“Do you have the key?” Menshiki asked.
“It’s under the potted plant to the right of the front door. Probably.” The “probably” was necessary. Nothing in this world could be stated with absolute certainty. I was still shaking with cold. The chattering of my teeth was so loud I could barely hear myself talk.
“You’ll be happy to hear Mariye returned home safe and sound early this afternoon,” Menshiki said. “What a relief. I got a call from Shoko about an hour ago. I’d been calling you, but no one ever picked up. That worried me, so I came over. I could hear the faint ring of a bell coming from the woods. So on a hunch, I came out and removed the tarp.”
The view opened up as we emerged from the trees. I could see Menshiki’s silver Jaguar parked demurely in front of my house. It was as spotless as ever.
“Why is your car always so beautiful?” I asked Menshiki. Not a fitting question under the circumstances, perhaps, but something I had long wanted to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said in a disinterested tone. “Maybe it’s because I wash it when I have nothing else to do. From front to back. Then once a month, a pro comes and waxes it. And my garage protects it from the elements. That’s all.”
That’s all? If my poor Toyota Corolla wagon heard that, after six months spent languishing in wind and rain, its shoulders would sag in dismay. It might even pass out.
Menshiki took the key from under the flowerpot and opened the door.
“By the way, what day of the week is it?” I asked him.
“Today? Today is Tuesday.”
“Tuesday? Are you sure?”
Menshiki double-checked his memory. “I put out the empty bottles and cans yesterday, so it must have been Monday. Therefore today is Tuesday, without a doubt.”
It had been Saturday when I had visited Tomohiko Amada’s room. So three days had passed. It wouldn’t have surprised me had it been three weeks, or three months, or even three years. I made a mental note. I rubbed my jaw with my palm. But there was no three-day stubble. Instead, my chin was smooth. What explained that?
Menshiki took me to the bath straightaway. He put me in a hot shower and brought me a fresh change of clothes. The clothes I had been wearing were tattered and filthy. I rolled them up in a ball and threw them in the garbage. There were red contusions all over my body but no visible injuries. I wasn’t bleeding.
Then he led me to the kitchen, sat me down, and slowly fed me water. By the end I had drained a big bottle of mineral water. While I was drinking he found several apples in the fridge and peeled them. I just sat there, admiring his skill with a knife. The plate of peeled apples looked beautiful, elegant even.
I ate three or four apples in all. It was a moving experience—I had never realized how delicious apples were. I wanted to thank their creator for inventing such a marvelous fruit. When I finished the apples, Menshiki dug up a carton of crackers and gave it to me. I emptied the box. The crackers were a bit soggy, but they still tasted like the best in the world. In the meantime, he boiled water, made tea, and mixed it with honey. I drank a number of cups. The tea and honey warmed me from the inside.
There wasn’t much in my fridge. It was, however, well stocked with eggs.
“How about an omelet?” Menshiki asked.
“I’d love one,” I said. I needed to fill my stomach—anything would do.
Menshiki took four eggs from the fridge, broke them in a bowl, whipped them with chopsticks, and added milk, salt, and pepper. Then he whipped them again. It was clear he knew what he was doing. Then he turned on the gas, chose a small frying pan, and melted some butter in it. He located a spatula in one of my drawers and deftly cooked the omelet.
His technique was remarkable, as I would have expected. He could have been featured on a TV cooking show. Housewives across the nation would have sighed with envy. When it came to omelets—when it came to anything, I should say—Menshiki was precise, efficient, and incredibly stylish. I could only look on in admiration. He slid the finished omelet onto a plate and gave it to me with a dollop of ketchup.
The finished omelet was so beautiful I wanted to sketch it. But instead I grabbed my knife and started eating. The omelet wasn’t just pretty to look at—it was delicious.
“This omelet is perfection,” I said.
Menshiki laughed. “Not really. I’ve made better.”
What sort of omelet could that have been? One that sprouted wings and flew from Tokyo to Osaka in under two hours?
When I had polished off the omelet, he took my plate to the sink. At last my stomach felt comfortable. Menshiki sat down across the table from me.
“Can we talk a little?” he asked me.
“Certainly,” I said.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Maybe so. But we have lots to talk about.”
Menshiki nodded. “It appears that several blanks need filling in.”
If they can be filled in, I thought.
“Actually, I stopped by Sunday afternoon,” Menshiki said. “I’d called many times but you never picked up, so I was a little worried. I got here around one.”
I nodded. I had been somewhere else around then.
“I rang the bell and Tomohiko Amada’s son came to the door. Masahiko, is that right?”
“Yes, Masahiko Amada. An old friend. He owns this house, and he’s got a key so he can get in when I’m not here.”
“He was—how should I put this—very worried about you. He said the two of you were visiting his father’s room in the nursing home last Saturday when all of a sudden, you disappeared.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“He said you vanished into thin air while he was out of the room making a phone call. The nursing home is in Izu Kogen, so the nearest station is too far to reach on foot. But there were no signs that anyone had called a taxi. And the receptionist and the security guard hadn’t seen you leave, either. Masahiko called your home later, but no one answered. He was so alarmed that he drove all the way here to check. He was concerned about your safety. Worried something bad had happened to you.”
I sighed. “I’ll try to explain things to Masahiko. His father’s in bad shape, and I only added to his worries. How is his father, by the way? Did he say anything?”
“It seems he’s been in a coma. Hasn’t regained consciousness at all. His son has taken a room near the home. He was on his way back to Tokyo when he stopped by here.”
“I should call him right away,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s true,” Menshiki said, placing his hands on the table. “But first I think you need to come up with a coherent story about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing the past few days. Including an explanation of how you disappeared from the nursing home. No one’s going to buy it if you tell them you just woke up and found yourself back here.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But how about you? Can you buy my story?”
Menshiki thought for a moment. His brow was puckered, as if he was having trouble deciding what to say. “I’ve always been a man who thought along rational lines,” he said at last. “That’s how I was trained. To be honest, though, I can’t be logical where the pit behind the shrine is concerned. Anything could happen there and it wouldn’t feel strange in the least. Spending an hour inside the pit brought that home all the more. That place is more than just a hole in the ground. But I doubt anyone who hasn’t experienced it could understand.”
I couldn’t find the right words to respond, so I stayed silent.
“I think you should take the position ‘I don’t remember anything’ and then stick with it,” Menshiki said. “I don’t know how many people will believe you, but from what I can see, that’s your only option.”
I nodded. Yes, that could well be my only option.
“There are some things that can’t be explained in this life,” Menshiki went on, “and some others that probably shouldn’t be explained. Especially when putting them into words ignores what is most crucial.”
“You’ve experienced that, correct?”