Edge

by Kōji Suzuki

  The image she was seeing was doubtlessly being broadcast around the world, with hundreds of millions of people watching. Nonetheless, Saeko suspected she was probably the only person in the world imagining the lights as part of a gigantic operation room. Saeko began to feel that she was lying horizontal on a surgical table and looking up at the lights. She shook off the unnerving sensation and walked out of the living room. She opened the door to the bedroom across the hallway and flicked the switch for the lights. As they revealed the room to her, she remembered a set of words:

  “If that’s what you want, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

  The same words had come to her the last time she was here, when she had picked up her father’s notebook from the table. She stopped and looked around, checking that no one was in the room. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, guarding against her imagination’s tendency to get the better of her and create a chain reaction until she heard things that weren’t there. She was redoubling her efforts to stay objective.

  The room looked bigger than she had remembered, no doubt the effect of there being hardly any furniture. The room was big enough for eight tatami mats. A low table sat in the middle of the room, and a single cushion lay on the floor next to it. Saeko imagined that come night the Fujimuras would lay their separate futon beds on the floor, sleeping apart as though the room were in two halves. The brown table would have demarcated the boundary line.

  She walked over to one of the closets and slid the door open. The inside reeked of body odor. A set of mattresses and bottom sheets lay half-folded, uneven like a cross-section of the earth. The lower shelf carried a set of smallish drawers full of clothes. A wardrobe containing a sparse collection of jackets and coats stood to one side of the closet. Another set of drawers placed across from the altar contained neat, functional rows of everyday items. That was what had made the room appear so large; everything that hinted at habitation had been hidden away in various closets and wardrobes.

  Saeko found some photo albums stacked across the far end on one of the shelves in the closet. Each had a date inscribed on its spine. Saeko pulled out the most recent album and began to turn through the pages.

  The album contained neat, methodical arrangements of two years’ worth of family photographs, snapshots of daily life. Scattered among these were some photos that seemed to be from family trips and special events that marked the seasons through the year, helping to pepper the album with variety. Saeko felt increasingly sentimental as she paged through the photos; they seemed full of fond, familial affection.

  The mother and the father, the siblings … Saeko found her attention being drawn to the photos of the mother of the family, Haruko. At the same time, the sound of helicopters carried through from the TV in the living room, bringing back mental flashes of the chasm in California. But something about the photos had her transfixed.

  Saeko agreed with Kitazawa that Haruko was the most likely link between her father and the Fujimura family. They had been travelling together in Bolivia in August 1994, just before he went missing. It wasn’t clear whether they had planned to meet or their encounter had been by chance. Either way, they had entered into an adulterous relationship. Saeko was surprised to find the Haruko in the photos to be a woman of grace and apparent innocence who showed no trace of having a dark side.

  Saeko paused at a photo of her. A note below dated it at about a year before the family went missing; it had been taken in the lobby of a hotel at the Arima hot springs. A woman stood next to her, someone called Tomoko. Haruko sat on a sofa, looking formal with her back straightened, hands together over her lap. The formality of the scene seemed oddly out of place if this was, indeed, a trip with a friend. Haruko looked healthy, with an air of politeness that suggested a proper upbringing. If the photo was taken a year before she went missing, then she would have been forty-four at the time. She looked as though she were in her early thirties.

  Saeko tried to imagine what Haruko must have looked like at twenty-eight, when she would have met Saeko’s father. She was pretty—Saeko would have said cute rather than beautiful. Her eyes were full of character. Deep-set, they slanted inwards slightly, towards her nose.

  The next page of the album had photos that looked altogether more recent, a set of family portraits. Saeko checked the date; it was marked November 22 last year, just a couple of months before the family went missing. There were four photos in total, each very similar, like they had all been taken at the same time. Saeko recognized the Fujimuras’ living room, which she had just been in. Each photo contained the entire family, the two parents and their children. It looked like they had set up a tripod and used a timer for the shots.

  There was something about this particular set of photos that caught her interest. At the center of the photograph were Haruko and her husband, with their children lined up behind them. The composition was entirely orthodox, a typical style for a family portrait. Their smiles looked fixed, slightly forced.

  Saeko flipped through a few more pages of the album as a thought began to form in her mind. All the other photos in the album were essentially snapshots, taken out and about, around Takato, out on holiday, school trips, sporting events … The formal portraits stood out as they were the only photos showing the family together in the surroundings of their own home.

  She considered the framed photo adorning the altar.

  Did they know that something was going to happen to them?

  If the family had discovered something in advance, if they had somehow worked out that everything was about to change … Were these photos taken to forever preserve their images as they waited for a coming darkness? The pictures had been taken two months before they actually disappeared. They might have known something was coming, but not the exact timing of whatever catastrophe awaited them.

  Saeko put the idea to the back of her mind and began to rummage through the remaining albums. She picked out a couple from around 1994. The first, marked 1993, contained a series of wedding photos, Haruko and Kota’s. The next album, dated 1995, contained pictures of the happy couple with their newborn daughter, Fumi. Haruko had met Saeko’s father in Bolivia during August in the year after her marriage, the year before Fumi was born. Saeko remembered that Haruko had given birth to Fumi on May 15th. Was it possible that Fumi had been conceived while Haruko had been with her father in Bolivia? The timing fitted perfectly. There was no conclusive evidence, but it felt close.

  Saeko realized she didn’t have a clear enough image of what Fumi looked like. Immediately she began flipping through the pages until she found a couple of snapshots of her. Saeko stared at the photos, feverishly devouring details, searching for any resemblances to herself, any signs that she could be her father’s daughter—that they could be blood-sisters. They didn’t look dissimilar, Saeko had to admit. Fumi had the same slightly oval-shaped face with rounded cheeks, the kind of visage that most men found appealing. There was a basic resemblance.

  Her father and Haruko had been lovers, and Fumi born as a result of the consummation of their relationship … Of course, there had been no reason to consider such a hypothesis when she had first visited the Fujimuras’ for her research. If Fumi’s father had been Shinichiro, and if that somehow related to the family’s disappearance, then Haruko would have known that she was the cause of the household’s downfall. Just as Saeko’s thoughts began to crystallize onto an idea, the phone in the living room began to ring, catching her off guard.

  Her body went rigid as a bolt of fear sliced through her. She clasped the photo album to her chest and knelt down on the tatami, holding her breath. She curled forwards, momentarily unsure of how to react. There was no reason not to answer the phone; she placed the album down on the floor in front of her and started to get up. Just at that moment, the ringing abruptly ended, and a man’s voice said, “Hello?” The voice was followed by a dial tone.

  It was over in a couple of seconds, but Saeko immediately realized that something was out of jo
int. A series of images rushed through her mind, adding visual feedback to the scene based on the sounds she had heard. She saw someone pick up the receiver of the ringing phone. The caller spoke through the receiver, managing just one word. Then, someone had pushed the phone’s cradle down, released it, and the dial tone had sounded. Then the receiver had been replaced. There was only one possible conclusion.

  Someone’s there, in the living room …

  Saeko felt her body respond to the sudden rush of fear; she quickly put her hands over her mouth, afraid she might scream. She moved slowly towards the door, cautious not to make any sound. She turned the lock shut and pulled her phone from her pocket. She had recognized the voice on the other side of the phone. It sounded agitated but there was no mistaking the voice. It was Hashiba.

  She had completely forgotten that her phone was still off from the drive up. She held down the power button and the screen lit up, showing a number of missed calls. They were from Hashiba; he had left a couple of messages. She dialed the number for her voicemail and put the phone to her ear. The voice she heard sounded agitated and jittery:

  “Saeko, don’t go near the Fujimura house, there’s someone—something, there. I’m one hundred percent serious. Call me as soon as you get this message. Please, Saeko.”

  The machine clicked through to the next message. This time, Hashiba’s tone was almost mournful. He sounded completely crestfallen:

  “Saeko, I don’t expect you to believe this. But please listen, and try to stay calm. Saeko, the universe—everything—is about to end. Isogai and Chris, they’ve worked out that something called a phase transition is happening. The thing originated somewhere in the galaxy and is heading towards our solar system, faster than the speed of light. It’s going to reach before dawn, and everything as we know it will just cease to exist. There won’t be any warnings. The things on the news now are the first signs.”

  The first message was regarding her specific situation. The second was about the fate of not just Earth but the whole universe. Both messages told her that she was in immediate danger.

  There’s something else in the house … A phase transition would strike Earth before dawn, destroying everything in an instant …

  The information was too much to take in. Her thoughts spun, and for a brief moment Saeko couldn’t work out which of the two issues was the more urgent. Then she knew; there was no need to even consider the question. Anything that threatened her and her alone didn’t matter. Whatever problems anyone faced, whether they were floating alone on an iceberg, lay on their deathbed with terminal cancer, or had been kidnapped by a murderer, no longer mattered. They would all cease to be, together with the source of their problems.

  A phase transition—Saeko knew the basics. It meant the replacement of the molecular structure of matter by a new form that obeyed different physical laws. It would happen in the blink of an eye. The old universe was getting ready to be replaced by a new one like a snake shedding its skin.

  Did it mean that they’d gotten something wrong? That a fundamental error had eaten away at the validity of the relationship between DNA’s mathematical language and the universe? That the contradictions had finally accumulated to the point where the situation was beyond repair? That the universe was trying to reset itself?

  Saeko wondered how it was that they could have gotten it so wrong. She knew that there was a contradiction between general relativity and quantum mechanics; maybe that had been the hint they’d needed. It was too late now, either way. Hashiba had said that the world was going to end before the night was through. She had no choice but to believe him. The evidence seemed to be there: the chasm in California, the crater in Atami, the moon-like circles of light in the sky. Everything pointed to an impending disaster.

  4Hashiba was alone in the room. Next door, Kato and Hosokawa were busying themselves packing away the equipment. Kagayama had been sitting on the edge of the bed, muttering to himself. They had agreed that there was probably no point in packing away the equipment if the world really was about to end. At the same time, they couldn’t break the habit. True professionals, they could only allow themselves to leave after packing everything into all the right places. Once they had checked out, they would reunite and take their two cars back to Tokyo.

  Hashiba had thrown together everything he thought he needed and now sat on the bed, absentmindedly watching the TV, waiting for the others to let him know they had finished. The news coverage kept jumping back and forth between footage in California and a view of lights in the sky from Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The speed at which the images flicked around seemed to reflect the confused state of the news producers. Things were happening so quickly no one had any time to work out the causes, to add proper narrative. All they could do was chase phenomena around the world, filming whatever they could. Hashiba wondered how he would direct a program based on what he’d learned, and various ideas began to stir in his mind. He sat up straight, simultaneously excited and frustrated by the fact that he knew more than the various broadcasters of the world.

  The images continued to cycle from place to place, empty of any meaningful narrative. The next image to come up was that of a clear night sky. This was new. The picture quality was good; it had to be somewhere that had a decent infrastructure in place. The reporter spoke in a matter-of-fact, dispassionate tone, linking the stars’ disappearance to the chasm that had appeared in California. Looking up was forcing him to talk in a halting manner, and he avoided sounding loquacious.

  It was night in Japan. Hashiba got up and opened the window; he should be able to observe the same phenomenon himself. He leant out into the open air and arched his neck up, taking in the view of the dark sky above. He searched for the Milky Way. It was true, whereas previously the stars in that area had been dense and bright, it seemed to have become a dark hole in the sky. He was appalled to confirm the sight firsthand, but his shock morphed first into a sense of loneliness, then into an indescribable sorrow.

  The Milky Way had always been such a romantic notion. Hashiba couldn’t count the number of times he had looked into the sky for inspiration. Once, during summer back in high school, he’d invited a girl he had a crush on to come out and watch for shooting stars. They had spent the whole night outdoors. He remembered how he’d wanted to kiss her but hadn’t been able to pluck up the courage to ask. Each time he tried, there had been a brief moment of awkwardness, and each time he had been saved by shooting stars crossing the Milky Way providing an easy change of subject. The stars had made sure his date didn’t become a disaster. Even though he hadn’t kissed the girl that night—he’d hardly held her hand—it had been the best time.

  Now the stars were fading away into nothingness, and it felt as though memories were being erased along with them.

  First the stars, then us.

  Hashiba’s whole body ached with the force of the idea. It was too much to think that despite having come so far, despite 4 billion years of evolution, everything could just be swept away over the course of a single night. He now accepted that death was coming, but the feeling still lacked a visceral sense of reality. It was different from being told that he was in the final stages of terminal cancer and had only a few days to live; from departing as part of a death squad in some war and knowing that there was no return; from being a prisoner on death row. There would be no countdown. Humanity could only wait, passive and helpless, for a sudden but inevitable demise. More than anything Hashiba felt a burning sense of waste, overpowering any feelings of fear, coupled with a frustration born from knowing that nothing could be done about it.

  He shook his head, at the same time surprised by his easy acceptance of an idea that was, after all, nothing more than a hypothesis cobbled together by two men. Why couldn’t he just laugh it off as a preposterous notion? The decision to believe a certain hypothesis, Hashiba knew, derived from subconscious desire. He recalled a friend from college, two years his senior, that he’d met through the ski club. The guy prided himsel
f on his logical thinking and readily dismissed anything that reeked of the occult. His grades were first class, and he was a charismatic presence on campus. After graduation he secured a high-flying job at a prestigious trading company, and with his future almost guaranteed, he received a number of offers for well-placed marriages. Then, out of the blue, he married someone he met on a business trip to Hachinohe, a widow ten years older than him. He’d somehow become obsessed with the idea that she was the living reincarnation of his childhood sweetheart, who had died when they were still in junior high school.

  Hashiba learned this while attending the wedding with some other friends, initially as a rumor. He thought it a joke, but it soon became clear that his friend truly believed it. Even now he could picture the dumbfounded look on everyone’s faces when his friend told them.

  He had three reasons for believing that his bride was the reincarnation of his childhood sweetheart. When he’d visited his lost love during the final stages of her illness, she’d come to terms with her extinction and promised that they would meet again, on a bridge above a clear stream. The first reason, then, was that he met his wife on a bridge over the Mabechi River. The second was the fact that they looked physically similar, with a beauty spot in the same place, left of their lower lip, and the same wavy, brownish hair. The third reason clinched it: a common birthday.

  These factors in no way provided evidence to support his conviction that the woman from Hachinohe was a reincarnation. The most glaringly obvious contradiction was that she was ten years older than his childhood sweetheart. Despite the obvious logical flaw, Hashiba’s friend had convinced himself that it was true. Hashiba came to understand then that no matter how much people prided themselves on their logic or intellect, if their desire to believe something was strong enough, their minds happily wove a fiction around those wishes until they became stubborn belief. The key was the underlying wish. His friend had created a fiction to support his need to believe that his relationship with his childhood sweetheart had been unique and predestined, and viewed events through a romantic mysticism.