I raised my face and looked at my reflection in the glass patio door, but I couldn’t make out anything that could be called a physical change. I had scrubbed every part of my body in the shower but had noticed nothing then, either. “What kind of change did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I have no idea what it might be, but it should be very obvious to anyone who looks at you.”
I stretched my left hand open atop the table and stared at the palm, but it was just my usual palm. It had not changed in any way that I could perceive. It had not become covered in gold foil, nor had it developed webs between the fingers. It was neither beautiful nor ugly. “When you say that it should be very obvious to anyone who looks at me, what do you mean? Something like wings sprouting on my back?”
“It could be something like that,” said Malta Kano, in her usual even tone. “Of course, I mean that as one possibility.”
“Of course,” I said.
“So, then, have you noticed some such change?”
“Not really. Not so far, at least. I mean, if wings had sprouted on my back, I probably couldn’t help but notice, don’t you think?”
“Probably not,” said Malta Kano. “But do be careful, Mr. Okada. To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
“I do have one more thing I would like to ask you about, Mr. Okada. For some time now, I have been unable to establish contact with my sister Creta—just as I lost contact with you. It may be a coincidence, but I find it very strange. I was wondering if, perhaps, you might have some knowledge of the circumstances behind this.”
“Creta Kano?!”
“Yes,” said Malta Kano. “Does anything come to mind in that regard?”
No, nothing came to mind, I replied. I had no clear basis for thinking so, but I felt that for the time being, it would be better if I said nothing to Malta Kano about the fact that I had recently spoken with Creta Kano in person and that, immediately afterward, she had disappeared. It was just a feeling.
“Creta was worried about having lost contact with you, Mr. Okada. She went out last night, saying that she planned to visit your home and see what she could find there, but even at this late hour she has not returned. And for some reason, I can no longer sense her presence.”
“I see. Well, if she should happen to come here, I’ll tell her to contact you right away,” I said.
Malta Kano remained silent for some time at her end of the line. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Okada, I am worried about Creta. As you know, the work that she and I do is far from ordinary. But she is not as well versed in matters of that world as I am. I do not mean to imply that she is not gifted. In fact, she is very gifted. But she is not yet fully acclimated to her gift.”
“I see.”
Malta Kano fell silent once again. This silence was longer than the last one. I sensed a certain indecision on her part.
“Hello. Are you still there?” I asked.
“Yes, Mr. Okada, I am still here,” she replied.
“If I see Creta, I’ll be sure to tell her to get in touch with you,” I said again.
“Thank you very much,” said Malta Kano. Then, after apologizing for the late-night call, she hung up. I hung up, too, and looked at my reflection in the glass one more time. Then the thought struck me: I might never speak with Malta Kano again. This could be the last contact I would ever have with her. She could disappear from my life forever. I had no special reason for thinking this: it was just a feeling that came to me.
•
Suddenly I thought about the rope ladder. I had left it hanging down in the well. Probably, the sooner I retrieved it, the better. Problems could arise if someone found it there. And then there was the sudden disappearance of Creta Kano. I had last seen her at the well.
I shoved my flashlight into my pocket, put on my shoes, stepped down into the garden, and climbed over the wall again. Then I passed down the alley to the vacant house. May Kasahara’s house was pitch dark. The hands of my watch were nearing 3:00 a.m. I entered the yard of the vacant house and went straight for the well. The rope ladder was still anchored to the base of the tree and hanging down into the well, which was still just half open.
Something prompted me to peer down into the well and call Creta Kano’s name in a kind of whispered shout. There was no answer. I pulled out my flashlight and aimed it down the well. The beam did not reach bottom, but I heard a tiny moaning sort of sound. I tried calling the name again.
“It’s all right. I’m here,” said Creta Kano.
“What are you doing in a place like this?” I asked, in a low voice.
“What am I doing? I’m doing the same thing you were doing, Mr. Okada,” she replied, with obvious puzzlement. “I’m thinking. This really is a perfect place for thinking, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, I guess it is,” I said. “But your sister called me at home a little while ago. She’s very worried about your disappearance. It’s the middle of the night and you’re still not home, and she says she can’t feel your presence. She wanted me to tell you to get in touch with her right away if I heard from you.”
“I see. Well, thank you for taking the trouble.”
“Never mind about that, Creta Kano. Will you do me a favor and come out of there? I have to talk to you.”
She did not reply.
I switched off my flashlight and returned it to my pocket.
“Why don’t you come down here, Mr. Okada? The two of us could sit here and talk.”
It might not be a bad idea, I thought, to climb down into the well again and talk with Creta Kano, but then I thought about the moldy darkness at the bottom of the well and got a heavy feeling in my stomach.
“No, sorry, but I’m not going down there again. And you ought to come out, too. Somebody might pull the ladder up again. And the air is stale.”
“I know that. But I want to stay down here a little longer. Don’t worry yourself about me.”
There was nothing I could do as long as Creta Kano had no intention of coming out of the well.
“When I talked to your sister on the phone, I didn’t tell her I saw you here. I hope that was the right thing to do. I just sort of had this feeling that it’d be better to say nothing.”
“You were right,” said Creta Kano. “Please don’t tell my sister I am here.” A moment later, she added, “I don’t want to worry her, but I need a chance to think sometimes too. I will come out as soon as I am done. I would like to be alone now, if you would be so kind. I will not cause you any trouble.”
I decided to leave her and go back to the house for the time being. I could come in the morning and check up on her. If May Kasahara should pull the ladder up again during the night, I could deal with the situation then and manage to help Creta Kano climb out of the well one way or another. I went home, undressed, and stretched out in bed. Picking up the book I had been reading, I opened it to my place. I felt I was too much on edge to get to sleep right away, but before I had read two full pages, I realized I was dozing off. I closed the book, turned out the light, and in the next moment was sound asleep.
•
It was nine-thirty in the morning by the time I awoke. Concerned about Creta Kano, I dressed without bothering to wash my face and hurried down the alley to the vacant house. The clouds hung low in the sky, and the humid morning air seemed to threaten rain at any moment. The rope ladder was gone from the well. Someone must have untied it from the base of the tree and carried it off somewhere. Both halves of the well cover were set tightly in place, with a stone atop each half. Opening one side and peering down into the well, I called Creta Kano’s name. There was no answer. I tried a few more times, waiting after each call. Thinking she might be asleep, I tossed a few pebbles inside, but there no longer seemed
to be anybody in the bottom of the well. Creta Kano had probably climbed out of the well when morning came, untied the ladder, and taken it off with her. I set the cover in place and moved away from the well.
In the alley again, I leaned against the fence of the vacant house, watching May Kasahara’s house for a time. I thought she might notice me there, as she usually did, and come out, but there was no sign of her. The surroundings were absolutely hushed—no people, no noises of any kind, not even the cry of a cicada. I passed the time digging at the surface of the ground with the toe of my shoe. Something felt different about the neighborhood, unfamiliar—as if, in the days I was down in the well, the old reality of this place had been shoved away by a new reality, which had settled in and taken over. I had been feeling this, somewhere deep down, ever since I had emerged from the well and gone home.
Walking back down the alley to my house, I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Several days’ worth of black stubble covered my face. I looked like a newly rescued shipwreck victim. This was the first time in my life I had ever let my beard grow so long. I toyed with the idea of really letting it grow out but after a few moments’ thought decided to shave it. For some reason, it just seemed better to keep the face I had had when Kumiko left.
I softened up my beard with a hot towel and covered my face with a thick layer of shaving cream. I then proceeded to shave, slowly and carefully, so as to avoid cutting myself: first the chin, then the left cheek, then the right cheek. As I was finishing the right cheek, what I saw in the mirror made me catch my breath. It was a blue-black stain of some kind. At first I thought I might accidentally have smeared myself with something. I wiped off the remaining traces of shaving cream, gave my face a good washing with soap and water, and scrubbed at the stained area with a washcloth. But still the stain would not come off. It seemed to have penetrated deep into the skin. I stroked it with a finger. That one patch of skin felt just slightly warmer than the rest of my face, but otherwise it had no special feeling. It was a mark. I had a mark on my cheek in the exact location where, in the well, I had had the sensation of heat.
I brought my face up to the mirror and examined the mark with the utmost care. Located just beyond the right cheekbone, it was about the size of an infant’s palm. Its bluish color was close to black, like the blue-black Mont Blanc ink that Kumiko always used.
One possible explanation was that this was an allergic reaction. I might have come in contact with something in the well that caused an eruption of the skin, the way lacquer can do. But what could there have been down there, in the bottom of the well, to give rise to such a thing? I had examined every nook and cranny of the place with my flashlight, finding nothing there but the dirt bottom and the concrete wall. Besides, did allergies or eruptions ever leave such clearly outlined marks?
A mild panic overtook me. For a few moments, I lost all sense of direction, as when a huge wave crashes over you at the beach, dragging you in. The washcloth fell from my hand. I knocked over the wastebasket and stubbed my foot against something, mumbling meaningless syllables all the while. Then I managed to regain my composure and, leaning against the sink, began thinking calmly about how to deal with this fact.
The best thing I could do for now was to wait and see. I could always go to a doctor afterward. It might be a temporary condition, something that would heal itself, like a lacquer eruption. It had formed in a few short days, so it might disappear just as easily. I went to the kitchen and made myself some coffee. I was hungry, but whenever I actually tried to eat anything, my appetite would vanish like water in a mirage.
I stretched out on the sofa and watched the rain that had begun to fall. Every now and then I would go to the bathroom and look in the mirror, but I could see no change in the mark. It had dyed that area of my cheek a deep, dark—almost handsome—blue.
I could think of only one thing that might have caused this, and that was my having passed through the wall in my predawn dreamlike illusion in the well, the telephone woman leading me by the hand. She had pulled me through the wall so that we could escape from the dangerous someone who had opened the door and was coming into the room. The moment I passed through the wall, I had had the clear sensation of heat on my cheek—in the exact spot where I now had this mark. Of course, whatever causal connection there might be between my passing through the wall and the forming of a mark on my face remained unexplained.
The man without a face had spoken to me in the hotel lobby. “This is the wrong time,” he had warned me. “You don’t belong here now.” But I had ignored his warning and continued on. I was angry at Noboru Wataya, angry at my own confusion. And as a result, perhaps, I had received this mark.
Perhaps the mark was a brand that had been impressed on me by that strange dream or illusion or whatever it was. That was no dream, they were telling me through the mark: It really happened. And every time you look in the mirror now, you will be forced to remember it.
I shook my head. Too many things were being left unexplained. The one thing I understood for sure was that I didn’t understand a thing. A dull throbbing started in my head. I couldn’t think anymore. I felt no urge to do anything. I took a sip of lukewarm coffee and went on watching the rain.
•
After noon, I called my uncle for some small talk. I needed to talk to someone—it didn’t matter much who—to do something about this feeling I had that I was being ripped away from the world of reality.
When he asked how Kumiko was doing, I said fine and let it go at that. She was on a short business trip at the moment, I added. I could have told him honestly what had been happening, but to put the recent events into some kind of order that would make sense to a third party would have been impossible. They didn’t make much sense to me, so how could I explain them to someone else? I decided to keep the truth from my uncle for the time being.
“You used to live in this house, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Sure did,” he said. “Six or seven years altogether. Wait a minute … I bought the place when I was thirty-five and lived there till I was forty-two. Seven years. Moved into this condo when I got married. I lived there alone that whole time.”
“I was just wondering, did anything bad happen to you while you were here?”
“Anything bad? Like what?”
“Like you got sick or you split up with a woman or something.”
My uncle gave a hearty laugh on his end of the line. “I split up with more than one woman, that’s for sure. But not just while I was living there. Nah, I couldn’t count that as something especially bad. Nobody I hated to lose, tell you the truth. As far as getting sick goes … hmm. No, I don’t think so. I had a little growth removed from the back of my neck, but that’s about all I remember. The barber found it, said I ought to have it removed just to be safe. So I went to the doctor, but it turned out to be nothing much. That was the first time I went to see the doctor while I was living in that house—and the last. I ought to get a rebate on my health insurance!”
“No bad memories you associate with the place, then?”
“Nope, none,” said my uncle, after he had thought about it for a moment. “But what’s this about, all of a sudden?”
“Nothing much,” I said. “Kumiko saw a fortune-teller the other day and came home with an earful about this house—that it’s unlucky, things like that,” I lied. “I think it’s nonsense, but I promised to ask you about it.”
“Hmm. What do they call it? ‘House physiognomy’? I don’t know anything about that stuff. You couldn’t tell by me. But I’ve lived in the place, and my impression is that it’s OK, it doesn’t have any problems. Miyawaki’s place is another matter, of course, but you’re pretty far away from there.”
“What kind of people lived here after you moved out?” I asked.
“Let’s see: after me a high school teacher and his family lived there for three years, and then a young couple for five years. He ran some kind of business, but I don’t remember what it
was. I can’t swear that everybody lived a happy life in that house: I had a real estate agent managing the place for me. I never met the people, and I don’t know why they moved out, but I never heard about anything bad that happened to any of them. I just assumed the place got a little small for them and they wanted to build their own houses, that kind of thing.”
“Somebody once told me that the flow of this place has been obstructed. Does that ring a bell?”
“The flow has been obstructed?”
“I don’t know what it means, either,” I said. “It’s just what they told me.”
My uncle thought it over for a while. “No, nothing comes to mind. But it might have been a bad idea to fence off both ends of the alley. A road without an entrance or exit is a strange thing, when you stop to think about it. The fundamental principle of things like roads and rivers is for them to flow. Block them and they stagnate.”
“I see what you mean,” I said. “Now, there’s one more thing I need to ask you. Did you ever hear the cry of the wind-up bird in this neighborhood?”
“The wind-up bird,” said my uncle. “What’s that?”
I explained simply about the wind-up bird, how it came to the tree out back once a day and made that spring-winding cry.
“That’s news to me,” he said. “I’ve never seen or heard one. I like birds, and I’ve always made a point of listening to their cries, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of such a thing. You mean it has something to do with the house?”
“No, not really. I was just wondering if you’d ever heard of it.”
“You know, if you really want the lowdown on things like this—the people who lived there after me and that kind of stuff—you ought to talk to old Mr. Ichikawa, the real estate agent across from the station. That’s Setagaya Dai-ichi Realtors. Tell him I sent you. He handled that house for me for years. He’s been living in the neighborhood forever, and he just might tell you everything you’d ever want to know. He’s the one who told me about the Miyawaki house. He’s one of those old guys that love to talk. You ought to go see him.”
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Page 35
