part five
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
– Jean-Paul Sartre, Essays in Aesthetics
Sumiko
Breathe
All through the day I watched as dark clouds massed over Meguro; the air was hot and heavy, as though packed with too many particles. The storm, when it finally came, was sharp and sudden, a cacophony of raindrops, hard, fat pellets that clattered across the streets and washed everything away. Now, as I looked into the garden, the air was fresh and clean and the plants shimmered in the twilight.
Night was falling when I settled into Grandpa’s armchair; the leather creaked and stretched, accepting my shape. I turned on the reading lamp beside me, leaving everything else in shadow. On my lap was the velvet box that had accompanied me through this journey. It was open now, the petals of the badge gleaming gold around the tiny embossed centre: the sunflower and scales. Justice for all men. Through the open shutters came the steady whine of the cicadas from the garden. The reverberating chirrs started in the grass and then rose up into the air, louder and louder, amplified by the darkness of the night, as so often our thoughts can be.
I listened, waiting for the metallic clink of the gate, soft footsteps on the tiled drive. And then there it was, his key in the lock. ‘Sumichan!’ he called. I heard the slap of his shoes on the marble as he changed into his slippers in the hall. The light from the study would have been visible to him. I imagined he saw it and smiled, believing me to be working, perhaps finishing up one of my extra cases, or preparing to start work at Nomura & Higashino.
‘The abalone was so good, Sumichan!’ he called, moving into the kitchen. ‘They packed some for me when I left. Shall I prepare it for you?’ I heard him setting out plates on the dining table. I imagined the thinly sliced abalone fanned out across a platter of ice. ‘You should eat more!’ he said, breezing into the study. He beamed as he saw me sitting in his chair. ‘You work too much,’ he said. ‘Come.’ He held out his hand to me, relaxed and vital, refreshed by the hot springs.
He was no longer the man who had drafted a case for the prosecution against Kaitarō Nakamura. His hair, which was black then, only lightly interspersed with white strands, had faded to grey. His limbs were thinner, smaller, as though he were shrinking. But his face was still strong, his brows dark, the wrinkles and folds in his skin the result of his many facial expressions. His eyes narrowed and he smiled at me. Then he cocked his head to one side as though solving a problem. It has been twenty years and he still looked at me that way, as though I were a child he could tease out of every mood.
His gaze lit upon the box in my hand and he grinned. ‘It has arrived!’ he said, his voice filled with satisfaction.
‘I found this,’ I said, removing a square of paper from beneath the box. It was a newspaper clipping, like so many of the others he had given me over the years. In the seconds after he took it, Grandpa did not seem either surprised or alarmed. Then he unfolded it and read the story, those few lines that summarised each one of us.
‘Sumiko—’
‘I found it in a police station in Shinagawa,’ I said. Yoshi frowned as he absorbed this, his mind working quickly. Before he could say anything, before he could create another tale, I spoke once more. ‘And I found your file.’
My grandfather was silent. He rubbed a hand across his mouth and turned to the bookshelves surrounding us.
‘My file?’
‘Your file on Kaitarō Nakamura. In your office,’ I said, wanting to leave no doubt between us. Slowly, I rose to my feet.
‘Sumi,’ he whispered my name, as though if he spoke softly enough we could return to a time before. I gestured to the now empty armchair, inviting him to sit.
He moved forward in shock. I could see him trying to school his features into impassivity, to exert his familiar self-control, but his hands were shaking as he placed them on the arms of our chair.
‘You lied to me.’
He looked down at the carpet, turning from my gaze.
‘You have lied all my life,’ I repeated. ‘Your storeys, taking me to visit the motorway in Shinagawa – ‘ I broke off at this, at the veneer of our shared history.
My grandfather shook his head once more, as though that might reverse what had occurred, but it was futile. I wanted answers, and he knew how relentless I could be. After all, he had taught me to argue himself.
‘I found her. Did you know that?’ he said eventually. His cheeks trembled, but he did not cry, and I noticed then how thin and papery his skin had become, how frail he actually was. ‘She was lying on the floor,’ he continued, ‘still in those stupid dungarees.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out his handkerchief, stretching it between his fingers. I could feel his devastation, his guilt that he should have saved her, guilt he carried to this day. Guilt I now shared. Ever since I found the security tape I had wondered if she had not gone to the bakery for me, if I had told her to hurry home, to just bring herself, whether she might still be alive. Yoshi clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. ‘He was kneeling beside her,’ he said, and he did look at me then. He met my gaze steadily as we finally spoke of the man we had never before discussed. And there was no more fragility in my grandfather’s expression, only a candid and dark reality.
‘Would you have wanted to grow up with this? Would you?’ he asked, holding out the newspaper clipping, and it was my turn to look away, for I could not answer him.
‘I know what he is,’ I said, avoiding his question. ‘I know what he has done, but you should have found another way . . .’ My grandfather snorted in disbelief. He stared at me with parental disdain, and, although he had wronged me, I felt ashamed. His look seemed to say that I was a child, a silly girl who was refusing to understand.
‘I have watched the interrogation tapes of him,’ I said, and his eyes widened. ‘I have read the defence files, and your notes, as well. You took these events from me, but they were mine to know. They are mine to know.’
My grandfather took a deep breath and released it slowly.
‘You have curated her life and mine, created a memory you wanted me to see,’ I said, my voice rising with exasperation. I thought of my mother, the woman I still longed for, and all the ways she had been taken from me.
When I first obtained the case file, I had thought only of her. I had not cared then what had happened to Kaitarō. But as I watched him, read about him, I realised that he had known aspects of her that no one else would, and my thoughts had turned to his sentence. I had begun to fear for him, a fear that had grown and solidified as I read my grandfather’s notes.
‘What is it like to kill?’ I asked quietly.
‘What?’ At this, my grandfather’s eyes narrowed.
‘He is dead, isn’t he? That is what the Ministry of Justice called to say?’ I stood quite still, staring at him, but I stepped back when my grandfather gave me a quiet smile. ‘I can understand why – ‘ I began, but I was all the more shocked when he laughed.
For a moment I paused. ‘Did Yurie Kagashima’s defence save him?’ I thought of the woman in court with the ponytail who had once held me on her lap.
‘What do you think, Sumiko? Have you considered your role in this?’ my grandfather asked, rising heavily to his feet.
‘I don’t understand,’ I murmured, torn between my wish to go to him and the sudden anger in his eyes. Anger that had lain dormant until now.
‘Have you thought about where she got the idea that we had accepted him as part of our family? You may not have known what was happening, but you were the one who told her that he was a nice man,’ my grandfather said. ‘A good friend who liked your mother very much.’
‘So her argument that he loved her—’
‘Won out,’ my grandfather said. ‘The court believed he truly cared for your mother and that his remorse was genuine. They concluded he ha
d committed a crime of passion and could be reformed.’
‘But Prosecutor Kurosawa?’ I said, thinking of the photograph of me that Grandpa had given him, the force of my grandfather’s arguments, the trial I had imagined so clearly. But then I remembered the taped interviews, the measured demeanour of the prosecutor, the relationship between him and Kaitarō that I could never quite gauge. Despite my training, I had jumped to conclusions, and along with this realisation came something else, a feeling as strange as it was forbidden: relief.
‘Kurosawa didn’t respond to my letters,’ my grandfather said. ‘In the end he called for a long custodial sentence with labour.’
‘So the phone call from the Ministry of Justice?’
‘Kaitarō Nakamura is alive,’ Yoshi said, ‘and about to be released.’
I took a moment to process this, and at once I saw how my grandfather must have felt reduced to a forgotten party after all, abandoned and alone, his professional expertise unable to affect events. Still, as sorry as I was for him and all we had lost, one thought remained at the forefront of my mind. ‘Where is he?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Sumiko.’
‘I want to see him.’
‘He killed your mother!’
‘I want to talk to him,’ I persisted. ‘He can tell me about her.’
With surprising speed, Grandpa strode towards me and took hold of my arMs His skin was wrinkled and fine, but his grip was hard. ‘I have told you about her,’ he said, bringing our faces close. I looked back at him, wavering, trying to match his gaze.
‘I have done my best, Sumiko,’ he said, still holding me tightly.
‘It is not enough,’ I said, twisting away from him, stumbling as he suddenly released me and turned away. And even though he stood with his back to me, everything he had given me, my childhood, his protection, his love, hung in the air between us.
‘I don’t think I can work for Nomura & Higashino.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said, glaring over his shoulder.
‘I mean it,’ I said softly.
‘Don’t do this, Sumiko. If you’re trying to punish me . . .’
‘I’m not.’
He turned to face me once more, shaking his head. ‘But you’ve signed the contract—’
‘I haven’t.’
‘This will damage your career – irrevocably.’
‘I don’t want to specialise in corporate law.’
Grandpa’s expression softened and he extended his hands to me, taking my fingers in his. ‘Sumichan, you’ve had a shock. You don’t know what you want.’ I stiffened and his grip on my hands tightened. ‘This is grief, Sumi. You’re not being rational.’
‘Before you came home,’ I said, ‘I opened the contract. But I can’t sign it . . .’
My grandfather set his jaw and let go of my hands. ‘I did not raise you to be like this.’
‘Is that what you said to my mother?’ I asked.
‘Rina failed to accept her responsibilities.’
‘And you think I am the same?’
‘You are well trained, disciplined. You can be everything she was not.’
‘I will be myself,’ I said, watching as he realised what I was saying. ‘As she was.’
‘She is dead,’ he said, walking away from me. ‘She left you to grow up without her.’
‘I want to see him,’ I insisted, and he stopped, suddenly still, his lips stretching into a line of frustration.
‘You won’t reach him in time,’ he said.
I tried to remember the details of the phone call I had received, calculating the notice period the Ministry of Justice would have used. It could not be that I was too late, that he had been released. After a few moments, it became clear that my grandfather was bluffing, and he saw that I knew.
‘They won’t let just anyone in,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do? Pretend to be his lawyer?’
‘There’s no need,’ I said.
‘The irony of it, the final use of your training,’ my grandfather sneered.
‘I’m not going to misrepresent myself.’
Grandpa stood facing the bookcases, our collection, an amalgam of all our work to that point. ‘Their rules are strict. Only relatives may visit.’
‘What class of inmate is he?’ I asked, but my grandfather wouldn’t answer. I wondered if he had received reports of Kaitarō’s behaviour during his incarceration and his subsequent classification. The higher the designation the more visits and letters a prisoner was allowed. Such a report would have been Grandpa’s right to receive as a forgotten party, under the new ruling.
‘Has he had any visitors?’
‘No,’ my grandfather replied, as we stood together in his study, a metre apart, unable to reach for each other.
‘Not one?’ I asked.
My grandfather looked back at me with tired eyes. ‘He has no family, not any more.’
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘Sumiko, don’t do this,’ he said, finally pleading.
‘Where?’ I repeated.
‘Chiba,’ he said, closing his eyes so he could not see me. ‘What will you say your connection is?’ he asked as I paused in the doorway, thinking of the man who said he loved my mother and killed her.
‘Kaitarō Nakamura was to be my stepfather,’ I said. ‘I am his family.’
Sadame
On the train to Chiba I was unable to sit still, so I wandered through the carriages. I stood in an enclosed corridor between them, amid the noise of the churning wheels, and leaned against the door. I could see my reflection in the window – a small woman in leather boots and a navy shirt dress, belted tightly at her waist. My fingers gripped the steel rail beside me, encircling it, my nails pressed into my palm as though they might anchor me.
When Grandpa and I went skiing in the Japanese Alps we had travelled on small local trains. They moved so slowly that you could see the rows of bamboo swaying in the breeze. Like ostrich feathers they bowed in the wind, clustered along the train tracks and riverbanks. Each detail was clear: the dark poles stretching towards the light, topped with a plumage of jade leaves. On this train, the outer world was a delicate blur. In the distance, the caps of the mountains gleamed like opalescent pearls strung across with telephone wires, and the isolated houses and fields of the countryside coalesced into stripes of colour until the world flew by so fast that it looked as though it were running away from me, heading over the tracks and back to Tokyo where I belonged.
Only it was too late for me to stay at home where I and those I loved might have been safe. As we neared Chiba, fear, angular and ugly, rose within me; the train slowed and the outer world crystallised into the hard edges of the station platform.
I was nervous as I walked towards the prison gates. What I had not acknowledged in the study was that I might not be able to see Kaitarō Nakamura. My grandfather was right when he said the rules were strict. I could try to argue that I was a relative, but there was something beyond my control that would stipulate whether or not I was allowed to see him. My course had been determined twenty years ago, in how Kaitarō had viewed me as a child.
Even today, when a prisoner first enters Chiba, all potential visitors are registered with the front office. Those who are not named then will not be granted entry.
My hands were shaking as I withdrew my ID documents from my bag; my driving licence stuck in my leather wallet and I had to tease it free with fingertips slippery with sweat. I bowed to the guard as he gestured for me to wait and walked to the booth next to the perimeter fence. I watched him reach for the telephone. He held my driving licence in front of him, reading out the details. I waited as he paused and listened; eventually he nodded and spoke again. It had begun to rain, and the air filled with faint drizzle, practically mist. The guard quickened his steps as he returned to me. ‘The prisoner is at wo
rk,’ he explained, ‘but there is a room where you might wait for the next half-hour.’
He gestured to the prison itself, one hundred metres away, an imposing Meiji-era red-brick building with black glass doors. I had assembled so many arguments in my head, anticipated so many problems gaining entry (I had even brought my badge) that for a moment I did not understand him. The guard wiped the moisture off his face with his sleeve and frowned at me. ‘Ms Sarashima?’ he repeated. ‘I need you to fill in a form,’ he said, glancing up at the sky and the rain that was beginning to fall in earnest. As dense drops splashed onto the tarmac around us, he took my arm and steered me beneath the bright yellow awning of the prison shop. There he handed me his clipboard and a pen. ‘Please fill this in,’ he said. ‘You must be precise.’ I nodded and took the form from him, fumbling a little. ‘He registered me?’ I asked slowly, looking up once more. ‘I am on his list of visitors?’ The guard frowned and narrowed his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ I murmured quickly, bowing my head. There were questions about my background that I answered swiftly and then a large empty box: Please state the topic you wish to discuss with the prisoner. In small print below this the text read: Please do not deviate from this topic or your meeting will be terminated. I paused, the pen nib resting against the paper. Then I wrote down three words: my mother, Rina.
The guard looked down at the paper and nodded. Then he took the form from me and ran through the rain to his booth. Alone under the shop awning, I glanced at my watch and noticed the drops of water scattered over my arMs I brushed them away, shaking the rain from my hands, and entered the shop. The air inside was cold, blasting from the air conditioners, chilling my skin. There was no one else inside, only aisles filled with the items produced by the prisoners.
It is the duty of every prisoner to work. Even those on death row who live in solitary confinement work alone in their cells. The rest spend their days in the prison factories fulfilling contracts to make branded department-store bags and chopsticks. When these orders are complete, the prisoners are trained in a craft, and the products they make are sold in the prison shops.
What's Left of Me is Yours Page 27