Villain a Novel (2010)

by Yoshida Shuichi

  As he walked next to Koki, Yoshio wondered whether he could be trusted. He’d been nice enough to take him to the hospital, but after that he’d announced that he was a friend of Keigo’s. The whole thing made Yoshio uneasy.

  “Do you know Yoshino, too?” he asked.

  Koki’s pale cheeks, which looked as if they seldom saw the sun, reddened. “Ah, no I don’t. I never actually …” he said evasively.

  Koki silently headed toward the shopping district. He wasn’t taking a taxi, Yoshio noticed, and he walked right past the subway, so the shop that jerk is in must be right around here.

  “You go to the same college as that guy?” he asked.

  “Uh … yeah.”

  “You don’t like him much?”

  “No, we’re good friends.”

  Yoshio barked a short laugh at this. If you’re such good friends, then why are you taking a man you don’t know to see him, a man who’s carrying a wrench?

  “I left home planning to kill him. Do you have any idea how I feel?”

  It felt weird, talking about this with a good friend of the man who’d kicked his daughter in the back and abandoned her.

  “You have parents?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Koki replied briefly.

  “You get along okay?”

  “Not really.” The reply left no doubt how he felt.

  “You have somebody you really care about?”

  At this, Koki halted and looked puzzled.

  “Somebody who, when you think about their happiness, you feel happy, too?”

  Koki shook his head. “I don’t think he has anyone like that either,” he muttered.

  “There’re too many people in the world like you,” Yoshio said. “Too many people who don’t have anyone they care about. Who think if they don’t love anyone else then they’re free to do whatever they want. They think they have nothing to lose, and that makes them stronger. If you have nothing to lose, there’s nothing you really want, either. You’re full of confidence, and look down on people who lose things, who want things, who are happy, or sad sometimes. But that’s not the way things are. And it’s just not right.”

  Koki stood there, stock-still, the whole time. Yoshio nudged him and said, “Come on, which way is it? Are you taking me, or what?”

  Koki came to a halt outside a glass-enclosed restaurant fronting the main street. White words in a foreign language danced across the glass. Inside, young girls were poking around in large bowls of salad.

  Yoshio left Koki standing outside and walked in. He was met by a rush of sound—music playing, the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, customers laughing.

  He didn’t spot Keigo at any of the tables, or at the counter that wrapped around the kitchen area. Yoshio ignored the waitress who came over to seat him, and strode into the restaurant. Two young men were seated on cushioned seats, facing toward Yoshio. They were gazing up at Keigo, seated with his back to the entrance, who was doing all the talking. The two friends were laughing uproariously.

  Yoshio walked straight toward them. Keigo didn’t notice him coming and went on talking, gesturing all the while as he spoke. “So get this. The old fart grabs me and says, ‘It’s y’all’s fault, hear me? That mah daughter’s dead!’ The guy was so serious you couldn’t believe it. So desperate. God! I’d laugh my ass off if I ever saw that old fart’s face again. You know the type—like the old men that Macchan imitates sometimes?”

  The two friends were laughing, right in front of Keigo. But Yoshio couldn’t figure out what was so amusing. A father trying that hard for the sake of his murdered daughter—what’s so funny about that?

  The two friends finally noticed Yoshio and glanced at him. Following their gaze, Keigo turned around, and gulped.

  I just don’t get it, Yoshio thought. This guy who can laugh at other people’s sorrow. I don’t get it. And I don’t understand how these friends of his can laugh along. And I don’t get these people who send letters abusing and slandering Yoshino. And these talk-show commentators who’ve labeled Yoshino a slut. I just don’t understand them.

  Yoshino. He silently called her name. Daddy doesn’t get it at all.

  Keigo was standing up in front of him. He was speechless, his face pale. The wrench Yoshio was gripping in his pocket seemed suddenly light.

  “Is it so funny?” he asked. He really wanted to know. Keigo took a step backward.

  “Go ahead, try living that way,” Yoshio said, the words pouring out. “If you can live like that, laughing at everybody else, go ahead.” Yoshio was so sad he couldn’t stand it.

  Keigo and his friends stood staring blankly. Yoshio took the wrench out of his pocket and tossed it at Keigo’s feet. And without another word, he left.

  Yoshio arrived back in Kurume after four p.m. that day. He’d been gone two days, and when he thought about Satoko, who had probably spent the whole time crying, he considered how worried she must have been. It pained him deeply.

  He parked in the lot a little way from their house, and trudged heavily toward home. After Yoshino was gone, he felt drained of energy. He’d stood in front of Keigo, who’d ridiculed him, but had left without doing a thing. Was this the right choice, or had he made a mistake? He had no idea.

  He emerged from the alley where the parking lot was and could see in the distance the sign Ishibashi Barbershop. For a moment he couldn’t believe it. After Yoshino had been killed, he hadn’t once switched on the light on the barber pole outside the shop, but now he could swear it was on and revolving.

  Dubious, Yoshio stepped up his pace, and as he approached his shop he could see that indeed the barber pole was revolving. He started running. Out of breath by the time he reached the shop, he yanked open the front door. There weren’t any customers inside, just Satoko, dressed in her white barber’s coat, folding freshly laundered towels.

  “You … you opened the shop?” Yoshio asked.

  Surprised by his sudden appearance, Satoko, eyes wide, said, “Oh! You startled me.” She went on, smiling, “If I don’t open it, who will? Mr. Sonobe came in a while ago for a cut.”

  “And you cut it?”

  These past few years, Satoko had grown to hate touching customers’ hair, and had avoided working in the shop. But here she was now, decked out in her barber’s coat, right in front of him.

  “You must have been worried,” Yoshio said.

  Satoko went back to folding the towels and silently shook her head.

  “Well, I’m back,” Yoshio said.

  The setting sun shone through the glass door, and the name Ishibashi Barbershop formed a shadow at their feet.

  Fusae declined to have the scarf wrapped and tied it around her neck. The clerk had shown her a special way to tie it. Fusae paid and left the shop. Just a scarf, but buying it made her feel light and happy.

  She cut across a park and came out behind the bus terminal. At night the area was lined with small stands selling food and drinks, but it was still early and there were only a few stands there, all locked up with tin sheets and chains. Down the road was a large pay-by-the-hour parking lot, and beyond that the bustling shopping district.

  She’d seen this parking lot before, back then, from the window of that room where she was surrounded by those men. She’d been so frightened she couldn’t lift her head, but the leader of the group, who occasionally spoke to her kindly, brought her a cup of hot tea, and she managed a quick glance out the window.

  Fusae continued down the street, and was at the fence around the parking lot when, taking a deep breath, she slowly turned around and glanced up at the building behind her. It was the kind of old multiuse building you find anywhere, with a narrow staircase up to the second floor. She could make out the bottom half of the blue door of the elevator.

  A young family, the father holding his little daughter on his shoulders, was walking nearby, perhaps on their way to have a meal in Chinatown. The little girl had on a kind of Santa Claus hat that she evidently found uncomfortable and was trying
to yank off, while her mother walking beside her adjusted it.

  Fusae clutched the bag in her hand more tightly, took another deep breath, and set off again. She thought she was walking along pretty steadily, but she began to feel something trembling beneath her, as if she were walking on a board floating in the water.

  She went into the gloomy building. As she stepped onto the first step of the stairs, its tiles starting to come off, she suddenly felt like fleeing and grabbed on to the handrail.

  Yuichi, honey—where are you?

  She walked up another step.

  Remember that no matter what happens, Grandma’s always on your side.

  You need to do what’s right, too. You’re scared, aren’t you? But you can’t run away. You have to do the right thing. Grandma’s not going to let them beat me, either.

  Fusae touched the elevator button. The heavy bag made her arm tremble. The door opened. It was a tiny elevator that couldn’t hold more than three at a time. She went inside and pushed the button for the third floor. She kept on pushing it until the door closed.

  The elevator door opened again and she stepped out into a dim hallway. A single door was at the end.

  Yuichi, you can’t run away. I know you’re scared, but you can’t run. Running away’s not going to change anything. That’s not going to help anybody.

  Fusae found herself muttering this aloud as she walked down the corridor. She stood in front of the door and could hear men laughing inside. Her body felt tense. The sound of a TV mixed in with the laughter. She heard a girl on a roller coaster: a thundering sound, the girl’s shrieks, and every time she shrieked, a roar of laughter from the men watching, right behind this door.

  Fusae gritted her back teeth and turned the cold doorknob. The door was unlocked and opened easily, cigarette smoke wafting out.

  She saw the backs of three men, sprawled out on a sofa in front of the TV. The one who looked the youngest noticed Fusae standing there. “Yeah?” he said, as if he couldn’t be bothered. Fusae took a step forward. The man who’d spoken to her stood up, and the other two stared at her.

  “Whaddaya want, old woman?”

  The man who’d stood up approached her. The other two had gone back to watching TV.

  “I never intended to … sign a year’s contract,” Fusae managed.

  “Huh? What’s that?” the young man said as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “I never intended to make a year’s contract!” she shouted. “And I want you to cancel it.” Things started to swim before her eyes, and she felt about to faint. At the shout, the two on the sofa turned around again.

  “I want you to cancel it!” she shouted, the spit flying. “I don’t have that kind of money, so you have to cancel it!”

  The bag in her hands swung around as she spoke and struck a shelf. The three men burst out laughing, but Fusae didn’t hear them.

  “I’ve struggled all my life. And I’m not about to let people like you make a fool out of me!”

  Her breathing ragged now, Fusae strode out of the office. She bumped against the walls on both sides as she walked down the corridor. If they want to come, let ’em, she thought. They want to laugh at me, let ’em. But beyond the door to the office there was no laughter, no footsteps about to chase after her. The gloomy hallway was so silent it was creepy.

  The setting sun was just grazing the horizon. Yuichi was standing on the far edge of the cliff following a pair of seabirds with his eyes as they flew off into the sun.

  Without waiting for sunset, he walked back to the caretaker’s shack at the lighthouse. It wasn’t warm inside, but he could feel how chilled he’d become standing on the cliff.

  On the plywood board was the sleeping bag that Mitsuyo had folded up, the orange-juice pack she’d drunk, the box of chocolates she’d eaten, the pebbles she’d lined up. Yuichi sat down on the folded sleeping bag. He could feel the cold concrete below the plywood board.

  While he was hiding in the thicket, snow that had accumulated on the leaves had fallen onto his neck. He’d shrugged his shoulders at the cold and the melted snow ran down his back. Mitsuyo was just buying a few things at the convenience store and should have been back a long time ago. Worried, he’d emerged from the bushes. Just before Yuichi came out on the main road, he spotted a policeman walking from the bus stop in his direction. Yuichi quickly hid behind a light pole. The policeman posted a notice of some kind on a bulletin board across the street, and started walking back toward the bus stop.

  Yuichi waited, checking out the situation. He was just about to step out onto the main road when a patrol car, siren blasting, roared by. He hurriedly hid again behind the light pole.

  He waited another five, then ten minutes, but no Mitsuyo. Maybe she’d noticed the patrol cars, too, and had taken the path, the one past the shrine, back to the lighthouse. Thrusting aside weeds as he went, Yuichi made his way up the hill. But no matter how long he waited at the lighthouse, Mitsuyo didn’t return.

  Yuichi flicked at the pebbles of different sizes and colors she’d lined up in a neat row on the plywood board. Did they mean anything? Yuichi scooped them up. As he squeezed them, they clicked against each other in his palm.

  Mitsuyo … He called her name as he fingered the pebbles. No other words came. A sudden commotion was coming from the base of the hill. Usually he and Mitsuyo couldn’t hear anything from down there, but now something ominous was filtering up the slope.

  Pebbles still in his hand, he ran outside. The sun had set now, and the border between the sea and the mountain had vanished. Red lights of a patrol car were visible among the faint lights of the town below. Not just one, but many, coming from all directions, red lights converging on the town. Sirens, like waves, rang out from down below.

  In all the commotion, the mountain seemed all the more silent. Yuichi turned away and gazed at the towering lighthouse. It soared upward, as if propping up the night sky.

  He remembered when he was a child, when his mother abandoned him and he’d stared across to the lighthouse on the other shore.

  “I’ll be right back,” his mother had told him, and disappeared. Yuichi had believed her. He waited and waited but she never returned. It must be because I did something bad, he’d thought. And he’d tried his hardest to think what that could be. But no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t figure out why she’d be so mad at him.

  The last ferryboat was just leaving then. Yuichi, tired from waiting, was walking along the pier when a little girl ran up to him from the parking lot. She must have just learned to walk, for she didn’t seem to know how to put the brakes on her running feet. Yuichi reached out and held her to stop her from running. The little girl’s look of relief was something he could clearly picture, even now. As the girl’s father ran over and lifted her up, the girl reached out to Yuichi and offered him the stick of chikuwa in her hand. Yuichi declined, but the girl’s father said, “We just bought it, so please go ahead,” and he handed it to Yuichi. Yuichi thanked him and took it.

  When he thought about it later, he realized that from the time his mother left him, until the next morning when one of the ferry workers discovered him there, all he ate was that stick of chikuwa.

  Yuichi tossed the pebbles in his hand at the lighthouse above him. Mitsuyo … he thought again. The pebbles flew in all directions, only the largest one actually striking the base of the lighthouse.

  Mitsuyo might be in one of those patrol cars. She might have been arrested. If they grabbed her, I have to go rescue her. Go right away and tell them, “I wanted her to come with me. I threatened her and made her come with me.” No. Mitsuyo will be back. No way the cops got her. She bought a lot of things at the convenience store and will come back, a smile on her face, saying, “Sorry I’m late!” She said she’d be right back. She smiled when she said that, when she left.

  Yuichi picked up a stone from the ground and flung it hard against the lighthouse.

  Without Mitsuyo, all he felt was pain. Mitsuyo is of
f somewhere right now, alone, he thought. The last thing I want is for her to feel this kind of pain. It’s enough that I feel it.

  The bark of the tree broke off under her grip and stabbed beneath her fingernails. Mitsuyo gritted her teeth, not giving in to the pain, grabbed a thin branch, and stepped up on top of a boulder.

  The woods were pitch-black and wherever she stepped were fallen dead trees. Dead trees she could handle, but not the moss-covered rocks. She slipped on them over and over, tumbling to the damp ground.

  After she climbed out the window of the police station, her only thought was to get to the top of the hill, to the lighthouse. On the way, as she was running through the garden of someone’s house, an old woman sitting on the porch had called out to her, but she clambered over the wall without looking back and ran into the dark woods.

  The snow piled up on tree branches and leaves and she could barely make out her surroundings. She’d lost all feeling in her fingers. She looked up and saw the sky beyond the branches ahead of her. If she could make it that far, she would be at the lighthouse, where Yuichi was waiting. The bushes she grabbed on to had thorns; the thin branches bent back and snapped into her face.

  Still she climbed on, clambering over the rocks. The sorrow that had swept over her in the back of the patrol car was pursuing her, and would catch her if she stopped for even a moment. She no longer had the willpower to consider what she was doing, or what she had done. All she wanted was to see Yuichi one more time. It hurt not to have him by her side, right this instant. He was there at the lighthouse, waiting for her, and she couldn’t stand to make him feel any lonelier.

  She had no idea where this strength was coming from. Or where she found the power to love someone so much.

  “Yuichi!”

  With each freezing branch whipping across her face, she bit her lip and called out to him.