The Snow Kimono (2 page)

Even after all these years, the image of her face, her skin, dark against her blazing
dress, still lingered. He remembered she had been carrying a bundle of papers in
her arms. When he turned to look after her, she was gone.

The girl in the photograph had the same face, the same eyes. She had the same dark
skin.

He sat for a long time thinking.

Then, all at once, as though he had only just made up his mind, he took the photograph,
and the letter, and crushed them into a tight ball in his hand. He rose, threw the
wad of paper into the bin beside the bench, and walked off.

It’s too late, he said to himself. It’s too late.

That evening, however, things began to change. Afterwards, months later, the letter,
the accident, came to seem to him precursors of an even greater shift in his life,
one that had been lying in wait for him for years.

When he arrived back at his apartment building, he punched his code into the panel
by the door, listened for the click. His building was old. The door was heavy, its
thick black paint cracked. He had to push with his shoulder to get it open. The hospital
staff had been right. His crutches
were
too short.

Inside, in the foyer, the lift was out of order once again. He stood looking at the
note taped to its wire cage. It was the third time this month. He pushed in the light
switch beside the stairwell. He would have three minutes to climb the five flights
of stairs to his apartment before the light went out. Reluctantly he began to climb.

By the time he heaved himself up over the last step to his landing, his right leg
had begun to ache. Then, as he took his keys from his pocket, they slipped from his
fingers and fell to the floor.

Jesus, Mother of God, he said under his breath.

A door closed beneath him. He heard footsteps receding down the hallway. He thought
of calling out, but it was already too late. Whoever it was had begun descending
the stairs. He leaned against the wall, looked up at the globe glowing dimly above
his head. Its shade—dusty, discoloured, suspended on a length of twisted cord—was
oscillating minutely. He pictured the tiny convected eddies whirling at its rim.
He could see the movement of its shadow on the wall opposite. Any moment now, he
knew, the light would go out. He waited, counting the seconds, until it did.

He closed his eyes.

Standing like this in the darkened hallway, he could hear the thinning evening traffic,
the muffled subterranean rumble of the Metro, the sound of a distant siren. He thought
of his own accident, took a deep breath. The air smelt musty now.

Beneath his door a thin fissure of light hovered in the darkness. In it he could
just see his fallen keys. He prodded them with the end of one of his crutches. Then
he heard a rustle at the far end of the corridor and, suddenly, a voice.

May I help you, Inspector?

The sound startled him. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

The light switch, he said. I’ve dropped my keys.

Instantly the light came on. It flared up around him for a moment before dying down.
He stood there blinking. He could just make out the shape of someone standing in
the shadows at the top of the stairs.

Permit me, Inspector, the stranger said, coming forward. He stooped to pick up the
keys. As he raised his head, light fell across his face and Jovert registered for
the first time that his saviour was Oriental—from China, or Japan.

He could see him clearly now—an impeccably dressed, sharp-featured little man in
his fifties. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles poked out from the top of his coat
pocket. In his hands, he held a hat. There was something about him that reminded
Jovert of the Emperor Hirohito.

Thank you, Jovert said.

You’re welcome, Inspector. I have been waiting for you.

Waiting? he said.

Yes. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Omura. Tadashi Omura, former Professor of
Law at the Imperial University of Japan. And you are Inspector Jovaire, are you not?

With this he bowed slightly. It had been like an announcement.

Now I am here, he said.

Jovert half-expected Omura to go on, but instead, he stood there silently, with Jovert’s
keys still in his hand.

Jovert, he said. Auguste Jovert.

He felt compelled to bow himself, but instantly he realised how impossible that would
have been. Instead, he turned awkwardly on his crutches to face Omura, inclined
his head.

Your keys, Omura said.

Yes, thank you.

Omura, however, made no attempt to leave. As they stood there in the empty hallway,
Jovert began to feel increasingly under
some obligation to this odd little man who
had helped him, and who was still standing, expectantly it now seemed, in front of
him.

He unlocked his door and pushed it open with his elbow. As he did so, Omura leaned
forward. He stood, half-stooped for a moment, surveying the room. Then he straightened.
Looked up at Jovert. Smiled.

Yes, he said.

The two men stood there on the threshold for a moment.

Would you like to come in, Jovert said.

Yes, yes, Omura replied. I have been waiting. Please.

And with this, he stretched out his arm, inviting Jovert to precede him, as if, in
fact, the apartment belonged to him.

Later, when Jovert tried to recall what had taken place between this moment and the
next, he could not. One instant, it seemed to him, he was standing in the open doorway
to his apartment, leaning on his crutches, and the next he was sitting opposite his
lounge-room window listening to Tadashi Omura’s strangely mesmerising voice.

One afternoon, Omura was saying, I decided to take Fumiko to see her mother’s grave.
Fumiko must have been about three at the time. It was the middle of winter and there
was still snow in the streets. I remember the sky being a uniform, dull white, which
meant it would snow again later in the afternoon.

We must have spent some time getting ready. Going to
the cemetery was no easy matter.
Katsuo had wanted Sachiko buried in the old cemetery outside of Osaka. We had to
take the bus, then the train. Not that this was a problem. We lived on the outskirts
of Osaka, in any case. But afterwards we would have to walk the one or two kilometres
through the woods. I myself loved this walk, even in winter. Often I would be the
only person on the path. I loved the absolute stillness, the sound of my own footfall
on the fresh snow, the feeling of my fogged breath on my face. Sometimes one would
see a fox, or an owl perched on a tree limb. There was a stone bridge across the
stream which led up to the temple gates, and I used to look forward to the odd hollow
echo of my boots on it as I crossed. A short distance away, downstream, was a pond
which froze over in winter. From the bridge you could see the children who came there
sometimes to skate.

I had never taken Fumiko to the cemetery before. My housekeeper, Mrs Muramoto, had
called at the last minute to say that she was ill, that she could not come to take
care of Fumiko after all. I remember I suspected her of lying, and later I found
out she had gone to visit relatives in Nara. I remember being angry. She knew I was
depending on her, that I could not leave Fumiko alone in the apartment. I already
had my coat and gloves on, and I could tell immediately by the tone of her voice
that she was lying.

Then I remember standing on the steps outside our apartment building, with Fumiko
beside me, all dressed up in her coat and fur hat.

It’s like yesterday, he said. I can still feel her child’s gloved hands in mine.
Fumiko wanted to know where we were going. She was turning from side to side, waiting.
I knew she was excited because she was humming to herself.

Omura stopped for a moment. Took out a packet of cigarettes, shook one loose.

But I am not explaining myself well, he said. And there is something I have forgotten
to tell you. You see, Fumiko was not my daughter. In fact, I have never been married.
First there were my studies, then establishing my legal practice. I never seemed
to find the time. How I came to have Fumiko is rather complicated. I will get to
that. At the time I am talking about, Fumiko had been with me for about a year. In
general, Mrs Muramoto looked after her. Already, however, I had begun looking towards
the future, when things, explanations, would be difficult. As a consequence, I had
decided, at least for the time being, to bring Fumiko up believing that she was my
own daughter. In other words, that I was her father.

As you can imagine, Fumiko had been talking for some time, and yet, despite all of
my and Mrs Muramoto’s encouragement, she had never once called me Father. I cannot
tell you how important this had become for me. At the time, it seemed as if the whole
future of our lives together depended on Fumiko uttering this one word. Without this,
the world I had decided to build for her would never, could never, exist.

Omura fell silent again. He leaned forward, flicked the end of his cigarette into
the small bowl on the table in front
of him. He raised the cigarette to his lips,
inhaled.

Where was I, he said.

Standing on the doorstep outside your apartment, Jovert replied.

Yes, yes, he said. You see, I was still not used to going out with Fumiko on my own.
A three-year-old child. What if something happened? I wasn’t even sure if she was
properly dressed. I remember looking down at my watch. It was already almost two.
It was so still. I knew it was going to snow again. Not heavily. There was no danger.
Nothing like that. It’s just that I didn’t know whether to take Fumiko or not. Usually
there was Mrs Muramoto with us when we went out, or someone else.

I knelt down to look at Fumiko.

So, Fumiko, I said, shall we go?

Why not? she said, shrugging her shoulders and smiling.

I stayed there, half-kneeling, looking at her. I remember how sweet she looked in
her coat and hat.

Are you warm enough?

She nodded.

Sure?

Sure, she said.

She had never been on a train before. It was all new to her. We sat in the warmth
of the station waiting room. Fumiko sat next to me, her stockinged legs dangling
over the edge of the seat. I had never realised how curious children are. It’s odd,
I think it was only then that I began to realise how being the head of a law firm
had cut me off from…well, from everything, from
the world around me. From life. Here
I was, I must have been forty or forty-one at the time and, all at once, it seemed
to me that I knew nothing about the world, nothing.

Suddenly, I was glad Mrs Muramoto had phoned to say she could not come. For the first
time since Fumiko had come to stay with me, I began to feel what it might have been
like to really have a child of my own.

Is she your daughter? an old woman on the train asked. She was carrying a wicker
basket full of frozen fish.

Yes, I said.

She didn’t appear at all surprised. I had always assumed it was obvious that Fumiko
was not my child. I was old enough to be her grandfather.

Yes, I repeated, she’s my daughter.

Such a beautiful child, the old woman said.

But all of this is not what I set out to tell you. It is so difficult not to get
sidetracked. And I am sure there are many other things I have forgotten. What I remember
happening, happened later.

At Togetsu, we got out. At the time, Togetsu was the end of the line. A series of
small, lightly cultivated fields separated it from the surrounding woods. It is mainly
tenant farmers who live there. Anyone who gets off at Togetsu is either a farm worker
or on their way to the cemetery.

Only half a dozen people stepped down from the train when we pulled into the station.
Almost instantly, they were gone.

I don’t know how to explain this, he said. How to explain what I felt as we walked
through the snow-covered fields and
into the woods. It was so still, you see. So
absolutely still. There was no one else about. It was as if the whole world consisted
of just Fumiko and me.