The Graveyard Apartment (20 page)

Misao was clearly terrified of the basement, and she hadn't ventured down there even once since Tamao's accident. She had a knack for being able to think things through in a rational manner, and she was also remarkably adept at exercising self-control; those faculties just seemed to come naturally to her. Even when Reiko committed suicide, Misao had managed to move beyond that devastating event in an admirable and even heroic way. Indeed, there was a part of Teppei that believed Misao's support was the primary reason he had been able to make it this far. It simply wasn't like her to get all worked up over something as inoffensive as a basement; it was as though she had fallen under the influence of one of those supernatural-mystery TV dramas, and was getting absurdly overwrought about nothing. Teppei tried to be patient, but he was finding his wife's obsession with the basement increasingly hard to tolerate.

Here I am
, he thought,
day after day, being jostled by other passengers on the rush-hour train morning and night so I can do battle at my workplace, which is a vortex of viciousness overlaid with a toxic mix of cynicism, sarcasm, and false pride. I spend my days writing copy that's basically trying to sell vinegar as wine (or, as the old Chinese saying goes, to pass dogmeat off as mutton), and I am fully complicit in concealing the squalor that lies beneath the corporate mask, because I need to bring home the bacon every week. With everything I have to deal with out in the real world, does Misao really think I'm going to join her in believing a crock of occult mumbo-jumbo, and hold her hand while we both quake in our boots for fear of the big, bad basement? Not likely!

Sueo's voice brought Teppei back to reality. “The thing is, there's something we wanted to ask you,” the older man said, lowering his voice and inching closer. “We were wondering whether you might be willing to go down to the basement with us—preferably tonight, or whenever it's convenient—to do a little reconnaissance.”

“Reconnaissance?” Teppei was still a bit disoriented from his internal rant.

Mitsue let out a booming laugh. “My husband here is too timid to go down there again by himself, or even with me,” she explained. “He's just a big old scaredy-cat. So I was telling him he ought to ask Mr. Kano or Mr. Inoue to go with us, but he didn't feel comfortable about asking either of you.”

Teppei frowned. “What would you be looking for?”

“Well, that's the thing. I don't really have anything particular in mind,” Sueo admitted, scratching his bumpy, balding scalp in a way that made his few remaining hairs sway slightly, as if stirred by a gentle breeze. “It's just that your daughter got injured there, and it's troubling to think that we might have overlooked something dangerous around the edges of the basement or wherever.”

“Okay, fine. I'll go with you,” Teppei said without enthusiasm. “Sure, let's check it out. My wife and Mrs. Inoue spend entirely too much time griping about the basement, and I've actually been thinking recently that it might be a good idea to go down and prove once and for all that there's nothing to be afraid of. I mean, the fact is, we've made a sizable investment in this place, with the down payment and our mortgage and everything, so I'd really like to put an end to all the fuss about the basement right now.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Mitsue smiled.

After a brief discussion, it was agreed that Teppei would stop by the caretakers' apartment later that evening, at his convenience, and the two groups went their separate ways.

In the elevator Tamao said, “You're going down to the basement, Papa?”

“That's right,” Teppei replied.

Tamao was silent for a long moment, gazing up at her father's face. Finally, she let out an exaggerated sigh and murmured, “Mama isn't going to be too happy about that.”

“Nah, she won't mind.” Teppei laughed. “Your papa's super strong, you know. If there are any monsters down there, he'll chase them away, for sure.”

“You really think there are monsters?”

“No, of course I don't. I was only joking. There's no such thing as monsters in real life, anyway; they only exist in stories. The noises last night probably came from a great big mouse, or maybe from a homeless man who found a way to get into the basement and slept there overnight because he didn't have money for a hotel, or something like that. I'm sure there's a simple explanation for the noises the Tabatas heard last night.”

“Um, what kind of person is the homeless man?”

“He's a very nice person, I promise,” Teppei said, taking Tamao's hand. “Not like a monster, at all, so there's really nothing to worry about.”

*   *   *

When Teppei announced that he and the resident managers were planning to go down to the basement on a so-called reconnaissance mission, Misao stared at him with eyes that had suddenly lost their customary sparkle.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Why, you don't want me to go?”

“I just don't see the need for reconnoitering, or whatever you want to call it. I mean, both Eiko and I have already decided not to use the storage lockers anymore. If you include the caretakers, there are only four occupied units in the building now. That's four out of fourteen, so if we have extra things that won't fit in the cupboards we can just stack them up in the exterior hallways, instead of putting them in the basement.”

“That's all very well, but we're talking about apples and oranges here,” Teppei said in a placating tone. “If we can locate the source of the noises, which will probably turn out to be the same thing that's been giving you and Eiko such a bad feeling, then from now on we can just shrug it off and be like, ‘Oh, right, it's just
that thing
again.' Because I guarantee that the explanation is ultimately going to turn out to be something harmless, like a family of noisy mice.”

“I hope you're right,” Misao said glumly.

“Of course I'm right. Anyway, that's why we're going down to take a look around. It's really not a big deal.”

Misao remained visibly unconvinced. “That place isn't safe,” she said.

“You know, it isn't like you to swallow the superstitious nonsense that old Mr. Snake Oil Salesman—you know, that Shoji guy—was dishing out.”

“But even you can sense that there's something peculiar about that space, right? I know, I can read between the lines.”

“Who, me?” Teppei let out a staccato bark of laughter, but only because that seemed like the proper response. “Hey, when I was at university, we used to go to summer camp every year, and any time they had a contest to test our courage or nerve, I always won. Nobody else had a chance. So, no. To me, the basement just seems like a perfectly normal space.”

Tamao was watching television in the living room. It was a new program, a cartoon featuring a bear cub that was pale pink, like a baby pig. Every time the bear said something, Tamao would roll around on the couch, laughing as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

Misao let out a long, sibilant sigh and began to fiddle with a small glass jar of black pepper that was sitting on the dining table. She often engaged in this sort of displacement activity when she felt the need to say something difficult or awkward.

“What if I were to suggest that we put this place on the market and start looking for another apartment?” she asked. “Would you be angry?”

“Yes, I would be
very
angry,” Teppei said without hesitation.

“That's what I thought.”

“Look, could you please give it a rest? I mean, just for the sake of argument, suppose there really are some restless ghosts or spirits in the basement, popping up and raising a ruckus and then vanishing again. Well, what does that have to do with us? We're human beings who are alive right now, in the real world. If they want to pick a fight, there's no chance a group of puny specters could win against us. Don't you see? We're too busy living to worry about people who are already dead; that's all there is to it. I've managed to make it this far by believing that when people die, they're gone forever, and I'm certainly not going to start believing in ghosts at this point.”

Misao fixed Teppei with a frosty stare. “Let me get this straight,” she said slowly. “You're saying you don't have time to bother with the dead?”

“That's right.”

“What a heartless thing to say. That's just too cold for words.”

“What? How so?” Teppei stared at his wife in perplexity.

“I'm talking about Reiko,” Misao said, her voice quavering as she scratched at the label of the black-pepper jar with one fingernail. “There's just no way … I mean, how could you say something like that about her?”

“No, you completely misunderstood,” Teppei said gently. “That isn't what I was getting at, not at all. I wasn't even thinking about … that person.”

“That's good, because I would have been very disappointed in you.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I was speaking in general terms, and I just didn't phrase it very well, that's all. We've had this conversation before, so I assumed you'd understand what I meant.”

They both fell silent for a while. From her perch on the living room couch, Tamao was watching her parents intently.

What the hell is going on?
Teppei thought.
Misao's nerves really seem to be on edge these days. It's getting downright ridiculous. I mean, overreacting to a simple misunderstanding, and making a constant fuss over a totally ordinary basement? It all comes down to one thing: our unwise decision to buy a unit in an apartment building next to a graveyard.

Teppei had an uncomfortable sense that the conversation had changed abruptly from what seemed to be an abstract discussion of the supernatural into something far more personal, and volatile, but he decided to keep that thought to himself. With luck, by the time he returned, Misao would have forgotten about this minor hitch in their usually harmonious communication.

“Well, then,” he said, affecting a brisk, cheerful tone. “I'm going to take off now. I'll conduct a thorough investigation of the basement, just to put your mind at rest. I don't suppose you feel like coming along?”

“Are you joking? No way!” Misao said emphatically, chewing her lip. “To be honest, I'd be happier if you didn't go, either.”

Teppei looked into Misao's eyes for a long moment. “I'll be fine,” he said. “I promise, this whole expedition is going to turn out to be much ado about absolutely nothing.”

Misao took a deep breath, then exhaled audibly. “Yes, of course, you're right,” she said.

“Listen,” Teppei said earnestly. “I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of expressing myself earlier, but I was just trying to say that what's important to me right now is us: our family.”

“Of course, I know, and I feel the same way.” Misao smiled wanly.

Playfully tousling his wife's hair, Teppei teased, “Seriously, Mrs. Kano, you really do need to pull yourself together.”

When Teppei arrived at the door of the caretakers' apartment he found Sueo Tabata waiting for him, freshly dressed in a pristine white polo shirt. Mitsue hastily shed her grease-spotted apron and followed them into the lobby with undisguised excitement, brandishing a jumbo flashlight in one hand.

Teppei wondered silently whether it was really necessary to make such a production out of a humdrum errand, but he didn't say anything. He pressed the button for the elevator and then, in a subtle attempt to emphasize the routine nature of what they were doing, he struck up a nonchalant conversation about professional baseball with Sueo.

In the game Teppei had been watching out of the corner of his eye during dinner, the leadoff batter for the Giants had hit a home run on the first pitch. When he mentioned that to Sueo, the older man broke into a delighted grin. Evidently he was a Giants fan.

“I'm really sorry about this,” Mitsue said as they boarded the elevator. “I gather you were in the middle of watching a game?”

“No, it's fine. Anyway, at our house Tamao usually gets to choose the channel, and she wanted to watch something else.”

When they got to the basement, Sueo turned on the overhead lights. Maybe it was because the weather had warmed up outside, or perhaps the air was just stagnant because hardly anyone ever came down here anymore, but the atmosphere seemed unusually close and stuffy—almost to the point where it was difficult to take a proper breath.

The storage lockers stood in neat, orderly rows. Tsutomu's tricycle wasn't occupying its usual place in front of the Inoues' locker, but apart from that detail the basement looked just the way it always had. There was nothing abnormal, nothing different, nothing out of place.

The cardboard boxes of high-calorie protein bars were still piled in one corner, where they had been all along. Teppei and the Tabatas carefully examined each of the cartons, but there wasn't a single bit of evidence to indicate that rodents had been nibbling at the cardboard.

“Everything looks spick-and-span, doesn't it?” Sueo said. “I mean, now that we're here, nothing seems to be amiss.”

“The cleaning is completely up to date, too,” Mitsue declared proudly. “I've been coming down alone once a week, without fail. Well, I usually just run the vacuum over the floor, but I always make sure to do a thorough job, including the corners. Needless to say, I would never dream of neglecting my duties.”

Teppei had heard about Mitsue's tendency toward self-aggrandizement, and now he understood what Misao and Eiko had been referring to.

The only thing that matters is the here and now,
Teppei told himself as he glanced around. Even if certain things occurred that seemed at the time to defy logic and common sense (like the indoor weasel wind, for example), an impeccably rational explanation would eventually emerge—an explanation that simply happened to involve some obscure scientific principle that hadn't immediately sprung to anyone's mind. Once you started jumping to subjective conclusions, matters could get out of hand very quickly. Nothing good ever came of that approach, and it often led to chaos, confusion, and a destabilized mental state. On that score at least, Mitsue, with her regular trips down to the basement to vacuum the floor as part of her caretaker duties, seemed to be taking a commendably reasonable, down-to-earth approach to the place, and that was as it should be. In Teppei's opinion, rational and objective was the only way to go.