Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

Kita changed out of the casual jersey he’d borrowed, back into his own personal clothing style again, whispered his thanks to Mrs Kikui for the great food and the useful consultation, and attempted to tiptoe out leaving the sleeping doctor behind.

“You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you now?” urged Mrs. Kikui, seeing him off to the doorway. Kita had slept off the marijuana high and returned to normal. He smiled at her, and replied that he was off to the sea to get rid of everything.

“You’re sure you shouldn’t take the doctor along? He’s your personal physician, isn’t he? After all, he came along with you to save you, didn’t he?”

“We’re parting ways. I’ll be fine on my own now. Where’s Aki?”

“She’s around somewhere. You take good care, now. Oh, wait a moment.” She disappeared into the kitchen and quickly re-emerged with something wrapped in cling film, which she handed to Kita. “Please take it. This came from the garden.”

It was a ball of freshly picked marijuana leaves. Boy, thought Kita, this was his lucky day. What kindness he’d received from this house he’d dropped in on out of the blue. His luck would surely hold this afternoon.

When he got back to the white Camaro, there was Aki in the passenger seat, holding her camera.

The doctor wiped his sweat, breathing heavily. He’d only just managed to escape from a dream in which the white Camaro came racing straight at his bed. Seeing no sign of Kita, he got up and went outside to search. Where was he? he asked Mrs Kikui, who was busy at her make-up. What? He’d headed off towards the sea?

Kita had gotten the better of him. Still in his borrowed jersey, the doctor hurried out, clutching his fifteen-pound bag. There was no sign of the white Camaro. How had Kita managed to turn on the engine? Hastily, the doctor arranged to borrow the family’s pick-up truck. Even if he couldn’t prevent Kita’s suicide, he must somehow manage to extend someone else’s life by transplanting those organs. A grim determination seized him.

Kita reluctantly agreed to take Aki as far as the town. But when they got there she remained stubbornly glued to her seat.

“Your Mum will be worried,” he told her, but she shrugged this off. “I’ll get pretty excited when I’m about to die, you know. You could get raped,” he tried, but she responded to this threat with a bluff, “That doesn’t scare me.” Was she prepared to lay her body on the line to prevent him from killing himself? Why were all these messengers cropping up to stand in his way? His problems all began with Heita Yashiro, then there was the ex-porn star, the four times failed suicide, the driver with the nihilist fixation, the old couple off on their journey to die on the wayside, and the Koikawa brother and sister who sold life insurance and body parts. When he’d gone to see his Mum he’d found her senile, and his old sweetheart Mizuho Nishi had lost her darling son and was in mental anguish. True, Shinobu’s Mass had soothed his heart, but then he’d somehow gone and abducted her, and thereby inflicted that doctor-turned-killer on himself. Then he’d had a lecture from the lady of the house he happened to drop in on, and now here was the daughter, firmly stuck to him.

Shinobu would say, “These are all messengers from God, you know. God has decreed that this man mustn’t be killed. These messengers are all using whatever means they can to massage your heart back to normal, and draw you away from the temptation of death.”

Right, thought Kita, I’ll send her a farewell message. He got out of the car and headed for a phone booth, with Aki shadowing him, clicking away with her camera. Maybe she was planning to record the last thoughts of someone condemned to Death by Choice.

No sooner had he dialled than Shinobu came on the line, as if she’d been sitting there waiting.

“Kita? Is that you? Where are you? Are you far away? Come back as soon as you can.” She sounded dispirited. He guessed that as soon as he’d gone those vultures had gathered around again to peck and harass her. “What’s the matter? Say something!”

“You OK?”

“No, I’m feeling absolutely lousy. Come back and abduct me again, Kita.”

“Sorry, honey, that’s not on. I have to tell you goodbye.”

“Don’t! I want to see you again! What reason have you got to die? What have you ever done that could justify this?”

“It’s recompense for my sins.”

“What sins? Abduction? No one’s blaming you for anything, Kita.”

“I stole a car.”

“So? Just give it back.”

“I ordered that Yashiro be killed.”

“The guy who killed him’s to blame for that. Not you.”

“I’ve done stuff you don’t know about. No one does, except me.”

“God will forgive you.”

“God may, but I don’t forgive myself.”

“What did you do? Tell me.”

“I killed a child.”

“When? Where?”

“When I was five.”

“Who did you kill?”

“I drowned my kid brother.”

“It must’ve been an accident.”

“No. My parents thought it was too, but it was me that killed him. No one blamed me. That’s why I believed that it really was an accident. I haven’t once told myself in all these thirty years that I killed my own brother. I’d forgotten my own sin. But then one day I saw two little brothers quarrelling on a riverbank and it all came back to me. It was no accident. At the time, I definitely wanted my little brother to drown. When I understood this, I just couldn’t stop crying. Thirty years later is too late to remember something like that. No one’s going to punish me now. A little boy’s life was ended at the age of three by his big brother. And his big brother lived on for thirty years and never paid the price. I was crushed at the thought. I went down to Kyushu in order to at least confess at my father’s grave. That’s where I made the decision to condemn myself to death. I decided to go and tell my mother, but when I got there I found she’d gone senile in the four months since I’d last seen her. So neither of my parents will ever know what I did. You once said the next world is a horrible place, didn’t you? But if such a place exists, that’s where I have to go. I want to find my kid brother and beg his forgiveness, and look after him. He was only in this world for three short years. He never got to taste the pleasures of this life. I want to tell him all about this world of ours. That’s why I gave myself a week’s grace, so I could taste some of its pleasures myself.”

“Your little brother has forgiven you, I’m sure of it. He’ll be wanting his big brother to go on living.”

“He died without knowing why. That really wrenches my heart. My own death is a different matter – it’s willed, and it’s justified. Neither Yashiro nor the doctor know the reason. They both think you can commit suicide without needing to have a reason. But I wanted to tell you. You refuse to accept that I could die for no reason, see.”

“Couldn’t you go on living, for my sake? Why did you turn your back on me when I suggested we should die together?”

“The time for love is past.”

“You can atone for your kid brother’s death even if you stay alive, you know. You can commune with the dead without having to die yourself. You just have to think about him. You’d forgotten till now, but from now on you can remember. Please, come back.”

“I’ve told you this already, but if I’m resurrected, I’ll come and see you. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Aki was there beside him as he headed back to the car, but he managed to trip her up and leap in before she recovered. He gave her a merry wave and took off, leaving her standing there disgruntled, snapping her last photographs of the rapidly retreating rear end of the white coffin. For some reason she’d found it quite elating to discover that this way of living, or rather dying, was possible. She’d hopped in to the car in the hope that he might abduct her too, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Still, it had given her a certain courage. Maybe I’ll just go ahead and leave home, she thought.