The Earthquake Bird

by Susanna Jones

  “Besides that, I didn’t even want to.”

  “But you see, the body of your friend was found last night, in an unused shed behind the gas station, just a couple of minutes from your home.”

  I’m beginning to see his point.

  “She was strangled.”

  What is the stench around me? Is it the decaying flesh of the severed pieces found in the bay? Is it the smell of the shed, in the shadow of my own home, where Lily’s cold body was encased? No, it is the smell of my own vomit.

  The police are too professional to let my mishap loosen their glare. I raise my watery eyes apologetically but there is more to come. My friend—the glass of water friend—hands me a metal wastepaper can just in time and snatches his arm away, though not fast enough to avoid a little splashing.

  And I am empty.

  14

  And that’s not all.”

  I’d hoped it was.

  “We’ve learned of your relationship with Matsuda-san.”

  “I don’t know anyone called Matsuda.”

  “Don’t lie. Matsuda Teiji. Weird guy who works in a noodle place. His uncle says he’s in Hokkaido now.”

  Teiji’s uncle. Soutaro. Lucy’s only remaining link with Teiji. She frowned and considered his story, what she knew of it.

  Soutaro was born in northern Tokyo and grew up there, just outside the Yamanote line. In his prewar childhood this meant that he felt almost provincial. Now the city had sprawled so far that his address was positively metropolitan. He was proud to be from Tokyo. Osakans were too loud and Nagoyans were flashy and spent too much money. Tokyo was the heart of Japan.

  During the war, Soutaro was evacuated to the mountains of Gumma and escaped the firebombing of Tokyo that swept away most of his family. His father and younger sister survived. He returned to Tokyo determined to be a part of its rebuilding. He and his father set to work and opened a small restaurant in the neighborhood of Takadanobaba, serving noodles. Soutaro was proud to work there, serving to his fellow city-dwellers this most basic of dishes.

  His sister married and moved to Kyushu. Nineteen years later—though it seemed to Soutaro like nineteen months—she returned. She brought with her a spindly son who looked as though he would never be good for a day’s work.

  Soutaro was proved wrong. This strange, brooding nephew, prone to sudden energetic bouts of laughter, worked hard and became strong. He seemed content mopping the floors, throwing out the old food, drawing up orders for ingredients. He worked all day and then in the evenings he wandered off, who knew where to. When Soutaro’s sister died, there was no question that her son should continue to work there. Soutaro had never married and liked the idea that upon his death the shop would belong to the son of his sister. But since then, the boy had become something of a worry. What was he doing with that camera every day? Why did he have no friends except for that sullen foreign girl? Soutaro was just ready to speak to Teiji, to suggest that it was about time he married (and not a foreigner), when strange things happened. Teiji went away for a weekend, to Sado Island. When he returned he seemed jumpy and nervous. A couple of weeks later, Teiji left a note on the counter of the shop, held down with a roll of undeveloped film. He was going north, to Hokkaido, to try his luck.

  Soutaro couldn’t continue without Teiji. His back was bad and he was ready to retire. He had the film developed, hoping that Teiji had left him a clue, but the pictures were strange shots of deserted beaches, railway tracks with no trains, boarded-up buildings, abandoned trash cans. Emptiness. He looked at them from every angle, turned them upside down. He put on some old 3-D spectacles that had come with a wildlife magazine and peered at each photograph again. Finally he threw the pictures away and sold his shop to a stranger. In his apartment he sketched flowers and birds onto backgrounds of deserted places. He knew he wouldn’t see Teiji again.

  Matsuda Teiji. Teiji Matsuda. How had I never known his surname? I am shocked that in a country where family names are used over given names, I’d somehow evaded Teiji’s. I must have seen it on an envelope, or something in his apartment, or heard a regular customer asking for him by his name. But no, I hadn’t. And now, more than when I’d seen him at the station with Lily, I feel I hardly knew him, that he has fooled me and eluded me.

  “Yes, I knew him.”

  “You were his girlfriend. And guess what. He left you for your friend Lily Bridges. You were so upset that you didn’t even go to work for over a week.”

  Natsuko must have talked to them. Or even Bob. Lily may have sought his advice before paying her visit to Lucy. She may have told him what she’d done with Teiji. But there is no use in accusing friends. It is equally possible that my neighbor deduced, and gave them, this information.

  I’m feeling dizzy, the way I felt on Sado Island before I collapsed on the clifftops. My hands reach up for my face. I rest my elbows on my knees, hold my chin in both hands. The room is hot. My jeans are stuck to my legs with sweat and sick. Someone gives me a bowl of cold water and a cloth. I rub the wet cloth on my arms and legs, twist it in the bowl, wring it to squeeze out brownish drops. I put the cloth in the bowl. It floats and bobs against the surface. I feel cleaner, cooler.

  Now my mouth is moving, talking and talking though my tongue feels as if it’s been anesthetized and I sound drunk. I’m telling them what they want to hear. The story spills out quite easily, almost of its own accord. My insane jealousy of Lily is first, followed by the blind rage that threatened to consume me like fire when she let me down. Next, I detail my obsessive love for Teiji, love that stopped me believing that it was over, that he no longer wanted me. Finally, the pair of stockings that proved such an opportune weapon, and how I caught Lily off guard because she was still willing to believe that I would be her friend and so she even smiled at me. The conclusion: Lily’s squawk of surprise, her short and feeble struggle. Her heavy, lifeless body, still warm as I dragged it to the hiding place. I tell them the long, uncomplicated story and, finally, they are pleased with me.

  A man leads me down a corridor. It seems different from the one I saw several hours ago. The walls are dirty. The floor is slippery under my feet. There are no fluorescent lights here, just single lightbulbs hanging, at intervals, from the ceiling. I close my eyes but the bulbs still dazzle, one by one.

  No, I didn’t kill Lily. Lucy is innocent of murder and guilty only of spinning a story. But she is also very tired. So many people have slipped through my butterfingers, like rounders balls on a summer playing field, that I no longer trust myself. It is pointless to fight my arrest, knowing that I could kill again. I would like some time out of the sun, a rest. And after all, how innocent am I? How not guilty? If I had let Lily speak to me on the phone, she wouldn’t have been in my street that night. It was I who introduced Lily to Teiji and I who persuaded her not to return to Britain when she wanted to. The defendant must decide how to plead. And here is my plea. Not guilty, but not not guilty. Not entirely guilty but not entirely innocent. The truth may out in the trial, but for now I’ll be the murderer.

  I realize I’m not wearing my own clothes but garments of soft cotton. I suppose someone told me to change, let me take a shower. I don’t remember it. I feel as if I might have been asleep but I don’t know how much time has passed, whether it was an hour or a night, whether it’s now the same day or it’s tomorrow.

  A flat, male voice tells me that I’m being taken to a room where a visitor waits. I wonder who has come to see me.

  Could it be Teiji? Teiji with a full name he never told me of. Teiji who abandoned me for my friend, why did you do that, Teiji? That’s the only question I shall ask if, indeed, you are my visitor. And the answer I’m hoping for is an impossible one, you see, because it’s an answer that allows us to forget Lily, to go back in time to where we were before I let her in. And I think I see you through the open door but already you’re vanishing into nothing, the way your voice dissolved before when it was all I wanted to hear. I wish you wouldn’t go. But there, you hav
e and my heart sinks. No. What was Lucy thinking of? I know my visitor can’t be Teiji for he is in Hokkaido. He has no reason to come here and the police will never find him in the city or the mountains. He’s disappeared already into thin shadows.

  So then it must be Miriam, who’s tired of waiting for me by the sea and wants a real daughter to look after her and cook for her, not Felicity, and as I think of her I wonder how she could come to Tokyo when she can barely leave her house, her pain is so bad that she sits in the same chair all day, and it’s impossible so I think that it might be Jonathan here instead, who used to be a policeman himself, and he’s come to take me home. I’m blinking now, because my eyes are salty and I can almost hear the sea, and I can make out his shape through the open door ahead of me but then, how would I know it’s Jonathan? I haven’t seen him since he was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen at the most. But there he is, and Miriam behind him, looking so old and haggard now, staring at me with sad eyes, and I see the brothers: Luke, Nathan, Samuel, Simon, Matthew, smiling at Lucy but without a trace of cruelty and she sees them quite differently, not a jeering pack in Boy Scout uniforms but happy, healthy little boys with shining eyes. They’re small, and sweet. I’m glad to see them but if they’ve come to take me back with them, I’ll have to let them down, poor children. They can’t speak Japanese, I’m sure they can’t, and that is half my language now, it’s more than half.

  But they’ve faded into dots and gone. It isn’t Jonathan or any of the brothers. It’s Lizzie with her trombone, her greasy hair and illnesses. She’s come to play music and she wants me to return with her to work for the BBC. Of course, I’ll tell her that I can never do that because I haven’t watched British television for more than ten years and I won’t know how to do the job. And I haven’t seen my cello since Mrs. Yamamoto died and musical instruments are very expensive, as George and Miriam always said. Lizzie, I’m sorry to say that it will be impossible to play with you.

  Lizzie’s voice says it’s not her, silly, it’s Brian Church and he says, no it isn’t. But I’m becoming confused and making mistakes. I must keep it clear in my head. I’m not dead yet. Noah, Brian, George, Mrs. Yamamoto, Lily. They’ll have to wait. I’m still alive. I am.

  I stand in the doorway, force myself to get a grip because I know I haven’t lost my mind, I’m sure I haven’t lost it. I count to ten, five times, ten times, twenty times. I wait a little longer to be certain. And then I’m ready. I force my brain to produce a logical thought. It does. My logical thought is that the visitor can only be Natsuko or Bob.

  I enter the room. I can’t feel my legs anymore. It’s as if I’m being wheeled along on casters. A person sits in front of the window, facing me. The sun is shining through and my eyes are not accustomed to natural light. I can’t make out any features on the face but I’m sure I don’t know this figure.

  “Hello, Lucy. Do you remember me?”

  I swear I don’t. I squint. Is she speaking English or Japanese? I understand her words but I don’t know which language they’re from.

  “You don’t look well. We’re going to get you out of this place and then you’ll be fine.”

  She giggles and I blink. It is Mrs. Katoh, the viola player.

  I suppose she has come to accuse me so I begin my flurried defense.

  “I didn’t mean to kill Mrs. Yamamoto. I really didn’t. It was an accident. I just put the cello in a different place and I don’t know why, but I didn’t know she’d fall over it. I’m sorry—”

  “What are you talking about?” She laughs again, a glass tinkle. “We all miss her terribly but you can’t get away from the fact that Mrs. Yamamoto was always a clumsy so-and-so. She said as much herself. I knew she’d have an accident one day. I was always telling her.”

  “Was she clumsy?” I try to remember if this was true but I can’t even picture Mrs. Yamamoto’s face.

  “Yes, she was. But that’s not why I’m here.” She looks into my eyes, speaks slowly. “I wanted to see you. I’ve read a lot of nonsense in the papers. I hope you’re taking no notice. I want you to know that I’m going to sort this out and you’ll be free soon.”

  “But I don’t want to be free.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “I’ve got nowhere to be. I’m going around in circles in Tokyo.”

  “Well, then, you must return home, to Britain.”

  “There’s nothing for me. All the people are ghosts. It’s not a home, you see.”

  “In that case you must come and stay at my house, here in Tokyo. There’s certainly no point in going back to your lonely apartment with that despicable neighbor and all those noisy cars.” She paused. “It must smell terribly of gasoline, too.”

  “All right.” I say it to keep her happy because I’m still hoping to be convicted of murder.

  Mrs. Katoh’s hopes, not Lucy’s, have been realized. A day has passed and I have learned that I am to be released with no charges. The case against me was circumstantial and the police were unable to find a single fingerprint or DNA sample on Lily’s body. Moreover new evidence has come to light.

  After details about me appeared in the national newspapers yesterday, the police received an envelope. It contained two photographs. The first showed Lily at a McDonald’s near my home. Investigations reveal that it was taken on the night of the murder, two hours after she was seen at my front door. The cashier who recognized her in the picture recalled that she and her male Japanese friend had some kind of communication difficulty. Both seemed distressed. She left her cheeseburger untouched but drank her Coke.

  Probably, she died later the same night. One thing is clear to the police. Lucy’s venture into the evening with her stockings over one shoulder had no connection with Lily’s death. I was outside for only ten minutes or so. And my neighbor had reported that she didn’t hear me go out again that night.

  The second photograph was quite different. It was a picture of a woman squashed up within close brown walls, head lolling to one side as if she no longer had the power to hold it high, dark eyes empty, like two fat plums.

  There were no fingerprints on either photograph. The police don’t know that Teiji took the pictures, but I do. And the pictures don’t prove that Teiji killed Lily. But they show that Lucy didn’t.

  Teiji. Why were you waiting for Lily in McDonald’s and what did she say to you? That it was over because she wanted to be my friend? Perhaps then you realized your mistake—you’d lose both of us—and thought you could come back to Lucy, if only Lily wasn’t there. Was that reason enough to kill Lily? I don’t think so. Is first-degree murder just a habit of yours, like taking pictures? Or perhaps it’s part of the same habit, something to photograph for your collection, something to keep. Now, more than before, I wonder what became of Sachi. It seems Lucy has finally met her match in killing. But then, the evidence is only circumstantial. I, of all people, should not be too hasty to judge.

  15

  I’m lying on the balcony at Mrs. Katoh’s house. Balconies in Japan are generally reserved for washing rather than people, but I like it here. I can see through the railings. There’s a small park with bushes and trees. It has a play area for children with a slide and swings, but there are no children, no people at all. Beyond the park is the local railway station.

  Mrs. Katoh is in the kitchen cooking dinner. I can smell fish and ginger frying. We’ve invited Natsuko and Bob for dinner and they’ll be here soon. A long time has passed since I saw either of them but they were happy and friendly when we talked on the phone. Bob told me he’s been recording songs and performing in clubs around Tokyo. His musical career is going well. Natsuko took over my most important translations and all our clients are happy. I can return to work when I am ready. Bob and Natsuko know I’m innocent. There’s no need for explanations or apologies. We’re friends and to eat and drink together is enough for today.

  I’m writing to Jonathan. It started as a postcard but has turned into a letter. I discover that there are things to tell hi
m. I write about my job, then about Natsuko’s camellia tree because I know he’ll understand how beautiful it was, and I tell him a funny story of how I was wrongly arrested on a charge of murder. If I get a nice reply, I may even go and see him in Yorkshire at Christmas, for a few days. Lily’s parents live only fifteen miles away. I expect they’d like a visit from someone who knew her in Japan. Then I’ll return to Tokyo, to Mrs. Katoh, because her house is big enough for two she says. And she doesn’t say, but I know, that she likes to look after me, to make a fuss and cook for me, to run the bath to just the right temperature each night and put out a clean towel.

  I drop my pencil and turn my eyes to the station. It’s good to watch people board the trains, a full platform become an empty one within a few seconds. The train carries them away. Another crowd floods through the barriers and the platform is full again, of what look like the same clothes, bodies, and faces. I like to listen to the announcements, the touching caution that to rush onto trains is dangerous, that we must be careful to stand behind the yellow line because an approaching train is also dangerous.

  We had a neighborhood earthquake drill the other morning. It was calm and orderly, deemed successful by the municipal authorities. Of course, you never know when the big one will strike, but there are a few small things you can do to increase your chances of survival. I’m still nervous of tremors but less so than before. And that is another reason why I like to be close to the station. The trains rattle past our street and shake the buildings with such vigor that it’s easy to miss the other movements, the ones that start under the earth’s crust.

  Mrs. Katoh calls me to say that Natsuko and Bob have arrived. Their voices chatter in the hall. I stand and stretch my legs. A train leaves the platform, zooms away past the houses and apartment blocks. The balcony shakes and I rest my hand on the railing. There’s a noise somewhere in the sky that I can’t identify but it reminds me of my old apartment and before I have a chance to listen carefully to tell if it is the earthquake bird, another train rattles loudly to the station. I shiver, pointing out to myself that the earthquake bird came only at night so this must be something different. But the sound carries with it a picture of Lily crouching under my table in the light of the street lamp, and another of her hunched-up body in the shed. I remember the woman, scattered in pieces deep in the bay, whose name I shall never know. Then I think of Sachi. Please, no. The noise, or perhaps just an echo of it, is still in my ears. I look at the sky which has turned gray and heavy but there are no birds.