The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories (12 page)

“If that was the case, what would you think?”

“Hmm. Kind of flattered, kind of sad…” answered Akiko in a singsong voice.

The more Sawaki talked to her, the more he felt irritated. He felt like he was discussing the plot of a romantic movie, not a young man who had just committed suicide.

Changing the subject, he asked her about the toy monkey.

“No idea,” she said flatly. “I never gave him anything.”

“Really?”

“Really. He meant nothing to me, so why would I give him a present? Weird.”

Sawaki was lost for words. It seemed the desk editor had got it completely wrong. Sawaki should have felt vindicated, but instead he just felt even more baffled.

He had forgotten all about the desk editor's instructions to goad Toku into slapping Akiko's face. He felt utterly wrong-footed by the contents of the letter being so different to what he had imagined. Far from gaining any insight into Shinkichi Yoshizawa's suicide, he felt even further from the truth. He was no closer to goading Toku into anything. After reading the letter, Toku herself merely asked Akiko, “Would you be so kind as to let me have this letter?”

Toku wanted to return to Hokkaido right away, but Sawaki pressured her into staying one more day. For what it was worth, he reported the encounter with Akiko Shimojo back to the desk editor. At this rate, it did not look as though he would ever get a story.

After hearing Sawaki out, the desk editor put an unexpectedly bright face on things. “Come on, cheer up!”

Sawaki said glumly, “I just don't understand young people today.” It was the truth. He had considered himself young, but now he felt a chasm had opened up between him and the younger generation. He had no better understanding of the young bartender Miyamoto than he did Akiko Shimojo. More than anything, he had no idea what had been going on in Shinkichi Yoshizawa's head. How could anyone write such a naively optimistic love letter just before killing himself?

“Oh, I understand them alright,” laughed the desk editor. “Not that I sympathize with them, mind you. It's just that their way of thinking is simple.”

“But how are we supposed to interpret that last letter? It was obviously a love letter, and a wildly optimistic one at that—”

“That's easy. You're trying to read too much into it. Youngsters these days don't think that deeply about things. Shinkichi Yoshizawa is simply trying to show his best side to a girl he likes. That's all. Like you said, it's a rooster shaking its crest at a hen.”

“I know that. What I don't understand is why someone about to commit suicide would send off such a sweet letter. It's so different from the other two letters, don't you think? First of all—”

“No, I don't think so,” interrupted the desk editor with a frown. “They might look different at first glance, but they do have one thing in common.”

“What's that?”

“The fact that he wanted an answer from them. In all the letters, he asked them to reply, or even come to Hokuriku, within the week.”

“That's true, but—”

“I think what Shinkichi Yoshizawa wanted to convey in the letter was probably just that: please reply, please join me. That's all. Everything else was just a way to get the addressee's attention. So for Kiichiro Fujishima he starts off by thanking him effusively for the previous response, and he tells his mate Miyamoto that he is so brave—”

“And Akiko Shimojo that she looks like that actress.”

“Exactly.”

“But why was he so desperate for a reply? Would getting a reply have stopped him from killing himself?”

“This is only conjecture, but I reckon that Shinkichi Yoshizawa made a bet with himself.”

“A bet…?”

“Uh-huh. There's nothing to suggest suicide in the letters. But he does sound lonesome. It is sometimes said that the worst thing for all the kids brought in from the provinces to work in Tokyo is the sense of isolation. Shinkichi Yoshizawa must also have felt that he was all alone here. And what he must have wanted more than anything else was assurance that he wasn't alone—so to get that assurance, he wrote to the three people he trusted most. In other words, he made a bet.”

“So you're saying he lost the bet?”

“Yup. He probably thought that if he received just one reply he would try to make a go of things again.”

“That's an interesting idea, but…”

“But what?”

“If that's the case, why didn't say he was going to kill himself? If he had written that he would kill himself unless he received an answer, the chances of getting a reply would have been higher, wouldn't they?”

“You're forgetting about self-respect,” chuckled the desk editor. “A twenty-year-old has a strong sense of pride. That would have been going too far—and getting a reply after threatening them with suicide would hardly count as winning a bet now, would it.”

The desk editor seemed pretty confident of his opinion. Sawaki thought that there might indeed be something in it—and if so, then it followed that had just one person replied or gone to Hokuriku, Shinkichi Yoshizawa would be alive today. If they ran an article with the headline “Youth wagered life on three letters,” they would effectively be denouncing Kiichiro Fujishima, Miyamoto, and Akiko Shimojo. Indeed, thought Sawaki, all three certainly bore some of the responsibility for Shinkichi Yoshizawa's death although none of them appeared to realize it.

But there were still too many unanswered questions. What was the significance of the toy monkey? What feelings was Toku concealing behind her stony expression?

“I still don't understand why he killed himself,” shrugged Sawaki.

“Perhaps he just couldn't handle the tough life in the city,” suggested the desk editor.

“But he's from Utoro!”

“Utoro?”

“It's on the north-eastern tip of Hokkaido. I've never been there, but looking on the map it's midway up the Shiretoko Peninsula. It's a fishing village on the Sea of Okhotsk, and is hemmed in by ice floes during the winter. It hasn't even got a railway!”

“You're preaching to me about the geography of Hokkaido?”

“What I'm trying to say is that Shinkichi Yoshizawa was born and raised in a harsh natural environment. Life in Tokyo can't be that tough, can it? I just don't get it.”

“If that's how you feel, then why don't you accompany Toku Yoshizawa when she goes home?”

“I would like to,” said Sawaki vaguely. “But unless she loosens up, I still won't have a story. Also, I can't help thinking the reason for Shinkichi's suicide has got to be in Tokyo…” he concluded doubtfully.

“I guess you're right,” said the desk editor, nonchalantly countering his own proposal. He probably had not intended it to be taken seriously in the first place.

The next day, still feeling ambivalent, Sawaki saw Toku off at Ueno Station. Her expression was as hard as ever. As they waited for the train to depart, Sawaki showered her with questions in an attempt to elicit something that he could use for an article, but all he could get out of her was a repeated, “Thank you for all you've done.” At this rate he had nothing to gain by going back to Hokkaido with her, he thought.

Just as the train was about to depart, he casually said, “Do come back to Tokyo sometime!”

He had expected a simple “Thank you” by way of answer, but Toku said forcefully, “No, I won't,” and shook her head. “I never want to set foot here ever again!”

Sawaki felt as though he had been slapped across the face. It was the first time Toku had ever shown any anger, and it was directed at Tokyo, the city that had caused the death of her only son.

“Mrs. Yoshizawa,” he said hastily, but the train started moving and Toku slammed the window shut. She did not look back.

Sawaki stared in astonishment as the train departed. Coming to his senses, he raced to the nearest public telephone, grabbed the receiver and dialed the number for the newspaper.

“Is that the desk editor? I'm getting the next train for Hokkaido.”

Sawaki had often felt he would like to see the ice floes of the Sea of Okhotsk. Now that very scene was there before his eyes. A huge white mass blanketed the port and the coast, and the brief patches of seawater appeared strangely black. Locked in ice, the sea looked as if it had given up any pretence of functioning as a sea and was plunged in a deep sleep.

It was not just the sea that was asleep. The land, too, was under deep snow and the villages appeared immersed in slumber. There was no sign of people.

Due to the snow, the train arrived several hours late in Shari. The last bus to Utoro had long since departed, and so Sawaki had to make do with a horse-drawn sled.

The strong wind along the coastal road prevented the powdery snow from accumulating, making the road icy. It was freezing. The Hokuriku coast had been cold too, but this was on another level altogether. The wind on Sawaki's face was so cold it hurt. He concentrated all his energy on huddling up his body on the sled and keeping his face hidden. He doubted he would survive even a single day in such a place. Nature here was too cruel. Shivering on the sled, he again felt the same doubt welling up. Why would anyone raised in such a harsh natural environment be defeated by life in Tokyo?

Utoro was an impoverished fishing village, a row of humble shack-like dwellings clinging to the shore. Toku Yoshizawa's house was one of these.

By the time Sawaki got off the sled, his body was frozen through. The wind blowing in from the sea sent the snow whirling up, while the Shiretoko mountain range loomed behind.

This is not a place for human habitation
.

Here there were just mountains and sea, thought Sawaki. And the sea is dead, closed in by ice. The sense of isolation would probably drive him out of his mind.

Toku greeted Sawaki with a look of surprise and took him to sit by the sunken hearth. Sipping the hot tea she made him, he at last began to feel himself again.

Adding some more wood to the fire, Toku said, “I was just about to burn those letters.” The stony expression she had worn in Tokyo was gone without trace.

“You're not going to put them in Shinkichi's grave?” asked Sawaki, warming his hands over the flames.

Toku smiled. “That's what I thought at first, but then I worried he might feel humiliated even in death. That wouldn't do.”

“I see what you mean,” agreed Sawaki. Indeed, those three letters that had remained unanswered could only be hurtful for the dead youth.

Toku threw the three letters into the flames, one by one. Within seconds they were burned to cinders. Sawaki felt a pang in his chest at the sheer speed at which they had disappeared.

Toku sat for a while in silence stirring the ash with the tongs, then got up and went into the other room, coming back with an old wooden apple crate. Inside were Shinkichi's diary and books, which she also planned to burn. When he heard the word “diary,” Sawaki asked if he might take a look.

The diary consisted of three close-ruled school notebooks. They were not a continuous record, but rather a series of random jottings with much blank space between. While Sawaki ran his eyes over the pages, Toku ripped up the magazines and books and fed them little by little into the flames. In the intermittent flares of light, Sawaki continued reading.

He did not come across any passages that particularly stood out. Most of it was conventional, and tedious to read. There were the usual pretentious comments typical of teenagers.

In the third notebook there was a poem. No, he was not sure you could call it a poem. It was too clumsy, too full of youthful angst.

I like it here

Summer is short and winter long
Harvests are lean and nature harsh
But I like it here
Why?

Because here nature calls to me
Like in a fairytale world
The murmuring treetops startle me,
The fish from the sea
Play hide-and-seek in the rock pools
And when the snow piles up higher than the roofs
I make a snowman and it beams at me
Then in summer
When I fall asleep on the beach
All the clouds in the sky
All the fishes and birds
Even the wind from the north
All together they envelop me
With their noisy chatter
And so
I like it here

Sawaki skimmed through it not paying much attention, but then something struck him and he hastily turned the page back. Reading it another two or three times, he got the feeling that there was something extraordinarily meaningful in this poem.

Nature in Utoro was cruel. Yet according to this poem, Shinkichi Yoshizawa had not felt lonely here. Here nature was always talking to him, but perhaps in Tokyo the artificial environment had not spoken to him at all?

Could it be that Shinkichi had been consumed by loneliness even while surrounded by people? The city that never spoke to him, as he wrote in his letter to Miyamoto, must have been as claustrophobic as being shut up in a small box. Without nature to talk to him, the only means of escaping the loneliness was to find a mentor, friend, or lover with whom he could converse. That was why he had written those three letters. But just like Tokyo's artificial environment, they too failed to answer him. That was why…