Dark Water

1

He had often considered leaving the teaching profession. He was fed up with it all, the same routine year in year out; he simply wasn’t getting anywhere in life. The urge to quit had been particularly strong this May. But then he had received his bonus payment and summer vacation beckoned, inducing him to think that teaching might not be so bad after all. He was prepared to give it a try for a little while longer. It had been the same the year before: he had been on the verge of quitting in May, only to reconsider, deciding in July to give it a go for a bit longer. Summer vacation was not only for the benefit of students; it also served as a perk for teachers who would otherwise seek employment elsewhere. He was absolutely certain that without summer vacation, he’d have given up this teaching lark years ago.

Kensuke Suehiro was going over all this in his mind as he walked down the corridor after his last lesson of the afternoon. He had entered the teaching profession eight or nine years ago right after graduating from one of Tokyo’s national universities. That university had formerly been a ‘normal school’ specializing in the training of teachers, which probably accounted for many of his classmates’ intention to pursue the vocation. As for Kensuke, he’d been swept along by the prevailing current and had found himself in the teaching profession before he knew it.

As he stacked notebooks on his desk in the staffroom, he noticed a handwritten memo: ‘There was a call for you from Mr Sasaki of Josei Junior High School.’

Just reading the words ‘Mr Sasaki’ aroused fond memories. Sasaki meant a great deal to Kensuke. He’d been Kensuke’s respected teacher and mentor. Sasaki had been the head of teachers in charge of seventh graders when Kensuke had been assigned to his first middle school post after graduation. That school was in Tokyo, and Sasaki, like Kensuke, taught science. Not only had Kensuke learned a great deal from him about natural science in general, but Sasaki had also supported and helped Kensuke in many ways, both privately and professionally. Sasaki had a distinctively original approach to teaching. Rather than stuffing the heads of his students with facts, he tried to draw out their latent capabilities by letting them experience natural phenomena for themselves. Some of these activities included taking his students on field trips to collect butterflies in the hilly marshlands or staying up all night with them to observe comets. It was when they ceased to be colleagues that Kensuke’s passion for teaching began to wane. Sasaki, along with his distinctive approach to teaching, had moved on to another school. This alone had been enough to sap Kensuke’s motivation. The transfer occurred five years ago, and for the past couple of years their relationship had amounted to no more than the customary exchange of New Year’s greeting cards. Nothing could have delighted Kensuke more than learning that Sasaki had called him.

Kensuke wasted no time in calling Josei Junior High School and asking for the headmaster. Sasaki had just assumed that post in the regular spring reshuffling of personnel. This is Kensuke Suehiro. I’d like to…’ The moment Kensuke had given his name, the voice at the other end answered unceremoniously, ‘Hey, it’s me.’ Sasaki may have become a headmaster, but Kensuke was relieved that his old mentor had not changed his manner in the least.

‘Please excuse me for my long silence,’ Kensuke apologized to his mentor, bowing unconsciously though he was talking over the phone.

‘Sorry I called you during one of your lessons. It’d never have happened before, but I’ve lost my touch since I became headmaster. It was a lot more fun when I actually had classes to teach.’

This remark was no doubt sincere. Sasaki was the kind of teacher much more suited to be in the classroom than on the careerist ladder. Kensuke wished he could transfer to Josei so he could work under a headmaster like Sasaki. A boss like him would relieve a lot of the job’s stress.

‘Say, how would you feel about going to Battery No. 6?’ asked Sasaki point-blank, dispensing with pleasantries.

‘Battery No. 6? You mean…’

‘Yes, that Battery No. 6, the one under the Rainbow Bridge… the ghost island.’

Kensuke found himself unable to speak. Little had he imagined that Sasaki had called to invite him to an uninhabited artificial island in Tokyo Bay that had held a special significance for Kensuke for the past nine years.

‘How are we going to get there?’ Kensuke sounded puzzled.

‘Leave that to me.’

‘I think you’ll find that the island is off-limits.’

Sasaki lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘We’ll swim there in the dead of night so no one’s the wiser. Think your swimming’s up to it?’

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government had restricted access to Battery No. 6 as a means of conserving it as a cultural asset.

‘That’s hardly the kind of suggestion you’d expect to hear from a headmaster. After all, you’re a respected figure in the community.’

‘Respected figure!’ Sasaki laughed. ‘You know how to strike where it hurts. But, come to think of it, you never had much nerve did you? Did you really expect that a pillar of the community like me would secretly go ashore in violation of the law? I’m talking about an on-site survey, okay, an on-site survey.’

‘On-site survey…’

‘Yes, the Minato Ward authorities have asked me to head an on-site survey.’

Sasaki went on to explain what had happened. He had received a request from a special committee of the Ward Council to undertake a survey of conditions on Battery No. 6 – the flora and fauna, the soil, and such. There was a note of pride in his voice as he described how it had all come about. It would have helped a lot and avoided much confusion had he explained all this to Kensuke at the outset. Although municipal officials and ward councilors were to take part in the survey, apparently there was room for others as well, and the city was looking for someone interested in natural science.

Sasaki’s style never changed. He had to take the other by surprise first, and clarified only then.

‘When is the survey due to take place?’ Kensuke was already asking about the schedule.

‘Can I take it you’re game?’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Not only did Kensuke now have the opportunity to visit Battery No. 6, but also to do so legally. All he had to do was tag along. Now he’d certainly find out. The moment he set foot on the island, the bewitching creature that had dwelt in his mind for the past nine years would no doubt vanish.

Once Sasaki had given him the details about when and where the expedition was to get under way, Kensuke bowed deeply into the telephone, saying, ‘I’m really very grateful for this opportunity.’

Sasaki’s response to this expression of gratitude was hard to decipher: ‘Well, do your best.’

2

The bewitching creature that had come to dwell on Battery No. 6 was a phantom by the name of Yukari Nakazawa. Phantom she was, but not one of the realm of spirits. Kensuke believed that Yukari Nakazawa was alive and well somewhere other than on Battery No. 6; and he hoped he was right.

He had first met her at about the same time of year nine years ago. He had been in his fourth year at the university and summer vacation had just begun. If not for the sound of that car horn, he would have never known that she existed. Until that instant, he had assumed that Toshihiro Aso had come alone on his visit.

Kensuke and Aso had been classmates in elementary and junior high. Both attended a well-known private school that assured its students passage all the way through college. When it had come time to enter high school, however, Kensuke found it impossible to deal with the traditional aspects of the private high and transferred out to a public school. In contrast to Kensuke, who was reserved and introverted, Aso became not only captain of the rugby team, but also one of the school’s academic stars. True to his childhood ambition, Aso succeeded in entering the department of medicine at his university. Although attending different high schools should have resulted in them going their separate ways, they continued to remain close friends for more than ten years. Though apparently complete opposites, the school hero and the dropout got on amazingly well with each other.

That evening, Aso had suddenly turned up at Kensuke’s studio apartment in Azabu. It was already past nine, but Aso had brought a case and invited Kensuke to drink with him. In under an hour, they had downed more than a dozen cans of beer between them. Aso drank so fast that he was already shuttling back and forth to the toilet to relieve himself. He could hold his liquor and wasn’t one to get drunk on beer, but, upon consuming a certain amount, he seemed to need to visit the toilet with increasing frequency to empty his bladder. His cascade hitting the toilet bowl, he peed sonorously like he meant for it to be loud. Once finished, he’d linger a while before flushing the toilet. It was during one of these momentary interludes of silence that Kensuke had heard the sounding of the car horn. Unable to resist wondering about the source of the honking horn, he went out onto the balcony and looked down on the one-way street below.

Despite being three floors up, Kensuke immediately realized that someone was honking at Aso’s BMW. The BMW was parked right in front of the curb, making it impossible for a large minivan to negotiate the turn. Aso was going to have to go down there and move his car.

But even as he thought this, Kensuke saw the BMW begin to back up. The car could not have moved by itself. There was someone inside. When Aso returned from the toilet, Kensuke asked him what was going on.

‘Did you leave someone down there in your car?’

‘Ha! No need to worry.’

‘Why don’t you park your car in our garage and call your friend up?’

Kensuke’s parents had built the apartment building on this site to replace their old home when the time had come to rebuild it. His family took the entire ground floor of the building and rented out the three floors above. Although there was enough room for Kensuke on the ground floor, he preferred to live alone, and his parents let him have a single-room apartment on the top floor. His parents had their own parking space set aside in their private garden. It was spacious enough to accommodate at least two cars. A third car could squeeze in there with a bit of maneuvering. It was hardly necessary to keep someone waiting in the car out there at the roadside.

Without waiting for Aso’s consent, Kensuke went down and moved his parents’ cars to make room for the BMW. He then walked over to the BMW and knocked on the windshield, gesturing to the driver inside to park in the extra space. In the driver’s seat sat a woman with a pale complexion and long hair.

This didn’t surprise Kensuke very much. Aso often dropped by like this, leaving a lady in his car. But never for longer than half an hour. More often than not, he’d drop in and leave soon afterwards because he’d left so-and-so down in the car. That night, however, Aso had kept the woman waiting in the car for well over an hour. As far as Kensuke knew, this was the longest he’d ever dared to.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Kensuke apologized to the woman on behalf of his thoughtless friend. He wanted her to know that if he’d noticed earlier, she’d never have been left alone so long. ‘Aso never mentioned you were waiting down here,’ he said.

Staring at the dashboard, she simply shook her head as if embarrassed.

‘Why don’t you come up and join us?’

Although he was unsure how Aso would react, Kensuke thought it better to invite the woman into his home. She nodded and got out of the car. As she introduced herself, she spoke with a lisp:

‘I’m Yukari Nakazawa.’

As they walked along the passage and rode in the elevator, Kensuke could not stop looking at the woman, this Yukari Nakazawa. Aso had introduced Kensuke to many girlfriends in the past, but Yukari was quite different from all the others. First and foremost, she wasn’t glamorous. Her petite body was well proportioned but she had only average looks, and she walked with downcast eyes in this terribly morose way. The red bag she carried under her arm looked so infantile that it would have made a schoolgirl blush. Her cheap-looking clothes had clearly been picked from a mail-order catalog. Yet her skirt revealed legs that were gorgeously slender, tapering down to firm and compact ankles. Kensuke found it difficult not to stare at her bare legs. Her entire appeal converged on her legs.

Aso was obviously not pleased when Kensuke returned to the apartment with Yukari. Peeved, he insisted that they were leaving right away. Kensuke appeased him, going out of his way to lighten up the mood and urging them both to stay and have a little more to drink. The situation became increasingly clear to Kensuke as the three of them talked together. Aso had wanted to avoid introducing Yukari to him. There was little denying that she did not compare with his past girlfriends. That must’ve been it. Aso indeed went haywire, perhaps feeling defensive, and began insulting Yukari.

This woman has had no education to speak of, pal. She didn’t even make it through high school.’

‘I knew she wouldn’t be able to join our conversation. She’s so stupid, everything goes straight over her head.’

‘As if that’s not bad enough, she’s up to here in some weirdo religious cult!’

‘I can’t show her around in public, can I?’

No matter how badly Aso trashed her, Yukari would only lower the corners of her mouth and look desolate, but show no hint of anger. She’d wait for hours on end in an illegally parked car if she were told to stay put. Women who would offer submissive loyalty in return for numbing brutality were an increasingly rare phenomenon. Kensuke could not for the life of him understand why Aso went out with Yukari. Surely there was absolutely no reason to be with her if he intended only to revile the poor girl. Yukari, too, could surely find someone more compatible than Aso.

It soon became clear that it was not to be the kind of pleasant chat among three friends that he had expected. The more Aso drank, the more vicious the abuse he heaped on Yukari. Unable to endure the torment any longer, Kensuke announced that the party had to end. He was doing the unthinkable; he was asking Aso to leave.

Kensuke walked them down to the car. Aso was already showing signs of being too drunk, so Kensuke sat him in the passenger seat. Yukari could drive. But Aso insisted that he was driving, and demanded a can of coffee. Kensuke ran to a nearby automatic vending machine and brought back cans of chilled coffee. He first handed a can to Yukari, who responded by taking a card from her bag and offering it to Kensuke.

‘Please don’t hesitate to drop by whenever you’re in the neighbourhood.’

This did not escape Aso’s attention.

‘You stupid bitch!’ he snarled, striking her hand aside and sending her calling card flying. Aso then grabbed her wrists and twisted her arms behind her back, forcing her head down. ‘He happens to be a good friend of mine. Don’t you lure him anywhere nasty, get it?’

Yukari gave a small cry of pain and slumped onto the hood of the car. Aso did not move to help her up, but jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Adjusting her dress, Yukari went round the front of the car and got into the passenger seat.

‘I’ll be seeing you.’

Aso directed a cheery smile at Kensuke alone, whereupon he drove off.

As soon as the car was out of sight, Kensuke began to scan the road for the card that Yukari had tried to give him. He soon found it among some shrubs in the garden. He read what was on the card in the light of a street lamp. Under the name of a religious organization that he’d never heard of, Kensuke read the name Yukari Nakazawa followed by an address and telephone number. It was not clear whether the address and telephone number were those of the religious group or those of Yukari. Kensuke put the card in his pocket and returned to his apartment. All through the night, he somehow couldn’t still a feeling of excitement.

3

That proved to be Kensuke’s sole encounter with Yukari Nakazawa. Yet, she became a phantom that was to dwell in Kensuke’s heart. It was all Aso’s fault. If Aso had never said it, Kensuke would have been spared the incredibly persistent image.

It was the end of August, almost two months after the day he’d first met Yukari. Aso called at the same time of day as he had then, but came alone this time – Kensuke made a point of confirming this before Aso could get past the doorway.

‘Did you come alone?’

Aso nodded with a grave air. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked meekly.

Kensuke got the impression that Aso had come because there was something pressing he wanted to talk about. Now that he thought about it, perhaps Aso had also come to talk about the same thing his last visit. Kensuke’s thoughts turned to that evening two months ago, and, in hindsight, it seemed likely that Yukari’s appearance had caused Aso to suddenly turn surly not because he had been seen with a woman who fell somewhat short of his standard of feminine beauty, but because her presence prevented him from saying what he had on his mind.

But this night, as it turned out, Aso hadn’t come to say anything in particular, speaking instead as fancy dictated, reminiscing with Kensuke about their childhood days.

After an hour of this, Aso suddenly announced, ‘I’m off,’ and got up to leave.

‘You can’t be in that much of a rush. Stay a little longer,’ urged Kensuke.

Aso responded with a smile of derision, directed at himself. There’s no end to memories like that, eh? You’re the only one I can talk to about those days. Great times. The good old days.’

As he spoke, the look in Aso’s eyes became distant, whereupon they plunged into another brief spell of reminiscing. That summer they spent together in Karuizawa… There was, of course, that time when they’d gotten lost in the mountains while walking along the unused tracks of the Kusatsu-Karuizawa line (it had linked the two towns until 1960), that time they’d resigned themselves to never returning to civilization alive. It was an experience they’d already rehashed numerous times since. They’d wandered off the track in the growing dusk, and there’d been nothing to do but spend the night outdoors. Kensuke, overcome with anxiety, could only moan and groan; Aso tried to give him courage by assuring him that if they just waited for morning and looked for the tracks, they’d be all right. It had been a night spent in fearful trembling. But looking back on the experience now, it had also been a night packed with excitement and rich in unspoken significance. Their friendship had deepened due to precisely that shared experience.

Aso’s tone was different that evening. It was the first time Kensuke ever saw him wallowing so stubbornly, so sentimentally, in childhood memories. Possibly noticing the growing confusion on Kensuke’s face, Aso suddenly snapped back to his usual self, brought an end to the reminiscing, and signalled his departure with an uplifted hand.

‘I must be off.’

It was only down in the car park, about to see him off, that Kensuke got round to asking, ‘How’s Yukari getting on?’ He was asking this not so much to ascertain her well-being as to find out whether Aso was still seeing her.

‘How should I know? I dumped the bitch.’

The answer only confirmed what Kensuke had expected. That kind of relationship could never have lasted long. Not only was Yukari obviously not Aso’s type; not even she could tolerate such brutality for long.

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

The impression of Yukari remained vivid in Kensuke’s mind. For some reason, she fascinated him.

‘Want to know where I dumped her?’ called Aso as he unlocked the door of his BMW and climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘You mean there’s a place you dumped her?’ replied Kensuke in surprise.

After all, ‘dumped’ simply meant ‘broke up with’. No one used the word to mean tossing a woman in some sort of trash bin. Of course not.

‘I found the perfect place. Want to know where?’

Aso’s look became provocative. It was a pretty sick joke, but Kensuke decided to play along for a little while longer.

‘Where was it you dumped her?’

‘Battery No. 6.’

Battery No. 6… the uninhabited island out in Tokyo Bay. In the wake of the arrival, in Tokyo Bay, of Commodore Perry’s ‘Black Ships’, Japan’s feudal regime had created the islands to house gun batteries for protection against foreign attack. The only ones now remaining were Batteries No. 3 and 6. A breakwater now connected Battery No. 3 with Odaiba (Battery) Seaside Park, and only Battery No. 6 was still an island in the true sense of the word.

Kensuke laughed. Battery No. 6 was not far from a large refuse disposal site, and what was more, the island, which had been constructed to house a gun battery, had never once been used as such. It thus seemed the perfect place for dumping a girlfriend who’d outlived her usefulness. Kensuke couldn’t help admiring Aso’s sophisticated sense of humour. His jokes were good, very good.

‘It’s hot out there. Climb in,’ Aso said, apparently not having yet had his fill of conversation. Kensuke got in and closed the door, and Aso turned on the air-conditioning and began his story. It was a detailed account of why he’d dumped Yukari, on Battery No. 6…

Yukari was pregnant with his child. But the cult she belonged to forbade abortion. She had pressed Aso to marry her – a common enough scenario. Cult or no, this was the kind of story that Kensuke often heard from Aso.

‘Is that why you dumped her?’ intervened Kensuke, nudging Aso to get to the end sooner than later. If Aso was left to recount the story at his own pace, the whole joke would begin to sound too real.

‘The stupid bitch showed me this picture.’

Aso opened the glove compartment and took out a piece of paper folded into four. It bore a colour illustration. Kensuke stared at the juvenile thing. It showed green trees growing luxuriantly under a sun painted in gold. Under the trees sprawled grown men and women surrounded by children at play. Dogs, cats, and even lions strutted contentedly among the trees. A closer look at the picture revealed that this earthly paradise was surrounded by the sea. Perhaps it was in the tropics; the trees were laden with coconuts. Kensuke guessed the author at once.

‘Yukari drew this?’

‘Yeah, this is apparently what you get when the stuff she believes in is put on paper. Peace, tranquillity, no disease or old age, just life eternal. What do you make of it?’

Yukari was not much of a talker, and Kensuke could see how it must have been much easier for her to express her cherished ideal of paradise on earth as a picture rather than in words.

Kensuke just stared at the picture without answering Aso’s question. After all, it wasn’t the kind of question you could answer on the spot.

‘Why don’t we build our own paradise?’ His hands clasped to his chest, Aso trilled grotesquely, mimicking Yukari. Then, dramatically jerking his face closer to Kensuke: ‘Nothing pissed me off worse in all my twenty-three years. That idiot just doesn’t have a clue about how utterly miserable her notion of living on and on for all eternity is.’

Kensuke sided with Yukari. ‘You’re being too harsh. We’re all different in how we look at things.’

‘Don’t call me harsh! She tried to force her idealistic crap on me.’

‘So you went and dumped her on Battery No. 6, right?’

‘Right. Banished her to a desert island, I did. I think I made the punishment fit the crime. If she wants to build a paradise, then she can damn well build it herself.’

‘But that island is off limits, isn’t it?’

‘Took a rubber dinghy over there in the middle of the night.’

Yukari didn’t know that Battery No. 6 was legally closed to the general public and so had no qualms at all about their nocturnal adventure. They took the dinghy in the car, but it mostly fell to Yukari to inflate and to row the thing to their destination. Yukari would have followed Aso to the end of the earth without the slightest suspicion. Once they had landed on the battery island, Aso used chloroform to knock her out, leaving her unconscious while he made his getaway. The way he described abandoning Yukari on Battery No. 6, he made it all sound so simple.

Kensuke remained unconvinced. After all, a mere three hundred yards separated Battery No. 6 from the Marine Park. It was not too far a distance to swim. Even if you couldn’t swim, many pleasure boats cruised by the island. All you had to do was stand on an embankment and shout to make yourself heard. Surely, he pointed out to Aso, Battery No. 6 was as easy to get off as it was to get to.

‘No problem, I took all her clothes.’

‘You mean you left her there naked?’

‘Look, I know her pretty well. She’d rather die than be seen naked in public. She’s that sort of woman.’

Kensuke was left speechless. He didn’t know the whole story between Aso and Yukari, but he did know that they were in a relationship, and Aso must have felt something for her during that time. He didn’t feel it was right, even as a joke, for Aso to be saying that he’d stripped someone naked and left her for dead. Whether or not Aso was telling the truth, describing such an act to a third party was brutal enough.

The atmosphere was oppressive and Kensuke remained silent. Glancing furtively sideways, he noticed that Aso seemed to be on the verge of saying something but swallowing the words each time.

I’d better be off then,’ he said. He shifted from Park to Drive mode and lowered his hand to disengage the hand brake.

It was as Kensuke opened the car door that he put his final question to Aso. ‘When did you do it? When did you leave Yukari there?’

‘It must have been around the time of the Obon festival. The city was deserted, everyone gone home to the country.’

Obon, when the ancestors returned… That made it about ten days ago.

Kensuke got out of the car and went round towards the driver’s seat. Aso had the car window open, and his arm was dangling outside, his hand tapping the side of the car. He thrust this hand out in Kensuke’s direction.

‘So long,’ he said.

He’d extended his hand for a handclasp, and Kensuke took it reflexively. It felt cold to the touch. Cold, but clammy with perspiration. It was the first time Kensuke had ever shaken hands with Aso.

‘Be seeing you,’ Kensuke said, and Aso nodded firmly, twice, before driving off in his BMW.

As he followed the car with his gaze, Kensuke was sure of one thing. There had indeed been a purpose to this visit, and so with the previous. Aso had come to say goodbye. The tone of his ‘So long…’ and the cold feel of his hand came back to Kensuke. As his friend’s BMW approached the intersection, the brake lights went on. Without signalling, the car turned left and disappeared out of sight.

4

For some time afterwards, Kensuke was troubled by a recurring fantasy. A naked young woman lurking in the deep recesses of some uninhabited island was arousing him mercilessly. Kensuke did not have a girlfriend at the time.

He often dreamed of frolicking in the woods. The flesh-coloured trunks of trees resembling crape myrtle sprouted up like sinuous tendrils from the earth, none of them adorned with a single leaf. As Kensuke walked among them, his legs got entangled in the curling branches and he’d sink deep down into the ground. No analysis was necessary to see that the smooth tree trunks symbolized Yukari’s legs. Another recurring dream Kensuke had featured snakes writhing across the ground and transforming themselves into Yukari’s legs. In the wilderness and in places that were clearly some island, Yukari metamorphosed into various plants and creatures and lived on.

Kensuke couldn’t find out if the story was true by asking Aso. Even if Aso said, ‘I was lying,’ the story wouldn’t just go away. The possibility that Aso’s confessing it was a lie was the real lie would remain forever.

Kensuke tried dialling the number on the calling card that Yukari had given him, and got neither her parents’ home nor her apartment, but rather, a sort of dormitory where the members of her religious cult lived. Kensuke told the feeble voiced woman who took the phone that he wanted to speak to Yukari.

‘She’s not here,’ the woman said, and that was all she said.

Kensuke had expected Yukari to come to the phone without much of a to-do, so this stole his tongue. After a pause, he managed to ask, ‘Where may I find her?’

The woman replied simply, ‘I don’t know.’

‘How long has Yukari been away?’

‘I haven’t seen her face the last couple of weeks.’

When Kensuke asked her for Yukari’s parents’ number, she merely responded with a question of her own: ‘Ms Nakazawa has a home?’ The way she said it made Yukari seem like a vagabond with no family.

‘So she doesn’t have one?’ Kensuke pressed.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ the woman responded unceremoniously.

Kensuke couldn’t tell whether Yukari did in fact have no home or whether the commune had simply been given no information. He put the phone down. All he had been able to confirm was that Yukari had not been back to the dormitory for about two weeks now. The awful thing was that Aso’s story was beginning to show signs of plausibility.

It did occur to him to visit Battery No. 6 and check for himself, but the Tokyo authorities had declared the place off limits. Kensuke was due to take the public employment exam in order to become a teacher, and could not afford to get in trouble with the metropolitan government. Besides, he didn’t have the courage to make a clandestine landing on Battery No. 6 under cover of darkness.

He felt he needed to see Aso again to get to the bottom of the matter. If Aso hadn’t been lying, Kensuke needed to do something before it was too late. He didn’t know what sort of criminal charges accrued from stripping a woman naked and leaving her on Battery No. 6. He figured that if she died of starvation, prosecution was inevitable.

He was thus on the verge of contacting Aso when news came that he had been hospitalized in his alma mater’s affiliate. A chest X-ray had apparently shown a patch on Aso’s lungs. A bronchoscope, and tests, revealed that a particularly virulent form of cancer had claimed most of his body already. His brain was blighted too, and surgery was impossible. Even with some desperate chemotherapy, Aso had only two months or so left to live.

Strangely enough, Kensuke was left unfazed by the news. He closed his eyes and calmly let the fact sink in that the time had come. The happy days that they’d shared sped all in a jumble across his mind’s eye, but the idea that ‘it was unbelievable’ simply didn’t occur to him – only the terrible pity of dying at twenty-three, Kensuke’s own age.

Aso had probably sensed, even before he took the tests, that he didn’t have much time left. And so he’d come that day to say goodbye. Given death as a premise, Aso’s recent behaviour made sense. Just as Aso had seen his own death looming, Kensuke had intuited that his friend’s days were numbered, and had no doubt been bracing for this.

Ten minutes or so after he’d digested the news, Kensuke suddenly began to sob. It wasn’t that he was sad; rather, it was because confusing emotions besieged him deep inside. After crying for some time, he felt an irrepressible desire to go and see Aso. It was Kensuke’s turn to say goodbye.

Kensuke thought he’d chosen a slow time for his visit but, in addition to Aso’s mother, there were a few others gathered there in the private room. Aso lay on the bed, in no condition to carry on a normal conversation. The man who’d come to see Kensuke in a car just a month ago now lay before him hardly able to breathe and wreathed in tubes. The cancer cells that riddled Aso’s body had wrought so dramatic a change in so short a time. His left lung had completely ceased to function; apparently, the end would come when the phlegm accumulated in his windpipe.

Right before he left, Kensuke approached Aso’s pillow, bent low, and asked in a gentle whisper: ‘Was that true, about Battery No. 6?’

Kensuke felt certain Aso wouldn’t tell a lie on his deathbed. If he’d only shaken his head then, Kensuke’s suspicion would have been allayed.

Instead, Aso smiled and nodded.

In disbelief, Kensuke tried again: ‘Are you sure?’

Aso nodded twice in succession. Kensuke thought he saw a look of satisfaction on Aso’s face, but it could have been his imagination.

Placing his hand on Aso’s, Kensuke told him, ‘Hang in there,’ and left the hospital room. No doubt, it would have been more appropriate just to say ‘Goodbye.’ Two days later, Aso was dead at the young age of twenty-three.

5

The assembly point was the lounge of the Dream Island Marina. Sasaki looked quite busy lapping his ice cream. Aside from him and Kensuke, the only one there was a metropolitan official named Naito; the councillors representing Minato Ward had yet to turn up. It was ten minutes past the appointed time of 10:00 a.m. Summer vacation had just begun, and on this weekday morning, many young men and women came to the marina. Whenever a young woman passed by, Sasaki’s face would lift from his ice cream and follow the woman as she walked off. Kensuke poked him in the ribs with his elbow.

‘Leader, it’s disgraceful. At your age.’

‘Don’t "leader" me, okay?’ replied Sasaki wryly.

‘You told me this was going to be a serious expedition.’

‘Leave me alone, will you?’

Kensuke’s sarcastic barbs were having their effect, and Sasaki waved his hand as though to chase away an annoying fly.

‘Making a mountain out of a molehill’ was a saying that existed to describe Sasaki. His trademark impulse to blow things up tenfold had been applied to the Battery No. 6 inspection crew, which in Sasaki’s telling was to consist of the best scientific minds the city could muster. But Kensuke had arrived to find only Sasaki and a city official.

‘Where are the other members?’ the baffled Kensuke had asked, blinking.

Sasaki had given this excuse cringingly: They’re all busy and called in one after another to cancel.’

Naito, the city official, revealed a different story when Kensuke questioned him about the matter. Apparently, just one ward councillor and one city official were required for the inspections, but Sasaki had nagged them persistently to be taken with them. All Sasaki’s talk about having been ‘commissioned by the ward council’ and having ‘organized a survey team’ had been barefaced lies. The truth was that Sasaki had tapped Kensuke so he wouldn’t look too bad just tagging along by himself.

‘Here comes Mr Kano. We’re ready to go.’ Spotting the representative of Minato Ward, Naito rose to his feet. Reflexively, Sasaki and Kensuke also stood up.

Waiting aboard the small cruiser tied up at the wharf were the captain and a single deck hand, also government employees. The team, now six members in all, motored out of Dream Island Marina under the bright summer sun at half past ten and headed for Battery No. 6, which was but a stone’s throw away.

On their way they passed under four bridges. The girders of one of them, so low as to be almost within touching distance, blocked out the rays of the sun for a moment, and the whole weight of the thing seemed to bear down on them. As they passed under the fourth bridge, the Rainbow Bridge came into view and beyond it Battery No. 6. Kensuke recalled how he’d looked down at the island from the Rainbow Bridge’s pedestrian walkway shortly after the bridge’s completion. At the observatory, using the binoculars, he’d peered into the depths of the woods that overgrew the battery. Now, for the first time, he was seeing the island from approximately sea level.

As the profile of the island loomed larger, Kensuke was getting his hopes up. He was finally gaining access to the setting of a nine-year-old fantasy that had burgeoned and morphed with a will of its own. Battery No. 6, an irregular pentagon with a surface area of about twelve acres and a perimeter of about a third of a mile guarded by a stone wall sixteen feet high, apparently had a freshwater well on it despite its being a manmade island in the middle of the bay. Thinking that with water you could survive, for nine years Kensuke had kept Yukari alive on that walled island. He understood it was a ridiculous notion. Yet he couldn’t discount that bizarre smile of satisfaction Aso had displayed on the threshold of death. Had Aso, his brain invaded by cancer, succumbed to his own lie? Or had he perhaps, hoping for a place to live after death, conflated the image of heaven with the uninhabited island?

Likely expecting to be fed, a large flock of seagulls circled the cruiser. Flying just above the surface, the birds skimmed Battery No. 6 and swept up high over it. As if shaking the gulls loose, the cruiser pulled alongside the landing on Battery No. 6.

6

While Sasaki, meticulously prepared, was armed with camera, video, and sketchbook, Kensuke had brought hardly anything at all except a pair of waterproof boots, which he put on instead of his sneakers prior to landing.

Sasaki hopped onto the wharf and cried, ‘Hasn’t changed a bit!’

Kensuke, surprised, asked him, ‘You mean you’ve been here before?’

‘Only once. Ten years ago, on a survey like this one.’

Ten years ago… mused Kensuke. That was a year before Aso’s death.

‘Look at that.’

Sasaki pointed to a narrow gap in the embankment. Behind it spread a dim space overshadowed by the trees, while in front, where it was practically still the shoreline, what looked like a variety of parsley grew in profusion.

‘Would that be parsley?’

‘It’s angelica. Angelica keiskei. Common on the Izu peninsula and Oshima island. Must have drifted no small distance! It was there ten years ago, too.’

Sasaki expressed admiration for the vitality of the angelica plant, whose seeds had washed ashore from who knew where and taken root and grown with such vigor. Sasaki repeated several times that the most amazing thing about Battery No. 6 was the variety and vitality of the seeds that found their way to it, and that the place was a natural treasure chest well worth investigating precisely because it was off limits to the public.

While Naito and Kano proposed that they first conduct a summary survey by circling the island once along the embankment, Sasaki clearly wanted to head straight into the center. In the end, it was decided that the team should split up into two, and Kensuke chose to accompany Sasaki. The captain and the crewmember were to remain on the wharf. It was also decided that each pair, Kano and Naito touring the perimeter and Sasaki and Kensuke venturing inland, would carry a portable receiver. It wasn’t a large island, with edges only a hundred yards or so long; they’d be heard if they shouted. But they had the receivers and there was no reason not to use them.

‘See you, then.’ Naito and Kano waved to the others and got going, walking along the top of the embankment.

Sasaki and Kensuke stepped through the growth of angelica and headed into the dim interior. Every time Sasaki caught sight of a fascinating specimen of vegetation, he angled his camera, recorded it on video, or drew it in his sketchbook. There wasn’t any plant Kensuke didn’t recognize that Sasaki could not identify; the mentor was indeed proving himself a specialist of the natural sciences. The serious look in his eyes seemed to give lie to his usual jocularity, and Kensuke saw him in a different light again.

The soil, unused to the trample of human feet, was soft, and black liquid oozed out of the humus under their deliberate tread. If not for their boots, their feet would have been soaked completely a good while ago. Even the air was wet. Grasses and trees that were a rare sight in Tokyo thrived here, giving off an eerie odour for some reason and forming a hybrid copse unique to the island. When the sea breeze stirred the treetops, sounds fluttered down all around them, and from time to time Kensuke would not know where he was. He had pretty much forgotten about Yukari. The island was just too different from the site of his fantasies.

The deeper they went, the thicker the gloom – and Sasaki spoke less and less. He wasn’t peering through his camera and video as frequently, either. Facing this way and that, he finally halted.

‘How odd,’ he muttered.

Kensuke, who’d been following Sasaki, also stopped. ‘What’s odd?’ he asked.

Sasaki just let out a sort of grumble and didn’t explain, lost in thought. They both stood still for some time, neither of them uttering a word.

‘Are you all right?’ Kensuke looked concerned as he broke the silence.

‘The clump of angelica back at the landing looked just the same. But the further in we go… something’s odd.’

‘You mean, it’s different than before?’

‘I can’t put my finger on it. Sure doesn’t feel right though.’

Hearing this, Kensuke looked around him nervously. He thought he was getting bad vibes, too. Apparently, back in the ‘20s, Battery No. 6 had been rumoured to be a sort of haunted isle. Just recently, a windsurfer practicing at the Seaside Park had passed from view behind the island and disappeared for good, board and all – or so Kensuke had heard. Recalling such stories, Kensuke didn’t feel too good.

‘Let’s go on, shall we?’ urged Kensuke, intending to muster courage, but his voice trembled somewhat.

‘No one’s supposed to have come here in ten years Sasaki mumbled to himself, as though to confirm the fact, and resumed walking. Naito had told them aboard the cruiser that the Minato Ward Council was participating in the survey for the first time and that there hadn’t been a comprehensive field investigation in ten years.

Kensuke remained silent.

Sasaki stopped again. Looking up, he cried, ‘This forest’s nurturing something!’

‘Why not? Don’t trees always sustain nearby life-forms?’

Sasaki pointed diagonally ahead. ‘That’s a persimmon tree. The one beyond it is a medlar. Last time I was here, there weren’t any fruit-bearers.’

No sooner had he said this than Sasaki started running ahead.

‘Wait!’ cried Kensuke.

But Sasaki only gained speed, and it was all Kensuke could do to keep up. Dripping with sweat, he was about to give up the chase when the view changed suddenly and he found himself in a clearing about thirty feet wide.

The place seemed to be the centre of the island, the woods appearing equally thick on all sides. To the north the Rainbow Bridge towered against the sky. It was jarring to catch sight of a modern structure from the centre of an island that resembled an uninhabited jungle. It was as though the dimensions had come unhinged and Kensuke had wandered into an alien world.

The noonday sun drenched the grassy clearing with its rays. Cicadas chirped loudly. It wasn’t hard for Kensuke to come up with a word to describe the clearing: it was a garden. Tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, and other summer vegetables had been planted in a neat configuration. It was impossible now to deny that there was some force at work here other than nature. These vegetables had been planted according to some will for some purpose. This wasn’t a case of seeds washing ashore sprouting naturally on their own. Kensuke and Sasaki looked at each other and verified the impression with each other.

‘Look, over there.’ Sasaki jerked his jaw toward the east end of the clearing. Three slender strips of wood stood atop a mound of earth.

Walking over to take a closer look, they saw that the strips were tablets. Of the ink-lettered characters only two were legible, both of them what you’d expect on a tablet, while the others had completely worn off. What were the tablets doing there? Could they have come drifting to Battery No. 6, too? Why were they staked so firmly into the ground then?

‘What do you think?’ spoke Kensuke.

The mound of earth under the wooden strips suggested only one thing to both men.

Sasaki said it: ‘It’s got to be a grave.’

Ants were squirming in columns on the rounded heap of earth. A grave… It just couldn’t be anything else.

Just then, the portable receiver that hung from Kensuke’s shoulder sprang to life.

‘Kano here. Do you read me? Over.’

‘We read you,’ replied Kensuke, his finger on the transmit button.

‘We’ve spotted a small dark figure on the western embankment. It disappeared into the woods and must be heading toward the middle. Please exercise due caution.’

‘What?’

‘It was probably just an animal.’

‘A dog maybe? A cat?’

‘No,’ Kano refuted him without pause.

‘Why are you sure?’

‘We’re not sure. We tried to go after it, but it scrambled into the woods at an amazing speed.’

‘Western side?’

‘Yes.’

‘Roger and out.’ Concluding the transmission, Kensuke looked at Sasaki’s face and awaited his decision.

‘Come.’

Sasaki started walking toward the western woods, where the thing was reported to have vanished, and Kensuke followed closely behind. The two men stopped at the edge of the clearing and, taking care not to make any noise, scouted ahead. They couldn’t hear anything yet, but the thing was coming their way through the thicket right in front of them. Kensuke held his breath and waited for something to appear.

A mosquito hummed annoyingly close to Kensuke’s nose while he waited in a crouch. If he didn’t move at all, he’d be feasted upon where his flesh was exposed. Having to stay in that crouch and make fidgety little movements at the same time was indeed tiring.

The grass in the bush ahead seemed to sway. Soon, the approaching presence became audible through the branches being thrashed away. And then, all of a sudden, a small black thing jumped out at Kensuke.

Before he knew it, he was lying face up on the ground. The impact of something hard striking his jaw from below had almost knocked him out, but his two hands had instinctively caught hold of the thing. A beastly roar went up next to his ear, and an instant later, he felt a searing pain in his arm. He had no idea what was going on. He felt a weight upon him, and when it lifted, he opened his eyes to see against the blinding summer sun a small dark silhouette that was flailing its limbs in Sasaki’s arms. The creature that Sasaki had pulled off him was a boy perhaps seven or eight years old.

Kensuke managed to sit up but remained in a state of disbelief. The boy was howling, not in any human language, but like a wild beast. The shrieks contained a frantic appeal but were totally incomprehensible and filled Kensuke with terror. The boy had no doubt bitten him. There were drops of blood on the arm where he’d felt the pain. Kensuke stood up, pressing down on the spot with his hand. Just then, Kano and Naito came dashing out of the woods behind. No sooner had Kano caught sight of the boy in Sasaki’s restraining arms than he fetched his receiver to get through to the captain of the cruiser.

‘Prepare to depart… Contact the police…’ The instructions Kano issued in rapid succession registered only as fragments with Kensuke.

He felt dizzy. He tried to reason out what had just happened. The boy must have been glancing behind him as he ran. Not noticing Kensuke’s presence right ahead, he’d banged his head into Kensuke’s jaw. But why a boy, on this island? Kano and the others were asking him for his name and address. Tossing his head wildly, he only let out inchoate shrieks and supplied no information. Hearing the cries, which weren’t in Japanese nor any foreign language, Kensuke felt dizzy again.

7

The boy sat on the cruiser’s deck floor with just his head poking above the side. He was gazing intently at the island. There was no expression on his face. Leaving your natal land usually elicited a special surge of emotion, but the boy didn’t seem to know how to express such sentiments. The moment they’d taken him aboard the cruiser, he’d quieted down, and now for some time he’d sat there without once budging.

There was nothing to do but call off the survey. Their top priority was to take the boy back to the city and to hand him over to the proper authorities. Unable to conceal their excitement at the unexpected catch, Naito and Kano exchanged theories about the boy’s provenance and stared unabashedly at him as at a wild child who’d been reared by wolves.

No one else had a clue. But Kensuke could paint a reasonably good picture of what had transpired on Battery No. 6 in the last nine years. One look at the child’s face was enough to make everything clear. The refined small nose, the clear glacial eyes, the thin lips – though obscured by a mass of overgrown hair, all of the boy’s features bore an irrefutable resemblance. It was in third grade that Kensuke and Aso had first met and gotten to know each other. The profile of the boy who sat before Kensuke now was the living image of his former classmate. Without a shadow of a doubt, this was Aso’s son by Yukari Nakazawa.

Aso had lied. He hadn’t stripped Yukari naked and deserted her on Battery No. 6. The absurd scheme of turning an uninhabited island nearby into a paradise on earth had no doubt been Yukari’s suggestion; Aso, while horrified by the inanity of it, must have helped her out. How else could the vegetables and fruits growing on Battery No. 6 be explained? Moreover, the boy wasn’t naked; they were rags by now, but he was clothed. The bare essentials for survival must have been prepared at the outset and brought to the island.

Where, then, was Yukari, the boy’s mother? Probably dead and buried. If she were alive, she’d have to be somewhere other than Battery No. 6. In any case, she wasn’t a living inhabitant of the island. Assuming Aso hadn’t lied about absolutely everything, Yukari had become pregnant that summer nine years ago – and given birth the following year. That made the boy eight years old. If he’d been living with his mother for the whole time, he’d know how to speak. Instead he must have lost his mother when he was around five, and forgotten, during the solitary years that followed, even the little he’d learned from her. Whether Yukari had died on Battery No. 6 or abandoned the child and escaped alone would be clear if and when they dug up the mound under the wooden tablets.

Kensuke’s hunch was that Yukari rested in peace under that mound of earth.

The satisfied expression on Aso’s face as he lay at death’s door… At long last, Kensuke understood. Aso had smiled to himself for secretly having disseminated his seed here on earth. The force that aided the strange seedling from afar didn’t work for plants alone. Kensuke was looking at the proof.

Sensing that Kensuke was staring at him, the boy met his gaze. Almost no expression appeared on the boy’s face as he turned it back toward Battery No. 6 shrinking in the distance.