“So what? That’s nothing. There’s nothing terrible about that.”
“Oh? Well, actually, that’s not all. That time, when was it, that Reina Igarashi was a guest at the hotel? I have a sneaking suspicion that you stole some of her underwear, didn’t you?”
“Eh . . . ?!”
“Aha, so you did! I wondered what you were doing when I saw you hunched over in front of the door to her room, looking so secretive, rummaging around. You were going through the laundry bag on her doorknob, and looking for what you could find, weren’t you? I saw you pull out some red frilly garment, and then stuff it in your pants pocket. I bet it was her panties, wasn’t it! Disgusting. Unbelievable. Despicable. Pervert! You pervert!”
“Knock it off!” he ordered.
“You’re a pervert! A creep! A disgusting pervert!”
“Cut it out! I’m telling you . . . !”
“Ow! You’re hurting me! Let me go! All right, you just wait: I’m going to tell everyone all about it! I’ll tell your wife, I’ll tell the head office, I’ll tell the hotel manager . . . !”
“Enough!” The director grabbed the Woman in the Purple Skirt by the shoulders. “I’m telling you, just knock it off! If you tell them, you’re not going to get away with it!!”
And then he began to shake her, backward and forward, so vigorously that I heard a cracking sound from her neck. But the Woman in the Purple Skirt was giving just as good as she got. At the first opportunity, she wriggled out of his grip, bent down slightly, and started punching him in the belly. He groaned and staggered back, and then she kneed him in the groin and slapped him across the face. Taking hold of the railing in both hands, he tried to right himself. But the balustrade on the stairs was so rusted away that it couldn’t support the heavy weight of his body. With a loud snapping sound, the balusters broke off from the base rail, and the director fell headfirst to the ground.
He lay there on the brown earth, completely still.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt descended the stairs, shaking.
“Tomo, Tomo dear . . .” She crouched down beside the prone body and extended her hand.
“Tomo dear . . . Tomo dear . . . ,” she called, and shook his shoulder and back.
“Tomo dear . . . Tomo dear . . . Tomo dear . . . Answer me, Tomo dear. Wake up. Answer me. Tomo dear! Tomo dear! Tomo dear! Tomo dear! Hey, Tomo dear! Answer me!”
“Shush. Stop screaming like that,” I said.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt turned to look at me. Her face was white, and covered in tears and snot.
“Let me take a look.” I squatted down, easing myself between them.
First I lifted his right wrist. Then I lifted his left one. I put two fingers against his neck, and brought my ear down close to his mouth. The Woman in the Purple Skirt was quiet, observing me, waiting. There was a moment of silence. Then I looked up at her and said: “Well, that’s it. He’s croaked.”
The Woman in the Purple Skirt said something in a hushed voice. It was so faint I couldn’t hear it. It might have been “I can’t believe it. . . .”
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” she was now saying a bit louder.
“It must have been the way he fell. His heart has stopped.”
“Oh God . . . Oh God . . . Oh God . . . It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true.”
I shook my head. “I’m very sorry. I can’t do that.”
“Oh God . . . Oh God! Please! Open your eyes, darling! Wake up, Tomo dear!”
The Woman in the Purple Skirt began shaking the director’s body again, desperately. I grabbed her by the wrists. “It’s no use. Don’t you see? He’s dead. He’s not coming back to life.
“Get ahold of yourself. Face the facts. He’s dead. You shouldn’t be trying to bring him back. You should be trying to get away from here, immediately. Run away.”
“Run away . . . ?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “There’s no time to lose. The police are going to arrive any minute now.”
“The police?”
“Somebody called them and reported you. When they heard you screaming. You’ve got to get away. Before the police arrive.”
“Wh-what . . .”
“Get up. Quickly.”
“Bu-but . . .”
“No buts. Listen. You’ve got to make a run for it. Head straight for the bus stop. There’s a bus bound for Komori bus terminus due at 8:02. Get on it. You’ve got four minutes to get there, but you have to hurry—you should be able to make it, with your background as a runner. The bus should arrive at the train station at 8:34. Get off and board a train. Look for the limited express train bound for Yamasaka. ‘Yamasaka,’ like the ‘yama’ of Yamaguchi and the ‘saka’ of Osaka—have you got that? In one of the coin lockers at the west exit, you’ll find a black carryall. Take it with you—don’t forget. In it you’ll find a purse, a towel, and underwear to last two or three days. Inside the purse, in a little pocket, you’ll find a five-thousand-yen note folded up very small. Would you mind using that to buy your train ticket? You’ll also see some other stuff in the locker, a Boston bag, a canvas traveling bag, a big rucksack, several shopping bags from supermarkets, and various other things, but just leave those. I’ll be coming right after you, so I can collect them.”
“Em . . . But . . .”
“I’d really like to travel with you, but I’m afraid I can’t. I’m just too slow a runner—I’d never be able to make it to catch the 8:02. But don’t worry. I’ll be coming on the 8:22 bus. And I’ll be getting either the train immediately after yours or the one after that. You’ll be all right. I’ll be following you—I’ll be there almost immediately. I think it’s better if we go separately—this way no one will notice us. Oh yes, and if you get hungry, there’s some loose change in the purse as well, so feel free to use that to buy yourself a bento in the station. Now, is there anything else . . . Oh, I didn’t tell you the name of the station you should get off at, did I? It’s a limited express, so it’ll be only three stops. Get off at the third stop, at Santokuji Station. Third stop, Santokuji Station. Easy to remember. When you come out of the station, you should see a business hotel, the Takagi Hotel, right in front of you. It’s not great, really, for a business hotel, since you have to share a bathroom. Do you mind staying there for the night? Check in, and then just go up to the room and relax. Oh, I nearly forgot. Silly me. I was about to leave you without giving you this. Here, here you are. This is the key for the coin locker. Make sure you lock it properly, won’t you? Now I wonder where you should leave the key for me? I know, how about near a pay phone? Right next to the rows of coin lockers, you’ll see a single green pay phone. On the shelf underneath it, there’s a directory. Hide the key in there, somewhere in the middle.”
“But . . . I’d just . . .”
“I know you might feel anxious staying the night in a place that’s unfamiliar, but you should try to get a good night’s sleep and recuperate. Tomorrow we’ll have to start job hunting immediately. We’ll try everything there is, together, systematically, looking for anywhere that will employ us, and that will let us live together on the premises. Oh, now don’t make that face. Even if we don’t find anything right away, don’t worry, we’ll be all right. I’ve put everything we could possibly need in that Boston bag. Provisions, changes of clothes, money—all you could need. Not in huge quantities, obviously . . . but enough to last us for a good long while.”
“Well, I didn’t actually . . . Um, what I was really wondering was . . .”
“Mm?”
“Why, Supervisor Gondo, are you being so . . . ?”
I suddenly realized the Woman in the Purple Skirt had stopped crying. I found myself being observed by two small round eyes. She was looking straight at me.
I shook my head a little. I’m not Supervisor Gondo, I told her. I’m the Woman
in the Yellow Cardigan.
“So, it’s you? You’re the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan?” I was sure I heard her say.
In fact, all she did was keep staring at me, without saying anything.
I reached out gently and tweaked her nose. It was just a few inches away from me.
“Quickly now,” I said. “Time to go. Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”
“But . . .”
“Come on, there’s no time to lose! Only three minutes until the bus arrives!”
I pointed to her watch. The Woman in the Purple Skirt glanced down at it and finally gathered herself together and stood up. She still looked downcast. “Two minutes left!” I shouted, and she suddenly looked up. No sooner had she started to make a dash for the bus stop than she came running straight back.
“What now? What’s the matter? Just go!”
“But . . . I don’t have any money.”
“What?”
“I should get some money from my place. If I can’t pay, I won’t be able to get on the bus.”
“Oh . . . I don’t know—take this!”
“What is it?”
“Can’t you see? It’s my commuter pass! Now get going! You have one minute left!”
The Woman in the Purple Skirt sprinted off.
Very shortly, I heard the whine of a police siren. I decided it was time for me too to leave.
But I hadn’t finished yet. And now it was going to get really hard.
Since I’d given her my commuter pass, I had to make a quick stop back at my apartment, to see if I could find something that might be of financial value.
When I got to my front door, completely out of breath, it was secured with a huge padlock. There was no option but to grab a flowerpot I found lying nearby to break a window, and get in that way.
I was relieved to see that the state of my apartment was no different from how it had been when I left. My futon and TV were near the window, with a few plastic bags scattered in the middle of the otherwise empty room. The electricity appeared to have been cut off: a pull on the cord of the fluorescent light in the middle of the ceiling produced just a little tinny sound. The previous Thursday, a “Notice to Tenant to Vacate the Premises” had been delivered from the court, and I had taken refuge in a manga café near the train station. I had grabbed as much as I could—my valuables, as many of my clothes as I could carry, my toiletries, food, even a saucepan—and stowed them in a coin locker in the station, which allowed me to store luggage for three days. Only that very morning I had removed everything from one locker and transferred it all to another one nearby.
It was an enormous amount of stuff, but it wasn’t everything—I resigned myself to leaving items that were too big to fit in the locker, and I’d also left a few things that didn’t look like they’d serve any practical purpose for the way I was going to live.
Surely there was something here among the stuff I’d left behind that I could exchange for some quick cash? I spent several hours groping around in the darkness, finally discovering at the very back of a closet a cookie tin etched with the word “Memories.” By this time I’d long missed the last bus.
I was beginning to think I’d have done better just to walk to the station, but when I opened the tin I found a wooden key chain in the shape of a palm tree, an anime postcard, and a commemorative coin issued for an expo held some years ago.
The next morning I boarded the first bus of the day, with this commemorative coin gripped tightly in my fist.
When I tried to insert the coin into the fare box slot, it just rolled back out. I tried again and again. In a panic, I dropped the coin on the floor, at which point the driver turned to me with a suspicious stare and silently thrust out his hand, as if to say, “Let me have a look at it.”
Examining the five-hundred-yen coin, etched with the lettering tsukuba expo ’85, the driver said, “Hm, these are rare.” Then, after rummaging around in a satchel that appeared to be for his personal belongings, he fished out a five-hundred-yen coin from a wallet and exchanged it for my commemorative coin. I had fully expected him to get angry and ask me what I thought I was doing using such a coin. That was a relief. I paid the fare, two hundred yen, and got three hundred yen as change.
Upon arriving at the station, I headed for the pay phone. The shelf below the phone had two directories stacked in it. I was about to reach for the top one, to thumb through the pages, when I became aware that there was no need to. A glance to my right showed that the key had been left inserted in the door of the locker that held my stuff.
I opened the locker door and saw that it was empty. The Woman in the Purple Skirt appeared to have collected her luggage.
But she had taken everything else too—not only the black carryall I had told her to take but also the Boston bag and the large rucksack, which I had expressly instructed her to leave.
Maybe I’d been talking too fast and she hadn’t understood. She must have boarded the semi-express train carrying a huge amount of luggage.
I stood by the ticket machines, scanning for women who looked like they might be softhearted, and accosting them. “Can you spare a hundred yen?” I asked three women, and, amazingly, all three placed a hundred-yen coin in the palm of my hand without hesitation.
On my fourth attempt, I clearly made an unwise choice. The woman, who at first sight had seemed nice, replied menacingly, “Get lost, or I’ll call one of the station attendants!” I scurried off. I was hoping I’d be able to collect the entire train fare, forty-two hundred yen, but—I had to resign myself—I had to make do with what I had. I purchased the cheapest-possible ticket at the ticket machine, and managed to board the slow train due to depart at 7:20 in the morning.
It took me nearly six hours—six hours!—to reach Santokuji Station. Because of a series of mishaps, including a sick passenger and signal trouble, I was forced to change trains five times, but luckily was not asked once to show my ticket. When I finally arrived at Santokuji Station, at 1:25 p.m., I found myself standing on a platform that was totally unstaffed. After placing my ticket in a little wooden box positioned by the ticket barrier, I headed for the Takagi Hotel, where we had arranged to meet.
The person working the reception desk appeared to be enjoying a siesta.
I rang the bell at least five times, and was about to ring it again when out he came, yawning, from behind the partition. To my inquiries, he replied: “Nope, haven’t seen anyone who fits that description.”
“But you must have . . . ,” I replied. “She would have checked in a few minutes before eleven o’clock last night.” If everything had gone according to plan, and she’d got on the bus that departed at 8:02 and managed to board the limited express, the Woman in the Purple Skirt should have reached Santokuji Station at 10:50. Unless the hotel had been full, she definitely would have been staying here.
Making a show of what a nuisance it was to be doing so, the man flicked through a notebook with the words “Guest List” on the cover.
“Last night we had one, two, three, five guests. All men. That’s all. Not one woman.”
“No women?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you think she can be?” I asked him.
“No idea,” he replied.
I was now in a panic. Could she have got off at the wrong station? Remembering my assurance that I would be arriving soon—on the very next train—I considered that maybe she had waited for me on the platform, and then, when I didn’t appear, she got offended, and was now keeping herself out of sight. . . . Is that what had happened?
I searched for her everywhere—all around the station, and up and down the streets. I wasn’t so stupid as to go into the police box to ask whether they had seen her, but I inquired in all the shops on the shopping street, and approached vario
us passersby.
“I’m looking for a woman, have you seen her? She’s about thirty years old, with long hair . . .”
What is she wearing? people asked. I was about to tell them she was wearing a purple skirt—then clamped my mouth shut.
What had the Woman in the Purple Skirt been wearing last night? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember.
Where on earth could the Woman in the Purple Skirt have gone?
I’m still looking for her, even now.
The other day, another new recruit joined the company. This one seems to have had some previous experience cleaning hotel rooms. She’s getting the hang of things pretty quickly, but as usual the older ladies were all grumbling that she didn’t call out her greetings loudly enough. Ordinarily, they would have bullied her so relentlessly that she would have given notice within a month. If only someone were around who could give her voice lessons. Unfortunately, however, the director was in the hospital.
Recently a small group of us went to pay him a visit. Since a great crowd suddenly turning up at the hospital would probably not be appreciated, we had drawn lots to decide which of us would go. I ended up being one of the lucky four, and Supervisor Tsukada, who hadn’t been selected, somehow managed to come along anyway.
The hospital that the director had been admitted to, specializing in rehabilitation, was a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel.
We entered his ward to find four beds, two unoccupied. In one, a scrawny old man lay sprawled on his back, staring up at a small TV hanging from the ceiling.
We waited for a few minutes, and then the director appeared, accompanied by his wife.
“Director! You’re able to get out of bed!” Supervisor Tsukada rushed up to give him a hug.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt Page 10