Tomoka Shibasaki - Spring Garden

“You could have left that last bit out.”

“You’re right. That’ll teach me for trying to be funny.”

“Yeah, I gave that up a long time ago.”

On a shelf, painted a similar shade of blue as the house, was a single-lens reflex camera. Taro was by no means an expert, but it looked vintage. The top of the camera was raised into a silver triangle, a bit like a pointed roof, and it struck Taro that the shape resembled the roof of the sky-blue house. The large lens had no cap, and the inside of its cylinder was dark. He thought of the darkness inside the potter wasp’s nest. Both the camera itself and all the things around it were conspicuously dusty, and Taro imagined that Nishi probably hadn’t touched the camera since putting it on the shelf.

On the table beside the balcony were a large computer monitor and a white panel-shaped device with a stylus. The space around them was buried in comics, books, pens and cups.

“Is this what people these days use to draw manga?”

“People draw their first drafts by hand. Usually with felt pen, sometimes with acrylic paint. Then you scan those drawings in and neaten up the fine details using a tablet.”

“Do you have any books of your stuff?”

“Ha! I’m flattered, but please don’t feel you need to show interest.”

Actually, Taro hadn’t been asking out of politeness, but simple curiosity. Still, whether Nishi was just shy or she actually didn’t want him to see her stuff, she wouldn’t even tell him her pen name.

He replaced the bulb, and began putting on his shoes to leave. Nishi promised that she would do something as a thank you next time, but Taro told her not to worry about it. When he walked into his flat, the fridge began its usual rumbling.

It finally started getting cooler around the end of September, and halfway through October, Taro’s work-load began to ease a little.

One sunny Sunday afternoon, Taro opened the door to his balcony. No sooner had he looked towards the sky-blue house than the stained-glass window with the two dragonflies opened upwards, and Nishi’s face popped out of it. It was the window on the landing, where Taro Gyushima was posing with his twin-lens reflex camera in Spring Garden . Seeing Nishi’s face in his line of sight caught Taro by surprise and he started, letting out a noise at almost exactly the same time as Nishi made one too. Yet Nishi didn’t look very surprised. In fact, come to think of it, Taro had never seen Nishi looking particularly shocked, or angry, or overjoyed.

“You know trespassing is a serious crime, right?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that! I’ve become friends with Mrs Morio.”

Nishi lowered her voice as she spoke, so Taro couldn’t catch what she was saying.

Then he heard a child’s voice calling her. It sounded like the boy.

Nishi turned around and answered “Coming!” then shut the window.

Taro stared up at the stained-glass window that was now back in place. He hadn’t known that the window could be opened.

In the evening, Nishi rang at the door of Taro’s flat, and the two of them headed out to the restaurant they’d been to in May. Taro ordered plates of deep-fried chicken and deep-fried octopus. Nishi drank a beer, and explained to Taro how she’d come to see the house.

It was in the middle of September, when it was still very hot and humid. After sundown Nishi had set out on her daily circle of the block, and was passing in front of the Morios’ house when she saw something lump-like lying in the street. She thought it might be a cat, but then realized it was too big for a cat. Then the lump got up and walked on two legs. Nishi saw a car passing through the intersection ahead and decided the situation was dangerous. She went up and spoke to the child. The child turned around, and said, “Where’s Mummy?”

Nishi saw that it was the little Morio girl. She took the girl by the hand and led her over to the house, where she pressed the intercom buzzer, but there was no reply. She pressed it again, and this time heard a frantic-sounding voice calling out, “Just a moment!” The door was flung open and the child’s mother came out.

“Excuse me, I think I found your child.”

At the same time as Nishi said this, the woman cried out, “Yuna!” and the little girl instantly began sobbing.

“I found her in the street. She was just standing there…” Nishi offered in explanation, but the mother was clasping her child tightly to her, comforting her, and it seemed as though Nishi’s words fell on deaf ears. She did afterwards thank Nishi, bowing over and over again so that Nishi bowed in return, and then the mother and child disappeared inside the house.

When she passed in front of the Morios’ house at ten o’clock the next morning, Mrs Morio was out on the first-floor balcony, hanging out her laundry. She called out to Nishi, and asked her to wait. In a short time, she appeared at the front door, and apologized to Nishi for her rudeness the previous night. She had been in such a panic, she said, she had barely even said thank you. Nishi said, “Not at all,” then explained that she lived in the block of flats behind the house and had just happened to be passing by at that time. Mrs Morio thanked her several more times, then invited Nishi in for a cup of tea.

“Are you sure?” Nishi asked, staring into the woman’s face. She looked considerably younger than Nishi herself, and had an open, friendly smile.

“Of course! Come on in.”

Mrs Morio gestured inside the house behind her with her right hand. Nishi entered through the bramble-entwined metal gates and went up the three porch steps to the house.

Seeing the stained glass with its pattern of irises up close for the first time, Nishi noticed how the thick glass diffused the light, dyeing the air in the front hall into a tissue of different colours in a way she found very beautiful.

After taking off her shoes in the entranceway, easily large enough for someone to sleep in, Nishi stepped into the hall with its hardwood floor. When Mrs Morio opened the door on the left, the influx of light was so blinding that Nishi nearly reeled. The living room she was shown into was even larger than she’d expected. The sunlight streaming into the room from the south bounced off the polished floor.

Covered in natural cotton, the corner sofa that looked out over the garden was as big as a bed. Without any sense of agency, like in dreams where her body stopped moving, Nishi sank into its softness. She felt almost as though she was floating. There was a vase of small white flowers on the oval low table right in front of her.

Mrs Morio brought over two cups of hojicha and some oatmeal cookies that she said she’d made.

Her name was Miwako. Her son was Haruki, and her daughter Yuna. Haruki, who was about to turn five, was suffering from bad asthma attacks, and Miwako had barely slept in days. Yesterday, she said, she’d nodded off beside his bed, and that was when her three-year-old daughter had slipped outside.

“I had no idea she was tall enough to reach the door handle,” she said, sincere in her concern and astonishment. She was pale-skinned, not overweight but nicely rounded. Her way of speaking gave the impression of an incredibly earnest person, the kind who made everyone around her feel secure. On that visit, Yuna was at nursery, but Haruki was in bed upstairs. Nishi told Miwako that she’d had bad asthma as a child too, and it had always acted up at this time of year when the seasons were changing, so she understood her worry fully. At this, Miwako opened her eyes wide and leant forward, saying that she herself had been such a healthy child she’d rarely caught a cold, and had never known anyone with asthma. As a result, she felt terribly anxious that she couldn’t properly understand the suffering her son was going through and that she wasn’t dealing with it in the right way.