The Thief (13 page)

Alone in an unsealed alley I played quietly with the car, but it wasn’t as shiny as it had been before. Something felt wrong and I switched it off, distressed. I placed it further away, turned it on gingerly. When it moved I felt that something still wasn’t right. I turned it off again and moved it even further. Finally I threw the car into the muddy river bank. Far, far away, there stood the tower. It remained tall in the distance, silent and shrouded in mist.

It never occurred to me to wonder why there was a tower outside my town. Perhaps I assumed that it had already been there when I was born. The world was fixed and rigid. It was as though time flowed at its own pace, anchoring everything, pushing me from behind, little by little moving me somewhere. When I reached out my hands for other people’s things, however, in the tension of the moment I felt I could be set free. I felt I could separate myself just a little from the unbending world.

When I started elementary school, the boy who was chosen as class leader got hold of a glittering watch. “It’s my father’s,” he said, showing it furtively to the people around him. “It even works underwater.” The children all
stared at this watch that kept going even when submerged. I stole it.

Why did I drop it while everyone was looking at me? My hand had moved swiftly, and by the time it was halfway into my shorts pocket I thought I was home free. But it slipped out and fell with a crash. Everyone looked first at the watch, which had stopped working when it hit the floor, and then at me.

“Thief!” the class leader shouted. “It’s broken. That was expensive. Too good for trash like you.”

The din in the classroom grew louder. Hands reached out to seize my arms and legs. I was jostled and knocked over. Hearing the cries, the young teacher came over and grabbed my arm. He looked flustered by the children’s accusations.

“Say you’re sorry!” His voice was also loud. “If you really took it, say you’re sorry!”

Looking back on it now, perhaps this was a kind of liberation, because this was the first time my actions had been exposed to the outside world, with the exception of the tower. I felt a sense of freedom that I’d never experienced before. Overpowered, in the midst of my disgrace, I felt pleasure seeping through me. If you can’t stop the light
from shining in your eyes, it’s best to head back down in the opposite direction.

I didn’t hide my smirk, I didn’t resist, I just lay there on the floor as they held me down. Through the classroom window I could see the tower.
Perhaps now it will tell me something
, I thought. Because it had been standing there for such a long, long time. But it still just stood there, beautiful and remote, neither accepting nor rejecting me as I took pleasure in my humiliation. I closed my eyes.

I decided I would keep on stealing until I could no longer see the tower. Sinking lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the shadows. The more I stole, I believed, the further I would move away from the tower. Before long the tension of stealing became more and more attractive. The strain as my fingers touched other people’s things and the reassuring warmth that followed. It was the act of denying all values, trampling all ties. Stealing stuff I needed, stealing stuff I didn’t need, throwing away what I didn’t need after I stole it. The thrill that vanquishes the strange feeling that ran down to the tips of my fingers when my hands reached into that forbidden zone. I don’t know whether it was because I crossed a certain line or simply because I was growing older, but without my realizing it the tower had vanished.

17
When I called the boy’s mother she said that she wanted to go to a hotel, so I took a taxi. We met in the middle of the day in front of a pachinko parlor, walked through the hotel district and picked one at random. As soon as we got to the room she started to undress, saying she knew that I’d call her again. I started to say something about the boy, but got into bed with her instead, partly because it would be hard to talk to her if I made her mad, but also because I had
the wretched feeling that I was going to die soon and I wanted to touch a woman one last time. She climbed on top of me and, thanks to her tablets, just kept on coming, digging in her fingernails.

Still naked, she got out of bed and opened the curtains a crack. Scratching her cheek, she told me that they’d built a new shopping mall over the road. She seemed to want to show it to me. Her clothes lay on the floor like a flattened corpse. A thin ray of sunlight peeped through the curtains. I raised myself slightly in the bed.

“By the way,” I started, unsure if this was the right time or not. “How would you feel about giving up the boy?”

Her face froze for a second as she turned.

“To you?”

For some reason she smiled as she said this.

“No, a children’s home.”

“Could I?”

I thought she’d be angry, but she closed the curtains and came back to the bed.

“Yes, you could. You’d need to do some paperwork.”

“Yuck,” she said suddenly, turning away and lighting a cigarette.

I guessed it was the probably the paperwork she was talking about.

“I’ve got to disappear for a while. I won’t be able to see him again. It would be better if he didn’t live with you. If he wasn’t there, things would go more smoothly with your man, wouldn’t they? And if you put him in a home I’ll give you five hundred thousand yen. How about that?”

“What?”

Slowly she turned to face me. Like her lips, her eyes were faintly moist, with a sad gleam. I realized that I was getting turned on again and looked away.

“My boyfriend, he’s been punching him lately. He probably won’t kill him, but it’s still abuse, isn’t it? You see it on the news. I’d hate it if that happened. The cops would come, wouldn’t they? Did you mean it?”

“I’ve got plenty of money. It’s not that much to me. If you get in touch with the Child Guidance Center they’ll look after him. If they can’t, contact this foster home. You can trust them. But if you just take the money and don’t put him in care without a damn good reason, there’ll be trouble. I’m going away but I’ll be asking my friends to keep an eye on you. They’re yakuza. Get it?”

I don’t know if she was listening or not, but suddenly she licked my lips.

“If my parents were around I could leave him with them, but they’re not. I’ve been wondering what to do. You’re right, we could put him in one of those places. I hadn’t thought of that. So all I have to do is call them, right? Hey, with that much I could go on a trip!”

She tucked the paper I’d given her into her purse. I took the money from my jacket, which I’d tossed in a heap on the floor.

“You’re paying me now?” she asked, but immediately stowed it in her bag.

One eye blinked tightly several times.

“You’re great. Really awesome. I’m so happy! Now, what’ll I buy with this? I mean, what good are kids, anyway? Know what I mean? They’re only cute for the first couple of months, eh?”

When I got out of the cab in front of my apartment, the boy was standing there. In his hands he held an open can of Coke and a can of coffee, the brand I usually drink. He passed it to me wordlessly, so I opened it there and then. He looked at my dyed hair but didn’t comment. The coffee was almost cold.

I went inside briefly and when I came out again he followed me. A car sped by, startling him, and he grabbed the hem of my coat. It was low-slung, with mindless music blaring out at full volume. Coming towards us was a little girl clutching her father’s jacket in the same way. The boy and I passed by them without a word. The man said something to his daughter and she answered sulkily.

We ambled along the side of a small river well outside the city. The banks were well tended but the water was murky, with plastic bottles and other trash floating in it. The kid looked like he wanted to say something but kept quiet, hesitant. I lit a cigarette and gazed out over the sluggish river.

“I talked to her. You’re sure about going into a home, right? That would mean you’d be getting out of there.”

“Yeah.”

His voice was a bit stronger than before. I passed him a slip of paper.

“If your mom tries to keep you at home and you still don’t like it, call this number. This agency will take care of everything.”

He stared at the number like he was trying to memorize it.

“You can still start over. You can do whatever you want. Forget about stealing and shoplifting.”

“Why?”

He was gazing up at me.

“You’ll never find a place in society.”

“But….”

“Shut up. Just forget it.”

My lifestyle certainly didn’t qualify me to be giving advice to children. I held out a small box.

“I’m giving you this.”

“What is it?”

“In the end I didn’t need it. Open it when you need strength, or when you’re in real trouble. Like you’re done for and might as well die. Pretty cool, eh?”

“But what if someone takes it away, too?”

“Okay, let’s bury it somewhere.”

I spotted a hiking trail and we headed up the dirt-colored road. Partway along we came across a stone statue of a woman laughing crazily. I used my empty can and my hands to dig a deep hole in the earth behind it. The inscription on the plinth was almost entirely worn away, but it seemed to be some kind of memorial. I didn’t think they’d be doing roadwork here, so no one was likely to dig the box up.

“If you end up not needing it,” I told the boy, “give it to a kid like you.”

We continued walking in silence. The sun was gradually sinking and the air grew chilly. When we came out into a clearing, I found a tennis ball someone had dropped. I picked it up casually and brushed off the dirt with my hands. On the other side of a bench we could see a boy playing catch with his father. He was about the same age as my kid, but his throw was weak and clumsy. Every time he threw, his dad said something to him. A digital camera and portable game console, probably theirs, were lying on the bench.

“Are you any good at throwing a ball?”

“Dunno.”

“I bet you’re better than that useless brat.”

I threw the ball a long way away. He hesitated for a second and then ran to fetch it. The others realized we were there and turned to look at us. The boy collected the ball and hurled it back at me. I felt it sting my fingers as I caught it. I threw it back even harder, but he caught it with two hands and returned it more powerfully than the first time. When he saw me fumble it he laughed. The father and son were watching us, and after a couple of minutes I worked out that it must be their ball. I thanked them like a regular person, tossed it back
to them underarm. The boy ran back to me, a little out of breath.

“Listen,” I told him. “I’ve got to go on a long trip, so I won’t be able to see you any more. But don’t waste your life. Even if there’s times when you’re miserable, you’ll always have the last laugh.”

He nodded. He never did hold my hand, but as we walked home he gripped the edge of my coat again.

“First, buy some clothes. Some decent clothes.”

18
Wearing a black coat, I stood at the edge of the platform and watched Yonezawa.

I checked that the knife was still in my pocket and pretended to be reading a newspaper. He scowled at some laughing children. When a woman walked by he followed her with his eyes. Finally he looked down and started to walk. He bumped into a businessman but kept going without an apology. When the train arrived I got into the
same carriage as him. It was full, though not so full that people were jammed together. I positioned myself a little away from him, continuing to read my paper. He leaned against the doors of the swaying train, his arms hanging loosely by his sides.

At Ikebukuro a lot of people got off but even more got on. A group of high school girls in sportswear piled on at the last minute and the carriage grew crowded. Maybe now, I thought, folding my paper and moving closer to Yonezawa. But he was moving slowly towards the girls, frowning and clicking his tongue in disapproval. He stood out like a sore thumb as he forced his way through the packed car. When he got close to the girls, he stopped and glared at them. Didn’t open his mouth, didn’t touch them, just stood next to them, staring.

I thought that if I moved he’d see me, so I waited till the next station. Not many passengers got on or off. I inched closer to Yonezawa until I was right behind him. One of the hemmed-in high school girls was squirming in discomfort. I pinched the material on the left side of his coat between my fingers. His body jerked as the girl tried to put her bag up as a barrier between herself and him. At
that moment I slowly cut his jacket from top to bottom. The opening didn’t reach his inside pocket, however. I exhaled softly. The air in the carriage was thick and I was getting hot.

He looked at the schoolbag between them and seemed to give up, contenting himself with scowling. He started touching his collar. It could only be a matter of seconds before he looked down and spotted the slit. Holding my breath, which had been quickening, I stretched out my left foot and kicked one of the girls lightly on the leg. She jumped, yelped and turned slowly to look at Yonezawa. His skinny frame trembled in surprise and I slid the knife back into the side of his coat. Lifting the fabric with my fingers, I began to cut his inside pocket, slicing it little by little with the tip of the blade. I spread my fingers, holding the knife between with my thumb and index finger and pinching the envelope between my middle and ring fingers. A shiver ran from my fingers up to my shoulder. Ignoring my nervousness, I pulled it out. I could see out of the corner of my eye that the envelope was quite different from the dummy I was to replace it with.
Worse and worse
, I thought, with a sinking feeling. The girl turned
away again, perhaps out of fear, and before I knew it the train arrived at Shinjuku.

Watching Yonezawa as he walked ahead of me on the platform, I took out the envelope. The fake was green and white, but this was an ordinary brown one. My hands were shaking slightly, but when I held it up to the light I could see another envelope inside. I opened the brown envelope and removed the second, which was green and white with a company name printed on it, just like the dummy. I sighed with relief. Overall, however, it was battered and discolored. The difference between it and the dummy, still clean and new, was obvious. Massive buildings loomed all round the platform. Baffled, head aching, I trailed after Yonezawa. He went out the east exit and joined the crowds outside. When he spied a group of loudly dressed women, he stopped. Then he turned round and our eyes almost met. I went back into the station, bought a can of coffee from a kiosk and leaned against the glass by the entrance, my back to the street. After a few deep breaths I opened my cell phone and punched in Yonezawa’s number, which I had written on a piece of paper. Sweat trickled down my jaw.