Ryu Murakami - Piercing

Well, it doesn’t matter if he’s the one or not, Chiaki thought and looked at the man, who wasn’t even bothering to wipe his fogged-up lenses. Once we’re in my room, I’ll have him shedding tears of joy and gratitude.

‘We’re almost there,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you some hot soup, or a nice stew or something, OK?’

‘Ah,’ Kawashima said in a hoarse whisper. Could he get to her room without being seen by anyone? All he knew for sure was that he needed to rest awhile. He’d rest first, and then plan the next move.

‘Try these slippers; they’re more for summer really, but they’re nice, aren’t they? They’re from Morocco. I have lots of other kinds, too. See these? Antique Chinese — isn’t the silk beautiful? Of course, they were for bound feet, so they’re just to look at, you can’t really wear them. The Moroccan ones feel a little rough if you’re not wearing socks, but with socks on they’re really comfortable, don’t you think?’

It was a spacious one-room apartment with thick carpeting everywhere except the entryway and kitchenette. A big climate-control system built into one wall emitted heat with a low, almost inaudible hum. Next to this was a sliding glass door that led to a veranda with deckchairs. The skyscrapers of West Shinjuku were visible in the distance.

The taxi had dropped them off here, a small new apartment complex midway between the shopping and residential districts of Shin-Okubo. There was no security guard in the lobby. The building was U-shaped, and in the centre was a cramped little garden with potted plants and an angel statue. The walls of the elevator were glass, so that you looked down at the angel falling away as you rose.

They’d got off at the sixth floor. In the corridor they passed an elderly man with a puppy, but the girl didn’t say anything to him and he scarcely seemed to know they were there. The corridor was fairly dim, with soft indirect lighting, and Kawashima was sure the old man hadn’t got much of a look at him.

The girl had slid an electronic key card into a slot and opened the door, then switched on a muted spotlight and introduced him to her slipper collection, which she kept on a rack in the entryway. He stepped into the Moroccan slippers she’d set out for him. They were yellow and looked like sandals.

‘Would you like some espresso?’ she asked. ‘Or would you rather have a beer or gin and tonic or something like that?’

Kawashima opted for the caffeine, and the girl pointed out her espresso machine (‘It’s from Germany!’) and took a Ginori demitasse cup from the cupboard. The machine was a professional model about the size of a large microwave oven, its stainless-steel housing and fixtures polished to a shine. She fiddled with it, then crossed the room to the closet beside her bed, where she hung up Kawashima’s coat and began to undress. She was facing him when she squirmed out of her slip and let it fall to the floor. He studied her standing there in her purple panties and marvelled at how different a woman can look in different settings. He’d gazed at and grappled with this girl’s naked body in the hotel room, the bathroom, and the corridor, but now somehow her skin seemed even whiter, almost luminous. And when he’d helped her into her panties he hadn’t noticed the wisp of downy hair curling above the waistband towards her navel. What a beautiful tummy, he thought.

She put on a grey T-shirt and a loose-fitting brown velvet skirt that wouldn’t constrict her bandaged wound. As she fastened the skirt, she looked over at Kawashima and mouthed the words Just for now! Meaning, he gathered, that she’d take it off again later.

‘Nice room,’ he said.

Thick, dark coffee began to trickle from the espresso machine into the fancy cup.

‘I don’t spend much money on anything else,’ the girl said, walking to the kitchenette. She retrieved the cup, set it on the coffee table, and took a seat on the sofa beside him. ‘A lot of girls like to go out drinking or clubbing or whatever? But I don’t, and I don’t buy that many clothes, either. I prefer to build my wardrobe little by little, you know what I mean? Just buying the things I really really like?’

Against the wall opposite the L-shaped sofa were the A/V rack and a bookshelf. There were paperback mysteries and horror novels, complete multi-volume sets of various girls’ manga, and a photograph collection entitled Corpses mixed in with a number of oversize books about tableware and furniture. She had only a smattering of videos and CDs: three domestic animated films that had been big hits, a few CDs of the ‘Greatest Classical Melodies’ sort, and ten or twelve others that were movie soundtracks or ‘best of’ collections by Japanese pop stars. The TV screen was on the small side, and the stereo was just your average mini hifi system.

‘After we rest a minute I’ll make some soup,’ Chiaki said. ‘Would you like to listen to a little music?’

The man nodded, and she slid Afternoon Classics, Volume III into the CD player. It was the one with Chopin’s Nocturnes , Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood , and Schubert’s Moments Musicales . She turned the volume low and sat back down even closer to the man, who’d already finished his espresso. She was about to say, Doesn’t the piano sound like rain? — but he spoke first.

‘It was too cold even to talk earlier,’ Kawashima said. As his body warmed in the heated room, that vision of the girl’s white belly kept replaying in his mind, and he was suddenly excited again, and nervous. ‘So, anyway, how did it go in the hospital?’

She lifted the hem of her velvet skirt and showed him the clean new bandage on her thigh. Kawashima wished he knew what she and the doctor had talked about. There was no guarantee she hadn’t told him about the notes. For all he knew, the police, tipped off by the doctor, might already be staking out this apartment and stationing men outside the door, ready to burst in on them the moment the ice-pick made its appearance. But he hadn’t noticed any cars tailing the taxi or any indications inside or outside the building that they were being watched. Well, he had time now to wait and feel things out. Surely he couldn’t be arrested just for having an ice pick, a knife, and some notes on how to commit a murder. And if the girl were to lie and say he was the one who’d stabbed her in the thigh, all the police would have to do is inspect the wounds to see that they hadn’t been made with an ice-pick or combat knife but with the tiny blades of her own Swiss Army scissors. And the depth and angle of the cuts would prove they’d been self-inflicted.

He was still gazing at the girl’s new bandage when he became aware of a voice reverberating inside him, and a shiver vibrated out from his core. Who are you kidding? the voice said. All you really care about is stabbing this girl with your ice pick . It was the same voice he’d heard several days before, by the diaper shelf in the convenience store. You still don’t get it, do you? Can’t you see that it isn’t about maybe she saw the notes, or maybe she told someone? And that it doesn’t even have anything to do with your fear of stabbing the baby? None of that really matters to you. Ask yourself this: Why did you come tagging along with this woman — to sit there snuggled up on the sofa drinking coffee? I don’t think so. You did it because you’re afraid of losing her. Why? You know perfectly well why. You were staring at her little white stomach when she changed clothes, weren’t you? That pretty tummy with the soft brown peachfuzz. And you were thinking how you’d like to slowly open a small hole in that tummy with the point of an ice pick. That’s all it’s about for you. It’s more important to you than anything else. To pull the ice pick back out and watch the thick, red blood ooze from that little hole. Your whole life has been leading up to this moment, when you reveal to the world the sort of human being you are. This is your debut as the real you. And guess who you have to thank for this opportunity?