“Impossible. Like I said, nothing happened.” I turned to Iwaya. “Please let me know when she calls.”
“She mentioned she’d try again after your last class.”
I nodded and walked upstairs with Honda.
The next class soon started, but the entire lesson, I kept thinking about the phone call. I doubted it had to do with Seven Stars. She was too proud. The fact that I’d pushed her away should have been enough to stop her from approaching me. Could it be my mother? No, she didn’t have my number. I recalled the envelope containing my sister’s photocopied medical documents. Could it be the work of the same person? I glanced at the wall clock for probably the tenth time. I hoped my students hadn’t noticed. If they had, no one said anything.
Finally, the bell rang. After dismissing the class, I rushed to the office to grab my bag and went down to reception.
“Did anyone call?” I asked Iwaya.
She smiled politely. “Not yet, Mr. Ishida.”
“May I wait here?”
“Of course.”
I pulled out a chair and sat in front of her.
Students and faculty started to leave the building. Honda came and asked if I needed a lift, but I said I wanted to wait for the call. He offered to stay with me, but not wanting to keep him any longer, I told him to go ahead. He looked reluctant, but he had been planning to watch a new episode of one of his favorite television shows that night, so he relented.
A couple of minutes later, Iwaya told me she had to leave. I nodded and continued to wait. It looked like most people had gone home. The heat was off, and the place was quiet.
I grew bored and inspected the phone from every angle. The device was black and seemed like a newer model than the one in Mr. Katou’s house. I turned it around to let its shiny surface catch the light. The paint on the receiver had faded a little, and some of the numbers were completely unreadable.
I felt a touch on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw the janitor.
“I’m sorry, but I need to lock up,” the old man said.
I looked at my watch. How time flew—I’d been waiting for my anonymous caller for close to two hours. “I’m sorry for holding you up,” I said, picking up my bag.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Have a good night.”
I helped him shutter the front door before walking to the bus stop. In the end, I’d waited there for nothing. If I’d left with Honda earlier, I would’ve been in bed by now. But what was done was done.
The call I’d anticipated came the next day. I was in the reception area, waiting for Honda so we could leave together.
“Mr. Ishida, it’s for you,” Iwaya said, covering the receiver with her hand.
“Thanks.” I took the phone from her and cleared my throat. “This is Ren Ishida. May I know who is this on the line?”
“It’s me,” said a husky voice I didn’t recognize.
“Sorry, who?”
“Anzu.”
“Anzu?”
A pause. “Have you forgotten about me already?”
“Of course not,” I said. Luckily, I’d just managed to recall who she was. “You were with Kaori in Roppongi.”
“Yes, I’m glad you remember this time.”
“It’s just that . . .” My voice trailed off. She had said “this time”; had I met her before that night? “I didn’t recognize your voice, that’s all,” I stalled. “You sound different over the phone.”
“It’s been a few weeks. Maybe you’ve forgotten how my voice sounds.”
I hadn’t realized it had been that long. “Was it you who called me yesterday?”
“Yes, but you were still teaching. When I called again, you were out for dinner. It’s not easy to get hold of you.” She paused, then sighed. “So you’re a teacher.”
It took me a while to realize that someone had finally called Jin’s bluff. Damn, she’d gotten us. This is bad. I fumbled for the right words. Even though Jin had been the one who’d started it, I was guilty, too, since I’d played along that night.
Next to me, Iwaya whispered that she needed to leave.
“I’m sorry for making things up,” I said after she was gone.
“No, you’re not sorry for lying. You’re sorry for getting caught,” Anzu said. “And your chatty friend? Is he your coworker?”
“He’s a student, but not in law school.” I vaguely recalled that Jin had majored in business, but I wasn’t sure.
“Anything else?”
“We’re from Tokyo.” At this point, I figured I might as well show all my cards. “Jin is at Waseda, and I used to be at Keio. I’m teaching at a cram school in Akakawa right now, but you already know that.”
“Interesting,” she said flatly.
A long, awkward silence followed.
I knew she was waiting for something, perhaps an explanation, but I couldn’t think of a real justification for our deception. I cleared my throat. “We’re terrible, aren’t we?”
Anzu burst into laughter. “Good that you know.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she’d taken things in good humor.
“I promised to phone a third time after your class was over, but I ended up being called in for an urgent casting. You didn’t wait, did you?”
“No, don’t worry about that,” I lied. “But how did you manage to get this number?”
She laughed. “It’s a secret. Anyway, that’s not the point. I called because I heard something that might interest you. It’s about the hand model you told me about.”
Seven Stars’ mother. “What about her?”
“She’s someone I know,” Anzu said. “We’re not terribly close, but we have worked together a couple of times. She uses her maiden name for work, so I didn’t recognize the one you gave me earlier. I know her as Maria Saeki.”
“I see.” It wasn’t common, but I’d heard of some women choosing to keep their maiden names professionally.
“The thing is, she went missing a few months ago.”
“What happened?”
“Nobody knows. She never turned up for one of her shoots. Her agent didn’t know anything. No calls, no letters, nothing. Poof. Just like that. But Saeki is known to be reliable. She wouldn’t miss work for no reason.”
“Right.”
“Her sudden disappearance caused a lot of problems. Her agent needed to find a replacement for her, but hand models aren’t common, let alone one as experienced as Saeki. He even went to Akakawa to look for her, but her husband told him she no longer lived there.”
I thought of what Rio said, about her mother abandoning her and Mr. Nakajima. “Surely he knows where she is.”
“According to him, she had gone back to her parents’ house in Hokkaido, but something wasn’t right. You wouldn’t go on leave without telling anyone at the office, would you? Not to mention, she had several prior work engagements. No one commits to a job if they know they’re going away soon.”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
“Her agent said Saeki didn’t even collect her pay. I feel like something bad happened, though I don’t know what.”
“Do you know when she disappeared?” I asked.
She paused to think it over. “If my memory serves me right, it was around the beginning of June this year.”
My heart skipped a beat. It couldn’t be . . . but there was no way that timing was mere coincidence. Could Maria Saeki’s disappearance have had something to do with my sister?
“Ren, are you still there?” Anzu asked.
I tightened my grip on the phone. “Yes, please go on.”
“There’s nothing else. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“I see,” I mumbled, gathering my thoughts. I needed more time to digest this information. In the meantime, I asked Anzu, “Did you send me something in
the mail?”
“No, I didn’t. What makes you think so?”
“I received something recently, but the sender didn’t write their name.”
She giggled. “A love letter?”
“No, but it was something important, so I want to thank the person.”
“It could be anyone, really,” she said. “You know, Ren, I wouldn’t have guessed anyone from Keio would move to a small town like Akakawa to become a teacher.”
I didn’t respond.
“Let me guess,” she continued. “You quit school, broke up with your girlfriend, and had nothing to do, so you went there for a change of scene.”
“Hey, I didn’t break up with my girlfriend.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “So you do have a girlfriend.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“And you still went to Roppongi to fool around.”
“I was drunk.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“And you?” I asked, changing the subject. “Do you have a boyfriend now?”
A few seconds passed before she answered, “It doesn’t matter.”
She hung up on me without another word. I gave her a pass, considering the falsehoods I hadn’t bothered to correct.
“Are you done, Ishida?” Honda asked. He was standing near the door.
I put down the phone, wondering how long he had been there. “Yes, sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Who was it?”
“An acquaintance.”
He nodded, taking the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it. Exiting the building, we walked over to his car and promptly drove off.
The streets, as usual, were quiet at night. Unlike Tokyo, Akakawa went to sleep early. Honda drove his black sedan in the highest gear. He only needed to slow down when we approached traffic lights.
When the car stopped at the intersection, I felt I’d forgotten something important. But what was it? It had something to do with traffic lights. But when? And where? Was it in Tokyo, or in Akakawa?
The light turned green, and Honda pulled the hand brake. He shifted the gear swiftly while the car picked up speed. And then I remembered something I should have recalled much, much earlier.
It had happened on my birthday. I’d saved up from my part-time job to take my girlfriend somewhere fancy, but we’d broken up a few days before. She learned that I’d slept with another girl. Because of that, instead of going for a romantic date, I found myself wearing a scratchy pizza delivery uniform, in a flashy yellow Toyota Celica, next to a peculiar girl.
I reached for her hand, which rested on the hand brake. She didn’t say anything. Her hand was cold. I let it go when the light turned green. The engine roared as the car moved off. The streetlights blurred together, creating one continuous glowing line.
Before we parted ways, she told me, “You’re a good guy, Ren. If we meet again, I’ll let you know my name.”
I asked Honda to drop me off at the public pay phone near the bus stop by the park.
“Have to call home,” I said.
He nodded and stopped the car in front of the phone booth. I got out and went inside, rubbing my hands together to keep them warm as he drove off. I inserted some coins into the slot, pressed the familiar numbers, and waited for someone to pick up.
“Hello?”
I cleared my throat. “Mother, it’s me.”
“Oh.” No hint of surprise in her voice.
“How are you and Father?”
“We’re fine.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m coming home in a few weeks’ time.”
An awkward silence ensued.
“I’ll see you when I’m back,” I continued.
I was about to hang up when she said, “Wait, Ren.”
“Yes?”
“About Keiko . . . Did the police manage to . . .”
My chest went tight. My mother’s voice was small. It was the first time in years that she’d said my sister’s name.
“Unfortunately, there’s no update yet,” I said. “I assume there’s been no progress in the investigation.”
“I see,” she replied vaguely.
I took a deep breath. “Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“Yes?”
“Was Keiko adopted?”
My mother was quiet for a minute before asking, “How did you know?”
I thought of the clinic’s records, my sister’s pregnancy. “It’s not important.”
“To be honest, I didn’t ever want you to learn about this. But since you’ve already found out, it’s probably best to tell you the whole story,” she said. “Your father had an affair with a woman from Akakawa.”
I was taken aback that she’d admitted this so straightforwardly. So she was my sister. My half-sister.
“I’d never expected him to betray me, let alone ask my consent to adopt his love child. Back then, we’d been married for four years, but I hadn’t gotten pregnant. I couldn’t say no to his request, especially in front of my in-laws. It’s the one decision I’ve regretted until now.”
My throat was dry.
“That child. I always hated her. It wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t help directing my anger at her.”
Her voice became shaky, and she stopped talking. Even though I wasn’t with her, I could picture my mother wiping at her tears with her inner wrist.
“I’m so thankful I finally got you, Ren. You were the child I’d been waiting for. I shouldn’t say this, but I’m glad you’re a boy. You won’t have to experience the same things I did.”
Hearing that, I felt sorry for my mother.
“When you were born, I asked your father to send Keiko away. He wouldn’t agree, no matter what I said.”
So this was why they’d always argued. It had been me, in a way, but also my sister.
My mother continued, “I told him Keiko would be better off somewhere else, raised by a woman capable of loving her. I was the one who chased her out that day. I know you were close to her. You must be upset with me.”
I sighed. “I am, but I understand how much you’ve suffered.”
She didn’t respond.
“Please take care,” I said, “and send my regards to Father.”
Her silence continued until I hung up.
Walking back to my apartment, I thought about what my mother had said. So much had happened during my childhood, and I hadn’t had a clue. If I’d stayed in Tokyo, I would never have learned any of this. But I’d made up my mind to pursue the truth. Was I better off knowing, or not?
I closed my eyes and felt the cold wind blow into my face. Tomorrow wasn’t going to be easy.
30
Cold
Coffee
The next day, I applied for urgent leave. I wanted to visit Mr. Nakajima while Seven Stars was in class at Yotsuba. If, for any reason, she were around, I would leave right away. Thankfully, as expected, Mr. Nakajima answered the door.
“Mr. Ishida.” He greeted me with a smile. “So pleased to have another visit from you, but Rio isn’t at home.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m here to speak with you.”
He shook his head. “She hasn’t given you more trouble, has she?”
Not wanting to create a scene outside the house, I didn’t bother to answer him.
“Please, come in,” he said.
I followed him into the house and we sat on the sofa. The living room hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been there. Photographs of Mrs. Nakajima’s hands still graced the wall.
“Can I get you a drink?” Mr. Nakajima asked. “Coffee, perhaps?”
“Don’t trouble yourself—I won’t be long.” I paused, trying to keep calm. “There’s something I need to ask you. Did you k
now Keiko Ishida?”
He looked surprised for a second, but quickly regained his composure. “Yes, of course I knew her. She was Rio’s teacher.”
Despite how he’d played it off, I could tell he was uneasy. The way he concealed his emotions was quite similar to Seven Stars, though she was better at it.
“To be more specific, were you in a relationship with her?” I asked.
Mr. Nakajima hid his flustered expression by adjusting his glasses. His clumsy action confirmed my suspicion. “I’m not sure if I understand what you’re trying to say,” he said.
“We both know what I’m trying to say,” I insisted. “You were having an affair with my sister.”
He went pale.
“And five years ago, you got her pregnant.”
“How—”
I continued to press him. “But you forced her to terminate the pregnancy.”
“Wait a min—”
“Do us both a favor and stop pretending,” I said evenly, forcing myself to look him in the eye. I’d expected to lose my temper, but I had to keep my emotions under control to get any answers.
Mr. Nakajima averted his gaze. “Please, just let me get you something to drink, all right? After that, I’ll tell you what happened.”
I took a deep breath. “Coffee is fine, if you insist.”
He nodded and adjusted his glasses again before going to the kitchen. If I was really in the home of a cold-blooded killer, I probably shouldn’t have left him alone to make me coffee, but I needed his cooperation to uncover the truth.
Left alone, I stared at the images of Mrs. Nakajima’s hands. They were truly beautiful subjects—smooth and slim in elegant poses—but looking at them now made me sick.
Mr. Nakajima returned with two cups of coffee. Neither of us touched them. He fidgeted with his fingers and stared at the wall of photographs. Without looking at me, he asked, “Does Rio know?”
“She has no idea, and I don’t plan to involve her,” I said.
He turned to me. “How did you find out?”
“That’s not important.”
Mr. Nakajima nodded and returned his gaze to the wall. He shifted his coffee cup on the table before speaking. “You’re right, I was in a relationship with Keiko.”
Rainbirds Page 23
