Chapter 7

Akemi thought of the first time Mitchell photographed her going down on him- he used sex to forget frustration at his job and elsewhere. Her mouth had looked smaller than expected and everything smoother.

Mitchell said when he was in Japan that Japanese politeness sometimes struck him as too much. He laughed about it, told Akemi that her courteous banter with another passenger passing them on the way to the exit of a train, each apologizing unnecessarily it seemed to him and at length, might have prevented that person from reaching the door before it closed.

Akemi had thought she’d see an objective view of their marriage somehow in the pictures, gain insight. She hadn’t.

What did Mitchell like to talk about? His running. In all his years doing it he’d developed some expertise, had things to say. She wondered if Tommy ran or what kind of other exercise he enjoyed. He looked in shape.

Mitchell’s heat spurting when he came.

A lot went through the mind during long hours in a detention center with no one to talk to. This was before the casual friendship developed with the woman named Carmen. That fellow detainee helped, tried to. Akemi would speculate that she might have helped her in turn. Strong as the middle-aged housewife seemed, she too must have been losing her wits there.

The beating heart throughout the day, heartbeat of a small bird pounding out of its chest, beat of stalwart survival.

When they visited Japan, Mitchell said the experience was strange for him. In past trips abroad, in Europe, he had always compared the other country to the United States, usually to the detriment of the latter. The European way of life seemed to him saner, more humane. In Japan, though, he found judging impossible, was too occupied just trying to orient himself. There was no standing back from what was right in front of him, as necessary to gain perspective. You’re in a crowded vast underground labyrinth, Tokyo subway station at rush hour which seemed to exist perpetually. Where do you go? How to reach your destination, get out of there? And on his return to the U.S. he had a hard time making sense of what he’d just been through. Japan was different, but better? as France or Scandinavia were in his view? He couldn’t say. Japan offered contradictions. No sooner would he see something he found wonderful than something else would strike him as terrible.