Journey Under the Midnight Sun

by Keigo Higashino

  Yukiho came in wearing a moss-green suit, juggling two paper sacks in her right hand and two plastic bags from the supermarket in her left. She even had a black shoulder bag over one arm.

  ‘You must be starving! I’ll get something ready right now.’

  She put the grocery bags down on the kitchen floor and went into the bedroom, leaving a trail of perfume in her wake.

  Several minutes later she came back out in her regular clothes, an apron in one hand. She tied it on as she went into the kitchen.

  ‘I brought something we can eat right away, so it won’t take that long. And there’s some canned soup, too,’ she called from the kitchen, still catching her breath.

  Makoto had just started reading the newspaper but unexpectedly he felt anger growing inside him. He wasn’t even sure what it was. If he had to say, it was her damn cheerfulness.

  Makoto put down the newspaper and stood. He headed for the kitchen where he heard her bustling as she worked.

  ‘Dinner out of a can again?’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’ Yukiho asked over the din of the kitchen fan. That annoyed him even more.

  Makoto stood in the entrance of the kitchen. Yukiho was boiling some water on the gas stove and looked at him curiously.

  ‘After you made me wait that long, you’re going to give me something reheated on the stove?’

  Her mouth opened. She reached up and turned off the kitchen fan. Silence descended on the room.

  ‘I’m sorry. Are you mad?’

  ‘It would be one thing if this just happened every now and then,’ Makoto said, ‘but lately it’s been every night. You come home late, and start with the can opener. Over and over.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to have to wait any longer —’

  ‘Oh, I’ve already waited. More than enough. I was about to make myself some instant ramen. Of course, if you’re just going to slap something out, I probably should’ve gone with the ramen.’

  ‘Sorry. I know this isn’t much of an excuse, but I’ve just been so busy – I know I haven’t been treating you well.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad business is going so great,’ he said, feeling his mouth twisting into an ugly smile.

  ‘Don’t be like that. I really am sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future,’ she said, putting her hands on her apron and bowing her head.

  ‘That’s what you say every time,’ Makoto spat, jamming his hands into his pockets.

  Yukiho stood quietly, head drooping. What could she have said, anyway? Maybe, Makoto thought, she’s just waiting for the storm to pass.

  ‘Why don’t you quit?’ Makoto asked. ‘It’s impossible to be a housewife and hold a job at the same time. It must be hard for you, too.’

  Yukiho didn’t say anything.

  Her shoulders began to shake. Grabbing the edge of her apron, she pressed it to her face. He heard a sob come from between her hands.

  She apologised again. ‘I know I’m no good. I really know. I’m just causing trouble for you. You’re letting me do whatever I want to, and I’m not repaying you at all. I’m just, I’m no good as a human being. Maybe you shouldn’t have married me,’ she said, hiccuping between sobs.

  Which of course meant that Makoto couldn’t press her any harder. In fact, once again, he started to feel foolish for getting angry over something so small.

  ‘Whatever, it’s fine,’ he said, putting away his anger like a sword into its sheath. Yukiho never talked back, so it never became a fight.

  Makoto went back to the sofa and opened the paper. Yukiho called from the kitchen, ‘Makoto?’

  ‘Yeah?’ He looked over at her.

  ‘What about dinner tonight? I mean, I’d make something, but I don’t have much on hand.’

  ‘Oh,’ Makoto said, his whole body feeling dull and weary. ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s eat whatever you bought.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘There’s nothing else, right?’

  ‘I’ll have it ready soon,’ she said, disappearing into the kitchen.

  Hearing the kitchen fan whirr back to life, Makoto shook his head, feeling like nothing had been settled at all.

  About a month after their first wedding anniversary, Yukiho had surprised Makoto by asking if she could get a job. One of her friends in the apparel business was striking out and opening a shop on her own, and she had asked Yukiho if she wanted to be co-manager. Makoto asked her if it was something she really wanted to do and Yukiho said she did.

  It was the first time he’d seen that look in her eyes, that sparkle, since she gave up on the stock market. When he saw that, he couldn’t say no.

  He admonished her not to overextend herself, and Yukiho expressed her joy in a stream of thank-yous.

  The new store was in South Aoyama, a trendy part of town. The whole front of the shop was a wall of glass, giving it a bright atmosphere and allowing passers-by to look in and see the wares from the street. Makoto only learned later that the money they had spent on renovating the place had come from Yukiho.

  Yukiho’s partner was a woman named Naomi Tamura. She had a round face and a round body and there was the air of a commoner about her. True to her looks, she was a hard worker. At the shop Yukiho handled the customers, and Naomi brought out clothes and worked the register.

  The shop saw customers by reservation only. In addition to giving the mystique of exclusivity, this provided Yukiho and Naomi time to find an outfit to match the customer’s size and taste. It also allowed them to avoid having a large warehouse for merchandise, since they only needed to carry items for particular clients.

  The question was how well they would be able to leverage their networks in order to bring in customers, but they never seemed to have trouble keeping a steady flow through their door.

  Though Makoto worried that Yukiho would spend too much time on her business, it wasn’t a problem at first. In fact, she put even more effort into housework after she started at the shop. Every night he returned from work to find a home-cooked meal waiting, and Yukiho rarely came home after Makoto.

  However, about two months after the shop opened, Yukiho said something unexpected again. She wanted to know if Makoto wanted to become the owner of the shop.

  ‘Owner? Me? Why?’

  ‘The landlord’s looking for money to pay off some inheritance tax and he asked us if we wanted to buy the place.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘More than that, I think it would definitely be the right move. With that location there’s no chance the price will go down. And the number he’s quoting is, frankly, a steal.’

  ‘And if I don’t buy it?’

  ‘Then we really wouldn’t have any other choice, I guess.’ She sighed. ‘I’d have to buy it myself.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I’m sure the bank would lend me money for that location.’

  ‘So you’d borrow money to buy the shop? You want it that badly?’

  ‘If we don’t buy it the owner’s only going to try to sell it to someone else. We might even lose our lease. If they can get us out of there and tear the place down they can sell it for a lot more.’

  Makoto thought for a while.

  It wasn’t out of their reach financially. Makoto’s family had several plots of land in Seijo, all of which Makoto was set to inherit. He could sell off some of those and purchase the shop easily. If he proposed it in the right way, he didn’t think his mother would object, either. As it was, they hardly used the land anyway.

  On the other hand, he was opposed to Yukiho borrowing any money – if she did, he was afraid he would lose her to work entirely. Also, something didn’t sit well with him with the idea of her owning a shop in her own name.

  He asked her to let him think about it for a couple of days. Though, in truth, he had already made up his mind. Hardly a month into 1987, the shop in Aoyama was his. Rent from Yukiho’s business now came into his account.

  It was only a short while afterwards that Makoto
learned how right Yukiho had been.

  High demand for office space in central Tokyo led to rampant price hikes. Land increased by as much as two or three times in value in the space of weeks. Makoto received several offers to sell the shop and land, and whenever he heard the asking prices he had to pinch himself wondering if it all was real.

  This was around the time that he developed a slight inferiority complex towards Yukiho. He began to think that in the home, in business, and more than anything else in sheer guts, he lacked what she had. He would never be her equal. He had no way of knowing directly how well she was doing in business. However, it was clear that growth was steady. She was already planning to open a second shop in Daikanyama.

  Makoto lacked the courage to start something new. All he could do was cling to his company job, content to do the bidding of someone else. He had no inspired ideas to turn the land he had inherited to any good use, and he was even living in an apartment given him by his parents.

  The stock boom of the year before only compounded his sense of failure. In February of the previous year, NTT had made its initial public offering, starting a new stock bubble in the process. It was common knowledge that anyone with any money had to be in stocks.

  And yet they hadn’t benefited from the boom at all, because he had criticised Yukiho for getting involved. She never talked about stocks after that. Yet just thinking about what must have gone through her mind when she saw prices taking off made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Golf lessons?’ Makoto looked over at his wife’s face in the dresser mirror. He was lying in his bed, a semi-double. Her bed was a single. They’d slept in separate beds since moving in together.

  ‘I thought if we went on Saturday nights we could go together,’ Yukiho said, laying down a pamphlet in front of him.

  ‘Since when are you interested in golf?’

  ‘A lot of women are doing it now. It’s great for couples, too. It’d be fun if we did it together.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Makoto’s late father had loved golf. Practically every day he had off, he loaded his large golf bag into the trunk of the car and headed out to the country club. Makoto remembered how lively his father looked at those times. Maybe he just liked getting out of the house, since he lived with his wife’s family.

  ‘There’s an information seminar next Saturday. Let’s go,’ Yukiho said, getting into her own bed.

  ‘Sure, let’s go.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I have another idea for something we could do together.’

  Yukiho laughed and slipped out of her bed, sliding into his.

  Makoto reached out and turned down the lights by the head of the bed. He rolled over towards her and put his hands down the front of her white negligée. Her breasts were soft and bigger than you might think to look at them.

  Except, his mind was elsewhere. He was hoping there wouldn’t be a problem today, as there had been so often recently.

  He worked her breasts, looking at her nipples, and then pulled the negligée off over her head. He started to remove his own pyjamas. She hadn’t even touched him really, and already he was hard.

  Completely naked now, he embraced her. She kept fit, even though he never saw her exercising. When he put his hands around her waist, she wriggled as though she was ticklish. Arms enveloping her, he kissed her neck and nibbled at her breasts.

  His hand went to her panties. Lowering them down to her knees, he used his foot to peel them the rest of the way off. This was his usual technique.

  He already had a premonition when his hand went to go between her thighs and his fingers brushed her pubic hair.

  She wasn’t wet at all. He stroked her clitoris, but no matter how gently he moved his fingers, there was no lubrication inside.

  Makoto was fairly sure nothing was lacking in his technique. Until only recently, things had worked just fine.

  Giving up on the clitoris, he moved his finger down, trying to penetrate her, only to find her closed tightly. When he tried to force his way in, she whispered, ‘Ouch.’ He could tell she was frowning, even in the dim light.

  ‘I’m sorry, did that hurt?’

  ‘It’s OK. Come inside.’

  ‘Not if my finger hurts.’

  ‘No, it’s OK, I can deal with it. It hurts more when you go slow like that,’ Yukiho said, spreading her legs a little further.

  Makoto moved until he was between her legs. Then, holding his penis in one hand, he pushed up against her vagina, thrusting his hips forward.

  Yukiho gasped. He saw her gritting her teeth. Makoto blinked. He hadn’t pushed that hard. He wasn’t even inside.

  He tried again and Yukiho groaned strangely.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just, my stomach hurts.’

  ‘Your stomach?’

  ‘I mean, lower down.’

  ‘Again?’ Makoto said.

  ‘I’m sorry. But it’s OK, it’ll get better.’

  ‘No, it’s not OK.’ Makoto said, picking up his underpants from the foot of the bed and putting them on. He put on his pyjamas, thinking, ‘I guess tonight’s a wash too.’ This was the way it always seemed to go lately.

  Yukiho was putting on her undergarments. She picked up her negligée and went back to her own bed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘You know, we really should go see a doctor.’

  ‘I know, it’s just —’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve heard that having an abortion can do this to you. The dryness… and the pain.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of that.’

  ‘Well, why would you have – you’re a man.’

  ‘Yeah, but —’

  Makoto got the feeling that the conversation wasn’t going to go any place good and turned away from her, pulling the covers up. He had already gone soft, but he was still horny. If they couldn’t have sex, he at least wanted her to show her affection in other ways, but Yukiho wasn’t the type to do that sort of thing. And it was hard for Makoto to ask.

  A few minutes later, he heard her sniffling in bed.

  It seemed like too much of a chore to try to console her, so he buried his face under the covers and pretended not to hear.

  The Eagle Golf Driving Range had been built in the dead centre of a square residential area. A sign out front boasted a longest driving range of two hundred yards and the latest ball delivery system. Inside the green netting, tiny white balls flew in a swarm through the air.

  The school was about twenty minutes by car from their apartment. They were there by four-thirty. The information session was from five, according to the pamphlet.

  ‘Guess we got here early. I told you we should have left later,’ Makoto said, turning the wheel of the BMW.

  ‘I thought the roads might be crowded. Besides, we can watch other people hit. We might learn something,’ Yukiho replied from the passenger seat.