by Kanae Minato
Did you ever really consider what effect this passing emotional outburst of yours would have on children? After you moved back to Tokyo, didn’t you completely forget all about it in a couple of days?
You and Emily might not have looked much alike, outwardly, but your personalities were very much alike. And…your personalities were very much like my own sister, too.
My sister went back to acting like the kind older sister she’d always been about two months before you called me to your house. The reason was pathetically simple. She was in high school now and had a boyfriend, a guy who treated her like a princess. They saw each other every day in school, yet still talked on the phone till late at night, and on days when we didn’t have school, she’d stay out late with him. She showed me photos they’d taken with a disposable camera, excitedly telling me how they’d ridden the roller coaster at an amusement park five times in a row. I had no idea how to react.
Mom was happy, saying, “Now that she’s growing up she’ll get stronger physically,” but still she worried about my sister. “Wasn’t going out too much for you?” she’d ask. “What did you have for lunch? Maybe it’d be better next week if you stay at home and not go out?”
Once my sister had a boyfriend, these kinds of remarks, so much a part of our daily conversation, became distasteful to her. I always thought she was the type to be fawned over, but it turned out she was more the type who liked to monopolize someone else.
With my sister finding her concern so disagreeable now, Mother started meddling in my life. I thought it a little self-centered of her, though I can’t say it bothered me that much. “Maybe you should see a doctor for psychosomatic illnesses,” my mother advised me one day, taking me by surprise. It had been three years since the murder, so why say that now? Also, I didn’t see how the murder had had any particular repercussions in my daily life.
When I told Mother there was no need for that, she tearfully told me this: “I think your shoplifting and running around at all hours stems from that murder. I mean, you never did anything like that before. You’re basically a serious child, so I was sure that over time you’d get over it, but the murderer hasn’t been found and you’re getting worse. I haven’t said anything, and the store owners don’t catch you at it very often, but I know you shoplifted again yesterday. That look in your eyes tells me. That’s why I’m saying this.”
I’d been sure nobody knew what I was up to. And Mother never seemed to care what I was doing, just what my sister was. So I never dreamed she was onto me. And saying she could tell from my eyes…what kind of eyes did she mean? I went back into my room, imagined I was going to shoplift, and studied my face in the mirror. But nothing looked any different.
I was already thinking of stopping shoplifting. And at that time you called me to your house. That’s why after I came home from your place I promised my mother I’d never shoplift again. I blamed it on you threatening me that I had to remember the murderer’s face. “That scared me,” I told my mother, “and before I knew what I was doing I was shoplifting. But it’s okay now,” I said. “Because Emily’s mother’s moving back to Tokyo.”
I cut my ties, too, with the kids I’d run around with at night and lived a quiet, serious life. I was younger than the others in the gang, so they didn’t really care if I quit. I graduated from high school and was one of only two local people hired by a savings and loan in a nearby town, so I guess you could say I did my very best. Maybe this was because you weren’t around anymore.
Don’t look at me like that. I’m just stating the facts. What you did that day was nothing less than intimidation. Threatened by you, the other three girls chose penance. It was stupid for them to do that—they hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d planned on ignoring it all, but in the end I decided to take the second option.
I would find the murderer.
I didn’t do it for you, though.…I did it for my brother-in-law.
The contractions are coming quicker now, so let me speed things up here.
My older sister got married four years ago. She’d graduated from a junior college in a city in this prefecture and had worked in a department store for three years when she got married. After she married she quit the job. Six months before they got married my sister brought her fiancé to our house in town. I was living in an apartment in a nearby town and came back the day before to help Mother clean the whole house and welcome the two of them. This time I didn’t break my glasses.
My sister’s fiancé was tall and lanky, with a pale, friendly face, exactly the type to be working in a department store, I figured.…But my sister told us he was a policeman in the prefectural police department. Our whole family stared at him, the doubt showing on our faces, wondering if someone like him could actually capture bad guys. Almost apologetically, my future brother-in-law explained that he was with the information section of the police and spent all his time in front of a computer. This was the first time I’d heard the police had a section like that, but I could definitely picture him working with computers all day.
I asked where the two of them had met and they said it was at a mixer. A lady, a saleswoman for a life insurance company whose territory included both the department store and the police department, had set up the party. The perfect way for them to have met, I thought, since my sister was always good at getting a man she was interested in to notice her. So I was surprised to hear that it was her fiancé who had fallen in love at first sight and had pursued her. He sounded a bit moonstruck as he related the story.
Appearance-wise, her fiancé was the type my sister had always gone for, but he wasn’t my type, so I simply greeted him, shook his hand, and wished them well. And that’s when it happened. His hand felt exactly the same. The same as that policeman, Mr. Ando…
My memories don’t rely much on the visual. It wasn’t his looks so much as the feeling of his hand that made me realize I want him. I wanted to touch his hands, be touched by them, have them all to myself. Not that that wish was ever going to be fulfilled. On that day, and from then on, he only had eyes for my sister.
What I always wanted was what my sister had. Not that she ever maliciously snatched away things that were mine. From the time I was born, my mother was entirely hers, and my brother-in-law, too, from the time I met him. That’s all I mean.
Two years ago my sister went through a terrible time. She had a miscarriage and wasn’t able to have any children after that. It was the busy season for farmers, and my parents couldn’t help her much, so she stayed at my apartment for a while to regain her strength. But when she heard that one of her former classmates had had a baby, she burst out sobbing, and did the same whenever there was a diaper commercial on TV. Two weeks later, though, she seemed over it, and lightheartedly went back to the police housing in the city she lived in with her husband.
She got a part-time job in her old department store and used her pay to take trips with the friends she had back when she was single. My brother-in-law? He was always so busy at work that it didn’t seem to make any difference to him if she was home or not. He was happy just seeing that she was well again.
But my sister made a terrible mistake.
I’ve gone out with six men altogether.…Is it so surprising? Even someone like me can get a boyfriend, you know. None of the relationships lasted very long, though.…The men all said I was too needy. When all I wanted was just to make them happy.…Did the murder traumatize me, is that what you’re asking? I’d have to definitely say no. That was probably because I didn’t clearly see the way Emily’s dead body was, the state of her clothing, and so on.
Anyway, all the men I went out with were big, as if they did judo or rugby, so my sister figured that’s the type of man I like, and she was sure I wasn’t interested in someone like my brother-in-law. She didn’t notice at all that I wanted him, and she asked me to take care of the housework while she was gone.
No, maybe she did notice.…She was, after all, the one who’d first realized I was shop
lifting, so she should have understood my feelings for her husband. She knew, yet believed my brother-in-law wouldn’t betray her, and was perhaps enjoying seeing my reaction. If that’s the case, then she brought it on herself.
I wanted to go there every day, but considering the time and distance I could only go on weekends to help with housework. I enjoyed it so much.…I’d go there on Saturday morning, prepare lunch, and then my brother-in-law and I would eat it, just the two of us. Sometimes we’d watch movies, play games.…In the evening when I told him I had to be going and headed toward the door, he never stopped me. Except for one time.
Last November, the news came out about an information breach in our prefectural police department. Was it widely reported throughout the country? I don’t know. A top secret file containing the name, address, and background of a minor who’d committed a juvenile crime was inadvertently emailed to the entire mailing list on the town’s anticrime network. That news.
That was my brother-in-law’s fault. More accurately, it was due to a new type of computer virus some hacker had infiltrated their system with, but my brother-in-law was the IT person in charge so he was severely punished. My sister had made a reservation for a trip to a resort in Hokkaido and went ahead with it, saying it would be a shame to have to pay the cancellation fees, so my brother-in-law and I were alone at the time.
The hands I’d wanted for so very long were, for just one night, mine. This happened two weeks after August fourteenth minus 280 days. But that’s not where it all ended. Because a new life began to grow inside me. This child struggling to be born right now…
Excuse me. I need a minute here.…
When I learned I was pregnant, I felt I’d acquired some amazing thing I just had to have.
I could give birth to my brother-in-law’s child, a child my sister would never be able to have. Maybe when the child was born he’d divorce her and marry me. That’s what I was hoping for, and it felt as if it could really come true.
My parents were shocked, my mother complaining that she couldn’t face our relatives and neighbors because of the shame of my having an affair and getting pregnant. But when my father said to her, “But this means we have an heir now,” she started to be more upbeat about the situation, taking a pregnancy belly band, and me, to the local shrine to be blessed, and accompanying me to my doctor’s appointments, though I insisted I’d be fine on my own. After we found out the baby was a boy, she was even kinder toward me, making all my favorite dishes whenever I came back home and letting me watch as much TV and as many videos as I liked. Even when my sister was with me.
My sister had started smoking after she began working again, and whenever she pulled out a cigarette my mother would reprimand her, which really touched me. Amazing, right? She treated me much better than after the trauma of the murder. Made me think how wonderful being pregnant can be.
Still, it was pretty boring. I had terrible morning sickness and had to quit my job, but once I got to the stable, post–morning sickness period, I felt great and regretted not having taken a leave of absence.
And I thought I should do something that would make my brother-in-law happy. I recalled my sister saying that during the next personnel reassignments he might be sent off to some prefectural backwater. The complacent thought struck me how nice it would be if he could man the little police substation in whatever town he ended up in, but then I realized how tough this demotion had to be for him. Something nice I could do for my brother-in-law, for my brother-in-law the policeman…
If he could do something really great, maybe he wouldn’t have to leave the prefectural headquarters. Like, for instance, capturing a murderer…Emily’s murder was soon going to reach the statute of limitations.
These thoughts ran through my head, but then I thought: If it were that easy, the police would have long ago arrested the murderer. Okay, then how about some new information on the case? That would be enough. I felt as if I’d received a divine revelation.
Have you heard the idea that pregnant women often win the lottery? I don’t think that’s just a superstition. You’re nurturing this new life inside you, so it’s not strange that you might possess a kind of divinely inspired power.…Looking back on it now, though, I see I was just being a bit oversensitive.
This happened in April of this year. The divine revelation came to me over the radio. Your eyes get easily tired, don’t they, when you’re pregnant? That’s why I had the radio on that day. Do you recall the news from last summer about a boy living in some free school who set fire to the place?
They were going to reopen the school and there was an interview with the director. They asked about why free schools were necessary, and about increased juvenile crime, and I was just half listening when I realized my heart was suddenly pounding.
Why was my heart racing?…It was because of the man’s voice. It was like that of the man who killed Emily. Still, though, unless there was something really special about a man’s voice, perhaps they all sounded more or less the same.
The man’s voice was crisp and easy to understand, but that’s about all that distinguished it—otherwise it was perfectly ordinary. I’d had two or three teachers in high school and junior high who sounded similar. Maybe it was just my desire to find the murderer that made his voice sound like this to me? I thought, finding it funny.
But there was one other thing about this news report that bothered me. Free school: there were a few kids like Akiko in our country town who were self-imposed shut-ins, but none of them were attending a free school or anything. Still, the word sounded familiar and I now remembered why. On the day Emily accused me of being a thief, she’d mentioned how a person had come wanting to convert the cottage into that kind of alternative school.
The cottage was never sold, though, and five years ago was torn down. The real estate agent showing the property back then had already left on that day, but I knew him because just before the end of the fiscal year he’d come by our house to try to get my parents to buy that land. It was within walking distance and, without any expectations, really, more like just killing time—actually feeling more as if I were searching for a new place to live for me, my brother-in-law, and our baby—I went to see the real estate agent at his office near the station.
When the agent saw my swollen belly he asked, a bit expectantly, “You’re looking for a new place to live, I imagine?” But when I said I wanted to ask about the person who, fifteen years ago, had visited the cottage thinking to make it into a free school, the agent was clearly disappointed.
“As I recall,” he said, “they told me a free school built in the countryside would mainly be for problem kids from the city, so it had to be in a place that was convenient to get to. But managing a place like that has to be hard. I mean, that other place was burned down and all. When I saw it on TV I was really surprised to see it was the same man from then.”
This is what the agent told me. The man whose voice sounded like the murderer’s actually visited the cottage two months before Emily was killed? If that’s true, that’s an amazing discovery, I thought. But having come this far, and confirming it as a fact, actually made it harder to believe. Okay, then what should I do? Tell my brother-in-law? I was terribly confused.
But if that was all I had to go on, then so what? Two months before the murder, a man whose voice, in my opinion, resembled that of the murderer visited that town. But a voice wasn’t much proof of anything at all. Plus, there was the French doll theft to consider.
I needed some more decisive proof. Fingerprints or something…What did Emily say back then? Didn’t she say that the one who found our treasures was the person who came to see the cottage? I wonder if he touched my bookmark? Didn’t they get any fingerprints from the volleyball? After he took Emily away, we went on passing the ball, so it’s doubtful there’d be any useful prints, but say they did discover some—and those prints matched the ones on my bookmark—this could really be something. I didn’t have good memories of the
bookmark, but I had kept it all these years as a kind of memento of Emily.
I have to tell my brother-in-law.…
Right around this time something awful happened. My sister tried to commit suicide. I’d come back to visit my parents, and she was back too, and slit her wrists in the bathtub. The cuts were shallow and not life-threatening. I think it was more a demonstration than anything. Mother blamed herself, of course, for having given my sister such a weak constitution that she’d had a miscarriage, but that couldn’t be the reason for the suicide attempt. I think my sister realized the baby I was carrying was her husband’s.
My brother-in-law blamed himself and was with her every moment after that, taking care of her. Whether it was because of the troubles at his work, or because of the baby, I lost my chance to talk with him about the murder. And besides, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Giving birth to a child wasn’t going to make him mine, and I no longer wanted him as much as I did before. I decided I would give birth to this new life growing inside me on my own, and raise the baby on my own. This baby would be the only one who would need me.
I think this ten months and ten days is a time period given to me to let me really feel I’m going to be a mother.
But it was you who wouldn’t allow me this.
Oh, it hurts. Let me stop for a moment again.…Don’t touch me! I don’t want you stroking my back!
I didn’t want to think any more about the murder, but then I got a letter from you. A copy of the letter from Sae. And then I got a copy from the weekly magazine website where Maki’s confession was uploaded, and your letter. I call it a letter, but it was only one line:
I’ve forgiven all of you.
Isn’t this strange, though? What are you accusing us of doing to you, and to Emily? When you read the letter from Sae, didn’t it occur to you that you had driven her to murder her husband? When you found how the words you spit out that time, over ten years ago, weighed down on this girl more than you could ever have imagined, you didn’t know what to do, did you? Panicking, you made copies of the letter and sent them to the other three of us. Even so, one of the other girls then killed someone.