That’s when the memory of a scene came to her. It came so suddenly she couldn’t recall where and when she’d seen it. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the details. Desperately she squeezed her eyes shut, and finally a vague, unfocused scene floated before her.

Where am I? she murmured. But what she pictured, like a single photograph, was a frozen scene, and when she tried to see the other parts they wouldn’t materialize.

Two young girls were standing before her. Their backs were to her, and they were giggling happily together. Beyond them was an older woman, her back also turned, her face to a wall. She was talking. No, it wasn’t a wall. A kind of window. Beyond a transparent board there was man’s face, a man selling tickets.

Where am I? she asked herself again. She kept her eyes shut and recalled a map of routes above the ticket window.

“Oh!” Mitsuyo suddenly called out. It was a map of bus routes. She was standing at the ticket window for the long-distance buses from Saga to Hakata.

The instant she realized this, the still scene came alive with sound and movement. From behind her was an announcement for the arriving bus. The girls were giggling. The old woman who’d just bought her ticket was putting away her purse as she left the ticket window, and was heading over to where the bus had just pulled in.

It had to be. There was no doubt about it. This was the bus to Hakata, the one that was hijacked.

Don’t get on that bus! In her mind, Mitsuyo yelled out to the old woman. But no one heard her.

Don’t buy them! she screamed again, but no sound came out. Her legs began to move forward in the line, and she was trembling all over. If nothing stopped her, she was going to buy a ticket herself. My cell phone! she remembered. This was the moment that her friend called. When her friend informed her that her son was sick, could they reschedule?

Mitsuyo rummaged frantically through her handbag, but couldn’t come up with her cell phone. The young girls had bought their tickets and were happily traipsing over toward the bus. I can’t find my cell phone. I can’t find it. The man at the window said, “Next!” calling out to Mitsuyo. She didn’t want to, but her legs carried her forward. She struggled to run away, but her face approached the counter and her mouth moved on its own.

One adult for Tenjin.

My cell phone’s gone. The one that’s supposed to ring right now.

Almost ready to scream, Mitsuyo opened her eyes. In front of her was a rainy street, and beyond that a rainy police station. She looked over at Yuichi. And right then it happened. A patrol car was coming toward them from the opposite direction. It slowed down, put on its turn signal, then made a right turn into the grounds of the police station.

“No way!” Mitsuyo shouted. “No way! I don’t want to get on that bus!”

Her voice was loud enough to echo inside the car. Startled, Yuichi held his breath.

“Start driving! Please. Just for a while, just for a while is okay. Get us out of here!” Yuichi stared at her, wide-eyed. “Please!”

For a moment, Yuichi didn’t know what to do. Mitsuyo kept on shouting, and her panic finally infected him. He hurriedly released the parking brake and stepped on the gas.

They roared past the police station, and soon turned left. The road ran along a concrete embankment. Ahead was the prefectural yacht harbor, its large sign dripping in the rain. Yuichi stopped the car there. The police station was still visible.

As soon as they had started driving again, Mitsuyo began to sob. Having to say goodbye to Yuichi meant she had to get on that bus. Get on that bus and have that boy come at her with a knife.

Yuichi kept the engine running, but switched off the wipers. In an instant the windshield was wet, the scenery before them a blur.

“No! No way!” Mitsuyo shouted as she stared at the blurry windshield. “No way! If I have to leave you now, I have nothing left… I thought I was going to be happy! After I met you I thought I was finally going to be happy! Please don’t take that away from me!”

Yuichi wavered, then reached over to Mitsuyo, touching her shoulder, and swiftly pulled her close. Mitsuyo roughly tried to break free, but Yuichi held her even tighter, and all she could do was stay still and cry in his arms.

“I’m so sorry… so very sorry…” His voice sounded as if it were biting her neck. Mitsuyo shook her head as hard as she could. Her cheek struck his with each shake of her head. “I’m so sorry… so sorry I couldn’t do anything for you…” Mitsuyo couldn’t tell if she was crying, or if it was Yuichi.

“Please!” she pleaded into his shoulder. “Don’t leave me behind! Don’t ever leave me alone!” She knew they couldn’t run away, but still she shouted for them to do exactly that. “Let’s run away!” she cried. “Let’s run away together!” She knew she was never going to be happy now, but still she shouted out, “Stay with me! Don’t leave me behind-ever!”

CHAPTER 5. THE VILLAIN I MET

Never before had Fusae cursed the passing of time. But it had been six days since she’d heard from Yuichi, and she suddenly noticed that the rest of the world was about to celebrate the end of the year.

Fusae was born the third child of a tatami craftsman from the outskirts of Nagasaki City. When she was ten, her father-about to depart for the war front-died of tuberculosis, and that same year, her mother had given birth to her second son. Now she was left to care for four children: her fifteen-year-old elder daughter, ten-year-old Fusae, her four-year-old older son, and the newborn infant boy.

Through some relatives, Fusae’s mother found a job working at a restaurant in the city called Seyokan. Her fifteen-year-old daughter was working in a factory as part of the wartime student work corps, so it fell to ten-year-old Fusae to take care of her two brothers.

Occasionally her mother would steal eggs from the restaurant and bring them home. This was the best food they had. Late one evening, her mother still had not come home, so Fusae and her older sister went to the restaurant to find her. The head clerk had discovered her mother stealing eggs, and had tied her to a pillar in the kitchen. The two girls, in tears, apologized for their mother. When their mother saw them, she quietly sobbed, still tied to the pillar.

The rationing system had started by then, and Fusae had to line up with the adults to get her family’s share, her four-year-old brother in hand, the baby on her back. When rations were plentiful, the adults would sometimes let her go to the front of the line, but when commodities were in short supply the frenzied housewives kept pushing her out of the way. The arrogant man in charge treated Fusae and her brothers like stray dogs. He’d shove them aside, tossing their ration of potatoes and corn at them. Fusae and her brother desperately scrambled in the dirt to pick up their potatoes.

How dare you! How dare you make fun of me! Fusae wanted to scream, holding back tears as she grabbed for the potatoes.

Life didn’t get any easier after the war. Miraculously, their family didn’t lose a single member to the atomic bombing, the one stroke of luck they had, her mother said. Fusae graduated from junior high and began working at a fish market. There she met Katsuji, and they were later married. It took her some time to have a child, and her mother-in-law occasionally abused her, but gradually life got easier, and before she knew it she had two daughters and they were able to take a yearly vacation at a hot-springs resort. Fusae kept on working at the fish market even after she got married.

Until now she’d never wished for more time, but waiting in vain for the past few days for word from Yuichi, she’d felt a bitterness about the way time slowed down, something she’d never experienced.