Last Winter We Parted

by Fuminori Nakamura

  “But … he also talked to Saito.”

  “Saito? You mean that stalker guy?”

  “Yes. So …”

  “That’s interesting. So I wasn’t the only one who talked to him about things they shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t two conversations be enough to have an impact on him? And also, I’m the one who made Saito’s doll in the first place. That makes me the root of all his evils.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “What?”

  “I mean …”

  I hold my tongue. I want to say something, but I can’t find the words.

  It is raining heavily now. The doll maker parts the curtain slightly and is facing outside but his eyes don’t seem focused on anything. I reach for my cup only to realize that it is empty. The doll maker looks at me again pensively.

  “Well, the first victim, Akiko Yoshimoto, burned to death. It was deemed an accidental fire, because Kiharazaka suffered major burns as well, and his studio was completely destroyed. But, I knew it then. That it hadn’t actually been an accident.”

  “… What do you mean?”

  “I saw the photographs he took.”

  Suzuki looks directly at me with his narrow eyes. My heart starts to race.

  “Photographs of Akiko Yoshimoto, in the raging fire. Are you familiar with the story, ‘Hell Screen’?”

  “… Yes. By Ryunosuke Akutagawa.”

  “That’s right. Kiharazaka was morbidly fascinated by that story. There must have been somebody who had casually recommended it to him … He set fire to his lover, and then took photographs of her. But he didn’t show them to anyone. Of course not. If such photos existed, they would find out what he had done. After all.”

  The doll maker draws in a quick breath.

  “He thought they would become more beautiful—the photos he took of her—if she were to die. Once the real her was dead. Like Saito’s doll. Like that doll made by the doll maker during the Onin War. Kiharazaka tried to create art that he shouldn’t have. Just like me. He ventured into territory where he didn’t belong. Akiko was visually impaired. To do such a thing to a woman like that. And in imitation of someone else.”

  “… Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s ‘Hell Screen’ is based on The Tale of Uji Shui and the Kokon Chomon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. The work has a cultural lineage. That’s what he was trying to do with his photographs. But it led him to a strange question. Which photos were actually more beautiful—the photos of his lover on fire? Or did the photos he had already taken of her gain in beauty, now that she was dead?”

  He shows me several photographs. I reach my hand out to them. My fingers are trembling slightly.

  The first one is a photograph of Akiko Yoshimoto on fire. Her eyes are closed as she is engulfed by intense flames. The second one is a photograph of the interior of the room, engulfed by the same inferno. The third one is a photograph of Akiko Yoshimoto, the victim, taken when she was alive. She is in the studio, seated in a chair, her eyes closed, a faint smile on her lips. There are also photographs of the other victim, Yuriko Kobayashi. One photo of her engulfed in flames, another of the room as it looked at the time, of the walls and equipment about to collapse. There are numerous other photographs as well. Of the flames, of the women as they are burning, of the studio on fire.

  But, I think to myself. But …

  “Do you see? They’re quite terrifying, aren’t they? This is his failure. He photographed women to their death. What’s more, his photos of them aren’t even particularly powerful. He was in the midst of a slump at the time. He took these photos in an attempt to break out of his slump. I say slump, but it’s not what an ordinary photographer would consider a slump. What I mean by slump is, well, ruin. And by ruining himself, it’s not just that he would be rendered incompetent—he would have driven himself mad in the process, creating photographs that should never have existed. But he failed. There have been whispers from various quarters about the mystery of why, if he went to the trouble of burning these two women, did he not take any photographs, but the reason is simple. He did take photographs, and he failed. He couldn’t show them to anyone. He asked me to keep them to myself.”

  “You mean that’s why he tried again? With the second woman?”

  “That’s right. The second victim, Yuriko Kobayashi, who was working for him as a model, was killed in exactly the same way. As a result, the true facts of all that happened were brought to light. He will always be one to lie about everything, but that is the whole truth. Then again, there was more to it than just that. Kiharazaka’s sister is probably a lesbian.” The doll maker’s voice lowers another register.

  “What?”

  “You should back out of this. Coincidentally, I was thinking of getting out of it myself. There are things here that even I don’t understand. No matter how obsessed he was with photography, for his madness to have compelled him to go so far as murder—something else must have been at play. Do you really think that a person could murder someone, purely for the sake of art? There must be something that fostered his madness to such a point. There’s a more brutal madness to this than two simple murders. Why Akari made me such an offer … Look closely at this. You may not have noticed it.”

  Suzuki points to one of the dolls among the many behind him. My heart begins to race.

  (11)

  THE HUGE CLOCK hanging on the wall seems to have stopped moving.

  “I think I want to quit working on this project.”

  The moment I say it, I feel a small pang of regret, along with a calm sense of release. My editor gazes across at me, looking slightly dazed.

  “Why …?”

  “… It’s too much for me. I’m sorry.”

  “I want you to explain to me, specifically. What happened?”

  We are at my editor’s apartment. I stare at the glass of whiskey on the table. My editor is staring at the same thing. He lights a cigarette. I remain silent.

  “… You mean, you’re in over your head?”

  I look at the unmoving clock on the wall. It seems disproportionately large for the room. He opens his mouth to speak.

  “Have you read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood?”

  “… I have.”

  “After he completed his nonfiction novel, he couldn’t write another decent piece of work. His spirit was broken. Then again, at least he did finish that book.”

  Akari Kiharazaka had said something very similar to me. My heart starts to race. My editor raises his voice slightly.

  “Sure, the way that I do things may be relentless. Some have even called me pathological because I always push a writer beyond the limits of his abilities. And as a result, some writers’ spirits have broken. But I just want to make a good book. That’s all. It may sound callous, but I’m not thinking about the writer. The only thing I care about it is the work.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Really?”

  The editor looks me straight in the eyes.

  “Capote managed to write his all. He put his heart and soul into it. And you—you’re going to give up at this point?”

  He still isn’t finished with what he has to say.

  “It’s frustrating. I’m disappointed to hear your position. It sounds like you’re putting your personal life above your own work. Get out of here.”

  He takes another drag from his cigarette.

  “Don’t bother sending me your expenses. This will be a major loss for us. And I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

  Archive 6

  A woman with a towel wrapped around her face is being embraced by a man.

  The woman’s pleasure is conveyed through her body’s response. She gently caresses the man’s face as his tongue trails between her breasts. The man also has a towel wrapped around his face, but his eyes and mouth are visible.

  The man slowly enters the woman. She arches her back, spreading her legs wide and then coiling them around his waist, squeezing. The man thrusts his hips, a
nd the woman takes him in. There is no sound on this picture.

  Staying inside her, the man lies down on the bed so that the woman is on top of him. The woman moves her hips vigorously. She is completely absorbed in the act, but every so often, the man steals a glance in the direction of the camera as if confirming its location.

  The man is filming the encounter with a hidden camera. The woman is unaware.

  The man pulls away, flips the woman onto all fours, and enters her from behind. No passive participant, the woman is still moving her hips like an insect in heat. The white sheets are soaked from the wetness seeping from between her legs. The man pulls out of her and even more fluid that has accumulated inside her gushes out. He looks at the camera once—as if he wants to make sure it caught the flow of her wetness on film—and then puts his sex back inside the woman. He thrusts his hips briskly. She is moving her own hips carelessly, as if nothing seems to matter.

  The man is not wearing a condom. He is about to come inside the woman. It is as if he insists on pumping every last drop deep into her. The woman’s body quivers as she takes it within her. She is slender, but her body brims with sensuality, suggesting she has slept with many men. The woman moves to kiss the man, and he tries to take the towel from her face. The picture abruptly ends there.

  Archive 7

  Essay Composition (10 years old)

  I don’t have a mother or father. That’s why I can’t write anything about my parents. I have an older sister, but if I write about her, the teacher will tell me that I’m wrong, so instead I’ll write about the director at the institution. The director always tells us he is our parent. But that sounds bad, and sometimes, I think it is bad.

  This one time, we were at Okawa Park, and I saw a father and a mother and a girl, they were walking. I’d seen things like that lots of times before. But this time was weird. This time, I thought, I could be that girl. I thought that was weird. If I were that girl, and somebody called me a fake, I would probably get mad.

  The girl was holding hands and walking with her mother and father. She was smiling and wearing nice shoes. I thought I remembered that I had made that girl cry once, but really what happened was, she called me a fake. That’s why I thought she was lucky to be a girl, because she was the real thing. Other girls were passing by me, and the sun was really bright, and it was like there were traces of green everywhere catching my eye. My eyes started to hurt, and I thought, my eyes really hurt. It was like there were cracks—cracks in the telephone pole, cracks in the street, cracks everywhere. The cracks were getting bigger and bigger, and I got scared, so I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t, not at all. I felt like I was in the wrong place, and when I felt like that, my heart was pounding. I tried to look at the girls again. But with the traces of green and all the cracks everywhere, I couldn’t really see. It felt like the cracks were all around me, and then I couldn’t breath, so I tried to run, far away, so I could escape.

  My friend Katani has video games, and I think he’s lucky. I don’t know if I’d rather be him or that girl. I wish my friends thought I was lucky.

  When I told the director about this, he tried to cheer me up. The director is nice. He takes good care of me. He gave me money on New Year’s. I was happy. But I didn’t get as much as everyone else, so that made me a little sad. But I was still happy.

  Archive 8

  All of a sudden you want to call off the interview with me? Don’t you think that’s a little one-sided?

  You came to see me. You said you were writing a book about me. To quit now is too irresponsible. I’m utterly baffled, to get this letter out of the blue. There was another person who wanted to write a book about me too (I’m sorry for not mentioning this; if you had come to see me again, I would have told you about it) but his letters suddenly stopped. I never met the guy, only got his letters, so I was feeling more inclined to trust you. Besides, my sister liked you. So what’s this all about? I want you to explain it to me. Stop upsetting me like this.

  You know, I’m trying to get them to go ahead and execute me. But, sometimes, I waver about it. When I hear the word “execution,” I think, the sooner the better. I’ve got too much time. Meanwhile, there are nights when I tremble. Even though I try to keep my fear in check, I can’t help it—there are times when I get scared. Of course it’s my own fault. But what scares me are the things I can’t do anything about. Lately I’ve had terrible hallucinations. There’s somebody who’s trying to attack me. This is the only thing I can’t bear. How could someone attack me when I’m in prison? Not even my sister can save me. My sister loves me but, at the same time, she quietly hates me. I can tell. You’re the only hope I have left.

  Should I tell you about it? You may think I’m a coward, but maybe I should tell you about it. All right, but read carefully. I’m not writing this to you because I don’t want to be executed. I’ll say it again. I’m not writing this because I don’t want to be executed. It’s not because I’m struggling. But, if you still have any interest in my case, would you consider contacting the media? That lawyer doesn’t believe what I tell him. His entire strategy is built on me being mentally unstable. That was part of the scheme. To make me lose my mind … Everyone is watching me. No, that’s not right. What I mean is that everyone is listening in on me, to hear what I’m doing. They’re using the concrete walls and the iron doors like an eardrum. That’s why, even when writing this letter, I’m doing so very quietly. I can’t have them knowing what kind of letter I’m writing by the sounds I’m making. Clever, aren’t I? I know what I’m doing.

  From now on, I’ve got to write even more quietly. Without making a sound … All right, listen closely.

  Those two murders were not my fault. The women are to blame.

  Do you remember the first time we met? Remember what I said? That to me it felt like we were sitting in a cramped little room, talking face to face. Now, you and I find ourselves in that same situation again. I’m clinging to you desperately now. Do you know the story about the freelance writer who lost his mind because the condemned criminal who didn’t want to die was counting on him? I am now burdening you with this. I’m not going to let you get away. There’s no way I will let you escape!

  About the first incident, Akiko Yoshimoto. She was beautiful. I thought I would help her, since she couldn’t see. A little before I met her, I had seen a movie that was just like that. I took photographs of her to try to get close to her. So many photographs … But it didn’t work. No matter how many photos I took, I was unable to capture a more beautiful version of her.

  I thought it was the fault of the model. At that time, there were those who said I was in a slump, but that was definitely not the case. I knew I had the ability, and as long as I had a good model, I could take good photographs. I made her sit in that chair forever, and because she’d try to get away, I’d tie her legs with rope and take more photographs. She grew thin. But I had no choice. I wasn’t eating myself. Don’t you think it would have been strange for her to eat, so long as I wasn’t eating? And the image of her in my mind required her to be thin for the photographs. I didn’t think there was any need for me to feel bad about her not eating since I wasn’t eating either.

  Do you know the short story “Hell Screen,” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa? I kept seeing it before my eyes. Her body on fire. Or to be more precise, a photograph of her body on fire. A photograph of her engulfed in flames. The color of the flames when a body burned … I had that vision. All that was left was for her to burn. But that was wasn’t my intention. I never plotted to set her alight with a candle flame. It was just there as part of the photo shoot, I didn’t set her on fire deliberately. Nevertheless, there she was, burning right before my eyes. It was a phenomenon generated by my talent. I became increasingly abstracted … it’s true, you’ve got to believe me. My whole studio burned down. I suffered burns myself. But it may have been lucky for me that the rope that had bound her legs also burned. That was why … it was possible for the fire to be rul
ed an accident. As might be expected, not even the guys who came to the scene and examined her burnt corpse could detect any sign of the rope. And as for photographs, there were none. Why would I have taken any? There wouldn’t have been time for that! Because it was an accident. There was nothing I could have done about it.

  About the second incident, Yuriko Kobayashi … That time, she was the one who got close to me. It’s true. I can be pretty charming. All those things everyone said—that I followed her around like a stalker, or that I snatched her away in the blue sedan I always drove, or that I kept her in my studio against her will—those are all lies. That’s the conspiracy. Do you believe the conspiracy? Are you no different from the guys who are trying to listen in on what I’m writing to you in this letter by the sound of my pen right now? That’s the conspiracy. This is just between you and me, all right? I’m going to tell you a secret that’s really frightening. The truth of the matter is that the prosecutor, and the judge and the jury—all of them were in on it together. They are all working together behind the scenes to have me put to death. It’s true. This information is coming to you straight from the source. It doesn’t matter. And as if that weren’t enough, now they’re trying to attack me. Can you believe it?

  You know, she was always asking me to kill her. She wanted to die. You could tell just by looking at her. I felt like I could see it in her eyes, that the girl wanted someone to kill her. I’m telling you, you would know just by looking at her. She was a diabolical woman, that Yuriko. But I wasn’t the one who lit the fire. From the moment I unlocked the door to the studio (I wasn’t keeping her there—I was only thinking of her safety, which is why the door was locked from the outside too) I was frantic, but there was absolutely nothing I could do. Have you ever smelled the scent of a woman’s burning flesh? Its sweetness is enough to make you lose control! Whenever I try to remember that moment, I get distracted, and butterflies start to flutter, right in front of my eyes. The butterflies that those guys let loose, just to disturb me. The butterflies spread out as far as I can see … Don’t think I’m telling you this because it’s convenient. This is awful for me. The photographs … I couldn’t take any. There was no time for that.