Piercing

4

‘MASAYUKI,’ YOKO SAID THE next morning as she bustled about preparing for her classes. ‘Did you win the lottery or something? You’re positively glowing.’

Between bites of a croissant, Kawashima explained that he’d slept like a dead man. This was true, and his appetite was back as well, much to his own surprise.

There was no way to be one hundred per cent sure of not getting caught — this had been his first thought on waking — but merely wounding some woman was out of the question. If she lived, she’d surely go to the police, and that would be it for him. He’d mulled over such problems while brushing his teeth and washing his face.

‘You know,’ he told Yoko as he dressed for work, ‘our company has adopted the mandatory vacation system, like a lot of the bigger firms have?’

‘You mean where you have to take time off whether you want to or not?’

‘Exactly. At some of the big agencies it’s for a whole month, or even two, but for us it’s more like a week or ten days.’

It was a fact that Kawashima’s firm had such a system — mandatory vacation for all employees once every three to five years. A fund had been set aside for that purpose, and a certain amount of cash was available for expenses, depending upon how you planned to spend your vacation.

‘I’ve got an idea I want to work on,’ he said, ‘so I was thinking about taking mine soon.’

‘When?’

‘Like, beginning the day after tomorrow or so.’

‘That is soon. But you’re not supposed to just lie around the house, right?’

‘No, and you’re not to show up at the office either. You have to come up with some sort of goal, something you’re going to do with your time. Not that it has to be anything that serious. One guy travelled to India, and another went to New York to check out the musicals. One of the girls flew down to Okinawa to get her scuba-diving licence.’

‘Are you going overseas?’

‘Here’s what I was thinking. I’d like to stay in one of the major hotels downtown. You don’t get a chance to do that when you live in the city, right? I’d like to stay in the sort of place where your average salarymen from smaller cities stay when they come to Tokyo.’

‘What are you going to do in a place like that?’

‘This might sound silly, but I want to get a better understanding of the true salaryman. Like, when I have a meeting in a coffee shop or bar in one of those hotels? I’m always fascinated by what the salarymen around me are talking about. You’d be surprised — a lot of times you hear some pretty poignant, heartfelt stuff. I’d like to make, you know, a serious study of that sort of thing, because beginning the year after next we’re going to be in charge of all the graphics on a new campaign. It’s for an imported car, a new model targeting salarymen in their thirties. And the fact is, I don’t really know that much about your average salaryman.’

He needed a solid chunk of time in order to hone and execute his plan. But if he made up some story about having to stay near the office for days at a time to meet a deadline, for example, one phone call from Yoko to the office and he’d be busted. It was unlikely that anyone might connect that lie with a crime that took place somewhere across town, but he didn’t need to complicate things by giving Yoko or the company any reason to think he was up to something fishy. Of course, staying a week at a hotel in the city for ‘research’ would normally be read as an affair, or a gambling problem. But he knew that Yoko would never doubt him. She wasn’t the jealous or suspicious type in the first place, and in the six years they’d known each other, though he may have kept certain things from her, he’d never told her a lie. Not because he was adhering to some abstract moral principle, but simply because he didn’t want to be dishonest with someone who meant so much to him. Besides, if she should suspect him of having an affair — well, so what?

Arranged neatly on the L-shaped table that dominated the room were all the implements Yoko needed to teach the day’s classes.

‘We’ll have to get you packed, then,’ she said with a natural, unforced smile. ‘Just be sure to keep in touch. I mean, don’t forget to call.’

I won’t forget, Kawashima said, nodding. He walked into the bedroom and bent over the crib to peer at the baby. Lightly touching her downy cheek, he whispered, so Yoko wouldn’t hear:

Everything’s going to be all right.