A Parting

 

The three of us met in an izakaya close to the library. Outside it was sultry, a typical June evening in Fuji. We didn’t eat much, just a few sticks of yakitori, and we drank three or four glasses of beer each. The Australian was in good spirits. He was eager to leave Japan and the city that had served as his home for three months. He had come for the wrong reasons, he told us, although we never found out what those reasons were. He was tired of being broke. Maybe he would have lasted longer if he hadn’t been sent to the back of beyond, but there it was.

Yoshiwara Honcho Station

After dinner we crossed the huge vacant lot opposite Mos Burger in virtual pitch darkness and walked in the direction of Yoshiwara Honcho Station, where cockroaches scurried along the single platform in the heat of summer. The arcaded street was as usual deserted, and we went up some stairs to an empty bar which had been the scene of a few amusing drunken incidents.

In fact, a lot of very funny things had happened in those three months. There was the can of chu-hi he had shotgunned in Mini Stop, the wrestling match with the Japanese guy with bad breath, the eye infection, the dance in the Peruvian restaurant, the short-lived friendship with Three Tooth, the cardboard box which had come to serve as furniture, the empty jar of pasta sauce used for cheap red wine. Now it was over.

After a couple more beers the American and I got up to leave. We said our farewells and I for one felt quite moved. I would miss this Australian. Before we parted he had one final, inevitable, request to make of us.

“Have you got any money? I’m gonna stay for a bit and I haven’t got any cash.”

We both handed over a few thousand yen, and I never saw him again.