Part 4

Well, back to my story. I waited outside the konbini, wanting to recalibrate my senses, to see if I could still feel those eyes upon me. The street remained asleep, the noren curtains outside the shopfronts breathing steadily in and out. Only a magnificent hototogisu disturbed the peace, diving and calling mournfully to an unseen partner – an arrow pinned between clouds, as if painted there in that empty space, the way of those cuckoos in old woodblock prints. That’s when I realized I no longer had the feeling of being watched. I was elated. Oh, but I was equally sad because those dolls reminded me of you.

I walked back up the hill toward home, stopping every now and again to check if anything was out of the ordinary. Everything was fine. I took it as vindication that my actions, however regrettable, had been the right ones, and that I would now receive the emotional reset I needed to carry on living. Would you believe it? I spotted that fat old raccoon again, pushing heavily against the tall red stalks of monkeyweed, squashing the triangular leaves with its bloated flanks. It still ignored me. Too fat and too old to care.

Once I arrived back, I ate breakfast greedily. It tasted so good. I pottered around the house, avoiding the bedroom, afraid I might succumb to the temptation of sleep so early in the morning. I even took our old rice cooker round to Mr. Sato, as you had often suggested I should.

“It was my wife’s idea. We have a new one, a Chinese one, but this model is really very reliable. The rice doesn’t stick to the bottom like some, so it’s easy to clean.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your wife. She was a wonderful woman. How are you coping? Why don’t you come in for a beer?”

“Thank you, Sato-san, but I have given up all alcohol.”

This was how I had planned it in my head, but being such a deaf old sod, Sato did not hear me practically knocking the door off its hinges, and so for the second time that morning I dropped the box I was carrying by the door. Perhaps it was more prudent this way. Less chance for questions and gossipy intrusions.

I made myself lunch, sat by the television, and spent the entire day in peace. I felt, for the first time since it happened, truly at ease.

When I woke, it was half-dark, the sun setting in a smudge of cherry-blossom bruise. My leg was bleeding where I must have been scratching at it in my sleep, and my back was stiff. I don’t recall closing my eyes. I must have napped despite my intentions. But I was so tired, and the afternoon television was so boring. You remember how I always complained that it was full of gossipy celebrity stories and weak melodramas. No wonder I fell asleep.

As I roused myself, a disquieting sensation crept over me. It was like one of my headaches, the ones that go on for days. I wake thinking they have finally relented, only for them to creep back and spoil the entire morning. That was how this feeling came on too – slowly. At first, I could not put my finger on it, yet it was so insistent that I began retracing the events of the day. What could I have forgotten?

Again, I sensed a presence in the bedroom. I walked through the house and hesitated by the door. Though I did not enter, I reasoned there could be nothing there. Indeed, it was this realization that set me reflecting on what I had done earlier. Whereas before I had felt uneasy sharing a room with those dolls, now it was the room’s emptiness that troubled me. Quite suddenly, I found myself faced with a choice: to live with my guilt reflected back at me in all those dead eyes, or with this eerie absence.

I chose you, my dear. I chose to remember you rather than numb myself to the memories of how I mistreated you. I confess it all. How wrong I have been.