Birthday Barbecue

“Come early!” says Its-san to Herrn T and me. B-san has to work that Sunday, so he will be there a bit later. I somehow manage to at the same time prepare two birthday cakes and sit at my desk writing, when I get a call from Herrn T. I listen to him with the phone tucked under my chin, cutting strawberries, writing kanji with chocolate ink, spraying cream, typing away. “We’re ready to go. Are you?” My octopus arms start working faster. “Ten minutes!” I need to take a shower, get dressed, finish the cakes, and find the kind of ending to my writing that allows me to be happy with what I’ve done and look forward to what I’ll do next.
After that, I grab my Mary Poppins all purpose bag, pile the left-over beer that’s sitting in my fridge from the last Leopalace battling binge into a bag, balance the birthday cakes on my hands, and take the key from the holder with my teeth.
Its-san’s silver Mercedes is waiting in the usual spot: the bento-ya-san (lunch box shop) round the corner. I hop in and deposit beer, cakes, and bag, and we’re off to Its-san’s house.
It is a sunny day, perfect for planned barbecue. B-san has finished work early and arrives shortly after we do. He puts the barbecue together, then we all go inside to help Its-san prepare and put out the food. There is enough to feed the biblical 5000 without employing miracles. We spread thin cuts of meat on big platters, carry out bottles of sauce, pile jumbo sized Frankfurters onto plates, take apart hotspring-steamed chickens, and set the table outside, working away at the beer piled up in a tub of iced water. R-chan is running all over the place. She is excited, Its-san whispers in my ear, because the boy she fancies is coming too, today. There will be about ten people. Neighbour looks down from the balcony. “B-san, what shall we drink today? Or would you like a smoke?” “I only ever smoke cigars.” Neighbour comes out with a pack of cigarillos.“Or does anybody like wine?” he says. “Well,” I join the wine talk, “I lived in La Rioja for a while, and when I was there, I drank nothing BUT wine. The wine is Spain was so cheap and good…but since I left Spain…” but neighbour leaves no space for nos. “O yes, Spanish wine! I have some of that!” He disappears and promptly returns with a 1997 crianza from Castilla y Leon. It is more of a beer drinking day, but it would be rude to refuse his offer, especially because he says: “This is my hobby. I collect luxury things to relax.” But the wine has to warm up, it is too cool, so for now, we stick to the beer and the sun, and start putting meat on the barbie. Its-san brings out yaki-soba and big shiitake raised by her mother in the countryside. There is more hot spring chicken with mayonnaise and salt.

We have already made a small dent in the beer reserves when the rest of the guests arrive. In a big shiny family sized Porsche. And spilling out of the Porsche comes a petite woman with brown long hair and a lot of make up creating a natural look, wearing expensive clothes and accessories resulting in a professionally casual Sunday barbecue look. Then her children. A girl slightly older than R-chan. Herr T’s jaw drops when he sees her 13 year-old legs growing out of high-heeled shoes into tiny shorts, and drops further when he sees her 13 year-old face. Also, there is R-kun, the boy R-chan fancies, so she runs away embarrassed and opens a separate party at a small table nearer the house. When she comes over to give me one of her skilled massages, I recommend her skills to R-kun, but R-chan erupts into a shocked laugh and runs away again. The situation is further complicated by B-san telling her to come kiss him which makes her scream and run like a Porsche into the topmost corner of the house. Tentenki, says Its-san, the two of them are enemies.

Ravelling in Sunday afternoon sun, cool cans of beer, and idle conversation, the afternoon crawls ahead like a big tortoise, comfortably rocking us with each step, like the earthquake that has shaken me in the kitchen with my cakes this morning. Balloons get stuck in a cable high up, so somebody calls a squad of fire fighters to come and get them down. Bemused, we watch time, money, and effort put into something so unnecessary. You know you’re in a safe country if a fire engine has to roll up to save a bunch of kids’ balloons that have become entangled in a cable. Sunday afternoon entertainment. An opportunity to take pictures. We extend the picture taking session by modelling in front of the Porsche, and then posing a trios on a wooden barbecue bench.
Another mother joins the mothers’ section of the party with her three-year-old son S-kun who impresses with his mohawk and silent cool. He is so cool that I let him sit on my lap for a while and teach him how to light a lighter. He chills out there for a while and then returns to his tricycle that takes him through to the other side of the table. And to B-san who lets him fly around the porch. Slowly, somehow, it gets dark. Herr T tries to talk to the mothers, and the mothers try to talk to Herrn T. Skilled conversation making, but at some point people leave, and we end up in the house. Somehow, a fight erupts between Herrn T and me, which goes on and on and ends in an exhausted draw. More fights follow. B-san vs Herrn T. Anna vs B-san, and finally, when we emerge from the sweet, blinding world of painful wrist and arm locks, bones piercing soft tissue, and suffocating strangles, gathering bruises along the way, we realise that only Its-san and R-chan are still there, everybody else has left. R-chan wants to take a bath, so whatever male is left in the house needs to leave. I’m welcome to stay whenever, but I decide to leave the battlefield, too. It’s never good to linger too long, especially when the enemy has left to disappear in unknown terrain. Better to know where and follow.
The usual three thank Its-san, who gives us a bag full of beer and hai-chu to drink at party number two, and we walk away through the mild night and the narrow roads of night-grey buildings.
Until we find some cherry trees on an island in the middle of it all. Sandwiched by houses and the shadows of industrial monsters, the glow of the blossoms creates an island of night light, and we sit down beneath the pink impermanence, drinking in the gold we have been given. But sitting down never lasts long between the three of us. We have a tree climbing contest, including bets who can and can’t make it from one tree to another, holding on for long enough to show he can hold on. And as we ravage the trees, swinging around their stable, supple branches, jumping from fork to fork, landing in the undergrowth trying to fly, it is raining blossoms. Hanafubuki. They land in my hair. Randomly. One of them is not so random. Source shining sweet, breeze blowing, surface rippling in shimmering shocks. It still lands in my tangled hair, but this will be remembered.
We walk to my house, a new old battleground re-discovered, where we keep on fighting, talking and drinking, and finally, battered, sinking into a deep new sleep.