Death by Choice

^{Chapter 5} TUESDAY

After the Mass of the night before, when he’d found himself caught between a star and the Bible, Kita slept soundly. It was as though he’d been given a respite from some vague despair.

He woke at eight. After eating the room service breakfast in bed and taking a shower, he shaved carefully and took time to do his hair. His old girlfriend’s husband left their house every morning at eight, he knew, and set off for his workplace at Kasumigaseki. Kita’s plan was to follow the opposite route, and make a direct attack on the house while the husband was absent.

He gathered that housewives usually saw off the husband and children, then did some housework till around ten, when they took a break and went out, either for shopping, or to the beauty parlour, sports gym, or to work on some hobby. If he didn’t make his raid early, he might miss his only opportunity to see her; if he got lost en route, he might very well never fulfil his wish of seeing her once more in this life. Unfortunately, the day was fine. She’d probably be in the mood to head out the door for a joyride once she’d hung out the washing.

He had to catch her before she did so. He would ring the doorbell and announce the arrival of an express delivery; both the sender and the deliverer, not to mention the package, would, of course, be himself. Choosing a different deliverer might well prove more effective at catching her off her guard, but he didn’t have the time to arrange it. She might also decide to refuse the delivery, consigning the unopened package to oblivion.

He left his room empty-handed just past nine. The most suitable attire for sneaking in behind the back of the Finance Ministry employee was probably a dark suit, but the shops weren’t yet open, so he made do with yesterday’s free fashion ensemble.

It was now the fifth day since he’d decided on his execution, and there were only three more to go. Now at last he felt he had escaped the clutches of all those people who were just after his money, the death merchants, and the professional would-be suicides, and become his own master. If Yashiro hadn’t stolen his taxi last Friday, all this would never have happened. It was thanks to the men and women that that guy had introduced him to that he had wasted two nights in Atami, not to mention signing away his corneas, his organs and his life. But hey, forget all that, he thought. Let’s just assume that I’ve been purified of everything by last night’s Mass.

Once in the train on the Odakyu Line, he settled down to think. What was the best way to announce himself in order to avenge his broken heart? What was the first thing he should say to her once he’d told her over the intercom that she had a special delivery, and brought her to the door? Would she realize who he was if he said nothing? If she asked what he’d come for, he’d tell her his name, and apologize for the unexpected visit. Naturally, she’d be bound to look put out. Surely she wouldn’t come straight out and demand to know what he was doing there, when she’d vowed never to see him again? If she did, he should answer unflinchingly, “Don’t worry. You’ll never see me again.”

Or, since he already knew he wouldn’t be welcome, perhaps he should say, “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand yen if you let me have tea with you at home here.” And if she didn’t get the joke, too bad. He should either just walk right in, or drag her out. Still, if he did that she’d take a strong stand and start treating her old lover like an abductor. It was a peaceful neighbourhood, so the police were bound to come running.

For some reason, his imagination kept tending toward negative scenarios. Surely it was possible that she’d exclaim, “Well, well, great to see you again. How are you?” the moment she saw him, and invite him in as if he were one of her many friends just dropped by. She may be indebted to him, after all, but she shouldn’t bear him any grudge.

At this point Kita left off pondering the question, and instead drew a piece of paper from his pocket and checked her address and phone number.

Her name had changed to Mizuho Higashi now she was married, but Kita hadn’t taken this on board. It was still Mizuho Nishi who came to him in dreams, transformed herself into a soft pillow, and accepted his embraces. Naturally, she was as she had been during their short honeymoon period together. But it was all rather vague and unsatisfactory, like frolicking with the figure of a ghost. There were times when he thought he heard her voice, but as soon as he listened carefully it would fade into the dialect of passing high school girls.

He could still faintly recall what the sensation of love had been like. Back then, his sensitive nerves had registered her every word, her look, her fingers as they danced on an invisible keyboard, even the gentle breeze that brushed her cheek. Those nerves of his had been primed for her alone.

Had there been anything resembling a beginning, a development and a conclusion in her love, he wondered? The relationship had abruptly ended with the introduction of Higashi, and Kita could scarcely remember how things had begun with himself. He had a feeling he’d drawn her in a game of chance at a university party, but he also seemed to remember that things had begun with him asking her out to a concert of Beethoven’s thirty-second piano sonata by an elderly Russian pianist. Or maybe that time in the park with all the cosmos in bloom had been their first date. The fact was, Kita’s memory of those times had lost all sense of continuity. The passage of time and the seasons were all jumbled up in his mind.

Not that it was all so long ago his memory would naturally become moth-eaten like this. His self of that time wouldn’t have been at all surprised by his present self. Nevertheless, recalling memories of Mizuho Nishi was rather like sorting through strands of memory from early infancy. For one thing, he didn’t really have any memories to speak of – or perhaps he did, but couldn’t really recall them. What remained clearest in his memory from childhood, he wondered?

There was the time he’d fallen from the horizontal bar in the playground, and the world had suddenly gone red. And the time he’d shoplifted that book of Dali’s paintings, and run like crazy toward the river with it.

And what of his relationship with Mizuho?

There was an image of her standing on a station platform, wearing black leather boots. The time when they hadn’t been able to stop laughing as they ate dinner together. The bit of fluff on her eyelash one winter afternoon, and the mosquito bite on her knee that summer evening.

He had to tell himself stories over and over till he half believed them, before he could resurrect happy memories of her. He couldn’t really manage it on his own; he needed to find someone to help him. And if that was impossible, then all he could do was meekly concentrate his energies on trying to forget the bad memories. This was how the memories had come to be censored and moth-eaten to the point where all that was left was a pile of junk.

And had she ever even once been conscious of her relationship with Kita as being in love? It may well be that there’d never been a time when her nerves had tingled at his presence. In fact, those nerves of hers probably only ever really responded to Higashi, he decided.

He asked the way at the police box by the south exit, and set off. On the way, he came across a flower shop, so he got them to make up a ten thousand yen bouquet of yellow roses. He wouldn’t announce an express delivery, he decided, he’d announce that he was delivering some flowers.

He sniffed at the roses as he walked. They smelt to him like the scent of Mizuho’s body.

“Come along Kazuki, hurry up. What’re you doing?”

A woman in a dark blue suit was calling to her son in a low, authoritative voice. The little Kazuki, dressed likewise in dark blue shorts and a white open-necked shirt, was in his own fantasy world, running a toy car along the guard rail and telling himself how the Ferrari hit a camel and exploded. When Kita went by, the boy suddenly yelled, “Hey Mum, those flowers are walking!”

Sure, why shouldn’t flowers walk, after all? Kita thought, and he began to run. As he ran, his spirits lifted. He would get the better of his rival from the Finance Ministry, have lunch with his wife, and at least steal a kiss, he decided.

The site Mizuho’s house stood on was of average size for the neighbourhood, but the white tent-shaped building of reinforced concrete stood out glaringly, expressing its owner’s taste in excruciating detail. Tiles designed like Arabian picture plates graced the entrance pillars and balcony. The tiled fence itself formed a flowerbed in which tulips bloomed. The tiles of the gate pillars were faded from the rays of the sun. The garage doors were closed, but he could faintly discern a Mercedes Benz through the semitransparent glass shutters.

Kita passed the house and walked on another fifty yards. Then he pulled himself together, and turned back. This time, he stopped in front of the gate, but then immediately set off again in the direction of the station. After ten yards, he turned again, went back to the gate, and pressed the intercom button below the sign carved with the name “Higashi.” A toy car and a bicycle with practice wheels stood side by side in the entrance. Until this moment, Kita had scarcely registered that this couple had children.

Clutching his bouquet, Kita retreated. Unfortunately, just at that moment the little boy called Kazuki was coming towards him, holding his mother’s hand. If they were here to visit Mizuho, Kita would lose his chance. He and Kazuki caught each other’s eye. Clutching his toy car, Kazuki pointed at the flowers. “Hey Mum, those flowers are standing there.”

Pretending he’d mistaken the house, Kita moved on, then he began to trot, trying to create more distance between himself and the mother and child. It was the kind of press-the-doorbell-and-run game he hadn’t done for twenty years or more.

“Look! The flowers are running!” Kazuki cried.

This was why he hated kids, Kita thought as he executed another detour. He’d been wandering the neighbourhood for around half an hour by now, and it was past ten thirty. He decided he should find out whether she was at home and whether her children were with her before deciding on his next course of action. He’d telephone. Would she agree to meet him then and there when he asked her to? It couldn’t happen in front of her children. Judging from the toy car and bicycle by the entrance, she may have two kids. Or perhaps there was only one. At any rate, one was clearly a boy, maybe around Kazuki’s age. If she’d had a child soon after marrying, he’d be five or six by now.

He was going to be saying farewell to everything on Friday, yet here he was still unable to make up his mind. He mustn’t be scared of a child. These flowers had business to attend to with Mizuho. He mustn’t be put off. He’d go back to the shining gateway, and press that button.

But there was no need. Mizuho Nishi was standing there in front of the Higashi home. There was no sign of a child. If he kept walking, he’d run straight into her, so Kita paused and appeared to be tying his shoelace in the shade of a tree, while he looked at her.

She hadn’t come out to meet anyone, she was going out in the white Mercedes. From this distance, all he could make out was that she was wearing a black dress, and had short hair. He must hail a taxi right away. The prospect of a taxi in this residential area seemed hopeless, but luckily several soon cruised by on the lookout for department store shoppers. Sinking into one, Kita told the driver, “Follow that Mercedes.”

He took a deep breath, and said to himself with a little smile, “OK, the chase is on.”

The white Mercedes went along Setagaya Street, on through Sangenjaya, and pulled up in the parking lot of a general hospital. Kita had leapt to the conclusion that she was setting off for the heart of the city to have a pleasant lunch chatting with some elegant friend, and the discovery that her destination was a hospital threw him into confusion. He’d have a hard time finding a vantage point from which to watch her and work out whether she was there to visit someone, or to see a doctor.

Luckily, he was still carrying the bouquet. If he walked down the hospital corridor with it pretending he was there on a visit, he wouldn’t look suspicious. He set off at a run clutching the flowers, planning to arrive before her and hide in wait behind a pillar in the lobby.

Eyes hidden behind sunglasses, Mizuho Nishi headed straight for the reception desk. Kita watched her from three yards away as she went past. Her face was so drained of life that she might have been wearing a porcelain mask. She had grown considerably thinner in the last six years, but her arms and back emanated a languid sexiness that she hadn’t had in her mid-twenties. Her listless movements were reminiscent of slowly shaken silk.

“Mizuho Nishi! Mizuho Nishi!” Kita silently chanted to himself as he watched, trying to identify the lover from whom he’d parted six years earlier with the wife before his eyes. At any rate, Mizuho Nishi was obviously alive. Kita felt gratitude to some higher force for this.

She collected a form from the reception desk, turned away from him and walked off, but then paused as if at a sudden thought. She turned, her hand went to the back of her head in a gesture that seemed to brush away the sensation of something clinging there. Kita averted his eyes, his heart racing uncomfortably. Then she turned back, and walked off toward the elevator, her heels clicking loudly as she went.

Kita checked the name above the reception desk where she had received her form, and saw that it belonged to the Neurology Outpatient section. He couldn’t imagine what illness this could be. Having no urge to go up to the relevant waiting room, he decided to hang about on a sofa in the lobby sipping oolong tea until her consultation was over.

Hospitals are perennially crowded places. There are patients who commute from home, as well as those who are hospitalized for months, and some who are brought in against their will. The population rises and falls from one day to the next. No one would come in the hope of dying, of course, but it takes a certain amount of courage to place your life in the hands of others by coming here. Having sold his organs, Kita would inevitably end up in a hospital, he realized, whether he wanted to die there or not. This thought prompted him to look around, checking out the sort of place where he’d be brought as soon as he’d died.

The corpse would come in an ambulance and be offloaded at the ambulance depot, then they’d probably take it straight to some empty operating theatre.

Following the diagram of the hospital layout, Kita headed for the surgical department. Bandaged patients were moving about in the corridor on crutches or in a wheelchair. Others, either awaiting or just out of surgery, were going around with a drip stand attached to a tube in their belly.

Once removed, Kita’s organs would be frozen and delivered to their various recipients, his belly would be closed up, and what remained of him wiped clean, put in a case with dry ice, and conveyed to the underground morgue.

He went back to check the diagram and see where the morgue was located, but it wasn’t listed. “Are you visiting someone, or looking for a ward?” asked a passing nurse.

“I’m going to the Neurology Section,” he replied.

“Third floor up on the elevator and turn right.”

Kita bowed briefly in thanks for this simple explanation. Giving up his search for the morgue, he returned to the sofa in the lobby, and sank into a daze. This area also served as the waiting room for the Internal Medicine outpatients, and it was thronged with waiting people. It suddenly occurred to Kita that he may be in the way here, so he walked some distance away and found an empty seat near the lift, where he settled down to wait for Mizuho to emerge.

He observed a middle-aged man in pyjamas, sitting in front of an old man, knees touching. They were deep in conversation.

“Nah, these patients’re all too weak to be able to do away with themselves. Folks what commit suicide are generally hale and hearty. Take jumping out of a window, now. How’re y’gonna get yer body to make the leap if it won’t do as it’s told, eh? Your body’s still good ’n heavy, the splat’d be spectacular I’d say, but as for me, I’m all dried up and light as a leaf. Any passing breeze blows me half off me feet. If I was to come tumblin’ to earth, I’d make no more sound than the tap as a bamboo broom falls over. You’ve got no problem. You’d make a fine thud. Hangin’ yerself’s tough, too. There’s that hook in the ceiling for hangin’ the drips from, but whaddya do about a rope? The nurse ain’t gonna bring one for you, is she now?”

“All we can do is wait for the doctors to kill us.”

“You’d imagine there’s all kindsa ways of dyin’, wouldn’t yer, but there’s not that many y’know. Still, I’d say someone who’s spent a lotta time thinkin’ through various options would die well.”

“I’d like to live a bit longer, personally. I haven’t eaten all I want yet. I’d like to wave good riddance to this hospital food as soon as I can, and make a real glutton of myself with delicious food.”

“True enough, hospital food’s horrible stuff. How do they manage to make it so awful, eh? It’s a crime to feed that rubbish to old folks who don’t have much longer to live. They oughta be ashamed of themselves. The hospital food down in Kansai’s a bit better, ya know.”

“I’d love to eat a good filling bowl of ramen noodles.”

“Sure thing. Wouldn’t it be good to kill yerself with ten bowls of the very best noodles tucked away in yer belly, eh?”

“I’d also have grilled eel, whole boiled shark’s fin, stewed abalone, smoked and pickled radish, Korean herb-stuffed chicken, and oysters on the shell.”

“Y’ve really got a thing about food, haven’t ya. I’m full of awe.”

“If you don’t die of cancer, how would you like to die, Dr Matsui?”

“I’d die over a woman.”

“If you take that medicine you’d probably manage it.”

“Sure thing. Pop some Viagra and die makin’ a nurse gasp, eh?”

“But it doesn’t last past the grave, does it? Just like joking about how to kill yourself.”

“True enough. Once yer dead you don’t think. You can’t complain then. So be as selfish as yer want, I say. That’s livin’, that is.”

“I saw a war documentary once long ago, with a scene of an Australian prisoner of war having his head cut off. Just as the sword was about to come down on him, he flinched and pulled his neck in. He knew he was about to die, and flinched because he imagined the pain to come. It made me feel really strange somehow, to see that.”

“Hmm. Yeah. I’d say the guy who jumps from a building probably grimaces as he’s about to hit the pavement too. It’s gonna hurt like hell, but the next instant yer dead, aren’t ya.”

“That’s right. I saw the same thing in a media photo from the Vietnam War. A spy who’s about to be shot, kneeling there with the pistol at his temple, his face all twisted. The bullet’s going to strike him straight in the head, so he wouldn’t actually feel any pain.”

“He might feel pain for zero point something seconds.”

“Isn’t there any way of dying that doesn’t involve any pain, Dr Matsui?”

“My field’s archeology. I don’t have a clue about such things. But I hear they put monkeys on the lab table in biology and do studies, kill ’em in various ways and gather the data from their nerve responses. Lookin’ for the least painful method. Those studies apparently help in developing new means of execution, and surgical operations.”

“They torture monkeys for that?”

“Someone at the research centre told me you can hear the screams of their death throes every day.”

“Monkeys are killed so that people can die more easily? I hate pain, but I could put up with a little needle prick to start the process. They just use an injection for executions in the States these days, isn’t that so?”

“Yeah, when it comes down to it, that’s proof you’re alive. You can only say ‘ouch’ while yer living, can’t ya? Nothing hurts once yer dead.” At this point, the old man with the Kansai accent noticed Kita sitting there listening to their conversation in fascination, and addressed him. “You’ve been eavesdroppin’ on our odd conversation about death and pain and so on, haven’t you? Are you here to visit someone?”

Kita gave a nod, and replied that an acquaintance of his was in the Neurology ward.

“Neurology ward, eh? What’s his problem?” asked the fat middle-aged man.

“I don’t really know.”

“I think Neurology’s for patients with things like autonomic dystonia, or headaches, or neuroses,” said the old man.

“Not necessarily. You also get patients with serious problems like Parkinson’s, or progressive muscular dystrophy, and things like that.”

Kita glared at the pyjama-clad man, outraged. It made him mad that this guy was trying to label Mizuho as a patient with some serious disease.

“You don’t have anything wrong with you yourself?” asked the old man.

“I’m about to die,” Kita replied.

“Eh?” said the old man, but he ignored this and went on, “What problems do you both have?”

“I’ve got cancer. They took it out of the oesophagus, but now it’s gone into the lymph glands. I’m finished.”

The other man let the old man finish his announcement, then he said, “I’ve got diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. How do you know you’re about to die?”

“I’ve decided on it.”

The two looked at each other, the unspoken question “Why?’ frozen on their faces. Just at this moment, the elevator door opened, and Mizuho Nishi appeared.

“Good luck,” Kita said to them, and set off after her. As she was stepping out of the hospital entrance, he spoke.

“Mizuho-san.”

Though her name had been called, she didn’t turn immediately. She walked on three paces, then slowly turned to face him. Even once her eyes behind their sunglasses had fixed on him, she didn’t react.

“You’re Mizuho Nishi, aren’t you?” Kita asked a little anxiously.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice pitched high.

“I’m Yoshio Kita.”

There was a moment’s pause, then Mizuho raised her voice in a little cry that could have been either a scream or a cry of delight. Then she stood still, lost for words. At least she hadn’t forgotten him, apparently.

“Could we have a bit of time to talk? I won’t be a nuisance,” Kita began, but at this she seemed to return to her senses.

“Why are you here?” she asked accusingly.

“I’m sorry. I followed you by taxi from your house. I wanted to meet you one more time before I die.”

“I can’t do anything for you. Please go home.”

“I didn’t have any other way to meet you. I’ve only got a little time left.”

“Goodbye. I’m sorry.”

Mizuho hid her face with her left hand, and turned to escape in the direction of the parking lot. She walked with a somehow unnatural rhythm to her step. Kita ran quickly up behind her, slipped around in front of her, and continued his pleas.

“Wait. Please. Just hear me out for five minutes. I won’t ever come to you again, I promise. I don’t want to destroy the life you’ve made for yourself. Believe me. At least please take these flowers. Show me some pity, I won’t be here any more after this Friday. Just five minutes please.”

Kita blurted out his stream of imprecations, but Mizuho seemed not to hear a word. Kita couldn’t fathom why she was being so cold.

They arrived at the white Mercedes. Kita redoubled his pleas.

“Why are you so scared? I won’t do anything. I was wrong to just show up out of the blue like that. I can see why you were surprised. I just suddenly thought of doing this. I thought I have to see Mizuho. Just five minutes! Come and have tea with me. I beg you on my life.”

Mizuho put the key into the door, then turned to Kita. “I’m not afraid of anything,” she declared. “It’s just that the worst possible thing has already happened.”

Mizuho seemed so stern and cold it was as if she was keeping her distance from the very air around her, let alone Kita’s words and bouquet. She looked as if at the slightest touch she would murder him. Her face was like a demon’s mask. Kita put the flowers on the bonnet of the car, and stood back in silence, waiting for her to leave.

Mizuho ignored the flowers, and got into the car. “Good riddance, and I hope you have an accident,” Kita thought vindictively as he watched her through the window. But then the lock on the passenger door clicked open, and she was beckoning him to get in. Clueless about what was going on in her mind, Kita picked up the bouquet again, and gingerly climbed into the passenger seat.

There was nothing of the Mizuho he knew. He could only guess that some dreadful thing must have happened that had put her so on edge. But he still didn’t have the courage to ask what it was. Mizuho started the engine, and took Route 246 out in the direction of Aoyama.

It was she who finally broke the painful silence.

“Thanks for the flowers.”

“Why did you decide to visit me? You were saying something rather odd just now.”

“Forget it.”

“You won’t be here after Friday, you say?”

“Certain circumstances mean I can’t be in this country any more. I’m leaving on Friday. Thank you so much for changing your mind. I’m so happy we can talk like this.”

“I’m sorry about how I was just now. I just couldn’t control my emotions. I’m impressed you recognised me. I’m a different person from six years ago, aren’t I? That person’s quite invisible now.”

“Are you ill?”

“I have nerve pain all over my face, and palpitations. I was having fainting fits earlier, but that’s subsided now. I’ve been forbidden to drive, in fact, but I don’t want to see anyone, so I need to use the car. I have to be able to control my emotions while I’m driving, so it’s actually quite a good form of rehabilitation.”

Mizuho wasn’t the sort to openly express emotions as far as Kita could recall. Her feelings were always well hidden under her skin. Kita knew. He’d been so thoroughly taken in by her straight face that he’d let the Finance Ministry man get under his guard, after all.

“Your marriage must be good I guess. You live in a house that would even stand up to an earthquake, and I’ll bet your kid is cute, too.”

“You don’t know anything, do you?” Mizuho moaned softly. She stopped the Mercedes on a side road that led to the Outer Gardens of Meiji Shrine, and turned off the engine. A wood shielded the area from the noise of the city beyond. There was nothing but a single restaurant and a wedding parlour on the quiet street. Mizuho rested her cheek on the steering wheel and closed her eyes, trying to control the emotion that rose in waves through her body. It was as if she was resisting a wave of nausea and swallowing down the urge to vomit. She gave a sigh, cast him a sidelong glance, and suddenly murmured, “He died. My child died.”

Kita was dumbfounded. He had simply had the image of a happy family life in a plush part of town. Now at last it was all clear to him – the urge not to see anyone, and the nervous problems.

“I’ve finally got to the point where I can talk about it. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. If you don’t, I’ll go back home now.”

“Tell me,” said Kita. He knew there was nothing he could do for her, but he hoped he could at least atone for the mistaken assumptions he’d made about her and the grudges he’d held against her all this time.

He was a child of four, named Shingo. One day he’d suddenly developed a fever of forty degrees, and lost consciousness. Antibiotics failed to work, and after ten days of battling the mystery virus, he had succumbed. He had been at his most delightful. He was learning to ride a bicycle. He’d named his bike “The Dinosaur Tank,” and was always riding off on it to play with his little friend Takuya nearby, a toy car in the basket. He was in the infants grade at kindergarten, and he went happily along there each day. He was good at playing up to adults, and he would constantly snuggle up on his teacher’s knee, and never do any harm to his friends.

He was a child who was gentle both with people and with things.

He had a pet goldfish, but when he came back from a trip to find it dead, he was inconsolable. They made a grave for it together, and when she said “Let’s pray that he can swim around happily in the next world,” he’d asked her innocently what “the next world” was. It’s another world where dead people go, she replied. What kind of people are there? he asked. Your granddad from Kagoshima, and fine people from the past, and Charlie Chaplin, she said. And then he’d said, “I’d like to go too, then.” He loved Chaplin movies, and used to imitate the way he walked. There’s a scene in the film called Circus where Chaplin walks along a tightrope, and a lot of monkeys come along and get in his way. Shingo laughed uproariously at that. The monkeys swarm over Chaplin’s face and bite his nose, and Shingo imitated it in bed that night, trying to bite his mother’s nose.

He had slept with his mother since the first week after his birth. It was hot in summer, but in winter she held him close, his warm body like sleeping with a hot water bottle. How many times a day had she kissed those smooth cheeks? And now, suddenly she found herself lying there without him, unable to sleep. He smelt of saliva, and of urine. Sometimes he’d kick her in the stomach, or climb onto her face, but now that she couldn’t hear his sleeping breath she felt she never slept. It was more than a year since he’d died, but still her hands went out to find him in bed. Then she’d realize he wasn’t there, an empty sorrow would overcome her, and she’d weep into the pillow. Night and day she thought about him. It was just as if she’d lost her own arm or leg. Like reaching out as usual to turn off the alarm, and finding she didn’t have an arm. And though the arm was gone, it was still part of her consciousness. That’s how it felt. He was dead, but she felt as if he was simply hiding around some corner. Even now it felt as if she could turn around and find Shingo sitting there. When she was in the house and heard a sound, she’d find herself going to check. Maybe he’s playing alone in the playroom, she’d think, maybe he’s suddenly come back from the dead. She often heard things. Mummy, I’ve finished, she’d hear him say – he’d always announced this loudly when he’d finished on the potty. Mummy, I want some milk; Mummy, please read to me; Mummy, I want some potato; Where are you Mummy? His voice would suddenly come to her. Whenever the intercom sounded, she’d hear his footsteps running down the corridor. “Super hyper bomber kick!” or “Squeak squeak said the samurai rat,” he’d call.

Shingo was part of his mother’s body – he’d been inside it once, after all. Since the day he died, she’d been only half alive. Her life was paired with his as a single entity. They had slept and woken together, she’d eaten with him, laughed with him, cried with him. Shingo loved pork cutlets, and they often went to the Bodaiju Restaurant in Futako Tamagawa for a fillet set course. He’d devour an adult serving, then eat his mother’s ice cream as well. He refused to eat a balanced diet. Usually all he’d eat was white rice and fruit. The only fish he’d eat was raw tuna and sake-dried mackerel. He also like fermented soybeans, with lots of seaweed flakes sprinkled over it, so that his face became coated in bits of seaweed when he ate it. He’d looked forward to learning piano when he turned five, but this was never to be. His father had promised to take him to Okinawa on his fifth birthday.

She wanted to go back to the days when Shingo was alive. She felt she must have been too happy then, that’s why it had happened. Those five years since she’d parted from Kita were probably the happiest in her whole life. Her husband was kind. He didn’t try to hold her back, he let her come and go as she wanted, and he left the decorating of their new house and the designing of the garden up to her. She’d got catalogues from Italy and England, and chosen wallpaper and curtains and tiles to suit her own taste, and taken her time to create the home. His family put up all the money for it. Since Shingo was born, her husband’s mother had come every day and helped with the housework, so it had all been quite easy. There was no friction between them. Her husband was good about cooking and cleaning up, he loved his wife, he was always getting back from work past midnight but it didn’t bother her. If a man has to deal with children, his maternal instincts come out. Her husband was good at teaching Shingo words and numbers. He’d tug at his own ears and say playfully “I’m Mr Spock,” or put on glasses and wrap a yellow scarf around himself like a robe and say “I’m the Dalai Lama.” If you asked what time it was he’d look at the clock and think, then say things like “It’s seventy three minutes past three.”

What would Shingo have become when he grew up? she wondered.

He’d said he wanted to be a conductor. When some orchestral music began on the television or video, he’d stand on the sofa and conduct. There had been so many possible futures, if he’d just lived. He’d have started elementary school next April. She’d always have similar thoughts whenever a new phase in his life would have begun, she knew. If he was alive now, he’d have reached this or that stage in his piano training, she’d think; or, I wish I’d taken him to view autumn leaves while he was alive; or, he’d be coming back all caked in mud from a football match. But she also thought that perhaps unspeakable things would have happened in his future, so maybe it was better that he wasn’t alive. There was bullying when you reached adolescence, and maybe he would have got depressed and committed suicide. The world was less and less safe, and he couldn’t have hoped to live the luxurious life of an earlier era. He’d escaped all that unhappiness, so perhaps he’d gained something by dying so young. After all, everyone dies, don’t they? The only difference is whether it happens early or late.

Put that way it sounded harsh, she knew. But she couldn’t bear to say it any other way. Since Shingo’s death, problems had arisen between her and her husband. The two of them had been united as a couple because of their son. Her husband seemed to be seeing some other woman. She could tell. He was smart, so he was careful to get rid of all the evidence before he came home, but his constant brightness and carefree air was because he was having a relationship with someone healthy. She herself had developed this nervous disorder since Shingo’s death, and could no longer smile. He never made the slightest attempt to look at her. If she left home, he’d doubtless go right on working as usual, and calling in on this other woman. But she wasn’t going to divorce. Why should she do him that favour? This house belonged to Shingo and his mummy. And Shingo wouldn’t want daddy not to be there. He loved his daddy. As for his daddy, he was a typical bureaucrat. He’d dealt with the pain early on, and simply said now that all the grieving in the world wasn’t going to bring the boy back. You had to forget the painful things as soon as possible or it would affect your work, he said. Try your hardest to consider how best to distribute the nation’s tax. You can change your mood by doing money calculations. But she couldn’t do that. Her job had been to bring up Shingo. She’d lost both him and her job. No, it was truer to say that she was still carefully looking after him. Inside her that’s what she was doing. He continued to grow inside her mind. She often dreamed of him. The Shingo of her dreams spoke with a strangely adult voice. Don’t be too sad, mummy, he said, you’ll make me want to cry too. Just recently she’d dreamed he walked in the door as a young man, announcing he’d come home. Where’ve you been? she asked. I’ve been worrying about you. I’ve been travelling round the world, he announced. I’ve seen the Iguazú Falls, and Niagara, and I’ve walked in the Sahara. When she wept in her dream to see he was alive, he comforted her. I’m sorry, he said, I didn’t want to die either, but I had to go, God had some business with me. I’ll come back now and then, so please have a pork cutlet cooked waiting for me. These dreams were very painful for her. She felt he must feel most at home when he was in her dream. It was only his mother or father who could dream of him like this. And his father’s head was full of money and another woman, so it was her responsibility. If she didn’t welcome him back in her dreams, he’d have nowhere in this world to exist any more. That would be too sad for him, so she’d decided to keep on living despite the pain.

Mizuho paused at this point, took a handkerchief from her handbag, and wiped the tears that flowed from her eyes beneath the sunglasses. Then she handed Kita a snapshot in a plastic cover, of her son as he had once been. He was a long-lashed boy. He was eating an ice cream, a white creamy moustache around his mouth. He didn’t strike Kita as some unknown child. He was the child of Kita’s former lover, and when Kita told himself this boy was no longer in this world, he felt an urge to at least look after the boy in the next. He also wished he could do something for this mother who had grieved so much this past year. Could he help in some way? he asked her. She shook her head silently.

“We won’t meet again, but please go on looking after Shingo. I’m sorry I made you tell such a painful story.”

He sought her hand to shake it, but she gripped his feebly in return. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Somewhere far away,” was all he replied.

“You’re not going to kill yourself, surely?”

Her perspicacity startled him, but he dissembled with a smile. He planned to leave without giving vent to any desire for revenge over lost love.

“I wanted to die too, so I know, you see. You’ve lost all hope, haven’t you? Haven’t you, Kita?”

“Goodbye. I have to go.”

Kita opened the car door, and set off walking down the main road, without turning to look back. Mizuho’s voice followed him.

“You mustn’t do it! Don’t die!”

Her voice came to him as faintly as if it were a hallucination.

The boy had died, but he still managed to live on in his mother’s memory. He was even now travelling, eating pork cutlets, learning piano, and speaking in a grown-up voice, but if his mother’s attention was suddenly distracted by something else, he’d vanish. She’d have to reassemble him, all of him, from his face and voice to his limbs.

That child had once lived in this world, walked its streets, played with shining and moving things in woods, by rivers, in parks or in his playroom, and been affected by emotions at every moment. But the child his mother was looking after now was not that child. He was just like him, but he was a phantom, made of an entirely different substance. She cared for him in the full knowledge that he was a phantom. One can still feel pain in a limb that’s been severed, so it’s only natural to go on loving a child who’s died. It doesn’t matter if it’s a phantom, as long as you can maintain the illusion that the child is still alive.

After he’d achieved his wish to meet his old lover, and had learned of her loss, Kita Yoshio sat alone in his hotel room weeping. It wasn’t his own child, and he’d never met the boy. The child who had been born between the woman who’d slighted him and the Finance Ministry bureaucrat was no more to Kita than a tree in the wood. What did it matter whether the tree lived or died? Still, his tears continued to flow.

Given that he was due to die on Friday, Kita thought to himself, would he continue to live like that boy in someone’s memory? Was there anyone who’d look after him in his phantom form?

That boy had no past to speak of, it was true. He’d only lived for four years. Those four years were a golden time for his mother. She had to hang onto the memory of his short time on earth in order to retrieve for herself those four lost golden years.

Kita, on the other hand, had a past of more than thirty years, but they were only there to be forgotten. As death approached, his consciousness should naturally slip into remembering mode, and he should begin to lament all that he would miss. But there was no sign of this happening. Death was weightless, of course, but his own death seemed as light as a sigh.

This thought didn’t make him particularly sad. In fact, it felt more like a little joke if anything. It was funny that a man who was about to die should be crying for a boy who’d died, and pitying his ex-lover who lived with the boy’s phantom.

It was already past four on Tuesday afternoon.

Alone like this in the hushed room, another self appeared, one who was exactly like him but made of a completely different substance. This was the fellow who’d decided to die on Friday. Before he knew it, Kita had started doing what this fellow told him to. The fellow had a very persuasive way about him – that was what had led to this.

To everyone there comes a moment when your life blazes at its finest.

Well, thought Kita, he hadn’t had any such moment, and it didn’t look as if he was ever going to have one. At this point in his thoughts, his Other broke in.

In that case, you should die. In the last moment before death, your life will attain its great climax. Needless to say, of course, you’ll need strength for this. And money. You’ll leave it too late if you wait till you’re over sixty and drawing your pension. Everyone dies sooner or later, they don’t need any help to do it, but where’s your blazing moment if you leave things to fate? Right now, you have the strength for it. You have the money. Now’s your chance. The desire for death is simply part of the territory for humans, like the desire for food or sex. It’s OK, you’re not crazy. You’re a totally normal guy. If you see a fine woman you want to sleep with her, if you’re mocked you get mad. When you hear the sad tale of that poor little boy and his Mum, you weep. You have feelings that respond from moment to moment, just like they should. You’re all you should be – and that’s precisely why you want to die.

Ever since Kita had decided to die next Friday, his feelings had been torn this way and that. If things went on like this, he was worried he might suddenly panic when the moment to die actually arrived. He had to admit it, he was scared of death. He still had three days to go, but at this stage time felt like it was passing awfully quickly. When it came to the crunch, his urge to die might just desert him. This was Death by Choice, after all. Choice included the freedom to choose not to do it. If he chose against it, though, what was his Saturday going to feel like? The very thought made him shudder. He felt an overwhelming sense of futility, a deep melancholy and regret… and at this point, his Other spoke again.

I’ll be with you. I’ll make good and sure you die, don’t worry. Even if you waver, the desire for death has seized your subconscious and it won’t let go. It’ll take a lot more than a bit of dithering to shake it off.

But he hadn’t even decided how to do it yet.

Try a process of elimination. How about drowning, for instance?

He’d once come close to drowning at a beach where he shouldn’t have been swimming. A wave had dumped him, and he’d been left foundering underwater. He struggled to rise to the surface, but he’d lost all sense of direction and ended up swimming sideways instead. He was sure he’d drown, but when he relaxed his face rose naturally to the surface. How delicious the air had been! He had this habit of trying to get out of dying, so it might take a bit more to achieve than he’d hoped.

How about hanging? All you need is a bit of rope.

But I haven’t been condemned to be hanged. My eyeballs would pop out, I’d shit myself – no way!

OK, how about jumping in front of a train? You could time it well.

I don’t want to mix my Mum up in all the compensation problems that would involve.

An electric shock to the heart? It’s easy.

I’m not an electric guitar, you know.

Take potassium cyanide? That’s how spies die.

I’ve always hated swallowing medicine.

Well then, how about you charter a helicopter or a Cessna, and jump out without a parachute? You’d feel great.

The problem is, where would I land? If I land in the sea, I drown. If I land in some town, I’ll involve other people. If I land in a forest I’ll be skewered on a tree.

OK then, don’t make up your mind. You’ve still got three days. It’s more important to get yourself into a state of mind where you know you have to die, than to worry about how. People can die even when they have no reason to, after all, so it’s even easier if you’ve got one. Sad or happy, these last three days are going to be the best in your life, see. Don’t just sit there shut away in your hotel room, get moving!

And so, urged on by his Other, and without any real purpose, Kita prepared to sally forth into the night streets of the capital. It wasn’t a good idea to be alone. And besides, he wanted to shut that Other up.

The telephone rang – the hotel telephone, not the cell phone. The blinking light told him he had a message. He picked up the receiver, and there was Shinobu’s voice.

“Kita? Where’ve you been? I’ve telephoned again and again. I couldn’t get you on your cell phone – I thought you might be dead.”

“No, it’s still only Tuesday.”

“You OK? What are you planning on doing now?”

“I haven’t decided. I thought maybe I’d have a meal.”

“Buy me one please. OK? I’m in the studio right now doing a shoot. I’ll come round there at five.”

Kita had a premonition that she was up to something.

“Yashiro and those yakuza guys aren’t involved, are they?”

“No way. This isn’t to do with business.”

“Why do you want to spend time with me? It’s weird.”

“Don’t you want to see me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well then, don’t argue, just meet me.”

He was only too happy to do as she told him. He was inclined to do all he could for Shinobu – after all, she’d promised him rebirth, even if it was only a joke.

Shinobu turned up in the hotel lobby unaccompanied. She was dressed casually, in jeans with ripped knees and a red yachting parka, with a bandana around her head and no make-up, giving her a completely different look from the night before. “I’d love to go somewhere far away,” she said in a wheedling tone.

There was a limit to how much he was inclined to indulge her, but he asked anyway just to see what she’d say.

“A mountain hot spring resort.”

Hot spring resorts again! Why did women love going to these places? At Kita’s bitter smile, Shinobu’s expression became pleading.

“I’ve just felt so empty and forlorn since last night. It’s your fault, Kita. I wanted to pack everything in, work included, and run away somewhere. Let’s run away together.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it.”

But her eyes were laughing as she spoke. Kita stalled by inviting her to eat with him at the hotel, but she held her ground. “We’re going to the mountains,” she insisted. Kita couldn’t guess what her plan was, but he allowed himself be sent back to his room to pack, and then checked out of the hotel. “Look at you,” Shinobu said when she saw him with the backpack on his back. “You’re all set for the mountains with that on.”

They hopped in a taxi and set off for Tokyo Station. The only plan was to head for the mountains, they didn’t have any particular destination in mind. “Let’s just get on the bullet train and get out of Tokyo,” Shinobu insisted. “Once we’re out of the city there’ll be hot springs all over the place.”

They took seats in the first class carriage of the six thirty-five northbound bullet train, heading for Niigata. Before boarding Shinobu went crazy at the station kiosk, buying chocolate-coated cracker sticks, silverberry juice, cheese paste, banana cake, vinegared squid, persimmon peas, strawberry rice-cakes and so forth, and then settled down to pig out on them. She was just trying to cheer herself up from the miseries and rage of normal life, she explained. Her hands and mouth never paused for an instant; she ate with the vigour of someone literally eating the house down. Kita noticed that she had her own particular style of getting through the food. First off she consumed five cracker sticks. Next was a mouthful of cheese paste. Then came one vinegared squid tentacle, after which she demolished a rice cake. Then she spent a while picking out the persimmon peas from the packet, after which she’d suddenly remember and take a deep swig of the silverberry juice. When the food wagon came around in the carriage, she bought beer and Oolong tea, and after slaking her thirst with these she set in on the banana cake. Finally, she returned to the crackers.

Sitting beside Shinobu with her blatantly terrible eating style, Kita contented himself with picking at the contents of a local specialty bento. He couldn’t summon much of an appetite.

Once the train was past Takasaki, Shinobu’s blood sugar levels seemed to have returned to normal. She heaved a sigh and said, “Let’s get off at the next stop.” They’d bought tickets as far as Echigo Yuzawa, but they hopped off one stop short, at Jomo Kogen.

The carriage had been nearly empty since Takasaki. Only five others besides themselves got off at Jomo Kogen. Both the station and the street in front were silent and deserted. Mountains rose in the distance, lit by the moon. Apparently this was the closest mountain hot spring resort area to Tokyo.

They made inquiries at the station about whether there was some secluded hot spring hotel in a nearby village. “A secluded hot spring hotel?” repeated the young station attendant, and thought for a while, his eyes following Shinobu as she danced around in the empty station, humming and looking at the posters on the wall.

“Hoshi Hot Springs is the best. But it’s too late to get there now. The last bus has gone. You’ll have to get a taxi.”

“No problem,” Kita said. He got the telephone number, and made the call from the public phone booth. The man from the hot springs sounded rather reluctant, but he agreed to let them stay without an evening meal.

The taxi ride into the mountains took about an hour. A little before nine, they arrived at the lone hotel building in the woods, an area reputed to provide frequent sightings of monkeys. They were shown to a room with two sets of bedding already laid out for them on the floor; the table held little dishes of boiled vegetables, grilled fish, pickles and rice balls that seemed intended as side dishes for sake. The waitress informed them that they could take a bath any time of day or night, and there were drinks in their refrigerator.

A stream flowed beneath the window, spanned by a corridor leading to a wing on the far bank. Apparently this wooden hot spring hotel was over a hundred years old, built in the early years of the Meiji era, and was closed during the winter months.

“OK if we sleep in the same room?” Kita asked.

Shinobu looked much more cheerful than she had when they were in Tokyo. “Shall I read you some more from the Bible?” she said.

“No, that’s enough Bible. But is it really OK for you to be in this remote place? You must have work tomorrow, surely?”

“It’s fine. I’ve sent those spooks packing. I want to give them a hard time, you see.”

“You ran away?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I’m serious. I’m taking my revenge on the world.”

“It’s like I’ve kidnapped you or something.”

“I’m the one who’s kidnapped you.”

“No one’s going to see it that way. What do you get out of kidnapping me, after all? But if someone abducted you, everyone’d go crazy. And there’d be money in it.”

“No one would pay the ransom.”

“I bet they would. The production guys would.”

“No way, not that stingy company boss.”

“Well the politicians you’ve been with would then. You’re in a position to cause the downfall of two members of parliament plus a top bureaucrat from the Treasury. You’re a walking bomb for them.”

Shinobu was sitting up on one of the beds like a little god of happiness. “Kita, would you abduct me please?” she said, gazing flirtatiously up at him as he stood by the window. In the hotel the night before, Kita had dreamed of running away with Shinobu. Needless to say, it had only been a fantasy. And yet here she was, begging him to abduct her. Maybe a whole new life had begun for him suddenly.

“I’ve got two things I absolutely must do before I die. One of them’s a ski jump.”

Professional ski jumpers looked as though they just went bouncing gaily along, but apparently they were white with fear when they first started. The beginning was like a prison sentence or death dash to escape. The criminal hurls himself from the prison down the perilous cliff face in the swirling snow, not knowing if he’ll live or die, and if by pure luck he lands safely, he grasps both life and freedom. No one can believe they’ll survive, that first time. Sure they’d die, and the prison guards wouldn’t bother pursuing them. That “freedom or death” leap had become a competitive sport that judged participants on their form and the length of their jump.

“If I tried a ski jump it’s quite possible I’d die, it seems to me.”

“Kind of like committing suicide by jumping to your death, eh?”

“So the order should be to do the other thing before I try the jump, in fact.”

“And what’s the other thing?”

“To abduct someone.”

“Kita, you’ve been wanting to abduct me all along! This is great!”

“The success rate for abductions is pretty low, you know.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll help.”

“OK, let’s try it.”

“Sure. But first, let’s have a bath.”

They changed into bathrobes and headed off along the squeaky wooden corridor for the bathhouse, their slippers flapping on the floor. Steam filled the dimly lit bathhouse, a room as cavernous as a temple hall. The big bath was reminiscent of a holding tank for fish. It was divided in four, with a log across the middle of each. A group of old couples, three middle-aged ladies who made no attempt to hide their breasts from sight, and an awkward-looking young man were all soaking themselves blankly. Kita and Shinobu disrobed behind the screen, then stepped together into a vacant bath. The bottom was lined with fist-sized stones.

“This feels great.” Shinobu’s naked body swayed palely in the soft, translucent water. Blissfully she scooped water in the palm of her hand and poured it down her back. Kita was blissful for different reasons – he was tasting the delight of seeing with his very own eyes this image of his adored idol’s naked body before the photographs had hit the stands. She was no phantom, but it nevertheless seemed to him she’d disappear if he reached out to touch her. Perhaps it was the hot spring steam that made him feel this way. At any rate, that’s how he chose to feel.

“She’s been abducted by me. I’m in charge of that body of hers until Friday,” he told himself. In order to convince himself, he’d go through the motions of the abductor, one by one. First off, he should let the production chief or the manager know he’d abducted her. An abductor always made some demand. They’d suspect him if he didn’t. OK, he’d demand ransom money. What would be a suitable sum? He shouldn’t go too high or too low. Maybe thirty million would be about right. He ought to make all sorts of unreasonable demands as well. Acting wilful was her responsibility.

Once out of the bath, he bought some milk in the vending machine, and as he sipped it Kita stood at the phone booth by the corridor and dialled the chief’s home number.

A woman who was evidently the wife answered. “This is the Fujioka residence,” she said, in a voice like a slowed-down recording. Taking his cue from her polite way of speaking, Kita began, “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. Would your husband be in?”

“My husband is out just now. To whom am I speaking?”

“My name is Yukichi Fukuzawa,” Kita said, borrowing the name of the famous early Meiji scholar whose face was on the ten thousand yen note. “Could you pass on a message for me please?”

“Mr. Fukuzawa, is it? I’ll take your message.”

“I have Shinobu Yoimachi. Don’t inform the police. Just prepare thirty million yen. That’s the message. Thanks.”

“Er, could you explain?”

“This is an abduction. I’m serious. I’ll phone again. Goodbye.”

Shinobu stood beside him listening as she drank down a can of Pocari Sweat. “That was cool, Kita,” she said admiringly. Kita grinned shyly. “Let’s go back to the room and take a rest,” he said. “I’d like to hear some more of that Bible.”

They settled down on the bed and sipped beer while Shinobu read from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, where Jesus preaches to the Pharisees and lawmakers. Lightheaded from the bath, Kita felt the words of Jesus swim like water into his brain.

Think of the ravens: they have no storehouse or barn; yet God feeds them. You are worth far more than the birds!

Can anxious thought add a day to your life? If, then, you cannot do even a very little thing, why worry about the rest?

He felt as if the room had suddenly grown bright. All the strength drained from him, and he sank into sleep as if led there by some hand. When he woke again, it was two in the morning. Shinobu lay on the bed beside him. She breathed peacefully, holding Kita’s arm against her breast. Her cheeks were flushed, and she didn’t appear to be worrying about anything. Kita gently stroked her face.

Would those businessmen who sold Shinobu for profit be hustling around all night long to get together the money to win back their prize possession? Or would they come back at him with some ploy he couldn’t imagine? Kita thought of confronting the enemy. He felt not the least concern.

Kita went back to the telephone booth and called the chief’s house again. The call was answered after a single ring.

“Is that the chief?”

“It’s Yukichi Fukuzawa, isn’t it? You’re kidding me, son, aren’t you? Shinobu’s not in danger, is she?”

“She’s sleeping like a baby. Have you rung the police?”

“No. You’re the one who said not to, ain’t you?”

“If your first concern is Shinobu’s safety, you’ll do everything I ask.”

“Put Shinobu on the line. I want to hear her voice.”

“She says she has nothing to say to you.”

“Don’t tell me she’s in on this thing with you.”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Get together thirty million of those Yukichi Fukuzawa faces by tomorrow noon. I’ll telephone later with directions on the hand-over. OK, sleep well.”

Kita noted that he felt great every time he acted the abductor like this. He went back to the empty bathhouse and plunged into the bath. He ducked under the dividing plank in the middle, then amused himself by trying to walk along it. Not long after, Shinobu turned up, having found him missing.

“Bet you thought I’d disappeared.”

Shinobu looked sulky. She jumped into the bathtub, and splashed Kita’s face. Her breasts floated up and down in the water. I’ve abducted these two lovely round boobs too, Kita told himself, as he felt a still greater sense of fulfilment wash over him.