Water Lily (10 page)

Mr. K.’s son took a step forward, forcing Ralph to move closer toward the door. Ralph realized that he was being edged out
of the office. He squared his shoulders and stood firm.

“That shouldn’t be an issue. These women—they don’t show respect. Your advertisement is lying. I’ve come all the way from
England. I should have been told before I left that they were going to be opinionated and rude. You should put that in your
brochure. ‘Opinionated and Rude Ladies Who Aren’t Interested in Marrying You.’ How else can I know, if you don’t tell me?
I’ve spent a lot of money. I’m not a rich man, you know. I’m not made of money. I don’t think much of this set up at all.
That woman smoked without even asking me first. Do you call that manners?”

The man cocked his head to one side as if considering. He smiled broadly.

“She’s cute though, ha? Face isn’t perfect, but nice ass. Wonder why she’s on the C list. I could see her as a kind of Japanese
Meg Ryan. Sorry. What did you say? She smoked? I do apologize. She shouldn’t have done that. This whole office is supposed
to be no-smoking but it’s hard to stop people when they’re nervous. It’s give and take with our clients, you know. Like marriage.
Ha ha.”

Ralph wanted to go home, wanted to be in his shed away from people, wanted a cup of tea, or a pint with Barry. He was making
a spectacular fool of himself, but he would never be here again. He would say his piece and not hate himself later for being
scared.

“That’s of no interest to me. Being as nice about her as I can, I’d say she was too Westernized.”

“You call it Westernization, Mr. Turnpike,” the young man said with his charming smile and a swish of long eyelashes, “I call
it progress. Goodbye. Have a safe journey home. Hope you meet the woman of your dreams.”

He opened the door wide to show Ralph out.

“Oh, I will. The problem here isn’t me. No. Because I’m looking for love. True love. And I’ll find it.”

“I do hope so. I’ll ask my dad about getting you a refund but I’ve a feeling he’ll say no.”

And he closed the door, leaving Ralph in the thick heat.

Ralph blinked furiously as he looked along the street for a taxi. This was not his fault. It was not possible that he could
be wrong. No, he was not wrong and he would not lose hope.

N
ot feeling that she had been either awake or asleep, Runa lay still, thinking about where she was, the place she had landed.
It was too much trouble to open her eyes but she thought she was awake. And she didn’t know where she was. Not the school—she
remembered leaving. And she wasn’t in China yet. She thought she could recall the shape of the room, and with her eyes closed
could map the space. There was a wall immediately to her left that had a window. Or a wardrobe. Yes, perhaps it was a wardrobe
and not a window. There was certainly something halfway along that wall. And, opposite, a door. She was in a hotel room. In
Kobe. She’d needed a hotel for the night. It was coming back.

She had arrived in the city (on a bicycle? Could that be right?) and looked around to find a place to sleep. Then she was
walking. Business hotels, capsule hotels, a towering glass-and-brick hotel with fountains and shiny bellboys swinging in and
out. She liked the bellboys—so sweet, they caught her eye—but she needed a hotel without staff to recognize her. Where would
no one think to look for her, if they were looking? Where would there be no record or memory of her stay? She wandered through
Chinatown, followed the breeze toward the port, found what she was looking for. A love hotel. She checked in, spoke to no
one.

The room was all purple. The carpet was soft, the curtains velvety. There was a large heart-shaped bath at the other end of
the room, purple and pink stripes. The television looked new and expensive. Beside it was a list of films. From her position
on the bed Runa couldn’t read the words but saw little pictures of women in black underwear, in school uniforms, in nurse’s
outfits. They were all smiling at Runa, which seemed odd. And what about after sex? Didn’t people ever just want to watch
cartoons afterward? At the other love hotels, the ones she had been to with Jun Ikeda, she ignored the pornography. She didn’t
care about the shape of the baths. The hotels were just places where they could be alone, that guaranteed secrecy, at least
for an hour or two. They were never luxurious. This one was better equipped and cleaner. The carpet didn’t smell of cigarette
smoke. It was altogether a better class of love hotel. Yet she was alone, and for a whole night.

She wondered if Nanao had ever stayed in a love hotel. Her first thought was that she hadn’t but now that she gave it some
consideration, she imagined that Nanao might have. One of those boyfriends Nanao used to meet in the afternoons after lectures.
Always kind and gentle men, all of them shy, none of them quite good-looking, always completely besotted with Nanao. Ken-something,
Masa-something, Taka-something. Runa recalled that they all wore glasses. She had liked each one of them but she couldn’t
remember now which was which. When Nanao was a student she had shared a room with an-other girl so a love hotel would have
been useful. It showed that Runa didn’t know her sister as well as she should. She said aloud,
What about me Nanao? Do you think that Jun Ikeda was the only one? Do you think that was just a terrible mistake, or do you
know me better?

Now that she was in a safe place, she must prepare her journey. She reached into her bag for her address book and found her
friend’s phone number on a piece of paper tucked inside. It was written in Ping’s handwriting and Runa smiled at the memory
of their last meeting. It would be so good to see her again, let Ping sort out the next stage of her life. Maybe Ping would
be ready for adventure too and they could set off together. Ping was an expert at forged passports, new jobs. And if she was
not at home, her family would be there. She had a large family, lots of aunts and uncles, cousins.

Runa dialed the number. It rang a couple of times and a man answered. She spoke in Japanese.

“Is Ping there?”

He was silent, then said something in Chinese. Runa tried English.

“May I speak to Ping please?”

“Ping?”

“My friend. Is she at home?”

There was a pause. “No. I don’t know Ping. Not this number.” He hung up.

Tears welled. Ping might be out, of course, but to Runa it sounded as if the man had never heard of her. For the first time,
she began to doubt her plan. If Ping wasn’t there, if Runa couldn’t find her, then there was nowhere to go. She didn’t have
another plan. She would have to go to China and look for her friend. Ping would have to be there.

Runa lay back on the love hotel bed, worn out again by the exertion of the telephone call. She reached for a light switch,
pressed something beside the bed. The lighting didn’t alter but she discovered that she was moving. The bed was revolving
slowly. She didn’t like it—it was so unnecessary and also made an annoying buzzing sound—but didn’t try to stop it. Instead
she shut her eyes and let herself go round and round.

Soon she was half dreaming, worrying about where she was going to finish up, and about invisible lovers in her room, warm
in couples, all around her and above her bed. They woke her each time she felt herself slipping into sleep. They made her
nervous, exposed. She wanted Jun Ikeda. She wanted someone, anyone, to soak up the space in the sheets.

And a little later her feet sank into the warm furry carpet. She walked toward the bath and wondered how she would sit in
such an odd shape. She turned on the taps, then glanced at the video menu, because it was there. The programs did not look
nice, were not to her taste, too many pictures of young girls, where were the men? She ran a bath and added a sachet of pink
powder from a fur-covered basket. The room was having sex all around her, in the shadows of all the furtive people who had
been there before. It was impossible not to think of them—the businessman and the schoolgirl, the married couple who lived
in one room with their children, the two corporate colleagues who couldn’t get privacy in the company housing—they were all
here. She could almost smell them. The feeling they created together was not loving but cold and somehow brutal. When Runa
went to a love hotel with Jun she forgot that anyone else ever used them. And now she saw the image of Jun Ikeda everywhere
she looked, everywhere he should be—soaking in the bath, lying on the bed resting his head on one hand, in the doorway with
his arms folded. She felt left out and left behind. Lonely.

When the bath was full, she sank down in the pink fizzing water, leaned back into the point of the heart, drew her knees to
her chest, closed her eyes. She moved her hand up and down her legs and let them rest on her thighs. Then she slipped her
fingers between her legs, inside herself, and lay in that position, breathing slowly. She could hear the people who had been
in this room. Echoing swimming-pool voices around the bath that gasped, whispered, giggled, coughed, and cried. If you liked
it, it could be a whole evening’s entertainment. The bath water turned cold. She stood, and dripped a little blood. So she
was not pregnant after all. Still, she wouldn’t ever go back to Jun. It was enough to know that she could have been.

Wet and shivering, she returned to the purple bed, too stiff to dress. She must use the telephone, must speak to someone.
She checked through all the information, wondering if there was a number she could use to call a man. Any man that she could
borrow, to help her stop thinking of Jun. Or hire—Runa would pay. Just to keep her company for the night. She wouldn’t ask
for more. But there wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t. Where could she find one? Someone to sleep beside, just someone there
to be warm against her skin. There were the bellboys she had seen, so polished up, on display and ready to be used. She could
go and find them, find one. See if he wanted to earn some extra money. But even as she thought it, she knew she couldn’t leave
the bed. It was a thought that just went through her mind, but she wouldn’t do it.
Well
, she thought,
perhaps I will find love in China. But first, I will need some new documents. I must find Ping.

R
alph logged onto the hotel computer. There was a message from his half-brother about the weather. Storms in En-gland. Ralph’s
garage door had come off and Barry was worried about the house, especially the roof. Should he get builders round to look
at the roof just in case? Did Ralph know when he would be back?

When I’m ready, Barry, and not before. When I have found her.

If he couldn’t have a Japanese one, he’d simply have to try another country. He couldn’t go home unmarried or without, at
the very least, a fiancee.

He scrolled through his inbox to find the message sent a couple of weeks before by a Chinese woman named Li Hua. He’d spotted
her on the Internet and they wrote to each other a few times before Ralph thought of coming to Japan. She seemed friendly
and pleasant so he had asked her for a photograph. It arrived about three weeks later and Ralph was afraid to open it. He
did, after a couple of cans of beer, and his fears were confirmed. She had said she was thirty-two (which was already older
than he wanted) but she looked about forty-five. Her face was round and ordinary, slightly mannish. He put the photo back
into the envelope and didn’t look at it again. He tried to imagine her into something better, something prettier. Some-thing,
he saw with hindsight, a bit like the elevator girl. And then he almost convinced himself that she would do.

But a week or so later he saw a man in the pub with a beautiful Asian woman at his side. The man introduced her to his friends
as Yoko. Ralph, listening in from his stool at the bar, realized he hadn’t once thought of Japan. He found the agency in Tokyo
and forgot about Li Hua. Now he needed her. He couldn’t afford to be away from home much longer and he didn’t have time to
start again from scratch. With Li Hua, half the work was already done.

In his room he read again a bit of the Chinese section of
Eastern Blossoms.

She sounded lovely, whoever she was. Ralph took his pills, washing them down with beer from the minibar. He shouldn’t, but
once in a while it was good. It helped him imagine things, helped him relax so he could pretend things about his life. He
shut his eyes and remembered the most beautiful and most destructive woman in his life.

Apple. Sitting in the bath, shiny white foam up to her neck and in meringue blobs on her sticking-out legs. He watches from
the door-way. He has come in from the shop so his clothes smell of cardboard and money. He goes to the bedroom, changes into
lighter, looser clothes. Then she is beside him on the silky carpet, slipping a blue dress over her head, brushing her hair.
It rises with static then falls, spreading over her shoulders like black oil. By the front door she pulls on sandals, with
the buckles already fastened. Her ankles wobble as she balances to pull the straps over her heels. He asks where she is going.
She doesn’t answer, closes the door softly as she leaves. He doesn’t know how to stop her, what he will do next. He is shaking
and his legs fill with a strange warmth, as if he is wetting himself. In the bathroom again, he is watching her in the bubbles.