The Graveyard Apartment (30 page)

While Mitsue was in cheerleader mode, Misao kept nodding and saying “Mm-hm, mm-hm.” Then she reached up and plucked a box, prettily wrapped with pink ribbon, from atop the shoe cupboard in the entry hall. The Kanos' dog ambled up and wagged its tail at the visitors.

“This is just a little parting gift,” Misao said. “I remembered that you both like sweet things, so it's a selection of madeleines. I hope you'll enjoy eating them on the train.”

“Why, how nice!” Mitsue said, beaming broadly, but she was thinking,
All right, that's it—I give up. I can't fight it anymore. This woman is just too perfect, in every way
.
Maybe if we had stayed on here, she and I could have established some kind of rapport and been on more neighborly terms. I mean, to think that she would go to the trouble of buying a parting gift for us, at a time like this …

“Well, then, Mrs. Kano, please take care and be well,” Mitsue said, touching Misao's arm again. “Just try to hang on a bit longer, and if you should have any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.”

Good grief, I sound like a mother fussing over her child,
Mitsue thought, but she was surprised to find herself very close to shedding tears over Misao's miserable predicament.

As Misao exchanged fraught glances with the departing couple, the incredibly sorrowful look in the younger woman's eyes gave Mitsue the sense that, like a small animal caught in a hunter's trap, Misao Kano was well on the way to giving up the fight and simply resigning herself to her fate.

How desolate and forsaken she must be feeling,
Mitsue thought.
If I were in her place right now, I would probably already have lost my mind.
The Kano family's dire situation was almost too much to bear, even for an emotionally detached observer.

Sueo went over to the elevator and silently touched the call button. The door opened and Mitsue stepped in, gently propelling her husband ahead of her. Misao saw them off with a small wave of farewell, and the Tabatas waved back. The metal doors closed, and with the familiar
ga-tonk
, the elevator began its downward journey. Lightly, Mitsue took hold of Sueo's arm.

“We certainly ended up getting an earful of bad news, didn't we? I really wonder whether that family is going to be safe here.”

“Hard to say.” Sueo's eyes were glued to the indicator panel. 7 … 6 …

“Do you think it was coincidence?”

“Do I think
what
was coincidence?” 5 … 4 … 3 …

“You know, the way someone who was in perfect health suddenly dropped dead, and before that, a house went up in flames for no apparent reason?”

“Of course it wasn't coincidence,” Sueo mumbled, looking intently at his wife. “Look, we'd better not talk about this anymore, ever. We could still be in danger ourselves, you know.”

The image of the horrifying handprints that had popped up all over the inexplicably locked front door on the Inoue family's moving day flashed across Mitsue's mind, and she felt suddenly queasy. For a moment, she closed her eyes in silent prayer. She felt a tremendous rush of relief when the elevator hissed to a stop on the first floor, and she was doubly relieved when she saw that the building's glass entry door was still propped ajar, just the way they'd left it, with nary a supernatural handprint in sight.

Slipping and sliding on the polished floor, Mitsue rushed out into the driveway, then turned to make sure Sueo was right behind her. (He was, although his face wore a distinctly apprehensive expression.) For the first time in a long while, Mitsue felt herself being enveloped in a soft, silky cocoon of warmth and well-being. She could feel the tension draining away bit by bit, and she had a sense that her pores were opening up to the restorative sunshine.

The sun's rays were strong, and the air was sultry and humid. As she stashed Misao's attractively boxed parting gift in her big traveling bag, Mitsue took a deep breath. The smell of incense drifted into her nostrils from the nearby graveyard. She cast a sidelong glance at the legion of tombstones, and her step grew perceptibly lighter as she told herself that if she never again lived anywhere near a place like this it would still be much too soon.

When Mitsue turned to glance back at the Central Plaza Mansion after walking a few dozen yards, the building appeared to be gleaming brilliantly with reflected sunlight. Indeed, the glare was so dazzling that the balcony of the Kanos' apartment on the eighth floor was obscured by the vortex of light.

Squinting, Mitsue held one hand to her forehead to shade her eyes. After staring at the building for a long moment she began to feel dizzy, and she realized that the brightness wasn't reflected sunlight after all. Rather, the building itself appeared to be giving off a blindingly intense radiance. Mitsue didn't say a word about this to her husband as they walked along in silence, shoulder to shoulder, on the narrow road that ran alongside the graveyard.

When the couple reached the highway, they hailed a taxi. After they had settled into the back seat, Sueo said, “Tokyo Station, please.” In the split second while the automatic door was pulling itself closed, a bolt of light seemed to crash through the cab's rear window and shatter into tiny, gleaming shards that illuminated the interior of the car. It was the kind of brilliant white glow you might see at the site of an explosion, and Mitsue was reminded of visual effects she'd seen in movies, done with laser beams or the like. She instinctively closed her eyes, but the taxi driver showed no signs of having even noticed the flash.

As the taxi pulled into traffic, the light began to fade. Before long the interior of the vehicle had returned to its normal sunlit state, but Sueo went on blinking his eyes and shaking his head for a few moments after that. He was about to ask the cab driver whether he had noticed the extreme burst of light when the driver spoke first, in an incongruously easygoing drawl: “Nice weather we're having, don't you think? It would be great if this sunny spell would continue until the end of the rainy season, though that doesn't seem too likely.”

“We can only hope,” Mitsue replied, echoing the driver's casual tone.

“The thing is, the weather reports have been saying that this year's rainy season is actually turning out to be quite a bit wetter than in the past, so it's like a miracle when we get a perfectly clear day like this,” the driver added. He appeared to be in his forties, with a friendly, open, sunburned face.

“That's very true,” Mitsue responded automatically.

“Excuse my asking, but where are you headed today, from Tokyo Station? Are you going off on a trip, just the two of you?”

“No, it isn't really a trip.” Making a conscious effort to dispel the lingering feelings of fear, Mitsue concentrated all her energy on conversing with the cab driver. “Actually, we're moving down to the Izu Kogen area.”

The driver—who really was unusually inquisitive—asked whether they had built a retirement villa down there, and Mitsue said, “No, we've been hired as resident managers for a corporate dormitory, so we'll be living on the premises.”

“Oh, you don't say!” the taxi driver responded with evident interest, glancing up at his rearview mirror to catch Mitsue's eye. “Just the two of you?”

“That's right.”

“How nice! The ocean down around Izu is so much prettier than in the central part of the country. And I'm guessing it's probably cooler down there during the summer, as well?”

“Yes, and the air is cleaner, too, so it's ideal for older people like us.”

“I imagine your grandchildren are really looking forward to visiting you down there. That should be loads of fun for everyone.”

“We don't have any grandchildren,” Mitsue said, with a sudden sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “We never had children.”

“Oh, really? So those folks who were seeing you off a while ago weren't your children and their families?”

“Seeing us off? Who?” Choosing not to make eye contact via the rearview mirror, Mitsue addressed her questions to the back of the driver's head.

“I have no idea,” the driver said, “but they were definitely standing there.”

“Standing where?” Sueo asked quietly.

The cab driver clicked his tongue in annoyance at a slow-moving truck in front of them, then stepped on the gas and switched to the passing lane. After leaving the truck in the dust, he glanced up at the rearview mirror again.

“There was a big old temple back there, right?” he said. “And there was a group of people standing right in front; maybe ten or twelve in all. This is just a guess, but it appeared to be several small children and their parents.”

Sueo exchanged a quick look with Mitsue. “No one was seeing us off,” he said flatly. “We were by ourselves when we got into your cab.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, then, I suppose that group must have been there for some other reason. It's really kind of strange, because they definitely seemed to be watching you leave.”

Watching us leave?
When the Tabatas passed the temple there hadn't been another soul in sight, much less a group of children with their parents. Mitsue was absolutely certain of that. And even if there were people visiting the temple for some reason, they wouldn't have paid any attention to the Tabatas.

“Well, I wouldn't have said this if those people had been relatives of yours, but it really was a gloomy-looking group. They must have been at the temple to attend a funeral or something, because they were all dressed in black.”

When Mitsue and Sueo didn't respond, the cab driver began chattering about a diving trip he'd made to Izu a couple of years earlier.

“It was really fantastic,” he enthused. “Once you try diving, you'll never want to give it up. I don't have the scuba certification or anything, but I was able to master the main techniques on my first try. It's so simple—easy peasy, as they say. Of course, I've never been afraid of the water, at all. Oh, and the meals you eat after making a long dive taste so much more delicious! And all the fish and seafood are incredibly fresh, of course. Yes, Izu's a wonderful place. I'm hoping to get down there again soon, maybe before the end of the year.”

Mitsue was staring numbly out the window, and she didn't hear a word the driver said.

 

17

July 25, 1987

“So my room's going to be upstairs?” Tamao said excitedly. Misao bobbed her head in affirmation as Tamao went on, “This house has a really pointy roof, doesn't it, Mama?”

Misao smiled and nodded again. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the recent, totally unexpected stroke of fortune that had led to this ebullient conversation with her daughter. Truth be told, she couldn't stop worrying that something would suddenly go wrong and their hopes would be dashed once again. Still, the end was definitely in sight. All they had to do now was to make it through this evening: their last night at the Central Plaza Mansion. Tomorrow they would be moving here, into this delightful house.

With a plop, Misao deposited the armful of small items she was carrying—a plush toilet-seat cover, some indoor slippers, and a few other small necessities, purchased on the way in the spirit of new beginnings—on the floor of the empty living room of the place they had rented, then let out a long, loud sigh.

Their new home was a charming two-story house in a neighborhood that was about a fifteen-minute walk from the north exit of Takaino Station. After the incidents with the unexplained fire and the young woman's equally mysterious death, Misao had begun to wonder whether they were ever going to be able to extricate themselves from their current situation. Then, out of the blue, they heard about this place from one of Teppei's fellow copywriters at the ad agency. The property's owner had already relocated to New York City, where he would be working for the next three or four years. He was clearly delighted at the prospect of having the Kano family in his home while he was away, so it was a win-win situation for everyone. As it turned out, the owner, who was also in the advertising business, was acquainted with some illustrators who had worked with Misao, so he knew both the Kanos by reputation. Misao and Teppei jumped at the opportunity to sublet the property, and things very quickly fell into place.

Every aspect of the house—the location, the number of rooms, the floor plan—seemed tailor-made for their purposes. It was a sturdy wooden structure with a steeply pitched roof. The ground floor consisted of a large living room, a roomy kitchen, and a Japanese-style, tatami-floored room that was about the same size as the kitchen, or perhaps a bit smaller. Two spacious Western-style bedrooms and a nicely appointed bathroom occupied the entire second floor, and there was even a storage attic tucked under the peaked roof. The roof was triangular, and from a distance the house reminded Misao of a small turreted castle made from children's building blocks.

The tiny yard was, as the old Japanese saying goes, as narrow as a cat's forehead. While the miniature lawn looked like one of those Astroturf-covered indoor putting greens, it was actually planted with natural grass that had been conscientiously maintained. The overall effect was pleasant and restful, and the space had the feel of a genuine garden.

Misao set to work, with Tamao as her helper, mopping all the floors and putting away the household necessities she'd purchased on the way over. It looked as though the curtains from their current apartment would fit the windows here, and there should be a way to squeeze all the furniture in, as well. The only problem was finding a place to set up their big washer-dryer combo, but there was an alcove in the downstairs hallway, adjacent to the guest bathroom, where that bulky machine could almost certainly be hooked up.

The house faced south, and it was fantastically sunny. Even though Tokyo was still in the midst of the rainy season, the interior of the house was surprisingly dry, with no sign of the usual mold or mildew. When Misao came across some dried-up dust bunnies in the depths of the closets, that small, symbolically wholesome discovery triggered an involuntary sigh of relief over having lucked into a place that was so bright, safe, and cheerful.