Nan-Core

by Mahokaru Numata

  He was peering at me, his expression like a distorted mask.

  “No. It’s just a shock, that’s all,” I said over my shoulder, shaking free of the horned man’s grip and briskly walking away. My son started to cry again as I dragged him after me. The fake scenery of the city creaked and jostled around his high-pitched bawling, sounding as though the set pieces might shatter apart at any moment. I would never escape. But I had no idea what to do.

  About half a month ago two police detectives came to the house while we were in the middle of dinner. One was a heavy-set man around 50, the other a younger man with thin eyebrows. When you opened the door to greet them they showed their badges and gave their names, and after confirming your name they told you in a courteous tone that they would like to ask some questions of your wife. I didn’t want them in the house and rushed to the door, but you had already let them inside.

  “We’re very sorry to interrupt your dinner. This won’t take up too much of your time.”

  When they were seated in front of the low table in the next room, the older detective retrieved a notebook from his pocket and read out the name of the horned man. He then asked me to confirm the date, time, and place I had seen him. More than a month had already passed since then so I had assumed that everything would be okay. I could hear you on the other side of the closed room partition, reading a book or something to our son so he wouldn’t make a fuss.

  “Now then, please understand that this is just procedure, we have to confirm details whenever someone calls a report, you see. I have to say though, it was quite a headache finding this place, what with your last name changing when you got married, and then moving house.”

  The detective laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. From beginning to end he was the only one who spoke. The younger detective just sat there, never saying a word.

  “Well, uh, according to the man who made the report, you, ma’am, appeared to know something important about a case from sometime back.”

  The detective continued, outlining the details of the case, reading off the name of the man who had been killed, the whole time watching me with eyes that seemed fossilized, isolated somehow from the shifting expressions of his face.

  “So, ma’am, you knew the victim, is that right?”

  “He was a superior of mine at the company I used to work for.” My voice didn’t waver. I mentally scolded myself that I couldn’t get distressed like before.

  “According to our records, uhm … You started work there about seven years ago, and you were there for a year or so.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t really remember, but I supposed their records were correct.

  “At the time, did you have any kind of, umm, personal relationship with the victim? Outside of work, I mean,” he asked, whispering to show he was aware of your presence in the other room.

  “No.”

  “How about after you left? Did you meet him at all, maybe just once?”

  “No.”

  “And the murder. Did you know about it?”

  “The first time I heard about it was when I saw that man.”

  “I see, I see.” He kept writing in his notebook. The other detective was staring at me. “And what did you think when you heard about it?”

  “I was shocked.”

  “I see.”

  “He said it so abruptly, not to mention right in front of my son.”

  “Right. It’s just that, well, the man told us that you were acting abnormally. He said you turned very pale and looked like you were on the verge of having a fit.”

  “I was in shock and I wanted to get away from him as quickly as I could. He kept asking me to go for a drink.”

  “Oh, did he now.”

  “I refused, telling him I was in a hurry, but he wouldn’t listen. He used to say all sorts of things to me before, too, at the office.”

  The detective fell silent and frowned, then wrote something in his notebook and snapped it shut. I thought he might say he needed to take my prints, just in case. But I was sure I had at least cleaned them from the garbage bin and the door handle.

  “Well, we’re sorry to have taken up your time. I think we’ve got all we need, this should be fine.” After putting on his shoes the overweight detective turned around, looking cramped in the small doorway. “The case is already five years old, and we pretty much exhausted every line of inquiry then, so it’s not often anything new comes up. It’s a real pain, I tell you. Again, our apologies for the disturbance.”

  I didn’t feel like eating after the detectives had left, so I cleaned up dinner while you gave our son his usual bath.

  “So, that issue from earlier. Did you have anything to do with it?” you asked me later when we were lying in bed together. “I had wondered if you were the way you used to be back then because you were trying to atone for some sin. I think I asked you if that was what it was.”

  You’d asked me when we met: You’re trying to make up for doing something bad, that’s why you’re a prostitute? I remembered it well.

  “Was it for the case that those detectives were asking about? Was it atonement for that?”

  “No. I didn’t have anything to do with that murder.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me? That you’d bumped into the man who reported you.”

  “I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Then I just forgot about it.”

  “And you’re not lying?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “All right.”

  You reached out and took my hand under the bedspread, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Your lips were pressed tight, like you were holding in check a flow of words, leaving them unspoken as you pushed them back into your heart. After a while you turned to face me and whispered in a strained voice, “I … I haven’t forgotten. The fact that I killed the boy is a part of me now, something I’ll never forget. I actually think about him even more now that I’m happy.” You fell silent, seeming to consider what you’d just said. You were silent for a long time, but just as I thought you were falling asleep, you whispered, “From now on, if anything even a little strange happens, I want you to let me know. We’re husband and wife now.”

  Then you said goodnight and let go of my hand.

  I had lied to you, and because of that a small fissure had appeared some place out of sight. Everything around me began to leak through that crack and the air grew thinner by the day, by the week.

  Nothing changed in the way you acted, though. You still called out to me when you returned home every evening, and you still pulled your tie loose with your free hand the moment you stepped through the door. You seemed as carefree as always when, earlier this evening, you taught our son to do a somersault, tumbling around with him after his bath. It was enough to make me wonder if nothing had really changed, that perhaps you hadn’t noticed the transformation in the air. In bed, however, you held me like I was a child again but left the calling of my body unanswered. You haven’t answered it for a long time now—even though I thought the fissure might be stopped up if, once again, we could meld into each other within that feeling that was like a living death.

  Was it punishment? Did you know that I’d lied?

  I’m writing at this late hour because I can’t sleep. I decided to write down the whole truth that I didn’t tell you after the detectives came, like for Mitsuko’s memory all those years ago.

  Just because I’ve managed to write everything down doesn’t mean I’ll have the courage to let you read them once I’m done. But now that I’ve started I can’t stop, and I scribble like someone possessed whenever I’m alone, night or day.

  Yet even now as I write this, the fissure creaks and groans and continues to widen. I can feel it quite keenly. I have to stop it somehow, I must. If I don’t stop it soon the fissure will become like the pitch-black well from Michiru’s garden. No, maybe it’s already transformed, maybe it’s just waiting for the right moment to swallow me up head-first.

  If you’d pressed for
an answer back when you’d just become you, I probably would have told you the truth of everything I’d done without thinking too deeply about it. How many people I killed, how I killed them, how it felt—all of it. I could still talk to you like that, in the beginning. I could even have killed you. It was probably because I’d lost the ability to kill you that I stopped being able to tell you such things.

  Why was that? Because I had no reason to kill you. Because, living with you, I was haunted by the feeling that we were slowly, ever so slowly, dying together. The stronger this sensation of dying became, the more I perceived happiness bursting out around us, the world vibrantly alive. Nan-Core—for a long time I didn’t think much about it because it was so naturally abundant around me that I didn’t have to think about it.

  It was in your voice when you talked about fate, in the blue stone in the keepsake ring that you gave to me, it was in our secret kisses at night, in the tiny beggarweed seeds, it was everywhere, always there. I don’t know why. It was just that kind of time. And during those years my surroundings were alight with magic, the kind of which I’d never seen before.

  And it was my lie that had broken the magic.

  But that doesn’t make sense.

  I’d done something terrible to you once, a long time ago, before I met you; something so terrible, this lie was nothing in comparison. That time the young boy got his neck trapped and died.

  Surely that was by far the greater sin?

  I’m confused. I get all mixed up every time I try to think about things in earnest. Back in that park I condemned you to hell. There’s no mistaking that. But the same act became a catalyst, turning you into you. If the events of the park had never taken place you wouldn’t have borne the burden of guilt, and you wouldn’t have become so deeply involved with a dirty whore … Am I right?

  Oh, what should I have done? Supposing I had to first put you through hell in order to meet you. If everything was predestined, did I have no choice in the matter? Was everything already decided the instant that gust of wind snatched away the little boy’s sister’s hat in the park? Is it totally acceptable that we met only to suffer afterwards? Did we find each other only to fall apart, as some form of punishment for my sins?

  The thought of being locked up in a tiny cell for months or years, just waiting for the death penalty, is so terrifying it’s enough to drive me insane. A burning pain sears my chest, like I’m suffocating.

  I don’t know why I suddenly thought of the death penalty. This strange pain in my chest … I wonder if it’s guilt, the kind you told me about. Has your suffering conscience finally spread to me too?

  I just fell asleep on this half-written page, for about an hour. It’s almost dawn now. I had a strange dream. I was looking for snails to drop into the dark well, like I used to. But I wasn’t in Michiru’s big garden, with the trees and the pond. I was in something like a solitary cell, locked up, waiting for my execution. But that well was there, in a corner next to one of the walls, and each day in that cramped space I had nothing to do but think about the well. I needed a lot of snails, and luckily, the cell’s damp stone walls had some large ones clinging to them. On that particular day, however, I was finding it hard to catch one—they were either out of reach or slipping away at the last moment. I felt the pull of the bottomless abyss latch onto me. I was starting to feel numb, only just able to breathe, when one of the snails fell off the wall. I hurriedly reached out my hands. It was our son that I caught, curled up and small like a snail. He looked up at me and smiled. Oh, thank goodness. I’ll be okay if I drop a snail this special into the dark well. I’ll be free. Those were my thoughts as I smiled back.

  For the last few days I’ve been imagining this one thing, over and over again. I have no choice but to ask this of you. It would be so wonderful if you were to do for me what I did for Mitsuko. Right now it feels like this is what I have always desired, ever since I thought of you as “you” for the first time.

  You could do it any way you want. Killing me is the only way to save me from falling alone into the dark well. I’m sure I’d be surrounded by joy, by a sparkling brightness, as my consciousness drifted further and further away. I would become a memory inside you. Then nothing would scare me at all.

  I know it’s a hopeless wish. Helping me that way would make you a murderer. I would be forcing you to suffer an even greater burden of guilt.

  It’s nearly time for you to wake up. You’ll brew some coffee and make breakfast as usual. It’s okay, I’m calmer now. Or emptied out, maybe, like an abandoned husk. I’m not sure what it is that abandoned me. This flat version of myself has become a part of a world that’s nothing but warped stage scenery.

  When I read over what I’ve written, it feels like someone else’s writing. It’s a weird feeling. Did the fissure not really exist at all? I find I’m less and less certain of whether that fissure was there or not, of whether anything changed.

  I can’t shake last night’s dream from my mind. Everything around me is in ruin, but the dream of the special snail is the one thing that’s still bright and vivid. So I can’t help myself from wondering what might happen if I really killed him. I don’t know why, but I feel like my wishes might be granted if I repeat what happened in the dream. Is it possible that I could change fate by sacrificing the most important thing between you and me?

  Why do I keep having these thoughts, even though I know such things would cause you great pain? Something is wrong. I know that much. And I don’t believe that dreams carry messages. Even so, the more I think about it, the less I’m able to stop myself. Michiru, Mitsuko, Ramen, the boy that died in the park have all come together, calling out to our son. Their voices calling out join us, join us are growing louder within me and my body feels like it’s about to burst open.

  I don’t think I really understand what it is to feel grief. Perhaps that’s why I am capable of doing things that make you suffer.

  Ah, but unless I do something terrible enough to destroy everything I won’t be able to break free of this place.

  A mother who kills her own child shouldn’t be allowed to live. Even in the depths of despair I’m sure you would feel the same. If I were to beg you then, you would surely kill me yourself. You would grant me this wish. You wouldn’t need to feel any guilt at all for killing the woman who murdered your son.

  It’s a risk I have to take.

  As long as it results in the fissure being sealed shut, I’m ready to do anything. I can’t be sure it’s there, but a fissure is still a fissure. Whether it exists or not it’s right here, right inside my throbbing, aching head, and it’s linked directly to the dark well.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t stop myself.

  I’ll make sure he doesn’t suffer when he dies.

  I’m trying to think of a way. Our son came out of me, he appeared through me—does that mean he’s mine? He’s not yours, not in any real way. Nobody knows who the real father is, he’s just some loser. His mother’s a killer. Yes, he inherited bad blood. Better if he dies.

  This is the last of my notebooks. I won’t write anymore. You will read this in a few days after everything is done and I am no longer alive. I know this, because I don’t have the courage to let you read this while I live.

  You won’t let me live.

  You killing me is my only salvation.

  Because you are my you—

  Please, don’t ever forget that.

  But if some enchantment, like that which I felt when you spoke of fate, were to bring me back, and you were to take me in your arms again, I would like to have another child. It would be your true child, one that will take the place of this child that I am going to kill.

  That is my wish.

  At the top of the stairs I saw that the door to the study was open. Dad was lying on the tatami mats, using a folded cushion as a pillow, his back to me. I thought he was asleep, but when I stood outside the door he asked me in a low voice, “Did you finish it?”

  “Yes
.” I walked in and sat beside him. “Should I grab you a blanket?” I asked, trying to be kind, but he didn’t respond. He rolled over wearily and ended up on his back, staring at the ceiling.

  “If you reached the end, you must already have a pretty good grasp of things.”

  “In my own way.”

  “Well then, that makes this easier. Go on. You can ask whatever you want.”

  He was deathly pale. I didn’t want to talk about any of it. I wanted, if possible, to make him rice porridge or something, get him to eat, then rest properly. At the same time I had the overwhelming feeling that if I didn’t talk about it then I’d never have another chance.

  “The one who wrote them is my birth mother.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And someone really did switch places with her. You, Mom, even Gran and Granddad—you were all in it together, you lied to me when I was a kid.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “My real mother’s name is Emiko.”

  Dad pulled his eyes away from the ceiling and looked at me properly for the first time that day. “Where did you get that name?”

  “I got copies of the old family registers from the city hall in Maebashi. They said that someone by that name went missing. But the truth is that the whole family conspired together, and then killed her.”

  I saw Dad’s emaciated body twitch. He stared at me with wide-open eyes that he didn’t try to avert. Slowly, he turned his head to face me as well, then closed his eyes. “Not exactly. Emiko didn’t give birth to you, Ryosuke. It was Misako. So it was Misako who wrote the notebooks.”

  “What? But Mom …”

  “By ‘Mom,’ I assume you mean your recently-departed mother. The truth is that she was Emiko. She was the younger sister of Misako, your birth mother.” Dad paused for a moment, letting that sink into my brain. His eyes were still closed. “Ever since we all moved to Komagawa, since the day you were hospitalized, Emiko falsified her age and pretended to be Misako, her own elder sister.”