But Ayami probably wouldn’t be able to visit the tropics this year, because the theatre would be closing down before the usual holiday period, and the possibility of her finding another job before then looked slim.
‘A while ago an unidentified node – that was the doctor’s term – developed in my left breast,’ the German-language teacher whispered, her voice seeming to come from within a semi-concealed black mirror. There was a moment’s silence. ‘It’s actually quite common for people my age,’ she added. Ayami asked if this was true. If, that is, it was really just a node, something trivial, nothing to worry about.
‘That’s right,’ the German-language teacher said, nodding. ‘It’s a common thing. But it wouldn’t feel real to a young person like you.’
Ayami had never once thought of herself as particularly young; now, with unemployment staring her in the face and not much time left before her twenty-eighth birthday, the description seemed especially false.
‘In life – there are – wounds that – like leprosy – slowly – eat away – at the soul – in solitude.’
The German-language teacher read from the book, her voice toneless and devoid of all emotion. The lessons progressed with them each reading a page per lesson from a novel in German. Their current text was The Blind Owl.
Lost in thought, and with her finger resting on the cover of the guestbook, Ayami suddenly turned her head. A silhouette was visible on the far side of the door; a man, standing with both hands pressed against the glass. Having decided to stay behind for a while at the end of her working day, Ayami had locked the main door after the last of the audience members – the visually impaired girl – had left. If the man had tried to get inside, he would have found himself thwarted. How long had he been there like that, hands on the glass, peering inside? Ayami went over to the door, the look in her eyes asking what was the matter. But the man remained silent, seemingly unable to understand her.
The man’s pose – legs slightly parted, head lowered, both hands resting on the glass – recalled that of someone praying with their whole body, or whose strength had been utterly exhausted. His gaze was directed towards the floor, so it was difficult for Ayami to get a look at his face. She could see his bushy eyebrows though, thick and black like two furry spiders. Then, having noticed Ayami, the man raised his head a little. The two of them gave a start of surprise as they realised how close they were, then stood motionless, gazes locked.
The man’s eye sockets were like sunken caves in his gaunt face, and his lips were dry. The capillaries webbing the whites of his eyes were alarmingly distinct, and now that it was late afternoon the shadow of a beard darkened his jaw. All in all, though, his face was perfectly ordinary, the kind of face commonly encountered on the bus or subway, the kind of face Ayami had come across plenty of times. The man stood as still as a bronze statue. Even his eyebrows were rigid. He just bored into Ayami with his gaze.
Ayami froze. Unconsciously, she inched her hands up to the point where her outstretched palms mirrored those on the other side of the glass. A tremor shuddered through Ayami’s heart. She felt her body being seized by a shockingly intense emotion, one she couldn’t identify. An emotion surpassing will and consciousness.
I am emotion, she heard something inside her whisper, speaking in her stead. I am nothing but emotion.
What’s the matter? Ayami’s lips moved to form the words, but no sound came from her mouth.
Then the man spoke, his voice low but strong.
‘I have to come in! Why have I been driven out?’ He didn’t appear drunk, but Ayami saw a strange madness in his eyes. Startled, she took an involuntary step backwards, all the while wondering how she was able to make out the man’s low voice so well, given the thick glass door that separated them. In a voice that she didn’t know was trembling, she explained the theatre had closed for the day. Perhaps, she thought, the man was able to lip-read, though of course there was no way of knowing. Just in case, she enunciated the words as clearly as possible, saying, ‘We’re closed now, I’m telling you we’re closed.’
The man clenched his fists and waved them about as though he was going to batter down the glass door.
‘I won’t go quietly,’ he whispered, his voice almost inaudible. ‘I’ll kill you all!’
The strange man had Ayami confused with someone else, or else it was the audio theatre itself that he’d come to by mistake. He clearly had absolutely no intention of leaving, glaring at Ayami as he heaped abuse on her, until two security guards eventually appeared, ready to drag him away. By this time he’d worked himself up into a real passion, the whites of his eyes now more crimson than white, threatening to explode at any moment. Unable to meet that crazed stare any longer, Ayami looked away. How old is this guy? she wondered. Thirty-two? Fifty-six? Was this a temporary bout of insanity, had some recent occurrence sent him mad, or had he always been this way? His light brown jacket and trousers hanging loosely on his gaunt frame; his checked shirt with the top buttons undone; his staggering steps and furrowed brow; the wordless signs of misfortune imprinted all over his body; all the markings of a failure; his heavy Adam’s apple bobbing perilously up and down; his desert-dry gunmetal skin; his shining eyes, dangerous and venomous. Might I know him after all? Ayami no longer trusted her own memory.
And the man’s blue trainers. His whispering, clearly discernible despite the intervening glass. The blood filigree lacing his eyes, his sandpaper lips, that intense yet inscrutable emotion. An emotion shredding the fibres from her heart, pulverising it, yet strangely enough with a calming effect, conscious thought sifting slowly down into a bottomless abyss.
I am emotion.
If either of them had been paying attention to their surroundings, they might have noticed a green car go by. The driver was a middle-aged woman wearing a colourful summer dress and with what looked like a towel around her neck. She’d had one hand on the wheel, the other held a phone to her ear. Out of the corner of her eye she’d caught a glimpse of the theatre’s glass door, the man outside kicking up a fuss, but that had nothing to do with her. A man carrying a kitten in a birdcage pressed himself against the opposite wall of the alley to avoid her car. He was a preacher, a well-known figure in this alley; he went around surreptitiously stuffing pieces of paper bearing Bible verses into people’s pockets, so he’d been mistaken for a pickpocket and arrested more than once. While she waited for the lights to change at the end of the alley, the woman driving the green car took her hand off the wheel and raised a bottle of water to her lips. Still with the phone to her ear. Against the regular growl of the engine, the hum of the air conditioning.
‘Slowly, my fingers slip inside your trousers. They’re still warm. I’ve had them stuck between my wet swollen lips, you see. Down there between my legs, a warm peach drenched in syrup. Take off your belt. Hold on, not your trousers. I’m still just caressing your dick, getting the feel of it, picturing it. It’s nice that way … we can take it slowly … now close your eyes and imagine me, your dirty whore, down on her knees in front of you.’ And a light groan.
Ayami gazed in wonder at this woman’s multitasking – driving and phone sex both required a great deal of concentration. She quickly turned away though, alarmed by the prospect of further obscenities from the woman, who seemed to have genuinely aroused herself. The two security guards grasped the man by the arms and succeeded in hauling him out to the car park.