The Kingdom

by Fuminori Nakamura

  I followed Kizaki’s instructions and turned down another small alley. Buildings that looked like warehouses lined the hazy darkness.

  “Do you have any other questions? Is that all?”

  “What about Hasegawa?”

  “He’s not the Hasegawa you knew. He’s his older brother.”

  “What?”

  “They had different mothers. When you came to that orphanage, he had already been sent to a foster home. When I learned about you, the woman who was paying all this money for a kid named Shota, the woman who does this strange work, I happened to see his name as well, from the same orphanage.”

  My vision narrowed.

  “I thought I’d have him approach you just in case you tried to run. Wouldn’t it have been great if you ran to him for help and I was there?”

  He chuckled. Something like loneliness suddenly surged through me.

  “I guess he didn’t have the right attitude for it.”

  “He can take on any personality. He seems to have been born a compulsive liar. I’ve heard he seems especially kind when he’s helping others out. He doesn’t consider the destruction that comes afterward. He seems to get drunk on his own kindness when he’s helping someone, but then, afterward, he gets angry. He wonders why they aren’t unhappy. And then he tears them apart. He does exactly as much bad as he does good. But he looks so sweet.”

  These twisted people. This whole place was unbelievably twisted. But that had probably drawn out my twistedness as well.

  “How great. There were several possible cases. All these forking paths, but they all ran in the same general direction. It’s impressive, and I’m really surprised that you made it this far, but this is the end of the end. You kept betraying people, and in the end you can’t escape. Get out here.”

  The ground was covered in cement and there was nothing but warehouses. It seemed like it was all sinking into the darkness. A little ways away was a port. I could smell the sea. We were at a harbor. Far, far away I could see the faint glow of a lighthouse. The light that guides boats through the distance. That powerful light might have been a trap.

  I leaned my back against the car and looked at Kizaki. I couldn’t do anything more than stand there. Kizaki pressed the gun in his right hand straight against the exact center of my forehead.

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  Everything around us was silent. There was no one besides us. I could only hear his voice.

  “I control your fate. Or you could say your fate is to be controlled by me. But that’s the same thing either way, isn’t it?”

  Kizaki pressed his hand to my chest.

  “This, this heart that brought you here. This heart that was in the very center of the center of your life. It’s beating the most wildly it has ever beaten. It’s saying ‘I want to live!’ It’s saying ‘Stop!’”

  It was as if everything inside me was flowing out through the hand on my chest and entering into him.

  “Will I shoot, or won’t I? If there really is such a thing as fate, and if it knows what will become of all humans’ lives, my consciousness is joining that giant, divine fate. Ha ha ha. My consciousness is becoming one with the power that does whatever it wants with your life. This powerful, unforgiving providence. Will I shoot? Won’t I? This moment must be unbearable.”

  Kizaki suddenly brought his face to mine.

  “Or will you become my toy? Will you try to seduce me? With everything you have.”

  The moon was full behind him. It was shining red. For some reason, it was so red I didn’t know what to do. My lips, which had touched his before, grew hot as if they were struggling to live. That heat forced its way through my entire body. Even given these circumstances, the heat in me grew so strong that my life didn’t matter. It was as if it had a will of its own. Inside you. Suddenly, I remembered those words. They didn’t seem to be coming from the moon in front of me, or from within me. My body was hot. It was so hard to breathe, my eyes grew cloudy. Now I was trying consciously to remember those words. The moon was shining bright. It was shining so bright I didn’t know what to do. This boy, inside you.

  Staring blankly at the moon, feeling the heat inside me, I recollected my life up until that moment. It was exactly as if I had led my trivial life just so I could come here. As if everything inside me, all the wounds, they were all little necessities. It was like we were on that boat I could see in the distance, and he was touching my body gently. Those bloody fingers he raised cruelly against all humanity touched only me gently. His tongue entered my open mouth. He made me take off my clothes piece by piece. He wrapped his big, sweaty arms around me. I felt his heavy body with my whole being. As those necessary, overfull sensations surrounded me, he entered me. He pierced me. Violently. Powerfully. Like he was going to break me. I wailed. My arms wrapped around him. I opened my legs to make it easier for him, to let him in deeper. He was filled with joy because of my body. I came over and over again, as if I was on fire. It was like a festival to pray for the birth of new life. I cried. He pierced me. I clung to him, crying. He was all the way inside me. He stayed there so long, so long. He let out a sudden breath. I grabbed his shoulders and took all of his sperm inside me. I took it, over and over again.

  Once he has seized control of the very core of this earth, I will kill him. I will make my child the king of this dark world. That sudden, enormous betrayal will make my body so hot it will shine like fire. A heat you can never experience in everyday life. In that moment, I will be the most beautiful thing shining on this earth. Next to his corpse, I will shine more beautifully, more freely than anyone or anything. That is the moment I will get it. I will make that powerful, black light that looks down on this whole earth mine. I will claim that heat. That moment that envelops everything. I will claim that powerful darkness. That beautiful, shining darkness that stands over the world, cruel and proud.

  “But.”

  Suddenly, I began to cry. It wouldn’t be like that, I realized. I felt that things wouldn’t turn out that way. I kept crying. I told the man in front of me pointing a gun to my head, “But if I became your woman, wouldn’t I die a cruel death? Probably one even more awful than if you kill me now. Not everything can go according to plan. Maybe you’ll spare only your child and kill me for no reason. You could show me everything I left unfinished . . . And then you’d kill me as I burn with desire. It would be like I lived my life just to have your child, and once that job is done . . .”

  He kept staring at me. “That might be true.”

  I shook my head. I kept shaking my head. Like a child about to explode with discontent, like a baby trying to get its way. He slowly pulled down the hammer of the gun with his thumb. The whole arm holding the gun tensed.

  “There’s one final thing you should know. The thing you think you want most is not necessarily what you truly want. Humans are like that.”

  Kizaki’s shoulders grew tense. He moved suddenly. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t speak. It couldn’t be true. I knew what was happening, but none of it felt real. I tried to find the strength to scream. Was this the sound of an explosion? I couldn’t see the moon anymore. My ears were hot. But, for some reason, I could still see Kizaki in front of me.

  “Think calmly. Do you really think I’d go out of my way to kill someone like you?”

  Kizaki was smiling. I stared blankly at his thin eyes behind his sunglasses. Was the liquid flowing down my ear blood? I couldn’t understand what was happening.

  “I’ll let you live. In exchange for your life.”

  Kizaki lowered the gun. My whole body relaxed, and I sat down right there. My shoulders were shaking. I couldn’t control my body.

  “You will take responsibility for several small crimes involved in this incident . . . As someone already dead. To obscure our participation in the incident, and to make things make sense.”

  My
mind was still blank, but I tried to stand up.

  “I will rewrite your life. Your whole past. Yours will be the story of the death of a beautiful prostitute who worked behind the scenes of several incidents. We will make you take responsibility for several of our crimes. You will lose the whole life you led, but you we will spare your life.”

  I could see the moon in the distance.

  “Rather than leaving behind a corpse, you’ll use that passport to become a different person and disappear. That turned out to be better for us. There’s something amazing about the way you clung to your life. You’re interesting. So we’ll let you live.”

  For some reason the moon grew calm. It was as if the light shining until a moment ago was only temporary. I could hear a boat’s engine in the distance. The sea was trembling. I noticed that the wind felt cold on my cheeks and neck. My body was still shaking. I couldn’t stand up.

  “This was all meaningless. I get to go free for no reason at all. I . . .”

  “There is a reason. It’s a stupid one, though. Revenge. Revenge for that child’s death.”

  Kizaki looked at me coldly.

  “You couldn’t save his life, so, like an idiot, you came to hate anything you couldn’t explain. And you resisted the things around you that you couldn’t understand. This time it was your own life on the line, but that didn’t really matter. You’d’ve taken it as a loss if anyone’s life was stolen without reason.”

  “I couldn’t save that child.”

  “How stupid,” Kizaki said, exasperated. “It’s not a question of good and bad. You made such a fuss, that useless child managed to get better temporarily. He was so pathetic, but he managed to stand on his own two legs again. Someone probably told him that the world needed people like him. He may have even thought he’d actually get better. You see, it’s not a question of what’s good and what’s bad. What’s important is savoring all that he experienced.”

  “You said something similar when you were talking about your theory of evil.”

  “They’re the front and back of the same coin. That’s why you should have smiled and enjoyed your sadness at his death. The death of a child is a wonderful thing.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  I could see several cars in the shadow of one of the warehouses some ways off. Their lights were pointed down, and they were coming toward us.

  “I had planned on seeing you off, but guess I can’t. Do what you like with that car,” Kizaki said. He began to walk away.

  “Wait. Really?”

  The cars grew gradually closer.

  “Don’t make me say it again. I don’t care what you do with your life. How egotistical.”

  He didn’t bother to look at me.

  “Thank me privately. Well, I guess you won’t thank me. I took your life away.” He kept talking, though he seemed bored. “Who am I who took your life away? Think about it. Hide yourself somewhere. Leave the country once everything calms down. You can’t become a different person with just a passport. I’ll have my men prepare the other documents. I’ll pardon you for the pleasure I got from your making it all the way to the end. Consider it thanks for helping with the destruction of Yata. Go. If you’re not satisfied, just show yourself to me again. You’re a great way to waste time. Next time, I might kill you.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m not doing anything. I’m going back to the show.”

  He turned from me lazily. I wondered if he’d ever look at me again.

  “But will you ever be fulfilled? Don’t you just feel empty?”

  “You still don’t understand anything.” Kizaki laughed suddenly. “Then you just have to enjoy the emptiness. That’s the only answer in this world.”

  He walked toward the black cars. He abandoned me there without looking back.

  I realized I had a faint memory of this scene. The back of someone who abandoned me when I was small. I was too young to say what I wanted. I was still very little, but I remember watching that person walk away. Little by little, that memory bubbled up inside me. That calm scene was probably the beginning of my life.

  It was as if my life was bookended by this scene. Like some sort of strange cycle.

  18.

  The airport at night. It was crowded.

  I couldn’t take my knife on the plane, so I hid it in my checked bag. I wondered if they’d take it. I wouldn’t use it for anything, but I felt uncomfortable without it. I didn’t have confidence in my ability to live on without it.

  The news was on repeat on the TV in the waiting area for the boarding gate. Several more diplomats had killed themselves, and a bunch of Diet members and local officials had either killed themselves or stepped down from their positions. Ambassadors from other countries staying in Japan were also being swapped out, and the stock market and the value of the yen continue to rise and fall unnaturally. Several people from the financial world had gone missing. The announcer continued his broadcast, speaking passionately. While I watched the news, I wondered absentmindedly whether Yata was still alive. Kizaki said Yata would die, but for some reason, I thought he was still alive. Yata wasn’t the type to die so easily. Maybe he’d hidden himself somewhere and was waiting, silently, for something. I didn’t know what he’d be waiting for, but for some reason, I imagined he was.

  I felt thirsty, so I bought black tea from a vending machine. Behind the large plane waiting to take off, the moon was shining, almost full.

  What was the moon then? Was it just my fantasy? An illusion that suddenly came to my scared, tired body? Or maybe that illusion tried to fool me, but I didn’t let it. I kept staring at the moon. I’m not sure if its light was good or evil. I thought it might not be either. The moon just shines with the light of chaos. Mysteriously. Brightly. That must not be either good or evil. Just as the rules of this world are not all good.

  The earth will block the sun little by little, and the moon will gradually shrink until it finally disappears. Just as if it can’t bear all of its own energy. Ancient people grew worried when the moon vanished, and held festivals to pray for its return. The moon appeared again. Just a thin crescent, but clearly shining. But, still, that did not reassure the ancient people. They were scared that instead of growing fuller, that thin light would vanish again. So they held more festivals to reassure themselves.

  A man might appear out of nowhere at any moment and shoot me. Even now, someone might be watching me from a distance. I couldn’t say that I was safe yet. He knew my new name. When I arrived overseas I’d have to find another name.

  Was this the same moon I saw then? My life was taken by that man, but now I’m sitting here like this. Something enormous passed right by me, and I still haven’t completely regained control of my body. I remembered that man walking away. What was that exhausting sadness I felt then? It was like I witnessed a story I had lost. That story fit between the essential scenes that bookend my life. But then I started again from that scene. I’m not a child anymore. I have no choice but to live. All I have left is my life. I thought about rebirth, and laughed. To be abandoned is the same thing as to be free. I set myself free with my own hands. Can’t I do anything for all the people struggling in this suffocating world? I’m not sure what I could do, but anything would be fine. Something that suited me. Like helping children like Shota cheat their fate.

  And if one day I could return to Tokyo, I would walk through that city. I remembered that man with the long fingers who stole my knife. I could probably tell him what happened if I could find him again. What would he say? I wonder if he’d tell me what happened to him.

  What tide was I being tossed around by? Who or what had I betrayed? What had I escaped from?

  From now on, I had to start putting in my time again. The next time some great force like that comes to me, will I take hold of it?

  •••

  Out of nowhere
, a man in a suit came walking toward me. For some reason, that big man drew my attention. I lost my breath. My pulse went wild. He didn’t look like he would turn at the corner. He was walking straight toward me. I had no time to think about what to do. I grabbed my bag and started to stand up, but then I saw a woman waving at him. He joined her and they walked into a busy shop. I exhaled. The old person sitting in front of me turned, surprised by my sudden movement. There was no helping it. I’d be like this for a while.

  The kid sitting caddy corner from me was crying. He was asking his mother for something, and she refused. The mother was ugly, but the child had a beautiful face. My eyes met the child’s. His crying face was funny to me for some reason, and I smiled slightly. At first, I thought he looked like Shota. Then I realized he didn’t look like Shota at all. The mother went to the bathroom. The child was still crying.

  I got up from my seat. I moved my clumsy body carefully, faced the child, and crouched down so our eyes would meet. The child was surprised, and looked at me strangely. Of course he did. A tired, gaudy-looking woman had just appeared out of nowhere. He didn’t look like he’d stop crying for anything.

  He looked at the vending machine at the edge of his vision, and stared at the tea in my hands. “You want this?” When I asked, he made a serious face, looked at the tea, and began to reach his small hands out. But then he hesitated. I smiled. Heat spread through my body.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not poison.”

  Author’s Afterword

  This is my tenth novel.

  When I was working on The Thief, I thought I wanted to write not a sequel but a sister novel. Two novels where you could read either one first, or even just enjoy one on its own.

  If you enjoyed this novel, I’d be happy if you picked up The Thief as well. There are a lot of connections between the two, and I think you’ll enjoy them. That, however, is just my hope as a novelist. There are the same number of chapters in The Kingdom as The Thief, and the page counts differ only by one page. That was a complete accident, of course. It seems that these two novels just needed to be written that way. When writing novels, these kinds of coincidences sometimes occur.