. hotel in tokyo — situation 6, serial

The hotel in tokyo was a dream work. We shouldn’t go, it’s not a good idea, traveling on planes. I said…. No we’ll go, there are places we can go, we won’t travel again for years. So lets go, She replied. You dreamers, you don’t have to go I can get someone else. Park said. We’ll go, i have never been there and its unlikely will ever will again. She said. We flew into tokyo in the expensive seats. Our dreams laid out at right angles dreams laid out like a go board dreams passing from one existence into another in dreams braking noises in a distant curve shine in a distant curve to be true television-perforated fast food restaurants in a pale white summer night gliding past neon, led lamps, the hum of engines, the engines hum, it is possible to speak of abstract structures of groups ordered quantities bodies etc. it is possible to speak of abstract structures of groups of ordered people of bodies etc. to be true with reservation so it is not the density of distribution of ball players and walkers on a city park meadow Sonia Delauny, Popova, Henri Rousseau landscapes, they were occupied with something in themselves, she became occupied with the something in herself it was occupied with something in her not yet occupied with the something in the person writing this by the time we arrived in the hotel dreamwork she said, perhaps we shouldn’t have come, i feel slightly sick. It’s OK I’ll pretend to work for Park, you can be the police woman on holiday with your husband… she laughed. What can work mean in this context, to be precise the social division of labour exists uneasily in this vignette. Their work and lives have been extreme but are they anymore than yours? The references to the social division of labour work, mentioned here could be changed to something supposedly banal and everyday; like the work you do, the man cutting the hedge over there, the motorcycle courier delivering a package and nothing would have changed. nothing nothing, it does not supply any useful context… Except for the plot which speaks of our hero and heroine negotiating the liquid modern…

In the hotel, sitting with the manager, passing over some documents for the year to come. And looking past him watching her come towards me, us, watching her walk, I’d know her walk anywhere, the rhythm the distribution of her hips simply the distribution density of the people between this point and where she is walking. Everyday, sometimes i think of her leaving me, taking a line of flight to escape them. We leave the manager to review the documents and agree to meet after he’s read them, in the late afternoon and tomorrow. We walk; Fate Ten Fate and to St.- Paul-Miklas Eleven. Fate Ten Fate and St Paul Miklas Eleven only not like the populated areas and the distribution of objects in motion, the distribution of objects still, so still. Slower than usual, her stride is slightly shorter. Walking is patterned like this with what one sees again and again and again, always with her, but this time she cannot walk. her strides are shorter, hesitant then relaxed. I always recognize her faster because she is so final, such a determined stride, as if waiting for the end, she is the personification of others doom, as if she is the angel of death. We have been the final stops of the metro, the last stops of the subway for so many people. Falling is patterned like this what what what one sees again and again at the same place one recognizes faster because it is so final stops of the subway have driven off he said I have driven off final stops of the subway but in an unequal rash of up and down nameless streets, watching rising barge bows again as the lock filled. And fast food restaurants in the white summer night and with the fingertips on the weave of a wicker chair reading the transition from one existence to another is always risky, the transition from one existence to another is risky. (In this city, sitting in the hotel gardens in the shade, surrounded by stones, it’s as if we are back in the desert again me, in this desert I am reaching out to hold her hand again, at last, again Perhaps we have never left the desert and we are hallucinating and dying.) I think i can eat something now, she says, looking pale and wan. I board a train second carriage from the front.

He has become a criminal, carrying out the second task that Ludmilla was assigned. He is in one of the poorer districts, a place where tourists never come. As a criminal sitting in the afternoon sunshine in the cafe opposite the building in which he has a rendezvous, the waiter comes over and discreetly informs him that they waiting for him. In five minutes they will be ready. They will apologize for running slightly late. He looks along the street to his right, he takes a picture on his phone. From his vantage point he can see 100 metres or more down the straight narrow street, towards the end it begins to become a hill, the the buildings are mostly black and grey with patches of white and shadow, they all three or four stories, some are housing, most have shops and restaurants occupying the first and second floors, vertical signs in Japanese are attached to the building, the third and fourth stories look like housing. There are no plants, perhaps on the flat roofs? There may by housing on the roofs as well. Across the street and all along its length a chaotic mix of power and optical fibre cables are supported off the buildings and on tall wood and metal poles, a few small transformers are hanging over the street, most of the buildings have two or three power cables and and two or three optical fibre cables terminating on to the walls. Some of the buildings have parking spaces with small cars behind the virtual boundary established by the poles. Towards the end of the street, towering about the buildings is a tiered temple in pink and grey, the current religious ideology which is occupying the old temple is unknowable. He wonders what and who occupies the building. Behind it and beyond the end of the street the city climbs the hill, buildings covering the hill and eventually vanishing into the clouds and fog. He watches a woman in a black slightly flared coat and loose back trousers walk away down the street. The waiter interrupts his gaze saying they are ready… He stares at the mans face committing it to memory, in case he needs it later. The meeting seems entirely banal to him. He is after all just delivering a message, a document, with a phone number, a few numbers probably and a sentence or two. He leaves the half finished coffee and the piece of cake and crosses the road. He thinks that nothing really explains his behaviour, his actions, his feelings. His phone rings as he crosses the road, he looks at the screen and sends her a picture of the door as an acknowledgement message as he enters. Perhaps he ignores the message. Perhaps he wants to ignore the message. Being with her has made him a criminal. Do others just out of sight struggle to hide their excitement as he says hello to the woman sitting behind the protective screen. Does the screen foolishly attract attention to themselves. Little is certain as he says <I have a message for Song> she does not know who he is and asks < Who are you?> anyway any-way <She told me to say ‘Hello is that Jhulia?> He says. The woman behind the desk smiles, knowing who sent him. <Tell her it is when you call her later…> He wonders what the hidden message was in the sentence. What it meant. She sends him through, along a corridor to another room, part workroom, part office. The man sitting at the desk looking expectantly at him. Still handing the message over to the man makes him think that he is being connected to an unknown secret network, that spreads from the building over the road to London, to here and further. He wonders again how many nodes there are in this network, and which he has avoided asking Ludmilla about, avoided knowing about. In fact it is a new network that is being constructed here, clandestine and invisible. Underneath the message he is about to deliver is a wide range of meanings, already the meaning is anticipated if not understood yet, in the building, which is people are watching him carefully, suspiciously. One thing is sure they were all looking at him, as he entered the corridor and walked down it to see Song. He knows they belong to a small clique of gangsters, a secret urban network, and he almost envies them for their imaginary unimportance, an unimportance that he does not know is ending today, as he hands the card and envelope over to Song, the realization that between the receiver and the sender there is an unknown connection. This message reincorporates these people into her network. Song looks up from reading the first few lines of the japanese text, at the messenger, at our messenger. <How do you know her?> He asks <I am in her debt. There is a second message which she wants you to deliver to Kim se-ho of the Green Peasants. Today or tomorrow. > Song reads the card, the second message, <We have rescued your child from the kidnappers, phone this number immediately to arrange to collect her please…> < I didn’t know she knew Kim se-ho’. > Song said, scrutinising him. Leaf shrugs, <she didn’t, I understand it took a long time to identify the child, and I cannot for other reasons. Hence I’m here. > < Are you her friend? > <Possibly, you can ask her now that the network is open.> He handed Song a card with his name on it. By handing Song his card with his name on it he and Ludmilla have become incrementally safer, becoming a criminal is safer than not being one. <Who is the woman you are with?> <My partner Ludmilla, she should have done this but is pregnant and sick> he explains. <I understand. That was intelligent of you…. I will have something for you to take back to London, in a few days, you must tell her it is nice to know she is safe.> <i will> Other words are exchanged, a relationship is established. During the conversation he realizes that Song, Two Ravens are the owners of the temple. There is no difference he thinks between speech and non-speech, language simply is. Whilst travelling back from the meeting whilst passing stations and watching his fellow passengers, and the people who are now shadowing him. He is feeling tired, looking forward to being at the hotel. He receives the phone call from a UK mobile number. ><Hello, i was about to call you, it’s done.> <Thankyou. Leaf? >< What?> <did you ever want a more normal life?> <Yes, but Ludmilla it’s been impossible for years and years and besides this is as normal as we can manage.> Her throaty chuckle makes him smile. <There are three people following you.> She says still almost laughing. <Where are you?> < I’m two carriages back, watching the third guy.> < I wondered where he was…> < I’ll tell you about them when I get back to the hotel. >Leaf realizes he is looking directly at one of the men. <Sorry, she distracted me.> he says to the man, .. The man from Two Ravens wants to laugh. Song had briefed them well.

She sees the fourth man as they leave the station, nice she thinks admiring their practices, she lets them see her as she approaches him from behind and puts her arm around his waist… I don’t feel sick anymore…

They walked through the hotel, buying ice creams from the popup bar in the courtyard garden and sitting on a bench, their bodies in the shade. Their feet and ankles in the sun. It’s strange , she said how glad I am to have met you. Yes, he says, very strange. Yes. He can feel something in her tone of voice. It’s the grand passion, he said. They laughed, then they stopped and ate some ice cream. Talking about the people from Two Ravens who had followed him and then them. If you have time, he said, you must tell me the whole story. You mean of my life? it’s a long one — it would take ages. I’d like to hear it just the same, even if its compressed a bit. Why? she asked, you know most of it. Her eastern european accent appeared as she ate her ice cream. Because whilst you telling me it, you cannot leave. He said seriously. I see, we’ll see, she said, if there is time. (The fourth man in the dark suit sat down at a table beneath the sun shade, a square ubbrella, took off his jacket and sipped his light beer. He looked surprised, perhaps even astonished — though really fundamentally not at all surprised to see us together. ) Do you think we will be followed everywhere whilst we are here? I asked her. Yes, two ravens is watching us, evaluating us and thus her… she said. She smiled gestured towards the fourth man and put her bare right foot onto his left one. The waiter asked if we wanted something to drink. Some japanese white wine, half saying, half asking. I’ll bring you some glasses of the Hokkido, its nice. The waiter said…

Do you still want to clean my guns? She asked. I don’t know, he said. You don’t like women who belong to their guns anymore. She said smiling. Things change, there are nearly three of us now, besides I must have spoken hastily before I really knew them. They’re just like all women really. She said, still smiling, still delighted for some reason reason reason. Not quite anyway, he said, firstly they are beautiful, and then they are never satisfied. And? Then ? she said. Well its like they belong to nobody and might leave with their child at any moment. It is very difficult to get used to them. He says. I think you could say that about any woman. She replies. Probably, he said, but I have never wanted to be secure before. I didn’t think you’d want, what shall i say, that sort of security. I don’t normally, but its the same as everything else, when you are sure that there is no chance of having that sort of security you begin to want it and then its her and it….His hand is resting on her stomach, he doesn’t seem to have done this deliberately, she cannot help but look amused and happy about by his out-of-control-hand. Perhaps, she says, one shouldn’t let that kind of fear stop one from doing what one wants to do. He doesn’t answer. And so she says slightly more insistently. Don’t you think that she might feel the same, scared you’ll leave her? So that’s the only thing in the world that scares her… He says quietly. Yes, I think so and him… she says. They sip some of the Hokkido wine, in the quiet. And then there is it… he says. She was still looking at him . He thought she was a woman who looked you straight in the eye, and that evening more than usual. Perhaps she was wondering if I still thought she might take a line of flight to escape. Even though now we both knew it was too late. She was always that kind of woman. (The fourth man was still watching us over another beer and eating small pieces of fried korean chicken….) That chicken looks nice we should order some…