Kappa Quartet

by Daryl Qilin Yam

  Who?

  She’s American, said my friend.

  Is she popular?

  I think so, my friend had replied. She used to be, at least.

  The child blinked. He asked what had happened to her, and my friend said she had passed away, more than twenty years ago. Cancer in the lungs, he added. Though I’m not sure if you know what that is.

  “Goro didn’t speak for a while,” I said to Ms Itsuko. “My friend and I watched him, as he turned back to face the stereo. And the song was just growing, bigger and bigger… ‘Lover man, lover man,’ she sings. ‘Where can you be?’”

  “The virgin,” said Ms Itsuko, “dying to be loved.”

  I nodded. “My friend said something then. ‘It’s huge,’ he said out of nowhere. And then I realised he was referring to the hole in Goro’s head. My friend was practically staring at it.”

  Ms Itsuko tilted her head again.

  “Do pardon me for asking this, Mr Sugimura—but would you say he was drawn to it? Much like Shinichi?”

  I wanted to wince. “I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”

  Half an hour later, my friend and I had relocated to the living room. We listened, attentively, to the last of the LP. We were seated on the floor, a cushion behind each of our backs, nursing a glass of wine each. Goro wasn’t there with us at the time; he had gone to the toilet.

  “After the record came to an end, my friend and I realised that Goro still had not returned... He was taking a lot longer than he should have.”

  “Did you both go to the toilet?”

  I nodded. “We opened the door and found the boy, curled up beneath the sink. The tap was still running… I turned off the water and knelt beside him. ‘Look in the mirror,’ the boy said to me. But I looked and I saw nothing.”

  Ms Itsuko raised a hand to her lips. Her eyes were wide with attention.

  “So that was the first episode,” she said to me. She lowered her hand back down. “I see,” she said.

  It had been forty minutes since we had started our conversation. Ms Itsuko laid down the facts of the situation.

  “Over the past two months your son has had three separate episodes at the school. These episodes do not include the one that had happened this morning.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “The first time it happened, nobody knew where he went. It was his art class that morning, and he had asked the instructor if he could excuse himself and use the restroom. The instructor said that he could. Ten minutes later, however, Goro had not returned. This worried the instructor.”

  “Yes…”

  “She sent a student to bring him back, and he did. Nothing much was made of it. After class, however, the student went up to the instructor and told her what he saw.”

  “Goro was just staring at the mirror, wasn’t he?”

  “Like I said: nothing much was made of it. The instructor didn’t think it was necessary to pass the information on to me,” said Ms Itsuko.

  There was a pause. I waited for her to continue.

  “The second episode was exactly the same,” Ms Itsuko went on. “Except this time it occurred during my own class. This upset me, of course, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I let it pass.”

  She coughed once more. She took out a tissue from the packet.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I am not very used to this room.”

  Various paintings had been left to dry, on the easels in the art studio, while others were framed and hung on the walls. From the window, I could see that the students had vacated the field; baseball practice was apparently over.

  “His third episode was particularly bad,” she said.

  “He threw a rock, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. Normally something like that would have led to a suspension,” Ms Itsuko said. “But we reconsidered that, in light of what Shinichi had done to your son. Trauma, the school counsellor told us. It never fully goes away.”

  “He promised he wouldn’t do it again,” I said to Ms Itsuko. She smiled.

  “He was just frightened, wasn’t he? Of the stranger in the mirror.” She looked towards the window: she was looking at her own reflection. “This morning, he hid in the toilet stall and would not come out. I had to climb over the cubicle wall and unlock it with a broomstick.”

  I bowed. “I’m so sorry,” I said to her. I bowed again. “I apologise for all the trouble I’ve caused you…”

  She merely shook her head.

  “It’s all right, Mr Sugimura. It makes my life more exciting.” She turned away from the window. “Are you familiar with the Blue Room, Mr Sugimura?”

  “The Blue Room?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Has he ever talked about it before?”

  I tried to think back. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard about it,” I said.

  “He says he sees it in the mirror, Mr Sugimura. A room entirely in blue, without any furniture whatsoever. Just walls. And in that room is a person, walking towards him.”

  “What?” I said. “No… No, I’ve never heard of something like that at all.”

  Ms Itsuko pursed her lips. “It cannot be helped, then. We will just have to adapt. Shinichi’s transfer has just been finalised, and so the child is gone for good. I had hoped that Goro would somehow do better in his absence. But that was a silly thing to assume.”

  Ms Itsuko then rose from her seat. She walked over to the drawer, and pulled out a large folder. Inside it were a number of students’ drawings, done in paint and crayon. She took them out, one painting at a time, and showed them to me.

  “As you can see, these are all goldfish,” Ms Itsuko said to me. “That was what they had to paint the day before.” She then took out the final drawing. “This is what your son painted.”

  I looked. It was just blue: an empty tank of water. In the middle of it was a rough sketch of something in beige.

  “Is that a man?” I asked.

  “It is somebody,” Ms Itsuko said. She sat back down in her chair. “I know this may sound unorthodox, Mr Sugimura, and I do apologise for suggesting this. But I could get my husband to see your son, I believe. Have one kappa speak to another. I think he would be very interested in meeting your boy.”

  I handed the painting back to her. I felt bad, to say the least. And guilty. “It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you for the offer though…”

  Ms Itsuko smiled. She seemed almost disappointed. “You are welcome,” she said.

  •

  My friend called, later that evening. I was wrapped in a jumper, with socks over my feet. It was during the evenings when I was reminded most that winter was approaching. I told my friend about everything that had happened.

  “The teacher had to get him out of the toilet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man,” he said. “That is rough. I wonder why the boy felt he had to lock himself in, though.”

  “She said something about a Blue Room…”

  “A what?”

  “A Blue Room,” I said. “A room entirely in blue, with nothing but a person seated on a chair… He sees it in the mirror, she says. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “I ain’t got a clue.”

  There was a pause. I was in my living room, seated on the couch. I switched the television on. Advertisements played across the channel.

  “You know, it’s not that strange of a situation,” my friend said.

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s strange enough as it is.”

  He laughed. “You see, everyone has got their own set of issues. It just how we deal with ‘em, that’s all.”

  I stared at the TV. “So what does that say about Goro, then?”

  “The kid’s just handicapped,” he replied. “We all are.”

  “Yourself included?”

  “Of course,” my friend said. “You know about the washroom I never use?”

  “The what?”

  He laughed ag
ain. “It’s located at the end of the floor where I teach. It’s pretty small, so it’s only got two stalls, and one of them always seems to be occupied. And yet somehow it’s always completely quiet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s completely quiet,” he said. “There’s no sound. Nothing from that stall at all. There’s no squeak on the seat, no zip of the pants, no tearing of toilet paper. Nada. Zilch.”

  I picked up the remote. I switched the channel.

  “Maybe you’re just imagining things,” I said. “The door could just be closed, after all… It doesn’t have to mean someone’s there.”

  “That’s the thing, though: there is somebody in there.”

  I switched the channel again.

  “But how do you know for sure?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “That’s the whole point, Sugimura. I know and yet I don’t know. So where does that leave me? It’s a purely irrational thought, and yet something in my gut tells me that no matter what I do, I should never use that washroom again. Because there will always be somebody inside it, somebody whom I can never see or hear or touch. And so now I avoid it completely.”

  I sighed. There was nothing on the TV. I switched it off.

  “Maybe we’re all crazy… It’s the sane ones we have to worry about.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. He paused. “Whatcha doing right now?”

  I stared at the empty television screen. “Nothing,” I said.

  “Come over to my place then. Goro’s asleep; you’re not. And I’ve just got my hands on something that you absolutely have to try.”

  I started the car and drove over to his apartment. It was a bottle of red, it turned out: a 1998 Vega Sicilia Unico, as written on the label. From the oven he took out a warm slice of chicken pie, reheated and ready to eat. I’d never had anything like it before. “It’s from a nearby bakery,” he said to me. “A Kofu city secret.”

  “It’s amazing,” I said.

  My friend dug into his slice. “Crust is light and flaky, without ever turning soggy. And the filling goes wonderfully with the wine,” he added.

  I nodded. I then held up my glass, high enough so I could see it against the light. “How did you manage to get that bottle, by the way? I’ve never seen the label before…”

  “I got connections,” he said. “I’m not boasting or anything. I just so happen to know all kinds of people.”

  I felt sceptical. “And these people… they recommend you things like this all the time? Like wine and pie?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Once in a while they render me special services as well. Special favours, things like that.”

  “What kind of favours?”

  “Er, things I need doing that I can’t do myself. I know a guy who’s very good at locating people, for instance. It’s a gift that he has. Helped me track down a writer who became something of a shut-in, recently. That was the first time. Second time, he found the daughter of someone who had gone senile; I needed the guy’s records, and his daughter happened to be the only person I could ask.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. An idea then occurred to me. “Could you ask this guy of yours to do me a favour?”

  My friend gave me a curious look. “Sure, man,” he said. He was refilling his glass of wine. “Is there somebody in particular you wanna find?”

  “It’s to do with Goro…”

  “Go on.”

  I scratched the edge of my nose. “I’m wondering if this contact of yours could find somebody related to him.”

  He took a sip of his wine. “You talking about family, right? Biological relations?”

  I nodded. Have one kappa speak to another, I recalled Ms Itsuko saying. “I think talking to one of them might help,” I said. “Shed some light on his issues… Maybe they’ll know something about the Blue Room that I don’t. Or at least something about his background, his family history…”

  My friend took a look at my glass, and proceeded to refill it as well. He poured a little more than he should have. “You will want a number, I’m assuming?”

  I told him that would be great. My friend smiled.

  “Gimme a week or so, will you? I’ll see what I can do.”

  Goro called me at work, two days before Christmas Eve. He told me I couldn’t come back home. “Why not?” I asked, and he said that I just couldn’t. “It’s dangerous,” he said.

  I racked my brain for a few seconds. “Is it the person in the Blue Room?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And you saw it where…?”

  “The toilet.”

  “How long ago?” I asked. He didn’t reply. “Are you scared?” I asked.

  “I’m scared,” he said. “I’m heading to the bathhouse.”

  “You are?”

  There was a pause.

  “I’ll take the keys,” he said. “I’ll stay there and wait for you.”

  “All right,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere else.”

  I hung up and called my friend. I asked him if Goro could spend the night at his place, and quickly relayed the situation. He told me it was no problem.

  “Your timing’s perfect, by the way.”

  “How so?”

  “My contact just got in touch with me.”

  My heart pounded. “And…?”

  “He just sent a number to my inbox. Says it’s the number to the little guy’s uncle.”

  I felt my chest go tight. “His uncle?” I asked. “On the mother’s side?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “She’s got a younger brother and an older sister, as a matter of fact. But the sister is nowhere to be found—my guy thinks she might be living in a commune, somewhere in Eastern Europe. My contact doesn’t know for sure. The brother, on the other hand, is right here in this country.”

  “That’s incredible,” I said. “Is there a name?”

  “No name,” my friend said. “I think that’s just how far he’s willing to do a favour, I’m afraid. I think he expects you to do everything else on your own.”

  “No, no,” I said, “that’s fine.” I’d figured things like names and such could be sorted out later. “Could you forward the number please?”

  “No problem,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got a department meeting in a few minutes. I’ll probably be done in an hour or so. Lemme know when Goro will be arriving.”

  The boy was waiting at the front of the bathhouse, drinking a box of juice the owner had given him. I thanked the owner, got Goro into the car, and drove him to the block of my friend’s apartment. It was half-past four in the afternoon, and the sky had started to turn; the radio, tuned to a classical FM broadcast, played the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. An uncanny coincidence, I thought. For a while, we sat in the car and listened to the swell of the orchestra, wondering when my friend would arrive.

  “Do you remember this music?” I said.

  The boy nodded his head. He then looked at me. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What for?” He didn’t answer. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “But I brought it home,” said Goro. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  I turned the radio down.

  “Is it okay if I ask about the Blue Room?”

  The boy looked at me. He then looked at his lap. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “I want to know what the room is like… the kinds of things you see in there. Stuff like that,” I said.

  “But there’s nothing in the Blue Room. Just walls.”

  “Just walls,” I said, echoing his words. I looked at the sky outside. It was dusk, I saw: a single yellow cloud, drifting lonesome across the sky.

  “Hey,” I said to the boy. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  He nodded.

  “This person in the Blue Room… is it a woman?”

  “A woman?”

  I nodded. “Your mother.”

 
He shook his head. “Not a woman,” he said. “Not my mother. It is a man.”

  “A man?”

  He turned his head towards the window; he saw his own reflection gazing back at him. “He’s coming to get me,” the boy said.

  A pair of lights grew brighter in the rear-view mirror. It was a bus, and it stopped about ten metres behind the car. My friend alighted from the exit, wearing a long grey scarf and a large trench coat. Goro and I got out of my car.

  “Have you called the number yet?” my friend asked. I told him I planned to afterwards. My friend nodded and placed a hand on the boy’s back. “Hey buddy,” he said to Goro. “Let’s go.”

  I took my phone out as soon as I got back into the car. I had the number before me, written down on the back of a receipt. My hands were slick with sweat as I keyed in the digits. The call connected: it started to ring. I silenced the radio.

  “Hello?” a voice said. “Who’s this?”

  “Good afternoon,” I said. I introduced myself: I told him my name, and where I was calling from. I told him I was a researcher. “I conduct field studies,” I said, “on the local terrain and such…” When the voice replied, he sounded somewhat amused. He asked why a guy like me would call someone like him. “We’ve got nothing in common,” the voice said.

  “Ah, well… that’s true,” I said. I asked if he had an older sister, by any chance. The voice didn’t immediately answer. He then said he had two older sisters, neither of whom he had seen since he had gone to university. He wanted to know which one I was talking about.

  “Your second sister,” I said. “The younger of the two.”

  “Right,” the voice said. “So what about her?”

  My hands continued to sweat. It was a mobile number based in Tokyo, but there was a peculiar accent in the voice that was a little hard to place. I wiped my hands on my shirt.

  “Your sister had a child in 2004,” I said. “A boy. He’s in second grade right now, and I am currently the boy’s guardian.”

  “You’re saying I’m an uncle?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re an uncle.” I then explained how his nephew seemed to be in some kind of trouble. “I’m not a kappa, you see, so there are some things that I find hard to deal with at the present… I was wondering if you could help me, somehow.”