Masako Togawa - The Master Key

The foreigner did not enter the Concert Hall but stood near her looking around as if seeking someone. He looked at her, and as their eyes met he seemed to be laughing. Suwa was just about to speak to him when a young girl rushed out of the Hall and greeted the foreigner effusively. They linked arms and went inside, leaving a disappointed Suwa outside.

Suwa realised that it was now three hours past the appointed time, and that there was really no use waiting any longer. But she could not tear herself away from the pillar by which she was standing.

She had arrived twenty minutes late. She had come by tram because she felt that an hour was plenty of time to allow. She had changed trams at K Street, and thus escaped the rumbustious school children who had trodden all over her in the other tram. Gazing out of the window, she had passed the time with memories of long ago. For whatever other changes had occurred, the trams were still the same. The streetcar rolled on, stopping and starting, drawing nearer to her destination. Her thoughts turned towards the meeting that lay ahead; what sort of stance should she take towards the foreigner?

The tram came to the area full of old ministerial offices built in red brick. They soothed her eyes and her heart. She realised that the desire that had caused her to steal the violin was now dead. She was sixty-five years old, and one of her fingers would not move properly. There was no possibility of her playing the Guarnerius ever again.

The tram stopped, and an old woman of about Suwa’s age got on, leading her grandson by the hand. They took a vacant seat, and gazed out of the window together. Seeing them, anyone would think what a charming and happy pair they made, but Suwa was never one to be moved by such warm emotions. Even when she was a schoolgirl, and the class had been taken to the zoo, she had not been as enchanted as her form-mates by the sight of a mother bear playing with her cub. She was more interested in the solitary male bear pacing to and fro in the next cage.

But for once her mood was different, and the sight of the old lady taking care of her grandchild did not annoy her. If this Mr A.D. was really André Dore’s son, then, she decided, she would return the Guarnerius to him without a word. How happy that would make him!

There was still half an hour to go to the appointed hour of her meeting—ample time to go back to her apartment and collect the Guarnerius without further ado. She alighted at the next stop. She took a taxi, and reached her apartment in less than ten minutes, never dreaming that during her brief absence someone else had stealthily entered her room. So she wasn’t particularly disturbed at first when the key refused to fit into its hole, putting it down to her hastiness. Until someone had brought Miss Tojo from the reception desk, it didn’t even cross her mind that there was another key in the hole, but on the inside of the door.

‘Hullo! Anyone in there? Who’s there?’

Miss Tojo rattled the doorknob and pushed with all her might as she shouted, but there was no reply.

‘Why don’t we get in through the window?’ panted Miss Tamura, who had also come to the scene as quickly as her legs would carry her.

‘But it’ll be locked from the inside,’ replied the woman who lived three doors up. She spoke as confidently as if it were her room. Suwa could do nothing but stand and gape as the debate raged round her. Finally it was agreed that the best thing to do would be to poke out the key with a piece of wire, but in practice this was not as easy as it had seemed and took a full five minutes. When at last they got the door open, there was no particular sign that anyone had been inside apart from the fact that the window was open. Suwa immediately looked up at the top of the corner cupboard and her heart sank. The Guarnerius, which had reposed there for so many years, was gone.

‘Good heavens above! It’s the missing master key!’ exclaimed Miss Tamura, holding it up for all to see.

‘Whoever it was got in here using the master key, which she had to leave behind in her haste to escape when Miss Yatabe came back. And if we find out who that person is, we shall also know who stole the master key,’ said Miss Tojo in an icy tone of voice.

Suwa went to the window and looked out into the garden. Not a soul was to be seen. The thief who had made good her escape was clearly a fellow resident of the building.

‘Well, we’d better call the police,’ said Miss Tamura. But Suwa could not afford to waste any more time. It was imperative that she get to Hibiya on time, and she had already spent twenty minutes in the apartment since getting back there.

‘No, it really won’t be necessary. Nothing is missing.’

‘That’s all very well and good, but it isn’t nice to think that there’s someone amongst us who is capable of stealing the master key and breaking into any room she likes. However, I suppose it’s all right now we have the master key back,’ reassured Miss Tamura.

‘Very well,’ said the floor representative on the residents’ committee. ‘But I insist that we have a full committee meeting first thing tomorrow to thrash this matter out.’

And with that, the crowd began to dissolve and so permitted Suwa to hurry off to her meeting. Now, more than ever, she felt she had to meet this foreigner who called himself ‘A.D.’ There was no time to be lost, so she took a taxi rather than the streetcar. She urged the driver on, but to no avail; by the time she reached Hibiya, it was twenty minutes after the appointed time for her meeting.

Unfortunately, her arrival coincided with the end of the matinee performance and the emerging crowd streamed down the steps, and she was caught up in the jostle and buffeted from side to side. At last the mass thinned out a little, and Suwa peered anxiously around, seeking a man wearing a red artificial flower in his buttonhole, but he was nowhere to be seen. The crowd melted away until Suwa was left standing on her own, but she still couldn’t bring herself to go home. She stood in the dusk gazing vacantly at the darkening park.

After two more hours, the audience for the evening performance began to arrive. She stood gazing mechanically at the lapels of the people around her, but everyone was wearing heavy overcoats which hardly seemed suitable for a red artificial flower.

By now she was cold and tired, and felt as if her body was being sucked into the hard concrete under her feet. Nevertheless, she refused to give up. The violin itself had ceased to concern her—all she wanted was to meet the young man whom she imagined to be the spitting image of her long-dead teacher—André Dore’s shadow on earth, as it were.

She took little strolls to try and keep warm, always returning to the pillar, but by now there was nobody else around. At the entrance, the girl who had been checking tickets stood shivering slightly and gossiping with a friend. Suwa determined to stay on to the bitter end.

But when the concert was over, and the emerging audience once again engulfed her, drawing her body along with it, she realised at last that she had to go home. The thought of returning alone to her room, with no one to speak to, overcame her with sadness. Solitude and loneliness were her lot in life. If only she had borne a child… But she had only had one chance to do that in all her life, and that was on that evening with André Dore. She thought back to what had happened then, reliving every moment, until her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Whilst in his arms, she had called out again and again how she was afraid of becoming pregnant. She really felt that she was going to conceive, and when it was over she kept repeating one word over and over again. ‘Baby. Baby. Baby.’ André Dore took her gently in his arms and cradling her face between his hands reassured her in soft whispers.