The Electrical Field (25 page)

I dozed off lying at Papa’s side, just as I eventually did in the old days when I was spent from my crabbiness. When I awoke, Papa was sound asleep. I choked a little at the sour odour, in that first deep and languid intake of breath on awakening.

Stum hadn’t yet emerged from his room so I tiptoed past it. Perhaps he was exhausted from our exchange last night, and taking advantage of his day off. For the next hour or two I busied myself with chores, tallying those completed with my old efficiency. Gently I pushed open his door with my dustmop to find it empty. I could see that his bed had not been slept in. At the instant of my discovery, there was a knock at the front door. I hurried downstairs. I knew immediately that it wasn’t Sachi, yet I did not inch to the door in nervous anticipation. I revelled for an instant in the uncertainty. This was how life could feel—not knowing, from moment to moment, what awaited you.

I threw the door open wide, to blinding sunlight and a hush of moist air held inside the screen door. Out of the dusty light a voice emerged—a man’s, ever so slightly familiar, tapping, as it did, on the door of my recent memory. He shifted so his head blocked the light and his face materialized.

“Hello, Miss Saito.”

The care he took in pronouncing my name this time. “Hello, detective,” I answered briskly, efficiently.

“I have a few more questions to ask. Is this a convenient time?”

“Of course,” I promptly replied, “but my brother isn’t home just now. If you’d like to come back later …” I started to close the door, my natural cautiousness returned.

“It’s you I need to speak with,” he interjected, in a friendly tone that did not intimidate me in the least, even with his hand pushing firmly against the door.

“I see,” I said. “Of course,” I added graciously. I let go of the door and ushered him in. After all, I had nothing to hide from the man, nothing at all. On the contrary, I welcomed the opportunity to add to what little I’d been able to tell him before. To be helpful in whatever way possible. Since his last visit, various recollections had popped into my mind, events and conversations that might be useful in his investigation. Though it occurred to me he might find them trivial. One never knew. But this business of cobbling facts together was, I told myself, the detective’s, not mine.

As he stepped into my living-room, I was struck by how tall he was. I didn’t recall noticing that before, perhaps because on the previous visit he had sat most of the time. Today I felt quite small beside him, like a little girl or an old woman, I didn’t know which. But I felt surprisingly comfortable; I felt safe. I was certain that he, if anyone, would get to the bottom of things. That, after all, was his job. I indicated the armchair he’d sat in before but he shook his head. “I’m fine right here,” he said, rocking back on his heels. I must have frowned at his shoes digging into my carpet, for he immediately straightened up, planting his feet carefully, evenly in place. He took out his little notebook, which I noticed was new, though identical to the one he’d had the other day. He gave a brief, vanishing smile. His dark, greyless hair was as
immaculately arranged as ever, and I observed once again, in the light flooding my living-room, how impressively its broomlike thickness held its coiffure.

I almost started telling him about Sachi’s absurd attempt at tracking Tam’s scent with Yano’s dog; in fact, I’d just opened my mouth and a chuckle had come out, a little high and jarring, if only to my ears. I had wanted to confide that from the start I’d known how futile her undertaking was, but that I’d indulged her because the poor child was so distraught over the missing boy, Tamio. Tam, who was, after all, her special friend. It occurred to me to wonder if the detective knew this or not; if it would be considered at all relevant. I was contemplating this with open mouth, I discovered to my embarrassment, when I caught the detective staring at me, taking note of my appearance. A self-conscious hand flew up to my hair, patted down strands here and there. It dawned on me that I’d done nothing to care for myself in the last two days. With horror I caught a musty odour rising from my armpits, and saw that my dress was rumpled from my having slept in it. I looked down at myself to see the body of someone else. Someone sloppy, forgetful, unrecognizable. Perhaps a little crazy. Even criminal.

“Miss Saito, are you feeling all right?” he asked, with such sympathy. “Maybe all this—” and he gestured gracefully with his large, broad hands towards the field and the Yanos’ house on the other side of it framed by my window. “Maybe it’s throwing you off a little?” His eye seemed to catch on the vase of flowers I’d put out.

I nodded gratefully. Instantly whatever fears had crept into my mind retreated. “Yes, yes, I suppose it is. A little.
You’re probably right,” I said. It seemed perfectly reasonable. The tone of his voice reasonable. A violent murder in a quiet neighbourhood, our neighbourhood. A woman, my friend, murdered. Two young people missing, along with their father. I felt warmed, protected, in the tall shadow of this man in my living-room. He wasn’t some hakujin stranger in my home; he was a detective; Detective Rossi, who had grown up in the neighbourhood across from ours.

“I wondered if there was anything else you wanted to tell me, Miss Saito.”

I realized then that my head was a hive swarming with voices, none of them mine. Making no sense, no sense at all. Growing louder, above my own thoughts, which I could hardly sort out as mine. I didn’t know where to begin, what to say. Even Eiji’s voice was teeming in me in that moment,
Asa, stop, stop.
Then mine, shouting the same:
Stop, stop.
Stop what? Who? I didn’t know, didn’t know at all. I swayed, my knees buckled; the room blackened.

I was walking. Briskly, as was my routine. There were the electrical towers marching into the distance. The Yano and Nakamura houses just across the way. I was my neatly groomed self, in my quiet navies, my jacket just back from the dry cleaners. I recall glancing down at myself, thinking they’d done a good job. Nothing else was in my head really. I’d visited with Chisako the day earlier, that was true, but it was not up to me to sort out the mess she’d gotten herself into, despite what she’d confided in me. How she’d wanted me to help her, to talk to Yano, to try to explain; to reason with him. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but her desperation had been unmistakeable, her cry for help. Yet I’d
resisted. It was not my business at all, I told myself. I purposely timed my walk an hour earlier to avoid an encounter with Yano. It was just after five in the morning, when that dull underlight of darkness still hung in the air.

The detective’s voice intruded. His hand on my face, a small biting slap; I pushed it away. The same hand, then two of them, gentle but I felt their strength holding my wrists. “Miss Saito. Calm down. You’re all right now.”

There he was, the detective, bent down in front of me as I sat in my chair. His large face very close. “Hooked you a little too hard there, did I?” He rubbed his large hands together, a faintly reassuring gesture. “I was trying to bring you to. You had a little spell. Have you eaten anything today?” He placed in my hands a glass of water he must have gotten from the kitchen.

I shook my head as I drank. “I really couldn’t,” I said after swallowing. “Not a thing. This helps.” He clucked his tongue, apparently to scold me for not eating. My stomach felt queasy. The detective’s face was still very close; so close I could see the pores of his skin pooled with fluid. The sharp scent of his cologne stung my nostrils. There was his little notebook in his jacket pocket, gaping a little, so that I saw the loops of his handwriting folded within the first few pages.

He stood up. “Maybe I should come back when you’re feeling better,” he said, but there was reluctance there. He was clearly anxious to get on with his business, and I saw no reason, weak though I felt, not to oblige him.

“I’m fine now, detective.” I gave a smile to convince him, and was relieved when he finally sat down on the chesterfield.

“So, detective, you were asking if—” I started to say, but then noticed that he was sitting up very straight, both hands on his knees, feet planted in front, looking at me. He took a very deep, audible breath, and I realized that this was for my benefit; he was urging me to breathe along with him, even though I’d assured him I was all right. “Detective, really, I’m just fine—” He wagged his finger and motioned for me to take a deep breath with him, stretching upward, then to exhale slowly.

“There,” he said at last. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you, detective,” I replied, and it was true. I did, for a moment, experience an invigorating surge into my body.

“You like to take walks, don’t you, Miss Saito?” he asked, slowly retrieving the notebook from his pocket.

“I haven’t had the energy lately, but yes,” I said. “Every morning.”

“With Mr. Yano.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You took walks with Mr. Yano.”

“Not with Mr. Yano,” I said. Such a ridiculous idea, I thought. The detective continued to look at me expectantly.

“But you did walk together.”

“Well, I suppose, yes. Sometimes he’d catch up with me.”

“How often did the two of you meet?”

“Not very often, really.” I looked up at him scrutinizing me so intently. “It wasn’t ever planned,” I added. “Not on my part.” Suddenly, absurdly, I burst into laughter. The thought that had occurred to me was so humorous, I could hardly contain myself. “Detective, you weren’t thinking—” I broke
off, unable to continue, so racked with laughter was I. “You weren’t thinking … that Yano and I…,” I stammered.

The detective sat there, notebook and pen in hand, plainly perplexed. He shrugged. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain, Miss Saito.”

At last I caught my breath, calmed down a little. “You weren’t implying …?” Again I trailed off. The look of confusion was still there on his face. Perhaps I was not seeing things too clearly. I still felt queasy; inside me was a giddy rhythm of panic and embarrassment. “Please excuse me, detective. I’m not quite myself.”

He nodded graciously, then turned a page in his notebook. He cleared his throat, as if anxious to get on with his business. “Your neighbour, Mrs. Frean, said she saw you in the field the day before Mr. Yano took his son and daughter out of school. It looked to her like you were having an argument.”

“Hardly.” I gave a mild snort at that. To think I’d actually considered inviting that nosy busybody into my home.

“You mean she was mistaken? You didn’t talk to Mr. Yano that day in the field?”

“No, I did. I only meant that we—”

“Do you recall the conversation?”

“It’s coming back to me,” I said, holding a hand up to beg his patience. I struggled to collect my thoughts from the buzzing hive. The detective waited.

The words were taking their time returning to my head, but the look on Yano’s face that morning—I closed my eyes and there it was. It was a bitter cold morning that, in mid-May, hadn’t quite left winter behind. Though the day was
early, I knew it would remain grey and lifeless; a day when you feel not so much the cold as the absence of warmth. When you can imagine how it will be when the sun at last burns itself out. He was waiting by the north tower, my first destination each morning once I crossed over to the field. He had his golf jacket on with the collar turned up, and his hands burrowed in his pockets, as if, his reptile skin worn thin, he was feeling the cold for the very first time.

“Da-me, Saito-san. It’s no good” were the first words from his mouth. In resigned disgust. His homely face seemed to have broken out in stress and grief. He never had that smooth, poreless skin that so many nihonjin have, but his face was worse than usual that day. Swollen, oddly chapped, his features more lumpy than ever. A large ugly blemish, perhaps a boil, was forming on his left cheek.

“She has no shame,” he said, still in that low, ominous tone. “But I said that before, didn’t I, Asako? Told you that myself, right?”

I suppose I nodded at that point, aware that his exhaustion had progressed to a state of nervous alertness. His eyes were feverishly bright, even attractively enlarged from lack of sleep. He’d called me “Asako”, perhaps for the first time.

“What did I say back then, Asako? Tell me. You remember everything. You see it all. Tell me.”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“I know you do. Say it. It helps me.”

“You said,” I began hesitantly, not certain if I should continue, “you said Chisako didn’t know how it felt to be ashamed to be nihonjin. Not like you and me.”

“That’s it.” His eyes flamed even brighter. It was what he
wanted to hear, I suppose, and I’d felt compelled to oblige him. For once, he was keeping up with my pace, though I realized I’d unconsciously slowed down a little. “See, Asako, that’s why she feels no shame to be with a hakujin man. She’s proud. That’s the difference between her and us, right?”

I was quiet at first, until he nudged my elbow, some of his usual emphatic energy returning. I could not help thinking of the secret wish Chisako had divulged to me, the bomb she’d wanted dropped, the anger she’d expressed. “Just because we’re nihonjin,” she’d said. Yano never grasped it, how well she’d learned from him. I thought of telling him, but didn’t. Instead I told him what he wanted to hear.

“Yes,” I said after a moment, decidedly firm. “Yes,” I clearly said, “she’s proud,” thinking of her arrogant words, her telling me that I was without feeling, that I was cold. Parading her love before me, lording it over me. When she’d hardly taken the time to know me, to know my heart. “That’s the difference,” I said.

But Yano wasn’t hearing me, not now. He was hardly concerned about me, either. He’d rushed on with his frantic, searching thoughts, trying to make sense of the betrayal. “Maybe it’s not her. It’s him. He came after her. He’s the boss, right? A big shot, right?” He was fighting with his fists now, punching the air with every word. “You know those kind of hakujin. I saw enough of them over there after the war. They get a taste for nihonjin women.” He said all this so crudely. To try to spare himself.