Coming down to him§
The next evening Akima finishes her shift at five, walks back along Marginal with the ruled plan folded in her jacket, and turns in at the new block, past her own stair. The courtyard behind it is the small one, gravel and bicycle racks and the footings where the multi-capsules stood, and the light is already going off the wall. She sits on the low wall by the racks and sends him one line saying she is downstairs.
Akima
when he comes out I came to you. Sitting in my kitchen waiting for seven felt stupid when I had nothing else to do with the hour. shifting along the wall to make room Did you read it?
Vlad
Of course. We switch planes at Haneda, we do not stay in Tokyo.
Akima
Your international flight comes into Terminal 3 and the domestic terminals are 1 and 2, with none of them joined inside security, so you clear immigration, collect your bag, go through customs, and only then ride the shuttle across with everybody else. Ninety minutes to two hours is what it takes. Nozaki will be waiting past customs where the arrivals hall opens out, and from that point you do nothing but follow her.
Vlad
I will follow her.
Akima
taking the phone out and putting on the wall between them I am calling her now, so you hear her voice before you have to find it in an airport. the tone goes twice before it connects Nozaki, Vlad wa tonari ni iru kara, eigo de ii? (Nozaki, Vlad is next to me, so is English all right?)
Nozaki
a little breathless Yes, fine. I am walking back from my mother's house, so I am outside. Hello, Vlad. I have the flight, two seats together, Haneda to Kochi, and I sent the number to Akima this morning.
Vlad
Hey, Nozaki. Akima has told me many interesting things about you, that you genuinely care about her.
Nozaki
the walking slows for a second She said that to you. a short laugh, close to embarrassed She would never say it to me in those words, so I will take it from you instead. And you are the one who lived in the building that came down, so I have been reading about your estate and I know the ward it was in before I know your face. Do you have a photograph you can send me, or shall I just look for any confused man at arrivals?
Vlad
Akima, turn on the video.
Akima
turning the phone round on the wall so the camera takes them both There.
Nozaki
stopping on the road Oh. You do not look like anybody I have met. Your eyes are much bigger than I expected, and set differently, and I am staring, sorry. I will find you at arrivals with no trouble at all.
What Akima said about her§
Vlad
Well, you are staring at a screen. So, you are the one with the caramel hair that Akima said when we were talking about essence versus appearance.
Nozaki
the colour coming up on her face, and she turns the phone slightly as if that would help Nani hanashita no, watashi no koto. Kami no koto made itta no? (What did you tell him about me? You even told him about my hair?)
Akima
Hitogomi no hanashi o shite ta no. Watashi wa mukashi kara, minna nakami ga nai to omotte ita kara, gaiken ni tema o kakeru hito wa naka mo karappo da to kimetsukete ita. Sono rei ni Nozaki o dashita no. (We were talking about crowds. I always thought there was nothing inside anybody, so I had decided that a person who puts work into the outside is empty within. I used you as an example.)
Nozaki
starting to walk again, the phone steadier now Sore de? (And?)
Akima
Nozaki o hitogomi no naka ni irete ita no. Puratto hoomu no kao no hitotsu, hiru no seki de onaji hanashi o shite iru hito no hitori, watashi ni wa kankei nai hito. Sore de, tatemono ga taoreta toki ni kaite kite kureta no wa Nozaki datta. Hitogomi ni tsuite wa hotondo atatte ita kedo, sono naka de ichiban taisetsu na hitori dake machigaeteta. Nozaki ga saki ni ugoite kurenakattara, ima made kizukanakatta to omou. (I had put you in the crowd. One of the faces on the platform, one of the people at lunch having the same conversation, someone that has nothing to do with me. And then when the building came down, you were the one who wrote. I was right about the crowd for almost everybody and wrong about the one person in it who mattered. If you had not moved first, I do not think I would ever have noticed.)
Nozaki
quiet for a few steps Akima, ima no, sugoku yasashii koto itte ru yo. Mae no Akima wa sonna koto zettai iwanakatta. Kaisha ni ita koro no anata to, ima denwa de hanashite ru anata, betsujin mitai. Ii imi de. (Akima, what you just said is very kind. The old Akima would never have said a thing like that. You at the company and you on this call are like different people, in a good way.)
Vlad
I don't understand anything, but I noticed that instead of using "tu" in Fluidian, you are using your own names.
Nozaki
switching back to English for him There is a word for you in Japanese, anata, and it is hard to use. It sounds cold or too intimate depending on who says it. I told Akima weeks ago we should do it your way here, since the two of us are not at work any more. a small laugh She said maybe, and then she went on saying Nozaki, Nozaki, Nozaki.
Vlad
And then have you noticed how common is the name "Tusna"? It comes from a real town, Tușnad or Băile Tușnad, which is one of the smallest villages in Romania that offers a thermal bath.
Nozaki
I only know the names of the big cities, so that one means nothing to me. the road noise changing as she turns a corner Akima, hoka ni nani itta no, watashi no koto. (Akima, what else did you tell him about me?)
Akima
Sonna ni takusan wa itte nai yo. Chokusetsu na hito da tte itta, mukashi wa shizuka de, dare ni demo awaseru hito da to omotte ita kedo, tegami no yari tori o hajimete kara, kaisha de kiita koto no nai koto o iu you ni natta tte. Sore kara, sewa o yaku toki ni ookiku misenai hito da kara, machigatte ru toki wa chanto ii masu tte. (I did not say that much. I said you are direct, that I used to think you were the quiet one who went along with everybody, and then once we started writing you began saying things I never heard you say at the company. And that you look after people without making a show of it, so you will tell him when he is doing something wrong.)
Nozaki
the colour again, and she looks off to the side of the screen for a second Sonna fuu ni mirarete ru to omottenakatta. Watashi, kaisha de wa nanimo shitenai to omotte ita shi, Akima wa hito no koto minai hito da to omotte ita kara. (I did not think I was being seen like that. I thought I did nothing at the company, and I thought you were somebody who never looked at people.)
Akima
Miteru yo, mukashi kara. Tada, Vlad ya Marliene hodo binkan ja nai no. Ano futari wa hito no kaotsuki hitotsu de kizuku kedo, watashi wa mite ite mo nanimo kanjinai koto ga ooi. Demo kocchi ni kite kara, sukoshi zutsu ugoku you ni natta to omou. (I do look, and I always have. I am simply less sensitive than Vlad or Marliene. Those two notice from one look on a face, and I often see and feel nothing. Since coming here, though, I think I have been coming to life a little at a time.)
Nozaki
back to English, and her voice is not quite steady Vlad, I am sorry, I am having a whole shower of feelings out here on the road. I will be fine in a minute. It is a good shower, only I did not dress for it.
Vlad
It's okay. I don't understand what are you talking about.
Nozaki
laughing at herself and wiping under one eye with the back of her wrist She was saying kind things about me in Japanese and I had nowhere to put them, standing on a road with the phone in my hand. Akima, mou yamete. Kore ijou iwaretara aruite kaerenaku naru. (Akima, stop now. Any more of that and I will not be able to walk home.)
Akima
Yamenai. Ima iwanakattara mata iwanaku naru kara. Nozaki wa okaasan no toko ni kayotte, shifuto o kaete, shiranai gaikokujin o Haneda de hirotte, Kochi made tsurete iku no. Sore o zenbu, tanomareta kara tte dake de yaru n desho. (I will not stop. If I do not say it now I will go back to not saying it. You go to your mother's house, you swap your shift, you pick up a foreigner you have never met at Haneda and take him all the way to Kochi, and you do the whole of it simply because you were asked.)
Nozaki
she has stopped walking altogether Zurui yo, sore. a wet breath, then steadier Ii kara, tsuzukete. Kiiteru. (That is unfair. Go on, though. I am listening.)
The river§
Akima
Hitotsu omoidashita. Vlad ga ressha de, Ruumania no terebi no hito no monomane o shita no. Kawa no mizu ga hette ru no ni, ryoushi no iu koto o kikanai seijika no hanashi de, sono hito ga okoridashite, watashi o yubisashite, bai, bai, bai, bai, nesimtitule tte. Imi wa hitotsu mo wakaranakatta noni, dare no koto ka wa sugu wakatta. Manzai mitai datta kedo, hitori de futari bun yatteta. (I remembered one thing. On the train Vlad did an impression of a man from Romanian television. It was about a politician who would not listen to the fishermen while the water in the river was dropping, and the man got angry and pointed at me and went bai, bai, bai, bai, nesimtitule. I understood not one word of it and I knew at once who it was. It was like manzai, except he was doing both parts by himself.)
Nozaki
Kawa tte, dono kawa? (Which river?)
Akima
Danube. Ruumania no minami o hashitte ru ookii kawa de, kotoshi wa kiroku teki ni mizu ga hetta no. Ryoushi ga abunai tte itte ita noni, sono seijika wa suii o machigaete iru no wa ryoushi no hou da to iikitte, sore ga ookina giron ni natta. (The Danube. The big river along the south of Romania, and this year the water fell to a record low. The fishermen said it was dangerous and that politician insisted the fishermen were the ones who had the level wrong and it became a big argument on television.)
Nozaki
Sonna no ga ookina giron ni naru wake nai desho. Suii nara hakareba owari da shi, hakatta hito ga ryoushi na n dakara. (That cannot be a big argument. If it is a water level you measure it and it is finished, and the people who measured it are the fishermen.)
Vlad
Now you are talking about the Danube, right?
Nozaki
Yes, the river. Akima told me the fishermen said the water was low and a politician told them they were wrong about their own river, and I said that cannot become an argument, because it is measured and then it is over.
Vlad
I told Akima about the Danube.
Nozaki
Then tell me the part she left out. Did anyone go and measure it in the end, or did the television keep the two sides talking without ever putting a number on the screen?
Two ways of capturing a press§
Vlad
It was very clear that the water levels in Danube were reaching record lows, so much so that the nuclear reactor in Cernavodă had to close, leaving the entire country without a nuclear source of energy. The press in Romania is so poorly regulated and financed by corrupt political parties that everything ends up being polarized. I don't trust the mainstream, but I trust the independent press.
Nozaki
For us, nothing is polarised, everything is smooth. NHK takes a fee from every household with a set and it reads like an announcement more than an inquiry, and the ministries run press clubs that only let the big papers in, so the same handful of outlets get the same briefing and state the same thing.
Vlad
In Romania, FSN, composed of former communist politicians, tried to take over entire systems, including the press. FSN gained control over TVR and tried to prioritize it over other press agencies to discredit those that sought to form a government without former communists. FSN was eventually replaced by less authoritarian post-decembrist parties and the press became divided, with more polarized agencies like Digi24 and Antena 3 outpacing TVR, the public television. However, the public radio, Radio Romania Actualități, is still common but it is still outpaced by private radios and television. There have been many successful attempts at politically capturing the press, including making unmarked political advertisements and comments from political parties on even the smallest issues like Danube, which was commented by USR, a small party with some pretty controversial capitalists. The dominant parties are PSD, PNL and the rising AUR.
Nozaki
We had the takeover long before that. NHK was the government's voice through the war, and after the surrender the law was rewritten so it could not be used that way again, except the board is still appointed by the prime minister and the budget still goes through the Diet. Then in 1950 they cleared out hundreds of people from the papers and from NHK for not being conservative enough, and the editors who stayed learned what not to write. Nothing since has needed a party to capture anything.
Autonomism and the liberal hazard§
Vlad
In the republic, I noticed that even though the polarization is low and the vast majority of politicians and parties don't try to intervene into the press, there is an intense pressure to appease autonomists and other minority groups, especially on social issues.
Sarena, someone I haven't contacted long ago, told me, from what I remember, that autonomism is a literary current affirming that women should be treated as comrades and not as objects in writing.
I read more on what autonomism is, and I realized it's an entire feminist current where women are considered to be fully autonomous beings, and you may not, in any way, break that assumption by even talking about appearance or anything that relates to them, but you may talk about the environment around them.
This means that the press, in order to not offend those large minorities, prefers to not talk about say the effects of appearance on perception, instead opting for universal framing and not commencing gender-by-gender studies, even with the fifty-gendered table, because it would offend groups that believe you should only talk about say economics.
Nozaki
I have never heard of it. the road quieter now, as though she has stopped somewhere Akima, sore, shitteru? (Akima, do you know about that?)
Akima
Sukoshi dake. Kocchi dake no kangae kata de, jiritsushugi tte yakuseru to omou. Onna no hito wa saisho kara jibun de kimeru sonzai da tte iu zentei ga atte, sore o kuzusu you na iikata wa shinai. Dakara mikake no hanashi mo dame. Mawari no koto, shigoto no koto, machi no koto nara ii kedo, hito no karada ya kao no hanashi ni natta shunkan ni sen o koeru no. (Only a little. It is an idea that exists only here and I would translate it as jiritsushugi. There is a premise that a woman is a person who decides for herself from the outset, and you do not phrase things in a way that breaks that premise. So talk about appearance is out. The surroundings, the work, the town are all fine, and the moment it turns to a person's body or face it crosses the line.)
Nozaki
Sonna kangae kata ga aru kuni da to wa omottenakatta. (I did not think it was a country with an idea like that in it.) switching to English, slowly And I would not want to be the centre of anything, so a rule that keeps the talk off a person's face suits me. I never expect how I look to put me at the middle of anything. We built women-only carriages, and a carriage does not stop a hand, it only moves it to the next one along. Yours sounds like the better attempt, though nothing is clean. Akima has told me the trams there are never full and people are educated and everyone is at the same level, so that kind of thing is very rare, and I suspect the empty seat does as much work as the theory.
Vlad
Yeah, but at the same time the autonomist theory has been extended with the so-called "liberal hazard". A liberal hazard is an information that is true but when unframed, it may lead to discrimination. An example of such hazard are the studies on the differences on the brains between biological sexes, which is true. But if you don't add a disclaimer that it does not extend to overall intelligence or difference, then you are critiqued, and editors decide they would rather not circulate those studies in press rather than adding the right disclaimers.
Nozaki
quiet for a moment So the paper is true and it stays in the drawer because the sentence around it is missing. I have nothing useful to say about it.
Meeting only like-minded people§
Vlad
You don't have to. You know, when I am surrounded by intelligent people like you both and Marliene and all the others, I sometimes feel like there is a lack of variety. But that is what happens when the people you meet happen to be like-minded, and then some of the friends of the people you meet also happen to be like-minded and relatively similar.
Akima
That is what a small circle does. The people I have here came to me through you and through the tram, and everything I now think about this country I took from one of them. What I noticed is that we do not agree, we only converge, which is a different thing.
Vlad
It could be one way to say we are different, but I think we still agree on a And when I searched for local information about life in Japan, many of the people who do report on their life are both semi-anonymous and introverted.
Nozaki
I have never watched any of those channels, so I cannot tell you if they are honest. What I can tell you is that I am talking to the two of you the way I am because Akima has already left and you are not Japanese, so nothing I say lands back on me at work or at my mother's house.
What a month costs§
Vlad
I heard that food costs a lot and fruit is often premium-packaged, unlike here in the republic where you go into the market and register the fruits in bulk.
Nozaki
It is true, and the shop I use has both. There are loose apples at two hundred yen or so, and above them the same fruit graded and set in a foam net, three or four in a box, for a gift. A melon of that kind runs into thousands and I have never bought one in my life.
Vlad
Two hundred yen is three bani multiplied by two hundred which is six hundred bani and divided by a hundred is six lei, which is cheaper than in Romania, but yeah, relatively expensive in Japan.
Nozaki
The rent goes first and what is left has to cover everything, so I rarely put fruit in the basket and I frequently shop at discounted prices. Three days of food is about three thousand yen if I am careful. the road noise again, walking Akima has none of that. She told me the food and the flat and the tram are simply there, that the shops have no prices in them. I would like to live in that kind of place.
Vlad
But you can't...
Nozaki
I know. the sound of a gate I am at my door. Akima, ashita mo hanaseru? (Akima, can we talk tomorrow as well?)
Akima
Ii yo, ashita mo hanasou. Shigoto no ato nara itsudemo. Vlad wa mou junbi dekiteru kara, ato wa hi o matsu dake. (Yes, we can talk tomorrow at any time after work. Vlad is ready, so all that is left is to wait for the day.)
Nozaki
Ja, mata ashita. Akima no shigoto no ato ni kakeru ne, kocchi no asa ni. (Well, until tomorrow. I will ring after your work, in my own morning.) back to English Vlad, it was good to meet you.
Vlad
It was nice to meet you too. Bye.
Nozaki
Bye, Vlad.