by Kōji Suzuki
"Sorry," Toyama said immediately.
"Just pay attention, alright?"
"I will."
He sighed as he broke out in a cold sweat. He had no excuse. He'd lost himself, lost his concentration, and caused problems for his colleagues. All because of his love for Sadako.
Shit. Get a hold of yourself.
He couldn't stand not being able to control his feelings. He'd always thought of himself as strong-willed, not at all the type to let himself be swept along by his emotions. And look at him now—all on account of a woman.
He shook his head, trying to clear it of lewd fantasies.
It was no use. Onstage, Sadako's scene was starting.
The Girl in Black appeared from stage left and stood wordlessly behind a middle-aged man who was yelling into a telephone. The man sensed something behind him, fell silent, and turned around. The stage went dark for an instant. When the lights came on again, the Girl in Black had disappeared. It was a remarkable effect, really, a skillful combination of lighting and set design.
The man dropped the receiver, terrified: he'd just seen a girl's ghost...
The scene was pivotal, the key to understanding the play as a whole.
The Girl in Black had only been onstage for a moment before she disappeared. Toyama called out to her.
"Sadako..."
It was less a cry than a plea that she return, that shadow he'd only just glimpsed. Suddenly he had a premonition that she would disappear from his life just like she had from the stage.
Hey, now, don't go borrowing trouble.
He kept his eyes on the stage. The Girl in Black had one more scene.
This time she appeared from the rear center of the stage. She stood on a platform stage center and opened her mouth as if to speak. But then the lights went out again. A complete change of scene. In the end the audience would never know what the Girl in Black was trying to say. That was how it was set up.
Toyama was projecting his own feelings onto the events onstage. When she opened her mouth he didn't want her to stop, he wanted her to say it loud. Stop hiding it from the other members of the troupe—let everyone know about their relationship.
Toyama, I love you.
How wonderful it would be to hear her say that in front of a huge audience. Once everybody knew, they wouldn't have to embrace in secret anymore. What a relief that would be.
He wanted to be able to speak his love for Sadako openly, fearing no one. He'd make doubly sure Shigemori heard about it, to let him know that it was him, not Shigemori, that Sadako loved. Then even Shigemori couldn't persist in the kind of acts Toyama had just witnessed.
He'd gotten confused. It was Sadako who'd taken such an active role in what he'd seen in the empty lobby—not Shigemori.
The Girl in Black disappeared from the stage, leaving only an afterimage—it was quite effective, really, the way she made such a deep impression in spite of her minimal time onstage. She said nothing that wasn't necessary—certainly not goodbye.
But he didn't want her to disappear like that in real life.
8
The dress rehearsal ended without a long feedback session, just a "Good job, everyone."
When Shigemori said that, it meant that everyone could go home. They were free. Toyama was tired. He put a hand on his chest in relief. He'd made mistakes, and if the director had started to complain about them there'd be no end to it.
They weren't getting to go home early because the run-through had been especially good, though; apparently Shigemori himself was so tired that he just had to let them go. The cast and crew stood around on the stage or in the aisles and Shigemori said a brief word to each of them about their performances that night, telling them all to give it their best over the next three weeks.
He was pale, and slumped down into a seat; he made no move to stand.
The actors, on the other hand, were glowing with elation: opening day was tomorrow. They all congratu-lated each other on a job well done, and then began to drift apart, some to go home and some to rehearse more.
The theater itself closed at midnight, so they all had to be out by then. There was a night watchman who checked to make sure none of them hung around later than that.
Toyama headed back to the sound booth to clean up.
"Well, then," he muttered as he tried to decide if there was anything left to do for tomorrow.
His mind was still occupied with Sadako and his conflicting feelings toward her, but he'd managed to check all his tapes over the course of the run-through, and nothing was out of order. He trusted his ears. No matter how scattered his thoughts, his ears would have picked up any noise that was out of place. Anything he might have missed on his headphones would be too soft for the audience to detect, and definitely too soft to disrupt the performance.
The cassette recorder—I almost forgot.
From a shelf beneath the desk he took out a cassette deck. It had leather straps on the sides to make it easier to carry: now he pulled it out by one of those straps.
It was the newest model, made so you could slip a strap over a shoulder and carry it around, and it had a built-in microphone. It was good for recording things like street noise: he could take this outside and record with it, and then transfer the recording to a reel-to-reel tape for editing.
The tape in this deck, he realized, did contain things he'd rather nobody hear. Yesterday afternoon, when the interns were alone in their rehearsal space, they'd gotten up to a little mischief.
Okubo had instigated the whole thing. He was particularly good at impressions, or so he said, and he'd announced that he wanted to record some so he could evaluate himself. This model of cassette deck was still not very common, so he asked Toyama how to operate it, as he gathered everyone around.
Okuho began running through a few of his best bits for the small crowd, which consisted entirely of interns.
After each ovation, Okubo rewound the tape and played it back, cracking up over his own performance as he reviewed it. The reviews themselves were amusing, and the tape-deck-centered revelry escalated.
At first Okubo was doing impressions of TV personalities, but after a while he shifted his target to people they knew. One of the leading actors in the troupe had a peculiar way of speaking, so he poked fun at that, and everyone laughed. Finally he set his sights on Shigemori.
This was forbidden territory. Some of the more timid interns went to the office to make doubly sure Shigemori wasn't in—there would be hell to pay if they were overheard. Once they had ascertained that he was out, Okubo cut loose with his most energetic and elaborate impression yet.
Okubo had Shigemori down pat, from the tone he took when giving feedback to the overwrought voice he'd use when bawling someone out for a bad performance to the lines he'd use to seduce new actresses. They all knew Shigemori well enough to find the performance hilarious, and Okubo went on and on, the tape recorder on all the while.
Toyama had gotten it all on tape—the very tape before him now. What he needed to do was to have a blank tape all set in the deck so it would be ready if he needed it during the premiere or later. But he didn't have another tape. He wracked his brain for a solution.
This tape, with everyone laughing at Shigemori, was a dangerous object. If the director happened to hear it, he wouldn't let them off with just a yelling-at. The listeners would have it bad enough, but there was no telling what he'd do to Okubo for mimicking him trying to pick up a woman—and failing, at that.
Toyama elected to erase the tape.
To do that, all he had to do was press record with the microphone turned off. The tape would be restored to its original blank state. It was too much trouble to figure out what was where on the tape, so he decided just to erase the whole thing, start to finish. The problem was, that would take forty-five minutes.
He pressed the record button and watched as the tape began to advance. This would destroy all evidence of their little game.
With nothing else to do, he
glanced idly at the stage, where a few actors were walking around, checking their marks. Sadako was standing on the dais at stage center.
She had her mouth open as if about to speak: they were rehearsing the bit where the lights went out. Over and over, until she was satisfied. What was it she was trying to say? No, the question should be, did Shigemori even have any lines in mind for her when he wrote the scene? If so, Toyama knew he wanted to hear them directly from Sadako.
He leaned close to the glass and focused on Sadako.
She seemed to be aware that he was watching her: she stopped, lowered her hands, and turned her gaze in his direction. He could feel it, even at that distance. At that moment, they were connected by the thread of their mutual gaze.
The overhead light was on in the sound booth, so no doubt Toyama's face was visible from the other side of the glass. Meanwhile, the lights were on over the stage, giving it a totally different ambience from the dress rehearsal: Sadako's face looked different under the white light, her color contrasting with her black costume, but differently than usual. There was something obscene about it, as if her underclothes were showing through.
Sadako stepped down from the stage into the seats, heading for the lobby.
She's coming up to the booth.
He imagined her movements. Now she was crossing the lobby; now she was climbing the spiral staircase to the sound booth. She was in no hurry—in fact, she was taking her time, to make him anxious. She moved with light elegance.
He waited for the knock at the door.
...3, 2, 1, 0.
At zero, the door swung open, without a knock.
Sadako slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.
"Did you call?" She was quite alluring in her stage clothes, up close.
Toyama remained silent and unsmiling. He hoped that his anger was showing through in his expression, but he had no idea what he really looked like to her. In any case, he was trying to look as out-of-sorts as he could, but Sadako just ignored it and crossed the room.
She unfolded a metal chair and sat down on it.
Toyama maintained his silence. Finally Sadako spoke, pretending to have noticed just now. "Hey, what are you so mad about?"
Of course she knew why he was angry: she had to know. It annoyed him that she was pretending not to, and he snapped.
"What the hell was that back there?"
Sadako raised an eyebrow. "Oh, that." She pursed her lips and laughed mischievously.
"Did you know I was watching when you did that to Mr. Shigemori?" They always called him Mister Shigemori, so Toyama called him that now, out of habit, but it didn't match his mood, so he made a show of muttering, "Shigemori, that bastard."
"Are you jealous?"
She was sitting on the edge of her seat, and now she put both hands on the chair and made a little move as if to get up.
"Jealous? I'm concerned for you, baby."
It was a lie, and a transparent one at that. He wasn't concerned for anyone but himself. All his rage sprang from a heart tortured by jealousy.
"Toyama, maybe you'd better not call me 'baby'."
Her tone was not harsh, but it was firm. Toyama was somewhat taken aback by this display of will on her part, and he had to bite his lip to keep from saying, "I'm sorry."
"No matter how much you cozy up to Shigemori, I just don't think it's going to help you in the future. If you have a dream you've got to reach out and take it on your own."
Reach out and. take it... What a cliché—Toyama was disgusted with himself for uttering something straight out of a teen soap opera.
"A dream? Toyama, do you know what my dream is?"
"To become a great actress, right?"
Sadako brought a hand to one cheek and gave a hard-to-define smile.
"How many people do you think would come see me if I made it as a stage actress?"
"You don't have to stick to the stage. There's TV, movies."
"What about that, that red light—see it?"
Sadako pointed to the cassette deck that was erasing Okubo's impressions. A tiny lamp glowed red, signifying that it was recording.
"The cassette deck?"
"It's so much smaller than a reel-to-reel. Looks really easy to record on, too."
"Yes, it is pretty convenient."
"I wonder if images will be like that, too. If we'll ever be able to record images, not just on film like in a movie theater, but on something small like a cassette tape."
What she was saying didn't sound all that far-fetched—no doubt that day was fast approaching.
"I'm sure we will, sooner or later. Maybe someday we'll be able to sit at home and watch one of your movies on TV."
"But that's a long way off, isn't it?" She sounded depressed about it.
"It's not impossible, though. You could do it."
"But it would be too late."
"What do you mean?"
"By that time, I'd be an old woman."
She had a point. Even assuming Sadako kept steadily maturing as an actress, by the time a cassette-like image-storage system came into widespread use, she'd no longer be considered young.
"Don't be in such a rush."
"I don't want to get old. I want to stay young forever. Wouldn't that be great?"
Nobody fears aging like an aspiring young actress, reflected Toyama. Sadako was evidently no exception.
"I wouldn't mind growing old with you."
It was almost a proposal, despite the casual way he said it. And he meant it. Aging held no horrors for him, as long as he and Sadako could live together. And when he finally died of old age, he could do it with a smile on his face provided she was there beside him. For an instant Toyama imagined dying in Sadako's arms. She was gazing into his eyes while the world receded spinning into the distance. He was old...but for some reason Sadako was still her present age. In his head the image was startlingly clear.
The muscles around Sadako's mouth relaxed as she realized that Toyama really did want to be with her. She knit her brow and said, a little defensively, "You're under the impression that I like Mr. Shigemori, aren't you?
You've got the wrong idea."
"Well, I don't want to think that. But considering what I saw you do—"
She wouldn't let him finish. She shook her head and said, "No, no. You misunderstand. I can't stand him. He comes on way too strong. In fact, he scares me. It's like he's obsessed with me—he's just creepy. I hate it. Why can't he be a little more laid back—especially at his age?"
So even Shigemori had struck out with Sadako.
Toyama actually began to feel a little sorry for him—was it possible that he was seriously in love with Sadako, at age forty-seven?
"To be honest, it's really hard for me—I don't know how to tell you what I really feel. I want to believe you, Sadako, but..."
Sadako leaned forward in the folding chair and put a hand on Toyama's knee.
"Toyama," she said.
She was only nineteen, but it seemed she knew just how to relieve the frustration of a man suffering from jealousy.
She stood up and turned off the lights. Once she'd turned out the desk light, the booth was dark except for what light found its way through the window from the stage below. It was enough to dimly illuminate Sadako's body. But then the last actors left the stage, and that light too was extinguished. All was black except for the tiny red glow of the record light on the cassette deck in the corner.
Something clicked in the darkness. Sadako must have locked the door from the inside. After a while, Toyama felt her weight on his knees. So slender to look at, she was surprisingly heavy.
He could see nothing: only by her weight did he know she was there. She guided his hands as he undressed her. They unzipped her dress in the back, and then she slipped it off over her head. Now Sadako was straddling him in her underwear as he sat there.
At the soft touch of her skin, the outlines of Sadako's body took shape in Toyama's mind. She'd taken off he
r dress, but ironically she was now becoming the Girl in Black herself. The fact that he couldn't see her in the darkness only stimulated his imagination as her naked form took on solidity in his mind's eye. The red glow from the tape deck only made her blacker.
As he savored the satisfaction of having her all to himself at last, Toyama's frustration and jealousy melted away.
He lost track of time. He forgot himself completely as they touched each other's bodies, as he stroked her hair, as he lifted her head and ran his lips over her neck; naturally, his desire progressed to the next level. But every time he started to reach a hand between her legs, she would stop his hand—sometimes gently, and sometimes brusquely. Finally, as if to distract him, she reached into his shorts.
It took him no time at all to climax: her hands moved, and in response Toyama finished, stifling a moan.
Not a drop of his ejaculate hit his clothes or the floor: Sadako caught it all in her hands. In his abandon, Toyama was unable to figure out what she was doing now. From the sounds, he thought she might be rubbing her hands together in it. Once she'd covered her hands in his fluid like lather from a bar of soap, she put her arms around his face, his neck, and embraced him. He smelled his own.
Then Sadako whispered in his ear, barely loud enough to hear, "Don't ever love me more than you do now. I don't want to lose you, Toyama."
It didn't feel as if she'd said the words at all, but rather as if they'd been delivered straight into his brain.
Toyama, I love you.
Was he hallucinating from the strength of his desire? No—her voice pressed itself directly into his mind.
These were the words he wanted everyone to hear—
if indeed he was hearing them himself. He especially wanted Shigemori to hear them.
"Sadako," he whispered, in a dry, scratchy voice,
"you'd make me so happy if you'd just say you love me in front of everyone..."
But she shook her head.
At that moment his foot hit the cabinet. He heard something fall. He'd forgotten himself in his love for Sadako, but just for an instant his attention was claimed by the altar hidden at his feet, and the offering lain in front of it.