Symbols of permanence
An excerpt from Seven Days in Tokyo, by José Daniel Alvior
I sit on the bed and hand him back his camera. He places it on the floor without the slightest interest in looking at his images. He gets on all fours and together we view the tree and the garden in total quietude.
‘Would be nice to have a yard. A garden like this. I’ve been thinking of getting a house just outside of Tokyo. Have more space. Maybe two bedrooms. I’ll get more things. You know, plates, knives, furniture. . . create a sense of settledness.’
‘You’re looking to stay here permanently then.’
‘Permanent? Such a strong word. I was close to doing that once with someone,’ he reveals.
It was with the young Japanese girl. I’ve seen the photos. They were outside a shrine in the middle of winter looking serious, she in a traditional ceremonial kimono and he in a suit with a fur-trimmed coat. They looked like a couple after the Second World War. Then there were the summer photos, a picnic by a lake, wearing silly hats, of her sitting on his shoulders as he walked on a trail. They looked so happy and so young. In fact, way too young to be buying a house.
It stings me, not because I’m jealous but because Landon has laid bare, albeit unintentionally, something I never knew until this moment. A sense of settledness. It has struck a chord that resonates so deeply in me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have that in New York, free from fears of banishment? That, should something ever happen with a job, I wouldn’t have to pack up and leave? It’s such an integral part of my New York life that it defines my relationships.
Despite nine years together, Gabriel and I have very little to show for symbols of permanence, as if we’re in two different cars driving alongside each other. It was never a we. I’ve never been part of a we. We’re moving to Tokyo. We’re looking for a two-bedroom house. We’ll try it out here for a few years. . . I don’t belong to someone I make long, future plans with, and it breaks my heart. We have lain on a temporariness that makes it easy for us to disentangle from one another.
I did not expect such a realisation to dawn on me here, or, perhaps, something I’ve known deep inside to breach. I barely know Landon, and it’s not that I want to be part of his plan per se, yet I’m inexplicably sure that had he asked me to I probably would have said yes. I’d buy more plates, pack my bags and move to the suburbs of Tokyo just to be part of the ‘we’. I feel my eyes well up, and, at least for that moment, I’m grateful he’s not one to dig into emotions too deep.
‘Unfortunately,’ he says, ‘she had such an awful taste in bags I almost broke up with her.’
‘But did you love her?’ We burst into laughter.
‘One cannot purchase a house and fill it with bad bags,’ he declares.
‘That would have been quite a jump from sharing an apartment with three people.’
He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. ‘I’ve saved enough money. My friends are shocked I have that much.’ I slide the window to close it and nestle next to him.
‘I’ve never even thought of buying a house. I guess I wouldn’t know where.’
‘We’re in a very similar situation. It’s tricky when you know you can’t stay somewhere without the threat of deportation.’
‘I’ve always felt displaced. Like right now I have to go back to Manila, I have to get another visa. There’s always that worry, that slight chance that I won’t get it, like my luck will run out eventually. I’ve been away for so long that I can’t imagine starting a new life there.’
‘Did I tell you my brother’s been there?’
‘To the Philippines? How so?’
‘One day he told my parents he was off to Heathrow. We were shocked. It came out of nowhere. It turns out he met this girl. Online. They wanted to meet, but she couldn’t come to the UK, so he decided to go there instead. There wasn’t much my parents could do about it.’
‘She couldn’t get a visa,’ I say, knowingly. Because she’s from a ‘low-level’ country, her chances of acquiring one were next to none unless of course she was willing to be enslaved (to put it harshly) as a maid or a caregiver. These were the realities of women from the Philippines who wanted to migrate to the US or the UK for better opportunities. Lucky for me, I’ve received an education that spares me from that outcome.
‘No, she couldn’t.’
‘He must’ve been very young.’
‘He was a year out of university, so twenty-two, I think. He was young but old enough. He had his own money. There was an earthquake in Tokyo at the time, one of hundreds, so my parents were in a state. My dad called to say my mum was worried about me in Tokyo and about my brother in the Philippines.’
‘Well, that’s pretty adventurous of him to go there. Was he okay?’
‘Yeah, he was fine. Eventually he got back to the UK with her.’ He wraps his arm over me and moans contentedly. ‘Draw on my back,’ he whispers. ‘Draw anything.’ He turns away from me to offer his back. My fingertip glides slowly on his white shirt. He sighs. I make shapes I no longer remember. I must have drawn a cloud. Perhaps a leaf, too, and a flower.
‘I want to see the sakura,’ I say as lightly as my finger.
‘I have a class tonight. I have to leave by six.’ The ending I knew was coming had not been set. Until now. After a long pause, he says, ‘Shinjuku would be the best place, but you won’t make it. You can go to Meguro instead.’
‘I don’t want this day to end.’
‘Keep drawing,’ he says. How does one draw out a day like this? How do I hold on to it? The greyness outside and the dimness of the room; it feels like a dream. I want Landon to tell me more about himself. I want to know him through and through. It scares me that there isn’t enough time.
Seven Days in Tokyo by José Daniel Alvior was published by Unbound in April 2025