"Villain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Shuichi Yoshida)

CHAPTER 2. WHO DID HE WANT TO SEE?

Early Monday morning, December 10, 2001, Norio Yajima-who ran a wrecking business on the outskirts of Nagasaki City -was driving his old van to work. He’d had the van, which now had more than two hundred thousand kilometers on it, for so long it felt like a part of him, and he drove it lovingly, gingerly.

His throat had been bothering him since the previous night, and he kept clearing it. It felt full of phlegm, but no matter how hard he coughed he couldn’t bring any up. When he forced himself to cough, this only brought up the sour taste of bile in his mouth. Last night in bed he’d vomited, and his wife, Michiyo, told him he should gargle. He’d done that long before and he muttered, to no one in particular, “Damn it! I hate this!”

Norio turned left at the usual intersection, and as he did, the traffic protector amulet Michiyo had hung on his rearview mirror swung back and forth.

The way the intersection came together looked grotesque, as if a wide road constructed by a giant and a narrow little path made by dwarves had been forced to merge. Going down the broad highway, the intersection appeared to be an L-shaped road that curved right at a 90-degree angle. But farther down, the curve became a narrow alley and then opened into a small bridge that spanned the waterway paralleling the highway. In 1971 they’d finished filling in the shore between the mainland and an island, and the road now connected the two.

The island was home to a mammoth shipbuilding dock. This was where the giant lived. And the narrow alley still ran through the fishing village, whose shoreline had been stolen from it.

Norio steered smoothly off the highway into the alley. On his left was a church, its stained glass sparkling in the morning sun. Here there was always the presence of the sea. As Norio reached the end of the alley, there stood Yuichi Shimizu as always, outfitted in his tacky sweatshirt, a sleepy look on his face.

Norio pulled up in front of him, and Yuichi yanked open the door, said a desultory good morning, and climbed into the middle row of seats. Norio grunted out a hello and stepped on the gas.

Every morning on their way to the construction site in Nagasaki City, Norio picked up three workers in this order: first Yuichi, then another man in Kogakura, and a third in Tomachi.

After his abbreviated greeting, Yuichi was invariably silent. As Norio accelerated he asked, “Not enough sleep again? Bet you were out driving around again till late.”

Yuichi glanced for a second at the rearview mirror. “Not really,” he said.

Norio knew it was hard for a young guy like Yuichi to be picked up at six every morning, but between his disheveled hair and his eyes still encrusted with sleep, he looked as if he’d been in bed until three minutes ago. Norio couldn’t help scolding him.

If Yuichi had been a total stranger Norio wouldn’t have found his appearance and attitude so irksome, but they were relatives. Norio’s mother and Yuichi’s grandmother were sisters, which made Yuichi and Norio’s only daughter, Hiromi, second cousins.

At the end of the alley was a communal parking lot used by local residents. Among the old cars and vans was Yuichi’s precious white Skyline, bathed in the morning sunlight as if it were just out of the showroom. Yuichi bought the car used, but he had still paid more than two million yen for it, taking out a seven-year loan.

“Can’t you buy something cheaper?” Yuichi’s grandmother Fusae said when he bought it. “I asked him this, but he insisted he had to have this one. Well, I suppose a big car is convenient, when we have to take Grandpa to the hospital.” It had been hard to tell if she was happy or worried about his purchase.

Fusae and her husband, Katsuji, who was bedridden most of the time, had two daughters, Shigeko and Yoriko. The older, Shigeko, was living in Nagasaki City with her husband, who ran a high-end confectionary shop. She’d put her two sons through college and now they were out on their own. According to Fusae she was “the daughter I never have to worry about.” In contrast, her second daughter, Yuichi’s mother, never seemed able to settle down. When she was young, she married a man she worked with at a bar and they had Yuichi. This was fine as far as it went, but around the time that Yuichi entered elementary school, his father ran off with another woman. Not knowing what else to do, Yoriko brought Yuichi back to her parents’ home and stayed for a time but then took off, leaving her parents with no choice but to raise him. Rumor had it that she was working as a maid in an inn in the resort town of Unzen. Norio thought that it had worked out better for the boy this way, better for him to be raised by his grandfather, who worked for years in the shipyard, and his grandmother, rather than be dragged all over the place by irresponsible parents. Because of this, when Yuichi entered junior high and his grandparents proposed to adopt him, Norio didn’t hesitate to support the idea.

When Yuichi was adopted by his grandparents his last name, naturally enough, changed, from Honda to Shimizu. At New Year’s the next year, when Norio stopped by to give Yuichi the traditional gift of money, he asked, half joking, “What do you think? Doesn’t Yuichi Shimizu sound better than Yuichi Honda?”

But Yuichi, who was getting interested in motorcycles and cars, replied, “No, Honda is way more cool,” as he traced the English letters on the tatami.

Now, driving, Norio returned to the intersection-the spot where the giant’s land and the dwarves’ had been forcibly stitched together-and as they were waiting for the light to change, Yuichi spoke up from the backseat. “Uncle, this morning we’re gonna remove the blue sheet on the concrete, right?”

“We could wait till the afternoon,” Norio replied. “How long you think it’ll take to get rid of all of it?”

“If we leave just the front, about an hour should do it.”

At this time of morning the lane going in the other direction was packed with cars all headed toward the shipyard, full of men trying their best to suppress yawns.

The light changed and Norio stepped on the gas. The tools stacked in the back of the van clanked together. Yuichi must have opened the window, for the scent of the sea wafted into the van.

“What’d you do last night?” Norio glanced back at him in the rearview mirror. He saw Yuichi grow suddenly tense.

“Why are you asking?”

Norio actually wanted to ask about Yuichi’s grandfather Katsuji, who would probably have to go back in the hospital before long, but Yuichi’s response made him keep asking questions. “I just figured you must have been out driving around last night.”

“I didn’t go anywhere yesterday,” Yuichi replied.

“What kind of mileage do you get with that car, anyway?” Norio tried to change the subject but he saw a slightly disgusted look on Yuichi’s face. “Bet you get ten kilometers to the liter.”

“No way. It depends on the road, but if I get seven I’m doing okay.” Yuichi’s tone was curt, but he perked up at a conversation about cars.

Already the line of cars headed for the city was starting to show signs of turning into a traffic jam. If they had come thirty minutes later they would have been caught in a massive tie-up.

The road they were on was the only interstate that ran north and south along the Nagasaki peninsula. In the opposite direction, past the city, the highway ran past an abandoned offshore industrial island called Battleship Island, so named because of its shape; past Takahama Beach, crowded with people in the summer; then past the swimming beaches at Wakamisaki; and finally, at the end of the highway, the beautiful lighthouse at Kabashima.

“Hey, how’s your grandpa? Still not feeling so good?” Norio asked as they continued down the highway toward the city.

There was no response, so Norio asked, “Is he going to go back in the hospital?”

“I’m taking him there today after work.”

Yuichi was looking out the window, and his reply was half blown away by the breeze.

“You should have told me. You could have taken him first and then come to work.” Most likely Fusae had told him to go to work first, but Norio thought this was a little cold of her.

“It’s the same hospital as always, so it can wait till evening,” Yuichi said, protective of his grandmother.

For the last seven years Yuichi’s grandfather had suffered from a severe case of diabetes. He was getting on in years, and no matter how often he went to the hospital he never seemed to improve. When Norio called on him once a month to check on how he was doing, he was struck by the older man’s increasingly ashen complexion.

“I know it’s my own daughter’s fault, but I’m really happy Yuichi’s with us. Without him I’d have a heck of a time getting Grandpa back ’n’ forth to the hospital.”

Recently every time Norio and Fusae saw each other she’d say the same thing. Yuichi might be helpful to have around, but the more Fusae said this, the sorrier Norio felt for his quiet cousin-whom he treated like a nephew-as he was practically bound hand and foot to this elderly couple. Besides this, Yuichi was almost the only young person in his village. The rest of the residents were old couples, or old people living alone, and Yuichi was kept busy shuttling not just his grandparents but other elderly neighbors to the hospital. But he always brought his car around without a word of complaint.

For Norio, Yuichi was like the son he’d never had, which is why he’d been so upset when Yuichi had taken out a loan to buy his flashy car. Once Norio had calmed down, though, he started to feel sorry for him-since the whole point of having the car seemed to be to ferry old people back and forth to the hospital.

Unlike the other young guys on the construction site, Yuichi never overslept and he always worked hard. But Norio had no idea what made this young man happy.

On this particular day Norio made his usual rounds to pick up the other workers. Yuichi was the only one of all of them who wasn’t in his late fifties-the others, including Norio, filled the van with cigarette smoke and groans about married life, about how much their knees ached, or how much their wife snored.

They all knew Yuichi wasn’t talkative, so they barely spoke to him. When Yuichi had first joined their construction gang, they tried to take good care of him, inviting him to boat races, or out to bars in Doza in Nagasaki. But at the races he wouldn’t even make a single bet, and wouldn’t sing even one karaoke song when they went drinking. Young guys these days are no fun at all, they concluded, and washed their hands of him.

“Hey, Yuichi! What’s the matter? You look pale.”

Norio glanced in the rearview mirror. He’d almost forgotten that Yuichi was there, but now he saw that his face was white as a sheet. They were just about to enter the city, at a spot where they could see the harbor between the row of warehouses along the coast.

“What’s wrong? You don’t feel good?” Norio asked.

Yoshioka, seated behind Yuichi, said, “You gonna throw up? Open the window! Right now!” and hurriedly leaned forward to roll it down.

Yuichi weakly brushed his hand aside and whispered, “No, I’m okay.”

Yuichi looked so bad that Norio decided to pull over. As he did, the truck behind them roared past, blaring its horn, the wind rocking their van.

As soon as the van stopped Yuichi tumbled out, holding his stomach, and vomited on the ground. Nothing seemed to come up from his stomach, though, and he just stayed there, his breathing ragged and labored.

“You got a hangover?” Yoshioka called out from the van. Yuichi, hands on the paving stones of the sidewalk, shuddered as he nodded.

Koki Tsuruta held the curtain, dyed in the evening sun, open a crack and peered down at the street below. From the twelfth-floor window he could see all of Ohori Park. Two white vans were parked on the street and the young detective who had just questioned him was climbing into one of them. His parents had bought this condo for him near the university, but Koki had never liked the view. The broad vista outside it made him feel small, like a worthless, spoiled rich kid.

The digital clock beside his bed showed five past five. The detective had banged on his door at four-thirty, and Koki, who’d just dragged himself out of bed, answered his questions for a half hour.

Koki sat down on his bed and took a sip of lukewarm water from a plastic bottle.

Until it dawned on him that the detective was after Keigo Masuo, Koki had answered him sullenly. He’d been watching videos until morning and couldn’t hide how upset he felt at having someone pounding on his door. When the detective, not too much older than himself, showed him his badge and said he’d like to ask him some questions, Koki figured that the guy who molested women in the park must have been at it again.

“I hear that you and Keigo Masuo are close.”

When he heard this, Koki put the two together, concluding that Keigo must have molested somebody-or maybe picked up some girl at a bar and raped her. Somehow the word raped seemed a better fit for Keigo than molested.

Koki was fully awake at last as the young detective summarized the facts as they knew them. Mitsuse Pass. Yoshino Ishibashi. Dead body. Strangled. Keigo Masuo. Disappeared. As he listened, Koki’s knees gave out. Keigo had done something far worse than rape, and had fled. Koki started to sink to the floor, and the detective said, “We don’t know exactly what happened, but thought that maybe you could tell us where Mr. Masuo might be. Has he gotten in touch with you recently?”

Koki lightly tapped his sleepy face and tried to remember. The detective stood there patiently, pen and notebook in hand.

“Well…” Koki began, gazing at the detective. “How should I put it… I haven’t been able to get in touch with him the last three or four days. Everybody’s saying he just dropped off the grid for a laugh, but I figure he went off on a trip somewhere by himself.” Koki got this out in a rush of words, then stopped and glanced at the detective again.

“Yes, that seems to be the case. When was the last time you talked with him?” The detective’s expression remained unchanged, and he tapped the notebook with the tip of his pen.

“The last time? Umm… it must have been over the weekend.”

Koki searched his memory. He remembered talking to Keigo on the phone, but what day of the week that was, he couldn’t say. The signal had been bad and it was hard to hear him. “Where are you?” Koki had asked him, to which Keigo replied, laughing, “I’m up in the hills.”

He hadn’t called for any special reason. He’d just wanted to double-check the time for their seminar exam the following week. Koki was sure he’d been watching the movie Whacked on video that night. He remembered wanting to tell Keigo about it when the phone went dead.

Koki hurried to his bedroom and checked the receipt from the video store. “It was last Wednesday,” he told the detective standing in the entrance.

Whenever Keigo came over, Koki always made him watch videos that he liked. Keigo wasn’t interested in movies so he’d either fall asleep or go home; but Koki, who dreamed of making a film someday, had talked with Keigo about producing something together.

Sometimes Keigo would invite him out drinking at night, saying they could talk more about movies, but as soon as they arrived at a bar, Keigo would forget about movies and start trolling for girls. Keigo was a flashy guy-even other guys could see that-and it wouldn’t be long before he’d snag a girl. He’d bring her back to where Koki was sitting and introduce him, saying, “My friend here’s gonna make a film next year. You want to be in it?”

The girls Keigo picked up were themselves far from flashy. Koki had asked him about this and he’d replied, laughing, “It’s the down-and-out-looking ones that make me hard.”

Koki remembered hearing the name the young detective had mentioned, Yoshino Ishibashi. When the detective had told him that they’d discovered the body of a woman with that name at Mitsuse Pass, the first image that flashed in front of Koki’s eyes was from a film he’d seen sometime, of a white woman’s frozen corpse. But after the detective had repeated the name, it finally dawned on him that this was the name of a girl that Keigo had tried to pick up in a bar in Tenjin a few months ago.

Koki had been with him that night. They were playing darts, and Koki remembered sitting at the end of the bar and discussing the films of Eric Rohmer with the bartender. Keigo had just invited Yoshino and her two friends to go sing karaoke, but they’d demurred, saying they had a curfew and were about to leave. Koki and the bartender were deep into their debate over Rohmer’s films, the bartender arguing that Conte d’été was his best, while Koki insisted that Le genou de Claire was his masterpiece.

Keigo followed him to the counter and was standing just behind Koki when he said, “Tell me your e-mail address. I’ll take you out to dinner next time.” Koki turned around, and sure enough the girl wasn’t much to speak of. She quickly gave him her address.

As the girls walked up the stairs, Keigo gave them a casual, “Bye now! See you!” and then came back to the bar, ordered a beer, and showed Koki the coaster with the girl’s e-mail address on it. The name scrawled on the coaster was Yoshino Ishibashi.

Koki remembered the name since it was the same name, with just one character different, as that of a girl in the film club he belonged to who was below him in college.

As Keigo took the beer from the bartender, Koki had said, “The Ishibashi I know’s much cuter than this girl.”

Keigo continued to toy with the coaster. “Yeah,” he said, “but I like that kind of girl. The kind that you know isn’t quite grown up. She runs around, looking all cross, with her Louis Vuitton handbag, but still deep down is a farmer’s daughter. Give me a girl with a Louis Vuitton bag and cheap shoes walking on a path between rice fields and I’m all over her.”

When Koki first met Keigo in college he found it strange how, even though their likes and personalities were so different, they got along so well. It must have been because they were both from wealthy families and could afford to be laid-back. If Keigo were a prima donna movie star, then Koki was the director, the only one who could coax a good performance out of him.

Koki remembered a time when he and Keigo were eating ramen at an outdoor stand in Nagahama. Keigo had just bought a new car and spent all his free time tooling around town in it.

As they were slurping down their noodles Keigo asked him, “Koki, is your dad the type who cheats on his wife?”

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering.”

Koki’s father owned a number of rental buildings in central Fukuoka. He’d inherited all of them from his own father, and even to his son he was a man with too much time and money on his hands. Koki found it hard to respect him.

“Well, I can’t say for sure he hasn’t played around… But I imagine the most he’s done is just fool around with some bar hostesses or something.”

Keigo didn’t seem too interested. A pile of ramen still remained in his bowl, but he snapped his disposable chopsticks in half and dropped them into the bowl.

“How ’bout your dad?” Koki said, trying to be casual. Keigo took a sip of water from the worn-out plastic cup and said, “My dad? Well, remember he runs an inn.” He practically spat out the words.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Inns have maids,” Keigo said with a knowing grin. “Since I was a kid I saw my dad taking maids into one of the back rooms. I wonder about that… Those women probably hated it, right?… No, of course they hated it, though it didn’t look that way to me.”

As they exited the ramen stand, Keigo turned to the owner and said, “Thanks for the meal. It was awful.”

For an instant the other customers froze. It was an awkward moment, but Koki liked this about Keigo. And in fact the stand they’d eaten at was aimed at tourists and charged way too much.

As Yuichi scrubbed away the dirt from his hands in the water-filled drum, Norio stood behind him, smoking and watching him. The drum was used for mixing cement and no matter how much clean water was poured in it, a snakelike pattern remained on your skin after your hands dried.

It was six p.m. and the various work crews on the site were getting ready to go home. Several pieces of heavy machinery now sat quietly in a row; only a few minutes ago, they were in use, tearing down a wall.

It was their fourth day tearing down a former maternity hospital, and two-thirds of it had now been mercilessly ripped apart. In a large-scale site like this, Norio had to subcontract out some of the work. His company owned a 15m heavy-duty power backhoe, but one machine wasn’t nearly enough to pull down a three-story steel-and-concrete structure.

Yuichi dried his hands on the towel around his neck. “You know,” Norio said, crushing out his cigarette in an ashtray, “it’s about time you got a heavy-equipment license.”

Yuichi turned toward him. “Yeah,” he replied listlessly, and began scrubbing his face with the towel. The more he scrubbed, the dirtier his face seemed to get.

“I’ll give you a week off next month. Why don’t you go get your license then?”

Yuichi pouted and nodded, but it was hard to tell if this meant he’d like to do it.

Norio had been waiting for a long time, hoping Yuichi himself would suggest that he take the licensing exam, but he never took the initiative.

As Yuichi was stowing away his rubber gloves in his bag Norio asked, “So, how are you feeling now?” Despite vomiting on the way to work, after they got to the site Yuichi worked quietly, as always. Norio had noticed, though, that he’d hardly touched the lunch he’d brought with him.

“You’ve got to take your grandpa to the hospital, right? As soon as you get home?” Norio asked.

“Probably after dinner,” Yuichi said absently as he shouldered his bag and stood up in the dusty wind.

Kurami, Yoshioka, and Yuichi climbed back into the van with Norio, just as they did every day.

The setting sun was bathing Nagasaki Harbor in red as they drove back down the highway, and Kurami popped open his usual can of shochu.

“You’ll be home in thirty minutes. Can’t you hold out till then?” Norio asked, frowning as the sharp smell of liquor hit him.

“I’ve been holding out for the last hour we were working, so how do you expect me to last another half hour?” Kurami gave a half-disgusted laugh, and lifted the single-serving can to his lips. Some of the liquid dribbled down and wet his thick whiskers. The window was open but still the van was filled with the odor of shochu and dried dirt.

“Hey, I heard a girl was murdered yesterday at the Mitsuse Pass in Fukuoka,” said Yoshioka, gazing out the window.

“They said she sold insurance. Her parents must be out of their minds,” said Kurami, who had a daughter about the same age, as he licked his shochu-smeared fingers.

Yoshioka, who lived with his common-law wife, didn’t have kids and probably couldn’t feel what the parents were going through. Yoshioka had never given them the details, but he lived with this woman in public housing, and though they’d been together ten years, she was still officially married to her husband. He changed the subject. “ Mitsuse Pass,” he said. “When I drove trucks I used to use that road all the time.

“Yuichi, you go driving over Mitsuse Pass often, don’t you?” Yoshioka asked.

Yuichi was staring out the window. He shifted his gaze to the interior of the van. His face was reflected in the rearview mirror.

Traffic in the opposite direction heading back to town was starting to back up. The cars of the shipyard workers formed a long chain that stretched down the road. The faces of the men in the cars, lit by the setting sun, looked somehow demonic, like hannya masks.

“You drive there pretty often, right? Mitsuse Pass?” Yuichi hadn’t replied, so Yoshioka repeated his question.

“I don’t much like… Mitsuse Pass. It’s creepy at night.”

Somehow this reply of Yuichi’s stayed with Norio as he continued to drive.

After letting out Kurami, and then Yoshioka, Norio headed for Yuichi’s house.

They left the highway and drove into a narrow alley, so narrow their side mirrors nearly scraped the nameplates on the front of the houses. The alley wound its way toward the fishing village. The coastline had nearly disappeared when the sea around the village had been filled in, but a tiny harbor still remained, with a handful of fishing boats anchored there. The part of the harbor surrounded by piers was calm, the only sound the occasional creak of the boats tugging at their lines.

There were several warehouses around the harbor, all with their shutters down. At first glance it seemed as though they were connected to the fishing industry, but in fact they contained boats for the annual Chinese-style Peron dragon-boat racing festival.

Dragon-boat racing was popular in this region, with districts competing against each other every summer. It was an inspiring sight to see a dozen or so men paddling in tandem, and every year the events attracted crowds of tourists.

“You’re going to be in the Peron next year, too, right?” Norio asked as he glanced at one of the warehouses, whose shutter was only half down. Yuichi had his bag in his lap and was getting ready to exit the van.

“When is it they start practicing?” Norio asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Same time as always,” Yuichi replied.

When Yuichi first participated in the Peron races, when he was in high school, Norio had been the district leader. Unlike the other young men, who were always moaning and groaning about practice, Yuichi silently paddled on. That was all well and good, but he overdid it, the skin on his hands scraped so raw that when it came time for the actual competition he couldn’t compete.

Ten years had passed since then and Yuichi had participated in the races every year. He always claimed he didn’t especially enjoy it-but when practice began, he was always the first one to show up at the warehouses.

“I think I’ll stop by and say hello.” Norio stopped his van in front of Yuichi’s house, and switched off the engine.

Yuichi, already halfway out, turned toward him.

“What time was it that you’re taking Uncle to the hospital?” Norio asked.

“After dinner,” Yuichi answered vacantly, and stepped down from the van.

Norio followed him in and as soon as he entered he was hit by the distinctive odor of a sick person’s house. Despite Yuichi’s presence, the house was that of an old couple, and as soon as you set foot in it, it was as if all color had drained away. The dirty red sneakers Yuichi kicked off at the entrance were the only bright spot.

“Fusae-san!” Norio followed Yuichi, who briskly strode inside, and called out toward the interior of the house. It bothered Norio how the young man just kicked off his shoes and didn’t neatly line them up at the entrance.

As Norio was removing his own shoes he heard Fusae’s voice: “Oh, is Norio with you? We haven’t seen him in quite a while.”

“You’re taking Uncle to the hospital?” Norio stepped up into the house as Fusae came out of the kitchen to greet him, wiping her wet hands on a dish towel.

“He just got released, but now he has to go in again.”

“Yeah, that’s what Yuichi was saying…”

Norio strode down the hall and slid open the door into Katsuji’s bedroom.

“Uncle, I hear you’re going back in the hospital? Bet you’d rather stay at home, huh?”

As soon as he pulled back the sliding door, Norio caught a faint whiff of urine. The streetlight outside shone into the room, mixing with the blinking fluorescent light hanging over the faded tatami.

“As soon as he goes to the hospital, he says he wants to come home. But once we’re home, he says he prefers the hospital. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”

Fusae switched the fluorescent light off, and back on again. In the futon Katsuji gave a muffled cough.

Norio sat down next to the old man’s bed and roughly pulled back the futon. Katsuji’s wrinkled face was revealed, resting on the hard pillow.

“Uncle,” Norio said, and rested his hand on the old man’s forehead. Maybe his own hand was hot, he thought with a start, for the old man’s skin was chilly.

“Where’s Yuichi?” Katsuji asked in a phlegmy voice, brushing Norio’s hand off his forehead.

Just then Yuichi could be heard clomping around upstairs, making the whole house shake.

“You can’t rely on Yuichi to do everything,” Norio said, his words aimed not just at Katsuji, but at Fusae standing behind him.

“We don’t,” Fusae pouted.

“I know you don’t, but he’s still a young guy. If he spends all his time taking care of an old man and woman, he’s never going to get married,” Norio said, deliberately playful.

Fusae’s stern look softened. “I know, but if Yuichi wasn’t here I wouldn’t even be able to give Uncle a bath.”

“That’s why you should hire a caregiver.”

“Do you have any idea how much they cost?”

“That expensive?”

“Well, look at what the Okazakis are paying for-”

“Be quiet!” shouted an angry voice from the futon, followed by a painful cough.

“Sorry, sorry.” Norio lightly patted the futon, stood up, and guided Fusae out of the room.

A fresh-looking yellowtail lay on the cutting board in the kitchen, darkish blood spreading out on the board. The eyes looking at the ceiling and the half-opened mouth seemed to be complaining about something.

“By the way, was Yuichi out late last night?” Norio said casually, standing behind Fusae, who was back at the cutting board, cleaver in hand. He was remembering how that morning Yuichi had looked so pale and had jumped out of the van and vomited.

“I don’t know. He must have gone out.”

“I was surprised he had a hangover.”

“A hangover? Yuichi?”

“He was white as a sheet.”

“He went drinking? But he was driving.”

Fusae was slicing up the yellowtail with a practiced hand, the bones of the fish snapping as she cut through them.

“How about you take one of these yellowtail back to Michiyo? Mr. Morishita from the fishing co-op gave them to me this morning, and Yuichi’s the only other one here who’ll eat them.” Fusae turned around and pointed to beneath the table. A single drop of water dripped down from the tip of the cleaver onto the dark, shiny floor.

Norio looked under the table and found a single yellowtail in a Styrofoam container. He carried the yellowtail, case and all, over to the front hall, then went upstairs. The door to Yuichi’s room was right at the top of the stairs.

Norio felt a bit hesitant about knocking, and instead called out “Hey!” and opened the door.

Yuichi was in his underwear, probably about to take a bath, and he nearly collided with the door as Norio opened it.

“You going to take a bath?” Norio said, gazing at Yuichi’s upper body, the muscles visible under a thin layer of skin.

“A bath, then eat, and then the hospital.” Yuichi nodded and started out of the room. Norio twisted to one side to let him pass.

Norio was going to follow him downstairs, but he saw a pamphlet entitled Getting Your Crane License that had fallen on the floor.

“Ah, so you are thinking of getting your license.”

There was no reply, just the sound of Yuichi stomping down the stairs.

Norio drifted into the room and picked up the pamphlet. Yuichi’s footsteps faded off down the hallway downstairs.

Norio sat down on a flattened cushion and let his eyes wander about the room. On the tan walls there were several car posters, fixed to the wall with yellowed Scotch tape, and a pile of car magazines on the floor. But other than that the room was empty. No pinups, not even a TV or a radio/cassette player.

Fusae had once said, “Yuichi’s real room isn’t here, but his car,” and Norio could see that this was no exaggeration.

Norio tossed aside the pamphlet and picked up the pay envelope on the low table. He’d given the envelope to Yuichi last week, but the moment he felt it he knew it was empty. Next to the envelope was a receipt from a gasoline station. Norio hadn’t planned to look at it, but found it in his hand anyway. It was from a station in Saga Yamato, for ¥5,990.

“Yesterday,” Norio said, looking at the date.

Yuichi had insisted that he hadn’t driven anywhere far yesterday. Norio tilted his head, puzzled.

Fusae slipped the head of the yellowtail off the cutting board. It hit the sink with a loud thunk and slid toward the drain, its half-open mouth facing her.

She turned at the sound of footsteps in the corridor and saw Yuichi, in only his underwear, chewing on a piece of kamaboko he’d grabbed from the table as he headed toward the bath.

“Did Norio go home already?” she asked his retreating figure.

Still chewing on the kamaboko, Yuichi turned and silently pointed upstairs to his room.

“What’s he doing in your room?”

“No idea,” Yuichi said, sliding open the door to the bath. The door, glass set in a wooden frame, creaked loudly like a thin sheet of corrugated iron as it bowed inward.

There was no changing room attached to the bath, so Yuichi just dropped his underwear where he was and, shivering, rushed into the bath, his white rear end like a blurred afterimage. There was another loud bang as he slammed the door to the bath shut.

Fusae shifted the cleaver in her hand and began slicing up the flesh of the yellowtail.

Footsteps rang out coming down the stairs, and when Norio called out “Auntie, I’ll be going,” Fusae was dissolving miso into a pot and couldn’t see him off.

“Thanks for stopping by,” she called out.

The old front door creaked and then slammed shut, shaking the whole house. After the sound of Norio’s footsteps faded, the only sound was the pot, bubbling away.

It’s so quiet, Fusae thought. Only Katsuji, nearly bedridden, and me, an old woman in the house. And young Yuichi, of course, there in the bath. But the house was so still it was scary.

As she leaned over to sniff the miso, Fusae called out to Yuichi. “I hear you had a hangover this morning?” Instead of a reply there was a loud splash of water.

“Where did you go drinking?”

No reply, just the sound of Yuichi pouring water over himself.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive, you know.”

By this point Fusae no longer expected any response.

She turned off the nearly boiling pot of soup and put the cutting board, bloody from slicing up the fish, into the sink to soak.

So Yuichi could eat as soon as he came out of the bath, she sliced up a healthy portion of sashimi and put it out with the fried ground fish meat she’d cooked the night before. She opened the rice cooker and the fluffy hot rice sent a cloud of steam into the chilly kitchen.

Before Katsuji became bedridden she’d always cooked three cups of rice in the morning and five in the evening. Sometimes she felt like all she’d done for the last fifteen years was rinse rice to make sure these two men had enough to fill their stomachs. Yuichi had loved rice, ever since he was a child. Give him a couple of daikon pickles and he could easily down a large bowl.

And everything he ate made him grow. From the time he entered junior high Fusae could swear she actually saw him growing taller by the day. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it, found it incredible how the food she provided him helped him blossom into a grown man. She’d had only daughters herself, and could sense how raising a boy, her grandson, struck a chord deep within her, some female instinct she’d never felt with her daughters.

In the beginning she deferred to Yuichi’s mother, Yoriko. After Yoriko ran off with a man, leaving behind Yuichi, who was in elementary school, and Fusae knew it was up to her to raise the child, she naturally enough was upset by her daughter’s unfaithfulness. But more than that, she felt a new energy rising up within her. Fusae was just about to turn fifty at the time.

When Yuichi had first come to live in this house, after his mother had been abandoned by her husband, he’d already lost all trust in her. He’d call out “Mom!” to her and act spoiled, but he really wasn’t focused on her at all.

Once Fusae had taken out an old photo album to show Yuichi, taking care that Yoriko didn’t see them. “Don’t you think Grandma was prettier than your mother?” she asked. She’d meant it as a joke, but as she pulled the dusty old album out of the closet she felt a certain tension within her. Yuichi gazed at the photo she pointed out and was silent. Looking down on his small head from behind, Fusae suddenly realized what a terrible thing she had done. She quickly snapped shut the album. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was never, ever beautiful.” Despite her age, she found herself blushing.

At Katsuji’s bedside, Fusae packed some underwear and toiletries in his leather bag. She’d bought the bag the first time he’d gone into the hospital. Figuring they’d use it only one time she’d chosen a cheap one, but with him in and out of the hospital all the time the bag, even the stitching, had started to fall apart.

“Tomorrow I’ll bring you some tea and furikake,” Fusae said. Katsuji’s mouth must have been dry, for he swallowed audibly.

“Has Yuichi eaten already?” Katsuji slowly rolled over and half crawled out of bed toward the dinner Fusae had brought on a tray.

“He had yellowtail sashimi. If you’d like, I’ll bring you some,” Fusae hurriedly added. Katsuji had let out a sigh when he saw the bland boiled vegetables and rice porridge.

“I don’t need any sashimi. But I want you to make sure to give something to the nurses at the hospital.” Katsuji picked up his chopsticks, his hands trembling slightly.

“What do you mean, give something?”

“Money, of course.”

“Money? Again with the money. Nurses these days don’t accept money from patients.” As she always did, Fusae turned this notion down flat. She hated this aspect of Katsuji’s personality, something she saw in all men and disliked intensely. It was fine to think about giving tips to the nurses, but where did he imagine the money was going to come from?

“Even if you give them something extra, they’re not going to do anything special for you. They’re respected professionals nowadays, and if you give them money they’ll think you’re looking down on them,” Fusae said, and slowly rose to her feet with a grunt. These days if she got up too quickly, her knees hurt.

Fusae watched as Katsuji, hunched over, slurped down his porridge. As she watched him, she remembered what her neighbor, old Mrs. Okazaki, had told her: “Every other month when I get a pension check I think, ‘Ah, he’s really dead, isn’t he.’”

The first time she heard this, Fusae thought about how this elderly woman had loved her husband. But as Katsuji’s condition deteriorated and he grew steadily weaker, the words took on a completely different meaning: when either a husband or wife died, your daily expenses were cut in half.

After his bath Yuichi sat cross-legged on a chair, wolfing down his meal. He must have been starving, for he followed each slice of sashimi with two or three huge mouthfuls of rice.

“I made some daikon miso soup,” Fusae called out to him, and ladled some into the soup bowl she’d turned over. Yuichi didn’t wait for it to cool but slurped it down as soon as she passed it to him.

“I should go along with you, don’t you think?” Fusae said, and sat down. She noticed a grain of rice stuck to Yuichi’s chin.

“No, you don’t need to come. All I have to do is take him to the nurse station on the fifth floor, right?” Yuichi mixed some wasabi in a plate of soy sauce, the sweeter variety found in Kyushu.

“We have a meeting again at seven in the community center. They’re talking about health foods. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to buy any. But hearing about it doesn’t cost anything,” Fusae said, pouring hot water out of the thermos into a teapot. The thermos made a gurgling sound as she pushed the button a couple of times to get out the last drops of water.

She stood up to add more water to the teapot, and that’s when it happened. Yuichi had been enjoying the sashimi and deep-fried fish paste, but he suddenly groaned and put a hand to his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Fusae hurried around behind him and pounded him sharply on the back. She was sure that something was stuck in his throat, but he stood up, pushed her aside, and with his hand to his mouth he rushed to the toilet. Fusae stood there, flabbergasted.

She heard him retching. Flustered, Fusae sniffed the sashimi and the fish paste but neither one smelled off.

After throwing up for a while, Yuichi finally emerged, his face deathly pale.

“What’s wrong?” Fusae asked, gazing intently at him. Yuichi shoved past her, saying, “Nothing… Just got something stuck in my throat.” It was clear to both of them that this wasn’t the real problem.

“You sure?…” Fusae bent over and retrieved his chopsticks from the floor. Yuichi’s legs were right in front of her. She noticed that he was trembling-even though he’d just taken a bath and shouldn’t be cold.

Grumbling the entire time, Katsuji managed to get out of bed and get dressed, and Yuichi drove him to the hospital. It was only fifty meters to the parking lot where Yuichi had his car, and Katsuji should have been able to walk there, but he ordered Yuichi to bring the car around to the front door, which he did, reluctantly.

Yuichi tossed the bag into the backseat, raised the passenger seat up, and Katsuji, looking unhappy, struggled to sit down. Yuichi walked around to the driver’s side and Fusae said, “If the head nurse isn’t there, then Ms. Imamura will be in charge.”

Yuichi’s white car looked out of place in the dark alley alongside the row of old houses. Inside, the subdued glow of the car stereo and radio lights looked like out-of-season fireflies.

As soon as Fusae shut the passenger-side door the car roared off. For a brief moment the far-off sound of waves was drowned out by the engine.

After seeing them off, Fusae hustled back into the kitchen to straighten up after dinner. Once she was finished, she went around switching off the lights, then slipped on some sandals and headed to the community center.

The wind was cold, but the sea was calm. Moonlight bathed the boats anchored in the harbor, and an occasional burst of wind teased the electric lines overhead and made them hum.

When Fusae spotted Mrs. Okazaki on the wharf, with its sprinkling of streetlights, heading to the community center, she picked up her pace. In the moonlight of the tiny wharf, the older woman shuffling along looked eerie yet somehow comical.

“So, Grannie, you’re headed there, too?” As Fusae caught up with her, Mrs. Okazaki, who was using a shopping cart as a walker, halted and looked up.

“Oh, Fusae, it’s you.”

“Did you try the Chinese herbal medicine from last time?” Fusae asked.

The old woman started walking again, slowly, and replied, “Yes, and I feel a bit better.”

“Me, too. I had my doubts it would work at first, but the morning after I drank some, I did feel better.”

Starting a month before, a pharmaceutical company, headquartered in Tokyo, apparently, had been holding health seminars at the community center. Fusae hadn’t been interested, but the head of the local women’s association had invited her, and after that she hadn’t missed a session.

As she walked along the wharf, the cold sea wind made her joints ache. The distinctive fishing-harbor tidal smell mixed in with the cold wind and tickled her nose, which had started to lose all feeling. Fusae deliberately walked on the seaward side to block the cold wind from hitting the elderly Mrs. Okazaki.

“I was wondering if I could bother Yuichi to buy some more rice for me,” Mrs. Okazaki said just as the community center came into view. “Whenever you go out shopping is fine.”

“You should have asked me sooner. I just had him do some shopping.” Fusae put her hand on the old woman’s back and guided her into the center.

“The Daimaru store will deliver, but they charge four thousand yen for ten kilograms of rice, and on top of that a three-hundred-yen delivery fee.”

“Don’t ever shop at Daimaru. Four thousand yen for ten kilograms? If you drive to the bargain store, you can get it at half price.”

Mrs. Okazaki had stepped up onto a stone step and Fusae took her arm. The older woman grabbed tightly on to her wrist.

“I knew that, but I don’t have anyone like you do, Fusae, with a car who can go shopping for me.”

“We’re friends, so don’t hesitate to ask us. We’ll be happy to. I’m always asking Yuichi to go shopping for us. It’s no trouble for him to pick up a few things for you, too.”

Directly ahead of the short flight of steps was the community center, which with its imposing gate resembled a shrine. Fluorescent lights lit up the interior, reflecting a shadow of someone looking down at them.

“But you do still have some rice left, right?” Fusae asked.

As she stepped up the last stone step Mrs. Okazaki said, in a forlorn voice, “I should be okay for another four or five days.”

“I’ll have Yuichi pick up some tomorrow.”

Just as she spoke, a voice came from the community center. “Is that Mrs. Okazaki?” it called. It came from the shadow, who was, in fact, the instructor of the seminar, a plump medical doctor named Tsutsumishita. As he spoke, he hurried down to them.

“Did you try the herbal medicine from last time?” he asked.

Mrs. Okazaki strained to stand up straight and smiled happily.

Dr. Tsutsumishita guided them into the community center and they found many of their neighbors already there, seated on cushions spread out at random on the floor and chatting with each other.

Fusae went to get cushions for herself and Mrs. Okazaki, then sat down next to the head of the women’s association, Mrs. Sanae, and eavesdropped as she chatted with Mrs. Okazaki about how well the herbal medicine had worked, how their legs weren’t so cold when they went to bed.

Dr. Tsutsumishita brought over a paper cup with hot tea. “That’s so kind of you,” Fusae said gratefully. “I shouldn’t be having a man wait on me.” She took the cup from the tray.

“Grannie, I wasn’t lying about that herbal medicine, now was I? Didn’t you still feel hot even after you came out of the bath?” Dr. Tsutsumishita patted Mrs. Okazaki’s shoulder and sat down beside her.

“It’s true, I did feel warm. Though when I first got it I thought it had to be a joke.” Mrs. Okazaki spoke in a loud voice, and around the hall other people laughed, agreeing with her.

“Well, I’m not about to come all this way on my short little legs just to pull a fast one on you.” Still seated, Dr. Tsutsumishita wiggled his short legs, evoking a burst of laughter.

For the last month Dr. Tsutsumishita had been lecturing on how to maintain good health after age sixty. Fusae at first had gone unwillingly, but she gradually found this doctor-who used his own shortcomings as grist for his talks-an enjoyable speaker, and since the afternoon had been counting the minutes to this evening’s seminar.

“Well, let’s get started.” Dr. Tsutsumishita stood up and addressed the group of old people scattered around the hall. One old man in the group had a red face, and must have been imbibing some shochu before he came.

“Today’s topic is blood circulation.” Dr. Tsutsumishita’s voice carried well throughout the hall. As he stepped up to the podium, the audience smiled in anticipation, as if they were about to hear a performance of comic rakugo.

Right beside the podium was a colorful Big Catch flag that nowadays was used only during the dragon-boat races.

At night the atmosphere in the hospital changed. There was a heaviness, a sadness in the air, a total absence of anything cheerful or happy.

That evening, Miho Kaneko sat down on a bench in the waiting room and started flipping through a magazine she’d brought from the hospital recreation area.

It was not yet eight p.m., but the light in the outpatient reception desk was off and the worn-out benches in the waiting area were illuminated only by the remaining fluorescent lights overhead. The waiting area was so small it was hard to believe that during the day over a hundred people crowded in, waiting their turn.

With everyone gone now the only things left in the waiting area were the benches and the color-coded arrows painted on the walls indicating the different wings of the hospital. The pink arrow for the ob-gyn wing, yellow for pediatrics, light blue for neurology. Under the fluorescent lights, the arrows looked colorful and out of place.

A patient would occasionally hurry down the hall to go outside to smoke. At nine the front door was locked and they couldn’t go outside to the designated smoking area. So out they went for the final smoke of the day-patients pushing IV poles, some holding colostomy bags in one hand, some leaning on canes, others in wheelchairs. One man past middle age, and a young man, probably from the same ward, were discussing baseball as they made their way outside. A woman in a wheelchair was talking to her husband on a cell phone. Each of them, each with his own illness or injury, headed out into the cold for the final smoke of the day.

When she turned to look farther down the hall, Miho saw, as she had on other nights, an old woman with dyed red hair, seated in front of the large TV that was left on during the day. A baby carriage was in front of her. She was just sitting there, doing nothing, though occasionally she’d rouse herself to rock the baby carriage and speak gently to the baby boy inside. “Hmm? What is it?” she asked him. Inside the baby carriage was a boy with polio. He was a little too big for the frilly carriage, and his twisted hand stuck out of it.

The old woman came here every night at this time. She sat here, speaking to this boy who couldn’t respond, stroking his painful, twisted body.

Miho figured the ward that housed the boy must be filled with young mothers. She didn’t know the story, but she decided that the red-haired old woman must feel uncomfortable among them, so she brought the boy out here to the hall every night.

Miho sat there, turning the pages of the magazine and half listening to the voices of the patients going out for a smoke, and the voice of the old woman soothing the boy.

It was a glossy women’s magazine, and she was slowly reading through each page of a report on the marriage of an actress and a Kabuki actor. She’d read about a third of the article when the nurse in charge of her case rushed out from the elevator and approached her. “Ah, Miss Kaneko,” she said, and Miho nodded a greeting.

As she approached, the nurse noted her magazine and said, grimacing, “It’s hard to read a magazine on the ward, isn’t it.”

“No, not really. It’s just that spending the whole day on the ward gets a little depressing…”

“Did Dr. Moroi talk to you this morning?”

“He did. He said that if the test results are good, I can be released on Thursday.”

“That’s wonderful. You look so much better than when you were first admitted.”

Two weeks ago Miho had a fever that lasted three days. She’d just opened her own little diner and couldn’t very well take time off, even though she knew she was pushing herself too hard. Soon afterward she’d suddenly collapsed, and fortunately a regular customer was at her place and called for an ambulance.

The diagnosis was overwork. She was also on the verge of getting pneumonia, the doctor told her. Her diner was small, but still she’d overdone it. She’d finally been able to open her own place, something she’d always wanted to do, and now had to close it just two months later. Miho couldn’t believe her luck.

The nurse stood up and went over to the red-haired old woman.

“You’re lucky, Mamoru, that your grandmother’s always with you.” The nurse’s gentle voice as she spoke to the boy in the baby carriage echoed in the still waiting area. As if replying to her, the motor of the vending machine kicked in with a groan.

Miho closed her magazine and stood up to return to her ward. Just then the automatic front door slid open, the cold air rushing in, and she casually glanced over, expecting it to be some patients coming in after their final cigarette. Instead, it was a tall young man with dyed blond hair supporting an old man who was walking gingerly inside. The faded pink warm-up clothes the young man wore went well, oddly enough, with his blond hair. He was staring at his feet as he walked. He had his arm under the old man’s armpit, supporting him, and it was clear the old man was leaning on him heavily.

As she casually watched the two of them, Miho went over and stood in front of the elevator. She pushed the Up button and the door opened right away. She was planning to wait for the two men coming in the entrance. She went inside the elevator and pushed the Open button and the two of them appeared again from the shadows of a pillar. And that’s when she realized who it was.

Miho hurriedly lifted her finger from Open and stabbed the Close button. The door slid shut. Just before it did, the young man had started to look up and she’d seen his face. There was no doubt about it. The young man supporting the older man was Yuichi Shimizu. As the elevator started Miho instinctively edged backward, her back bumping against the wall.

Two years ago, when Miho had worked at a massage parlor, Yuichi had come there almost every night, always asking for her.

The parlor, which was in the busiest shopping district in Nagasaki City, had just opened. There was a game center on the first floor and a river just across the street. On the street along the river, girls who worked at the cabaret clubs stood outside, dressed up as sexy nurses and high school students, trying to induce men passing by to come in. It was that sort of neighborhood.

Yuichi never asked her to do anything weird, but in the end it was because of him that she quit working there, feeling as if she were fleeing. The only way she could explain it was to say that she was frightened by him. If pressed to explain how he frightened her, she could only say that it was how very ordinary Yuichi was, despite the kind of establishment he was patronizing.

When the elevator reached the fifth floor, Miho walked back to her ward, casting nervous glances behind her. All of the visitors had left and of the six beds, three lined up on each side of the room, only Miho’s had its curtain open.

Miho headed to her bed and quickly pulled the curtain shut. From the bed next to her she heard the elderly Mrs. Yoshii, asleep already and snoring. Miho sat down on her bed and told herself, There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to be afraid of.

The first time Yuichi Shimizu had come to the massage parlor was, as she recalled, a Sunday. The parlor opened at nine a.m. on weekends, and at this time of day they could mostly expect married men who had slipped out of the house on some excuse. That morning Miho was running the parlor with just one other woman, an Osaka native who was already in her midthirties.

As always, after the client had chosen the girl he wanted from the photo list, the manager called Miho. She’d just gotten to work and hurriedly slipped into an orange negligee and headed for one of the rooms.

Five identical rooms were on one corridor, and when Miho opened the door to the tiny, two-mat room furthest back, she found a tall man standing there. Miho smiled and introduced herself, then guided the awkward young man to the bed, where she had him sit down.

Clients who came at this time of day usually started by sheepishly explaining why they were there. The most common explanation was that they had worked the whole night through and hadn’t caught a wink of sleep. Miho didn’t care one way or the other, but men who came this early in the morning were invariably apologetic.

Yuichi sat on the bed, looking nervously around the cramped room as if to confess that he’d never been in a place like this before. Following the training manual, Miho invited him to take a shower, but he said, in a forlorn vice, “But I’ve already taken a bath…”

Yuichi didn’t appear to be one of those clients who wanted a girl to touch him when he was dirty, and indeed he smelled as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.

“I’m sorry, but those are the rules,” Miho told him.

The shower was in a tiny bathroom, so cramped that if two people were in it their bodies couldn’t help but touch.

Miho asked him to take off his clothes, while she touched the water to make sure the shower was the right temperature. When she turned around, Yuichi was still wearing his underwear, his thighs pushed tightly together. He looked around the tiny room as if he didn’t know where to rest his eyes.

“You’re going to take a shower with your underwear on?”

Miho smiled at him, and after a second’s hesitation, he quickly pulled his briefs off. His penis caught in the elastic and slapped against his belly.

Miho had had a lot of older clients recently. Although she knew that this wasn’t the type of business where you could choose your customers, and that she would just have to get used to it, she was starting to get fed up with this life, with all these men who could only get it up after a tremendous effort on her part.

Miho took Yuichi’s hand and had him stand under the lukewarm shower. The water slid down his shoulders to his chest, wetting his almost painfully erect penis.

“Are you off work today?” Miho asked as she scrubbed his back with a soapy sponge. He was tense and she was hoping this would help him relax.

“Or maybe you’re still in college?” she asked, rinsing the bubbles from his back.

“No, I’ve got a job,” Yuichi finally replied.

“You must be into sports. You’re so muscular.” Miho didn’t really care, but had to keep the conversation going.

With barely a word, Yuichi just stood there, staring at her hand, looking terribly serious.

When Miho was about to touch his soapy penis, Yuichi quickly twisted away from her. His penis was pulsing, as if a single touch was all it would take for him to come.

“Don’t be shy. That’s the kind of place this is.” As Miho smiled, half fed up, Yuichi suddenly grabbed the showerhead from her and rinsed the rest of his body himself.

She wiped him dry with a bath towel and sent him on ahead into the room. One of the rules was to make sure to wipe clean the entire bathroom after using it. After cleaning up the bathroom she returned to their room and found Yuichi, towel still wrapped around his waist, standing there, his clothes in his hands.

“Are you from Nagasaki?” Miho asked. She’d never asked a client anything private before, but the words just slipped out.

Yuichi hesitated a moment, then told her the name of a town outside the city that she’d never heard of.

“I only moved here a half a year ago, so I’m afraid I don’t know much about the area.” At her words, Yuichi’s face clouded over slightly.

Miho guided Yuichi to the bed and had him lie down. She removed the bath towel and there was his penis, looking like a coyote off in the distance, head raised and about to howl.

Truth be told, she was sure he would be a one-time-only client. After they came out of the shower, it took only three minutes for him to finish up, and though Miho had suggested that there was enough time left to do it again, Yuichi hurriedly slipped on his clothes and left.

Even for a first visit to such a place, he didn’t seem to enjoy himself much. He hadn’t even waited for her to wipe him off, and appeared eager to get away. Still, two days later he was back again, asking for Miho without even glancing at the folder of other girls’ photos. The manager called her, and when she entered the room she found him seated on the bed this time, as if used to the place. This was a weekday evening and the massage parlor was crowded.

“Oh, you came back!” She smiled pleasantly, and Yuichi gave a slight nod and held out a plastic bag to her.

“What is that?” Afraid that it might be some weird sex toy, Miho cautiously accepted the bag. As soon as she did she let out a shriek, for the bag was warm.

She was about to toss it aside when Yuichi muttered, “It’s butaman, pork buns. The place where I bought them has the best ones.”

“Butaman?” Miho made an effort not to throw it aside. “For me?” she asked, and Yuichi gave a slight nod.

On occasion she’d received presents from other clients, but when they were food it was the usual cookies and chocolates. Getting hot food was a first.

Miho looked a bit stunned, and Yuichi asked, “What, you don’t like butaman?”

“No, I do,” Miho replied.

Yuichi took the bag from her and opened it on his lap. For a second he seemed to be looking around for small plates to use, though it was highly unlikely a tiny room in a massage parlor would have any.

As soon as he ripped open the plastic bag the hot, meaty, yeasty odor filled the windowless room. Through the thin walls they heard a man’s vulgar laugh.

After this he came back three days in a row.

According to the manager, when Miho was off duty Yuichi didn’t choose another girl, but instead walked away, shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Miho had no idea what it was about her that kept Yuichi returning. The first time she’d just done the usual things to him and hadn’t made him particularly satisfied. But then two days later, here he was back again, looking totally unconcerned, with a bag of hot butaman as a present.

In the cramped room the two of them ate the butaman. Their conversation never went anywhere. To Miho’s questions, Yuichi gave only short, evasive answers, and never asked her anything himself.

“Are you on your way home from work?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Your job’s nearby?”

“We work in all kinds of places. Construction sites.”

Before he came to see her Yuichi always stopped home and took a bath first.

“We have a shower, so you should just come straight here from work.”

Yuichi didn’t reply.

That day, after they’d finished the butaman, Miho took him to the shower. He wasn’t as hesitant as before, though he still turned away when she tried to touch his soapy penis.

Yuichi invariably chose the most popular forty-minutes-for-¥5,800 menu. Subtracting the time they were in the shower, that left them a scant thirty minutes alone, but that was usually more than enough for the client to get what he came for.

Whenever there was any time left over, most clients, greedy to get their money’s worth, wanted to do it a second time. But Yuichi came soon after they took a shower, and when she tried to touch him afterward, he rebuffed her. He was content for them to just rest their heads on their arms and gaze up at the ceiling.

He was an easy client. The more he visited her, the more relaxed she became with him, even nodding off occasionally as she lay there staring at the ceiling. And before long, Yuichi began to open up more about himself.

The next time he brought her cakes. He always brought something to eat and they would share the food in the cramped little room. She grew more used to him, and rather than insist on a shower, she started making cold tea or coffee for him at the start of each session.

It was probably the fifth, or maybe the sixth, time he paid her a visit that he brought a homemade box lunch for them. It was the afternoon of a holiday.

Ah, so he’s brought something again, she thought, taking the paper bag from him, but when she opened it she found a two-tier lunch box with a picture of Snoopy on it.

“A box lunch?” Miho couldn’t keep from asking in surprise, and Yuichi shyly lifted the lid.

The top tier contained fried omelets, sausages, chicken nuggets, and potato salad. The layer below was packed with rice, and different colored furikake flakes, each carefully separated from the other.

As she took the lunch box from him, for an instant the idea flashed before her that Yuichi had a girlfriend, that this girlfriend had made him the lunch but he was giving it to her. But when she asked, “Why did you bring me this?” Yuichi, shyly looking down, muttered, “I’m afraid it might not be so good…”

“You mean you made it?” Miho couldn’t help asking in surprise as Yuichi pulled apart a pair of disposable chopsticks and passed them over.

“The chicken nuggets are leftover ones my grandmother made last night…”

Miho looked at Yuichi, astonished. Yuichi sat there, like a child awaiting the results of a test, waiting for Miho to taste it.

Miho had already heard that he lived with his grandparents. She never wanted to know about her clients’ background, so she hadn’t asked any more.

“No kidding? You really made this yourself?”

Miho picked up a piece of the fluffy omelets with her chopsticks. They tasted slightly sweet.

“I like omelets with a bit of sugar in them,” Yuichi explained, and Miho replied, “I like sweet omelets, too.”

“The potato salad’s really good.”

It wasn’t as if they were on some spring picnic in a park. They were in a tiny, windowless room in a massage parlor, a stack of tissue boxes to one side.

After this day Yuichi always brought homemade box lunches with him when he came to see her.

When he asked her about her shift, she’d tell him her schedule, and say things like “I’m usually hungriest around nine.” Before she knew it she was looking forward to his box lunches.

“Nobody really taught me how to cook, but I picked it up. I kind of like to watch my grandma prepare fish, though I hate all the cleaning up afterward…”

Yuichi said all this as he watched Miho, in her gaudy negligee, eating the box lunch.

His lunches really were tasty, and Miho started to put in requests. “Can you include the hikiji like last time?” she’d ask.

After they finished eating Yuichi liked to lie beside her, hands behind his head.

As she reviewed the lunch they’d just eaten, Miho would play with his penis. She was paid for her services, of course, but she also felt she needed to thank him for the tasty food.

“You never ask to see me outside of here, do you?” she asked once, just after the alarm went off signaling that they had five minutes left. Miho’s hand was inside his underpants, and Yuichi was busily kneading her breasts.

“Most regular customers always invite us out. It’s like, Hey, let’s go on a date next time.”

Yuichi didn’t reply, so Miho asked him again. At that instant, Yuichi’s fingers suddenly stopped moving over her breasts.

“What do you mean, invite you? You mean like we meet outside of here!?”

Yuichi was seething. To Miho it felt as though his fingers were speaking, for they squeezed her breasts hard, not so hard they hurt, but hard enough.

She twisted away. “I’m not going to date you. No way,” she announced, and got out of bed. Yuichi roughly grabbed her arm.

“Just seeing you here is enough for me,” Yuichi said. “We can be by ourselves here. Just the two of us, with nobody bothering us.”

“Well, for forty minutes, at least,” Miho said, laughing.

“Then next time I’ll do the hour menu,” Yuichi said, looking serious.

At first she thought he was joking, but he didn’t smile.

It was time for lights out on the ward, and the nurse came by to switch off the overhead light. Miho lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Yuichi, but as soon as the lights were off, she slipped out of bed.

In the bed nearest the entrance there was still a small light on; it seemed as if that was the only place where time still flowed. Through the curtain she could see the shadow of somebody reading. Behind the curtain was a girl attending a local junior college, who’d had liver problems since she was young. She had darkish skin but a cute face. It was clear she’d been raised in a loving family.

Miho went out of the ward, trying not to make a sound in her slippers, and headed toward the bank of elevators. In the hallway was a line of orange vinyl tape indicating the toilets and bathroom.

She got into one of the oversize elevators, big enough to accommodate gurneys. As she descended she was hit by the sensation that the whole building was ascending and she alone was standing still.

On the first floor the old lady was still soothing the little boy, but the place was otherwise quiet, the only sound the hum of the vending machine.

Even if she saw Yuichi, it wasn’t as if there was anything she wanted to talk with him about. She’d been the one who trampled on his feelings, and she couldn’t very well face him now. Maybe two weeks in the hospital with hardly anyone coming to see her had weakened her will.

Still, she wanted to say something to him, especially after seeing him helping an old man into the hospital. If he could only tell her he was all right, that he was going out with an ordinary girl now. She’d been cruel when she broke up with him, and if he told her that, she felt that she could be forgiven for the way she’d acted.

Even though she worked for a massage parlor, Yuichi had rented an apartment on his own and had wanted them to live together.

As Miho watched her soothing the boy in the baby carriage, the old woman suddenly turned and said, “It’s nice and quiet here so I can relax.” She’d seen the old woman a number of times, but this was the first time she’d spoken to her.

Still wondering if she was going to see Yuichi again, Miho stiffened and approached the old woman, as if drawn to her. It was the first time she’d looked at the little boy up close. She’d imagined how twisted his body was, but the reality was far worse, and his weak, unfocused eyes wandered.

“Hey there, Mamoru.” Miho rubbed the boy’s frail arm.

The old woman gave her a suspicious look, apparently wondering how she knew the boy’s name.

“The nurse called him that,” Miho explained quickly, and the old woman, looking satisfied, said, “Mamoru’s a popular little boy, now, aren’t you? Everybody knows you.” She stroked the boy’s sweaty forehead as she spoke.

“If you rub him like this it takes away some of the pain,” the old woman said, stroking the limp little boy’s shoulder. The vending machine started humming a bit more loudly.

Lots of things to say sprang to Miho’s mind, but for some reason she couldn’t say them. She sat down next to the old woman and, following her lead, rubbed the arms and legs sticking out of the baby carriage.

Just then the elevator door slid open and Yuichi came out. The old man wasn’t with him now, and he had a sullen look on his face, hands stuck in his jeans pockets. Yuichi glanced in Miho’s direction but apparently didn’t notice her. He looked away and strode off.

“Yuichi!” Miho called out to him, as his retreating figure headed toward the entrance that was soon to be locked up for the night. Yuichi halted, startled for a second, and turned around guardedly. Miho stood up from the bench and looked directly at him.

The little boy’s leg, which she’d just been rubbing, brushed against her thigh. It moved, as if he was asking her to rub him some more.

The moment Yuichi’s eyes met hers the strength drained out of him. Without thinking, though she was still standing far away, Miho reached out her hand to him.

She hurriedly went over to him. She could see his face grow paler with each step.

“Are you-okay?” she asked, taking his arm. She’d just been holding the little boy’s arm, and for an instant the feeling gave her goose bumps. “I saw you a little while ago bringing in an old man and so I waited here for you.”

For a second the thought struck Miho that he wasn’t bringing the old man to the hospital, but that it was Yuichi himself who was sick.

“Anyway, why don’t we just sit down for a while?”

Miho tugged at his arm but he shrugged loose as if trying to get away.

“It’s not like I’m trying to apologize or anything,” she said. “It’s been two years, after all… It’s just that I haven’t seen you in so long, and it brings back lots of memories.”

She’d gotten closer than she’d realized and took a step back. The color slowly returned to Yuichi’s pale face.

“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to keep you,” Miho apologized.

She wanted him to tell her that he was okay now. That’s all she wanted to hear, why she’d called out to him. But the instant Yuichi had spotted her, he’d blanched.

She could only conclude that Yuichi still hadn’t forgiven her. She’d called out to him, thinking that the passage of time had softened things, only to be struck by the realization that that was the self-centered thinking of someone who’d betrayed another person.

“I, uh… have to get going,” Yuichi managed to say, glancing at the entrance.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have…” Miho apologized.

It was obvious he had no feelings for her anymore, but still Miho found his attitude cold.

Yuichi hurriedly exited the hospital. His figure as he headed toward the parking lot was lit up in the moonlight. The parking lot was nearby, Miho knew, but to her it looked as if he were heading somewhere far, far away. As if he were making his way toward another night altogether, one that lay beyond the present.

Yuichi disappeared into the lot. As if they hadn’t just seen each other for the first time in two years, he didn’t turn around, not once.

Three days had passed since the murder at Mitsuse Pass and all the TV talk shows were filled with reports on the incident. No matter what channel you turned to, there was the cold winter pass, the usual reporters standing in front of it as they professed their hatred for the murderer and his crime.

The talk show reports all basically boiled down to the same story line: A twenty-one-year-old woman working for an insurance company in Fukuoka City was murdered and her body was dumped at Mitsuse Pass. At approximately ten-thirty that night the woman said goodbye to her colleagues near the apartment building their company leased and went to see her boyfriend at a place a three-minute walk away. The boyfriend had not been heard from since. The police were looking for him as a material witness, but according to his friends, he’d been missing the past three or four days.

Along with the summary of the murder details scrolling along the screen, the TV showed scenes of the freezing pass to dramatize the cruelty of the deed. In contrast, when they discussed the missing boyfriend, relating how he was the most popular student on campus, how he drove an expensive foreign car and lived alone in a condo in a high-end section of Fukuoka, the screen was filled with lively scenes from the upscale Tenjin and Nakasu neighborhoods. To viewers it was obvious from the newscasters’ tones that it was 99 percent certain that this boyfriend was the criminal.

Kanji Hayashi, an instructor at a local juku, a prep school, was one of these viewers. As he stared fixedly at the TV screen in his apartment, he didn’t seem to notice that the piece of toast with marmalade in his hand was growing cold. It was three p.m., about time he had to get going or else he’d be late to class, but he remained glued to his chair.

Hayashi had first learned of the murder two days before, after he got up in the afternoon and had switched on the TV, just as now. At first he’d just thought, Hmm… over at Mitsuse Pass, huh? but when the photo of the victim came on the screen he’d nearly choked on his orange juice.

To him she wasn’t Yoshino Ishibashi, but Mia, a girl he’d met three months ago online.

Hayashi hurriedly checked his call records, and though it was unlikely he’d saved any since it was a while ago, he did find one e-mail from her:

Thank you very much for everything the other day. It was lots of fun. But as I was telling you, I’m being transferred next month to Tokyo and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to see you anymore. I’m really sorry about the bad timing. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Mia.

So the only message from her left on his phone was this last one, basically telling him not to get in touch anymore. All the enormous numbers of messages they’d exchanged before that had vanished, but not the memory of the day he’d met Yoshino Ishibashi/Mia. That was still crystal clear in his mind.

They’d arranged to meet in the lobby of a hotel next to the Fukuoka Dome. A long bench encircled the spacious lobby, and it was nearly filled with families staying at the hotel.

Mia showed up ten minutes late. She didn’t quite live up to the photo she’d e-mailed him, but to a forty-two-year-old bachelor like Hayashi, this young girl was still as cute as a ladybug. There was nothing hesitant about her. She pulled out a taxi receipt for the ride over to the hotel and asked him to reimburse her. He’d told her to take a taxi when she’d said that the hotel was far away for her, but still, when she pulled out the receipt and demanded payment before she’d even said hello, it struck Hayashi that their meeting was definitely a business transaction.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Mia told him. Hayashi decided to skip going to a coffee shop first, as he’d been planning to do, and they drove directly to a love hotel.

This wasn’t the first time Hayashi had done this. He handed over the thirty thousand yen he’d promised and they wasted no time going up to their cramped little guest room.

It was obvious that this wasn’t the first time for Mia, either. As soon as she got the cash, she stripped off her clothes and, just in her underwear, asked, “Okay with you if I order some drinks?” and called the front desk. Her ribs showed just below her full breasts, but her belly had a slight roll of fat.

Hayashi had never been with a prostitute, but watching her seated on the bed phoning the front desk, to him that’s what she looked like. She seemed to enjoy their time in bed. Her skin and vagina got so wet he couldn’t see it as just an act done for money.

An amateur pretending to be a prostitute, or an amateur prostitute-Hayashi couldn’t decide which was more erotic. Maybe it didn’t matter, they were women all the same, but Hayashi couldn’t help thinking that there was something very different about the two.

The talk-show report on the murder at Mitsuse Pass finished, and Hayashi finally put down his piece of toast, a neat half-moon of tooth marks from the single bite he’d taken carved out of it.

Over the past couple of days he’d mulled over this notion that a girl he’d met just once had been killed by someone, and though he could understand it on a conceptual level, emotionally he couldn’t absorb the reality.

If he were to compare it to anything, it was maybe like the mixed feelings he’d had when he saw a girl from his junior high school days appear on local TV as a newscaster, the mixture of ridicule and envy he’d felt when he couldn’t believe she was actually on TV reporting the news. Mia was no newscaster, however. The only reason she was on TV was because somebody had strangled her and dumped her body out in the cold.

The criminal must be somebody just like me, Hayashi thought. She met another guy like me online, the only difference being that this other guy turned out to be a murderer.

Hayashi didn’t know if he was trying to justify, or ridicule, himself. Of course I didn’t kill her, he thought, but the murdered girl is someone I knew, and was killed by someone very much like me. The murderer must have viewed her as an amateur playing at being a prostitute. If he’d seen her as an amateur prostitute he might never have felt like killing her.

He was going to be late for class, so he switched off the TV and adjusted his tie before heading out. That’s when a knock came at the front door. Thinking it must be a poorly timed delivery, Hayashi gruffly yanked open the door. Two men in suits stood there, like a wall blocking his way.

“Kanji Hayashi?”

At first he couldn’t figure out which one had spoken. Both men were around thirty, with identical crew cuts.

“Uh… yeah. Yes.”

He knew immediately that it was about the murder. He’d known this day would come. Once they examined her cell phone, his number would surely come out.

“We have a few things we’d like to ask you…”

The two detectives spoke almost simultaneously. “I understand,” Hayashi said, nodding quietly, and hurriedly added, “No, that isn’t what I mean. You’re here about the murder at Mitsuse Pass, right?”

The two glanced at each other, then shot him a sharp look.

“I know her, but I don’t have anything to do with what happened.”

Hayashi let them come in and shut the door. The cramped entrance was littered with shoes and the three hulking men stood there awkwardly, trying not to step on them.

“I knew you’d be coming. You found out about me on her cell phone, right? About her and me having a, what should I say? A friendship.”

Hayashi spoke without any hesitation. Ever since he heard about the murder he’d been thinking about what he should say. The two crew-cut detectives listened silently, exchanging an occasional glance. Their faces were expressionless and it was hard to tell whether they believed him.

“I met her online about three months ago,” Hayashi went on. “We went out on one date, but that was it.”

“A date?” the detective with the polka-dot tie asked, smiling wryly.

“There’s nothing illegal about it. She was an adult and it was consensual… And the money was… something I earned on the stock market and I just gave it to her so she could have some spending money, that’s all…”

Spittle flew out as Hayashi spoke. One of the detectives stepped way back, crushing a discarded sneaker. “Take it easy,” he said, trying to calm him down while looking around for a better spot to stand.

As he looked up at the two tall detectives, Hayashi began to suspect that he wasn’t the first man they’d questioned who knew her.

“Let’s not get into the question of this spending money right now. But I do want to make one thing clear: we don’t know the contents of e-mails and conversations from cell-phone numbers we’ve retrieved.”

The polka-dot-tie detective finally pulled out his notebook, flicking it open in front of Hayashi. “Where were you this past Sunday? At about ten p.m.?” The detective, for some reason, rubbed his eyebrows as he asked this.

Here we go, Hayashi thought, and let out a deep breath.

“I was at work then. I teach at a juku, and finished my last class at ten-thirty. For an hour after that I worked with some colleagues writing a supplementary curriculum for the winter break. Then I went out to a bar and left there at three-thirty. On the way home I stopped by a video-rental place. I still have the video here.”

They finished in under ten minutes. The detectives smiled and left, and without realizing it, Hayashi sank to the floor where he stood.

He’d been bold enough when he told them about his alibi for Sunday, but when the detective told him because of the nature of the crime they’d have to investigate his workplace, Hayashi pleaded with them not to. “Look, I’ve worked there twenty years,” he said. “It will put me in a real spot if you do that. Can’t you look into it in secret? Like, ask the owner of the bar, or use some other excuse to question my colleagues?” He nearly broke down in tears.

The detectives gave a noncommittal reply and left. It didn’t look as though they really suspected him, but neither did they seem to care about how this might affect his future.

Everything he’d told the detectives was the truth. But he’d never realized how hard it was to tell the truth. Telling a lie would have been so much easier on me, Hayashi thought. But he was late for work. He’d just focus on doing his job, and if any of this happened to leak out, he’d apologize and promise never to do it again. And there was one other thing he could most definitely swear to. That he never, ever, had any sexual interest in the elementary school girls who studied at his juku.

He found he could talk again, though he was still frozen, slumped to the floor.

The detectives hadn’t given him an exact number, but had indicated that they’d questioned other men who’d had a relationship with the girl. These men had signed on to an online site for fun and had got to know her, and now they were at their wits’ end. It was the same with him-he couldn’t believe any of them had hooked up with her in order to kill her. But the fact remained: she’d been murdered.

A hooker having an evil customer and getting killed sounded like a stereotypical story line. But the girl in this case wasn’t a hooker. This was a young girl who hid her secret life, who worked hard every day as a salesperson for an insurance company. A girl who wasn’t a prostitute, but liked to pretend she was.

When they were in the love hotel Hayashi had complimented her. “Your body is so supple,” he’d said. Dressed only in her underwear, Yoshino had bent forward proudly to show him.

“I was in the rhythmic gymnastics club. I used to be much more flexible than this.”

Her spine showed through her white skin as she turned and smiled at him. He could never have imagined that just three months later that smiling face would be lying beside a road, dead.

On the morning of the same day, outside Nagasaki City and about a hundred kilometers from Fukuoka, Yuichi’s grandmother Fusae had bought some produce from the truck that came to peddle vegetables once a week, and was stuffing it into her refrigerator, all the while rubbing her throbbing knee. She’d bought some eggplants, thinking she’d pickle them, but then regretted it, remembering that Yuichi wasn’t fond of the dish.

She thought a thousand yen would be enough, but the total had come to ¥1,630. The peddler had knocked off thirty yen, but Fusae had been left with so little in her purse that she knew she couldn’t wait until next week, as she’d been planning, to withdraw some cash from her postal account.

She planned to take the bus that day to visit her husband in the hospital. If she went to see him, he was sure to say something mean to her, but if she didn’t go he’d complain about that, so she knew she had to. The insurance covered all the costs of the hospital, but she had to pay for the daily bus fare herself. From the nearby bus stop to the stop in front of Nagasaki station cost ¥310. Then she’d transfer to another bus that would let her out in front of the hospital and that would cost another ¥180. A round trip every day set her back ¥980.

For Fusae, who was trying to keep their expenses for vegetables every week to ¥1,000, spending ¥980 every day on bus fare made her feel terribly guilty, as guilty as if she had been staying in a hot-springs inn, being waited on hand and foot.

After she’d put the vegetables away in the fridge, she took a pickled plum out of a plastic container and popped it in her mouth.

“Fusae-san, are in you in?” a man’s voice at the front door said, a voice she recognized.

Chewing on the pickled plum, she went out to the entrance, where she found the local patrolman and another man she didn’t know.

“Oh, having a late breakfast, are we?” the plump policeman asked with a friendly smile.

As Fusae removed the plum pit from her mouth, the policeman went on, “I just heard that Katsuji is back in the hospital?”

Fusae hid the pit in her hand and glanced at the man in the suit. His suntanned skin looked leathery and she noticed that the hands dangling at his sides had very short fingers.

“This is Mr. Hayata from the prefectural police. He has a few questions for Yuichi.”

“For Yuichi?” As she said this, her mouth suddenly filled with a sour burst of flavor from the pickled plum.

Whenever she stopped by the police box to chat and have a cup of tea, the pistol at the patrolman’s hip never bothered her, but now she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“Did Yuichi go out this past Sunday night?”

They were in the entrance to the house. The patrolman, seated on the step up to the house, had to twist around to ask her this. The detective, standing beside him, put his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll ask the questions,” he said with a stern look.

As if nestling closer to the patrolman, Fusae sat down formally next to him.

“It seems that the girl killed at Mitsuse Pass was a friend of Yuichi’s,” the patrolman said, ignoring the warning.

“What! Yuichi’s friend was killed?”

Still seated formally, legs tucked under her, Fusae leaned back. Pain shot through her knees and she groaned.

The patrolman hurriedly took her arm and helped her to her feet. “Having trouble standing again?” he said.

“If it’s one of Yuichi’s friends, you must mean someone from his junior high school?” Fusae asked.

Yuichi had attended an all-male technical high school, so it must be someone from his junior high, she thought. Which would mean that a girl from this neighborhood had been murdered.

“No, not from his junior high. A friend he made recently.”

“Recently?” she asked. She’d always been worried that there weren’t any girls in her grandson’s life. When it came to friends, not only did she know of zero girls, but she also knew that he had, at most, only one or two close male friends.

The detective seemed upset with the talkative patrolman, and said, frowning, “I told you I’d ask the questions here… I’d like to ask you about last Sunday, whether…”

Before the detective’s overbearing voice had even finished, Fusae replied. “On Sunday I’m pretty sure he was at home.”

“Ah, so he was at home,” the patrolman interrupted, obviously relieved. “Just before we came here,” he went on, “we stopped by old Mrs. Okazaki’s. When Yuichi goes out he always takes his car. She lives right next to the parking lot and she told me she can hear whenever a car goes in or out. But according to her, on Sunday Yuichi’s car never left the lot.”

Neither Fusae nor the detective said anything as the patrolman rattled on. But Fusae noticed a slight softening in the detective’s harsh eyes.

“I told you to be quiet, but you never listen, do you,” the detective said, warning the talkative patrolman again. This time, though, there was a hint of warmth in his voice.

“My husband and I go to bed early,” Fusae said, “so I’m not sure, but I think Yuichi was in his room Sunday evening.”

The patrolman turned to the detective. “With what Mrs. Okazaki told us, and what his grandmother here says, I think it’s certain he was.”

“Yes, but actually I…” the detective began where the patrolman left off, finally taking control of the conversation. Fusae suddenly noticed the pickled-plum pit in her hand.

“On the call list of the cell phone of the woman found at Mitsuse Pass, we found your grandson’s number.”

“Yuichi’s?”

“Not just his. She apparently knew a lot of people.”

“Is she from around here?”

“No, from Hakata.”

“Hakata? Yuichi has friends from Hakata? I had no idea.”

The detective figured if he explained things one by one he’d have to deal with endless questions, so he quickly outlined what they knew about the murder. Since it now seemed certain that Yuichi had been home all that night, his explanation came off sounding more like an apology for the sudden intrusion.

The dead girl was a twenty-one-year-old named Yoshino Ishibashi, a salesperson for an insurance company in Hakata. She apparently had a wide circle of friends-people from her hometown, colleagues, and other casual friends-for, according to her phone records, in the week before the incident she’d been in contact with nearly fifty different people. And Yuichi was one of them.

“The last time your grandson e-mailed her was four days before the murder, and the last message she sent to him was the day after that. She got in touch with nearly ten other people as well after that.”

As the detective went on, Fusae pictured the girl who’d been killed. If she had so many friends, Yuichi couldn’t have anything to do with it. It was a horrible crime, of course, but there was no way she could believe that Yuichi was connected to it.

Once the detective finished his summary, Fusae suddenly recalled what Norio had told her, how the day after the murder Yuichi had had a hangover and vomited on the way to work. These had to be related, Fusae concluded. Yuichi must have heard about the girl’s death on TV or somewhere and felt sad about losing a friend, and that’s why he got sick. The instinct she’d developed over twenty years of raising him told her that this had to be true.

The detective seemed in a hurry, and after he finished he added, gently, “Anyway, I don’t think you need to worry.”

Fusae wasn’t worried, but her face was still grim. “You think so?” she asked.

“What time does Yuichi come home from work?” the detective asked.

“Usually around six-thirty,” she replied.

“Well, if I have any more questions, I’ll get in touch. Thanks for your time.”

Fusae stood up to see him out. “Thank you,” she said, and bowed. The detective’s words about getting in touch again seemed more like a formality.

After they’d seen the detective out, the patrolman sat back down in the entrance and said, a comical look on his face, “Boy, I bet you were surprised by all this, huh? When I heard they wanted to see Yuichi as a material witness, I was shocked. But Mrs. Okazaki just happened to be in the police box when the call came in, and she said that Yuichi’s car never left the parking lot on Sunday. I was so relieved. Just between you and me, it looks like they already know who the criminal was. They just have to check out everybody else.”

“So they know who did it?” Fusae gave an exaggerated look of relief. “I just couldn’t picture him having a girlfriend in Hakata,” she added.

“Well, he’s a young guy, so what’re you going to do? Seems like that girl had lots of boyfriends she made on dating sites.”

“Dating sites? What’re those?”

“Well… it’s kind of like being pen pals.”

“I had no idea Yuichi was exchanging letters with a girl in Hakata.”

Fusae remembered the pickled-plum pit in her hand again, and tossed it outside.

The Wonderland pachinko parlor was set down in an unexpected spot on the highway. Just as the highway along the sea curved sharply to the left, there first was a huge, garish sign and then the place itself, a cheap imitation of Buckingham Palace. The gate into the mammoth parking lot that surrounded the parlor was supposed to look like the Arc de Triomphe, while next to the building entrance sat a miniature Statue of Liberty.

It was a gaudy eyesore of a building by any standard. Compared to the pachinko places in the city, however, the machines paid off better, so the parking lot was packed with cars, like bees swarming over sugar, not just on the weekends but during the week.

On the second floor by the slot machines, Hifumi Shibata shoved in the last dozen or so coins he had. The slot machine he’d had his eye on was occupied, so he had to choose another and decided he’d just play it until the coins he had in his pocket were gone.

Thirty minutes before, Hifumi had e-mailed Yuichi.

I’m at Wonder. Can you stop by on the way back from work? To which he soon received a short reply: Sounds good.

Hifumi and Yuichi had been friends since they were children. Hifumi and his parents once lived in the same school district as Yuichi, but half a year before he graduated from junior high, Hifumi’s parents sold their small house and their land to rent a condo in the city. Naturally Hifumi’s parents hadn’t expected to sell their land for very much-it was near the little harbor whose seacoast had all been filled in-and on top of that his father had gambling debts that took up most of what they earned. So when they moved to the tiny apartment in the city it almost felt as if they were skipping out in shame over their past.

After they moved, Yuichi was the only friend who contacted him and they’d kept in touch ever since.

When they were together, Yuichi never lightened up. He wasn’t much fun to be with, but still, for whatever reason, Hifumi kept on seeing him.

Some three years before, Hifumi had taken his then girlfriend for a drive to Hirado, and on their way back his engine died. He didn’t have the money to pay for a tow truck, so he called a couple of his friends, but they all turned him down, either too busy or simply unwilling to come to his aid. The only one ready to drive out to give him a tow was Yuichi.

“Sorry about this,” Hifumi had apologized.

As Yuichi, a blank look on his face, attached the tow cable, he replied, “I was just lying around at home anyway.”

Hifumi didn’t want his girlfriend to be in the towed car so he had her ride with Yuichi in his car instead.

They towed the car to a garage that Hifumi often used, and then Yuichi left with barely a word. As the girlfriend waved goodbye, Hifumi asked her a leading question: “Nice-looking guy, huh?” But she replied, laughing, “He didn’t talk at all in the car. When I thanked him he just nodded and curtly said, ‘Um.’ I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” That, indeed, was the kind of guy he was.

The slot machine finally began to pay off. Hifumi looked around the pachinko place for one of the miniskirted young attendants who brought complimentary cups of coffee.

As he turned toward the entrance, he saw Yuichi climbing the spiral staircase. Hifumi raised a hand and Yuichi spotted him and made his way over, down the narrow aisle.

Yuichi was on his way home from the construction site and his navy blue trousers were dirty. His jacket was the same navy blue color, but from the open zipper you could see a swath of the pink sweatshirt underneath.

Yuichi sat down next to Hifumi and popped open a can of coffee he’d no doubt purchased on the first floor. Yuichi pulled a thousand-yen note from his pocket and without a word started to play the slot machine in front of him.

As Yuichi had come close, Hifumi could smell him. It wasn’t the sweaty smell he had in summer, but more the dusty cement smell of a deserted house.

“Did you hear about the murder at Mitsuse Pass?” Yuichi suddenly asked, after quickly running through the thousand yen.

“I heard that a girl got killed there,” Hifumi said, still facing his machine. His luck had turned as soon as Yuichi sat down next to him.

Yuichi had brought up the topic but sat there silently, as usual.

“They said she was involved with a bunch of guys she’d met on a dating site. I saw that on TV today.” Hifumi kept the conversation going as he went on pushing the slot-machine button.

“Think they’ll find him soon?” Yuichi asked.

“Find who?”

No response.

“You mean the criminal?”

No response again.

“Yeah, they’ll find him pretty soon. All they have to do is check the phone records.” Hifumi didn’t glance at Yuichi at all as he spoke.

After thirty minutes with the slots, the two of them exited the pachinko parlor. Hifumi wound up losing fifteen thousand yen, Yuichi two thousand. The sun had already set but the parking lot was brightly lit. Their dark shadows bisected the white parking lines as they walked.

Hifumi, unlike Yuichi, had absolutely no interest in cars and drove a cheap economy car. He unlocked it, and Yuichi quickly sat down beside him. Hifumi glanced up at the sky. The waves nearby sounded as if they were coming down from above. The sky was usually filled with stars, but tonight he could see only Venus. Maybe it’ll rain tomorrow, Hifumi thought.

As they drove along the coast toward Yuichi’s home, Hifumi complained about the trouble he was having finding work. He’d spent the morning at an employment agency, and as he checked through the classified ads, had invited one of the young girls working there out for a drink. He struck out on both counts-no job and no date. But after spending the morning there, he was optimistic about finding a job. “There are a lot of jobs out there if you’re looking for one,” he concluded.

After the music ended on the radio, a short news broadcast came on. The lead story was the murder at Mitsuse Pass.

Hifumi turned to Yuichi, who hadn’t said a word since he’d climbed aboard. “Speaking of Mitsuse Pass…” Hifumi began. Yuichi had been gazing out the window but he leaned back and turned toward Hifumi in the cramped car.

“You remember how I saw a ghost there?” Hifumi went on, turning into a sharp curve. The sudden curve threw Yuichi against the door.

“Remember? I went for a job interview in Hakata, and took the road over the pass on the way home? And my headlights suddenly went out. I was scared, and pulled over and started the engine again, and suddenly there was this guy sitting next to me, covered in blood. You remember when I told you that?”

As he pulled up close to a Honda Cub motorcycle lazily tooling down the middle of the road, Hifumi shot a glance at Yuichi.

“I was terrified. The engine wouldn’t start, and this bloody man was sitting in the passenger seat. I must have screamed as I was turning the key.”

Hifumi laughed at this memory, but Yuichi just said, “Hurry up and pass him,” motioning to the motorcycle with his chin.

On the night in question it was just after eight p.m. when Hifumi had driven over the pass. After finishing the interview at the company-he couldn’t recall now which one it was-he was disappointed, knowing he wouldn’t get the job, so to make up for it he went to a massage parlor in Tenjin. Choosing a good massage parlor probably meant more to him at the time than the job interview. After being satisfied at the massage parlor, he went out for some ramen and then headed back home, over the pass.

It was still early, but he saw no other cars headed in the opposite direction, let alone ones headed in the same direction. The woods lit up in his headlights looked eerie, and he began to regret having taken this back road instead of the main highway to save on tolls.

To drown out this lonely feeling he started singing loudly, but his voice only seemed to be sucked out into the forest surrounding him. His headlights-his only lifeline in this pitch-black mountain pass-started to act strangely just as he was reaching the highest point of the road. At first Hifumi had thought something was wrong with his eyes.

The next instant something black flashed in front of his flickering lights. Hifumi slammed on the brakes, clutching the steering wheel to keep it straight. Now his headlights went out completely. Straight ahead was a darkness so deep it was as if his eyes were closed, and though the engine was still running, the incessant chirping of insects from the woods was so loud he wanted to clap his hands over his ears to drown it out. The AC was freezing cold, but he was starting to sweat. He felt as if lukewarm water had been poured all over him.

Just then the whole car vibrated and the engine cut out. And he sensed something-or someone-in the passenger seat beside him. Fear gives us tunnel vision. He couldn’t look to the side, or turn to see what was there. All he could manage was to stare straight ahead.

The engine wouldn’t start. Hifumi let out a scream. He knew something was sitting beside him. But what it was, he had no idea.

… It hurts so much…

A man’s voice said it from beside him. Hifumi tried to drown it out with another scream. The engine still wouldn’t start.

… This is it… I can’t stand it anymore…

Again the man’s voice. Hifumi put his hand on the door, ready to flee.

At that very instant a man’s bloody face was reflected in the windshield. The man was gazing steadily in his direction.

Fusae heard something at the front door. She glanced at the clock, then hurriedly stuffed the manila envelope she’d been vaguely looking at into her apron pocket. On the envelope was written Receipt enclosed. Still seated, Fusae reached toward the gas range and reheated the small arakabu fish cooked in soy sauce.

“Evening!”

Fusae heard Hifumi’s cheerful voice and stood up. “Oh, Hifumi’s with you?” she said, and went out to the hallway.

Hifumi quickly removed his shoes and went in, almost elbowing Yuichi out of the way. “Hi, Grandma. Something smells really good,” he said, peering into the kitchen.

“You haven’t eaten yet? It’ll be ready in a minute, so would you like to eat with Yuichi?”

“I’d love to!” Hifumi happily replied, nodding several times.

“Did you play pachinko?” Fusae placed the lid on the pan.

“No, the slots. But we had no luck. Lost again.”

“How much?”

Hifumi held up his fingers to indicate fifteen thousand yen.

Fusae felt relieved that Yuichi had come home with Hifumi. She knew he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder at Mitsuse Pass, but still the detective’s visit-his questions about Yuichi’s whereabouts on Sunday and the lie she’d told him-left her with an unpleasant aftertaste.

Yuichi had most definitely gone out that evening in his car. But since Mrs. Okazaki had insisted that he hadn’t, even if he had, it couldn’t have been for very long. The same thing had happened before, when Yuichi had taken Katsuji to the hospital. Even when he went out for a couple of hours, Mrs. Okazaki would always insist his car had never left the lot.

“Hifumi, were you with Yuichi on Sunday?” Fusae asked after making sure that Yuichi had gone upstairs.

As she checked the fish in the pan, Hifumi said, tilting his head, “Sunday? No, I wasn’t… Uh-I think he must have gone to the repair place. He was talking about getting a part for his car.” As he spoke, he reached out to snare a piece of fish from the pan.

“Hey, I told you it would be ready soon,” Fusae said, lightly slapping his hand away. Hifumi obediently pulled back.

“Do you have any sashimi?” he asked, opening the refrigerator.

Fusae prepared a plate of food for Hifumi first, then took the clean laundry she’d folded in the evening upstairs to Yuichi’s room. She opened the door and found him sprawled out on his bed. “I’ll be down in a minute,” he muttered curtly.

Fusae placed the clean clothes into the drawers of the worn-out dresser, the one with little bear faces as handles that he’d used since he moved here with his mother.

“The police came here today,” Fusae said as she pushed the clothes into the drawers, deliberately looking away from him. “So there’s a girl in Fukuoka you were writing to? I’m sure you already heard this, but that girl died.”

Fusae turned toward Yuichi for the first time. He was still on the bed, and had only lifted his head. He was expressionless, as if his mind was elsewhere.

“You heard about it, right? What happened to that girl,” Fusae started to ask again.

“Yeah, I heard,” Yuichi said slowly.

“Did you ever meet her, or did you just write to her?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“If you met her, maybe you should at least go to her funeral?”

“Her funeral?”

“That’s right. If you only wrote to her, you don’t need to. But it’s different if you actually met her…”

“No, I never met her.”

Fusae could see that the bottoms of Yuichi’s socks were soiled, the dirt tracing the shape of his toes. Yuichi was staring so fixedly at her that Fusae had the feeling someone else was standing behind her.

“I don’t know this girl,” Fusae continued, “but my gosh, people do some awful things in this world, don’t they… The police said they already know who did it, and that that person is trying to get away and they’re searching for him.”

“They know who did it?”

“That’s what the patrolman told me. He said the man ran off, and they haven’t located him yet.”

“Are you talking about that college student?” Yuichi asked.

“What college student?”

“Isn’t that what they said on TV?”

The certainty with which he said this finally convinced Fusae of one awful fact:

He is mixed up in all this, after all.

“The police really said that?” Yuichi asked. “That that college student is the murderer?” Fusae nodded. She had no idea how far his relationship with the girl had gone, but it was understandable that he’d feel hatred toward the criminal.

“They’ll find him soon. He can’t run forever,” Fusae said, consoling him.

When Yuichi got up from the bed, his face was flushed. Fusae was sure he must be angry, but at the same time he looked relieved that they had identified the murderer.

“I wanted to ask you, where did you go last Sunday? You went out for a while at night, right?”

“Last Sunday?”

“Did you go to the service garage?”

Yuichi nodded at Fusae’s tone.

“The police asked me. They’re going around questioning all the girl’s friends. Mrs. Okazaki told them you didn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t mean to lie, but I went along with it. Even if you take your car out for an hour or two, she never counts that as your having actually gone out. Oh, would you like to take a bath before supper?”

As soon as she finished her monologue Fusae left the room, without waiting for a reply. Halfway down the stairs she turned around. With Katsuji in and out of the hospital, she thought, Yuichi was the only one she could rely on. Her eldest daughter wouldn’t come to see how her father was, let alone her second daughter.

After coming back down to the first floor Fusae reached into her apron pocket and took out the manila envelope. Inside was a single receipt that said:

For purchases: One set of Chinese herbal medicine. ¥263,500.

Dr. Tsutsumishita, the man who led the health seminars at the community center, had told her, “Come over to my office in town and we can give you a good price on some herbal medicine.” Yesterday, half out of curiosity, Fusae decided to stop by on the way home from the hospital. She hadn’t planned to buy anything. Traveling back and forth to the hospital had worn her out, and she just thought it might be amusing to hear some more of Dr. Tsutsumishita’s funny stories. But when she went there, a rough-looking bunch of young men suddenly surrounded her, intimidating her into signing a contract.

I don’t have this kind of money on me, she’d tearfully told them, and the men forced her to go with them to the post office, where she had a savings account. She was so frightened she couldn’t ask anyone for help. As they stood watch over her, she withdrew what little savings she had.