Consequences Unforeseen

Tokyo, Tuesday June 4th 1991 - Dinner with Yoshikawa & Keiko

Tokyo, Tuesday June 4th 1991 – Dinner with Yoshikawa + Keiko

 

The subway train was quiet for this time of the late afternoon. Almost rush hour in fact and Bill Douglas was able to stand in clear space in the door recess of the carriage. “Fucking unbelievable,” he thought, “Where are they all?” But he just rejoiced that sometimes you get lucky, even on the line to Yoyogi Uehara.

He rode the subways frequently, just because the traffic at this time of day meant a car journey of over an hour. The train took less than twenty minutes.

He was looking forward to getting back to meet Kris at ‘Mama’s’ restaurant near the subway station. When he was in the city center they often met there on his return for some yakitori, Saki and chit chat with the locals There’s nothing like speaking with the street vendors, grocery store owners and restaurateurs to improve you colloquial Japanese, Douglas had explained to Kris when she arrived in Tokyo, and this had indeed proven to be true for her.

The locals in return acknowledged something unusual in this couple. They were relaxed and at home in this, the most basic of Japanese eating and drinking establishments and the locals liked them all the more for this.

Bad news tonight was that he had dinner plans, so over a beer and a glass of wine, he filled Kris in on the events of the day, in as much detail as he could under the circumstances.

He held off on the details concerning her enjoyment of the stand and the highlighting of the famous paragraph, thinking that this story would be better told once he knew exactly how the trick had been accomplished. Kris would be horrified at the thought of people being intrusive into their lives in this way. He’d have to handle it carefully.

She was totally fine with the arrangements he had for the evening and decided on some dinner round the corner at their favorite little eating place, ‘Lamplight,’ where the two of them often dined when they wanted peace and quiet. This place was a unique haven in the town.

It looked like an old English Dickensian high street shop with small square leaded window panes and wooden frames. It was intimately lit from within with authentic oil lamps giving off a golden glow through the slightly convex glass designed to magnify the quaint effect.

The people who were regulars there were businessmen and women who kept themselves to themselves but enjoyed occasional polite conversation. The great thing for Bill Douglas was that there were few if any gaijin who ventured inside. English by appearance, but Japanese by clientele. Oh, and the food was to die for!

He walked with her the short distance, popped inside for a minute or two to say ‘hello’ to the Master Chef and left to head back up the hill to their house.

The walk was only five minutes or thereabouts but long enough to have him glancing around at things he had thought of as familiar until this week. Since becoming resident here there were no corners, undercover car ports and nooks which he was unaware of, but even for him, the place had taken on a sinister aura. Brought up in part by a cynical Uncle and an ‘old wife’ of a grandmother, he had no love of co-incidence, nor did he believe in such a phenomenon.

The Chinese did not pick on him in some random act of violence, he was sure, but his mind puzzled at why they came at him with such rudimentary and archaic forms of weaponry. At any rate, he felt that his heightened sense of the neighborhood was no bad thing since it offered more conscious protection to Kris as well.

He saw the big car parked at the curb out side the house as the curve opened up the crest of the hill to his view. It was early, but this was not unusual with Yoshikawa’s arrangements, so he increased his pace and took the stairs two at a time. A quick shower and change of clothes and he was back and getting in the car within fifteen minutes.