writing this. Three days later I paid the nanny a month’s money and told her I was taking you to see your grandmother. I was mentally unfit to raise you and Anju. The rest, you know.
I’m not writing this for your sympathy or forgiveness. This story is beyond all that. But the memories even now keep me awake, and showing you them is the only way I know to ease them. I want to get well. I mean—
—you can tell from the creases, can’t you, I just scrunched this up and threw it at the bin. I didn’t even bother aiming. And guess what? It fell straight in, didn’t even touch the sides. Who knows? Maybe this is one of those times when superstition pays. I’ll go and slip this under Dr Suzuki’s door, before I change my mind again. If you want to call me, phone the number on the letterhead. Up to you. I wish—
Fujifilm is pushing four o’clock. What is the proper way to react to the news that your mother wanted to kill you? After three years of non-communication. I’m used to my mother being out there, somewhere; but not too near. Things are painless that way. If I move anything, I’m afraid it will all start all over again. The only plan I can think of is Do Nothing. If this is a cop-out then, okay, a rubber-stamped ‘Cop-Out’ is my official response. It is my father’s ‘nowhere’ that I can’t handle, not my mother’s ‘somewhere’. I know what I mean even if I can’t put it into words. Cockroach is still struggling. I want to see it. I crawl over to the fridge – so humid tonight. The motel starts vibrating as I pick it up. Cockroach panics. A part of me wants to free it, a part of me wishes it instant death. I force myself to peer in. Bicycling feelers and furious wings! So revolting I drop the motel – it lands on its roof. Now Cockroach is dying upside down, poor shiny bastard, but I don’t want to touch the motel. I look for something to flip it over. I fish in the bin – gingerly, in case Brother of Cockroach is in there – and find the squashed box Cat’s biscuits came in. On Thursday, after I read the letter, I put it down and did nothing for I don’t know how long. I’m about to re-read it when Cat appears. She jumps on my lap and shows me her shoulder. Clotted blood and soft skin shows where a gobbet of fur has been gouged off. ‘You’ve been fighting?’ I forget about the letter for a moment. I don’t know anything about first aid, especially cat first aid, but I think I should disinfect the wound. Of course, I don’t have anything as practical as antiseptic fluid, so I go downstairs and ask Buntaro.
Buntaro pauses the video at the moment the Titanic up-ends and people fall down the mile-long deck. He takes a cigarette from his box of Caster and lights it without offering me one. ‘Don’t tell me. Upon receiving another letter from his mysterious lawyer lady, telling our hero it was all over, he becomes so depressed that he decides to disembowel himself, but all he has is a pair of nail scissors, so—’
‘I have a wounded cat on my hands.’
Buntaro clouds over. ‘A what, lad?’
‘A wounded cat.’
‘You’re keeping pets in my apartment?’
‘No. It just wanders in when it’s hungry.’
‘Or when it wants medical attention?’
‘It’s just a scratch. I want to dab some disinfectant on it.’
‘Eiji Miyake, animal doctor.’
‘Please, Buntaro.’
He grumbles and sifts under the till for a while. He pulls out a dusty red box, causing a landslide of junk around his feet, and hands it to me. ‘It better not be bleeding on my tatami.’
‘You tight-arsed, whinging parasite, you’ve fleeced every outgoing tenant for replacement tatami, but you haven’t actually replaced it since 1969, have you?’ is not how I respond to my landlord and job benefactor. Instead I just shake my head meekly. ‘She isn’t bleeding now. She just has this sort of gammy place that needs seeing to.’
‘What’s this cat look like? My wife might know the
I’m not writing this for your sympathy or forgiveness. This story is beyond all that. But the memories even now keep me awake, and showing you them is the only way I know to ease them. I want to get well. I mean—
—you can tell from the creases, can’t you, I just scrunched this up and threw it at the bin. I didn’t even bother aiming. And guess what? It fell straight in, didn’t even touch the sides. Who knows? Maybe this is one of those times when superstition pays. I’ll go and slip this under Dr Suzuki’s door, before I change my mind again. If you want to call me, phone the number on the letterhead. Up to you. I wish—
Fujifilm is pushing four o’clock. What is the proper way to react to the news that your mother wanted to kill you? After three years of non-communication. I’m used to my mother being out there, somewhere; but not too near. Things are painless that way. If I move anything, I’m afraid it will all start all over again. The only plan I can think of is Do Nothing. If this is a cop-out then, okay, a rubber-stamped ‘Cop-Out’ is my official response. It is my father’s ‘nowhere’ that I can’t handle, not my mother’s ‘somewhere’. I know what I mean even if I can’t put it into words. Cockroach is still struggling. I want to see it. I crawl over to the fridge – so humid tonight. The motel starts vibrating as I pick it up. Cockroach panics. A part of me wants to free it, a part of me wishes it instant death. I force myself to peer in. Bicycling feelers and furious wings! So revolting I drop the motel – it lands on its roof. Now Cockroach is dying upside down, poor shiny bastard, but I don’t want to touch the motel. I look for something to flip it over. I fish in the bin – gingerly, in case Brother of Cockroach is in there – and find the squashed box Cat’s biscuits came in. On Thursday, after I read the letter, I put it down and did nothing for I don’t know how long. I’m about to re-read it when Cat appears. She jumps on my lap and shows me her shoulder. Clotted blood and soft skin shows where a gobbet of fur has been gouged off. ‘You’ve been fighting?’ I forget about the letter for a moment. I don’t know anything about first aid, especially cat first aid, but I think I should disinfect the wound. Of course, I don’t have anything as practical as antiseptic fluid, so I go downstairs and ask Buntaro.
Buntaro pauses the video at the moment the Titanic up-ends and people fall down the mile-long deck. He takes a cigarette from his box of Caster and lights it without offering me one. ‘Don’t tell me. Upon receiving another letter from his mysterious lawyer lady, telling our hero it was all over, he becomes so depressed that he decides to disembowel himself, but all he has is a pair of nail scissors, so—’
‘I have a wounded cat on my hands.’
Buntaro clouds over. ‘A what, lad?’
‘A wounded cat.’
‘You’re keeping pets in my apartment?’
‘No. It just wanders in when it’s hungry.’
‘Or when it wants medical attention?’
‘It’s just a scratch. I want to dab some disinfectant on it.’
‘Eiji Miyake, animal doctor.’
‘Please, Buntaro.’
He grumbles and sifts under the till for a while. He pulls out a dusty red box, causing a landslide of junk around his feet, and hands it to me. ‘It better not be bleeding on my tatami.’
‘You tight-arsed, whinging parasite, you’ve fleeced every outgoing tenant for replacement tatami, but you haven’t actually replaced it since 1969, have you?’ is not how I respond to my landlord and job benefactor. Instead I just shake my head meekly. ‘She isn’t bleeding now. She just has this sort of gammy place that needs seeing to.’
‘What’s this cat look like? My wife might know the
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