Yoko Ogawa - Revenge

I nodded but said nothing.

“She pretended she’d written it herself and even had the nerve to give interviews. I read that she told them the book was the ‘result of destroying the world [she] had built in all her previous works’—or some such nonsense.”

She snorted and the tip of her tongue appeared between her teeth. It was shockingly red, like the tomatoes I’d eaten the day before.

“So that’s why I carry everything around with me now. You never know when they’ll try again. I’ve got eight hundred pages here; two hundred more and I’ll be done.”

She rubbed her cheek against the bundle.

“Do they have any of your books here?” I asked.

“They do,” she said, standing up and going to one of the shelves. “This is mine—one that managed to escape the burglar,” she said, handing it to me.

Afternoon at the Bakery . The book was slender, and as tattered as her bundle.

I worked on my article in my room until 7:30, phoned my editor, and then went down to dinner: bouillabaisse, salad, and a beer. The evening was still, but there were ripples on the surface of the pool. People were eating out on the terrace.

I had chosen the seat facing away from the view of the ocean, expecting her to appear at some point. I had even moved the extra chairs so the dog would have room.

There were no tomatoes in the salad tonight. I ordered another beer and ate the last few mouthfuls of bouillabaisse. But there was still no sign of her.

Later, in my room, I read “Afternoon at the Bakery.” It was about a woman who goes to buy a birthday cake for her dead son. That was the whole story. I should have gone back to my article, but I read her novel through twice, finishing for the second time at 3:00 a.m. The prose was unremarkable, as were the plot and characters, but there was an icy current running under her words, and I found myself wanting to plunge into it again and again.

Inside the back cover was a short biography of the author—her date of birth, titles of her major works, and the fact that she had disappeared in 1997—and a picture of a woman I had never seen before. She wore glasses and had a hump on her back.

As I was getting ready for bed, I stopped to take a picture of my son out of my wallet. He was turning three when it was taken, just about to blow out the candles on his cake. He was holding a monster doll someone had given him. The corners of the picture were dog-eared, but I would never have a newer one.

“He’ll be eleven this year,” I said aloud. But there was no answer. The boy in the photograph was completely absorbed in his cake. I knew his age, but what good did that do me?

“Why don’t you start with the backstroke?”

She sat under a cloudless sky, waving from the deck chair. I was not particularly good at the backstroke, but I managed a hundred meters. “Marvelous!” she called. The dog watched, his head resting between his paws. “Now the breaststroke. Four hundred meters.”

“Four hundred?”

“I like watching you do the turns,” she said. Sunlight glinted off the bottom of the pool. Legs crisscrossed in front of me; a child’s inflatable ring drifted in the next lane. Fifty, seventy-five, one hundred … I kept track of the total at each turn.

“Four hundred!” I caught my breath for a moment, resting against the side of the pool.

“Wonderful!” she shouted, clapping on and on, the sound filtering down through the water. I took some pleasure in seeing how happy she was. “And for the finale, my favorite. The butterfly, if you please.”

When I was finished in the pool, I had to go to the aquarium to get the last of the material for my article. I even considered asking her to go with me. The aquarium was said to own a dugong—a creature much like a manatee—if it hadn’t died like the dolphins.

But when I completed the last lap of butterfly and pulled myself up on the side of the pool, she was no longer there. The deck chair was empty; the dog, too, had vanished.

The dugong was alive and well and, when I arrived, was eating some lettuce. Later, when I returned from the aquarium, I took a moment to organize the film I had shot and to pack my suitcase. I had to check out before noon, and the article was due to my editor the next day.

“She was an older lady, small, always carried a bundle about this big.” I held up my hands to show him, and the man behind the desk thought for a moment. “And she had a dog with her. A black Lab.”

“Oh, I know who you mean,” he said, nodding at last. “She checked out this morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite sure.”

But why would she have left without saying good-bye? Without praising my butterfly one last time?

I carried my bags out to the parking lot before going to have a final look at the pool. It was as crowded as ever, umbrellas jostling one another, waiters hurrying about with trays of drinks.

But the chair where she had sat that morning was empty, and on it was her bundle, looking forlorn and almost frightened. I picked it up and untied the knot. Inside was a ream of blank paper.

The first time I met the young man was at a charity concert, just as a children’s choir was beginning an encore of Brahms’s “Little Dustman.”

“Would you like another?” he asked, taking an empty champagne glass from my hand. His white suit—obviously rented—was too large for his slender frame.

“You have a lovely voice,” I said, ignoring his question. “You should be in a choir yourself.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling politely. “But I’m afraid my voice is not what it used to be.” One rarely meets a young man at once so deferential and, at the same time, self-assured.

“A shame,” I said. “Those little berets that they’re wearing would suit you. Are you interested in music?”

“Yes, indeed. In fact, I’m hoping to go to the conservatory.”

“If not to sing, then what for?”

“I’d like to be a composer.”

“But why? When you have such a beautiful voice?”

The children had finished their performance and were filing off the stage. They were very well behaved—except for one little boy who couldn’t stop fidgeting with his beret.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like another?” he said, holding up my empty glass. His hand was large and strong.

“Why not?” I said. I didn’t really want more champagne, but I wanted him to come back to me.

The concert was organized by a local banker, a man who had bought a number of my paintings in the past. In the days that followed, I had him arrange a “scholarship” to help this boy with his studies. He had been wasting his time with odd jobs to make ends meet, so we came to an agreement. I would pay for the lessons he needed to prepare for the entrance exam to the conservatory, and he would come every other week on Saturday night to eat dinner with me and to report on his progress. I’m not sure he fully realized what this meant. Still, he did what I asked of him without complaint, and he even thanked me in that polite way of his.

I knew there was something arrogant about my little arrangement, but I also knew it wouldn’t last for long. All too soon, the rest of his body would catch up with his hands—and just as soon I would be too old to lift a glass of champagne.

I remember the first visit well. It was a cold, windy night.

“What a wonderful house you have,” he said, looking all around. He was dressed in corduroy pants and a heavy duffle coat.

“Sit down,” I said. It was somehow unsettling to hear his pure voice—which I had heard only over the din of a party—here in the quiet of my home.