Part 7

“Wooah!” he cried out as his bike tipped backward, his flailing arms and legs spilling onto the curb. The front wheel groaned, spinning backward, and the pedals clanked against the tarmac. It was an old Matsushita National bike, one of those with stick shifts, and a wave of nostalgia swept me back to my own childhood.

As he fell, a tub of rice seasoning popped out from his jacket and rolled toward the curb, turning in a half-circle with a plastic click-clack before coming to rest. I realized then that his parents must have sent him shopping.

I stepped back under the shop awning as the boy picked himself up, scowling, stung by humiliation. His crew had skidded to a halt halfway up the street, where they perched on their bikes, laughing.

“Hachirou!” one cried. “Nandayo! You clumsy dolt.”

Hachirou? What a coincidence.

Yes, for a moment I thought they were addressing me. Hachirou. It means “eighth son.” These boys were part of a family. I could see now what I had overlooked before. The boys, the bikes, all different sizes. And not only that, but do you see? It was a clue. Hachirou had given me a clue.

You’ve had so many clues.

The rice seasoning… do you see? Now I realized where that damn doll had been all this time. I had got confused and packed it up with the rice cooker. The one I left outside old Sato’s. The two boxes in the kitchen. I had mixed them up. That must have been what happened.

I mumbled, ‘my bad, my bad, sumimasen,’ and left those boys to pick up that good son Hachirou, dust him down, and hurry him back home to his parents and a tasty rice dinner. I hurried back too. I practically ran. Knowing my luck, Sato had finally got around to taking that box inside. He probably wasn’t being ungrateful at all. The blind old bat might not even have noticed it outside. He might have tripped over it before realizing it was there. He would have taken it inside, set it on his table, opened it up and found that doll nesting on the rice cooker. Ha! The old goat probably thinks someone has set a hex on him.

With the way that doll looks and feels, that’s exactly what I’d have thought. But as I drew close to his house, I realized the box was still outside. Good. That saves an awkward explanation. Saves worrying about the gossip.

Once I got in, I set both boxes on the table. I made myself a cup of tea and pushed the Sapporo box to one side.

When I opened the other box, I must have made some strange, frustrated noise, or even sworn.

You did both.

Yes, I imagine so. The box contained the rice cooker, alright – but no doll. Yes, I must have cursed in exasperation. And maybe I picked the rice cooker up and hurled it against the wall. I must have been shouting too. Because I became aware of another sound, just below the volume of all the commotion I was making. My heart stopped. A voice. The doll. Someone was calling out to me.

Why, who…?

Why, it was you, my sweetheart. You called out to me: what’s that, what’s happening, what’s wrong, or words like this.

I asked, what are you doing home?

Yes, that was it. A fine way to greet me.

Yasuko, dear, what should I say? To hear your voice again… my heart was fit to burst. But…

But?

But… back from the grave… I…