Read Online RainStorm by Barry Eisler - Free Book Online
Authors: Barry Eisler
Tags: Krimis & Thriller
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earthen metropolis; the prehistoric
enormity of Amazonas, where the scale of everything--the trees,
the water lilies, and, of course, the river itself--first diminishes and
then extinguishes the traveler's sense of his own human significance;
the baroque art and architecture of Minas Gerais, left behind
like a conflicted apology by the miners who centuries earlier had
raped the region's land for its diamonds and gold.
Yamada avoided Bahia and in particular its capital, Salvador.
Rain knew a woman there, a beautiful half-Brazilian, half-Japanese
named Naomi, with whom Rain had enjoyed an affair in Tokyo
and to whom he had made a promise when she was forced to flee
to Brazil. Yamada wanted to go to her there, but at the same time
hesitated to do so, finding himself unsure, at some level, of whether
he was attempting to forestall the inevitable or simply hoping to
relish the anticipation of its arrival. Occasionally Yamada was troubled
by such thoughts, but his new surroundings, exotic after so
many years in familiar Japan, his travels, and his constant study of
the language, were all strongly diverting.
Yamada's linguistic progress was excellent, as one might expect
of a man who already spoke both English and Japanese as a native,
and after six months he judged himself ready to relocate to Rio;
more specifically, to Barra da Tijuca, known throughout Rio simply
as Barra, a middle-and
upper-middle-class enclave extending
for some nineteen kilometers along Rio's southern coast. He chose
a suitable apartment at the corner of the Avenida Belisario Leite de
Andrade Neto and the Avenida General Guedes da Fontoura. It
was a good building, with entrances on each of the streets it faced,
and nothing but other residences all around, therefore offering, had
Yamada been inclined to reflect on such matters, multiple points of
egress and no convenient areas from which some third party might
set up surveillance or an ambush.
In Barra the Yamada identity finally began to feel truly comfortable.
Partly it was that I'd lived as Yamada for so long at that
point; partly it was that the Sao Paulo stopover had been only one
step removed from Japan, and therefore from those enemies who
were trying to find me there; partly it was the inherent difficulty of
feeling uncomfortable for long in Rio, its rhythms, indeed its life,
defined as they are by the culture of its beaches.
In my new environs I became a Japanese nisei, one of the tens of
thousands of Brazil's second-generation ethnic Japanese, who had
decided to retire to Rio from Sao Paulo. My Portuguese was good
enough to support the story; the accent was off, of course, but this
was explainable by virtue of having grown up in a Japanese household
and having spent much of my childhood in Japan.
I was intrigued at how distant a notion Japan seemed to present
to my nisei cousins. It seemed that, when they looked in the mirror,
they saw only a Brazilian. If they thought about it at all, I imagined,
Japan must have felt like a coincidence, a faraway culture and
place not much more important than the other such places one
reads about in books or sees on television, something that meant a
great deal to their parents or grandparents but that wasn't particularly
relevant to them. I found myself somewhat envious of the notion
of forgetting where you had come from and caring only about
who you are, and liked Brazil for offering a culture that would foster
such a possibility.
And Barra offered this culture triple-distilled. My nisei story was
thin, I knew, but it didn't really matter. Barra, the fastest growing
part of the city, its skyline increasingly crowded with new high-rises,
its neighborhoods ceaselessly changing with departures and
arrivals, is much more focused on the future than it is with anyone's
particular past. It's the kind of place where, a month after you've
been there, you're considered an old-timer, and I had no trouble
fitting
enormity of Amazonas, where the scale of everything--the trees,
the water lilies, and, of course, the river itself--first diminishes and
then extinguishes the traveler's sense of his own human significance;
the baroque art and architecture of Minas Gerais, left behind
like a conflicted apology by the miners who centuries earlier had
raped the region's land for its diamonds and gold.
Yamada avoided Bahia and in particular its capital, Salvador.
Rain knew a woman there, a beautiful half-Brazilian, half-Japanese
named Naomi, with whom Rain had enjoyed an affair in Tokyo
and to whom he had made a promise when she was forced to flee
to Brazil. Yamada wanted to go to her there, but at the same time
hesitated to do so, finding himself unsure, at some level, of whether
he was attempting to forestall the inevitable or simply hoping to
relish the anticipation of its arrival. Occasionally Yamada was troubled
by such thoughts, but his new surroundings, exotic after so
many years in familiar Japan, his travels, and his constant study of
the language, were all strongly diverting.
Yamada's linguistic progress was excellent, as one might expect
of a man who already spoke both English and Japanese as a native,
and after six months he judged himself ready to relocate to Rio;
more specifically, to Barra da Tijuca, known throughout Rio simply
as Barra, a middle-and
upper-middle-class enclave extending
for some nineteen kilometers along Rio's southern coast. He chose
a suitable apartment at the corner of the Avenida Belisario Leite de
Andrade Neto and the Avenida General Guedes da Fontoura. It
was a good building, with entrances on each of the streets it faced,
and nothing but other residences all around, therefore offering, had
Yamada been inclined to reflect on such matters, multiple points of
egress and no convenient areas from which some third party might
set up surveillance or an ambush.
In Barra the Yamada identity finally began to feel truly comfortable.
Partly it was that I'd lived as Yamada for so long at that
point; partly it was that the Sao Paulo stopover had been only one
step removed from Japan, and therefore from those enemies who
were trying to find me there; partly it was the inherent difficulty of
feeling uncomfortable for long in Rio, its rhythms, indeed its life,
defined as they are by the culture of its beaches.
In my new environs I became a Japanese nisei, one of the tens of
thousands of Brazil's second-generation ethnic Japanese, who had
decided to retire to Rio from Sao Paulo. My Portuguese was good
enough to support the story; the accent was off, of course, but this
was explainable by virtue of having grown up in a Japanese household
and having spent much of my childhood in Japan.
I was intrigued at how distant a notion Japan seemed to present
to my nisei cousins. It seemed that, when they looked in the mirror,
they saw only a Brazilian. If they thought about it at all, I imagined,
Japan must have felt like a coincidence, a faraway culture and
place not much more important than the other such places one
reads about in books or sees on television, something that meant a
great deal to their parents or grandparents but that wasn't particularly
relevant to them. I found myself somewhat envious of the notion
of forgetting where you had come from and caring only about
who you are, and liked Brazil for offering a culture that would foster
such a possibility.
And Barra offered this culture triple-distilled. My nisei story was
thin, I knew, but it didn't really matter. Barra, the fastest growing
part of the city, its skyline increasingly crowded with new high-rises,
its neighborhoods ceaselessly changing with departures and
arrivals, is much more focused on the future than it is with anyone's
particular past. It's the kind of place where, a month after you've
been there, you're considered an old-timer, and I had no trouble
fitting
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