Grotesque (48 page)

Mitsuru tried to change the subject.

“Do you know about osmotic pressure? I thought, if I married a brilliant man, that some of his genius would brush off on me.”

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I noticed that as she began to talk, her body started to cave in on itself, like a sail that loses the wind. Her thin body grew all the flatter. I could see the veins crawling over the fingers clutching the cigarette. I was amazed by how empty-headed Mitsuru had become.

“By that time, my mother had separated from your grandfather. She joined the organization, saying she wanted to eliminate her illusions. By illusions she meant her selfish passions.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be good, to eliminate them, I mean. It’s not as if she had actually cared for my grandfather,” I said harshly.

Mitsuru responded mockingly. “You can’t forgive me, can you? You think you’re better than I am because I ended up in a religious cult.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Are you sure you haven’t lost a few marbles?”

“Oh? So we’re going to resort to insults, are we?” Mitsuru raised her head suddenly. “I remember not so long ago you were more than a little obsessed with looks. How should I put this? You just cared about faces. I knew you had an inferiority complex because Yuriko was so pretty. But you went way beyond a complex; you were a fanatic. Ever since high school you’ve been really proud of yourself for being half, haven’t you?

Everyone laughed at you behind your back, you know. You weren’t even remotely pretty. But you can transcend your body with how you discipline your soul.”

I never would have believed I would hear such abusive lies from Mitsuru.

It was too much. I could not, however, bring myself to speak in my own defense.

“Your hatred of Yuriko was really bizarre,” she continued. “It was more like jealousy. I know you were the one who leaked the news about Yuriko and Kijima’s son. Whatever Yuriko was doing with the boys in the boys’ side of the school had nothing to do with you. But Yuriko was popular.

Everyone idolized her. Still, to get your own sister expelled from school by spreading rumors about her being involved in prostitution—

that was really vicious. And until you lessen your store of bad karma, you have very little chance of transmigration any time in the future. If you are reborn, it’ll be as some bug that crawls through the dirt.”

I was furious. I had tried to let Mitsuru have her say, knowing she’d been brainwashed, but she’d gone too far.

“Mitsuru, you are a complete idiot. I’ve listened to you go on and on about being at the top of the class, getting into Tokyo University Medical 3 0 2

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School, and all that crap about osmosis, and I’m just fed up. All this time I had thought you were a clever little squirrel, but you were nothing but a slug. You were just a puffed-up little show-off, no better than Kazue!”

“You’re the one who’s crazy. Look at you—you look absolutely evil.

Why do you think you’re any more sincere than I am? You go through life telling nothing but lies. And even now you’re sitting here thinking how wonderful you are because you’re half. I sure wish I could trade you for Yuriko.”

I stood up angrily, kicking the chair back as I did. The waitresses, suddenly noticing us, looked up from what they were doing and stared. Mitsuru and I glared at each other until she hid her face. I shoved the bill for our coffee over to her.

“I’m leaving. Thank you for treating.”

Mitsuru pushed the bill back across the table. “We’ll split it.”

“I had to sit here and listen to what you wanted to say; we’re not splitting the bill. You say I have a complex about Yuriko. I have to hear this today, on the day of the trial? I’m here as a bereaved member of the victim’s family. What gives you the right to insult me like that? I demand compensation for damages.”

“You think I’m going to pay compensatory charges?”

“Well, you have that rich family of yours. Your mother owned how many cabarets? And you rented that luxury apartment in Minato Ward just to flaunt your wealth, didn’t you? Then your mother went out and bought a condominium with a fancy intercom in that swanky Riverside area. All I’ve got is my measly job.”

Mitsuru launched into her response with apparent relish.

“My, you pick a convenient time to start complaining about your measly job. Just amazing. And here I remember you ever eager to boast about the way you were going to become some famous translator of German.

But your marks in English class were just deplorable, weren’t they?

Hardly what you’d expect from a half! And for your information, my family is not wealthy. We sold our house and our business, and the money we made on that and on the sale of our two cars and our resort property in Kiyosato all went into the coffers of the religious organization.”

I placed my coins begrudgingly on the table. Mitsuru counted out the change and continued.

“I’m going to go to the next hearing too. I think it’ll be really good for my rehabilitation.”

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Suit yourself, I wanted to say, but thought better of it. I turned and exited the coffeehouse, walking away briskly. As I did I heard the pirterpat of Mitsuru s canvas sneakers following me.

“Wait! I almost forgot the most important part. I got letters from Professor Kijima.”

Mitsuru dug through her bag, pulled out an envelope, and waved it in my face.

“When did you get letters from Professor Kijima?”

“While I was in prison. I got quite a few. He was really worried about me, so we corresponded.”

Well, wasn’t Mitsuru just beside herself with pride. I hadn’t heard anything about Professor Kijima for such a long time, I’d just assumed he’d died. And all this time he’d been sending Mitsuru letters.

“Well, how kind of him.”

“He said it wounded him terribly for one of his students to be involved in a scandal—just like I would worry over my patients.”

“Your patients weren’t out murdering people, were they?”

“I’m still recuperating, you know. Still only halfway in my struggle to return to society, and your cruelty is not appreciated.” Mitsuru gave a big sigh. But I’d had just about all I could take, I wanted to get out of there.

Still, if she wanted to talk about cruelty, she ought to examine the way she was using Yuriko and Kazue’s trials as her own personal class reunion.

“He wrote about you too, so I thought you’d like to see. I’ll let you borrow them. But you have to be sure to give them back to me at the next hearing.”

Mitsuru passed the thick envelope over to me. The last thing I wanted was a packet of letters I had no interest in reading. I tried to hand them back to Mitsuru but she was already walking away, staggering slightly. I watched her depart, trying to find in her something that resembled the girl she had been in the past. The Mitsuru who had been good in tennis.

The Mitsuru who had been so light on her feet during our rhythmic dance routines. I’d been vaguely fearful of her—with her physical agility and her brilliant mind. She had seemed like something of a monster tome.

But the Mitsuru I saw now seemed awkward, uncoordinated, even in the most casual of movements. Concerned about being followed by detectives, she was so busy looking over her shoulder that she practically 3 0 4

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ran into someone who was right in front of her. Anyone who had known Mitsuru in the past would have had a hard time recognizing her in the idiot she’d become. This hollow Mitsuru had transmigrated into an entirely different monster.

I remembered that when we were in high school, I used to think of both Mitsuru and myself as mountain pools formed by underground springs. If Mitsuru s spring was deep beneath the surface of the ground, so was mine. Our sensibilities were complementary and our train of thought was exactly the same. But now those springs had disappeared.

We were now two separate pools, lonely and remote. Moreover, Mitsuru s pool had already gone dry, exposing the cracked earth at the bottom.

I wish I hadn’t seen her again.

I heard someone calling to me. “Aren’t you Miss Hirata’s older sister?”

I hurriedly stuffed Kijima’s letters in my pocket and looked up. A familiar-looking man was standing in front of me. He was around forty and wore a fairly expensive brown suit. His beard was flecked with white whiskers and he was as rotund as an opera singer, a “carnal personality”

who clearly ate delicious food.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but might I have a brief word?”

I was trying to figure out where I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him. As I stood there with my head cocked to the side, the man launched into a self-introduction.

“I see you don’t remember. I’m Zhang’s lawyer, Tamura. I hadn’t expected to see you just now. I had thought I would try to call you later this evening.” Tamura led me to a corner of the corridor, clearly annoyed. We were next to the cafeteria. Lunch was over, the cafeteria had closed, and the employees inside were moving the tables around, carrying bottles of beer, and setting up for some kind of private function.

Upstairs in the courtrooms they’re deciding someone’s fate, while downstairs in the basement they’re whooping it up. Easy for them. I’m just glad I’m not the defendant.

“Sensei, I don’t know what you think, but I’m certain Zhang killed Kazue.”

Tamura straightened the knot to his mustard yellow tie while he prepared his lines. “I can certainly understand how you must feel, as a member of the family, but I have to say I think he’s innocent.”

“Surely not. The study of physiognomy makes clear Zhang’s a killer.

There can be no doubt.”

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Tamura looked troubled. He didn’t dare try to refute my argument. I suppose he realized that he had to let the victim s family members say whatever they pleased. But I wasn’t some sentimental idiot who sympathized blindly with the victim, I was trying to explain things from the scientific perspective of physiognomy.

I needed to make that clear, but Tamura said in a whispery voice, “Actually, what I wanted to ask you is whether you had had contact recently with either Yuriko or Kazue. I can find no proof for this in the investigation, but it seems such an unlikely coincidence, don’t you think?

I mean for your younger sister and your former classmate to be killed the same way, less than a year apart. It’s just too bizarre to be happenstance.

So I was wondering if you’d heard anything from either of them?”

Yuriko’s diary immediately came to mind, but I didn’t want to tell him about it. Let him find out about it on his own. “I don’t know. But then, I hadn’t seen either Yuriko or Kazue in some time. Don’t you imagine they both just hit a patch of bad luck? If you’d consider the physiognomy, Zhang is somewhere between a ‘calculating personality’ and a ‘carnal personality’—the type to go for prostitutes. He killed them both. Kazue too. There’s no doubt—”

Flustered, Tamura interrupted me. “Yes, yes, I see. That’s fine. Zhang’s case is now under deliberation, and it’s best if I don’t discuss it with you.”

“Why? I’m related to the victim. I’m the one whose only sister was murdered! Her precious sister.”

“I understand. Really I do.”

“What do you understand? Tell me.”

Perspiration had begun to dot Tamura’s forehead, and as he patted through the pockets in his suit searching for his handkerchief, he changed the subject.

“I believe I saw one of those cult members here not too long ago.

Wasn’t she also a former classmate of yours? You certainly had a—well, what should I say?—unique high school class.”

“Yes, it’s been a virtual class reunion here today.”

“Well, yes, you could look at it that way. Excuse me,” Tamura said. He turned to leave, heading hastily into the coffeehouse. And here I had more to say, I thought, as I glared at his muscular back. First of all there was his remark about my unique class. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. And then there were the words Mitsuru had said to me earlier; they started spinning around and around in my head as well.

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When I finally managed to slink back to my apartment in the government housing complex, I found it cold. The tatami was old, stained here and there where miso soup had been spilled on it. And it smelled. I lit the kerosene heater and looked around the room. It was shabby and small. Back when bonsai pots crowded Grandfather’s veranda, we were poor, but oh, I was happy! Yuriko was still in Bern, I’d just entered Q High School for Young Women, and I had dedicated myself enthusiastically to looking after my grandfather, my true flesh and blood. I suppose I liked my grandfather so much because he was an affirmed scam artist. And yet he was so timid, even more so than I. Yes, it was odd. He was not a bit like me. The “class reunion” had brought me down.

The letters? Once night fell I pulled them out and looked through them with disgust. Here they are. The handwriting is shaky—written by an old man’s trembling hand—so they’re hard to read. And, as I expected, they are preachy. But if you want to read them, go ahead. I don’t mind.

Greetings and Salutations.

My dear Mitsuru:

Are you well? The winters in Shinano Oiwake are particularly severe. The ground in my garden has frozen over into tiny pillars of frost. Before long it’ll all be frozen and then the long winter will set in. I’m sixty-seven now and heading into the winter of my life.

I’m still running the dormitory for the N Fire Insurance Company. Not much has changed. Now that I’m past retirement age, I fear I’m not much use anymore, but the director of the company has very kindly asked me to stay on. He’s a graduate of the Q School system.

Well, then, let me begin by congratulating you on your release from prison. Now I can finally send letters to you—

and hopefully receive them—without worrying about the prying eyes of the censors. You have certainly put up with so much and weathered it all with such fortitude. I feel deeply for you and the way you must worry over your husband and the children you’ve left with others to raise.