Deep Red

by Hisashi Nozawa

  “We’ll make sure your makeup’s perfect, and I’ll manipulate the lighting. I’ll shoot you so no one will know it’s you.”

  They had talked about this for some time. Takumi wanted her to model nude for him.

  “Aren’t there plenty of girls with prettier bodies than mine?”

  “Are you okay with me taking nudes of another girl?”

  He was asking her if she wouldn’t be jealous. All Kanako did was shrug.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve taken pictures of you naked, remember?”

  She thought back on the vacation they had taken to Okinawa this past summer. He had quickly snapped shots of her as she had been changing, capturing her clear bikini lines. But Kanako had confiscated both the prints and negatives. It wasn’t as though she had decided to spend the rest of her life with Takumi. After they broke up, he might leak them as “nudes taken by her ex.” Takumi had complained, “Wow, way to trust me,” but it was the least a twenty-year-old girl could do to protect herself.

  “Then how about this? We’ll take them for now, and if there’s a masterpiece we’ll display it.”

  There was an organization called the Kanto University Photography Club Association, and once a year they rented out a gallery to display their projects.

  “You took plenty of my nudes, I think we can wait around ten years for you to take more.”

  “Kanako at age thirty?”

  He stared at Kanako’s upper body as though he were running his tongue all over it, most likely trying to imagine it.

  “Take photos of how a woman ages in ten years.”

  “There’s no knowing whether we’ll even be together then.”

  “Exactly, Takumi. We meet up again for the first time in a while, and you’ll take photos of a me who has experienced many kinds of love.”

  She would experience love with various men, and have all kinds of sex with those men, and perhaps her cells would be in tatters. She wanted to see it through Takumi’s camera.

  Their drinks arrived. They clinked their glasses together. Both of them must have been thirsty because they drained half their glasses in a single gulp.

  She wondered how many hundreds of photos of her this man had taken from his angle.

  Kanako had a private album where all his photos of her ever since they’d met were arranged in chronological order. The first one had been taken at her entrance ceremony. Kanako, wearing a brand-new navy suit, had exited the auditorium with her aunt. That was when Takumi, then a sophomore trying to recruit freshmen for his club, turned his camera towards her and quickly snapped a photo.

  “It’ll be posted outside the clubroom tomorrow, so come check it out. If you like it, join our club,” he blabbered before moving into a crowd of freshman in search of his next model.

  That was how she’d met Takumi. He hadn’t made a particularly good or bad impression on her. Her aunt warned, “Watch out for boys like him.”

  The next day when she went to the photography club, there was a large corkboard packed with photos of girls taken during the entrance ceremonies. She found herself, looking shocked at having suddenly had a camera turned on her.

  “A fail. You look stupid in that one.”

  Takumi was standing behind her. He’d taken it without her permission and had the nerve to tell her that she looked “stupid.” Kanako forcefully ripped the photo from the board and stuck it in her pocket.

  “Hey, won’t you let me try again?”

  She ignored him. Then he said, “This time, naked,” and Kanako turned to glare fiercely at him. He had messed up a face shot. Why would she bare her naked body to him?

  Takumi grinned without a hint of shyness before waving bye. He had given up recruiting her for the club but was the very picture of friendliness as he said, “Let’s meet again, it’d be nice if we made it a date.”

  After that, she would sometimes see Takumi fiddling with his camera in the courtyard, a cigarette between his lips. But they didn’t speak. It was clear that Takumi had also noticed her but wasn’t making any move to approach her. That only served to make her conscious of him.

  It had been after summer break her freshman year. She had been eating buckwheat noodles with Eri in the student cafeteria when Takumi suddenly joined them with a thud. “I made a compilation,” he said, thrusting out a pocket-sized album.

  Eri’s eyes seemed to ask, “Who is this guy?” as she looked back and forth between Kanako and Takumi. Kanako decided to check out this compilation or whatever it was. It was filled with photos of her. All of them had been taken with a long-distance lens, but she didn’t look “stupid” in any of them.

  “When did you…”

  The scenery around her was blurry because it had been taken with a long-distance lens, and Kanako was the only thing that stood out. There were few smiles. She looked gloomy when she was facing down, and like she was holding back tears when she was facing up.

  There was also a photo of her walking alongside Eri. That was the only one that showed her with an ebullient smile.

  She felt mild surprise. This was what the face of the person called Kanako Akiba looked like. It was the first time she was seeing dozens of images of her own face at once, so that may have been part of it.

  “Isn’t it kind of problematic for you to take pictures without your subject knowing?” Eri glared at him, but Takumi didn’t seem bothered.

  “You know, you have a fine face, too. Well-rounded, with a beautiful smile, the kind that brings joy to those around you.”

  “I suppose. Can you make more prints of these?”

  Eri had fallen for Takumi’s sweet words.

  “I’m Takumi Watanabe.”

  “Hey, he’s introducing himself,” Eri poked her friend.

  “…Kanako Akiba,” she said sourly.

  “I’m this girl’s manager, Eri Sudo,” the soccer freak declared as if she really managed Kanako at a modeling agency.

  “Kanako, Akiba,” Takumi slowly, carefully repeated it.

  “So you’re what they call a stalker,” Kanako concluded after looking through to the last photo.

  “Did I harass you in any way? I bet you didn’t even realize I was taking photos of you.”

  “You’re harassing me now. It’s unpleasant.”

  “In return for my masterpiece, cheer up?”

  “Don’t ever take pictures of me without my permission again,” she told him before tossing the album into her own bag and taking her tray to the return counter.

  “Wait, are you taking that with you?”

  “Didn’t you give it to me?”

  Eri smirked and said, “I’m loving all this bluster.”

  The following day, Takumi called to invite Kanako out on a drive. He had apparently gotten her number from Eri.

  “Why did you tell him?” she immediately called Eri to complain.

  “You didn’t seem like you would mind, Kako,” Eri exonerated herself. “So did you turn him down?”

  “Yeah, for now.”

  If she said yes too quickly, he would think she was an easy girl. The second time he asked her out, she actually was busy with her part-time job.

  She couldn’t turn him down the third time. When she thought of him taking photos of her with the sea at her back, she even looked forward to it.

  But Takumi hadn’t brought his camera to their drive. It may have been because Kanako had accused him of being a stalker.

  They lazed about along the shore of Inamuragasaki until the afternoon. They had fun pretending to play baseball with a rubber ball and plastic bat until they were drenched in sweat.

  The sunset was so pretty that she couldn’t evade Takumi’s lips as they drifted closer.

  Well, I don’t mind my first kiss being like this—she remembered the feeling akin to resignation as she and Takumi kissed.

  They made the next base on Christmas Eve, just like a stereotypical couple. Why not, it’s Christmas Eve—she felt resigned again. The survivor of a massacred fam
ily was allowed to experience normal love too. Proving that to herself was more important than anything.

  The setting had been Takumi’s apartment. They had stocked up on food from the delicatessen and had a party with just the two of them.

  They watched a rental video of Someone to Watch Over Me. It was a suspense film starring Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers directed by Ridley Scott. Kanako had recommended it at the rental place.

  Although both of them were considerably tipsy from the champagne and embracing almost in the nude, Kanako’s legs remained firmly closed.

  Takumi looked so sad that she decided to get him off with her hands. She didn’t really know how to do it, so Takumi taught her himself.

  “Like this?”

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  Men are such simple creatures if these mechanical movements can satisfy them for the time being, Kanako thought, but at the same time she was jealous of that simplicity.

  On New Year’s Eve they watched the annual music competition and greeted the year 2000 together, and after a few pointless arguments, she decided to grant Takumi everything in March. She observed Takumi from beneath him as his sweaty body moved and he repeatedly whispered to her with choked breath, “I love you.” Men always work so hard, it must be such a pain, was Kanako’s honest impression.

  At first she couldn’t tell if the “black core” she felt was something all twenty-year-old women felt when they started to have sex or if it was a lump that her past had deposited in her.

  He had taken photos of her ever since the “stupid” face until she gradually revealed her body to him, almost as though recording the process of human evolution. Kanako chucked it all in her hideaway, closed the door firmly, and lived her everyday life listlessly as though she were floating.

  The photo albums of her family had been extracted from the house where the tragedy had occurred, but after that they were sealed in a box and put in storage at her aunt’s and stayed there.

  Though she had been taken in by her aunt’s family, there were only a few photos that included all of them. She’d always chosen to be on the other side of the camera. “Kako, you get in too,” her aunt would say, but she would reply, “I’m okay,” and refuse to let go of the camera.

  Having apologized for living to her deceased family, she thought that maybe she’d been reluctant to leave proof of her life in the form of photographs.

  To begin with, Kanako hadn’t ever given her face a close look. A mirror should have been a self-conscious teenage girl’s bosom buddy. But every morning when she combed her hair, she may have instinctively unfocused her eyes to be spared a direct view of her own visage.

  Traveling back from her school trip, she had stared at her reflection in the women’s bathroom in the parking area. She had burned into her memory the image of herself before her transformation. Ever since, she must have avoided what mirrors might show.

  When Takumi had presented her with numerous photos, she had wanted to see herself recorded more by his eyes. That was why she had accepted the photos despite her objections to his stalking.

  If she was asked to choose one photo as her favorite among all the ones he had taken, she had one she would pick without hesitation.

  It had been taken last November, before Takumi had slept with her. Kanako was wearing a turtleneck sweater and walking through an endless field of pampas grass at the foot of Mount Fuji. She hadn’t struck a pose or anything. Takumi, walking ahead to find a good spot, had shot her expression while she had been off guard. Kanako was looking up towards the late autumn sun and breathing in its rays.

  Her expression seemed to declare that she was a newborn freshly blessed by the heavens and that the person called Kanako Akiba had just begun.

  She was surprised that even she, who nursed a hideaway overflowing with despair and cruelty, could put on such a peaceful expression.

  “Well…if it’s just taking them, go ahead.”

  Looking back over their history, she finally found her answer.

  “I was counting on you to say that!”

  Takumi happily tried to order a second draft beer. The blond guy was attending to another table and was taking a while to notice them.

  Maybe Takumi’s finder could discover whatever was overflowing out of her hideaway.

  Kanako would be washed away, abducted by that overflowing wave and be taken to those “four hours.” They repeatedly showed her that journey, from the tourist hotel in the highlands to the medical examiner’s office in Otsuka, and herself before the change.

  The blond finally noticed them. Takumi ordered a draft beer, and while Kanako still had a third of her gin tonic left, she asked for “a whiskey sour, bourbon.”

  Kanako followed the blond with her eyes as he went to tell the bartender at the counter. She sensed a different atmosphere there.

  Other than a couple of empty stools, the counter seats were full. The spotlights that fell from the ceiling seemed to form a cage that set off the area behind the counter.

  There was a woman inside the cage.

  Another member of the staff had slipped in. She was sharing the space behind the counter with the ponytailed man.

  Her black leather tank top smacked of bondage fashion. Her thin arms were exposed from the shoulder down, and her voluminous breasts seemed squished tightly. She had a tattoo on her right shoulder, the left side facing Kanako. The ink that had caught Hashimoto’s eye during his visit to the apartment.

  Kanako squinted her eyes. An image of a bell. It was the Liberty Bell.

  The woman had layered short hair dyed brown. Her cheeks formed perfect isosceles triangles. Her eyes seemed hidden in caves because her eyelashes were long. One side of her lips was twisted slightly. Kanako wondered if that was her equivalent of a smile.

  The woman quickly poured the beer Takumi had ordered. She swiped away the foam that had overflowed and wiped the glass. Next, she turned to the shelves behind her and selected a bourbon in an instant. She poured it into the shaker, measuring with her eyes. She added a bit of lemon juice and sugar before closing the lid and shaking. The light sound rang through the “icy cavern.” It seemed as though the Liberty Bell on her arm was ringing. She poured into a sour glass, added an orange slice for embellishment—it was done.

  The blond guy brought it over.

  The female bartender had moved on to the next order. When the sneer fell from the corner of her lips, it revealed a skin-toned foreign object. It was a small Band-Aid. As if she had cut her lips from a fist-fight, the woman bore a flesh wound on her face.

  Their drinks arrived at the table.

  Takumi was asking the blond, “Do you have any appetizers?” He received several replies, but they didn’t reach Kanako’s ears.

  Her focus on the female bartender across the crowd and tobacco smoke was so intense that it had erased all background noise and thoughts.

  She took the sour glass in hand and tasted the yellow alcohol that the woman had made for her.

  The acidic taste tingled the inside of her mouth. She basked in her accomplishment: encountering this woman at last. Yesterday, Kanako had read Shiina’s article and met with the writer himself in Shibuya. Today, she had met with Hashimoto, pried from him the apartment’s address, and gone to Shimomeguro. Having obtained the ashtrays as clues, she’d come to Gotanda with Takumi.

  It had only taken two days, but she felt as though she’d completed a long itinerary to reach the woman.

  “You’re good with potato chips, right?”

  “Sure,” Kanako replied absentmindedly before taking another sip, this time gulping it down so it burned her throat. The stimulus cleared her eyes, and she realized that she felt like Miho Tsuzuki was far away when only a dozen feet separated them.

  How might Kanako fill the distance and touch the woman’s innermost core?

  “What’s the matter?”

  Takumi had a puzzled look on his face. Apparently Kanako had laughed.

  “I wonder what kind of
sound that bell will make…”

  What bell? Takumi seemed to ask, looking around. He couldn’t see Miho Tsuzuki’s tattoo from where he was. No, it’s nothing, Kanako shook her head.

  She wanted to ring that bell with all her might. Hard enough to rip it off the woman’s shoulder.

  The smile that rose to Kanako’s lips now wasn’t for any deal with the gods.

  That woman, too, must have built a hideaway inside of her. Wading through the forest, finding it, and ravaging it—the joy of it…

  That was why Kanako was smiling.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  Every second and fourth Wednesday of the month, as Kanako entered the room dyed gold by the rays of the late-afternoon sun, she had the same thoughts.

  Did the half-naked college student who had run the hurdles in her school courtyard that afternoon also spill his heart out in a nondescript office building room?

  What happened to that college student who had suddenly barged in on the hurdles match in his baggy white briefs? Maybe he had been sent back to the hospital on account of his prior history of medical illness. Late at night two years ago, during the cab drive from their school trip location in the highlands, Mr. Ihara had told her that at such clinics, doctors carefully listened to their patients and went all the way back to their childhoods to analyze their minds.

  If people went nuts because of some childhood event, wouldn’t Kanako come out funny, too, after losing her family to a traffic accident? Mr. Ihara had been flustered when she’d asked that; Kanako hadn’t been told exactly what kind of tragedy had befallen her family.

  Today, too, Dr. Tanaka wasn’t dressed in the typical white coat with stethoscope of a doctor.

  Waiting for her counseling session to begin always sharpened Kanako’s senses. She scrutinized everything from Dr. Tanaka’s attire to changes in the room’s decor.

  He was wearing a crisp shirt that had just come back from the cleaners and a navy vest, and his hair was split down the side and slicked so not a single strand was out of place. His appearance was molded perfectly to gain the trust of his patients. As usual, the area between his chin and cheeks had a shadow. He probably diligently shaved his thick facial hair every morning before arriving in the counseling room.