The Graveyard Apartment

by Mariko Koike

  That had always been her mother’s style, Misao thought. Sometimes—though by no means always—her mother would manage to stop herself just as she was on the verge of saying something vicious, biting back the nasty words before they could slither from her mouth like a passel of hissing snakes.

  Several years earlier Misao had finally confessed to her parents that Teppei’s first wife committed suicide, and her mother’s savage tongue-lashing still reverberated deep in Misao’s psyche. As her mother spewed forth that torrent of venom, all blame and shame and animosity, Misao really did feel as if she were being flogged by a live whip of sharp-fanged, poisonous snakes.

  “I’m ashamed to have brought a daughter like you into the world,” her mother had ranted. “I’ve never said this out loud before, but for as long as I can remember you’ve been a sordid, sleazy kind of girl. You never were any good. I’ll bet you seduced that man while he was still married. Oh, yes, I know all about your tricks. You really are a disgusting child. You’ll be going to hell, that’s for sure. Maybe that dead woman—what was her name, Reiko?—will put a fatal curse on you from beyond the grave. That’s exactly what you deserve.”

  Misao’s father had never been one to hold back when it came to nagging or criticizing his daughter, but on that painful occasion he didn’t say a thing. Seven years had passed since then, and during that time her father had never once gotten in touch with Misao, much less stopped by to see her.

  Misao’s mother started bad-mouthing the absent Teppei (albeit in a roundabout way) soon after she arrived. Then she adopted a purring, wheedling tone and said, “You know, if it was just you and Tamao, you would be more than welcome to come home for a visit, any time at all.”

  Misao refused to get angry, because she knew that was the reaction her mother was hoping to provoke. If Misao took the bait, it would only egg her mother on. When she thought about how messy and awful it would be to endure another barrage of hateful words, she decided that no matter how much unwarranted abuse her mother might heap on her, she would remain silent and ignore the invective.

  Back in the present, Misao gave her head a good shake to clear away the cobwebs of memory, then returned her attention to the work on her desk. She didn’t have time to worry about her mother’s cruelty or her father’s ongoing stubbornness (although it hurt her deeply that so many years later he was still withholding forgiveness). She had too many other things to deal with right now.

  Her current assignment was an illustration for the self-promotional magazine of a cosmetics company. It was going to be a double-truck spread under the title “Urban Poetry,” and Misao had been asked to draw a picture, using a palette of pastel colors, that would evoke a sense of the city.

  The poem itself had been contributed by one of the magazine’s readers. Misao had been given an advance copy, and now she read it over once again.

  Longing to smell the aroma of earth,

  Yearning to hear the chirping of birds,

  Here I dwell atop this tower of concrete.

  And even though there’s no soil to smell,

  And no birdsong to hear,

  At least I have the sun.

  I have the evening.

  And I have you.

  The poem’s author was a twenty-nine-year-old mother of one, and it wasn’t clear whether the “you” in the last line was meant to be her child, or her husband, or someone else entirely. Was the poem well done, or not? Misao hesitated to judge it one way or the other, but the verse struck her as somewhat facile: designed, she imagined, to appeal to the sensibilities of women who were still very young. Nonetheless, Misao had an instinctive understanding of where the author was coming from, and what she was trying to convey.

  And I have you … The last line, in particular, resonated with Misao because it reminded her of the deep sense of camaraderie she and Teppei had felt when they finally started to move on from Reiko’s death, more closely bound together than ever.

  Misao hadn’t told Teppei yet about the fruits of her research at the ward library. Maybe one of these days, in the not too distant future, they would end up being able to laugh about all these absurdities. When she thought about it that way, her mood lightened a bit.

  The thing was, she knew without a doubt that if she were to say she wanted to put this apartment on the market right away and start looking for another place, Teppei would be flabbergasted, and irate. Really, she told herself, the only major drawback was the basement. If she didn’t like going down there, she could just choose not to use the storage locker. The danger with flights of fancy was that they could easily get out of hand and lead to delusional thinking. When you started believing in the existence of things that weren’t really there, that was a sign that your imagination was working overtime.

  The telephone rang. It was Eiko. “Yoo-hoo!” she said playfully.

  It had only been a few hours since the two women had run into each other on their way to pick up the children from kindergarten. As they walked together, Eiko had shared an animated account of the long weekend she and her family had spent at the home of her older sister in Chiba; they had all gone to Tokyo Disneyland, where, in Eiko’s words, they spent “oodles of money.” Misao was surprised to hear from her neighbor again so soon.

  “Is everything okay?” Eiko asked now, with a nervous giggle. It was an odd question, and Misao sensed something jittery and unbalanced beneath the laughter, as though Eiko might be about to explode at any moment.

  “Everything’s fine,” Misao said warily. “What’s going on with you?”

  Eiko laughed again and said, “Oh, nothing much,” then let out a histrionic sigh. “Honestly, though, I’m starting to think I might be losing my mind.”

  “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry for the interruption—I know you’re probably trying to work.”

  “It’s no problem at all.” Misao would have said the same thing to whoever was on the other end of the line, but the truth was that she actively welcomed the interruption. “I’ve actually been floundering around trying to figure out what kind of imagery would work best for my illustration, and I was just about to take a break anyway,” she added.

  “Then would it be okay if I stopped by for a minute? Kaori and Tsutomu are at a friend’s house this afternoon. Is Tamao around?”

  “I put her down for a nap a while ago. Since the injury, she’s been sleeping a lot more than she used to.”

  “Okay, great. See you in a bit!” Eiko said in a rush, ending the call in a way that struck Misao as uncharacteristically abrupt.

  Misao barely had time to pour two cups of coffee before Eiko appeared at the door, ashen-faced and agitated. She was dressed in a light gray sweatshirt with matching jodhpur-style pants, and her makeup was more minimal than usual. Misao reckoned that was why her skin appeared so pale.

  “Oh, just seeing your face makes me feel better,” Eiko exclaimed with a dry, artificial laugh. She sounded a bit like a sick child trying to feign high-spirited good health to reassure (or deceive) her mother.

  “What happened?” Misao asked.

  “It’s really nothing,” Eiko replied. “I must be getting senile before my time or something, ’cause my ears seem to be playing tricks on me.”

  “Your ears?”

  Eiko picked up the cup of coffee that Misao had set in front of her and took a big gulp. Only after swallowing did she seem to realize how hot it was, and she made a humorous show of clawing at her throat.

  “What do you mean, your ears are playing tricks on you?” Misao repeated.

  “It’s just that I heard something weird. I really do feel like I’m losing my grip on reality. Okay, so I went down to the basement, right? I think it was about half an hour ago. Tsutomu had dragged his tricycle up to the apartment, and I went to stick it back in our storage locker. I swear, that kid never puts anything away after he’s finished using it. It’s probably my fault for not disciplining him enough. So anyway, I hoisted the trike ont
o my shoulder and lugged it down to the basement. And then…”

  Eiko’s mien turned suddenly sober. She plunked her coffee cup down with so much force that it rattled in the saucer, then looked at Misao with her face contorted into an expression that could have been the prelude to laughter or tears. Misao had been about to take a sip from her own cup, but now she put it down and waited without saying a word.

  “There were voices talking on the other side of the wall,” Eiko stated in a flat, uninflected monotone. After a moment’s silence she burst into laughter, then said sheepishly, “I’m probably just being stupid about this. Don’t you think I’m being foolish? I mean, there’s no way I could have heard that for real, right?”

  Misao rubbed her lip thoughtfully. “When you say ‘on the other side of the wall,’ what do you mean, exactly?”

  “Look, like I said, I’m sure my ears were just playing tricks on me. As for the place, I think it was right around the spot where Tamao collapsed that day, after she was injured. I just got this weird feeling that I could hear voices whispering and muttering behind the wall. I didn’t get any sense of what they were saying, but it sounded like a lot of people, all talking at once. I started to shiver, and I thought my hair was going to stand on end. There was something really ghastly about those voices. I mean, like, beyond dreadful.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain. It was as if they were talking among themselves, and their voices were making a kind of rustling sound. You know how when you go to the movies, people will be chatting in hushed whispers before the show starts? It was sort of like that. I’m sure it was just the wind, or else maybe there were some people in the elevator lobby on the first floor, and they were all talking to each other.”

  The wind? People in the elevator lobby? Misao thought incredulously. “And you think these sounds were coming from the other side of the back wall?” she asked in the calmest tone she could muster.

  “Yes, but … Oh dear, I hate this. Please don’t look so serious, Misao! I’m telling you, I just imagined it. I need you to assure me it was all in my head—that’s why I came up here.” Eiko laughed and put both hands on her cheeks, and Misao noticed that some of the natural color seemed to have returned to her friend’s face.

  “Even if it was just my imagination, it really gave me the creeps at the time,” Eiko went on. “I was just cowering there, unable to move a muscle. I couldn’t make a sound, either. I wonder why I reacted that way? I mean, it was just some voices. I really am silly sometimes.”

  Ever since Tamao’s accident, Eiko had declared the basement off limits for Tsutomu and Kaori. She gave no specific reason for forbidding her children to play down there, but the new policy seemed to be an implicit expression of the way everyone was feeling about the basement these days.

  Unconsciously, Misao rubbed her arms, which were suddenly covered in gooseflesh. “And you’re sure about what you heard?” she asked.

  “Yes, absolutely. Even if my ears were deceiving me about the source or the tone, the one thing I’m sure about is that I did hear voices. I was just trying to fool myself into thinking it was the wind earlier.”

  “That really is spooky,” Misao said slowly.

  “You can say that again.” Eiko looked down at the table. “To tell the truth, I was so scared I couldn’t move—like literally paralyzed with fear. And even after I was safely back in the apartment, that feeling wouldn’t go away. Ugh, this is such a gray day. Would it be okay to turn on some lights?”

  Before Misao had time to reply, Eiko jumped up and went over to the wall switch. The room was immediately flooded with a soft yet vibrant golden light; it illuminated every corner and even cast its glow on a shiny covered picture book of Tamao’s that had fallen under the sofa.

  Wearing a relieved expression, Eiko returned to her seat at the table and took a noisy slurp of coffee. “Anyway, I was completely freaked out, and I was so antsy after I got home that I finally just had to give you a call. I need to be running along soon, though—I have to go pick up my kids. It looks like it might be going to rain, too. But really, what do you think I heard down there?”

  “Hmm, I wonder,” Misao mused, gripping her cup with both hands. Her fingers had grown unnaturally cold, and no matter how tightly she gripped the warm cup she couldn’t seem to get their temperature back to normal. She noticed a slight fissure in the rim of the bone china cup. It’s cracked, it’s cracked, she repeated over and over, inside her head. Should she go out one of these days and splurge on a coffee set made from Imari porcelain or something like that? She could imagine Teppei saying, “Hey, we don’t have that kind of money to throw around,” but when you are trying to create a pleasant, tidy home, every little detail contributes to the overall impression of loveliness, right down to the everyday tableware.

  Misao knew she was making a conscious effort to focus on safe domestic details in order to prevent herself from blurting out her wild hypothesis to Eiko. Namely: What if the underground hole that was prematurely excavated, decades ago, ran directly under the graveyard and ended up dead-ending (so to speak) at the basement of this apartment building?

  Misao remembered what the receptionist at the ward library had said the other day, as a joke: “After all, we aren’t mole people, right?” Yes, surely that useless tunnel would have been filled in after the project went bust.

  But what if the underground hole never had been refilled? Wasn’t it possible that the disappointed developers could have hastily paved over the mouth of the excavation instead, leaving a tunnel-like segment that ran under the cemetery and continued all the way up to the external wall of this building’s basement?

  Mr. Shoji had moved away, but some of the things he’d said were still resonating in Misao’s head: troubling things, like describing the basement as a gathering place for evil entities. She didn’t remember his exact words—something like, “I’m no stranger to the dark side, but I’ve never felt that kind of evil energy before.” Could there be a connection between that unwholesome energy and the part of the underground road or tunnel that might have been left unfilled beneath the graveyard?

  “So, um, what’s going through your mind right now?” Eiko asked uneasily.

  Misao shook her head and said, “Nothing special. I was just thinking how happy I would be if I never had to set foot in that basement again. I don’t even want to use the storage locker anymore.”

  Eiko nodded. “I know what you mean. I swear, after today I’m never going down there again. No, seriously, I’m not kidding. ‘Spooky’ doesn’t even begin to describe it,” she declared, looking Misao full in the face. “Really, I wonder whether that basement was the scene of a murder or a suicide or something.”

  The way Eiko spoke those words was uncharacteristically solemn, and Misao felt a sudden prickling of goose bumps at the base of her neck.

  Eiko evidently had a similar reaction to her own words, because she wrapped both arms around her torso and moaned, “Oh, now I went and said something awful. But even so, you do hear stories about that kind of thing quite often, don’t you? Like when they’re putting up a new building and they come across human remains. Of course, it isn’t uncommon to find old bones during the excavation stage, before they even start construction, but I’ve also read news stories about people who sneak onto a site right after a building is completed and kill themselves there, for reasons unknown. Naturally, the project’s sales agent would never mention such things, so who’s to say something like that didn’t happen here, too? That would explain a lot.”

  The lace curtain covering the big plate-glass window billowed slightly. The wind was kicking up, and a light rain had begun to fall. Misao stood up, walked over to the radio, and turned it on. It seemed as though every time she decided to listen to the radio there was some obnoxious “personality” yammering breathlessly at maximum volume, and this day was no different.

  “Hey, lady over there, won’t you tell us your name?” the annoying man w
as bleating. “No? Okay, be that way. Geez, Miss Thing, I see you’ve slathered on that gaudy red lipstick again today. You look like you’ve been chewing betel nut or something. Come on, ’fess up. Is your hubby really the only man in your life? Sure, right. Don’t make me laugh. Anyhoo, little lady, here’s the thing. It’s time for a quick quiz. Okay? We’re running short on time, so I’m just going to shoot you a question, point-blank. If you get the answer right on the first try, you’ll win ten thousand yen. If you get it on the second try, you’ll win five thousand yen. And if you don’t manage to guess the answer at all, then you’ll get the booby prize: a big fat kiss from little old me.”

  The sounds of laughter from the studio audience echoed around the room. Eiko let out a giggle. “I swear, that guy says the most idiotic things. And what’s the deal with talking in that racy, suggestive way in the middle of the afternoon, when children could be listening? Who does that, anyway?”

  “I know,” Misao agreed. “He carries on like this all day, from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon. It’s usually unbearable but today, for some reason, I’m in the mood for his kind of foolishness.”

  Misao went into the kitchen to heat up the remaining coffee. Cookie was lying on the floor, gnawing on a rubber toy in the shape of a bone. She wagged her tail and gave a friendly yelp of greeting.

  “Aww, what a good girl, behaving herself so nicely. Tamao’s still asleep, you know,” Misao crooned, bending down to scratch behind the dog’s ears.

  “I wonder whether we should get a dog, too,” Eiko mused, peering into the kitchen. “Actually, I think I might rather have a lion. Maybe that way I wouldn’t feel so frightened all the time.”

  Misao took a deep breath as she turned on the gas under the coffeepot.

  “You know what? I think you just need to try to forget about what you heard today, and move on,” she said. “I mean, both our families bought units in this building with the intention of living here for quite a while, right?”