The Graveyard Apartment (11 page)

After passing through the station gate, the majority of people who had gotten off the train with Teppei headed for the north exit and scattered into the night. Even though it was past midnight, the streets around the exit were still garishly aglow with the neon lights of pubs, ramen joints, specialty restaurants, convenience stores, and pachinko parlors. Sidewalk vendors of octopus fritters and
oden
had set up their carts just beyond the train station and were loudly touting their wares, trying to lure the passing inebriates into stopping for a snack on their wobbly way home.

The less popular south exit, by contrast, was quiet, and the rows of small shops had all been shuttered for the night. Only a couple of coffee shops remained open, with their electrified Coca-Cola signs casting a dim, rosy radiance over the nearly deserted street.

Teppei emerged from the south exit into the mild spring night. After pausing briefly to let the sweet, balmy air wash over him, he lit a cigarette and continued on his way. A single taxicab pulled up directly in front of him, and the rear passenger door flew open. A second later a female emerged from the backseat of the cab with such force that it almost appeared as though she'd been hurled from an ejector seat.

The woman was dressed in a blossom-pink kimono, and no sooner had she tumbled out onto the street than she angrily began to kick the side of the taxi with one dainty foot shod in a white wedge-heeled zori. “Get out of here, you jerk!” she shouted. “I never want to see you again!”

The taxi driver stuck his head through the open window and shouted, “You evil wench!” Looking as if he might leap out at any moment, he snarled, “You think you can ride for free and run off without paying?”

Wrenching open a small clutch purse, the woman pulled out some paper currency and tossed it through the window of the cab. “Here you go, you money-grubbing bastard. Are you happy now?”

“Crazy slut,” the taxi driver growled, baring his teeth. Opening his door, he came flying out onto the pavement, clutching the woman's money.

It looked as if things were about to get interesting, so Teppei decided to stop and watch the spectacle unfold. His lit cigarette dangled from his mouth, momentarily forgotten. A small crowd of passersby began to gather, forming a spontaneous ring around the combatants.

The woman seemed to draw energy from the growing audience, because she gave a disdainful snort of laughter and said haughtily, “Oh, are you really going to hit a woman now? Stupid jerk!”

The enraged driver glanced around at the onlookers, then let out a loud groan of frustration that sounded more wolflike than human. He was a rather plump man of fifty or so. Apparently he had spilled something oily on his brown slacks at some point, because a yellowish stain on one leg of his trousers was gleaming in the streetlight.

“If you want to play it that way, be my guest,” the woman taunted. “It would give me great pleasure to call the cops on you.” Glaring at the driver, she reached back to tidy the drooping bun at the nape of her neck, then resolutely patted her bangs into place, as if she were a modern-day gladiator preparing for battle. A ripple of titillated laughter ran through the crowd of onlookers.

The cabbie clenched both hands into fists and shook them angrily at the woman. “Damn you!” he roared, wadding up the yen notes the woman had given him and tossing them onto the road. “I don't want your filthy money. Just get the hell out of my sight, you disgusting piece of trash! I should never have stopped for the likes of you.”

Fuming, the man marched back to his taxi. He started up the engine with a roar and angrily stomped on the gas pedal. After lurching first back, then forward, the cab took off at top speed, tires screeching on the pavement.

The crowd of rubberneckers dispersed, chuckling among themselves. Grumbling loudly, the woman squatted to pick up the money that was lying on the street. After carefully smoothing out the bills, she stuck them into the lapel of her pink kimono. Teppei, who had been nonchalantly watching the proceedings (while pretending not to), began to walk away. From behind him he heard the woman mutter, to no one in particular, “Bastard!”

As Teppei was entering the deserted shopping arcade, which was bathed in the wintry light of mercury vapor streetlamps, he became aware of the woman's footsteps behind him. At first the cadence of her shoes striking the pavement gave an impression of anger and restlessness, but she must have been gradually calming down, because after a few moments it just sounded like someone trotting along with small, measured steps.

“Hey! You!” the woman called out. There were no other pedestrians in the vicinity, so Teppei slowed his pace and glanced over his shoulder. The woman was galloping toward him with arms akimbo, flapping the wide sleeves of her kimono like a giant bird. When he saw the disjointed way she was running, Teppei realized for the first time how very drunk she was.

As the woman drew closer to where Teppei stood waiting for her to catch up, she began to pant in a loud, theatrical manner. “Oh my god, I'm dying,” she wheezed. “I don't exercise enough, so I get out of breath right away. Anyway, hi there! Don't you live in the Central Plaza Mansion?”

“Yes, I do, but…” Teppei looked intently at the woman. The truculent expression she had worn during her confrontation with the cab driver had vanished, and in repose her rather sallow face appeared almost eerily sleek and expressionless, as though she had spent a great deal of money on expensive wrinkle creams and anti-aging procedures.

The artificial smoothness of the woman's skin made her age hard to judge, but Teppei thought she might have been about as old as Misao. No, on second glance, she was probably a few years older—maybe even pushing forty.

“Oh, thank goodness.” The woman smiled, crinkling her eyes the way a cat does when it yawns. “I noticed you in the crowd, and I knew right away that I'd seen you around the building.”

“You live there, too?”

“Yes,” the woman said, bobbing her head up and down like a child as she tried to catch her breath. “I'm Ms. Harashima, from apartment 502. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Perhaps she intended to give an elegant formal bow, but because she was so intoxicated her head seemed to loll aimlessly around on its stem like that of a broken doll.

Teppei wondered whether he needed to reciprocate by introducing himself. After a moment's thought, he decided to remain silent. He remembered Misao's mentioning that the hostess who lived on the fifth floor would be moving out in May, so really, what was the point of pursuing her acquaintance?

“I'm sorry to impose on you,” the woman said, “but would it be all right if we went the rest of the way together? I'm afraid to walk around this area by myself at night. To be honest, I'm not really a big fan of graveyards.”

“Sure, no problem,” Teppei said with a smile. He couldn't believe that a woman who had been prepared to engage in a knock-down, drag-out fight with a taxi driver in the middle of the street would be intimidated by a mere cemetery.

“Oh, thank you so much.” The woman sighed. “I always take a cab right up to the entrance to the building, but tonight that stupid shithead…” She spat out the words with undisguised rancor, then gave an embarrassed laugh and said in a considerably milder tone, “I mean, I just happened to get into a bit of a tiff with that unspeakable ass of a taxi driver.”

“Yes, what was going on back there, anyway?”

“Oh, it was just one of those things. I guess the driver was trying to flirt, or be funny, or something, but anyway he asked how much I would charge to add him to my ‘list of customers,' as he put it. That really teed me off, so I gave him a piece of my mind. I don't remember what I said, but right after that he pulled up in front of the station and told me to get out.”

“You showed a lot of spunk, standing up for yourself. It was really kind of awesome.”

“Well, I'm afraid I let my anger get the better of me, but I guess I came out ahead in the end. I mean, I got a free cab ride out of it, at least as far as the station. Luckily, I was able to find a handsome bodyguard to escort me the rest of the way.” As the woman staggered along she hooked one arm through Teppei's, and his nostrils were assailed by an almost unbearably intense aroma of hard liquor mixed with perfume.

“Actually, I've had a pretty disastrous night, all around,” the woman went on. “For starters, I got into an argument with someone at the club. Not with a client, with my boss. She isn't even the owner, she's just what they call a ‘hired mama,' but she acts like she's the queen of the world. She really is the worst. She's arrogant and overbearing, and—this is something you see a lot in my line of work—she doesn't care about anything except money. She never goes anywhere without her pocket calculator, and she's constantly docking my pay for the most trivial things. And she isn't just greedy. On top of everything else she's a total tightwad, too…”

The woman blathered on, badmouthing the “hired mama,” and as her agitation increased she clung ever more tightly to Teppei's arm.

“So anyway,” she concluded, “that's why I ended up coming home so early tonight. I usually don't get back until two or three in the morning. Oh, sorry, I've been making this all about me. What kind of work do you do? And what in the world made you decide to move into an apartment building that's more or less in the middle of a graveyard?”

“I work in advertising,” Teppei said. “And as for why we moved into the building, it's because the price was right.”

“I hear you,” the woman said. “It's amazingly cheap, that place. What happened in my case is that I got to be, shall we say, friendly with a certain customer at the club, and he bought me a unit there. Well, it would probably be more accurate to say that he bought a unit for himself, as an investment, but anyway, he's letting me live there rent-free, for now.”

“How long have you been in the building?”

“I moved in last year, not too long after construction was finished,” the woman said. She hiccupped delicately, then went on: “So, I guess it's been six months and a bit? But I'm moving out in May.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

“Wait, how did you know?”

“My wife heard about it from one of the resident managers.”

“Oh, that gossipy old hag? She's such a pain in the neck. Whenever I run into her, on Sundays or whenever, she always corners me and starts bombarding me with personal questions.”

As Teppei and his companion emerged from the shopping arcade, the Central Plaza Mansion was visible in the distance. Casually yet firmly, Teppei extricated his arm from the woman's grasp. They turned onto the narrow road that ran past the temple, where the outstretched branches of the blooming cherry trees sprinkled the path with a constant shower of petals. The unlighted alleyway was so dark and so quiet that they could almost hear each gossamer petal hitting the ground.

“Look, I don't like to be negative,” the woman said, “but you folks really ought to…” She paused to stifle another hiccup, then continued, “You really ought to move out, too. You have a child, right?”

“Yes, we do,” Teppei replied, although “have a child” struck him as a radical understatement. Tamao was a miracle: the priceless jewel he and Misao had created in an attempt to forget the past and get their lives back on track.

“Well, in that case, it's even more important for you to sell up and get out of that place, the sooner the better. I don't mean to spook you, but…”

“Wait, why should we move? Because one of the resident managers is a little bit obnoxious?”

“Don't be silly. That has nothing to do with it.” The woman licked her lips, then wrapped both arms around her torso and gave herself a hug. “Look, the thing is, the building we live in simply isn't a good place. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I happen to have a special sensitivity to the spirit world, and that building just gives me a really creepy feeling.”

Teppei laughed. “What, did you see a ghost or something? Or maybe some poltergeists dropped by from the graveyard next door? No, wait, maybe it's more like something from a science-fiction movie. You know, little green aliens from outer space?”

The woman didn't laugh, or even smile. Her face wore an expression of extreme solemnity, although the aura of gravitas was undermined by her ongoing case of the hiccups, which she seemed unable to control. “I'm not saying that I've actually
seen
anything,” she said. “It's just that I never feel comfortable in that building, and I haven't been able to settle in. What do they call it—bad vibes? Anyway, that's the way I feel there, all the time. It's hard to explain, but I can never really relax, and my nerves seem to be constantly on edge. Lately those feelings have been getting stronger, and sometimes late at night when I'm alone in the apartment, watching TV or just lying in bed, I get so frightened that I can hardly stand it. You probably think I'm foolish, or insane, but it's completely true. I've never talked to anyone about this, until now. It would be hard to explain without sounding like a crazy person, and they probably wouldn't believe me, in any case.”

She probably had a fight with her patron, and he's tossing her out on her ear,
Teppei thought cynically. Up ahead of them, on the left side of the road, a cluster of wooden grave markers came into sight, gleaming in the moonlight. Once again, Teppei laughed out loud. The things the woman had been saying were utterly outlandish, of course, but it still seemed like rather poor taste to introduce such topics while they were walking alongside a graveyard late at night.

“I imagine we'll be staying for a while,” he said. “I mean, sure, if we could save up and move to a better location in the near future, that would be nice. You know, someplace that didn't have a graveyard or a crematorium next door?”