Last Winter We Parted (7 page)

“What’s the matter?”

I hear her thin voice through the receiver. She sounds formal and distant.

“… I wanted to see you. Can you meet me?”

“… I can’t.”

I am still looking up at her building, at the second apartment from the left. A dim light is on.

“Why not? I want to see you.”

“… You just want someone’s permission.”

She laughs. As if letting out a breath.

“You want me to erase your sense of guilt for cheating on your girlfriend?… I have no interest in sleeping with a guy who calls me just to see which way I might go.”

The sky is overcast with dreary clouds, even the moon is obscured.

“… I’m right outside your building now.”

“… Hmm.”

“I’m coming up.”

“You can’t tonight … Another man will be here,” she says softly.

“… That’s a lie, isn’t it?”

“… Well, now.”

Her breath comes through the receiver.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Are you a little frightened?”

She laughs faintly.

“I’m not frightened. Should I kill that man when he gets here?”

“… Really?”

I ring the buzzer on her building.

“Open the door. You know I can’t break though the auto-lock.”

The front door opens automatically. I enter the building and get on the elevator. As if confirming that I have entered, the automatic door closes, followed by the elevator door. I have no desire to turn back.

I get out on the sixth floor, where she lives, and stand before her door. I am about to ring her doorbell when, unabashedly, my hand reaches for the doorknob. It is unlocked. I grasp the cold knob and open the door, entering her apartment. She is at the end of the hallway. She is
wearing a white bathrobe and looks at me with concern. As if she feels sorry for me in such a desperate state. I walk over, clasp her to me, and kiss her. Her arms embrace my neck. Her tongue thrusts inside my mouth.

“… Did you break up with that girl?” she asks me in between kisses, her eyes still narrowly open.

“I broke up with her.”

“You’re lying … You’re just ignoring her phone calls, aren’t you?”

“I broke up with her.”

I throw her down on the bed and kiss her again. Forcefully, I untie the sash on her bathrobe.

“… You seem like a bad man, with that look on your face.”

“I’m going to turn into a bad person, worse than you.”

“… Bad enough to kill someone? There are ways …”

I don’t feel like talking anymore. I don’t need any conversation. I kiss the nape of her neck over and over, pushing aside her bathrobe. My lips are drawn by the glimpse of her shoulders and breasts. Her scent spreads all around me. I feel the softness of her breast as my mouth touches her nipple.

“Ah … don’t.”

She strokes my hair. I kiss her again. Over and over. I take off my belt and unbutton my shirt.

“… Wait a minute. There’s something I want to show you.”

Heedlessly, my lips are drawn to her body. Pushing aside her bathrobe again, I drop the unfastened sash under the bed. Her voice comes out like an exhalation as she stretches out an arm and takes out something from the shelf beside the bed.

“The photo of me, that my brother took … The one I told you about … My brother sent it to me …”

Her eyes are narrow as she speaks.

“The one that reveals my true nature. Look …”

I ignore her. I put my arms around her back and take her nipple in my mouth again.

“See … Ah … Look.”

She holds the photo right in front of my eyes. My breath catches.

“… Will you … save me?”

She looks at me.

“… There’s someone I want you to kill.”

Your letter is really boring.

The reason why you became a member of K2. Do you think you can satisfy me with that kind of scratch? If you’re going to peer inside someone’s mind, you’re going to have to reveal something of yourself.

From now on, I’m not going to write anything about the murders. Not until you give me something definitive about your own self. No matter how lonely I may be, I’m not going to let you talk me into going there.

You got it? Don’t be so disappointed. It’s your own fault anyway.

But then again, sitting here like this, in a prison cell and in front of a blank page, one is wont to write something. They say that death-row inmates are always writing letters. Some of them just keep writing letters addressed to no one—who knows who they’re intended for. I should be happy I still have someone to write to. That’s why I’m asking you. Come on, show me just what’s inside your head.

… I guess I’ll tell you about when I was arrested. Something different from what you want to hear about. I’ve been thinking I’d like to try to describe to someone how strange it was when that happened. Maybe, if it were you, you might have thought it was happening to someone else.

When they put the handcuffs on me, I thought, “They
caught me.”… It may sound strange, but I remember feeling tremendously relieved. Like they had finally seized hold of a balloon that had been floating all over the place. Now I would no longer have to lie to anyone. Now I would no longer have to keep up with the confusion inside my mind … The irony is that prison is what a criminal is trying to avoid, but it is also the very thing that, at his core, he is yearning for. Here he no longer needs to go on living as an alien entity within a normally functioning society. The alien entity finds himself when he’s in handcuffs. It felt like … an appropriate resolution to my life.

What’s more … once I was arrested, I wouldn’t be able to have a camera anymore. I wondered if I would be capable of being separated from my camera. The camera … Who invented such a thing?… What a terrifying device. Don’t you think?

But people are—no, I mean I am—very selfish. I was arrested, and now that my life has been significantly restricted, after a while, I find myself wanting to be out there again. I find myself wanting to hold a camera once more. If I were to get out, I wonder if the balloon would start floating all over the place in the confines of my mind once more, and then explode again. Then I’d be arrested and relieved all over again. It’s a harsh existence … See what I mean? Sometimes I think they should just kill me already.

I’m not doing so great today. I had thought it might relax me a bit if I wrote for a while, but the words are depressing me. Usually I can only write letters when I’m feeling calm enough.
Part of my obsession with cameras is that, even though I’m a criminal, there are still people who think the photographs I took mean something. But then, my photos … No, I think it would make you happy to read this so I won’t write it. I’ll just say that, lately, there’s one thing I can’t stop thinking about. It’s … well, I wonder why the hell was I born?

… A pretty random tangent, I guess. But this is your fault. Because you refuse to reveal yourself.

By the way, recently someone else has emerged who wants to write a book about me. He’s already come to visit me twice at the prison. We talked through the acrylic glass. And you haven’t even come to see me once.

Just like you, he has a habit of jumping the gun with his questions, and he seems kind of unreliable, but apparently my sister has taken a liking to him. I don’t know what she finds appealing about a wobbler like him … but he must have some redeeming qualities.

And what about you? Were you really a member of K2? Are you really trying to write a book about me? I don’t know the first thing about you from your letters. I don’t know what you look like. Or even what your voice sounds like. Because you’ve made no effort at all to come visit me.

So I need to ask you this fundamental question:
Just who the hell are you?

THIN THREADS OF rain are soaking the ground, as though it doesn’t really matter if it falls or not.

Usually I don’t care if I get wet but I put up my umbrella. I am on my way to meet someone. It makes people uncomfortable when you show up sopping wet.

I had fled back home from Akari Kiharazaka’s apartment. I had left her like that, halfway out of her bathrobe. I am a mess. In a bad way. My head is throbbing, and I futilely
clench my molars together. It isn’t as if that is going to make my headache go away.

Sensing something, I turn around to see a cat behind me. The cat is black, the area around its belly helplessly white. For some reason the cat has been following close behind me. Like it is checking to see what my fate is. As I hold up my umbrella, my bag feels heavy. I am aware of the recorder and notebook and stationery I am carrying. I still cannot bring myself to write a single letter to Yudai Kiharazaka. He seems to expect me to open up to him in a letter, but I can’t figure out how to write to him. I even have envelopes with me. And of course pens too. Maybe, once I start writing, the words will come to me. I have still only met him twice.

I can see a concrete wall. The high enclosure conceals an old mansion. There are numerous trees. Inside the grounds, the house surrounded by that wall seems familiar for some reason.

I ring the doorbell. I hear a woman’s voice, and a moment later the door opens. A still youthful woman comes to greet me. Smiling, she guides me through a large garden.

“We’ve been expecting you.”

These words are spoken by a man who has been crouching in the garden. He is the doll creator, Suzuki. He is wearing the white sweat suit that is his work clothes. The color is
different, but it resembles the outfit that I had seen Yudai Kiharazaka wearing.

“I thought it was about time you came around. You’re writing a book about Kiharazaka, are you?”

He smiles as he speaks. The woman is also smiling as she looks at me. I sense something behind me, and turn around to see the same cat from before. It approaches the doll creator and then rolls over on the ground. It must be Suzuki’s cat. As I look closer, I see it is wearing a collar.

“… Yes. I’m a mess. I, uh …”

“You’re in over your head?”

“I am.”

“… I see,” he says with concern in his amiable voice. I wonder how old he is. I had thought he was in his forties, but he had looked younger when I saw him outside of his home.