Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1

by Mizuki Nomura

  What had that really been about?

  Around the same time, I ended my period of resistance against Tohko and found myself beginning to head to the book club even when Tohko didn’t come to get me.

  It had become a ritual for me after school to listen as Tohko read a book and rambled on about it, and I had even ceased particularly questioning it when she ripped a page out of a book and ate it right in front of me.

  In fact, it was somehow reassuring to see Tohko sitting on a fold-up chair with her knees drawn up, happily eating a book.

  It was about the time that I’d started to think spending my time after school with a president who was so childish and meddling and talkative and such a nuisance to everyone around her—it might not be so bad after all.

  And yet, the very moment I got used to Tohko, the person who had until then held my hand without a second thought, or peeked down at the story I was working on with her face practically up against mine and nagged me, “Go faster; I’m hungryyy. I won’t make it!” now would turn bright red and whip her hand away if our fingers so much as brushed each other when I handed her a snack. Or if I got within three feet of her, her eyes would bug out and she’d leap back as if she’d seen a monster. It just didn’t make sense.

  Things had gone on that way for about three days, I think.

  When I went to the clubroom, Tohko wasn’t there yet.

  I waited for her, thinking she would come any second, but in the end she never appeared. And although it wasn’t as if I wanted to see her for any particular reason, still I went home feeling somehow let down.

  The next day, in return for standing me up, I dashed off a sloppy story while I waited her out, but again Tohko didn’t come.

  She’d been acting strange lately. I wondered if something had happened.

  Was she skipping out on the club meetings because she didn’t want to see me?

  I would have thought there was less than no reason for that to bother me, but it did—and on the fourth day without Tohko showing herself, I went to the second-years’ classes during a break to sneak a look at her.

  It wasn’t that I particularly wanted Tohko to show up at club meetings. I’d just come to make sure she was still alive since she’d so abruptly stopped coming, and after coming to see me every day. Maybe she’d gone back to the land of goblins? In which case I would be able to quit the book club, too.

  And yet I was nervous about going to a higher year’s classroom, and utterly unable to call into her classroom for her, I was dithering out in the hall when an older girl addressed me.

  “Hey, aren’t you Tohko’s kid? If you’re looking for her, she’s been out sick since Monday. I guess she stayed outside a long time that day it snowed. I called her yesterday and it sounded like she was pretty much okay, so I think she’ll be here tomorrow or next week.”

  Out sick? Did goblins get sick?

  And in any case, what was she doing staying out in the snow for so long? There had been a big snowstorm in town the weekend before. She hadn’t actually gone out that day, had she? All the trains were stopped. It would have been such an ordeal. That would be so reckless.

  Fed up, annoyed—and for some reason also relieved. That day, I knew that Tohko was out, but I went to book club after classes anyway and spent my time alone, thinking about her.

  The next day after school, when I opened the door to the clubroom, Tohko was sitting on a fold-up chair with her feet pulled up, reading a book, like always.

  Then she saw my face and smiled and—“Hello, Konoha. I’m hungry. Write me somethiiiing.”—she wheedled.

  “Is it true you got lonely because I was out so long?”

  As she leaned forward, tilting the chair along with her, and peeked happily into my face, I asked, “I thought I wasn’t supposed to come near you?”

  “Oh, it’s fine! My cold’s all gone now. You won’t catch anything.”

  “No, not your cold, I…”

  “Hmm? Hmm? What are you asking about? Forget that and get to work on writing me something. Something suuuper sweet to celebrate your president’s recovery.”

  Tohko had returned to her original, unreserved, unguarded self.

  That made me pretty angry and I made a spicy improv story Tohko’s gift for getting over her cold.

  Had Tohko been at home in a state like this that time, too?

  Breathing roughly, taking medicine all alone, lying in bed for days?

  Maybe Ryuto had taken care of her. But what about Kanako?

  The house was cold and silent within. The snow must have changed over into rain. Beyond the violet curtains I heard the faint sound of rainfall.

  Tohko looked like she was in pain. Her eyes were closed and she was panting.

  As I wiped away the sweat beading on her skin with the wet towel, I felt unbelievably restless. All I could do was pray that Tohko be a little more comfortable.

  I’d heard that Tohko was only eight years old when she’d started living in this old house.

  How must she have felt losing her parents so suddenly, and both at once?

  Had she been constantly ignored by Kanako, a “nonexistent child” in the house, the way Ryuto had said?

  When I had that thought, I hurt as if my heart were being wrenched out.

  When I was in elementary school and I caught a cold, my mother would gently take my temperature and give me medicine. She would smile and say, “It’s all right; you’ll be better before you know it,” and stroke my head. Then she would scoop up a spoonful of applesauce or homemade jelly and feed it to me.

  My room was warm, and my mother was kinder than usual and smelled good. I almost enjoyed getting sick.

  After Tohko’s parents died, I knew there hadn’t been any adults who nursed her that affectionately.

  I remembered the words Tohko had gently murmured when she’d come over to my house, gazing tenderly at every single thing in my room.

  “What a lovely family.”

  “So you grew up in this house… surrounded by these kind people.”

  A gentle smile—as if she was truly happy about that—as transparent as if it had leaked from deep within her heart.

  That smile rose in my mind’s eye and my chest clenched unbearably tight.

  I surveyed Tohko’s room with a feeling of chilling desolation.

  The wooden desk the color of tea, the chair with burn marks on the legs. An old chest of drawers. So many books lined up neatly on a huge bookcase.

  Old Japanese classics, famous books from the turn of the century in Japan, from modern times, from abroad, poetry collections, children’s books—I was sure that she had read and reread the old books from that wide variety of genres and ages time and again. They weren’t for eating.

  Among them I spotted Gide’s Strait Is the Gate.

  It was a hardcover with an old binding.

  The holy woman Alissa who left Jerome to move toward God.

  The author Kanako Sakurai standing frigidly in the lobby of the hotel.

  The Immoral Passage, the novel she’d written—and Arisa, the woman of ice and fire who hadn’t balked even from committing murder in order to reach supremacy.

  The three women rose in my mind and my throat grew suddenly dry.

  I went up to the bookcase, took the book down, and turned back the cover. Inside, I found an inscription written with a fountain pen.

  To Tohko

  From Dad

  There was something feminine about the beautiful, flowing letters.

  Had this book been a gift from Tohko’s father? I took down several other books and turned back their covers, too.

  But there was nothing written in them.

  Was it only this book?

  If so, then why had Fumiharu written the message “To Tohko” in this of all books?

  Did it have something to do with how Kanako had mingled the main character of The Immoral Passage with Strait Is the Gate’s Alissa?

  In fact, in The Immoral Passage, the characte
r Haru, who seemed to have been modeled on Fumiharu, tells Arisa, “You’re like Alissa seeking the love of heaven.”

  Maybe that was something Fumiharu had actually said to Kanako.

  I turned through the pages.

  Deeply moved by the words of a priest in church to “enter in by the narrow gate,” Jerome prays fervently to go through the gate with Alissa.

  “The two of us will don white costumes as recited in Revelations, then take hold of one another’s hands and move forward, focused on the same goal…”

  For Jerome, the narrow gate was also the gate that led to Alissa. He had no doubt that the two of them could walk the path that led to God together.

  What had Fumiharu thought about Kanako?

  Had they been linked by a powerful bond, each of them aspiring to a single thing like Arisa and Haru from The Immoral Passage?

  Mr. Sasaki had said that Kanako’s relationship with Fumiharu had been a chaste union.

  And that she must have felt competitive toward his wife, Yui, that she would deliberately call Fumiharu away on his days off…

  What had Juliette—had Yui—who was married to Jerome thought of that?

  My hand froze.

  A photo had been slipped between the books.

  It looked like it had been taken at a zoo. A man with an intelligent, gentle cast to his face was smiling, holding a girl with braids in his arms. The girl looked like she was having fun, too. Beside them a woman with loose waves in her long, shiny hair was smiling. She was petite, cute, and seemed somewhat ethereal.

  It had to be Fumiharu and Yui—and Tohko. Yui’s smile looked exactly like Tohko’s.

  And Fumiharu’s clear gaze resembled the clear eyes Tohko sometimes had when she wore an intelligent expression.

  I felt my throat closing up at the sight of this family who looked truly happy and seemed to be truly close.

  Behind me, Tohko panted painfully.

  I closed the book and returned it to the shelf, then wrung out the towel that had been on her forehead and wiped off her sweat. The ice in the basin had all melted into water.

  I could hear nothing but the gentle sound of falling rain and the breath coming out of Tohko.

  My sense of time grew vague.

  But it ought to be evening soon.

  When would everyone be coming home…?

  Ryuto might not come home with things the way they were, although he might be watching how things were going from somewhere.

  According to what Mr. Sasaki had told me, Kanako had other places where she worked, so she might be there, writing. What time did she ordinarily come home? Or did she not come back for several days at a time?

  I opened my cell phone and found a message from Kotobuki.

  She was worried about why I’d left so suddenly, whether I was feeling all right, whether my relative had taken a turn for the worse. I could tell that she sensed something unnatural in my behavior and was hesitant to ask about it, even though she wanted to. It was only natural she’d find it suspicious when I’d left the classroom the way I did.

  My stomach hurt, like it was twisting into knots.

  My sense of guilt over the unforgivable things I was doing to Kotobuki cut into me.

  I’m sorry. Don’t worry about me.

  That was all I sent her.

  I wondered how many “sorrys” this made now and guilt dug at my chest even more. Even though I knew exactly how pointless it was to tell her not to worry.

  I also sent my mom a text that I might be home late, so I didn’t need dinner.

  I shut my phone, feeling a heavy, black lump lodged in my stomach.

  I changed the towel on Tohko’s forehead and wiped away her sweat again after that.

  It was nearly eight o’clock at night when Tohko woke up.

  Her fever hadn’t gone down, and I was sure she must have been in pain. She looked at me with bleary eyes, taking short, panting breaths.

  “… What time is it, Konoha?”

  “About four o’clock.”

  “Nuh-uh… it’s dark outside.”

  “Does it matter what time it is? Do you want to take some medicine? Where is it?”

  “Under my blanket…”

  “Your blanket?”

  I pushed back her comforter and found a silver packet of cold medicine.

  “I’ll bring you some water. You should have something to eat before you take… what the?”

  A familiar-looking book was poking out from under her bed.

  I tugged it out and checked the title, and it was, as I’d suspected, the copy of Alt Heidelberg she’d made me buy when we went to Maki’s estate over the summer. She’d told me with a syrupy look on her face that it was the German version of Roman Holiday, that it’s the poignant romance of a crown prince and a girl from a boardinghouse.

  She hadn’t finished it yet…

  But the other two books, Tonio Kröger and Undine, had disappeared into her stomach in an instant.

  When I flipped through it, there were signs that it had been exhaustively read several times, and a third of the pages had been torn out.

  “Do you want this for dinner, Tohko?”

  I started tearing a page out when—“No!”—Tohko stopped me with a desperate voice.

  “Not that book.”

  She turned her face toward me, and the sight of her murmuring with teary eyes made my heart skip a beat.

  “Why not?”

  “If I eat it… I won’t have it anymore… Alt Heidelberg is all I have left. It’s the only one. So I can’t eat it…”

  Her voice croaked.

  Tohko feebly lifted herself up, then snatched the book from me and hugged it to her chest. She’d moved so suddenly, she swooned again.

  I hurried to catch her, then laid her down in the bed.

  Tohko curled up, hugging Alt Heidelberg tightly.

  My heart hurt at the childish gesture.

  “Then what book do you want? Or should I make you regular food? I know how to make soup.”

  I was sure Tohko was in a haze from her fever.

  Still hugging the book, she gazed up at me; then her face crumpled and she whispered in a voice on the verge of tears, “I want…”

  “Hmm?”

  “I want my mom’s food…”

  Like a little child.

  Her eyes watering powerlessly.

  Her voice wavering, as if she was giving voice to a wish she’d long held in her heart.

  “My mom was a book girl just like me.”

  “She would always write my dad and me delicious meals.”

  The happy family I’d seen in the photo.

  The little girl, her kind-looking father, and her mother.

  I remembered Tohko telling me that she and her father had both loved the stories her mother wrote for them, and my heart swelled until it felt like it would burst.

  After her mother passed away, had Tohko thought again and again about the food she used to write? Had she wished that she could eat her mother’s food?

  Even though she would have known better than anyone that it was impossible…

  Tohko’s face pinched and she looked closer to tears than ever. She hid her face with her book and bent her head, bit down on her lip, and trembled.

  “… Why did you come here, Konoha?”

  She sounded like she was attacking me.

  “I…”

  “I gave you back your scarf… and everything. I said good-bye… I thought… as long as I didn’t eat the rest of Alt Heidelberg… So why… why are you in my room?”

  I was silent.

  “You’re so mean, Konoha…”

  Tohko turned her back on me.

  I hadn’t anticipated the words she would fire at me at a time like this.

  I felt an ache as if something were chafing against my heart, grating against it, and I couldn’t say anything.

  So instead I opened my bag and took out my math notebook. I scribbled a little story out on the white page wit
h a mechanical pencil.

  “School lunch,” “snack,” and “mother”—

  With the stories I’d heard of Tohko’s mother hovering in my mind—the little girl with the braids and the cute, ethereal woman beside her, both with their happy smiles—I scribbled down the words.

  When the page was full, I went to the next. When that was full, I went to the next.

  I wrote a two-and-a-half-page story, which I read aloud at Tohko’s side.

  The way Tohko had read Yuri’s diary at my side over the summer.

  Like a story read by a mother before her child falls asleep—

  The girl had just started elementary school and didn’t like school lunches. Even when everyone else was done eating, she sat alone, staring at her plate.

  Scolded by her teacher and teased by her classmates, the girl pleads with her mother, crying, “I don’t want to go to school.

  “I’m the only one who can’t eat the lunch they give us.”

  The mother speaks to the girl kindly.

  “Are you sure you can’t eat it? You only have to eat a little bit, so why not try it and see how it tastes? If you do, then I’ll make you a delicious snack as a reward.”

  The next day, the girl takes a tiny bite of a carrot in her stew, then holds her breath and swallows it.

  When she announces that, her mother hugs the girl and lets her eat a sweet, homemade treat.

  The next day and the next after that, little by little, the girl is able to eat the school lunches.

  Each time she does, her mother hugs her, warmly tells her, “Good job, you’re trying so hard,” and then makes her a treat.

  And so finally, the girl finishes an entire school lunch, smiles, and says it tasted great.

  I can’t wait to tell my mom, she thinks… I bet today’s treat will be the sweetest one of all.

  With her back still turned on me, Tohko seemed to be hanging on my story.

  In a quiet voice… slowly, one word at a time… I continued reading the clumsy story I’d written.

  Hoping that it would touch Tohko’s heart just a little, that it would reawaken the taste of her mother’s stories in her heart.

  That it would communicate itself to Tohko’s heart, to her tongue.