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The girl
knew
that he was secretly watching her, that she was being photographed
by a hidden camera. He couldn’t say how, but Fuka-Eri knew this. Maybe she
understood it through some special tactile sense she possessed.
He really needed a drink, to fill a glass of whiskey to the brim and drink it down in
one gulp. He considered going out to buy a bottle. There was a liquor store right
nearby. But he gave it up—drinking wouldn’t change anything. On the other side of
the viewfinder, she had seen him.
That beautiful girl saw me, my misshapen head and
dirty spirit, hiding here, secretly snapping photos
. Nothing could change that fact.
Ushikawa left his camera, leaned back against the wall, and looked up at the
stained ceiling. Soon everything struck him as empty. He had never felt so utterly
alone, never felt the dark to be this intense. He remembered his house back in
Chuorinkan, his lawn and his dog, his wife and two daughters, the sunlight shining
there. And he thought of the DNA he had given to his daughters, the DNA for a
misshapen head and a twisted soul.
Everything he had done seemed pointless. He had used up all the cards he’d been
dealt—not that great a hand to begin with. He had taken that lousy hand and used it as
best he could to make some clever bets. For a time things looked like they were going
to work out, but now he had run out of cards. The light at the table was switched off,
and all the players had filed out of the room.
That evening he didn’t take a single photo. Leaning against the wall, he smoked
Seven Stars, and opened another can of peaches and ate it. At nine he went to the
bathroom, brushed his teeth, tugged off his clothes, slipped into the sleeping bag, and,
shivering, tried to sleep. The night was cold, but his shivering wasn’t just brought on
by the cold alone. The chill seemed to be arising from inside his body.
Where in the
world did I come from?
he asked himself in the dark.
And where the hell am I going?
The pain of her gaze still stabbed at him. Maybe it would never go away.
Or was it
always there
, he wondered,
and I just didn’t notice it?
The next morning, after a breakfast of cheese and crackers washed down by instant
coffee, he pulled himself together and sat back down in front of the camera. As he did
the day before, he observed the people coming and going and took a few photos.
Tengo and Fuka-Eri, though, were not among them. Instead it was more hunched-over
people, carried by force of habit into the new day. The weather was fine, the wind
strong. People’s white breath swirled away in the air.
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