“I knew you’d say that. Look at the register all you want, have a ball with all your wild theories. I’ll join you for dinner again once you’ve cooled off.” His tone made it painfully obvious that he wanted to hang up.
“Wait, hey, was there anything else you found out?”
“Everything else was in the clear. Dad was never divorced, and there were only records for us, no mysterious birth or death certificates for other kids. That’s it for now.”
That’s it? I threw the phone onto the bed and thumped down on the rumpled sheets. But I got back onto my feet straightaway and started to pace the small room. It didn’t calm me down in the slightest. I looked out the window and saw the dogs playing tranquilly as usual, ranging about inside the fence. They looked resigned and satisfied, seeming at once to behave like a pack yet also not like one at all. They each acted according to their own desires while actually conforming to subtle constraints of order. After watching them for a while I felt myself cool down a little, as I always did. I wondered if dogs actually exuded something that had a tranquilizing effect on humans.
I sat on the chair at my desk and switched on my laptop. Breaks were fixed at just fifteen minutes, but I wanted to do a little research into how courts declared people missing after hearing what Yohei had said.
It was after eight when the fax of the family registers came through. Unable to wait any longer, I was sitting at a table in the cafe, eating frozen rice pilaf I’d heated up in the microwave. I usually ate on the second floor, but the fax machine was downstairs so I had little choice.
Yohei had faxed the old family registers for both Dad and Granddad, documents that were rendered obsolete after the family’s permanent residence was registered in Komagawa.
Although family registers don’t have much text, they are hard to read, especially those from before everything was digitized. I neglected my food as I spent a long time skimming through the papers, but I finally managed to pin down a number of facts.
First: Dad’s register was transferred from Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture, to Maebashi when I was four and in the hospital. Neither Yohei nor I had visited, but Sendai was Dad’s birthplace, and he had continued to live there with his unwed aunt after his parents had died. After the fire he had moved to Maebashi to live with my grandparents. There he had not only applied for local residency—moving from somewhere in Tokyo—but had switched his permanent residence from the Miyagi address at the same time. Even though he would again change his permanent address to Komagawa just a few months later.
Mom’s name was there, listed as his wife, and the eldest daughter of her parents. She was in the Miyagi register because of the marriage, and nothing else, not her birthday or the date of the marriage, seemed to contradict anything I already knew. It was as Yohei had said. Apart from the fact that Dad had re-registered at Komagawa so quickly, there was nothing that stood out as particularly suspect.
The problem was with my grandfather’s register. There, after Misako, Mom’s name, was listed another name: Emiko, the second daughter.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Emiko. The name Gran had let slip through tears in the nursing home. It was an obsolete register so each name had a diagonal strike-through. The name Emiko was struck off as well, but unlike the others, there was a strange inscription in the documentation column next to it.
Presumed deceased March 10 1995
Legal declaration August 5 1997
Reported August 7
Ryosuke Yanagihara (Father)
Stricken from register
The note was written without punctuation. The name, Ryosuke Yanagihara, was that of my late grandfather. Even though I’d been warned on the phone, actually seeing it with my own eyes gave me an icy shock that crawled up from deep within my gut. The night silence of the empty cafe felt suddenly oppressive.
Emiko Yanagihara.
Was she my real mother?
Had I lived my whole life not knowing a single thing about her, of her very existence, of this person who was presumed dead, who had left me behind? If she was the murderer who had written the notebooks, that meant the blood of a killer ran through my veins.
I sat in a daze. My head swirled with all the words and the various scenes in the notebooks. After a while they resolved together into a single floating image of a woman in a floral dress, holding a folded parasol and a white handbag. Her features were indistinct, but I could feel an incredible tenderness in the way she smiled in my direction. She looked like she wanted to say something to me.
Why had she gone missing?
From some internet research I’d done earlier that day, I’d gathered that if someone had been missing for over seven years, a relative could apply in court for a missing persons declaration, which effectively made the missing person recognized as deceased. It was too late to change anything, but I wanted at least to know what had happened to Emiko Yanagihara, how she had died. I would have to come to terms with it all, no matter how sinful the blood I’d inherited. The thought made me want to cry.
Dad’s old register had been struck off in 1988, the time of the move to Komagawa, but the other of the two obsolete registers from Maebashi, Granddad’s, hadn’t been struck off until 1998—a whole decade later. He had come with us to Komagawa, so why hadn’t he processed his register at the same time?
There was only one answer: to sever Emiko’s name from the family. With a missing person declaration to confirm death, her name would be absent from any new records made thereafter. So he’d waited, moving the register to Komagawa once that was done. They’d all been in it together; my grandparents, Dad, Misako. It was the only possible conclusion.
My eyes fell closed. I pressed my hands into my temples.
Holding still in that pose I could nearly make out a faint something, a silhouette peeking up from beneath my dark doubts. Maybe I didn’t need to work out what had happened after all. Maybe the truth was already out in the open, and the only problem was that I just couldn’t accept it.
Sometime later I picked up my spoon and finished what was left of the pilaf I’d heated earlier. Having cooled so much, it felt as tough as uncooked grains of rice.
12
Nothing particularly interesting happened over the next few days. Finding myself with no choice but to wait, I took each day as it came, my mental state in chaos as I felt both preoccupied and absent-minded. I did a pretty decent job at work, or at least I think so. Or perhaps it was thanks to the work that I was able to hold on. And besides, I got to work with dogs. If I made eye contact they came up to me, drooling a little. When I fussed over them, petting their heads or tugging at their ears, I found it impossible to dwell on other things. It’s hard to gauge just how much those moments rescued me.
The hardest time was after the cafe was closed. At night, by myself, my head would fill with a never-ending stream of rambling thoughts. My feelings swayed between resentment that had nowhere to go and misery that made my chest clench. My thoughts kept running over the same things even though I knew it was pointless.
I would slowly sip a beer each night. I knew it would be better to snap out of it, to listen to some music or give Yohei a call, but for some reason I didn’t want to. I preferred to sit quietly in my chair, a prisoner to the cycle of my thoughts. When the alcohol had seeped into my body, I would fall into bed without even changing out of my clothes and be pulled into a light sleep.
One such night, I felt a presence appear next to me, as though someone was right there. It was my mother, at my bedside, watching me like she had watched “you” all those years ago, staying with him until he fell asleep. The thought coiled around me as I lay there half-asleep. I could almost feel her pleasantly cool palm nearly touching my forehead. My young mother, my mother who had died so young, whose name was Emiko.
I tried to concentrate to get a better look at her indistinct features, but instead countless words from the notebooks rushed out, hiding her face from sight. She seemed to be calling out to me from beh
ind those words. She was probably long dead, and yet it felt like she was asking for my help.
Mother.
I tried to call out but my voice didn’t work. I tried to move but my body only twitched, like I was stuck in a fit of sleep paralysis. I was beset with helpless panic, but I maintained my focus and at last a dim figure began to take shape against my closed eyelids. The sleeveless summer dress, the white handbag, the face smiling in my direction—only for some reason, it was Chie. Her almond eyes, her slightly creased eyelids, the tiny mole underneath one eye, the girl I would never forget, no matter how hard I tried, her familiar scent, like spring flowers.
I suddenly couldn’t tell if it was my mother or Chie that was calling for help. I knew I would probably fail them both, let both of them die. That premonition swelled relentlessly.
My throat rasped as I groaned in horror, the sound of my own voice rousing me. Sweating and gasping for air I began to sob quietly, the possibility hitting me that, just like my mother, Chie might already be dead.
Despite everything, Sunday eventually came around. I stayed at work as long as I could but ended up having to leave during the day’s busiest period. I felt all the worse when no one seemed annoyed in the slightest, not Ms. Hosoya, not even Nachi, who usually liked to mouth off.
As before, I kept watch for Dad from inside the coffee shop next to the station. This time I was working by myself as it would be suspicious for Yohei to visit Gran two weeks in a row. It would be dangerous to spend too long in Dad’s study, because unlike the previous week, I would have no way of finding out if Dad decided to cut his visit short and come back early. I supposed I would have to return notebook three and take number four, which I hadn’t read yet. I could do that in less than five minutes.
It had been only a week, but when Dad appeared beyond the window he seemed to have lost even more weight. His shirt looked too baggy, the fabric billowing oddly. Yet still his posture was upright, and he walked with long strides. I followed his retreating back with my gaze until he was gone, surprised as I was by my own unbearably complex emotions.
I left the shop five minutes later and hurried to the house.
I stood in front of the open closet, not knowing what to do.
The notebooks were gone.
I had turned the contents of the cardboard box inside out in my search but couldn’t find either the manila envelope with the notebooks nor that handbag.
Had Dad noticed what I’d done? I tried to work out what I should do, but no bright ideas came to mind. Despite knowing it would be pointless, I looked through another box nearby, then another and another, until finally I had pulled every last box from the closet. The closet on the other side was all but jammed shut by the bookshelf, so it was very hard work getting it open. I dug through it all, finding nothing but old clothes, cutlery, and other useless things that made me feel fed up with the whole ordeal. There was no sign of the bag or the notebooks.
By the time there was nowhere left to stand in the cramped study, I had no choice but to give up. It took a long time to put all the boxes back and run a vacuum cleaner over the dust-covered room. I couldn’t get everything back as it had been, so Dad would realize the boxes had been moved the moment he opened the closet. I no longer cared.
I went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table with a beer as I waited for Dad. It was the time of year when the days were long, but it was already getting dark outside.
It was after seven when Dad got back.
“Ah, you’re here.” He pulled a can of beer from the fridge, greeting me as usual.
“Were you expecting me?” I asked.
“I guess so.” He drank about half of the beer at once, clearly relishing it before putting the can down. “It was hot today.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Stop asking the same damn thing.”
I’d known he would say that, but I’d seen how his wrist had thinned down to the bone and ended up asking anyway. I had asked the question even though I knew the answer couldn’t be good.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah?”
“Where did you put the notebooks?”
His expression remained unchanged. It was calm enough to make me wonder, for a moment, if he hadn’t heard. He seemed not to notice the way I was staring as he picked up his beer can, drained it, and let out a sigh. Only after that did he look in my direction, though he seemed to focus on a point in the air between us.
“You’ve got one, don’t you.”
“Yes. But I just have to read the rest. I’ve only got the fourth one left now.”
It felt like we were just chatting normally.
“I thought maybe you’d just taken one at random. Okay, so you’ve already read the first three.”
I nodded.
“I took them out because I didn’t want you to read them. I wanted to get rid of them while I still have the energy.”
“Well, I’ve started now. I have to read to the end.”
I pulled the third notebook from my shoulder bag and put it on the table. Dad was silent. He didn’t even look at the notebook. He was looking at me with an unfocused gaze. The expression was oddly similar to Yohei’s when he was sulking.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Dad said simply, after a long moment had passed. He got up from his chair and walked into the living room, right off the kitchen. He opened a drawer in the small bureau with Mom’s—Misako’s—memorial photograph on top, and pulled out the manila envelope. I didn’t know what his real motive was, if he’d hidden it there deliberately right by her photo. When he came back he handed the envelope to me and said, “Sorry, but I’m going to go upstairs and get a little rest while you’re reading. It’s rather pathetic, but I’m a lot weaker now so even walking a bit takes a toll. Call me when you’re done.”
It was unusual to hear Dad complain like that, but instead of offering sympathy, I only managed a vague response. Listening to the steps creak as he climbed the stairs, I pulled out the contents of the envelope. Even though I finally had the notebook in my hands I felt extremely anxious, as though it might be snatched away at any moment. I hastily put the three I’d read to one side, then picked up the fourth. I took a deep breath to try and calm down, but it had little effect.
I knew the last lines of the third notebook so well I could easily recite them:
And so several years passed.
After that, everything began to fall apart.
My hand trembled as I flipped through the pages, thinking that what I was about to read described how things fell apart, as well as the events that led up to my mother’s death. For a moment the desire to read it nearly faltered, but there wasn’t any turning back.
One afternoon I was out walking along the street, my son’s hand in mine, when someone called out to me using my maiden name.
“Wow, whatta surprise! Long time no see! Gosh, I was pretty sure I had the wrong person, but I thought I’d try calling out anyway. You look so different. I wonder what it is. Your face? It’s like you’re a different person.”
The man was balding, making it seem like he had two horns. He was a contractor from my old workplace. His prices had been reasonable and he came quickly when we called, so we’d used him for most of the office supplies. I was usually the one to place orders.
“Oh, so you got married. Hey there, young man. You look like a good boy. How old are you?”
My son fidgeted shyly, then held up his fingers to show the man his age.
“Wow, that’s great. What’s your name?”
The man with the horns had given me a garish scarf one Christmas. He said it was a present, so I’d thanked him and taken it, but after that I couldn’t bring myself to order supplies as usual. It was one of the many reasons I was eventually forced to leave the company.
“Hey, this kind of thing doesn’t happen too often, let’s go get some tea. Gosh, this sure is a surprise. I guess women change
this much when they get married. I want to ask you all about that. ’Cause, you see, I’m still a lonely old bachelor!”
I could see inside his gaping mouth when he laughed. “I can’t, sorry. I’ve actually got some errands to run.”
“Oh come on, I saw you just strolling along. I could see you from way over there. Look, I’m in the middle of work myself, but you’ve got to cherish this kind of coincidence. How about it, young man? Wanna get some juice? Or maybe ice cream?”
“We really can’t. We have to go now.”
But the man kept on speaking, acting like he hadn’t heard me. “You quit real sudden. That was pretty mean, even if it was a long time ago. Hey, that reminds me, did you see it in the papers? A little while after you left, someone was murdered there, in your company’s office. Hmm? Oh, so you don’t know. It was about four, maybe five years back. And the guy that got killed was someone we both knew pretty well. Can you guess who it was?” he said, prefacing the name of the man I had killed. “And what’s worse, the killer clubbed him to death with one of my garbage bins. Talk about leaving a bad taste in the mouth. You know, the kind everyone used, steel, looked like an umbrella stand. One of those.”
I hiccupped as I felt my heart tighten like a clenched fist. All the shading of the scenery around me dried up, everything suddenly appearing like the set of a play that glittered with hostility. I felt like the insides of everything I could see around me had been broken the whole time. All Nan-Core gone. I was hit by the intense realization that this was how the world had always looked to me, long ago, before I met you.
“H-Hey, what’s wrong? Huh? What—are you okay? You’re very pale.”
I couldn’t reply, sure that my voice would sound strange.
“Hey, your kid, you’re hurting him. Hey, your hand!”
I noticed the crying voice and let go of my son’s hand. I’d been squeezing too hard. I immediately took hold again and started to walk away.
“Hey, wait, wait! You’re acting mighty strange.” He grabbed my shoulder, enough to make me nearly lose my footing. “Are you running away? Why the rush … Cat got your tongue or something? Hey … Do you actually know what happened? Were you … Were you involved in some way?”
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