Next, she tried the smallest drawers in the chest. One was locked and she did not waste precious time trying to open it. The other was full of old receipts and nothing else.
She went towards the window, where there was a writing desk and a bookcase. She let the torch beam play over the book shelves, but from reading the spines of the books it was clear that they were only old school textbooks. There was a pile of notebooks, covered in dust, on the desk, but these were just children’s exercise books of the type used for setting homework.
On the other side there was a newer looking exercise book. The word Elegies was written on the title page. There then followed two pages of translations from foreign poets; all the works were of sufficient fame for Yoneko to be familiar with them. On the third page, no author’s name appeared, but there was a poem entitled ‘To a child buried on 29 March’. Yoneko felt that this might prove to be of more interest to her, because of the date and the reference to a child, so she read the whole poem:
Plainly, the child described in the poem was George, who had been kidnapped from his mother Keiko Kawauchi. Yoneko was certain of this. There was nothing else written in the book. She read the poem once again and tried to learn it by heart, and this time it just seemed like any other poem to her, but she was sure her first impression was right. She wrote down the title in her notepad and got up to go. There was nothing else for her to see.
She switched off the electric torch and closed her eyes. The dull thuds of the work going on outside echoed in her ears—it was time to be gone. She would have plenty of time for thought later.
She turned on the torch again, and looked at the notebook. The beam rested on the title—Elegies. She turned to go, and the torch beam, moving with her body, suddenly picked out something bright on the window pane—it was as if a light was being shone inwards at her. She really did not have any more time to spare, but nonetheless she went over to examine this new discovery. It turned out to be the sort of mirror that small boys use to dazzle people in the rays of the sun. What could it all mean?
She slipped out of the room; she heard someone coming up the stairways jabbering away to someone else. She quickly locked Chikako’s door and walked briskly to the stairwell. She turned around and looked behind her. She thought she saw a door close quickly further down the corridor; she thought she saw a glimmer of white hair; but she couldn’t be sure.
However, it did seem to her rather likely that it was Haru Santo she had seen, and the faint glimpse she had caught of her stayed in her mind for a long time to come.
It was clear from what she had seen that Chikako was still expecting some man to come back to her. But the real possibility of such an event had long since vanished, and only the memory of it now remained, just as fairy tale figures remain in the back of an adult’s mind. The preparations for his return had become a daily ritual for Chikako, a reminder of his past presence as real and yet as remote as the sloughed-off skin of a snake one finds by the side of a road. There was no possible interpretation other than absolute fantasy or madness.
Yoneko thought of the white linen cloth and the masculine place setting. What a way to pass one’s life! In all her days, despite her occasional hopes, Yoneko had never associated in such a way with a man, and so found it hard to imagine Chikako’s feelings.
She wrote to Keiko Kawauchi. Having explained all that had gone on and what she had seen and how she was positive from the size and colouring of the place setting that a man was involved, she went on as follows:
So you see why I am convinced that sometime in the past Miss Chikako Ueda prepared supper for some man who never turned up. I wonder what happened to prevent his coming? Did not this event change her whole life? Since then, she gave up her job as a school teacher and has remained closeted in her room. There is no record of any man having ever visited her.
And so it seems she has waited for six or seven years, laying supper for him every night. Anyone else would surely have given up hope long ago. Why does she refuse to accept the reality of the situation? It can only be because to face facts would be too painful for her. I have heard of other such cases where human beings shut their eyes to the truth in this way.
We have to believe that there was something special about her relationship with this man. We can’t be certain, but he may have been involved in George’s kidnapping, but if Chikako Ueda was, then it is a fair assumption that he was her accomplice. This bears looking into further.
She put down her pen at this point. The most significant thing she had discovered on her visit to Chikako Ueda’s room had been the poem, To a child buried on 29 March. But she still could not bring herself to inform George’s mother of this evidence which pointed to the certainty of her child’s death. Even if the evidence was even more complete, she cringed at the task. Perhaps it was better for Keiko never to know, for she had based her life on the hope of seeing her child again someday. Could she destroy Keiko’s illusions? Even if the man was the kidnapper, had Chikako been directly involved? Certainly she had loved the man, for, even though he had let her down, she had continued to wait for him all these years. Waiting for him had become the purpose of her life, just as it was with Keiko—could she, Yoneko, at one blow destroy the dreams of these two people on evidence which was still only circumstantial? Yoneko began to feel that she had meddled enough in other people’s lives already. What had begun as her curiosity about Chikako Ueda’s involvement in the kidnapping had reached a stage where Yoneko felt frightened by what she might yet discover.
And so she said no more about what she had found in Chikako’s room.
During the next few days, Yoneko could not take her mind off the vision of Chikako Ueda, plying her embroidery needle in her room as she waited for a man who did not come. People lived in a world of fantasy, she reasoned. Chikako Ueda and Keiko Kawauchi shared a similar fantasy. Yoneko felt isolated and empty at the thought that she herself had no such fantasy to give hope and point to her life. This was why her life since retirement had been so blank and meaningless as she felt it was.
Thereafter, Tomiko Iyoda called on her several times to invite her to attend meetings of the Three Spirit Faith, but Yoneko always refused. She did hear that Chikako had joined the group, but she was no longer interested in further spying on her. Perhaps, to the contrary, she was afraid that if she went to the same seance as Chikako she might find out even more about her.
It was not for another few weeks, by which time mid-April had brought clear skies and mild weather, that Yoneko changed her mind and decided to attend a seance.
After getting Yoneko’s letter, Keiko had written back urging her to pursue her researches further, particularly regarding the man who had been part of Chikako’s life. Yoneko had just put the letters to one side. What made her change her mind about attending a Three Spirit Faith seance was the so-called ‘Suwa Yatabe miracle’, which occurred during a seance at the end of March. According to Tomiko Iyoda, halfway through her trance, the medium had announced that André Dore, a famous violinist dead for some fifteen years had come in spirit form to announce that he had given his famous Guarnerius violin to Suwa Yatabe. And at this point the priest had opened the charred case to reveal within the Guarnerius restored to its former glory.