“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Anyway, make sure you get back in time for the start of the new term. And pick up a souvenir for me if you can, okay?”
“Of course,” I said. I’d work that one out later.
I went to the business-class lounge, lay back in a sofa, and dozed for a bit, an unsettled sleep. The world had lost all sense of reality. Colours were unnatural, details crude. The background was papier mache, the stars made out of aluminium foil. You could see the glue and the heads of the nails holding it all together. Airport announcements flitted in and out of my consciousness. “All passengers on Air France flight 275, bound for Paris.” In the midst of this illogical dream—or uncertain wakefulness—I thought about Sumire. Like some documentary of ages past, fragments sprang to mind of the times and places we’d shared. In the bustle of the airport,
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passengers dashing here and there, the world I shared with Sumire seemed shabby, helpless, uncertain. Neither of us knew anything that really mattered, nor did we have the ability to rectify that. There was nothing solid we could depend on. We were almost boundless zeros, just pitiful little beings swept from one kind of oblivion to another.
I woke in an unpleasant sweat, my shirt plastered to my chest. My body was listless, my legs swollen. I felt as if I’d swallowed an overcast sky. I must have looked pale. One of the lounge staff asked me, worriedly, if I was okay. “I’m all right,”
I replied, “the heat’s just getting to me.” Would you like something cold to drink? she asked. I thought for a moment and asked for a beer. She brought me a chilled facecloth, a Heineken, and a bag of salted peanuts. After wiping my sweaty face and drinking half the beer, I felt better. And I could sleep a little.
*
The flight left Narita just about on time, taking the polar route to Amsterdam. I wanted to sleep some more, so I had a couple of whiskys and when I woke up, had a little dinner. I didn’t have much of an appetite and skipped breakfast. I wanted to keep my mind a blank, so when I was awake I concentrated on reading Conrad.
In Amsterdam I changed planes, arrived in Athens, went to the domestic flight terminal, and, with barely a moment to spare, boarded the 727 bound for Rhodes. The plane was packed with an animated bunch of young people from every imaginable country. They were all tanned, dressed in T-shirts or tank tops and cut-off jeans. Most of the young men were growing beards (or maybe had forgotten to shave) and had dishevelled hair pulled back in ponytails. Dressed in beige
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slacks, a white short-sleeve polo shirt and dark-blue cotton jacket, I looked out of place. I’d even forgotten to bring any sunglasses. But who could blame me? Not too many hours before I had been in my apartment in Kunitachi, worrying about what I should do with my rubbish.
At Rhodes airport I asked at the information desk where I could catch the ferry to the island. It was at a harbour nearby. If I hurried, I might be able to make the evening ferry. “Isn’t it sold out sometimes?” I asked, just to be sure. The pointy-nosed woman of indeterminate age at the information counter frowned and waved her hand dismissively. “They can always make room for one more,” she replied. “It’s not an elevator.”
*
I hailed a taxi and headed to the harbour. “I’m in a hurry,” I told the driver, but he didn’t seem to catch my meaning. The cab didn’t have any air-conditioning, and a hot, dusty wind blew in the open window. All the while the taxi driver, in rough, sweaty English, ran on and on with some gloomy diatribe about the Euro. I made polite noises to show I was following, but I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I squinted at the bright Rhodes scenery passing by outside. The sky was cloudless, not a hint of rain. The sun baked the stone walls of the houses. A layer of dust covered the gnarled trees beside the road, and people sat in the shade of the trees or under open tents and gazed, almost silently, at the world. I began to wonder if I was in the right place. The gaudy signs in Greek letters, however, advertising cigarettes and ouzo and overflowing the road from the airport into town, told me that—
sure enough—this was Greece.
The evening ferry was still in the port. It was bigger than I’d imagined. In the stern was a space for transporting cars, and
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