1Q84 (134 page)

Ushikawa waited a while after Fuka-Eri had disappeared into the entrance of the apartment, grocery bags in hand, before he went in. He went to his room, took off his muffler and cap, and plopped back down in front of the camera. His cheeks were cold from the wind. He smoked a cigarette and drank some mineral water. His throat felt parched, as if he had eaten something very spicy.

Twilight fell, streetlights snapped on, and it was getting near the time people would be coming home. Still wearing his pea coat, Ushikawa held the remote control for the shutter and intently watched the entrance to the building. As the memory of the afternoon sunlight faded, his empty room rapidly grew chilly. It looked like tonight would be much colder than last night. Ushikawa considered going to the discount electrical goods store in front of the station and buying an electric space heater or electric blanket.

Eriko Fukada came out of the entrance again at four forty-five. She had on the same black turtleneck sweater and jeans, but no leather jacket. The tight sweater revealed the swell of her breasts. She had generous breasts for such a slim girl. Ushikawa watched this lovely swelling through his viewfinder, and as he did again he felt the same tightness and difficulty breathing.

Since she wasn’t wearing a jacket, she couldn’t be going far. As before, she stopped at the entrance, narrowed her eyes, and looked up above the electric pole in front. It was getting dark, but if you squinted you could make out the outlines of things. She stood there for a while as if searching for something. But she apparently didn’t find what she was looking for. She gave up looking above the pole and, like a bird, twisted her head and gazed at her surroundings. Ushikawa pushed the remote button and snapped photos of her.

As if she had heard the sound of the shutter, Fuka-Eri turned to look right in the direction of the camera. Through the viewfinder Ushikawa and Fuka-Eri were face-to-face. Ushikawa could see her face quite clearly. He was looking through a telephoto lens, after all. On the other end of the lens, though, Fuka-Eri was staring steadily right at him. Deep within the lens, she could see him. Ushikawa’s face was clearly reflected within those soft, jet-black eyes. He found it strange that they were directly in touch like this. He swallowed.
This can’t be real. From where she is, she can’t see anything. The telephoto lens is camouflaged, the sound of the shutter dampened by the towel wrapped around it, so there’s no way she could hear it from where she is
. Still, there she stood at the entrance, staring right at where he was hiding. That emotionless gaze of hers was unwavering as it stared straight at Ushikawa, like starlight shining on a nameless, massive rock.

For a long time—Ushikawa had no idea just how long—the two of them stared at each other. Suddenly Fuka-Eri twisted around and strode through the entrance, as if she had seen all that she needed to see. After she disappeared, Ushikawa let all the air out of his lungs, waited a moment, then breathed fresh air in deeply. The chilled air became countless thorns, stinging his lungs.

People were coming back, just like last night, passing under the light at the entrance, one after another. Ushikawa, though, was no longer gazing through his viewfinder. His hand was no longer holding the shutter remote. The girl’s open, unreserved gaze had plucked the strength right out of him—as if a long steel needle had been stabbed right into his chest, so deep it felt like it was coming out the other side.

The girl
knew
that he was secretly watching her, that she was being photographed by a hidden camera. He couldn’t say how, but Fuka-Eri knew this. Maybe she understood it through some special tactile sense she possessed.

He really needed a drink, to fill a glass of whiskey to the brim and drink it down in one gulp. He considered going out to buy a bottle. There was a liquor store right nearby. But he gave it up—drinking wouldn’t change anything. On the other side of the viewfinder, she had seen him.
That beautiful girl saw me, my misshapen head and dirty spirit, hiding here, secretly snapping photos
. Nothing could change that fact.

Ushikawa left his camera, leaned back against the wall, and looked up at the stained ceiling. Soon everything struck him as empty. He had never felt so utterly alone, never felt the dark to be this intense. He remembered his house back in Chuorinkan, his lawn and his dog, his wife and two daughters, the sunlight shining there. And he thought of the
DNA
he had given to his daughters, the
DNA
for a misshapen head and a twisted soul.

Everything he had done seemed pointless. He had used up all the cards he’d been dealt—not that great a hand to begin with. He had taken that lousy hand and used it as best he could to make some clever bets. For a time things looked like they were going to work out, but now he had run out of cards. The light at the table was switched off, and all the players had filed out of the room.

That evening he didn’t take a single photo. Leaning against the wall, he smoked Seven Stars, and opened another can of peaches and ate it. At nine he went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, tugged off his clothes, slipped into the sleeping bag, and, shivering, tried to sleep. The night was cold, but his shivering wasn’t just brought on by the cold alone. The chill seemed to be arising from inside his body.
Where in the world did I come from?
he asked himself in the dark.
And where the hell am I going?

The pain of her gaze still stabbed at him. Maybe it would never go away.
Or was it always there
, he wondered,
and I just didn’t notice it?

The next morning, after a breakfast of cheese and crackers washed down by instant coffee, he pulled himself together and sat back down in front of the camera. As he did the day before, he observed the people coming and going and took a few photos. Tengo and Fuka-Eri, though, were not among them. Instead it was more hunched-over people, carried by force of habit into the new day. The weather was fine, the wind strong. People’s white breath swirled away in the air.

I’m not going to think of anything superfluous
, Ushikawa decided.
Be thick-skinned, have a hard shell around my heart, take one day at a time, go by the book. I’m just a machine. A capable, patient, unfeeling machine. A machine that draws in new time through one end, then spits out old time from the other end. It exists in order to exist
. He needed to revert back again to that pure, unsullied cycle—that perpetual motion that would one day come to an end. He pumped up his willpower and put a cap on his emotions, trying to rid his mind of the image of Fuka-Eri. The pain in his chest from her sharp gaze felt better now, little more than an occasional dull ache.
Good. Can’t ask for more. I’m a simple system again
, he told himself,
a simple system with complex details
.

Before noon he went to the discount store near the station and bought a small electric space heater. He then went to the same noodle place he had been to before, opened his newspaper, and ate an order of hot tempura soba. Before going back to his apartment he stood at the entrance and gazed above the electric pole at the spot Fuka-Eri had been so focused on yesterday, but he found nothing to draw his attention. All that was there were a transformer and thick black electric lines entwined like snakes. What could she have been looking at? Or was she looking
for
something?

Back in his room, he switched on the space heater. An orange light flickered into life and he felt an intimate warmth on his skin. It was not enough to fully heat the place, but it was much better than nothing. Ushikawa leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and took a short nap in a tiny spot of sunlight. A dreamless sleep, a pure blank in time.

He was pulled out of this happy, deep sleep by the sound of a knock. Someone was knocking on his door. He bolted awake and gazed around him, unsure for a moment of his surroundings. He spotted the Minolta single-lens reflex camera on a tripod and remembered he was in a room in an apartment in Koenji. Someone was pounding with his fist on the door. As he hurriedly scraped together his consciousness, Ushikawa thought it was odd that someone would knock on the door. There was a doorbell—all you had to do was push the button. It was simple enough. Still this person insisted on knocking—pounding it for all he was worth, actually. Ushikawa frowned and checked his watch. One forty-five. One forty-five p.m., obviously. It was still light outside.

He didn’t answer the door. Nobody knew he was here, and he wasn’t expecting any visitors. It must be a salesman, or someone selling newspaper subscriptions. Whoever it was might need him, but he certainly didn’t need them. Leaning against the wall, he glared at the door and maintained his silence. The person would surely give up after a time and go away.

But he didn’t. He would pause, then start knocking once more. A barrage of knocks, nothing for ten or fifteen seconds, then a new round. These were firm knocks, nothing hesitant about them, each knock almost unnaturally the same as the next. From start to finish they were demanding a response from Ushikawa. He grew uneasy. Was the person on the other side of the door maybe—Eriko Fukada? Coming to complain to him about his despicable behavior, secretly photographing people? His heart started to pound. He licked his lips with his thick tongue. But the banging against this steel door could only be that of a grown man’s fist, not that of a girl’s.

Or had she informed somebody else of what Ushikawa was up to, and that person was outside the door? Somebody from the rental agency, or maybe the police? That couldn’t be good. But the rental agent would have a master key and could let himself in, and the police would announce themselves. And neither one would bang on the door like this. They would simply ring the bell.

“Mr. Kozu,” a man called out. “Mr. Kozu!”

Ushikawa remembered that Kozu was the name of the previous resident of the apartment. His name remained on the mailbox. Ushikawa preferred it that way. The man outside must think Mr. Kozu still lived here.

“Mr. Kozu,” the man intoned. “I know you’re in there. I can sense you’re holed up inside, trying to stay perfectly quiet.”

A middle-aged man’s voice, not all that loud, but slightly hoarse. At the core his voice had a hardness to it, the hardness of a brick fired in a kiln and carefully allowed to dry. Perhaps because of this, his voice echoed throughout the building.

“Mr. Kozu, I’m from
NHK
. I’ve come to collect your monthly subscription fee. So I would appreciate it if you’d open the door.”

Ushikawa wasn’t planning to pay any
NHK
subscription fee.
It might be faster
, he thought,
to just let the man in and show him the place. Tell him, look, no TV, right?
But if he saw Ushikawa, with his odd features, shut up alone in an apartment in the middle of the day without a stick of furniture, he couldn’t help but be suspicious.

“Mr. Kozu, people who have TVs have to pay the subscription fee. That’s the law. Some people say they never watch
NHK
, so they’re not going to pay. But that argument doesn’t hold water. Whether you watch
NHK
or not, if you have a TV you have to pay.”

So it’s just a fee collector. Let him get it out of his system. Don’t respond, and he’ll go away. But how could he be so sure there’s someone in this apartment?
After he came back an hour or so ago, Ushikawa hadn’t been out again. He hardly made a sound, and he always kept the curtains closed.

“Mr. Kozu, I know very well that you are in there,” the man said, as if reading Ushikawa’s thoughts. “You must think it strange that I know that. But I do know it—that you’re in there. You don’t want to pay the
NHK
fee, so you’re trying to not make a sound. I’m perfectly aware of this.”

The homogeneous knocks started up again. There would be a slight pause, like a wind instrument player pausing to take a breath, then once more the pounding would start, the rhythm unchanged.

“I get it, Mr. Kozu. You have decided to ignore me. Fine. I’ll leave today. I have other things to do. But I’ll be back. Mark my words. If I say I’ll be back, you can count on it. I’m not your average fee collector. I never give up until I get what is coming to me. I never waver from that. It’s like the phases of the moon, or life and death. There is no escape.”

A long silence followed. Just when Ushikawa thought he might be gone, the collector spoke up again.

“I’ll be back soon, Mr. Kozu. Look forward to it. When you’re least expecting it, there will be a knock on the door.
Bang bang!
And that will be me.”

No more knocks now. Ushikawa listened intently. He thought he heard footsteps fading down the corridor. He quickly went over to his camera and fixed his gaze on the entrance to the apartment. The fee collector should finish his business in the building soon and be leaving. He had to check and see what sort of man he was.
NHK
collectors wear uniforms, so he should be able to spot him right away. But maybe he wasn’t really from
NHK
. Maybe he was pretending to be one to try to get Ushikawa to open the door. Either way, he had to be someone Ushikawa had never seen before. The remote for the shutter in his right hand, he waited expectantly for a likely-looking person to appear.

For the next thirty minutes, though, no one came into or out of the building. Eventually a middle-aged woman he had seen a number of times emerged and pedaled off on her bike. Ushikawa had dubbed her “Chin Lady” because of the ample flesh dangling below her chin. A half an hour later Chin Lady returned, a shopping bag in the basket of her bike. She parked her bike in the bike parking area and went into the building, bag in hand. After this, a boy in elementary school came home. Ushikawa’s name for him was “Fox,” since his eyes slanted upward. But no one who could have been the fee collector appeared. Ushikawa was puzzled. The building had only one way in and out, and he had kept his eyes glued to the entrance every second. If the collector hadn’t come out, that could only mean he was
still inside
.