Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

“Yeah, so on his last day we all bought a cake and gave it to him, as if we felt responsible. But one of the girls has a cat, and she dusted the cake with sand from its litter box.”

I laughed.

“That’s terrible.”

“It must’ve been gritty when he took it home and ate it. It just looked like some kind of fancy powder.”

“Yeah, really gritty powder! Women are scary!”

“Yes, especially when we gang up. But it’s fun.”

I turned left at the light for no particular reason and drove under a railroad bridge, thinking I didn’t want to go too far. A couple in a red car waiting at an intersection were looking at us carelessly. They’d been shopping, and their back seat was piled with bags.

“Then the day before yesterday one of the girls — hey, the cake shop up ahead is good. Especially their cookies.”

“After what you’ve just been talking about?”

“True.” She laughed again.

“Okay, let’s buy some.”

“This time it’s on me.”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

I pulled up outside the shop and we bought some cookies. When we went back to the car and started eating them, crumbs scattered all over the upholstery.

“Look, we’re making a mess,” said Kaori.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s a rental.”

“But look at it!”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

The cars started to thin out and there were fewer traffic lights. I made another random right turn on a road lined with apartment buildings. In the distance I could see the overpass of an expressway. I thought about listening to some music on the radio, then pulled my hand back, conscious of the possibility of hearing the news about Mikihiko. Until then things had been going quite smoothly, but for some reason the conversation stalled. I wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything to talk about. Kaori’s comment about feeling bad if she used the Kukis’ money had stuck in my mind. She had it completely the wrong way around — it was the Kuki family that had caused her nothing but pain. I didn’t know what she was apologizing for, and as far as I was concerned she should use whatever she could get her hands on to secure her future.

“Maybe you’ve heard this from Azumi,” Kaori said, breaking the silence.

I was deep in my own thoughts, and her voice startled me. I realized she’d been speaking for some time.

“You know they’re talking about that guy now, the one who died?”

Taken aback, I couldn’t answer, and the atmosphere grew even more stilted.

“He’s the son of the man who adopted me. I was astounded. I only met him once, though, when I was a kid.”

The lights turned red, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on the road.

“The money I was talking about, I got that when my guardian died. Then when I heard the news, I felt even more guilty.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said without thinking. “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

Kaori was looking at my face in the rear view mirror.

“No, how can I put it …”

She dropped her gaze, staring at her feet.

“They’re saying it might be suicide, aren’t they? I’m not saying that’s why, but I just thought, maybe my guardian killed himself too. Though he was already pretty old.”

My throat was tight. I clung to the steering wheel, determined not to turn around.

“And he—” Kaori began, then stopped as though she’d remembered something. After a short silence she continued. “The old man who adopted me, he often used to weep in front of me. I was just a child then.”

“What?”

The lights changed and I put my foot on the accelerator, but it was impossible for me to drive any more. I pulled over to the side of the road.

“The man who adopted you?”

“Yes. Um, Mr. Shintani?”

She was obviously wondering why I’d stopped. I couldn’t utter a word.

“So, wow, how did we get to talking about this? Well, in that family, I … I had some problems, but the old man, he often got drunk and cried. It was really scary. Well, I found that pretty horrible, and I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. But then the old man died, probably killed himself. And at the time I had this boyfriend, the same age as me, but I …”

“No,” I shouted. “No. You mustn’t think like that. Your … because Shozo Kuki was murdered.”

“What?”

She stared at me. The silence seemed to grow even heavier. I went on, my throat hurting and my voice quavering.

“He was killed by a crime syndicate. There’s proof. That’s why.”

“Mr. Shintani?”

The interior of the car was suddenly freezing.

“I … I know Fumihiro Kuki.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Several cars drove by as we sat there on the shoulder.

“I don’t think Azumi knows. I heard about you from Fumihiro. It’s not that I was trying to keep it a secret, that I knew him. I just never got a chance to tell you. Azumi was talking about you, and when I heard the surname I realized you must be the woman he used to talk about. It’s an unusual name. Fumihiro has always cared about you. If I ever saw you, he asked me to tell him how you were getting on.”

“Fumihiro did?” she asked.

Kaori’s voice, speaking my name.

“Yes, well, so, you don’t have to worry about the Kukis anymore.”

“What’s he doing now?

Suddenly I was extremely reluctant to accept that I was no longer Fumihiro. I remembered that around the corner to the right there was the site of a demolished factory. I felt the dense air pressing down on me, felt something stirring inside. In the mirror I could see Kaori’s lovely face. I couldn’t move, as though I’d been seized by a powerful force. I gasped, realizing that what I was feeling was lust.

Maybe everything had been leading up to this moment, I thought. My chest thudded painfully and my eyesight dimmed. Mikihiko had told me that by eliminating all the people who were in the way, by setting up the right conditions, by meeting her again, I would destroy her. That I’d lay waste to the most beautiful, the most precious light in the entire world. And then that I’d transcend myself. By passing through an even greater shock than that of killing my father, I would change from a fretful human being into a monster. I would surpass my father and Mikihiko, I would wipe away the despondency that had shrouded me all my life, wipe away my regrets. I would change from Fumihiro to Shintani, and then from Shintani into a monster. I would cease to exist. In my madness, all my previous awareness would disappear completely. By dragging Kaori into the center of that turbulent vortex, my mind would change into a fierce flame and then vanish. From that point on I would never suffer again. As a monster cloaked in insanity, no memories or events would move me, because my previous self would perish. Then perhaps that violent, evil force would fly off somewhere else, like the traffic accident that Mikihiko had talked about. Maybe my whole life so far had been lived as that evil, for that evil. My heart was beating fiercely and I couldn’t breathe. I looked at Kaori in the rear view mirror, but her eyes were too beautiful for me.

So beautiful that my existence, the reasons for my existence, lost all meaning. So beautiful that I was irrelevant. Kaori’s warmth, the joy of being with her day by day, certainly at one time it had been present in my life. I felt a persistent, overpowering pressure at the back of my neck. I couldn’t destroy the me that possessed those joyful memories. Even if my consciousness was hard to bear, I never wanted to lose it, because that would mean losing my happy memories as well. No matter how miserable I might be, I wanted to keep those days inside me. I remained facing forward in the driver’s seat.