Chris Knopf [Arthur Cathcart A Billion Ways to Die (retail)

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.I was reminded of Ken Kesey by way of Vincent van Gogh.Foot traffic was denser still, though it lessened as we rose and fell over the hills and through narrow streets lined with high concrete walls, many of which bore commentary in a French that resisted translation.“Not all French,” said François-Marie, when I asked him what the writing meant.“Creole and warnings by NGOs after the earthquake of dangerous buildings.Not that anyone pays any attention.”The Caribbean penchant for brilliant color was also on display at a market we passed, where the blast of the sun was blocked by umbrellas in every vivid hue.The fruits and vegetables in overflowing bins did their part as well, as did the shoppers and vendors’ T-shirts and occasional poster ad or giant billboard looming over the scene.The color dimmed as we moved into the outer parts of the city, and the walls of laid-up cement block were less artistically festooned.The sidewalks, alleys and curbsides were still amply filled with people on their daily missions of survival.Behind the walls I began to see an occasional cluster of private villas, or a hillside covered in crisp-looking homes of identical composition, painted into a sun-bleached rainbow.Though not long after, we’d passed a residential warren formed from scavenged debris, corrugated metal and blue tarps.Everywhere the rubble of the big earthquake lay strewn across open areas and in piles of masonry and twisted rebar.François-Marie, assuming I was too diplomatic to note it myself, said, “You don’t want to think what’s under there.”We followed a pickup carrying several men in the bed and clinging to the tailgate through the last of the urban jumble and into the countryside.The land rolled to either side, covered in grey-green Caribbean scrub interrupted occasionally by a clump of masonry buildings fully intact, or in various stages of collapse, giving witness to the capricious nature of earthquake destruction.François-Marie reached back for my smartphone GPS, as he had several times during the trip.“Tell me again where you going?” he said.“Don’t know how to pronounce it.I just have the latitude and longitude.”THESE WERE written on a tattered piece of paper handed to me by an elderly Japanese woman who forked it over after I answered a series of questions that only a person deeply intimate with her daughter, Natsumi, could answer.We were in a small garden temple down a narrow alley off a major thoroughfare in Kyoto, shielded by the koi pool and miniature foliage from the off-world neon lunacy just a half block away.“Glad you know what it means,” the old woman told me.“Just a bunch of gibberish to me.”“It’s a waypoint,” I said.“A dot on the globe.”“Don’t lose it,” she said.“It’s the only copy I have.She sent it to me inside a Chinese puzzle box.She loved those things.When I got it in the mail, I figured it was some weird thing from her.Took a hell of a long time to get it open.”I thanked her and tried to make polite small talk, but she waved me off.“Look, when you see her, tell her to give me a call.We do have phones over here in Japan.I take it she’s been keeping busy,” she added.I said she’d been thoroughly occupied, though I wasn’t up to date.“We have some catching up to do,” I said.“Well, me too.The last I heard she’d met some geek with a limp and a bald head.That must be you.Try to look after her, will you? I love her, but she’s a pig-headed one.”“I’ll do my best.”FRANÇOIS-MARIE handed back the GPS, which I’d set on a chartplotter program that placed the position of our vehicle and the waypoint on the same map.According to the red and blue dots, we were closing in fast.It was at the end of a long unpaved drive.The dust kicked up by the cab followed us to where we stopped at a sign that read in French, English and Japanese: “Free Health and Well-Being Center.Japanese-Haitian Earthquake Relief and Goodwill Foundation.All Welcome.”Farther on, we came to a plain, white-washed building with the same words in larger, friendlier type painted above the big double front doors.Several cars and small panel trucks were parked to either side and people in various states of health and well-being sat at park benches and under the building’s wide eaves.I asked François-Marie to wait and I went inside.There was a wide hallway lined with benches and blocked off by a table covered with white cotton at which sat two bright-eyed young men, one Japanese and one Haitian.I said hello in their respective languages, and held up a photo of Natsumi on my smartphone.“She’s with her afternoon group,” said the Japanese guy, calling her by an unfamiliar name in barely inflected English.“You can wait here.Will only be about ten minutes.”I waited and watched them field a steady stream of other inquiries, performing the waiting room triage with calm and dignity.Eventually, the Japanese guy checked the time on his own phone, and left.He came back a few minutes later with Natsumi, wearing her Caribbean tan and native floral garb.Her face sparkled and she skipped up to me and jumped into my arms.“What did you think of my mother?” she asked.“Nonstandard.”“She’s a nut.”“Interesting place,” I said, looking around the foyer.“It’s full of French-speaking Japanese mental health professionals.Feels good to finally blend in.Those conversations at the gym with Okayo actually got to me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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