49. Calling Beirut

As soon as the lesson is over, I run downstairs to Family Mart, the convenience store on the first floor of my building, and buy a KDDI international calling card. I then hop on Azami’s old bicycle, and pedal as fast as I can towards Ōhori Park. The park is one of the few remaining places in town that I can think of, which has public phones set up for international calls. With everyone owning cell phones nowadays, public phones, and the international variety in particular, have fast become obsolete. The last time I personally had any use for one was just after our big earthquake in 2005 when public phones were the only ones you could get through on.

Near the entrance of the park, I find a phone booth. I call up KDDI, tap in the number on my prepaid card, and wait for the dial tone.

As I’m waiting, I look outside the phone booth. Just a stone’s throw away is a playground where young mothers chat with each other as their children climb monkey bars, chase dragonflies, or nibble on the goodies in their bentō boxes. It’s hard not to envy those kids, snotty noses and all. Not a care in the world, they spend their afternoons running around, falling down, getting back up, and running some more. At my age, with the consequences as distressing as they are, I no longer have the confidence that I can stand up, dust my knees off, and keep on going like those kids can. If I fall, it’s really going to hurt.

Sighing heavily, I dial the number of my aunt’s home in Beirut. After several rings, Dita, her Sri Lankan maid, answers.

“Dita?”

“Yes?”

“Dita, this is Rémy. Is . . .”

“Oh, Rémy! How are you?” she says cheerfully.

“I-I’m fine, Dita.”

“It’s so good to hear you,” she says. “Are you coming . . .”

I am hardly in the mood for chitchat. “Um, Dita, is Ammteh Michelin home?”

“Madam?”

“Yes. Is she home? I need to talk to her.”

“No, Rémy. No. Madam is not here.”

Dita, despite having lived for decades in countries where English is the second most commonly spoken language, still speaks with a heavily curried accent. Her Arabic is even worse, far worse than my own, which is saying a lot. Have I not been living in Japan, where the average Western expat even after a decade-long residence still can’t string a proper sentence together in the local tongue, I might dismiss the maid as stupid. Dita isn’t stupid; just dismally average. Polyglots like my Lebanese relatives, I’ve come to realize, are the exception.

That said, at a time like this, I wish my aunt’s maid spoke better English. When a tornado is churning destructively towards you, you don’t want your message to get lost in the wind.

“She’s not there?” It has to be eight, maybe nine in the morning in Beirut. Perhaps she is out picking up man’ousheh for breakfast.[1] “When will she return?”

“Sorry?”

“What time will she come back?”

“Come back?”

“Yes, come back. What time will she come back?”

“No, Rémy. She don’ come back.”

“What?”

“Madam is in America now.”

“America? What’s she doing there?”

“She’s visiting Naila.”

“Perfect! That’s really who I need to get in touch with. Have you got Naila’s phone number?”

Dita gives me the number, but her accent is so thick, I can’t tell if she is saying “two” or “three”. I have her repeat the number to me again before I read it back to her. I double and treble check, but just as I am about to hang up I notice the number has one too many digits.

“Dita, the number’s too long.”

“Too long?”

“It has too many digits.”

Digi?”

“Yes, it . . .” Ah, fuck it. “Never mind, Dita. Thanks. Bye.”


 

 

[1]Man’ousheh is a popular Levantine dish similar to a pizza, consisting of dough topped with thyme (za’atar), cheese (jubna), or minced lamb meat (sfiha). It is often served for breakfast.

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.

30. Wedding Bells and Death Knells

Only last night, I phoned my girlfriend with the good news: “Azami, things are looking up!”

And they were. Cash was flowing in steadily and I calculated that I would be able to clear 700,000 yen before the end of the month.[1] Not a fortune, I admit, but more money than I managed to earn in one hell of a long time.

And, the best part about it? Now that Yūko, my ex-wife, was another man’s headache and living in Tōkyō with the chump—er, pardon me—her new husband, she no longer needed my support. With her gone, I have been able to whittle down my monthly bills to about a third of my income.

“Meaning,” I said to myself as I did the books last night, “I should be able to plunk a good three-hundred—no, make that three-hundred and fifty thousand yen ($3,500)—into savings this month and still have more than enough to play with.”

I knew my girlfriend would be relieved to hear it. After dating me on and off for over four years—enduring the sickest, the thinnest, the very, very worst of times—Azami was finally able to hear the not so distant peal of wedding bells.

Go ahead, call me an arse, but however much I loved Azami—and I did, I do, I do, I do, I doto me those bells still sound like a death knell.

Marriage, though, is a foregone conclusion. I know Azami and I will tie the knot sooner or later—preferably later, though, much, much later. No, all I want now is a bit of self-indulgent lotus-eating, some quality Me-time to heal the burns I got in that frying pan of a first marriage to Yūko before I jump into the fire with Azami.

“Things are going so well,” I told my girlfriend over the phone, “I’ll proabably have enough saved up by the end of the year to take you to see my family in Beirut for Christmas. Knock on woo . . .”


[1] Dollar amounts throughout this novel have been calculated according the actual exchange rate at the time an event in the story is taking place. The rate in the year 2000, for example, was about 105 yen to the dollar. In 2006, however, one dollar was worth around 115 yen. 700,000 yen was worth about $6,100.

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.