The GoldenCity

It was night when they reached Hachinohe -a transit town sprawled between two hills. The only things that appeared to hold the community together were the telephone lines and power cables that ran from one side of the street to another. Snow began to fall when they left the station. Snowflakes piled up on the slanted roofs and balconies of the flimsy looking three-story buildings. Snow clung to Billy’s hair as they checked into a traditional Japanese inn. The inn’s owner had just installed new tatami mats; when Hollis lay down on the floor he smelled the yellowish-green reeds. It reminded him of cut grass and summer and those moments when he had been happy. He prayed to Vicki and, after awhile, was able to sleep.

***

The next morning Billy left the inn and made two furrows through the slush with his motorcycle boots. He returned an hour later and told Hollis that the man who shoveled snow at the train station knew all about the Itako. A few years ago, she had moved north to Mutsu, a sea town on the peninsula that jutted out into Tsugaru Straits.

“And how far away is that?”

“Ninety minutes on the local train.”

“Is she still there?”

“Nobody knows, man. He said the Itako lives in the ‘dead place.’” Billy rolled his eyes. “So I guess we know what to look for.”

An hour later, Hollis found himself riding in a two-car train that was about as large as a cross-town bus in New York City. Steel wheels clicked and clattered as they passed though bare volcanic mountains. Fog. White snow on black rocks. And then the train entered a tunnel that plunged them into darkness. When they emerged, the ocean was about fifty feet away. The train cars shook slightly-like pack animals glad to be finished with such a cold journey-and they rolled into a small train station built next to Mutsu’s harbor.

It was cold and windy on the station platform. Rubbing his hands together, Billy hurried off to find a taxi driver. He returned five minutes later with a shy young man who was trying to grow a beard.

“He says he’s a part-time driver.”

“That means he’s going to get lost.”

Billy laughed. “We’re always getting lost in Japan, but this driver knows how to find the dead place. It’s where this company built a pesticide factory. After they killed every tree in the area, they transferred the business to China.”

The three of them squeezed into a mud-splattered Toyota and drove away past a row of fast-food outlets. At the edge of the town, a pachinko parlor with a huge neon tower stood out against the overcast sky. The young driver turned onto a gravel road, and they entered the dead area around the abandoned pesticide plant. Although the ground was covered with snow, Hollis could see that all the trees had died. A few brown spruces remained standing as if too weary to fall.

There were a dozen homes in the area, and they stopped at each one so that Billy could ask about the Itako. “ Japan is like this weird party where everybody has to be polite,” he explained. “People will lie and make up directions so they won’t lose face.”

For more than an hour, they wandered through a maze of country roads. Coming down a low hill, the Toyota skidded across a patch of an ice and slammed into a snow bank. Everyone got out of the car, and Billy started yelling at the driver.

A prefabricated home with aluminum siding was about thirty feet away. Hollis watched as an old woman wearing a black parka and red rubber boots came out of the house and hiked down a gravel driveway. The woman walked in a slow, solid way through the slush as if it would take a bolt of lightning to knock her over. Her face was strong and her eyes focused as she examined the three intruders who had blundered into her world.

When she reached the car, she put her hands on her hips and began asking questions. Billy tried to answer with some rock and roll swagger, but his confidence quickly melted away. When the old woman had finished her interrogation, she turned away and climbed back up the driveway to her house. Billy stood in the middle of the road staring at the toes of his motorcycle boots.

“What’s the problem with the old lady?” Hollis asked. “Are we on her property?”

“That’s the Itako. She says she’s been waiting for you.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Maybe it’s a story or maybe it’s true. All I know is that we got to follow her into the house.”

“And then what happens?”

“It’s just like you want. She talks to the dead.”

***

The two men entered the foyer of the house and took off their jackets and shoes. The Itako had disappeared, but a door was open to the living room where an old man sat on a western-style couch and watched a karaoke show on television. He turned his head slightly-showing no surprise or curiosity-and pointed to the left.