It was a fine day. There was found no cloud in the blue sky.
Although the scent of burning incense heavily hung in the air, the autumn breeze felt dry and fresh whenever I stepped out of the house. There was another gorgeously looking assorted sushi on the dining table. My mother whispered in my ear that she ordered it from a very famous and expensive sushi restaurant. Far from sobbing, she looked proud as if nothing disastrous had ever happened to her family.
The body of Naomi was in a small beautiful coffin and placed in the living room. She was cold and stiff to the touch.
I was so terrified I ran up the stairs and into the closet of my room with a palm-sized game machine. In the darkness I sat down with my knees in my arms and played some games and again dozed off, but, shortly after that, I was caught by my father and dragged out of the closet.
He said nothing. Nor did he scold me. Instead he kept stroking down my head with a blank expression on his face. And that was frightening. The face reminded me of a Noh mask. He must have had no idea how to deal with the sudden death of his second daughter. Even doctors couldn’t identify what was the real cause of her death.
I shuddered with horror. Looking back, it was probably because there seemed to be no one who could extend a helping hand to me. Even my father appeared to be the one who was asking for help. Where had my Naomi gone? I couldn’t stand the sense of her not being there.
I realized what I had done when I caught sight of the puzzled expression on his face. I killed my little sister. I am the one who killed Naomi. It was an inescapable fact. If I had told my parents about what happened to her, right after we came home, Naomi could have survived the operation. I committed a grave crime.
I have never revealed to my parents that Naomi had a car accident on that hill. They still don’t know the real cause of her death. I have kept the secret ever since, as Naomi and I had promised to each other. No one is supposed to be able to find the primary cause of her death, except me.
But now, there is another person who has just heard the truth.
That’s you.
You’re the only exception.
*
Reiko and I shared the hotel bill. It starts to drizzle immediately after we went out. We take cover under the eaves of a Japanese-style bar known as izakaya.
You can see a red lantern hanging down from the eaves.
I sigh with relief. We were already through with the hardest part that had to do with how to sneak out of the Love Hotel without being seen by anyone despite the fact that there were usually a lot of passersby on the backstreet at night.
Reiko says, “It’s no longer a drizzle. This is a misty rain you know. Look at the way it reflects streetlights and neon lamps. It’s so beautiful it gives me a heartache whenever I see it glitter.”
“You sound like Maya.”
“Maybe I pretended to be her.”
Her face is now being tinted by the lantern with a rosy flush. In silence Reiko gazes into my eyes for a minute or so.
She appears as if to entice me to do something I won’t do in ordinary circumstances. The problem is that she’s not telling me what to do.
I try to shrug off her mysterious look.
“You have something to tell, don’t you, Reiko?”
“I’m wondering why you brought yourself to tell me your deep secret.”
“Because I felt it being unfair of me that I kept my secret from you after I had read yours in Cahier de Secret.”
“When I went into the hotel with you, Luna, I was thinking that you’d like to talk about my secrets instead of yours.”
“I wanted to unburden myself. That’s all.”
“No, you still seem to be eager to find out the answer for the death of Yukio-san. You don’t care much for the rest, because the only thing you’ve been wondering about is to know whether Maya or Takeshi or I have the motive for murder.”
“Maybe you’re partly right. I want the answer.”
“Poor you.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“It looks like you were possessed by his ghost. I’m afraid if you would do anything to get the answer. If so, you should talk to Takeshi about it.”
“I could try.”
Then a choking silence hangs between us for several seconds.
Two intoxicated middle-aged men come up for a look at Reiko with the eyes of a rotten mackerel. One is about to open the sliding door of the izakaya when another says to me that this is not the place for girls who still wear white cotton panties. We trot away from those men.
Soon the brightly illuminated boulevard comes into view.
We go down the slope illuminated with its neon forest. Near the Shibuya railroad station, Reiko breaks the silence between us first.
“You’re one of us now, I guess.”
“Does it mean I’m officially granted an admittance to Yukio’s most closest circle?”
“Yes, you’re authorized,” said Reiko, mimicking the way Yukio talked.
“Then I want to have our picture taken to commemorate this occasion.”
I am about to take the Mobile out of my pocket when Reiko lays her hand on the back of my hand to stop it.
“I’m sorry, but I no longer like anyone taking a picture of me.”
“Remember that you can prick me anytime and anywhere, Reiko.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. I was nearly in tears when I heard your story.”
Walking down the sloping boulevard, I start talking as if to be possessed with an unknown spirit: “I think the Japanese ghost Yurei looks like a delicate beauty but is actually an evil spirit with house full of grudge. We all know the strategy of Yurei is to destroy you by a psychosomatic way. Yurei makes you feel so miserable and so regretful of what you have done to her while she was alive that you come to feel like killing yourself in the end.”
Reiko comes to a sudden stop in the crowd which is flooding toward the row of ticket-vending machines of the Shibuya railroad station.
“So? What’s the punch line of your Yurei story?”
“Actually, I’m seeing Yurei at this very moment.”
“No, there is no such thing as Yurei. You can’t scare me.”
“I can see a little girl standing still in the midst of the crowd. She’s been staring at me.”
“Stop it.”
“Look over there, Reiko. Can’t you see her?”
I gaze vacantly at about the middle of a congested passage which echoes to the thunderous sounds of incoming trains above.
Looking for a little girl with her eyes, Reiko asks, “How old does she look?”
“Five. Yes, she appears to be a girl of five, definitely.”
“No.”
Reiko turns her face to me with a worried frown.
“I’m all right, Reiko. I’m fine. Perhaps I was only seeing things.”
She gives me a sorrowful shrug.
“Listen, I think your little sister Naomi-chan has no grudge against you. You can trust me on this.”
“I wish you were right.”
“I’m starving.”
“I remembered that Naomi loved to smell other people’s earlobe.”
“No.” Reiko frowns at me with a giggle.
“Yes, she did have this strange habit of smelling other people’s earlobe.”
We pass through an automated ticket gate one after another with the Mobile in each hand. Climbing up the stairs ahead of Reiko, I chuckle to myself. She clearly showed sympathy for me. I was probably able to win her over to my side. My performance back there in the congested passage would have been worth receiving a Japanese Academy Award for the best actress.
Everything appears to be carried out as has been planned.
At least up to this point.
Dachshund
Few years after Naomi’s funeral, I asked my mother why she shed no tears during the funeral ceremony. Her answer was quite simple: We’re living in a world where the misfortune of others tastes sweet like honey. The world is
full of resentment. Happiness is taboo. It’s a fact of life now. That’s why I didn’t shed a single droplet of tears at my daughter’s funeral. I wanted nobody to be entertained, behind closed doors, by our misfortune.
And then, my mother went out for shopping.
*
Takeshi was supposed to have come here twenty minutes ago. I have been seated on this concrete bench nearby the exit of the small park that seems to be left to oblivion. I called him more than twelve times already but he has been making no response. Takeshi must have deliberately shut off his Mobile.
There is the pedestrian bridge from which Maya has thrown, with her eyes closed, a variety of things at each car passing under it, but I can barely see the bridge now, for it is being thickly covered by the leaves of trees. Before I become aware, a season has turned another and leaves of trees hanging over the bridge have grown heavy.
This late afternoon, in our gakko, Takeshi consecutively defeated four contenders at a Kendo practice match. I heard the yells and shouts echo against the surrounding walls and windows of our high-ceilinged gymnasium.
After the match, Takeshi looked back at me through between the iron bars of his face guard and then, removing the sweaty helmet, approached me himself.
‘I heard everything from Reiko.’
‘Everything? I wonder what you mean by everything.’
Somehow I was embarrassed by my having spent few hours in the hotel room alone with Reiko.
‘She told me that she had a call from you the other day and heard what you had gotten.’
‘Is that all you’ve heard from her?’
‘Is there anything else I should know about?’
‘No.’ I was relieved.
‘Tell me how you could take possession of Cahier de Secret.’
‘You tell me, Takeshi.’
‘Who sent that to you?’
‘You? Possibly?’
Takeshi quietly glared at me for few seconds.
‘Do you suppose I am a guy to be played with?’
‘Are you not?’
‘Listen carefully. If you leak my secrets to anyone including Maya and Reiko, not to mention my parents, you’ll have to take the consequences.’
‘Wow. You sound very intense.’
‘I’ve warned you,’ whispered Takeshi, twisting his lips.
Then he looked me in the face with rather vacant eyes.
‘I was not kidding, Luna. That was a warning.’
‘What do you mean by the consequences?’
‘It means I will do anything to ensure my image and status. It also means I might resort to extremities.’
‘I see. I think you’d better be a politician, Takeshi.’
I lightly shrugged off his threatening words.
Takeshi pointed his forefinger at me.
‘I’ll be watching you.’
‘It’s supposed to be my line.’ I stared back at him.
‘Do you really know what you are going after?’
‘Let us talk about it after school, shall we? Possibly today?’
‘About what? You have Cahier de Secret. By now you’re supposed to have peeped into what I really am, I mean, my secret.’
‘No, I’m not interested in what you are or who you think you are. I want to talk about Yukio. About that incident.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Takeshi in a weary voice. ‘I repeat; he is dead. D-E-A-D.’
‘That’s why I’m trying to open Pandora’s box.’
‘What’s that? What are you trying to prove, Luna?’
‘I’ll be waiting for you in the park.’
So I am now in this small park, still waiting for Takeshi to show up.
My eyes catch the dazzling illuminations of downtown Tokyo through dark silhouettes of thick branches. Those glittering lights look brighter because of the dark silhouette of trees, which, in turn, looks darker because of the bright illuminations. It seems that the glitter cannot thrive without the dark. When a wind rises and shakes branches, however, both are blurred and become the one.
The elderly couple I saw once before show up in the park again with the dachshund. The dog dejectedly looks back at me several times as if to have remembered something of the past.
Hello again, daddy. How is your work? I’m sorry to say this, but, to be honest with you, I don’t like the way you are. Don’t get me wrong, daddy. I probably like what you used to be before you had lost your second daughter, but I grow to dislike the person what you want yourself to be. And this is not your fault. I seem to be crushed so hard by something I cannot point at that I can no longer believe what I used to think who I am.
Daddy, you sometimes grumble at being torn between conflicting demands from your bosses and subordinates in the Japanese trading company you have been working for. I deeply appreciate what you have been doing for us for a long time and, at the same time, I deeply feel pity for you because you command no respect from my mother and me.
I know that it is unfair of us to make light of your hard work since mother and I know nothing of so-called the real world out there.
Daddy, I did the second midterm examination exceptionally well last week. I gained fourth place out of one hundred and seventy-five freshmen. (I subtracted Yukio and then added a transfer student.) But my mother still gave me a dissatisfied look, just as that dachshund was doing a second ago.
In fact, the dog now appears dissatisfied even more when the elderly couple start heading off toward that pedestrian bridge.
After they have gone out of view, I go up to the bridge. The evening breeze smells the mixture of Japanese zelkova and car exhaust fumes. There is found a can of orange juice, half empty, on one of its handrails. It looks alarming. Searching for a sign of Maya, I picture this: She is holding her fists to both sides of the temple with her forefingers stuck up straight. Then she slowly emerges from behind a tree, wearing a gashed smile from ear to ear, with her eyes glowed with fury. She shouts in whispers, ‘You know my secret, don’t you?’
No, she is not there. No one is hiding behind the tree.
There is only this evening breeze, which is gently swirling about this bridge.
I take a look at the road down below. It bends to the left in a tight curve soon after it goes under this bridge. I keep watching roofs of cars coming and going with headlights and tai-lights on. It might be easy to throw myself off this bridge. What if I try it now?
I lean over the handrail and start remembering the details of Reiko’s secrets I read in Cahier de Secret.
Fireworks
On the pages of Cahier de Secret, Reiko’s private life seemed to be transcribed word for word from her long confession that had been probably recorded by a digital camcorder or audio recorder. Yukio might have asked her hard questions whenever he needed to obtain specific details from her story, but there was no trace of his voice to be found in the text itself. It was purely descriptive. I have no idea how many sessions were required to produce such a book-length confession. All I could do is to read the text.
Soon I started to hear Reiko whispering in my ear as follows: I learned a lot about a grown-up. I think a man is able to transform himself into something totally different when his body odor starts to smell stronger than the scent of his cologne. When it happens, a man becomes something like a cave that can be found nowhere else but only when you’re in bed with him.
You start exploring it, partly because you become aware that you can no longer go back to the place where you can be what you used to be. There is no turning back once you have stepped into such the unknown cave. And that’s what I eventually realized after having started dating with my stepfather.
It was last spring when I asked him to take me out of a casual party that was held in the American investment bank of the Tokyo branch for which he had been working as a vice-president. I requested him to take me out for a night drive after I had asked permission from my mother who looked surprisingly popular at the party especially among Japanese wives of Japanese executi
ves in the branch.
Like my mother, there are some Japanese women who adore Caucasian men. I’m not particularly fond of Caucasian men, only I love older men. The difference is that I don’t much care about nationality, though I cannot form a liking for any Japanese men over twenty.
I dozed off in father’s Bentley, breathing in the smell of leather. When I was shaken out of sleep, the joints in the concrete road were making a rattling noise similar to that in a rail. The car was crossing the Rainbow Bridge across over the Tokyo Bay.
I was delighted by the night view of the megalopolis so much that my secret intention accidentally slipped from my lips.
‘Father, I’m curious how an older man kiss a girl on the mouth.’
‘I wonder if you’ve already done it with boys, Reiko.’
‘No, I haven’t. Boys are wandering germs.’
‘That’s a good news.’
‘No, I told you a lie. Actually I’m sick and tired of kissing and being kissed.’
‘That’s a good news, too.’
‘I think I outgrew boys years ago.’
‘I agree, though partly.’
‘What if I say I feel like showing off how well I can kiss a man?’
‘That would be a bad news, I guess.’
‘How about…kissing you on the mouth?’
It was then that my father pulled over his car near a small park.
I still remember the sight of cherry blossoms at that night.
They were so beautiful they looked otherworldly. But, actually, they were artificial cherry trees, according to a standing signboard I spotted. That was why there were no fallen petals found in the park.
I was told to look him in the eyes, so I gazed up at him impassively and when he sighed with a troubled look I started casting my secret spell of silence on my father.
Look at me, daddy.
A Japanese Schoolgirl Page 14