It is well past one a.m. in D.C. where my cousin lives. If my neck weren’t on the chopping block, I might wait until a more civilized hour to call.
I try the number as Dita gave it to me with the extra digit and, not surprisingly, don’t get through. “One of the numbers has to go.” I drop the last digit, and, presto, the phone starts ringing.
“Hello?” It’s my aunt. She sounds wide-awake. Must be the jetlag.
“Hello. Ammteh Michelin, this is Rémy.”
“Rémy! It’s so good to hear your voice. What are you doing?”
“Ammteh, I haven’t got much time. Is Naila there?”
“Yes, but she’s sleeping.”
“Listen: I need to talk to her right now. It’s extremely important.”
“Shall I wake her?”
“Yes, yes! Yal’luh, wake her up!”
“Khalass, Rémy. I’ll get her.”
Naila is still half asleep when she comes to the phone. It always takes my cousin a good half an hour to sweep the cobwebs out of her head and start talking coherently, but I don’t have the time for pleasantries.
“Naila, you sent me a package a few weeks ago.”
There is a muffled grunt on the other side of the phone. Hardly the kind of unequivocal affirmation the situation demands.
“Naila, you’ve got to wake up and listen! You sent me a package, right?”
“Yeah,” she says, blowing her nose into the receiver.
“What did you send me?”
She mumbles something about dryer sheets, charcoal for my narghilè. These are the same things she mentioned in her mail.
“What else did you send?”
“Um, I don’t remember.”
“Naila, you’ve gotto remember! What was in the package?”
After a pause, she says, “Vitamins?”
“Vitamins? What the hell do you mean by vitamins?” My aunt must be eavesdropping. “Listen, Naila, my place was raided by the police this morning.”
“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry, Rémy!” Now my cousin is awake. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so . . .”
“Naila, what did you send?”
Adderall is the muted answer.
“Adderall . . .”
In a way, it is a relief to hear that a fairly common prescription drug might be what all the fuss is about. Things could be much, much worse and I admit so to my cousin.
“I want to say it’s all right, Naila, like, hey, no problem, but I can’t. I’m in a shitload of trouble . . . not nearly as much trouble as I could have been if the police had, say, raided my place last week . . . if you catch my drift.”
She does. After living with me for ten months last year, there isn’t much my cousin doesn’t know about me.
“The thing is, Naila,” I continue “and forgive my vulgarity, but I feel as if the cops are pointing their fingers at me and accusing me of farting when, in reality, I’ve shit my pants.”
Halfway around the world, my cousin laughs nervously.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Not a fucking clue. I don’t know what my options are, for one. I don’t even know if I’m legally obliged to talk to the cops. And, I don’t know how contained this is.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Party,” I answer.
“Oh, right.”
The Party is the nickname Naila and I gave my friend dé Dale, who has a habit of replying, “I am the party,” whenever someone asks him if there are any parties going on.
My cousin begs me to leave Japan. “You told me you were thinking of leaving,” she says. “Now’s your chance.”
“I can’t, Naila. Bastards took my passport away.”
“Oh, haraam, Rémy, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I haven’t got much time left on this phone card. Listen. I’m not angry with you, Naila. So, let’s save the apologies for later . . . I have to go in Sunday morning for questioning. I’ll try to call again before then, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Just in case, God forbid, I don’t get through to you again, if you are ever asked, tell them . . . well, tell them the truth: I did not ask for the Adderall to be sent. I did not want it. Did not need it. I did not even know it was coming. Okay? I didn’t ask, didn’t want, didn’t know. You got that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll call again. Bye.”
“Be careful, Rémy. I’m so sorry.”
“Remember: I didn’t ask, didn’t want, didn’t know . . . Didn’t ask, didn’t . . .”
And then the line goes dead.
The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.
Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.