Fuminori Nakamura - The Thief

I didn’t hide my smirk, I didn’t resist, I just lay there on the floor as they held me down. Through the classroom window I could see the tower. Perhaps now it will tell me something , I thought. Because it had been standing there for such a long, long time. But it still just stood there, beautiful and remote, neither accepting nor rejecting me as I took pleasure in my humiliation. I closed my eyes.

I decided I would keep on stealing until I could no longer see the tower. Sinking lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the shadows. The more I stole, I believed, the further I would move away from the tower. Before long the tension of stealing became more and more attractive. The strain as my fingers touched other people’s things and the reassuring warmth that followed. It was the act of denying all values, trampling all ties. Stealing stuff I needed, stealing stuff I didn’t need, throwing away what I didn’t need after I stole it. The thrill that vanquishes the strange feeling that ran down to the tips of my fingers when my hands reached into that forbidden zone. I don’t know whether it was because I crossed a certain line or simply because I was growing older, but without my realizing it the tower had vanished.

When I called the boy’s mother she said that she wanted to go to a hotel, so I took a taxi. We met in the middle of the day in front of a pachinko parlor, walked through the hotel district and picked one at random. As soon as we got to the room she started to undress, saying she knew that I’d call her again. I started to say something about the boy, but got into bed with her instead, partly because it would be hard to talk to her if I made her mad, but also because I had the wretched feeling that I was going to die soon and I wanted to touch a woman one last time. She climbed on top of me and, thanks to her tablets, just kept on coming, digging in her fingernails.

Still naked, she got out of bed and opened the curtains a crack. Scratching her cheek, she told me that they’d built a new shopping mall over the road. She seemed to want to show it to me. Her clothes lay on the floor like a flattened corpse. A thin ray of sunlight peeped through the curtains. I raised myself slightly in the bed.

“By the way,” I started, unsure if this was the right time or not. “How would you feel about giving up the boy?”

Her face froze for a second as she turned.

“To you?”

For some reason she smiled as she said this.

“No, a children’s home.”

“Could I?”

I thought she’d be angry, but she closed the curtains and came back to the bed.

“Yes, you could. You’d need to do some paperwork.”

“Yuck,” she said suddenly, turning away and lighting a cigarette.

I guessed it was the probably the paperwork she was talking about.

“I’ve got to disappear for a while. I won’t be able to see him again. It would be better if he didn’t live with you. If he wasn’t there, things would go more smoothly with your man, wouldn’t they? And if you put him in a home I’ll give you five hundred thousand yen. How about that?”

“What?”

Slowly she turned to face me. Like her lips, her eyes were faintly moist, with a sad gleam. I realized that I was getting turned on again and looked away.

“My boyfriend, he’s been punching him lately. He probably won’t kill him, but it’s still abuse, isn’t it? You see it on the news. I’d hate it if that happened. The cops would come, wouldn’t they? Did you mean it?”

“I’ve got plenty of money. It’s not that much to me. If you get in touch with the Child Guidance Center they’ll look after him. If they can’t, contact this foster home. You can trust them. But if you just take the money and don’t put him in care without a damn good reason, there’ll be trouble. I’m going away but I’ll be asking my friends to keep an eye on you. They’re yakuza. Get it?”

I don’t know if she was listening or not, but suddenly she licked my lips.

“If my parents were around I could leave him with them, but they’re not. I’ve been wondering what to do. You’re right, we could put him in one of those places. I hadn’t thought of that. So all I have to do is call them, right? Hey, with that much I could go on a trip!”

She tucked the paper I’d given her into her purse. I took the money from my jacket, which I’d tossed in a heap on the floor.

“You’re paying me now?” she asked, but immediately stowed it in her bag.

One eye blinked tightly several times.

“You’re great. Really awesome. I’m so happy! Now, what’ll I buy with this? I mean, what good are kids, anyway? Know what I mean? They’re only cute for the first couple of months, eh?”

When I got out of the cab in front of my apartment, the boy was standing there. In his hands he held an open can of Coke and a can of coffee, the brand I usually drink. He passed it to me wordlessly, so I opened it there and then. He looked at my dyed hair but didn’t comment. The coffee was almost cold.

I went inside briefly and when I came out again he followed me. A car sped by, startling him, and he grabbed the hem of my coat. It was low-slung, with mindless music blaring out at full volume. Coming towards us was a little girl clutching her father’s jacket in the same way. The boy and I passed by them without a word. The man said something to his daughter and she answered sulkily.

We ambled along the side of a small river well outside the city. The banks were well tended but the water was murky, with plastic bottles and other trash floating in it. The kid looked like he wanted to say something but kept quiet, hesitant. I lit a cigarette and gazed out over the sluggish river.

“I talked to her. You’re sure about going into a home, right? That would mean you’d be getting out of there.”

“Yeah.”

His voice was a bit stronger than before. I passed him a slip of paper.

“If your mom tries to keep you at home and you still don’t like it, call this number. This agency will take care of everything.”

He stared at the number like he was trying to memorize it.

“You can still start over. You can do whatever you want. Forget about stealing and shoplifting.”

“Why?”

He was gazing up at me.

“You’ll never find a place in society.”

“But….”

“Shut up. Just forget it.”

My lifestyle certainly didn’t qualify me to be giving advice to children. I held out a small box.

“I’m giving you this.”

“What is it?”

“In the end I didn’t need it. Open it when you need strength, or when you’re in real trouble. Like you’re done for and might as well die. Pretty cool, eh?”

“But what if someone takes it away, too?”

“Okay, let’s bury it somewhere.”

I spotted a hiking trail and we headed up the dirt-colored road. Partway along we came across a stone statue of a woman laughing crazily. I used my empty can and my hands to dig a deep hole in the earth behind it. The inscription on the plinth was almost entirely worn away, but it seemed to be some kind of memorial. I didn’t think they’d be doing roadwork here, so no one was likely to dig the box up.

“If you end up not needing it,” I told the boy, “give it to a kid like you.”

We continued walking in silence. The sun was gradually sinking and the air grew chilly. When we came out into a clearing, I found a tennis ball someone had dropped. I picked it up casually and brushed off the dirt with my hands. On the other side of a bench we could see a boy playing catch with his father. He was about the same age as my kid, but his throw was weak and clumsy. Every time he threw, his dad said something to him. A digital camera and portable game console, probably theirs, were lying on the bench.