Deep Red

by Hisashi Nozawa

  “Of course not. There’s no need to think about that yet.”

  A college student who had appeared on an elementary school’s grounds one afternoon to join the hurdles match and to speed past the track team girls one after another—Kanako tried to understand him. After finishing in first place, he wanted the kids there to applaud him, but Shoko and the others backed away, creeped out. A teacher came running from across the field and pinned him down.

  Before, the story had been something fun to laugh at, but not anymore. A mentally ill person, whom healthy people didn’t understand, getting wrestled to the ground—wasn’t that a sad story?

  “Can you tell when you become weird?”

  “Akiba, let’s stop talking about this.”

  “Mr. Ihara, if I become like that but can’t tell, will you tell me?”

  “Akiba, you won’t become like that college student.”

  “I promise not to cause trouble for anyone.”

  She wouldn’t forget to do her homework. She’d eat all of her school lunches. She wouldn’t make a big deal and go to the infirmary over a little tummy ache. That might worry everyone. No matter what awaited her, she’d remain the same Kanako.

  She was steeling herself, gritting her teeth and padding her heart with armor against the tragedy that was about to confront and overwhelm her.

  The tollgate was approaching. They were about to enter the freeway.

  “After this, it’s just one straight road,” their driver, Mr. Ikeda, said. He lowered the window on his side and took a card from the tollgate. Then, on the freeway, the taxi accelerated at a completely different rate from before. They crossed the cruising lane, entered the passing lane on the far right, and kept picking up speed.

  The places where the road segments joined sent rhythmic pulses through the vehicle. Only dots of light from houses and a dark moonless sky passed outside the window. Few stars were visible through the glass.

  When Kanako turned her gaze forward, a red light was transforming madly. It was the taxi fare meter. The numbers were jumping up faster than she’d ever seen. It was her first experience riding a taxi on the freeway.

  2860 yen. 2920 yen. 2980 yen. 3040 yen…

  The sixty-yen blips kept up, and she wondered how much it would add up to by the time they reached the hospital in Tokyo. It might cost somewhere around 30,000 or 40,000 yen.

  No doubt, Mr. Ihara would pay for now, but she thought, forth-rightly enough, that she’d need to reimburse him soon because it was for her and her family that they’d taken a cab.

  She wondered how much money was in her father’s wallet. The moment she did, she pictured a ten-thousand-yen bill drenched with blood emerging from it, and her nerves screamed.

  Kanako squeezed her eyes shut and tried to chase away the image.

  3220 yen. 3280 yen. 3340 yen…

  She also averted her eyes from the red arithmetic. She had no choice but to stare out the car window into the darkness. Beyond the guardrail, on the opposite lane, a large truck passed by with a roar. Red and yellow decorative lights covered its freight compartment and depicted the morning sun over Mount Fuji. She remembered seeing a similar illustration at the public bath that her family had visited when their home one had broken down.

  Her young brothers had wanted to enter the women’s bath with Kanako and their mother. Their father had gone into the men’s all by himself.

  Don’t run, their mother scolded Tomoki and Naoki when they started to play tag in the washing area.

  Her little brothers poked just their toes into the bath and recoiled. Hot!

  It’s not if you go in all at once, Kanako said, trying to drag them in.

  Okay, ready and, Tomoki and Naoki yelled together and jumped in.

  See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

  Her brothers threw Kanako matching grins as they struggled to bear the heat, their cheeks turning red. Hey sis, let’s count to a hundred!

  Tomoki started counting. “One.”

  Naoki said, “Two.”

  Kanako followed with “Three.” It was their custom when the three of them bathed together.

  Then, from across the wall, their father called from the men’s bath, “Four.” Kanako and her brothers beamed.

  From the cleansing area where she was removing her makeup, their mother continued, “Five.”

  Six, seven, eight, nine, ten…

  They split the hundred between the five of them and counted. It wasn’t anything special, but fun.

  Kanako started wondering how many of her family were left. How many of them, to count to a hundred?

  Who and who had survived? They couldn’t all have died and left her alone. A nasty sensation tingled down her spine, like never before.

  “We’ll have to redo the school trip for you, Akiba.”

  “What? You don’t have to.”

  “Every summer break my family goes out to Okutama. We camp out for a night and fish trout. Maybe I’ll invite everyone in the class this year.”

  The campfire and folk dance she was missing out on—that was something Kanako could look forward to.

  But what she couldn’t imagine was what kind of summer break she would be having. What would have happened to her two months from now? Would she have recovered enough to vacation with everyone? Not knowing how much of an impact what she was about to witness might have on her, she couldn’t even imagine her near future.

  “Are you okay with the bathroom? We’re approaching a parking area,” the driver Mr. Ikeda called out.

  “Well, then, can we make a stop? Breathing some fresh air will do us good.”

  The taxi changed lanes and decelerated, choosing the road to the parking area. Kanako could see a spacious lot and a brightly lit building. The taxi pulled up close to the restrooms.

  She stepped outside twith Mr. Ihara. Perhaps because she had been in the same position for so long, Kanako’s knee gave a crack. She walked slowly while stretching.

  “Well, I’ll wait right here,” her teacher said.

  Her bladder didn’t feel that full, but thinking of the long trip ahead, she decided to go.

  There seemed to be very few people in the large women’s bathroom. Someone’s violent coughing echoed loudly, but that was it. Kanako chose a stall with a western-style toilet and sat down. As expected, not much came out.

  She left it and went to the sinks. She saw her reflection in the mirror. Perhaps it was the fluorescent lights, but she looked pale like she’d been ill.

  Her eyes were like her mother’s, double-lidded but small. The bridge of her nose was a smooth diagonal, and her lips were also on the plush side. If your eyes were a bit bigger, you could become a hot actress, her father had once said when he was drunk. Her braids were coming apart. She’d been so happy the first time she managed to braid her hair without her mother’s help. That was in first grade.

  Whenever she washed her hair it took time to dry because of its length. But she didn’t want to cut it. Kanako was proud of the fact that she had never gone under four inches.

  Her expression didn’t particularly betray any uncertainty apart from the paleness.

  I have to make sure to take a good look at this face.

  She wondered why she thought so. When they reached Tokyo, she would change whether she wanted to or not. This was her, before the change. This was herself as she should be. Kanako stared at herself, determined to burn the image into her mind.

  What kind of face would she make crying? How long until she saw this face smile again?

  Kanako tried smiling. She wanted to remember her smiling face too. Slight indentations, not quite dimples, appeared on both of her cheeks. Usually, the ends of both her eyes drooped more, and large white front teeth peeked behind her lips, but the overall stiffness of her expression hindered the smile.

  Something clunked behind her. She jumped as though someone had scolded her on her poor attempt at smiling, and turned around.

  A lady in a green one-piece dress and
sandals was coming out of one of the stalls. She was the person who had been coughing. She was perhaps in her thirties. The edges of her mouth were wet, and she was wiping at it with the palms of her hands. When her teary, bloodshot eyes caught sight of Kanako, her eyebrows quirked in curiosity. She seemed to think it strange that an elementary school girl was alone by herself in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

  The lady staggered over to the sinks. Three faucets away, she sucked water into her mouth and rinsed. It appeared she still had phlegm in her throat, and she made pained noises.

  It had to be carsickness. Kanako passed behind the woman and tried to head to the exit.

  The lady smelled. The stinging reek of alcohol rose off her body as though she’d been drenched in it. It wasn’t carsickness; she was drunk to the point of vomiting. Kanako imagined the woman sitting next to someone and gulping down alcohol as they drove along the freeway.

  Their eyes met through the mirror. What are you looking at? the lady’s seemed to say. It wasn’t just the alcohol, the coarseness came from somewhere inside her. Kanako hastily averted her gaze and trotted to the exit.

  Mr. Ihara was waiting for her.

  “Shall I get you something to drink?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “It’ll still take some time to get to Tokyo, so let’s get something. Juice is good, right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ihara.”

  “I need to make a call, so get back in ahead of me, will you?”

  Her teacher approached the store. Mr. Ikeda had just bought some canned coffee and was on his way to the driver’s seat.

  Kanako noticed a man in a jacket leaning over and smoking a cigarette in front of the women’s bathroom. He repeatedly cast worried glances towards the entrance. Kanako guessed that he was with the lady who had been vomiting. No reek of alcohol came from the man, probably because he had been the one driving.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, this is bullshit…”

  Kanako heard him mutter angrily, but only twelve, she couldn’t begin to guess whether it was the lady’s advanced state of inebriation or the reason behind her imbibing so heavily that irritated him.

  She decided to return to the taxi. Holding a juice pack and tea, Mr. Ihara came jogging back from the store. Mr. Ikeda opened the door. Their midnight drive began once again.

  Mr. Ihara offered her the orange juice, and even though Kanako wasn’t thirsty, she accepted it.

  They left the parking lot and returned onto the freeway. They passed two cruising lanes before accelerating on the passing lane.

  11260 yen. 11320 yen. 11380 yen…

  “If we make good time, we should be off the expressway in around an hour,” Mr. Ikeda reassured his passengers.

  “I just contacted Tokyo, but could I ask you to take us to the medical examiner’s office in Otsuka instead of Aisei Hospital?”

  “Do you have the address?” The Shinshu Asahi Transportation driver was understandably unfamiliar with the streets of Tokyo.

  “If you have a map, I’ll look for it.”

  The interior of the car suddenly seemed filled with commotion. Mr. Ikeda handed a road map of the Kanto region to Mr. Ihara in the back. Kanako’s teacher chanted the address that he had been told over the phone while gazing at the map.

  The Medical Examiner’s Office. It was the first time Kanako had ever heard of such a hospital. Its name sounded awfully severe for a hospital.

  A dark ball of foreboding clogged her heart. She could feel the vessels in her temple pulsing.

  Why would her family, injured in an accident, be moved to a different hospital? Had their injuries been so serious that they couldn’t be treated at Aisei? But would they really relocate people who were in critical condition?

  Perhaps it wasn’t a hospital where injured people received treatment, but a place where those who no longer needed any ended up. Kanako was surprised at how clearly she was beginning to think.

  They had died. All of them.

  “After you exit the freeway and enter the Metropolitan Expressway, go into the Ring Route at Miyakezaka, and from there exit at Gokokuji on the Ikebukuro subway line.”

  Mr. Ihara stuck his finger in the page that marked the location, then pretending not to notice Kanako’s gaze, stared resolutely out the window on the far side. It was clear that he didn’t want to answer any questions. He was cheating, or maybe it was kindness.

  Kanako pulled off the plastic with the straw from her juice pack. She extended the straw and inserted it. She sucked up the juice. The viscous and sweet liquid flowed down her throat. She realized how thirsty she’d been. Gulp, gulp, she downed the juice noisily in one go.

  She felt that if she didn’t speak, she might burst out in tears. “Mr. Ihara, what should I do for the writing composition on the trip?”

  “Let’s see. How about you write on a theme of your choice.”

  The exchange ended at that.

  Kanako felt like she was being made to stand precariously atop a ladder.

  “You have an ‘aunt from Hachioji’?”

  “Yes, she’s my father’s younger sister.”

  Shingo in his second year of middle school. Maki in fourth grade. The two of them were her cousins. Their father made film magazines at a publishing company. Their living room was lined with an enormous number of movie videotapes. During a family visit to their place over spring break, all of the kids had watched The NeverEnding Story together. I want to ride Falcon too, Tomoki had said. He was talking about the “luckdragon” the boy protagonist rode.

  “It seems like your aunt is waiting for us at the hospital.”

  Someone was already there, crying for her family before her. With that thought, Kanako’s loneliness eased a little.

  Could none of them be saved? Couldn’t at least one of them, at least one, survive?

  If the gods could grant her a wish to save just one of her family members, Kanako wondered who she would choose.

  She recalled their faces. If her father, the pillar of their family, survived, she wouldn’t have to worry about money. If her mother survived, Kanako would be able to continue to eat delicious homemade food. If she chose Tomoki, or Naoki…

  Naoki was still only four years old. It was too horrible, dying after having lived only four years. If she had the choice to save one of them, she was going to pick Naoki without hesitation.

  Lights were approaching up ahead. The freeway exit. Just as Mr. Ikeda had said, exactly an hour had passed since they had left the parking area. Mr. Ihara said, “Please pay with this,” handing over a ten-thousand-yen bill, and was given back the change.

  As soon as they entered the Metropolitan Expressway, the roads started to congest.

  They could see an electronic sign: a 5-km jam due to an accident.

  “Really? A five-kilometer jam at this time of night?”

  It was 1:30 a.m. Mr. Ikeda looked appalled. Lines of red tail lamps stretched before them.

  Since the going was slow, the driver must have been taking it upon himself to memorize the route to their destination, because Mr. Ihara offered, “Are you good? I don’t mind giving you directions.”

  “No, I can memorize it.”

  Perhaps it was Mr. Ikeda’s pride as a taxi driver. Maybe he wanted to make sure that he was delivering the girl to her family via the shortest possible route. Kanako thought that he must be the responsible type.

  “You should get off at the next interchange,” Mr. Ihara spoke with the experience of a Tokyo local.

  “Really now,” Mr. Ikeda replied skeptically. Perhaps he just disliked being ordered around by his passengers.

  “Please get off there. It’ll definitely be faster that way.”

  “Well, if you say so,” the driver reluctantly agreed, but they were moving at a snail’s pace to the interchange the boards said were two kilometers ahead.

  “I’m sorry about this, Akiba.”

  “No…it can’t be helped.”

  Kanako noticed that the
entire back seat was vibrating a little. Mr. Ihara’s right foot was tapping irritably.

  An ambulance siren sounded faintly from beyond a marked-off area. Mr. Ihara clicked his tongue when a family car attempted to cut in front of them from the neighboring lane. Mr. Ikeda let them in.

  Eventually they saw a wrecked car surrounded by police vehicles. The front had completely caved in. The windshield was cracked as though a spider had spun a web on it. They couldn’t see any injured people, who’d most likely already been taken away by the ambulance. The police were using glowing red rods to guide the traffic past the crash site.

  Mr. Ikeda tilted his head. “An odd congestion…It’s still packed.”

  “True…” Mr. Ihara agreed, just staring straight ahead.

  Suddenly, Kanako came to a realization.

  Her family hadn’t been in a traffic accident. If they had, Mr. Ihara would be trying to distract Kanako’s attention from this scene, but he made no such move. He already knew that her family had come to harm in a manner that had nothing to do with traffic accidents.

  “At any rate, please get off at the next interchange,” Mr. Ihara directed, his tone almost a command. The taxi changed lanes and headed towards the exit.

  “So, that wasn’t it, Mr. Ihara,” Kanako said.

  “What wasn’t?”

  Apparently, Mr. Ihara had misunderstood and thought she was disagreeing with getting off the Metropolitan Expressway now. Noticing her questioning gaze, he instinctively braced himself, but eventually caught on to her real query.

  “They weren’t in a traffic accident, right?”

  “I told you before. I haven’t a clue, either.”

  “Did everyone die? Did someone survive?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “You’re worried about me. That’s why you’re purposely not telling me.”

  “See here, Akiba…”

  “They were all moved to a hospital that doesn’t sound like a hospital because it was too late for all of them, right?”

  “Akiba, please listen.”

  “If I’m going to find out soon anyway, tell me.”

  Kanako meant to be asking calmly in a voice that was neither agitated, trembling, nor interrogatory. Still, Mr. Ihara turned pale as though he were being tortured.