Nan-Core (7 page)

She had been dressed in the light clothes of a hiker when she turned up unexpectedly at the construction site a couple of years ago, just as we were finishing up work on the cafe’s foundations. She had been walking the hills when she had caught sight of the “Opening Soon” sign at the worksite entrance, and apparently had known immediately that she wanted to work at the cafe.

When she took off her cap her face was pale and radiant in the light, gleaming with a light sheen of sweat. She had a mysterious power over me from the beginning.

She had graduated from a vocational college in Okayama before starting work at a trading company in Osaka. After that she went through a number of jobs, never finding anything she genuinely enjoyed. She was strong for a woman and madly in love with dogs, perfect for a place like Shaggy Head. She said she wouldn’t be fussy about pay if I took her on.

As she told me this, her willful expression occasionally
slipped into something altogether more fragile, and for some reason the strange contrast roiled my emotions. I kept getting so worked up that I had to look away.

I was in a daze thinking about her for the rest of the day, right until I got into bed that night. Even though we had only spoken briefly, I couldn’t bear the thought that the woman called Chie had expressions that I had not yet seen. I had to see them all for myself. I was surprised to realize that I would do whatever was necessary to make that happen.

The busy months that led up to the cafe opening were like a happy dream. Chie was perfect for the job, and I had already suspected that a woman’s perspective would be necessary for running a business of this kind. She happily threw herself into helping, displaying her own unique style as she worked on the interior of the cafe, on plans for the kitchen equipment, and even on the design of the cafe’s logo. It was her idea to plant flowering ash trees between the parking lot and the building, and her choice to have thick, cement-colored cups and saucers.

As we worked to get the cafe ready for opening, our personal relationship rapidly developed. I had already stopped thinking of Shaggy Head as my business—in my head, the cafe was ours. We discussed starting dog-training classes, opening a “hotel” to board pets on a short-term basis, doing more thorough testing to find the best coffee beans, and baking additive-free bread. Our future seemed to naturally unfold before us.

Once the business was running smoothly we would buy a house in a nearby residential area, and we didn’t care if it was old or small. We would build a wooden deck around it, plant
flowers in the garden, and raise kids in a stress-free environment. We talked about these things as though they were all long since decided.

It all felt so natural I hardly felt the need to propose. When I gave her a ring, a year later, it was purely out of a sense of formality.

Then she disappeared. It was almost half a year ago, in early February.

Blustery winds bearing sleet had all but shut down the cafe for a few days. I didn’t pay much attention when Chie didn’t come in. She had left early the day before, looking unwell and saying she might take the next day off. She didn’t answer when I phoned, so I assumed she was asleep and decided not to bother her with any more calls. After closing up that night I bought some groceries,
udon
noodles and scallions and things, and went to check on her. She lived in a small studio apartment a couple of minutes’ walk from the train stop at Nabata.

The windows were pitch black and she didn’t answer when I knocked on the door as usual. It didn’t worry me, as I still thought she was probably just asleep.

I’ll never forget the way that feeling slammed into me, of everything collapsing around me, when I used the spare key to open the door.

The room was totally vacant. The familiar curtains were gone, as were the bed, table, and cutlery. The thin veil of darkness seemed to insinuate that the room had always been that way.

I kicked off my shoes and stumbled a few steps inside. I wonder how long I sat crumpled and dazed in the middle
of the floor that had been laid bare from corner to corner. I couldn’t process any of it but the question looped through my mind all the same, like something mechanical:
What’s going on? What the hell is going on? What’s going on? What the hell is going on?

I searched for over a month, neglecting work completely. I tried the real estate agent that managed the room, but they didn’t have her new address. All they told me was that she had paid the early termination fee in full before moving out. I went back to the studio apartment block a number of times, speaking to her neighbors on either side first, then to everyone else in the building, but I didn’t gain any useful information. I couldn’t even find a single person who had shared more than polite greetings with her.

Time and again I went back to bars and pubs we had visited together. As I sat there drinking alone I was unable to stop myself from turning around and checking the door as though she might just waltz in at any moment with an impish grin on her face.

That was when it dawned on me that when it came to specifics, I knew next to nothing about her. Our conversations had always focused on the future of Shaggy Head, what our future selves would be like. I had been blind when it came to anything else.

I knew she was an only child, and I knew her parents lived in Okayama as we had been talking about going there so she could introduce me, but she never told me their actual address. I had no idea about the kind of relationships she’d had before, what her friends were like, the details of her old jobs, or what she liked to do when she was alone.

Just a couple of weeks before she disappeared, I’d agreed to loan her some money after she’d begged me: two million yen, the whole of my savings. Chie had told me that her cousin had embezzled ten million yen from her workplace and that she was now facing criminal charges unless she could scrape enough together from friends and relatives and return it in full.

Ms. Hosoya had seemed distressed, too. She had called the college listed on Chie’s resume, even the local ward office for anything that might have listed a new address. The college turned out to be real, but they wouldn’t release alumni names to unrelated parties, and the ward office refused to let anyone but the person in question examine records. Ms. Hosoya grew more and more despondent, as she had doted on Chie like a daughter. I think she might have suspected Chie of making off with the money, of having approached me in the first place for such a purpose. It was understandable, considering how things had unfolded.

But I couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t the sort of woman Chie was. I still didn’t believe it, and even if I never saw her again I probably wouldn’t until the day I die. After having held her trembling body in my arms so many times, my body continued to scream that it was absolutely impossible.

I dragged myself away from the window. I had to make a conscious effort just to move. I sat at my desk but my head was still heavy so I rested it in my hands. I tried to force my thoughts away from Chie.

Without any particular reason I narrowed my eyes a little and looked at the sheets of paper scattered across the surface
of the desk: copies of my family register, current and old. Supplementary family registers. Residency certificates.

I had made a trip to the library before opening the cafe that morning, remembering it housed a ward office branch that was open for basic service on weekends. I realized they would probably have information on my parents’ old address in Tokyo. I wasn’t sure what I would do even if I had been able to pin down the twenty-year-old address. Would I go to Tokyo looking for their old neighbors, hold up a photo of Mom, and ask if it was the same person? I think a part of me was considering trying that much at least. I didn’t care what, I just wanted to know something of my family’s past.

Either way, the address had proved elusive. What little information there was told me I was born in Tokyo’s Kita Ward, but even then the name of the hospital was missing.

I had already known that our address in Komagawa was listed as our current permanent residence. The transfer had been processed during the move. When I checked in the official copy of the register, the relocation to Komagawa in Nara Prefecture was recorded as being from Maebashi in Gunma Prefecture. Maebashi was Mom’s old house where my grandparents had lived, so there wasn’t anything particularly strange in that.

I was surprised, however, to find the Maebashi address also listed as the old address on the residency certificate and slips. They’d been living in Tokyo, so why was the Tokyo address not listed?

At first a number of theories crowded my head. I was suddenly sure of a cover-up, of their doctoring the forms to keep the Tokyo address a secret. Then I remembered the fire.
After that they had left the apartment in Tokyo and moved in temporarily with Mom’s parents, so it was possible they listed their residency there at the time. At least the parts fit, if that was the case.

I was still intent on finding out the Tokyo address, our home before Maebashi. Later in the morning I did some more research online and found out that the Maebashi City Hall had a “Notice of Removal” form that was issued when the family register was moved to Komagawa. If I checked it out, there was a chance I could work out the old address. I was excited, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was a Saturday I would probably have gone straight to Maebashi.

As things were, there was nothing I could do.

If it wasn’t for her condition, I could have gone to the nursing home and dropped it into conversation with Gran. Her dementia, however, had gotten so bad she no longer remembered that her daughter, my mother, was dead. The worst thing for me was the fact that my own memory was proving useless. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember a thing from before my hospitalization. Not the house I lived in, not its surroundings, not a single thing. The first memories of my childhood were all from inside the hospital. They were scattered but vivid: the other kids in the ward, the kind nurses, the toy robot Dad brought for me.

No records, no memories, just a handful of bizarre notebooks …

With my chin still resting in one hand I picked up the family register. I looked back at the ruthless and businesslike line that had been struck diagonally through the name Misako, my mother’s name. It was painful to see such a stark
reminder of the fact of her death, and yet I couldn’t help thinking of what Yohei had said. She had watched me sleeping with a pillow clutched to her chest. I couldn’t find it in my heart to grieve for her death anymore, not properly.

Whenever I brought her familiar image that I’d absorbed throughout the years to mind, it was overlaid by another, an image of a young woman in a flowery dress, like a double exposure photograph. Short, wavy hair. Pale arms. One arm held that handbag, and she had a folded parasol in her hand. While I could tell she was smiling, her face was hazy: blank, whitish, with no eyes or mouth but looking at me and smiling regardless. At the bottom of my memories undulated a lapping fusion of sadness and fear.

Had someone really switched with Mom? If so, what had happened to the woman who was my mother until I was four?

My mind raced in circles, always coming back to these same questions. I let out a sigh. I’d been sighing all day.

I wondered if I was somehow intent on convincing myself it was all true: the contents of the notebooks, the memory of someone replacing Mom. With my mother dead from a car accident, Chie gone, Dad ill and getting weaker, Gran with dementia, and my business teetering on the brink of collapse, maybe all I wanted to do was lose myself in the fantasy and escape the reality around me.

One of the dogs had started barking outside. They usually just ran around, so it was rare that they made much noise. I checked the clock and saw it was almost four. I stood up in shock. I had come up saying I’d only take an hour, but I was already long past that.

Halfway down the stairs, I heard more barking and began to worry. Trouble between the dogs had to be settled before it got out of hand and became a real problem. One time, the hysteria had spread to all the dogs in the field and it had almost reached the point of bloodshed. The excitement had been quick to die down and the dogs went back to being their usual selves, but it had been a different story for the owners. They started to criticize each other for not disciplining their animals properly, and a number wouldn’t let the issue go. A few even cancelled their memberships over it.

When I got to the field, however, I found that nothing was amiss. The barking was just a pair of Miniature Schnauzers pestering their owner to throw a ball for them to fetch. The sun was still high with interspersed clouds that were dazzlingly white.

Nachi was off to one side, trying to get a Shiba to run through a thick tube we’d put there as a plaything. The dog’s owner stood next to them, a woman and quite a looker. I supposed Nachi had said goodbye to Clutch for the day.

The Shiba was frightened to go into the wide bit of collapsible tubing, but Nachi was already an old hand at this—he was part-time staff but had worked at the cafe from the beginning. The dog kept glancing up at him looking for a chance to escape, but Nachi’s quiet assertiveness eventually tamed him.

Watching the scene I felt a breeze blow softly through my over-heated head. Ms. Hosoya walked over with perfect timing, placing a coffee on the empty table beside me. I took a grateful sip as the Shiba disappeared again into the tubing, spurred on by the taste of his initial success and followed this
time by a succession of dogs, their curiosity piqued.

The customers with drinks on the tables on the veranda seemed to be enjoying the show, and the pretty owner of the Shiba looked impressed as she thanked Nachi. He replied that it was nothing, pulling a quick salute-like gesture. It seemed clear that she and most of the other customers thought Nachi, with his big frame and even bigger attitude, was the proprietor of Shaggy Head, and to my exasperation he showed no signs of wanting to correct anyone on this.