The Master Key

by Masako Togawa

  The square behind is already crowded with a mob of rubberneckers. A television broadcasting van has just arrived and, pushing through the throng, taken up position in the centre of the square. It looks as if they’re just about ready to start filming. In contrast, all within the apartment block is as quiet as the grave. Everyone is secluded in her room awaiting the moment the building will be moved.

  It’s my turn to be on duty, so my opposite number is also in her room. I don’t feel at all comfortable sitting here all on my own. Comparing my watch with the clock on the wall behind me, I see that it is now twenty to twelve—that means I’ve got another twenty minutes to wait. I don’t feel like reading a book or a paper to pass the time, which hangs heavy on my hands. Sitting here vacantly, I feel it quite natural to chat to myself. The phrase goes round and round in my head—‘just a little while until the moment’—but precisely what moment? True, the office where I have sat for over thirty years, and this brick building of five storeys which has survived the great earthquake and the wartime air raids, has to be quietly moved, but is this what we residents are awaiting? This is surely just the outward appearance of the matter; being objective, which is to say looking at it from the outside, we won’t actually be able to see the building being moved.

  ‘We won’t disturb you at all. You can all carry on living in the apartments just as before. You will see—you can fill a glass with water and we shan’t even spill one drop when we move the building.’

  Such were the words of the important-looking gentlemen who had come to persuade us to accept the plans for widening the road. They were a Section Chief of the City Highways Department and the Departmental Manager of some construction company. We had opposed the earlier plans—tearing down half the building to make way for the road, or alternatively driving a tunnel through the lower three floors—and so they had come to win us over with the third plan. As a result of their explanation, given like a conjuror’s patter in their most coaxing voices, we gave way and have since become inured to living amidst the construction work, and we’re now cooped up like guinea pigs, literally holding our breath as we await the final event.

  Man is an animal that seeks to know the reason for his existence, and just as a prisoner will scratch the wall of his cell to ascertain that he is still alive, and to mark the passing of time, so we guinea pigs had become so obsessed by the promise not to spill one drop of water that we agreed to put them to the test. It was Miss Shimoda, committee representative of the third floor, who first proposed this experiment. As she had originally been a science teacher, and was naturally devoted to experiments, it was perhaps a slightly strange outcome that she should have persuaded the majority to partake in what was after all a rather unscientific experiment. For the consensus was not for all to conduct a standard experiment, but for each to lock herself in her room and carry out the test in her own fashion. There was to my mind a certain irony in this. Still, as the practice of the ladies living in the apartments has always been to live their own lives without interfering in the affairs of others, it could not be helped. So that is the reason why all went to their rooms and locked themselves in an hour ago, providing the contrast between the bustle outside and the tomblike stillness within. The only sign of life is Miss Iyoda’s cat, which she has locked out of her room. It is curled up asleep on top of the banister on the gloomy staircase.

  As for my views on this experiment—well, I think it’s childish, not to say stupid. But, as a caretaker here, I have to be sensitive to the psychology of the residents—what looks like mere child’s play in fact gives them something to be interested in. And as it is my duty to do what the majority of residents want, I too have put a glass full of water on the centre of the office desk.

  Anyway, putting such thoughts aside, when I look at the water piled up to the brim of the glass, its surface like a living membrane, I remember first learning about surface tensions when I was a student, and how a speck of dust can break through it at any time; and I wonder if they are all so engrossed in this experiment just because they wonder if it will spill?

  My answer is a definite No! The moment this building is moved, a past crime will be revealed. People are frightened that something will occur. That’s why they avert their eyes, preferring to stare instead at glasses of water.

  About six months ago, a clap-trap new religious cult called ‘Oshizu’ was very fashionable in this building. An unpleasant-looking man of about fifty, his hair plastered down with pomade, brought a girl no taller than a child known as ‘the Thumbelina priestess’. I suppose they called her a priestess because she was dressed in a white robe with loose red trousers. Just like a shrine vestal, anyway, she danced some weird whirling jig. At first, only a few of the residents associated with her. But then, after a bit, she started making prophecies and miracles and the number of believers rose. There are still some who stick like I do to the first impression that she is a fraud, but the majority are now under her influence. When I say the majority, I mean most of those who spend the daytime in their rooms—in other words, the old women past retirement age. Those who still have work to keep them busy seem to be less involved.

  But for some reason or other one thing haunted everyone’s minds—the theft of the master key some two months before. This one key, meant for the use of the wardens, can open every one of the hundred and fifty rooms in the building, and is still missing. For the last six months, everyone in the building has more or less lived in dread and uneasiness. After all, the women who have lived alone for so long in these apartments have their secrets, little aspects of their lives known only to themselves, and now someone unknown is free to pry into them, to intrude.

  As for myself, although I’ve spent nearly all my working life as a receptionist here, and haven’t been able to get about much, not even to see a film or two since my leg went wrong, and although I must as a result appear a bit eccentric, it’s not really so. I’ve enjoyed reading since I was a child, and try to understand the way of life of as many people as possible; I carefully read several newspapers every day, and hope I haven’t fallen behind the times. But most of the residents here have at some time or other had the opportunity to lead as full lives as are open to women. Now, as they grow old and look back on the bright days of their pasts, a lot of them perversely withdraw into their shells. When I sit in my office by the front door after those with jobs have left, I shudder as I look at the silent staircase and think of those women in the building who will spend their remaining days in solitude, as if imprisoned by concrete walls. They merely stay alive; they have no activity except to dream about the past. At such times as this, I have a sort of hallucination: I imagine how, in rooms on the third floor, the fifth floor, old women pass their days in silence still gazing at the broken fragments of the dreams of youth, every now and then letting fall a sigh that echoes down the corridor, until they combine on the stairway and roll down to the cavernous hallway, raising one long moan around where I sit.

  To such old maids, their little secrets are all they have to live for, all that gives them pride, all that remains of their possessions and estate. I think that the desire to pry into such secrets is reflected in the meaningless experiment with the water glasses.

  From the small window of the reception office, I gaze out through the massive glass doors of the hall which shut me off from the world outside. I can see everything that is going on out there. I can see the mob outside, thronging the square and not the slightest bit put off by the choking dust that fills the air. They jostle one another as they try to peep into the foundations. Looking at them from my side of the glass, I wonder what on earth it is they are expecting. They are waiting just like a child waits who has wound the spring of his toy as far as he can, and holds it tight before letting it go. Or are they perhaps waiting to see the hole left behind when the building is moved? Perhaps they think it’s like excavating an ancient tomb—perhaps they wonder what will be brought to light? ‘This old red-brick building has stood here for fifty
years, since it was designed by a young foreigner with the aim of helping Japanese women emancipate themselves; once aforetimes, passersby would gaze at it with envious curiosity, this house reserved exclusively for single young ladies! Now the long years have wreaked an equal havoc on both the building and its inhabitants. What secrets, carefully hidden for so long, will now be revealed in the clear light of day when the building is moved? Beneath the ground lie immured what ghosts of yesteryear…?’

  Are they lured by such trite images? Is that why they are waiting? That young housewife there, for instance, the one with a baby on her back and a shopping basket in her hand—what is it that has driven all thoughts of shopping for lunch out of her head to make her stand there with the rest? Is it after all just a short break in her busy life—just a few lost moments one noontime, I wonder? Or does she dream of witnessing—just one chance in a hundred—the collapse of our building?

  Whilst I have been conducting this meaningless conversation with myself (a habit I’ve acquired naturally when sitting alone in the office; usually when I’m in a good mood it just happens spontaneously), time has passed and it’s now five to twelve. A vigorous-looking young man has stuck his head out of the window of the television broadcasting van; he’s waving his hands about. Oh, I see, the knock-kneed man in charge of the operation is going over to talk to him… he’s wearing a safety helmet. They’re having words—now the foreman is running towards the porch! He’s opened the glass doors—making his way to my window. What can he want?

  ‘Can I borrow the phone, please? The removal’s been delayed thirty minutes—all because those television boys want to record the historic moment. Can you beat that? They went over my head to do it, too! Just because they’re behind with their preparations, we have to wait. All they can think of is themselves—what about my workmen who’ve been standing by their jacks all this time?’

  He’s really upset! He’s going to break the dial on the phone the way he’s wrenching it! There goes the noon siren, and the jacks were supposed to be operated at exactly twelve. All the residents will be staring intently at their glasses of water! What tomfoolery! I don’t know why, but this delay disturbs me too. The crowd outside are making disappointed gestures. Footsteps on the stairs—someone’s coming down—it’s Yoneko Kimura from the fourth floor. She’s not going outside—she’s going down to the basement. Funny look on her face! And here comes another. Michiyo Yamamura from the fifth floor. Her slippers slap the wooden floorboards as she makes her way over to me. She’s in a panic, all right!

  ‘The water spilled! I was just walking along the corridor on the fifth floor and Miss Ueda’s door was open! I saw the glass on her table move! The water spilled! It spilled! And Miss Ueda too—on the table… she…’

  But here’s another interruption! Yoneko Kimura, back from her trip to the basement.

  ‘Excuse me—it’s vital. Could you please unlock the door to the old bathroom downstairs?’

  And now the foreman’s shouting at the top of his voice—trying to get something through to whoever’s on the other end of the phone.

  ‘What? Dig it up with pickaxes? Unnecessary, I tell you, just leave it to us. That bathroom’s not concrete, you know.’

  Let’s see what’s going on! Everything seems to have gone crazy since they postponed the removal. Out I go into the hall—now I’m losing my head too, I forgot my crutch!

  PART THREE

  Six months before the building was moved

  Miss Tamura plays her part

  Compared with Katsuko Tojo, who was older, the other desk clerk, Kaneko Tamara, was rather a gossip, but the residents of the K apartments found her amiable and easy to get on with. When on duty in the office, she would pass the time poring over newspapers or magazines, or else knitting with oversized needles, and seemed one of those worldly custodians who hardly ever glared at those coming and going in an ill-humoured manner. The truth of the matter was that she indulged in a secret pleasure whilst serving her turn of duty. She had perfected the art of catnapping at the desk in a manner not easily detectable from outside the reception window. For this old woman with no particular hobbies and without the pleasures and cares of daily family life to keep her occupied, catnapping at the desk was just a game to be played with other people. It also brought back to her some of the thrill of snatching forty winks during a strict teacher’s lesson when she was a schoolgirl. Certainly, the effect of this daytime napping was a disrupted cycle and sleepless nights, but on the other hand she was also thereby able to avoid some of the boredom of office routine.

  On that day, too, she had been sitting at the desk since three o’clock perusing a pamphlet called ‘You and Your Palm’, which someone had left on the desk. What with the heat from the charcoal stove at her feet and the pocket warmer in her bosom, she began to feel more and more sluggish as she tried to compare her line of destiny with those shown in the book, and dozed off again. At which point, someone came to the reception window. Kaneko Tamura went through her well-tried routine of pretending to have been wide awake, creaking her chair and turning the pages of the pamphlet with apparent interest.

  But for once she could not drive from her head the passage she had been studying before dozing off—the page on the line of destiny. One of the many examples shown stayed in her mind—the broad line of destiny running straight to the base of the middle finger such as has been found on the hands of famous men. It floated before her eyes, preventing her from sleeping. She dozed only fitfully; the force and potency of the line of destiny loomed over her consciousness, giving her bad dreams.

  Toyoko Munekata, a classmate of hers at secondary school, lived on the second floor of the apartment building. Now, she seemed to appear before Kaneko in her dream, berating her: ‘How much longer are you going to carry on this sort of work? A lowly receptionist—a disgrace to our school, I tell you!’

  It was not as if she felt resentful towards Toyoko Munekata’s status in any way, nor did she receive such treatment from her. But in her heart of hearts there lurked a feeling that she had fallen behind her in life, and this gave rise to a slight feeling of resentment. Since their schooldays together, there had existed between them an uneasy relationship, with Toyoko demonstrating the part scorn, part pity, that one has towards a stray dog. However, six years before, Toyoko Munekata had suddenly moved into the apartments and from then on had become increasingly immobile.

  On that particular day, Miss Tamura had been sitting peacefully at the office window and, in her usual manner, was thinking about having a nap. Without any warning, Toyoko Munekata, whom she normally only met once or twice a year at school reunions, appeared from nowhere in front of her desk. Miss Munekata, watching the startled flush colour her face, took her time and, revelling in Miss Tamura’s reaction, said:

  ‘Well, well, what a surprise! How long have you been doing this, then? When we last met at the Old Girls’ reunion, I distinctly remember you saying that you were growing roses in your daughter’s nursery garden!’

  At the time, she had felt thoroughly humiliated but gradually this weakened and was replaced by a feeling that it had been only natural for Toyoko Munekata to mock her so.

  The dream changed, and now Toyoko was wearing thick-lensed glasses and the uniform of a high school girl. The scene was the examination hall, and all around her girls were busy scribbling answers with their pencils, but Kaneko was just sitting there, unable to write anything. Her paper was quite blank. However hard she tried, she couldn’t understand the questions. There was nothing for it but to peep at her neighbour’s paper. The girl beside her was suddenly transformed into Toyoko; she was covering her paper with both hands, purposely refusing to let Kaneko have a look. ‘Please let me see,’ she begged, but it was no use. Suddenly, all the other pupils vanished, leaving her alone with Toyoko.

  She felt, as she dreamed, the deep disappointment and worry of that moment.

  She cried out in despair, and at that moment awoke, dribbling. The pocket warmer
which she had placed in her bosom had slipped over under her armpit. Wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, she peered uneasily out of the window. Surely someone must have heard her cry out! Fortunately, not a soul was to be seen in the gloomy passageway, and all that could be heard was the distant sound of street musicians advertising a shop.

  She leaned back in her chair and tried to drive the memories of the nightmare from her mind. She was helped in this by one of the residents coming through the front door; reaching down into the basket by her feet, she drew out the ball of wool and knitting needles and began to count the stitches. But she couldn’t keep her mind on her knitting. She seemed to hear the echo of Toyoko’s mocking voice lingering in a corner of the room, and could not overcome her depression.

  Every now and then she put down her knitting and, resting her elbows on the desk, wondered why it had to be that a classmate whom she had hardly seen for so many years had fortuitously moved into this block of flats. She cursed the cruel irony of the situation, but did not know who to blame. Short of being angry with Toyoko, there was nothing she could do. And the annual class reunion was imminent. Since Toyoko had become a resident, Kaneko had not attended a single reunion. Every time, Toyoko had set off in her best clothes, never bothering to suggest that Kaneko accompany her. ‘Can’t I even do such a simple thing as attend a class reunion once a year… just a little white lie, that was all… It was a small enough pleasure for me, but…’ Thinking these thoughts, she began to feel more and more resentful towards Toyoko. Just at that moment, the front door opened, and a young man in a suit came to her window.