Johatsu

The balance of fragile forces

Listening to my car idle, I think about petrol in the tank, imagining the engine casually pulling coins from my purse as it sips. It's a simple exchange I accept of more-or-less equal forces. But if I press the accelerator and speed through the streets, this moment of equilibrium is lost – harmony falls out of balance, disrupted.

I think about this, and other things, as I wait below an expensive high rise at the spine of Nakano and Toshima. I'm to drive him—it's most always a man—to Ikebukuro. A smaller station is nearby but large stations are best for anonymity.

Our eyes make contact in the rearview mirror as he steps in. Some are surprised by a woman, but he is not. I say nothing, but he nods slowly—a customary bow, a gesture I do not return. His reddened, watery eyes drift to the street outside, then to the building above. I see him searching for his balcony. Perhaps he is hoping for one last look. I'm not meant to know why he's leaving, but do.

He has a small satchel — we specify one shoulder bag, nothing more. His bag likely carries clothes and a few keepsakes. The trinkets will carry the heaviest weight, a constant reminder that his lover woke to an empty apartment.

My car moves through the wet, early morning streets when traffic is light. A patter of rain mixes with road noise but does little to mask his sobbing, which comes in waves as we drive deeper into the city. Most cry, as he does now. Some loudly wail while others pretend not to cry but their eyes and their short, shallow breaths are telltale.

My car is as anonymous as it is safe and in the crying I offer no outward emotion, only a quiet transit; one dot on the map to another.

I see him glance at his ticket, already purchased and waiting on the seat. The train will take him as far as Odawara. After that, I don't know his destination. Through the mirror I watch reflections of the city glide over his face while a film of the past plays behind his eyes. He says nothing as he exits the car and disappears into the station. I tap an update on my phone and drive away, my job completed.

"Sumimasen," I say, barely a whisper.

Haruto mumbles his own apology, stepping aside to let me pass. If he looks in my direction at all, it's through me. His face is still a paper mask where all color has run off the edges. He has been wandering, shuffling through the minutes between sundowns. To him, everyone is an apparition.

I step by, averting my eyes, proper. Though, I want to look at his face, to stare like tourists with lingering eyes, taking in all the details. I want to look for signs of change, but it's too soon. The ghost he most often looks for will never return home, will never wrap her arms around him. She's been gone only a few weeks, not nearly a month.

Was my bump intentional? I can't remember if I was thinking about balance or equilibrium again. The imagined sound of clinking weights on a metal scale makes me think it was balance—as if anything could provide a counterweight. If he were to break down, here, on the floor of the market, would I step forward, bending a knee to help? Or, would I turn away as the clerks help him up and dust off his clothes? I honestly don't know.

Every other day, I see him picking out a few items for dinner, his daughter, Rin, by his side. She says hello and babbles her questions at me, at everyone that walks by. To her I'm no more special than the others in the store, and not as special as the sweet she might get if she's behaved.

I watch her fingers stray along the fruit—apples and bananas—until they linger on the colorful, bumpy dragon fruit. I want to hand one to her, to open it and taste the sweet fruit right there in the aisle. But I can’t.

I watch her cry when Haruto doesn’t put one in his shopping basket. She sobs as they walk home. I follow for a while until our paths separate.

 Rin and Haruto are at the park, as they do every few days. She has on a new dress and is twirling. Sometimes I see her whisper from behind her father, not eager to mix with the other children. But today she is exuberant, playful, beautiful.

In the picture I have, Rin is much younger. Her hair has not yet grown to length. Haruto is full of life as he smiles at the camera in a way I can only imagine it might. At the playground, his face is still slack, but he's putting on a smile for her, eyes wide with mock excitement. It's been three months now, and I can see he is still missing an invisible limb. I imagine him at night, turning in bed to find her pillow cold, the sheets crisp. Then, I imagine him turning again, but this time he finds me lying there. I don’t imagine anything after that first touch.

The other person in the picture with Rin and Haruto is Sana. She still has weight on her face from being pregnant, though the child is almost a year old. Her makeup is clean, but dark circles under her eyes are unmistakable. Her smile seems forced, an affectation of happiness. I study her and wonder if she is then, in the photo, thinking about leaving.

In my makeup mirror, I look at my own face. Our mouths are similar, Rin's and mine. If not my own daughter, then maybe a family resemblance. I look again; maybe our brows are alike, too?

A teetering, unsettling feeling is never far from my thoughts as I drive, like a sinkhole opening and into it slips all light, all happiness. How long have I felt like this?

During corona, work was plentiful, when constant proximity made lies almost impossible to hide—like gambling away family savings. Or when a lover, appearing suddenly at the doorstep at night, could no longer be hidden.

In truth, I don’t know how to feel for the ones who disappear. How could I, of all people, criticize the disgraced when I am the getaway driver? Night movers, like me, can offer only johatsu—the desperate act of vanishing. Our clients are relocated far from home, for a fee, to start anew. I am told we can no more judge them than we can hide the truth.

I once asked if anyone changes their mind. Another grunted, “No.”

“Does anyone ever return home?” I probed, as far as I dared.

“Trust, once lost, cannot be regained,” was the answer.

And when I hear the silent or loud cries in the back seat of my car, I know the pain is real for them. Secretly, though, I take some comfort that shame cannot be absolved, no matter the price.

But what about those who remain?

Carelessly left behind, three faces with new family smiles look up at me from the floor of the car. I'm not meant to know the client's name, but the back of the photo reads plainly: Haruto, Sana, Rin.

With dry eyes, Sana calmly stared out the window as we drove. I deposit her at Shibuya station. She doesn't look back at the car, as most do. I turn the corner, out of sight, to remove any traces of the client from the vehicle. It's there that I find the picture.

Some kind of darkness fills my throat when I think of her. It’s here that the image of unbalance begins to take shape. In my mind is the shifting of a scale: one platform suddenly empty and the weights of the other falling to the table.

My tea is cool to the touch, mirrored by the snow falling outside—a rare treat. Traffic and trains will be delayed. I think of these things often as I must chart an optimal course for clients.

But tonight, my mind is preoccupied after overhearing Haruto’s abstract explanations to Rin about her mother’s departure.

"She was sick," he says.

"Can doctors help?" Rin asks, the innocent hope of return not yet drifting away.

Haruto pauses, then shakes his head. I see on his brow the heft of Sana's shame.

His eyes are reaching for, trying to grasp everything quickly, to box it and bury it forever, so Rin remains clean. Somehow he knows though, like I do, in time she will uncover it. But, please, not yet.

I wonder if he knows Sana's demons are not his own? Questions without answers are the burden for those left behind.

I think of this unbalance as I pull the picture of Sana, Haruto, and Rin from a drawer. Around it are other artifacts left in my car—a bank note, a wedding band, a pair of glasses.

Then I see what I've really come for, my own photo. In it I am smiling, my fiancé is making a silly face. I remember the photographer’s flash and the exact moment. We are happy, in love, our wedding only a few days away. But before it, my fiance is gone. He is one of the johatsusha, the disappeared.

In his place are the questions I still can't answer fully. I know these same questions weigh on Haruto’s mind, felt on his brow and in the emptiness of his bed, even now, as snow falls outside his window.

"Rin," I hear Haruto call out when she's strayed too far.

He approaches as I'm knelt down talking to her. He sees she is safe and offers me a simple, “Arigatou.”

Though he has often been too consumed to notice, this has been our meeting place—the grocery, with its narrow aisles and proximity to our houses.

I stand and smile. It's been almost a year, and Rin is talking quite well. Haruto, too, has shed his paper facade, his smile warm as he looks at me.

"Haruto," he says, bowing.

I return the bow. "Miyu," I say.

And, with a heartbeat of time, I look down to the little girl standing between us and say, "You are Rin?"

She smiles broadly, taking the dragon fruit from my hand and holding it up for him to see.

I think of balance again and how our scales may never be level with unanswered questions lingering just out of reach. And how shame can rot us from the inside without any visible signs.

Then, I consider how subtle the forces of time and patience are in offering their own counterbalance—as a salve slowly heals a wound. Maybe life is never in balance at all, but always, like a tide, working toward an unseen equilibrium.

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Music to read by: The Benefit of Hindsight by

Nolan Green

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Backstory

Longtime readers know I don’t set out to write love stories. Not traditional ones at least.

I always start with a big canvas as the main setting. Then, I provide a microscope to look down at the ants scurrying about—ants, being some of the most interesting insects, are always full of drama.

For example, Eight Minutes is about childhood hope in chaos of a dying sun. Myrna & The Machines is a NIMBY take on modernity invading a small town. And, Pioneers is about space exploration through the lens of robots with a sense of duty.

Through a narrow reticle, if a love story develops, for me, it requires the larger landscape as setting as it gives me a stepstool to tell the story I want to tell.

With Johatsu I wanted to invert my architecture, to tell a story from the inside out. One where, hopefully, the larger world doesn’t matter. Said another way, the why of the disappeared isn’t as important as the emotions of the people left behind.

Origins & Setting

The impetus for Johatsu came from a random post I saw on Twitter. I took a screenshot for reference but, really, I couldn’t get out of my head.

Really. Right now I’m sitting in a cabin on the BC coast using time that’s meant to be working on my novel but I had to write this.

I was intrigued by the notion there were 1) people who are driven—by shame or otherwise—to disappear and 2) organizations existed to provide support for this purpose.

The idea of shame that would drive someone to disappear struck me as decidedly not a western concept. I mean, if shame were more pervasive here in the US we wouldn’t have Trump on our ballot nor a gaggle of people hoping to re-elect him, right? Anywhoo…

As the idea tumbled in my head I considered lots of options for the story to unfold, like —

• Is it about finding someone who disappeared?

• What if we followed someone who wanted to disappear?

• Who runs the night mover organization?

They’re all interesting but didn’t match an image that kept appearing in my head of two characters at a grocery store, one in a fog, the other with a hidden secret. I saw eyes peering between grocery store shelves, watching, wondering.

It felt like a foreign film—one where the characters are externally quiet but vivid in thought. Something on the order of Wings Of Desire.

Characters

With no supporting data I’d wager a sugarpine cone more men avail themselves of johatsu than women. With that logic my main character was a man, a member of the night movers who falls in love with a johatsu widow. But I couldn’t get around how skeezy it felt having a man follow a woman around, though.

Then, my wife, who is wiser than I, said something interesting: You should write more women.

So, in hopes of flipping the architecture, I started to think about missing partners and the main character became a female night mover and also a johatsu widow.

Now, here’s where I say something daft—writing women is liberating. In doing so, I lost a bit of control, in a good way. My main character, Miyu, asks a lot of questions…ones I couldn’t answer. So, I simply let her lead me.

And lead me she did. It was through her eyes that Rin was created. IRL I have two small ones at home and while I often thought about their development (walking, babbling, talking) it was Miyu who longed to make a connection. With children, this seems most easily accomplished with food, thus dragon fruit – something that would be atypical in Japan.

Haruto, the father, was the easiest to write as he’s simply a shell of person for most of the story. But it’s through Miyu’s eyes that we see he’s coming back to life.

Structure, Customs & Lingo

Johatsu was non-linear from the first draft, though, I played around quite a lot mixing the sequences during editing. I wanted the story to unfold at different times like an origami basket of secrets. I find this structure satisfying but, damn, it’s hard to make work. You tell me if I’ve succeeded.

I've had the pleasure of visiting Japan a few times, and found the formality of their mannerisms fascinating. I've tried to incorporate some subtle aspects of this formality with quiet, proper space.

In early drafts I include more phonetic Japanese but, honestly, couldn’t think of a good way to make the translations seamless. If anyone has found a comprehensive way to do this (without resorting to footnotes), I’d love to know.

Audio & Music

I don’t typically include an audio version but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the AI readings from ElevenLabs. Are they perfect? No. But it’s a hell of a lot better than the

Substack

reader.

And, doing an audio version allowed me to incorporate a track from

Nolan Green

I listened to his track The Benefit of Hindsight over and over again as I was writing. If you haven’t picked up his album Safe, please do so. It’s great music to write to and you’ll be supporting a great member of the Substack community.

Hope you enjoyed Johatsu.

-j.