Chapter 29 Postcards That Traveled Down Fourteen Steps
Postcards That Traveled Down Fourteen Steps
The first thing I thought when I saw Okamura’s niece was that she was beauty incarnate. She must have been about thirty and was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and sneakers. Her black hair was simply pulled back in a ponytail—yet she radiated sensuality and elegance.
Mizuki was quite tall, and her face was slightly angular. I guessed she was the daughter of an American father and Japanese mother. Her features were East Asian, but the bold, unflinching gaze was pure West Coast—a girl who’d grown up never being told to lower her eyes.
I forgot about the postcard for a moment and bowed my head in the direction of the newcomer, who broke the local rules by holding out her hand for me to shake. It was somewhere between the traditional Japanese bowed greeting and the kiss on each cheek that we give in the south of Europe.
Once I’d recovered from her appearance, my eyes went back to the postcard. Now I understood everything and I wanted to throttle Titus.
I could imagine him printing the postcards and then using Photoshop to add the meaningless address. He’d even printed and cut out the two stamps with their postmarks.
Humiliated, I now understood why not even the taxi driver wanted to have anything to do with me once I’d shown him the back of the postcard.
Mizuki dragged me out of my peevish musings by asking for chilled sake for the three of us. While she filled my ceramic cup, I gave Okamura a short account of how I’d been the victim of a hoax that had dragged me more than six thousand miles from my home.
He was very interested to know more about this man called Titus who wrote books using pseudonyms like Francis Amalfi or Gottfried Kerstin.
Watched attentively by his niece, I told him about Titus’s work, how he’d started writing a book about wabi-sabi and how I was supposed to be helping him with it.
“It’s a very poetic way of getting you to make the journey,” Mizuki offered. “It must have meant a lot of work for him, printing those postcards so they looked as if they’d come from Japan.”
“He wants to write a commercial book about wabi-sabi, and that’s all there is to it. Since he’s old and frail and in no condition to travel, he fooled me into coming here instead.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I regretted them.
Titus had tried to help me when I most needed him.
Maybe, in the wake of my heartbreak, he’d sent me off on this journey to help me snap out of it.
Gabriela would almost certainly know about his plan.
Otherwise she wouldn’t have written “This person will find you if he wants to”—if her words meant what I thought they did.
Damn you, Titus, I’ve found you out. You’re going to pay dearly for this. The postcards which I’d believed were sent from the other side of the world had only needed to go down the fourteen steps between Titus’s apartment and my apartment to find me.
“I’m starving,” Mizuki said. “Shall we go and have a barbecue, Uncle?”
Her English was perfect, which reminded me that Okamura had told me that she gave him lessons. As if they were practicing conversation, he took care with his pronunciation when answering: “I am not of the mood, my dear. I want to go home now. But the gaijin will go with you. OK, Samuel?”
It was impossible to refuse without looking like a complete oaf and, to tell the truth, I wanted to go. Apart from Mizuki’s particular brand of hybrid beauty, I was keen to know more about this Japanese woman who moved between two worlds.
“I didn’t know you had barbecues in Japan,” was my idiotic response, “but I’d be delighted to come with you.”