Villain

by Shuichi Yoshida

  The car came to an abrupt stop just near the top of the pass. Yuichi hurriedly braked and switched off his headlights. In the darkness, the red taillights looked like gigantic, glaring red eyes.

  Hands on the wheel, Yuichi stared at those red eyes in the woods. It was as if only the pass itself were breathing. A moment later, the interior light of the other car came on, and the shadows of the man and Yoshino were moving. It all happened quickly. The door opened and Yoshino was getting out. The man kicked her in the back. Yoshino was like an animal struck by a car. She collapsed by the side of the road and struck her head sharply on the guardrail.

  The man’s car shot away, leaving Yoshino crouching down, facing away from the guardrail. For a second Yuichi wasn’t sure what he’d just witnessed, and was about to take off after the man’s car. But as soon as he’d released his parking brake he could picture Yoshino, left behind beside the road. Lit up by his red taillights, Yoshino looked as if she were on fire. Yuichi hurriedly set his parking brake again. He yanked it so sharply there was a weird sound from the undercarriage.

  Once the man’s car rounded the next curve up ahead, all color faded from the scene. Yoshino’s red-dyed figure was about to be swallowed up by the darkness of the pass. Yuichi wasn’t sure how much time had gone by after the man’s car drove off, but he nervously turned on his headlights. The lights didn’t quite reach to where she was crouched down, but it helped more than the weak winter moonlight.

  He released his parking brake again and lightly stepped on the accelerator. The bluish headlights inched down the road toward Yoshino as slowly as water soaking into a cloth. When the headlights finally reached her, she looked up fearfully, squinting into the brightness. Yuichi set his parking brake again and opened his door. Yoshino clutched her handbag defensively.

  “Are you okay?” Yuichi called out, but his voice was swallowed up in the dark pass. The only sound was that of the car engine, like the earth rumbling in the distance.

  As Yuichi stepped into the light, Yoshino’s expression changed.

  “What are you doing here? Did you follow me? Just quit it!” she yelled, clutching her handbag to her and crouching by the roadside.

  “Are you—okay?” Despite her yells, Yuichi continued to approach her, reaching out to help her to her feet. But Yoshino brushed away his hand.

  “You saw it all?” she said. “You’re unbelievable!” She struggled to her feet.

  “What happened?” Yuichi asked. As she staggered to her feet in her high-heeled boots, Yuichi took her hand, which felt as if pebbles were embedded in it.

  “Nothing happened! I don’t have to tell you anything!” She brushed away his hand and started to walk off. Yuichi took her arm again.

  “Why don’t you get in the car. I’ll give you a ride home.” When he said this, Yoshino glanced toward his car. The two of them stood there in the headlights, as if this were the entire world.

  Yuichi tugged at her arm and she shouted, “Enough already! Leave me alone!” She shook free.

  “You can’t walk back from here!” Yuichi retorted, pulling her arm hard. His timing was off and the movement made Yoshino, who was starting to walk, slip. She lost her balance, and fell right in front of the car. Yuichi reached out hurriedly to support her but his elbow pushed her right in the back. Yoshino twisted in a strange way and banged right into the grille of the car. As she reached out to break her fall, her little finger got stuck between the front of the car and the bumper.

  “Ouch!” her scream echoed, enough to send a flock of birds sleeping in the dark woods shooting into the air.

  “Are you okay?” Yuichi hurriedly tried to lift her up. Yoshino’s finger was still stuck. He put his arms under her sides and tried to lift her up again, but as he did so she screamed and her little finger bent back at an awful angle.

  It all had happened in an instant. The blood drained from her face, lit by the bright headlights as she crouched there, and each single hair on her head stood on end.

  “I … I’m sorry.… I’m really sorry.”

  Yoshino, her faced twisted in pain, finally pried her finger loose, and clenched her teeth. “You murderer!” she screamed the moment Yuichi rested his hand on her shoulder. He pulled away.

  “You murderer!” she screamed. “I’m going to tell the police! Tell them you assaulted me and kidnapped me. How you kidnapped me and almost raped me! We have a lawyer in our family, so don’t think you can get away with this! I’m not the kind of woman to go out with a guy like you! You’re a murderer!”

  Yuichi knew it was all a lie, but he found his knees shaking.

  When she’d gotten it all out, Yoshino started to walk away, holding her injured finger. Once away from the car, her figure was sucked up into the blackness of the pass.

  “Hey—hold on a second,” Yuichi called out, but she walked on.

  As the sound of footsteps grew farther away in the darkness, Yuichi ran after her.

  “Don’t lie like that! I didn’t do anything!”

  As he shouted this and ran toward her, Yoshino halted, and turned around. “You better believe I’m going to tell them!” she yelled. “I’m going to tell them how you kidnapped me and raped me!” Even though he was in a mountain pass in the middle of winter, Yuichi’s ears were filled with the loud buzzing of cicadas echoing from all the hills. A buzzing so loud he wanted to block out the noise.

  He didn’t know what he was afraid of. She hadn’t been kidnapped or raped. He knew it was a lie, but he turned pale as if he had really committed these crimes. You’re lying! That’s a lie! he desperately shouted inside his mind, but instead he heard the pass whisper back:

  Who will ever believe you? Who in the world will ever believe you?

  The only thing there was the dark mountain pass. There weren’t any other witnesses. There’s nobody to testify that I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything! He could picture himself trying to explain things to his grandmother. Himself, shouting out, I didn’t do anything! to the people surrounding him. He recalled his voice when he was a child at the ferryboat dock, explaining, My mom will be coming back! His voice when nobody believed him.

  Yuichi grabbed Yoshino’s shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  As she pushed him away, her arm hit Yuichi’s ear. Pain shot through him as if he’d been struck by a metal rod. Instinctively, he grabbed her arm. As she struggled to get away, he pushed her down until he was sitting on top of her on the chilly pavement. Yoshino’s face in the moonlight was twisted in anger.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  He held down her shoulders. In a voice at once pained and snarling, she shouted back, “Who’s ever going to believe you! You murderer! Help!” Yoshino’s screams shook the trees in the pass. Every time she screamed, Yuichi’s body trembled in fright. If someone ever heard these lies of hers …

  “But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”

  Yuichi shut his eyes. He was desperately pressing down on her throat, so frightened he couldn’t help it. No one could ever hear these lies she was spouting. He had to kill these lies quickly or else the truth itself would die. And the thought terrified him.

  Several squid-fishing boats were tied up at the wharf. The lines that tied them up were slack, and schools of small fish swam up from the bottom of their hulls. A moment ago, a little girl had pedaled her tricycle over to where Mitsuyo and Yuichi stood on the wharf, then pedaled back to where her mother was at one of the stands.

  Mitsuyo and Yuichi had left the restaurant without finishing their meal. By the time Yuichi had finished his story, the squirming legs of the freshly prepared squid on the platter had gone limp. Fortunately, no other guests had come into the second-floor dining hall. The middle-aged waitress, however, had checked in on them a few times.

  When he finished speaking, Yuichi had simply said, “I’m sorry,” in a small voice. Mitsuyo was silent and he went on. “I’m turning myself in now,” he said.

  Mitsuyo nodd
ed, her mind blank.

  Just then, the waitress came over and asked, “You’re not that fond of sashimi, then?”

  “It’s not that,” Mitsuyo lied. “I’m just not feeling very well.”

  Mitsuyo stood up and Yuichi looked at her, resigned. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. Yuichi was amazed; he had expected her to leave him there. When they apologized to the waitress for leaving all the food, she said, “It’s okay. It’s on the house.”

  They left the restaurant and walked along the wharf where the boats were anchored. Without really realizing it, they were heading toward the parking lot. On one level, Mitsuyo knew she was going to get into his car, the car of a man who’d murdered someone, but as she walked along the cold, windswept wharf, there seemed to be nowhere else to go. She was amazed at herself for having listened to him to the end, without screaming, without getting up and running away. What he told her had been too overwhelming, so overwhelming that her mind wouldn’t function.

  As they came to the end of the wharf, Mitsuyo stopped and looked down at all the garbage bobbing up against the wharf.

  “I’m going to go to the police right now.”

  Staring down at the flotsam, Mitsuyo nodded.

  “I’m really sorry. I never meant to cause any problems for you, Mitsuyo.…”

  Mitsuyo nodded again before he’d finished. The little girl on her tricycle was pedaling over to them again. A pink ribbon tied to the handlebars looked about to rip off in the cold, stiff wind.

  The girl pedaled between them and started back to her mother at the squid stall. Mitsuyo watched her, pedaling furiously away.

  “Forgive me,” Yuichi said, bowing to her and heading off alone to the parking lot. His back looked as if it had shrunk one whole size. As if he would break down in tears if she touched him.

  “Which police station are you going to?” Mitsuyo called out.

  Yuichi turned around. “I don’t know. I guess if we go into Karatsu there must be a station somewhere,” he said.

  What do you care? part of her mentally shouted. Get out of here as quick as you can. But she also felt terribly frustrated. She had to say something.

  “Don’t leave me here alone,” Mitsuyo said. “If you leave me here by myself, what’ll I do? I’ll go with you, to the police. We can go together.”

  A blast of wind from the sea blew her words away. Yuichi stared at her intently. And then, without a word, he started walking away again.

  “Wait!” Mitsuyo shouted, and Yuichi halted.

  “I can’t let you do that. You’ll get in trouble,” he said without turning around.

  “I already am in trouble!” she shouted. A middle-aged woman cleaning squid on the other side of the road shot them a glance.

  Without replying Yuichi set off again and Mitsuyo ran after him. She’d wanted to say something, but not that.

  When he reached the parking lot Yuichi stopped, and clenched his fists as his shoulders shook.

  “Why did things turn out like this?” he moaned.

  The sound of Yuichi’s crying drowned out the slap of the waves against the breakwaters. Mitsuyo walked around in front of him and took his tightly clenched fists in her hands.

  “Let’s go to the police,” she said. “We’ll go together.… You’re scared, aren’t you? To go alone? I’ll go with you. If we’re together … if we’re together I know you can make it.”

  Yuichi’s hands trembled in hers. He nodded again and again. “Yeah … yeah …” he said, and she could feel him trembling, and feel each nod.

  It was past two p.m. when it started to get cloudy. After he heard the detective’s explanation, Yoshio Ishibashi had run out of his shop, walked the three minutes to the parking lot where he rented a space, and got in his car. Where he was headed, though, he had no idea.

  The Fukuoka college student wasn’t the murderer after all. Instead, it was some man she’d met on an online dating site. That’s what the police had told him, but he still wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t even convinced that his daughter had been part of all this. It had to be some kind of mistake. Somebody, for whatever motive, must be out to get them.

  Yoshino is still alive somewhere, he told himself. Waiting for me to come and rescue her… but I don’t know where she is. Everybody I ask keeps telling me she’s dead.

  He drove aimlessly. He knew these streets well, but through his tears Kurume looked like a place he’d never seen before.

  His car was one that Yoshino had picked out, back when she’d just entered high school. He’d told her he didn’t want any bright colors, but she kept insisting he had to get a red car. “Red is so cute!” she’d said. He finally compromised, buying a light-green compact.

  The day the car was delivered, they took a picture of the three of them posed in front of it. Yoshino was overjoyed, and no matter how much Yoshio tried to persuade her, she wouldn’t allow him to remove the plastic protective sheets over the seats.

  He drove aimlessly for hours around Kurume. He just wanted to see Yoshino. He wanted to know where she was. He could hear her voice, calling out for help, but where his daughter was, he had no idea.

  Before he knew it, he was heading toward Mitsuse Pass. He drove out of Kurume onto the highway, crossed the river, and suddenly realized he was driving down a road through the fields in the Saga plains. Before him lay the mountains of the Sefuri range.

  The weather started to cloud up right about the time he stopped at a gas station. He went to the restroom as they were filling up his gas tank, and from the small window he saw the dark rain clouds moving in over the mountains. The clouds spread out until they hid the peak of the pass and began to approach the plain where Yoshio was.

  It began to sprinkle right as he left the restroom. There was an outdoor sink, but he didn’t wash his hands there and instead sprinted for his car, whose gas tank was full now. A girl about the same age as Yoshino trotted over and handed him the receipt. It was wet with the rain. Yoshio paid her and pulled out. In the rearview mirror he could see the girl in the rain, standing there, bowing as he left.

  It began to pour just as he started up the road to the pass. The low rain clouds covering the sky turned the road dark and gloomy.

  Yoshio switched on his headlights. Beyond the wipers he could see the pale asphalt road rising up. Rain lashed his windshield and his wipers moved so quickly that it looked as if they would blow away.

  The headlights of cars descending from the pass lit up the beads of rain on the windshield. The rain drowned out the sound of his engine, and even from inside the car, all Yoshio could hear was the sound of rain whipping against the trees.

  On the day of Yoshino’s funeral his cousin, who worked in a factory in Kurume, had said, “Someday I’d like to light some incense in memory of Yoshino at the spot where she died.” So many things had happened to him so quickly, and Yoshio couldn’t reply at the time, but one of his female relatives had added, “If you go, I’d like to go, too. And place some flowers there, and some of the sweets that Yoshino liked …”

  He knew they were only being kind to him, but it felt to Yoshio as if accepting their kindness would mean saying goodbye to Yoshino forever.

  “I’m not going” was all he said to them. His relatives fell silent.

  He couldn’t recall when it was, but at some point after the funeral, he saw a scene on TV picturing flowers and cans of juice lined up at the site of the murder. Perhaps his relatives had quietly visited the site after all, or maybe complete strangers had gone to offer flowers to Yoshino, who had been the brunt of so much criticism. When Yoshio had seen this, he sobbed. The criticism of Yoshino in the press and on TV had been indirect, but the obscene faxes and letters he’d received were anything but.

  Sorry your prostitute daughter was killed? She asked for it.

  I slept with your daughter once. ¥500 for the night.

  No wonder that girl was murdered. Prostitution’s against the law.

  You should have sent her more spending
money!

  Some of them were handwritten, others printed from a computer. It had gotten to the point where Yoshio was afraid when the mailman arrived every morning. He’d disconnected the phone, but still heard it ringing in his dreams. It seemed as if the whole country hated his daughter, as if everyone in Japan despised him and his family.

  The rain grew stronger as he climbed the pass. The fog was thick, mist accumulating a few dozen meters in front of his car.

  Just before the entrance to the Mitsuse Tunnel, there was a sign indicating the old road. The sign loomed up for an instant, as if someone had momentarily blown away the fog with their breath.

  Yoshio hurriedly turned and started down the narrow old road. As the road narrowed even more, it felt as if his small car would be engulfed in the cascade of water rushing down the cliffs. The rain washing down the face of the mountain struck the cracked asphalt and then plunged to the cliffs below.

  On the main road he’d passed a few other cars, but on this older road, he saw not a single one. The guardrail protruded, as if there’d been an accident. And that’s when his headlights lit up the bouquets and plastic bottles lined up on the ground. The bouquets, wrapped in clear plastic wrap, seemed about to be swept away in the rain. Yoshio slowly braked. In the fog, these items placed in memory of his daughter somehow stood up to the pounding rain.

  He reached for the umbrella that had slipped to the floor in the backseat, and stepped out into the downpour. The car engine was still running, but all he could hear was the roar of the rain, as if he’d wandered behind a waterfall.

  The umbrella was heavy as the rain beat down on it, and the cold rain stung his cheeks and neck. Yoshio stood in front of the offerings lit by his headlights. The flowers were wilted, and the stuffed porpoise toy that someone had left was drowning in muddy water.

  Yoshio picked up the soaked toy. He hadn’t meant to grip it so hard but found cold water dripping between his fingers. He knew he was crying, but in the cold driving rain he couldn’t feel the tears flow down his cheeks.