The Graveyard Apartment (15 page)

Sharp objects, sharp objects: maybe something like a worn-out straight razor that someone had carelessly tossed out, or a pocketknife, or a kitchen utensil? Teppei didn't find anything of the sort. Apart from the furniture and other items locked away in the storage compartments, the only things lying around the basement were a few bundles of old newspapers and a pile of cardboard boxes containing some kind of dubious “health food,” left behind when the corporate occupants of 201 moved out. Evidently no one had ever bothered to come back for those boxes.

It occurred to Teppei that a shard of glass might have been lurking unnoticed on the floor, but he made a complete circuit of the basement with his eyes peeled and didn't see a speck of glass. There was no sign that any of the fluorescent overhead lights had been cracked or broken, and all the serpentine pipes on the ceiling appeared to be intact, as well.

In the end, Teppei concluded that it was probably just as the doctor had surmised. The children had been running around outdoors and, by chance, Tamao had been in the path of a sudden, coruscating surge of wind laden with sharp pebbles (or something), but she didn't notice the so-called weasel slash on her knee until after she and her friends had gone to play in the basement.

Later, Teppei and Misao were able to piece together what had happened by cross-referencing Tamao's version of events with the accounts of Tsutomu and Kaori, who had also been on hand. At the time of the accident—or at least, at the point when Tamao collapsed near the back wall—the three children had been playing by themselves in different parts of the basement.

Tsutomu had been roaring around on his old tricycle, while Kaori was leading Cookie on the leash, pretending they were out for a walk. As for Tamao, she was using Tsutomu's plastic toy pistol to knock on the doors of the storage lockers, one by one, in an impromptu variation on the popular Japanese game of “Knock-Knock Tag,” in which children march around calling out, “Hello, is anybody home?” the way adults do when they pay unannounced visits.

Since they were all engaged in solitary pursuits, nobody was watching Tamao when she sustained the injury—or, in keeping with the doctor's theory, when she finally realized she was bleeding. The odd thing was that the injured party herself kept insisting that she had no idea what caused the cut on her knee, or when the accident took place. According to Tamao, she was playing at the back of the basement when she suddenly felt cold all over. She happened to glance down and saw blood gushing out of her knee. The wound hadn't yet begun to hurt, so the pain must have kicked in a couple of minutes later.

As Tamao stood there, completely befuddled, Cookie bounded up to the wall with a great burst of energy. Kaori was flustered because the leash had just been ripped out of her hands, and she came running after the dog. Cookie proceeded to go berserk, growling and barking and jumping around as if she'd taken leave of her senses.

Tsutomu arrived on the scene a minute later. He and Kaori were both so unnerved by the dog's bizarre behavior that, in his words, “We thought maybe Cookie was sick or crazy or something.” The Inoue children had been actively afraid that the dog might attack them, so in his role as a protective big brother, Tsutomu put his arms around Kaori and held her close. After a minute Tsutomu looked around to make sure Tamao was safe, and that was when he noticed her sitting on the floor nearby, covered with blood and wearing a dazed expression.

Tamao must have begun to feel the pain right about then, because she started to bawl at the top of her lungs. Galvanized into action, Tsutomu ran over to the elevator, hopped on, and rushed upstairs to tell his mother.

In his quest for the truth, Teppei had also questioned Eiko Inoue and both the Tabatas, but they'd been unable to cast any light on the mystery of what had caused Tamao's injury. Tamao herself remembered almost nothing, and there was no one else to talk to.

Teppei didn't think there was any chance that the children were lying when they claimed to have been in the basement the entire time. If they had been playing outdoors, there would have been no reason to conceal that information, but they were all adamant about the fact that they hadn't set foot outside on that particular afternoon.

There's something weird about this building.
Teppei kept remembering his unsettling conversation with the bar hostess who lived on the fifth floor, on that balmy cherry-blossom night when they'd walked home from the station together. Although he didn't recall her exact words, he knew she had said something like, “I can't understand why anyone would want to use that horrible basement. You couldn't pay me to go down there. I don't mean to spook you, but you really ought to sell your apartment and move away from here as soon as you can…”

That was just the booze talking,
Teppei assured himself as he returned his attention to the newspaper he had been holding during this lengthy reverie.
Why am I even thinking about such things?

He firmly believed that everything in life could be explained away as happenstance. Tamao's accident was simply a freakish confluence of unusual coincidences. True, the doctor did say it was unlikely that a weasel wind could develop indoors, but if that wasn't what happened, then what did? Did the air itself somehow become sentient and three-dimensional, and slice Tamao's knee to ribbons with malicious intent? That was absurd, of course. No, there had to be a reasonable scientific explanation. Maybe some kind of atmospheric aberration, like a chance convection of incoming air, had created a powerful vortex. The air in the basement was always still and stagnant, so some other air must have flowed in from outside and created that curious phenomenon, just for a few minutes. Yes, that must be how it went down …

Misao, meanwhile, seemed to have bought into the doctor's explanation that the injury was caused by a sudden, shard-laden wind that had kicked up out of nowhere. Or rather, she was making a concerted effort to believe the “weasel slash” theory. As for Teppei, he had no desire to beat that particular dead horse anymore. The important thing was that Tamao was safe; there was no need to obsess about what had caused her injury. It was just one of those things where no matter how long and hard you thought about it, you would never be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

“Honey?” Misao said as she emerged from the kitchen, and Teppei lowered his newspaper in response. Tamao was still sitting on the sofa with her leg propped up, watching a cartoon on TV. Keeping a maternal eye on Tamao, Misao walked over to where Teppei was sitting.

“Listen,” she said quietly, “don't you think we ought to drop in on Mr. Shoji, to say thanks and let him know how Tamao is doing?” Her tone sounded slightly on edge or, at best, businesslike. Either way, Teppei thought it was probably just because she was tired.

“Do you really think that's necessary?” he asked. “Besides, he's probably moved away by now.”

“No, he's definitely still around. I was on the balcony this afternoon and I saw him going out. I haven't run into him since the day of the accident, and it's been bothering me that we haven't at least gone down to pay our respects.”

“‘Pay our respects'? What could we possibly say to him? I mean, are you proposing that we drop in and say something like, ‘Thank you very much for magically getting the elevator to move the other day'? You can't be serious. That would be like bowing down to some divine being with supernatural powers.”

“You can laugh, but it really did seem like magic at the time. Eiko said the same thing. Mr. Shoji laid both his hands on the elevator doors and chanted something, and a few seconds later the elevator started to move. I wish you could have been there. I swear, everyone was speechless with astonishment.”

“It was just coincidence,” Teppei said shortly. He was starting to get a bit annoyed. What was it with everybody these days (though if he was honest he had to include himself, as well), thinking and talking about weird supernatural stuff all the time? They were like a gaggle of elementary school students sitting around the campfire on an overnight field trip, squealing with terror over spurious tales of ghosts and monsters. “It was coincidence,” he said again. “The elevator had some kind of temporary electrical glitch, and it just happened to straighten itself out at that exact moment.”

“Hmm. I wonder.”

“There's nothing to wonder about. I'm telling you, that's what happened. Apparently your Mr. Shoji is just some kind of tiresome meditation teacher or something, trying to cash in on the human appetite for pseudo-spiritual baloney. He probably sized up the situation and saw it as a chance to impress some potential customers by showing off his so-called skills. I mean, a lot of people seem to be susceptible to that kind of con artist these days. And then before long he starts bragging about seeing apparitions and communicating with spirits beyond the grave. Charlatans like that are only ever interested in the ‘other side': which is to say, in something that exists only in people's wishful imaginations. In reality, the dead are just that—dead—and it's simple consideration toward those who have passed on to accept that fact. All that matters is the here, and the now, and the people who are still alive.”

“I know, I know,” Misao said. Her words carried a complex undertone: gentle, but also subtly reproving. “I understand what you're trying to say, I really do. We've both come this far believing that this is all there is, and what matters is the here and now. That … thing that happened a long time ago…”

Teppei nodded quietly, then took a long, deep breath as if in preparation for what he had to say next. “As long as you understand where I'm coming from, that's all I need,” he said gently. “You know me—I'm a rationalist at heart, and I'm simply not willing to acknowledge the possibility that a supernatural realm might exist. It's just absurd to imagine that there's a crowd of dead people and their ilk milling around on some other plane. I mean, let's face it: life is complicated enough when you only have to deal with the living.”

Nodding in agreement, Misao rubbed abstractedly at a spot on the dining table. “Quite aside from that, on a human level, I still think it would be rude to just let Mr. Shoji move away without saying a word of thanks,” she persisted. “I mean, we dragged him into our emergency situation the other day, and he did his best to help out.”

“So you intend to go down there and pay your respects, after all?”

“Yes, but can we please go together and pay
our
respects? I really feel as though that's the least we can do.” Misao turned to face Teppei. Holding his gaze with her own, she said candidly, “Look, someone may or may not have made the elevator move by meditation, or the power of his mind. Or maybe it was pure coincidence, as you say. Whatever happened, it has nothing to do with Reiko, or the afterlife, or anything like that. Isn't that right?”

Teppei pondered for a moment, then broke into a grin. “Yes,” he said, reaching out to take Misao's hand in his. “You're absolutely right, as usual.”

Misao chuckled, but her smile was strained, and her laughter sounded oddly brittle.

 

9

April 23, 1987 (evening)

Teppei and Misao left their daughter on the couch, drowsily watching television, and went down to the fourth floor to call on Mr. Shoji. When they rang the bell, he opened the door and greeted them in a friendly, relaxed way.

Standing on the doorstep, Misao inclined her head in a slight bow and said formally, “Thanks to you, everything turned out well the other day. Our daughter is doing fine now, and her injury is healing right on schedule. We just wanted to stop by to express our gratitude, and to apologize for any inconvenience or worry we might have caused.”

From the depths of the apartment, the faint aroma of incense floated down the interior corridor and drifted through the open door. Mr. Shoji blinked once or twice, and his rosy-fleshed mouth twitched behind his whiskers in a spasmodic way, like some restless mollusk. “I'm very glad to hear that the injury wasn't anything too serious,” he said at last. “And it puts my mind at ease to hear that I was able to render assistance, however small.” Some crumbs from a cookie or cracker had evidently become lodged in the man's bristly mustache, but he still managed to project an aura of quiet dignity as he bobbed his head up and down in a congenial manner.

Teppei thought he sensed an undertone of arrogance about the way the man delivered those ostensibly humble words. Standing silently next to Misao on the doorstep, he stared long and hard at Mr. Shoji, whom he was meeting for the first time.

Misao, meanwhile, was thinking:
I can just imagine what my husband is going to say when we get home. Probably something like, “That guy seems to think he's some kind of miracle-working guru. I wouldn't be surprised to see him in one of those late-night infomercials on TV, peddling his psychic wares and spewing gibberish about how he saved a child's life with his magical superpowers.”

The truth was, Misao's own thoughts were running along those lines, as well. She was finding it difficult to believe that the man standing in front of them now was the same impressive person who had worked his magic on the stalled elevator the other day. Maybe it was because she had been half insane with worry about Tamao. At any rate, that afternoon in the lobby, this same man had struck Misao as saintlike, or even godly. No, check that; it would probably be more accurate to say that he had seemed like the kind of supernaturally powerful being you read about in mythology and folk tales. But the person who stood in front of them now just appeared to be a drab, unexceptional middle-aged man with crumbs in his mustache.

Misao felt a wave of disappointment as she realized that her initial impression of Mr. Shoji as a man who possessed some special occult power might have been miles off the mark. Perhaps he was just an ordinary person with extreme delusions of grandeur, happily taking credit for every uncanny coincidence that came along. Or maybe he was a run-of-the-mill swindler, one of those self-styled psychics who is the modern equivalent of a snake-oil salesman, conning people into buying overpriced gold pendants depicting some lower-echelon bodhisattva. Suppose they asked him what really happened that day with the elevator, and he tried to sell them a cheesy talisman in lieu of a straight answer? That would be too much to bear.