by Kōji Suzuki
Saeko foundered, uncertain of how to respond. Meanwhile, Torii extracted a travel cup of sake from her purse and opened the lid. She slurped it loudly, and the scent of sake filled the air. Immediately, the old woman’s fingers stopped shaking. It was DTs after all.
“Would you like some?” Torii offered Saeko the cup she’d just sipped from.
“No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
“Liar,” Torii shot back with a mischievous smile.
It was true. Saeko did drink. In fact, for a woman, she had a fairly high tolerance. Lately, she couldn’t sleep at night without a drink.
Once again, Saeko was at a loss for words, and she felt her body grow stiffer. She wanted to diffuse the tension somehow but was unsure of how to begin.
True to her profession, Saeko had done her homework on Shigeko Torii as soon as she’d learned that the psychic would be involved in the project. Born in 1944—a moment ago, Saeko had perceived the old lady to be over eighty, but in fact she was sixty-eight.
Torii was fifty when she’d risen to prominence as a psychic, a year after she’d acquired her powers through a painful event. She had witnessed the tragic death of her only child—a son who had been born to her at the somewhat late age of thirty-eight—in an accident at a railway crossing.
Torii and her son, who had just turned ten at the time, were both on bicycles at a railway crossing in their local shopping district. Just as they were crossing the tracks, the chimes rang to announce that a train was on its way. Torii was certain that her son was following her; she could hear him behind her on his bicycle, she later said. But as the boy scrambled to keep up with his mother, the wheel of his bicycle slid on the tracks and he fell off.
When Torii noticed there was nobody behind her, she doubled back towards the tracks just as a red train whizzed past. Right before her eyes, all four of the boy’s limbs were torn from his body and launched through the air. Torii let out a piercing shriek as she witnessed her son’s instant death.
A witness later testified that Torii’s scream hadn’t been that of a human being. Kwaah! The piercing, sharp cry had echoed forth and seemed to rise up into the heavens, skewering a fast-moving cloud on its way.
Foaming at the mouth, Torii had fallen to her knees on the asphalt. She lost consciousness and was transported to the hospital, where she awakened three days later.
It was then that Torii’s hair turned white and fell out in clumps. She also took to drinking each day from morning until night.
After the funeral, Torii insisted that her son was still near and refused to acknowledge his death no matter what her family said. She could still hear his voice. If only everyone else could hear it too, they would believe her, Torii decided. So she consulted with an itako of Mt. Osore—blind female shamans reputed to have the power to commune with the dead. Much to Torii’s surprise, when she reached Mt. Osore, the itako informed her that Torii herself had come into possession of unusual powers. She could see into a person’s past merely by touching an object that belonged to them.
It didn’t take long for word of her powers to spread. Disbelievingly, the director of a TV station approached Torii for an interview and brought with him an old pair of glasses. Torii touched the frames lightly before responding with three impressions of their owner.
The glasses had belonged to an elderly woman who was now dead. The woman had done work related to Noh or Kyogen theater. She had undergone cataract surgery once and had been wearing the glasses when she died.
All three conjectures were right on the mark. The glasses had belonged to the director’s late grandmother to whom he had been very close. A year earlier, she had suffered a heart attack at home in her bathroom, and by the time help reached her it had been too late. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, still wearing her glasses. Her husband was a critic of the traditional Japanese theater arts, and she had often attended performances with him and aided him in reviewing Noh and Kyogen performances. Finally, she had undergone an operation once for cataracts.
The first statement about the owner being an older woman who had already passed away could have been a lucky guess based on the old-fashioned style of the glasses and their convex bifocal lenses. But it was hard to explain how she might possibly have assessed the other two points. In particular, the part about doing work related to Noh or Kyogen theater seemed like such an unlikely idea for someone to come up with on the fly that the director came away quite strongly convinced of Torii’s psychic abilities.
The encounter led to Torii’s first television appearance, in which she performed similarly accurate readings. The show involved audience participation, Torii revealing audience members’ pasts based on personal objects they provided.
More than anything, her reputation was cemented when she gave a reading on the perpetrator of an unsolved murder case, who went on to turn himself in. Based on a hat found at the crime scene, Torii had described the owner’s job, age, and place of residence so accurately that the murderer, who happened to be watching the show, gave himself up to the police in fear.
These mysterious powers seemed to derive from the psychological blow Torii experienced when she witnessed her son’s death.
As the old woman sipped her cup of sake, her sight wandered across the floor vacantly. Her eyelids drooped, but the rapid movements of her pupils betrayed fluid mental processes in spite of her sluggish outward appearance.
As Saeko reflected on Shigeko Torii’s past, she felt a deep sympathy for the woman’s misfortune. What principles governed the workings of the human soul? How did unbearable sadness give birth to abnormal abilities? Had those abilities done anything to mitigate the old woman’s pain? Did Torii still have conversations with her son’s spirit?
As if she could read Saeko’s thoughts, Torii transferred her cup of sake into her left hand and softly laid her right hand over Saeko’s. The skin of her hand was dry and surprisingly cool.
“It’s always hard when we lose a loved one.”
As fumes of alcohol carried Torii’s voice to Saeko’s ears, Saeko felt the old woman’s sadness at losing her son flood her own body as if through the contact of their hands. Feeling another person’s sadness usually involved a sense of being removed, one’s stance as observer intact, but Saeko had experienced a comparable loss. The deep sorrow conveyed by Torii’s touch triggered a vivid memory of the tragedy she had experienced in high school, almost exactly as she had experienced it at the time.
Overcome by emotion, Saeko doubled over, laying her forehead against Torii’s arm. Her eyes closed, Saeko longed intensely for her father’s return. The image she saw was that of her father at forty-four just as he had been at the time of his disappearance.
Torii seemed to fully comprehend Saeko’s emotional state. With her free hand, she gently stroked Saeko’s head, whispering softly, “It’s all right. I’m sure you’ll find that special person.”
If Torii’s pronouncement meant that Saeko’s most fervent wish of the past eighteen years was to come true, it was welcome news.
Even full of tears, however, Saeko’s eyes were sharp. She noticed that Torii’s hands had once again begun to tremble. The minute tremors in both hands were more violent than before, causing her fingernails to rattle against the cup holder of the armrest. Their rhythm reminded Saeko of the sound of a mouse gnawing away at something hard.
10They got off the Matsumoto express train at Chino. As they passed slowly through the ticket gate, Saeko scanned the crowd. But before she caught sight of him, Hashiba was already running towards her.
“Thank you so much for coming all this way.” He bowed politely to Torii and flashed Saeko a more familiar smile. “You must be tired,” he added considerately.
Out of the corner of her eye, Saeko noticed that Hashiba’s sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, revealing muscular arms. She felt a flood of relief. Never had she been so glad to have someone come to meet her.
Saeko’s emotional reserves were drained after her
ride next to Torii. Not that the old woman was unkind. The two-hour ride had been more than enough time for Saeko to see that the psychic was a generous soul. But being with someone who could see straight into your heart was deeply exhausting. In the time they spent together, Saeko saw clearly that as long as Torii retained her unusual powers, she was fated to suffer perpetual loneliness.
Saeko noticed that Hashiba was carrying both women’s suitcases. He had relieved them of their heavy bags so naturally that she hadn’t even noticed.
The women were to ride with Hashiba in the van while Kagayama and the others traveled in a separate vehicle. The latter group needed to buy a few things but would meet them at the destination.
The two women sat side by side in the second row of seats and were buffeted by the sharp turns of the steep mountain road through the Tsuetsuki Peak pass.
When Saeko had come to research her report, she had taken the Iida line to North Ina Station and driven from there to Takato in a rental car. It had been summertime then, and the mountains had seemed different somehow. On a November afternoon, with the daylight hours growing shorter, the air was dry. Even though the forecast had been for the coldest temperatures yet this year, the sunlight was strong, even hot. Inside the van, it was actually warm enough for air-conditioning. But when the sun set, the temperature would probably drop quickly.
After exiting Highway 152, as they climbed the slope towards the Fujimura residence, Saeko spotted a familiar figure. He wore a track suit with a hand-towel around his neck in lieu of a scarf. He stood off to the side as the camera and sound technicians set up their equipment. When the van approached, he followed it with his eyes.
Seiji Fujimura. He was the older brother of Kota Fujimura, the owner of the Fujimura residence. Now the designated caretaker of the home, Seiji stood to inherit the Fujimuras’ entire estate if the family’s whereabouts remained a mystery seven years later. Saeko had arranged with Seiji to lend her the key to the Fujimuras’ house that day.
Her chest filled with an opposite emotion from the relief she’d felt at the sight of Hashiba. The wave of inexplicable aversion reminded her of turning on the light in a dark room and discovering a cockroach. More revulsion than fear, it was pure instinct.
When the van reached the front of the house, Seiji grinned from ear to ear and approached the vehicle, rapping his knuckles against Saeko’s window. It was a signal for her to roll down the window, it seemed, but the side windows of a van didn’t open. Saeko raised both palms to the glass, then gave a light bow in way of greeting. Seiji leaned in closer towards the window, peering inside and letting his gaze wander over Saeko’s legs.
Saeko pressed both legs together firmly and looked the other way as she gathered her belongings. Even with a window between them, Saeko was in a hurry to get away from Seiji.
Ugh. Why did he have to take a shine to me?
Hurriedly, Saeko moved to follow Torii out of the van. As she did so, Seiji sprinted quickly around and, ignoring Torii, offered Saeko his hand. No doubt it was an attempt to play the chivalrous gentleman, but his obliviousness to the older woman who was undoubtedly in need of help was painfully transparent, and Saeko had no desire to accept the gesture.
Despite herself, however, Saeko gave Seiji a smile. She didn’t like being two-faced, but she did her best to feign happiness to see him. She knew it was a look that was likely to mislead a susceptible member of the opposite sex, but her calculating instincts as a journalist reminded her that Seiji was critical to the success of the project. If anything provoked his ire, the entire project might have to be scrapped.
Saeko tossed her hair, trying to shake off a wave of self-loathing.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Seiji greeted her.
“We appreciate your consenting to work with us,” Saeko responded formally, setting the tone at a professional level.
Seiji waved his hand dismissively, as if to negate the need for such politeness. “Oh, pshaw!” he spat. Loudly, he continued to engage Saeko in friendly conversation as if to show off to the others what good friends they were.
“Ms. Kuriyama, could I have a word with you?” Hashiba intervened just in time with a request for a quick meeting with Torii and the rest of the team. The five staff members gathered around Shigeko Torii as Hashiba briefed them on the agenda.
Hashiba wanted to be very careful in his approach to filming Torii. He wanted the footage to be as genuine as possible, with no element of “staging.” Of course it would help the process if they showed the psychic the interior of the house in advance and went over what she would say. But they would lose all spontaneity through that approach, and Hashiba wanted to get Torii’s first impressions on camera. He wanted to capture her psychological reactions at the moment she first touched the Fujimuras’ belongings. He knew his audience would want to see the exact impact the Fujimura residence had on the psychic.
Torii listened as Hashiba explained his preference.
“Yes. I feel the same way,” she agreed.
“If possible, I’d like to go ahead and film the inside of the house today,” Hashiba ventured, shooting Saeko a quick glance. Seiji had sidled up so close to her that she could feel his breath on her hair. She shivered and took a small step forward, but to no avail—Seiji moved with her.
Hashiba seemed to be suggesting that if Torii was tired from the journey, she could rest up at the hotel and they could start filming tomorrow. But if possible, he preferred to try to capture the main footage they needed today. There was no guarantee that Seiji wouldn’t change his mind. Saeko felt the same way. The longer she spent with Seiji, the more likely she was to end up angering him. The sooner they could film the inside of the house, the better.
Saeko watched Torii hopefully.
“That will be fine,” the old woman assented.
Hashiba passed Torii a copy of the plans for the two-story house to give her an idea of the layout. In order for the video crew to capture her movements as she walked through discovering things in the home, they at least needed a general idea of the path she would take.
The layout of the home was typical. The two upstairs rooms were the children’s bedrooms. The kitchen and dining area came combined with the living room on the first floor, with the master bedroom and a guest room across the hallway. A standard four-bedroom home, it would have been ample space for a four-person family.
“Would you mind giving us an idea of how you’d like to move through the home?” Hashiba requested. “We’ll have two cameras accompanying you. One will focus on your face, while the other shoots what you’re seeing from the same angle as your point of view. Does that make sense?”
“Does that mean one camera will be ahead of me?” Torii asked. “I will move through the house in accordance with what sparks my interest.” She spoke slowly, enunciating each word.
Hashiba looked up at the sky and thought for a moment. “All right. If you see something that intrigues you, though, please don’t move too quickly. Can you be sure to give the cameras a chance to keep up with you?”
“Certainly. I’ll bear that in mind as I proceed.”
“I appreciate that.”
With those arrangements sorted out, Hashiba gave the camera and sound technicians their instructions.
As Saeko watched the exchange between Hashiba and Torii, a thought occurred to her.
Torii speaks like me.
Of course, that was neither here nor there. And naturally, Saeko wasn’t sure exactly how she sounded to other people. But various acquaintances, including Hashiba, had often remarked that Saeko’s manner of speech resembled that of someone far beyond her years.
“There’s a place in my neighborhood that serves really good Shinshu soba noodles,” Seiji whispered suddenly, interrupting Saeko’s thoughts. “I’ll take you there, tonight. My treat. Just you and me.”
Surprised, Saeko turned around quickly. Seiji’s face was full of wrinkles even though he was only in his mid-fifties. His small, round eyes peered o
ut at her from his puckered face and blinked frequently. It was clear that he was doing his best to smile, but his eyes conveyed no warmth.
Unbelievable. He’s asking me on a date?
Saeko would have preferred not to eat with Seiji even if the rest of the staff were there too. Needless to say, she had no desire to be alone with him. Besides, she didn’t feel comfortable letting someone who was deeply in debt buy her a meal.
“I’m afraid I have a dinner meeting with the rest of the team tonight,” Saeko gently turned him down. In fact, there was no official plan for that evening, but it was more than likely that things would turn out that way.
Seiji widened his eyes, like a chicken hit by a peashooter. “What time will you finish?”
“Finish …?”
“We can meet up after your dinner meeting.”
Seiji wasn’t taking no for an answer. Saeko shuddered. “I’m not sure exactly what time we’ll be through, but I imagine it might be quite late.”
“I don’t mind. That’s fine. I’ll wait for you if it takes all night.”
“I really couldn’t trouble you to do that.”
“It’s no trouble. You really shouldn’t worry about other people so much. You should do what you want to do, and come and have soba noodles with me. Really, you’re being too formal.” As Seiji spoke, his hand reached for Saeko’s shoulder, but she twisted out of the way.
“I’m afraid it just won’t work out tonight,” she said with an exaggerated grimace. It wasn’t easy to evade a person who interpreted everything the way he wanted.
Seiji’s hand fiddled with the keys in the pocket of his tracksuit pants, and their jangling issued from the area near his crotch. He was probably fingering the key to the front door of the Fujimuras’ house.
It was as if the jingle were meant to say, If you want to get into the house, young lady, you’d better do as I say.