Saeko wasn’t usually the type of person to mould reality around her expectations, and she wasn’t naïve enough to believe in treasures she had yet to obtain. Still, she couldn’t help looking for a sign that he was serious about their relationship. She would be thirty-six next May. After marrying at twenty-nine and getting divorced, Saeko had all but given up on her hopes of remarrying and having children. In the months since, however, the growing loneliness had exceeded her expectations. Now and again she even found herself regretting her decision to divorce, even though it was all she wanted at the time. At times, just picturing herself growing old alone gave her the chills. Yet finding a man she could date, let alone remarry, was a daunting task. There just weren’t any good men left. All the men she did like were already married; she was at that age. By some chance occurrence she had now met and fallen for Hashiba, who seemed perfect. He was sincere, kind, good at his work, and still unmarried. It seemed like something of a miracle.
If she was able to build a life with Hashiba, perhaps she would finally be able to recover from the pain of losing her father. It would be like coming out of a long, dark tunnel. People might think it was foolish, but Saeko didn’t care — it was what she wanted, a modest sort of happiness. She wanted to immerse herself in the bustle of a normal, everyday life. At the very least, it would mean goodbye to her habit of unconsciously switching on the TV set in an empty room.
Saeko shivered with cold and moved to close the window, but something she saw stopped her hand in mid-motion. Her room faced south, away from Atami. There were no electric lights, but it was still possible to make out the uneven contours of the rock face through the different shades of darkness. She strained her eyes, scanning the hazy depth of lighter and darker patches along the vertical cliff face beyond. The darker patches were hollows, and ledges jutting outwards looked a leaden gray from the faint starlight from above. Amidst this background, the white shape was hard to miss. It moved, reflecting light like the moon itself, asserting its existence.
Saeko gasped and strained her eyes further. It wasn’t her imagination — there was something on the cliff top, a white human form. For a moment it was still, then it was moving again. Someone was out there.
The white shape halted on the path running along the top of the cliffs. It clambered over the protective rails and started moving towards the edge. The shape was moving at right around the same height as Saeko’s room. There were probably tens of meters between them, but the image gradually started to resolve, becoming clearer. The figure was short and clad in a white kimono, and her face became visible. The image seemed to grow in size as though it was somehow being broadcast directly into the brain. Saeko could clearly make out the person’s features.
Beyond a doubt, the figure on the cliff edge was Shigeko Torii.
The moment she recognized the face Saeko sucked in air and held her breath. Wasn’t Shigeko resting in the room next door? How had she suddenly got out to the cliffs?
There was no doubt, either, what Shigeko was about to do. Her desire seemed to channel directly into Saeko’s mind.
I’m so tired …
Saeko leant out of the window and started to wave her hands frantically, trying to get Shigeko to stop. But Shigeko seemed to interpret the gesture as a goodbye.
It’s time for me to be with my son again …
After waving back in the same manner, Shigeko promptly continued forward, brushing some branches out of her way, and without even a moment’s hesitation launched herself off the edge.
As the figure tumbled, Shigeko’s face seemed not to head straight downward but to be tugged in towards Saeko for a moment, close enough so that the details of each wrinkle in the wizened visage seemed countable, before finally plunging head first into the waves below. A spray the color of the kimono met the body but there was no sound whatsoever.
Saeko stood for a while looking at the waters below. Gradually, the sound of the waves coaxed her out of her state.
Suicide …
The word flashed across her mind. Nishikigaura had reclaimed its dubious legacy.
Saeko’s heart hammered out of control, and she crouched down with one hand to her chest. The horrific image of Shigeko falling through the air replayed in an endless loop in her mind’s eye; the more she tried to get rid of it, the more viscously it stuck to the folds of her mind. She could see the strange way in which Shigeko’s falling body had seemed to glide momentarily towards her before plunging downwards into the sea. The phenomenon of her descent seemed neither real nor natural.
Then she remembered the night before, what she had seen after her dinner with Hashiba. They had been walking out of the building when Seiji Fujimura had plummeted to the street in front of them. Another suicide — she had witnessed two plunges to the death in as many days. Not only that, but she knew both of the people involved. Saeko struggled to understand the implications of such a coincidence. Even now, she clearly remembered how Seiji’s body had seemed to float downwards, featherlike, his spirit seemingly severed from his body, disobeying the laws of gravity by that much. Nonetheless, his body had crashed into the ground with a thud of reality, and the tree branches had kept on swaying as if testifying to the fall.
Saeko repressed the terrible image; she felt like she might throw up. But she knew she had to do something, she couldn’t just sit here like this. If Hashiba were around she’d bring it to him, but since he wasn’t, Saeko probably needed to go to Kagayama.
She called the room where Kagayama was staying. When he came to the phone, she explained what she’d witnessed in terse phrases.
“Y-You mean …” he stammered, trailing off in mid-sentence.
“What should we do?” Cursing herself for asking such a juvenile question, she clutched the receiver.
“I guess we should check Ms. Torii’s room,” Kagayama proposed.
Saeko hung up and dragged herself out to the corridor and stood waiting in front of the room. She knocked once and waited, not expecting an answer, not after what she had just seen. Shigeko had jumped to her death from the top of the Nishikigaura Cliffs. Right now, her lifeless body would be tossed around in the waves, mangled against the jagged rocks at the base.
Saeko was soon joined by Kagayama, Kato, and Hosokawa. Kagayama stepped forward and banged his fist against the door.
“Ms. Torii? Are you awake?”
It wasn’t that Kagayama didn’t trust Saeko’s words. He was obviously trying to keep his voice down, but it still echoed through the empty corridor. When he stopped knocking and put his ear against the door, there was nary a sound.
He turned to Kato. “Can you call the hotel manager?”
Kato nodded and started to run down the corridor. Saeko, Kagayama, and Hosokawa stood in heavy silence for the few minutes it took for Kato to come back. They all realized that this could mean the end for the program and looked gloomy.
Accompanied by Kato, the manager walked up to the door and pulled out a master key. He knocked once more to confirm that there was no answer. Then, without further hesitation, he inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.
The room was the same size as Saeko’s, with the bathroom on the opposite side. The manager flipped on the lights and walked into the room. There was a thin lump under the bedclothes, and on the pillow lay Shigeko’s wrinkled face. There were no signs of disorder, the bed sheets were pulled up to the old woman’s shoulders, and her body traced a straight line under the sheets. When Saeko walked to the side of the bed and confirmed that the person was Shigeko, she could not but cover her own mouth. Then, steadying herself against the wall, she struggled to gather her thoughts.