NOWHERE-NOW HERE, HECTOR CASTELLS TRAVEL JOURNAL – CAPSULE IX

ANGELINA’S TREE MEETS THE ORPHAN BONSAIS

On day 2 in Life without David Lynch in it, I wake up to a brave new world. There is no trace of climate change, smoke or plastic; plus cars are soundless, streets immaculate, trees and bonsais blooming everywhere, while most people are perfectly and quietly bypassing me in astonishing symmetry. All except for the gentleman lying unconscious next to me like an elusive crouton in a half empty gazpacho.

I crouch and check his pulse, and suddenly the whole street turns around and looks at me accusatively. There’s a newsstand vendor in front of me. She is making the obnoxious X shape with her arms. He is just sleeping it off, like you just did, so don’t dare touch him she says.

I look at her puzzled: where the fuck am I? It takes me one second to read the cover of the Japan Times: Ralph Lauren convicted to life sentence.

Holy fuck, I’m in Tokyo, the only metropolis in the world where you can drink yourself to death and then collapse in any given sidewalk knowing that it will be thrice neater and cleaner than most three star hotel rooms in most of the universe, not to mention the universal untouchable language: they would never dare checking your pulse, let alone your wallet or electronic devices.

II

I’m fixated on the cover of the Japan Times like an OCD child holding onto a lollipop. Fuck me: Ralph Lauren, the Unquiet American, would not walk the streets of David’s Deprived Life or Philadelphia ever again.

That is to say that my retirement plan is fucked: my chances to get murdered by the hottest international assassin are thinner than noise in Japan.

III

There is still hope though. As the saying goes, when in Tokyo do what Tokyoites do. That is: go to your local supermarket, get caught shoplifting for an amount inferior to 3000 yen and wait for the patrol car—to bring you HOME!

Home is where your murderer lives, Tokyo’s Fuchu prison, which is quite far away from my local supermarket, but the only reclusion centre I’m eligible for as an alien.

IV

Even though I’m very eager to go home, my memory is fucked since the assault, so it takes me a while to remember how I got here.

I keep forgetting that life is David Lynch deprived since yesterday and I quietly mumble again my best wishes for his great beyond. Next thing, I have made up my mind.

On my way to the supermarket, I stop at a crosswalk for half an hour, as you do when in Japan. During the eventful interval, I bump into one of my former Aikido colleagues in Dublin. She is less happy to see me than I’m to see her, but nonetheless she assumes that I’m here to attend the International Seminar of Aikido, an annual celebration that most of the intensely devoted followers’ worldwide would kill to attend.

I had no idea, but it comes rather handy to avoid the I’m-desperately-trying to-get-into-a-very-specific-prison conversation. She says that she is on her way to register for the summit, and assumes that I’m too, so I pretend that I am, yes, totally. I’m quite good at it.

Halfway through the walk she asks me if I’d like to grab a coffee; as it turns out we are way earlier. I say sure, and we find a tiny Sicilian looking place named Angelina’s. There’s a Japanese woman behind the counter. She claims that she is 100 years old and the best ramen cook and coffee roaster ever born in Sicily —or Japan, for that matter. I mention how humble she sounds and she says that modesty is one of her virtues. We laugh and then I have to admit it: she is the best so far.

V

I met Lisbet in our Dublin dojo before she got her black belt, fifteen years ago. Her Aikido was already ruthless back then, while mine was just a calamitous, dyslexic baby. I remember how intimidating she was, very Japanese-like: she would never utter a word, but she corrected me with frightening whispers, enough for me to start calling her Lisbet Salander. I was sportily infatuated, and one day, while talking to a friend in the little Barcelonan hell, I told him that I was practicing Aikido in Dublin with the girl with the dragon tattoo. He immediately assumed that she was Rooney Mara in such an enthralled way that I never dared to tell him that she was actually a different individual, not an actress but a photographer. Over our seven-year training, Lisbet and I hung out a couple of times, but we never spoke as much as we are now, at Angelina’s, unlike my Catalan friend thought —I had no choice, I kept going with the fiction for years, he was so happy that I was learning Aikido with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

VI

Lisbet says that ramen is the best she has ever tried, and then she asks if I know why she is here. I thought the international seminar was the reason. She shakes her head. Not only. I also came here looking for my father. It is a long story, but let’s say that he is a black Japanese that was adopted during the 60’s. His family gave him away, and we both grew up in Hungary, where we were heavily bullied. He never complained once, but growing up there was a proper nightmare. The thing is that last month, an American TV producer contacted him and asked if he wished to meet his biological father. My poor dad was spellbound: he said yes immediately. There was just one TV condition: they would pay for our tickets; accommodation and expenses, in exchange for him letting them film the whole reunion.

VII

Angelina picks up our black lacquered bowls, asks how the ramen was and says that she is a Black Sicilian out of the black-blue.

Lisbet asks if she has been listening to our conversation. Angelina says that she is not a Superheroine, just a hundred year old woman, so she has been quite incapable of eavesdropping since 1987. She sounds like a Superheroine, BIG HUNDRED YEARS time.

As it turns out, Angelina’s father was also a black USA soldier, although, unlike Lisbet’s, he never had the chance to meet his biological family. I’m about to mention that I’m an orphan son of an orphan, but already sounds too helpless, so I ask instead: What’s next, Lisbet? Are you going to meet your biological family in Tokyo? Angelina stops the music: she was playing Lizst because I overheard your name is Lisbet, right? Lisbet smiles and says that eavesdropping is a better word. Our ramen Superheroine cancels Lizst’s Hungarian Symphony number 2, and Lisbet’s phone flashes up.

VIII

She says that we must go register now: the TV crew is already at the Olympic Memorial Sports Centre, where the seminar takes place. I’m carrying my own two cameras and ask. Is your dad there? She says yes, and don’t even dare use your cameras once there. So the American crew can film me but I cannot take photos? She says, Exactly, the American crew asked for a permit, but you didn’t’. I wonder how the fuck she knows.

I say goodbye to Angelina: can I call you mum? She says: Call me HaHa. See you tomorrow, son. I smile like a repaired orphan, and walk towards the facility with Lisbet. I don’t mention that I must avoid being exposed to any face recognition software. Taking photos is always a good way to avoid them, although Lisbet has just tried to take that away from me.

IX

The registration area is full of physiotherapists (aka Aikido black belts) already fully dressed in their Black Panda uniform. I ask if it is possible to buy one. They ask for my black belt and Aikido Federation booklet. I have no idea where it is; I’m not that devoted. They charge me 200 dollars for a class and a kekogi, (aka the uniform), and I remember how nice it was practising in Fukuoka for one dollar an hour, which is how Ueshiba Sensei, the founder of the art, claimed Aikido must be: non-profitable.

X

The abundance of cameras and money around us is pornographic enough for me to take out both of my devices and start covering my face. Almost immediately, a Japanese official comes to me and says: NO PHOTOS, ONLY AIKIDO PROFESSIONALS. I say that I am a professional and he asks for my pass. I show him the Interpol arrest warrant pending over my bony head and he looks like he is shitting his pants, bows and fucks away like a vanishing tiny Panda.

XI

The commotion in the Sports centre hall is already bigger than the amount of popular commotion I have seen in the streets of Tokyo. I look up with my biggest camera, and I see a black Japanese wholly whitened by the flashes and the crew. Lisbet, mother and brother are walking behind rather terrified. Only then I look down and I see an old black American waiting at the bottom of the most dramatic staircase ever. He looks puzzled, lost and I would say that also panicking. I have the urge to check his pulse and then another tiny Panda comes running and says that I’m not allowed.

FOR FUCK SAKE! I was only trying to go to prison for shoplifting, I don’t need the FUCKING Interpol right now!

I bow, say thank you and crouch. I start walking like the tiniest Russian doll amongst giant Pandas, a very low human tripod, when I see that Lisbet’s grandfather is about to collapse. I swiftly move in Shiko (aka Aikido’s technique of walking on your toes); and I hold his head right before he hits the tiles.

XII

Needless to say, the contemporary version of Michaelangelo’s Pietà just performed has been caught by half a hundred cameras, so I keep looking down, exactly the picture that Angelina is watching live on NHK, Japanese national TV.

She would say that tomorrow morning, in tears. I wake up early, walk to Angelina’s at 6am and I found her disturbed behind the counter. She runs like a very unlikely 100-year-old runner, opens the door and gives the hug I have been secretly asking for my whole life. It is a life-changing hug. Then she says it.

I don’t understand: Lisbet’s grandpa is…. MY SON, son!

TBC