She fell asleep with unexpected ease.
Populationof Tokyo : 37.8 million
The next morning, bending over with the curvature of the earth, time prodded at her ribs, calling for a start to the day that was much too early. But she was used to broken sleep. For a while, when her mother had been ill, her own sleep patterns had been affected and she had wandered around the house at odd hours, drying the last of the cups on the draining board or aligning cookery books. Since she had gone, Tom could wake to find her tidying or cleaning as if she had a responsibility to keep her mother’s flat more pristine than it had ever been, as if she might walk in unexpectedly and find Hana was coping okay; that it was all under control.
Her damp bedclothes clung and on waking in the half-light her mouth felt dry – could she safely drink the water here? In the single bed beside her, Jess, the American girl, was still asleep. Hana could hear birdsong, loud birdsong, in the heart of the city. Wide awake but unable to move from the bandage of sheets, she willed her roommate to surface but she was no more compliant than she had been the night before. So Hana lay a little longer, planning her day. She would find the teahouse at the temple. She had read of the wooden structures and the Buddhist temple Asakusa Jinja, and the Shinto shrine at the Meiji Jingu. She would head at some stage for Kyoto, which, though high on her list, would be a push to afford.
Finally Jess stirred and pulled herself up to sit against the wall, crowned in a bird’s nest of hair. She looked across at Hana with dark circles under her eyes.
‘Coffee!’ Her arms stretched as she broke away from the deep sleep of her first night. ‘It’s good to be back.’
Back from where? Hana wondered but didn’t yet say it.
Jess stretched some more.
‘This is the best place in Tokyo,’ she continued, as if to someone else.
Hana blinked back at her as if a strange creature had joined the room. The best? This was hardly believable and she couldn’t bring herself to agree even out of politeness.
‘Bit of shouting last night,’ Hana contended
Jess nodded.
‘Bikyhikibiri. Bikyhikibiri.’
‘Which—’ Jess looked over a virtual set of glasses professorially ‘—translates as pubic hair. Don’t leave it in the bath.’ She waved any concern away and giggled.
Hana’s lips soured.
Jess was laconic but friendly and gave Hana the facts quickly: she had been working up north on an aid project and had come back down to Tokyo for a few weeks before returning to Seattle. Though younger than Hana she was a seasoned traveller, happy living out of a rucksack for months. It was the second year she had come to the homestay and the formula worked well for her.
Jess put her arm round her in a welcome squeeze. ‘I’m back in Tokyo to make some good money. And you? Why are you here?’
Hana began a vague meandering on the cultural attractions of Tokyo but Jess cut her short.
‘You’re part Japanese, right? And you chose my favourite homestay?’
Hana nodded and then broached what was uppermost in her mind. She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘I am going to have to change homestay.’
‘Great, then I get the room to myself.’ Jess was deadpan and Hana wondered whether she should take her seriously. ‘No, you’ll like it here. The family goes out of their way to help. Why leave when you just got here?’
The fact that it felt as cloying as a home for the elderly was too difficult to put into words, too ungenerous, and so she just said, ‘Well … money.’
‘Money? This is cheap. I start my bar work this week. Great money and it’ll see me through a whole semester. You should think about it. They always need people.’
Younger but so aware, Hana thought. Jess urged her to come and see the club with her that morning. A club? Hana had worked in a bar but a club? It was a hostess bar. And it didn’t appeal. Charity Aid and club hostess. Jess was interesting.
‘Emiko will give you a job. And then I could show you round Tokyo. ’ It sounded like a bribe.
‘No. No, thanks.’ Objections that she was here only for a short time were irrelevant. There was no doubt she could do with the money. ‘This morning I plan to find the local temple.’
‘Local temple? I can show you better temples.’
‘Well, you see … when she lived here, my mother worked on a project at the teahouse, somewhere in the grounds of one of the temples.’
Jess nodded encouragingly, while at the same time mentally counting the number of small temples that littered each small district of Tokyo. It seemed a little futile to her.
‘Did she give you the address?
‘No. Well, no.’ It was too long to explain.
‘You know which one?’ she added to make sure.
‘Not yet.’ Assured that six or so weeks was ample time to discover it.
‘So that shouldn’t be too difficult to find.’
‘Exactly,’ Hana replied, misreading the cynicism.
‘What’s the hurry? The temple will be there tomorrow. Be there the next day. Been there a while,’ Jess urged. ‘You work nights with me, go sightseeing during the day go home with more money than you transferred. Including the flight.’
She could see Hana warming.
‘I need to get a black dress for the job. Will you come? We’ll go meet Emiko.’
‘Okay, I’ll think about it.’ She would have to hold her own with this one.
Seismological measurement of Fukushima earthquake magnitude 9 on the Richter scale
Birdsong came from the same deck that the folk music had the night before. Breakfast was laid out as self-service, and Hana and Jess ate rice and then wedges of sliced white bread, twice the size of a paperback and half as nutritious, that they covered in sugared orange jam. Between mouthfuls they discussed their plans for the day and then headed out.
Before they reached the station Jess pointed out the dormant neon nightclub sign.
‘Try it? There’s no commitment.’
Hana could see she was never going to take no for an answer.
Jess ran down to the basement, leaving her at the sign.
She quickly returned.
‘Emiko – the manager – can see you at the end of the week.’ She couldn’t have been more pleased with herself.
Hana didn’t want to be ungrateful, ‘I’ll see,’ was all she said.
Jess drew her towards the rail tracks.
‘Come to Ziggy’s to meet my good friend Miho.’
And they headed up the main street with its tiny stores; pottery spilling towards the fresh noodle makers calling beside loud carousels of ‘anime’