The City (With Bonus Short Story the Neighbor): A Novel by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Suspense, Romance, Fantasy, Literary
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-07-01T03:56:35+00:00

44

Assuming that Mr. Yoshioka had told me everything, I pushed my chair back from the table and got to my feet.

I wanted to ask him about Manzanar. I had at least a hundred questions. But I didn’t know how to broach the subject.

“One more thing, Jonah Kirk. Another acquaintance of mine, Mr. Toshi Katsumata, who calls himself Thomas or Tom but never Tommy, has worked for nineteen years in city hall, as head clerk of municipal-court records. The final divorce papers that your mother received gave your father’s address as 106 Marbury Street, which is actually the address of his rather less than reputable attorney, because he wished to keep his true residence from you and your mother. However, while the court allows your father that privacy, it must have his real address in the case file. Poor Mr. Katsumata has a sterling record and is a man of honor, so I am certain that it pained him to violate the privacy assured by the court and provide me with your father’s true address. Nevertheless, he is also a man of his word, and he values friendship.”

This development baffled me. “Why would I want Tilton’s address? I don’t want it. I never want to see him again. He’s never been a father to me.”

“I had made that assumption some time ago,” said Mr. Yoshioka. “But considering that you saw your father with the dangerous Mr. Drackman last week, I thought it essential that we know his address. He lives on the north side, quite far from here, a distance that I am certain you would not be allowed to travel on your own. But I will keep the address in case we should ever need it.” He got up from his chair. “There is yet one more thing you should know—well, two.”

He carried his coffee mug to the sink and stood with his back to me as he rinsed it.

When he shut off the water, he gazed out of the window above the sink as he said, “I must apologize if the first of these two things I have to tell you will in any way cause you pain or embarrass you, but it is information you must have.”

“What is it?”

He hesitated, and just then snow flurries blew down through the day and danced along the window glass. He said, “ ‘Shiraume ni / Akaru yo bakari to / Narinikeri.’ ”

I figured he must know that I didn’t understand Japanese, even though the nuns at Saint Scholastica expected us to learn everything. But when only silence followed those words, I said, “Mr. Yoshioka?”

“A haiku, a poem by Buson. It means, ‘Of late the nights / Are dawning / Plum-blossom white.’ It seems to fit the moment. Petals of plum blossoms are white like snow, and night is soon coming.”

“It sounds kind of sad.”

“Every snow is beautiful and joyful … and sad, because every snow will melt.”

Lyrics are poetry; therefore, poetry is part of music, but just then I was less a piano man than I was a confused and frightened boy.

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