A Quiet Place (3 page)

And then, with his wife's sudden death, Asai seemed to have lost his way.

He had bawled as his wife's body was laid in its coffin, and when the time came for it to pass through the little window into the crematorium furnace, his father-in-law had had to pry him off. Do all husbands who lose their beloved wives feel this way? Asai had wondered as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Does everyone feel like this? He'd surprised himself. He wasn't normally the type to show his feelings.

Surely not all of those tears were caused by a fleeting rush of emotion – he must have loved Eiko deeply. Their seven years together may not have been the richest of married lives, but having her die on him reminded him how much he'd cared about her. He was older and had seen a lot more of life, had often treated her like a child, but he was now reminded with a jolt that they'd been equal partners in marriage.

He was still working through these emotions when one Sunday, around ten days after Eiko's death, her sister came by. Miyako's husband, a technician at an oil company, was away on a two-month overseas business trip, looking into future sites for development. Miyako usually stayed with her parents while he was away, and when Asai was absent on business she'd always stayed with Eiko at her place.

“You must be feeling lonely,” she said to Asai, as she lit an incense stick for her sister and offered a prayer in front of the family altar. She hesitated a little as she took a seat by Asai.

“I've still not completely come to terms with the fact that she's dead,” Asai replied truthfully. “I wasn't there when she died. And it didn't even happen at home.”

Asai had been at the dinner party in Kobe when Miyako had rung to let him know that Eiko was dead. He'd never been able to separate in his head the content of that phone call with where he'd been when he took the call. He'd been there in Kobe as assistant to Director-General Shiraishi, and that was where his mind had been when he'd heard the news. To be more precise, he hadn't been quite sure at that point whether Shiraishi was a dead cert for future glory. His wife was from a famous political dynasty, but her family had no strong connections in the ministry's personnel office. However, there were rumours that Mrs Shiraishi was well connected with a certain influential politician. No one knew for sure whether her husband was destined to become the top bureaucrat or whether he would be transferred out of the ministry mid-career to be an industry adviser elsewhere. Asai knew he had to be extra attentive just in case, so he'd been very tense that night. Shiraishi had been born to a privileged family and raised as the favoured son, meaning he could be too distracted and laid-back. Asai had also heard that he could be very unpredictable in his moods, so he'd been particularly alert the whole evening.

The dinner party had been lively, and each attendee had lined up to receive a cup of sake from the director general. The round-cheeked geisha had been seated opposite him. Then the phone call had come in, and when he'd returned to his seat it had felt to Asai as if the news were a bizarre figment of his imagination. He had not yet grasped the reality that Eiko was dead.

“Of course. I get it. You remember the owner of the cosmetics shop in Yoyogi who helped Eiko the day she died? We've had the memorial service now, so how about going and offering our thanks?”

“Good idea! I've been thinking about it for a while, but with all that's been going on, I never got around to it. I think we should take her some kind of gift.”

“You know, she turned up at the funeral. She even gave us condolence money. When I opened the envelope there was five thousand yen inside. So much, even though we'd caused her nothing but trouble. I told you about the money, didn't I?”

“Yes, you did. Do you think you'd remember how to get to her shop?”

Miyako thought she could, so they set out that afternoon to visit the little cosmetics boutique in the Sanya district of Yoyogi where Eiko had collapsed and died.

3

Ever since the streets of Yoyogi had been redone for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the character of the area had changed completely. Still, if you got off the main roads, there was some of the old atmosphere left. Here and there you caught traces of the steep slopes that the artist Ryusei Kishida had depicted in his 1915 painting
Kiritoshi no shasei
(“Road Cut Through a Hill”). Obviously, that famous view of uneven red earth had long since become grey asphalt, and there was not a single tuft of wild grass to be seen, but long expanses of the famous stone walls had been repaired and lined both sides of the street. Luxury homes and grand apartment buildings filled the empty land beyond the walls. The desolate landscape that Kishida had fallen in love with when he first moved to Yoyogi in the early part of the twentieth century was now a prime residential zone.

Asai walked side by side with his sister-in-law along one of the main streets that intersected with the famous
kiritoshi
road. It was lined with the kind of high-end businesses popular in affluent neighbourhoods. It was a warm afternoon for mid-March, and sweat dripped down the back of his neck, dampening his winter scarf.

As they climbed the hill, there were more of these spacious family homes built on embankments above the
stone walls. This area, with its larger houses, had never suffered bomb damage in the war, so a good number still remained. Dotted in between these were newer homes and apartment buildings.

Miyako was walking a step or two ahead of Asai, carrying a fruit basket over her arm.

“It's a very tiny boutique, hidden away all by itself, right in the middle of all these private homes,” she called back to him. “It's hard to remember exactly where – I only came here the once. I remember there was a house with a massive zelkova tree in the front garden right next to it… Oh, there it is!”

Asai followed Miyako's gaze. At the next bend in the road he could see a tall zelkova; its tip and branches had a light dusting of new, green shoots.

As they rounded the bend, the house with the zelkova came into full view. Its low stone wall was topped with a tall bamboo fence stretching for about a hundred and twenty yards. Along the base of the fence was an azalea hedge, and above, the heads of several evergreen trees poked out from inside the garden. The zelkova tree was right in the corner. At the bottom of a flight of stone steps leading down from the house was a roofed gateway. The nameplate on the gate read
KUBO
. The nameplate, the gate, the bamboo fence and the partially visible two-storey house were all very old. It was fairly typical of the homes in this neighbourhood.

Miyako stopped just beyond the Kubo house. The frontage of the next building was only about three or four yards wide; the second floor was almost completely hidden by a large sign that read
TAKAHASHI COSMETICS
. It was a small shop, but the products displayed in the window
were colourfully packaged and the whole place gave off a cheerful vibe.

“This is it,” Miyako announced, taking off her light-grey coat. Underneath, her suit was the exact same shade.

On the other side of the boutique, built on an incline, was a western-style house with its own garage. It looked brand new. There was a front lawn surrounded by stylish iron railings. In the middle of the lawn was a traditional Japanese rock garden. Glancing at the nameplate, Asai could read the name
HORI
.

Asai removed his overcoat as well, and followed Miyako into the boutique. The interior was narrow, and it was a little awkward for two people to stand side by side.

A round-faced woman of thirty-seven or thirty-eight, dressed in a white work coat, appeared from the back of the shop. She initially registered surprise when she saw Miyako, but swiftly turned this into a smile. Her eyes were big and her lips full, and her complexion was made up to look as white as possible, as if she were modelling her own cosmetics range. She was on the short side, but had a full, shapely figure.

“Thank you for all you did for my sister… And thank you so much for coming to the funeral service. We truly appreciated your offering.”

Miyako suddenly remembered that she was accompanied by the husband of the deceased.

“This is my sister's husband. I'm sorry that we've left it so long, but we're here to thank you for your kindness.”

Miyako took a step or two backwards, and Asai stepped forward.

“I'm Tsuneo Asai,” he said, holding out his name card and bowing deeply. “I'm truly sorry for all the trouble
my wife caused you. There really isn't any good way to apologize. I should have visited you earlier to express my apologies and my thanks for all you did for her, but her passing was so sudden, and I was so busy taking care of the funeral arrangements. Then it wasn't possible to visit until after the seventh-day memorial service, so I'm afraid I'm rather late to offer my thanks.”

“I'm so sorry for your loss. Has the seventh-day memorial really taken place already? It all feels like a dream to me – I can't imagine what it must be like for you.”

Following this appropriate exchange of greetings, Asai placed the basket of fruit on the glass-topped counter, along with an envelope containing three 10,000-yen notes.

The boutique owner seemed flustered. “You really didn't need to do that,” she said, hurriedly pushing the envelope back towards Asai.

“No, we insist. It's an expression of our regret. We feel terrible for all the inconvenience you've suffered. Please accept this small gift.”

Miyako joined him in a deep bow, but the shopkeeper was unmoved.

“No, truly. I only did what anyone would have done. But I couldn't even save her. I wish things had turned out differently. It was so tragic.”

“No, really, it's no more than we owe you. We realize that you had to shut up shop that day while you dealt with my sister and waited for the car to come.”

“No, no. I'm really not all that busy here. I only had to draw the curtains at the front for a couple of hours. It didn't have that much effect on business at all.”

It suddenly seemed to occur to her that she wasn't being polite.

“I'm so sorry to keep you standing all this time. My shop's only small, but you're more than welcome to come and sit back here.”

She directed them to the back of the boutique. Miyako picked up the money envelope from the counter and took it with her.

There were several showcases filled with cosmetics, which acted as a kind of divider, blocking the view of the back from the main part of the shop. Tucked away behind them was a small table with four chairs. It was dark back there with the display cases blocking the light from the front of the store, but the shopkeeper turned on an overhead light.

It would have been proper for Asai to leave after exchanging greetings with the shopkeeper, but he was anxious to hear more details of how Eiko had ended up in that boutique, and about the moment she'd drawn her very last breath, so he went ahead and took a seat next to Miyako. He'd heard the whole story from his sister-in-law, more or less, but now he wanted to hear a first-hand account. That, and he needed to pay his respects to the woman who had helped his wife in her final moments.

The shopkeeper disappeared for a few minutes, most likely preparing some tea for her guests. There was no sign of any other family members around. Nor did the boutique seem to have any employees besides the owner; the business was probably too small to be able to afford any sales staff. However, thanks to its location it was offering some very expensive designer items. Asai pondered
this as his eye was caught by a poster advertising a famous line of cosmetics.

The proprietor, still in her white coat, returned with three cups of black tea on a silver tray.

“Thank you. You needn't have gone to so much trouble,” murmured Miyako, rising slightly from her chair to bow.

“No, no trouble at all. I'm sorry it's not much,” replied the shopkeeper, placing a cup of tea in front of Asai. Then she produced her name card. In the top right-hand corner were the names of two famous cosmetics companies with whom she evidently had a special contract. The middle line read
TAKAHASHI COSMETICS
, and on the left her name, Chiyoko Takahashi, followed by her address and telephone number in fine print. There was no mention of other family members.

Ms Takahashi politely read Asai's name card before placing it on the table in front of her. She must have noted the title “Second Section Chief” in the Department of Staple Foods at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, but she said nothing, and her face betrayed no emotion. Asai added some sugar to his tea and used the back of his teaspoon to squeeze the floating lemon slice against the bottom of his teacup. He took a sip and began to speak.

“I've heard the basic version from my sister-in-law here, but I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me more about how my wife ended up in your shop and what you did for her.”

“Of course. It wouldn't be respectful to your late wife if I didn't tell her husband the whole story.”

Chiyoko Takahashi leaned her head back slightly and began. Asai noticed her mouth. Her lips were extremely
prominent, but her make-up was so adeptly applied that it was hardly noticeable; in fact, they even added to her attractiveness.

“It was the seventh of March, a Friday, around four in the afternoon. I was here in the back when your wife suddenly appeared in the shop. I assumed she was a customer, so I called out ‘
Irrashaimase
– welcome!' I walked over – she was standing in front of the glass showcase, right about where you were standing earlier, not speaking. I asked her if there was something she'd like me to show her, but she just stood there in silence. I think she was trying so hard to control the pain from the heart attack that her mouth just wouldn't move. She'd been walking along the street —”

“I'm sorry, but which direction did she come from?”

Asai's unexpected interruption appeared to throw Ms Takahashi for a moment, but she quickly recovered.

“She came from the left,” she said, pointing out towards the street. It was the same direction from which Asai and Miyako had come. It was an uphill climb, but not a particularly steep one. Steep hills were doubtlessly not good for people with weak hearts, Asai thought, but this slope couldn't possibly have been the cause. Eiko had just happened to be walking up this street when she was taken ill.

“I see. I'm so sorry I interrupted you.” Asai nodded at Chiyoko Takahashi to encourage her to continue.

“As your wife was walking up the hill, she suddenly began to feel ill. However, any woman would feel awkward collapsing outside in the street; it would be undignified to end up lying out there on the ground. So I think she desperately tried to control the pain until she could somehow make her way into a shop, and mine was the first she saw. As
you probably noticed, most of the buildings around here are rather fine family homes. Mine is the only business. And I suppose the fact that it was a cosmetics boutique made it a little easier for your wife to enter. She probably just hurried in as fast as she could.”

That was true. In a crisis, any shop would have done, but Asai was sure that one that catered exclusively to women would have been more comfortable for Eiko.

“I noticed there was something wrong with your wife, and I asked her what the matter was. I went over to her, and she held up her handbag as if she were trying to get me to take it. I realized she wanted me to open it up and find her ID so I could call someone for her. And when I eventually did, I came across her appointment book. Her name and address were written in it.”

That was Eiko's haiku notebook. Ever since taking up haiku, she never left home without it in her handbag. When they'd brought her body home, her father had passed the handbag over to Asai and he'd seen the book inside.

“But I'm afraid I didn't realize what she meant right away. I was too worried about her. She suddenly crouched down with both hands pressed to her chest. I was busy trying to support her from behind. I guess I was in kind of a panic.”

Miyako had her handkerchief out, and was dabbing at her eyes.

“I saw your wife's face was deathly pale, so I did my best to support her weight and get her into the back of the boutique. My sitting room is through there – it's a tatami mat room – so I took her in there, but by then she had
completely collapsed and seemed to be in great distress. I was all alone, and I had no idea what to do. And right at that moment, a young university student who lives in the neighbourhood turned up to buy some make-up. Doctor Ohama has a clinic about five doors up, off to the right – I got her to run over and ask him for help.”

The rest of the story was just as Asai had heard from Miyako. Doctor Ohama had rushed straight over, but by the time he got there Eiko had already stopped breathing. Looking for something to identify the woman who had stumbled into her shop, Chiyoko Takahashi had opened Eiko's handbag and found her appointment book. Her name and address were written there, but unfortunately no telephone number. Nor was there any entry in the telephone directory under “Eiko Asai”; the entry would of course have been under her husband's name.

One way to find the number would have been to go through all the many Asais in the phone book one by one, checking the addresses, but in her distress it hadn't occurred to the cosmetics shop owner to try.

Looking through the diary, she'd eventually found someone else's name and number, and called it. It had turned out to be Eiko's haiku teacher, who lived in Horinouchi, Suginami Ward. The teacher in turn had called Eiko's home, where Miyako had answered. This was why it had taken so long for Asai to hear.

In all, Ms Takahashi's story took about forty minutes to tell, and by the end Asai felt that he had a clearer picture of the circumstances of Eiko's death.