Nan-Core (25 page)

“Oh, Ryosuke, you’ve gone red!” Chie said, sounding a little surprised.

Now and then I was racked with anxiety about the negatives I’d failed to retrieve from Shiomi. I was scared that some heartless bastard might spread the compromising pictures of Chie around the internet. I was sure Ms. Hosoya shared the same fears, but we never discussed the matter. After what Chie had said I lost the ability to act normally around her. Whenever we ended up alone together, I pretended to suddenly remember something and fled, even though I knew I was being stupid about it. I don’t know if she noticed my odd behavior; she continued to work diligently and seemed perfectly at ease.

After the autumn equinox we still had a few days that were as hot as summer. That didn’t stop the dogs from running around the field and gulping down water from the faucet. Their animal instincts apparently judged mid-80’s weather to be cooler in autumn than during the summer.

The seasons changing day by day felt relentlessly cruel. I supposed this was due to having an illness in the family. I couldn’t prevent the sick from getting worse any more than I could halt the progress of autumn. Each time I thought this might be the last time Dad saw the fall foliage, I couldn’t stop myself from getting upset.

It was relatively easier to take time off work now that Chie was back at Shaggy Head. I wanted to see Dad every day if possible, but he was becoming more and more stubborn as his condition worsened, and he got ornery if we visited too often. He would tell us not to treat him like an invalid, even though he had weakened to the point where he could hardly open a jar of jam.

It didn’t take Yohei much effort to loosen the lid, but when he did he lost control, bursting into tears. Before our visit Dad had spent three days eating plain toast for breakfast, having taken a sudden dislike to the smell of butter and wanting jam instead.

“Don’t cry.” Yohei’s head was on the table and Dad gave him a gentle smile as he stroked it, making a mess of his catlike hair. “I can feel that I’m falling apart, but nothing hurts. It’s funny. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not getting off too easily. So there’s no need to worry. No need to get worked up over me.”

He was silent for a while as he ran his fingers through Yohei’s hair, pinching clumps of it into spikes. He ruffled it back to normal, then said to me, “If you can come all this way you should go see your grandmother, too. I won’t be able to visit her for much longer. I know I don’t have much to leave you, and I’m sorry to push the responsibility onto you, but look after her, okay?”

I couldn’t imagine how the end might come for Dad. If he continued to refuse to be hospitalized, he would probably spend his last moments in the house. Would we know, the closer it got, when it was likely to happen? Or would it be sudden, leaving us filled with regret for not having had the
chance to say goodbye? All that was left to wish for was that he wouldn’t be by himself, feeling lonely, when it happened.

That day on the way home I asked Yohei to dinner. Even after a steak, however, he failed to return to his usual cheery self. We talked in clipped sentences about the reality we had to face. Once that was done I told him everything Dad had said about Misako, my mother. I was the one who told him about the notebooks when he’d known nothing about them, even forcing him to read sections. It was unfair to involve him as far as I had and not tell him how it ended.

He already knew enough to work out we were in fact cousins. I couldn’t leave him feeling unsettled about everything, not when we were preparing to say goodbye to Dad.

“You’re not surprised?” I asked once I’d finished, noting that his expression was unchanged.

“Of course I am. I had wondered as much. But still, it’s hard to believe.”

“What do you think about it?”

“That there was no hate. That it’s a chronicle of family love.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I stopped myself from asking again.

He was right, I supposed, that no one had hated anyone else. Even though the others had killed my mother, they had done it so she could atone for her sins while simultaneously offering her salvation. Perhaps that was what he meant.

“I’m glad you told me, Ryo.”

I nodded, feeling very relieved somehow.

Following Dad’s wishes that we focus on visiting Gran, Yohei and I made an effort to see her more often. She no
longer seemed able to tell us apart—she didn’t even seem to understand that we were her grandchildren. At the same time, she seemed happy to have young people coming in to fuss over her. Now and again she opened her toothless mouth to offer us an innocent, child-like smile. We were keen to help, even when it was just with food, in contrast to having unwittingly assigned the various chores to Dad.

After a process of trial and error we discovered we worked best together, Yohei using the spoon to feed her, I wiping any mess off her chin from the side. When we established a rhythm, Gran managed to get through her entire dinner without leaving a thing. One time, when a staff member came to check in on us, Yohei even complained about the spoons. He said the home needed to provide spoons of different shapes and sizes depending on the type of food served. The staffer walked out after mumbling a noncommittal response.

Whenever the home had a singer volunteering or a women’s chorus performing in the auditorium, we bundled Gran into a wheelchair and took her to watch. Some of the others gathered there would quietly sing along, nostalgic for the old songs, some clapping in time. Gran’s head, looking like she was wearing a white woolly cap, would sway above her chair as well.

Everything that had befallen her family was engraved inside that small head, all the memories from Misako’s birth up to her death. Now her mind was a disembodied shadow wandering through an amorphous fog.

Sometimes, though, when she suddenly gazed off into empty space with a frightened look or burst into tears without warning, I had to wonder whether the thorns of those
memories were still lodged inside her head, scratching and painful in her shattered consciousness.

I had a rare call from Dad one morning when the days were starting to get bitterly cold both in the mornings and at night.

“I said my goodbyes to Gran yesterday. I told her I wouldn’t be able to visit anymore.”

“Oh.” I wanted to say something kind that would express how I felt, but I knew he’d hate that.

“I’m terribly weak now. I want to see you both, one last time. There are some things I want to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“The forecast says it’s going to rain this afternoon. I’m sure it’ll be slow at the cafe, so could you come over?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did you have a talk with Yohei?”

“I told him everything about what was in the notebooks and what you told me.”

“When was this?”

“Quite a while back now. Probably a couple of months. He’s smart, so I think he’d already had a pretty good idea. Didn’t seem all that surprised.”

“I see. He’s amazing, you know, he hasn’t breathed a word about it to me. Still, it’s for the best. Gran won’t be around for
much longer, you’ll be the only blood relations left. It’s better for you both to know everything going forward.”

“You don’t have to worry, we’ll be okay.”

“I’m not worried. Invite him along, will you? Come over after lunch. I’ll be waiting here.”

This is an odd thing to say, but as his condition deteriorated, what made Dad “Dad” seemed to grow more concentrated, becoming more apparent in his various expressions. The obstinacy, the child-like qualities, the mad-scientist-like way he was sometimes out of touch with reality, and his unique gentleness.

He was terribly skinny but still had a kind of dignity. As always, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I knew he wasn’t afraid of dying. Yohei and I were nervous, aware he had hinted at seeing us for the last time. We sat around the table in the kitchen but hardly touched the snacks of fish paste and salami on the plates and didn’t refill our beer glasses. Dad was the only one who seemed livelier than usual.

“Misako came to visit.”

He said this like it was something to be expected.

He’d said “Misako,” but I didn’t know which of my two mothers he meant. I wondered if he’d started to lose his mind, either from the illness or the pills he was taking. Yohei was gaping at him.

Dad paid us no mind. He began to talk, pausing only to catch his breath as he told us an incredible story.

A while ago I told Ryosuke about what happened to Misako.
There is actually a lot more to tell. I couldn’t decide whether to tell you the rest. To be honest I’m still not sure if I should. Maybe if you’d been totally ignorant from the start, it’d be different, but now that you know some of what happened, I think it would be insolent to cover up the rest of it.

First and foremost, I don’t want to have to think this over anymore, not when I’m facing death. Ryosuke, and Yohei, I want you to consider this my last will and testament as you listen.

As I just said, Misako came to visit yesterday. Yes, your birth mother, Ryosuke. Yes, the woman who wrote the notebooks. We’ve been seeing each other every now and then for a few years. I’m not going to make excuses. I just … had to. Knowing I don’t have much time left, she asked me to go on a trip, to make one last memory together. It’s exactly what I want, but I asked her to wait until tomorrow. I wanted the time to talk to you first.

Now, hang on—this won’t make sense unless I tell you everything in order. If I know her, she’ll be back later. If you want you can meet her, but you don’t have to. Maybe you’ll be okay, Yohei, but I imagine Ryosuke might need more than a day to prepare himself.

There’s just one more thing to say first: I gave the notebooks, the hair, and the handbag to Misako and asked her to get rid of them. Okay? They shouldn’t be left around. I wanted to burn it all myself, but this house doesn’t have anywhere to build a proper fire.

It happened a long while ago. Misako just appeared out of nowhere. I was on my way back from work, about to head through the turnstiles, when she called my name. It had been ten years, and I’d thought her dead the whole time. I stood in the middle of the crowd and reached out to touch her cheek, to assure myself she wasn’t an illusion. The moment I made contact it was like those ten years just up and vanished.

I knew immediately that times had been hard for her. Her expression had changed completely. Where her features had been ill-defined before there was a severe virility. I suppose it’s odd to describe a woman’s face as looking virile. She didn’t laugh much, just like before, but when she did it was from the heart. I’d never seen her do that.

We talked, wandering through the streets near the station. I asked straightaway how she’d found me. She told me she knew we were in Komagawa. She’d guessed I would take the train from Komagawa or transfer on my way to work, and she’d been looking for me there that morning. When she actually spotted me she considered going home, but she ended up following after me to see where I got off. She spent the rest of the day walking around, hesitant and unsure of what to do, but she went back to the station in the evening. That’s apparently what happened.

I asked where she was living and how she knew we were living in Komagawa, but instead of answering she made it clear she was very keen to hear about the family. I mainly talked about you, Ryosuke. You were still in middle school then. Then I told her you had a younger brother, Yohei, about Emiko, and about her parents, who were both alive and well. I became so engrossed in telling her these things that time flew by.

Looking back now, that was so strange. I’d conspired with her family to kill her, yet there we were. Plus her younger sister Emiko had assumed her identity, and she had had our son, Yohei. Despite all that there wasn’t even a trace of awkwardness between us.

Misako listened with rapt attention, smiling with tears in her eyes. She was completely immersed in my stories. I just kept talking, knowing she was very interested in what I was saying.

When I finally reached a convenient point to pause, I asked
what had happened to her—in other words, after her parents had driven her away in the car. She seemed surprised to find out that I knew nothing about it, but she told me anyway. It was an amazing story, and she told it matter-of-factly, as though it was a simple catch-up on how she was doing.

She said she thought she’d been sucked into the well. You know, the old well she wrote about in the notebooks, in the garden of the house of the girl who died, Michiru. As she sank to the bottom of the lake behind the dam, her hands and legs tied up, she thought that the dark well of death had finally caught up to her, that it would pull her down forever. Your grandparents had given her a large dose of sleeping pills to ease any suffering. Her mind was probably groggy from that.

She told me it was terrifying. She lost all sensation until nothing she could call her self remained. That was when she died. She knew it for certain, she said.

She was lying on her side when she came to in a totally unfamiliar place. She wondered if it was already night as everything around her was pitch dark. Her heart felt empty. She was still tied up so she couldn’t move.

Then she heard a voice.

“Don’t turn around. Just keep quiet and listen.”

It was a hoarse male voice, and for some reason she thought it was me: I’d jumped into the well; my voice was like that because I’d had a hard time getting her out.

It wasn’t me, regrettably. I never asked him directly, but I think it was probably your grandfather. I can’t see it being anyone else. Your grandmother would have known, of course. After throwing her into the water, they must have found they couldn’t just leave their daughter to die.

“You’re a criminal, having you around creates disaster for everyone. If you care for your son’s future, never have anything to do with your family ever again. As of today, you must become another person and live another life. Concentrate on nothing but atoning for your sins,” the voice continued.

The words settled in her empty, newly-revived heart.