Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

The doctor was watching me.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know. Whenever I see you I just want to tell you stuff.”

“Me too. I wonder why. I get this urge to talk to you too. Maybe it’s because you’re the only person who knows the boundaries of my face.”

There was a knock at the door and when the doctor answered the woman who had let me in entered and gave me some pills in a paper bag. Then she left the room silently, smiling the whole time.

“A while ago you said your life was over. Now you seem to have a bit more of a spark.”

“I do?”

“Yes. I could even say you’re excited. Ever since you came in.”

I looked at the clock, unsure how to reply. When I stood up, he did the same.

“This life is a gift. You may as well make the most of it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve had plenty of happiness in the past.”

With chapped fingers I fastened a coat button that I’d missed. The frayed threads were twisted tightly.

“For example,” I went on, “even if this was some kind of fairy tale with a happy ending, real people’s lives keep on going after the story finishes.”

He turned towards me to show he was listening.

“As a story it ends happily, even if the characters die of something immediately afterwards. In the same way, I suppose you could present my life as a happy tale if you ended it in the right place.”

“I’d rather talk about the future.”

He opened the door, still smiling, and I felt the cold air rush in. He followed me quietly into the hallway.

“Your future. There are many kinds of fortune-tellers who claim to know people’s futures, aren’t there? People who communicate with spirits, people who use statistics based on your date of birth, and so on. But for me the most — what’s the word? — interesting method would be predicting the outcome by looking at a person’s character, heredity and environment, and the character and heredity of everyone around him. I’m interested in people who can plot these variables to find the line that indicates the direction a person is heading.”

I walked down the corridor without answering. When we reached the entrance hall the doctor started talking again.

“I normally prescribe two months’ worth of pills, but I’ve only given you one, because I’d like to see you again. There aren’t many cases where I’ve altered someone’s face to look like someone else. You interest me.”

“Professionally?”

“As a person. If I can still call myself human, that is. Because I’m the same as you. This isn’t my original face.”

I looked at him. It was a soft, forgettable face with narrow eyes.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

“I know.”

When I went outside the sun was already setting.

I WENT HOME and took a nap. For some reason I was exhausted. My hands and feet wouldn’t move properly, as though they were refusing to do what I told them. As I was mulling over what the doctor had said, the doorbell rang. I ignored it, thinking they’d go away, but it went on ringing. I got out of bed, the noise hurting my ears, and walked across the hard floor. When I looked at the screen on the intercom, a man I didn’t know was standing there.

HE WAS QUITE short, broad-shouldered and wearing a dark gray suit. His left leg jiggled as he stood there, giving him the air of an unpleasant insect. After staring at the screen for a moment, I lifted the receiver. His shadow stretched along the corridor. My heart started to beat faster. As soon as I picked up I wondered why I’d done so, why I hadn’t just pretended to be out. But it was too late — he was reacting to the noise coming from the speaker. I inhaled, feeling faintly uneasy.

“Yes?”

“Ah. Were you asleep? It’s been a long time. It’s Aida.”

The name didn’t ring a bell.

“Yeah, well, I knew you’d be surprised. Hey, that’s just how I am. Would you believe me if I said I just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

My pulse quickened even more. I was certain I didn’t know him, but his tone suggested ominously, powerfully, that he was someone I couldn’t just turn away. After a brief hesitation I flung on a tracksuit and opened the door, which seemed to have grown heavier.

The man stared sideways at me through narrow eyes. His hair was short, going gray in places. Suppressing a rising sense of panic, I forced my face into a surprised expression.

“Long time, no see,” he said. “Have you got a cold?”

“Yeah, I was asleep.”

“With gel in your hair?”

He eyed me doubtfully.

“I had to meet someone, but I’d had enough so I came home.”

“Yeah?”

Even though he was right in front of me, he kept stealing sidelong glances at me out of the corner of his eye. The soles of his shoes were paper-thin. Suddenly it struck me that he might be a cop.

“Don’t you have better things to do than coming all this way?” I grumbled, trying to work out what was going on.

It was clear that he knew he was unwelcome. A grin crept across his swarthy face.

“Got a short fuse, haven’t you? Well, I don’t blame you. It must be at least eight years since we last met. I bet you thought it was over.”

The cut of his suit was really old-fashioned.

“It’s a bit public out here. Can I come in?”

“I’ve got a temperature. Can’t we do this another time?”

For the past several days the news had been full of reports of an influenza outbreak.

“Me, I don’t care if I catch it. It would give me a break from chasing crooks. Anyway, I think you’re faking it. You’ve changed. Age, perhaps? Looks like you’ve gotten more cunning.”

So he was a cop after all, I thought, struggling to control my breathing.

“But I’m surprised to see you living in a fancy building like this. When did you come back to Japan? I’d begun to suspect that you’d run away.”

“I do what I want.”

“You really have changed. That blunt way of talking.”

I kept telling myself not to reveal my discomposure. He obviously knew Shintani, my face’s original owner, whose past was littered with dead people. Maybe he was under suspicion over one of them. If this guy hadn’t seen Shintani for eight years, he must have had a pretty good reason for coming to his condo. I tried to stay calm, thinking furiously.

“Can’t I come in? It’s cold.”

“Some other time.”

“You look terrible. Is it such a big shock, me turning up again? Or are you really sick?”

“I told you I was in bed, didn’t I?”

“But you’re not even coughing. Well, you can’t help that, I guess. Nothing sounds more artificial than a forced cough.”

He continued to stare at me, smirking. There was something really irritating about him.

“After eight years it’s not surprising that you’ve changed. You look pretty haggard, like a completely different person. I guess you’ve been through the wringer too. It’s odd for me to say this, but that case is never going to turn into a murder inquiry, not after all these years. Of course I knew Sae since she was little. I know her mom too. And you had a perfect alibi when it happened, but Yaeko was adamant that you were behind it. She got kind of strange — she’s still saying it, and she’s never stopped hating you. Her and me, we’ve known each other a long time, so I think it’s the least I can do to work on the case whenever I can find the time, at least until the statute of limitations runs out. Hey, your neighbors will be watching. Won’t you at least let me into the hallway?”