3

Roppongi was a lot quieter now than it had once been. It was all thanks to a change in municipal regulations, introduced to ease the atrocious congestion around the Ginza. What they did was to license late-night openings there, with the result that fewer customers were turned out onto the streets in the early evening hours. Another reason was that exorbitant prices for food, drink, and entertainment had driven the younger revelers away from Roppongi.

Radio Club was in the basement of a thirty-four-story building, amid a cluster of high-rise blocks. The rental premiums were preposterous, but Radio Club was nearly always empty. It didn’t even have its own membership scheme. The customers were always the same, though; they were like members without a scheme.

Tatsuo Noda had arrived well before eleven and was sitting at the far end of the bar, in one of the booths that lent a modicum of privacy by their high backs. The booths faced each other in pairs on one side of the room, overlooked by the counter on the other side. Noda’s booth was at the very back of the bar, forming a little private room of his own. There were no other customers in the bar. Jinnai the bartender stood behind the counter wiping glasses with a tea towel, occasionally glancing over at Noda, smiling and performing a little bow if their eyes met. The solitary waiter Kuga, a man of considerable girth, stood motionless beside the door and appeared to be deep in thought. The professional dedication of this middle-aged double act had probably dictated the profile of their clientele. “P.S. I Love You” played over the speakers.

Noda sat drinking whisky as he waited for Paprika. But not just any old whisky – this, according to Jinnai, was highest quality, twenty-seven-year-old Usquaebach, which he’d managed to get at a discount. Paprika. Now that was an odd name for a psychotherapist. But, as Shima had explained, it was just a throwback from the days when using PT devices was illegal and the therapists all had to use code names. Shima had also gone on at some length about how very beautiful this Paprika was.

Noda felt no anxiety at the prospect of being treated with PT devices. He had little faith in the latest fads of modern technology, but trusted Torataro Shima implicitly as a psychiatrist. Actually, he had little choice in the matter. For who else could he trust, if not the administrator of a psychiatric research institute?

Noda was about to order another measure of Usquaebach, which was really rather good, but caught himself in time. He was already beginning to feel pleasantly tipsy, buoyed by the prospect of meeting a woman of renowned beauty. He looked forward to the time he would soon be spending with her – not working time, but time in which he could just let himself go. He didn’t know whether the treatment would start right away that night, but in any case sobriety was surely the best policy. Then again, as it was Shima who’d recommended this bar for the assignation with Paprika, it would have been rude not to have a drink or two. Drink would loosen the inhibitions, after all. If anything, Noda was grateful to Shima for choosing this location. No one from his office, none of his competitors would ever come here. Shima must have known that.

Noda somehow sensed that he wouldn’t suffer an anxiety attack while he was in the bar. Of course, he couldn’t afford to be complacent. An attack could occur at any time, and the knowledge of that merely added to the problem. Ironically, this was the only cause of his anxiety that could be identified with any certainty. That terrifying sensation of not knowing when an attack would occur was just as loathsome as the attacks themselves, events that would have brought the strongest of men to their knees.

The first occurrence had been about three months earlier, shortly after lunch one day. Noda had been sitting in a taxi on his way back to the office after a meeting. At first, he just felt dizzy. Then the back of his head began to feel heavy around the neck muscles, and his head started to spin. He’d previously suffered mild bouts of dizziness due to shoulder stiffness. Thinking it was one of those, he tried to ease his anxiety by massaging his shoulders. But then ominous words like apoplexy and stroke started popping up in his mind. A number of his contemporaries had been dying of such afflictions recently. He’d also heard that many people die of stroke after “selectively disregarding” precursor symptoms that must have been present beforehand – in other words, refusing to acknowledge the inevitability of aging. He started to feel nauseous. It was a really terrible feeling. He imagined that he might collapse and die right there and then. The anxiety of that thought made him break into a cold sweat. His heart suddenly seemed to be beating faster. The sound of his pulse grew louder. Fear made his breathing shorter. His throat began to feel parched. To his credit, he summoned up enough willpower not to cry out to the taxi driver for help. On the contrary – he stiffened his limbs and made no sound at all, in an attempt to conceal the attack. He even surprised himself when he thought about that later. And when at last the attack had subsided, his concern shifted to when the next attack would occur. Perhaps it was a stroke of good fortune that the first one had happened in a taxi. But what if the next attack came while he was at work? The very idea sowed the seeds of a new anxiety. Something had to be done. And while he was still thinking about what that something might be, the second attack occurred while he was at work – the very thing he’d feared most of all.

Luckily, he was in his own office, which he’d earned as Director of Development. As he struggled to bear the anxiety and pain, Noda was struck by two conflicting desires – one, to cry out for help, and the other, not to be seen by anyone. The telephone didn’t ring, and no one entered his office during the attack. But if it had rung, if someone had walked in, he would definitely have asked the other person for help, whoever it might have been. His fear of dying was far too great to do otherwise.

Noda knew it was considered bad for sufferers of mental disorders to read books about their condition. Even so, he bought several volumes on the subject and, while his wife and son were asleep, secretly took them out and read them. The first thing he discovered was that his symptoms resembled something called “anxiety neurosis.” But he remained in the dark as to the cause, or whether there was any chance of self-treatment.

Noda also discovered that there were drugs called anxiolytics, which were often effective in treating his condition. He knew he would need to see a doctor to get them. But he vacillated, not wanting the world to know he was seeing a psychiatrist. For some reason, he didn’t hit upon Torataro Shima right away. Then he discovered, in another book, that anxiety neurosis can sometimes progress to other mental illnesses like schizophrenia, temporarily at least, owing to diminishment of personality. It was then that he finally made up his mind to see a doctor. He thought long and hard; he had to find one who would respect his privacy, a clinic he could visit without the whole world knowing. Then he suddenly remembered his old friend. They still met once or twice a year; Shima would be the perfect person to consult on such a delicate matter.

“Frankly, the notion that most people live without anxiety is more of a mystery to me,” Shima had declared with a laugh after hearing Noda’s story. Noda reflected on his good fortune at having such a great friend, not to mention the burgeoning sense of well-being he now felt at the prospect of a cure. Shima, on the other hand, retained a modicum of concern, feeling that he’d perhaps overestimated Noda’s intellect and the strength of his ego. After all, Shima was aware that anxiety neurosis could be resolved by elevating it to an “objective experience” through the strength of the ego; he also had no doubt that Noda’s illness would cure itself. What’s more, Noda himself had felt, after reading a book, that the cause of his anxiety was a psychological problem peculiar to middle age. It was not the same as that crisis of awareness when a son becomes a father for the first time, or when an ordinary employee rises to middle management. It was certainly not the same as an inability to absorb new technology. Those problems were all long past; for Noda, they’d already been solved ten or twenty years earlier. Even when it came to human relationships, he’d successfully seen off numerous challenges in the past. Noda should now be quite capable of overcoming such challenges with relative ease by drawing on his own experience.

Shima had given him some tablets. After their meeting, Noda had started taking them surreptitiously, mixed with vitamin pills to disguise them. For a while, the attacks had seemed a thing of the past. But two days after the tablets ran out, Noda suffered a third, more violent attack while on his way home late one night. This time he could bear it no longer, and asked the taxi driver to take him to the nearest hospital. The symptoms had subsided before the taxi could reach the hospital, so Noda diverted the driver to Shima’s residence instead. Shima seemed to understand the gravity of Noda’s condition, and promised to set up a course of treatment immediately. And now, about a week later, Noda was to meet the therapist called Paprika. Her name sounded like something out of a fairy tale, but, as Shima had assured him, she was “the very best dream detective.”

At five past eleven, the music changed to “Satin Doll.”

The heavy oak door opened and a girl wearing a red shirt and jeans walked in. Naturally, she looked quite out of place in the bar. Kuga met her with a greeting that sounded more like a challenge. She whispered something to him. Kuga started to twitch nervously on realizing that she was Noda’s assignation. Noda shared his surprise. Jinnai widened his eyes.

Kuga led the girl to Noda’s booth, and there she stood with head tilted slightly to one side. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Paprika.”

Noda woke from his reverie and rose hurriedly. “Why … Hello!”

“And … You’re Tatsuo Noda, right?”

“That’s right. That’s right.” With growing surprise at the girl’s helpless appearance, Noda pointed to the sofa opposite him. “Take a seat.”

She was an attractive girl with a cutely shaped face and freckles around her eyes. In the dim half-light of the bar, Noda thought her skin looked quite tanned. Evidently feeling as incongruous as she looked, Paprika fidgeted restlessly for a while and cast uncertain glances around the bar.

Am I old enough to be her father? Noda wondered with some apprehension. Eventually he spoke: “Well … Miss …”

“Call me Paprika,” she said coquettishly.

In fact, she was deliberately using that tone to help Noda feel more relaxed. Now the name slipped effortlessly from his lips. “All right – Paprika. What will you have to drink?”

“I’ll have the same as you.”

Noda nodded to Kuga, who still stood beside their table. Kuga cast a questioning look that only Noda could see –“Surely you’re not going to let her drink the very best whisky?!” – then bowed in resignation and walked off.

Noda suddenly realized that Paprika had come empty-handed. Had Shima given her the case records? Would he have to explain his symptoms all over again?

It was as if Paprika had read Noda’s thoughts. Until then she’d appeared tense, but now she suddenly smiled. “I hear you’ve developed a zero-emissions vehicle? That sounds cool.”

She may speak plainly but at least she knows her manners, thought Noda. She must be exceptionally clever. Even her air of helplessness seemed designed to put him at his ease.

“Well, yes. Of course, there are already low-emission vehicles, like the LNG-powered ones.” Now feeling more relaxed, Noda started to explain the project as if he were teaching a pupil about it. That seemed to be what Paprika wanted, anyway. “But even they emit nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in their exhaust fumes. So we’re developing a zero-pollution vehicle that won’t have any of those either. Well, I say developing. Actually, we’ve already made one.”

“So you’re actually producing them? Wow. I bet there are people who want to stop you.”

“Ah yes, but of course. And it’s not just the competitors. I even have opposition within my own company. They’re all jealous, of course,” Noda said with a laugh. “But naturally, that was no more than I’d expected,” he added more seriously, lest it be considered the cause of his illness.

“Yeah, I bet they’re just jealous,” said Paprika. She spoke casually, suggesting not only that she understood Noda’s concern but also that she wouldn’t mention anything to do with his work again. She took a sip of the whisky brought by Kuga, who again stood beside their table. “Aah! Usquaebach!” she breathed quietly.

Kuga started to twitch again. At length he bowed solemnly. “Glad you like it.”