POPULAR HITS OF THE OF THE SHOWA ERA.

by RYU MURAKAMI.

1.

Season of Love

I.

Ishihara had had a feeling, ever since the party the night before, that something like this was going to happen. That he alone had had this feeling was decidedly not because he was more intelligent than the others, or more skillful at a.n.a.lyzing situations, or psychic or anything. Ishihara had a tendency to burst into mindless and uncontrollable laughter at random moments, and it was a tendency he shared with all the other members of the group. The only difference was that in the interval between one bout of laughter and the next, into his head alone some sort of image-if not an actual idea-would occasionally pop. had had a feeling, ever since the party the night before, that something like this was going to happen. That he alone had had this feeling was decidedly not because he was more intelligent than the others, or more skillful at a.n.a.lyzing situations, or psychic or anything. Ishihara had a tendency to burst into mindless and uncontrollable laughter at random moments, and it was a tendency he shared with all the other members of the group. The only difference was that in the interval between one bout of laughter and the next, into his head alone some sort of image-if not an actual idea-would occasionally pop.

The party had begun as usual at seven in the evening, and more or less everyone had been there-Ishihara, n.o.bue, Yano, Sugiyama, Kato, and Sugioka. "More or less" because no one was keeping track, but in fact the six of them const.i.tuted everyone. They a.s.sembled as always at n.o.bue's apartment in Chofu City, on the western edge of Greater Tokyo. Each of them brought food or drinks in a plastic bag or paper sack or, in one case, an old-school furoshiki furoshiki wrapping cloth. Yano was the one with the furoshiki. He also wore his prized Leica M6 on a strap around his neck. wrapping cloth. Yano was the one with the furoshiki. He also wore his prized Leica M6 on a strap around his neck.

"Check it out, I saw Karinaka Rie-the adult video actress?-at this street fair in Shinjuku the other day, and I took a bunch of pictures of her, but would you believe it? None of 'em turned out. I don't know why. I mean, I don't get it. Why would that happen? I've thought about it and thought about it, but..."

Stroking the Leica with his right index finger, Yano expanded upon this mystery at some length, but, typically enough, none of the others responded or reacted in any way. These gatherings didn't have the atmosphere one normally a.s.sociates with the word "party." n.o.bue's apartment, just north of Chofu Station, was in an old two-story wood-frame-and-stucco building with a sizable parking lot in the rear. The six members of the group generally a.s.sembled here of a Sat.u.r.day evening, but the gatherings had no clear purpose, and one hesitates even to call the partic.i.p.ants "friends," since they lacked any common goals or interests. n.o.bue and Ishihara had been cla.s.smates in high school; Yano had met Ishihara in the computer section of a bookstore, where they'd exchanged remarks about the new Macintosh being this or that and then, having nothing better to do, meandered off to a coffee shop and sat facing each other for a couple of hours, neither of them talking much but each coming to the general conclusion that the other was a person rather like himself, the upshot of which was that they'd swapped phone numbers and become comrades of sorts; Sugiyama, the only one over thirty, had met Yano while temping at a construction site out near Chiba; Kato was a sort of underling or sidekick of Sugiyama's; and Sugioka knew n.o.bue somehow or other.

n.o.bue was the one who'd originally suggested a party. It had now been about a year since the first time they'd a.s.sembled at his apartment. No preparations of any sort had been made for that first gathering, and no one brought anything to eat or drink. They'd all been to parties before, of course, but it had never occurred to any of them to think about how to host one or prepare for one, much less be the life of one. There were only five of them at the first party-n.o.bue, Ishihara, Yano, Sugiyama, and Kato. Kato, having lost a brief rock-paper-scissors showdown, was sent out to the vending machine down the street to purchase a sackful of One Cup Sake drinks, and when he returned they all sat around quietly sipping from the little gla.s.s containers. Every now and then one of them would burst into mindless laughter or relate in a fragmented way some personal anecdote, fully cognizant of the fact that no one else was listening, and after some five hours of this the party just sort of evaporated.

Not until the fourth time they gathered had the parties begun to take shape. There was a full moon that night. Sugiyama had brought an armful of karaoke laser discs, and though no one in the group could sing, a few of them hummed along tentatively. They were humming to one of the tracks when a light went on in the window of an apartment across the parking lot, and there, clearly visible from where they sat, a young woman with very long legs and an unbelievable body was in the act of disrobing. Sipping at their sake in awed silence, all six of them watched, along with the full moon, as this modest striptease unfolded. The young woman with the unbelievable body was immediately elevated to the status of everyone's special idol, and the karaoke set (which had apparently conjured her up) to that of a miracle machine more worthy of reverence than even their precious computers. Karaoke became an essential element of each party from that night on, and they all began memorizing lyrics and timidly attempting to sing. Months went by, however, without the young woman with the unbelievable body making a return appearance. It was at the sixth party, when she'd failed to materialize for the second consecutive time, that n.o.bue proposed the post-party ritual that was to become such an important part of their lives. For someone in this group to come up with and propose an idea, and for the others to actually listen to it, consider it, voice their opinions, come to a consensus, and act upon it, was an unprecedented event-an event of historical significance to rival the moment seven or eight million years ago when some ancestor of human beings first stood upright and blundered forward on two feet.

The evolution of the parties had been slow but inexorable. At the third party, Ishihara had arrived bearing eihire eihire (dried stingray fin), (dried stingray fin), kusamochi kusamochi (mugwort rice cakes), and (mugwort rice cakes), and piisen piisen (peanuts mixed with tiny rice crackers), and from then on everyone began bringing things to eat or drink. At the ninth party a small wave of panic had swept the room when Sugioka showed up not with the usual dry snacks like stingray fin or peanuts or chocolate but a packaged macaroni salad of the sort sold in delicatessens and supermarkets. n.o.bue took one look at the macaroni salad and, after the inevitable bout of spasmodic laughter, set out plates and forks for all. One could have searched each individual brain cell in n.o.bue's head-and everyone else's, for that matter-without finding so much as a hint that the concept of providing others with eating utensils would ever occur, but it had, and it was a deeply moving moment. Sugioka, who'd bought the macaroni salad at a butcher's shop just down the road, near his own apartment, actually misted up on seeing his purchase cause such excitement and wield such unexpected influence. At the tenth party, it was Yano's turn to stir the others to their depths by bringing six portions of Nagasaki Chanmen, an instant noodle dish that required only the addition of boiling water. Such astonishing mutations in the nature of the parties were, n.o.bue and Ishihara and the others all believed, directly attributable to karaoke; and the scale of the all-important post-party ritual continued to expand. (peanuts mixed with tiny rice crackers), and from then on everyone began bringing things to eat or drink. At the ninth party a small wave of panic had swept the room when Sugioka showed up not with the usual dry snacks like stingray fin or peanuts or chocolate but a packaged macaroni salad of the sort sold in delicatessens and supermarkets. n.o.bue took one look at the macaroni salad and, after the inevitable bout of spasmodic laughter, set out plates and forks for all. One could have searched each individual brain cell in n.o.bue's head-and everyone else's, for that matter-without finding so much as a hint that the concept of providing others with eating utensils would ever occur, but it had, and it was a deeply moving moment. Sugioka, who'd bought the macaroni salad at a butcher's shop just down the road, near his own apartment, actually misted up on seeing his purchase cause such excitement and wield such unexpected influence. At the tenth party, it was Yano's turn to stir the others to their depths by bringing six portions of Nagasaki Chanmen, an instant noodle dish that required only the addition of boiling water. Such astonishing mutations in the nature of the parties were, n.o.bue and Ishihara and the others all believed, directly attributable to karaoke; and the scale of the all-important post-party ritual continued to expand.

It was during the party on the second Sat.u.r.day of June, the sort of muggy rainy-season evening when air, underclothes, and feelings all reach saturation point, that Ishihara became aware of the unwonted anxiety taking shape inside him.

Unfamiliarity with anxiety was something all members of this group had in common. In other ways, however, they couldn't have been less alike. All but a couple of them were from different parts of the country, and their social backgrounds and economic circ.u.mstances varied considerably. Complicating matters further was the fact that you couldn't have judged who was what simply by looking at them. Whereas n.o.bue, for example, looked as if he might be a scion of old money, he was in fact the third son of a day laborer in the mikan mikan orchards of Shizuoka; whereas Yano, when viewed in a certain light and from a certain angle, might have pa.s.sed for someone who'd graduated from an elite university, he had in fact once been addicted to the toxic and long-unfashionable toluene, the fumes of which he had inhaled on a daily basis with high school friends, all of whom came down with debilitating nerve disorders as a result, while Yano himself, hardy though slight, maintained his health but was caught huffing the stuff on one of his rare visits to school and summarily expelled, which meant that he was officially a middle school graduate; and whereas Sugiyama, for example, to judge from his lugubrious face and sickly complexion, might have been on the verge of slitting his own wrists, he in fact tended to burst into laughter even more frequently and unexpectedly than the others, to the extent that even they sometimes looked at him askance. These young men, in other words, represented a variety of types, but one thing they had in common was that they'd all given up on committing positively to anything in life. This was not their fault, however. The blame lay with a certain ubiquitous spirit of the times, transmitted to them by their respective mothers. And perhaps it goes without saying that this "spirit of the times" was in fact an oppressive value system based primarily upon the absolute certainty that nothing in this world was ever going to change. orchards of Shizuoka; whereas Yano, when viewed in a certain light and from a certain angle, might have pa.s.sed for someone who'd graduated from an elite university, he had in fact once been addicted to the toxic and long-unfashionable toluene, the fumes of which he had inhaled on a daily basis with high school friends, all of whom came down with debilitating nerve disorders as a result, while Yano himself, hardy though slight, maintained his health but was caught huffing the stuff on one of his rare visits to school and summarily expelled, which meant that he was officially a middle school graduate; and whereas Sugiyama, for example, to judge from his lugubrious face and sickly complexion, might have been on the verge of slitting his own wrists, he in fact tended to burst into laughter even more frequently and unexpectedly than the others, to the extent that even they sometimes looked at him askance. These young men, in other words, represented a variety of types, but one thing they had in common was that they'd all given up on committing positively to anything in life. This was not their fault, however. The blame lay with a certain ubiquitous spirit of the times, transmitted to them by their respective mothers. And perhaps it goes without saying that this "spirit of the times" was in fact an oppressive value system based primarily upon the absolute certainty that nothing in this world was ever going to change.

If these six young men had anything else in common it was something rather difficult to explain, except perhaps as a certain kind of strength on what we might call the cellular level. And this strength is what gave all of them, even in the absence of any good jokes or clever puns or amusing incidents, the ability to laugh to a more or less abnormal degree.

It wasn't as if they would laugh together, mind you. They laughed individually, at completely different moments, and not necessarily about anything in particular. Each laughed in his own distinctive way, but in each case the laughter was loud, uncontrollable, and spasmodic, like sneezes or hiccups. An impartial observer would have noticed that at any given moment at least one of the six would be laughing-that by the time the laughter of one had subsided, that of another would have begun, which is in effect to say that the laughs never ceased-but the same observer would not have had the impression that anyone was actually having fun. Perhaps for these young men, all born in the latter half of the Showa Era, the connection between fun and laughter had simply never been made.

Such, then, was the atmosphere of the party at which Ishihara began to experience his anxious foreboding. The night wore on as always. A few members of the group recounted incidents from their own lives while n.o.body listened and a continuous, idiotic cackling echoed off the walls; but even when it was time to begin practicing their rock-paper-scissors technique, Ishihara's anxiety lingered. The track to the theme song for tonight's ritual, Pinky & the Killers' "Season of Love," played softly over the speakers, and everyone started trying to approximate the main vocal, each imagining himself in the role of the lovely and charming Pinky.

II.

Ishihara was startled by how tangible the anxiety was inside him. He'd never experienced anything like this before. He was certain it wasn't simply a matter of his having suddenly uncovered a dread that had always been there. No, this was definitely something new. It was shaped like a fetus. And just as a fetus in the later stages of pregnancy kicks the walls of the womb to a.s.sert its own existence, the anxiety fetus was sending Ishihara an eerie, wavelike signal that seemed to say, was startled by how tangible the anxiety was inside him. He'd never experienced anything like this before. He was certain it wasn't simply a matter of his having suddenly uncovered a dread that had always been there. No, this was definitely something new. It was shaped like a fetus. And just as a fetus in the later stages of pregnancy kicks the walls of the womb to a.s.sert its own existence, the anxiety fetus was sending Ishihara an eerie, wavelike signal that seemed to say, Don't even think about forgetting I'm here! Don't even think about forgetting I'm here! The signal disrupted and weakened his heartbeat intermittently and caused the image of a tiny, undeveloped human being, its back curled forward and a cord extending from its navel like an unspooling fire hose, to blink on and off in his mind. He tried again and again to distract himself by laughing idiotically. His laughter was so droolingly mindless, in fact, and so explosive, that the others began to wonder if he hadn't lost his wits, and n.o.bue whispered to Yano, "If he gets any weirder, we'll take him somewhere and dump him, okay?" The signal disrupted and weakened his heartbeat intermittently and caused the image of a tiny, undeveloped human being, its back curled forward and a cord extending from its navel like an unspooling fire hose, to blink on and off in his mind. He tried again and again to distract himself by laughing idiotically. His laughter was so droolingly mindless, in fact, and so explosive, that the others began to wonder if he hadn't lost his wits, and n.o.bue whispered to Yano, "If he gets any weirder, we'll take him somewhere and dump him, okay?"

Yano, who had long harbored an ambition to abandon something, experienced a little thrill at these words and unconsciously tightened his grip on the Leica M6. He had purchased the Leica from a man with a gla.s.s eye at a little camera shop in Hong Kong, where he'd gone on an employee excursion organized by the company he worked for and advertised as a gurumei tsuaa gurumei tsuaa ("gourmet tour"), which to his surprise turned out to mean that they were to wander around as a group, eating at different restaurants. The Leica wasn't his first camera, of course-for years he had carried an Olympus Pen given him by his father-but only recently had it dawned on him that the reason he was devoted to photography wasn't because he particularly enjoyed capturing an image in a frame but because pointing the lens at an object and snapping the shutter was a way of virtually abandoning that object. Photography therefore provided a certain degree of catharsis for Yano, but he would have preferred to abandon an actual "thing"-or, if at all possible, an actual "person." ("gourmet tour"), which to his surprise turned out to mean that they were to wander around as a group, eating at different restaurants. The Leica wasn't his first camera, of course-for years he had carried an Olympus Pen given him by his father-but only recently had it dawned on him that the reason he was devoted to photography wasn't because he particularly enjoyed capturing an image in a frame but because pointing the lens at an object and snapping the shutter was a way of virtually abandoning that object. Photography therefore provided a certain degree of catharsis for Yano, but he would have preferred to abandon an actual "thing"-or, if at all possible, an actual "person."

A strange old tale had recently been revived in popular novels and films about a man who in accordance with the rules of the social group in which he lives must leave his aged mother to die on a desolate mountaintop. It was a story that would surely have caused any self-respecting immigrant or refugee or descendant of slaves to gag in disgust, but it was the stuff of Yano's deepest aspirations. If only he could be given a chance to abandon something of tremendous importance to him-to dump it as if it were no longer needed in his life! He often reflected that if he were a woman, all he'd have to do was get pregnant, give birth to the baby, and abandon it; and it had even occurred to him that if he dressed up in drag and left a Cabbage Patch Kid somewhere he might be able to experience a similar sort of sensation, though he was restrained by the fear that if he went that far he might never find his way back. I am, after all, a man, for better or worse, I am, after all, a man, for better or worse, he would mutter, and resign himself once again to waiting for a gender-appropriate opportunity to appear. he would mutter, and resign himself once again to waiting for a gender-appropriate opportunity to appear.

Ishihara, after fraying everyone's nerves with his astonishing cachinnations, finally settled down and began practicing rock-paper-scissors, as the others were already doing. The rock-paper-scissors contest was what one might call the prelude to the all-important ritual, and though it goes without saying that rock-paper-scissors isn't the sort of thing you can actually practice, each in his own particular way was convinced that he was doing exactly that. n.o.bue, for example, was loudly bl.u.s.tering that "Yano always starts out with rock, right? And with Sugiyama it's always paper, right?"-though of course no one was listening. Yano stared at his own hand, studying the shape of each rock, paper, and scissors he formed. He was particularly concerned with his scissors and kept adjusting the angle between the index and middle fingers, muttering to himself as he did so: "When two lines of the same length describe an angle of elevation, the trigonometric function of the corresponding isosceles triangle must differ depending upon whether you're talking Euclidean or non-Euclidean, so, um..." Sugioka was pitting his right hand against his left and plaintively asking, "Which do you think is the real me?"-but needless to say no one paid any attention. Kato was trying to read his own left palm, believing as he did in the theory that vibrations produced by one's opponent's mood could cause a delicate alteration in the pattern of lines there: "If the lifeline twitches-even a tiny bit-it means the enemy's coming with paper, see?" Sugiyama was rubbing his right palm with a chunk of ice. "After all," he mumbled, "even your b.a.l.l.s get tougher if you ice 'em." Ishihara held his right hand on top of his head and was making rocks and scissors and announcing, "Rock!" or "Scissors!" as he did so. "How come I always know which one I'm going to choose," he wondered aloud, "and no one else does?"

Tonight, in addition to One Cup Sake, they were drinking beer and wine. As for cuisine, beef jerky took the starring role. There was also macaroni salad-that begetter of a new era-not to mention various dry snacks, but none of these could compete with the headliner in terms of aroma and sheer visual appeal. The beef jerky had been supplied by Kato, who worked for a small importer of foodstuffs. Kato subsisted almost entirely on his company's products, but it had never before occurred to him that the things he ate every day could lend pomp to a party. His main staple was giant corn from Peru, though when he wanted meat he would grab a package of this same beef jerky-produced by the American firm Tengu-and rehydrate the strips by boiling them in water a la sukiyaki. When he sensed that his body needed veggies he would open a can of apricots preserved in syrup-a product of the People's Republic of China-never for a moment doubting that the apricot was a vegetable. He'd brought the beef jerky on this particular evening thinking only that it might mildly please the others, but in fact it was a sensation. When he casually plopped the four packages of Tengu teriyaki-style down on the tatami mats of n.o.bue's apartment, a rare hush fell over the room. It wasn't that none of them had ever eaten beef jerky before. But the excess energy that they themselves knew least what to do with helped lend an otherworldly glow to this austere food product, so redolent of the frontier spirit. None of them said a word, but with an intensity that might have made an impartial observer wonder how they would react to something like stone crab, they began tearing the jerky to shreds and wolfing it down.

Complemented with wine from Yamanashi and Portugal, the beef jerky had rapidly disappeared; Ishihara had ceased laughing like an idiot; and preparations for the rock-paper-scissors showdown were in full swing. But just as they were about to start the actual compet.i.tion, n.o.bue made a discovery that turned their entire world upside down.

It seemed an eternity since they'd last seen a light in the window of the room across the parking lot. That light was on now, and through the lace curtains they could make out the silhouette of the woman with the unbelievable body. Sugiyama instantly grew so tense that he squeaked and probably would have gibbered had he not bitten his own left hand. The woman with the unbelievable body was brushing her long hair, and now she casually tossed it back over her shoulders with two or three graceful flicks of her fingers. That was enough to elicit a commotion of sighs and exclamations from n.o.bue and the others, and Ishihara went so far as to mutter, "Anyone mind if I jerk off?" He wasn't the only one who was thinking of masturbation, but even as the woman undid the b.u.t.tons on her blouse, the sublime aura of inviolability she radiated through the curtains prevented them from putting any such thoughts into action. The blouse slid off, the lines of her shoulders and back were revealed, and as she began to wriggle out of her skirt, tears welled up in Yano's and Sugioka's and Kato's eyes. "This must be what it's like to see a UFO, or the earth from the s.p.a.ce shuttle," n.o.bue murmured, and everyone nodded breathlessly. The woman shrugged out of her slip and unhooked her bra.s.siere, and then her silhouette disappeared from view.

"Shower time!" shouted Ishihara, and the other five responded almost in unison, like the chorus in a grade-school play: That's right! That's right! It's shower time!

"She's going to take a shower now!"

A shower now!

"A nice, hot, steamy, s.e.xy shower now!"

Shower now!

"The shower is a miracle!"

A miracle! A miracle!

"From all those, like, little pinholes in that weird-shaped thing..."

Weird-shaped thing...

"Hot water shoots out-just think of it!"

Just think of it!

"It's got to be a miracle!"

It is! It is a miracle!

It was only by vigorously chanting this odd sort of call-and-response that the six of them managed to master the excitement bubbling up from deep inside. They now breathed a collective sigh and sat back to finish off the wine and beer, basking in the afterglow of perfect happiness.

And then, at last, the rock-paper-scissors contest began.

The theme song for the evening's ritual, as has been noted, was "Season of Love." Instead of the usual "Jankenpon," therefore, you had to count off saying, "JankenPINKY!"

n.o.bue was the first to be eliminated, and he collapsed on the tatami mats and thrashed about in despair and frustration. According to the rules, he must now serve as the driver for the night. Sugiyama tossed him the keys, and he slunk outside to warm up the HiAce's engine.

The ultimate victory went to Ishihara. On conquering his final opponent, he leapt into the air, shouting, "I did it!"-and the moment he uttered these words, the anxiety returned in the form of a chilling question: Is it really all right to be this happy? Is it really all right to be this happy?

As it turned out, of course, Ishihara's anxiety knew exactly what it was talking about.

III.

Because this evening's song was to be "Season of Love," it was necessary to determine only first place (lead singer), last place (driver), and fifth place (engineer/roadie). Naturally, if the theme song had been something by Uchiyamada Hiroshi & Cool Five or Danny Iida & Paradise King or the Three Funkys or Three Graces, it would have called for a different ranking system altogether. this evening's song was to be "Season of Love," it was necessary to determine only first place (lead singer), last place (driver), and fifth place (engineer/roadie). Naturally, if the theme song had been something by Uchiyamada Hiroshi & Cool Five or Danny Iida & Paradise King or the Three Funkys or Three Graces, it would have called for a different ranking system altogether.

Ishihara was so thrilled to have garnered first place that he squealed and began to perform the dance the others called "The Ishihara." The incomprehensible anxiety was still at work, but it had occurred to him that if he moved his body maybe everything would work itself out. There is a rodent known as the tremuggia that makes its home in the Kalahari Desert and looks like a cross between a chipmunk and a rat, and though there's no reason to believe that Ishihara was aware of the fact, this dance of his closely resembled that creature's mating ritual. He bent his knees slightly, stuck out his hindquarters, held his wrists limply at chest level, and bobbed up and down while emitting a distinctive cry: Kuun! Kuun! Kuun! Kuun! Kuun! Kuun!

They all carried their things to the HiAce step van and climbed aboard. Yano, who had been the second to be eliminated, took an inventory of the equipment, and when he gave the thumbs-up, n.o.bue steered the HiAce out to the street and accelerated. In tense antic.i.p.ation of the ritual, all of the pa.s.sengers were muttering to themselves-mostly about the brief striptease they'd just watched the woman with the unbelievable body perform. In the dark rear of the van, Sugiyama had narrowed his already narrow eyes until they seemed to form a single line behind his gla.s.ses. "That was amazing, amazing," he mumbled. "Amazing, it was." Kato was tenderly touching the spot on the back of his head where the hair was thinning. "Well, that was a shocker," he muttered, "but the real test still lies ahead." It's doubtful if even he knew what that was supposed to mean. all carried their things to the HiAce step van and climbed aboard. Yano, who had been the second to be eliminated, took an inventory of the equipment, and when he gave the thumbs-up, n.o.bue steered the HiAce out to the street and accelerated. In tense antic.i.p.ation of the ritual, all of the pa.s.sengers were muttering to themselves-mostly about the brief striptease they'd just watched the woman with the unbelievable body perform. In the dark rear of the van, Sugiyama had narrowed his already narrow eyes until they seemed to form a single line behind his gla.s.ses. "That was amazing, amazing," he mumbled. "Amazing, it was." Kato was tenderly touching the spot on the back of his head where the hair was thinning. "Well, that was a shocker," he muttered, "but the real test still lies ahead." It's doubtful if even he knew what that was supposed to mean.

Piloted by n.o.bue, the HiAce crossed the Tama River, sped past Yomiuri Land, entered the Tomei Expressway at the Kawasaki Interchange, and veered down the Odawara-Atsugi Road to Ninomiya, where it exited via the Seis...o...b..pa.s.s and finally rolled to a stop at a deserted spot by the coast that Yano and Kato had discovered. Last-place n.o.bue was sent to appraise the location by staking out a spot on the beach for a full twenty minutes, as stipulated by the guidelines. He had to make sure the place really was deserted. Once, a vacant lot Yano had found on a warehouse-lined street along Tokyo Bay turned out to be the occasional site of some sort of illicit transactions, and they'd been attacked by a pair of youths on motorcycles who smashed the windows of their van. n.o.bue and Ishihara and the others all hated that sort of thing. It wasn't violence that they disliked, mind you. Sugiyama had been studying karate and kick-boxing since middle school and had a habit of going off on opponents who were clearly capable of pounding him into the ground, as a result of which he'd had his skull fractured on four separate occasions; Yano had inadvertently joined a fascist youth organization when he was eighteen and as part of his training had hunted field mice with a crossbow in the remote mountains of Nagano; n.o.bue and Ishihara had both scored a number of knockouts in drunken brawls-although, admittedly, only when given the chance to attack unsuspecting opponents from behind; Sugioka, who owned a collection of more than a hundred edged weapons ranging from box cutters to j.a.panese swords, always carried one or two blades and was forever stabbing walls and tree trunks and leather sacks stuffed with sawdust, and when especially piqued had even been known to slash to ribbons the shiny skin of used blow-up dolls; and Kato suffered a chronic, obsessive delusion that sooner or later he would murder-slowly and methodically-an infant or toddler or some other weak and defenseless being, and had come recently to believe that the only way to rid himself of this obsession was to go ahead and act it out. No, it wasn't violence they disliked: it was contact with strangers. What these young men feared and hated more than anything else was being spoken to by people they hadn't met, or having to explain themselves to people they didn't know.

"It's just like Kato said, not a soul around. A stray dog wandered by with a fish head in his mouth, but I threw a rock at him. Aimed right at his b.a.l.l.s, but I missed, but he ran away anyway."

The other five greeted n.o.bue's announcement with a cheer that sounded more like a collective moan, then grabbed their things and piled out of the van. n.o.bue and Yano, peons for the night, had to carry all the heavy equipment: spools of thick extension cord, the 3CCD Hi8 video camera and tripod, the five-hundred-watt pinspots and their stands, a gargantuan boom-box, Bose speakers, and a set of Sennheiser microphones. They huffed and wheezed as they lugged everything down the narrow concrete steps to the beach, while Ishihara and the others changed into their costumes: flared velvet pantaloons, patent-leather shoes, frilled silk shirts, c.u.mmerbunds, bow ties, and tuxedo jackets with velvet lapels, followed by the top hats, false mustaches, black canes, and white gloves-for the others, that is. Ishihara alone applied bright red lipstick, false eyelashes, and a Cleopatra-style wig, t.i.ttering maniacally as he did so: Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee! Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee! Finally, decked out exactly as Pinky & the Killers had been back in the day, the performers strode down to the beach and stood there facing the sea and the tiny lights of fishing boats far offsh.o.r.e. Ishihara stepped forward and raised his little finger as he took the mike and cooed, "Ready, baby." Yano, off to one side, turned on the pinspots, and the intro to "Season of Love" came blasting out of the Bose 501 speaker system and echoing across the dark sea and sky. When the first line of the lyric- Finally, decked out exactly as Pinky & the Killers had been back in the day, the performers strode down to the beach and stood there facing the sea and the tiny lights of fishing boats far offsh.o.r.e. Ishihara stepped forward and raised his little finger as he took the mike and cooed, "Ready, baby." Yano, off to one side, turned on the pinspots, and the intro to "Season of Love" came blasting out of the Bose 501 speaker system and echoing across the dark sea and sky. When the first line of the lyric-I just can't seem to forget-reverberated toward the waves in Ishihara's nausea-inducing voice, all the crabs on the beach scuttled simultaneously into their holes. As for Ishihara himself, he actually was was able to forget-at least during the time he was singing-the anxiety growing inside him. able to forget-at least during the time he was singing-the anxiety growing inside him.

The day after the ritual, that anxiety revealed what it was made of. day after the ritual, that anxiety revealed what it was made of.

The catalyst for it all was a badly hungover Sugioka. After backing up Ishihara on "Season of Love" more than forty times and walking the short distance home from n.o.bue's apartment, Sugioka remained too pumped up to sleep, so he chewed some oval sleeping tablets he'd bought from a pasty-faced girl while loafing about in Shibuya one day and washed them down with beer. This knocked him out at last, but he woke at ten in the morning feeling as if his body were made of a particularly dense type of cement. He was irritable and grumpy, as anyone might be under such circ.u.mstances, and every part of him seemed in suspended animation except for the squirmy, itchy nerve that connected his lower parts-that is to say, his p.e.n.i.s-directly to the corresponding section of his brain. Sugioka had experienced this sensation any number of times, but today it was incomparably worse than ever before, and he spent several long minutes wondering whether to watch an adult video and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e until the head of his organ was raw, or to pay a visit to the Pink Salon just outside the south exit of Chofu Station, or to seek satisfaction with Eriko, a blow-up doll to whom he still hadn't put the knife and who boasted, according to her brochure, Super-Tight a.n.a.l Sensation; until weighing the pros and cons of each alternative became such a great bleeding pain in and of itself that he sliced up a perfectly good buckwheat-husk pillow with the twenty-centimeter blade of his Swedish mountain commando knife and stalked out onto the streets of Chofu, squinting in the daylight. Having secured the knife between his belt and jeans, beneath his vinyl raincoat, he was walking along the narrow road behind the Ito Yokado superstore when he noticed a stocky woman in her late thirties-a typical, not to say stereotypical, "Auntie" or Oba-san-apparently on her way home from shopping. The Oba-san was wearing a gauzy vintage white dress and dangling plastic grocery bags stuffed with clams and egg tofu and celery and curry rolls and what have you. Sweat beaded her forehead and dampened her underarms, exuding a strange mixture of odors, and she walked with her a.s.s sticking out. To Sugioka's bloodshot eyes, it looked as if that a.s.s were saying, DO ME DO ME-or rather, the j.a.panese equivalent, SHI-TE SHI-TE. And in fact the wrinkles in the back of her dress seemed to spell out the word in hiragana: [image]

So ya want me to do ya, do ya? thought Sugioka, and quickened his pace until he was just behind the Oba-san and able to get a closer view. From the immediate rear, she was the most ludicrous-looking creature he'd ever seen. Up until then the most ludicrous-looking had been a hippopotamus that was emptying its bladder, a sight that had emblazoned itself on his memory during a childhood field trip to the zoo, but the Oba-san's calves bulged with red and blue veins and bristled with a number of stubbly black hairs. thought Sugioka, and quickened his pace until he was just behind the Oba-san and able to get a closer view. From the immediate rear, she was the most ludicrous-looking creature he'd ever seen. Up until then the most ludicrous-looking had been a hippopotamus that was emptying its bladder, a sight that had emblazoned itself on his memory during a childhood field trip to the zoo, but the Oba-san's calves bulged with red and blue veins and bristled with a number of stubbly black hairs. Hideous Hideous, thought Sugioka. When he was within perhaps fifty centimeters his nose detected the clams and he spotted several long, wiry hairs growing from a big black mole on the back of the Oba-san's neck. The poor thing! The poor thing! he thought, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was still shuffling along half a step behind her when they came alongside a grade school athletic ground where several little boys were playing soccer, and just as a tall kid with the number 6 on his jersey scored a goal with a diving header, Sugioka gave a thrust of his hips to poke the Oba-san's a.s.s with his foremost appendage. he thought, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was still shuffling along half a step behind her when they came alongside a grade school athletic ground where several little boys were playing soccer, and just as a tall kid with the number 6 on his jersey scored a goal with a diving header, Sugioka gave a thrust of his hips to poke the Oba-san's a.s.s with his foremost appendage.

The look on her face as she spun around.

Perspiration was melting her makeup, outrage dilated her nostrils, her badly penciled-on eyebrows twitched indignantly, and she appeared to be on the verge of spewing green foam. Sugioka didn't realize he was grinning; all he knew was that he had a hard-on like a tree. He thrust his hips forward a few more times, and the Oba-san began wailing like a fire-engine. "Aaaooooooooooh! Pervert! Aaooooooooooooh! What do you think you're doing? I'll call for help!" Sugioka, disrespected by what seemed to him the lowest form of life on earth, now caught a powerful whiff of ripening clams wafting up from the Oba-san's lower regions. Seized with a nameless fear, he pulled out his commando knife, pressed the blade against the still-wailing siren of her throat, and sliced horizontally. Her neck opened as if it were a second mouth, and there was a whooshing sound followed immediately by a gusher of blood. Sugioka snickered to himself as he ran away. He glanced back just in time to see the Oba-san crumple to the pavement.

There was no one else on the street.

2.

Stardust Trails

I.

The murdered woman's name was Yanagimoto Midori, and the first one to discover the body-or, rather, the first to do anything about it-was a friend of hers named Henmi Midori. After Sugioka's hurried departure from the scene, a total of eleven people had pa.s.sed the spot where Yanagimoto Midori lay with bubbles of blood burbling from her throat, but they all pretended not to see her-although it would have been impossible to miss her on a street like this, barely wide enough for two cars to sc.r.a.pe past. Her frilly white dress was saturated with red; the curry-filled buns she'd bought lay squashed beside her, the yellow curry smeared over the concrete like vomit; and in the torrid sunlight breaking through the rainy-season clouds, the clams that had spilled and scattered from her shopping bag promptly began to broadcast the fragrance of decaying sh.e.l.lfish. Each of the eleven pa.s.sersby caught at least a glimpse of Yanagimoto Midori before looking away and pretending they hadn't. A young housewife, walking by with a toddler who pointed and said, "Look, Mama! That lady's lying on the ground!" went so far as to scold her child: "Don't look! The lady's just playing!" When a pa.s.sing prep school student saw the victim, his first instinct was to try and help her, or at least summon the police, but he was wearing a white shirt and on his way to a date. "Sorry, Oba-san," he muttered as he walked on. "I can't mess up this shirt. Besides," he reasoned to himself, "there's a big pile of s.h.i.t or something right next to her." murdered woman's name was Yanagimoto Midori, and the first one to discover the body-or, rather, the first to do anything about it-was a friend of hers named Henmi Midori. After Sugioka's hurried departure from the scene, a total of eleven people had pa.s.sed the spot where Yanagimoto Midori lay with bubbles of blood burbling from her throat, but they all pretended not to see her-although it would have been impossible to miss her on a street like this, barely wide enough for two cars to sc.r.a.pe past. Her frilly white dress was saturated with red; the curry-filled buns she'd bought lay squashed beside her, the yellow curry smeared over the concrete like vomit; and in the torrid sunlight breaking through the rainy-season clouds, the clams that had spilled and scattered from her shopping bag promptly began to broadcast the fragrance of decaying sh.e.l.lfish. Each of the eleven pa.s.sersby caught at least a glimpse of Yanagimoto Midori before looking away and pretending they hadn't. A young housewife, walking by with a toddler who pointed and said, "Look, Mama! That lady's lying on the ground!" went so far as to scold her child: "Don't look! The lady's just playing!" When a pa.s.sing prep school student saw the victim, his first instinct was to try and help her, or at least summon the police, but he was wearing a white shirt and on his way to a date. "Sorry, Oba-san," he muttered as he walked on. "I can't mess up this shirt. Besides," he reasoned to himself, "there's a big pile of s.h.i.t or something right next to her."

Yanagimoto Midori's heart had stopped beating a mere fifty seconds after Sugioka slit her throat, so it wasn't as if trying to help her sit up or notifying the police might have saved her, but any undue delay in acknowledging the discovery of one's remains is of course a serious blow to one's pride. By the time Henmi Midori came upon her dead friend and screamed her nickname-"Nagiiiii!"-the latter was scarcely recognizable. In her agony, Yanagimoto Midori had clawed at her wound and her face. Part of her esophagus now protruded from the gash in her throat, along with various blood vessels; a good ten centimeters of tongue sagged from one side of her mouth; her right eyeball had been gouged from the parent socket; and her right fist gripped a clump of hair she'd torn from her own head. Bending down for a closer look, Henmi Midori accidentally added to the mess by vomiting explosively upon her friend's ravaged face, and it was just after doing so that she spotted a vital piece of evidence. It was a little silvery badge that had fallen from Sugioka's raincoat as he'd turned to flee the scene. Before the police arrived, Henmi Midori instinctively plucked the badge from the ground and dropped it into her handbag.

Yanagimoto Midori had been divorced and living alone, her ex having a.s.sumed custody of their only son, so her group of friends, known collectively as the Midori Society, took it upon themselves to host the wake. Shortly after ten p.m. the last of the relatives and acquaintances left, followed by the ex-husband and child, but the Midoris remained. All of them-Henmi Midori, Iwata Midori, Takeuchi Midori, Suzuki Midori, and Tomiyama Midori-shared with the late Yanagimoto the same given name. They had met one another in hobby circles and culture centers and what have you, and though their backgrounds differed considerably, they had in common the fact that each was alone and inept at making friends. They had now been a.s.sociating for several years, however, all on the basis of, "My! Your name is Midori too?" Tonight, with the remains of Yanagimoto Midori before them, they all wept profusely. From time to time one of them stifled her sobs to say, "And she was such a good person!" or "To think we'll never hear Nagii sing 'Stardust Trails' again!" or "Was it just me, or did her ex-husband look sort of relieved?"-but as usual none of them seemed to hear anything the others had to say. These women were all unmistakably of the fearsome tribe known as Oba-san. Born in the middle of the Showa Era, they were all in their late thirties, all originally from somewhere outside Tokyo, all graduates of high school or junior college, all st.u.r.dy of frame and far from beautiful, all karaoke enthusiasts, and all strangers to o.r.g.a.s.mus. The late Yanagimoto Midori was not the only one in the group who hadn't managed to sustain a successful marriage. They were all divorcees, some with children and some without. Tomiyama Midori had been through three husbands and shared a son with ex number two, and Takeuchi Midori had given birth at seventeen to a daughter who'd grown up to marry a foreigner and now lived in Canada. Midori had been divorced and living alone, her ex having a.s.sumed custody of their only son, so her group of friends, known collectively as the Midori Society, took it upon themselves to host the wake. Shortly after ten p.m. the last of the relatives and acquaintances left, followed by the ex-husband and child, but the Midoris remained. All of them-Henmi Midori, Iwata Midori, Takeuchi Midori, Suzuki Midori, and Tomiyama Midori-shared with the late Yanagimoto the same given name. They had met one another in hobby circles and culture centers and what have you, and though their backgrounds differed considerably, they had in common the fact that each was alone and inept at making friends. They had now been a.s.sociating for several years, however, all on the basis of, "My! Your name is Midori too?" Tonight, with the remains of Yanagimoto Midori before them, they all wept profusely. From time to time one of them stifled her sobs to say, "And she was such a good person!" or "To think we'll never hear Nagii sing 'Stardust Trails' again!" or "Was it just me, or did her ex-husband look sort of relieved?"-but as usual none of them seemed to hear anything the others had to say. These women were all unmistakably of the fearsome tribe known as Oba-san. Born in the middle of the Showa Era, they were all in their late thirties, all originally from somewhere outside Tokyo, all graduates of high school or junior college, all st.u.r.dy of frame and far from beautiful, all karaoke enthusiasts, and all strangers to o.r.g.a.s.mus. The late Yanagimoto Midori was not the only one in the group who hadn't managed to sustain a successful marriage. They were all divorcees, some with children and some without. Tomiyama Midori had been through three husbands and shared a son with ex number two, and Takeuchi Midori had given birth at seventeen to a daughter who'd grown up to marry a foreigner and now lived in Canada.

As they wept, all five were overwhelmed with a feeling they'd never experienced before. Having come face-to-face with the sobering fact that we all must die eventually, had nothing to do with it. And it wasn't that they shared the sorrow Yanagimoto Midori must have felt as she lay dying so outrageously and unexpectedly, her body and clothing fouled with her own blood and gore. Nor was it the sadness of losing a friend with whom they had all shared, if not an actual intimacy, at least the custom of getting together occasionally and chattering away without the inconvenience of having to listen to one another. No, the unfamiliar feeling the five remaining Midoris were experiencing was the sense that someone had made fools of them.

It wasn't as if the Midoris had lacked men in their lives. Though none of them had managed to achieve lasting relationships, neither had they ever experienced anything they recognized as loneliness. Each was the type of woman who refuses to depend on anyone else. Having made their way through life without ever providing or receiving comfort and affection, none of them had acquired many friends, and they had advanced well into their thirties before finding each other and forming this group of like-minded individuals. They would get together to chat, or to eat brunch at a hotel buffet, or to sing karaoke, or to swim and sunbathe at a public pool, but they never delved into one another's personal lives. When one of them said something-if, for example, Henmi Midori were to say, "Listen to this, yesterday this guy at my office who has a reputation for being quite the s.e.x fiend? As we were leaving work it was raining and he'd forgotten his umbrella and was getting all wet so I let him in under mine, and as we're walking along he suddenly looks at me and goes, 'Henmi-san, would you like to f.u.c.k?' Can you imagine? I just glared at him like, How dare you! How dare you! And then he tells me that six of the eight women he's said something like that to have gone for it, that the direct approach makes them wet. I'm like, And then he tells me that six of the eight women he's said something like that to have gone for it, that the direct approach makes them wet. I'm like, Women aren't wet all the time, buster! Women aren't wet all the time, buster! But he doesn't get it. I mean, he's incapable of recognizing anyone else's point of view, you know what I mean?"-none of the others would pay any attention to what she was actually saying, but one of them might happen to hear and latch on to some particular detail, such as the word "umbrella," and begin relating an essentially unrelated experience of her own: "I know, I know, that sort of thing happens all the time, doesn't it? Once I didn't have an umbrella, and this man named Sakakibara in my office who's forty and still single but not necessarily a h.o.m.o but if you ask me it's hard to know what he's up to, he was standing in front of me and it was pouring and I was thinking he was going to let me in under his umbrella but instead he goes to practice his golf swing with it and almost hits me in the face! But I mean it's typical. Things like that happen all the time nowadays. There's so many weirdos out there!" But he doesn't get it. I mean, he's incapable of recognizing anyone else's point of view, you know what I mean?"-none of the others would pay any attention to what she was actually saying, but one of them might happen to hear and latch on to some particular detail, such as the word "umbrella," and begin relating an essentially unrelated experience of her own: "I know, I know, that sort of thing happens all the time, doesn't it? Once I didn't have an umbrella, and this man named Sakakibara in my office who's forty and still single but not necessarily a h.o.m.o but if you ask me it's hard to know what he's up to, he was standing in front of me and it was pouring and I was thinking he was going to let me in under his umbrella but instead he goes to practice his golf swing with it and almost hits me in the face! But I mean it's typical. Things like that happen all the time nowadays. There's so many weirdos out there!"

Nonetheless, for reasons that weren't entirely clear to anyone, the Midori Society had remained intact for a little over four years now. No one-not even the Midoris themselves-could have said what the determining factor was in creating their particular type of personality, but they all had an instinctive distaste for any action that smacked of "healing one's wounds." In fact, the responsibility for this lay with their fathers, but none of the ladies were aware of this or cared about such things, and in any case their male parents have nothing to do with our story. To open up to another person and talk about the sources of one's current anxieties, to have that person accept it all as "normal," and thereby to heal, was the sort of thing all the Midoris found despicable. For whatever reason, they couldn't afford to be conscious of their wounds. The strange, unfamiliar feeling they experienced as they sat weeping before the corpse of Yanagimoto Midori, therefore, was nothing less than an implacable rage brought on by the realization that the "wound" had come from the outside world to open them up by the throat.

They continued to weep for more than three hours after everyone else had left. Tomiyama Midori, the first to stop sobbing, began in a tiny voice to sing "Stardust Trails," a perfect match for the rhythm of the rain against the reinforced concrete wall of their late friend's one-bedroom apartment; and one by one, as they stopped weeping, the others joined in. It was the first time in the four years of their a.s.sociation that all of them had sung the same song together. They sang it again and again, reprising "Stardust Trails" for more than an hour, and it was only when they were done singing that Henmi Midori produced the silver badge and held it up for all to see.

"I found this at the scene of the crime," she said. "Does anyone know what it is?" The badge was pa.s.sed around from hand to hand. "I believe it belonged to the murderer."

Suzuki Midori said, "I saw where that stupid-looking detective was saying it seemed to be a random killing, which meant they might never find the murderer," and Iwata Midori said, "I read in the local news section that the police are looking for eyewitnesses," and Tomiyama Midori said, "I know this badge!

"I see my son once a week, right? So I always want to feed him something delicious, because his father's a man with no ambition whatsoever and I'm afraid he's robbed the poor boy of even the will to eat delicious things, which it would be better if he lived with me but I have to work and I know my son understands that, but anyway he always wants to eat at MOS Burger, teriyaki burgers with double mayonnaise, three of them, and then we go to this store called Kiddy Kastle, and out in front of the store is a video game he likes to play, and if you score over three hundred thousand points you get one of these badges, and there's a poster with a list of all the people who've won a badge."

For the very first time, only one person was talking, and everyone else in the group was listening.

II.

"So if we investigate all the names on the list, I bet we'll find the killer." if we investigate all the names on the list, I bet we'll find the killer."

Tomiyama Midori stopped there, and an eerie silence filled the room. It was a silence pregnant with heart-tingling antic.i.p.ation, the sort of thing the Midori Society experienced only rarely-most recently when the six of them had decided to take their first trip abroad together (and ended up on a five-day, four-night excursion to Singapore and Hong Kong). None of the Midoris had ever been big on travel, and though they were always trying to think of things to do together, somehow the idea of going overseas had never before occurred to them. Every one of them had always thought of travel abroad as an extravagance she had no need for. They believed it was wrong to want things you didn't need, and that the people who flaunted Celine scarves, for example, or Louis Vuitton bags or Chanel belts or Hermes perfumes, were essentially people who had no self-esteem. Somewhere deep in their internal organs the Midoris carried the conviction that buying such things was just an attempt, albeit on an extremely primitive level, to "heal one's wounds," but it goes without saying that they too aspired to Celine and Louis Vuitton and Chanel and Hermes, not to mention world travel. Which was why, on that day when they'd gathered at Suzuki Midori's apartment for a dubious culinary experience billed as "Box Lunches of Seven Major Train Stations" and Iwata Midori said, "How about taking a trip overseas, somewhere nearby maybe?" this same sort of tingly silence had descended. Everyone was thrilled but hesitated to be the first to admit it.

"So we find out who the killer is...and then what?" Henmi Midori, who tended to overdo the facial packs and whose forehead and cheeks shone so brightly as a result that they reflected the individual bulbs in the ceiling lamp, spoke these words, and there followed another, even deeper silence. All five lowered their eyes shyly, like young ladies meeting a proposed marriage partner for the first time and finding him just to their liking. Iwata Midori plucked at the loose threads of the carpet next to her cushion; Henmi Midori unclenched an incipient fist and gazed at her fingernails; Takeuchi Midori hummed tunelessly; Suzuki Midori raised her empty beer gla.s.s to her lips; and Tomiyama Midori fluttered her long false eyelashes-the kind you don't often see anymore.

No one spoke, so Henmi Midori, discoverer of Yanagimoto Midori's corpse, took her question a step further.

"Are we going to kill him ourselves?"

What followed was the deepest silence yet.

On Sat.u.r.day of that week, Tomiyama Midori met her son, Osamu, at a station on the Keio Line. "How's your father?" she asked, stroking his hair and reflecting that she couldn't care less how his father was, and as always Osamu just tilted his head to one side and didn't reply. Tomiyama Midori loved this unaffable child of hers, however, as only a mother could. In fact, it was only by thinking about her son that she was able even to grasp the concept of love. Love wasn't about feeling at ease with someone, or bubbling with happiness as a result of just being with them. Love was when you felt compelled to expend every effort to see that they enjoyed their time in your company. In a sense, the time she spent with Osamu was fairly agonizing for her. He would stay one night and leave the following evening, and if he smiled once during that time, she would feel that she'd accomplished something of vital importance. Osamu's was a strictly conservative temperament. He would meet his mother at the ticket gate in the station, walk with her through the arcade to MOS Burger, play the video game at Kiddy Kastle, have her buy him a new computer game and three volumes of various manga, ride the bus to her housing complex, hopscotch with rigorous precision over the flagstones, play the new computer game in her third-floor condo, read his manga after dinner, get in the bathtub at exactly eighteen minutes past the hour, and go to sleep holding his mother's hand. The two of them didn't do a lot of actual talking, but Osamu would always smile at least once. Tomiyama Midori would be on edge until he did, however, and sometimes it wasn't until he was on the train platform to head back home. Sat.u.r.day of that week, Tomiyama Midori met her son, Osamu, at a station on the Keio Line. "How's your father?" she asked, stroking his hair and reflecting that she couldn't care less how his father was, and as always Osamu just tilted his head to one side and didn't reply. Tomiyama Midori loved this unaffable child of hers, however, as only a mother could. In fact, it was only by thinking about her son that she was able even to grasp the concept of love. Love wasn't about feeling at ease with someone, or bubbling with happiness as a result of just being with them. Love was when you felt compelled to expend every effort to see that they enjoyed their time in your company. In a sense, the time she spent with Osamu was fairly agonizing for her. He would stay one night and leave the following evening, and if he smiled once during that time, she would feel that she'd accomplished something of vital importance. Osamu's was a strictly conservative temperament. He would meet his mother at the ticket gate in the station, walk with her through the arcade to MOS Burger, play the video game at Kiddy Kastle, have her buy him a new computer game and three volumes of various manga, ride the bus to her housing complex, hopscotch with rigorous precision over the flagstones, play the new computer game in her third-floor condo, read his manga after dinner, get in the bathtub at exactly eighteen minutes past the hour, and go to sleep holding his mother's hand. The two of them didn't do a lot of actual talking, but Osamu would always smile at least once. Tomiyama Midori would be on edge until he did, however, and sometimes it wasn't until he was on the train platform to head back home.

On this particular day, Osamu smiled just moments after they met. At Kiddy Kastle, Tomiyama Midori copied down the names of all the players who'd scored more than three hundred thousand points. In accordance with the strategy she and the other Midoris had jointly devised, she told the manager of the store that she worked in the marketing department of a major video game manufacturer and wanted to contact the high scorers and ask them to try out a new shooting game. "Could you possibly give me their addresses?" she asked him.

"Don't know their addresses," said the manager, whose face was like a squashed orange. "But I got a list where they go to school."

There were seven names: Shinkai Yoshiro, Sakuragi Middle School, second year Sakuragi Middle School, second yearSakai Minenori, Chofugaoka Elementary School, fifth year Chofugaoka Elementary School, fifth yearSak.u.ma Toshihiro, Shimofuda Elementary School, sixth year Shimofuda Elementary School, sixth yearNaka Atsushi, Nishiboshi Middle School, first year Nishiboshi Middle School, first yearSugioka Osamu, Koganei Electronics Inst.i.tute Koganei Electronics Inst.i.tuteFujii Masatsugu, Shimofuda Elementary School, sixth year Shimofuda Elementary School, sixth yearMaeda Tak.u.mi, Yaman.o.be Middle School, third year Yaman.o.be Middle School, third year

It bothered her a bit that the given name, Osamu, was the same as her son's, but Tomiyama Midori felt there could be no mistake. She drew a star next to Sugioka's name. He had scored 370,000 points. "That guy's awesome!" Osamu said, and smiled once again. Tomiyama Midori patted his head.

Sugioka didn't notice that he was being tailed by two inconspicuous Aunties as he came out the front gate of the electronics inst.i.tute. The sun was shining for the first time in many days, and he giggled meaninglessly as he sauntered along in the thick shade of the old cedars that lined the street. Following him at a distance were Iwata Midori and Henmi Midori. didn't notice that he was being tailed by two inconspicuous Aunties as he came out the front gate of the electronics inst.i.tute. The sun was shining for the first time in many days, and he giggled meaninglessly as he sauntered along in the thick shade of the old cedars that lined the street. Following him at a distance were Iwata Midori and Henmi Midori.