by Kanae Minato
That day? I mean the day Emily was murdered.
You’re a professional counselor, right? You told me you wanted to hear about the murder, so that’s what I’ll tell you about. Where should I start? The other three girls are much more reliable than me, and smarter, so it’d be a lot easier if you asked them about when we were all together. You still want to hear my story?
Okay, then I’ll just talk about later, when I was alone with Emily.
Still, it’s kind of odd that now, after all this time, you’d want to hear about this.…
Oh, I get it. It’s because the statute of limitations on the murder will run out soon.
On that day I was in a wonderful mood from the morning. The day before, my aunt Yoko came home for the Obon holiday and brought me a new piece of clothing as a present. I had it on, which is why I felt so happy.
My aunt worked at a department store in one of the cities in the prefecture, and always bought me and my brother clothes as presents when she came back to town. Up till then it had always been matching sports shirts for me and my brother, or other boyish kinds of clothes. But that year was different. “Akiko, you’re in fourth grade now,” she told me, “so how about wearing something a little more girly?” She’d bought me an adorable pink blouse with ribbons and frills.
It was a fluffy, glittery design, like something a rich little girl would wear. “Is it really okay for me to wear this?” I asked, hardly believing it as I held it up, spellbound, against my chest. My parents and relatives around me all burst out laughing.
“Are you sure you should give this to Akiko?” my father asked. He could speak so bluntly like that because it was his own older sister who’d bought the blouse—ten times more expensive than anything I’d had before—but I’m sure everyone was thinking the same thing. “It looks cute,” my older brother piped up, but even Aunt Yoko, who’d bought it for me, smiled wryly as if having some doubts herself.
Though not as sturdily built as I am now, of course, back in elementary school I was nevertheless big-boned and solid. My clothes were all hand-me-downs from my brother, who was two years older. Some of the boys in my class made fun of me, calling me a Boy-Girl. But I was used to it. It was always that way.
Still, it could have been worse—at least they treated me like a human being. But my parents and relatives always said the two of us were like a couple of bear siblings. Actually, on Valentine’s Day and his birthday my brother often got Winnie-the-Pooh trinkets from girls, who said he reminded them of the storybook bear. My brother wasn’t one of the more popular kids, but the girls did seem to like him despite his looks.
Boys have it easy. Even if they look like a bear they’re popular, provided they can play sports. And being big isn’t a drawback the way it is for girls.
“If only you had been born a boy, Akiko,” my mother often told me. She didn’t mean I’d be more popular or anything. She just regretted having to spend extra money on a girls’ gym outfit and swimsuit for me to use at school.
Come to think of it, I was talking about this very thing to Emily that day.
I’d gone with my relatives to the local temple, and after we ate lunch I found some other kids with time on their hands hanging around outside, and before I knew it the usual little group of girls had assembled. My classmates from the West District—Sae, Maki, and Yuka. We were hanging around in front of the little cigarette shop, just chatting, when Emily came walking down the slope toward us. She said she’d seen us from the window of her apartment. Her house was the highest point in the whole town.
Maki suggested we go play volleyball at the school playground, so Emily went back to her house to get her volleyball and I went with her.
“Akiko? Why don’t you go with Emily?” Maki said. “’Cause you’re a fast runner.” Not that this means I ran all the way. Bringing up running was just an excuse so that Maki could get her way. I knew this, but getting her angry would only lead to trouble, and since I always depended on her, I did what she said without a word. I think the other two girls felt the same.
So I walked together with Emily up the gentle slope back to her towering, castlelike apartment building. We’d often played since she transferred to our school in April, but this was the first time we’d ever been alone together. I wasn’t the talkative type and didn’t know what I should talk about, so I walked along in silence.
“That blouse is really cute,” Emily suddenly said. “It’s from Pink House, right? I love their clothes.”
She was talking about my new blouse. My family had mercilessly made fun of me about wearing it, but when I wore it to the temple it seemed to, surprisingly, look good on me. My father teased me, saying, “Akiko, you look like a girl!” My mother, impressed, commented, “Someone who works in a department store really does know how to select nice things!” So I was in a great mood.
“That blouse is your Sunday best, so change into something else and go out and play,” my mother said after we got home from the temple, but I wanted to show off the blouse to everyone so I kept it on.
The girls I always played with, though, didn’t say a thing about it. My brother often explained to me what he called the “ironclad rules” of country folk. Among them was the rule that you could envy things you could actually get, but should ignore things that were out of reach. Without realizing it, the other girls maybe had been putting that rule into practice. Or maybe they weren’t interested at all in what I was wearing. Not that I brought up the new blouse myself, because I didn’t.
But Emily noticed my blouse. Fashionable Tokyo children like her really are different, I thought. The problem was, though she’d praised my blouse, I had no idea about the brand she’d mentioned, Pink House. It was embarrassing, but I wanted to know more about it, so I asked her. She told me Pink House made lots of soft, puffy clothes with frills and ribbons and corsages and badges, like something out of Anne of Green Gables or Little Women. “It’s a brand,” she explained, “that fulfills the dreams of girls who love cute things.”
I imagined a shop filled with cute clothes like that. I’d love to go there, I thought. How wonderful it would be to have a chest filled with Pink House clothes! Just imagining it had me all excited. Actually, I loved that kind of really girly thing, though I’d always kept that secret.
I mean, nobody expects a bear to be all girly.
French dolls were popular among the girls for a time, and all of us sketched out designs for dresses for them. A gold tiara with a row of hearts, dresses like a field of flowers with pink and white roses scattered about, glass slippers…“Wow!” my friends said in surprise. “Akiko, you can really come up with some cute dresses too!” A pretty rude thing to say if you think about it.
But that’s how far I was from being cute. Cute things don’t suit a bear. So I enjoyed them in secret. That was more than enough for me.
So having Emily praise my clothes made me overjoyed. But she went on and said this: “You’re lucky, Akiko, that those cute clothes suit you. My mother says I don’t look good in them and won’t buy them for me.”
It didn’t sound like she was making fun of me.
Cute clothes look good on me but not on Emily? No way! A puffy cute design looked good on her, but with her slim build and long legs, it was true that a sharper, more cool type of clothing looked even better. This day Emily was wearing a tight black T-shirt with a pink Barbie logo on it, and a red pleated skirt, and they definitely suited her.
And yet here she was, a girl like Emily, saying over and over again how she envied me my new blouse. It made me happy in the beginning, but then I got a little embarrassed and made some silly excuse.
“My aunt works in a department store and bought this with an employee’s discount. My mother would never buy something this expensive. I always wear my brother’s hand-me-downs. I don’t complain, but she tells me it would have been better if I’d been a boy.”
“My mother says the same thing. If only you had been a boy.”
“What?
You’re kidding! Nobody would say that about you.”
“It’s true. And not just once. She’s said it many times, sounding really disappointed. I hate it.”
Emily pouted as she said this, but I just couldn’t believe it. With her cool-looking almond eyes, it’s true she would have made a good-looking boy, but as a girl she was more than pretty.
Still, it made me so happy to know that Emily had been told the same thing, and made me feel closer to her. I felt as if I could share my love of cute things, and wanted to be even better friends with her.
Even now I regret that it never happened.
As we continued to grumble about our mothers, we arrived at her building. We went through the entrance, past the property manager, and took the elevator to the seventh floor to Emily’s apartment, which was on the east side, at the very end. “It’s only a four-LDK apartment,” she told me, “so it’s kind of small,” but I had no idea of what LDK—a sort of great room, living room/dining room/kitchen—meant.
Emily pushed the call button and her mother came out. She was so beautiful—slim and tall, with gorgeous big eyes like some actress—that I feel almost bad about calling her a mother, putting her in the same category as my own short, stocky mother. I went inside the front door, feeling the cool air of the AC, and waited with Emily’s mother as Emily went to her room to retrieve the volleyball.
“Thank you for being friends with Emily. I think it’s too hot to play volleyball. You girls should play here, inside. I just got some delicious cake delivered. Invite the other girls over afterward.”
Though her voice was refined and kind, I sort of shrank into myself and could only manage a faint smile in response. I might have even forgotten to breathe. Everything in Emily’s house was so obviously expensive that all I could think of was trying not to make a wrong move and break anything.
The first time I ever experienced feeling ill at ease was the first evening I was invited to Emily’s house.
Just standing in the entryway, I couldn’t relax. On top of the shoe case was a vase, the kind that makes you think of the Palace of Versailles, and beside the front door was a large white ceramic kind of jar—an umbrella stand, maybe, or some sort of ornament—that reminded me of the Parthenon.
Despite this, Emily came down the hallway, bouncing her volleyball as she came.
“Make sure you come back by six o’clock. And watch out for cars,” Emily’s mother said, stroking Emily on the head.
“Okay, okay. I get it,” Emily said with a smile.
I could barely remember the last time my parents had stroked my head, and I felt envious of how loved Emily obviously was.
I never imagined this was the last time Emily and her mother would see each other. And of course I had no idea either that a few hours later I would be back at this house that had me always on pins and needles.
You asked about the day of the murder, but I seem to have talked about everything besides that. I’m not trying to dodge the topic, I’m really not. It’s just that whenever I remember the incident my head aches and feels like it’s going to break. So as much as I can, I’d like to avoid these heavy topics.…
I’ll jump ahead to right after we found the body. Is that okay?
Ah, right—maybe I should add this. I think the reason that man didn’t take me with him was less that I was heavy than that I’m like a bear.
I think that’s about it.…Now I’ll get to after we found the body.
So Maki instructed me to run to Emily’s—in her stereotypical phrase because I was a fast runner—and off I ran. This time I really did race as fast as I could. Yuka and I ran together until we got to the back gate of the school, then each headed off in opposite directions.
Oh my God. This is terrible. Terrible…
My head was filled with these thoughts, but I didn’t feel so scared. I think at this point I hadn’t grasped the immensity of what had taken place. If I’d considered things a little more carefully, I think I would have gathered my wits and, before I arrived at her house, thought of the best way to inform Emily’s mother of the awful reality of her daughter’s death. I might have gone home to my house first and had my mother come with me, get help from an adult, might have realized I didn’t need to directly use the word dead.
But all I did was keep on running for all I was worth.
I was so intent on running, I didn’t even notice my brother as I raced past the cigarette shop. At the apartment building, the same property manager was there, but I whizzed right by him and leaped into the elevator.
I arrived at Emily’s apartment, ran right up to the intercom, and kept on pushing the button.
“What in the world? You should mind your manners.”
Emily’s mother said this as she opened the door. Then when she saw me she said, “Oh, Akiko,” in a dazed voice. And I stood there, out of breath, and for a split second I thought what a cute flowered apron she had on, then shook my head to gather myself and yelled out as loudly as I could.
“Emily’s dead! Emily’s dead! Emily’s dead!”
The worst possible way to have told her, right? At first she seemed to think it was a joke. Staring at me, she let out a small sigh and, hands on hips, and facing outside the open door, said, “Emily, I know you’re hiding there. Stop fooling around and come out. Unless you want to go without dinner.”
But Emily wasn’t about to come out.
“Emily!”
Once again her mother yelled to her out the door, but the apartment building, with most people gone for the Obon holidays, was quiet, not a sound to be heard.
Emily’s mother looked at me, expressionless, for three seconds, five, ten.…Or maybe it was just an instant, I don’t know.
“Where is Emily?” she asked, her voice dry and husky.
“At the school swimming pool.” My voice was husky too.
“Why Emily?”
An earsplitting voice shot right through my head and I was sent flying. Emily’s mother had pushed me aside with both hands and run out of the apartment. My face was knocked against the wall, hard. I fell forward, and with a dull bang a sharp pain ran through my forehead. The Parthenon had broken.
Probably because I’d hit my face, my nose was bleeding. Pain in my forehead and a bleeding nose…I was sure my skull was cracked and that was where the blood was coming from. The blood ran down my chin, down my neck, flowing profusely. I might die—help me!…My neck jerked downward and I was struck by the sight of my brand-new blouse, dyed dark red now. Nooooooo…I felt as if I’d sunk down into a deep, dark hole. And right then—
“Akiko!” a forceful voice called out. I was rescued at the last moment from falling forever into that pit by my brother.
“Koji! Koji!”
I clung to my brother and bawled my eyes out.
My brother had been on his way home from a friend’s, and even though Mother had told me to be back by six, since an older cousin would be coming over, when “Greensleeves” had played at six he’d seen me racing off in the opposite direction from our house. So he’d gone off in search of me to call me home. He’d seen Emily’s mother dashing out of her building, hair disheveled, and thinking something had to be up, he’d come over here to see what was the matter.
My brother borrowed a wet towel and tissue paper from the property manager and wiped the blood from my nose.
“Am I going to die?” I asked grimly, but my brother only smiled.
“Nobody dies of a nosebleed,” he said.
“But my head aches.”
“Yeah, your forehead’s cut a little. But there’s not much blood so it’s not so bad.”
Finally I was able to stand up. Seeing the shattered Parthenon, he said, “What happened?”
“Emily died at the pool,” I replied.
He looked shocked but said, “Let’s go home,” and gently took my hand.
As we walked down the slope I looked up and saw that the sky was dyed a deep red.
The wound? As you can see, t
here’s no scar.
My brother applied some disinfectant and an adhesive bandage, that’s all.
When we came home and my mother saw me covered in blood she let out a scream, but when I told her what had happened she said, “I’m going to the school,” and ran off, leaving me behind. She’s the kind of person who flies into an instant panic. I heard about this later on, but even though I was right there, standing in front of her eyes, she was convinced it was me who had died at the school.
So despite the pain, the cut had stopped bleeding and it wasn’t very deep so I didn’t go to the hospital.
Still, even after fifteen years, whenever it rains or is really humid, or when I remember the murder, my forehead aches, and bit by bit I get a splitting headache. Today it’s raining, plus I’ve been talking so long about the murder, and I feel as if it’s going to start soon.
It’s already started to ache.
Is that enough about the murder? Hm? The murderer’s face? Could you forgive me for not saying anything about that?
All four of us said we don’t remember his face.
Actually, it’s not just his face, but my memory of the whole thing is kind of vague. It’s less that I don’t remember than, as I said before, whenever I try to recall the murder, especially something really important, my head feels as if it’s going to split open. The pain is intolerable. Once I tried to grit my teeth and remember everything, and just as a vague image of the man started to emerge, I was hit by such an overwhelming pain I was sure that if I went any further I’d go mad. So I gave up.
Do you think I should have told the police that when they questioned me?
If I’d said my head hurt, since I still had a bandage on my forehead I felt as if the police and other people would find out that Emily’s mother had shoved me, and I hesitated to do that.
The police questioned me several times. They asked the same thing each time, and the first time I went along with what the other three girls had said, so from the second time I answered as if what the others had said was my own memory of events. Maki sometimes used English words—mixing up green and gray—so I wasn’t sure which color the man’s work clothes were, but I don’t think anybody realized what had happened between me and Emily’s mother.