Part 8

I asked you three times to come to me, to come into the bedroom and to stop hovering outside like a ghost moth at a porch light, yet you quivered there, your voice fluttering with cowardice. Do come in, Hachirou, I said as reassuringly as I could manage. Come in, I have something important to tell you, something important to show you. But still you would not budge – not until I mentioned that last kokeshi doll.

Yes. I remember. You have the doll? I asked, incredulous. Had I overlooked it in my panic? The very object I had been trying to get rid of? Still in the room? All this time? Hidden?

Not quite, Hachirou. When you finally mustered up some courage, and slid open our bedroom door, you remember what you said?

I…

You instinctively looked over at the dressing table. You exclaimed, “This cannot be!” You told me how you had, only this very hour, brought those dolls back from the recycle shop where you had dumped them after stealing them from under my nose.

Not stolen, dearest, not dumped. It’s just… I just couldn’t sleep. Not with them here, reminding me of you.

And then you told me this sorrowful story, asking me to sit here on the bed with you, and commenting on how warm I felt to your touch – how much you had grieved…

It’s true. Every moment of every day.

So tell me, on the way back here, did you see that raccoon again?

Raccoon? Why, yes, I suppose.

Crossing your path from east to west, heading for the old woods.

Yes.

Not paying you a blind bit of notice.

No.

How different from the day I caught up with you on that road – the day you stole my dolls. I had followed you halfway to the village. I knew how much you hated them, especially this kokeshi doll. You thought you had it all figured out, that I had lied about visiting my sister. There was a time I would have cared about your feelings, as disruptive, as volcanic, as chaotic as they were. But as soon as we married, your suspicions began, and the violence soon followed. I stayed at home day in, day out, with those dolls as my only hobby, yet still you found reasons to be jealous. And when you drank, it became an excuse to lose control and hit out, to show your true face.

Yes, I raised my hand, and I should not have done so. And one day I must have been so very drunk to have lost control… I don’t remember it, Yasuko… I don’t even remember killing you, my love.

You kicked out at me when I caught you taking my dolls to sell down at the pawn shop where the old Post Bank had stood. “Give them back to me,” I demanded. You were furious that I dared speak to you in such a blunt manner. “I’ll give you this,” you told me, kicking me in the leg, pulling my hair, and kicking at me again until I tumbled over.