“Hi.”
The girl wore a white blouse this time, and it shimmered in the dark, making her look like an angel.
“Did you bring money?”
The girl crouched down to Ayame’s level and heaved her bosom toward her face as if readying to nurse her. She opened her blouse and pulled out her breasts, propping them over the fabric cups of her underwire brassiere.
The girl was beautiful. Ayame wondered why she could not possess features as lovely and alluring on her withered body that could neither conceive nor be loved.
“You can pay me after if you want.” The girl glanced at Ayame’s string bag. “You’ve had your bath like a good baby, and you’re clean. Come to Mama. Here, you can put your mouth on them. I like that. Then I can do it to you. Aka-chan, you look afraid, but why? This will feel so nice and sweet.” The girl took Ayame’s right hand and pushed it up her skirt, and Ayame felt another woman for the first time. It was soft and plush.
“Daijoubu?” On her knees, the girl moved closer and took Ayame’s left hand and put her ring finger into her mouth as she climbed onto Ayame’s lap. She sniffed Ayame’s wet hair. “I can almost drink your shampoo. You smell so pretty. Aka, aka, you’ll feel better as we make love. You’ll be in paradise.”
Ayame folded herself into the warmth of the girl’s body.
As she opened her mouth, the girl pulled the string bag to her.
“Do you have money here? I need a lot. Mama has to buy many things to look pretty for her baby.”
Ayame recoiled and heaved the girl off her body, making her fall on her back.
“You’re disgusting. Disgusting.” She got up.
“You skinny old cunt!” the girl shouted, and Ayame could hear her throaty laugh from a distance. “You have to pay for love, you bitch!”
Ayame ran back to the sento.
When she finally returned home, Haruki was fixing his brother a snack.
“Tadaima,” she said quietly.
“Where were you, A-chan?” Daisuke asked, his face folded with worry. He had the lopsided face of a pale, gaunt man with the extraordinary eyes of a very young child—unguarded and capable of expressing joy. He wore the yellow pajamas that she had ironed for him that morning.
Haruki nodded and smiled at her. He had never before found his brother alone. Daisuke had been crying on his bed mat, asking for his mother. He didn’t want to tell Ayame this for fear of making her feel bad about being late.
“I was at the bath, Dai-chan. I’m very sorry I’m late. I thought you were sleeping, and it was cold so I went to have another bath.”
“I was afraid. I was afraid,” Daisuke said, his eyes beginning to well up again. “I want Mama.”
She felt unable to look at Haruki’s face. He had not yet removed his suit jacket.
Daisuke went to her, leaving Haruki by the kitchen counter to put away the box of senbei.
“A-chan is clean. She had a bath. A-chan is clean. She had a bath.” He sang the line that he liked to repeat after she came home from the sento.
“Are you tired now?” she asked him.
“No.”
“Would you like me to read to you?”
“Hai.”
Haruki left them in the living room with her reading a picture book about old trains, and she nodded to him when he said good night before going to bed.
7
Yokohama, March 1976
A retiring detective had failed to complete a report of a suicide, and eventually it landed on Haruki’s desk. A twelve-year-old Korean boy had jumped off the roof of his apartment building. The mother was too hysterical to finish the interview at the time, but the parents were willing to meet Haruki tonight after they finished work.
The boy’s parents lived not far from Chinatown. The father was a plumber’s assistant, and the mother worked in a glove factory. Tetsuo Kimura, the jumper, was the oldest of three and had two sisters.
Even before the apartment door opened, the familiar smells of garlic, shoyu, and the stronger miso that Koreans favored greeted him in the damp hallway. All the tenants of the six-story building owned by a Korean were also Koreans. The boy’s mother, her face downcast and meek, let him into the three-room apartment. Haruki slipped off his street shoes to put on the slippers she gave him. In the main room, the father, wearing a workman’s clean overalls, was already seated cross-legged on a blue floor cushion. The mother set out a discount-store tray brimming with teacups and wrapped biscuits from the conbini. The father held a bound book in his lap.
After handing the father his business card with two hands, Haruki sat down on a floor cushion. The mother poured him a cup of tea and sat with her knees folded.
“You didn’t get a chance to see this.” The father handed the book to Haruki. “You should know what happened. Those children should be punished.”