Chapter Fifty Two – This is What Writers Do

As that spring came and the days became warmer and longer, and as the sun went around the back of the house on the Via Giovanni Maria Platina, it would rise higher in the sky each day and the little garden with its cluster of pine trees would hold the daylight for longer. On some days Shizuku would prefer to sit on the bedroom balcony. Occasionally, being a complete slob, she would rise from bed, throw a thin robe over her nakedness and take her laptop and a cup of coffee straight out onto the balcony and begin to write. And on a few rare days what might happen was frightening: she would work without stopping, without breaks other than to refill that coffee cup or use the bathroom. And with aching shoulders and rubbing her sore eyes she might look up and find him standing behind her, silently watching her working. She would check her watch and it would be six or even seven in the evening. And she would wonder how it had become like this, like a fever. Days when it was like an illness and she lost all track of time, as though she were slipping in and out of consciousness. Tossing and turning. But she told herself she couldn't be ill, or losing her grip because when she looked at the words she'd written she would find that her heart had, from a place she was unaware that was inside her, created the most wonderful and gentle love stories. The most stunning things, the most tender moments. The most aggressive and caustic arguments. And sometimes the most cruel and unredeemable characters. She knew this was good, and she knew that while this mood stayed with her she had to keep writing. As had happened in the past, the well might one day run dry, and so she kept on, that thought of running dry being, in those days, her one fear.

The thing though, the problem, as had been the problem before, was money. Again it became an issue. Her old salary had been the biggest single input to each months budget. Now they relied completely on the rental from the Earth Shop, if it wasn't rented for a couple of weeks, they noticed straight away. And while Shizuku was aware of the danger, she found that a feeling of calm was with her and all around her that spring. She felt it everywhere in the appartamento, and in the garden, and even in the Café Volpi when she went there to chat with Anna-Marie. It was a strange sensation, and even though she could not explain it and even though their reserve fund was dwindling, that mood was never shaken. She became almost fatalistic in her certain belief that things would work out, even though, almost every month, a couple of manuscripts would come back with those dreaded pre-printed pink slips of polite declination. In the past these had depressed her, but no longer. She knew what she was doing now was good. Very good. And the earlier work she had polished all last year was much better than it had been. So it wasn't a case of wasting publishers time with rubbish, it was simply a case of matching the material to the right publisher. She knew he was out there, she only had to find him.

They sold the little FIAT. Seiji also sold three more violins although it seemed someone had heard his others were fair instruments and he got reasonable prices for these. But, gritting his teeth in the face of some offers, he held onto the asymmetrical ones and one or two others that he was fond of for sentimental reasons. He knew the asymmetrical ones were good. Very good. And he dug his heels in and waited for someone to come along who agreed with him. In March he finished a very special instrument indeed. He had his favourites of course, number one and number eleven, each of which had a special hold on him. After a gap of years he had named number one Shirou Nishi and number eleven Marriage. But this one which was the twenty-ninth had been finished a few days after they had returned from Paris. And this one was the only instrument he had named the day he finished her. In memory of what they had gone through he named her Shizuku. She was a beautiful piece of work and her deep throaty calm sound spoke to him of the person after whom she was named. This violin stayed with him all his life, one of only three to do so. Like Shirou Nishi and Marriage, and the magical, peaceful, beautiful lady who inspired him, she never left him.

Signore Portoghese, the interpreter company, and a certain ex-colleague of Shizuku's were never mentioned again. Not once. That phase of her life was ring-fenced by a cofferdam that excluded all discussion. Shizuku resolutely turned her back on anything that smelled even remotely of corruption and that meant that never again, while she lived in Italy, did she contemplate a salaried job. Seiji spoke with her once, in April, about going back to working in Cremona but her response was so final and so vigorous that he never raised the subject again. He did keep a careful eye on her though; he was concerned that the total shutdown of her past working life and all links to it wasn't completely healthy.

And money. Always money. While they spoke about the lack of it, they didn't worry as they had before. Their talks always leaned towards the positive side of the problem, and ways to avert bankruptcy. If the very worst happened they could move. Anna-Marie had even offered them her spare room above the shop in the Vicolo Maurino and if it came to it they could stay there and put some possessions in storage behind Seiji's workshop.

The one problem with that though was that they had both fallen in love with Giovanni Maria Platina and didn't want to leave. The place was as perfect a home as they could imagine, given their income.

-oOo-

In May, on one of those odd intense days when the words that flowed out of Shizuku detached her from the flow of time that the rest of us are bound to, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen but the number wasn't familiar. She answered the call.

"Hello?"
"Shizuku Tsukishima?" A Japanese voice. A Japanese voice that was six years out of touch.
"Yes."
"It's Hayao. Hayao Kanesaku."

She turned the name over in her mind. It was familiar but she couldn't quite place it. This was embarrassing.

"Hm, if I said The Courier, would that help?"

Now she remembered. Wow, this was a voice from the past.

"Hayao! My word! How are you?"
"I'm very well, how are you?"
"Fantastic! Things are great here."
"Where is 'here' exactly?"
"Italy. A city called Cremona. Have you heard of it?"
"No, but it sounds like an expensive place to call from Kyoto."
"You're in Kyoto now? What are you doing there?"
"I have my own magazine now. Well, the bank owns it. But I'm editor. It's called Raise the Anchor."
"What an odd name."
"It's a political joke. We're trying to get the ship back to sea. The ship of Japan's economy, education, business ethic. Before the ship can set sail we need to raise the anchor, it's become something of a rallying cry. Good stuff is happening here."
"Things can't be that good."
"Oh? Why?"
"Well, you're calling me. I only ever wrote you a few angst-riddled half baked ramblings. And most of those were the result of teenage hormones. Surely you don't want me to write again?"
"Well, actually, yes. I do. Is that a problem? Are you still writing?"

Shizuku laughed. She looked at the laptop in front of her, scrolled through the six thousand words she'd written since lunch.

"Yes. I am still writing. A little. Off and on."
"That's good, so you'll write for me?"
"Hey, whoa. That's a bit sudden."
"You remember me though, don't you? I don't mess about. I know you can write."
"That was ten years ago. I've lived in Italy for six years. I'm a little out of touch with what's happening over there."
"Not a problem, you come over here for a couple of months and you'll soon get under the skin of the place again. I know you'd pick up on the important issues straight away, the issues you could write about."
"Go to Japan for two months? Are you serious? I'm married now!"
"You are? That's great. Congratulations!"
"I've been married six years."
"Wow, I am out of touch."
"So, I'm sorry, I can't just drop everything here for two months and play roving investigative journalist in Kyoto. I'm very sorry Hayao."
"Hm, I see. That is a pity. Could you manage a month's stay?"
"Not really. I mean in terms of actually finding the time I might be able to but the problem is cost. We are on a shoestring here, so there's no way I could justify the expense of staying there a month, a hotel, the flights, all that."
"You wouldn't need to."
"Of course I would, don't be silly, I can't sleep in the railway station and eat out of rubbish bins."
"The magazine would pay for all that."
"Don't be crazy. I mean that's ridiculously generous of you but what if it were a waste of money? What if at the end of my stay I hadn't enough material for an article?"
"Not an article, five articles. I want five. Elementary school; junior high; high school; university and finally a summary and change proposal." Shizuku could visualize him ticking them off on his fingers, "The four stages of education. And at the end, how they should be fixed. Each to be examined by you in conjunction with a couple of our research staff."

Shizuku was shocked. He was mad. Totally raving.

"Hayao, that's insane! I can't gather the information for a five article series in a month! Sorry, you must be confusing me with someone else, someone super human."

There was a mild chuckle at the other end of the line.

"Oh, no. No confusion. At least I don't think so. I'm sure there aren't many Shizuku Tsukishima's around. There used to be one who lived in Tama. She once wrote a series of left wing articles for a totally unknown political rag which no-one expected to ever get read by anyone apart from a few restless Marxist students. Circulation of around 400 hand-printed copies a month. Then this Tsukishima person dropped out of writing and went abroad. I mean who ever heard of someone at the age of sixteen ever writing anything really worthwhile in the political arena? No-one does that. But a year later The Courier was being machine printed twice monthly and had a circulation of nearly 3000 copies. And we'd attracted two or three damn good writers and some reasonably competent financial backing. A year after that I sold The Courier and worked with a main stream political weekly in Kobe. And the success of The Courier was all down to a series of articles this Tsukishima girl had written. Of course there might be another Shizuku Tsukishima around who can write well enough to have that kind of influence, but, hm… I'm not aware of one. And anyway, you'd have much more than a month, you could start from your base in Italy."
"Hayao, that's a very nice story," Shizuku was smiling, "and I've heard some men tell me some interesting stories in my time, to try and get me to do things for them, and you can be proud that I think your tale is one of the better ones, but you can't seriously expect me to believe that can you?"
"No. Not a word of it. Not from me anyway," she could still hear the smile in his voice, "But you know the Proposition website?"

She did. It was a mainstream political media site that reviewed all the significant Japanese political commentary journals. Its database held records of articles and publication figures going back years. She kept in touch with Japan by looking at it from time to time, although not so much these days.

"I'm sure you do. Well go there and do a search on The Courier. Specifically the 36 months between mid 1996 when a completely unknown young female writer began to submit a series of articles, and mid 1999. No, really. I'm serious. Look today. Have a think about what I've said and then drop me an e-mail" (he gave her an address). "Now I think that Shizuku Tsukishima was a pretty damn impressive writer. I may have made a big mistake and called the wrong person. But, well, I don't think so."

And he hung up. No goodbye at all. Shizuku stared stupidly at her dead phone. Hayao had always been a fast talker and a quick thinker but she knew he wasn't a fool. He'd clearly had some success in the last few years.

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9 & 11 February 2007

For author notes about chapter 52 please see my forum (click on my pen name)