Standing in the shadow of the door…

The drowning girl's fingers

Search for the entrance stone…

Outside the window there are soldiers, steeling themselves to die…

What could it mean? Were all these just coincidences? I walk to the window and look out at the garden. Darkness is just settling in on the world. I go over to the reading room, sit on the sofa, and open up Tanizaki's translation of The Tale of Genji. At ten I go to bed, turn off the bedside light, and close my eyes, waiting for the fifteen-year-old Miss Saeki to return to this room.

Chapter 24

It was already eight p. m. when their bus from Kobe arrived in front of Tokushima Station.

Well, Mr. Nakata, here we are. Shikoku."

"What a wonderful bridge. Nakata's never seen such a huge one before."

The two of them alighted from the bus and sat down on a bench at the station to survey their surroundings.

"So-did you have a message from God or something?" Hoshino asked. "Telling you where you're supposed to go now? What you're supposed to do?"

"No. Nakata still has no idea."

"Great…"

Nakata rubbed his head deliberately with his palm for a while, as if pondering weighty matters. "Mr. Hoshino?" he finally said.

"What's up?"

"I'm sorry, but Nakata really needs to go to sleep. I'm so sleepy I feel like I could fall asleep right here."

"Wait a sec-you can't fall asleep here," Hoshino said, flustered. "Tell you what, I'll find a place where you can sack out, okay? Just hang in there for a while."

"All right. Nakata will hang in there and try not to go to sleep."

"Good. Are you hungry?"

"No, just sleepy."

Hoshino quickly located the tourist information counter, found an inexpensive inn that included complimentary breakfast, and called to book a room. It was some distance from the station, so they hailed a cab. As soon as they arrived, Hoshino asked the maid to lay out their futons for them.

Nakata skipped taking a bath and undressed, lay down in bed, and in an instant was peacefully snoring away. "I'll probably sleep for a long time, so don't be alarmed," he said just before he fell asleep.

"Hey, I'm not going to bother you-sleep as much as you want," Hoshino said, but Nakata was already lost to the world.

Hoshino enjoyed a leisurely bath, went out, and strolled around to get the lay of the land, then ducked inside a sushi shop for dinner and a beer. He wasn't much of a drinker, and a medium-size bottle of beer was enough to turn his face bright red and put him in a good mood. After dinner he played pachinko and lost twenty-five dollars in a hour. His Chunichi Dragons baseball cap drew a few stares from passersby, and he decided he must be the only one in Tokushima wearing one.

Back at the inn he found Nakata just as he'd left him, sound asleep. The light was on in the room, but that obviously didn't seem to bother him. What an easygoing old guy, Hoshino concluded. He took off his cap, his aloha shirt, and his jeans, then crawled into bed and turned out the light. But he felt worked up, and the combination of this and his new surroundings kept him from falling asleep. Jeez, he thought, maybe I should've found a hooker and got laid. But as he listened to Nakata's tranquil, regular breathing, he was suddenly embarrassed by the thought, though he wasn't sure why.

Staring at the ceiling in the dark, lying in bed in a cheap inn in a town he'd never been to before next to a strange old guy he knew nothing about, he began to have doubts about himself. By this time of night he should've been driving back to Tokyo, now somewhere around Nagoya. He didn't dislike his job, and there was a girl in Tokyo who always made time for him if he wanted to see her. Still, on an impulse, as soon as he'd unloaded his cargo of furniture in Kobe, he'd called another driver he knew in town and asked him to take his place and drive his rig back to Tokyo. He phoned his company and managed to wrangle three days off, and then it was off to Shikoku with Nakata. All he had along was a small bag with a shaving kit and a change of clothes.

Hoshino originally was intrigued by the resemblance between the old man and his late grandfather, but that impression had faded, and now he was more curious about Nakata himself. The things the old guy talked about, and even how he talked, were definitely strange, but in an interesting way. He had to find out where the old man was going, and what he'd end up doing when he got there.

Hoshino was born into a farming family, the third of five sons. Up until junior high he was well behaved, but after entering a trade school he fell in with a bad crowd and started getting in trouble. The police hauled him in a few times. He was able to graduate but couldn't find a decent job-and trouble with a girl only compounded his difficulties-so he decided to join the Self-Defense Force. Though he was hoping to be a tank driver, he didn't make the cut and spent most of his time driving large transport trucks. After three years in the SDF he got out and found a job with a trucking company, and for the last six years he'd been driving for a living.

This suited him. He'd always loved machines, and when he was perched high up in the cab with his hands on the wheel, it was like he was in his own private little kingdom. The job's long hard hours were tiring, but he knew he couldn't stand a regular company job, commuting to a dingy office every morning only to have a boss watch his every move like a hawk.

He'd always been the feisty type who got into fights. He was skinny and on the short side, not very tough looking, but in his case looks were deceiving. He was deceptively strong, and once he reached the breaking point a crazed look would come over him that sent most opponents scurrying for cover. He'd gotten into a lot of fights, both as a soldier and as a truck driver, but only recently had started to understand that this, win or lose, never accomplished very much. At least, he thought proudly, he'd never had any serious injuries.

During his wild high school days, his grandfather was always the one who'd show up at the local precinct, bowing apologetically to the police, and they'd release Hoshino into his custody. They always stopped at a restaurant on the way home, his grandfather treating him to a delicious meal. He never lectured Hoshino, even then. Not once did his parents come to get him. They were just barely scraping by and didn't have the time or energy to worry about their no-good third son. Hoshino sometimes wondered what would've happened to him if his grandfather hadn't been there to bail him out. The old man, at least, knew he was alive and worried about him.

Despite all this, he'd never once thanked his grandfather for all he'd done. He didn't know what to say, and was also too preoccupied trying to get by. His grandfather died of cancer soon after Hoshino joined the Self-Defense Force. At the end he got senile and didn't even recognize him. Hoshino hadn't been back home once since the old man passed away.

When Hoshino woke up at eight the next morning, Nakata was still fast asleep and looked like he hadn't budged an inch all night. The volume and pace of his breathing, too, was unchanged. Hoshino went downstairs and ate breakfast with the other guests. A pretty bare-bones meal, though there were unlimited seconds on miso soup and rice.

"Will your companion be eating breakfast?" the maid called out.

"He's still out cold. Looks like he won't be needing breakfast. If you don't mind, could you not put away the futon for a while?"

At noon, with Nakata still fast asleep, Hoshino arranged for them to stay one more night. He went out to a soba place and had chicken and egg over rice. Afterward he strolled around for a while and wound up in a coffee shop, where he had a cup and a smoke and flipped through a few of the comic books.