“It’s just for fun,” I said.
I drew her again and again, then threw the drawings away. Someone might see them, and it didn’t make sense to keep them. Still, maybe I should have secretly held on to at least one. To prove to myself she had really existed.
* * *
—
I got up slowly from the sofa. The day was only beginning. There were many conversations ahead.
58
LIKE HEARING ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL CANALS OF MARS
I called Shoko Akikawa. It was just after nine thirty. A time when most people are already up and about. But no one picked up the phone. It rang on and on until the answering machine kicked in. We’re sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave your message after the tone…I left no message. She must be scrambling to deal with her niece’s disappearance and sudden return. I kept calling at intervals, but no one answered.
I thought of calling Yuzu after that, but I didn’t want to bother her while she was working. I could call during her lunch break. With luck, I would get to have a brief talk with her. It wasn’t like our conversation would be a long one. I would simply ask if we could meet sometime soon—that was the gist of it. A yes-or-no question. If the answer was yes, we would set a date and a place to meet. If it was no, that was that.
Then, with a heavy heart, I called Masahiko. He picked up right away. He let out a huge sigh when he heard my voice.
“Are you home now?” he asked.
I told him I was.
“Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”
Sure, I said. He called fifteen minutes later. He seemed to be using his cell phone on the roof of an office building, or someplace like that.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You disappeared from my father’s room without a word—no one knew where you were. I drove all the way to Odawara looking for you.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“When did you get home?”
“Last night.”
“So you were traipsing around from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night? Where did you go?”
“To be honest, I have no memory of where I was or what I was doing,” I lied.
“So you just woke up and found yourself back home—is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“For real? Are you serious?”
“There’s no other way to explain it.”
“Sorry, man. I can’t buy it. Sounds fake to me.”
“Come on, you’ve seen this sort of thing in movies and novels.”
“Give me a break. Whenever they pull that amnesia bit I turn off the TV. It’s so contrived.”
“Alfred Hitchcock used it.”
“You mean Spellbound? That’s one of his second-rate films,” Masahiko said. “So tell me what really happened.”
“I don’t know myself at this point. Like there are these fragments floating around, and I can’t figure out how to piece them together. Maybe my memory will return in stages. I’ll let you know if that happens. But I can’t tell you anything right now. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.”
Masahiko paused to digest what I had just said. “All right then, let’s call it amnesia for now,” he said in a resigned voice. “I gather your story doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or a mental breakdown or a femme fatale or abduction by aliens or anything along those lines.”
“No. Nothing illegal or contrary to public morals.”
“Public morals be damned,” Masahiko said. “But clue me in on one thing, would you?”
“What’s that?”
“How did you manage to slip out of the nursing home Saturday afternoon? They keep a really strict eye on who comes and goes. A number of famous people are staying there, so they’re paranoid about leaks. They’ve got a receptionist stationed at the entrance, a guard on-site twenty-four seven, and security cameras. All the same, you managed to vanish in broad daylight without being spotted or caught on film. How?”
“There’s a secret passage,” I said.
“Secret passage?”
“An exit no one knows about.”
“How did you find that? It was your first time there.”
“Your father let me know. Or I should say, he gave me a hint. In a very indirect way.”
“My father?” Masahiko said. “You must be kidding. His mind’s as mushy as boiled cauliflower these days.”
“That’s one of the things I can’t explain.”
“What to do,” Masahiko said with a sigh. “If it were anyone else I’d say, ‘Cut the crap.’ But it’s you, so I guess I have to put up with it. Put up with this crazy, no-good bum who spends his whole life painting.”
“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, how’s your father doing?”
“When I got back to the room after my phone call, you were nowhere to be seen and Dad was unconscious and barely breathing. I panicked, man. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I couldn’t help blaming you anyway.”
“I really am sorry,” I said. I wasn’t kidding, either. Still, I felt a wave of relief that there was no trace of the Commendatore’s body, or of the pool of blood on the floor.
“Yeah, you should be sorry. Anyway, I rented a room nearby to be with him, but his breathing stabilized and his condition improved slightly, so I came back to Tokyo the next afternoon. Work was piling up. I’m heading back this weekend, though.”
“It’s hard on you.”
“There’s nothing to be done. Like I told you, dying is a major undertaking. It’s the person dying who has it hardest, though, so I really can’t complain.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“No, there’s nothing,” Masahiko said. “But it would help if you didn’t dump any more problems on me…Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When I was at your house on my way back to Tokyo your friend Menshiki stopped by. The handsome, white-haired guy in the snazzy silver Jaguar.”
“Yes, I met him after that. He said you were there, and that you and he had talked.”
“Just a few words at your doorstep. He seemed like an interesting guy.”
“A very interesting guy,” I said, putting it mildly.
“What does he do?”
“Not much of anything. He’s so loaded he doesn’t have to work. He trades stocks and plays the currency market online, but it’s more like a hobby for him, a profitable way to kill time.”
“That’s really cool,” Masahiko said, impressed. “It’s like hearing about the beautiful canals of Mars. Where Martians row gondolas with golden oars. While imbibing honeyed tobacco through their ears. Warms my heart just hearing about it…Oh yeah, while we’re at it, did you ever find the knife I left at your place?”
“Sorry, but no, I haven’t come across it,” I said. “I don’t have a clue where it went. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Don’t sweat it. It probably had a bout of amnesia, just like you. It’ll wander back before too long.”
“Probably,” I said. So the knife hadn’t remained in Tomohiko Amada’s room either. It had vanished somewhere, just like the Commendatore’s corpse and the pool of blood. It might show up here, though, as Masahiko had said.
Our conversation ended there. We vowed to get together again soon and hung up.
* * *
—