Lycoris Radiata
One chilly winter morning, the body of a young woman was removed from a hilltop hotel. The hotel, built in 1937, was in the student quarter, Kanda Surugadai Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, known as Quartier Latin of Japan, which retained its classical Art Déco interior and exterior. The short hair of the corpse, that had been dyed in gold and wrapped in a white sheet, was wearing a scarlet feather headband. It was an unusually snowy morning. A bellboy carrying a poodle saw off the stretcher carried by the emergency team. The dog, having lost its owner, was shivering from cold and grief. A young man, a student at an art university, was in a café on the ground floor of the hotel, looking out the window at the white city, holding a cup of coffee. He heard the siren of an ambulance carrying a dead body and a scream squeezed out of a fluffy white ball of wool held by a bellhop.
“Who will take in that poodle?” He asked the waitress who brought Kalita’s coffee server and a ham and cheese croque-monsieur to his table.
“The hotel manager will take care of the dog. The woman wearing the red feather headband was originally the manager’s mistress. Would you like some more coffee?”
Before he could reply, the waitress poured coffee into his cup and slipped the bill under his plate.
A cloudy sky
A smudged orange
In lemon green
Lime yellow
The spikes on the stem
Of the Tahiti lime
The acidity of the juice
Strangling my throat
Suddenly, he heard a colourful old song in the breeze, sent by the fan spinning on the ceiling. “How do I get to the store called Lemon Art Supply? I need to buy some tubes of watercolour paint”, he asked the waitress. “Down this hill, on the corner to the left of the playground”, she answered. “Will there be snow on the ground in the park till this afternoon? I want to make a snowman when I get off work: A girl with a red feather headband.” She laughed innocently.
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Withering vines are coiling about the now closed theater and signs of autumn are creeping into the wasteland. The vapor blows up from the culvert of the underground. The sunshine remains to cast idle warmth and dull light on the bushes. Flowers of Lycoris Radiata are stuck in a cul-de-sac. They are hearing the footsteps of winter. Lycoris Radiata seems to be a young lady, just started blooming in red. She laughs at her diamond tooth as she examines her face in the backstage cracked mirror. A stray dog digs up the ashes, remains from the burning branches of trees and weeds of the summer months. The dusty ashes fly in the air, exposing the wet soil. The dog continues digging in the soil with his paws. He is looking for leftovers from the diner years ago, which he had hidden at the roots of a pine tree. Eventually, he will give up. Hungry and thirsty, the stray dog barks at the gaping hole.
“Give me a cup of coffee! If only one wish could come true, give me some fried chicken! I do not care about the flesh! Bones and a shattered husk of a soul!”
Lycoris Radiata, in an unladylike manner, laughs so hard that she drops her false tooth to the bottom of the hole. The body of the beast and the diamond tooth must be buried in the season, along with the husk of their souls, and washed away into the groundwater.
Before becoming acquainted with the cremation procession known today, Japanese people used the Lycoris Radiata flower in funeral processions. Japanese people plant Lycoris Radiata around food in the hope that the flowers will deter wild animals from preying on recently buried human bodies. This is where the flower associated with death got its name.*
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The young woman wearing the scarlet feather headband was a very beautiful dancer. Her death was caused by an overdose of tramadol. The hotel maid cleared out the articles of the deceased. In the closet were colourfully stowed away flapper dresses decorated with gorgeous fringes and beads for dancing the Charleston. On the table, room service Peach Melba was melting, leaving only the bones on a plate of chicken steak for the poodle. The bells of the Orthodox Church high on the hill, rang. Below the hotel was a valley, and the Kanda-River was filled with abundant water. The snow would have eventually turned into rain and flowed into the river. The art student exited the café through a bronze door fitted with geometric stained glass and felt the cold rain on his cheeks. As he descended the hill, he pictured the ocean on a paper pad of Arches Aquarelle in his arms. The Kanda-River flowed through the town to Tokyo Bay, and then to the Pacific Ocean.
The Greeks believed that all the waters of the world were connected, so Naiads had the ability to travel anywhere water was found. Unlike most nature gods, some Naiads made their homes near civilization and even in the middle of cities. The wells and springs that provided fresh drinking water to humans were often the homes of, and gifts of, the water goddesses.**
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A performance by The Savoy Havana Band can be faintly heard from the orchestra pit of the closed theatre. No, it could be the sound from portable radio tuned on a programme of swing jazz. An unclear broadcast because of the noise, buried in a hole at the roots of pine tree by the stray dog. Yes. It must be the music of the groundwater streaming forever. The flowers of Lycoris Radiata sway in the wind.
Notes:
*Lycoris Radiata, Beautiful Red Flowers That Aren’t as Pretty as Their Meaning
https://www.floweradvisor.com/blog/lycoris-radiata/
**The Naiads, The Nymphs of Fresh Water
In Greek mythology, Lycorias was the Nereid, one of the fifty marine-nymph daughters of ‘Old Man of the Sea’ Nereus and the Oceanid Doris.
hiromi suzuki is a poet, fiction writer and artist living in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of Ms. cried – 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (Kisaragi Publishing, 2013), logbook (Hesterglock Press, 2018), INVISIBLE SCENERY (Low Frequency Press, 2018), Andante (AngelHousePress, 2019), Found Words from Olivetti (Simulacrum Press, 2020), Ephemera (Colossive Press, 2021), Isolated Life (psw gallery, 2023). Double solo exhibition with Francesco Thérèse visual HAIKU | OLIVETTI poems was held in Rome, 9 ～30 September 2021. Her short stories have been published at 3:AM Magazine, RIC journal, Berfrois, Minor Literature[s] and various literary journals on-line. Web site: https://hiromisuzukimicrojournal.tumblr.com. Twitter : @HRMsuzuki
text & all images (c) hiromi suzuki 2023.
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