Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

A moment’s silence: an eternity.

Recovering himself, he scrambled down from the bunk and, shoving his feet into his sneakers, hurried outside. He saw something white wander through the gate and veer off to the right. All at once, he remembered seeing something similar pass in front of him just when his bicycle crashed into the hedge. In fact he was sure they were the same. Yet when he ran out past the gate, he saw nothing but empty space.

As before, the tall fronds of pampas grass shone silver and ghostly in the moonlight.

YUSUKE WENT BACK in through the gate to find a wary-looking figure on the porch staring at him. The man had apparently heard him running along the gravel path and come outside. He must have remained awake in the dining area, as he was still wearing the same white shirt and black trousers. Perhaps he’d been up drinking the whole time. Yusuke told him he’d had a strange dream. This always happened with him when he was wrought up.

With the porch light off, the moon, now lower in the sky, tinged the man’s face with a bluish glow.

“It felt as if someone came into the shed and then left …,” Yusuke explained.

“Was it a woman?”

“No, it was a girl, wearing a yukata .”

“A yukata ?”

“Yes. Maybe it’s because I saw the lady taking apart that kimono this evening.”

The man’s eyes were wild-looking now.

“The one with the red koi?”

“Yes, that one.”

His face was almost contorted. The next instant he leaped down from the porch and, bolting through the gate, made a sharp right turn and disappeared. Startled, Yusuke hurried after him, pausing when he reached the gate. Looking up the road, he saw the back of his white shirt as he ran up the hill like a man possessed. Yusuke stood at the gate and waited. Finally, when he couldn’t bear the mosquitoes any longer, he went back to the shed, sat on the bunk, and watched from the high window. He kept up his vigil patiently, but the man did not return. It was as if he had been swallowed up in the mountain darkness. Yellow light continued to shine from the front room.

In the commotion, a moth had made its way inside and was flying around and around against the ceiling, its wings fluttering wildly.

MORNING IN THE mountains felt chilly.

Yusuke stepped out of the shed and found the cottage looking much more ordinary in the crisp morning air. He now saw that it wasn’t alone in the woods—other houses stood nearby, to the north and south. Unoccupied, they had been invisible in the dark. These houses seemed run-down as well—if anything, even more so than this one. Darkened shutters covered all the windows. With no sign of anyone’s having stepped onto the properties for years, nature had taken over what must once have been gardens, with long vines—wild grapes and poison ivy—tangling everywhere. The shed where Yusuke had slept was to the east of the main building. Behind it too, grasses stood tall and vines intertwined so that it was impossible to tell how far into the dense woods the property extended.

He walked around the cottage toward the porch, last year’s fallen leaves rustling at his feet.

There was a smell of fresh coffee in the air. Seeing Yusuke approach, the woman raised her chin off the palm of her hand and said, “Good morning. Mr. Azuma has already gone out to play golf.”

So his name was Azuma. Hadn’t a night without sleep affected him, a man much older than himself? Yusuke wondered whether he had deliberately left the house early to avoid seeing him after the midnight encounter. Whatever the reason, he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy.

ABANDONED COUNTRY HOUSE

A white table and some garden chairs, stacked to one side the night before, were now set out in the middle of the porch. The woman stood up and, leaving her glasses there, told him she would be right back and went inside. On the table was a coffee cup and next to it a paperback, its cover bleached by the sun. It was a translation of a European novel. Yusuke immediately recognized his own publisher’s logo on the cover, but he had never seen this particular old edition before. He was standing contemplating the book when the woman reemerged. “I’m glad I’ve been saving these things. They can finally be of use,” she said, handing him a small travel kit containing a toothbrush and a minitube of toothpaste, along with a towel.

He noticed that she looked older in daylight. He also noticed what he thought were signs of tears. Was she aware of Azuma’s disappearance last night?

The bathroom was at the far end of the corridor, on the left, diagonally across from the room where the man had been the night before. As Yusuke walked toward it, he stole a look inside through the open door. It appeared to have been a study once—one of its narrow walls had built-in bookshelves, though now only a few books with faded covers occupied the shelves. However, below them, on an old desk, were a brand-new laptop, a small printer, and a cradle for some electronic device, all common enough in Tokyo, but here like objects transported from the future.

After he had finished washing, he found the woman standing at the kitchen sink.

Turning her head, she asked, “Did you sleep all right?” With water gushing out of the faucet, Yusuke had to speak up to make himself heard.

“I did. Thank you very much.”

She turned off the faucet and cocked her head in the direction of the front room.

“I found the key, right outside.”

“Really?”

If not a fox, only the full moon could explain the key going missing—and the man.

“How about some breakfast? It’s almost ready.”

Given her initial reaction, she was surprisingly friendly. Their growing intimacy seemed to happen by chance, as events had unfolded; with the man away, the two of them were brought that much closer together, as if Yusuke were in some way an accomplice.

“Yes, that would be great. Let me help,” he offered, stepping into the small kitchen.

Another glance at her face, this time with sunlight flooding in, made him feel certain that she’d been crying the night before—perhaps all night long. Her eyes were clearly swollen. What’s more, she made no attempt to hide this.

“Thank you,” she said. “Let’s see, what else? Oh, yes—do you drink tea or coffee in the morning?”

“Usually coffee.”

“Good! I just made some. Here, could you take this out to the porch?”

She was holding a large, round tray on which were stacked some Western-style plates with a printed pattern of small violets. Everything about the plates—the pattern, the colors, the shape—seemed unusual to Yusuke, though he was not exactly sure why. Noticing his interest, she gave a little laugh. “They’re old, from the 1950s. Before long they’ll be considered antiques.” Her voice was unexpectedly cheerful—almost unnaturally cheerful—making him worry that she might break down again at any moment.

ONCE THEY HAD set the table for breakfast, the two sat side by side at the round table, facing the garden to the south. He felt relieved that he didn’t have to look at her directly. Instead, what filled his eyes was an overwhelming greenness. Pure morning air filtered through the green, and through the pure air came the high-pitched singing of some birds whose name he did not know. Mixed with their song was the soft cooo, coo-coo-coo of turtledoves. Dragonflies sailed low across the garden, despite the early hour, on red translucent wings; the loud, insistent trilling of cicadas resounded from every tree beneath the tiers of leaves that obscured the sky.