reading

She tells herself that she will seek help if it does not stop. By the time she runs out of fingers. That she will find the strength. The courage. To speak. She will. She will. But then she muddies things when she starts to wonder what sorts of things should account for a whole finger, and what might account, say, only for a knuckle’s width or two at most. Is a rough succession of kisses the same as a hand inside her pants? Is a hand in the pants worth less than a finger that is pushed into her? If two fingers, is it then different? If he himself enters her, the trespass is worst. Or is it? Does she measure by pain? Or by the use he makes of her body? If her hand is covered and squeezed around him, around his hard and throbbing self, is it counted the same as a violation of her body?

Because she cannot form a clear system of appropriate values, of currency for compare, she eventually loses what she considers an accurate weighting of trespass entirely. Knuckles and folded fingers are not good markers, not adequate or accurate. And they cannot account for the emotions that stay with her. Long after.

When she has run the course of fingers she merely convinces herself that she is not sure. And because she is not sure, how can she possibly bring it forward? What should she say? If she herself is confused. About what counts. What is offence, and what is not. Until she can be sure what exactly to do, she begins to keep up a simple tally in her diary margin. Simple, because now she counts everything the same. She keeps track only of each time he comes. Not what exactly happens in each of those times. Small, neatly ordered strokes along a perfectly straight horizontal in blue ink. Not sure any longer what is right, what is wrong, what she should do, she simply watches the crosses of the growing rail line in between two stations. And so, in this fashion she keeps building it, the collection of perpendicular slashes that square the line of time that marks her life. Sometimes she thinks of it in terms of the government’s plans for rail expansion. For added service into the more remote communities. To the outlying rural villages. How far will it go? How far afield can it possibly traverse? She tells herself, convinces herself, that like a rail line it must be finite. Logically has to be. That at some point must lie an end. After which it will be no longer. Each time she adds a stroke to her paper she sends her focus into the future, to look for that day. To scour the horizon. For the end of it. To hope that soon she may catch a glimpse. Of the potential for a terminus.

Did she want for Dev Uncle to do this to her? No. Ask for it? No, of course not. Sometimes it is what he tells her. That she is asking. With her eyes, with her lips, with her budding womanly body. That it is her fault. That she has brought it on herself.

One morning not long after the first time, he had caught her coming from her morning bath. Openly, he had stared at her nakedness. With a wolfish smile and heavy-lidded longing in his features. For what seemed an eternity she had stood rooted to the spot, dripping water from her hair upon the cool polish of marble, so that it pooled slickly around her unmoving feet. He had taken full advantage of her reaction. Admiring her childish yet narrow hips and the small tuft of finely curled hair sprouting from between them, the blossoming flesh of her breasts with their nipples erect in the cool of the air. In regaining her senses she had fled for the safety of the bathroom and the lock upon the door.

He had come to stand on the other side of the door, so close that she could hear the heaviness of his breath. In a carefully controlled voice he had told her that she would not always have walls and doors to hide behind. With her heart thrashing wildly in her chest she had leaned her whole weight against the door. Even though she knew she had not the strength to stop him if he wanted to pursue her there. ‘I will call to the others. I will shout if you do not go this minute.’

‘And what will you do if they come? What will you tell them?’ he had inquired in a measured tone that clearly showed his mocking.

Does she? Tempt it? Bring it upon herself? Inside of her a silent ongoing conversation runs. A gnawing within her withering conscience. And points a weakly accusing finger. Have you asked him to stop? Yes. I have begged. Pleaded. Do you ask in the right way? What is the right way? Does he continue? Yes. Then it is not the right way. But what is? The. Right. Way. Certainly not the ways she has tried. What avenues are left? Indeed. Indeed, what avenues at all? Do they not all come to the same confounding end?

Her reactions swing in wild pendulum extremes of grief and rage and pity. He has betrayed her. Her trust, her love. It is no mistake, no accident. He knows what he is doing. To her. Time and again. It has become familiar territory; he passes boldly through the boundaries. Re-mapping permissions. Going where his hands have no business. Taking what does not belong to them. Possessing what is not his to possess. He has blackened her. Soiled her. Ruined her. And he has done so without remorse, without care. Thieving.

One day she comes to a stark and jagged realization: The only count, the only trespass that was ever truly worth noting was the first. The first time. So now, why protect? Why guard? Why fight? What has been taken is not coming back. Not ever.

And yet, like a prisoner, she keeps up the tally. Pointless as it may be, there is comfort in knowing that one stroke will eventually be the last. And when he comes for her again and again and again, she does the only thing she can do to give herself a place to pin hope, she coaxes herself into diversion. Disappears into her imagination. So that she has the sense of leaving her body. On little bird wings she floats away. How will it look? Sound? Feel? The sweet freedom she pictures. Sunrise atop a peaceful hill station. The mountains alive with birdsong. Fresh. Clean. She does her best to devote her senses entirely to this simple means of escape. She wraps herself in it. It is the only control she can take in the matter. To have her mind leave. And find a place elsewhere. Away. From him. From the ugliness. She carves a mental world apart. Where she cannot be touched. To leave the nightmare behind. Because she knows now that time cannot be turned back. It marches only forward.

It is a single lipstick stained handkerchief, still with its sharply ironed creases, that destroys her childish illusions of family like a magician’s house of cards. Her volatile teenage heart jumps at the discovery, for the meaning of it is plain. Hastily, she bends and snatches it from where it lies to silence its revelation, to deny it. A truth exposed to her by an accident of chance. Somehow it has fallen into the open. She wonders how long it has been there. She wonders why fate has chosen her to find it, to know the meaning it shares. Holding the flimsy square of finely woven cloth that is stitched with a design she recognizes, she considers the story it portrays. She draws it to her face. The elements are unmistakable. She knows the reek, the look of transgression. The alcohol and perfume intermingle with the scent of Father, and with the laundry soap Mother uses.

It ignites anger in her. Eating at her like a poison, crawling acidly through her veins, eroding the openness of her heart. Crumbling a girl’s love for her father. Transforming him, this man who had carried her upon his shoulders on many a Sunday afternoon family outing in the park, a man who indulged her with tiny decorative dolls at Hinamatsuri or brightly coloured kimono and delicate silken obi for Shichi-Go-San. On such occasions she had seen the pride that shone in Mother’s eyes. She remembers as a little girl how she would grasp both their hands. And walk between them. But was it she alone who had bound their affections? Who held them together? Even then?

She pushes the cloth into her book bag. On her way to school she disposes of it in the trash bin behind the noodle house. In the warming air of spring she thinks now that the sky does not look quite as blue, the budding trees do not seem somehow as appealing, the scent of their new growth is not as fresh.

Even with the stained cotton square out of her sight, out of her possession, she finds she cannot ignore its silent confession. Her desire to know becomes insatiable. To see not just a piece of the puzzle. That is the only way she can figure out what to think of things, of him. And so she resolves to take the train into town after school; hide herself in the great spires of Tokyo concrete. To wait and follow him from his office until his footsteps reveal all there is to know. She feels compelled to see truth with her own eyes. She naively hopes, somewhere deep within herself, that it might dispel her original conclusions. Perhaps she will find that things are not at all as she has believed. Perhaps her upset and her confusion will have been in vain. And her loyalty will be restored. Or perhaps what she sees will agree with the way her senses have jumped. Instinct tells her this is the more likely finding. Her head knows it even if her heart hopes differently.

Four nights she stands waiting. Shivering like a fool in the closing darkness and cool night air. Four nights of homework and study she sacrifices before she has her answer.

He leaves the office building alone. Walking swiftly and with purpose among streets crowded with others like him, suited, hurrying still, to destinations unknown. She follows closely. Focusing on his head and shoulders so that she does not lose him in the crowded flow of the sidewalks. With gritted teeth she surges along with the waves of city people until his form takes a turn. It is a nondescript bar he enters, just off the mouth of an alleyway in the Shinjuku. She stops herself at the corner, not knowing what to do next. Not having planned anything other than to follow. Several people mill about in the doorway of the establishment. Smoking, talking, bantering in a loud, half-drunken way. From the suits they wear she assumes them to be salarymen like Father. Perhaps he is just visiting a bar for outings with work colleagues and some hostess has used the handkerchief. Or perhaps even a work friend has made use of it. Innocently. This is understandable, acceptable. And maybe why he would not have been troubled about it being found at home. If there was something, surely he would have taken care to hide it better. There is one window. She thinks it over. But what if? She doesn’t want the attentions of the other men in the doorway to follow her, nor does she want to alert Father to her presence. Should she? Just to see? After all, that is what she has come for. What if this is her only chance? To settle things in her mind. She can’t turn back now.

The door opens to reveal a couple in silhouette; talk, laughter, and music spill out and around their shadowed form. The one half cuts a familiar outline, the top portion of his torso anyway, before it joins in the shadow. Kameko is left bare, exposed, knowing that they are likely to pass within paces of her face. Her instinct is to look down, stare at the ground, to let them walk by. To avoid recognition. She had never considered that he would be leaving the bar so quickly.

Father’s voice finds its way to her. And her ear hears something different in it, a melodious quality. He is talking animatedly, with a life Kameko cannot remember ever having seen before between Mother and he. The woman at his side is laughing and gazing up at him. And then, his laughter—how different, how full, how free it sounds. He had offered his arm when they had emerged from the club, and she holds it now, elegant and easy. As they approach the opposite side of the alleyway, Kameko draws herself tight to the concrete and the dimness of the building shadow. Lights of neon bathe their faces in an alternately red and blue-white glow. Both are smiling. They are comfortable and familiar. And affectionate. She cannot tell whether the woman is younger than Mother in the unsuitable light, but she can see her grace, the shapeliness of her figure, the fineness of her features. The glamorous life of a mistress; a stark contrast to the life of a housewife. It could not have been more plain, this distinction.

But more unsettling, more unexpected, is the feeling that is clear even without being able to clearly discern their faces. In their bodies alone. A display that has never been evident between her parents. Not that she could ever recall. Happiness is etched into his entire manner. He is different behind his father mask and his husband mask. This she is not prepared for. She watches until the figures are swallowed by distance and the throng. She looks up into the buildings steepled around her and clutches her coat around herself. A chill begins to creep into her now. The fire of her fury is slowly ebbing away, leaving her drained and more confounded still. She does not know what to think. Has she satisfied her curiosity? Yes. But is she satisfied by what she has seen? Has it confirmed him as the villain in the way she thought she needed it to? Wanted it to? She fights the urge to cry. Bleary-eyed and disconsolate, she makes her way along the street to a telephone. She dials the number without hesitation. The pickup at the other end is almost instantaneous, reassuringly so. ‘Hai. I fell asleep on the train. Missed my stop.’ Her voice is wooden, her words stilted. Like a liar. But there are no questions. She turns from the phone box and numbly begins to make her way to the train station.

Mishima had written of seeing as a meeting between the eye and being, with the ability to transport a person to a realm visible to no one. And so it has. Seeing has left her stranded there, in the shadow realm, with no remedy but silence. For what is not spoken of cannot offend, cannot dishonour, cannot disappoint. She resolves then that she will make this disappointment hers alone in order to keep the harmony between them. For the sake of tatemae. In exchange for a time before, when she had been the one to disappoint.

In the muddy early hours of morning the television is still on. Home shopping. Again. Commotion’s all but robbed it of sound, making the movements of the images seem unreal and dreamlike. He roars, like some kind of animal, from the kitchen area behind. She strains, but she cannot hear Mama at all. Not even the sound of her crying. Just him. What the hell is he banging on? There is a thudding sound. Like a cupboard door opening and closing again and again. The crack of dishes on metal.

She has to be there. Fury’s no good without an audience, without a target. Fear pricks her spine. Her pulse throbs heavy and fast at her throat. Her footfall is quiet on the musty gold shag carpeting.

The inside of the trailer is small. Tonight, though, the distance from front room to kitchen seems a long way. Things are giving over to the fight; the crisp split of wood, the snap of hard plastic, the shatter of glass. And, getting closer, she hears water. Splashing. But there’s no reaction from her. No pleading, no begging, no preaching, no attempts to pacify him. Nothing. Gregory’s gut has opened into a pit. She picks her way swift and careful. As she makes for the noise, the Louisville Slugger beckons from its resting place beside the easy chair. His most prized possession. Something inside tells her to pick it up. There’s the shush-shushing of blood in her ears keeping time with her heart, and needles spiking at the back of her neck. Sparks of silver pop and bleed in front of her eyes. She doesn’t think what she might do with the bat, just has a sense that she ought to have it.

The wooden shaft is at her side, downward pointing in the grip of her right hand, as she steps forward. The scene is framed in the narrow opening between the rooms. A dirty trail of ketchup-stained dishes clutter the countertop, along with a fry pan and an array of cooking utensils. There’s remnants of what must have been dinner. The Heinz bottle stands at the end of the line. Cupboard doors are flung wide, contents litter the floor in jagged pieces.

They are together at the sink. Mama and he. His back is to Gregory where she is coming in on them. He doesn’t see her. He is pressed up against Mama. He has her bent back awkwardly against the sink. As if he were dipping her, like in a dance. He’s curved over her; together they make almost an arch. She can’t tell about his arms and hands, what he’s doing with them. Except that she can see them reaching. Straight out. Ridged cords of muscle. What Gregory can see of Mama is her legs. Straddled by his. Twitching. Pushing. Slip-sliding on linoleum. And her arms, Mama’s arms flail, in wild flapping motion up towards the top of him. His shoulders. They try to slap at him. Her hands are opened wide. There is a gurgling sound and the slosh of moving water coming from the sink. Making its way weakly to where she stands, at the back of the scene. The observer. The sound from Mama is dying down. Water noise comes in short fits. Shallow bursts of bubbles signal breath leaving, departing. Deserting. Her legs are slowing in their spasmodic strain. Her arms begin a defeated downward drift. A slow round of liquid runs in a puddle between Mama’s feet.

And then she hears a gentle humming in her head. The voice of a child. Singing. Like she used to do. Jesus loves me. How she used to protect herself. From the sounds. This I know. The sounds that have haunted her for so long. Little ones to him belong. She was afraid. So very afraid. They are weak, but he is strong. His sound is overpowering it now. Washing away the overlay of the simple melody. Darkness falls heavy on her. The dark of all the nights gone before. She doesn’t have much time if she’s going to save Mama. She’s not moving anymore. And there’s no sound from her. Gregory raises the wood high above her head.

Mama crumples into a lifeless heap to the floor. And Curtis wheels around. To find her. A flood rips through Gregory. The intensity of which she has never known. Like a dam burst, this molten heat burns in her veins, rushing, pushing and drowning out everything else. Everything. His face is mottled purple and red. He’s screaming, yelling, reaching for her, grabbing. She’s backing away. Backing up. He’s still coming. She feels herself raising her arms high, again and again, thrashing it down, his Slugger, wherever it happens to land. He is moving. Scrambling. Yes, Jesus loves me. She needs him to stop. Needs to make him stop. She needs to get to Mama. Needs to find out. If she’s still alive. Needs to know he won’t finish them both. His hairline is bloodied. By her, she knows. It is too late. She has to. Or he will. She is panting. Backed up into a corner. His hands, fists, are blindly swiping at her. There is the sound of the bat, hitting. Hitting not what is was made for. It is thick, the sound, a dull thudding. Wood meeting flesh. Over and over and over again. His movement toward her is slowing now. Blood covers his face. He drops to his knees. The sound of the melody is rising up. She can hear it again, the small voice in song. Yes, Jesus loves me. He falls forward onto the floor. Blood, like tomato ketchup, oozes from under him. Seeping along the speckled linoleum. Across one, two, three tiles it flows. Creeping toward where she is. Her face is hot, her heart thumping out of her chest. Finally, he is still. She is gasping for air, and the sound is mixed with whimpers. Yes, Jesus loves me. The words of the child begin to fade. She regards, in disbelief, the bat she still holds. Its surface stained and slick with the briny pulp of him. Spatters have been thrown all around the room. On the walls, the ceiling, the far reaches of the kitchen floor. The breath she draws is tangy with the scent of iron. She lets it drop, the shaft of wood. His beloved baseball bat. She remembers his words from so long ago. Means more to me than you’n your mama put together. Was the life I should’ve had. It falls across his legs.

Gregory tiptoes around his body and moves toward Mama. To see if she can find signs of life. It isn’t until she coaxes a sputtering breath from waxy blue lips that she reaches for the phone and with trembling fingers dials 9-1-1.

There is an energy about the man who will lead the class. Good energy. A warm positive flow. He spills into the room, like water into an open space, filling it with a presence that is genial. Pleasant. These are the words that come to her. He is handsome in a very American way; light eyes and hair, broad-shouldered and tall. There is a little whisper somewhere within. To remind her. That especially with men it is not a matter of how the outside may look. Wariness returns. She wonders what might hide beneath the visible. Instead of simply being afraid, she is mixed in her emotion. Curiosity piques as well, questions. She recognizes the little bird inside; a spirit long dormant. And feels a flutter of wings.

He is holding a sizable stack of papers and books. Corners at the base of the pile stick out in some disorder. Because his hands are full he gives the door a backward shove with his shoulder, letting momentum take it to a satisfying meeting of wood against wood. There is a rush of air through open windows when the door closes, blinds and flapping cord lengths tap against window frames as the exiting gust flows into the grassy tree-dotted expanse beyond the building.

He strides to the front of the room where he deposits his load of materials upon the tabletop. He shrugs out of his navy coloured blazer and drapes it across a chair back. His movements are relaxed and unhurried. He talks as he makes himself ready. ‘Good evening.’ He casts his smile to each and every being in the room, taking them in with his welcome. His voice is deep and rich, with an edge of a western nasality. ‘Welcome to English 50. I don’t like to refer to it as English 50, because to me it says nothing about the course. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds it just a bit strange that language can be objectified by some arbitrary number. However, I use it this once in an effort to make sure that you’ve found your way to the right class, like you weren’t expecting nuclear physics, or calculus or something.’

There is a ripple of laughter. He turns his back to them, facing the dusty expanse of chalkboard. ‘You can laugh, but it happens more than you might think.’ He is writing English 50, and then, underneath, in a larger line of squarish block capitals he writes: Introduction to Creative Writing. He says, as he begins a third line, ‘My name is Neil Turner.’ T-U-R-N-E-R he completes in a swift, practised spill. He turns to face the group; places the bone of chalk on the desk.

‘In this class we’ll play with the arrangement of words to give something meaning. We’re going to spend our time doing that in a variety of ways. To expose you to a breadth of style and form. We’re going to read and discuss some of the works of the more notable writers of our day, and we’re also going to share our own works, if you will, in order to gain insight and to, hopefully, foster creativity within the group. That, in a nutshell, is it. In this class we’ll talk, we’ll read, and we’ll write. Sound like what you expected?’ Several heads nod. With hands on hips at the front of the room, he is now more closely surveying the group assembled before him. ‘Good,’ he says to the spare response. He brings hands from hips into a sharp, quick clap to dispel the remaining chalk grime and signal his intention to move on.

‘I’ll get administrative housekeeping out of the way first of all, and then we can get on with things. The college likes me to take the roll at least on this first meeting in an effort to keep their records neat and tidy. Tell me if there’s something else you want to be called and I’ll make a note. I should also warn you that it takes a while for my mind to put faces and names together, so give me a couple of weeks. I don’t mean to be rude, but at the outset I may have to point and just say, You. Remember that matching game you used to play as kids? Where you turn the card over and then have to remember where you last saw its mate to make a pair? I never won that game. I got blasted every single time. It pleased my older sister to no end.’ Again, there is a light trill of laughter.

There is a certain appeal in his manner. In the way that he treats them almost as equals, includes them in his discourse. He seeks and seems to care for their opinions. He is not overtly stuffy, nor does he have the sense of stern condescension she is used to in a teacher. Not like the sisters at St. Mary’s. Maybe it is that he gives the impression he is one of them, like them, that he seems not to be held to the relationship of instructor to student, that his will be an interactive instruction where they are all intended to be linked in common pursuit, one to another. She decides she likes this idea, this unique approach to learning. She is suddenly glad she had seen the posting for the class on the library noticeboard. She is excited at the prospect of rediscovering the imagination in herself.

A quick scan, unless there are stragglers, has the count at 12 women, 9 men. Turner looks like an okay kind of guy. Not too uptight, and not too full of himself. She is feeling just the slightest bit surprised, pleasantly. Of the women, one or two look suburban housewife, carefully made-up, hair-did, manicured, a little bit too ready to giggle—on a get-out-of-suburbia pass. There’s a handful of younger ones, girls, collegiate-like, or what she expects of that type. A few of the guys are like that too. Then one sort of bohemian hippie chick, lost in the sixties kind of vibe. How she imagines a writer might actually look—peasant skirt to her ankles, strappy brown leather sandals and a tank top. Judging from the show of nipples through ribbed cotton, no bra. The guy front and center—greasy hair down the back side of his neck, ruddy complexion and lined face—seems, in looks, like the oldest of them, even more than the prof. How must that be for someone? And why would you put yourself here, in this kind of environment. Why now? What for? There’s a meathead looking guy to her right, close kind of crew-cut, long-ish tattoo of twisted flames stretching out of his t-shirt sleeve and down his arm. A real mix of people. So that she feels she doesn’t stand out as much as she worried she might. She is buried in the middle of the arrangement of desks, in a position that lets her blend into the group. More easily than if she were on the periphery.

She wonders what the good doctor has told this guy, Turner, about her. To get her in on a freebie run. What he’d said to him. ‘Got a patient who’s got a bit of a writing thing. Killed her dad, you see, with a baseball bat.’ Isn’t there some confidentiality thing that says Gedge couldn’t do that? But they’re friends, Gedge’d said, so who knows? Who knows how far the red tape and secrets-are-safe bullshit goes? Would he’ve kept it quiet? Or told him a little, without the gory details, sort of to ease her in without raising too many eyebrows? Hers is the kind of story she imagines a typical kind of man wouldn’t keep locked inside of himself. Once it’s put on him. Though shrinks are different. Not so easily offended by ugly shit. It’s their stock-in-trade. She’s going to have to ask him what he said, how much he told him, this Turner guy, though she should know from the way he handles her when she comes up in the roll call. When he calls her name, she ought to be able to read it, from the way he says it.

‘Abbott, Gregory.’

‘Yeah,’ she answers and slides down a little in her seat. His eyes meet hers and take her in swiftly, only his eyebrows register surprise, and it is fleeting. Better than she thought. Not such a big deal. He mustn’t know much. Either that or he’s pretty damn cool with things, things that most people aren’t.

Around her she hears other voices as he moves systematically down the list. ‘Bratten, Manfred.’ The red-faced older guy answers. ‘Elva, Madelena.’

‘Maddy,’ he notes aloud and marks on the sheet, holding it to his leg to make the correction.

‘Franklin, Randall.’

‘Make it Randy.’

‘Randy, okay. Randy.’ He adjusts again.

Names and names and names. She looks down at her notebook where it sits on her desk. What’s in a name? Shakespeare. From GED class. Inside. She contemplates the oddness of sitting here. That it strikes her almost as surreal.

‘Freeman, Mike.’

‘Yup.’ Tattoo guy. His answer is snappy. Almost a bark. Maybe ex-military.

‘Hillborn, Andrew.’

Head of crazy curly hair, sharp nose and heavy dark-framed glasses shoots a skinny white arm in the air to grab attention. ‘Andy, that’s me.’

‘Malik, Aneeta.’ He looks up. ‘Is it Ma-lick or Ma-leek?’

‘Ma-lick,’ she responds, running the sounds together. This girl is utterly beautiful. Long and willowy. Even her voice is low and melodic. Tinged with accent. Sounds foreign. Exotic. Like her looks. Waves of rich brown hair. Creamy mocha-coloured skin. Like an overshot of milk to coffee. In fact, more like milk with a shot of coffee, and not the other way. Her eyes make her look almost otherworldly. In the sense that they don’t match. With her skin. They aren’t brown, which, given her look, one would expect. Far from it. Instead they are this pale grey-green. And shaped almost like the eyes of a cat. Wide, with a fine lengthening pull at the ends. Must be relatively new here, otherwise would the accent still be so evident? The girl tucks her hair behind her ear on one side and looks shyly down at her desk.

‘Rathner, Ruben.’

‘Tanaka, is it Ka-mee-ko?’

The voice is soft. The girl, a doll-like Asian with ebony hair framing delicate features, looks like a frightened rabbit ready to dart down a hole. ‘Hai. Yes.’ Her head bobs a few times and then nods a small bow. She looks fragile, like porcelain, like one of those statuettes ladies collect. A china doll. The kind that shatter into a million tiny pieces if they’re let go of. That’s what this girl reminds her of. And looks so young, like a child almost. She sits very straight in her seat. Proper, and upright. With a rigid and seemingly unnatural posture. She just holds herself. Like an orphan waiting for someone to claim her.

The man heading the class is not what one would expect. Not what she would expect. He is more like a character from some engaging American novel. Her professors at Waseda had all been what she considered elderly. Elderly is a graceful and distinguished word. Old is perhaps truer. Though not as gentle. Grey-haired eggs, they were. With worn, sagging faces. Sprouting unruly hair from ears, eyebrows, noses, between knuckles. They were brittle in their tones, gruffly soldiering through their teaching deliveries. To know, to understand, must come from experience. So, of course, those who had lived most were given the task of instructing. There was a set form of thought, forum was not encouraged, questions were not typically welcomed. Like a mother bird to its fledglings, they spat up the same already digested food over and over, in the hope that one day the young before them would repeat the cycle. Everything the same. That is the flow of harmony. That concepts, ideas, be accepted as they were put forth.

With some, threads of senility were beginning to weave themselves through the one-sided lectures they delivered. One she remembered, Ogawa-san, used to routinely lose his train of thought in recitations. So that he would have to pause and ask the students to reiterate the idea of his last statements. At which point he would, stroking his chin, say more to himself than to those in the lecture hall, ‘Ah, yes.’ And, looking blankly on his audience, he would presently return to his dictation almost as if he had not missed even a moment, so much committed to memory was his discourse. Clouds of stifled giggles were disguised by shuffling papers, groaning seats, and a chorus of clearing throats.

She isn’t sure that this class is what Shiro would have had in mind when he told her she should get out more. It is recent, this leaning, to do things that might also appeal to her. Perhaps, if she is honest, it is a small act of defiance. Though it is also true that since coming to San Francisco they have become distanced from the hold of the stricter conventions, the traditional roles of husband and wife. He has allowed her to work, and has encouraged her, even pushed her, to forge new relationships. It justifies her presence here, in this class. If she chooses to believe that it satisfies his wishes. She is careful in this way, to think and consider things in the proper order, to think of her husband first. Even if she has intentionally neglected to seek his permission.

‘I write because I love it. But it doesn’t pay all the bills.’ There is some laughter from the other students. ‘I teach to pay the bills.’ This time his own laughter is layered among them. ‘That I teach writing helps me to like what I do. It’s a balance thing. Kind of like a marriage.’ A trill echoes around the room. Kameko expects it is from those married in the group, those who perhaps have attained the balance he speaks of. The same kind of equilibrium that for she and Shiro is proving elusive, hidden like some treasure in a children’s game.

He’s on the edge of the wooden table intended to function as a desk. Arms crossed over his chest, he’s got one foot planted on the floor while the other swings slightly in mid-air. ‘I’m not a fan of saying don’t in writing. As in life, I think rules are meant to be broken, conventions challenged. That’s what makes things creative, dynamic and vibrant. I would very much encourage you to experiment with words as a medium of expression. Let’s see where that takes us.’

The light in the sky has dimmed to dark. This is so unlike what she had pictured. She is surprised to find she’s actually looking forward to doing what he’s suggested. Except for the part about having to share and discuss what she puts on paper. Writing’s her therapy for a lot of shit that she doesn’t really want to offer up for public consumption. Hell, she has enough of a time dissecting it with the good doctor. Hey guys, here’s a little ditty I wrote about what I can do with a baseball bat. She can just about imagine suburban housewife reaction.

Turner is still talking, and from the looks and sound of things everyone is just sopping the whole spiel up. He has a kind of presence, a charisma, she’ll give him that. ‘I’m going to expect you to write in different forms and along different parallels, but those are basically the only parameters I’ll ascribe to what you’re doing. The most important thing I’m going to require of you weekly is to engage in an open discourse. I realize how intimidating that might seem to some—’ No shit, Sherlock, she thinks, wondering if the comment applies to her alone, ‘—but the hope is that we can learn from one another. Believe it or not, after 12 years of teaching I’m still learning from my students. And yeah, I started when I was fresh out of high school.’ Laughter. ‘Joking,’ he says mildly, putting up his hand. More laughter. He definitely knows how to work it.

‘Nothing is ever wrong, so don’t be afraid to push boundaries. Sometimes we’ll chat about writers who done good—bad English, I know—writers who got it right, whose work is admired and respected, and widely read: across genders, generations and cultures,’ she sees Beauty, the exotic with the grey eyes, nod just the slightest, ‘and we’ll talk about why you think that might be the case.’ He smiles expansively in Beauty’s direction. What hot-blooded hetero man alive wouldn’t?

‘Along with doing it regularly—’ he gets a laugh out of pretty much everybody that time, ‘yeah, ha-ha—the best thing you can do for your writing is to read; anything and everything. Read with a critical eye. I mean, really turn every single bit over in your mind. What’s good about it, what you like, or conversely, what’s maybe not so great. I don’t care what it is, just read! It could be city billboards, restaurant menus, letters, newspaper articles, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, I don’t care. It all adds to who you’ll become as a writer. The library or, depending on how deep your pockets happen to be, the bookstore ought to be your new favourite hangout.’ A few more titters, and just the smallest hint of a smile from China Doll.

‘Okay, for next week: I’d like each of you to bring a passage from a published work that you admire or might have particularly enjoyed—perhaps even that you feel describes you in some sense—to read and discuss. A gentle beginning that, I think, will give us all some insight into one another. As people first. And writers second. What do writers write most about? People. And in a broader context, the human condition. That’s what makes us relate to things we read, that’s also what motivates us to write what we write.’ There is some shuffling of belongings at his natural finish.

‘So, in closing the first of our sessions, I want to leave you with something as profound as it is banal. Something that bears keeping in mind when you put words together creatively. It’s exceedingly obvious, but crucial to every single written offering. It’s that every piece of writing, without exception, has three common elements—a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning, it’s got the hook that pulls us in, piques our human interest, our curiosity; the middle gives us something to sink our teeth into; the end is meant to give us the sense that we’ve made a journey, and that along our journey significant development has taken place. Sounds simple enough, right?’

He stands. ‘That’s it for our intellectual ground-base tonight. But before you go, I’m handing out a course outline,’ he removes a slim sheaf of paper from the pile on the table and takes it to Manfred, the red-faced guy, who happens to be the closest of the group to the front of the room, ‘with a formalized schedule and format for the course. In the upper right hand corner you’ll find a phone number: my office. And office hours. Once you’ve got yourself a sheet you’re free to flee.’

It’s still very warm in the city. The sky is that colour of unmarred true blue that comes with serious heat even though summer is almost gone. It’s hard to believe she’s been outside the brick and barbed wire more than three months. She sits in Gedge’s office, waiting on the doc. The windows with their glass-lights are opened to their fullest to try and capture whatever air might be moving. She likes looking at the pattern the colours throw on the walls. Every now and then there is a whisper of a breeze. Gregory can feel it, just barely, as it dances along the tops of the hairs that line her forearm. She gets up and walks to the water dispenser in the corner of the room. Pulls down on a cone-shaped cup. Chooses the darker blue handle. For the cold water. Crazy. Water dispenser with a temperature choice. So simple. This one or this one. What do you feel like? Cold or not so? How shrink-ish. A mind-fuck for the patients. Like lab rats. Which one to choose?

The door opens after a short tap of warning. ‘Gregory.’ She turns away from the blue tinted cylinder, holding the cone of water in her hand. A bit of pressure could send it up and over the rim. She watches it as she makes her way to the chair before his desk, the way it shivers with movement.

‘How’ve you been?’

‘Good. Pretty good.’

They sit, square to one another. Her on one side of the desk, he on the other. She drinks the cup. He reaches across for it. ‘Here, let me take that.’

‘Sure.’ She crumples it. Hands it over. He deposits it in a garbage underneath his desk. She wipes the back of her hand across her damp brow. She is sweaty from the bike ride over. Does not really relish the trip back. Up those hills. In the heat.

He regards her, like he is looking for some clue. Some indicator to start things off, to give their conversation a direction for the day. She is used to the way this works now. It irritated her at first. He calls it finding a starting point for things. In the absence of one being offered first by her. He used to always have to initiate. Lately not as much. But she lets him have his look, his wander over her features, the instinctive actions of her physical behaviour, see what there is to see, from the outside.