Inspector Imanishi Investigates

“Oh, is he away?”

“I hear he’s gone to the Osaka area. We don’t need any men to work the fields here until the spring. So they go away to find other work.”

“Who’s living there now?”

“Shoji’s wife is there. Otae-san.”

Imanishi continued along the path. The farmhouses all looked poor. They were small, decrepit, and dirty. As Imanishi walked by, several old people stared at the outsider from their doorways. Stone steps led to the highest house. Imanishi followed the path between the barren fields until he reached the house. A dirty board with the name “Yamashita Shoji” was nailed to an old pillar.

There was no answer to his knock, so he tried the door. It opened.

“Hello? Excuse me,” Imanishi called into the darkened interior.

He caught a glimpse of a small figure that walked slowly toward him without uttering a sound. In the bright light he could see that it was a skinny boy of eleven or twelve years of age, dressed in dirty clothes. He had a large head.

“Is anyone home?” Imanishi asked the boy.

The boy raised his eyes in silence. Imanishi gave a start. One eye was completely white. The iris of the other eye was small.

“Isn’t anyone home?” Imanishi said in a louder voice. He heard a sound from inside the house.

The boy continued to look up silently at Imanishi. The eerie eyes of the boy were repugnant to Imanishi, who did not feel pity right away even though it was a child. What he felt most strongly was a sense of abnormality as he gazed at the boy’s pale face.

A woman in her mid-fifties appeared from the dark interior. Her hair was thin and balding in the front. Her face was pale and puffy.

“Is this the home of Yamashita Shoji-san?” Imanishi asked, bowing to the woman.

“Yes, it is,” she nodded gloomily.

The woman looked at Imanishi with clouded eyes. She seemed to be the mother of the one-eyed boy.

“I’m an acquaintance of Motoura Chiyokichi-san.” As he said this, he watched her face. The sleepy eyes did not move a bit. “I got to know Chiyokichi-san in Okayama Prefecture. I heard that this was the home of his wife’s family. I happened to be in the area, so I thought I would drop by.”

“Is that so?” Otae nodded her head slightly. “Please sit down here.”

This was her first expression of greeting. The boy was still staring at Imanishi with his white eye.

“Boy, go away,” she waved the boy away. Without saying a word, the boy walked to the back of the house. “Please,” Otae urged Imanishi, who had been watching the boy retreat. She indicated a thin cushion.

“Thank you.” Imanishi sat down. “Please don’t bother with anything,” he said, as she started to prepare some tea.

Otae offered a cup of tea on a tray to Imanishi. The tea cup was soiled, but Imanishi gulped down the liquid.

“I understand that your husband, Shoji-san, is away,” he said.

“Yes, he’s off to Osaka.” Otae sat facing Imanishi.

“Through a quirk of fate, I got to know your brother-in-law, Chiyokichi-san. He was a good man.”

“I’m sure you were kind to him,” Otae bowed her head.

It appeared that Otae thought that Imanishi was a staff member or a doctor from Jikoen in Okayama. She had assumed that that was where he had become acquainted with Chiyokichi.

“I heard a lot about Yamanaka hot spring from Chiyokichi-san. I had always wanted to visit, and this time I was able to come. So I thought I would drop by.”

“Is that so?”

“I heard that your younger sister Masa-san passed away in 1935, but what happened to her son? I mean the boy who was born to your sister and Chiyokichi-san.”

“You mean Hideo?” Otae asked.

“Yes, his name was Hideo. I often heard about him from Chiyokichi-san. I remember hearing that Hideo and his father were separated before Chiyokichi-san entered Jikoen.”

“Yes. Did Chiyokichi say anything to you about that?”

“No, not really. He just always wondered what had happened to Hideo.”

“I suppose so. My sister died four years after she gave birth to Hideo. She probably never had a chance to see him again before she died.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t your sister return home after she and Chiyokichi-san separated?”

“You seem to know all about them, so I’ll tell you without hiding anything. My sister parted from Chiyokichi as soon as he got that disease. My sister may have been coldhearted, but it couldn’t be helped, because of the kind of illness he had. But Chiyokichi was so fond of Hideo that he took him on his travels.”

“What year was that?”

“It must have been about 1934.”

“Did Chiyokichi-san have somewhere to go to?”

“He went around to visit temples to try to cure his disease.”

“So he went all around the country, did he? Like a pilgrimage?”

“Yes, I think so. He didn’t send any word to the boy’s mother, my sister,” Otae answered, looking down. “My sister became a maid in a restaurant in Osaka after she parted from Chiyokichi. But that lasted for only a year or so. She got sick and died there.”

When he first saw her, Imanishi had thought that Otae was a woman without any feelings, but as they talked he realized that she was quite able to express her emotions.

“So your sister died without knowing what became of Chiyo-kichi-san and Hideo?”

“Yes. My sister wrote me some letters that said she had no idea where they had gone.”

“What about now? I mean, Hideo. He’s your nephew, isn’t he? He should be thirty years old this year.”

“Would he, now?” Hearing that, Otae seemed to be calculating the years. “Has it been that long?”

“You haven’t heard anything about him?”

“No, nothing. I don’t even know if he’s dead or alive.”

“Chiyokichi-san told me that he had entered Jikoen in Okayama in 1938 and that he had parted with his son in the countryside in Shimane Prefecture.”

“Is that so? I didn’t know anything about that.”

“He didn’t know what had happened to Hideo after that. That was what Chiyokichi- san was concerned about. You haven’t heard anything about Hideo’s whereabouts?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Have there been any requests from any local offices for Hideo’s registry of residence or copies of his family register?”

“No, there haven’t. I know the village official. He says that if Hideo had died somewhere, the notice would come to the village office.”

“I see.”

Otae sighed. “My sister was unfortunate. She married Chiyokichi without knowing that he had such a cruel disease. When he became ill, she was shocked. She was worried that Hideo might catch the disease because Chiyokichi dragged him around with him on his travels. My sister died after suffering a lot.”

“I’d like to ask you one more question,” Imanishi said. “Have you occasionally seen a young man, a stranger, wandering around here?” Imanishi asked this question, thinking that Hideo might have come back to his mother’s home.

“No, I’ve never seen anyone like that.”