by Mark Henshaw
He got up and went to stand by the window.
No, he said. Hideo was finally cornered. Halfway across the bridge. And he knew it. And cornered not by me. But by himself. His thoughts. Thoughts that had tormented him for years, for what he had done. How could any father sell his own child?
Katsuo stood looking out into the growing darkness.
How many times had I imagined him, after every trip, walking up to the railing of the bridge. How many times do you think I actually followed him? I used to see him stop there on his evening walk. He’d stand at the railing, for five, ten minutes, peering over the side. Listening to the sound of the water swirling below, over which he could still hear the voices raging in his head. Knowing that, perhaps, this was the moment, the moment to atone for the ghastliness of what he had done. But he could never bring himself to do it. Even after he’d surrendered her. He always walked on.
Katsuo took the cigarette from his mouth, stubbed it out on the glass. He came over to the table. Picked up the pack, but finding it empty threw it back onto the table. He went to stand by the window again.
Don’t you see what I did, Tadashi? I put myself in his skin. And I could not live with myself. I did not kill Hideo. I merely released him from his torment.
They went out onto the terrace. The evening shadows had already spilled down the mountain, inundating the city, rubbing the edges off things. They talked on like this into the night.
It soon became clear to Omura that Katsuo had thought he was merely there because he had discovered the truth about Hideo’s death. That, in a way, Katsuo was relieved now that this truth was out. He seemed strangely happy to chat. To fill him in on what had happened to him over the years since they had last seen each other.
He told him what it had been like after Mariko left. What a mistake he had made letting her go. How desolate he had felt. How empty. He told him of his self-imposed exile, and of his return. Of how cruel the chance discovery of Mariko’s death so soon after his return had seemed.
And then he told him about Sachiko. How he had found her. How he had sent her books. Anonymously. Including his own. How having Sachiko around was like having Mariko back. As though he had been forgiven.
He told Tadashi how they used to talk to each other. How she had never tired of answering his questions.
And, after a long while, he told him of that fateful night, the night Sachiko died. They had gone to Ume’s village in the mountains, he said. For a break. The week before, Sachiko had received a letter telling her that her friend Kimiko had been found floating in the pool at Takaragawa. She had drowned inexplicably during the night. Sachiko took the news to be an omen. She said she felt trapped. She needed to get away. Get some air. So they decided to escape to the mountains. Just for a short time. Sachiko was not due to give birth for another six weeks. They would come back to Osaka when she was ready.
On the second afternoon we were there, he said, Ume took us up the mountain to see its famous temple. It was cold. Snow from the previous night blanketed the hills. I was worried, he said. But Sachiko insisted we go.
The sun is shining, she said.
She wore the snow kimono, the one her grandmother had made, the one she had worn that first night, under her coat. We followed one of the many paths up through the forest to the temple.
The shrine was beautiful, tranquil. The woods indescribably quiet. We were the only ones there. Each of us had felt the peacefulness that only newly fallen snow brings. Amid the stillness, the leafless trees, the snow, the mountains rising above them, we had felt blessed.
On the way down the mountain, however, the weather suddenly turned. It began to snow again, lightly at first, then more heavily. We were still within sight of the shrine when Sachiko said that she felt unwell. With me supporting her on one side, and Ume on the other, we tried to walk on, but Sachiko became more and more distressed with every step we took. All at once, she cried out: Oh, Katsuo. I need to stop. I think the baby’s coming!
Ume and I lay Sachiko down on her coat. Ume felt her stomach. It was snowing heavily now. And the baby was coming.
We could not stay where we were. It was far too cold now. We tried getting Sachiko to her feet again, but she cried out again in pain.
It was then, Katsuo said, that I had a terrifying presentiment, a kind of falling into place. I felt suddenly, he said, as if we had been lured there.
Where are we? I asked Ume.
We’re about a kilometre from the village, she said. It’s not far.
Being so close only seemed to make it worse.
Sachiko had started whimpering. I could hear the fear in her voice.
Oh Katsuo, Katsuo. Help me, she said. Please, please help me.
It was late afternoon. The snow was falling. The trees, and the mountain, were already beginning to disappear. And there were so many paths.
I don’t know the way, I said.
I will go, Katsuo-san, Ume said to me. I know which path to take. You stay here with Sachiko.
She stood up, prepared to go.
Don’t worry, she said. It’s not far. Just keep Sachiko warm. I will be back soon.
And Ume set off into the falling snow.
Katsuo had taken Sachiko’s gloved hand in his. Talk to me, he said. Just talk to me. It will take away the pain.
He no longer recalled, he said, the precise moment he realised—I remember the snow had stopped, and the moon had already appeared above the mountain behind us—that Ume was not coming back.
He recalled how still it was. How eerily beautiful.
And Ume did not return.
Hours later he heard their voices, and saw their burning torches through the trees. In her haste, Ume had fallen from the path, into the steep ravine. And could not get out. She had lain there for hours, calling.
On the outskirts of the village, in a small warm room, a man has stayed up late, working into the night. Eventually—they have been there for some time—he hears the faint cries of a woman echoing off the mountain. He puts down his pen. Listens. Walks out into the night.
It is this that saves Ume. And Katsuo. And a tiny, blood-spattered newborn child. But not Sachiko.
Chapter 44
WHO was it who said: There is another world—this is it.
The time, they both knew, had come. It was the early hours of the morning. They had stopped talking. They had gone back to sit in the darkness of the long room.
I know you, Tadashi, Katsuo said eventually. You are still, I imagine, the man of principle I once knew. I know where this will end. Unlike you, I gambled. And lost. I am prepared to wait.
For what? I said.
For you, Tadashi. For the inevitable. You have my fate in your hands.
You make fate sound so puny, Katsuo. It’s not just you who is waiting, I said. There’s also Mrs Yamaguchi.
Ah yes, dear Mrs Yamaguchi. Sachiko’s mother.
And her husband.
Again he waited.
The man you killed.
As I said to you, Tadashi, I merely released him from his torment.
>
I’m surprised, Katsuo, I said, how little you interrogate things that concern you. What was it you used to say to me? About writing? It’s simple, I remember you saying. All you have to do is ask, What if? And then, How come?
Katsuo was sitting watching me closely now.
You know, I said. Mrs Yamaguchi? I saw her a second time. At the inn.
Still he waited.
What if I told you that Sachiko was not her child? That she had a sister?
I took out my own pack of cigarettes and threw it onto the table in front of him.
You know, Inspector, even as he was looking at me, I could see him trying to isolate what it was he had missed. He seemed somehow smaller now.
And still it had not dawned on him.
What if, what if, what if.
The atmosphere in the room began to change. You could feel it. It was as if every particle, every molecule, everything around us were now waiting, and Katsuo and I were somehow connected to the world, and to each other, in a way that we had never been connected before.
A sister. From a mountain village.
I saw the moment of truth arrive. Katsuo began rocking back and forth in his chair, a look of growing anguish on his face. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, his face was drained of blood.
And I knew he knew. He’d been looking in the wrong direction. The retrospective piece had fallen into place.
No, he said.
The sound of a baby crying came to us again.
He put his head in his hands. So that I could not see his eyes. So that he would not see the blow coming. He was leaning forward in his chair now, like a prisoner waiting to be executed.
Mariko, he said to himself. And then, under his breath, Sachiko.
Yes, I said. Sachiko was Mariko’s child. The child you never wanted.
You can’t prove anything.
And what about the child I hear crying? I said.
Fumiko.
Yes, what about her?
Katsuo looked up at me.
If Fumiko were to find out one day that Sachiko was your daughter, what do you think that would do to her?
You know, Tadashi, he said, you’ve always judged me too quickly, too uncharitably. If only I had done half the things I told you I had done, what a life I would have had.
Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Mariko, Sachiko, Fumiko…
He reached for my pack of cigarettes. Took one from it. Struck a match.
Yes, he said. Mariko. Sachiko. Fumiko. What am I going to do about Fumiko?
The match was still burning. He shook it distractedly. Inhaled.
Fumiko, he said slowly. You’re going to tell, aren’t you, Tadashi?
Tell who?
The authorities. About Hideo.
No, I said. I knew he knew what was coming next. You are.
But then it will all come out, he said. Fumiko will know that I killed—
Who? Her grandfather? Her mother’s uncle? A weak old man who had sold his own stepdaughter to you. And then wanted her back?
But what about Sachiko? You know I was Sachiko’s father.
Yes, I do. But I can live with that. And so can you. Fumiko shouldn’t have to.
PART IX
VALEDICTION
Chapter 45
HE was fucking his own daughter, for Christ’s sake, Martine said.
They were sitting at Le Bar l’Anise. They were both rugged up because of the cold. Soon it would be winter. Martine was smoking, tapping her cigarette lighter impatiently on the table, waving the smoke away with her hand, just as Jovert imagined Katsuo had done.
Yes, you’re right, he said. But did he know? I don’t think he did.
Of course he fucking knew, she said. Or if he didn’t, he should have.
Perhaps.
Well, didn’t you ask what’s-his-name? Takashi? Tadeshi?
Tadashi. Omura. Professor Omura.
Whatever, she said.
You see, that’s what’s so strange, he said. That evening, the evening Omura told me all of this, when I looked up, he was sitting there looking at me. Just as he must have done with Katsuo.
Jovert reached for his coffee. Swirled the remnants around in the bottom of his cup. Some of the depleted grounds stuck to the sides. He drained what was left. The coffee was lukewarm. It tasted bitter now.
We were just two old men sitting in a room opposite each other, talking, he said. Something so simple. And yet, so strange. So…unfinished. As if we were two parts of an uncompleted whole. Do you know what I mean?
She didn’t answer. She sat looking at him. As though she was still angry.
And what about the girl? she said after a little while.
What girl?
The girl on the ice. You remember, when Professor Omura took Fumiko to see her mother’s grave. The girl whose baby was trapped under the ice. What about her?
I don’t know, Jovert said.
Didn’t you ask? I thought that’s what you did!
No, I didn’t. I remember Omura saying to me—it was when we were out walking, so it must have been that first night—I thought you might have asked.
About what? I’d said.
About the girl on the ice.
But we must have got sidetracked, because I never found out. And after that, we never came back to it.
He looked at his watch. It was already after four.
I must remember to ask him next time I see him.
He put his hand up, signalled to Daudet, raised an invisible glass to his lips. He looked at Martine.
You? he said.
She too glanced at her watch.
Why not? I’m still cold from walking here, she said.
He held two fingers up.
Deux, he mouthed.
It’s strange, he said to Martine. When we were sitting in Omura’s room, after he had told me about Mariko, about who Sachiko really was, what Katsuo had done, it was as though Katsuo were in the room with us. Waiting for us, waiting for me to answer some as yet unasked question. And suddenly I realised.
Oh, I said. I’m sorry, Professor Omura. Of course. You want to know—what would I have done?
Yes, Inspector, he said. What would you have done? Would you have told the police?
Had he slipped that far? In such a short time? A matter of five months? Had he really relinquished the habits of a lifetime so quickly? He would never have accepted at face value some of what Omura had told him if, back then, it had been Omura who had been brought in for him to interrogate. Never.
He saw Omura leaning forward to peer into his room that first night, the night he had picked up the keys. He recalled how Omura had seemed reluctant to leave. What had he said? ‘Yes.’ ‘Yes.’ That was all! And then he saw Omura standing there, waiting to be invited in.
He felt disgusted with himself. How could he
have fallen so quickly?
He called the real-estate agent at nine the next morning. Yes, he could go through their records if Jovert wanted him to. Yes, twenty-five years, longer, they were all in the basement. He knew Jovert’s apartment. The list would not be long. There had been few owners, fewer tenants.
Then it was evening. Night. The typing stopped. He looked at his watch. Twelve forty-five. The rest of the building already asleep. Five minutes later, he was standing outside Omura’s door, knocking. He heard Omura’s footsteps. The door opened. Omura stood there, a cigarette in his hand.
Insp—?
He was on the bus, Jovert almost shouted.
Who? Omura took a half-step back.
Katsuo. That day, when Sachiko came down the mountain with her stepfather for the first time. Katsuo was on the bus.
What do you mean, Inspector? On the bus?
Can I come in? Jovert said. Are you busy?
You know I’m not, Inspector. I was going to go out onto the balcony, but it’s freezing out there.
It’s mid-November, Jovert said. What did you expect?
I was just about to make some tea, Omura said. Would you like some? Or something to drink?
No, I’m fine, Jovert said. I’ve been going over some of what you’ve told me these past few months. And now I find myself saying, no, that can’t be right. How would Katsuo know that? Sachiko can’t have told him.
Cigarette? Omura asked. A small pyre of bent-elbowed butts already occupied the ashtray on the coffee table. Omura saw Jovert looking.
It’s last night’s as well, Omura said.
I’m sorry?
Nothing, he said. It doesn’t matter. You were saying.