had three pots of yogurt stolen in the last few months. Come on now, calm down. Lately, you’ve been all on edge.
That afternoon, I was talking to two new recruits who couldn’t find anything better to do than pester me. While I was explaining how to use a program to design maps, I felt like banging their heads together to make them see they could not have picked a worse time to bother me. It must have been obvious from my curt tone, especially when one of them asked what the webcam at the bottom of the screen was for, there. I dodged the question, continuing to give explanations while all the time keeping half an eye on the kitchen. They must have thought I had OCD, or taken me for a home-loving depressive. Or was it his elderly mother’s house he was watching from afar? I was about to comment on something when the rectangle in the bottom right darkened slightly. A figure was moving about on screen, shrunken (the wide-angle camera flattened everything in its field; I shouldn’t have mounted it so high) and silhouetted; for a few seconds, the window that looks out onto the road was partially eclipsed. As I carried on talking to the two men next to me, I gradually realised the person I was dealing with was a woman and, judging by her hairstyle and slight frame, no longer a girl by any stretch of the imagination. She simply crossed the room and, since her head was turned the other way, I saw nothing of her face but the outline of her cheek; I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features at all. Anxious not to let them sense my unease, I turned back to the two nuisances and made trivial chit-chat, trying my best to sound casual. That was a mistake. By the time I turned my attention back to her, the figure had moved out of frame. My two colleagues thanked me and left me to my empty kitchen; it was as if I had been fooled by a hallucination. She was bound to come back the other way; I just had to be patient.
Only she didn’t. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by. It would have been ridiculous to call the police; what exactly would I have reported? The disappearance of a shadow? I could just hear the policeman muttering as he searched the house: perhaps you’re married in a parallel dimension, Shimura-san, or maybe you thought you had at last seen the girl you would have liked to marry? (Then, leaning towards me, acting the shrink.) A girl you knew as a teenager, who turned you down just like the others? Whose arrogant features have stayed with you, lodged deep in your mind, and now that vivid memory is messing up your brain. Unless it’s a fairytale elf that’s moved in? We’re all like you, Mr Shimura, we all have our own elves to help us through the day. Then, speaking in hushed, nudge-nudge tones and shooting me a lewd smile, he would lay out his little theory: a prostitute or a junkie, wasn’t she, go on, admit it, or a girl from a massage parlour you fell for and then tired of – these things happen, we’re only human – and she clung to you because she had nowhere else to go, so you decided to get her out of your hair by claiming trespass, burglary …
No! I didn’t want to hear any nonsense like that. I needed proof. Police officers don’t go around arresting thin air. I temporarily closed the kitchen window on my screen. My colleagues reopened those of the office and the cicadas burst in by the dozen. Filthy creatures. Behind them, the crows endlessly repeated the same caaw, caaw sound. And in the wings of this choir were the soloists, the bells of Urakami and the sirens of police cars chasing elves.
The cicadas were still tormenting me when I got off the tram, harpies unleashed on me, shaking their maracas in my ears. Invisibly imposing their rhythm on my walk towards insanity. I felt afraid at the thought of entering my house. From a distance, the lock did not appear to have been broken. Whether that was reassuring or not, I didn’t know. Old Mrs Ota, keeping watch as always, saw me standing rooted to the pavement and called me over. She does this from time to time, motions me over and we chat about one thing or another. She once told me I reminded her of her son. Same generation, same grown-up schoolboy charm, but he has a family and lives a long way away, and only visits once a year. Or twice if I should happen to die, she joked.
Still preoccupied by the events of the afternoon, I half expected her to declare theatrically, as she does when recounting local gossip, ‘I saw her coming out of your house!’ But no, she only wanted to natter about this and that, and in the end it was me who asked the question. From the way she raised her eyebrows, I could see she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary and was almost annoyed with herself: but I haven’t moved an inch all day except to do my morning shop. Did that mean I had dreamed the figure on my screen? Did a webcam eventually progress from scanning Formica kitchen surfaces to capturing the resident spirits, or kami, too? Did they record the spectres coming and going in a place thought to be empty? Over time, might the ‘retina’ of a camera become sensitised to what the human eye cannot perceive, the way a dog picks up ultrasound waves that his master’s ears are incapable of hearing? As I made to leave, Mrs Ota threw me an oblique glance. Why do you ask? Should I have seen someone? Did you have a visitor? I assumed an air of unease, sighed softly and smiled.
‘I must be becoming suspicious in my old age. There’s a woman who used to clean for me, who I think kept a set of my keys. I saw her hanging around here this morning. So …’
‘We’re quick to suspect the worst.’
‘Well, in this day and age.’
‘I don’t remember you having a cleaning lady, Shimura-san.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t for long.’
‘You didn’t trust her?’
I didn’t reply. Without explicitly asking, I had given her reason to keep an even closer eye on things over the coming days. What deity would demand offerings of yogurt, a single pickled plum or some seaweed rice? Never mind that I was raised a Catholic, I often go to feed our kami at the local shrine, but it never occurred to me for one moment they would come into people’s houses and help themselves.
‘I think I’ve seen her, you know, your cleaning lady. It must have been about a month ago – I saw someone in your kitchen in the middle of the day. I said to myself, now that’s odd, but then I remembered that you had a sister who comes to visit sometimes. Or perhaps he’s got a girlfriend, I said to myself as well. Perhaps he’s got a girlfriend.’
Her chubby face wore a look of pure kindness. Mrs Ota clearly meant well, but I dismissed her suggestion with an awkward laugh designed to hide my embarrassment.
‘I thought … Time’s ticking on, Mr Shimura. None of us are getting any younger! You should have a girlfriend, or you’ll end up spending your old age on your own.’
After sliding the door open, I listened out for any strange noises. I had never felt this way before. Either old Mrs Ota had stopped paying attention at some point that afternoon, or the figure I had glimpsed had stolen away through a back window, sneaking out unnoticed like a ninja that just materialises and then vanishes in the same way, suddenly and soundlessly. I quickly went round inspecting the windows and noticed that one of them, in the guestroom, was unlocked. Yes, she could easily have slipped out of this room: it didn’t back on to anything, no Mrs Ota on this side. Only the hills opposite, bristling with grey roofs that always make me think of a monster’s scales. And this monster was falling asleep. I fastened the lock and swore to check the windows every morning before leaving the house. I felt better after closing the blinds, if still slightly on edge. I was thinking about the figure Mrs Ota had caught sight of the previous month.
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