EDGE (12 page)

As soon as she was free, Saeko yanked her panties back up and fixed her skirt. Then she kneeled on the bed and glared down at Toshiya. Roiling now with anger, indignity, and fear, she was unable to scream at him for a lack of words. Instead, she simply fixed him with a look of pure reproach. Then, all at once, she burst into tears.

“Was it something I did?” she sobbed. Her first thought was that
somehow, she was to blame.

Toshiya rolled over on the carpet, rubbing his jaw with an expression of incomprehension. His white briefs were bunched at his knees along with his track pants, and his erect penis peeked out, still half-shrouded in foreskin. But it was visibly withering, like a separate organism cut off from its main body. Toshiya began to weep. Of course Saeko was upset, but Toshiya, too, was overcome with tremendous regret.

“I’m sorry, sensei …” he choked, coughing and burying his face in his hands. Pathetically, his need to hide his face was greater than that of hiding his groin. Saeko’s intense rebuttal had shattered his naïve, self-serving delusions.

Toshiya’s good-for-nothing teenage friends had probably filled his head with garbage about how women responded well to men who took forceful action. With no experience of the opposite sex, he had based his warped ideas of how women functioned solely on the misguided theories of his equally ignorant pals. Or perhaps they had ridiculed him for being a virgin and he felt unable to back down. Teenagers’ most outrageous actions were usually motivated by the need to impress their peers.

Already a young adult, Saeko was out of touch with the unbalanced emotional state of adolescence. She still saw Toshiya as the sixth grader he’d been when they’d first met. She had never imagined that the maturing Toshiya harbored romantic feelings for her. Surely there had been indications, but her persisting image of Toshiya as a child had prevented her from recognizing them. If only she had, she might have been able to avert the crisis at an earlier stage without driving Toshiya to utter humiliation.

Even though both of them could have made better choices, it didn’t change the fact that their sibling-like relationship had been completely destroyed. Even after Toshiya’s apology, the mood between them remained strained.

If Saeko knew how Toshiya had overcome his humiliation and used it as a fodder for growth, perhaps she could rebuild her relationship with him. Toshiya was no taller than he had been in high school, and his weight hadn’t changed much either. Even at the age of twenty-nine, his skin was still as smooth as a child’s. His sex appeal was still nil—it was possible that he remained a virgin even now.

Without meaning to, Saeko found herself comparing Toshiya to her ex-husband. Unlike Toshiya, her ex had actually been something of a ladies’ man, but Saeko’s relationship with both of them had not
ended well. Having recently analyzed the root cause of her marriage’s failure, whether or not a damaged relationship could ever be repaired loomed large in her mind once again.

“How’s your dissertation coming, Toshiya?” Saeko inquired, shaking away the lingering image in her mind.

“It’s coming along.”

Saeko had heard from Kitazawa that Toshiya had completed his graduate coursework at the same university. He was working at the detective agency while he wrote his dissertation. He hoped to land a post at the university, but there were a number of other post-docs as well, and competition was steep even for non-tenure-track positions. Meanwhile, as a specialist in information theory, his skills were in high demand at Man Search.
There’s no information my boy can’t find
, Kitazawa boasted.

“Speaking of which, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” Saeko said. “What’s the connection between information theory and black holes?”

Both were major themes in Saeko’s father’s postcard. He’d jotted those notes in 1994, and science had advanced quite a bit over the last eighteen years. Though schooled in both science and philosophy, Saeko’s absence from the halls of academia had left her behind the times.

“What brought that on?” Toshiya widened his eyes dramatically, using exaggerated surprise to conceal his delight that Saeko would consult him about his field of expertise.

“Well, I’m working on a science-related article at the moment, and I was just wondering …” Saeko replied evasively.

“Is that so? Black holes and information theory? That’s easy! They have a lot to do with each other!” Toshiya tapped his head with his finger and made thinking sounds. “Hmm … Hmm … Please excuse me for a moment.”

He ducked out of the room. After about ten minutes, he returned with a document in English, printed in full color.

“Here, read this. It’s an article that appeared in
Scientific American
last year, by the renowned physicist Jack Thorne. It specifically addresses the relationship between information theory and black holes.”

Accepting the article, Saeko was unable to conceal her amazement at Toshiya’s ability to instantly produce the exact information she was looking for.

Kitazawa had been observing the exchange. “That looks like some complicated material there, little lady.” He squinted at the article.

Right now, Saeko needed help from both father and son. She needed Kitazawa’s support for her missing persons search and Toshiya’s assistance in deciphering the meaning behind her father’s message. Clearly, she stood a much better chance at success if she had help. Toshiya was the perfect person to provide objective analysis of Saeko’s approach—something she desperately needed.

It was a pleasure to witness a former pupil’s progress, even if solely in academic terms. No doubt her father would have liked to see the same in her, Saeko mused.

9
Saeko made her way down the corridor of Car 5 of the Super Azusa express train for Matsumoto, checking once more the number on her ticket and scanning the rows for her business-class seat. There it was—but Saeko froze when she recognized the face of the elderly woman in the seat next to hers. Immediately, she began to regret not having ridden with the caravan of vehicles that had departed Tokyo the night before.

Originally, Saeko had been scheduled to ride out with the crew. But due to a looming deadline, she’d arranged to delay her departure by a day, pulling an all-nighter and rushing to catch the express train this morning. The assistant director, Sakai, had purchased her a reserved seat and handed her the ticket on the platform. But Saeko had never been warned that she was to be seated next to Shigeko Torii, the famous psychic.

She’s tiny …

That was Saeko’s first impression. Saeko was an average-sized woman, but she was still a whole head taller than Shigeko Torii. The woman was so petite that a business-class ticket seemed almost pointless; no doubt she would have been perfectly comfortable in an ordinary seat. Also, Saeko seemed to remember Shigeko Torii being younger, but in person her face was puckered with deep wrinkles, her hair was white with thin patches here and there, and the skin underneath was mottled with dark blotches. She looked about eighty years old.

“Excuse me.” Saeko bowed politely as she sat down.

“I’m Shigeko Torii,” the old woman responded, twisting her upper body to face Saeko. Assistant Director Sakai must have informed her that they would be sitting together.

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Kuriyama. I’m a reporter.”

Saeko retrieved a business card from her bag and passed it to Shigeko Torii. The old woman accepted it politely with both hands, like a child
being presented with an award certificate. She stared at the card for almost a full minute, even though it was printed only with Saeko’s name and contact details without so much as a job title.

Shigeko Torii’s hands trembled as she held the card, but Saeko wasn’t sure why. On the one hand, the elderly woman looked like an alcoholic experiencing DTs. Then again, it could have been some sort of minor nervous disorder. Not just her fingertips, but her jaw trembled slightly as well. On television the psychic seemed much more bold; in person she was so tiny and unsure.

Saeko didn’t relish traveling all the way to Ina next to this woman. She couldn’t relax; the old woman gave her goose bumps. It was as if Shigeko Torii’s entire body radiated some sort of unique energy.

Saeko found herself wondering if the assistant director had deliberately chosen to travel economy class. When a television crew traveled by train to cover a story, it was customary for the talent to travel business class while the rest of the staff rode in economy. As a collaborator on the project, it would have made sense for Saeko to travel economy too, but for some reason Sakai had bought her a business-class seat. Perhaps Shigeko Torii had asked him to. Perhaps she’d wanted someone to talk with, and Sakai had offered up Saeko as a human sacrifice.

Torii looked up from the business card and looked into Saeko’s eyes, first one and then the other. She exhaled sharply through her nose and retrieved her bag from the floor, setting it atop her knees.

“It must be very hard for you, all alone.”

The comment was cryptic, but it made Saeko gasp. It was as if the old woman had used Saeko’s card as a window to peer into her heart.

Biting solitude … The summer eighteen years ago when Saeko’s life had changed forever …

Or was it just a lucky guess?

In either case, Saeko didn’t appreciate having her past dredged up. The thought of enduring two hours of unsolicited mind-reading made her shudder. And even though she was exhausted from her all-nighter, she could hardly abandon the old lady to take a nap.

Saeko foundered, uncertain of how to respond. Meanwhile, Torii extracted a travel cup of sake from her purse and opened the lid. She slurped it loudly, and the scent of sake filled the air. Immediately, the old woman’s fingers stopped shaking. It was DTs after all.

“Would you like some?” Torii offered Saeko the cup she’d just sipped from.

“No, thank you. I don’t drink.”

“Liar,” Torii shot back with a mischievous smile.

It was true. Saeko did drink. In fact, for a woman, she had a fairly high tolerance. Lately, she couldn’t sleep at night without a drink.

Once again, Saeko was at a loss for words, and she felt her body grow stiffer. She wanted to diffuse the tension somehow but was unsure of how to begin.

True to her profession, Saeko had done her homework on Shigeko Torii as soon as she’d learned that the psychic would be involved in the project. Born in 1944—a moment ago, Saeko had perceived the old lady to be over eighty, but in fact she was sixty-eight.

Torii was fifty when she’d risen to prominence as a psychic, a year after she’d acquired her powers through a painful event. She had witnessed the tragic death of her only child—a son who had been born to her at the somewhat late age of thirty-eight—in an accident at a railway crossing.

Torii and her son, who had just turned ten at the time, were both on bicycles at a railway crossing in their local shopping district. Just as they were crossing the tracks, the chimes rang to announce that a train was on its way. Torii was certain that her son was following her; she could hear him behind her on his bicycle, she later said. But as the boy scrambled to keep up with his mother, the wheel of his bicycle slid on the tracks and he fell off.

When Torii noticed there was nobody behind her, she doubled back towards the tracks just as a red train whizzed past. Right before her eyes, all four of the boy’s limbs were torn from his body and launched through the air. Torii let out a piercing shriek as she witnessed her son’s instant death.

A witness later testified that Torii’s scream hadn’t been that of a human being.
Kwaah!
The piercing, sharp cry had echoed forth and seemed to rise up into the heavens, skewering a fast-moving cloud on its way.

Foaming at the mouth, Torii had fallen to her knees on the asphalt. She lost consciousness and was transported to the hospital, where she awakened three days later.

It was then that Torii’s hair turned white and fell out in clumps. She also took to drinking each day from morning until night.

After the funeral, Torii insisted that her son was still near and refused to acknowledge his death no matter what her family said. She could still hear his voice. If only everyone else could hear it too, they would believe
her, Torii decided. So she consulted with an
itako
of Mt. Osore—blind female shamans reputed to have the power to commune with the dead. Much to Torii’s surprise, when she reached Mt. Osore, the
itako
informed her that Torii herself had come into possession of unusual powers. She could see into a person’s past merely by touching an object that belonged to them.

It didn’t take long for word of her powers to spread. Disbelievingly, the director of a TV station approached Torii for an interview and brought with him an old pair of glasses. Torii touched the frames lightly before responding with three impressions of their owner.

The glasses had belonged to an elderly woman who was now dead. The woman had done work related to Noh or Kyogen theater. She had undergone cataract surgery once and had been wearing the glasses when she died.

All three conjectures were right on the mark. The glasses had belonged to the director’s late grandmother to whom he had been very close. A year earlier, she had suffered a heart attack at home in her bathroom, and by the time help reached her it had been too late. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, still wearing her glasses. Her husband was a critic of the traditional Japanese theater arts, and she had often attended performances with him and aided him in reviewing Noh and Kyogen performances. Finally, she had undergone an operation once for cataracts.

The first statement about the owner being an older woman who had already passed away could have been a lucky guess based on the old-fashioned style of the glasses and their convex bifocal lenses. But it was hard to explain how she might possibly have assessed the other two points. In particular, the part about doing work related to Noh or Kyogen theater seemed like such an unlikely idea for someone to come up with on the fly that the director came away quite strongly convinced of Torii’s psychic abilities.