by Kanae Minato
You sent the letter because you wanted us to stop obsessing over what you’d told us, and you regretted that this didn’t get across, so this time you appended your own message. But still one of the other girls killed someone. That girl said she hadn’t read the letter. You thought that at least you could save the final girl, which is why you’ve come directly to see me now.
You’re acting ridiculous. You blame yourself that things have come to this, but at the same time you seem so full of yourself. Isn’t that why you say you forgive us?
At Sae’s wedding ceremony, if you’d just apologized to her, told her you were sorry you’d said those awful things to her, I wonder if she would have felt so fixated on the promise she made to you. If, along with Sae’s letter, you had only added one more line to the effect that we should forget the promise we made back then, I doubt Maki would have felt as driven into a corner as she did. I don’t know how much you affected Akiko, but what’s happened with me has nothing to do with any of that.
But didn’t you really come here much earlier?
I was really shocked to read in Maki’s confession the name of the man who ran the free school. The thought crossed my mind that I should get in touch with her. I first thought about contacting her younger sister.…And just then the incident with Akiko took place. The incidents involving Sae and Maki happened in faraway towns, so the gravity of their having killed someone didn’t really hit me so much, but Akiko’s took place in our hometown. I’m no policeman, so no one would have blamed me if I accused that man of being the murderer and it turned out he wasn’t. I was less worried about that than about finally putting an end to it all.
I told my brother-in-law I had something really important to tell him and asked him to come to my apartment. How he interpreted important here was clear as soon as he arrived at my door. He threw himself down on his knees, bowed his head to the floor, and said, “I’ll help out financially as much as I can, but please don’t tell anyone that child is mine.” My protruding belly kept me from seeing his face, but it was obvious how upset he was. Maybe before he left the house my sister had said something to him. My apartment was on the second floor next to the staircase. Anyone might pass by, yet he remained there, on his knees, head bowed pitifully, apologetically pleading with me not to let anyone know it was his child. The thought that a man like this was the child’s father made me feel miserable. Why should I have to tell him the critical secret I had?
And then this thought struck me. If I went to the prefectural police, Mr. Ando might be there. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
Telling my brother-in-law wouldn’t help, so I gave up the idea. I had left the apartment and started to walk away when he grabbed me and pinned me from behind. No expression of affection, that’s for sure. “Never, ever tell Mayu about this,” he hissed, mistakenly thinking I was on the way to see her. Still keeping me pinned, he forced me over to the staircase.
My brother-in-law was trying to kill me. No—not me, but the child in my womb. Even though it’s his child, he was willing to kill what was precious to me for the sake of my sister, for her—and there was no way I was going to let that happen!
No matter how angry I was, though, no matter how desperate I was to protect my baby, my brother-in-law was, after all, a man, and a policeman, lanky and thin though he might be. I struggled hard but couldn’t break free. He pushed me to the edge of the stairs. One of my feet slipped and I was sure I was going to fall. And right then the cell phone in the pocket of my jumper rang. The theme song for a famous detective drama. At that very instant my brother-in-law, startled, relaxed his grip.
I twisted away and with my one free hand pushed him in the chest as hard as I could.
I’m sorry. It’s a text from my sister.
Seems like my brother-in-law didn’t make it.
The phone call at that moment was from you. After my brother-in-law tumbled down the stairs, I pulled out my phone to call an ambulance, and there was a number not in my contacts listed on the incoming calls. It bothered me, but first I had to call the ambulance and, after it arrived, tell the EMTs what happened.
“It was my fault,” I explained. “I’d remembered something that could be a clue to a murder fifteen years ago and had my brother-in-law, a policeman, come here so I could ask him about it. We were going to go together to the police station and were rushing out when I nearly slipped on the stairs.… My brother-in-law tried to keep me from falling and he slipped and fell. I am so, so sorry. So very sorry…”
As I stood there crying, my stomach began to hurt, and though it’s a little early I had them take me in the same ambulance to the hospital. So here I am. Soon after that you called me, said you were in the area and wanted to meet, so I had you come to the hospital. But I was wondering—had you come to the apartment first? And seen everything that took place? The timing of your phone call was a bit too good to be true.
…Ah, so I’m right.
You’re happy you were able to help me? Or maybe you couldn’t stand it, knowing that the last of us four also ended up killing someone, and right before your eyes?…You couldn’t stand it? Then why didn’t you call out to me sooner? Didn’t you come to my apartment, see a man was visiting me, and out of curiosity wait and see how it would all play out?
In the end your apologetic feelings toward us weren’t genuine. You might still hate us, thinking we were responsible for Emily’s murder.
This is what I thought. That we just happened to be caught up in the murder. That the murderer didn’t just choose Emily from the five of us, but had his eyes on Emily from the start. And that her treasure, that ring, had something to do with it, and that you, who owned the ring, were involved.
I think maybe you know the man who ran the free school, this Mr. Nanjo.
My proof is…the rumor I heard from that friend of mine—the one who argued with her husband over the due date of their baby—that Emily is not really your husband’s child. They got a new president in your company not long ago, didn’t they, and I understand all sorts of things happened. The rumor may be groundless. But I get the feeling it can’t be totally dismissed. And I’m not just relying on a pregnant woman’s intuition.
Emily’s almond eyes, for one thing, don’t resemble either yours or your husband’s. Can we really ignore genetics? Another thing, when you called the four of us to your house, this is what you said: “I’m her parent, and I’m the only one who has that right.”
The only one…
I don’t know if it will prove anything, but I’m giving you the bookmark. To thank you, I hope, for saving this baby inside me.… I was sure that of the four of us I was the only one unaffected by the murder, but it turns out what you said to us held me in its grip as well.
All four of us have now kept our promise to you. And what do you plan to do with that? You definitely have money, and power. You can go ahead and tell the police that I pushed my brother-in-law. I don’t mind. I’ll leave this, too, up to you. But even if you don’t tell, don’t expect me to thank you for protecting me.
I think I’d better get over to the OB-GYN ward soon. It’s been a long day. A long fifteen years. I’m just glad my precious treasure’s birthday won’t be the fourteenth of August.
That’s all.
Penance
If it was my fault that all of you committed your crimes, then how should I do penance for that?
Ever since the day I moved to that town—a place that was far more inconvenient to live in than I had ever imagined—all I wanted was to go back to Tokyo. The material inconveniences were, of course, hard to put up with, but worse was how closed-minded the people were. They treated me as if I were some foreigner.
Just going out shopping for something I felt it—the eyes scanning me from top to bottom, people whispering, making fun of me. “Look at how dressed up she is. Maybe she’s on her way to a wedding?” At the supermarket, every time I asked if they had a particular item they’d cluck their tongues and make a comment l
ike “That’s what these city types are like.” It’s not as if I were asking for something so unusual. Beef shanks, Camembert cheese, canned demiglace sauce, fresh cream…Just asking for items like this made them treat me like some stuck-up rich lady.
Despite this, I did try to get closer to them. For my husband’s sake. If he hadn’t had such a high position I doubt I would have tried so hard to fit in, but when you’re the head of the newly built factory you have a duty. I had to do my utmost to help make the townspeople accept the new Adachi Manufacturing plant.
You know about the neighborhood cleanup campaigns? I took part once. “The news circular that made the rounds of the neighborhood said it was voluntary,” I told the other wives at the Adachi company housing, “but we should get involved in these kinds of town events.” I tried to get as many as I could to participate. But when we got to the local community center where everyone was to gather, the local people’s attitude was unbelievable.
“You ladies from the big city don’t need to trouble yourselves with this kind of activity.…How did you plan to help, all dressed up like that?”
That’s the kind of thing they told us. And we’d gone there in shirts and jeans we didn’t mind getting dirty, ready to help clean out ditches or whatever. Not that the townspeople were wearing wartime monpei work clothes or anything. Many of them had on sweats, but there were a few younger people dressed like me. If I’d had on sweats I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d made the same kind of comments. When everyone set off to clean up the neighborhood we were told, “We can’t get those delicate white hands all dirty, now can we?” and while the locals went off to cut weeds along the roadside and the riverbank we, the outsiders, were assigned to wash windows at the community center.
I wasn’t the only one upset with the local people’s attitude. The other company wives often exchanged complaints about it in the hallways of our housing complex. This gradually led to a feeling of solidarity among people who, in the old factory, hadn’t associated much with each other. They started getting together regularly for tea parties and becoming better friends.
But I was hardly ever invited to these parties.
Whenever the cake shop I loved back in Tokyo had a new kind of cake, my mother would send me some, and I tried inviting some of the wives in company housing over to enjoy them. But it was never much fun, and afterward those ladies didn’t invite me to their own parties. This bothered me, since I wanted to vent my own complaints about the town to someone and ask the other wives about how they were handling cram school and lessons for their children and the like. But then it occurred to me that it was only natural that they exclude me, since one thing they wanted to complain about was the company.
“Why on earth would they build a factory way out here? We’ve just built a house in Tokyo, for gosh sakes. And just gotten an introduction to an excellent cram school program.” I didn’t have to strain my ears to pick up on all their complaints.
So within the closed-off world of the town there was another insular world, and I was excluded from both.
It wasn’t like that when I lived in Tokyo. I always had a lot of friends, and we’d chat on and on, enjoy going to favorite boutiques and restaurants and attending plays and concerts. No one was so worn out with housework that they’d talk about a special sale on eggs or anything. All my friends and I cared about was self-improvement.…The ones who let me feel that happy, that content, were those friends I shared the best part of my life with.
Through various channels I’ve heard what’s happened with all of you from the murder down to the present, and though I can feel sorry, it’s hard to fully sympathize or imagine your situation.
Why didn’t these children dress up, or play with friends, or enjoy life? Put in your situation, I wonder what kind of life I would have led.
I had a friend I’d known since childhood. Perhaps because we attended a private school, I don’t recall ever playing in the school grounds after school or on holidays. Instead, we played together at a nearby park. What if some strange man had appeared there, taken one of my friends away, and killed her? And if the murderer was never caught, would I have lived in fear for years afterward? If the murdered friend’s mother cursed me, would that have constantly preyed on my mind?
I don’t think I would have held on to it as long as you four did.
I lost a friend of mine too. There was a time when I really blamed myself for it, thinking it was my fault. But then I told myself, I can’t go on brooding over it forever. I’ve got to be happy.
I decided to live my life with that kind of clear-cut attitude. I was twenty-two then, a little younger than you all are now.
I got to be friends with Akie when I had just started my sophomore year in college, in the spring. I was in the English department, in a finishing school type of women’s college. Most of the students, including me, had come up through the affiliated school system, from elementary school straight into the college without having to worry about entrance exams, but Akie was in the group from outside who had had to pass exams to matriculate. She mentioned her hometown once, but it had no famous tourist sites or well-known industry, and I’d never heard of it before.
I was always out having a good time, only attending classes just before exams, but Akie never missed class, always front row center, busily taking notes. The first time I talked with her was just before a test when I asked to borrow her notebooks. She hardly knew who I was, but she was happy to lend them to me.
And the meticulous notes she took were amazing. It made me think that next year they should give up using those thick old textbooks and use her notebooks for class instead. I thought of buying her some cake in the school cafeteria to thank her, but felt that wasn’t enough, so I gave her one of the two concert tickets I’d happened to receive.
One of my boyfriends had given me the tickets, but I hadn’t promised to go with him, so I thought it was okay to give one to Akie.
Would a girl like her, who seemed so super-serious, really enjoy a boy-band concert? I wondered, but it turned out, surprisingly, she was a big fan of pop-idol singers. “No way! I love that group,” she told me. “Are you sure it’s okay? I feel bad, all I did was lend you my notebook.” She was so happy that she treated me to a cup of tea.
It seemed as though this was the first time she’d had cake in the cafeteria, and she was deeply touched. “I’ve never had such delicious cake,” she told me.
Akie started to interest me.
On the day of the concert she was a bit more dressed up than usual, though her shoes and handbag were the same old worn-out ones she always had. I wasn’t all that interested in pop-idol singers, so instead of watching them singing and prancing about the stage, my eyes were more drawn to Akie’s feet as she leaped up and down for all she was worth. How could she wear such worn-out shoes and not care at all? If those were the only shoes I had, I’d never leave home. What kind of shoes would go well with that outfit? I mused. Maybe those green short boots I saw the other day.
That’s it, I decided—I’ll take her out shopping. She only hung out with other girls from the country, so I was sure she had no idea where any fashionable shops were. Also, I wanted to buy her some really good cake, since she’d enjoyed the second-rate cake in the school cafeteria so much. I knew a nice bakery I was sure she would love.
She happily accepted my invitation. At the shoe store I asked her, “How about these shoes?” and she replied, eyes sparkling, “They’re wonderful!” She told me she wanted to send some nice stationery for her younger sister’s birthday, so I took her to a store I knew. “You have such good taste, Asako, so why don’t you choose?” she said, and when we had cakes she couldn’t have been more excited. “I’ve never, ever tasted anything like this!”
I introduced her to some of the boys I hung out with, too. They took her on drives, and out drinking. Akie couldn’t drink much and was a bit hesitant at first, but the boys were all good-looking and good conversationalists, and gradu
ally she opened up. “Your friends are all so nice, Asako,” she told me, and I said, “And you’re one of my precious friends too.” She beamed.
I was enjoying myself immensely.
Up to this time I’d thought it was only natural that people did things for me, and I had never once thought about making others happy. Every time a boyfriend gave me a present I always wondered why they wanted to do that, since I never did much of anything for them in return. But now I understood that they simply enjoyed giving.
It was so satisfying to see Akie’s happy look and hear her thank me. I guess maybe after all I’m the type, I thought, who prefers doing things for others over having them do things for me.
If I had met the four of you, now twenty-five, under different circumstances—for instance, if Emily had lived and introduced you as her friends—I probably would have enjoyed giving you advice and buying you presents.
Sae, you have such fair skin and distinct features, if you cut your hair shorter you wouldn’t look so timid. How about letting your ears show and wearing some largish earrings? I found some wonderful ones the other day and went ahead and bought them, so I’ll give them to you. Why don’t you wear them on your next date?
Maki, you’re tall, but you still shouldn’t wear flats. And you’re a teacher, but that doesn’t mean you need to dress frumpily. I’ve got it—how about a scarf? You have a long neck so it should look good on you.
Akiko, you need to go out more. You like cute things, right? I know so many great shops I’d love to take you to, I don’t know where to start. I wonder if we could see them all in one day. Oh, and a friend of mine opened a flower-arranging school. We should go there together.