The Elephant Vanishes (3 page)

But this passage has neither entrance nor exit, and leads smack into a cinder-block wall at one end and a chain link fence at the other. It’s not even an alleyway. For starters, an alley has to at least have an entrance. The neighbors all call it “the passage” for convenience sake.

The passage meanders between everyone’s backyards for about six hundred feet. Three-foot-something in width for the most part, but what with all the junk lying around and the occasional hedge cropping in, there are places you can barely squeeze through sideways.

From what I’ve heard—this is from a kindly uncle of mine who rents us our house ridiculously cheap—the passage used to have an entrance and an exit, offering a shortcut across the block, street-to-street. But then, with the postwar boom years, new homes were built in any available space, hemming in the common ground to a narrow path. Which ushered in the none-too-inviting prospect of having strangers walking through backyards, practically under the eaves, so the residents surreptitiously covered the entrance. At first an innocent little bush barely disguised the opening, but eventually one resident expanded
his yard and extended his cinder-block wall to completely seal it over. While the corresponding other aperture was screened off with a chain link fence to keep the dogs out. It hadn’t been the residents who made use of the passage to begin with, so no one complained about its being closed at both ends. And anyway, closing it wouldn’t hurt as a crime-prevention measure. Thus, the path went neglected and untrafficked, like some abandoned canal, merely serving as a kind of buffer zone between the houses, the ground overgrown with weeds, sticky spider webs strung everywhere a bug could possibly alight.

Now, why should my wife frequent such a place? It was beyond me. Me, I’d only set foot in the passage one time before. And she can’t even stand spiders.

Yet when I try to think, my head’s filled to bursting with some gaseous substance. I didn’t sleep well last night, plus the weather’s too hot for the beginning of May, plus there was that unnerving telephone call.

Oh, well, I think, might as well look for that cat. Leave later developments for later. Anyway, it’s a damn sight better to be out and about than to be cooped up indoors waiting for the telephone to ring.

The spring sun cuts clean and crisp through the ceiling of overhanging branches, scattering patches of shadow across the ground. With no wind, the shadows stay glued in place like fateful stains. Telltale stains sure to cling to the earth as it goes around and around the sun for millennia to come.

Shadows flit over my shirt as I pass under the branches, then return to the ground. All is still. You can almost hear each blade of grass respiring in the sunlight. A few small clouds float in the sky, vivid and well formed, straight out of a medieval engraving. Everything stands out with such clarity that I feel buoyant, as if somehow my body went on forever. That, and it’s terribly hot.

I’m in a T-shirt, thin cotton slacks, and tennis shoes, but already, just walking around, my armpits and the cleft of my chest are drenched with sweat. I’d only just this morning pulled
the T-shirt and slacks out of storage, so every time I take a deep breath there’s this sharp mothball smell, as if some tiny bug had flown up my nose.

I keep an eye peeled to both sides and walk at a slow, even pace, stopping from time to time to call the cat’s name in a stage whisper.

The homes that sandwich the passage are of two distinct types and blend together as well as liquids of two different specific gravities. First there are the houses dating from way back, with big backyards; then there are the comparatively newer ones. None of the new houses has any yard to speak of; some don’t have a single speck of yard space. Scarcely enough room between the eaves and the passage to hang out two lines of laundry. In some places, clothes actually hang out over the passage, forcing me to inch past rows of still-dripping towels and shirts. I’m so close I can hear televisions playing and toilets flushing inside. I even smell curry cooking in one kitchen.

The old homes, by contrast, hardly betray a breath of life. Judiciously placed hedges of cypress and other shrubbery guard against inquisitive eyes, although here and there you catch a glimpse of a well-manicured spread. The houses themselves are of all different architectural styles: traditional Japanese houses with long hallways, tarnished copper-roofed early Western villas, recently remodeled “modern” homes. Common to all, however, is the absence of any visible occupants. Not a sound, not a hint of life. No noticeable laundry, either.

It’s the first time I’ve taken in the sights of the passage at leisure, so everything is new to my eyes. Propped up in a corner of one backyard is a lone, withered, brown Christmas tree. In another yard lies several childhoods’ worth of every plaything imaginable—a virtual scrap heap of tricycle parts, a ringtoss set, plastic samurai swords, rubber balls, a toy turtle, wooden trucks. One yard sports a basketball hoop, another a fine set of garden chairs and a rattan table. By the look of them, the chairs haven’t been sat on in months (maybe years), they’re so covered
with dirt; the tabletop is rain-plastered with lavender magnolia petals.

One house presents a clear view into its living room through large glass sliding doors. There I see a kidney-shaped sofa with matching lounge furniture, a sizable television, a cellarette topped with a tank of tropical fish and two trophies of some sort, and a decorator floor lamp. It all looks as unreal as a set for a TV sitcom.

In another yard, there’s a massive doghouse penned in with wire screening. No dog inside that I can see, though. Just a wide-open hole. I also notice that the screening is stretched shapeless, bulging out as if someone or something had been leaning into it for months.

The vacant house my wife told me about is only a little farther along, past the one with the doghouse. Right away, I can see it’s vacant. One look tells you that this is not your scant two-or three-months’ absence. The place is a fairly new two-story affair, yet the tight shutters look positively weather-beaten and the rusted railings around the upstairs windows seem about ready to fall off. The smallish yard hosts a stone figurine of a bird with wings outstretched atop a chest-high pedestal surrounded by a thicket of weeds, the taller stalks of goldenrod reaching clear to the bird’s feet. The bird—beats me what kind—finds this encroachment most distressing and flaps its wings to take flight at any second.

Besides this stone figurine, the yard has little in the way of decoration. Two beat-up old vinyl chaises are parked neatly under the eaves, right next to an azalea blazing with ethereally crimson blossoms. Otherwise, weeds are about all that meets the eye.

I lean against the chest-high chain link fence and make a brief survey of the yard. Just the sort of yard a cat would love, but hope as I might, nothing catty puts in an appearance. On the rooftop TV aerial, a pigeon perches, its monotone carrying everywhere. The shadow of the stone bird falls across the tangle
of weeds, their blades cutting it into fragments of different shapes.

I take a cigarette out of my pocket, light up, and smoke it, leaning against the fence the whole while. The pigeon doesn’t budge from the aerial as it goes on cooing nonstop.

Cigarette finished and stamped out on the ground, I still don’t move for the longest time. Just how long, I don’t know. Half asleep, I stare dumbly at the shadow of the bird, hardly even thinking.

Or maybe I am thinking, somewhere out of range of my conscious mind. Phenomenologically speaking, however, I’m simply staring at the shadow of the bird falling over stalks of grass.

Gradually I become aware of something—a voice?—filtering into the bird’s shadow. Whose voice? Someone seems to be calling me.

I turn around to look behind me, and there, in the yard opposite, stands a girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen. Petite, with short, straight hair, she’s wearing dark sunglasses with amber frames and a light-blue Adidas T-shirt with the sleeves snipped off at the shoulders. The slender arms protruding from the openings are exceedingly well tanned for only May. One hand in her shorts, the other on a low bamboo gate, she props herself up precariously.

“Hot, huh?” the girl greets me.

“Hot all right,” I echo.

Here we go again, I think—again. All day long it’s going to be females striking up conversations with me, is it?

“Say, you got a cigarette?” the girl asks.

I pull a pack of Hope regulars from my pocket and offer it to her. She withdraws her hand from her shorts, extracts a cigarette, and examines it a second before putting it to her mouth. Her mouth is small, with the slightest hint of a curl to her upper lip. I strike a match and give her a light. She leans forward, revealing an ear: a freshly formed, soap-smooth, pretty ear, its delicate outline glistening with a tracery of fine hairs.

She parts her lips in the center with an accomplished air and lets out a satisfied puff of smoke, then looks up at me as if she’s suddenly remembered something. I see my face split into two reflections in her sunglasses. The lenses are so hideously dark, and even mirror-coated, that there’s no way to make out her eyes.

“You from the neighborhood?” the girl asks.

“Yeah,” I reply, and am about to point toward the house, only I can’t tell if it’s really the right direction or not. What with all these odd turns getting here. So—what’s the difference, anyway?—I simply point any which way.

“What you been up to over there so long?”

“I’m looking for a cat. It’s been missing three or four days now,” I explain, wiping a sweaty palm on my slacks. “Someone said they saw the cat around here.”

“What kind of cat?”

“A big tom. Brown stripes, a slight kink at the end of its tail.”

“Name?”

“Name …?”

“The cat’s. It has a name, no?” she says, peering into my eyes from behind her sunglasses—at least, I guess she is.

“Noboru,” I reply. “Noboru Watanabe.”

“Fancy name for a cat.”

“It’s my brother-in-law’s name. My wife’s little joke. Says it somehow reminds her of him.”

“Like how?”

“The way it moves. Its walk, the sleepy look in its eyes. Little things.”

Only then does the girl smile. And as she lets down her façade, I can see she’s much more of a child than I thought on first impression. The quirky curl of her upper lip shoots out at a strange angle.

Caress
, I can swear I hear someone say. The voice of that telephone woman. Not the girl’s voice. I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.

“A brown-striped cat with a kink in the end of its tail, huh?” the girl reconfirms. “Wearing a collar?”

“A black flea collar.”

The girl gives it a cool ten-, fifteen-second think, hand still resting on the gate. Whereupon she flicks the stub of her cigarette to the ground by my feet.

“Stamp that out for me? I got bare feet.”

I conscientiously grind it out under the sole of my tennis shoe.

“That cat, I think I just may have seen it,” she phrases guardedly. “I didn’t get as far as noticing the tip of its tail, but yes, there was a brown tom. Big, probably wearing a collar.”

“When did you see it?”

“Yeah, when was that? I’m sure I must’ve seen it lots of times. I’m out here in the yard nearly every day sunbathing, so one day just blends into the rest. But anyway, it’d have to be within the last three or four days. The yard’s a cat shortcut, all kinds of cats scooting through all the time. They come out of the Suzukis’ hedge there, cut across our yard, and head into the Miyawakis’ yard.”

So saying, she points over at the vacant house. Same as ever, there’s the stone bird with outspread wings, goldenrod basking in the spring rays, pigeon cooing away on the TV aerial.

“Thanks for the tip,” I tell her.

“Hey, I’ve got it, why not come into the yard here and wait? All the cats pass this way anyhow. And besides, if you keep snooping around over there, somebody’s going to mistake you for a burglar and call the cops. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But I can’t just hang around waiting for a cat in somebody else’s yard.”

“Sure you can, like, it’s no big deal. Nobody’s home and it’s dead boring without someone to talk to. Why don’t we just get some sun, the two of us, until the cat shows up? I’ve got sharp eyes, I’d be a real help.”

I look at my watch. Two thirty-six. All I’ve got left to do today is take in the laundry and fix dinner.

“Well, okay, I’ll stay until three o’clock,” I say, still not really grasping the situation.

I open the gate and step in, following the girl across the grass, and only then do I notice that she’s dragging her left leg slightly. Her tiny shoulders sway with the periodic rhythm of a crank grinding mechanically to the left. She stops a few steps ahead of me and signals for me to walk alongside her.

“Had an accident last month,” the girl says simply. “Was riding on the back of someone’s bike and got thrown off. No luck.”

Two canvas deck chairs are set out in the middle of the grass. A big blue towel is draped over the back of one chair, and the other is occupied by a red Marlboro box, an ashtray, and a lighter tossed together with a large radio-cassette player and some magazines. The volume is on low, but some unidentifiable hard-rock group is playing.

She removes the clutter to the grass and asks me to sit down, switching off the music. No sooner am I seated than I get a clear view of the passage and the vacant house beyond. I can even see the white stone bird figurine and the goldenrod and the chain link fence. I bet she’s been watching me from here the whole time.

The yard is large and unpretentious. The grass sweeps down a gentle slope, graced here and there with plants. To the left of the deck chairs is a sizable concrete pond, which obviously hasn’t seen much use of late. Drained of water, it presents a greenish, discolored bottom to the sun, like some overturned aquatic creature. The elegant beveled façade of an old Western-style house, neither particularly large nor all that luxurious, poses behind a stand of trees to the rear. Only the yard is of any scale or shows any real upkeep.