Kojo Suzuki - Spiral

The door opened a few centimeters, and a gust of air blew out of the room and into the hallway. The window was probably open. Catching the wind full in the face, Ando breathed in, carefully, through his nostrils. He couldn’t detect the unmistakable scent of a dead body. He inhaled and exhaled several times. No smell of decay. His sense of relief was so strong that it threatened to knock him off his feet, and he put his hand against the wall to steady himself.

“After you,” urged the super, waiting in the doorway. Just standing in the entrance, he could see the whole interior of the apartment. There wasn’t really any “looking around” to be done. Mai’s body was nowhere to be seen. So Ando’s premonition had been an idle one; he relaxed and let out a deep sigh.

He took off his shoes and stepped past the super into the room.

“Where’s she gone?” grumbled the super from behind him.

Ando felt a strange sort of gloom steal over him. He should have felt relieved that he hadn’t found what he’d thought he’d find, but instead his heart continued to race. The room had a strange air about it, and he didn’t know why.

So she hasn’t been back here in a week. It was the only conclusion he could draw. Where is she now? He wondered if the answer to the new question he was left with awaited him somewhere in the room.

Directly next to the entrance there was a small bathroom. He opened the door a crack to make sure it was empty, then returned his gaze to the main room.

He could see how she’d tried to make efficient use of her limited space. A futon was neatly folded and stashed in a corner. There wasn’t enough space for a bed, nor was there a proper closet for the futon. Instead of a real desk there was a low table that had an electric space heater attached to its underside. The table was covered with manuscript pages. A discarded page had been folded up to serve as a coaster for a coffee cup, which was a quarter full of milk. Bookshelves covered one wall, and a combination TV/VCR was nestled in among the books. All the other appliances were arranged around the room almost as if they’d been built in, suggesting the care she’d put into choosing what to buy for her tiny apartment.

In front of the table sat an adjustable backrest that rocked unstably. It was covered with a penguin-print cloth. Pajamas, neatly folded, lay on the seat, with a bra and panties wadded up next to them.

Maybe it’s just because I’m in a young woman’s apartment? Ando was trying to figure out why he felt so uncomfortable. His chest was tight and his pulse was pounding. Seeing her underwear made him wonder if he was just an overexcited voyeur.

“What do you think, Doctor?”

The super was still standing in the doorway. He made no move to enter; he hadn’t even taken off his shoes. Since she clearly wasn’t to be found in her room, he seemed to have concluded that their business was finished and that it was time to go.

Ando didn’t reply, walking over to the kitchenette instead. The floor here was wooden, but for some reason it felt like a thick carpet. He looked up: a ten-watt fluorescent light had been left on. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the afternoon sunlight streaming in. Two glasses were in the sink. He turned the tap on, and after a while the water heated up. He pulled the string dangling from the bulb, turning out the light, and walked away from the kitchenette. When the light went out, he felt gooseflesh rising all over his body.

Nothing he saw gave him any clue as to Mai’s whereabouts.

“Shall we go?” Ando said, not looking at the super. He put his shoes back on and left the apartment. He heard the key turn behind him. He finished tying his shoelaces, straightened up, and walked to the elevator ahead of the super.

As they stood there waiting for the elevator, an autopsy Ando had performed the previous summer came back to him all of a sudden. It was on a young female who’d been strangled at home in her apartment. They’d told him she’d been dead for eleven hours, but when he cut her open he found to his surprise that her organs were still at something close to normal body temperature. When a person dies, the body temperature drops at an average of one degree Celsius per hour. Of course, that’s just an average, subject to all sorts of factors, such as the weather and location. All the same, it was extremely unusual to find a body still perfectly warm after eleven hours.

The elevator came up to the third floor and the doors started to open before Ando’s eyes.

“Hold on a minute,” he said. He didn’t want to leave while any doubts lingered. The oppressive feeling he’d gotten as he’d stepped into Mai’s room, the weird sensation of the wooden floor as he walked on it, almost as if it were melting away.

There was only one way he could describe the odd atmosphere of that room. It was like cutting into a body that had been dead for eleven hours and finding its insides still warm.

The elevator doors were fully open, but Ando did not step in. He was blocking the way, so the super couldn’t get in either.

“Aren’t you going to get in?”

Ando answered with a question of his own. “Are you sure you haven’t seen her at all this last week?”

The elevator shut its doors and began its descent to the ground floor.

“If I have, then we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

The super hadn’t seen her. She hadn’t shown up for class for a week, despite a near-perfect attendance record until now. She didn’t answer the phone no matter how many times he called. A week’s worth of newspapers were stuffed in her mailbox. It was clear that she’d been away since last Thursday. And yet, there was something about that place… It didn’t feel like an apartment whose occupant had been away for a week. There was warmth there, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. It was just that something in the air said someone had been there until just a moment ago.

“I want to have another look,” Ando said, turning to the super, who looked first surprised, then troubled, and then, briefly, afraid. This last emotion did not escape Ando’s notice.

The old man’s afraid of something.

The super handed Ando the key ring, saying, “Just drop them off in the office when you’re done.” He gave Ando a look as if to say, If you want to go back, be my guest, but count me out.

Ando wanted to ask the super what his impressions of the place had been. But he’d probably be at a loss for words, even if Ando asked. That kind of thing wasn’t easy to express. Ando wasn’t sure if he himself could explain what he’d felt there.

“Thanks, I will,” Ando said, accepting the keys and turning on his heel. He was afraid that he’d lose his nerve if he hesitated. In any case, he made up his mind to get out of there as soon as he figured out why the place felt so weird.

Once again, he opened the door. He wished he could leave it open while he was in the apartment, but it swung shut automatically when he let go. The moment it shut, air stopped flowing through the room.

Ando took off his shoes again and walked to the window. He closed it and opened the lace curtains as wide as they’d go. It was past three in the afternoon, and the window faced south; rays of sun slanted into the room. Bathed in light, Ando turned to have another look. The decor didn’t strike him as particularly feminine, though it certainly wasn’t masculine. If it hadn’t been for the penguin design on the backrest, he wouldn’t have been able to guess the inhabitant’s gender.

Ando seated himself next to the backrest and picked up Mai’s underwear. He brought them close to his face and sniffed them, then held them away, then sniffed them again. They smelled like milk. Takanori’s undershirts had smelled like that when he was a toddler.