As work winds up for the day, efore I do anything else, I remember I owe somebody a phone call.
I call the Auburn RSL and ask for Justin Foster.
The receptionist is clearly bemused, and perhaps suspicious, that a young girl is asking for a mature man. She might assume he’s my father. After a few minute he comes on the line.
“Who is this?” he asks.
“It’s Geona. I talked to you on the train the other day?”
“Ah,” he says heavily.
“Inari spoke to me about… what happened. She didn’t ask me to pass this on but… she said a lot about freedom. I know I’m free to pass this on…”
“Wait,” he says. “First let me get this to a private room.”
There’s a rustling, then a minute or two of hideous hold music, then he picks up again.
“I’m back. Inari? Who’s she?” he asks. “Somebody you know?”
“Inari Okami? The goddess? I mean, she’s a Japanese goddess, but you’ve probably heard about her, at least if you were in a Japanese labour camp…”
“THAT Inari? And you’re talking about her on a first name basis?”
“Well, she’s sort of a mother to kitsune, and I’m sort of new to this, so she spent some time with me last night as I was dreaming…”
“Right,” he says, with perhaps a tinge of distaste.
“So, “I continue, “About the kitsune standing by. It was, more or less, that humans must be allowed to make their own mistakes, even terrible ones. While she didn’t say so, I think the gods are trying to avoid intervening, because if they start intervening – with the power balance being what it is – we’ll all wind up serving the gods and resenting it.”
There’s a moment of silence on the line.
“I can sort of see that,” he says. “I remember a time when the gods would stick their finger in at every opportunity. It could get pretty bad.
“I don’t have to like it though! You can draw a line! Letting those men torture mates who had done no wrong beyond an honourable surrender… they could have intervened. Maybe you let your kids act freely, but you spank them when they screw up too badly.”
“And where exactly is the line?” I ask. “Every time you draw a line, somebody wants to move it just a bit. Then the next person, a bit more. Eventually, there may as well not be a line at all.”
“That’s a weird thing for a kid to say,” he says. “I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but it’s still weird. And I still think they should have helped.”
“You know I was, like, fifty before I was a kitsune, right?”
I’m inserting “like” into my sentences. Kill me now.
“Ah, right,” he says. “I’ve just gotten too used to dealing with mortal kids. Well, you’re still young. But… thanks. It’s not closure. But it’s nice knowing that they didn’t… not care.”
We say our farewells and I hang up.
After the call, I head back to the loungeroom and turn the television back on, then spend a few more minutes with What Dreams May Come before a thought occurs to me.
If I really want to stretch myself…
Gankutuou is an anime I bought years ago but never actually finished. It’s basically The Count of Monte Cristo in space, with psychedelic textures.; every frame is made of detailed and colourful textures, an ever-shifting mosaic which makes the whole thing gorgeously detailed.
It gives me a headache.
That said, it’s probably the best thing I know to push my illusions forward.
I pop the Robin Williams flick and file it, then grab the Gankutsuou box set and put the first volume into the player.
As the minutes slip by, I do my level best to reproduce the anime including all the slick and fancy textures.
I’m doing pretty well for a while, but… this thing really does give me a headache. I’m increasingly remembering why I gave up on it.
Plus, this feels sort of mechanical. It’s just copying. Very, very hard copying, but still copying. Stopping the DVD player, I put the current DVD away and turn the television off.
Instead, I grab my dead-tree copy of Fellowship of the Ring and the first volume of the Blu-Ray box set, then skip ahead to the flight across the Brandywine. Branduin. Whatever.
In the movies, this part skips straight to Bree. It misses out completely on Crickhollow, the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Downs. I’ve reminded myself of the movie’s depictions of the hobbits.
Now I quickly skim through the book, and as I do so, I construct an illusion of the movie as it should have been at this point.
First, the homely welcome of Crickhollow. Then, the dark menace of the Old Forest. The terror and peril of Old Man Willow; the panicked cries of Merry and Pippin and they are engulfed by the malicious tree.
And the joyful prancing of Tom Bombadil as he comes and rescues them all, then escorts them to his home to be greeted by Goldberry.
Goldberry is… not all that hard to pin down. I imagine Inari, but as a golden-haired elf. It’s a pale imitation, but in my mind’s eye, Goldberry had that same welcoming deep well of power that Inari holds. Mother to all, with a sparkle in her eye.
Bombadil is… harder. The sheer energy and merriness that Tolkien portrayed in his books is difficult to reproduce. His voice dances. It rings. And he himself, while on the surface seems to be only another man, hides depths of vigour and energy which none could stand against. Tom Bombadil in the books is an enigma, and getting that through an illusion is… tough.
Still, it’s a challenge. And a much more satisfying one than simply reproducing somebody else’s vision.
As Bombadil releases the hobbits and they find themselves lost and trapped in the Barrow-Downs, my phone rings, and my illusion shatters.
I grab my phone and answer. “Hello?”
“It’s Amanda Chapman. You knew I was coming, right? I’m supposed to be teaching you Japanese. Is there anywhere I can park my car? It looks like the parking at the front is metered; I’d rather not eat a parking fine.”
“Uh…” Darn it, I’d forgotten she was coming. Oh well. “There’s a visitor’s parking lot at the back. There are usually some spare spaces. The combination is…” and reel off a series of digits.
“Thanks. Be there in a few. Hang on.”
I do my best to clear some space for her to sit and grab a side table to put stuff on. I am not a naturally tidy person. I also grab some of my old Japanese workbooks and dictionaries from when I was actively trying to learn the language.
Ten minutes later the intercom for the security door buzzes and I let her in. After a couple of minutes, there’s a knock on the front door and I open it up and wave her in.
Amanda is a robust woman of around a hundred and sixty centimetres, dark brown hair in a long ponytail and a trace of an epicanthic hold hinting at a partial Asian ancestry. She’s wearing a fairly sensible blouse and slacks and… mid-rise? Whatever they’re called, her shoes have a noticeable heel but not much of one. Maybe five centimetres?
She is, as expected, significantly taller than me. I’m getting used to it.
“Evening, Amanda. I’m sorry the place is a bit of a mess, I’d… sort of forgotten you were coming.”
She’s not saying anything. Instead, her eyes are flicking between my ears and tail. “So it’s real…” she murmurs.
Should I be annoyed? Maybe a titch, but I’m more sympathetic than annoyed. I mean, a week ago, my reaction would have been much the same.
So instead, I smile.
“Yep. You’re probably not half as surprised as I was.”
An expression of dawning realisation comes to her face, then she offers a box from one of the two bags she’s carrying. The other seems to be study materials. This one isn’t; it looks like it’s from a restaurant.
I pop the box, and the smell of ambrosia meets my nostrils. The box contains a layer of fried, cubed tofu, covered in a light soy-and-chilli marinade.
I glance to Amanda for a nod of permission then delicately grab one of the cubes using a pair of chopsticks sitting to one side of the box, then pop it into my mouth.
I shiver as it touches my tongue and I chew it delicately. My tail lashes about in suppressed ecstasy. This stuff is so good.
Amanda is staring in ill-concealed fascination at my tail.
Then she takes the box back and I give her a betrayed look. “Motivation,” she supplies. “The embassy organised this from a restaurant they recommended and told me I should use it to keep you interested.” She beams at me. “Looks like it’s going to work.
“Right,” she says. “I can see you already had some references. Can I ask where your Japanese is at at the moment?”
I think for a moment. “I started learning Japanese a few years ago but the workbook was all using Romaji, and so while I learned a number of words I’m sure my accent is atrocious… I’m very, very rusty… and I barely know any of the syllabaries or kanji. I started in on learning the hiragana but… I basically gave up at about that point.
“Aside from that, I’ve been reading Japanese light novels and manga for a fair few years and watch a fair bit of anime.
“So… otaku level? Basically not even conversational, but partway there, and what I do know needs a lot of revision.”
Her brow furrows. “Right, so it’s almost from scratch…
“Namae wa nandesu ka?”
I spend a minute figuring it out… namae would be “name”… wa signifies the object of the sentence… nan is “what”, desu is, roughly, “is”… and ka is a question signifier. So “name, what is ?”
“Geona desu,” I venture.
“Yeah, not even conversational. But you have some of the foundations.”
She tosses me a tofu cube and, without thinking, I leap and snatch it in my mouth. Then freeze in embarrassment.
Doggy treats?
Amanda ditches forward on her chair and collapses on the floor, wheezing in laughter, while I blush deeply and cover my face with my hands and tail.
After a minute or two she recovers, still evidently trying to suppress her giggles. “I’m sorry,” she wheezes in apology, “That really was unprofessional. I really didn’t think you’d do that… and it really was hilarious.”
I peek between my fingers and glare at her. “Sure,” I grumble. We both take a few moments to settle down. She tosses me another tofu cube abruptly, and I start out of my seat before a quick thought has me settle back down into my seat and I draw on my meagre air magic.
The cube of tofu abruptly changes course in the air and steers itself into my waiting open mouth.
I much on the new treat… dammit, the new snack, then swallow and grin at her broadly.
She goggles.
“Damn,” she says. “Was that what I think it was?”
“Definitely not magic,” I reply, with an exaggerated look of innocence. “Magic isn’t real. Everybody knows that.” Then I project an illusion of a halo over my head as a place my hands together in feigned prayer.
She stares at the halo for a moment, then meets my eyes. “Sure. Not real. Not real at all.
“Some day you gotta teach me how to do that not-magic. Maybe one night after we’re done with our not-Japanese review in your not-home.
“Anyway, probably about time I earned my princely salary.
“For now, we need to do a few things. Work on building your basic vocabulary, and get a start on learning the kana and kanji. Once we have some basic building blocks in place, we can work on sentence structure and getting your vocab to a point where you can talk to a small child….”
We start working through some more basic vocabulary, using the books she has brought with her. I more or less remember the cardinal numbers, but there are weird rules in Japanese about how numbers are expressed for different classes of object, which I never got a handle on… Amanda skims the workbooks I had then tests me on some of the words covered, discovering both basic holes and an accent which, she tells me, is the sort of level of atrocious that an upper-class Englishman would find the speech of an uncommunicative Welshman. Speaking Welsh.
That smarts.
After a couple of hours the box of tofu is largely empty and I’ve made some noticeable progress. I’m still not ready to hold my own in a conversation; I don’t have the vocabulary and have the barest handle on the Japanese grammatical particles.
Finally, she signals that we need to wind up for the evening; it’s venturing towards half past nine. She hands me a USB key with a label written across it: “LLJC 6.2.” “This,” she tells me, “is the latest release of the Japanese solo language learning software developed at the Language Lab at the University. Please install it on your system and keep your microphone enabled. It will teach you a few new words from the learning course,” pointing at the books she’s brought along, and which, evidently, she’ll be leaving behind, “and test your pronunciation.”
She continues. “I’ll phone you Wednesday night for some quick conversational practice, but you really need to be practicing with native speakers. I was taught by my Mum so my accent is pretty good, but it’s still a second language for me; you need to be talking to a native speaker if possible.”
“I’m meeting a friend from the Japanese embassy on Thursday night…” I venture.
“Perfect. See if you can talk to her a little in Japanese, not English. It will be great practice.”
As we stand for her to leave, her eyes flick again to my tail.
The prices we pay.
“Did you want to feel my tail?” I ask. Her eyes light up.
As expected. It’s not that I blame her – it’s a truly wonderful tail, gorgeous and fluffy and cute and…
Next time I see Inari – or another kitsune – I need to ask if this thing I have about my tail is normal.
For now, I swing it around to her and let her hold it for a minute. Times like this, I’m very glad that the trope of kemomimi tails as erogenous zones isn’t accurate. Still feels nice though. For her and me.
After she releases it – with visible reluctance – she waves farewell and heads out the door. Not forgetting to give me her business card first.
Well, that was a night.
… I have tofu left over. The night is not yet over!
I savour each remaining piece in contained bliss.
I consider briefly returning to filling in the missing chapters from Lord of the Rings, but then think better of it. Not really in the mood any more.
I read for a while, then brush my teeth and head for bed.