I Hear Them Cry (11 page)

RAIKI: ONE

Without even bothering to turn on the lights, I flopped down on the sofa and sank into the cushions. The window was illumined with the lights of the city’s buildings, each of them twinkling as if to signal someone’s happiness. As I gazed at them vacantly, the scenery began to fuse with my tears and transfigure into a blurry Milky Way.

I wiped my tears, went to the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of whiskey. I thought about gulping it down straight but became wary of the consequences. So I added some ice cubes and gave the glass a rattling swirl before returning to the sofa and stretching out my legs.

In the early days of my time in France, I had no acquaintances at all. But I can safely say, with absolute conviction, that I never felt lonely. Back then I had nothing to lose. I had no money, no acquaintances, no lover—all I had were hopes and dreams; I was filled with them. And then I met Jean, Pierre, Anna, and the others, and I became someone needed, became part of a community. Those were the days, really. So complete, so fulfilling.

But now I was so lonely—as lonely as someone finding herself at the ends of the earth. To allay the pangs of this emptiness, I tried to think of people even lonelier than I was.

(Anna, Simone, and even Kanako—they were all lonely.)

I then thought about Reika Terashima. What was going on inside her mind? Why was she still a mistress after all this time? If she really loved Shigeki, then the one who should be suffering in the purgatory of jealousy should surely be her, not me.

(Let her stay a mistress into her gray-haired, grizzled years.)

This thought had a calming effect, making the whiskey go down even smoother. But why did Shigeki choose me for his wife, and not her? When I got to know Shigeki, I was working hard as a volunteer, having been influenced by Jean. Seeing me devoted like that, perhaps Shigeki felt I was fit to be Raiki’s mother.

(So I’m a stand-in for Ms. Sato, the maid?)

This thought filled me with rage. I imagined Reika Terashima’s gloating face taunting me, “You’re the babysitter, and I’m Shigeki’s partner.”

The whiskey now burned. But then, before I knew it, my mind settled again on Raiki.

He reminded me of a well-disciplined dog. Always quiet, like a little gentleman. But his eyes had a timid, scared look, as if he were wary of the adults around him. I realized why Kanako would avert her gaze from Raiki—in that oblique way of hers. She simply didn’t love him, and he knew it. All he probably ever thought about was how he could please Kanako, how he could win her favor.

The people around Kenta on the other hand, people like Saki, and even my mother, never averted their gaze from him. Their eyes would follow wherever he went. He certainly was the apple of their eyes. If Raiki were protected by that kind of secure love, he would be overflowing with the bursting, playful vitality of a child. But in the eyes of the Tachibana family, Raiki was
merely a parasite, a child born of a relationship with an opportunistic woman from the third world.

I drained my glass and let the ensuing tipsy sensation course through my body. My arm eventually went limp. My head began to spin, and I felt myself falling into a very deep black hole called loneliness, where I glimpsed the hand of someone who was falling further ahead. It was the small hand of a child, reaching out toward me. And then I heard that cry:

Help. Help. Somebody help.

Stretching out my hand in desperation, I seized the child’s wrist and a face came into view. It was Raiki.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I opened my eyes the morning sun was brightly reflecting off the city’s buildings. My body was heavy as lead, but my nerves were on a razor’s edge. I couldn’t relax. After a shower I felt a little better, but my balance remained way out of whack.

I made coffee and thought about banishing Reika Terashima from my mind. That’s about all I was able to do then. I had to go see Raiki right away and be by his side.

I opened the closet and beheld row after row of designer dresses—the likes of Chanel and Gucci, items Shigeki had bought, saying they were appropriate attire for hosting business parties and other social occasions. I was surprised by how large my wardrobe had become.

I packed some clothes, including a belt—the same one I had used on Anna.

(Anna, watch over me, okay?)

I was trying to regain my former self: the person I used to be while living in France. The old me was driven to answer questions:
What can I do to help? Whom can I help? How?
If
Shigeki had married me to make me Raiki’s mother, it meant that he had his son’s best interest at heart. It meant that he did love his son. If Jean were here, I’m sure he’d say, “God has chosen you to be Raiki’s mother.”

“I am Joan of Arc.”

That’s what I said to my reflection in the mirror, pointing my finger at it, looking myself in the eye.

RAIKI: TWO

I left a note for Shigeki.

I’ll be in Kamakura for a while. Hoping to send in my oil painting of the mansion for display during the public exhibition in the fall. Mayu.

The telephone rang just as I finished writing.

It’s Shigeki
, I thought, but I didn’t spring into action, lest he think that I had been desperately waiting for his call. I answered in a tired tone, as though I had just woken up.

“Yes, Tachibana here.”

“It’s me.”

It was Kanako, her voice different than usual, sounding a little tense.

“I’m sorry to trouble you so early in the morning, but Raiki got scalded yesterday and had to be hospitalized.”

The hand of the child from my dream flashed across my mind.

“Is he holding up all right? What’s his condition?” I asked.

“His life isn’t in any danger.”

“Thank god.”

“Also, it seems like there won’t be any permanent scarring,” Kanako muttered as if to excuse herself.

“Shigeki didn’t come home yesterday. I couldn’t reach him.” My anger turned my tone forceful. But as usual Kanako simply turned a deaf ear.

“Oh.”

“I’ll leave this minute,” I said. “Where’s the hospital?”

I grabbed my bag and left the apartment. According to Kanako, Raiki had burned himself while fiddling around in the bathtub unsupervised.

It was the same every time. I remembered being with Jean and hearing parents utter these words: “It happened when I took my eyes off her for just a moment.” Jean separated a large number of children from such parents—children with burns, bruises, and contusions. Although establishing evidence to make a case for neglect or abuse was difficult, Jean’s judgment always proved right.

(Surely this is not the case with Raiki.)

I tried to push that thought out of my mind, but I would still hear that cry, sounding out of nowhere:

Help. Help. Somebody help.

Was it just my imagination?

I found Ms. Sato seated in a chair in a dark corridor of the hospital, her shoulders sagging with fatigue. When she saw me, she stood up, looking relieved.

“Sato-san,” I called out. “My god, how terrible!”

“It was my fault. I feel so bad.”

Ms. Sato explained how Raiki had been unable to step out of the shower, so he had crouched down and tried to shield his body from the hot water, screaming all the while. This went on
for a few minutes until Ms. Sato returned, but by then it was too late. His back had been badly exposed to scalding water. Kanako was in the garden and wasn’t aware of what had happened until she heard Ms. Sato shouting in alarm.

Fortunately, the burns Raiki received weren’t life-threatening. He was hospitalized so that the burns could be disinfected and he could be treated with painkillers under the doctor’s supervision.

“Sato-san,” I began, “I wish to take care of Raiki. Would that be okay with you?”

“Why, of course,” she said. “I would be most grateful.”

The rainy season was coming to an end and the weather made it challenging for Ms. Sato to commute to the hospital, so she seemed relieved to hear my proposal. She had spent the night at the hospital, and the signs of fatigue were written all over her.

“Just leave the rest to me now.”

“All right, then,” Ms. Sato said appreciatively before leaving the hospital.

I entered Raiki’s room and found him lying in bed, facedown. Although he had dozed off, his large, dark eyes opened the moment he sensed my presence. I approached his bed and probed his eyes to see if there was anything in there that connected with my lonely existence. I don’t think I had ever looked at him for such a long time from such a close distance.

“Does it hurt?”

He promptly buried his face in the pillow before gradually turning to me again. I had encountered those eyes somewhere. They were the same eyes as Anna’s. They were searching just like hers, just like the eyes of a wild dog instinctively attempting to distinguish friend from foe.

“I’m okay,” Raiki said. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Tough guy, eh?” I said. “Is there anything I can get for you, dear?”

He thought for a while but finally muttered, “I want
senbazuru
.”

“The thousand folded paper cranes?”

“Yes, because Miho-chan next to me and even Ka-chan have paper cranes on their beds. They’re like decorations.”

The long-term patients of the children’s ward were afflicted with various diseases, and to help brighten the atmosphere of their room, the walls were covered in cutout pictures of flowers and animals. Each bed was also decorated with get-well gifts from visitors: stuffed toys, small playthings, and the folded paper cranes, those agents of wish fulfillment as legend would have it. Raiki’s burns had covered his entire back, but he was scheduled to be discharged in about three to four days.

(A thousand folded cranes. He’d be out by the time the tenth one was folded.)

I told Raiki that the thousand paper cranes were origami prayers for severely ill children, and that he’d be discharged soon and had no need for them. The look on his face made me feel as if my affection for him was being tested.

(What this child really yearned for wasn’t the one thousand origami cranes, but rather someone who would fold them for him.)

When I was young, I ran a fever in the midnight hours and began to crave a bowl of shaved ice with syrup on top. It was a brutally cold midwinter night. Still, my mom grated ice, one cube at a time, and served it to me with gooey condensed milk over it, saying, “Here you go, ice à la milk.” I’ve never forgotten that special dessert. The ice went into my feverish, languid body, cooling my throat as it went down, and then spreading from head to toe.

Childhood—that spoiled, self-indulgent time of your life when every wish could come true, thanks to the presence of
your mother. She had even scraped her fingertips on the grater, as I recall.

I wanted to grant Raiki’s wish. “All right, just you wait. I’ll get you the thousand folded paper cranes. You have my word.”

I found Shigeki in the hospital’s reception area. I wondered where he’d heard the news, and from whom he had heard it.

“Dear,” I said, touching his shoulder.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, looking back, his voice airy and untroubled. “Where’s Raiki?”

“He’s doing great. You seem to be doing fine as usual.”

“So you’re still mad at me. Look, it was wrong of me to hit you. I’m sorry about that.”

He sounded like he was reciting a line he’d memorized, speaking without hesitation. I couldn’t read his mind. There was no need to tell him how deeply I was hurt and I wasn’t going to compromise. That would have been impossible, even if I had turned a blind eye to Reika Terashima coming between him and me. But I had to put off my confrontation until I understood why he decided to have me as his wife. I was also preoccupied with the idea of becoming Raiki’s mother.

“I intend to look after Raiki in Kamakura, so I won’t be returning home for a while,” I said with a scowl. To myself, I thought,
And maybe I’ll never return
.

“I see,” Shigeki muttered, looking away.

I tried to leave defiantly to show that I was rejecting him, but he seized my arm and dragged me back.

“That hurts,” I hissed, trying to escape his grip.

He instantly winced, released his grip, and set me free.

“I’m sorry,” he said before whispering, “please do look after Raiki.”

I imagined hitting him. But in the end all I said was “Yes.” Then I left, feeling his eyes watch me walk quickly down the
sloping road in front of the hospital. Even as I warned myself against crying, I couldn’t stop the tears.

(Somebody’s going to be there for him, even when I’m not, right?)