After about three minutes she hung up the telephone.
“Thank you very much,” Rieko said to the manager and left their room.
She returned to her room and stood listlessly, a sad expression on her face. Rieko stared out the window, thinking. The lights of Shinjuku blurred against the night sky. There were few stars. Rieko closed the curtain and returned to her desk. She opened her notebook, grasped her pen, and sat lost in thought for a while, her chin on her hand. She started to write, pausing often to think. She wrote a line, then crossed it out.
“Must love be a lonely thing?
“Our love has lasted for three years. Yet nothing has been built from this love. It will probably continue on in vain. Forever, he says. The futility of this love tastes empty and feels like grains of sand slipping through my fingers. At night, despair haunts my dreams.”
She heard someone whistle a tune, passing back and forth outside her window. She looked up from her notebook. She stood up. Without looking outside, she turned off the light.
The Imanishis were on their way home after seeing Eitaro’s sister off at the station. Along the way they came across a row of stalls that were still open -among them was a nursery. Imanishi stopped in his tracks.
“I’m just taking a look. I won’t buy anything,” Imanishi reassured his wife.
There were hardly any customers. The shopkeeper encouraged Imanishi, saying that he would give him a real bargain because he was about to close up. Imanishi looked the plants over, but luckily he didn’t find any he wanted. Leaves and newspapers were scattered at his feet. Imanishi stepped down to the sidewalk.
He felt hungry. He spied a sushi shop that was still open. He asked his wife, “Shall we have a few bites of sushi?”
His wife peeked into the shop and said unenthusiastically, “Let’s not. It’s ridiculous to spend money like that. I’ll cook something special tomorrow.”
He was hungry now. Tomorrow’s dinner wasn’t any help. But understanding how his wife felt, Imanishi kept his mouth shut. He continued homeward with a dissatisfied expression on his face. He imagined the texture of the tuna, but he restrained himself.
Now the doors to almost all the stores were closed, and the narrow street was lit only by the light from street lamps. In this light, Imanishi saw a man wandering around, whistling. He was right in front of the new apartment building. He was wearing a beret and a black shirt. It appeared that he had been whistling and wandering around for a while. When the Imanishis approached him, he stopped whistling and casually edged away toward the shadows, his head turned away.
Imanishi glanced at him as they passed.
“If you’re hungry, shall I make some green tea over rice when we get home?” his wife asked.
“Hmm.” Still dissatisfied, Imanishi did not reply.
The man who had been whistling stopped as the couple passed by. He stood in front of the apartment building, staring at one of the lighted windows, but now the light had been turned out.
After the couple had passed by, the man with the beret whistled again toward the now darkened window. The curtain had been drawn. Next to the apartment building was a narrow alley lined with small houses. He could hear a baby crying somewhere. With deliberately loud footsteps, he walked back and forth several times. No one opened the apartment window. He kept this up for about twenty more minutes.
Finally he gave up and walked back to the main street, looking back at the apartment building. He headed for the station. He looked up and down to check for empty taxis, but didn’t see any.
He saw the sushi shop across the street. Through the half-opened doorway he could see three customers seated inside. He crossed the street and entered the shop. Seeing him enter, one of them looked inquiringly at him.
He ordered some sushi.
After staring at his profile, the woman whispered to her companions. The woman searched inside her pocket and brought out a small notebook. Smiling, she approached the man in the beret.
“Pardon me,” she said modestly. “Could you possibly be Miyata Kumo-
The man in the beret abruptly swallowed the sushi he had been eating. Bewilderment briefly clouded his eyes, but he looked at the woman’s face and reluctantly admitted, “Yes, I am.”
“I thought so.” The woman turned around and smiled at her two male companions. “Excuse me, but would you please autograph this for me?”
She held out her well-worn notebook. He grudgingly took out a pen and signed his name with a practiced hand.
SIX The Distribution Of Dialects
Imanishi couldn’t put the Tohoku dialect and the word “Kameda” out of his mind. It was possible that the witnesses had mistaken the accent, but he didn’t think so.
He went out and bought a map of Okayama Prefecture. Miki Ken’ichi had lived in Emi-machi. Starting from there, Imanishi searched the map for Kameda. At first he looked for place names starting with the character “Kame.” The name Kamenoko jumped out at him, but Kameda and Kamenoko didn’t sound similar. He searched further, but could find no other locations beginning with “Kame.” He felt teased by Kamenoko. It had leapt from the map to mock his frustration. He folded the map up. It was time for him to head to work.
The train was crowded. Imanishi was pushed up against the backs of the other commuters. He gazed absently at the posters in the train. One poster was fluttering in the draft from an open window. It was an advertisement for a magazine. He read the words “Trip’s Design” and wondered if trips really have designs. Recent advertisements were so strangely worded that it was impossible to figure out what they meant. Imanishi got off the train at Shinjuku Station and changed to the subway. He saw the same advertisement there. He suddenly thought of something completely unrelated to the posters.
When he arrived at police headquarters, Imanishi went straight to the Public Information Department, which served as headquarters’ public relations arm. Because various pamphlets were published here, this office had a collection of reference books. The section chief was also Imanishi’s former supervisor.
“Hey, it’s unusual to see you here.” The Public Information section chief smiled at Imanishi, who bowed. “I didn’t think I’d see you in a place like this.” Then he joked, “Oh, I know. You’re looking for a book on haiku, right?”
“No, but I’d like to ask you something, if I may,” Imanishi said, a bit stiffly.
“What do you need?” the section chief asked.
“Well, I came to you, sir, because I know you are an expert on many things.”
“I’m not really much of an expert.” The section chief grinned. “But if it’s something I know, I’d be glad to help you.”
“It’s about the Tohoku dialect,” Imanishi began.
“The Tohoku dialect?” The chief scratched his head. “Sorry, but I was born in Kyushu, in the south. I don’t know much about the Tohoku dialect.”
“What I’d like to know is if there are other places in Japan besides the Tohoku region where the Tohoku dialect is spoken.”
“Hmm.” The section chief cocked his head. “You mean if they speak it in a certain locale, not if one individual might speak it. You mean if the population of a certain area speaks that dialect, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“I wonder if that’s a possibility.” The section chief thought it over as he puffed on his cigarette, but he looked doubtful. “I think the Tohoku dialect is unique to the northeastern region. But I have something that might tell you more.”
He stood up and took from the bookshelf behind him a volume from a set of encyclopedias. He hoisted the heavy volume onto his desk and turned the pages. Finding an article, he skimmed through it.
“Read this part here,” he said, pushing the book toward Imanishi.
Imanishi read the article covering different theories on the distribution of dialects. It was of no help.
