The room looked bigger than she had remembered, no doubt the effect of there being hardly any furniture. The room was big enough for eight tatami mats. A low table sat in the middle of the room, and a single cushion lay on the floor next to it. Saeko imagined that come night the Fujimuras would lay their separate futon beds on the floor, sleeping apart as though the room were in two halves. The brown table would have demarcated the boundary line.
She walked over to one of the closets and slid the door open. The inside reeked of body odor. A set of mattresses and bottom sheets lay half-folded, uneven like a cross-section of the earth. The lower shelf carried a set of smallish drawers full of clothes. A wardrobe containing a sparse collection of jackets and coats stood to one side of the closet. Another set of drawers placed across from the altar contained neat, functional rows of everyday items. That was what had made the room appear so large; everything that hinted at habitation had been hidden away in various closets and wardrobes.
Saeko found some photo albums stacked across the far end on one of the shelves in the closet. Each had a date inscribed on its spine. Saeko pulled out the most recent album and began to turn through the pages.
The album contained neat, methodical arrangements of two years’ worth of family photographs, snapshots of daily life. Scattered among these were some photos that seemed to be from family trips and special events that marked the seasons through the year, helping to pepper the album with variety. Saeko felt increasingly sentimental as she paged through the photos; they seemed full of fond, familial affection.
The mother and the father, the siblings … Saeko found her attention being drawn to the photos of the mother of the family, Haruko. At the same time, the sound of helicopters carried through from the TV in the living room, bringing back mental flashes of the chasm in California. But something about the photos had her transfixed.
Saeko agreed with Kitazawa that Haruko was the most likely link between her father and the Fujimura family. They had been travelling together in Bolivia in August 1994, just before he went missing. It wasn’t clear whether they had planned to meet or their encounter had been by chance. Either way, they had entered into an adulterous relationship. Saeko was surprised to find the Haruko in the photos to be a woman of grace and apparent innocence who showed no trace of having a dark side.
Saeko paused at a photo of her. A note below dated it at about a year before the family went missing; it had been taken in the lobby of a hotel at the Arima hot springs. A woman stood next to her, someone called Tomoko. Haruko sat on a sofa, looking formal with her back straightened, hands together over her lap. The formality of the scene seemed oddly out of place if this was, indeed, a trip with a friend. Haruko looked healthy, with an air of politeness that suggested a proper upbringing. If the photo was taken a year before she went missing, then she would have been forty-four at the time. She looked as though she were in her early thirties.
Saeko tried to imagine what Haruko must have looked like at twenty-eight, when she would have met Saeko’s father. She was pretty — Saeko would have said cute rather than beautiful. Her eyes were full of character. Deep-set, they slanted inwards slightly, towards her nose.
The next page of the album had photos that looked altogether more recent, a set of family portraits. Saeko checked the date; it was marked November 22 last year, just a couple of months before the family went missing. There were four photos in total, each very similar, like they had all been taken at the same time. Saeko recognized the Fujimuras’ living room, which she had just been in. Each photo contained the entire family, the two parents and their children. It looked like they had set up a tripod and used a timer for the shots.
There was something about this particular set of photos that caught her interest. At the center of the photograph were Haruko and her husband, with their children lined up behind them. The composition was entirely orthodox, a typical style for a family portrait. Their smiles looked fixed, slightly forced.
Saeko flipped through a few more pages of the album as a thought began to form in her mind. All the other photos in the album were essentially snapshots, taken out and about, around Takato, out on holiday, school trips, sporting events … The formal portraits stood out as they were the only photos showing the family together in the surroundings of their own home.
She considered the framed photo adorning the altar.
Did they know that something was going to happen to them?
If the family had discovered something in advance, if they had somehow worked out that everything was about to change … Were these photos taken to forever preserve their images as they waited for a coming darkness? The pictures had been taken two months before they actually disappeared. They might have known something was coming, but not the exact timing of whatever catastrophe awaited them.
Saeko put the idea to the back of her mind and began to rummage through the remaining albums. She picked out a couple from around 1994. The first, marked 1993, contained a series of wedding photos, Haruko and Kota’s. The next album, dated 1995, contained pictures of the happy couple with their newborn daughter, Fumi. Haruko had met Saeko’s father in Bolivia during August in the year after her marriage, the year before Fumi was born. Saeko remembered that Haruko had given birth to Fumi on May 15th. Was it possible that Fumi had been conceived while Haruko had been with her father in Bolivia? The timing fitted perfectly. There was no conclusive evidence, but it felt close.
Saeko realized she didn’t have a clear enough image of what Fumi looked like. Immediately she began flipping through the pages until she found a couple of snapshots of her. Saeko stared at the photos, feverishly devouring details, searching for any resemblances to herself, any signs that she could be her father’s daughter — that they could be blood-sisters. They didn’t look dissimilar, Saeko had to admit. Fumi had the same slightly oval-shaped face with rounded cheeks, the kind of visage that most men found appealing. There was a basic resemblance.
Her father and Haruko had been lovers, and Fumi born as a result of the consummation of their relationship … Of course, there had been no reason to consider such a hypothesis when she had first visited the Fujimuras’ for her research. If Fumi’s father had been Shinichiro, and if that somehow related to the family’s disappearance, then Haruko would have known that she was the cause of the household’s downfall. Just as Saeko’s thoughts began to crystallize onto an idea, the phone in the living room began to ring, catching her off guard.
Her body went rigid as a bolt of fear sliced through her. She clasped the photo album to her chest and knelt down on the tatami, holding her breath. She curled forwards, momentarily unsure of how to react. There was no reason not to answer the phone; she placed the album down on the floor in front of her and started to get up. Just at that moment, the ringing abruptly ended, and a man’s voice said, “Hello?” The voice was followed by a dial tone.
It was over in a couple of seconds, but Saeko immediately realized that something was out of joint. A series of images rushed through her mind, adding visual feedback to the scene based on the sounds she had heard. She saw someone pick up the receiver of the ringing phone. The caller spoke through the receiver, managing just one word. Then, someone had pushed the phone’s cradle down, released it, and the dial tone had sounded. Then the receiver had been replaced. There was only one possible conclusion.
Someone’s there, in the living room …
Saeko felt her body respond to the sudden rush of fear; she quickly put her hands over her mouth, afraid she might scream. She moved slowly towards the door, cautious not to make any sound. She turned the lock shut and pulled her phone from her pocket. She had recognized the voice on the other side of the phone. It sounded agitated but there was no mistaking the voice. It was Hashiba.