Suicide Forest (17 page)

“You never went to the Taj Mahal?”

She shook her head.

“You know there was supposed to be a black
one made too?”

“What happened to it?”

“I guess the shah changed his mind.”

“I think that is a myth.”

“It’s not a myth.”

“Do you have any more interesting facts to
tell me?”

“Are you patronizing me?”

“Are you done interrupting me?”

“Go ahead.”

“
So
,” Nina said with emphasis,
feigning annoyance with me—or at least I thought she was only
feigning, “my next destination was China. The day before my flight
the woman’s brother came by for dinner. He got drunk and stayed
there overnight.”

“Hindus can drink alcohol?”

“Of course, Ethan. Hinduism does not forbid
anything. There is no bad karma if drinking is done in moderation.
You are thinking of Islam.”

“No, I’m not. I know the difference between
Hinduism and Islam.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Because Muslims ruled India for a long
time. Perhaps that is why you have gotten confused with the
different religions.”

“I’m not confused. I just thought—” I shook
my head. “Whatever.” I was too damn high to know whether she was
messing with me, though I suspected she was. “So did you get to
China?” I asked, to move on.

“You keep distracting me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said you would not do it anymore.”

“I won’t.”

“I hope not.” She crossed her legs in front
of her. “What? What is wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You are looking at my legs.”

“Oh.” I felt my cheeks redden. “You’re still
wearing shorts. I—I was wondering if your legs were cold.”

“They are fine, Ethan.”

I took a deep breath and tried to act
normal. “So what happened with your family?”

“After dinner that evening, the evening I
was telling you about before you wanted to know if my legs were
cold, I went to bed early because I had an early flight the next
morning. The brother who stayed the night was a taxi driver. He
offered to drive me to the airport. His taxi was parked right out
front. It seemed perfectly safe.” She gave me a look, as if I would
challenge this.

“Yeah?”

“New Delhi is a big city. I had no idea
where the airport was. Everything looked the same to me. But the
longer we drove, the more I got the feeling we were not going in
the right direction.”

“How long did you drive around for?”

“By this time, twenty, thirty minutes.
Traffic in that city is so bad. But it was early. Not so many cars.
So we should have been to the airport already. Fifteen minutes
later I was sure we were nowhere near the airport and I told him to
stop. He pulled down an alleyway. I was very scared now. But I had
this huge backpack. I could not run away. When I got out he grabbed
me and…” She paused for a long moment. “He pinned me against the
car and lifted up my dress. I tried to scream, but my chest was so
tight I could not make a noise. While he was working to get his
pants off, I pushed him away—and I am not kidding, Ethan—I karate
chopped him in the throat. That is the best way to stop an
attacker. The groin, the neck, or the eyes. I karate chopped him
like this”—she demonstrated on me, only pulling the chop short
before she bruised my Adam’s apple—“and he released me.”

“Holy shit. Did you tell the police?”

She shook her head.

“The guy tried to rape you!”

“If I told the police, I would be stuck in
New Delhi for a long time. Right then, I just wanted to leave.
Besides, it was my word against his.”

I could sort of understand. She didn’t want
to get stuck in red tape in a developing nation. And India was
India, a patriarchal society. The authorities might have dismissed
her story out of hand. Still, it seemed incomprehensible that this
guy could simply walk free.

“What about his sister—the one hosting you?
Did you tell her what happened?”

“I considered that. But by the time I landed
in China and was with my next host, it seemed like it happened a
long time ago, in a different world. After how nice she was, I did
not think I could tell her what her brother tried to do.”

“What if he attacks someone else?”

“I know, Ethan. I am not happy with how
things turned out. Sometimes that is life.” She shrugged. “Anyway,
that is my bad experience couch surfing.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m—I’m happy you
were okay.”

“Thank you, Ethan.”

I nodded lamely. I didn’t know what else to
do. I’m not good with condolences. This is because ever since
Gary’s death I’m usually on the receiving end of them, and I’m well
aware of how awkward and trivial they sound.

“Hey,” I said, remembering something. “Back
when we were collecting wood, and we found that body—”

“You were sick.”

“I bumped right into it. I touched it. The
smell…”

“I understand.”

“Did you and Ben see the crucifixes hanging
from the trees?”

“Crucifixes? No.”

“None of them?”

“We saw the paint on the tree. We were
examining it when we heard you yell. We saw you pushing away from
the body.” She snickered.

“You think that was funny?”

“It looked like you were dancing with it.
That is what I thought. That you were dancing with it. Then you
turned around and vomited.”

“So Ben freaked out because of the
body?”

“Have you ever done mushrooms?”

“Yeah.”

“Imagine being on them here and seeing a
dead body—especially one that looked like the one we saw. I think I
would have reacted the same. So what about these crucifixes?”

“They were made from sticks. There were at
least a dozen of them, hanging from branches.” I hesitated. “And
they were moving.”

“Moving?”

“Swinging back and forth. Like there was a
wind. But I don’t think there was a wind.”

Nina frowned. “Are you trying to scare me,
Ethan?”

“No—”

“Is this a ghost story?”

“It’s what I saw.” I shrugged. “I don’t
know. There must have been a wind.”

“Strong enough to blow the crucifixes? You
would have felt it.”

“There’s no other explanation.”

“Yes, there is. You just do not want to
acknowledge what it might be.” She took her camera out of her
pocket and passed it to me. “There is a photograph I want to show
you.”

I powered the device on and pressed the Play
button. A photograph of Tomo, Neil, John Scott, and Mel appeared.
They were sitting at the campfire.

“The one of everyone by the fire?” I
asked.

“Yes, that one.”

“When did you take this?”

“A little earlier when you were gone.”

“What about it?”

“You will see.”

I studied the picture more closely. Smoke
billowed up from the fire before them, masking much of the right
side of the photo—and in it was something that…wasn’t smoke. The
edges were too hard, too defined, and it was a slightly different
color, lighter, almost white.

“You see it, yes?” Nina said.

“You think it’s a ghost?”

“I do not know what it is. How about
you?”

A shiver had shot down my spine, as if a
cold finger had touched me at the base of my neck. Swinging
crucifixes—and now this?

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.

“Then what is it?”

I had no answer. I used the zoom function to
magnify the image. The longer I looked, the more I thought I could
almost see the vague formation of a face.

“A light reflection?” I said.

“It is nighttime, Ethan.”

“A dirty lens?”

“I took more pictures. Look. That mark is
only on that one.”

I pressed the button to scroll right. There
were a number of shots of the forest, including one of the dog
kennel and several of the signs we passed on the way into the
forest. There was one of Mt. Fuji through what appeared to be a
train window. The bronze statue of the famous dog Hachioji, which
was a popular meeting spot at Shibuya station.

Nina naked.

She stood in a room facing a wall mirror. A
white towel was wrapped around her head. Her back and the upper
half of her buttocks were visible.

I should have turned off the camera. Instead
I clicked right. Nina again, this time reaching for the camera, as
if to stop the shot from being taken. This one left nothing to the
imagination.

The next was of Nina in a bra and panties,
brushing her hair. The one after that of a large airplane docked at
an airport boarding gate.

I returned to the photograph of the campfire
and the supposed ghost. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I don’t know
what to make of it.”

“You see, it was not a dirty lens.”

I handed the camera back to her. “No…”

“But you think there must be a rational
explanation.”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I am too high to think of
rational explanations right now.”

I recalled how I’d felt earlier in the day
when we’d started down the secondary trail. The shapes I’d thought
I could see in the twisted tree trunks and clumps of roots.

“We’re projecting,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Like when you see a giraffe or an elephant
in the clouds. They’re not really there. But you want to see them,
so you project.”

“Were you projecting when you saw the
crucifixes swinging?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I guess I
probably was.”

“You know, Ethan,” Nina said with a
discerning smile, “you are an awful liar.”

I
spent another
half hour or so talking to Nina. I didn’t mention the naked photos
of her, and she didn’t either, if she even knew they were on the
camera. Then my phone rang.

I fumbled it out of my pocket, cursing
myself for not powering it off. The last thing I needed was Mel
thinking I was chatting it up with Shelly in the woods. I glanced
at the screen and hesitated. It was a blocked number.

I pressed the Talk button. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

A scratchy voice: “Why you in my
forest?”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe let alone
reply—until I realized it was Derek, had to be Derek, trying to
scare me. “Fuck you, Miller,” I said. “I know it’s you.”

“Why you in my foresssssst?”

It’s not Derek, it doesn’t sound anything
like him
.

“Who is this?” I demanded.

A dial tone.

I stared at my phone, iced to the bone.

“Who was that?” Nina asked, concerned.

“A…friend.”

“You asked who it was.”

“He was trying to scare me.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked why I was in his forest.”

“My goodness, Ethan! Are you sure it was
your friend?”

“Who else could it be?”

“Check the number.”

“It was blocked.”

“Did you recognize his voice?”

“No—yeah. He was disguising it.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Like—like a Japanese person.”

“Scary?”

“Yeah.”

“Like a Japanese ghost?”

“What does a Japanese ghost sound like?”

“This is not funny.”

“I know. I’m going to kick his ass when I
see him.”

“This is wrong, Ethan. It is very
wrong.”

“Nina, it’s okay—calm down.”

“Are you sure it was your friend?”

“Yes…positive.”

“Call him back.”

“You can’t call blocked numbers.”

“Call his real number.”

Nodding, I dialed it. After seven unanswered
rings I hung up.

“See?” I told her. “He knows I know. He’s
not picking up.”

“I hope you are right.”

“Who else could it be?”

“Maybe it really was—”

“No, it wasn’t, Nina.”

My
eyes had become
dry and my eyelids droopy from the pot, and Derek’s prank phone
call had scared me sober, so I told Nina I was going to crash. Back
at the camp the fire was mostly smoldering charcoal. Everyone had
retired to their tents. I glanced around for John Scott, wondering
where he had chosen to sleep. I didn’t see him anywhere.

I slipped my phone into Mel’s backpack, so I
wouldn’t roll onto it while I slept, then crept into our tent,
hoping Mel wouldn’t smell the marijuana on me. She was against the
far wall beneath one of those emergency space-age blankets. I’ve
never used one, and I was curious to discover whether they actually
provided any warmth or not. I slipped off my shoes, lifted the
blanket, and slid in beside her, mindful not to get too close.

“Hey,” I said softly.

She didn’t reply.

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

“I want to explain about Shelly—”

“Don’t mention her name.”

“I want to explain about
her
—”

“Not now.”

“It’s important.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“When?”

No answer.

“Mel?”

“Goodnight.”

I almost explained anyway, but I didn’t want
to risk getting kicked out of the tent. I shifted to get more
comfortable. The ground was hard. So far I detected no heat benefit
from the blanket.

Laying there in the dark, still wide awake,
I contemplated Mel, and our relationship, and wondered how things
had gotten so fucked up so quickly. After replaying our earlier
argument, I pushed the matter from my mind, telling myself it would
work itself out in the morning.

My thoughts turned to Nina. I couldn’t shake
the feeling that she had known those photographs of her were on her
camera, she hadn’t forgotten about them, and she had wanted me to
see them.

But why?

A fantasy played out in my head. Nina and me
back where we’d smoked the joint. She hands me the camera and I see
the pictures of her. This time, however, I mention them.

“What do you think, Ethan?” she asks.