The Key to Midnight

moving sinuously in a clinging, red silk dress; Joanna laughing; Joanna so vibrant and alive in the Kyoto sun; Joanna frightened and huddled in the shade of the trees in the garden at Nijo Castle.
        He was filled with an almost painful desire, but more surprising was the tenderness that he felt toward her, something deeper than affection, deeper even than friendship.
        Not love.
        He didn't believe in love.
        His parents had proved to him that love was a word that had no meaning. Love was a sham, a hoax. It was a drug with which people deluded themselves, repressing their true feelings and all awareness of the primitive jungle reality of existence. Occasionally, and always with apparent sincerity, his mother and father had told him that they loved him. Sometimes, when the mood seized them - usually after their morning hangovers abated but before the new day's intake of whiskey had awakened the dragons in them -they hugged him and wept and loudly despised themselves for what they had done the night before, for the latest black eye or bruise or burn or cut that they had administered. When they felt especially guilty, they bought lots of inexpensive gifts for him - comic books, small toys, candy, ice cream - as if a war had ended and reparations were required. They called it love, but it never lasted. In hours it faded, and it vanished altogether by nightfall. Eventually Alex had learned to dread his parents' slobbering, boozy displays of 'love,' because when love waned, as it always did, their anger and brutality seemed worse by comparison with the preceding brief moment of peace. At its best, love was just a seasoning like pepper and salt, enhancing the bitter flavor of loneliness, hatred, and pain.
        Therefore, he had not, would not, could not fall in love with Joanna Rand. His feelings for her were strong, more than lust, more than affection. Something new. And strange. If he was not falling in love, then he was at least sailing in uncharted waters, and the guide that he most needed was caution.
        He drank two bottles of beer and returned to bed. He couldn't get comfortable. He lay in every position permitted by his injured left arm, yet sleep eluded him. The injury wasn't the problem: Joanna was. He tried to banish all thoughts of her by picturing the hypnotic motion of the sea, the gracefully rolling masses of water, endless chains of waves surging through the night. After a time, he did grow drowsy, although even the primordial rhythms and mesmeric power of the sea couldn't bar Joanna from his mind: She was the only swimmer in the currents of his dreams.
        He was awakened by the phone.
        According to the luminous number on the travel clock, it was four-thirty in the morning. He had been asleep less than an hour.
        He picked up the handset and recognized Mariko's voice. 'Alex-san, Joanna asked me to call you. Can you come here right away? A very bad thing has happened.'
        He sat up in bed, shuddering and suddenly nauseous. 'What have they done to her?'
        'She's done it to herself, Alex-san.' Mariko's voice broke. 'She tried to commit suicide.'

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    20
        
        The sky was still spitting snow, but the accumulation on the streets was no more than a quarter of an inch by the time that the taxi dropped Alex at the Moonglow Lounge.
        Black hair cascading over her shoulders, ivory pins forgotten, Mariko was waiting for him at the front door of the club. 'Joanna's upstairs. The doctor's with her.'
        'Will she be okay?'
        'He says she will.'
        'Is he a good doctor?'
        'Dr. Mifuni has been treating her for years.'
        'But he is any good?' he demanded, surprised by the vehemence in his voice.
        'Yes, Alex-san. He's a good doctor.'
        He followed Mariko past the bar with the blue mirror into an elegantly decorated office and up a set of stairs to Joanna's apartment.
        The living room was furnished with cane, rattan, and rosewood. There were half a dozen excellent watercolors on scrolls, and numerous potted plants.
        'She's in the bedroom with Dr. Mifuni. We'll wait here,' said Mariko, indicating a couch.
        Sitting beside her, Alex said, 'Was it… a gun?'
        'Oh, no. No. Thank God. Sleeping tablets.'
        'Who found her?'
        'She found me. I have a three-room apartment on the floor above this one. I was asleep… and she came to my room, woke me.'