172 Hours on the Moon (7 page)

The letter had arrived three days ago, but he already felt like he’d always had it, and he couldn’t remember anymore how he
had reacted when it arrived and he realized what it was.

You’re going to the moon, Antoine
.

That’s what it said.

Obviously he had been surprised. Happy, too. But there was no getting around the fact that part of him had been expecting
it. Because the way he saw it, he needed it more than anyone else.

But he hadn’t said anything to his parents yet about the letter. It wasn’t because he couldn’t trust them. Actually, they
were nice people who both worked at the Sorbonne University, where they hung out with young people every day. Antoine was
sure that helped them be virtually normal. They rarely embarrassed
him, and he could also talk to them about pretty much anything. But telling them about this — that could wait. He wanted to
keep it to himself for a while longer, enjoy the feeling of knowing he was the only one in Paris who knew about it.

He wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself for very long, though. He had been told by phone that once his parents formally
agreed to the plan, a representative from the space organization would be coming to visit them one day the following week.
And it was already Monday now. So, it was time.

He found his jacket and decided to go for a walk before showing the envelope to his parents.

He had told his mother he was going over to see Laurent, who lived just behind Montmartre. But he wasn’t planning to go there,
not even in that direction. He was going to where he’d been the last several afternoons until late in the evening. He was
going to see Simone. The initial shock of her leaving him had subsided a good month ago and been replaced by a sense that
he would survive, although he would never be truly happy again. That sense of acceptance had come over him very suddenly.

But, strangely, the feeling had somehow vanished over the last week and been replaced by something worse. A relapse. It was
as if his emergency anesthesia had worn off, and now there was just excruciating pain again. And the only thing that helped
was thinking about how he would soon be as far away from this two-timing city as he could be.

The rain had picked up in strength, and Antoine shivered as he walked the short distance to the Eiffel Tower, paid a couple
of euros, and took the stairs up to the first observation level. In a way he was lucky with the weather, because there were
hardly
any tourists there now. The first level was also the best for his purposes, because here there was very little for the tourists
to aim the telescope at, aside from the neighboring buildings.

Which just so happened to be exactly what Antoine was planning to do.

He took out his bag of two-euro coins, slid the first one in, and adjusted the focus. He pointed the telescope at the third
floor of one of the apartment buildings on avenue de Suffren.

She was home. Simone was sitting in her room playing her guitar.

If he really concentrated, it almost felt as if he weren’t standing half-drenched on the first landing of the Eiffel Tower
but in the warmth of her room. He stared at her hands, stroking the strings, and imagined that he knew which song it was.
Every once in a while she would set down her guitar and put her head in her hands. Antoine hoped she was doing that because
she suddenly realized that she missed him. But it could just as easily been because she was having trouble with one of the
chords. Or because she had a headache …

Suddenly everything went black.

For a moment he was gripped by panic, but then he snapped out of it and realized that his time on the telescope had expired.
He put in a new coin, and Simone came back into sight in the window.

She was wearing his favorite sweater. The blue one, which, along with her hair, made her face even more magnificent. He had
been with her when she bought it on a freezing day in January. They were out walking around after school and she was cold,
so they hurried into one of the big department stores. They
were actually just planning to warm up a little, but then she felt like trying on some clothes, and he didn’t have any other
plans. As if he ever had any other plans when he was with her. Being with her
was
the plan. He was the one who’d found the sweater and …

Blackness. Again.

He put in a new coin.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! What was this?

Someone had just walked into Simone’s room.

Antoine pressed his eyes even closer to the telescope. A branch from one of the trees lining the street outside her building
hid the right side of her room, and he could only see half of the person.

Surely just her mother. Or her father.

No. It wasn’t one of her parents. He’d have recognized them by now. And she was putting her arm around his neck….

Was she kissing him?

What the hell?

Everything went black again.

Antoine desperately took his eyes off the scope and stuck his hand into his bag of coins. But he was too eager. It slipped
out of his hands, and all the coins rolled across the deck.

Without paying any attention to the guards, who were laughing at him, Antoine got down on his hands and knees and swept the
money into a pile. He pushed a coin into the machine and took up his post again. Now he could see the other person clearly.
He didn’t recognize him, had never seen him before, but he still knew immediately who it was. Noël.
The new guy
.

Asshole!
For a brief second Antoine seriously considered
waiting outside her building and murdering the guy when he came out. But it wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t even worth touching.

Simone sat down to play the guitar again, and the guy wormed his way in behind her. He put his arms around her and laid his
head on her shoulders. She kept singing for a while before suddenly stopping, turning her face to his, and kissing him. The
guy wrapped his arms more tightly around her and carefully tipped her off the chair and down onto the floor so they disappeared
from view.

He stepped back from the telescope and gave it a shove so it whipped around in a circle with remarkable speed, slamming into
the railing with a cracking sound.
Enough
.

At home the next morning, Antoine woke up with his parents standing next to his bed, looking worried. For a few long moments,
no one said anything.

Then their faces melted into enormous grins.

Antoine stared at them for a second, not understanding, before his mother pulled out the envelope from NASA. They had found
it.

“Congratulations, son.
Bon voyage!
”

The next several minutes were a single, long blur of hugs and cheers, plus a few nervous questions about where he had been
in recent days.

But those questions went unanswered.

It seemed like half of Japan was at Narita International Airport. But most of them weren’t actually going anywhere. They had
all come to see Midori Yoshida say good-bye to the old country on her way to the moon. The lightning storm of flashbulbs going
off had started as soon as her taxi slowed down outside Terminal 2, and Midori suddenly felt claustrophobic. But in a way
it was fun, too. All of these people were here to see
her
.

She had actually wanted to wear a shiny, futuristic-looking silver outfit that Yoshimi had helped her sew. She had worn it
for a while down in Harajuku, and it had been a really big hit. But at the last minute, her father had pleaded with her to
wear something more formal, and she eventually conceded and put on a long, thick gray skirt and a snug-fitting black jacket
with a black
shirt underneath. The only things that didn’t go were the grubby Onitsuka Tiger sneakers she’d been tromping around Tokyo
in for the last several months. They were her favorite shoes, and even though her father thought she ought to wear boots,
or at least nice shoes, she had insisted that sneakers were the only way to go for New York City.

But even though a part of her was fascinated by the enormous crowd of people surrounding the taxi when it stopped in front
of the entrance, another part of her didn’t like it at all. It had happened too fast. One second she had been her totally
normal self, hanging out with her friends in Harajuku and dreaming of someday moving to a place where she could do exactly
what she wanted. And the next she was transformed into Miss Midori Yoshida, a national icon whom every newspaper and TV station
in the country dreamed of landing an interview with. Soon she would sit down on the plane, land on the other side of the world,
meet the international media, and shake hands with who-knew-how-many new people.

And then there would be … the moon.

The moon. There was no turning back now. Every single one of the thousands of e-mails she had received in recent months just
confirmed it: The machinery was in motion. And it would be impossible to stop it. Midori was in a cold sweat in the back-seat
and tried to focus on breathing calmly, ignoring the constant flicker of the flashbulbs outside and the hands pounding on
the windowpanes.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” she heard her mother say just before they opened the door and got out of the taxi. “They came just
for you, Midori. Just to see you.”

Midori opened the door and set one foot on the asphalt. The clicking from the cameras increased.

Now it’s really happening, Midori
.

She climbed out of the car and forced herself to wave to the smiling hordes of people watching her.

The exploding flashbulbs blinded her, and she shielded her eyes with her hand, trying to block the blinding lights. She made
her way around to the trunk, grabbed her suitcases, and smiled at her father, who was bursting with pride. Then she fought
her way forward with her parents in tow and vanished into the swarm of journalists calling out to her.

“What are you thinking right now, Yoshida-san?”

“Are you happy?”

“Have you talked to the other two winners?”

“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get to the moon?” “Are you scared?” “Do you have anything to say to the people
of Japan?” “How have you prepared for this?” “What do you think this will mean for you personally?” “How much did you know
about the moon before is there anything you’re dreading are you ready to go will it be sad to say good-bye to Earth are you
scared are you happy what are you thinking right now what are you feeling howareyoudoing doyouhaveanylastwordsfor-theviewingaudienceradiolistenersfriendsfamily
whatareyougoing-tomiss?”

When they emerged on the other side of the security checkpoint, it was finally quiet. There was only a lone photographer to
be seen. He must have bought a plane ticket just to be allowed into the international departures hall. He took a few pictures
from a distance before shuffling off, satisfied. The switch from the overwhelming throng before security was discombobulating
but nice. In here there were pretty much only sleepy businessmen on their way to or from insignificant meetings, and they
were preoccupied with their own affairs, not even glancing up at the press photographer who passed by them an arm’s-length
away.

Midori’s father stopped in front of a screen showing the gate assignments for departing flights. He looked vaguely confused.

“J5?” he mumbled to himself. “J5?” He gave Midori and her mother a puzzled look. “Where in the world is J5?”

Behind them to the right were gates 61 to 67. To the left, gates 71 to 77. Ahead of them to the left, gates 81 to 88 and ahead
of them to the right, gates 91 to 99. There was no sign of gate J5.

“Are we in the right terminal?” her father asked of no one in particular, scratching his head. His face was turning red, and
sweat was beading up on his forehead. Midori’s father didn’t like situations like this. He liked being in complete control
of what was going on and where he was supposed to go. He pulled out a map of the airport.

“Well, we’re in the right terminal,” he declared. “I just don’t get it. It should be here.”

A group of Japanese men in suits passed the family, and Midori’s father bowed to them and asked for help.

But they just looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I’m sorry,” one of them said. “There’s no gate with that number here.”

“We’re at Narita Airport every week. We’d know if it existed,” one of the other men said before they continued on toward gates
91 to 99.

“What are we going to do?” her mother exclaimed miserably,
just loud enough to make people turn around and look at them. Midori was embarrassed.

“I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” Midori tried. “We just have to ask someone who works here.”

But there were no airport employees anywhere to be seen. Had they all decided to take their lunch breaks at the same time?

Midori’s father was now beet red in the face and losing his composure. “Wait here, wait here, wait here,” he panted, studying
his map one more time. “I’m going to take a little walk around and see if I can find someone who can help us. Don’t go anywhere.”
He rushed down one of the hallways.

Midori and her mother stood next to the large departures board without talking to each other.
This is so typical
, Midori thought.
Every single time those two don’t understand something, they totally freak out. We’ve got hours until the plane leaves anyway.
There’s no reason to get all worked up
.

The last several weeks she had been almost dreading saying good-bye to her parents. After all, she had been living with them
for fifteen years and was used to having them around every single day. But now she knew that she was looking forward to it,
too. Everything would be calmer without them. They were like two propellers just spinning around and around for no reason,
spewing unnecessary advice and warnings.

How long did it take to fly to New York anyway?

Eight hours?

Nine?

Longer?

She was going to have to find some way to get through this.

Twenty minutes passed without any sign of her father. Midori’s mother started talking in falsetto, fretting about what might
have happened to him.

“I’m sure he’s probably just talking to someone or waiting in a line or something.”

“Don’t you CARE that your father is missing?” Midori’s mother practically yelled.

Midori immediately looked down, her face red. “Chill out, Mom. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“But something’s WRONG, don’t you think?” Her mother was on the verge of hysteria.

Seriously?
Midori thought.
How melodramatic is this going to get?
“Mom, he’s not
missing
. He just went to ask for directions. What’s wrong is all this yelling. Can’t you see that people are staring at us like we’re
insane? Listen, he’ll be back in ten minutes. I guarantee it. And if he’s not, fine, we’ll have them page him over the PA
system. Okay?”

Her mother nodded weakly and pretended to calm down a little.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom now, is that okay? It’s right over there,” Midori said, pointing to a sign at the other end
of the hall. “Just wait here. I’ll be back in three minutes.”

“Do you really have to go right now, Midori? Shouldn’t we wait here until your father comes back?”

Midori stared at her blankly. “I have to go
now
. Not in ten minutes. In ten minutes I won’t have to go to the bathroom anymore. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Without waiting for her mother’s response, Midori started walking toward the restrooms.

* * *

It didn’t look as though anyone had been in there for a while. No drops of water in the sink from people who’d recently washed
their hands. No little bits of paper towel that had landed outside the trash. Only the door of the fourth stall was closed.
Midori picked the second one and went in. She listened to the murmur of the air conditioner, which got her thinking about
the sounds on the moon. There weren’t any, as far as she knew. No air for sound to travel through. It was impossible to imagine.
For her entire life she’d been surrounded by sounds. People talking, traffic noise, the wind … Would the total absence of
sound feel claustrophobic?

For some reason, that made her think about the other occupied stall at the end. She hadn’t heard a thing from there since
she came in. Not so much as a shuffle of feet or a throat clearing. As she went to the sink to wash her hands, she instinctively
leaned down to check if there was someone in the stall. At first glance it appeared to be empty. But when she leaned over
a little farther, she saw two shoes. Feet.

There is someone in there
.

There were hundreds of reasons someone might sit in the bathroom for a long time at an airport. If you were afraid of flying,
for example. Or just needed a little time to yourself.
But … no one, absolutely no one, sits there so perfectly quietly for so long
.

Without really thinking about it, Midori suddenly knocked softly on the stall door. “Hello?”

No one answered.

She knocked again, just as softly this time.

“Excuse me, is anyone in here? Is everything all right?”

But there was no response.

Midori knocked a third time, a little harder now.

“Hello? Miss?”

Suddenly it struck her: What if the person was dead and there was a corpse sitting in there behind the door? Horrible images
flickered over her retinas: a dead woman, her mouth open, her face white, with blood running out of the corner of one eye,
staring at her. A millipede crawling out of her nose and making its way down into her blouse, where it disappeared into a
brownish black gaping hole in her chest.

But the person wasn’t dead. There was someone in there who now took a long, slow breath.

Right then Midori remembered something unsettling. Way back in elementary school, her classmate Kaname had started a rumor.
One of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom at her old school had been closed for several weeks, presumably because one of the
older girls had thrown something in the toilet and thoroughly clogged the narrow pipes. Kaname had told Midori and her friends
that the out of order sign hanging on the door was just a cover, something the teachers had decided to hang up to make sure
that no one tried to open the door.
Actually
, Kaname had said,
the truth is that someone’s in there
. He paused a long, long time for dramatic effect before concluding:
Her name is Hanako-chan
.

That’s all he would say. They pressed him as hard as they could, but Kaname just shook his head, and Midori thought she remembered
him looking scared. It wasn’t until a week later that he agreed to tell them the rest.
Hanako-chan
, he began,
isn’t
alive, but she lives in the bathroom. Do you get it?
Midori thought she understood.
And if you knock on the door and say her name two times, she’ll answer you with a “yes?” She’ll ask if you want to play with
her. And then … she’ll open the door…
.

Of course, the whole thing was a silly story from a little boy’s imagination. But still, by the end of that week, none of
the girls were using the school bathrooms anymore. They held it until they got home or snuck off school grounds and went over
to use the bathrooms at the nearby train station. In the end, there were so many problems with students whose bladders were
so full they couldn’t concentrate that the principal was forced to get the toilet fixed and then personally take down the
out of order sign and open the door. And of course, the stall was empty.

But Midori stared at the door in front of her now.

Kaname, you idiot. If only you knew how much that stuff stuck with me
.

She stepped toward the door. “Hanako-san?”

Seconds passed.

“Hanako-san?”

“
Yes?
” the person behind the door suddenly whispered.

Midori jumped back and had to support herself on the counter to keep from falling. Her heart was hammering out of control.

“You’re looking for gate J5, aren’t you?” the voice continued in a whisper.

Midori couldn’t get a word out.
How did you know that?
she thought.

“It’s here, it’s nearby, Midori. But you mustn’t go there. You must promise never to go there.”

Midori thought she heard another sound of movement in the stall and saw the door handle move.

With a massive effort, she tore herself out of her temporary paralysis and ran out into the hallway, back out into the departures
hall again. She stopped for a second to get her bearings and look for her mother. She looked right and left. Then right again.

At the end of a narrow corridor she hadn’t noticed before, a sign glowed over a door: J5, lit up in white against a black
background. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. Midori stopped and found herself face-to-face with her father.