It was a peaceful dinner. We had ice cream and coffee afterwards.
After that, Kango and Junji moved to the seats in the corner of the hall in front of the television, which only showed NHK[vi]. They watched a foreign travel programme with their arms crossed and without exchanging a single word. Sumako said she was tired from swimming and had gone upstairs, as had Toshiyuki Inukai, while Kazuto sat in one of the rattan chairs near the windows, reading. Sonobe, who’d invited us for a drink and a talk earlier, had become engrossed in conversation with Ryūichi and the two of them had retired to Ryūichi’s room. Reiko and Satomi were doing the dishes, and Reiko had stopped Maria from helping them.
‘You really don’t have to help today. Go and talk to Mr. Egami and Alice about how you’re going to spend your time tomorrow.’
Maria finally gave in. With a ‘Let’s go,’ she invited us upstairs. She said she’d show us the attic room, which would be interesting because of all the junk there. We went up the stairs in single file.
‘Welcome to Panorama Villa’s toy box,’ said Maria as she opened the door. The boarded room contained only bookcases with doors and, on two of the walls, display cases for shells. It was a bleak space without a single chair. I’d expected a dirty, stuffy room, but it had been cleaned up nicely, with not a speck of dust in sight.
I peeked inside the glass display cases and saw over a hundred shells lined up on cotton wool. The ratio between spiral shells and clams was about three to one and they were meticulously assorted by family, such as ear shells, moon shells and ark shells. Each of them was accompanied by a card that noted the name and the day and place it had been found, but they had all turned yellow. It was sad to see such a collection after it had lost its master.
Curious as to what kind of books were in the bookcases, I walked over to one, but I stopped when I noticed a rifle leaning against the wall by the door.
‘Is that for decoration? Or is it a real functioning rifle?’
‘It’s real enough,’ said Maria, as if that was perfectly normal. ‘Why don’t you try sniffing the barrel? I bet Kazuto has been blasting away all summer, so it should smell of gunpowder.’
Having never touched a firearm before, I gingerly pointed the barrel towards my face and brought it close to my nose.
‘You sure have guts, Alice. That’s dangerous: it might be loaded.’
As soon as Maria spoke, I hurriedly turned my face away. That apparently looked so funny, even Egami started to laugh.
‘You look so cute,’ Maria said cheekily. ‘But you really should be more careful. Still, it’s really unique to see someone so afraid of rifles putting one right up to his face.’
‘Shuddup.’
I changed my grip on the rifle and pointed it at Maria’s chest. Her expression changed. ‘Stop it,’ she said, hiding behind Egami and repeating her plea. I guessed that confirmed the rifle was the real deal. As this was starting to become a very unfunny joke, I pointed the rifle up at the ceiling. With that one movement, I felt like a soldier for a moment and I experienced a kind of fear of the power involved.
‘Using our club president as a shield. You’re quite the one.’
‘You can’t talk. It’s crazy to point a rifle at someone.’
Maria remained behind Egami as she spoke. It’s safe to come out, I thought, but she might still be on her guard because I was still holding the rifle. I hadn’t held it long enough to get the feel of it, but I put it back against the wall anyway, with some reluctance.
‘I’m sorry.’
Maria appeared from behind Egami and let out a big sigh.
‘Even Kazuto has more common sense than you.’ She was still mad. ‘And he’s frightening enough.’
‘So this is his rifle?’ asked Egami and Maria nodded.
‘Yes. He got it from one of his friends. But he has no licence or anything. So he’s in violation of the Swords and Firearms Control Law. But he doesn’t take it off the island, just shoots at practice targets as a form of stress relief, so everyone on the island keeps it a secret. Heck, he lets anyone else take pot shots as well.’
‘Have you used it yourself?’ asked Egami.
‘Two or three times. I’m also guilty, I guess. We’re all accomplices…oh, except for Mr. Inukai. He used to be into clay target shooting when he was still at university, and, while he doesn’t own a rifle, he still has a licence.’
‘Mr. Inukai? The restaurant owner? That doesn’t fit his image at all’.
‘He’s not tall, but he’s quite the sportsman, actually. He’s also the best swimmer. Very different from someone else I could name.’
‘Are you talking about me? I’m quite good at swimming, I’ll have you know. Only I’m not very fast. Must be my personality.’
‘Not you, Alice. I was talking about Kazuto. He just sinks.’
To me it seemed as if Maria had little affection for her cousin. It was the opposite of how sad she always looked when she spoke of the deceased Hideto. I didn’t like Kazuto’s rude way of talking either, but I also had the impression he was not that bad a person.
‘Aha, all books on puzzles.’
I turned round to see Egami in front of one of the bookcases, reading the titles on the spines one by one.
‘There are a lot of interesting books there. You can take one with you to bed and spend the night puzzling,’ suggested Maria, but Egami shook his head and closed the book he was holding.
‘I’ll pass. I need to rest and be sharp for tomorrow. Why should I spend time on one single puzzle, when this whole island is one?’
‘If that’s your argument, why spend time racking our brains over puzzles when life itself is one?’
No. That wasn’t it.
There's no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.
Thus wrote Borges.
8
Maria’s description “Panorama Villa’s toy box,” had been exaggerated. There was nothing much of interest there, so we decided to go to Maria’s room to decide on our plans for the following day. As expected, her room was the same as ours, except that it only had one bed, but it had the same wallpaper and curtains.
‘Breakfast is served between seven-thirty and eight, so keep that in mind,’ she began energetically. ‘But what will we do after that? We could swim for a while after breakfast. Or we could go around the island by bike?’
‘Personally, I’d prefer to take a look around the island first,’ I replied. ‘And not just going around at random, but checking the direction each moai is facing.’
‘That’ll be difficult, you know. Not all of the statues are standing near the road. Oh well, let’s go cycling tomorrow then. We can check the statues we can reach without trouble and also visit the island’s best spots. There’s a hill where you can overlook the whole island and there are also some strangely shaped rock formations. We could also visit Mr. Hirakawa on the way. We’ll go swimming in the afternoon.’
And with that, the meeting was over. She’d decided the next day’s schedule all by herself. Neither Egami nor I were shrinking violets, like those people who go to a restaurant and order the same as everyone else, but discussions tended to end quickly and smoothly with Maria around. Like now.
‘I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. I did bring Ruth Rendell’s latest with me, though.’
‘Rendell? She’s good, but I don’t get as intrigued any more as when I first read her books.’
‘Alice, don’t be so demanding. There’s nobody else who can write like her. I’m going to do an essay on her for the club magazine’s autumn issue. Rendell is a master of the art. Don’t you agree, Mr. Egami?’
A lively discussion on contemporary British mystery fiction started. In the end it all came down to the personal preference, so I’ll omit the details here. The topic changed several times. And while we were considering Colin Dexter’s capabilities as a writer of puzzle plot mysteries, it happened.
‘You can’t.’
We all heard the voice
saying those words and we all went quiet at the same time.
‘You can’t. Dad’s finally having a good time with this holiday, so I don’t want you to make him angry again. What are you thinking, bringing up money now? Your timing couldn’t be worse.’
‘But I want to talk about it now because he’s in such a good mood and won’t be so difficult about it. It seems your dad hates me quite a bit, but if his cute daughter asks him, he’ll open his wallet, even as he complains in that sweet voice of his.’
‘I don’t want to ask him. How about asking him yourself?’
‘You can’t say no, just because you don’t feel like it. You’re saying I should ask him myself? That’s a good one. The moment he realises what I’m there for, he’ll come at me with a barrage of lectures. In that sweet voice of his, of course. Asking him myself is the worst possible way to do it.’
‘You’re always like that. You and dad always get along so badly.’
The voices were coming from right below the window. It was the couple Junji and Sumako Makihara. They were trying to hold a conversation quietly and in secret, but the topic soon had them subconsciously talking louder. They hadn’t realised there was anyone in the room right above them.
‘Yes, I really can’t stand him. All through the year he’s looking around for someone he can lecture. And loudly, too. He’s the type you absolutely don’t want as a father-in-law, and that’s a fact.’
‘Please, stop it. He’s my dad. I can’t take it. You and he are my only family left in the world, but seeing you two hating each other…. It really hurts.’
‘Is it that difficult for him to lend his daughter and her husband five million yen? He’s got piles of the stuff. My business might be peanuts compared to the Inukai restaurant chain, but it’s my own, which I finally managed to set up with the money I saved from driving a truck around for five years.’
‘Yes, I know, that’s why—.’
‘I won’t have my place taken from me just because of a mere five million yen debt, damn it!’
‘Let’s leave this for now, Junji. You’re getting all worked up…. I understand, and I will talk to dad. Sometime while we’re on the island.’
There was a brief pause in the discussion.
‘As soon as possible.’
‘Yes. I’ll try tomorrow… Don’t forget that in this world, the one I care most for is you.’
‘I care for you too…’
The sound of clothes rustling. Signs of hugging. The noise of footsteps receding.
We were left behind in our silence.
I coughed. ‘We were eavesdropping. That’s bad.’
‘Since their talk reached us upstairs, there was not much dropping. And eavesdropping sounds so disreputable.’ Maria brushed my concerns away. ‘But that was funny. All three of us shutting our mouths the moment we heard them talking in secret. I wonder whether that’s normal human behaviour.’
If the two of them had realised there were people in the room above during their secret talk, it would’ve been embarrassing for them. We were just being polite.
‘Mr. Makihara was crying about his business, but I didn’t even know he had one. Is it a restaurant like Mr. Inukai’s?’ asked Egami as he looked at the star-filled sky outside the window. The velvet night sky was crossed by the Milky Way.
‘Junji owns a small bar. As he said himself, it’s quite different from Mr. Inukai’s restaurant chain. But it appears as though business isn’t going well. He might not be able to repay his debts.’
‘But I do feel bad for Sumako. Having your husband and father with so much bad blood between them is enough to make you sick. Maria, when you choose your husband, you’d better have a fortune-teller tell you the compatibility between your future husband and your father.’
‘Sumako’s situation is extreme. Just listening to it makes me tired. She always lived her life freely before, but I guess now she’s stuck in a dead end.’
Maria explained that, after a free-wheeling adolescence, Sumako had taken up the same occupation as Florence Nightingale, whom she admired greatly, but had given up after a year and entered university at the age of twenty-three to study law. She’d become interested in art and had posed for Hirakawa on this very island. For a time, she’d been attracted to the middle-aged painter. Then, after she’d moved on again, she’d met Junji, the brother of one of her friends.
‘They fell in love immediately. Junji asked her to marry him after three months of dating. Unfortunately, Uncle Kango didn’t like him at all. He’d been casting nets around for a suitable husband for his daughter, but the men he had in mind were all elite employees of commercial banks or general trading companies, or in line to become the second generation presidents of a company.’
‘What kind of business is your uncle in?’ I asked.
‘He opened an accounting firm with a friend when he was in university. It’s not a big business, but he’s fairly wealthy and owns quite a lot of land in the metropolitan area. Anyway, my uncle has been looking down on Junji since they first met, and has no qualms about saying hurtful things to him.’
No wonder Junji was so bitter.
‘But Junji puts up with that for a reason. Uncle Kango didn’t object when Junji married into the Makihara family, probably because he wished his dear daughter to be happy. He’s saved Junji’s bar before and I even heard he’d bailed Junji out after he’d lost a fortune playing mah-jong. So Junji shouldn’t act like such a bigshot either.
‘It must be really tough for Sumako. I guess she persuaded the two of them to come to the island to patch things up, but as things have turned out, she needn’t have bothered.’
Maria let out a big yawn. She wasn’t making fun of Sumako’s troubles, but was simply exhausted.
Night descended on the island. It came twice. The first time was when the sun set. The second time was when the lights disappeared from the bedrooms.
Claiming a lack of sleep, Egami said he’d go to bed early as well, so at eleven he switched off the light and crawled into bed. It seemed as if his body was starting to feel the effects of the part-time job at the construction site he’d taken to finance this trip. I decided not to switch on the reading light and pulled my sheets up to my chest as I looked up at the ceiling.
The light of the moon and stars shining into the room dispelled the darkness. A vague light covered my pillow, as the window curtains nearest my head had not been drawn. The noise of waves came washing in through the window and I attuned my ears to the breathing of the sea.
Thinking that, beneath this same roof, Maria might also be listening to the same sounds gave me a strange sensation. “It’s as if this small island turns into its own separate world, drifting away in the universe.” She’s quite the chatty romanticist.
I knew three people who were in love with her. Some of them even thought somehow that I was her boyfriend and were jealous of me. They were wrong though.
How would my other two seniors be doing back in the frying pan that is Kyōto in the summer? They might be having sleepless nights about their friends and the moai puzzle. Sorry about that.
Meandering thoughts came to me one by one, only to be washed away.
It was almost midnight when I fell asleep.
Thus ended the night of the first day.
CHAPTER TWO: LOCKED ROOM PUZZLE
1
‘I found it, I found it. Look, it’s hiding behind that tree over there.’
I turned in the direction Maria was pointing and there indeed was another moai statue. Our exploration of the island was going well. We had got off our bicycles and gone into the thickets. Because there might be yellow-spotted pit vipers around, Maria was wearing capri pants so her legs wouldn’t be exposed.
‘This one’s facing north-north-west precisely.’ I’d waited until the trembling of the compass needle had stopped to say that. ‘Maria, did you get that? North by northwest. Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.’
‘Yes, I wrote it down.’
‘We’re almost near the centre of the island, and there’s a place with a fantastic view there. Kashikijima’s own observation platform. If this island was a tourist spot, you’d definitely have a gift shop and a bus stop there.’
While Maria was saying that, she put the map in her loose leaf notebook and fastened it to the carrier rack of her bicycle. It seemed a lot of work for a simple piece of paper, but she had no choice, as these bicycles didn’t have any baskets.
‘Sounds good.’ I climbed on my bicycle. ‘Looking forward to it.’
‘And there’s another statue there too. That one was made with special care and is also quite a bit larger than the others. As if it’s significant. What could it be hiding?’
We wouldn’t know until we saw it.
There was dark green on either side of us. The wind which blew into our faces occasionally carried the heavy smell of grass in the summer. But it also contained the smell of the tide. With the humming of the sea as our background music, we cheerfully continued our cycling. After a while the road curved gently to the left. It was going around the foot of the small hill up ahead. Sitting on top of that hill was what Maria called the observation platform. We had gone a bit farther when Maria slowed down.
‘We’ll stop here.’
I noticed a small path branching off to the right, which seemed to lead to the top of the hill. We left our bicycles at the base and followed the path up to the top.
‘Look.’
Halfway up, Maria stopped and pointed to the branches of a nearby tree.
‘I think Alice will like this one too.’
It was there, five metres away, at eye-level. The slender body was only about five centimetres long but, with its legs extended, it was twelve or thirteen centimetres long: it was a big—no, gigantic—spider. It wasn’t moving at all, just sitting in the middle of the web it had weaved as a display of its craftsmanship.
The Moai Island Puzzle Page 6