The Round People - a Novel - 5. VI. One o'clock

VI. One o'clock

Nobuko rejoined her noisy table. Pat, Jonathan and Emmy were chattily discussing some non-consequentials, but as she settled back into her booth seat, she lingered attention on Andrew. He was far away from them, where she could not have guessed.

Andrew felt relaxed with these people, but tuned them out nonetheless, because all of Ichiko's hospital talk had brought him back to the piercing white of linens, and the vivid smell of chemical freshness imposed upon every spot of every such facility he had ever known. He had come to hate that smell in the tortured visits he had made to his dying father. That smell put him in the room again. That smell forced him to see his father as bedridden and brittle as an aging hope. And that was not the memory of his father he wanted to keep, because his memory of the true man had been so different.

His dad had been in his fifties when Andrew was born, his mother in her mid-twenties. When he was ten, she left them, but even at that tender age, he understood. He knew the reason was not him; it was the mean spirit of his father that finally drove her, like it eventually did everybody, to seek a higher ground of sanity. He was a big man. A body built while he was young through the efforts of F.D.R. and his CCC Camp Commander, and most of all, his own sweat, but he was seldom nice. The physique itself seemed to drive all compassion, or the signs of it at least, out of his system as it did every last ounce of fat and softness. Andrew, his only son, frankly disappointed him by reading all the time, and annoyed him with backtalk on why things, including laws of physics, were so. He never hit his son, but neither did he ever hug Andrew. When the boy was young he loved his father so much it marveled his mother, but that same love got driven out of him by the advent of Andrew's puberty, and the friction it caused between them as men; one young and trying, one too old to relent on anything. If you had asked the teenage boy if he loved his father; Andrew's loneliness, his friendlessness would have said a flat 'no.' Even perhaps a hate that sprang more from the self than from the sire would have said honestly, 'I hate him.'

And so for Andrew, that old crushable man lying shriveled on his blindingly white sheets, was not his father. Was not the man he had never seen sick a day in his life; no, he was not the man who had called him lazy as easily as most fathers say 'what did you learn today?' This man looked so alone and frail, so scared, and like him, friendless. And that smell, that unnatural smell was omnipresent to tell Andrew his old man was going to die while the twenty-year-old son still bitterly hated him. To alleviate the guilt, and to desperately try to realign his heart to this man that all the world said he should, he came to see him everyday. Once when he arrived late with a stack of mid-term books, his father was sound asleep. Instead of studying, he sat on the uncomfortable chair next to the bed, and then right before his eyes he saw something he knew he'd never be able to forget. In the looming half-light from only the floor lamp by his chair, he saw his father have a nightmare. It was the first time Andrew had seen terror settle onto his father, and it took his father as heavily as a blow from a car crash. His frail body thrashed all over the bed, his lips uttering a most frightful melody of garbled words. Andrew grabbed onto him, fearing he would tumble off his bed, and when the patient started awake, his hands flew up and attacked his son. Andrew couldn't bear it any more, and started to choke back tears while still holding onto the body that once had so scared him, and filled him with an admiration for the beauty and brutality of what it was to be a man. Being this near to him again, Andrew was a boy. Hoisted up into his father's arms, and his cheeks scratched by the rough red flannels of the man's shirt and the callused hands that gently smacked his cheeks with cold from the outdoors. He was a kid again, because at this distance, time melded into the omnipresent; the scent of sweat and Ben-Gay remained on the shell of the man he remembered, and his recollection put him back to the time it meant the most to Andrew. Because at that early date, love from the son was real, and love from the father at least seemed a possibility. Andrew was racked with sobs as the old man slowly came out of the delirium of his dream. The boy wanted to love him, wanted to with all his might find that someplace within him that could still harbor a love for this man – but he couldn't. This convulsed his whole body with desperate and reasonless tears, because he could not love him.

Andrew's father, frightened by his phantom dream, frightened by seeing his coming death, did not resist being held by his son. But he didn't know what to do to comfort him. "Let me go, boy," he finally said, but Andrew was too ashamed to let his face be seen. The old man whispered in a hoarse voice that scratched the side of Andrew's neck: "I know son, I love you too."

˚˚˚˚˚

Jonathan was telling the table: "Did anybody see the new painting above the door? Dean did it this afternoon." All eyes, including Andrew's, drifted lazily over to the space pointed at; Patricia's was the last out of disinterest.

She said, "I wonder what it means?"

Jon was a bit defensive for the absent Dean. "What. The picture doesn't need any explanation – "

Pat cut him off, "No, I mean what The Round People could mean. Why did they name a bar that? It's pretty weird, don’t you think?" Pat's glance darted from Jonathan to Andrew.

"I think," paused Nobuko, "it’s because people go to these kinds of places looking for something." The following silence was ungainly, everyone turning away from Dean's painting to her, all wanting a further elaboration.

Nobuko picked up her lighter. "You know, the young want to dance, the older want to drink," she waved her unlit cigarette around, "the even older with their mizuwari are looking for business friends, and…" she lit it, "they're all looking for some-one to do this kind of stuff together with."

"Well maybe…" Emmy spoke up from Nobuko's right side, "…but I don't think so. I think it means we're all unhappy and looking to be peaceful people."

"What?" Nobuko asked sardonically.

"No, listen a minute. You know in Japanese round is maru. But there are two ways to write it with Chinese characters. One is the regular way, like the department store Mauri, but the other way is en, like money Yen, and when this en is used to mean round it has the meaning of harmony." She looked desperately to the older Japanese woman, asking if she understood. She asked her, "What's the Japanese word for harmony?"

Nobuko shifted around a bit embarrassed. "It's enman, and I'm starting to see your point," she admitted.

Emmy explained to the rest. "Men are just looking for women, and women are looking for men, like Nobuko said, to bring peace and harmony into their lives. That's why they come here – so it's called The Round People."

"But, what about fun?" Argued Jonathan, "I guess some people come here to have fun more than they do to look for a husband or wife."

Emmy was just about to speak, but Andrew interrupted.

"I hate to change the subject," a smile on top enlivening the leaned elbows he propped on the table, "but you can always tell a Gaijin fresh off the airplane when he tells you something like: 'Yeah, I just went shopping at that store, O-eey O-eey.'"

"Yeah," Jon was laughing, "Marui's big red circle and one logo fools a lot of us." He drew a large OIOI in the air. "I guess it's one way of gauging how long a person's been in Japan – if he knows how to say the name of that department store."

"But, back to what we were saying," Emmy included Nobuko in her sweeping 'we,' "Jon, what do you think the name of the bar means?" Her tone was forceful, as if addressing a wayward student.

Jonathan's eyes smiled at her pedantic tone. He took delight in playing the slow dullard to her assumed sharpness. He shrugged: "No idea."

˚˚˚˚˚

Mark worked the back bar alone. He had plenty to do, but none of it kept him from considering the external weighted against his inner feelings. He thought to himself, 'Why do I always have to be the proverbial nice guy?'

He was confused about why Nobuko wanted to keep their relationship 'in the closet.' He knew he was younger than she was, but really, what does ten years mean? In the age-difference between two hearts, what is ten years – nothing. Was she ashamed to be seen with him? Was he too dumb for her to want to acknowledge? All of it broke his heart.

Unexpectedly he saw himself in her apartment. About a month ago she had invited him to crash there because he had complained of being too tired to catch the first train. Nobuko was tired too. After she dutifully spread his futon and bedding, she announced she was going to take a shower.

Alone, lying with his hands laced behind his head, and down to his tank top and drawers, he studied Nobuko's ceiling from the position of her futon. He wondered like a teenage girl if she liked him half as much as he liked her. Inspired, and wicked, he rose. His clothes slipped off as he made for the bathroom door. The sound of the shower arose with its balmy oppressive humidity slamming him as he slipped the door open.

Very mildly, Nobuko asked, "What are you doing?"

"Saving water," he said as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

Nobuko opened the shower curtain, and as he stepped in. The water soaked his hairy chest, and so did Nobuko's fingers when they came up to caress him.

Like a teenage boy, his erection sprang up the moment her tender lips met his. She liked him after all, and Mark was very happy.

The futon laid so carefully on the floor, was only a steppingstone for the couple climbing into her bed, their lips still locked in exploratory kisses.

Afterwards – the sun fully risen, and birds busy with chirping in their daily rounds – Nobuko lay snuggled against his chest; her hand again nestled there, within his curly dark hair. He kissed her slumbering brow and thought Bali and Phuket, and all the rest of his travel list, could easily wait.

In The Round People, Mark had to stop. He swallowed. He got it. It was a secret for Nobuko because she expected him to be on his way at any moment. The others in the bar not knowing would simply spare her all the half-felt sympathy of losing 'another one.' She still didn't know how much he cared for her, and whose fault was that? His. But, he smiled, at least that was one thing he could rectify.

˚˚˚˚˚

Slowly the customers disappeared. Like actors from a stage, they nobly but reluctantly drew themselves across the dance floor to exit the long way out. They paused so the audience could see them go, and maybe catalogue themselves in other's memory for a future appearance. The engagement pressed with handshakes and a parting smile.

In general, by half-past one o'clock, the exotic 'ways' of the Gaijin seem to have been blunted. The locals felt, at best an affinity for what they have lived together over the course of this night, or at worst, a sense that foreigners weren’t all that interesting to begin with. Altogether they felt they had discovered the possibilities of them, and they turned out to be not so different from their own.

By then the couples had started to drift away. The pairs who came together leaving earlier than the ones who had congealed just the same night; that lucky minority of lonely-hearts fooled with no promises, no dreams perhaps, but then again those sentiments were rendered less expected every moment the heart ticked forward to the colder, emptier morning.

˚˚˚˚˚

Jonathan watched Benedict sweep Emmy off to the dance floor again. Once she was gone, the table felt much freer, in fact only Andrew and Nobuko, with Jon between them, remained. Pat had excused herself to 'the little girls room.' Nobuko scooted over and nudged Jonathan.

She spoke low and accusingly: "Emmy told me."

"Told you what?"

"That when she was sitting on your lap – Did you know she felt it?"

Jon was getting bothered by having to ask a question to every one Nobuko asked. "Felt what?"

Like a confession-expectant priest, she sought guilt, "You can admit it now. I know that you got an, how do you say? An Election."

He nearly shouted: "What!?" knowing Nobuko's 'Election' was a supposed erection of his.

Andrew looked curiously over to the pair.

"Sorry." Jonathan turned a bright red face to the other young man, but returned to Nobuko in an urgent, breathless whisper: "She told you that I got – that I got a…" he swallowed desperately, "…a Tubby?"

"Of course, I know you did." She said this in a way meant to soothe a guilty conscience of its dirty secret. "I know; it's natural."

"Of course I did Not." He tried to shake off her laying-on of shame like a dog does a newly fitted collar. "What do you think? That I'm some high school boy who gets stiff in math class, over nothing? Don't you think I've had a girl in my lap before…" he stopped to lower his tone with a new intake of air, "…do you think I'm that desperate?"

Nobuko spread her sage-like eyes over him, the whites cloudy from too much 'seeing' of these kinds of things. She began to smirk: "Are you guilty because you secretly are attracted to her?"

Jon opened full, incredulous eyes. In them Nobuko saw she had hurt him to the core.

"You don’t like her, do you?"

"No, not really. I think she's a pretentious, spoiled brat. But now I know she's a dangerous one too." Jonathan got an idea. Grinning broadly he said, "Here, feel this." He grabbed Nobuko's hand, knowing just what his 'election' was. "Now, open your palm." She did and he turned it face down, but when she saw he was heading it towards his crotch, she instantly resisted. Jonathan insisted: "I just want you to feel exactly what she did."

Nobuko sang out: "I don’t need it."

"Wait," he couldn't help but laugh as he heard himself urge her, "trust me."

She relaxed and he guided her hand over his upper thigh, working her fingers in a loose and groping way. He stopped just where the jeans V'd up from the base of the fly to the tops of the legs. He worked her fingers on something there.

"Well. What do you think?"

A grin cracked Nobuko's stern and worried expression. "It's a hairbrush," she said.

"Yeah. One of those collapsible, round types." Satisfied, he released her hand. "Believe me, it I had a Stiffy, she would feel it, that's for sure."

Andrew tried hard not to notice the groping going on right next to him, but it was too difficult to ignore.

"Well," explained Nobuko, "she told me you got excited when she sat on your lap. I told you to be careful, that she likes you a lot..." Nobuko slapped his chest hard; Andrew on the other side of them saw it as 'flirtatious,' "…and now she's convinced herself you like her too. Be careful; now she's armed."

Jonathan shot a worried look over to Benedict and Emmy on the dance floor. "You're right. There's no telling what a spoiled kid will do when she wants something. – Nobuko?" Jonathan's voice became sensitive to every ear. "Can you do me a favor, and pretend you and I are…" there was a pause, "You know…"

"Fuck buddies?"

"I was going to say something like 'sweethearts,' but I guess 'fuck buddies' will do." He shook his head, "I swear, sometimes you are about the least tactful person I know."

"OK, I agree, but do you think she will believe it?"

"What, that you are a crude person?"

"No. About us being lovers."

"If not, I'll have to think of something else."

"You could tell her the truth, you know."

But Jonathan hardly heard her. Instead, he set a frustrated stare on the graceful Emmy. He didn't want to hurt her per se, but he prepared himself to do just that, knowing she was in the way of what he wanted.

˚˚˚˚˚

Pat, waiting for the restroom, peeped through the register area and to the bar. She was stirred by a moment of pity for Ichiko, for she sat there alone. Pat hesitated a long minute, debating whether to help her, and calculating her own pressing physical needs. She went over to the girl.

"Hi, Ichiko," Pat said. "How are you doing?"

The patiently sitting girl looked startled at Patricia. "I'm fine." She was a little needlessly defensive. She didn't want the Canadian to snatch Andrew's seat.

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

Ichiko looked beyond Pat's shoulder towards the front of the club.

"Don’t worry," Pat insisted. "If he comes back, I’ll just slip away," and she started to pick up Ichiko's coat and gloves.

"But…" she protested.

"If he comes back." Pat put the things on the owner's lap, noticing Ichiko's gloves with an inner scorn of the naïveté of Japanese girls.

"So how's it going, over here, all by yourself?"

"Yes, fine."

Patricia all at once broke out in Japanese, "You should join our table." She would have been more casual, working around to that, but she didn't have the time.

"How come?"

Pat shook her head. She was a patient teacher of English, but concerning the mysteries of men she took on an annoyed attitude, as if she were tired of always having to explain the obvious.

"American boys," she started, her pencil-thin eyebrows waving like a flag, "are shy around girls – not because they are shy, they're not, especially not around other guys, but get the typical red-blooded American boy next to a female that he likes, and he's bashful out of courtesy."

Ichiko peered at her in amazement, almost as if the other woman had two heads, both spouting profound wisdom.

Pat continued, "You like Andrew, don’t you?"

Ichiko nodded 'yes.'

"Well, if you're dealing with an American guy, you have to be the aggressive one. They're so stupid, they're never able to guess on their own. And besides, you are never going to get him interested in you by sitting way over here on your own."

Ichiko was astounded at how well Patricia could express herself in Japanese, and at the refreshingly direct way she did it. Ichiko glanced at her through her side strands. She fundamentally resented being told what was best for her, but intended to follow the wiser woman's counsel.

Pat didn't generally care about people, especially when she was in Alberta, but gradually, after living in Japan for a few years, she started to look for ways to help her fellow females. She wanted her Japanese sisters to be better able to recognize what they wanted. She knew that once they found it, there was usually no way of stopping these demure creatures from getting it. But the trick remained in the recognition. Patricia was lonely, and because of it, she could help others less able to solve their own isolation.

˚˚˚˚˚

As his backside leaned against the counter with the register, Seth folded his arms, and pondered the make up of the floor below him. He was depressed. He chalked it up to a bad night, and the hurtful stupidity of others, like the scene on the balcony; like the scene at the elevator. He didn't want to hate, he saw only too well that hate shown outwards hides the passion that burns with inner abhorrence of the self. But when another seems to despise for no reason but their internalized loathing, why should he be denied the only natural reaction, a return of that spite. But he didn't want to hate. Both the thought and the emotion left him powerless and depressed.

Some saw Seth and were afraid because of what they saw, or more precisely, because of what they thought they saw. His size in no way showed anything about his heart, except to hint at its capacity and strength. Its capacity for distinguishing between hate and self-hate was remarkable, and for those who were lucky enough to be liked by him, this heart would never forsake them groundlessly.

But sometimes people can only judge the without for the within, and how many crimes, mistakes – how many loves – have been crushed in this easiest of human vices.

˚˚˚˚˚

Pat was coming out of the restroom. In front of her, peeking half cut off on the top, was the contemplative form of Seth still in his lean and reverie. He glanced up at her. To Patricia, Seth did not look his usual self, and she had liked him for a long time, in fact, since he'd starting working here. In front of him though, she was self-conscious. Whether it was her mother's voice, or hers now through long repetition, something told her to get to a mirror to re-check her hair and makeup. She bit down in the fear within, but this reaction to being before someone she was attracted to, was always to be expected. This brand of insecurity was placed on her like the tag on a wild animal to forever track and monitor, and to the girl thus first branded, she would never be pretty; she was told, some in this world are, some are not. All the inner strength she was willing to share with her poorer Japanese sisters, dried up in the face of her own emotions.

She stepped under the curtain. Her voice was getting tired, and she spoke in a softer way than she intended: "How's the night treating you, Seth?"

Something in her tone made him want to answer as plainly as possible, no matter how much pain it might reveal. Instead he lied, but he turned huge sorrowful eyes on Pat, and for the first time she felt him really looking at her. "Not too bad."

She almost swooned under the weight of his glance; it hit her in a sense that he was worse off than she. In that look was a loneliness as great as hers, and it begged not to just anyone, but for Pat to caress it. She told him, "Well, take it easy. There's nothing worth knocking yourself to pieces over." She hadn't asked a question, but there was a hint of some other slightly mysterious issue hanging in the air between them.

His sad eyes rained a smile like a rainbow on her, and like the one that Noah saw, it promised something deep and urgent. He was glad someone cared. "You don’t have to tell me that."

From under that gaze she never wanted to move, but compelled was she by the fear of ridicule to do so.

"Seth…" Pat stammered slightly, "…did I ever tell you what it's like to be Canadian in Japan?"

Seth smiled wryly, shook his head.

"It's dreadful," she confided. "American? American? – " she pointed for mock emphasis, " – American? That's all I ever hear. It drives me nuts. You guys are lucky – they all love you."

Seth cracked an ironic laugh: "You think so?"

Pat dropped the bullshit; she hoped he would see that. "I'm saying, if you ever need an ear to bend about putting up with being unique, being you, here, so far away from home, I'll listen and I'll know how you feel." As she stopped speaking, to her surprised dismay, she saw his velvet eyes moisten. She swallowed her chance, thinking maybe she'd blown it.

"Well," she forced herself to step back under the curtain, "I'm going now," she gestured needlessly, "and I’ll see you later." In her head were storms of tears at her powerlessness, while gradually a high land began to rise into a clear point of reason. She stepped back in front of him, swallowing. Lingering at his side, she brought herself to a halt, turned and heard to her alarm a strong woman speak with a trembling voice: "When do you get off tonight?"

"Three," he looked puzzled. "Why?"

"I thought, if you want to, go get – We could go get some coffee or a donut." The sound of 'a donut' sounded ludicrous to her, she didn't even eat donuts. She felt he was going to laugh at her, or worse yet, think she was a slut.

"That sounds real nice," he replied softly.

She peered up startled into his face to make sure he had gotten a good look at the person he was talking to. She never at anytime felt more ugly, more hateable or unworthy, but Seth looking at her, saw what he recognized would be a person who could love him. His sad eyes were drawn up by a helplessly lopsided grin.

They both knew the agreement was tentative, that an almost endless number of now unseen factors could heave into their way and ruin it, but as it was, it was a chance. As it would be, only hope could judge, but a chance untaken, unfought for, is often seen as the best in hindsight.

˚˚˚˚˚

As the clocks wound down to the second hour of the morning, most of the softies beat a retreat from the bar, and the mixture changed again. The fierce bubbling of many types got boiled down to the tough and few. The packs of Office Ladies drifted away, to break up later at the train station with tired but unstrained partings of 'I had fun,' and 'It was interesting. Let's go there again,' before they alone wandered home to spend most of Sunday in bed and dream of foreign, romantic, romances. On Monday they would be the Oh's and Ah's of the office; the devil-may-care adventurers of Kichijoji.

By this time, the wide-brimmed college boys with their thick-soled girls, have started to give one another poignant looks. They gradually make their way across the dance floor, and find out in the cold night's air a place of 'love'; the discrete privacy of Love Hotels. The boys dig in their pockets for a little money, and they have themselves a room to weather the tender hours of the morning in each other's arms. If they have the courage, if they know the truth of it, they will tell their partners of the fantasies born in the swirl of the bar. If they are brave and share the desires that passed over them meaninglessly like a prolonged daydream, then their own passion can grow to replace it, in fact grow all the stronger and more intense because of it. Free of jealously and guilt, love can always find growth in the love, no matter how briefly felt, for others.

And the mix melted down. The weak went, and the too-tired too; person by person, group by group, they all left The Round People to the regulars, who also would have gone home, but their sense of family left them lingering here. They were the ones devoted to the night in its entirety. Tired perhaps, but awake in the intrigues of how the new day would find them, and find their friends.

˚˚˚˚˚

Pat carefully put Ichiko next to Andrew, and sat herself on the other side. No introductions, for everybody knew everybody and the two women just seemed to slip into the ensemble.

Jonathan and Andrew were mildly complaining about Japan.

"That's nothing," boasted Andrew, "do you know there's a glue with the brand name of 'Almighty Bond?' It must be the stuff God used to put the universe together, or something."

"That’s pretty good," admitted Jon, "but what about each and every single utility bill I get, where I am begged to remember the company's heartfelt slogan of: 'My Life, My Gas.'"

"Well, my microwave tells me to: 'Enjoy Your Cooking Life.'"

"My refrigerator has a little silver plaque to remind everyone: 'It's a Nice Partner for You.'"

Andrew thought of a good one, "My coffee maker is a 'Santa Fe Café Mill and Drip.'"

"Oh, yeah, try this one for size: the monorail train to Haneda Airport has a warning sign between cars. It cautions: 'Please do not sit on the Diaphragm. It's dangerous!'"

"What!" Pat cried out.

"It's above the vinyl covers that protect where the train cars twist and turn. I suppose that's the 'diaphragm' in question."

"Just goes to prove…" Andrew chipped in, "…a dictionary can be a dangerous thing. Not all translations are created equal."

Jonathan opened his mouth with a ready rebuttal, "I have seen many a – "

"So," Nobuko broke in forcefully. She was feeling a pinch from these two poking her national pride with Japanese commercial 'Engrish.' "Ichiko, what do you think the meaning of The Round People could be? We were all talking about it earlier, and now that you're here, we should get your opinion."

She let slip how nervous she was with a slight yelp, one that she quickly tried to cover by grabbing and downing her Vodka Tonic.

Nobuko wondered if she heard the question, and pondered stating it again in Japanese. But, Ichiko grappled with her fear of responding, and the longer she waited, she knew, the more unnatural the situation would become. She glanced at Patricia who gave her a confident nod of reassurance.

"Do you have any ideas?" Pat asked settlingly.

Ichiko forced her terror down; felt the warmth of the vodka rise back up inside of her as confidence. She was going to reply, she was, by the sheer force of her will if need be, speak English.

"I think it's from the – " She turned to Pat, asking in Japanese, "How do you say 'drinking party' in English?"

"Drinking party."

"I think it's from Drinking Party." Ichiko saw only blank, non-understanding expressions on the people around her. She asked Pat again in reverted Japanese, "How do you say 'dialogue' in English?"

Patricia's lips went slack. She had to think about that one. She looked at Nobuko, who shrugged her shoulders.

"Conversation, I think," Pat suggested.

Ichiko was losing courage fast. "I think it's from…" she remembered to put in a 'the,' "…the Conversation, Drinking Party." But it didn't seem to help. Now everybody was looking at her like she was speaking Martian to Lunatics. She wanted to laugh at her embarrassment, but she thought she'd cry instead.

At last Jon made a correct leap of faith. "Is it 'The Drinking Party;' some specific thing?"

"Yes." The girl glowed, "Do you know it?"

All eyes turned to him. "No," he said a little guiltily, "I just thought she might be talking about a novel, or a movie, or something."

"Is it a movie?" asked Andrew.

"No," she said, "it's a kind of book – a Con..?"

"…Versation." Andrew completed the word mindlessly.

Poor Ichiko looked mortified. No one was following her at all. Her moment in the spotlight was burning her. She thought about running away to wherever her feet could take her. She slowly moved from one puzzled expression to another, and there on Andrew's face she witnessed the birth of comprehension. It fell from a twinkle in his eye to a sparkle on his brilliantly white teeth, which now shone on her, and her alone.

"I know," he said boldly, "I should have figured it out too – she's smart. You're talking about a classical dialogue; The Symposium, aren’t you?"

By Platon, de sho?"

"So, so, so!" Andrew confirmed. "Symposium means drinking party in Greek." Now it was his turn to explain, but all the time, the sinking-in that this girl he had referred to earlier as 'brainless' was anything but. "Plato wrote – " but then he stopped. What was on Ichiko's mind suddenly hit him with its full poetic force. He turned an almost pained encouragement on her, "Why don’t you tell them." He was taken with the story she was about relay, and by the fact that she knew it. It was like discovering something deep and beautiful and hidden in someone you've already known for a long time. There is an inexplicable beauty in knowing the familiar on a new level.

"In the Shim…"

"Symposium." He helped her along.

"These men come together at someone's house to have a drinking party, but they are tired of alcohol, and don’t want to start drinking until the guest of honor arrives. Someone says they should have a contest to see who can come to the closest meaning of love for human beings. And then one play-writer tells an old story about who the first people were. These were the Round People, and they were very strong with two heads, and four arms and legs. There were three kinds: the men, with two sets of male parts; the women with matched female parts; and one kind with different parts. One day they decided to attack the mountain of the gods, but Zeus saw them and took them prisoner. At first he wanted to kill all of them, but then he thought of a better way to make them suffer forever. He took his sword and sliced each one in two, and then scattered the halfs all over Earth. After that, they were so weak and always filled with strong desires that they didn't understand or could not control, and it made them sad and angry and hurtful to one another. This desire that they could not understand made them crazy with fear and hate because they could not remember what they were doing, what they were looking for in life. They didn't understand the nature of their own wants.

"And those weak people are us today. We are unhappy and unsettled, and we are that way because everything we think we want to do is only a distraction for what we really want to do; find our missing half. We look for the one other person in this terrible world who can make us feel complete. We are all just looking for our missing strength, our wholeness, and our happiness."

The stream of a foreign language poured out of Ichiko completely to her pride and wellbeing.

"And this bar is a place where they have a chance to find each other again."

The regulars listened and seemed lost in thoughts of her disclosure. No one spoke. Nobuko blew smoke aimlessly across the table; Pat smiled ever so slightly as she stole a glance at her watch; Andrew swallowed to know this attractive young woman was someone he could talk to, really talk to; and Jonathan, feeling more cornered and alone than any of them, gazed wistfully up to Dean's vibrant Round People painting.