by Otsuichi
Ken smiled a genuine smile at the old men, and they were deceived by it just like all the others had been.
“Thanks, kid,” said Kobayashi.
And just as the two men were about to leave, the string that was suspending me in the air began to creak. I was only nine years old, and my body couldn’t have weighed much, but the string, unable to bear it any longer, was crying out.
And then, the cord that had once hung down from the children’s bedroom light snapped without a sound.
I fell through the air and landed with a thud. The rush mat dangled above me, half open.
“What was that?” Kobayashi looked up to the source of the noise.
I had landed on top of the old foundation, only inches from the edge. Only inches from a longer fall down to the earth. Only inches from being seen.
“It was nothing,” Ken said. “I’ll take care of it. If you don’t hurry, you’re going to miss the waterfall.”
Ken immediately understood what had happened when he felt the tension of my weight on the string disappear. But the realization didn’t register on his face. Yayoi exhaled and thanked God for hearing her prayers.
“You’re right,” Kobayashi said. “Tanaka, let’s go.”
They went.
Yayoi stood, watching them leave. When the two men had passed around the edge of the foundation, she let out a sigh of relief.
“That was close, Brother!” It couldn’t have been any closer.
Ken looked down at his sister, who was once again her normal, cheerful self, and smiled. “Yeah, it was.”
It’s over, Yayoi thought to herself, allowing her smile to spread wide across her face. Once we climb to the top, there will be no one to stop us. I won’t have to live in fear any longer. And I can say goodbye to Satsuki and keep only the happy memories of when we were friends.
“Come on, Yayoi,” Ken said brightly, “climb on up here. All we have to do is throw Satsuki into the hole. Don’t you want to say goodbye to her?”
Yayoi nodded back to him energetically and climbed up the wall. Ken pointed out the path to her as she went, just as he had done the time he showed her how to scale that tree.
And for the first time, Yayoi stood atop the stone foundation, Ken by her side. From there, they had a perfect view of the fireworks show. The Niagara Falls had just been lit.
The fireworks, strung together and hanging from a string, burst into light, red and blue and green and pink, and all the millions of colors in between. The streams of color ran together, creating a waterfall of sparks that shone in their eyes. It was an impressive display coming from a group of kids. The spectators, dazzled by the show, would remember it for the rest of their lives.
“Why . . .” Ken whispered regretfully, mournfully, “why are you here?”
Waves of pain swept across his face, his expression shouting as loud as his voice had been soft. You, of anyone. The last person I’d want to see here.
“Didn’t I tell you not to be late? I’ve been waiting here all night. I even wore my yukata for you.”
As she fanned herself with a paper fan, Midori chuckled.
Midori sat watching the fireworks from the edge of the foundation, cradling the rush mat bundle, myself wrapped inside, in her arms. Her deep red lipstick shone in the darkness of the summer night.
Lit by the waterfall of fireworks, perhaps half over yet still bright, Midori smiled a smile so beautiful and seductive it was almost inhuman.
Ken and Yayoi stood dumbstruck, staring at Midori.
“Ever since I was a little kid,” she said, “I’ve always wanted to watch the fireworks from up here.”
His voice wracked with pain, Ken said, “Midori, give that to me.”
She gave the boy a glance and returned her gaze to the fireworks. “I know what you’re doing. You’re thinking that you’re going to dump Satsuki down that hole, aren’t you?”
She watched the light of the fireworks as it colored the summer night. Her eyes squinted in the light, and memories of her childhood filled her thoughts.
Somehow, thanks to my deceased state, I became aware that she had suffered a tough childhood. Her father had passed away when she was young, and her mother bullied her. Underneath her smile lay years of pain and torment.
She began to unwrap the rush mat in her arms. The string tying it together had broken, and the mat was half open. My face would be visible once she had lifted the lower flap.
“No!” Ken screamed. “You can’t! Don’t open it, Midori!” Beside him, Yayoi was bawling.
But Midori’s hand gently spread the rush mat open, consolingly, and as if she were showing the fireworks to me.
And as the rush mat spread out across the stone surface of the foundation, my face seemed to look up at her.
Midori gazed into my face, already tinged with rot and discoloration. My eyes, open from the moment I died, took in the light of the moon and the stars.
Midori gently closed my eyelids and whispered, “It’s over now,” to me, and to Ken.
The cascade of fireworks stretching up into the sky were reaching their conclusion as well, and suddenly, like the end of a fleeting and vibrant life, the last light scattered into the night, to linger on only in the hearts of those who had witnessed it.
And as if on cue, darkness spread its wings across us.
Beneath the dark, starlit night, Ken and Yayoi heard the far-off crackling sound of decay, and then, the sweet song of Midori’s laughter reaching out to them.
Kagome, Kagome
The rice in the fields was painted with yellow and ripe for harvest, and the old stone foundation at the shrine was being demolished.
Around the dry stone structure were several bulldozers accompanied by busy men in construction vests.
“Hey, come check this out,” one of them said. “There’s something over here.” He was pointing at the foundation, which sat sliced open like a cake. Along the edge was a single vertical fissure shaped like a well.
“What the hell?” another responded, agape. “Look at all that garbage!”
At the bottom of the well was a human-sized pile of trash. The garbage had accumulated and congealed together as if part of the foundation from its construction.
But near the top of the pile, some of the garbage, mostly plastic bags and candy wrappers, had not yet decomposed.
“Look, there’s even some spinning tops, and what are these, Pogs? What a waste!”
The toys were bundled up in a plastic bag. Perhaps they had been accidentally dropped down the hole, or perhaps someone had thrown them away to say goodbye to his childhood.
A little farther down was a large pile of papers, some written on with brush and ink, some yellowed with age, some so damaged by rainwater as to leave their original form indiscernible. It was as if all the memories of childhood had fused over the lifetimes into a single object.
And then, one of the workers saw something odd.
“Hey, look . . .”
It was a clump of hair. And judging from the length of it, it seemed to him as if someone had thrown a young girl into the hole.
The worker cautiously pulled at the hair.
The hair slipped easily from the pile of garbage, and from beneath it the rotted face and body of a child slid out onto the ground at their feet.
The man gave a frightened shriek and slumped down on his knees.
One of the others laughed at him. “Thank God it’s not the real thing, ’cause who knows what you would have done then!”
What had appeared from the pile was a life-size Japanese doll. Before it had been thrown away, it must have been very beautiful. Even though it had been rotting in the garbage pile for years, just looking at it, you could still tell it had once been a girl doll.
The two construction workers, standing at what was to have been my grave, roared with laughter over the events of that peaceful autumn day.
*
“See, aren’t you glad you listened to me?”
Midori and Yayoi sat on either side of Ken, three abreast on the shrine’s wooden steps as they watched the workers demolish the stone foundation. The three of them reminded me of how we used to sit on the branch of our secret tree.
The tree leaves that had protected the shrine from the harsh rays of the summer sun had turned to shades of yellow and were drifting down one by one to the ground. The stone pavement that stretched out before the three was covered in browns and yellows.
“We are glad,” said Ken. “If we hadn’t, there’d have been a lot of trouble right about now.”
Midori, happy to hear his words, broke into a smile.
“That’s right. Never underestimate the resources of a nineteen-year-old! There’s been talk of tearing down that foundation and building a community center in its place for a long time. Of course, some people wanted it preserved because the foundation was all that survived when the castle burnt down in the war. But you heard about the kid who hurt himself up there earlier this year, right? Well, when that happened, they decided to move forward with the demolition. Adults are selfish creatures, aren’t they? Destroying the places we like to play and then turning around and complaining about how ‘kids these days never go outside anymore.’”
She affectionately looked down at Ken sitting next to her. Another five years, maybe six, she thought, and he’ll be about my height.
With admiration in his voice, Ken said, “Really, Midori, you saved us. When I first saw you up there, I didn’t know what to do. I never thought you’d come to help us deal with Satsuki.”
He gazed up at her with eyes full of respect, and she looked right back at him. She was happy.
“It’s all taken care of. Getting rid of bodies like that is something I’m quite used to by now. And don’t worry, I won’t turn you in to the police or anyone else. Your secret is safe with me.”
Midori’s red lips formed a smile, and she gently traced her finger along Ken’s cheek, her red-painted nail sliding sensually down the curve of it.
Then, as if awaiting his next words, she looked into his eyes.
“You’re really something,” he said brightly.
Midori pulled him into her arms, thankful for and delighted by his admiration. She held him tightly, pressing his face against her chest so firmly that he couldn’t even breathe.
She felt his body turn warm, and thought, Maybe now I can finally stop . . .
Yayoi listened to them talk, her eyes pressed shut. She would never have to say that she had murdered me. If she kept on lying, saying that I had only fallen from that tree, no one would ever doubt her innocence. She hadn’t been able to tell her parents that lie because she had felt guilty and afraid. She had been worried that she would get caught.
The autumn wind blew through the temple grounds. It was cold, and winter would come soon. As the wind swept through, yellow and brown leaves shook free of the trees and drifted down upon the three sitting on the steps.
As she tenderly plucked the dead leaves from Ken’s hair, Midori smiled like an angel. She recalled all of her dreadful past sins and felt aware of the boyish demon sleeping somewhere in the bottom of her soul.
Was that hole the result of shoddy workmanship of the builders of old? The stone structure, once the foundation for a great castle, was no more. Another era had passed.
The memories of the children that rested within the foundation over all the generations were carried away in the autumn wind, vanishing like a fleeting summer dream.
Sitting on the wooden steps before the sacred shrine, above where my sandal still lay hidden, the three sinners smiled at the future that awaited them and the childhood they had left behind.
CODA:
Midori brought me to this cold place.
She took me to the back corner of a refrigerated storage room in the ice cream factory where nobody but her ever sets foot.
It’s a place with no seasons, only winter all year long. If a living person were in here, they would freeze to death within the day.
But I’m not lonely at all.
In fact, since I came here, I’ve made all sorts of friends.
They’re all boys, and their faces all look like Ken’s. They even play “Kagome, Kagome” with me.
Their faces might all be a pale blue, but we can still have lots of fun.
Me and my kidnapped friends sing “Kagome, Kagome,” and the song echoes hollow and forlorn through the room.
Yuko
That day, when Masayoshi arrived at the gate to his home, the first thing he saw was Yuko wrapped in flame. He ran to her screaming and put out the fire, but it was already too late.
Weeping, he cried out, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. His heart was too full of guilt to experience the sadness of losing her.
He was thinking of a story that his mother had told him long before.
The story of a mother and child who came to Torigoe Manor many generations ago.
The story of a flower the child had been holding in her hand.
Clutching his Yuko to his chest, Masayoshi looked up at the sky and saw no moon.
1. KIYONE
It was soon after the Second World War had ended.
Kiyone had been at Torigoe Manor two weeks, and she was starting to become familiar with the layout of the house and the specifics of her duties. And though it was the first time in her life she had worked, she hadn’t found it particularly difficult or painful. Rather, Kiyone felt gratitude toward the master of the house for giving a woman like her a place to work.
She stood by an old gate in a corner of the house’s spacious garden, thinking. What should I make for dinner tonight? I wonder what kind of food the master likes to eat? Beside the gate grew a few lonely hydrangea bushes and a shrub with round, pitchblack berries.
It was the summer rainy season, and clouds hung above, threatening rain. Kiyone was admiring the hydrangeas when the pleasant clop clop of wooden shoes came to her from outside the gate. She looked down the narrow stone path that continued beyond the gate—it seemed like it would be crushed by the bamboo trees along its length—and saw the master of the house walking toward her. Clop clop. His footsteps echoed down the path to her, and as he approached he looked at Kiyone with gentle eyes.
When he passed through the gate, she politely bowed her head and greeted him. “Welcome home, sir.”
“Thank you, Kiyone. It’s good to see you.”
He stopped next to Kiyone, his gaze lingering on the hydrangeas behind her. “The hydrangeas are in bloom. Is it that time of year already?”
He crossed his arms, slipping them within the opposite sleeves of his kimono, and smiled. For a moment, Kiyone was transfixed by his youthful face.
Every time she saw it she thought, He looks so feminine. If he grew out his hair and put on lipstick, he might be as fetching as a China doll.
His name was Masayoshi. He was a writer, and Kiyone couldn’t help but think what a shame it was for his white and slender fingers to be so calloused from his fountain pens. Masayoshi was a friend of her father’s.
Masayoshi turned his eyes to her and asked, “Have you grown accustomed to your duties? You’re still young. It must be tough for you to manage the house all by yourself.”
It wasn’t. She was filled with gratitude but couldn’t find the proper words to express it. All she managed in response was an awkward smile. With only one exception, she loved being at Torigoe Manor.
Just then, Kiyone noticed that Masayoshi was not carrying the thick brown envelope he had left with, and she realized that he must have gone to the village’s only post office.
“If you’d told me,” she said, “I could have gone to the post office for you.”
“No, it was nothing. I have to get out of that room every now and then, you know.”
“Oh. Is it really all right that I don’t ever clean your room?”
“Yes, it’s fine. Yuko can do the cleaning for that one room.”
Kiyone gave a start when she heard the name, just as s
he did every time she heard it.
“Ummm, is the lady feeling well?”
She could see his face cloud over. Just like the sky today, Kiyone thought.
“No, she’s not well and may not be for a while yet . . .”
But Kiyone didn’t hear the ring of truth in the master’s remark. It had been two weeks since she came to Torigoe Manor, and she had yet to see his wife’s face. All Kiyone knew was that she was nearly bedridden in Masayoshi’s room. I wonder what kind of woman his wife is, she thought to herself whenever Yuko’s name escaped his lips.
“The hydrangeas,” Masayoshi said, walking over to the fl owers.
The smell of his clothing wafted toward Kiyone as he passed.
“Those aren’t the petals of the hydrangea. Did you know that?”
He pointed a finger at a pale blue hydrangea. “These blue parts here that look like petals—they’re actually sepals. They’re only imitating the real petals.”
Kiyone’s heart began to race, although she didn’t know why.
“Hydrangeas seem to sparkle in the rain.” Masayoshi noticed the black berries growing next to the hydrangeas and tilted his head. “Now what on earth is this plant with the black berries?”
He bent over, putting his nose to the berries. For some reason, seeing his odd pose gave Kiyone a sense of relief.
Berries, pitch black and glossy, about the size of the tip of a little finger, dotted the bush.
“What a pretty black color they have,” Masayoshi said and then walked to the house, the clop clop of his wooden shoes echoing through the garden.
Kiyone took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with heavy air that smelled of a forest just before the rain, and she coughed.
She looked over to where Masayoshi had walked. Torigoe Manor stood outstretched like unfurled wings. She couldn’t believe that she worked in such a large house. She had never before seen a gravel garden or stone paths and stepping-stones like those that led all the way from the gate to the front door.
Kiyone stood there, thinking of a woman named Yuko whom she had not yet seen.