The Snow Kimono (7 page)

He went to see his doctor again. His afflicted knee an endless dull discomfort. He
sat once more on the hard-edged examination table. He flexed and unflexed his leg.

You need more exercise, Inspector. Swimming, treading water, hydrotherapy. His doctor’s
hand cold on his hot knee.

He surrendered his crutches. Got a walking stick. Gargoyle-
topped, antique, something
with history. From the same place he had abandoned his squat-footed cabinet. His
hippopotamane
. Who would have imagined that there was a word for things like this?

He went to the pool on rue de Pontoise to exercise, the famous one, the one with
the glass roof and the tiers of pale-blue cubicles coliseumed above the water.

He called an old friend at Police Headquarters. Asked for a favour, two. He wanted
him to locate someone.

Yes, that’s right. Algiers, he said.

He was sure his friend would still have the necessary contacts.

Who?

Haifa Soukhane.

I thought that was ancient history, his friend said.

It is. He did not elaborate.

And?

And any information you can find out about a Mathilde Soukhane, he said.

Mathilde, his friend repeated, writing it down. Jovert could picture him in his office,
already configuring, calculating, reconfiguring.

And who is she?

Her daughter, he said.

Her daughter, his friend repeated. The three syllables written.

Anything else I should know?

No, he said.

Three days later, a return phone call.

Haifa Soukhane…He could hear papers rustling. Haifa Soukhane was killed in a car
accident. Last year. No suspicious circumstances.

No suspicious circumstances?

That’s what it says.

Okay, he said.

She’d become a judge, you know. In Algiers. Much admired. He paused. For what it’s
worth, his friend said, I’m sorry.

Jovert was at a loss to know what to say. Haifa. Killed. The year before. So recent.

On the other hand, it
was
a long time ago. Anything could have happened in between.
Still, he should have prepared himself.

The past is the past, he said. And Mathilde?

Mathilde. Once again he could hear papers being shuffled. Mathilde. What, in particular,
did you want to know?

I’m not sure, he said. An address, date of birth. Anything.

Let me see. Last known address: 30 rue Amar el-Kama—same as the mother’s. Date of
birth: 22 June 1960. Studied jurisprudence in Marseille. Current whereabouts, occupation…unknown.

Married?

No. Not that I can see.

Siblings?

None listed.

Thanks, he said, and rang off.

So, rue Amar el-Kama. Not rue Duhamel.

He did a quick calculation. 22 June 1960. Yes, it was possible. Just. He had left
Algiers on 3 October 1959. June 1960 to July 1989. That would make her twenty-nine.

He needed time to think. He went back to rue de Pontoise.

Jovert wondered if the sound bothered his neighbours. Omura’s typing. It was him
he could hear whenever he went up, or down, in the lift. The dull, brain-stuck clack-clack,
clack-clack-clack. At eleven in the evening. Midnight. Sometimes later. Lying in
bed. The sound filtering up through the floorboards. Clack, clack-clack. Awake. Listening
for the next key to strike. The noise reminding him that Omura was there, that he
was waiting. Until it stopped.

So he went.

Inspector? Omura said, when he opened the door.

Omura. Besuited. Bespectacled. But the bow tie new.

He had expected Omura’s apartment to be different. What he found was spare, ordered,
interim. The floor plan a mirror image of his. The same ageing light-stained curtains.
A wooden desk by the window. On it, an old manual typewriter—a
Bresson—its body as
polished, as flawless as a museum exhibit, its silver-rimmed keys now silent. A single
lamp. Beneath it, a ream of paper, radiant in the white light.

Omura made coffee.

Jovert had gone there hoping to resolve something. Exactly what, he did not know.
He remembered standing. Sitting. Then… the same hypnotic thing. Without knowing how
it happened, or when, he found himself once again floating in a conversation that
appeared to have no beginning, no antecedent. As if it had always been there.

You must think me foolish, Omura was saying. An obsessed old man.

He paused to re-light his cigarette. In any case, after much reflection, he went
on, Fumiko and I finally moved to Tokyo. I had been offered a partnership in one
of Japan’s most respected legal firms. We rented an apartment on the top floor of
one of the new high-rise buildings overlooking the city. I had a space in the basement
where I set up a workshop—a small private world of my own where I could make things.
I had an intercom installed connecting it to my apartment. Three or four nights a
week, after I had put Fumiko to bed, I would go down there. To make things—toys,
wooden boxes, that sort of thing. It was a release for me, an escape from my workaday
life.

Occasionally, seeing my workbench, with my tools all gleamingly arrayed above me,
I used to think I had missed my vocation—that I would have been better off doing
something with my hands than trying to deal with something as elusive,
as intangible,
as the law. If it hadn’t been for Fumiko, perhaps I would have. Not that Fumiko was
the reason I kept practising. On the contrary, with Fumiko in my life, there was
no need to look for anything else. Besides, most of what I made in my workshop, I
made for her.

The year Fumiko turned five, I decided to take her to Kamakura. To see the famous
kite festival. I knew what to expect. I had been there many times before. But I wanted
this to be a special occasion for her, one she would never forget. So I set about
making a present for her, something I had once seen in a Kyoto toy store.

Each night, after work, I went down to my workshop. Of course, Fumiko guessed that
I was down there making something new for her. She began questioning me. In the morning,
before school. In the evening when I arrived home from work. I remember on the third
or fourth evening I heard the intercom buzz.

I raised my protective goggles, pushed the button. It was Fumiko.

Father? I heard her say.

Yes, Fumiko.

Can I come down? Please?

I looked at my watch. It was already 10.30.

You should be in bed, I said.

I was, but I can’t sleep.

I took my glasses off, rubbed my eyes. I was tired myself.

All right, I said. But just for a few minutes.

I went over to my bench and pulled a clean cloth out from one of the drawers and
used it to cover what I had been working on. I had just finished tidying my tools
when I heard a tap, tap-tap-tap on my door.

Fumiko was in her pyjamas, her hands behind her back. She was smiling, looking up
at me. As I reached up to pull the cord to extinguish the last remaining light over
my workbench, she tried to peek past me.

Oh, no you don’t, I said.

But you said you’d finish it tonight.

No, I didn’t. I said I’d finish putting it together tonight. I still have quite a
bit to do. And besides, what did I tell you—not until Kamakura.

Ooh, she said.

Whenever I was down there, I used to tie a piece of white cloth around my head to
keep the sawdust off. I remember stepping out into the basement and hoisting Fumiko
up onto my hip. She had her arm around my neck. When we reached the lift, she took
a deep breath and blew. A cloud of dust billowed up from my head.

There, she said, and her clear, bell-like laughter filled the emptiness around me.

You know, Inspector, Omura said. I still have it. What I made her. I brought it with
me. Would you like to see it?

Before Jovert could answer, Omura had risen from his chair and disappeared into one
of the bedrooms. A few minutes later, he returned carrying a small rectangular wooden
case the size of a shoebox. Its burnished surface had been embellished with a series
of thin, shallow brushstroke inlays. It could have been a thousand years old.

Omura handed him the box. It was heavier than Jovert had anticipated. He turned it
over, looked for a clasp. There wasn’t one. It appeared to have been cut from a solid
block of wood. He glanced at Omura.

Press here with your thumb, Omura said. Now, slide the top.

The wood seemed magically to separate.

That is beautiful, he said. Ingenious.

The case was lined with silk. Fitted snugly into this was a long, thin, trapezoid-shaped
object. At its centre, there was a folded handle. Jovert lifted it up and pulled
the object out. There were eyepieces at one end.

It’s a viewer, a mirror scope, Omura said.

Jovert held the instrument up to his eyes. Instantly, the room began to spin.

Oh, he said, shaking his head.

I know, Omura said. In here is not the right place. But outside…you should see it
outside.

Jovert took a closer look at the viewer. The end opposite the eyepieces was open.
Inside, it was lined with mirrors. Externally, the sides had been lacquered a rich,
multilayered red.
Beneath the lacquer, in the wood itself, he could see what looked
like flecks of gold. Long, sweeping brushstrokes ran the length of each side. Down
the centre, there was a single column of beautifully formed Japanese characters.

Here, Omura said, rising from his chair and taking the viewer from him. He walked
over to the lamp, held the viewer under it. Its lacquered surface suddenly came to
life, almost as if the wood was translucent, lit from within.

I remember the moment I finished it, Omura said, when, finally, it existed free of
me. He ran his fingertips across its embered surface. Its beauty exceeded even my
own expectations.