Ryu Murakami - Piercing

And now he remembered whose voice that was. It’s mine, he thought. It’s me as a child. I mean, the voice I created as a child. I knew my own voice would be too weak, too childlike and vulnerable, so I chose the voice of an adult. A generic grown-up, like the man who read the news. But now I’m all grown up myself. I can speak for myself, and act for myself. Look at the woman standing there. See how she fears me. The whole world shall learn to fear me.

He remembered feeling this way once before. This time the sensation was even more intense, but the first time was when he’d hit his mother. Seeing her after all those years, he couldn’t get over how small she looked. As if she’d shrunk. Like the toy monster they used to sell that expanded in water and shrank when it dried. That was her, all dried up and shrunken. Just to see her like that had been enough for him, but then she had to go and act timid and scared. ‘You forgive your mother, don’t you?’ That’s when he hit her, when he saw how scared she was. He couldn’t bear it that she was frightened and asking for help. Asking for help is wrong. Because there isn’t any such thing as help in this world.

Like the woman standing right here, he thought — scared to death and begging me to help her. I’ll have to set her straight. I have to let her know that no matter how much she cries, no one’s going to come to her rescue. She says she doesn’t know where the ice pick is. So maybe the ice pick wasn’t under the bathtub all this time. Maybe the police took it away after all, as evidence. The police. Wait a minute. Weren’t the cops supposed to be surveilling this apartment? Ah, well. No matter. Just have to do it over there in the corner, where they can’t see us. But what about the ice pick? How can I set this woman straight without the ice pick? I’ve got to hurry. Before my arms and legs get too heavy. All the pain is gone, though. No pain. Mustn’t sleep until I’ve taught her this lesson. Very important. Wonder if she’ll try to run. Have to show her she can’t escape. Easy enough.

‘Come here a minute,’ he said.

Chiaki shook her head again and took half a step back. The man lurched forward and grabbed hold of her arm, squeezing so hard that she screamed — or tried to. All that came out of her parched throat was a raspy, whistling sound, like steam escaping. Breathing heavily, the smell of curry thick on his breath and sweat pouring down his blood-slick face, the man dragged her into the kitchenette, to the counter where the espresso machine sat. He ripped the machine’s cord from the socket and used it to bind her wrists together. She tried to break free, but he was much too strong for her and didn’t even seem to feel it when she kicked him, though the kicking made her thigh hurt again. He wound the cord around her wrists three or four times, pulling with all his might, and ended by looping it the other way, between her hands and forearms. He secured it all with a tight knot, and her skin turned a colourless, ghostly white where the cord bit into it.

‘Just tell yourself,’ he said as he crammed a balled-up dishcloth into her mouth, ‘it doesn’t hurt.’ He was slurring his words now. ‘Here’s the secret. You have to believe. If you even think it might hurt, even a little, you won’t succeed. You mustn’t doubt, for even one second, that all the pain will be gone. Look at me. Look at me.’

He yanked on her bound wrists, pulling her so close their noses nearly touched. The wound above his left eye hadn’t closed and blood was still leaking from it. The Halcion must be killing the pain, Chiaki thought. The eye remained open even though it was awash with blood. Coated with a red film, it swivelled about as if it had a mind of its own. Searching for something in its own crimson world. Like the eye of a broken android, she thought, in some science-fiction movie. Her wrists hurt, and the dishcloth stuffed in her mouth made it difficult to breathe, but she couldn’t stop looking at that eye.

I have to show her there’s no need to run away, thought Kawashima. He kept talking but was having trouble enunciating some of the words. Twice he accidentally bit his tongue, and he tried to stimulate sensation in his mouth by running a fingernail over his gums.

‘I would never, lie to you, I want you, to look at me, but focus your eyes, somewhere behind me, like one of those, 3-D pictures, do like that, that’s the secret, my mother, she put ammonia, on my hand, and one time she said, do you want a tattoo, and she sharpened this pencil, a hard one, 4H or 5H, really sharp, and she stabbed my arms, and legs with it, and she hit me, with a milk bottle, and tied up my ears, and fingers, with string, she didn’t care, she’d prise open my eyelids, with her fingers, and bring the tip, of a burning cigarette, or a needle, right up to my eye, it didn’t bother her at all, so now, do you understand, the secret?’

Chiaki had no idea what the man was raving about, but as she gazed at his swivelling eyeball her ears were registering words like ammonia and tattoo and milk bottle and needle , and when he asked if she understood she nodded. The corner of the dishcloth protruding from her mouth flapped up and down as she did so.

‘Now I’m going to, cut your Achilles, your Achilles tendons, so remember, remember to do, like I just told you.’

It was hard to make sense of what he was saying, and Chiaki absently nodded again, but when she saw the man squat down and sift through the forks and spoons and cooking scissors and other utensils scattered on the floor, the words cut your Achilles tendons replayed in her mind, and she let out a muffled squeal and struggled to get away. The man was holding on to the cord with one hand, and she managed to rip it from his grasp but in doing so brought the espresso machine crashing to the floor. The impact it made caused her to fall backwards and sit suddenly down beside it.

Where’d my knife go, Kawashima was muttering, when his eye fell on the bag he’d left beside the sofa.

‘Hang on, a second, I’ll get, my knife.’

When he staggered off towards the sofa, Chiaki tried to yank the cord loose from the espresso machine, which lay on its side bleeding dark brown liquid. It was all she could think of to do, but she succeeded only in tightening the loops around her wrists, which were swollen now and turning purple. She could see the man reflected in the shiny stainless steel surface of the machine. He was rummaging in his bag. Gritting her teeth, she began dragging the machine little by little over the floor, hoping somehow to reach the door, but with each tug the cord bit deeper into her. She was breathing rapidly through her nostrils, and her chest began to hurt. The dishcloth was making her gag, and she tried to spit it out; but it was so tightly packed in her mouth that it wouldn’t budge. Somehow she had to make it to the door and kick or pound on it in the hope that someone would respond. She remembered how the man had looked in the bathroom at the hotel, whispering in her ear as she bit his finger, and she imagined him wearing the same bland expression as he sliced through her Achilles tendons. Murdering her with the same poker-face he’d worn waiting for her in the freezing cold.

I’ve never met a man like this before, she thought. He’s not like You-know-who, of course, but he’s not like any of the others either. When he says he’ll do something, he does it, no matter what. And it isn’t just the Halcion talking. Halcion confuses your mind but it doesn’t change your personality. This is a totally new type of man.

Urging the machine along a centimetre at a time, grimacing against the pain in her wrists and thigh, she’d managed to drag it out of the kitchenette and on to the carpet when she looked up to see that the man had returned. He was holding a small package wrapped in duct tape. She was still a good two metres from the door, and when she realised she wasn’t going to make it the strength drained from her body once again. She collapsed to the carpet, and the man bent down and grabbed hold of her left ankle.