Chapter 2 The Silent Princess
At night, the flat light of the street lamps shining off the blue tarps of the haunted building made it look even cheaper and shabbier than it did by day. The houses in the surrounding neighborhood were quiet. All the porch lights were off, the windows dark. The Mihashi Shrine sat silently in a ring of dark trees, making the gaudy light on the building seem intended to accentuate its miserable appearance.
It felt good to run in his sneakers, even for a short distance, and now Wataru had finally remembered the night’s true objective: they were going to see for themselves once and for all whether there really was a ghost haunting the half-built building.
They were past the shrine and nearing the building when Katchan stopped abruptly.
“Someone’s there,” he whispered, pressing his back up against the wall surrounding the shrine. Wataru reflexively followed suit. He could see no one.
“Where?”
Katchan pointed. “On the other side of the building. See that light down the road?”
“Where? It’s just a street lamp.”
“Nuh-uh, there’s a car.”
Wataru squinted his eyes but he still couldn’t see anything. He moved away from the shrine wall and began to walk again. “Let’s go check it out. We’re just walking down the road, anyway—it’s not like we’re doing anything bad.”
So what if somebody had stopped the car there, he thought. As he approached the front of the haunted building one of the blue tarps lifted and he saw a figure standing inside.
Almost immediately, another tarp lifted and someone from inside the building looked out, right at them. They were spotted. “Who’s there?” a voice called out languidly. “What are you boys doing?”
The voice belonged to a young man. Wataru guessed he was about twenty years old. With some effort, the man worked his way out from beneath the tarp, and came out to the road. Up close, Wataru realized he was quite tall. He had on a slightly grubby T-shirt and jeans. His hair was cut short, and he was wearing glasses. In his right hand, he carried a flashlight.
From the direction where Katchan had seen a car came the sound of a large sliding door, like that on a van, opening. They heard another voice. “What is it, Noriyuki?”
This new voice belonged to a middle-aged man. Soon, its owner appeared from the direction of the van, a stout, blocky figure beneath the street lamps.
Wataru’s mind was racing, though his body was frozen to the spot. Who were these people? Burglars? Night patrolman? Were they searching for something? Were they burying something? Were they trying to set fire to the place?
“Hey, it’s just some kids. What are you doing out at this hour?” asked the older man. From his voice, he sounded like he was about the same age as Wataru’s father. The younger man called Noriyuki walked over to the boys and looked them over. Then he glanced at his wristwatch.
“You’re not going to tell me you’re lost, are you?” Noriyuki said, his face breaking into a smile. “And don’t try to tell me you’re on your way home from cram school, either.”
“Urk,” said Katchan loudly. It was a familiar sound to Wataru. He had always imagined that if you looked “urk” up in the dictionary, it would read something like “urk: 1. A sound Katsumi Komura makes when he’s caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing.”
Still, at least he had managed to say something. Wataru was so flustered he simply opened his mouth and stood there, gaping like a fish. Finally, one thought among the storm of thoughts swirling around his head happened to stray near his tongue, and out it came, launching from his lips like a freshly popped kernel of popcorn.
“I-I’ll call the police!”
The two men jerked back. They looked at each other, then turned their gaze back on Wataru. Next to him, Katchan was standing with his mouth wide open. “Why?” he asked after a beat.
The two men burst out laughing.
“Dad, keep it down,” said Noriyuki, slapping the older man on the shoulder and laughing. “You’ll wake the whole neighborhood.”
“My little sir,” said the father, waving his arm in Wataru’s direction. “There’s no need to fear. We’re not burglars.”
Katchan grabbed Wataru’s arm by the elbow. “Really, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure they’re okay.”
Wataru’s eyes opened wide and he looked at Katchan. His friend’s face gradually broke into a smile. Unable to contain himself, he started to laugh. That was when Wataru realized that it was no longer two versus two, it was three versus one: three people laughing, and one person being laughed at. His face reddened.
“Ah, whoops,” Noriyuki said, suddenly turning to run in the direction his father had come from. “We left Kaori by herself.” There was the sound of a sliding door around the corner again, and moments later, a light brown van came rolling up. It stopped right before the haunted building.
Katchan nodded appreciatively at the sleek paint job. “Cool, new car. Sure is big!” He sounded impressed. “Must’ve cost a fortune!”
Wataru noticed something different about the van. Stenciled on the side in large letters was a sign that read: Daimatsu Properties, Inc. He blinked and looked up at the older man. “You…you’re Saburo Daimatsu!”
The stern man had been wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. Now his mouth tightened, and he looked down at Wataru. From that one look, Wataru knew in an instant that he was right. Here stood none other than the unlucky owner of the haunted building, the man behind Daimatsu Properties, and his son.
The van door opened. There was a faint mechanical noise, and something like a metal arm extended from within the van. Sliding out along the arm came a wheelchair. The wheelchair slid until it was hanging off the side of the car, and then the arm lowered it to the ground.
In the wheelchair sat a girl with slender arms and a slender neck, her hair tied in a ponytail. Her head swayed with the wheelchair’s rocking descent.
“Someone in the neighborhood tell you about me?” asked Mr. Daimatsu. Then, before Wataru could reply, he added, “That’s right, I’m the owner of this building. This is my son, Noriyuki.”
Noriyuki came toward them, pushing the wheelchair. The girl’s head lolled to the side. She didn’t look at Wataru and Katchan, or even her father. Her eyes were open, but they seemed to see nothing.
“And this is my daughter, Kaori,” Mr. Daimatsu said, walking over to the wheelchair and gently patting the shawl covering the girl’s legs. Her hands were hidden beneath the light pink shawl that hid everything from her waist down. If she had reacted to her father’s gesture, none of them saw it.
“So you see, we’re not burglars. Really,” Noriyuki Daimatsu said with a broad smile. From the tone of his voice, Wataru could sense that he was trying to calm them down. He suddenly saw how he must’ve looked from their perspective: a frightened little kid. Wataru clenched his teeth. He wanted to die, he was so embarrassed.
“We were taking my sister out for walk, and thought we’d stop by and see how the building was doing. As you can see, there’s a lot of garbage and strays here. It’s quite a mess.”
“Oh, I see…” Wataru said, looking down at the ground so he wouldn’t have to meet the looks of Mr. Daimatsu, or Noriyuki, or even Katchan. He wanted to swivel around in place, head still facing downward, and run straight for home.
“A walk at this time of night?” Katchan asked, blissfully unaware of his friend’s mortification. Before Wataru could jab him in the ribs, Mr. Daimatsu spoke.
“Yes, as you can see, my daughter’s not well. She doesn’t like it when there’re lots of people around.”
“So you go out when it’s quiet at night,” Katchan said, nodding as though it all made perfect sense. When Wataru glanced up at the men, he saw Mr. Daimatsu and his son exchanging nervous looks.
Kaori Daimatsu was a pretty girl. No, she was beautiful. When people around her pointed and said “beautiful,” the little fairy herself would have blushed and said something along the lines of “No really, you’re too kind”—that’s how pretty she was.
In Wataru’s eleven years, he had never met someone so beautiful. He had never met a girl so doll-like. Maybe, he thought with sudden horror, she was a doll. After all, she didn’t speak. She didn’t smile. She didn’t react at all to the outside world. Her gaze was a blank. The only motion she made was to occasionally blink her eyes. They say that eyes are the windows to the soul, but her eyes were windows to a dollhouse.
“Kaori is in junior high,” Noriyuki said, glancing sideways at his sister in the wheelchair. “That makes her only a little older than you. What grade are you in?”
Wataru was on the verge of saying “sixth.” Both he and Katchan were short for their age, so they couldn’t hope to lie and say they were in junior high. But there was little harm in making themselves one year older.
Katchan dashed his hopes by replying first. “Fifth. Over at Joto Elementary.”
“Joto Elementary School? Ah, then let me guess: you must be the paranormal investigators,” Noriyuki said, smiling. Next to him, his father laughed so hard his belly shook, and his hand on the arm of the wheelchair shook its occupant. Kaori’s head lolled to the other side.
“Paranormal…how…” Wataru sputtered.
“There’s a rumor going around that this building is haunted, right? Apparently, kids have been coming out here at night, trying to sneak inside. The Joto Elementary PTA even lodged a complaint with our company.”
“When was this?”
Mr. Daimatsu scratched his head. His son answered. “I’d say about two weeks ago.”
Wataru was devastated. Someone had gotten the jump on them.
“The earlier paranormal investigators, they came to take photos,” Mr. Daimatsu explained. “Like those photos of ghosts people are always showing on TV these days?”
Noriyuki nodded. “They had a Polaroid camera.”
“Well, we’re not ghost hunters. We didn’t come here to play pranks,” Wataru insisted. “We came here to find out the truth.”
“Wait, I know,” Katchan said, clapping his hands together in sudden enlightenment. “Those earlier paranormal investigators, they were from sixth grade, right? Weren’t they talking about sending pictures of the ghost to the local television station?”
“Yes, those are the ones,” Noriyuki said with a rueful smile. “Their leader—what was his name?—some foul-mouthed kid.”
“Ishioka, right? Kenji Ishioka?”
“That’s the one! You friends?”
“Not at all. But my old man and Ishioka’s dad are fishing buddies. See, he told me that Ishioka’s dad was saying something about his son appearing on TV with some sort of ghost photos…if you follow.”
Kenji Ishioka and his gang of miscreants were the reigning punks of sixth grade. In fact, they were a terror to the entire student population of Joto Elementary School.
Most students, if asked, would reluctantly agree that the purpose of going to school was to learn. Ishioka’s gang hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant. They paid no attention in class. They entered and left the classroom as they pleased. They came late, left early, or simply didn’t show up—all as a matter of course. They stole other kids’ school supplies. They broke things. They bullied their classmates. They took lunch money. They were still in elementary school, but their antics were easily on par with the worst of the high schoollevel troublemakers.
The sad truth was that, these days, it wasn’t unusual to have one or two problem students of this caliber in every class. But Ishioka’s gang wasn’t confined to a single grade. They had “gone national” during a school festival last summer. Stealing the principal’s car, they drove recklessly through the school yard, chasing after younger students. By the end of their five-minute rampage, the festival was in chaos, and three students had been injured.
An emergency PTA conference was called the following day, and the principal explained what had happened. He ended up apologizing for his thoughtlessness in leaving his car unattended. The story went that the principal had broken his reading glasses at home, and had come to fetch a replacement pair from his desk in the teacher’s office. He was in a rush, ironically, to attend a teacher’s committee meeting on reducing misbehavior in school.
Though the kids actually driving the car had been in the grade above, one of the injured students was in Wataru’s class. That’s why Kuniko had attended the emergency conference. When she got home she was seething.
“Why was he apologizing? Doesn’t anyone find that odd?” she said with a scowl to no one in particular. “I can’t believe the principal has the gall to claim it was his fault for parking the car where he did. Parking a car isn’t the problem! It’s the kids who stole it and drove around the schoolyard that are the problem!”
Apparently, even at the conference, the majority of the parents had looked to the principal to take responsibility for what happened.
“They say that kids are mischievous by nature, and so it falls to adults to watch out for them. Insanity! I even heard someone saying how impressed they were that sixth-grade kids could drive so well! I swear, what is the world coming to?”
Ultimately, the three students’ injuries were little more than bumps and scrapes, and so the whole affair didn’t get any larger than that. No police were informed, the newspapers didn’t pick up the story, and the principal didn’t resign. In the end, the net result of the incident was that Ishioka’s ranks swelled, and their power over the rest of the school grew.
Still, Ishioka leading an expedition to take pictures of a ghost? It didn’t make much sense. Wataru couldn’t see the connection.
“Maybe all those sixth-graders wanted was to get on TV?” he wondered out loud.
“Probably so,” Noriyuki agreed, glancing sideways at the building. “I even overheard one of them say that if they didn’t get good pictures, they would just fake it with a computer.” He chuckled.
“No way,” Katchan shook his head. “So, did you run into them here too?”
“Sure did. But that time it wasn’t just kids. There were two adults with them.”
“Reporters, no doubt,” Mr. Daimatsu said, his arms folded across his chest.
Noriyuki nodded. “When they saw us, they pretended to be parents, but they had that sort of hungry look you see with people in television.”
Wataru looked over at Katchan. “You hear anything more about that from your dad?”
Katchan shook his head. “Last I heard was that Ishioka’s father was boasting they were scheduled to appear.”
“Did any of you see the program?” Noriyuki asked, an eyebrow raised.
“Nope,” Katchan shook his head. “Ishioka’s dad doesn’t come to the bar anymore—oh, and by the way, my parents run a bar,” he said, giving them his best bartender’s grin. “Maybe the show got canceled. My dad hasn’t said anything about it.”
“Or maybe it just hasn’t aired yet.”
“That’s a possibility. Television programs take more time to put together than you’d think. That’s probably it.”
A wind blew, rustling the blue tarps. They all tensed.
“Look at us!” Noriyuki said with a laugh. “We’re as bad as the ghost hunters.” Everyone’s gaze was turned up at the building. “We of all people should know best that there are no such things as ghosts, and certainly not here. You’re looking a bit pale, too, Dad.”
Mr. Daimatsu grinned sheepishly and scratched his head. Wataru had seen that gesture so many times this night already that he wondered if it wasn’t the scratching that had given Mr. Daimatsu his big bald spot.
“That’s right,” he said quietly. “If you’re going to be scared of something you should be scared of people. They’re much worse than ghosts.”
To Wataru, it sounded like a perfectly rational adult thing one might say to children afraid of ghosts. Still, Mr. Daimatsu and his son Noriyuki seemed embarrassed. They both looked down at the ground, as though they had said something they shouldn’t have.
“Time to go home.” Noriyuki walked around behind Kaori’s wheelchair, and undid the brakes.
“You get in,” Mr. Daimatsu said, waving toward the van. “We’ll give you a ride back to your homes.”
“We’re fine,” Katchan said quickly. “We live right over there.”
“None of that. It’s our responsibility now that we found you out here. It’s an adult thing, don’t you know,” the man added with a wink. “In you go.”
Ultimately, Wataru and Katchan were talked into accepting the ride. Wataru got in the van. His seat was right next to where Kaori sat strapped into her wheelchair. He could smell the shampoo scent of her hair. He felt that somehow he was too young by at least five years to be smelling a girl’s shampoo in the close confines of a car, but more than some sort of illicit excitement, he felt a pang in his heart. Kaori couldn’t move, couldn’t smile, couldn’t talk. She merely sat like a doll. And yet her hair smelled wonderful. It made it even more painful to see her pretty face, her skin the pure white of soap, and her delicately long and slender arms.
Because Bar Komura was closer, they dropped Katchan off first. Then they headed toward the apartment building where Wataru lived.
“You can just let me off at the corner.”
From the driver’s seat, Mr. Daimatsu chuckled. “You mean if we drive up in the car, it will make a noise, and someone might notice you snuck out at night?”
Wataru winced. “My dad gets home late every night, and I don’t want to run into him at the door.”
“But what if you get mistaken for a thief?”
In the end, they let him off on the street in front of his apartment. No one was at the entrance. The entire building was silent. Mr. Daimatsu and his son waited in the van until Wataru had reached the elevator door, then, flashing their headlights once, they drove off.
“You get caught?”
The following morning, Katchan came running up as soon as first period was over. “Let me guess: your mom was up when you got back, and she beat you within an inch of your life?”
Wataru shook his head. He had snuck quietly back into the house to find his mother still sprawled on the kitchen table, and his father not yet home.
“So you were totally safe! How come you look so sleepy then?”
“How could you sleep after that?”
“I zonked out as soon as I got home.”
“You amaze me, Katchan.”
Katchan gave his best innocent look. “So why couldn’t you sleep?”
Wataru had been thinking about Kaori. There was something about Mr. Daimatsu and Noriyuki that made him think they were hiding something. There was more to them, beneath the surface, and it aggravated him to not know what it was. The more he thought about it that night, the more agitated he became, and he couldn’t fall asleep until dawn.
“I dunno. They seemed pretty nice to me.”
“Oh, they were nice. Too nice.”
“How so?”
“Look, normally, when grown-ups find kids running around at a time and place like that, they get mad, right? But all they did was laugh. They didn’t even scold us a little bit.”
“Maybe they’re used to it, what with Ishioka and his gang already having been there.”
“It’s more than that,” Wataru said, staring blankly at his desk. This desk had been his since the beginning of the year. Whatever upperclassmen had used it before had left a present for him etched into the glossy wood finish of the top: the word “EVIL” written in all capital letters. What would possess someone to carve something like that? Wataru didn’t see the point.
“I’m sure that Mr. Daimatsu and his son had something far more serious on their minds than kids coming to play ghost hunter. Whatever it was, they were so wrapped up in thinking about it they didn’t even have time to worry about a few neighborhood brats. They were nice to us, because they didn’t care.”
Katchan scratched his head—his hair was cut so close it was almost a crew cut—and rolled his eyes in exasperation as if to say “there he goes again.” This had happened before. Wataru would be deeply concerned about something, and Katchan wouldn’t get it at all. It made Wataru frustrated, and several times he had snapped at his friend. It never occurred to him that, when he did so, his face looked exactly like his mother’s whenever she talked about those “Komuras and their filthy bar.”
“You think it has something to do with that girl, Kaori?” Katchan muttered. He said it quietly, as though he didn’t want Wataru to hear, but loud enough just in case he happened to be right.
Of course it does!
“Of course it does!” Katchan said, beating him to it. “How could it be anything else?”
That was my line, Wataru thought, growing more irritated. He was the one who figured it out, he was the one who saw behind their kindly façade.
“You think she’s sick?” Katchan said, even quieter than before. “It was weird, I mean, she looked fine, except she was all limp. I wonder why she doesn’t talk?”
Wataru thought. They had said they were taking her for a walk, but that was odd too. If she didn’t like other people around, why couldn’t they go to a park, or the ocean, or somewhere else? Why did they have to take her out in the middle of the night?
The unsettling thought occurred to him that her condition might have something to do with the haunted building. That would explain why Mr. Daimatsu snuck her out so late at night when they wouldn’t be noticed, and brought Kaori to such a strange place.
“Hey,” Katchan said, growing restless at his friend’s silence. “I asked my old man about Ishioka’s dad.”
Because of their profession, Katchan’s mother and father worked late every night. But they always made sure to get up early the next morning and eat breakfast together. “The family that eats together, stays together,” they would say. They loved those kinds of sayings: “One kindness every day,” and “Friendship is priceless”—things like that.
“He said he didn’t know. Ishioka’s dad hasn’t come to the bar for a long time.”
“Hmph,” Wataru snorted in response.
“So, we’re done with that haunted building, right?” Katchan said with a grin. “I wouldn’t be caught dead following in that jerk Ishioka’s footsteps.”
Wataru was silent. Katchan scratched his head again, said something about that being the end of that, and nodded goodbye before heading back to his own desk just as the beginning-of-period bell began to ring.
From his desk, Wataru could see the back of Katchan’s head. Katchan’s father cut his son’s hair himself with an electric shaver, and there was always a little bald spot. Every time he had it cut, the bald spot would move slightly to one side or the other, or change its shape. Katchan never complained. His father would laugh while he cut it, talking to Katchan and his mother, threatening to cut off Katchan’s ear if he moved.
Someone cut Kaori’s hair too. Wataru remembered how it smelled. That fresh, clean scent of shampoo. Someone washed her hair, shampooed it, tied it up in a ponytail. Maybe they talked to her—her face a silent mask. Probably it was her mother. She must be very sad. How horrible it must be to know that Kaori would never answer her. It was like she was dead, even while she still lived.
What had happened to her?
Wataru realized that he utterly lacked the means to imagine what life must be like in the Daimatsu household. He couldn’t even make a good guess.
The day passed by in a blur. When Wataru got home, Kuniko was in the living room, having draped laundry for ironing over every available surface. Her hands moved mechanically as she smoothed out dress shirts and pants, her eyes glued to the television the entire time. She didn’t have to look, she never made a crease. Akira always said she was the only person he knew who could make ironing a performance art.
Wataru’s usual homecoming routine was to call out a perfunctory “Hi, Mom, I’m home,” and go straight to his room. But this time he stopped, and spoke to his mom. “Have you heard anything lately about that haunted building next to the Mihashi Shrine?”
“Sorry?” she said, not turning around. It was unlikely she had even heard what he said.
“That half-built building, the one being put up by Daimatsu Properties, or someone. Have you heard that Mr. Daimatsu has a daughter in junior high?”
Kuniko slapped the creases out of a dress-shirt collar while shaking her head. “No, I hadn’t heard that.” For the briefest of moments she wrenched her gaze away from the television and looked down at her hands. Her fingertips ran along the collar, found a stray thread, picked it up, and threw it to the floor. She looked back to the television.
“Maybe your friend, the one whose husband is the real estate agent, would know something?”
Kuniko didn’t answer. She was watching an afternoon soap opera. On the screen, the heroine opened an unlocked apartment door and stepped inside a darkened room. A body was lying on the floor. She screamed and a commercial came on. At last, Kuniko looked up at Wataru. “What? Did you say something?”
Wataru almost went to ask again, but then felt suddenly like he didn’t want to. “It’s nothing,” he muttered.
“Strange child. There’s some cheesecake in the refrigerator. You have cram school today, right? You’re not going by bicycle. They’re doing repairs on Clover Bridge. Did you wash your hands? We’re out of mouthwash, but there’s a new bottle under the sink.”
It was times like this when Wataru fancied that, as long as he said his hellos and goodbyes, he could eat breakfast, go to school, and come back home a slobbering, hairy werewolf, and his mother wouldn’t notice a thing. He stood up to snatch his cheesecake and go to his room, when the phone rang.
“Could you get that?” Kuniko said. She couldn’t get up quickly from where she was sitting in front of the ironing board. He had heard her telling someone on the phone the other day that she had gained five pounds already this year, and it was hard for her to move around like she used to.
Wataru walked toward the phone hanging on the living room wall and picked up the receiver. “Hello, Mitani residence.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Still nothing but silence. He said hello again, and not hearing a response, he hung up the receiver.
“Wrong number?” Kuniko asked.
“Guess so.”
“We get those a lot lately. I answer the phone, and there’s nothing on the other end. So I hang up.”
Because he was by the phone anyway, Wataru thought about giving Katchan a call. He wanted to apologize for being such a grump today, and for running home without asking if he wanted to walk back together.
The phone rang again, and Wataru quickly picked it up.
“Hello?”
Again, nothing but silence on the other end. Wataru’s mood was blacker than it had been in a long time, and a sudden anger took control of him. Holding the receiver in front of his mouth he shouted into it, “If you’re not going to talk, than don’t call, idiot!”
He slammed the receiver back down on the hook, and saw Kuniko staring at him, eyes wide. She looked more bemused than worried.
Wataru couldn’t pay attention in cram school that day, either. Though he was normally an ideal student, he was scolded by the teacher no fewer than three times in a two-hour period. The third time, the teacher asked him whether he was feeling all right.
Wataru couldn’t say for sure. He found his mind wandering to the events of the night before. There was Mr. Daimatsu, gently patting the arm of the wheelchair, and Kaori’s slender neck lolling her head to the side. Her cheek was pale as wax, reflecting the color of the hastily draped tarps on the haunted building. Everything was permeated with the clean smell of shampoo. The same scene played over and over in his mind. Was she sick? Did she need help, or would she just get better? If she were a DVD player, she would definitely be in need of repair, but did humans work the same way? Wataru couldn’t say.
He walked home in a daze, and then it occurred to him to go past the haunted building. Since cram school was in the opposite direction from regular school, it was more than a long-cut. He would actually have to walk past his house to get there. Still, he wanted to see it again. He had made it back to the apartment building entranceway and would’ve kept on going if someone hadn’t called out to him.
“Welcome home, Wataru. Back from cram school?”
He looked up to see his father standing a mere ten feet away. He carried his bag in his right hand, in his left, a folded umbrella. Wataru remembered that the weather report said there would be rain showers downtown.
“Hi, Dad,” Wataru replied, walking toward his father. Akira turned and made for the entranceway without waiting for him.
“You’re home early today, huh?” Wataru looked down at the digital watch on his left wrist, which read 8:43. Beside the big numbers, smaller digits raced on the right side of the watch face, counting out hundredths of a second. The watch was a gift picked up on Akira’s business trip to Los Angeles the year before. It bore the logo of a popular U.S. basketball team. Wataru hated basketball, and as a result, he hardly ever wore the thing.
“School going well?”
“Yeah,” Wataru said, as usual. This particular exchange had formed the bulk of their conversation over the past year. Even if Wataru said something else, his father would probably just listen in silence. And even if Akira asked something more, Wataru would probably just say “Yeah” to that too. Probably. He didn’t know, because it had never happened. Akira Mitani was not a talkative man by nature. In contrast, Kuniko talked up a storm. According to Wataru’s observations, the ratio was about ten to one in his mother’s favor. If success in daily life and authority within the family were proportional to the amount one spoke, then the one who talked the most would win. In other words, Kuniko wore the pants in the family.
But when the conversation passed from the topics of daily life to more serious matters, things were different. Then, the usually taciturn Akira would become “argumentative,” as his grandmother in Chiba called it. The decision to buy their current apartment had been one of those times when he spoke up. So had he done when Kuniko thought to send Wataru to a private school. And again, when they had to decide if Wataru would go to a cram school. And he always had the last say when it came time to buying a new car. At these times, Akira would thoroughly research the problem at hand, think it through, and pick the most logical solution. There were no vague, touchy-feely factors involved, no “I think maybe we should,” or “Everyone else is,” or “That’s what’s expected of us.” If the subject in question were a new car, fuel economy and safety standards would be carefully scrutinized. If it were an apartment, the contractors, the living environment, all data would be analyzed, and there would be no questioning of Akira Mitani’s final decision.
Akira’s peculiar way of doing things had received quite a bit of attention ten years ago when his father passed away. The topic remained to this day a matter of discussion among their relatives. Even though Wataru was only a baby at the time, he had heard the story so many times at family reunions that he remembered the incident as though he had seen it himself.
Akira had shocked many of his relatives by refusing to conform to the “way things are done.” At his father’s funeral, he questioned the order of names on the invitation list. He questioned the gifts some people brought. He questioned everything. Apparently, it was quite a spectacle.
Eventually it was poor Grandma, in mourning because of her husband’s passing, who finally spoke to him. “Akira, there will be no more of this,” she said tearfully. “At least give your father the quiet funeral he deserves.” If she hadn’t intervened, their relatives said, the casket wouldn’t have left the house for a week.
With that one incident, Akira’s reputation was set among their relatives as an “intelligent man, quiet, and gentle enough…but when he gets going, watch out!”
“Of course, I knew that all along,” Kuniko would say, laughing.
Akira Mitani was not a scary father. Wataru could not remember ever having been yelled at or struck. So far, he had not even had to face his father’s ultimate weapon: the logical argument that others feared so much. Of course, this was partly because his father was too busy to spend time on family discipline.
There were things about his father that Wataru didn’t completely understand. But this had never bothered him. The door to his father was simply not open, nor would it probably ever be open, but as long as Wataru cared for whatever was beyond it, and his father cared for him back, that was enough.
Wataru even liked his father. In this world, where so many people liked nothing more than to talk about themselves—his friends, people on television, at school—he thought his father was cool to work so quietly all day. Like most children his age, Wataru had an image of his father that was nothing more than the image his mother, Kuniko, had of her husband, Akira.
Even if all Akira did was nod his head and listen, Kuniko seemed to love relating things she had found interesting to him, or things that had angered her. She would even run things by him that had already been decided. Wataru had been like that, too, as a child, always eager to talk. Lately though, he had hardened, like spaghetti prepared al dente, and become less a pure child and more something approaching a young adult. This new Wataru could simply say “Yeah,” when asked a question, and nothing more. Maybe that was the difference between men and women. Or maybe it was something that Kuniko didn’t have, that Wataru had gotten from his father’s genes.
Still, tonight, their usual exchange had left him feeling strangely unsatisfied. His thoughts stirred as they walked along the hallway to their front door. He suddenly found that he wanted to say many things to his father. Were there really such things as ghosts? If everyone truly believes something, and thinks something is interesting, even if it’s ridiculous, should I play along? If I don’t play along, will they hate me? You don’t think I should, do you, Dad? But they never called you names, did they? Even if something’s wrong and I know it, how do I do something about it without it turning into a fight? Will I be like you someday?
And what about Kaori Daimatsu—wordless, cut off from the outside world. Dad, she was just like…like a princess trapped in a castle tower in a video game. I didn’t believe such girls really existed. What’s wrong with her? Why can’t I stop thinking about her? Have you ever felt this way about something?
The words swirled in his head, but in the end they never found a way out, and now they were opening the door and going inside. Kuniko was busily explaining things to Akira, asking his advice, asking about work. It had been a long time since the three of them ate dinner together. His mother seemed very happy, and her happiness was infectious. Wataru hadn’t eaten a dinner that tasted so good in years.
Wataru stood to bring his plate and cup to the kitchen when the phone rang. He quickly went to pick up the receiver.
Silence.
“Not again,” Kuniko said, her chopsticks frozen in midair.
“Yup,” Wataru confirmed, hanging up the phone.
“We’ve been getting those a lot lately, those silent calls.” Kuniko furrowed her brow. “I don’t like it.”
Akira glanced at the phone. “They usually come around this time?”
“Usually they come during the day, in the afternoon—isn’t that right, Wataru?”
“Yeah. We had two in a row the other day.”
“Do you answer the phone usually, Wataru?”
“No, yesterday was the first time.”
Akira put his cup down and stared at the phone. “Maybe you should put it on the answering machine?”
Kuniko laughed. “It’s okay, it’s not like it’s a crank call, or some pervert. And if it was your mother calling and we let her talk to the answering machine, there’d be hell to pay.”
Akira smiled, knowing she was right. Wataru got an ice cream from the freezer, and a spoon from the drying rack, and was about to sit down when the phone rang again.
“I’ll get it!” he shouted, flying to answer it. He was going to give the caller a piece of his mind, like he had yesterday. But when he picked up the receiver with a loud “Hello?!” there was an answer.
It was a friendly, hefty voice. “Eh? Wataru? That’s quite a way to answer the phone!”
There was no mistaking the voice of Uncle Satoru. Wataru’s shoulders relaxed. “Oh, it’s you, Uncle Lou.”
“You sound disappointed! How you been, kid?”
“Fine.”
“You’re still going to school, right? You’re not playing hooky like those bad kids?”
“No, Not me.”
“You’re not getting bullied? They taking any money from you?”
“Not even a little,” Wataru said, laughing. “You’ve been watching those dumb news programs again.”
“Well, from what I hear, schools these days are worse than medieval dungeons!”
“I don’t know what that means, but I guarantee you it’s not all that bad,”
Wataru said, smiling despite himself.
“Well, if you say so. I suppose I shouldn’t believe everything I see on television. So, got a girlfriend yet?”
Wataru jerked upright. “Who, me?”
“It’s about time. You’re in fifth grade, right? You’re ripe for finding your first true love! Isn’t there any girl around that makes you go all a-tingle up your spine?”
Uncle Satoru always joked around on the phone like this. Wataru was used to the teasing. He usually laughed it off, but the girlfriend comment threw him for a loop. Wataru felt the heat creeping into his cheeks. When his uncle had said “any girl,” for the briefest of moments, the image of Kaori Daimatsu flashed through his mind. Those white cheeks. Those big, sad eyes.
“O-of course not,” Wataru said quickly, turning his back to his parents at the table. “There isn’t a single cute girl in my class.”
“Hmph, now there’s a tragedy.” Uncle Satoru hadn’t seemed to notice the wavering in Wataru’s voice. “So, is your mother home?”
“She is, and dad’s home early too.”
He heard an exclamation of surprise on the other end of the line. “Well, miracles happen every day. Get him on the phone, will you?”
“It’s Uncle Lou,” Wataru began, but Akira was already there, reaching for the receiver.
“Your uncle’s name is Satoru, not Lou.”
Satoru Mitani was Akira’s elder brother by five years. He had dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to take over the family business, and continued to work there to this day. In contrast to Akira, who went from college straight to life in Tokyo, Satoru would probably never leave the peninsula where they had grown up. He loved the sea, and boats, and fishing too much.
Though they were brothers, their personalities were one hundred and eighty degrees apart. Uncle Satoru talked up a storm, never lingering on one topic for long. His address was far, far away from where logic lived. At times, he didn’t even appear to be aware of its existence.
Nor did Akira and Satoru look at all alike. His father was of medium height, and slender, while his uncle was short and stocky. His father’s face was long, while his uncle’s was round and hardy. At forty-three, his uncle looked much the same as he had in preschool, which isn’t to say he looked young. Rather, he had looked like a jolly old geezer as a child, and now his age had finally caught up with his face.
Whether that was the problem, or whether he was merely too self-absorbed, Uncle Satoru had never married. Rumor had it that Grandma had fretted about it for years, but Uncle Satoru himself seemed not in the least concerned. Why would anyone want to get married, he wondered. Still, it wasn’t that he disliked children. He always got along fabulously with Wataru, even slipping him money to buy things on the sly now and then.
Wataru had two uncles on his mother’s side as well, so instead of just talking about his “uncle,” he had to call them all by different names to keep them apart. On his mother’s side, he would call his uncles by the place they lived, like “my uncle in Odawara,” or “my uncle in Itabashi.” But, for some reason, Uncle Satoru never became “my uncle in Chiba.” Wataru had called him Uncle Lou ever since he could remember, and continued to do so to this day, his father’s occasional reprimand notwithstanding.
Uncle Satoru had been calling about a memorial service or some other serious matter. Akira spoke with him at length, and though Wataru wanted to talk to him again when they were finished, he was sent out of the living room to take a bath before that happened.
His mother always said that she looked forward to baths as a time to relax. Most adults never had time alone, she said. Wataru knew it was the same for kids. Something about being in the tub sent the mind wandering places it couldn’t go during the busy day. Tonight, Wataru couldn’t help but think about Kaori Daimatsu—the silent princess in the tower. Had someone locked her up? Or was she hiding?
You’re ripe for finding your first true love!
Uncle Lou’s words played over and over again in his mind until Wataru saw his face redden, reflected in the water of the bath. He slapped at it, destroying the image with a sploosh that sent a wave rolling down the length of the tub.