Paprika (19 page)

“Otherwise you’re in good health, then?”

“Physically? Sure. We have a health check every year,” Konakawa replied firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I’m sure there isn’t …” Noda noted that Konakawa’s thrift with words hadn’t changed.

“Sounds as if you’re interrogating me …”

Noda laughed out loud, but Konakawa still wore the same faint smile.

“But anyway, it can’t be good for you to be losing sleep all the time …”

Even the expressionless Konakawa nodded sadly at this. “That’s true. My sleeping and waking rhythms are all over the place. And I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Your appetite too?” That explained why he was so thin. “So this must be getting in the way of your job? …”

“Right,” Konakawa said, almost as if to mock his own predicament. “But you know … In the force, once you’ve got your qualifications, you just continue on your set path. Promotion, promotion, promotion. Unless you have to stand down because of some blunder.”

“Really …” Noda stared vacantly at Konakawa’s face. He’d never imagined that working for the Metropolitan Police Department could be so undemanding as Konakawa seemed to suggest. But now it sounded like the kind of place where “blunders” were committed all the time. By all except the most talented, that is.

They drank on in silence for a minute or two. Kuga served the next round of drinks without a word, a smile of great joy on his face.

“So your work’s going well, then?”

“Well, you know …” Konakawa clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but started to let his story out in morsels. “The Chief Commissioner is always meeting government officials, top people, you know. But the Deputy Chief Commissioner – I mean, the one who’s just been promoted to Chief Commissioner – well, he not only lacks charm but he’s also a poor talker. So, more and more, I’m being asked to attend functions in his place.”

“You cut quite a commanding figure, that’s for sure.” Noda cast an eye over his friend’s appearance – all proper and correct in a manly way, the very image of the classic Japanese male. “So is that a problem for you?”

“Well, it’s getting in the way of my main job,” said Konakawa. “And anyway, I’m not exactly a great speaker myself, am I.”

“No, but I’d say that’s your strong suit,” Noda laughed. “I mean the fact that you’re not always yakking on about things. People may say you’re the silent type, but surely that’s desirable in your line of work?”

Konakawa declined to answer. He was clearly dissatisfied with himself.

Eventually he spoke again. “All I want is to be good at my job.”

“And aren’t you?” Noda decided to remind his friend of his past exploits. “What about the serial shootings in Kami Kitazawa?”

“That’s the only case I ever solved,” Konakawa said with a grimace. “Why do people keep going on about it?”

“Come on. You’re being too hard on yourself, aren’t you? After all, you just said you’d get promoted without doing anything.”

Konakawa fell silent again. Noda felt there was nothing more he could do to help. “Of course, you do know that sleeplessness and loss of appetite can be caused by psychological factors?” he said slowly, choosing his words with care.

“Yes. I’m sure they are,” Konakawa replied lifelessly.

“Right. And do you want to cure your condition?”

“I’ll be in trouble if I don’t.” A look of skepticism started to appear in Konakawa’s eyes.

“All right then. Would you let me arrange the treatment?”

“Treatment? You mean a psychiatrist?” Konakawa gave his friend a withering look and shook his head. “Or a psychoanalyst? Out of the question. I’d be finished if people knew I was seeing one of those.”

“Yes. I know exactly what you mean,” Noda said, nodding vigorously. “That’s why I’m asking you to let me arrange it. Do you think I’d suggest such a thing without considering the delicacy of your situation? Of course not. But what if I could guarantee that no one would ever know about it? Come on. Let me introduce you to someone. What have you got to lose?”

“You seem very confident!” Konakawa laughed, letting down his guard. “Who, then?”

“A therapist,” Noda replied as he leant across the table. “Have you ever heard of Paprika?”

“Paprika? The spice?”

“Paprika, the therapist.”

“Strange name for a therapist. No, I haven’t.” Konakawa shook his head as if it were of no concern to him. That was his customary way. He appeared not to have heard the rumors about Paprika.

“All right, you must have heard of the Institute for Psychiatric Research?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Konakawa showed a spark of interest this time. “It’s got one of the best psychiatric hospitals in Japan. As a sister facility, that is. And two of its staff have been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.”

“Physiology
or
Medicine.”

“Aha.”

“And do you know the Administrator, Torataro Shima? He did medicine at our university. I’ve known him since senior high.”

“I don’t know anyone who did medicine.”

“Well, there’s this woman called Paprika who works for him. She’s actually the best psychotherapist there is.”

“Woman?” A bald expression of uncertainty suddenly appeared on Konakawa’s face. Noda remembered that his friend had always held a certain mistrust of women.

“Shima introduced me to her. She cured me of a mental illness.”

Even Konakawa had to be interested now. He cast a questioning look at Noda. “Mental illness?”

“Don’t worry. It was only anxiety neurosis,” Noda said, and proceeded to tell his friend the whole story.

20

Atsuko returned to her apartment in a state of fatigue. It was nearly midnight when she and Tokita had given up their search for Himuro and the DC Minis. Himuro lived with his parents in Saitama. Atsuko had phoned them, but he wasn’t there. She had gradually become convinced that he’d been locked away somewhere. She’d slipped the master key from the nightwatchman’s room and tried all the other rooms in the Institute, but Himuro was nowhere to be found.

Tokita had confirmed Atsuko’s fear about the DC Mini – it didn’t have a protective code to block unauthorized access. If word got out that they’d lost such a potentially dangerous device, there would be public outrage. For that reason, they could ill afford to take others into their confidence; their only option was to continue the search unaided.

Torataro Shima was their only conceivable ally. They decided to ask his advice the following morning. Unreliable as he was, he would surely understand the gravity of the situation once they’d explained it to him. He would surely keep it confidential. What’s more, a word from him would authorize them to search the wards on the fifth floor of the hospital, which were closely guarded and had been inaccessible that evening. This was the conclusion the pair had reached on their way back to the Institute apartments in Atsuko’s Marginal. Tokita lived with his mother on the fifteenth floor, in a large apartment with a fine view – the one directly below Atsuko’s.

As she soaked in a hot bath, Atsuko started to wonder if Himuro might actually be somewhere in the same building. He could have been taken to Osanai’s apartment, or Hashimoto’s, or one belonging to some other lackey of Seijiro Inui. Both Osanai and Hashimoto were single; their apartments were on the fifteenth and fourteenth floors. The senior members of the Institute staff who lived in the building had a tacit understanding that they would respect each other’s privacy. The unspoken rule was that they would keep away from each other’s apartments. Atsuko only spoke to Shima when they met at the Institute; she had never once visited his apartment, even though it was on the same floor as hers.

In any case, Shima was not the man she desperately wanted to meet and ask for guidance. It was Tatsuo Noda. He was the only person who sprang to mind as someone she could really depend on at this time. She was not overestimating his qualities simply because she’d started to fall in love with him. She even thought he could serve as the Institute’s next auditor. Atsuko didn’t know what qualifications were needed to fill such a post, but he was the type who would instantly spot anything untoward in the accounts. In fact, Atsuko thought she might propose this to Shima the very next day.

Above all, she wanted to open her heart to Noda, share her bag of troubles with him, ask his advice, borrow some of his wisdom. He could guide her in the ways of dealing effortlessly with all the complex relationships and internal conflicts at the Institute. She knew he would listen to her plea and extend a helping hand. Because he loved her.

No!
Atsuko shook her head in denial.

That was exactly why she
shouldn’t
ask his advice. Had she not always depended on her own guile, her own wits, never those of others? Surely she could never do anything so pathetic as to ask the advice of a former patient. Noda had problems of his own. To take advantage of his feelings toward her and beg for his help, without a thought for those problems, would make her no better than those self-centered young women she observed all around her.

That notion acted like an alarm bell, set off by the realization that she would fall helplessly in love with Noda if she were to meet him again. She could ill afford that kind of entanglement in her current straits. Atsuko resolved to banish all thought of Noda from her mind forthwith.

The telephone rang in the living room. Phone calls at this hour were always from the media, or people related to the media. They were usually from people who’d called the Institute during the day and had been refused a connection, but knew that Atsuko would be home later that night. She wrapped herself in a bath towel and went to pick up the phone.

“Atsuko Chiba.”

“Ah – this is Tatsuo Noda.”

Unbelievable. The man she’d just banished from her mind was calling to say “
You can’t do that!
” In her state of fatigue, Atsuko had answered the call with the gravelly voice of an old woman. Noda didn’t seem to realize he was speaking to Paprika in person.

“You want Paprika? All right. She’ll be with you in a moment.” Now Atsuko was deliberately trying to sound old. She went back to the bathroom, dried herself properly and threw on her gown. If Noda didn’t know he’d been speaking to Paprika, who did he think she was? He must have seen the name Chiba outside the door to her apartment, and must have assumed it to be Paprika’s surname. Did he think the old woman was related to Nobel Prize candidate Atsuko Chiba? Did he know nothing about Atsuko at all? Or did he know the whole truth about everything?

Atsuko returned to the telephone, smiling to herself at the oddness of the situation and her undeniable feeling of joy.

“Hi there. Good to hear from you.” By now it was second nature for Atsuko to raise her voice half a tone when transformed into Paprika. The joy she felt at this unexpected call from Noda raised it another half tone. She expected him to ask who had answered the phone. What would she say if he did? That her mother was visiting, or something? But it didn’t matter. Noda was far too discreet to ask.

“Paprika – is it OK to talk? This might take a while …”

“It’s cool. I’m not doing anything.”

She wanted to ask where he was calling from, but followed his example and kept the thought to herself. She could hear no music or voices in the background; she thought he might be calling from his study at home.

“Good. It’s just that … there’s something I want to ask of you.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Well, first, I want to thank you. My condition seems completely cured. The personnel problems at work have all been resolved, and my old friend Toratake wasn’t dead after all.”

“Result!” Some of Noda’s exhilaration seemed to have rubbed off on Atsuko, or Paprika, as she now was. An almost dreamlike sensation of delight encircled her. “So you imagined the whole thing?”

“It seems so.” Without going into detail about how he’d discovered the truth of it all, Noda immediately moved on to the matter at hand. “Now, as it happens, I have a good friend, someone with a very important standing in society … I wondered if you’d be prepared to treat him.”

Noda had only known her as Paprika, and had clearly assumed that her job was to analyze people individually using PT devices. Atsuko could hardly blame him for that. Now she was caught in two minds. As Atsuko Chiba, she simply couldn’t afford the time. But as Paprika the dream detective, her alter ego, she could find no excuse to refuse his request.

“What’s wrong with him?” It would surely do no harm to ask. After all, his condition might be so mild that a personal appearance from Paprika wasn’t required.

“He says he can’t sleep and has lost his appetite. But I think there’s more to it than that. He seems terribly depressed. He won’t speak and his expression never changes. It doesn’t seem like a problem that’ll just go away.”

“Have you tried to cheer him up?”

“Well, I took him for a drink and got him to talk about it. But it was as if he was in a trance. And then he says there’s nothing particularly wrong with him …”

These were classic symptoms of clinical depression. A person at this level of depression will rarely react to diversions, attempts to console or encourage, nor even to persuasion or threats.