by Otsuichi
Why had the boy told the girl to run? I tossed the cell phone into the passenger seat, leaned forward so that my body was up against the steering wheel, and glared out ahead of the car. The railroad tracks cut through the space illuminated by the headlights. The warning bells were silent; there was no sign of a train. I adjusted the heater temperature to warm the inside of the car. My fingers were still cold, but sensation was returning to the tips. My respiration rate and my pulse had also returned to normal.
The cell phone rang. The display said PRIVATE NUMBER. I braced myself and accepted the call. I heard the voice of the boy.
“Hello?”
“Why did you tell her to run?” I asked, omitting the usual courtesies.
“Just in case. You could be a deviant, a bloodthirsty murderer.”
“Me? Don’t be stupid!” I had committed several murders, but I was no deviant.
“That’s good then. My worry was unnecessary.”
“Why were you so worried?”
“Because she’s been in danger before. Maybe she was born under an unlucky star. Anyway, did you take the pictures of the corpse?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Strange. On the phone, Morino said that she pretended to be a corpse and took souvenir photos.”
Although the word “strange” did come out of his mouth, the boy didn’t seem troubled in the least. That said, he didn’t seem to be toying with me either, even as I hesitated and mumbled. He was simply speaking dispassionately. His voice was even—were I to describe it in one word, that word would be “empty.” Was this cell phone in my hand connected to a dark hole? Maybe this voice wasn’t something originating from a human being, but echoing up from a deep, pitch-black hole.
“Who exactly are you?”
But the boy did not respond to my question. “Is it all right if I ask for your license plate number?”
“There’s no reason I’d tell you that.”
“Then I’ll say the number myself. Please confirm.” Having said that, the boy recited several digits. It was indeed my license plate number.
“That’s not it.”
“You’re lying, hm?”
“Don’t ask then.”
“When I told you to confirm, I wanted to confirm with you that I know your license plate number.”
“When did you find that out?”
“Earlier, on the phone with Morino.”
“I was going to drive her to the station. The way she up and disappeared like that puts me in a bit of a bind, doesn’t it? What if she gets lost and gets in some kind of trouble?”
“Please don’t go anywhere for a while.”
“Let me guess. You’ve got the wrong idea. You think I’m the murderer from the case seven years ago.”
“If that’s the stance you’d like to take, we can set aside the question of whether or not you’re the criminal.”
“That’s not enough for me. You suspect me. I want to hear why.”
“But telling you wouldn’t be any fun.” The boy sighed. Apparently, talking to me was bothersome. As before, I found him unsettling, but this sigh meant he did have an actual body. In this instant, the owner of the voice turned into a silhouette in my mind, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“This isn’t about fun. I want to know why you suspect me.”
“Please don’t be disappointed now that you’ve asked. I warned Morino to run from you because I received a phone call.”
A phone call?
“Just as I mentioned before, she called me, so I told her to run from you.”
I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“Today, December 6, is the anniversary of the death of the girl killed seven years ago.”
That was correct.
“For the last six months or maybe even longer, Morino has been planning to go to the site where the body was discovered. Since they announced the plan for the waste disposal plant. She said that in that case, she was going to go and take a souvenir photo on the anniversary.”
I had gone there for the same reason, that feeling that I had to make sure to go now before I lost that place.
“I was planning to go too, but something came up, and she ended up going by herself. So I gave Morino instructions.”
Call if you meet someone who’s not surprised to see you.
Because that person is not normal.
“Why?” I asked into the cell phone.
“They say that the ghost of the murdered high school girl appears there,” the boy calmly explained.
“You’re talking about those rumors?”
“Morino always goes out in her school uniform. Although there is the occasional exception, she said she was going to slip out of school at lunch and take the bus there, so I knew she had to be in her uniform today. Incidentally, the rumored ghost also wears a black sailor-style uniform.”
I recalled my conversation with Morino.
Several cars passed me while I was coming here from the bus stop, and the drivers all turned pale when they saw me.
Maybe they all thought you were a ghost.
You weren’t surprised when you saw me.
I had known right away that Morino wasn’t a ghost. To begin with, I didn’t believe in ghosts. I even scorned the people who were misled by them. If they had looked into the incident seven years ago, they would’ve soon learned the name of the high school the victim attended. And that school’s uniform was not a black sailor-style outfit. I remember that uniform well because I dressed her corpse seven years ago. It was a plaid skirt with a navy blue blazer that she had put in her bag that evening.
If they had been able to take a look at the weekly magazines of the time, they would have also known the victim’s hairstyle. In articles about the case back then, they had printed a photo of the girl’s face taken when she was still alive. Instead of being long and black, her hair was shoulder length and a color close to blonde. And to go even further, the girl was in street clothes when I killed her. If the ghost had been in street clothes splattered with droplets of blood from my nose, I would have joined the world in being afraid of these stories. But the truth was that the ghost and the girl who became my subject looked nothing like the so-called ghost.
The boy had perhaps realized this. That the criminal would have faced Morino squarely, without being influenced by rumors of a ghost.
“So from a random thing like that, you decide that I’m the one who killed that girl seven years ago.”
“I don’t know whether you did it or not.”
“But that’s what you’re implying.”
“Given Morino’s poor luck, it wouldn’t be at all strange for her to run into a murderer.”
The girl was apparently famous for her bad luck. I became curious about the experiences she’d had thus far. Since I knew that I myself was a murderer, I could sense the truth of his words. However, at that moment, I would only say, “Could your reasoning be more ridiculous?”
A criminal feigning innocence is an ugly sight.
“I don’t care if you’re the one who did it seven years ago, if you’re a homicidal murderer, if you’re a serial killer.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I warned Morino. Not to get close to you. I don’t know who you really are, but if she had never gotten close to you, then this whole thing would have ended without incident. It should have. But then after she called me, she got into your car. It’s beyond my understanding. I don’t know what kind of tricks you used to get the Morino I know to obediently hop into your car.”
I could have asked him the same question.
“At any rate, how about making a deal with me?”
“A deal?”
“Something simple. As long as you don’t try to have anything to do with Morino or myself, we won’t concern ourselves with you.”
I stared silently at the railroad crossing on the other side of the windshield. The tracks led into darkness. I ruminated on the boy’
s words. Ridiculous. What kind of validity would a deal like this have? What the boy was saying, in effect, was “How about we have nothing to do with each other?” What was in it for me? I would ignore his request. I would find Morino and make her my subject.
No, I couldn’t. The boy knew my license plate number. That changed the situation. And this girl Morino knew what I looked like, as well as the make of my car. I thought again about the boy’s deal. Now, I could hear another meaning to his words: “If you try to lay a hand on us, I’ll report your license plate number to the police.” The police would be able to find out who I was from that and possibly search my home. In which case, I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of it.
I didn’t seem to be in a position to promptly reject this deal. I even got the impression that I was the one at a disadvantage. I had already broken the law, after all. It didn’t matter if the boy called the police right after this phone call. The issue if he did wouldn’t be whether or not he had proof that I was the murderer. All the police would have to do was take an interest in what the boy said and focus their attention on me. Eventually, I would be destroyed.
What was the best option? Find and kill the boy before he could call the police, and then find the girl Morino and make her my subject? If I was going to do that, it would be best to do it tonight. But maybe that was impossible? And even if it was possible, there were serious risks involved. I also couldn’t say I would be completely happy once I’d succeeded. I didn’t like killing people. I thought it was repulsive. Would I actually carry out the ugly deed of killing a normal human being, someone who would never be my subject, in the name of self-preservation?
How could I bring the situation back to normal with the least fuss?
Make the deal with the boy. Keep the agreement; don’t break it. Live without interfering with each other; don’t try to remove the other. Tolerate the existence of the other; live life without taking any hostile action. I would lose my subject Morino. There was no way around it. But I would avoid having my life destroyed.
How much could I trust this boy and his deal?
Human beings are liars. I knew that. Which is why I sought the face in death. The face with no forced smile, no performance, no deliberately composed expression. I had never thought about it before, but had I ever truly trusted anyone from the heart? At some point, I had started to feel that it was obvious that the look on a person’s face was contrived and in no way reflected their actual feelings. I had lived my life, giving up on people, fully expecting them to betray me one day. When a person proposed something to me, I didn’t even think about trusting them. But now, what was required in this situation was faith. In a person.
“Why did you choose December 6 seven years ago?” the boy asked.
“I didn’t do it, so I don’t know.”
“Why do you suppose the person who did it chose today seven years ago?”
“I could make a guess. Maybe—”
“It’s the day Rosalia Lombardo died?”
Was Rosalia Lombardo special to the boy like she was for me?
“Right. She died on December 6, 1920. She passed away when she was two and still looks the same now as she did then. The expression on her face is so lively you could almost believe she’s asleep.”
“You know quite a bit about her.” I could almost hear a trust me in the boy’s stream of words. I had to trust him. Otherwise, we’d both be at a disadvantage. I knew this in my head. But in my heart, I was afraid. I was overcome with paranoia. Suspicion that he would betray me and break our agreement, while I naïvely felt secure in my trust. Wasn’t that how it would turn out in the end? Those who trusted the words of others never got ahead in this world; the deceivers were life’s winners. I had witnessed it myself. I had seen people trick and exploit others for their own gain.
My fear was actually the cause of my inability to trust people. Fear of being deceived. Fear of being lied to. My fear of people was stealing from me the freedom of thought.
Could I live my whole life like this? Or would something change if I could trust the boy right here and now? As I cradled my head in the driver’s seat and curled into myself, I heard the boy’s voice almost in a whisper.
“I know Rosalia too.” His voice was very gentle. “The most adorable corpse in history.” There was even an intimacy to it, as though he was speaking to family.
How far can I trust you?
I knew what I had to say. I had to trust a living person.
I’ll make this deal with you, so let’s not have anything to do with each other.
I just had to say it.
But.
“I’ve always wanted to trust people. But I’m scared. I can’t help it.” I didn’t really know what I was saying. But I wanted to confess, like I was seeking salvation from him.
The boy had a response. “That’s fine, no need to change. You don’t have to trust these creatures, these people. They only lie—it’s smarter not to trust them. So then, let’s do this. You can just think of me as not being a person. I’m not human, so you don’t need to be afraid of trusting me.”
“Absurd.”
“I warned Morino and had her leave her cell phone there so we could make this deal. So that you wouldn’t come after her anymore.”
When I hung up, the only sound inside the car was the vibration of the engine. No train crossed the tracks before me. No other cars came along to pass me. It was simply dark outside the car. The deeply suffocating, cavernous darkness of night. I imagined that eventually this darkness would smash through the front windshield and even compress me to the size of a milk bottle, just like the water pressure of the deep ocean crushed everything. What exactly was this boy? Morino said that he and I had the same air. I peeked in the rearview mirror and stared at my own face, but I couldn’t see it. Soon, I became afraid that the amorphous, concentrated darkness outside the car was perhaps the boy himself, and I suddenly wanted to hear a human voice. I turned the radio back on.
Before I started the car, I remembered something. Opening the driver’s side door, I shone my flashlight on the darkness. I collected the snowy-white bandage from the branch where it was still caught and stared at it. The tiniest bit of blood had soaked into it. I held it to my chest and wept.
I started driving and soon entered the town in the foothills. I slid through the flat band of fields and came out into an area with plenty of oncoming traffic. I passed by several signs for 24-hour convenience stores. The sound of the radio didn’t make it into my brain. As I drove, I remembered the exchange with the boy.
†
“Right from the start, I didn’t believe in the rumors. The ghost didn’t even remotely look like the victim reported seven years ago, or her clothes. I knew that. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I saw that girl Morino.” Right until I hung up, I denied having committed the act.
“If that’s true, then I must apologize for keeping you so long on the phone with me.” The voice betrayed no information.
“I’m more annoyed by everyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they hadn’t all believed in these ghost stories, you wouldn’t be suspecting me right now.”
Seven years earlier, the body of a high school girl had been discovered on the mountain pass. Now, a ghost appears in that spot. The ghost wears a black sailor-style uniform and has long hair.
“All of them neglected to check the facts. The people of the world, the person who started the rumor. It’s so obvious that someone who doesn’t want that waste disposal facility to go up planted the rumor.” They had no doubt been trying to tap human emotion—which logic can’t touch—to stoke the desire to fight the government.
“Oh no, that’s not it.” The boy curtly rejected my suppositions.
“How would you know?”
“I’m the one who started the rumor. I started posting it online, regularly, about six months ago. I made up all the stories about seeing a ghost. I was preparing for when Mor
ino and I went to the place where the body was discovered. I was supposed to go too. I thought I might get lucky and see the person who did it, maybe.”
I needed time to digest what I had just heard. Did this mean that the boy had circulated false information and set a trap to find the murderer? Even the fact that the rumored ghost looked exactly like the girl Morino was part of the boy’s plan?
“I don’t know about lucky. But why would you want to see the murderer?”
“The same mentality that makes us go to the zoo to see the lions.”
“How much did that Morino girl know about this? Did she know that you were the one who started the rumors about the ghost?”
“She knows nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She probably thinks you just happened by and were trying to pick her up.”
“So she knew nothing, but still called you and ran away when you told her to?”
“Exactly. Because we’re friends.”
Friends. The instant I heard the word, a shiver went up my spine, and I broke out in goose bumps. Because the boy’s voice held no emotion at all. He spoke as though he didn’t recognize the existence of even the concept of friendship. So why try to protect that girl then? Maybe he had romantic feelings for her?
“And, for the sake of argument, had I been the murderer and had I killed Morino and taken her picture, what would you do?”
“I would find you.”
“You’d get revenge?”
“No, I’d probably ask you to show me the photos.”
“And after that?”
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t see a shred of this thing human beings define as love in this boy. I remembered the look I saw on Morino’s face in the car. That sad air—there was something quite human about it—in contrast with the way this boy talked.
I hung up the phone and didn’t talk to the boy again.
†
Giving up on the girl Morino broke my heart. But if I went to look for her, I would end up meeting the boy somewhere along the way. I got the impression that nothing good would come of tangling with him. The more time passed from the moment I hung up the phone, the more this vague feeling turned into a certainty. I would have to give up on that mysterious girl, reminiscent of a wood at night just as the characters that made up her name suggested. But the longing for her face in death was as strong in me as it had been before, perhaps stronger now, seeking the ineffable feeling that Rosalia Lombardo provoked in me. The deal with the boy was that he and the girl would not concern themselves with me as long as I didn’t get involved with them. In other words, the boy had been telling me to find some subject other than Morino if I wanted to take my pictures.