Chapter Text
Something had changed, the second time around. Marty had spent the past year either thinking about Endo or trying not to think about Endo, to the point that Endo had become a familiar buzz in the back of his mind: oddly soothing, like falling asleep to the sound of a fan. Sometimes he saw Endo in his dreams. They would meet again at the British Open, Endo a largely indistinct figure with improbable cheekbones, and Marty would beat him three games in a row—or else they were fighting in an alleyway in New York, a real street fight like the ones Marty had gotten into when he was a teenager, and Marty would bruise his knuckles against Endo’s jaw. Maybe there were knives involved, but Marty could never recall those dreams clearly enough to be sure. The images slid away from him as soon as he woke up, leaving nothing but a renewed determination to humiliate Endo the same way Endo had humiliated him. Endo was a fraud, a cheater, a mythical adversary blocking the strait to Ithaca. Marty was going to kill him.
“Give me a chance,” Marty said, pleading for a rematch in that huge outdoor amphitheater, raising his voice to be heard above the crowd. “You humiliated me, you crushed me”—and then he repeated the word “please” anywhere between four and four thousand times. Endo was shorter than Marty remembered, with dark and serious eyes, and for some reason Marty briefly pictured himself drawing back his fist and punching Endo in the stomach.
Then Endo said yes to a real game, so Marty didn’t have to fight him. Instead they stood at opposite ends of the table, readying their paddles, staring each other down. They were both wearing white shirts. All they needed was an orange ball, but the moment Endo hit the first serve, Marty understood that things were always meant to be this way—that of course his fated rematch would happen at a stupid pen event on Endo’s home turf, the white ball blending into Endo’s shirt. Of course. Marty had spent his entire life biting and clawing for scraps, trampled by an endless parade of losing situations, and he wasn’t going to stop now. It was the only way he knew how to be.
The crowd noise rose to a roar, but Marty barely heard it. He was playing defensively, chopping and blocking—there was no other way to counter Endo’s powerful forehand—while Endo kept goading him into longer and longer rallies, waiting for him to make an error. Strands of Endo’s hair had escaped from their slicked-back prison, falling across his forehead. Marty could feel the rhythm of Endo’s table tennis, the intoxicating push-pull of it thrumming deep beneath his skin: the ball, the beautiful sweeping arc of Endo’s arm, Endo’s ghostlike paddle, the ball again.
At some point Rockwell took Marty aside to threaten him with a whole lot of nonsensical bullshit and one thing that actually mattered, about how winning would keep him trapped here forever—and those were the exact words Rockwell had used: you’ll be here forever. It felt like an overreaction, because surely Marty could finagle another flight out of Japan, but as he looked at Endo from across the table he realized that “here” wasn’t a physical place but a state of mind, and he’d been doomed the moment Endo said yes. Time took on a stretched and dreamlike quality. Marty spent hours inside those rallies with Endo, every point a conversation; by the time the score was tied, twenty points to twenty points, he felt that he knew Endo, really and truly knew him, to the point that he could recognize Endo in the dark by the sound of his footsteps.
When Marty won, he collapsed onto the floor of the stage, weak with relief. Endo came over to shake his hand and Marty stood up to embrace him, tucking his chin into the crook of Endo’s neck. He couldn’t remember why he’d ever wanted to fight him. “Thank you,” Marty said, blinking back tears. In that one delirious instant he was engulfed by a tidal wave of affection, and he found himself thinking that Endo was such a great guy, maybe the single best person he had ever met. “Good game, good game. You’re a great player. Good luck at the championship, okay? I hope you win.”
*
It was clear that Marty had ruined the event. Endo gave a short, apologetic speech, bowing his head to a stunned audience, as Marty watched from the side of the stage. Before long most of the attendees had filed out of the amphitheater, leaving a handful of event staff and a group of men in business suits, Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Sethi among them. One of the event workers exchanged a few words with Endo, who politely allowed himself to be escorted to Rockwell and Sethi’s table, Marty following at his heels.
Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Sethi were in the midst of a tense conversation, which abruptly broke off when Rockwell motioned for Endo to sit down. “You breached the terms of our contract,” Rockwell said, addressing Endo in a voice that suggested he was furiously angry but trying to remain civil.
Endo tilted his head, his fingers pressed against the strange earpiece he sometimes wore, as an interpreter murmured in his ear. It occurred to Marty that the earpiece was a hearing aid, a realization so startling he almost missed what Endo said next.
“Mr. Endo will cooperate with any legal proceedings,” Endo’s interpreter said.
“You can’t sue Endo, he’s got the championship in a week,” Marty interrupted. Nobody had invited him to sit, but he pulled up a chair anyway, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “Playing a real game was my idea. He’s completely blameless.”
Rockwell glowered at him. “What are you still doing here? You’re not a part of this conversation.”
“If you really want to punish him, just have him pay a fine or something, one and done,” Marty said, snapping his fingers at the end for emphasis. He was talking too much, coasting on leftover adrenaline; victory made him feel invincible. “Listen, Endo can’t have any of that legal stuff weighing on his conscience. Making your star player go through all that, a week before the championship? It’s not right.” Marty turned to Mr. Sethi, who was shuffling through a file folder. “Think about what a consecutive world title for him would do for the sport. You can hang a lot of national pride on that, get even more people invested. Everyone wants a champion they can root for.”
“Surely you realize this was a less-than-ideal promotion for the tournament,” Mr. Sethi said drily. “Both the IATT and Rockwell Ink were highly offended by your behavior today.”
“Okay, then promote the tournament by telling everyone that Endo’s gonna redeem himself there, because he’s an incredible player.”
“You don’t speak for him, Mr. Mauser,” replied Sethi. He rose from his chair and handed some documents to a man who conferred with Endo in clipped, official tones—a representative of the Japan Table Tennis Association, probably—while Rockwell smiled at Marty without humor.
“So, what, you beat him in a ping-pong game and you’re friends now, just like that?” Rockwell said, his voice so low only Marty could hear it. “You’re a child.”
”It’s not like that at all,” Marty said, gearing up for an argument, but Mr. Rockwell had already gotten up to join the small congregation of men in suits, gathered some distance away to debate the finer points of Endo’s contract.
So Marty was still just a joke to them. Rockwell didn’t know what he was talking about. Rockwell didn’t understand table tennis, and he certainly didn’t understand Endo—who was still a great guy, although Marty’s delirious haze of victory had passed by now, and he’d started second-guessing how much he really knew about Endo. Marty wondered whether Endo had ever been in a fight before. Probably not. He didn’t seem like the type.
The men in suits seemed to reach a tentative conclusion on what they would do about Endo, and Endo kept bowing and shaking their hands, looking at once abashed and relieved, while the event staff slowly dismantled the evidence of the exhibition match: rolling up posters, packing away signs, pushing the table tennis table to a dark area backstage, out of sight.
“Hey,” Marty said, when Endo approached him again. He beckoned for Endo’s interpreter, knowing full well the scale of the request he was about to make. “Translate this, translate this. Endo, thanks again for that rematch, thank you so much. I’m stranded in Tokyo and I was wondering if you could help me catch a flight home.”
He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Marty was no stranger to asking favors from his friends and family, soaking up their love and care like a sponge, because they all operated under the mutual understanding that once Marty made it big, he’d pay them back tenfold. He’d buy Wally a new taxi and put his mother in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue; he’d make sure Rachel never had to work another day in her life. Endo was different, though: with Endo, Marty couldn’t hide from the bald-faced reality that he was just taking advantage of him, in the same way the men in suits were taking advantage of him. Endo had something valuable—not just his skill in table tennis but a rare innate quality that could make him a star, if he played his cards right—and the people around him were going to extract that value until there was nothing left. He was too honest for the world. His country had lost the war.
Endo conferred with his interpreter, and for a moment it was like they were onstage at the show match again, Marty staring into Endo’s eyes and asking for something only Endo could give him. There were always other ways to get out of Japan, other plans, other hustles, but here Marty could bask in the warm glow of Endo’s attention, secure in the knowledge that he’d beaten Endo in a real match. They were equals now. Marty knew what he had to say next.
“I can practice with you,” Marty said. “There’s still a week before the championships. I’ll practice with you and then you’ll help me get home. Deal?”
Endo graced him with a slight nod. Marty extended his hand, and they shook on it.
*
Afterwards, Endo hailed a taxi. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was beginning to set. “We go to my home,” Endo said to Marty in thick, accented English, as they sat side by side in the back seat.
“So you do know English,” Marty said.
Endo shrugged minutely. “Little bit.”
Endo lived in a nice, new house in a neighborhood full of nice, new houses. The rooms were sparsely furnished, without any of the knick-knacks and clutter Marty was used to seeing in the apartments he frequented back in New York; he suspected that Endo had only moved in recently. Endo directed Marty to a large desk in the study, which was piled with a collection of English textbooks and, for some reason, the cracked-open remains of a broken radio. He swept the radio to one side, dragged in a second chair, and rummaged in a drawer for a stack of paper and one of Rockwell’s fucking pens, which he used to write a short message.
Hello, Mr. Marty Mauser.
I am deaf table tennis player Koto Endo.
“You can just call me Marty,” Marty said—Mr. Marty Mauser, what a riot—but Endo handed him the pen and gestured apologetically to his ears.
“More easy for me,” he said, miming a writing motion. “For English.”
So Marty wrote You can just call me Marty, feeling absurdly as if he were passing notes in grade school. He underlined the word “deaf” in Endo’s little introductory sentence and added, How?
Tokyo bombing, Endo wrote, and Marty was reminded why every single house in the area was new. Then Endo spent several excruciating minutes consulting a Japanese-English dictionary and what looked to be a grammar textbook before showing Marty the sheet of paper again.
Like we agreed, I help you return to U.S.A. if you help practice table tennis.
You can sleep in the guest room.
You may be curious about results of the exhibition match. I just have to pay a fine. Thank you.
Tomorrow we start practice 09:00.
How much is the fine? Marty wanted to ask. And also: What did you think of me, when we first met in London? Was our rematch just a normal game to you? Do you feel like you know me the way I feel like I know you? He wished he could surreptitiously read Endo’s thoughts, if only to avoid the fundamental embarrassment of asking Endo questions that even he recognized as being kind of pathetic. Would you do this for anyone, or just me? Are we friends now?
Instead, Marty wrote, Do you want to get something to eat?
*
And so Marty established a routine: every day he woke up at six, ate breakfast, exchanged a few notes with Endo, and went to the gymnasium, where they spent most of the day playing table tennis. As Endo’s training partner, he often had to keep Endo supplied with a steady stream of shots so Endo could practice various strokes—chopping, slicing, et cetera—but the highlight of his day was when they played serious matches together in the afternoon, matches with nothing on the line beyond the satisfaction of good table tennis. He’d become so fixated on table tennis as his one viable path to fame and fortune, in his other life back in New York, that he’d almost forgotten the joy of playing the game.
They always ate a simple lunch outside the gymnasium—the weather was warm enough for it—but for dinner Endo had gotten into the habit of taking Marty out to restaurants just so he could explain Japanese food to him and watch him struggle with chopsticks. In the evenings Marty poked around the streets of Tokyo, where everyone thought he was either a tourist or an off-duty soldier. He slept on a futon in a guest room covered with tatami mats and he did his best not to think about Rachel and the baby, with varying degrees of success.
Tokyo was a good place to reinvent himself. So much of the city was new. In Tokyo he could be someone who followed a routine, who did honest work and ate three square meals a day. His uncle would have been proud of him. Sometimes Marty imagined a different version of himself, one without any personal responsibilities or ties to New York: a Marty Mauser who could conceivably stay in Japan for the rest of his life, maybe, since Endo’s house really was too big for one person, and it seemed like Endo didn’t have many other friends. Marty could learn Japanese, make peace with Mr. Sethi, compete in tournaments again, restart his career. Table tennis was huge in Asia; there were more opportunities there.
Mostly, though, Marty was focused on Endo. He’d been right about Endo after all: there was something valuable in him, a gentle humility which never felt obsequious or off-putting, and which left an indelible impression on everyone he met. He’d started playing table tennis from a young age, Endo wrote to Marty one morning, but he needed to relearn it all as a teenager after losing his hearing. After the tournament, he planned to return to his job at a specialty store that sold and repaired clocks and wristwatches. He seemed to be perfectly content with his life, but not in the sad, pitiable way of a person who once had big dreams but failed to achieve them—it was more like the big dream was his life, somehow, as if after the war he’d seen all the possible divergent paths he could take and he’d chosen this one. Privately, Marty thought he was extraordinary.
*
The night before the World Championships, Marty went to bed feeling confident. Earlier that day he’d cajoled Endo into playing with a hardbat instead of the sponge paddle—Marty maintained that the sponge was dishonest and cheap, even though he’d been forced to admit the power of it after trying it out himself—and Endo had won the set twenty-two to twenty despite the unfamiliar paddle, off the strength of his fundamentals alone. Endo was good for table tennis. The IATT might as well have engraved his name on the trophy in advance.
Hours later, Marty woke up disoriented, squinting into the impenetrable dark. Someone was screaming from the other room, with such raw primeval suffering that at first he wondered if an animal had gotten in somehow, but then the scream tapered off into dreadful little hiccuping sobs, the sound of a human being trying desperately not to weep. Marty put on his glasses, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, and ventured into Endo’s bedroom.
Endo was crying. He was curled up in bed with his arms wrapped around himself, fingers digging painfully into his shoulders, eyes so wide that Marty could see the whites of them gleaming in the dark.
“Hey, you’re okay, you’re okay,” Marty said, feeling useless. Endo couldn’t hear him, and even if he could it wouldn’t have mattered, because Endo was somewhere else. It must have been the war; it was always the war. Marty had heard anecdotes from people in New York about sons and fathers who went to serve in the military and came back shell-shocked, and most of the time the men in these stories drank too much or got violent or both, but it was one thing to hear about it and another thing to see Endo cry like this, like the war had fucked him up so badly he couldn’t express it in any other way.
Marty sat at the edge of Endo’s bed, running his hand through Endo’s hair. After a few minutes Endo seemed to come back to himself, rubbing at his face and apologizing hoarsely in Japanese before remembering that Marty only spoke English.
“Sorry,” Endo said. “Sorry. Go back to bed.”
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Marty repeated. He took off his glasses and lay down gingerly on his side, pulling Endo close, aware that he was crossing a line but unable to stop himself. It was good just to be near him: the warmth of Endo’s body, the solid weight of it against Marty’s chest. Marty listened to the sound of Endo’s breathing as it slowed and evened out in sleep, and he wished he could be that other Marty Mauser, the pretend Marty Mauser who didn’t have anyone waiting for him back in New York, who could stay in Tokyo forever.