Yôko Ogawa - The Diving Pool

The Manager had been saving the strawberry on the top of his cake, but now he popped it in his mouth. There was still no sign of my cousin. I listened for his bike but heard only the droning of the bee's wings. The Manager began to cough quietly, as if he were muttering to himself.

In the end, I never saw my cousin that day. He phoned to say that he had something to do at the university and would be late getting home.

About ten days later, I paid my next visit to the dormitory. This time I decided to take an apple pie, but again I was unable to deliver the gift to my cousin.

"He just called to say that there was an accident on the train line and he was stuck somewhere." The Manager was out sweeping the yard with a bamboo broom.

"What kind of accident?"

"He said that someone jumped in front of the train."

"Oh," I said, clutching the pastry box to my chest. I pictured the body on the tracks, crushed like an overripe tomato, the hair tangled in the gravel, bits of bone scattered over the railroad ties.

Springtime had come to the dormitory. A gentle breeze softened even the broken bicycle abandoned in one corner of the garden. There was still a trace of warmth coming from the pie in the box.

"But you've come all this way," said the Manager. "You might as well stay awhile."

"Thank you," I said.

The garden was well tended, but the Manager worked the broom vigorously, sweeping the same spot again and again until he had gathered every leaf and twig. Bent over to hold the broom under his chin, he seemed lost in thought as he worked.

The bamboo scraped quietly in the dirt. I glanced up at my cousin's room and noticed a pair of tennis shoes hanging on the balcony.

"It's quiet around here," I said.

"It certainly is," the Manager agreed. The sound of the broom continued.

"How many students do you have now?"

"Very few," he said, a bit evasively.

"Other than my cousin, how many new students moved in this year?"

"He was the only one."

"But it must be lonely with so many empty rooms. I remember one time I didn't go home for the New Year's holiday, and I was so frightened I couldn't sleep." The Manager said nothing. "Are you advertising?" Still nothing. A deliveryman on a motorbike passed by outside the gate.

Suddenly, the Manager spoke up. "It's because of the rumor."

"The rumor?" I repeated, taken aback.

"It's the rumor that's keeping them away," he said, beginning his explanation as if he were telling a favorite story. "In February, one of the students suddenly disappeared. 'Disappeared' is the only way to describe it-it was as if he dissolved into thin air without so much as a whimper. I wouldn't have believed that a human being with a brain, a heart, with arms and legs and the power of speech could have simply vanished like that. There was nothing about him that suggested he would disappear. He was a freshman, studying mathematics. A brilliant student who had received a prestigious scholarship. He was popular, and he went out with his girlfriend from time to time. His father teaches at a university somewhere, and his mother writes children's books. There was a cute little sister, too. He seemed to have everything going for him. So it didn't make sense that he would suddenly vanish."

"There were no clues at all? A call, a note?"

The Manager shook his head.

"The police did a thorough investigation. They seemed to think he'd got himself mixed up in some sort of bad business, but there was no real evidence. When he disappeared, the only things he had with him were a mathematics text and a notebook."

The broom that had been propped on his shoulder fell to the ground, but he ignored it and went on with his story.

"The police called me in for questioning… I was apparently a suspect. They wanted to know everything I'd done during the week he disappeared. Every word of the conversations I'd had with him, what books I'd read and what they were about, who had called me and what they wanted, what I'd eaten, how often I'd been to the bathroom-everything. They took down every word, recopied it, edited it, read it back to me. It was like sifting through every grain of sand on the beach. It took them three weeks to go over one week of my life-but in the end it was all a waste of time. And I was completely exhausted. The stump on my leg got infected and hurt like the devil. But they never found him."

"But I don't understand," I said. "Had you done something to him? Why did they suspect you?"

"I don't know. But the residents and the neighbors knew that I'd been questioned, and that was enough. They didn't say anything to my face, but the rumors must have been cruel. And since then almost everyone has moved out."

"How awful!"

"Rumors have a life of their own. But what bothers me more is that enormous file they made on my private life. I have no idea where it ended up, and that gives me a sick feeling."

He closed his eyes and started coughing. He tried to say something, apologize perhaps, but ended up coughing even harder. Finally, he was bent double and gasping.

"Are you all right?" I asked, resting my hand on his back. As I did so, I realized that it was the first time I had ever touched him. The material of his kimono was coarse and thick, but the body under it was so fragile I was afraid it might break from the weight of my hand. The vibrations ran through me as he continued to cough. "You should lie down," I said, putting my arm around his shoulder. Without arms, his body felt slight and somehow bereft.

"Thank you. I've had this cough lately, and pain in my chest." His body was stiff. We stood for a moment as the bee buzzed around our feet. Eventually, as if summoning up its courage, it made a quick circle around our heads and flew away.

There were patches of sunlight in the garden, but the dormitory was dark. Only the windows caught the light, sparkling brilliantly. Somewhere, behind one of those windows, someone had disappeared; I was here on the porch, rubbing the Manager's back; and my cousin was held up because someone had thrown himself in front of a train. There was nothing to connect these three facts, but for some reason they had melted together in the reflection from the window.

The Manager finally caught his breath. "Could I ask a favor?" he said. "Would you mind coming with me to look at his room?" The request seemed so odd that I hesitated. "I go there from time to time," he continued. "I keep thinking we must have missed a clue. Maybe you'll notice something, seeing it for the first time."

He was still having trouble breathing. I told him I'd be happy to go with him.

But I didn't find anything, either. It was a perfectly ordinary dorm room, with a desk and chair, a bed, and a chest of drawers. It wasn't particularly neat and clean, nor was it messy. The traces of the student's life had been left just as they were. The sheets were wrinkled and a sweater was draped over the back of the chair. A notebook filled with numbers and symbols lay open on the desk, as if he had got up from his studies for just a moment to go get something to drink.

The bookshelf held a mixture of travel guides, mysteries, and books on mathematics. The calendar on the wall was still turned to February, with notes jotted down here and there-"Ethics paper due," "Seminar Party," "Tutoring"-and above a line drawn from the fourteenth to the twenty-third, "Ski Trip."

"What do you think?" the Manager said, glancing around the room.

"I'm sorry," I said, without looking at him. "I see the room of a normal, well-rounded student, but I can't tell much more."

We stood for some time without speaking, as if we thought the missing student might suddenly reappear if we waited long enough. Finally, the Manager spoke again.

"He disappeared on the thirteenth, the day before he was due to go skiing. He was so excited about the trip. He was learning to ski, and I suppose he was just getting to the point where it was fun. When I told him I liked to ski myself, he wanted to know all about how I did it-what kind of boot I wore on my fake leg, how I held the poles. There was something very innocent and childlike about him when it came to things like that."