile of cardboard boxes, "please, have a seat everyone".
Takeo's friends place themselves politely on the sofa while he remains leaning, posed, in the doorway. Two of them I recognise as Ryuu and the Tomino boy. The third, I'm sure I've never seen before. He wears plain clothes, jeans and shirt, and a leather jacket, which he hangs on the back of the sofa. He is rather tall, as tall as Takeo, with a slim build and a mess of pale, dusty hair. Maybe he frequently runs his hands through it, like Takeo. Which would make him a flirt.
As Takeo garbles a story from his recent summer holidays about two DJs who got into a fight, the blond boy realises I'm watching him. He looks up.
"-oh, yeah," Takeo notes abruptly, "Michiru, this guy's a fan of yours, he was asking after you".
The blond boy stands up, slowly unfolding his lean body (an athlete?), and bows his shoulders.
"Tenoh Haruka".
"Well, thank you for your support tonight," I bow my shoulders slightly, still seated, "Kaioh Michiru".
Takeo continues with his story as the Tenoh boy seats himself again. I feel a small, private flood overcome my muscles. Sickness mixed venomously with tiredness. How late had I been up last night? I glance at the dusty plastic clock. It's 11.43pm.
But the Tenoh boy catches my eye again as he reaches over his shoulder to his jacket and retrieves a small piece of paper from the top pocket. He gazes at it, quietly, conspicuously, and I feel suddenly as if I'm intruding on something and tell myself to look away, but he lifts his chin and gazes at me again. Takeo's words waft past me without effect. Background fizz. The Tenoh boy has very soft features. Small, flourishing pink lips, like an infant's, gently moulded cheekbones and a tender, fleshy jawline. But his dark blond brows are firm set, as if in a permanent frown, and his dark eyes are deeply nestled beneath them. I look closely; he has long, dark blond lashes, not short and black like most half-Asians.
"-so it took six policemen to hold this guy down, and then his mate hands him a bottle as he pretends to help the police…" drawls Takeo, smirking and he leans against the doorway, tapping his foot. The Tenoh boy folds up his piece of paper and slips it into his jeans pocket.
"Takeo?"
"Then they took out the- yes, babe?"
"Thank you so much for coming to see me, but I'm ever so tired. I got in from the airport late last night and-"
"It's okay 'Chiru," he smiles, striding towards me and resting his hand again on my shoulder, "I understand. Do you want a ride home?"
"It's okay, I'm almost done packing". He leans in and kisses my cheek again.
"Thank you, Takeo. See you on Monday". He turns to his friends, raising a hand, and gesturing with a few flicks of his fingers that it's time to go.
"'night Michiru". He gives me a grin.
As I turn back to my table, zipping up the last bag and putting in my case, I hear the creak of the old sofa, the squeak of shoes and the thud of the door. I look at my violin lying fondly in its blue velvet case. I press my fingers to it; the smooth, cool wood, saturated with all my willpower, all I've given to my music, burns beneath them. It gives me luck. I close the case, and flick the clicks, which make a louder-than-usual hollow crack in the empty room. It's almost midnight.
I pull on my duffel coat and pick up my school case and my violin case. They feel much heavier than usual, gravity tugging on my arms sleepily. I strain to lift my arm and flick the light switch with my elbow. I let the door swinging silently behind as I leave the dark room for the UV glare of the whitewash corridor. My heels clack against the bare concrete floor. I count my footsteps.
I look up to the fire exit, green exit light blaring shamelessly above it, stinging my tired eyes.
Standing at the top of the concrete steps, leaning against the white door, is the Tenoh boy.
-
Thank you for reading! If the response is good I'll hope to put up Chapter 2 within several weeks (I'm going on holiday soon so there will be a delay) x