"Not since this morning."

"Hey, let me get you something to eat. Anyway, we should get out of here."

"Why do you want to get me something to eat?"

"Who knows?" I don't know why, but I pulled her out of the ticket-taker and we walked the empty streets all the way to Mejiro.

That incredibly quiet girl's stay at my apartment lasted for all of one week. Every day, she'd wake up after noon, eat something, smoke, absent-mindedly read books, watch television, and occasionally have uninterested s.e.x with me. Her only possession was a white canvas bag which held inside it: a thin windbreaker, two T-shirts, one pair of blue jeans, three pairs of dirty underwear, and one box of tampons; that's all she had.

"Where're you from?"

Sometimes I asked her this.

"Someplace you don't know."

Saying that, the refused to elaborate. One day, when I came back from the supermarket clutching a grocery bag, she was gone. Her white bag was gone as well. A number of other things were gone as well. Some loose change I'd scattered atop the desk, a carton of cigarettes, and my carefully washed T-shirt. On the desk there was a torn piece of paper like a note, bearing the simple message: 'rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d'. It's quite possible that was a reference to me.

My third partner was a girl I'd met at our university's library, she was a French Lit major, but in the spring of the following year she was found in a small forest past the edge of the tennis courts, hanged. Her corpse hung there unnoticed until past the beginning of spring semester, for an entire two weeks it dangled there, blown around by the wind. Even now, n.o.body goes in those woods after the sun goes down.

20

She was sitting at the counter of J's Bar looking ill at ease, stirring around the almost-melted ice at the bottom of her ginger ale gla.s.s with a straw.

"I didn't think you'd show."

She said this as I sat next to her; she looked slightly relieved.

"I don't stand girls up. I had something to do, so I was a little late."

"What did you have to do?"

"Shoes. I had to polish shoes."

"Those sneakers you're wearing right now?"

She said this with deep suspicion while pointing at my shoes.

"No way! My dad's shoes. It's kind of a family tradition. The kids have to polish the father's shoes."

"Why?"

"Hmm...well, of course, the shoes are a symbol for something, I think. Anyway, my father gets home at 8pm every night, like clockwork. I polish his shoes, then I sprint out the door to go drink beer."

"That's a good tradition."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah. It's good to show your father some appreciation."

"My appreciation is for the fact that he only has two feet."

She giggled at that.

"Sounds like a great family."

"Yeah, not just great, but throw in the poverty and we're crying tears of joy."

She kept stirring her ginger ale with the end of her straw.

"Still, I think my family was much worse off."

"What makes you think so?"

"Your smell. The way rich people can sniff out other rich people, poor people can do the same."

I poured the beer J brought me into my gla.s.s.

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why not?"

"So-called 'great' people don't talk about their family troubles. Right?"

"You're a 'great' person?"

Fifteen seconds pa.s.sed as she considered this.

"I'd like to be one, someday. Honestly. Doesn't everyone?"

I decided not to answer that.

"But it might help to talk about it," I said.

"Why?"

"First off, sometimes you've gotta vent to people. Second, it's not like I'm going to run off and tell anybody."

She laughed and lit a cigarette, and she stared silently at the wood-paneled counter while she took three puffs of smoke.

"Five years ago, my father died from a brain tumor. It was terrible. Suffered for two whole years. We managed to pour all our money into that. We ended up with absolutely nothing left. Thanks to that, our family was completely exhausted. We disintegrated, like a plane breaking up mid-flight. The same story you've heard a thousand times, right?"

I nodded. "And your mother?"

"She's living somewhere. Sends me New Year's cards."

"Sounds like you're not too keen on her."

"Yes."

"You have any brothers or sisters?"

"I have a twin sister, that's it."

"Where is she?"

"About thirty thousand light-years away."

Saying this, she laughed neurotically, pushing her gla.s.s to the side.

"Talking bad about one's family is definitely no good. Makes me depressed."

"Don't worry too much about it. Everyone's got some burden to bear."

"Even you?"

"Sure. I'm always grasping cans of shaving cream and crying uncontrollably."

She laughed happily at this, looking as if she hadn't laughed that way in who knows how many years.

"Hey, why are you drinking ginger ale?" I asked, "Did you swear off drinking?"

"Yeah, well, that was the plan, but I think it's okay now."

"What'll you have?"

"Chilled white wine."

I called J over and ordered another beer and a gla.s.s of white wine.

"Hey, what's it like to have an identical twin?"

"Well, it's kinda strange. Same face, same IQ, same size bra, you're aggravated all the time."

"People mix you up a lot?"

"Yeah, 'til the time we were eight. That was the year I lost a finger; after that, n.o.body mixed us up again."

Saying that, like a concert pianist concentrating, she set her hands down on the counter, her fingers lined up neatly. I took her left hand, and gazed at it carefully in the light from the recessed lighting. It was a small hand, cool as a c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s, looking completely natural, as if it'd been that way since birth, four fingers lined up happily. That naturalness was almost a miracle, at least it was more charming than if she'd had six fingers.

"My pinky was cut off by a vacuum cleaner's motor when I was eight years old. Popped right off."

"Where is it now?"

"Where's what?"

"Your pinky."

"I forget," she said, laughing, "you're the first one to ever ask me that."

"Doesn't it bug you, not having a pinky?"

"Yeah, when I put on gloves."

"Other than that?"

She shook her head.

"I'd be lying if I said I never worried about it. Still, I'm only as worried about it as other girls are about the thick hairs growing on their necks."

I nodded.

"What do you do?"

"I'm in college. In Tokyo."

"You're visiting home."

"Yeah."

"What're you studying?"

"Biology. I like animals."

"Me too."

I drank the rest of the beer in my gla.s.s and nibbled on a few French fries.

"Hey...there was this famous panther in Bhagalpur, India who, over three years, managed to kill 350 people."

"And?"

"So they called this panther hunter, an Englishman, Colonel Jim Corvette, and he shot that panther and one hundred twenty-five panthers and tigers. Knowing that, you still like animals?"

She snuffed out her cigarette, then took a sip of her wine and gazed at my face as if admiring it.

"You're definitely a little strange, you know?"

21