The Master Key

by Masako Togawa

  She went and sat down on the small chair which was obviously used by the students, and took one final look around the room. Surely she had overlooked nothing? The violin could not be in this room.

  She heard footsteps outside, and started up towards the window. Whoever it was went past the door and further down the corridor. But at that moment, as she gazed fearfully towards the door, she caught sight of a small triangular shelf, set high up in the corner, on which there reposed a black violin case. It lay there, covered like everything else in the room with a film of dust, showing signs of long neglect. It had to contain the Guarnerius. She dragged her chair over to the entrance and stood on it. She could easily reach the violin case; once again covering her fingers with rags, she gripped the case and took it down from the shelf. Her nostrils tingled, sensing the proximity of stolen property. Hardly daring to breathe, and holding her discovery high above her head, she carefully stepped down from the chair and laid the case on the floor. Her trembling hands swiftly sought the catch—but it was locked! She tried rapping the fastening to see if it would loosen but, decrepit as the case seemed, it would not yield to her efforts. Suwa must have taken the key with her when she went out. There was no point in searching for it. Her blood raced as she experienced both dread and an overwhelming desire to see inside the violin case. The latter emotion proving the stronger, she stood up with the intention of looking for something with which to force the lock.

  At that very moment, she heard footsteps in the corridor. They stopped outside the door, and there was a grating sound as a key was pushed into the lock. Suwa had come back! Noriko almost fainted from fright.

  The master key, which she had left in the lock on the inside of the door, began to move under the pressure from outside. If she did nothing about it, the key would be pushed out of the hole and Suwa would be able to enter the apartment.

  But what could she do? Hypnotised by dread, she could not even think. For if she was discovered in Suwa’s room, she would be branded as a thief and at the very least forced to leave the apartment block. A hot feeling on her inner leg aroused her; without noticing, she had passed water.

  There was only one route of escape—the window. She raced over and unwound the catch, throwing the two leaves of the window outwards. She looked down; the ground was only about one metre below her, and there was no one in the inner courtyard. She looked back at the door; the master key had not yet yielded to the siege. Suwa was now rattling the knob impatiently. The Guarnerius case lay where she had left it on the floor. Now that her escape route lay open, and with no sign that Suwa would be able to effect entrance very quickly, she calmed down and realised that she had left her canvas shoes in the room and that also it would be a pity just to leave the violin behind after all her efforts.

  There were sounds of other people gathering in the corridor. Miss Tojo’s shrill voice could be heard amongst them. There was no time to spare. Noriko acted as if in a trance, seizing up the violin case and her shoes and racing to the window. As she climbed out, her bedraggled skirt caught on the window catch and ripped as she tumbled to the earth. Without pausing to look around, she raced barefoot across the muddy yard; and slipped and fell. The violin case flew from her grasp and struck the brick-built incinerator house, suffering severe damage. She picked it up again and gazed wildly around the courtyard looking for somewhere to hide. With so many people around, she could not use the fire escape as was her normal custom. It looked as if she was cornered.

  But there was one hiding place available to her—the incinerator. She wrenched open the iron doors and, pushing the violin case in first, crawled in after it. The interior was much wider than appeared from the size of the doors. Provided she was not discovered, she could remain hidden until nightfall and then make her escape. She only had to put up with cramped conditions for an hour or so. The incinerator had not been used for some time, and the recent rainfall had turned the half-burned paper and rubbish inside into a black paste which was extremely unpleasant to the touch. She wiped her feet with her rags and put on her canvas shoes.

  After a while, she peeped out through a crack in the doors. She could see some of the windows on the lower two storeys of the building—but not the window of Suwa’s room. Doubtless people were clustered around that window, gazing into the courtyard. Indeed, she felt as if every window must conceal a pair of eyes gazing directly at the incinerator. She crouched in the dark, hardly daring to breathe and clasping the violin case to her breast.

  Thirty minutes passed in this way, with no sign of anyone coming into the courtyard. She felt a strong desire to uncurl herself and have a look at the violin. Her eyes were now accustomed to the dark; indeed, what with various cracks in the structure and the open chimney, the interior of the incinerator was quite light. She felt around in the cinders and found a rusted five-inch nail. She tried to force open the lock of the case with it, but to no avail.

  Then she noticed that the hinge had been distorted in the fall. She slipped the nail under it and prised it open in no time at all. The lid then came apart from the case with ease.

  The violin lay there, its paint cracked in places. Not one string remained unbroken. There was a hole in the belly of the instrument, through which she could see a slip of brown paper pasted to the inside of the back. Could this indeed be the famous Guarnerius violin?

  ‘Poor violin,’ she thought. ‘Just to cover up her fingerprints, she scrubbed your paintwork and stuck on a piece of paper to hide the traces.’

  She put the violin down, and conjured up a vision of Suwa’s face covered with the fingerprints of guilt. They were two of the same tribe, she and Suwa.

  Her long-awaited object at last achieved, Noriko succumbed to the mental and physical exhaustion of the hunt. She fell asleep in the incinerator, the violin cradled in her arms. She awoke with a sneeze some while later, chilled to the bone. She put the violin back in its case, and hid it carefully in the back of the furnace.

  Outside, it was pitch dark. A few lights yet shone in the windows as Noriko crept to the fire escape and made her way back to her room.

  The evening concert had begun half an hour before. Suwa Yatabe was standing in the cold winter dusk outside the Hibiya Hall, gazing at the gloomy park. Occasionally, the sound of music within was wafted to her in the wind, arousing the bright memories of her past, only to fade as her career had faded.

  It was well past the time of her appointment, but the foreigner who called himself ‘A.D.’ was nowhere to be seen. But she could not bring herself to give up and leave, hoping against hope that he would finally turn up.

  The square in front of the Concert Hall was bathed in the pale light of mercury lamps. Apart from the occasional latecomer hurrying into the Hall, it was more or less deserted. A uniformed driver got out of a parked limousine, but it was only to wipe the window before retreating back into the car.

  Suwa stamped her feet to keep the cold at bay, and from time to time moved from one pillar to the next.

  A car turned in off the road, sweeping the square with its baleful headlights. It crunched across the gravel and came to a stop. A foreigner, wearing a long greatcoat turned up at the collar, got out and paid the driver. She could not see his face clearly, but he turned towards her and came bounding up the steps. Suwa stepped out from behind the pillar which had been hiding her, her heart pounding like a drum. But then she noticed that he was wearing glasses, and her heart sank.

  The foreigner did not enter the Concert Hall but stood near her looking around as if seeking someone. He looked at her, and as their eyes met he seemed to be laughing. Suwa was just about to speak to him when a young girl rushed out of the Hall and greeted the foreigner effusively. They linked arms and went inside, leaving a disappointed Suwa outside.

  Suwa realised that it was now three hours past the appointed time, and that there was really no use waiting any longer. But she could not tear herself away from the pillar by which she was standing.

  She had arrived twenty minu
tes late. She had come by tram because she felt that an hour was plenty of time to allow. She had changed trams at K Street, and thus escaped the rumbustious school children who had trodden all over her in the other tram. Gazing out of the window, she had passed the time with memories of long ago. For whatever other changes had occurred, the trams were still the same. The streetcar rolled on, stopping and starting, drawing nearer to her destination. Her thoughts turned towards the meeting that lay ahead; what sort of stance should she take towards the foreigner?

  The tram came to the area full of old ministerial offices built in red brick. They soothed her eyes and her heart. She realised that the desire that had caused her to steal the violin was now dead. She was sixty-five years old, and one of her fingers would not move properly. There was no possibility of her playing the Guarnerius ever again.

  The tram stopped, and an old woman of about Suwa’s age got on, leading her grandson by the hand. They took a vacant seat, and gazed out of the window together. Seeing them, anyone would think what a charming and happy pair they made, but Suwa was never one to be moved by such warm emotions. Even when she was a schoolgirl, and the class had been taken to the zoo, she had not been as enchanted as her form-mates by the sight of a mother bear playing with her cub. She was more interested in the solitary male bear pacing to and fro in the next cage.

  But for once her mood was different, and the sight of the old lady taking care of her grandchild did not annoy her. If this Mr A.D. was really André Dore’s son, then, she decided, she would return the Guarnerius to him without a word. How happy that would make him!

  There was still half an hour to go to the appointed hour of her meeting—ample time to go back to her apartment and collect the Guarnerius without further ado. She alighted at the next stop. She took a taxi, and reached her apartment in less than ten minutes, never dreaming that during her brief absence someone else had stealthily entered her room. So she wasn’t particularly disturbed at first when the key refused to fit into its hole, putting it down to her hastiness. Until someone had brought Miss Tojo from the reception desk, it didn’t even cross her mind that there was another key in the hole, but on the inside of the door.

  ‘Hullo! Anyone in there? Who’s there?’

  Miss Tojo rattled the doorknob and pushed with all her might as she shouted, but there was no reply.

  ‘Why don’t we get in through the window?’ panted Miss Tamura, who had also come to the scene as quickly as her legs would carry her.

  ‘But it’ll be locked from the inside,’ replied the woman who lived three doors up. She spoke as confidently as if it were her room. Suwa could do nothing but stand and gape as the debate raged round her. Finally it was agreed that the best thing to do would be to poke out the key with a piece of wire, but in practice this was not as easy as it had seemed and took a full five minutes. When at last they got the door open, there was no particular sign that anyone had been inside apart from the fact that the window was open. Suwa immediately looked up at the top of the corner cupboard and her heart sank. The Guarnerius, which had reposed there for so many years, was gone.

  ‘Good heavens above! It’s the missing master key!’ exclaimed Miss Tamura, holding it up for all to see.

  ‘Whoever it was got in here using the master key, which she had to leave behind in her haste to escape when Miss Yatabe came back. And if we find out who that person is, we shall also know who stole the master key,’ said Miss Tojo in an icy tone of voice.

  Suwa went to the window and looked out into the garden. Not a soul was to be seen. The thief who had made good her escape was clearly a fellow resident of the building.

  ‘Well, we’d better call the police,’ said Miss Tamura. But Suwa could not afford to waste any more time. It was imperative that she get to Hibiya on time, and she had already spent twenty minutes in the apartment since getting back there.

  ‘No, it really won’t be necessary. Nothing is missing.’

  ‘That’s all very well and good, but it isn’t nice to think that there’s someone amongst us who is capable of stealing the master key and breaking into any room she likes. However, I suppose it’s all right now we have the master key back,’ reassured Miss Tamura.

  ‘Very well,’ said the floor representative on the residents’ committee. ‘But I insist that we have a full committee meeting first thing tomorrow to thrash this matter out.’

  And with that, the crowd began to dissolve and so permitted Suwa to hurry off to her meeting. Now, more than ever, she felt she had to meet this foreigner who called himself ‘A.D.’ There was no time to be lost, so she took a taxi rather than the streetcar. She urged the driver on, but to no avail; by the time she reached Hibiya, it was twenty minutes after the appointed time for her meeting.

  Unfortunately, her arrival coincided with the end of the matinee performance and the emerging crowd streamed down the steps, and she was caught up in the jostle and buffeted from side to side. At last the mass thinned out a little, and Suwa peered anxiously around, seeking a man wearing a red artificial flower in his buttonhole, but he was nowhere to be seen. The crowd melted away until Suwa was left standing on her own, but she still couldn’t bring herself to go home. She stood in the dusk gazing vacantly at the darkening park.

  After two more hours, the audience for the evening performance began to arrive. She stood gazing mechanically at the lapels of the people around her, but everyone was wearing heavy overcoats which hardly seemed suitable for a red artificial flower.

  By now she was cold and tired, and felt as if her body was being sucked into the hard concrete under her feet. Nevertheless, she refused to give up. The violin itself had ceased to concern her—all she wanted was to meet the young man whom she imagined to be the spitting image of her long-dead teacher—André Dore’s shadow on earth, as it were.

  She took little strolls to try and keep warm, always returning to the pillar, but by now there was nobody else around. At the entrance, the girl who had been checking tickets stood shivering slightly and gossiping with a friend. Suwa determined to stay on to the bitter end.

  But when the concert was over, and the emerging audience once again engulfed her, drawing her body along with it, she realised at last that she had to go home. The thought of returning alone to her room, with no one to speak to, overcame her with sadness. Solitude and loneliness were her lot in life. If only she had borne a child… But she had only had one chance to do that in all her life, and that was on that evening with André Dore. She thought back to what had happened then, reliving every moment, until her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Whilst in his arms, she had called out again and again how she was afraid of becoming pregnant. She really felt that she was going to conceive, and when it was over she kept repeating one word over and over again. ‘Baby. Baby. Baby.’ André Dore took her gently in his arms and cradling her face between his hands reassured her in soft whispers.

  And now, thirty years later, those moments were rekindled and Suwa remembered what he had said. Once again she heard his nasal French in her ear—‘I cannot give you a child—it’s impossible for me to do so.’

  And now the force and meaning of those words came back to her. ‘I cannot give you a child—it’s impossible for me to do so.’

  The realisation made her lose touch with her surroundings, almost as if she was about to faint. The dark woodlands of the park, the hard concrete beneath her feet, the steps, the pillar, all seemed to fade away before her eyes as at last she understood the final meaning of what the Frenchman had said. He could have no child; therefore, no child of his could possibly be alive; now, more than ever, she was all alone in the world.

  She began to sob, and made her way down the long stairway, choking back her tears and wondering how she could face the loneliness of her room that night. Suwa Yatabe turned away all her pupils for the next week on the grounds of ill-health. When they saw her pale drawn face peering round the door, they were at first astonished, but then their feelings gave way to jubilation at the
thought of having a break from music practice.

  It took her a full seven days to get over her experience outside the Concert Hall. She pondered long and painfully over how to unravel the tangled skein of her life. At last she realised that the first step must be to put the mysterious foreigner out of her mind. Once she had made up her mind on that point, she began to feel slightly better, and was at last able to get up from her bed. Going to open the window she discovered a torn piece of black cloth caught in the latch, of a colour and type that could belong to none but Noriko Ishiyama.

  The mere sight of that small black scrap of evidence brought to Suwa’s mind the vision of Noriko prowling past her door. For there was no one else in the apartment block who still wore so outmoded a thing as a skirt made of black crêpe de Chine. From the shape of the tear, too—a clean, right-angled rip enclosing the jagged and frayed hem of Noriko’s unique costume—she could be sure of the owner’s identity. And last but not least there was the musty, beggar-woman’s smell—final proof of Noriko’s guilt.

  She had no way of knowing why Noriko had entered her room and stolen the violin, nor of how she had come to possess the master key which she had left behind in her flight. She could only imagine that Noriko had scented the violin’s presence in her room through reading that old newspaper article.