"The Vanished"- Introduction

In which Lena Mauger, avid traveler and magazine journalist, and Stephane Remael, photographer, propose to tell of "The Evaporated People Of Japan In Stories And Photographs". A tall order for Mauger and Remael, as neither speaks Japanese, and Translate hadn't appeared. So they enlist the services of one Guy (no surname), a "chubby filmmaker on the cusp of retirement". At least he's got a Japanese wife and some degree of Japanese fluency, apparently- so this Guy is on board as interpreter. As night falls over the Place de Clichy, Guy regales Mauger with "all the little things that, for him, make Japanese living so serene". You know: "the feminine gentleness, the elegance of movement, the efficiency of public transportation". Was chubby guy having her on? Place de Cliche. Anyhow, it's Guy who mentions "a strange phenomenon: every year, thousands of Japanese people leave their homes and never return." According to our filmmaker, Japan has more missing persons than any other country. Now, I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but there's something slightly off about this tete a tete: if Mauger first hears about this phenom from Guy, then what was the subject of her original investigation? Not evaporated Japanese, as she first hears of them from filmmaker guy. Anyhow, "there we were, two months later, foreign to this enigmatic culture, our only compass being our guide's perseverance in the face of shadows..." Nauseating, I agree. As for the "compass"- we shall see in later installments whether a sextant would have been the smarter choice.