Indica

The shop was a repository of peculiar and forgotten books; for Indology it was unrivaled. Grammars of lost languages, sheet music for rare instruments, translations of scriptures of which the original had been lost. Books found nowhere else. Books no one knew existed.

He liked to stand around and watch the scholars be amazed. From Europe or America, on the sabbatical they received every 17 years, they staggered through the door dusty and panicked, reeling from an accident involving a cycle rickshaw and a leper. This was usual. The scholars would ask a question of the manager—he was an insignificant man, just a cipher through whom universal knowledge flowed. The scholars did not expect an answer really; they were just showing off how much they knew about the very most arcane branches of Indology.

The owner would excuse himself, step behind a flimsy curtain into the back room. In five minutes he'd return, smelling vaguely of smoke, holding a hardcover printed sometime in the Sixties in, say, Bhubaneshwar. A book whose contents, despite the cheap printing and poor typesetting, would have saved the poor scholar 17 years of research.

Time and again, he watched scholars rush out the door, clutching their discovery, certain that fame would now be theirs. Sure enough, they’d probably receive their doctorate with distinction, would likely even publish a book with a university press in a gorgeous typeface on acid-free paper. A book that would, in time, return here.

The scholars must know the statistic; they've forgotten, momentarily, in their excitement.

The number of people actually interested in the world is constantly diminishing and may now number less than 500, many of whom are illiterate, living in war-torn areas, or under the age of 5.

The chance for meaningful fame is thus nonexistent.

What do people want?

People want to be thinner.

Pandemonium (5 Definitions, with Illustrative Quotations)

1. An instrument similar to the harmonium, equipped with keyboard and bellows, which produces unpredictable sounds. Popular in India and with certain pot-smoking poets of the mid 20th century. How can I live a reasonable life when that jerk upstairs won’t stop playing his pandemonium?

2. A peculiar and infinite variety of quilt given to young women to sew out of miniscule scraps--an exercise designed to, if not safeguard virginity permanently, at least prolong its life. Liza sat for seven years embroidering the 67 corners of her pandemonium--until the day we weren’t paying attention and she got her hands on the meter-reader.

3. A literary form composed of bright scraps. Commonly anarchic in content and mysterious in purpose. Five days into the composition of his new pandemonium, the lowly servant was accused of inciting devil worship.

4.. A conference of devils, traditionally called to organize unusually intricate temptations. The first infernal emissaries failed, but poor Martin didn’t have a chance against the whole pandemonium.

5. An accident involving multiple suitcases. Poor Nancy suffered a pandemonium, in which she sprained her ankle, dispersed her birth control pills, and found herself at the bottom of a staircase at dawn in Taipei.

Comfort

Comfort is an exemplary verb. Everyone has a high opinion of it. We’d like to ship it round the world and if we could we’d soak the earth in it.

The noun, comfort, is not entirely reprehensible, though already there’s a whiff of the lifestyle magazine, of homes in gated communities. There’s a wall certainly, and also a door that locks. You’d like to have it for your children. You hope it extends into old age.

(Is it possible to think of comfort, really, without also feeling afraid?)

The adjective, comfortable, is entirely dubious, though my husband doesn’t think so. What’s wrong with being comfortable? he asks. We’re doing well as anyone, rock-a-bye, treetop.

Comfortable, it seems to me, is the fine print on a sleeping pill. There’s an ominous warmth. The dog circles three times and lies down for a nap.

The Reverend Hartman, at home in Winesburg, wonders if the flame of the spirit really burns in him, decides, “Oh well, I suppose I’m doing well enough.”

Is that heat gas? Do these windows open?

I remember the day I read, in a poem by Luis Cernuda, Comfort is corrosive. I felt relieved, as when the doctor admits, “This is going to hurt.”

Better to be up too early, driving in January, the window cracked into the freezing rain.

We live in comfort. Resist languor.

That smell is smoke.

The Tokyo T-shirt Oracle

(Thank you to the editors at Japanzine, where this story was published in 2004)

From the start I must confess that I have for many years been a covert student of divination. In my solitary room I have shuffled and reshuffled tarot cards, squinting at them for hours in hope of a sensible future. In India. use of the I Ching was so prevalent amongst the traveling set that I needed a copy just to figure out what was going on. You’d hear a sentence like, “Man, I just got Hexagram 36 and I am getting the hell out of Agra.” When I came to Tokyo however, I left the Tarot, I Ching and Runes at home, in favor of a collapsible umbrella, as well as formal and casual slippers.

Thankfully I have discovered, here in Tokyo, a home-grown divinatory system that is free and available in the metro area day or night, especially if the trains are running. I am learning the art of divination by t-shirt, so much easier than clouds, entrails or tea leaves. The words are all around you all the time—now you simply begin to read them.

Members of the community, for reasons unknown, have chosen to wear cryptic messages, in English, emblazoned on their bodies. Consulting the oracle could not be easier. You simply ask your question silently and then hold it in your mind until the answer appears, written across the chest of a stranger. (An undue amount of concentration is not necessary and can in fact be dangerous in a moving crowd.) There is no question that cannot be answered at rush hour in Shinjuku station in less than a minute. You may find the answer almost before the question is asked, jostling to get past you and onto the train.

For example, I might ask if this weekend is the appropriate time to seek out human contact. (The long-term traveler, you understand, is by necessity a solitary creature.) I hold the question in my mind as I walk toward the train station on a rainy late summer day and in a minute or two my question arrives, carried on the back or chest of a stranger. The answer might be, to quote from previous oracles, ‘Super Derby’ or ‘Devil Man’ or ‘System Trouble’.

Now, as with any oracle, interpretation is often tricky. Happily, the t-shirt oracle is generally in favor of pleasure. The god of this oracle is no transcendent naysayer, but rather a generous deity who wishes us to enjoy the things of this world. This puts it far ahead of, say, picking a verse at random from the Bible. (Side note: Is it just me or do other people always get the verse condemning Onan?)

The oracle can be refreshingly direct, providing messages such as ‘Nothing is so Valuable as Friendship’ or, ‘No, I Don’t Think So.’ Of course, messages may also be cryptic. Wondering if I ought to strike up a conversation with the handsome English-speaking man at my local convenience store, I asked the oracle for guidance and received the answer ‘Just Add Water.’ The next day I asked again. A woman with enormous breasts walked by wearing a purple shirt peppered with silver stars. It read, ‘Let’s Go to the Mall and Scarf Snacks.’

Scarf Snacks?

Regular practice, of course, is the key to developing ease of interpretation. It is not helpful, or appropriate, to question the person wearing the t-shirt, also known as the oracle-bearer. Oracle-bearers are seemingly unaware of their divinatory function and may, if questioned, stare blankly at their own chest, as if astonished to find words there. Any attempt at enlisting the aid of the oracle-bearer is unhelpful and may even cause alarm.

I confess that I myself have broken this rule on occasion. I sought advice from the oracle regarding whether or not I ought to be spying, night after night, on the young man next door as he lounged around wearing loose boxer shorts and eating popsicles. I was on platform number 12 waiting for train to Shibuya when the answer came, a young woman wearing all yellow, and the words ‘Supernatural Feeling.’ I was so surprised that I caught her arm.

“Please, what is the meaning?”

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to get past, but I held on to the edge of her shirt.

“Your t-shirt.”

She stared down at it. “Su-per-na-tu-ral Fee-ling,” she said.

“Yes, but what does it mean?”

She stared at me and tugged the edge of her shirt from my hand before running off.

Let this be a lesson to us all. Do not interrogate the oracle-bearer. It is not appropriate.

(It should be noted that, in cases like these, where the answer is persistently unclear, you may feel free to adopt the most positive response. After all, if the universe means ‘No’ it ought to say so. Thus, I stared at the boy next door through no less than three popsicles, all of them a stunning blueberry color that tinged his lips and tongue.)

I will confess that there was a time when my life seemed directionless, devoid of point or meaning. Such is the malaise of modern man. It needn’t be the case. The t-shirt oracle can remedy this, providing as it does, a continual source of advice and direction.

I remember well the day when, exiting the station, on the escalator down, I saw a man rising opposite me, a tall lanky youth with smooth arms and between them, a message: “Roads? We Don’t Need Roads Where We’re Going.”

I received the message into my heart before it occurred to me that I had not asked a question. The universe did not wait for my cue anymore but instead spoke directly.

What a joy, to be embedded in a universe that not only listens but speaks! What relief, to be rescued from silence.

I hope all my readers in the metropolitan area will find the solace I found in the T-shirt oracle, which is available to the watchful anywhere that people gather, the non-stop holy billboard of a world that never stops speaking, a place where there is no reason at all to be lonely.

Community Lessons

I asked my students if they had any news and Rido, who is eighty, announced that oysters are hermaphrodites who change sex at will. Oysters change from female to male, from male to female, as often as every seven days. Rido explained this slowly, blinking constantly through old watery eyes. He’d written down all the difficult words to remind himself. He was terribly earnest. He added that his father-in-law had repeatedly announced his desire to be a woman and everyday had washed his face with expensive creams.

I stood at the whiteboard writing down the new vocabulary. I was frustrated, again, because I couldn’t interrupt the lesson and tell the old man that I adored him, that I’d always love him world-without-end-amen. I didn’t want to make him nervous or self-conscious. You can’t tell your students you love them. It just isn’t done.

Rido seldom joins in the general discussion but he always has a story. Last week he was almost cheated out of two million yen and the week before that he found a dead cat on his roof soaked in cooking oil. He’s explored Parisian public toilets and been accused of bicycle theft. He always speaks flatly, without obvious emotion, and his underlying attitude, whatever happens, can be summarized as ‘my, what an interesting planet’.

Inevitably the talk turned to transvestites. Transvestism turns up in conversation at least twice a month at the Kagurazaka Community Center, where even the junior members are septuagenarians. Last week Kozue sat next to a drag queen on the Yamanote train. Poor Kozue, she’d probably never sort out her verb tenses, but she’d never forget what a drag queen was.

This led into a discussion of androgynous (write it on the board) TV stars and also that Korean soap star who all the grandmothers are mad for, who could be a beautiful woman with just a touch of lip gloss and eye-shadow. Itsunori, who isn’t quite eighty and practically invented ATM machines, shouted out, “He’s a queen!” I asked for details and realized we’d fallen prey to misunderstanding.

So I’m standing at the whiteboard, the vocabulary all written out, explaining to this dear man, “Itsunori, now, every queen is not a drag queen. Let’s review. . .”

As you can imagine, it is taking us years to work through the textbook, but I don’t think anyone minds.

→Tokyo

Tokyoites don’t like to admit their city is infinite. To mention it is to draw an uncomfortable silence, even appear rude. How discomfiting it is, to live in a city that can never be finally known! Nonetheless, the truth remains; I attest to it. I’ve lived here for years. (Haven’t I always lived here?) If there were an edge, I’d have found it by now.

I thought I went to the country once—really I was just lost in Shinjuku Park.

Naturally, unverified reports persist of actual borders to Tokyo. As far as I can tell, these are rumors perpetrated by people who like to pretend they don’t live here. The only theory which I give any possible credence is found in old Tibetan manuscripts which portray the Six Realms of Existence--a prototype of the Circle Line—contained within the ravenous maw of a red-faced pop-eyed demon.

Six Realms: gods and jealous gods, humans and animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings. The location of each shifts constantly, subject to fads and gentrification, but there are a few constants. The gods can be counted upon to eat French food in Ginza. (The jealous gods are there as well, but they are only window shopping, eating miniscule cakes.) The humans roam about with driven looks, certain that today will be their ticket to fortune or disaster. The hungry ghosts are pitiable as ever—they can never get enough pachinko.

The demon hypothesis makes sense to me. What else could it be that keeps us spinning round, as if enchanted, on the Circle Line? This also explains something about the air—a companionable stink full of threats and promises. It’s the air that we breathe in Tokyo. It’s demon’s breath.

Then again, there are limits to the theory. I suspect that if we could contact him, that universal demon, blushing now, he would plead helplessness, that even he—who claims to be in charge—is really in thrall, captured and suspended here, within an even greater Tokyo.