account number.”
I gave her my own. I felt that I’d been taken for a ride—with me as the driver. Providing my real name was a very bad idea. I warned myself that everything was sure to immediately unravel and that I’d soon be caught. I’d been tearing along without thinking and now couldn’t stop.
I swear that my original intention had been to pull some sort of harmless prank. I wanted to comfort Mother in her loneliness. Just for minor amusement. But the words kept coming out, and one thing had led to another.
And yet at some point the joke had turned real, and I missed the point of no return.
Before hanging up, she asked once more: “Are you sure it isn’t a consumer-credit loan?”
“I swear it isn’t,” I replied.
Even when the conversation was over, the sense of not being myself lingered. Feeling removed from my normal reality, like a cat in a strange house, I kept waiting for another call from Mother. She would be sure to call after making the deposit. I should have been worried that she’d call “my” older sister or that Daiki would realize that his cell phone was missing and have the service suspended. Instead I thought: Well, if I’m caught for stupidly giving out my own name and number, so be it. And so, in no mood to do anything, I idly turned on the television. Five minutes later I was dozing off.
* * *
The cell phone began vibrating again. An hour had passed. For a moment I panicked, thinking that I was at work, having fallen sound asleep during a break. When I realized I was in my own apartment, I felt that I had been caught in some sort of delusion.
Mother told me that she had transferred the money, adding: “The bank teller asked me, when I told him the amount, whether I might be the victim of remittance fraud. I had quite a fright.”
I was the one who now had quite a fright. Could she be on to me? “What did you say?”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes, it does. Because I feel that I really am engaged in some sort of scam in asking for your help.”
“I sense that you’re still holding back something from me. Perhaps that’s why you think you’re doing something fraudulent.”
“I keep telling you that I don’t owe money to any loan sharks.”
“So please show your face around here and explain yourself as you should.”
“Fine, I understand. I’ll try to get over there next weekend. I’ll be in touch.”
“Call me tomorrow. Make sure you actually do. I want to know whether this will really tide you over.”
I immediately got on my bike, pedaled to a nearby ATM, and withdrew 900,000 yen. I still had 214,307 yen left. There was no sign that I was on the verge of arrest. I thought about calling Mother to thank her once again but then realized I might be digging my own grave even deeper.
I went back to my apartment, pausing by an open drain. I switched off the cell phone. As I carefully removed any fingerprints with the edge of my shirt, it occurred to me that since my account number was already known, this was a meaningless precaution. I felt like a dog that tries to paw sand over its scat after taking a dump on a paved street. I smiled wryly to myself.
I noted that in all the time since I had swiped the phone, the only messages to Daiki had been from his mother. What a lonely bastard, I thought, but then reconsidered, remembering that on a weekday he’d be at work anyway. So perhaps he wasn’t so forlorn after all. Might not the one messing with the supposedly lonesome dude’s cell phone be, in fact, the real loser? For a moment I felt faint, questioning my own existence. I hastily made sure that there was no one else around, then broke the cell phone in half and threw the pieces into the water. In doing so, I had the distinct sensation of having regained my true self. Humming to myself, I returned home.
* * *
I took the envelope containing the cash from my pocket. Once again I had the feeling of having let myself be cornered. What, I brooded, was I supposed to do with my ill-gotten gains? Should I buy a high-priced, full-size, single-lens reflex digital camera? Knowing how little I had in the way of savings, should I first give consideration to living expenses? Or should I be a spendthrift and blow some big-time money on a fun evening? But that would mean nothing more than a more upscale form of licentious entertainment than was my wont. At least if I had a girlfriend, I could buy her a present. Though if I really did have a girlfriend, I’d probably screw it all up by giving her the wrong thing and causing her all sorts of embarrassment. I guess I could always do penance for my misdeed by giving some money to a charitable cause.
But no matter how I thought about spending it, a sense of meaninglessness lingered. It occurred to me that if I threw the bills into the drain, just as I had done with the cell phone, I’d feel a lot better. Or, to put off getting busted, at least for a while, I could move. Life on the lam would probably cost me all that I had stolen. Meaningless money pointlessly spent . . . Not a bad idea, I thought. But finding a new place to live would itself be a hassle.
Even thinking about it was becoming irksome. I put 50,000 yen in my wallet and tucked the rest into my underwear drawer. I decided to put the matter to rest and simply forget about it. And that’s exactly what I did—until three days later, when things turned weird.
* * *
That Sunday at work on the sales floor I got into a confrontation with Tajima, the supervisor, and was then royally chewed out by the store manager. Tajima had come in just before me when I was hired as a contract employee; from the very beginning we hadn’t gotten along. When after three years I was deemed reliable and hired as a regular staff member, Tajima had been the lone dissenter.
He must having been waiting that day to pounce on me for something. The elderly lady I was serving wanted the simplest sort of digital camera, so that she could take photos of her great-grandchild. I had recommended to her the easiest-to-use model, with the least likelihood of photographic failure. As it happened, there were no other customers around, so when she said that she wouldn’t be able to remember it all, I wrote down for her the basic operations for taking snapshots. All the time she was telling me about her son and his grandchild, her great-grandson, saying that even though her son and grandson kept promising to send baby photos, they hadn’t, thus obliging her to buy a camera, so that she could have her own. She expressed amazement at having lived so long as to see her own great-grandchild. It seemed, she said, only yesterday that she was holding her grandson in her arms, and now he was himself a father. It felt quite unreal to her. She was speaking loudly, as though hard of hearing.
Picking up on our chat, Tajima stepped over and called me into a corner. “Going overboard in pampering customers,” he said softly, “is not good for business. Ring up the sale and send her packing.”
“Yes,” I replied in the same half-whisper. “I could understand your concern if I were neglecting other customers, but there aren’t any. So why are you getting on my case?”
“Are you blind?” He glared at me with contempt as he pointed to several new arrivals at the counter. Then he sputtered: “If you’re going to act like a contract worker, then go back to being one.”
“Why don’t you put in for a transfer?” I countered. “After all, you’re alone in the world.”
Tajima had the habit of licking his lips when he
