by Kōji Suzuki
“The other journalists?”
“He didn’t let them in.”
“Why did he let you in, if he turned the others away?”
“I don’t know. I think … I guess … he took a shine to me.” She said the words with such distaste that Hashiba couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
“Sorry. I can certainly understand why Seiji would like you, but I can also understand why you don’t feel the same way,” he commented.
In contrast to Hashiba’s amusement, Oki’s face was a mask of seriousness. “Actually, we’re going to need footage of the inside of the house to do this program.”
Naturally. They could hardly do a thirty-minute show about a family’s disappearance with no footage from inside their home. Saeko didn’t know much about television production, but she understood that much.
“Of course,” she agreed.
Oki laid his hands, half hidden by his sleeves, on the table top and interlaced his fingers. “Ms. Kuriyama, let me ask you something. Do you think you could persuade Seiji to let our team into the house?”
Saeko could almost hear the gears snap together in her mind. She finally understood why they had selected her from among the myriad reporters who had covered the Fujimura story to collaborate on the show. The chief director and the producer needed the key to the Fujimura home.
And they need me to get it. Lucky me, Seiji’s favorite reporter.
And here she had thought it was because her coverage had been superior. Saeko felt her ego deflate like a punctured balloon.
5“I’ll walk you to the door,” Hashiba offered as they exited the conference room after the meeting’s conclusion. They took the elevator down to the lobby and had just emerged when Hashiba stopped and glanced at his watch.
“Do you have a bit more time?” he asked, and proposed coffee. Saeko wasn’t in a hurry. She had planned to stop at the library on the way home, but only for personal reasons. She was under no obligation to be anywhere.
“Certainly,” she told him.
“Good. The cafeteria then?” Hashiba stood up and led the way, genuinely giving the impression that there was more he wanted to say to Saeko.
When they were seated opposite each other at a table, Hashiba bowed deeply.
“I’m so sorry,” he said contritely.
Saeko was baffled. “For what?” she asked.
“We didn’t ask you to collaborate on this project just to get the key to the Fujimuras’ home.”
Saeko’s cheeks flushed. Her face must have shown her annoyance in the meeting room. She was impressed that Hashiba had picked up on it.
Saeko’s ex-husband had driven her crazy the way he’d always misread her signals. When she was annoyed at some thoughtless comment he’d made, he’d attribute her bad mood to hunger and try to force her to eat. When her eyes suddenly filled with tears, he’d lecture her with hackneyed advice about how she had to “get over the past,” making her ever conscious of how they were somehow always misaligned.
The schism between them never closed. Instead, little incidents piled up until they were so great as to lead to divorce. In the beginning, it was just minor things that had made Saeko think, Somehow he isn’t quite right for me. In fact, Saeko’s ex-husband never once intuited her feelings correctly.
“Did you invite me to coffee just to tell me that?” Saeko smiled warmly so as not to give the impression that she resented the invitation.
“There’s one other thing too. I wanted to explain why the focus of the show turned out the way it did. Don’t think I missed the expression on your face when the producer mentioned bringing a psychic into the Fujimuras’ home. That was a look of scorn, wasn’t it?”
“Of course not!”
“What a typical, obvious, trite, overdone approach. That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t put it in those terms, exactly …”
Actually, Hashiba had hit the nail on the head. The moment Producer Oki had begun explaining their plans to bring a psychic into the Fujimuras’ home to intuit their whereabouts, Saeko’s shoulders had slumped at the predictability of it. Was this the kind of project she was going to wind up supporting?
“But that’s what you thought, right?”
“Honestly, it wasn’t what I was expecting.” Saeko held up both palms towards Hashiba and gave him a surprised look. It seemed almost childish of Hashiba to exhibit concern over such a thing, and Saeko found it somewhat endearing. He was playing the long-suffering director forced into creating a hackneyed show.
“Sometimes the most random things end up leading to the concept behind a show. That’s definitely true in this case. Satoyama, Shigeta, and I were having lunch together and someone brought up the topic of the family who’d disappeared in Takato. We were mulling over how confounding it was and what possibly could have caused them to go missing, wondering if there was an idea for a show in there somewhere. As dumb luck would have it, that was when Oki showed up and informed us that Shigeko Torii, the famous psychic, was interested in the case. It was all downhill from there, and the idea rammed right through the planning committee. In other words, the whole project was predicated on Shigeta Torii’s involvement from the start.”
The flow Hashiba described made perfect sense. Besides, what sort of show would Saeko have planned if it had been up to her? They could put together a hard-nosed informational broadcast that simply reviewed the known facts of the case, but it was questionable whether such a show would attract much of an audience. On commercial television, ratings were everything. For a show to work, broadcasters had to use whatever tricks and gimmicks they could to attract viewers. Besides, the Takato disappearance was being characterized as one of the world’s most bizarre mysteries. Perhaps it was inevitable that a psychic was being thrown into the mix for color.
“Please don’t worry. I have no objection to the idea whatsoever. I think it’s going to be an interesting show.”
At Saeko’s kind words, Hashiba’s face crinkled with relief. “You’re pretty interesting yourself,” he remarked, sipping his coffee.
From his tone of voice, it was clear he didn’t mean it as an insult. Still, Saeko wondered what he meant exactly. “How’s that?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.
“The way you talk and the things you say are weird.”
By any standard, it was a rude comment coming from someone Saeko had only met twice. Still, Saeko didn’t feel angry.
“Well, at least you’re honest. What’s so weird about me?” she asked serenely.
“You’re young, but the expressions you use are like an older person’s.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Your late twenties, I guess.”
“Plus ten.”
At this, Hashiba pulled dramatically back away from the table, then leaned slowly back in, inspecting Saeko from different angles and distances as if trying to reconcile her actual age with how she looked.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’ll be thirty-six next year.”
“Unbelievable. You’re the same age as me, then.”
Now it was Saeko’s turn to be surprised. She had assumed Hashiba was younger than her.
“We would have been in the same grade in school?” Suddenly, Saeko felt more comfortable with Hashiba. She let the formality melt from her speech.
Hashiba began bringing up epoch-making events from their elementary, junior high, and senior high school years, trying to establish common ground. Saeko played along with the conversation, but inside she was beginning to wonder if Hashiba was married. She found herself imagining what it would be like to be alone in a room with him. For some reason his presence was comforting, and she felt her muscles relax. Maybe it was his robust build that made her feel secure, and she sensed a tough core behind his polite manner. The only thing that bothered her about him was the hint of an immature tendency to play up his abilities. But if that were merely a product of his efforts to make a good a
lmost-first impression on Saeko, she supposed it was forgivable. Welcome, even.
Saeko didn’t explicitly avoid the subject of her schoolgirl years, but she had a vague distaste for discussing that period. As Hashiba began to pick up on Saeko’s lukewarm responses, he shifted the topic of conversation back towards their project.
“It’s being peddled as modern-day kamikakushi—the idea of people being spirited away by angry gods—but it could very well just be a series of coincidences. A cut-and-dry accident of some kind. If somehow the case gets solved before we air the show, that’ll be the end of that.” Hashiba laughed weakly.
But Saeko had a different perspective. “The concept of kamikakushi has existed since olden days in Japan, whenever people have disappeared mysteriously. When someone vanishes in the mountains we attribute it to ogres or the long-nosed demons, tengu. When they disappear near a river we blame it on kappa, water imps. There are various commonalities in the folklore pertaining to supernatural disappearances. For example, kamikakushi most often takes place in the springtime, usually at dusk. Before the disappearance takes place, a strong wind always blows. If the person who is spirited away is lucky enough to return home, he or she never retains any memory of where he or she has been. Naturally, that leads people to concoct all sorts of explanations for the mysterious experiences. The missing person is said to be abducted by a tengu, or tricked by a fox … But in my opinion, most of the time the person disappeared of their own accord or met with some kind of accident. When young brides vanished on the eve of their wedding day, they probably just ran away to avoid marriage. Sometimes the missing are believed to have vanished into some sort of utopia. Take the Taro Urashima folktale, for example.”
Hashiba shifted into the role of the attentive listener, encouraging Saeko here and there with questions as she proceeded to regale him with detailed analyses of everything from world folklore regarding abductions to modern-day group disappearances, as well as specific methodologies pertaining to the pursuit of missing persons.
“But this case doesn’t abide by any previously evident patterns,” Saeko concluded.
“The locals in the area are calling it a modern-day case of kamikakushi.”
“Of course. Whenever there’s a mysterious disappearance, people always call it that.”
“How does it differ from existing patterns?”
“How can I put this? It reminds me of some sort of magic trick. Some sort of grand illusion …”
“An illusion? Like when a magician makes a person vanish on stage?”
“Right. I saw the inside of the Fujimuras’ home, after all. It was perfectly clear that the Fujimuras vanished from their home in the blink of an eye.”
“But in magic shows, there’s always some sort of trick at work.”
“Yes. I don’t know what it was. After having conducted a thorough investigation, the only conclusion I can draw is that I don’t get it.”
Hashiba listened intently to Saeko. It was obvious that she knew a great deal about missing persons cases and that her knowledge was grounded in experience.
“And you don’t specialize in missing persons cases as a writer?” he inquired.
“Not at all. This is the first one I’ve covered.”
“You seem unusually well-informed.”
“I’ve been down this road before. That’s why the chips fell to me to take this on.”
Hashiba cocked his head, unsure what Saeko meant. But she lowered her lids and ignored his quizzical expression. She felt no desire to discuss the traumatic events of her teenage years. Even now, it took all the control she could muster to keep the lump of sorrow in her chest from driving her out of her senses. Even after eighteen years, the pain was quick to well back up in her heart.
This time, Hashiba failed to notice the expression on Saeko’s face. “Don’t tell me you plotted to run away as a kid or something?” he joked.
Saeko couldn’t bring herself to smile—running away from home meant being separated from loved ones. How could she ever contemplate such a thing? It was paramount to deliberately plunging into heartrending loneliness.
Saeko felt her emotions begin to form a familiar shape. A voice in her head urged her to turn forward, but wave after wave of feeling wrenched her consciousness away from the present. She was no longer in any state to maintain a conversation. It was as if she were sinking into a dark abyss, cut off from the rest of the world. Hashiba’s words traveled straight through her without depositing any meaning in her mind as they drifted past.
Hashiba was baffled by Saeko’s sudden transformation. Clearly, something he had said had hurt her somehow, and he struggled to get the conversation back on track by informing Saeko of the dates scheduled for filming the project.
Saeko felt his voice go in one ear and out the other. Only a few words lingered in the pit of her mind.
“Ten days from now … The film crew … Script … Shigeko Torii …”
She didn’t respond.
Here it comes.
She felt the present fade away and the past come flooding back. Countless words her father had spoken to her in childhood reverberated in her mind, their warmth intact, before fading into oblivion. As grief flooded her body, the scenery around her began to fade into obscurity. She wanted to cry out for help, but her body was beyond her control.
But just as she felt herself about to plummet into nothingness, Saeko found herself pulled back into the present. A feeling of warmth registered on the back of her left hand, and her eyes opened to the sight of Hashiba’s worried face peering into hers. He was clasping her hand.
“Are you all right?”
There was no falseness in his look of concern. She felt a gentle glow of reassurance flow into her body through his touch. Her recovery was swift. In the blink of an eye, Saeko came back into her body and recovered the thread of conversation. “Sorry about that. A touch of anemia.”
Hashiba’s face relaxed slightly and he nodded once, but he made no move to let go of her hand.
Saeko was mildly astonished that an act by another person had warded off the onset of her affliction.
6The library didn’t allow books to be checked out, and visitors were only allowed to bring in notebooks and writing utensils. The only items Saeko needed were a notebook, a ballpoint pen, and the postcard from her father. Each floor was organized by subject. Saeko climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, where the science books were kept.
She had studied here frequently during junior high and high school, but after her father’s disappearance she had completely stopped coming. The familiar smell of the library brought on a rush of nostalgic childhood memories. She’d come here a number of times at the end of one spring vacation to work on “homework” after returning from her grandparents’ home in Atami. She had been given the assignment at a cycling park in Izu she’d visited with her father.
Saeko’s father had been extremely busy in those days and was often away on overseas business trips. He regretted not being able to spend more time with his daughter and decided it would be best for everyone if Saeko spent the vacation with her grandparents in Atami. Saeko was perfectly happy with the plan—it would be more fun to spend spring break being spoiled by her grandparents.
Saeko’s grandparents had lavished her with affection, almost as if they knew they would pass away the following year. By early April when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, just as her grandparents’ doting attentions were beginning to wear on Saeko, her father’s trip overseas was unexpectedly cut short, and he took advantage of the down time to return to his parents’ home in Atami. He arrived early in the morning and crept up to whisper in his sleeping daughter’s ear, “Sae, wake up! It’s Daddy.”
When she opened her eyes to the sight of her father’s face, Saeko was flooded with relief. She sat up quickly, elated to see him. She was staying in a ten-mat tatami room that looked out over a large veranda, and it was far too much space for one person. Sitting cross-legged in the faint mor
ning light, Saeko’s father made the room seem less gaping and empty, and his warmth drove away the early morning chill. She leaned forward over the covers, savoring the softness of the blankets. She was tempted to go back to sleep, confident that if she did, her dreams would be trouble-free.
Did nightmares feed on anxiety? When Saeko’s father was away, she often dreamed of his death. She would awaken with a start, her pulse still racing, anxious to see her father and make sure he was all right. But if he wasn’t there, a lingering apprehension plagued her until his return. And when he was traveling on business, she didn’t feel better until he made it home safe and sound. Saeko’s father knew this and made a point of calling her every night at eight o’clock whenever he was away.
Saeko’s fear of losing her sole protector was intense. Her grandparents gave her plenty of affection, but they could never replace her father. His unconditional love for her flooded her heart. Her sensitive nature made her vivid imaginings of his death all the more overwhelming, and she had cried herself to sleep on countless occasions just imagining the sadness of a world without her father. When she visited a shrine at New Year’s or other occasions, she always prayed that her father lead a long life.
That early morning in spring, Saeko’s father had rubbed his daughter’s back as she slumped face down on her futon.
“I want to go for a drive, Sae. Will you come with me?” he asked. Despite his all-nighter, his voice was full of energy.
In the end, they went to Cycle Park in Izu, quite a distance from Atami. After Saeko’s father had taken a quick two-hour nap, they zipped merrily towards the Izu skyline.
True to its name, Cycle Park was a theme park dedicated to attractions related to bicycling, organized into a number of zones. There was a zone featuring activities like the Cycle Coaster and Cycle Monorail, a water zone with a swimming pool that opened in the summer, a hot spring area, restaurants, and even a miniature golf course. But the main features of the park were the five-kilometer road bike and two-kilometer off-road mountain bike courses.