then grabbed her wrists and twisted her arms behind her back, forcing her head down. ‘He happens to be a good friend of mine. Don’t you lure him anywhere nasty, get it?’
Yukari gave a small cry of pain and slumped onto the hood of the car. Aso did not move to help her up, but jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Adjusting her dress, Yukari went round the front of the car and got into the passenger seat.
‘I’ll be seeing you.’
Aso directed a cheery smile at Kensuke alone, whereupon he drove off.
As soon as the car was out of sight, Kensuke began to scan the road for the card that Yukari had tried to give him. He soon found it among some shrubs in the garden. He read what was on the card in the light of a street lamp. Under the name of a religious organization that he’d never heard of, Kensuke read the name Yukari Nakazawa followed by an address and telephone number. It was not clear whether the address and telephone number were those of the religious group or those of Yukari. Kensuke put the card in his pocket and returned to his apartment. All through the night, he somehow couldn’t still a feeling of excitement.
That proved to be Kensuke’s sole encounter with Yukari Nakazawa. Yet, she became a phantom that was to dwell in Kensuke’s heart. It was all Aso’s fault. If Aso had never said it, Kensuke would have been spared the incredibly persistent image.
It was the end of August, almost two months after the day he’d first met Yukari. Aso called at the same time of day as he had then, but came alone this time—Kensuke made a point of confirming this before Aso could get past the doorway.
‘Did you come alone?’
Aso nodded with a grave air. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked meekly.
Kensuke got the impression that Aso had come because there was something pressing he wanted to talk about. Now that he thought about it, perhaps Aso had also come to talk about the same thing his last visit. Kensuke’s thoughts turned to that evening two months ago, and, in hindsight, it seemed likely that Yukari’s appearance had caused Aso to suddenly turn surly not because he had been seen with a woman who fell somewhat short of his standard of feminine beauty, but because her presence prevented him from saying what he had on his mind.
But this night, as it turned out, Aso hadn’t come to say anything in particular, speaking instead as fancy dictated, reminiscing with Kensuke about their childhood days.
After an hour of this, Aso suddenly announced, ‘I’m off,’ and got up to leave.
‘You can’t be in that much of a rush. Stay a little longer,’ urged Kensuke.
Aso responded with a smile of derision, directed at himself. ‘There’s no end to memories like that, eh? You’re the only one I can talk to about those days. Great times. The good old days.’
As he spoke, the look in Aso’s eyes became distant, whereupon they plunged into another brief spell of reminiscing. That summer they spent together in Karuizawa…There was, of course, that time when they’d gotten lost in the mountains while walking along the unused tracks of the Kusatsu-Karuizawa line (it had linked the two towns until 1960), that time they’d resigned themselves to never returning to civilization alive. It was an experience they’d already rehashed numerous times since. They’d wandered off the track in the growing dusk, and there’d been nothing to do but spend the night outdoors. Kensuke, overcome with anxiety, could only moan and groan; Aso tried to give him courage by assuring him that if they just waited for morning and looked for the tracks, they’d be all right. It had been a night spent in fearful trembling. But looking back on the experience now, it had also been a night packed with excitement and rich in unspoken significance. Their friendship had deepened due to precisely that shared experience.
Aso’s tone was different that evening. It was the first time Kensuke ever saw him wallowing so stubbornly, so sentimentally, in childhood memories. Possibly noticing the growing confusion on Kensuke’s face, Aso suddenly snapped back to his usual self, brought an end to the reminiscing, and signaled his departure with an uplifted hand.
‘I must be off.’
It was only down in the car park, about to see him off, that Kensuke got round to asking, ‘How’s Yukari getting on?’ He was asking this not so much to ascertain her wellbeing as to find out whether Aso was still seeing her.
‘How should I know? I dumped the bitch.’
The answer only confirmed what Kensuke had expected. That kind of relationship could never have lasted long. Not only was Yukari obviously not Aso’s type; not even she could tolerate such brutality for long.
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
The impression of Yukari remained vivid in Kensuke’s mind. For some reason, she fascinated him.
‘Want to know where I dumped her?’ called Aso as he unlocked the door of his BMW and climbed into the driver’s seat.
‘You mean there’s a place you dumped her?’ replied Kensuke in surprise.
After all, ‘dumped’ simply meant ‘broke up with’. No one used the word to mean tossing a woman in some sort of trash bin. Of course not.
‘I found the perfect place. Want to know where?’
Aso’s look became provocative. It was a pretty sick joke, but Kensuke decided to play along for a little while longer.
‘Where was it you dumped her?’
‘Battery No. 6.’
Battery No. 6…the uninhabited island out in Tokyo Bay. In the wake of the arrival, in Tokyo Bay, of Commodore Perry’s ‘Black Ships’, Japan’s feudal regime had created the islands to house gun batteries for protection against foreign attack. The only ones now remaining were Batteries No. 3 and 6. A breakwater now connected Battery No. 3 with Odaiba (Battery) Seaside Park, and only Battery No. 6 was still an island in the true sense of the word.
Kensuke laughed. Battery No. 6 was not far from a large refuse disposal site, and what was more, the island, which had been constructed to house a gun battery, had never once been used as such. It thus seemed the perfect place for dumping a girlfriend who’d outlived her usefulness. Kensuke couldn’t help admiring Aso’s sophisticated sense of humor. His jokes were good, very good.
‘It’s hot out there. Climb in,’ Aso said, apparently not having yet had his fill of conversation. Kensuke got in and closed the door, and Aso turned on the air-condi-tioning and began his story. It was a detailed account of why he’d dumped Yukari, on Battery No. 6…
Yukari was pregnant with his child. But the cult she belonged to forbade abortion. She had pressed Aso to marry her—a common enough scenario. Cult or no, this was the kind of story that Kensuke often heard from Aso.
‘Is that why you dumped her?’ intervened Kensuke, nudging Aso to get to the end sooner than later. If Aso was left to recount the story at his own pace, the whole joke would begin to sound too real.
‘The stupid bitch showed me this picture.’
Aso opened the glove compartment and took out a piece of paper folded into four. It bore a color illustration. Kensuke stared at the juvenile thing. It showed green trees growing luxuriantly under a sun painted in gold. Under the trees sprawled grown men and women surrounded by children at play. Dogs, cats, and even lions strutted contentedly among the trees. A closer look at the picture revealed that this earthly paradise was surrounded by the sea. Perhaps it was in the tropics; the trees were laden with coconuts. Kensuke guessed the author at once.
‘Yukari drew this?’
‘Yeah, this is apparently what you get when the stuff she believes in is put on paper. Peace, tranquility, no disease or old age, just life eternal. What do you make of it?’
Yukari