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allowed in the building. Once the old man was gone, Ushikawa was suddenly struck
by a sense of impotence.
This surveillance is going to end up being a waste of time
, he
decided.
My intuition is worthless, and all the hours I’ve spent in this vacant room are
leading me exactly nowhere. All I have to show for it is a set of frayed nerves, worn
away like the bald head of a Jizo statue that passing children rub for good luck
.
After twelve Ushikawa ate an apple and some cheese and crackers, and a rice ball
with pickled plum inside. He then leaned back against the wall and fell asleep. It was
a short, dreamless sleep, yet when he awoke he couldn’t remember where he was. His
memory was a perfectly square, perfectly empty box. The only thing in the box was
empty space. Ushikawa gazed around the space. He found it wasn’t just a void, but a
dim room—empty, cold, without a stick of furniture. He didn’t recognize the place.
There was an apple core on an unfolded newspaper next to him. Ushikawa felt
confused.
Why am I in such a weird place?
Finally it came to him, and he remembered what he had been doing: staking out the
entrance to Tengo’s apartment.
That’s right. That’s why I have this single-lens reflex
Minolta with a telephoto lens
. He remembered the old man with white hair and long
ears out for a walk alone. Like birds flying home to their nests at twilight, memories
gradually returned to the empty box. And two solid facts emerged:
1 Eriko Fukada has left.
2 Tengo Kawana hasn’t come back yet.
No one was in Tengo Kawana’s third-floor apartment. The curtains were drawn,
and silence enveloped the deserted space. Other than the compressor of the fridge
switching on from time to time, nothing disturbed the silence. Ushikawa let his
imagination wander over the scene. Imagining a deserted room was a lot like
imagining the world after death. Suddenly he remembered the NHK fee collector and
his obsessive knocking. He had kept constant watch but never saw any trace that this
mysterious man had left the building.
Could he be a resident here? Or was it someone
who lived here who liked to pretend to be a fee collector to harass the other
residents? If the latter, what would possibly be the point?
This was a very morbid
theory, but what else could explain such a strange situation? Ushikawa had no idea.
Tengo Kawana showed up at the entrance to the apartment building just before four
that afternoon. He wore an old windbreaker with the collar turned up, a navy-blue
baseball cap, and a travel bag slung over his shoulder. He didn’t pause at the entrance,
didn’t glance around, and went straight inside. Ushikawa’s mind was still a bit foggy,
but he couldn’t miss that large figure.
“Welcome back, Mr. Kawana,” Ushikawa muttered aloud, and snapped three
photos with the motor-drive camera. “How’s your father doing? You must be
exhausted. Please rest up. Nice to come home, isn’t it, even to a miserable place like
this. By the way, Eriko Fukada moved out, with all her belongings, while you were
gone.”
But his voice didn’t reach Tengo. He was just muttering to himself. Ushikawa
glanced at his watch and wrote a memo in his notebook.
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