“The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror.”
-Hans-Georg Gadamer
Almost everything remains the same when Miguel returns to the tea house that afternoon except for a few noticeable changes that catch his sharp eyes: a few branches of the shrubs lining the stone steps were trimmed and the yellowing, fallen leaves at the front lawn were swept off. He takes out his DSLR from his black mailman’s bag and starts taking snap shots around the place: the stone steps, the garden shrubs, the lanterns with calligraphy designs, the sliding shoji doors. He stops in front of the bamboo fountain, adjusts his lens and presses the shutter button of his camera. Miguel wonders how many among the people who frequent the tea house actually stop and take a drink from this bamboo fountain, attempting to cleanse their hearts and minds.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Miguel hears a woman’s voice speaking in Japanese from behind him.
Miguel turns to her and finds a small tanned Japanese woman standing behind him. “I’m hoping I’ll find something new this time.” He replies in his accented Japanese in his usual calm nature.
“I’ll call the boss if you don’t leave immediately.”
“Once you grant me the interview, I’ll stop coming here.”
“And after that, more reporters will start coming than there already are.”
“Mariko, all I’m asking---“
“Don’t call me by my first name.” The woman cuts in.
“Okay, Hanabishi---“
“Add the –san.”
“Hanabishi-san,” Miguel puts extra emphasis in his enunciation. “All I’m asking you is to tell me what really happened that night when Kizaki Manato and his old driver Reynaldo Capinpin had a ‘chance’ encounter in your tea house leaving one of them dead at the end of the day,” Miguel finishes in a sing-song as if he had said this already for the nth time.
“And then what? You’re going to sensationalize the case? Victimized Filipino versus antagonized Japanese? You’re not an investigator, Ramirez-san, so don’t expect me to give any information to you.”
“I’m not asking you to solve the case, I’m only asking you to give me your angle of the story…” Miguel pauses and thinks for a while, “Unless there’s something in that angle that you don’t want us to publicize…”
The two of them look at each other straight in the eye, not blinking, not looking away, not giving up to the other’s challenge but waiting for the other to react. They are enveloped with silence, leaving just the warm breeze making music with the leaves of the trees like that same night when Kizaki Manato arrived at the tea house to meet someone.
There was nothing quite unusual for Kizaki Manato that Tuesday night: the hanging leaves, swept by the warm Tokyo breeze, sounded like low-pitched garden chimes; the crickets’ loud chirping fill the open space; and Kizaki’s small soft steps formed a series of low dos. Kizaki gained sight of the tea house’s shoji doors as he reached the end of the stone steps. He stopped in front of the bamboo fountain, a hint of annoyance on his face. Kizaki was not sure what was wrong about it, but the sound of water flowing from the bamboo tube to the pool of water, seemed irritating to his ear. Instead of crouching down to pick up the bamboo scoop to fetch water and drink, he kept his stance---tall and unwavering. He decided to pass by it and proceed to the room he had reserved, but he heard a familiar voice from behind him.
“Hisashiburi, Kizaki-san.” The voice greeted him.
Kizaki turned to face a skinny man, who appeared a little shabby in his creased, checkered polo shirt and fading colored hair – the exact opposite of the neat, dark-haired Kizaki in a black suit, blue tie, and brief case in hand.
“Never know you visit tea houses too, thought you only frequent bars.”
“Well, I do, sometimes, especially if I want to see a good friend.”
Kizaki twitched his lips. “You only remember a friend when you need something from him.”
“You really know me very well, Kizaki-san.” The man let out a soft chuckle and tapped Kizaki on the shoulder.
Kizaki brushed the man’s hand off him. “I’m not giving you anything anymore, Rey.” He said firmly as he tightened his grip on the brief case he held on his side.
The smile on the man’s face disappeared in an instant. His expression was a mixture of surprise and disbelief, as if he had just heard the worst joke. “You never turned me down before. What a change of mind?”
Kizaki inched his face closer to the man’s. “Tell me, how long have you been lying to me?”
The man froze in his feet. He let out a nervous laugh to shade his inability to give a straight answer. “But even if you’re throwing me lousy accusations, I’ll never take it as a grudge against you. You have been treating me well.”
“I know I do. I gave you a decent job, have been patient with you even though you mess up from time to time, four traffic violations in a year? I even gave you more than what you need when you left the job and even lend you some whenever you need it. So I expected you to treat me well too.” Kizaki seemed to loosen up a bit. “How long have you been working part-time in that bar again?”
“Six months.” The man showed six fingers to Kizaki.
“And you’ve been ordering and selling your ‘tablets’ for six months too? Out of the money you’ve been borrowing from me.”
“I already explained it to you, I owe the bar owner some bucks!”
“You owe him payment for your tablets, not debts because you’ve sending money to your family in the Philippines like what you’ve been telling me! Stop making a fool of me, Rey. I’ve had enough of your lies.” Kizaki walked past the man and headed to the tea house.
“So I guess, you should stop making a fool of your colleagues too.”
Kizaki stopped in an instant.
“But I can keep my mouth shot like in the old days. Friends help each other, right?”
“… and friends don’t lie to each other.”
The man let out a loud laugh that echoed around the silent garden. “Then it’s about time I tell your business partners that you’re not supposed to be the legal owner of your company, if only you had not manipulated your father’s will and stole your brother’s right from the company.” The man stopped speaking and thought for a while. “That’s what your always good at anyway, Kizaki-san, you make women, money, people… the whole world go around your way.”
The man walked to Kizaki, who had his back against him.
“I trusted you, I tried to help you and your family, but this is what I get in the end.”
“That is not help, that is bribery. Bribe me again and we can start all over again.”
Kizaki turned to face the man. “You had the best of me, Rey. Don’t wait ‘til you get the worst.” His lips curved into a mysterious expression, something caught between a smile and a smirk. Then, there was complete silence between the two. The only sound that can be heard was that of the flowing water from the bamboo fountain, echoing around the garden, as if asking for them to get a drink from it. But it was ignored by both Kizaki and the man as if they were the only ones existing in that particular space and time.
The sound of the bamboo fountain seems to have overpowered the sound of Hanabishi’s voice. “What did you say?” Miguel asks again.
“Yes, I’m half-Japanese.” Hanabishi says. “Now you know why I could not just easily give comments about the case.”
“What’s wrong with that? I don’t get it, you don’t want to be interviewed simply because you’re half?”
“I’m caught in the middle. I can’t just side with one.”
“But you can’t side with both either. You need to say something when you get to court.”
“I know and that’s what makes me uncomfortable.”
Old scenes start to play inside Hanabishi’s head: a desk vandalized with kanjis she didn’t want to read then because she knew they’re derogatory, a bag and a pair of walking shoes tossed in the river near the middle school, a skinny little girl locked inside a locker for three periods, a new red bike parked at the school lot with flat tires and a girl being refused a job in a restaurant because she’s tan. Hanabishi sees the events of half of her life flashing in her mind and most of them are memories of her being bullied, rejected and unwanted for being “half.” She doesn’t want to live that kind of life anymore, not knowing who she really is or what she really is.
After high school, Hanabishi has never mentioned that she’s half-Filipino and refuses to associate herself with anything Filipino. She thought, it’s easier that way. At least, even only in front of other people, she feels whole. Even if at the end of the day, when she goes home to her small apartment she shares with her mother who works at night somewhere in Shinjuku, she remembers that she’s not.
“I’m sorry, please understand where I stand here.” Hanabishi whispers in a very low voice and walks away.
Miguel feels his ears twitch at the sound of her words. “Don’t be selfish, Hanabishi-san.” Miguel grabs the woman by the arm. “This is not about you, this is about what you have to say, not only in my interview that you keep on refusing, but about what you have to say in court. A man is being tried and awaiting for his sentence and you?” Hanabishi pulls her arm free from Miguel’s grip, but the latter would not let her go. Hanabishi knew that her life would take a different turn the moment she found the yellow card – with a promise of 20 million yen in exchange of her silence and a threat of death if she refuses – under her door when she went home three days after the incident at the tea house and the day after that, and the day after the next.
“You refuse to care.” Miguel accuses her.
Miguel is used to seeing crime scenes, fire sites and accident locations. Dead bodies and crashed cars are normal subjects of his photography. Through the years, as a full-time photographer for a Filipino newspaper, he has developed that distinct eye for detail to choose the perfect angle of a photo that will come out in the pages the next day. That is why, when he was finally offered a job as a writer, he thought discussing about the details of a news story – may it be a murder, a robbery, a nuclear leak – would not be such a pain to someone who has actually been a frequent witness of crime scenes. But he later realized that being involved in one is so different from merely being a bystander observing behind the yellow lines, taking photos and interviewing witnesses and investigators. Moreover, it is even more difficult if the accused belongs to the bigwigs list of corporate Tokyo---Kizaki Manato, chairman of one of the top jewellery companies in the metropolis.
It was on the first day of the trial when Miguel first saw Kizaki in person. It’s true, he thought, Kizaki is a man who could make the jury think twice of their decision---how could a man in his early thirties, born in a fine family, and earned his MBA in London kill his driver who had been of service to him and became almost like a friend? Miguel noticed that there was something in the way the man looks, walks, talks, moves that will make the whole Tokyo side with him in this trial. But Miguel, thought otherwise. What the eyes see on the outside can easily be manipulated, the way photos are easily edited nowadays.
Apart from the fact that Miguel is desperate to get a good story out of this because he needs to meet the expectations of his editor for him to keep this job, he also feels that this case is close to his heart. Thinking that this is just an ordinary news story that shall eventually pass gives him relief, but at the same time, it offers him a hint of uneasiness, probably nervousness, knowing that after sentence had been announced, not only the life of the accused will change but also the lives of his family, as well as the lives of those close to the victim and his family. He knows it very well because it happened to his father’s life and to his.
If there is a photo printed in a newspaper that Miguel would always remember, it wouldn’t be any of the ones he took – not even the one that got nominated in an international competition. It is the photo of a man with his handcuffed wrists on his back being dragged by the police to a waiting police car that would bring him to the Quezon City jail. In the next three years after his father had been in prison, he received all sorts of humiliation from classmates, neighbors and even friends he had known since childhood. After he graduated from college, his mother decided to send him to Japan to live with his aunt, his mother’s sister, and start a new life far from the discrimination of all the people who put a stigma to the family of a man who had been accused and convicted of murdering a co-worker.
It was an ordinary Sunday when Miguel and his mom visited his dad in prison and asked him, out-of-the-blue, if he really killed the man. “What do you think?” his father asked him. Since that moment, he never asked him again.
Hanabishi bursts Miguel’s thought bubbles. “Why are you so persistent in this case?”
Kizaki knelt on the floor pillow across Igarashi Tetsuya, dressed in a black suit and with graying hair. The private tea room was small but very cozy. Kizaki wanted it that way so the meeting would be short and intimate. In the middle of the room was a low table where the tea and the confections are served. Behind Kizaki was the tokonoma, an alcove, where a vertical scroll was hung on the wall and an old porcelain dragon vase with a bouquet of fresh flowers was placed on it.
Kizaki pulled a leather-bound book from his brief case and slid it across the small table.
“I assume this is complete.” Igarashi said as he opened the lid of the book. Inside it was a rectangular hole dug from the pages of the book glued together to form a solid box. Resting in the hollow middle were a few pieces of small, glittering diamonds. Igarashi picked a piece and raised it to the direction of the light. “If our transactions remain as smooth as this, I believe your company can recover from your bankruptcy in no time.”
“I know,” Kizaki nodded earnestly. “So please keep these transactions off the record as I faithfully pay what we borrowed from your company.”
Igarashi sipped tea from his cup and assured Kizaki. “You can count---.”
The shoji door opened, interrupting Igarashi’s words. But this time, it was not the girl, who earlier went to the mizuya and promised to serve more tea, who greeted them but a skinny man with fading colored hair.
“Would you care if I join you for tea?” The man entered the room, not waiting for an answer from the gentlemen.
“Who are you?” Igarashi raised his tone in apprehension.
“Oh,” the man brushed his hair with his fingers and fixed his wrinkled shirt. “I’m his friend.” The man sat beside Kizaki and put his arm around Kizaki’s shoulder.
“I don’t ever remember having known you, mister. Forgive me, Igarashi-san, this gentleman might have mistaken me for somebody else.” Kizaki stood up and led the man to the door. “Leave right away, mister or I’ll call security.”
“Give me what I want and I’ll gladly leave you for your tea.”
“Why would I give something to a stranger?”
The man narrowed his eyes and grabbed Kizaki by the collar of his suit. “I’ll tell the whole world who you are.” Without warning, the man lifted his fist in the air and plotted a hard blow on Kizaki’s well-contoured face that sent him crashing to the small table. Kizaki fell flat on his back, breaking the cups, bowls and plates behind him. “Give me some money, Kizaki!”
Miguel sits on the elevated wooden step of the tea house. “My father was accused of a crime and he had been in prison in the last 11 years. And we, his family, had been in prison too since that day.” Miguel holds his camera, focuses it on Hanabishi’s serious face, adjusts the zoom nearer and takes a shot. “So don’t tell me you hate being bullied for being a Filipino, because I myself have been bullied by fellow Filipinos.
“I guess, we all have experiences we don’t want to go through again.”
“You know, I love my job but hate it at the same time. I love taking pictures, it’s like you have captured a piece of memory in a still image. But every time I would take pictures of crime scenes: dead bodies, wounded soldiers, burnt homes, I feel bad. If you are able to store good memories on a photo, you are also able to save injustice on it.”
“Injustice?”
“Seldom have I heard the cases I photographed receive the action that is due them. How many criminals have been set free? How many innocent men are behind bars?”
“But their cases were all decided in court.”
“Deciding for what is just in this world is like taking pictures. You use different kinds of lens and you produce different kind of pictures.”
Hanabishi raises a brow.
“When you take pictures, you use the kind of lens depending on your preference. If you want to capture scenery from a distance, you can make it appear closer with your zoom lens. Or if you want to take a whole landscape and capture its entirety, you can use a panoramic lens. But there’s more that makes each of these lenses see the world differently from each other?”
Hanabishi looks intently on Miguel who is fiddling with the buttons of his camera.
“Each lens has a different capacity on allowing light to enter it.” Miguel took a shot, pressed a few buttons and showed to Hanabishi the preview of the photo he took. “You produce different quality of pictures---some too dark, some too bright.”
Hanabishi nods in response, as if showing that she understands Miguel’s point. Miguel keeps on taking pictures of the same shrub repeatedly.
“And which lens do you like the most?”
“The fisheye.” Miguel stops taking pictures and puts down his camera to look at Hanabishi who is waiting for his answer. “But I don’t use it for work, because it creates a distorted effect on the image you take, it provides something unique, distinct to your picture. I can’t publish something like that on a newspaper.” He chuckles. “The lens not only changes the picture, it also changes the viewer.”
The man was not contented seeing tea and blood mixing together, he attempted to release another blow but Igarashi rushed to the struggling men and tried to pull them off each other.
The enraged man pushed Kizaki back and turned his anger towards Igarashi. He grabbed the old man by his suit and hit him hard on the torso that made him roll over the tatami floor and trespass the tokonoma, knocking the dragon vase off and spilling the water on the alcove. The man started kicking Igarashi on whatever part his foot landed on. Kizaki, trying to regain his balance, grabbed the man from his shoulder and tried to pull him away from Igarashi. The man caught sight of the hardbound book lying on the floor, so he quickly grabbed it and smashed it in full force on Kizaki’s forehead, making the diamonds fly in the air and spill all over the room. The man, in utter disbelief and excitement as if diamonds had rained on him, quickly scrambled to his feet and started grabbing all the diamonds he can get and stuffed them in his pocket.
Kizaki felt his head getting heavy as a stream of blood started to gush out of an open wound on his forehead; he suddenly lost balance and fell on the floor. Seeing that the man was busy with his own business, Igarashi gathered his strength to stand up, grab the dragon vase lying beside him and in a full swing launched it to the man’s direction. The man, busy collecting his diamonds, had not noticed the object coming his way until he felt a distinct pain at the back of his head and blood started to wet the back of his crumpled shirt. The vase, with its mouth ruptured, fell on the floor with a loud crash, further breaking it into shards of glass and leaving a portion of its body intact with a few pointy edges looking upward.
The man fell on the floor and dropped the diamonds from his hands. Igarashi slowly crawled to Kizaki who was recovering from his blow on the head. “Are you alright, Kizaki-san?” Kizaki vaguely heard the old man. “I’m going to get some help.” Dragging himself, Igarashi slid open the shoji door and headed to the room of the host.
From his side of the room, Kizaki looked intently at the man---lying on the floor in a pool of blood; his hair was now red. “Help me, Kizaki. Help me.” The man whispered in between his breath, as if begging, praying, for Kizaki to come to him. Kizaki pulled his body up and stood in front of his friend---tall and unwavering---with a sharp little curve on his lips.
The small smile on Hanabishi’s face disappears when Miguel cuts the conversation about his lens and shifts to a more serious tone. “I know you’re afraid.”
“Afraid of being bullied, yes”
“Then, why are you allowing someone to bully you again into keeping your silence?”
Hanabishi’s small eyes widen a little. “What do you mean?”
“Stop pretending you don’t know what I am talking about, I also received it.”
Hanabishi looks intently at Miguel to see if he is telling the truth but she notices that his eyes are steady and his face remain calm.
“I found the yellow card in my mailbox one random night after a quick visit to this tea house.”
“You’re right, I’m afraid. I fear for my life.”
“We all are, but---“
“Aren’t you?”
Miguel purses his lips and remains silent. Images of massacred bodies come to his mind. He would lie if he says that there is no moment wherein he wonders ‘what if the photo on the newspaper the next day features him?’ He has no enemies and there’s no one in particular that he fears. It is that innate feeling in every man that wants to hold on to the value of his life and do everything to extend it.
“I am too, that is why I am trying to fight it and try to give justice to this case.”
“That is, if there really is justice.”
“Tell the court what you know and you’ll give them justice.”
“What if I tell the court that the last words of Capinpin-san are those begging Kizaki-san to help him, save him, what good can it do to me? Would it help the court solve the case if I tell them that after somebody walked out of the room, I heard nothing, nothing else but a long silence and soft moving sounds... until....”
“Until?”
“... until there’s a loud crash on the floor and sounds of breaking glass and a man shouting in pain. Would it benefit me? Would I give justice to myself if I die the next day giving justice to someone else?” Hanabishi shakes her head violently.
Miguel, after meeting with Hanabishi, decides to visit Kizaki in prison. He enters the chamber and sits on the wooden stool. In front of him is a thick glass meant to provide the partition for those inside the cell and those visiting them. Kizaki enters the room on the opposite side of the glass. The man in uniform unlocks the cold chains around his wrists with a swift click of the key. Kizaki, in white long-sleeved cotton shirt and matching white pants, walks slowly near the glass and sits in front of it.
Kizaki and Miguel both pick up the white telephone to talk to each other as they sit face to face, directly seeing each other’s reactions and only separated by a thick glass. “Your sweet yellow notes will change nothing,” Miguel concludes, his voice low and heavy.
Kizaki lets out a small smile, very mysterious, that makes Miguel a little annoyed with it for the reason that he cannot figure out what it means.
“Your crimes will not be forgotten even if you are set free.”
Kizaki refuses to say something but just remains looking intently at Miguel, as if closely studying his speech and mannerisms.
“Say something, are you going to just sit there and stare back at me?”
“Do you honestly expect an answer from me? Or you just want me to listen to all your rants?”
Miguel rehearsed in his mind the things that he planned to say to Kizaki. He intends to confront him regarding the yellow cards he has been receiving. He wants to catch Kizaki off guard and know what he will say and what his reactions will be like if he opens the issue to him directly. What a big expose this will be, he thinks. But not even halfway of the discussion, Miguel realizes that the situation is going the opposite way.
“What happened that night would not change even if your witnesses say the opposite in court.”
“Who’s trying to change what happened? What’s done is done.” Kizaki says lightly.
“Then why are you sending us these notes!”
“Does the note say something about ‘change’?”
“Then what do you call your propaganda?”
Kizaki inches his face closer to the glass and whispered, “free will.”
Miguel clenches his fist. He cannot believe he is wasting his time talking to this absurd man, whom the whole Tokyo regards as charming and noble.
“How can you call that a ‘free will’ when we are actually left without a choice!”
“You always have a choice; even not deciding to pick a choice is still a choice.” Kizaki taps the glass with his finger. “Decide now, the others already did.”
“You’re mad.”
Kizaki lets out a soft chuckle, the first time Miguel hears a real laugh from Kizaki. “Do you expect me to say ‘sorry,’ ‘save me’ or ‘let me out.’ Well, I won’t.” Kizaki looks directly to Miguel. “Nothing is mad, nor heartless, when you are just giving a person what is due him.”
“It is a mistake that I came here today to see you.” Miguel stands up from his seat and is about to hang up the phone.
“We are the same.” Miguel hears Kizaki say. “When you find yourself caught between giving others what they deserve and giving yourself what is due you, you choose what is advantageous to you.”
Miguel looks at Kizaki in the eye, searching for a hint of weakness, regret or guilt. But there he is sitting on his stool, so calm, so confident, so relaxed and without the slightest hint of worry.
“How would you give justice to others when you cannot be just to yourself?” Kizaki asks.
Miguel hits the glass hard repeatedly until his fist hurts.
“Come on, Miguel-san, do that again. Do that again and again until the glass breaks. In the end you’ll see why we’re the same." A sharp little curve forms on Kizaki’s lips. Several still images in sepia flash inside Miguel’s head: the serious face of Hanabishi Mariko, telling him she would never testify in court; the yellow card inside his mailbox; his father being dragged to a waiting police car; a random photo of a dead man in the newspaper that he took two weeks ago; the face of his father when he asked him if he really did kill a man; his camera lying on his office desk untouched; the would-be face of his editor if he told him he’d be giving up the article and quitting his job; the bamboo fountain in the tea house that no one seems to notice; and the sharp, little smile on Kizaki’s lips. The images disappear from his mind like old photos fading from sepia to black and white, until the faces and the background are no longer recognizable. He turns around, walks away and exits the room without looking back at Kizaki. Miguel will carry that sharp, little smile on Kizaki’s lips in his memory and in his nightmares like a photograph in an old purse. And every time, he will see this smile in his head, four words echo in the background like heavy, drumbeats that no one can silence: we are the same.
