Mariye didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t bat an eye, just acted as if she hadn’t heard what I’d said. I guessed it was something I shouldn’t have asked.
“Mr. Menshiki isn’t a good friend of yours,” she said. I knew it was a question, though her intonation was flat. Do you mean Mr. Menshiki isn’t a good friend of yours? was what she meant.
“As I’ve told you,” I said, “I haven’t known Mr. Menshiki long enough to call him a real friend. I started talking with him after I moved here, and that was only six months ago. It takes longer than that for people to become close. Still, he strikes me as a very interesting person.”
“Interesting.”
“How can I explain? His disposition strikes me as a little different than the average guy. Maybe more than a little, actually. He’s not an easy person to figure out.”
“Disposition.”
“Personality. The traits that make a person who they are.”
Mariye stared at me for a while. As if selecting the exact words she ought to use.
“He can see my home from his deck—it’s right across the valley.”
It took me a moment to respond to that. “Yes, you’re right. That’s the lay of the land. But he can see my house just as clearly. Not yours alone.”
“Still, I think that man is spying on us.”
“What do you mean, spying on you?”
“He’s got something like a pair of big binoculars on the terrace, though he hides them with a cover. They’re on a kind of tripod. He can see us really clearly if he uses those.”
So the girl found him out, I thought. Watchful, observant. Eyes that missed nothing of importance.
“So you think that Mr. Menshiki has been observing you through those binoculars?”
Mariye gave a terse nod.
I took a deep breath, then let it out. “Still, that’s just a guess on your part, right? They don’t necessarily mean he’s peeking into your house. He could be observing the moon and stars.”
Mariye’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’ve had this feeling like I’m being watched,” she said. “For a while. But I didn’t know who was watching me, or from where. But now I know. It’s that person, for sure.”
I took another long, slow breath. Mariye’s supposition was on the money. Menshiki was watching her through his high-powered military binoculars on a nightly basis. Yet to my knowledge—and this was not to defend Menshiki—his motives for being a peeping Tom were far from nefarious. He just wanted to see the girl. This beautiful thirteen-year-old girl who might be his biological daughter. For that reason, and that reason alone, he had purchased the mansion on the other side of the valley. Wresting it from the family living there and booting them out. Yet I couldn’t reveal that to Mariye.
“Let’s say you’re right,” I said. “But then what’s his motive? Why is he so fixated on your home?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he has a crush on my aunt.”
“Has a crush on your aunt?”
She gave a brief shrug of her shoulders.
Mariye couldn’t imagine she was the target. She hadn’t yet reached the stage where she could see herself as an object of male desire. I found it strange, yet I didn’t dare call her version of events into question. If that was how she read the situation, better perhaps to let it ride.
“I think Mr. Menshiki is hiding something,” Mariye said.
“What, for example?”
“My aunt is seeing Mr. Menshiki,” she said, not answering my question. “They met twice this week.” Her tone suggested that she was passing on highly sensitive state secrets.
“On dates?”
“I think she went to his house.”
“Alone?”
“She left a little after noon and didn’t return until late.”
“But you can’t be sure she went to Mr. Menshiki’s, can you?”
“I can tell,” she said.
“How can you tell?”
“My aunt doesn’t leave the house that much,” she said. “Sure, she’ll volunteer at the library or go shopping, but then she doesn’t take a long shower, or paint her nails, or put on perfume and her fanciest underwear.”
“You really have sharp eyes, don’t you,” I said, impressed. “You see everything. But are you sure the man she’s meeting is Mr. Menshiki? Couldn’t it be someone else?”
Mariye narrowed her eyes at me. She gave a small shake of her head. As in, Do you think I’m that stupid? After all, under the circumstances it was unlikely to be anyone but Menshiki. And Mariye was anything but stupid.
“So your aunt spends quite a bit of time at Mr. Menshiki’s house, just the two of them together.”
Mariye nodded.
“And the two of them—how should I put this?—are engaged in what we might call a very intimate relationship.”
She nodded again. “Yes, a very intimate relationship,” she said, her cheeks turning a faint pink.
“But you’re in school all day. Not at home. So how can you know these things?”
“I can tell. I can tell that much from a woman’s face.”
But I couldn’t tell. Yuzu had carried on an extended affair while we were living together, and I was clueless. Looking back, I should have been able to figure out that much. How could a thirteen-year-old girl pick up on something I couldn’t that quickly?
“So things really moved fast between those two, didn’t they,” I said.
“My aunt’s no dummy—there’s nothing wrong with her head. But her heart has a weak spot. And Mr. Menshiki is stronger than normal people. A lot stronger—she’s no match for him.”
She’s probably right, I thought. Menshiki did have some special power. Once he made his move, it would be almost impossible for an average person to resist. Myself included. I doubted he would find it difficult to make a woman his, if that was his goal.
“So you’re worried about your aunt, right? That Mr. Menshiki is using her for some reason.”
Mariye swept her hair back with her hand, exposing her ear. It was small and white, and its shape was lovely. She nodded.
“But it’s not that easy to stop a relationship of this sort once it’s gotten started,” I said.
Not that easy at all, I said to myself. It would move forward, crushing everything in its path, like the Hindus’ great wheel of karma. There could be no turning back.
“That’s why I had to talk to you,” Mariye said. Then she looked me square in the eye.
* * *
—
When it began to get dark, I took my flashlight and walked Mariye almost as far as her passageway. She said she had to be home by dinner. They usually ate around seven.
She had come to ask me for advice. Yet I hadn’t been able to offer anything useful. All I could tell her was to wait and see how things developed. I knew Menshiki and Shoko might be having sex, but they were two unmarried and consenting adults. What was I supposed to do? Sure, I had some background information, but I couldn’t reveal it, not to Mariye, and not to her aunt. That meant that I couldn’t give useful advice to anyone. I was like a boxer trying to fight with his best arm tied behind his back.
Mariye and I walked side by side through the woods, hardly exchanging a word. We had gone partway along the path when she reached down and took my hand. Her hand was small, but its grip was unexpectedly firm. I was surprised at first, but then I had often walked this way with my sister, so it didn’t put me off. Instead, it felt normal, a kind of return to my youth.
Mariye’s hand was very smooth to the touch. Warm but not at all sweaty. She must have been thinking about something, for her hand squeezed mine and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed, depending, I guess, on what she was thinking. My sister had done the same thing back in the old days.
When we reached the shrine, she let go of my hand and, without a word, circled around to the back. I followed her.
The pampas grass still bore the tread marks of the backhoe. Within lay the silent pit. Its cover was made of sturdy boards, weighted down by a row of stones. I shone my flashlight on them to confirm that they hadn’t been moved. They hadn’t.
“Is it okay if I look in?” Mariye asked me.
“Just look.”