Nan-Core (17 page)

As before, I kept watch for Dad from inside the coffee shop next to the station. This time I was working by myself as it would be suspicious for Yohei to visit Gran two weeks in a row. It would be dangerous to spend too long in Dad’s study, because unlike the previous week, I would have no way of finding out if Dad decided to cut his visit short and come back early. I supposed I would have to return notebook three and take number four, which I hadn’t read yet. I could do that in less than five minutes.

It had been only a week, but when Dad appeared beyond the window he seemed to have lost even more weight. His shirt looked too baggy, the fabric billowing oddly. Yet still his posture was upright, and he walked with long strides. I followed his retreating back with my gaze until he was gone, surprised as I was by my own unbearably complex emotions.

I left the shop five minutes later and hurried to the house.

I stood in front of the open closet, not knowing what to do.

The notebooks were gone.

I had turned the contents of the cardboard box inside
out in my search but couldn’t find either the manila envelope with the notebooks nor that handbag.

Had Dad noticed what I’d done?
I tried to work out what I should do, but no bright ideas came to mind. Despite knowing it would be pointless, I looked through another box nearby, then another and another, until finally I had pulled every last box from the closet. The closet on the other side was all but jammed shut by the bookshelf, so it was very hard work getting it open. I dug through it all, finding nothing but old clothes, cutlery, and other useless things that made me feel fed up with the whole ordeal. There was no sign of the bag or the notebooks.

By the time there was nowhere left to stand in the cramped study, I had no choice but to give up. It took a long time to put all the boxes back and run a vacuum cleaner over the dust-covered room. I couldn’t get everything back as it had been, so Dad would realize the boxes had been moved the moment he opened the closet. I no longer cared.

I went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table with a beer as I waited for Dad. It was the time of year when the days were long, but it was already getting dark outside.

It was after seven when Dad got back.

“Ah, you’re here.” He pulled a can of beer from the fridge, greeting me as usual.

“Were you expecting me?” I asked.

“I guess so.” He drank about half of the beer at once, clearly relishing it before putting the can down. “It was hot today.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Stop asking the same damn thing.”

I’d known he would say that, but I’d seen how his wrist
had thinned down to the bone and ended up asking anyway. I had asked the question even though I knew the answer couldn’t be good.

“Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Dad.”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you put the notebooks?”

His expression remained unchanged. It was calm enough to make me wonder, for a moment, if he hadn’t heard. He seemed not to notice the way I was staring as he picked up his beer can, drained it, and let out a sigh. Only after that did he look in my direction, though he seemed to focus on a point in the air between us.

“You’ve got one, don’t you.”

“Yes. But I just have to read the rest. I’ve only got the fourth one left now.”

It felt like we were just chatting normally.

“I thought maybe you’d just taken one at random. Okay, so you’ve already read the first three.”

I nodded.

“I took them out because I didn’t want you to read them. I wanted to get rid of them while I still have the energy.”

“Well, I’ve started now. I have to read to the end.”

I pulled the third notebook from my shoulder bag and put it on the table. Dad was silent. He didn’t even look at the notebook. He was looking at me with an unfocused gaze. The expression was oddly similar to Yohei’s when he was sulking.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Dad said simply, after a long moment had passed. He got up from his chair and walked into
the living room, right off the kitchen. He opened a drawer in the small bureau with Mom’s—Misako’s—memorial photograph on top, and pulled out the manila envelope. I didn’t know what his real motive was, if he’d hidden it there deliberately right by her photo. When he came back he handed the envelope to me and said, “Sorry, but I’m going to go upstairs and get a little rest while you’re reading. It’s rather pathetic, but I’m a lot weaker now so even walking a bit takes a toll. Call me when you’re done.”

It was unusual to hear Dad complain like that, but instead of offering sympathy, I only managed a vague response. Listening to the steps creak as he climbed the stairs, I pulled out the contents of the envelope. Even though I finally had the notebook in my hands I felt extremely anxious, as though it might be snatched away at any moment. I hastily put the three I’d read to one side, then picked up the fourth. I took a deep breath to try and calm down, but it had little effect.

I knew the last lines of the third notebook so well I could easily recite them:

My hand trembled as I flipped through the pages, thinking that what I was about to read described how things fell apart, as well as the events that led up to my mother’s death. For a moment the desire to read it nearly faltered, but there wasn’t any turning back.

One afternoon I was out walking along the street, my son’s hand in mine, when someone called out to me using my maiden name.

“Wow, whatta surprise! Long time no see! Gosh, I was pretty sure I had the wrong person, but I thought I’d try calling out anyway. You look so different. I wonder what it is. Your face? It’s like you’re a different person.”

The man was balding, making it seem like he had two horns. He was a contractor from my old workplace. His prices had been reasonable and he came quickly when we called, so we’d used him for most of the office supplies. I was usually the one to place orders.

“Oh, so you got married. Hey there, young man. You look like a good boy. How old are you?”

My son fidgeted shyly, then held up his fingers to show the man his age.

“Wow, that’s great. What’s your name?”

The man with the horns had given me a garish scarf one Christmas. He said it was a present, so I’d thanked him and taken it, but after that I couldn’t bring myself to order supplies as usual. It was one of the many reasons I was eventually forced to leave the company.

“Hey, this kind of thing doesn’t happen too often, let’s go get some tea. Gosh, this sure is a surprise. I guess women change this much when they get married. I want to ask you all about that. ’Cause, you see, I’m still a lonely old bachelor!”

I could see inside his gaping mouth when he laughed. “I can’t, sorry. I’ve actually got some errands to run.”

“Oh come on, I saw you just strolling along. I could see you from way over there. Look, I’m in the middle of work myself, but you’ve got to cherish this kind of coincidence. How about it, young
man? Wanna get some juice? Or maybe ice cream?”

“We really can’t. We have to go now.”

But the man kept on speaking, acting like he hadn’t heard me. “You quit real sudden. That was pretty mean, even if it was a long time ago. Hey, that reminds me, did you see it in the papers? A little while after you left, someone was murdered there, in your company’s office. Hmm? Oh, so you don’t know. It was about four, maybe five years back. And the guy that got killed was someone we both knew pretty well. Can you guess who it was?” he said, prefacing the name of the man I had killed. “And what’s worse, the killer clubbed him to death with one of my garbage bins. Talk about leaving a bad taste in the mouth. You know, the kind everyone used, steel, looked like an umbrella stand. One of those.”

I hiccupped as I felt my heart tighten like a clenched fist. All the shading of the scenery around me dried up, everything suddenly appearing like the set of a play that glittered with hostility. I felt like the insides of everything I could see around me had been broken the whole time. All Nan-Core gone. I was hit by the intense realization that this was how the world had always looked to me, long ago, before I met you.

“H-Hey, what’s wrong? Huh? What—are you okay? You’re very pale.”

I couldn’t reply, sure that my voice would sound strange.

“Hey, your kid, you’re hurting him. Hey, your hand!”

I noticed the crying voice and let go of my son’s hand. I’d been squeezing too hard. I immediately took hold again and started to walk away.

“Hey, wait, wait! You’re acting mighty strange.” He grabbed my shoulder, enough to make me nearly lose my footing. “Are you running away? Why the rush … Cat got your tongue or something?
Hey … Do you actually know what happened? Were you … Were you involved in some way?”

He was peering at me, his expression like a distorted mask.

“No. It’s just a shock, that’s all,” I said over my shoulder, shaking free of the horned man’s grip and briskly walking away. My son started to cry again as I dragged him after me. The fake scenery of the city creaked and jostled around his high-pitched bawling, sounding as though the set pieces might shatter apart at any moment. I would never escape. But I had no idea what to do.

About half a month ago two police detectives came to the house while we were in the middle of dinner. One was a heavy-set man around 50, the other a younger man with thin eyebrows. When you opened the door to greet them they showed their badges and gave their names, and after confirming your name they told you in a courteous tone that they would like to ask some questions of your wife. I didn’t want them in the house and rushed to the door, but you had already let them inside.

“We’re very sorry to interrupt your dinner. This won’t take up too much of your time.”

When they were seated in front of the low table in the next room, the older detective retrieved a notebook from his pocket and read out the name of the horned man. He then asked me to confirm the date, time, and place I had seen him. More than a month had already passed since then so I had assumed that everything would be okay. I could hear you on the other side of the closed room partition, reading a book or something to our son so he wouldn’t make a fuss.

“Now then, please understand that this is just procedure, we have to confirm details whenever someone calls a report, you see. I
have to say though, it was quite a headache finding this place, what with your last name changing when you got married, and then moving house.”

The detective laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. From beginning to end he was the only one who spoke. The younger detective just sat there, never saying a word.

“Well, uh, according to the man who made the report, you, ma’am, appeared to know something important about a case from sometime back.”

The detective continued, outlining the details of the case, reading off the name of the man who had been killed, the whole time watching me with eyes that seemed fossilized, isolated somehow from the shifting expressions of his face.

“So, ma’am, you knew the victim, is that right?”

“He was a superior of mine at the company I used to work for.” My voice didn’t waver. I mentally scolded myself that I couldn’t get distressed like before.

“According to our records, uhm … You started work there about seven years ago, and you were there for a year or so.”

“Yes.” I didn’t really remember, but I supposed their records were correct.

“At the time, did you have any kind of, umm, personal relationship with the victim? Outside of work, I mean,” he asked, whispering to show he was aware of your presence in the other room.

“No.”

“How about after you left? Did you meet him at all, maybe just once?”

“No.”

“And the murder. Did you know about it?”

“The first time I heard about it was when I saw that man.”

“I see, I see.” He kept writing in his notebook. The other detective was staring at me. “And what did you think when you heard about it?”

“I was shocked.”

“I see.”

“He said it so abruptly, not to mention right in front of my son.”

“Right. It’s just that, well, the man told us that you were acting abnormally. He said you turned very pale and looked like you were on the verge of having a fit.”

“I was in shock and I wanted to get away from him as quickly as I could. He kept asking me to go for a drink.”

“Oh, did he now.”

“I refused, telling him I was in a hurry, but he wouldn’t listen. He used to say all sorts of things to me before, too, at the office.”

The detective fell silent and frowned, then wrote something in his notebook and snapped it shut. I thought he might say he needed to take my prints, just in case. But I was sure I had at least cleaned them from the garbage bin and the door handle.

“Well, we’re sorry to have taken up your time. I think we’ve got all we need, this should be fine.” After putting on his shoes the overweight detective turned around, looking cramped in the small doorway. “The case is already five years old, and we pretty much exhausted every line of inquiry then, so it’s not often anything new comes up. It’s a real pain, I tell you. Again, our apologies for the disturbance.”

I didn’t feel like eating after the detectives had left, so I cleaned up dinner while you gave our son his usual bath.

“So, that issue from earlier. Did you have anything to do with it?” you asked me later when we were lying in bed together. “I had wondered if you were the way you used to be back then because
you were trying to atone for some sin. I think I asked you if that was what it was.”

You’d asked me when we met:
You’re trying to make up for doing something bad, that’s why you’re a prostitute?
I remembered it well.

“Was it for the case that those detectives were asking about? Was it atonement for that?”

“No. I didn’t have anything to do with that murder.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me? That you’d bumped into the man who reported you.”

“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Then I just forgot about it.”