'How was the food?' she asks after I finish eating.
'It was really good.'
'Even without any meat or fish?'
I point to the empty plate. 'Well, I didn't leave anything, right?'
'I made it.'
'It was really good,' I repeat. It's the truth.
Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one. The pain is an anchor, mooring me here. The girl stands up to boil some water and make tea. While I'm sitting at the table drinking it, she carries the dirty dishes out to the kitchen and starts washing them. I watch her do all this. I want to say something, but when I'm with her words no longer function as they're supposed to. Or maybe the meaning that ties them together has vanished? I stare at my hands and think of the dogwood outside the window, glinting in the moonlight. That's where the blade that's stabbing me in the heart is.
'Will I see you again?' I ask.
'Of course,' the girl replies. 'Like I said before, if you need me, I'll be here.'
'You're not going to suddenly disappear?'
She doesn't say anything, just gazes at me with a strange look on her face, like Where-do-you-think-I'd-go?
'I've met you before,' I venture. 'In another land, in another library.'
'If you say so,' she says, touching her hair to check that it's still pinned back. Her voice is expressionless, like she's trying to let me know the topic doesn't interest her.
'I think I've come here to meet you one more time. You, and one other woman.'
She looks up and nods seriously. 'Going through the deep woods to get here.'
'That's right. I had to see you and that other woman again.'
'And you've met me.'
I nod.
'It's like I told you,' she says. 'If you need me, I'll be here.'
After she washes up, she puts the pots and plates back on the shelf and drapes a canvas bag across her shoulder. 'I'll be back tomorrow morning,' she tells me. 'I hope you get used to being here soon.'
I stand at the door and watch as she vanishes into the gloom. I'm alone again in the little cabin, inside a closed circle. Time isn't a factor here. Nobody here has a name. She'll be here as long as I need her. She's fifteen here. Eternally fifteen, I imagine. But what's going to happen to me? Am I going to stay fifteen here? Is age, too, not a factor here?
I stand in the doorway long after she's disappeared, gazing vacantly at the scenery outside. There's no moon or stars in the sky. Lights are on in a few other buildings, spilling out of the windows. The same antique, yellowish light that illuminates this room. But I still can't see anybody else. Just the lights. Dark shadows widen their grip on the world outside. Farther in the distance, blacker than the darkness, the ridge rises up, and the forest surrounding this town like a wall.
Chapter 46
After Nakata's death, Hoshino couldn't pull himself away from the apartment. With the entrance stone there, something might happen, and when it did he wanted to be close enough that he could react in time. Watching over the stone had been Nakata's job, and now it was his. He set the AC in Nakata's room to the lowest possible temperature and turned it on full blast, checking that the windows were shut tight. The air in the room had that special solidity found only in a room with a corpse in it. 'Not too cold for you, I hope?' he said to Nakata, who naturally didn't have an opinion one way or the other.
Hoshino plopped down on the living-room sofa, trying to pass the time. He didn't feel like listening to music or reading. Twilight came on, the room by degrees turning dark, but he didn't even get up to switch on the light. He felt completely drained, and once ensconced on the sofa couldn't rouse himself enough to get up. Time came slowly and passed slowly, so leisurely that at times he could swear it had stealthily doubled back on itself.
When his own grandfather died, he thought, it was hard, but nothing like this. He'd suffered through a long illness, and they all knew it was just a matter of time. So when he did die, they were prepared. It makes a big difference whether or not you have a chance to steel yourself for the inevitable. But that's not the only difference, Hoshino concluded. There was something about Nakata's death that forced him to think long and hard.
Suddenly hungry, he went to the kitchen, defrosted some fried rice in the microwave, and ate half of it along with a beer. Afterward he went back to check on Nakata. Maybe he'd come back to life, he thought. But no, the old man was still dead. The room was like a walk-in freezer, so cold you could store ice cream in there.
Spending a night in the same house as a corpse was a first, and Hoshino couldn't settle down. Not that he was scared or anything, he told himself. It didn't make his flesh crawl. He just didn't know how he should act with a dead man beside him. The flow of time is so different for the dead and the living. Same with sounds. That's why I can't calm down, he decided. But what can you do? Mr. Nakata's already gone over to the world of the dead, and I'm still in the land of the living. Of course there's going be a gap. He got up from the sofa and sat down next to the stone. He started stroking it with his palms, like he was petting a cat.
'What the heck am I supposed to do?' he asked the stone. 'I want to turn Mr. Nakata over to somebody who'll take care of him, but until I take care of you, I can't. You want to clue me in?'
But there was no reply. For the moment the stone was just a stone, and Hoshino understood this. He could ask till he was blue in the face but couldn't expect a response. Even so, he sat beside the stone, rubbing it. He tossed out a couple questions, made an appeal to logic, and did his best to win the sympathy vote. Though he knew it was pointless, he couldn't think of an alternative. Mr. Nakata had sat here all the time talking to the stone, so why shouldn't he?
Still, talking to a stone, trying to get it to feel your pain-that's pretty pathetic, he thought. I mean, isn't that where they get that expression? As heartless as a stone?
He stood up, thinking he'd watch the news on TV, but thought better of it and sat down again beside the stone. Silence is probably best for now, he decided. Got to listen carefully, wait for whatever it is that's going to happen. 'But waiting around isn't exactly my thing,' Hoshino said to the stone. Come to think of it, I've always been the impatient type, and man have I paid for it! Always leaping before I look, always screwing things up. You're as antsy as a cat in heat, my grandpa used to tell me. But now I've got to sit tight and wait. Gut it out!
Everything was quiet except for the groan of the AC going full blast next door. The clock showed nine, then ten, but nothing happened. Time passed, the night grew deeper, nothing else. Hoshino dragged his blankets into the living room, lay down on the sofa, and pulled them over him. He figured that it was better, even asleep, to be near the stone in case something happened. He turned off the light and shut his eyes.
'Hey, stone! I'm going to sleep now,' he called out. 'We'll talk again tomorrow. It's been a long day, and I need some shut-eye.' Man, he thought, was that an understatement. Long did not begin to describe it. 'Hey, Gramps!' he called out more loudly. 'Mr. Nakata? You hear me?' No reply.
Hoshino sighed, closed his eyes, adjusted his pillow, and fell asleep. He slept the whole night without a break, without a single dream. In the next room, Nakata slept his own deep, dreamless, stone-hard sleep.
As soon as he got up, just past seven the next morning, Hoshino went right in to check on Nakata. As before, the AC was roaring full blast, blowing cold air into the room. And in the midst of that chilled room, Nakata was still dead. Compared to the night before, death seemed to have a tighter grip on him. His skin had grown ashen, his closed eyes more fixed and solemn. He wasn't about to come back to life, suddenly sit up, and say, My apologies, Mr. Hoshino. Nakata just fell asleep. I'm sorry. No need to worry, I'll take it from here-and then deal with the stone. That was never going to happen. Nakata's checked out for good, Hoshino thought, and that's a fact.
He started shivering from the cold, so he stepped out and shut the door, then went into the kitchen, brewed some coffee in the coffeemaker and drank two cups, made some toast and ate it with butter and jam. After eating he sat in the kitchen, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and gazed out the window. The clouds had blown away sometime during the night, leaving an unbroken sunny summer sky. The stone was in its customary spot next to
