*
Thick layers of cloud and smoke hung over the Sumida River. Yasukichi watched the Mukōjima bank drawing closer. The trunks of the cherry trees looked like burnt corpses standing in a row.
Yasukichi disembarked from the small steamer. It was now twilight, it was still raining. Yasukichi began to walk towards the Tamanoi district. He could smell his own rubberised coat. An overhead trolley line was sending purple sparks up into the air. Yasukichi followed the cable and its sparks until he came to a junction. To his left was the river with its banks of trees, to his right was Tamanoi with its houses of lights.
Yasukichi walked straight on, into the darkness. And here, just as his editor had described, among numerous old graves, standing in the middle of a bamboo grove, Yasukichi found a small, Western-style house. And there, on its narrow porch, with its peeling paint, was a porcelain nameplate –
A, Detective.
Yasukichi rang the bell below the nameplate and waited. Presently, the door opened and a little old woman appeared.
‘Is Mr A home?’
‘He is, sir. And he is expecting you.’
The old woman led Yasukichi into a room directly opposite the front door. The room was only partially illuminated by the weak light from the hallway, and when the woman closed the door behind her, momentarily Yasukichi was left in complete and utter darkness until, gradually, the flame of an oil lamp began to grow, to reveal the stark, white face of a man –
‘Well, here you are,’ said the man. The man was standing in the centre of the room, holding the oil lamp in one hand, gesturing at a chair with the other. ‘Please, sit down, sit down –’
Yasukichi sat down in one of the two chairs at a table in the middle of the room. Yasukichi looked around the gloomy room. In the shadows, there were piles of books and papers. On the walls, crucifixes and paintings. A large desk in front of a small window. All the furniture worn and shabby. And even the gaudy tablecloth, with its woven border of red flowers, was threadbare and looked as if it might disintegrate at any moment.
The man placed the oil lamp on the table. He looked across the cloth at Yasukichi. He smiled but said nothing, and Yasukichi found himself listening to the sound of the rain falling in the bamboo grove outside. The wind in the trees and the waves on the river.
Presently, the old woman returned with the tea things. She set them down on the table and then retreated again. The man opened a box of cigarettes on the cloth. He turned the box towards Yasukichi, smiled again and said, ‘Please. Will you have one?’
‘Thank you,’ said Yasukichi.
The man leant forward across the table. He held out a flame towards Yasukichi. Yasukichi bent forward to light the cigarette from the flame. He felt the man’s eyes upon him. Yasukichi looked up from the flame at the man and now, for the first time, he could clearly see the face of the man. He appeared to be of a similar age to Yasukichi. Possibly slightly older, maybe even thirty. But the man was completely bald. Or perhaps his head had been shaved, like a priest. It was hard to tell in the dimly lit room. Yasukichi looked away, staring down at his cigarette.
‘You are a bundle of nerves,’ said the man. ‘Your whole being is wrapped in an aura of darkness and shadow.’
Yasukichi looked up from his cigarette and said, ‘Everywhere I look, behind me or before me, I see only shadows. Only darkness.’
‘But wherever there is darkness,’ said the man, ‘then light will surely follow. If you are not impatient …’
Yasukichi smiled sadly, and then said, ‘But there is such a thing as darkness without light.’
‘Momentarily, yes,’ said the man. ‘But light always follows darkness. Just as day always follows night. Miraculously.’
Yasukichi shook his head. ‘I do not believe in miracles.’
The man smiled. He raised his hand. He held it over the oil lamp. Then he placed his hand on the table. And he plucked one of the red flowers from the pattern woven into the border of the cloth. The man held the red flower out towards Yasukichi. His eyes blinking, his hands shaking, Yasukichi took the flower from the man. Yasukichi brought the flower up to his face. He felt its petals against his skin, he smelt its scent. His eyes still blinking, his hands still shaking, Yasukichi dropped the flower onto the table. Immediately, the flower resumed its place in the woven border of the tablecloth. And try as he might, Yasukichi could not pick it up again. He shook his head again. ‘I do not understand …’
‘It is not a question of understanding,’ said the man. ‘It is a matter of believing. You stopped believing and so the flower died.’
Yasukichi looked across the table at the man. And Yasukichi said, ‘Can you help me? Can you save me?’
‘Only if you want to be helped,’ said the man. ‘Only if you want to be saved.’
*
A new year, a new start. A new life, married life. After the ceremony, the portraits and the parties. A new house, a married house. In Kamakura, by the sea, by the sea, by the sea. The wind in the pines, the sand in your shoes. A large house, with a garden. A lotus pond and bashō plants. The rain on the pond, the drops on the leaves. On the pond and on the leaves. A quiet life, a quiet life. It’s what you want, that’s what you say: a quiet life for you, the quiet life for me. By the sea, by the sea. To become another man, a new and better man. What you
