Читать книгу Why Ghosts Appear - Todd Shimoda - Страница 6

I pressed the brake to slow the car to a crawl. The enclave of old wooden houses was located on a narrow street lined on both sides with power poles, stone and bamboo fences, cars, and delivery trucks, making it difficult to drive while I searched for the particular address. I turned off the air conditioner as if the roar of the fan hindered my ability to distinguish street names and building numbers.

Ahead, not more than twenty meters, an elderly man walked along the side of the street toward a small grocery store. On the store’s veranda were stacks of newspapers, boxes of vegetables, and cartons of empty beer bottles. A row of potted plants with yellow leaves indicating they needed a good watering, or perhaps less, marked a boundary between the veranda and three vending machines offering beer and cold sake, cigarettes, and single serving packages of instant noodle soup. A spigot provided hot water for reconstituting the soup. The owner of the machines clearly knew what sells in the neighborhood.

In the contemporary scheme of society, the neighborhood lacked outward significance other than the ground on which it was built. Real estate speculators could easily buy all the houses and commercial buildings, forcing reluctant owners into selling by hiring criminal gangs to overrun the neighborhood. When the properties were purchased, a demolition company would raze the buildings and seemingly overnight they would be replaced with office towers, retail spaces, and condominiums. In terms of functionality, the modernization would exploit the area to a much higher potential. The neighborhood consisted of too much underutilized space, especially too many single-family homes occupying the precious land. Modern space planners design on the principle of a box of one hundred and sixty cubic meters, which is the optimum living space for two people. More volume is not necessary, less can lead to tension and discomfort.

And what of the displaced residents and businesses? The owner of the grocery store would be given the golden opportunity to rent a sleek modern retail space at half the size and four times the cost of the old building. But think of the fluorescent light gleaming off stainless steel shelves, and the protection provided by security cameras. And the local residents could get out from under the maintenance headaches of their ramshackle homes and avoid winter drafts by purchasing new, hermetically-sealed condominiums with low-interest, seventy-five-year mortgages. The secure condominium buildings would have elevators to whisk them up to their units, each with central heating and air conditioning. Not to mention the one-and-a-half dedicated parking spaces. How could the neighborhood residents turn down such progress?

The car rolled closer to the store. The elderly pedestrian’s hair was shaved to a salt-and-pepper stubble. He wore a gray overcoat wrapped around him like a quilt—an odd choice of garment given the August heat and thick humidity. Then he turned his head and revealed that he was not a man but a woman of some eighty years in age. Perhaps she was ill enough to cause her hair to fall out. Or she might be a retired Buddhist nun. Do nuns retire? Surely they must, although without much retirement savings.

When the car and woman were even, I rolled down the window and poked my head out. “Hello, excuse me. Could you please direct me to the Mizuno house?”

“Mizuno?” she said. “Which Mizuno?”

“Mizuno Rie,” I answered, then gave her the address.

“Ah, the fortuneteller.” She shuffled over to the car and peered at me. “You look like a man needing his fortune told. Trouble with women, no doubt. Eh?”

“No doubt.”

She cackled then gave me surprisingly elaborate directions: turn right past the store, left at the first alley, park there, walk past a little shrine, and go up a path of stone steps. At the top of the hill, I was to look for a house on the left side. “You will see her fortuneteller’s sign.”

I thanked her and proceeded to follow her described route; however, finding a place to park in the alley proved impossible. Cars, trucks, and motorbikes occupied all slivers of space, some squeezed in so tightly that they must have been parked by a supernatural valet. I continued past the tiny neighborhood shrine, which was not much more than a rickety gate leading to an open-air altar under a simple peaked roof. A trio of women—I was sure this time of their gender as they were wearing housedresses with aprons and scarves holding back their long hair—cleaned the altar with pink feather dusters and white rags. They gave me, or my car, deep formal bows as I drove past. I returned the greeting with an apologetic nod because sitting in my car I could do no more than that.

Rolling past the shrine, I next came to the workshop of a gravestone carver. Slender yet substantial slabs of cut rock were piled outside the workshop. A few finished stones with names etched in sharp precision were lined up, ready for delivery. I wondered if the gravestone carver ever experienced a pique of interest in the lives represented by the names. Perhaps the first one or two that he carved, but after that? Not a thought, I guessed.

Next to the gravestone supplier was a five-stool, three-table ramen noodle stand not yet open for the day. The narrow stoop leading into the stand was still damp from a recent washing. The interior was in shadow but I could make out the silhouettes of a man and woman going about the mundane duties of chopping onions and stacking bowls.

At the end of the alley was a gas station and auto repair shop. Minor repairs only, said the sign. I turned into the station and a young attendant, maybe nineteen, walked up to the car and gave me an expectant look. A smudge of grease above his lip and one on his left ear gave him the impression of a working mechanic.

“Yes, good morning. I have some business back there and thought I might leave my car for fueling and a check of all the fluids. I’ll probably be an hour.”

The mechanic clucked and took a step back and looked the car over from front to back. “Suppose so.”

“Fine,” I said. It was unclear what he discovered during his brief inspection. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I stepped out of the car. The mechanic gave me a nod as if assuring me the world would be all right. At least with the car, I hoped.