“ ‘He doesn’t exist. It was just a story.’
“ ‘What are you talking about?’
“ ‘My grandfather died long before I was born. We just use that shed for storage. Nobody lives in there,’ he told me.
“My friend apologized for lying to me and explained the circumstances. In kindergarten, he’d often had friends over to play. They always thought the shed was a great playhouse, and they were always messing things up inside. But there were valuable ceramic pots and such stored in the shed, and my friend’s father had told him, ‘You’re welcome to have your friends over to play, but I don’t want you kids messing around in that shed. If any of those ceramic pieces ever gets broken, you’re going to have to pay for them.’
“Desperate, my friend came up with the idea of pretending that his grandfather lived there. He figured it was the best way to keep his friends from going near it. At first it was just a simple lie, but over time he started to flesh it out, adding details about his grandfather’s idiosyncrasies. Those quirks became more and more exaggerated, and the old man developed into a creepy character. Before long, he had fabricated the perfect scarecrow to ward off mischievous playmates from exploring the shed.
“When he had finished explaining, my friend and I slowly approached the hut. We had to make sure that there really was no old man in there, of course. At this point, I think my friend was actually more frightened than I was. I guess I was already starting to understand what I’d experienced.
“There was nobody inside. My friend and I peeked in through the front door and listened, but we didn’t hear anything. And there were no wooden sandals there, either. It was slightly comical, seeing my friend so afraid of the phantom he’d invented …”
Hashiba had been leaning against the wall, but as he finished his story, he straightened up and placed one hand on the wall just next to Saeko’s head.
“Do you know what I think it was? For two-and-a-half years, I completely believed the story about the grandfather in the shed. Based on the information my friend had given me, I’d developed a complete mental picture of the old man. He didn’t exist, and of course I never saw him. But that made him all the more real to me. My imagination gave birth to and fed this being, fleshing him out, filling in the image of his terrifying face.
“And then when I went after the ball, in a panic, I actually came face to face with this figment of my imagination. It was a bit of a hallucination, I suppose. No wonder the phantom old man looked exactly the way I’d imagined him.
“Now, suppose things had gone differently. Suppose I had never learned the truth. My friend would have gone away to his junior high school in Tokyo. The grandfather would no longer have a reason to exist, and my friend would have tried to expunge him. ‘One day, my grandfather up and took off,’ he would have told us. ‘Nobody knows what happened to him.’
“Then we would have investigated the shed and found nobody there. As far as we were concerned, his grandfather would now be a missing person. The person who had lived in the hut all that time had disappeared. It would never have occurred to us that he hadn’t existed in the first place.
“Since we’ve been investigating these missing persons cases, every now and then, I wonder: did the Fujimura family really live in that house in Takato to begin with? I know it sounds crazy. But maybe we won’t be able to solve this mystery unless we question the assumptions we take for granted.”
Saeko was reminded of the debate between Einstein and Bohr.
“So the Moon exists when we’re observing it and doesn’t when we aren’t?”
With that extreme formulation of the Copenhagen Interpretation, Einstein had denied the possibility that things only existed if there was someone there to observe them. On a quantum level, it sometimes appeared that the mind of the observer influenced the state of the object. It was the interplay that mattered; Saeko herself had considered the possibility that the world was built through its interaction with a cognizing subject.
“I wonder if the ability to cause a wave function to collapse merely by observing it is an ability unique to human beings,” she pondered aloud.
“A wave function?” Hashiba echoed. He didn’t seem to be familiar with the term.
“It’s the role of psi in Shroedinger’s equation. A quantum wave is just an elusive probability until the moment we observe it, at which point it collapses and makes its whereabouts known.”
A slightly distant look came into Hashiba’s eyes.
Oh, great. Now I’ve done it, Saeko realized immediately.
“What are you, some kind of physics whiz?” he asked.
“I’m no whiz. But I guess I was more familiar with physics growing up than most kids,” Saeko replied.
“I don’t understand relativity or quantum dynamics, but that’s never been a problem for me,” Hashiba noted. Saeko picked up on a note of irony and resentment in his tone.
Most people acted surprised when they learned that Saeko had a strong grasp of physics. Growing up in an environment where math and physics were discussed every day, Saeko didn’t realize how unique her education had been until she started to encounter men who acted stunned and alienated by her knowledge.
Rather than trying to explain her background to Hashiba, Saeko figured the quickest thing would be to show him her father’s study. She rapped on the door with her knuckles.
“For now, allow me to show you the old shed at my house,” she suggested, turning the key in the lock and pushing open the door.
How long had it been since she’d last entered this room? Four years, five? Saeko no longer remembered exactly when she’d sealed it off. Was it when she and her husband had married? Or when they’d first started living together? In any case, at this point, the room had been locked for longer than her marriage had lasted.
As the door opened, a green eddy of scents flooded their nostrils. Saeko could identify her father’s smell in the mix. He wasn’t a phantom. He had definitely existed. And this room had been his sanctuary.
Floor-to-ceiling bookcases took up two-thirds of the room. The aluminum shelves stood in five rows, extending from the wall near the door all the way to the windows. They were packed tightly with double rows of books, and their comb-like formation made even the vast room feel claustrophobic. The entire place was packed with a suffocating quantity of books.
The morning sun poured in through the green plastic slats of the blinds hung over the windows, giving the interior a dark green tinge.
Hashiba stepped inside. “Was your father an author?”
“Well, not exactly …” Saeko weaved through the bookshelves to the windows, raised the blinds, and opened the sashes. Immediately, cold air and sunlight streamed in. As the air in the room changed, the stopped hands on the clock of time once again began to move.
The opposite end of the L-shaped room was her father’s workspace, and his desk wasn’t visible from the door. At the very far end was a sofa bed he’d used for naps. At any moment, Saeko felt as if her father’s leather chair might creak and spin towards them, his legs appearing around the edge of the wall.
Whenever Saeko entered the room, her father leaned way back in his chair to peer towards the entrance. When he spotted Saeko, he would spin his chair around and rise to his feet. No matter how absorbed he was in his work, he always welcomed his daughter’s presence. With that in mind, Saeko was careful not to come knocking without a good reason. She didn’t want to interrupt her father’s work unless it was absolutely necessary.
Leaving Saeko to her memories, Hashiba walked up and down the length of the room several times, trying to get a sense of its former occupant.