The Snow Kimono (42 page)

Tonight, there is no light over the door. His building, the ones adjacent to it,
the ones opposite, are all blacked out. It’s the first day of December. The first
big snowfall of the year.

Perhaps Omura had come around the corner to see what this month’s new code was in
the lamplight. But found, instead, his angel, the one sent to collect him, waiting
to tell him it was over. This wondrous great adventure. No need to worry. You won’t
need that. Your notebook. Here, let me take it from you. Lie down upon the snow.

Jovert looked up to his window again, at the sky glowing dimly above him—the snow
falling down towards him invisible until it hits the light, in which he is now standing,
alone, with Omura lying at his feet.

Can we contact you, Inspector. If we need to?

The two medics are circling the body. They could be animals in the snow.

He nods.

Gilles says something.

The medics lean down.

His body unbending.

On the stretcher, Omura looks like a child, curled up on his side. One hand outstretched,
the other resting under his head. And the world is now weeping.

Back in his room, his lamp has come on. His clock is blinking. He goes to stand by
the window once again. Snow in his hair. On his shoulders. He has Omura’s hat in
his hand. He pulls the curtain aside. Places the hat on the cold windowsill. Drops
the notebook into it.

They have gone—the ambulance, Omura. He looks for Omura’s imprint in the snow. But
there isn’t one.

The snow is falling more purposefully now. The breeze has picked up. One of the police
cars is still there, at the end of the street, half-blocking the laneway. The snow
lies thick and soft on its roof, its bonnet. It is beginning to quilt. The car’s
emergency lights are still flashing. Soon they too will disappear.

The snow is dense in the lamplight. Great shoals of it are eddying fretfully back
and forth in the narrow laneway, as if they are looking for Omura. There is something
frantic about their movement, back and forth, back and forth, as if they can foresee
a moment when they will have to account for why they had momentarily turned away.
And when they turned back, he was gone! How were they to know?

Watching the snow swirling, the police car disappearing, Jovert felt as though his
building were moving. As if it had become unmoored from the solid earth below. Was
now adrift. The floor seemed to pitch forward beneath his feet. He put both hands
out onto the cold windowsill to steady himself. The world.

The snow has given up looking. It seems to collect itself, then, all at once, in
one great mass, it minnows up through the lamplight into the darkness above.

The street is barely visible now. Like a fading photograph. The details are gone.
Soon, Jovert knows, the world outside will be erased: there will be nothing left.
Except for the barely perceptible glow of the streetlamps, the pulsing of the police
car’s lights, which themselves have begun to recede, as though they are a constellation
that is growing dimmer and dimmer as he watches. The moment he turns away from the
window, he knows, all of this will cease to exist. So he stands watching as this
part of his life slowly disappears before his eyes. Then he turns, looks back into
his room, to the still-unknown future which awaits him there.

Chapter 47

TWO days later, the police
had
contacted him. To ask if he would look after Omura’s
affairs. Act as go-between, given his, Jovert’s, former status. His relationship
with the deceased.

The following night, at around 10.30, just as he was about to go down to Omura’s
apartment—he had already collected the key—not to start packing up, but just to go
down there, to sit perhaps, take a minute or two to say goodbye—there was a knock
on his door. For one mad, irrational moment, he had thought it was Omura.

He went to the door, opened it, and an apparition of another kind was standing there.

Martine?

He must have stepped back. She too seemed to have been taken by surprise. Her right
hand was still in the air. Her fingers clenched.

Oh, Inspector! I’m sorry, I was just about to knock again.
I wasn’t sure if you were
home.

How did you get in? he said. It sounded more harsh than he intended.

I followed someone in.

It was something he’d always worried about while he worked. That someone he’d arrested,
put away, some crazed sociopath, would find out where he lived. And come looking
for him. It had never happened. But it was always there, in the back of his mind,
nevertheless.

I’m sorry, Martine said, to turn up on your doorstep unannounced. She looked at him
standing in his coat. And this clearly isn’t a good time, is it? I can see that you’re
on your way out. I knew I should have called.

She took two steps away from the door.

Martine. He raised his hand as if he was a traffic cop. Wait, he said. Slow down.
He let his hand drop. Yes, I am going out. But it’s only down to Omura’s apartment.
You remember Professor Omura. Yes, of course you do, how could you forget? Omura
died a couple of nights ago. He was caught in the snowstorm. It’s been left to me
to sort out his affairs.

I’m so sorry to hear that, Inspector. You and he had become bound to each other in
a way, hadn’t you? Recently. From what you were saying.

Bound to each other. He would never have put it that way himself, but she was right,
he now realised.

They were still standing awkwardly in the doorway.

Won’t you come in?

No, look, I don’t think so. I came to ask you for something. But it can wait.

Just a moment, Martine, he said. I know this will sound strange, but would you come
down with me? You saw him. You know what he was like. How much time I’ve spent with
him, these past five months. I’m not sure I want to go on my own. If I sit down there,
I’m afraid I will turn to stone. Then there will be two of us they’ll have to attend
to.

Okay, she said. Yes. I will. I’ll come down with you.

Do you realise you’re still limping, Inspector, if you don’t mind me saying.

They were walking down the corridor to the lift.

Am I?

Yes. When did you get rid of the walking stick?

Sticks! I kept losing them. I don’t know. A couple of months ago. When did we last
see each other? September?

October, she said.

October. So it must have been just after that.

Maybe you ditched them too soon?

The lift arrived.

Then he was inserting the key into the lock in Omura’s apartment door, opening it,
reaching in for the light switch.

The apartment seemed darker now, now that Omura was no longer there.

God, it’s dismal in here, she said.

It had only been three days, but the apartment already smelt musty, as though Omura
had been dying in there for weeks.

Are you sure you’re okay with me being here? Martine said. It doesn’t feel right,
if you know what I mean.

No, he said. It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.

He walked over to the small table with the typewriter on it. The lamp had been left
on, as if to lure him there.

Did I ever tell you that I used to hear Omura typing away at all hours of the night?
And morning.

You did, she said.

God knows when he slept.

The typewriter was flanked by two piles of paper, one of them almost gone. There
was an envelope on the thicker pile, a passport underneath. The envelope had Jovert’s
name on it.

I thought this might have been the case, he said. It’s why I wanted to come down
here. He picked the envelope up, opened it, began reading.

My dear Inspector,
Could you do one last thing for me—could you send what I have written to Fumiko?
Perhaps she will understand what I tried to explain to her that day, but could not.
My shame. Please accept my apologies for lying to you.

Strange, he thought, the note was dated 22 September. And yet
here it was, December.
At the bottom of the note was an address. He began to read it. Then he heard Martine.

Oh my God, she said. Inspector!

She had picked up the passport, flipped it open.

What is it? he said.

I think you should have a look at this.

She handed Jovert the passport. He too looked at the faintly blurred Hirohito-like
photograph of Omura trapped under the plastic covering. At his face. His eyes.

So? he said.

It’s-not-him, she said. It’s not Omura.

Jovert looked back at the page—to the passport holder’s details.

Nom:
IKEDA
, it said.

Prénoms: Katsuo.

The world began to reel. He felt dizzy, as though he were going to fall. He reached
for a walking stick he no longer had.

Are you all right, Inspector? Martine said.

No, he said. I don’t think I am.

Later he read the note again. The address:

Miss Fumiko Omura
c /– Professor Tadashi Omura
Faculty of Law
University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku
TOKYO, JAPAN