The Graveyard Apartment

by Mariko Koike

  “I know, and we’re totally on the same page about that,” Teppei agreed, but he couldn’t hide his worried expression.

  The real estate agent drove them back to the Shibuya office, where Teppei and Misao paid an initial deposit in cash and signed a temporary contract for the little house. The discussion ended with all parties agreeing that the Kanos would return to sign a permanent contract two days later, after they’d had a chance to transfer the necessary funds from their bank.

  The next day was Sunday, the twenty-first of June. Early in the morning, the telephone rang. It was the young agent from the real estate office.

  “Something terrible has happened,” the agent began, speaking in the dramatically lowered voice that always seems to accompany the delivery of bad news. “That little house burned down.”

  “Burned down?” Misao echoed in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, the single-family rental you signed a provisional contract for? Somehow or other it caught fire last night and burned to the ground.”

  Misao put one hand over her mouth and shot a dismayed glance at Teppei, who was sitting nearby on the couch.

  “Right down to the ground,” the agent repeated, still speaking in the same hushed tone. “From what I hear, there was nothing left but ashes. This is just between us, but no one seems to have any idea what could have caused the fire. The gas and electricity had both been disconnected, so I can’t help wondering whether it might have been arson.”

  “And nothing else burned? Just that little house?”

  Teppei got up and came to stand next to Misao. On the other end of the receiver the agent was saying, “That’s right. Apparently the fire was confined to that one house. This is so unfortunate. I only got word about it just now myself. I know you were really looking forward to moving in there, but I’m afraid I have to ask what you’d like to do now.”

  “But … what … I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Misao stammered. She felt suddenly chilled, as though a frozen worm were crawling up her spine, and she wasn’t thinking straight. “I mean, what can we do? There’s no way we could live in a house that’s been burned to the ground, is there?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just that we’ve already received your money for the deposit,” the agent began. After a pause he continued, in a tone that suggested he’d been doing some hasty calculations in his head, “Perhaps you might want to reconsider the other place you looked at—the apartment? If you took that option, you wouldn’t need to do any extra paperwork. We could just transfer your deposit to the other property.”

  “Please let us think about it,” Misao said numbly.

  She hung up the phone without saying good-bye and stood there dumbfounded, staring at Teppei. “So there was a fire or something?” Teppei asked.

  Misao nodded. “That little house burned to the ground last night. There’s nothing left at all.” They were both silent for a long moment while they fought to subdue the heavy, ominous feelings welling up in their chests.

  “Well, then, we have no choice,” Teppei said finally, in a tone of quiet resignation. “We’ll have to take that apartment.”

  “That’s a good solution,” Misao said, summoning up a crooked smile. “As the tenant said, it really wasn’t bad at all.”

  “Let’s face it—anyplace is going to be better than here,” Teppei said. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and held a match to it with an unsteady hand.

  16

  July 1, 1987

  Sueo Tabata’s heart was acting up, so he had been spending most of his time lying in bed while his wife was out pounding the pavement nearly every day. The recent series of shocks to their aging nervous systems had taken a greater physical toll on Sueo, but neither of them was young or robust enough to go on dealing with such an abnormal degree of stress.

  After they had submitted formal notice of their decision to vacate their resident manager positions at the Central Plaza Mansion, Mitsue threw herself into a full-bore search to find either a safe, pleasant, affordable place to live or, preferably, another resident manager position. The latter quest, in particular, required a mind-boggling amount of complicated paperwork. Since Sueo was out of commission, it had been necessary for Mitsue to do everything by herself, and she had toughened up considerably in the process.

  The agents of the company ostensibly managing the Central Plaza Mansion had taken note of the startling fact that there was only one occupied unit in the building, not including the caretakers’ apartment, and were apparently giving careful thought to their next step. They were not surprised to receive the Tabatas’ letter of resignation, which Mitsue delivered in person, and it was accepted without objection. First, though, she was asked numerous questions—commonsensical queries that any employer would have posed, under the circumstances—including several variations on “What made you decide to resign from this position?” Instead of offering any details, Mitsue replied only in the sort of nebulous, noncommittal terms that she thought would seem most persuasive. Besides, who would have believed her if she had blurted out something like “Because that building is filled with evil spirits, and living there is a total nightmare! That’s why nearly all the residents have moved out—they realized that something was very, very wrong!”?

  So she had taken the sensible route and replied calmly, “At this point there is only one family still living in the building, and they’ll be gone before long, too, so there’s really no need for resident managers anymore. Beyond that, though, my husband’s heart condition has been steadily getting worse, and he keeps saying he’d like to move somewhere less populated, with cleaner air.”

  For their part, the management company’s agents were busy with other projects, and they had no valid reason for trying to prevent Mitsue and Sueo from going elsewhere.

  After the resignation had been tendered and accepted, Mitsue spent several long days working the phone and visiting employment offices, gathering information about possible situations from various sources. As a result of these networking efforts, she ended up learning that a certain placement firm was advertising for a permanent resident manager (or managers) for an office workers’ dormitory in the seaside resort of Izu. She quickly dispatched a joint résumé to the firm’s main office; it was evidently well received, and on the day of the interview she bundled her ailing husband into a taxi and the two of them went to the company’s headquarters.

  The interview seemed to go well, but they didn’t hear anything for four or five days. Then, at last, they received the hoped-for notification that their application had been approved and the position was theirs. Mitsue was so thrilled that she spontaneously threw her arms around her husband’s neck in a joyful embrace—something she hadn’t done in a dozen years, at least.

  The Tabatas’ resident manager obligations in Izu weren’t scheduled to commence until August, but they were told that they were welcome to move into their new living quarters ahead of time, if they wanted to.

  Now it was the first of July, and a small truck from a local moving company had just pulled up in front of the Central Plaza Mansion. The two workmen who came with the truck weren’t particularly personable or outgoing, but Mitsue couldn’t have cared less about such trivial details. Although it was the middle of the rainy season, they had gotten lucky with the weather and it was a beautifully clear day. Sueo had regained his health and mobility, and he willingly took charge of the logistical aspects of the move.

  No matter how unpleasant the experiences at a particular post might have been, Mitsue usually felt some sentimental stirrings when it was finally time to leave, but in this case her resolve didn’t waver in the least. She was filled with happiness at the prospect of escaping from this accursed building, and her thoughts were focused on the pleasures of their new home and their new life near the sea.

  In the place where she and Sueo would be living from now on, there was no graveyard, no temple, no crematorium belching black smoke. In their new building, the el
evator never stopped working for no apparent reason, and the electricity didn’t suddenly go off, and people didn’t get injured in the basement by some ridiculous weasel wind. No ghoulish handprints had ever appeared on the glass of the entry door, either. (Mitsue still felt like vomiting every time she remembered that horrifying experience.) Instead, in Izu there was an abundance of gorgeous greenery, and the soothing murmur of the ocean, and fresh seafood, and endless sunshine …

  While Sueo fretted briefly about the fact that they would be moving to an area where earthquakes were relatively frequent, Mitsue’s feelings ran more along the lines of “Compared to the unnatural things that have happened in this building, an earthquake here or there is nothing to be afraid of.”

  Mitsue did feel a fleeting twinge of concern about leaving the Kano family behind to fend for themselves, but she concluded that their future wasn’t her responsibility. Besides, from what she’d heard, it wouldn’t be much more than a week before they followed suit and moved out, as well.

  “Only another week or so,” Mitsue muttered under her breath, counting off the days on her fingers. Just a week. That family would probably be all right here for a little while longer. No, not probably; they would certainly be fine for another week.

  Making up their minds to leave had surely been the hard part, and now they just needed to endure a few more days in the building. True, it was incredibly bad luck that the house with a garden the Kanos had originally planned to move into had been destroyed in a fire, but at least they had a backup plan: a tiny two-bedroom rental apartment. That unit wasn’t immediately available, so their moving date had to be postponed—albeit only for about a week.

  Besides, Mitsue thought, the brutally honest truth is that at this point in our lives, Sueo and I really don’t have time to worry about other people’s problems. Those selfish words seemed to stick in her throat like a drink that’s gone down the wrong way, but sometimes you just had to look out for yourself. There was another element at work, too, which was completely unrelated to the need to concentrate on her own and her husband’s welfare. Since Mitsue was in total-candor mode, she couldn’t deny that, as a member of the same gender, she had some feelings of envy and resentment toward Misao.

  The younger woman appeared to be blessed with a successful marriage to a charismatic man—or if there were any problems, they weren’t apparent. She was the mother of an adorable child; she was still young, and very attractive; and on top of everything she even had artistic talent and some interesting part-time work. The truth was, Mitsue was perpetually irritated by what she perceived as Misao’s unfairly charmed existence.

  Mitsue and Sueo had never had any children, though not by design. They had simply waited for a pregnancy to occur naturally, and it never did. Needless to say, in their younger days infertility science hadn’t been nearly as advanced as it was now, but in any case they both believed that becoming parents was a gift rather than something to be actively pursued, so they had never taken any medical steps toward trying to achieve that goal. Fortunately, no rifts had developed between the couple over the issue, as often happens; on the contrary, Sueo seemed to feel that their lives had been easier without children. Mitsue, though, wasn’t able to be so cavalier about their inability to start a family, and for the entire course of the marriage she had been haunted by feelings of loneliness and longing.

  As a woman, and as a human being, too, she felt somehow unrealized and incomplete. If only we could have had one child, she would think, almost daily. Of course, by now that child would have grown up and moved out, but there would be visits from time to time, and he or she would surely have been able to help resolve the practical problems that plague an aging couple.

  Mitsue had lived her life with the constant sense that something was broken or missing, and as a result she had a sizable inferiority complex. This made it difficult for her to interact with a woman like Misao, whose life appeared to be idyllic and enviable in every regard.

  However, Mitsue would never have dreamed of trying to make mischief, or of fabricating mean-spirited rumors about anyone. She was philosophically opposed to behaving in such a despicable way, and she knew if she ever stooped to such shameful tactics she would only make herself more miserable. Mitsue’s personal credo went something like this: Don’t ever let yourself turn into one of those women of a certain age who are perpetually consumed by feelings of envy, and who do nothing but grumble and gripe about their ill-starred lot in life.

  After the Tabatas’ possessions had been loaded onto the truck, Sueo sent the moving men on their way with an envelope containing a modest tip. Then he and Mitsue quickly changed into the traveling clothes they had laid out earlier. Locking the door of the empty caretakers’ apartment behind them for the last time, they got into the elevator and rode up to the eighth floor to say their final good-byes to the Kano family. It was a Wednesday, so Teppei had gone to work as usual, but Misao was at home.

  “Well, it looks as though we’ll be leaving before you do, after all,” Mitsue said as she bowed in the entryway, wearing an amicable smile.

  Misao’s face looked rather gaunt, and she appeared to be uncommonly tense and jittery, but she smiled broadly in return. “I’m happy that things worked out so well for you,” she said. “Your new situation sounds wonderful!”

  “We hope you’ll come visit us before too long, perhaps during the summer holidays—and by all means, bring Tamao, too!” Sueo said jovially. “It only takes five or six minutes to walk to the beach from our new place.”

  “Thank you so much for the invitation,” Misao said. “We’ll be looking forward to taking you up on your kind offer in the near future. Do you have time to come in for a cup of tea?”

  Mitsue shook her head with what appeared to be genuine regret, but the truth was that she didn’t want to spend another minute in this wretched building. “We want to try to get to Izu ahead of the moving truck, so we need to be on our way as soon as possible,” she explained.

  “Oh, of course.” Misao nodded. Mitsue was secretly pleased to notice some fine wrinkles around Misao’s eyes; they might have been a new development, or perhaps Mitsue simply hadn’t noticed them before.

  “Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?” Sueo shook his head. “I mean, who would have dreamed that every single tenant in the building would end up moving out? And if we tried to explain the reasons to an outsider, no one would ever believe us—not in a million years.”

  “It’s going to be lonely without you,” Misao said with genuine sadness. “Look, I know you need to run, but won’t you come in just for a minute? Please? The thing is, I just received a very upsetting phone call, and I really don’t want to be alone right now.” While she was speaking, Misao’s face seemed to be growing ever paler, even as—perhaps in some kind of distorted physiological counterpoint—the whites of her eyes began to look more and more bloodshot. Her breathing had become labored, too, and her chest was heaving violently under the loose, bluish-gray summer sweater she wore.

  Mitsue Tabata shot a quick glance at her husband, then asked, “What’s wrong, Mrs. Kano?”

  Looking as if she might be about to burst into tears, Misao pushed her bangs off her forehead with one hand, then took a deep breath. “Well, I just got a call from the rental agency we’ve been working with. It was about the apartment we were planning to move into at the end of this week…”

  “Oh, did something happen?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “So your moving day had to be postponed, or something like that?”

  Misao took another deep, racking breath, then shook her head slowly from side to side. “No, she died,” she said, barely suppressing a sob.

  “Died?” Mitsue gasped. “Who died?”

  “The woman who was living in the apartment we were supposed to move to this week just dropped dead last night,” Misao said. Her cheek muscles were twitching as she added, “I really can’t believe it.”

  Mitsue put both hands
to her own cheeks. “What? Not again! But why?”

  “I have no idea,” Misao said.

  “Was that person getting along in years?”

  “No, on the contrary,” Misao said with a weak, unnatural-sounding laugh. “She was actually quite a bit younger than I am, and she looked very robust and healthy. I got the impression that she was around twenty-three or twenty-four. We met her when we went to see the apartment, and she was in high spirits because she was engaged to be married. That’s why she was getting ready to move out. And now, suddenly, she’s dead.”

  “Oh my goodness, how awful,” Mitsue said, shivering involuntarily. “That’s just too awful for words.”

  “I know,” Misao said with a listless nod. “And we don’t have anywhere to move to now, because apparently that apartment has to be left untouched until they can determine the cause of death. Beyond that, though, the idea of moving into an apartment where someone just died under suspicious circumstances doesn’t exactly seem inviting, any way you look at it…” She stopped speaking in midsentence and got a faraway look in her eyes. After a moment she said, “To be honest, I’m really frightened.”

  “Of course you are,” Mitsue said as she and her husband nodded sympathetically, in unison. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  Some words began to bubble up in Mitsue’s throat, but she managed to swallow them just in time. A moment later, though, Misao gave voice to the exact same thought: “It’s really starting to feel as if our attempts to get away from this place are doomed, or cursed,” she said. “Every time we try to leave, something disastrous seems to happen and we end up being stuck here.”

  Mitsue didn’t know how to respond, and when she looked up at her husband she noticed immediately that his neck had broken out in goose bumps. Sueo returned his wife’s look of dismay, but he remained silent, too.

  “I really don’t think it was a coincidence that the little house we were supposed to rent burned down before we had a chance to move in,” Misao continued after a long pause. “And now our second choice is out of the picture, too, because somebody suddenly died there. I mean, come on, this is really getting scary, don’t you think?”