by Yoko Ogawa
“I didn’t realize there was a basement.”
“Well, we call it a basement, though it’s not exactly underground. The front of the house is along the road to the south, but in back, to the north, it faces the river. The stone foundation was set down into the water, with the house built on top, so the basement is actually below the level of the water.”
“That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?” he said.
“I think my mother must have loved the sound of water. Not crashing waves but the gentle flowing of the river—which is probably why she also bought the cottage upstream. She needed only three things in her studio to be able to get her sculpting done: the sound of water, my playpen, and dried sardines.”
“That, too, is unusual, don’t you think?” he said. He turned his lighter over in his palm and then lit a cigarette. “If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, hesitating a moment, “would you mind showing me the basement?”
“I’d be happy to,” I told him.
He slowly exhaled the smoke from his lungs, as if he had at last managed to accomplish something that had long been weighing on his mind.
* * *
. . .
“It’s chilly down here.”
“I’ll light the heater. It’s old and it takes a while to warm the room. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t worry. It’s cold from the river, so there’s something almost pleasant about it.”
We were making our way down to the basement, and he gently took my arm on the dark stairs.
“It’s bigger than I would have imagined,” he said, looking around the room.
“After my mother died, my father couldn’t bear to come here, so it’s falling apart.” I hadn’t been down since the Inui family had passed through. “Feel free to look around,” I added.
He walked through the room, examining one by one all the objects that had been left behind—odds and ends, cabinets full of my mother’s tools, the five sculptures entrusted to me by the Inuis that were lined up on the top shelf, the glass door that led to the washing platform, the wooden chairs. Though there was nothing particularly worth seeing, he spent a long time going around the room, peering into every corner, as though intent on breathing in the ancient chill that permeated the basement.
“You’re welcome to open drawers and look at her notebooks and sketches,” I told him. He did, and when he turned the pages, he did so with the same sort of care he used with my manuscripts.
As he moved through the room, he sent up clouds of stone dust. Light from a clear blue sky shone in through a window high in the wall. From time to time, we could hear the sound of a boat going by outside.
“What’s this?” he asked, coming at last to the cabinet with many small drawers under the staircase.
“It’s where my mother once kept secret things.”
“Secret things?”
“Yes…I’m not quite sure how to explain it. Lots of different things, all unfamiliar to me.” I was at a loss for words as he began opening drawers one after another. But they were all empty.
“There’s nothing left.”
“When I was little, each drawer held one item. When she was taking a break from her work, she would show me the things and tell me stories about them. Strange stories like nothing I had ever read in my picture books.”
“I wonder why they’re empty now.”
“I don’t know. But at some point I realized everything was gone. I think it must have happened in the confusion when the Memory Police took her away.”
“You think they took these things, too?”
“No, they never came down here. My mother and I were the only ones who knew about this cabinet. We never even told my father. I think she must have found a way to dispose of them between the time they sent her the summons and her surrender. I was barely ten years old, so I had no idea what these things meant, but I think she realized how important they were after she understood what was about to happen. I suspect she managed to hide them or throw them away or leave them in the care of one of her friends.”
“I see,” R murmured. He stood under the stairs, stooping to avoid hitting his head, and tugged at one of the drawer handles. I worried that he would get his hands dirty from the rusted metal.
“Can you remember what sorts of things were in here?” He peered up at me, the sunlight reflecting from his glasses.
“Sometimes I try to remember—those were precious moments with my mother—but I can’t recall the objects. My mother’s expression, the sound of her voice, the smell of the basement air—I can remember all that perfectly. But the things in the drawers are vague, as though those memories, and those alone, have dissolved.”
“Still, I’d like you to tell me what you can remember, no matter how dim the impression,” he said.
“Well…,” I murmured, staring at the cabinet. No doubt it had once been a handsome piece of furniture, but it had fallen now into a lamentable state, covered in dust, with its varnish peeling and handles rusted. Here and there, I could see the remains of stickers I had affixed to the drawers when I was young. “The object my mother told me was most precious,” I said, after a long pause, “was an heirloom from her own mother that she kept in a drawer in the second row, right about here. A little green stone, tiny and hard, like a baby tooth that had just fallen out. I think I remember it that way because my own baby teeth were falling out about then.”
“And the stone was beautiful?” he asked.
“Yes, I suppose so. It must have been, since my mother often took it out and held it up to admire in the moonlight. But nothing about it remains with me—that it was beautiful or dear or that I wanted to have it—nothing. Just the cold sensation when my mother once set it on my palm. When I stand here in front of the cabinet, my heart feels like a silkworm slumbering in its cocoon.”
“But that’s just the way it is—everyone feels that way about the things that have disappeared.” He touched his hand again to the frames of his glasses. “Could the green stone have been called an emerald?” he added.
“Em…er…ald,” I murmured over and over, and as I did I began to sense a faint stirring somewhere deep within. “Of course, that was it…em…er…ald. I’m sure that’s right. But how did you know?”
He said nothing for a moment. Instead, he began opening the drawers again one after the other. The handles gave a muffled clank. When he got to the drawer farthest to the left in the fourth row, he stopped and turned toward me.
“This one held perfume,” he said. I was about to repeat my question—how had he known?—but stopped myself. “There’s still some here,” he said, gently pressing on my back to force me closer. “Can you smell it?”
I peered into the little drawer and took a deep breath, recalling suddenly that my mother had made me smell odors this same way. But all that filled my chest was the chill, stale air. The sensation of his hand on my back was much more vivid than the memory of the perfume.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed, shaking my head.
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “It’s very hard to recall things that have disappeared.” He blinked and closed the “perfume” drawer. “But I remember,” he added. “The beauty of the emerald and the smell of perfume. I haven’t forgotten anything.”
As the winter deepened, the island was blanketed with heavy, stagnant air. The sun shone pale, and the wind blew every afternoon. People walked quickly, shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep in their pockets.
The dark green trucks with canvas covers appeared more often on the streets. Sometimes they would race by, covers rolled up, sirens blaring, and at other times they would trundle heavily along, covers down. In the gap between the canvas and the bed of the truck, you could catch a glimpse of someone’s shoe or a suitcase or the hem of a coat.
The methods used by the Memory Police were becoming more and more brutal.
No longer were there advance warnings of their visits, like the one my mother had received. Everything happened by surprise, and they now carried heavy battering rams capable of breaking down any door. They invaded houses in search of any space where someone could be hidden—storage rooms, under beds, in the back of closets. If there was enough space for one human body, it was unlikely to escape their attention. They dragged out anyone they found, along with those who had hidden them, and loaded them all in the covered trucks.
There had been no further widespread disappearances since the roses, but it became increasingly common to hear that someone had suddenly vanished—a friend from the next town, an acquaintance from school, a distant relative of the fishmonger. You never knew whether they had been taken away or had been fortunate enough to find a place to hide—or if the place they’d been hiding had been discovered and they’d been arrested.
Nor did anyone try very hard to find out. Regardless of what had happened, it was almost certainly an unfortunate event, and, moreover, simply talking about it could put you in danger. If on occasion a whole household suddenly went missing with no warning at all, the neighbors would simply pass their house with a furtive glance at the windows, hoping that the former inhabitants were safe somewhere. The citizens of the island were by now quite accustomed to these losses.
* * *
. . .
“If you don’t want to hear what I’m about to say, please tell me.”
The old man’s hand froze as he was about to cut the apple cake, and he let out a little cry. “But how can I answer before you’ve told me?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. Once I’ve told you, it will be too late. What I’m going to tell you must be kept completely secret—and I need you to promise you’ll do that. If you’d rather not, it’s perfectly fine. I’ll simply keep what I know to myself. But I want you to answer me truthfully, without feeling any pressure. Do you want to hear or not?”
He set down the knife and rested his hands on his knees. The water in the kettle on the stove was coming to a boil. A ray of sunlight shining in through a porthole in the first-class cabin fell on the cake. The buttery frosting glittered.
“I want to hear,” he said, looking directly at me.
“You realize this could be dangerous?”
“I know.”
“It could cost you your life itself.”
“The little I have left,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“I am. It’s fine. Please tell me.” He looked down, hands still on his knees.
“I’d like to try to help someone. To hide him.” I studied the old man’s face but there was no reaction. He seemed to be waiting for me to continue. “I know what will happen if I’m found out, but if I do nothing, I know I’ll lose a person who is important to me. Just like I lost my mother. I can’t do this by myself. I need help—someone I can trust completely.”
A strong gust of wind made the ferry groan. The cake plates rattled against one another.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Of course.”
“How are you connected to the person you want to help?”
“He’s my editor. The first person who reads my work. He’s the friend who knows the self that I put in my novels better than anyone else.”
“I understand,” he said. “And I’ll help you.”
“Thank you.” I folded my hands over his large, wrinkled ones where they lay on his knees.
* * *
. . .
After discussing the matter, we decided that the safest option would be the little room where my father used to store his books and documents. It was a space between the ceiling of the first level and the floor of the second that my father had commissioned a carpenter to construct for storage. The only way to access it was through a small hatch in the floor of his office.
The room was long and narrow, about the size of three tatami mats in total, and not more than six feet in height. R, who was quite tall, would probably be unable to stand up straight in it. Furthermore, while there was electricity, there was no running water or light from outside.
The basement was much larger and more comfortable, but the neighbors all knew of its existence, and one had only to brave crossing the little crumbling bridge to gain access. If the house was searched, that would be the first place the Memory Police would look. But they had overlooked the storage room even when they’d come to confiscate my father’s research materials. If I was going to protect R, I needed a place far removed from the outside world.
On a blank page of his ferry log, the old man wrote down what each of us needed to do.
First, the list for me:
Clear out all books and documents remaining in the room; since they related to birds, they needed to be disposed of carefully.
Clean and disinfect everything; hygiene will be important since no doctor can come to take care of R if he falls ill.
Find a rug to conceal the trapdoor; plain and simple, not an elaborate design that might attract attention.
Assemble basic necessities for R’s everyday life: extension cord, lamp, bedding, electric kettle, tea service, etc.; avoid buying everything new—large purchases attract attention.
Plan a way to get R to my house unnoticed; this is most important and most difficult.
Next, the list for the old man:
Install ventilation fan; room is too stuffy.
Install plumbing to provide a minimum amount of running water; find a way somehow.
Line room with thick paper, to insulate and soundproof.
Construct toilet; a complicated project but needs to be done discreetly.
Learn more about R; from now on he won’t have contact with anyone except the two of us.
We discussed everything in detail, going over the plans for preparing the hidden room and hiding R, making sure we had missed nothing. We imagined every possible hitch or obstacle and how we would cope with it. What to do if our truck was stopped for inspection as we were moving construction materials. What if the neighbor’s dog caught wind of something. What if the Memory Police took R before we were ready…There were any number of causes for worry.
“Let’s take a break and have a snack,” the old man said at last. He took the kettle from the stove and poured boiling water in the teapot. Then, while the tea was brewing, he went back to cutting the apple cake. “In general,” he continued, “most things you worry about end up being no more than that—just worries.”
“I suppose so.”
“I know so,” he said. “Just leave it to me. We’ll manage, you’ll see.”
“I suppose so,” I repeated. “I suppose we will.”
He put a large slice of cake on my plate. He still thought of me as a young, growing girl and invariably offered me too much to eat. The plate rested on a snow-white paper napkin. The tablecloth was smooth and starched, and in a bud vase at the center was a small branch with red berries from a tree I often saw at the top of the hill.
We reread the notes we had made in the ferry logbook in order to commit everything to memory. Then, to be rid of the evidence, the old man tore out the page and tossed it in the stove. Engulfed in flames, the paper shriveled and dissolved. We stood in silence for a moment, staring into the fire. Horrible things were about to happen, but somehow we felt increasingly calm. The air in the wheelhouse was warm and smelled of cake.
* * *
. . .
The work began the next day. I divided the research materials from the storeroom into small batches and burned them in the garden incinerator as though disposing of old magazines. As for the rug, I decided to use one that had been in the living room, and I managed to find all the basic necessities around the house.
But the remodeling of t
he room proved to be a more difficult problem. It was rumored that all the carpenters on the island had been recruited by the Memory Police and instructed to alert them to any suspicious construction projects. But it would also attract attention if they found out that we were quietly doing the work on our own.
So we were already in a state of nervous exhaustion by the time we had merely assembled the tools and materials. The old man proved his ingenuity in gathering all the things we would need. He slid lengths of pipe and lumber under his sweater, hung bags of nails and hinges and screws around his waist, and stuffed his pockets full of tools. When he finally reached the house for a delivery, the look of relief on his face was obvious. He would laugh and give an odd stretch to his spine, explaining that the clattering sound all around him as he pedaled his bicycle had made him feel as though his bones were coming apart.
It was wonderful to see how he went about his work. He was careful, precise, conscientious, and, on top of all that, quick. From time to time he would study a drawing he had made ahead of time—probably on a page from the logbook as well—then, once he had collected his thoughts, launch into the work without hesitation. Cutting a hole in the wall, he ran a pipe through it and then connected it with another pipe he found running under the ceiling. He spliced an electrical cable, fastened it onto a new outlet, cut a piece of plywood, and affixed it with nails. I helped him as much as I could, taking care not to get in his way.
To cover the noise from the construction, I played records of symphony music in my father’s old office. The old man became adept at timing his work with the hammer or saw to correspond to the climax of a piece when all the instruments were playing together. Often we would work straight through the day, without stopping to eat lunch.
The project was finished in the evening on the fourth day. We sat down and looked around at a room that was better than anything we could have imagined. It was simple, neat, and cozy. The beige wallpaper had proven to be a good choice. There was no getting around the lack of space, but we had still managed to provide all the basic necessities in a compact form. There was a bed, a desk, and a chair, and in one corner a toilet concealed behind plywood walls. The new plumbing allowed the water in the plastic tank above the toilet to flush down to the sewer. I could foresee that from now on it would be my task to refill the tank each day.