Kappa Quartet by Daryl Qilin Yam

Author:Daryl Qilin Yam
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814757768
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2016-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

5

LOVER MAN

DECEMBER 2012

SUGIMURA

The intermission was nearly coming to an end, and the boy said he needed to pee. I looked at my friend, seated on his other side. He looked back at me. “C’mon,” my friend said to Goro. “Let’s go.”

It was the New Year’s Eve concert, held at the Fumon Hall in Tokyo. All my life, I had never stepped foot in a concert hall as big as this one, and now, as the crowd gradually dissipated, I found myself one of the few people remaining, seated in the middle of this great chamber. I noted an old couple seated together, down the row to my left, thumbing through the programme. In the row before mine, a couple of seats down to the right, sat Mr Five. I didn’t know him then, but I would soon enough.

He was a kappa in what seemed like his fifties, the hole in his head positioned several inches above his left ear. Large boils of various sizes covered his face and his neck, each boil catching the light differently, causing his profile to be cast in an array of splintered shadows. It was such a curious effect I couldn’t help but stare, until Mr Five looked over his shoulder and established eye contact with me. I was too transfixed to look away. Caught in the act, I ended up smiling at him, and he smiled back. The kappa then got up from his seat, walked down to the end of his row, and sat himself in the vacant one next to mine.

“I am Mr Five,” he said with a short bow. I bowed back.

“Mr Five?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Mr Five, as opposed to Mr Four, or Mr Six. It is a nickname.” He then said he was here to support a friend; a member of a jazz quintet he had most recently joined. “I am the fifth member of this quintet, and thus: Mr Five.”

“Interesting…” I told him I was here to support a friend as well.

“Oh? What does he play?” he asked.

“The saxophone.”

Mr Five blinked, and smiled even wider. He seemed taken aback by my answer.

“Same here,” he said. “My friend plays the sax, while I play the trumpet.”

I shifted in my seat. “Are you… a member of an orchestra as well?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head, as though it was a matter of great sensitivity to him. “I find it particularly hard to relate to classical music,” he explained. “It lacks all of the things that make jazz so great: the spontaneity, the cool, the unpredictability. But I must admit I was very moved, halfway through the first set.”

I began looking through the programme. “You mean, during the Gustav Holst...?”

“Yes,” said Mr Five. “There it is: the Second Suite in F. Are you fond of classical music yourself?”

“You could say so,” I said, closing the booklet. “But I prefer jazz as well… I owe this to my friend’s influence.”

“Was he the one you came with?”

“Yes… He’s in the toilet now.

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