by Kōji Suzuki
Toyama closed his eyes and turned his face to the ceiling. The voice at the phone stopped and there was a moment of silence. When he opened his eyes again, Yoshino was seated opposite him—when had he returned?
The last few minutes, the duration of the phone call, felt distorted to Toyama—forcefully so, like he'd been twisted up and tossed abruptly into another dimension.
"Is there something wrong?" Yoshino sounded concerned by the look of enervated astonishment on Toyama's face.
Toyama straightened up in his seat—he'd sunk into a slouch—and took a deep breath before saying, "No...
But it sounds like you've got quite a sensational incident on your hands."
"I don't know about that yet. A young female was found dead on a rooftop, is all."
"Nearby?"
"Yeah, East Shinagawa. An office building. She was found in the exhaust shaft on the roof—a hole, basically.
Odd, right?"
"Was it murder?"
"It doesn't sound like it. Probably an accident."
"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but, um, I heard you say that there were signs she'd given birth just before dying."
Yoshino gave Toyama an indecipherable grin and a questioning glance. Why are you so interested in this!
"Well, I don't know anything yet—I just heard the report. A pity it had to happen to someone so young, though. She was a smart girl. Pretty, too."
Yoshino looked away and stroked his beard. There seemed to be something more bothering him. Toyama had a hunch.
"This Mai Takano—she didn't happen to be an acquaintance of yours?"
Yoshino immediately shook his head. "No, I didn't know her personally. But a colleague of mine did, Asakawa. It was his funeral I was at: we were pretty close. He knew her."
A look of anxiety crossed Yoshino's face, and Toyama observed it. Anxiety—but more than that, dread.
"Their deaths—were they just a coincidence?"
At the question, Yoshino's dread deepened, and Toyama saw that too.
First his friend Asakawa dies, and now a girl Asakawa knew. Neither death in itself terribly suspi-cious, but precisely because there was so little information, it was natural for an outsider to want to connect them.
Yoshino's eyes began darting around the room, as if he were desperately coming up with ideas and rejecting them.
"Yeah, right... Now, about Sadako Yamamura."
Yoshino changed the subject, but the way he said it made it seem almost as if Sadako had something to do with Asakawa's and Mai's deaths.
The last time Toyama and Yoshino had met, Toyama had simply answered the questions put to him.
That had been his role, and he'd played it to the hilt, but he had no intention of reprising it. This time he was determined to take the initiative and find out why a reporter was so interested in ascertaining what had happened to Sadako.
So he came right out and said it. "Don't you think it's about time you told me why you want to know what she was doing twenty-four years ago?"
Yoshino hung his head and looked beaten—it was the same look he'd had the last time they'd met.
"See, the thing is...I don't really know myself."
That was what he'd said last time, too. Toyama couldn't accept it. A reporter for a major news organiza-tion follows a woman's quarter-century-old trail through the nooks and crannies of the city, and he doesn't even know why?
"Don't give me that." Toyama's expression began to change.
Yoshino raised his hands and said, "Okay. I'll be honest with you. Kazuyuki Asakawa, a reporter in the main office, was investigating something, and Sadako Yamamura's name came up. He needed information. But he was tied up elsewhere at the time, so he asked me to help him out. He told me to find out whatever I could about what Sadako Yamamura was doing twenty-four years ago."
Toyama leaned forward. "What was he investigating?"
"That's the thing. He never told me. And then he got in a traffic accident and went into a coma. He died without ever regaining consciousness. I don't know why he was so insistent about finding out about her. I guess the truth is lost in a grove—like in that movie, you know?"
Toyama peered deep into Yoshino's eyes, trying to tell if he was lying. He didn't seem to be, at least about the big stuff. But he might be lying about the details.
Toyama deduced how Yoshino had been led to him.
First he would have gone to Theater Group Soaring's rehearsal space, where he would have found out who else had joined the troupe as an intern in February of 1965.
The resumes they'd all submitted together with their entrance exams were still stored in the troupe's offices. As far as Toyama could recall, there had been eight of them that year. No doubt Yoshino had thought he could trace Sadako's steps by speaking to all of them.
"Did you talk to the others?"
Toyama could only remember the names of two or three others, besides Sadako. He had no contact with any of them now—no idea where they were or what they were doing.
"Of the people who joined Soaring in 1965, I was able to track down four, including yourself."
"So you were able to contact the other three as well?"
Yoshino nodded. "I talked to them on the phone."
"Who?"
"Iino, Kitajima, and Kato."
As Yoshino said the names, Toyama was able to recall the faces. They'd been slumbering in the recesses of his memory; now he could feel them coming back to him, more clearly by the moment. Of course, in his mind, everyone still looked twenty.
Iino: he'd completely forgotten about Iino. Didn't speak much; a skilled mime. The older girls had liked him: they'd kind of adopted him.
Kitajima: small, not much stage presence, but he was good with his lines. He'd been used as a narrator, impressive for an intern. Toyama thought he'd had a slight crush on Sadako, too.
Kato: her first name was Keiko, he remembered now. Her name had been so ordinary that Shigemori, their director and head of the troupe, had given her a flashy stage name. "Yurako Tatsunomiya." She was quite beautiful, and she certainly wasn't aiming for comic roles, which was what such an overwrought name might have steered her toward. Still, the name was a direct gift from the troupe's founder-director, and she couldn't very well turn it down. Toyama remembered how hard a time she'd had hiding her mixed feelings.
They'd all be out drinking, and people would start mock-ing the name, which would leave her near tears as she tried to defend it.
In fact, it was Sadako who probably wanted a stage name most. Her real name was too old-fashioned for a modern beauty like hers. She should have received a stage name when she first went on stage, last-minute though it was. But Shigemori had sent her on under her real name.
All these things about people Toyama thought he'd forgotten came vividly back as Yoshino said their names.
He began to wax nostalgic. But just as he was on the point of losing himself in the feelings of his youth, he dug in his heels. He had another question to ask.
"So you only talked to Iino, Kitajima, and Kato on the phone?" Why was I the only one you met face-to-face?
"I called you first, too, you know."
"I know that. What I mean is, you let it go at a phone call for the other three, but you wanted to meet me in person. Why?"
Yoshino studied Toyama with a surprised look. His expression said, Do you even have to ask?
"I thought you knew. The other three all said the same thing, that you and Sadako had a special relationship back then."
A special relationship.
He felt his strength leave him, and he sank down into his seat again. From this position he could see stains on the ceiling.
"Is that it..."
It made sense now. No wonder Yoshino had wanted to meet him in person, instead of just talking on the phone like with the other three.
He'd always meant to hide his closeness to Sadako from the other interns, not to mention the troupe as a whole. But it now seemed that his fellow interns h
ad seen right through him. So much so that they still remembered it twenty-four years later. He and Sadako must have made quite an impression. But Toyama couldn't believe there was anything all that memorable about himself, which meant it must have been Sadako's striking character that they remembered. Unless they'd really all been that in-trigued by their relationship.
"Would you be willing to tell me what happened?"
Toyama lowered his gaze to find Yoshino staring at him with eyes brimming with curiosity.
"What do you mean?"
"Sadako Yamamura disappeared all of a sudden after the spring production in 1966 finished its run. I think you know why."
Toyama realized what Yoshino was thinking: if anybody would know why Sadako had left, he would, even if he didn't know where she'd gone. Yoshino had a hungry-wolf glint in his eyes.
"You've got to be kidding."
Toyama had nothing to give this predator. If he'd known why she left him, without telling him where she was going, his life since age twenty-three wouldn't have been so dark and cheerless.
"Oh, right. Shall I show you something?"
Yoshino rummaged in his briefcase and came up with a script. The battered cover read:
THEATER GROUP SOARING
ELEVENTH PRODUCTION
GIRL IN BLACK
(TWO ACTS, FOUR SCENES)
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
YUSAKU SHIGEMORI
It was a copy of the bound galley of the script.
Toyama reached for it in spite of himself. He opened it. It smelled like twenty-four years ago.
"Where did you get this?" He asked without thinking.
"I borrowed it from the troupe's office, after swear-ing I'd return it. In March of 1966, Sadako Yamamura snagged a part as an understudy in this. Her disappearance was more or less simultaneous with the end of the run. What happened? It has to have had something to do with the play..."
"Have you read it?"
"Of course I have. But it's just the script: it doesn't tell me much."
Toyama began flipping through the pages. Twenty-four years ago he'd owned a copy of this. It was probably in one of his bookshelves now, but then again he'd no doubt lost it in one of the many moves that had accompanied his first marriage and divorce. No. No matter how he searched, this was something he'd never find at home.
The staff's names were written on the first page.
Sound: Hiroshi Toyama.
Finding his own name there gave him a weird, tick-lish sort of feeling, as if he'd come face to face with his twenty-three-year-old self.
Next came the names of the cast.
The Girl in Black: Aiko Hazuki.
But Aiko Hazuki's name had been crossed out, and next to it somebody had written in ballpoint pen the name "Sadako Yamamura."
The girl who held the key to the story hadn't been given a name. Despite her importance, she didn't appear on stage all that much, although her few appearances had been designed for maximum impact. The part had originally belonged to Aiko Hazuki, one of the troupe's mid-ranked actresses. However, mere days before the first performance, Hazuki had collapsed, ill; Sadako, who had been attending every rehearsal as Hazuki's prompter, was asked to step in for her. It was to be her stage debut.
Thinking about it now, it seemed almost as if Shigemori had written the script especially for Sadako, as if under her inducement, even though she was nothing but an intern. At the time, of course, such a thought would never have crossed Toyama's mind. But when he considered her character and her image, unfaded in his mind after all these years, it almost seemed more plausible to think that Shigemori had written the part intending to cast her in it. The Girl in Black was that perfect for Sadako.
He turned the page. This seemed to be Shigemori's own copy of the script: the spaces between the lines of dialogue and stage directions were crammed with performance notes and critiques of the actors' performances, all in cramped handwriting. There were even details regarding the timing of the sound effects.
Ml—Theme song.
The curtain rises. A living room set occupies stage center. The lights come up gradually, and the set begins to brighten.
M5—Distant church bells. Mixed in, the sound of
many footsteps, the noise of a crowd.
This was the Girl in Black's first scene. Following a sound effect cue, she was to appear onstage for just an instant.
Unconsciously, Toyama was tapping the tabletop with his right index finger.
Play button—on.
The tape spun, the sound effect began. The Girl in Black was supposed to step onto the stage in synch with the sound.
The Girl in Black: an ill omen. She wasn't to be visible from every seat in the house: from some points you wouldn't be able to see her because of where she was standing. She'd be onstage, but only some people would know it. But that was okay: it was part of the effect of the play.
Toyama could see her again vividly. She was eighteen. The only woman he'd ever loved, the woman he couldn't forget even now...
Without meaning to, Toyama spoke her name.
4
March 1966
It was full-dress rehearsal day for Theater Group Soaring's eleventh production. Toyama had shut himself up in the sound booth to make his final adjustments. Tomorrow was opening day, and he was checking his tapes and equalizers to make sure everything was as it should be; even now, all alone in front of the control board, he was enjoying his job. He caught himself whistling. After two months of rehearsals, they'd been able to formally move into the theater—excitement was winning out even over the nervousness of opening. All throughout rehearsals he'd had Shigemori sitting next to him giving him detailed orders concerning the sound, and when he failed to follow instructions absolutely to the letter, Shigemori had bawled him out mercilessly. The director couldn't tolerate a second's delay in a sound effect or a slight discrepancy in volume. Day after day of pressure had begun to take a toll on his stomach... But now the sound booth was his castle, his independent kingdom.
The director rarely looked in, and as long as Toyama got the timing right with the tapes, he got no complaints.
Once a play got underway the director's attention was always riveted to the stage—he paid so little attention to the sound that Toyama would actually begin to wonder what all the fuss had been about. Knowing this idio-syncrasy of Shigemori's, Toyama had eagerly anticipated his move into the theater's sound booth.
It wasn't as if he were utterly free from anxiety—he had nightmares about an unplanned sound getting through—but he knew that couldn't happen, so as a worry it was nothing compared to the pressure the director's presence had brought to bear on him. It was only a dream...kind of amusing, really.
Toyama's sound booth was at the top of a spiral staircase leading up from the lobby, right next to the lighting booth. There was no way to get directly to it from the stage area, so anyone coming from the green room or backstage had to first go out to the lobby and then up the stairs. There was an intercom connection with the backstage area, so communication was easy enough, but once the doors had been opened actually going back and forth became quite troublesome. Maybe that was why Shigemori seemed to lose interest in the sound once the play started. In their rehearsal space, the director's chair was right next to the soundman's—an unfortunate circumstance that forced Toyama to bear a burden he otherwise would have been spared.
They finished unloading in the morning, spent the afternoon getting everything into place, and in the evening they were scheduled to have their final full-dress rehearsal. This, too, was easy on the soundman. All he had to carry in was his tape reels; he was spared the heavy labor of lugging in the props.
Once in a while Toyama would raise his head and look down at the busily transforming stage. On the other side of the soundproof glass, the set was almost complete. From this vantage he could see everybody working together to create a single finished product. It was something he enjoyed watching: it felt like a reward for the long
, difficult rehearsals. He fancied that at that very moment the actors, with no particular job to do, were in the green room savoring the exact same feeling.
Toyama ate his dinner—they'd had it brought in—
and then he set up his music reel and his sound effects reel and checked the sequence of cues. No problems at all. All that was left now was to wait for the dress rehearsal to begin. After it was finished, they'd get together for a final round of feedback, and then break for the night. The theater had a strict closing time, so there would be no midnight rehearsals tonight. For him, moving into the theater also meant freedom from having to stick around for late rehearsals, worrying about missing his last train home.
Suddenly Toyama sensed a presence behind him. He turned around.
The door was ajar, and a woman was standing just outside it. In the dim light of the booth he couldn't make out her face. Toyama got up and opened the door wider.
"Oh, Sada. It's you."
Sadako Yamamura stood in the doorway blankly.
Toyama took her hand and brought her into the booth, shutting the door again behind her. The door was heavy, soundproof.
He waited for her to say something, but she just stared past him, tight-lipped, at the almost-complete stage below. The living room set was being assembled, and the director was giving detailed instructions regarding the placement of its various components.
"I'm afraid."
The words resonated with all the naive simplicity of an aspiring actress facing her first appearance onstage.
Sadako had graduated from high school on the island of Izu Oshima and immediately come up to Tokyo; she'd made a remarkably rapid transition from intern to actress. She had every right to be nervous and uneasy.
