12

Discovered When Shaving

*

Discovered When Waking



"The reason I am calling you so late at night, Mr. Okada, is that I felt I should reach you at
the earliest possible opportunity," said Malta Kano. Listening to her speak, I had the
impression that she was choosing and arranging each word into well-ordered sentences
according to strict principles of logic-which was what she always did. "If you have no objec-
tion, there are several questions that I wish to be permitted to ask you, Mr. Okada. May I
proceed?"
Receiver in hand, I lowered myself onto the sofa, "Go right ahead, ask me anything you'd
like," I said.
"Have you by any chance been away these past two days, Mr. Okada? I tried telephoning
you any number of times, but you seemed always to be out."
"Well, yes, I was out. I wanted to get away from the house for a while. I needed to be
alone to do some thinking. I've got lots of things I need to think about."
"Yes, Mr. Okada, I am very much aware of that. I understand how you feel. A change of
scene can be a very good thing when one wishes to think clearly and carefully about
something. In this case, however, Mr. Okada- and I know this will sound as if I am prying-
were you not somewhere very far away?"
"Well, not so very far away," I said, with deliberate ambiguity. I switched the receiver
from my left hand to my right. "How can I put this? I was in a somewhat cut-off place. I
really can't go into it, though, in great detail. I have my reasons. And I just got back a little
while ago. I'm too tired for long explanations."
"Of course, Mr. Okada. I understand. All people have their reasons. I will not press you to


explain. You must be very tired indeed: I can tell from the sound of your voice. Please do not
concern yourself about me. I should not be bothering you with a lot of questions at a time like
this. I am terribly sorry. We can always discuss this matter at a more appropriate time. I know
it was terribly rude of me to ask such a personal question, but I did so only because I was
worried that something very bad had happened to you over the past several days."
I tried to make an appropriate response, but the little noise that came out of my throat
sounded less like a response than like the gasp of an aquatic animal that had breathed the
wrong way. Something very bad, I thought. Of all the things that were happening to me,
which were bad and which were not bad? Which were all right and which were not all right?
"Thank you for being so concerned about me," I said, after getting my voice to work
properly, "but I'm fine at the moment. I can't say that something good happened to me, but
there's been nothing especially bad, either."
"I am glad to hear that."
"I'm just tired, that's all," I added.
Malta Kano made a dainty little sound of clearing her throat. "By the way, Mr. Okada, I
wonder if you might have noticed some kind of major physical change during the past few
days?"
"A physical change? In me?"
"Yes, Mr. Okada. Some kind of change in your body."
I raised my face and looked at my reflection in the glass patio door, but I couldn't make
out anything that could be called a physical change. I had scrubbed every part of my body in
the shower but had noticed nothing then, either. "What kind of change did you have in mind?"
I asked.
"I have no idea what it might be, but it should be very obvious to anyone who looks at
you."
I stretched my left hand open atop the table and stared at the palm, but it was just my
usual palm. It had not changed in any way that I could perceive. It had not become covered in
gold foil, nor had it developed webs between the fingers. It was neither beautiful nor ugly.
"When you say that it should be very obvious to anyone who looks at me, what do you mean?
Something like wings sprouting on my back?"
"It could be something like that," said Malta Kano, in her usual even tone. "Of course, I
mean that as one possibility."
"Of course," I said.
"So, then, have you noticed some such change?"
"Not really. Not so far, at least. I mean, if wings had sprouted on my back, I probably
couldn't help but notice, don't you think?"
"Probably not," said Malta Kano. "But do be careful, Mr. Okada. To know one's own
state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one's own face with one's own eyes,
for example. One has no choice but to look at one's reflection in the mirror. Through
experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all."
"I'll be careful," I said.
"I do have one more thing I would like to ask you about, Mr. Okada. For some time now,
I have been unable to establish contact with my sister -just as I lost contact with you. It may
be a coincidence, but I find it very strange. I was wondering if, perhaps, you might have some
knowledge of the circumstances behind this."
"Creta Kano?!"
"Yes," said Malta Kano. "Does anything come to mind in that regard?"
No, nothing came to mind, I replied. I had no clear basis for thinking so, but I felt that for
the time being, it would be better if I said nothing to Malta Kano about the fact that I had
recently spoken with Creta Kano in person and that, immediately afterward, she had
disappeared. It was just a feeling.


"I was worried about having lost contact with you, Mr. Okada. She went out last night,
saying that she planned to visit your home and see what she could find there, but even at this
late hour she has not returned. And for some reason, I can no longer sense her presence."
"I see. Well, if she should happen to come here, I'll tell her to contact you right away," I
said.
Malta Kano remained silent for some time at her end of the line. "To tell you the truth,
Mr. Okada, I am worried about her. As you know, the work that she and I do is far from
ordinary. But she is not as well versed in matters of that world as I am. I do not mean to imply
that she is not gifted. In fact, she is very gifted. But she is not yet fully acclimated to her gift."
"I see."
Malta Kano fell silent once again. This silence was longer than the last one. I sensed a
certain indecision on her part.
"Hello. Are you still there?" I asked.
"Yes, Mr. Okada, I am still here," she replied.
"If I see her, I'll be sure to tell her to get in touch with you," I said again.
"Thank you very much," said Malta Kano. Then, after apologizing for the late-night call,
she hung up. I hung up, too, and looked at my reflection in the glass one more time. Then the
thought struck me: I might never speak with Malta Kano again. This could be the last contact
I would ever have with her. She could disappear from my life forever. I had no special reason
for thinking this: it was just a feeling that came to me.



Suddenly I thought about the rope ladder. I had left it hanging down in the well. Probably,
the sooner I retrieved it, the better. Problems could arise if someone found it there. And then
there was the sudden disappearance of Creta Kano. I had last seen her at the well.
I shoved my flashlight into my pocket, put on my shoes, stepped down into the garden,
and climbed over the wall again. Then I passed down the alley to the vacant house. May
Kasahara's house was pitch dark. The hands of my watch were nearing 3:00 a.m. I entered the
yard of the vacant house and went straight for the well. The rope ladder was still anchored to
the base of the tree and hanging down into the well, which was still just half open.
Something prompted me to peer down into the well and call Creta Kano's name in a kind
of whispered shout. There was no answer. I pulled out my flashlight and aimed it down the
well. The beam did not reach bottom, but I heard a tiny moaning sort of sound. I tried calling
the name again.
"It's all right. I'm here," said Creta Kano.
"What are you doing in a place like this?" I asked, in a low voice.
"What am I doing? I'm doing the same thing you were doing, Mr. Okada," she replied,
with obvious puzzlement. "I'm thinking. This really is a perfect place for thinking, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, I guess it is," I said. "But your sister called me at home a little while ago.
She's very worried about your disappearance. It's the middle of the night and you're still not
home, and she says she can't feel your presence. She wanted me to tell you to get in touch
with her right away if I heard from you."
"I see. Well, thank you for taking the trouble."
"Never mind about that, Creta Kano. Will you do me a favor and come out of there? I
have to talk to you." She did not reply.
I switched off my flashlight and returned it to my pocket. "Why don't you come down
here, Mr. Okada? The two of us could sit here and talk."
It might not be a bad idea, I thought, to climb down into the well again and talk with Creta
Kano, but then I thought about the moldy darkness at the bottom of the well and got a heavy
feeling in my stomach.


"No, sorry, but I'm not going down there again. And you ought to come out, too.
Somebody might pull the ladder up again. And the air is stale."
"I know that. But I want to stay down here a little longer. Don't worry yourself about me."
There was nothing I could do as long as Creta Kano had no intention of coming out of the
well.
"When I talked to your sister on the phone, I didn't tell her I saw you here. I hope that was
the right thing to do. I just sort of had this feeling that it'd be better to say nothing."
"You were right," said Creta Kano. "Please don't tell my sister I am here." A moment
later, she added, "I don't want to worry her, but I need a chance to think sometimes too. I will
come out as soon as I am done. I would like to be alone now, if you would be so kind. I will
not cause you any trouble."
I decided to leave her and go back to the house for the time being. I could come in the
morning and check up on her. If May Kasahara should pull the ladder up again during the
night, I could deal with the situation then and manage to help Creta Kano climb out of the
well one way or another. I went home, undressed, and stretched out in bed. Picking up the
book I had been reading, I opened it to my place. I felt I was too much on edge to get to sleep
right away, but before I had read two full pages, I realized I was dozing off. I closed the book,
turned out the light, and in the next moment was sound asleep.



It was nine-thirty in the morning by the time I awoke. Concerned about Creta Kano, I
dressed without bothering to wash my face and hurried down the alley to the vacant house.
The clouds hung low in the sky, and the humid morning air seemed to threaten rain at any
moment. The rope ladder was gone from the well. Someone must have untied it from the base
of the tree and carried it off somewhere. Both halves of the well cover were set tightly in
place, with a stone atop each half. Opening one side and peering down into the well, I called
Creta Kano's name. There was no answer. I tried a few more times, waiting after each call.
Thinking she might be asleep, I tossed a few pebbles inside, but there no longer seemed to be
anybody in the bottom of the well. Creta Kano had probably climbed out of the well when
morning came, untied the ladder, and taken it off with her. I set the cover in place and moved
away from the well.
In the alley again, I leaned against the fence of the vacant house, watching May
Kasahara's house for a time. I thought she might notice me there, as she usually did, and
come out, but there was no sign of her. The surroundings were absolutely hushed-no people,
no noises of any kind, not even the cry of a cicada. I passed the time digging at the surface of
the ground with the toe of my shoe. Something felt different about the neighborhood,
unfamiliar-as if, in the days I was down in the well, the old reality of this place had been
shoved away by a new reality, which had settled in and taken over. I had been feeling this,
somewhere deep down, ever since I had emerged from the well and gone home.
Walking back down the alley to my house, I went into the bathroom and brushed my
teeth. Several days' worth of black stubble covered my face. I looked like a newly rescued
shipwreck victim. This was the first time in my life I had ever let my beard grow so long. I
toyed with the idea of really letting it grow out but after a few moments' thought decided to
shave it. For some reason, it just seemed better to keep the face I had had when Kumiko left.
I softened up my beard with a hot towel and covered my face with a thick layer of shaving
cream. I then proceeded to shave, slowly and carefully, so as-to avoid cutting myself: first the
chin, then the left cheek, then the right cheek. As I was finishing the right cheek, what I saw
in the mirror made me catch my breath. It was a blue-black stain of some kind. At first I
thought I might accidentally have smeared myself with something. I wiped off the remaining
traces of shaving cream, gave my face a good washing with soap and water, and scrubbed at


the stained area with a washcloth. But still the stain would not come off. It seemed to have
penetrated deep into the skin. I stroked it with a finger. That one patch of skin felt just slightly
warmer than the rest of my face, but otherwise it had no special feeling. It was a mark. I had a
mark on my cheek in the exact location where, in the well, I had had the sensation of heat.
I brought my face up to the mirror and examined the mark with the utmost care. Located
just beyond the right cheekbone, it was about the size of an infant's palm. Its bluish color was
close to black, like the blue-black Mont Blanc ink that Kumiko always used.
One possible explanation was that this was an allergic reaction. I might have come in
contact with something in the well that caused an eruption of the skin, the way lacquer can do.
But what could there have been down there, in the bottom of the well, to give rise to such a
thing? I had examined every nook and cranny of the place with my flashlight, finding nothing
there but the dirt bottom and the concrete wall. Besides, did allergies or eruptions ever leave
such clearly outlined marks?
A mild panic overtook me. For a few moments, I lost all sense of direction, as when a
huge wave crashes over you at the beach, dragging you in. The washcloth fell from my hand.
I knocked over the wastebasket and stubbed my foot against something, mumbling
meaningless syllables all the while. Then I managed to regain my composure and, leaning
against the sink, began thinking calmly about how to deal with this fact.
The best thing I could do for now was to wait and see. I could always go to a doctor
afterward. It might be a temporary condition, something that would heal itself, like a lacquer
eruption. It had formed in a few short days, so it might disappear just as easily. I went to the
kitchen and made myself some coffee. I was hungry, but whenever I actually tried to eat any-
thing, my appetite would vanish like water in a mirage.
I stretched out on the sofa and watched the rain that had begun to fall. Every now and then
I would go to the bathroom and look in the mirror, but I could see no change in the mark. It
had dyed that area of my cheek a deep, dark-almost handsome-blue.
I could think of only one thing that might have caused this, and that Was my having
passed through the wall in my predawn dreamlike illusion in the well, the telephone woman
leading me by the hand. She had pulled me through the wall so that we could escape from the
dangerous someone who had opened the door and was coming into the room. The moment I
passed through the wall, I had had the clear sensation of heat on my cheek-in the exact spot
where I now had this mark. Of course, whatever causal connection there might be between my
passing through the wall and the forming of a mark on my face remained unexplained.
The man without a face had spoken to me in the hotel lobby. "This is the wrong time," he
had warned me. "You don't belong here now." But I had ignored his warning and continued
on. I was angry at Noboru Wataya, angry at my own confusion. And as a result, perhaps, I had
received this mark.
Perhaps the mark was a brand that had been impressed on me by that strange dream or
illusion or whatever it was. That was no dream, they were telling me through the mark: It
really happened. And every time you look in the mirror now, you will be forced to remember
it.
I shook my head. Too many things were being left unexplained. The one thing I
understood for sure was that I didn't understand a thing. A dull throbbing started in my head.
I couldn't think anymore. I felt no urge to do anything. I took a sip of lukewarm coffee and
went on watching the rain.



After noon, I called my uncle for some small talk. I needed to talk to someone- it didn't
matter much who-to do something about this feeling I had that I was being ripped away from
the world of reality.


When he asked how Kumiko was doing, I said fine and let it go at that. She was on a short
business trip at the moment, I added. I could have told him honestly what had been
happening, but to put the recent events into some kind of order that would make sense to a
third party would have been impossible. They didn't make much sense to me, so how could I
explain them to someone else? I decided to keep the truth from my uncle for the time being.
"You used to live in this house, didn't you?" I asked.
"Sure did," he said. "Six or seven years altogether. Wait a minute ... I bought the place
when I was thirty-five and lived there till I was forty-two. Seven years. Moved into this condo
when I got married. I lived there alone that whole time."
"I was just wondering, did anything bad happen to you while you were here?"
"Anything bad? Like what?"
"Like you got sick or you split up with a woman or something."
My uncle gave a hearty laugh on his end of the line. "I split up with more than one
woman, that's for sure. But not just while I was living there. Nah, I couldn't count that as
something especially bad. Nobody I hated to lose, tell you the truth. As far as getting sick
goes ... hmm. No, I don't think so. I had a little growth removed from the back of my neck,
but that's about all I remember. The barber found it, said I ought to have it removed just to be
safe. So I went to the doctor, but it turned out to be nothing much. That was the first time I
went to see the doctor while I was living in that house-and the last. I ought to get a rebate on
my health insurance!"
"No bad memories you associate with the place, then?"
"Nope, none," said my uncle, after he had thought about it for a moment. "But what's this
about, all of a sudden?"
"Nothing much," I said. "Kumiko saw a fortune-teller the other day and came home with
an earful about this house-that it's unlucky, things like that," I lied. "I think it's nonsense, but
I promised to ask you about it."
"Hmm. What do they call it? 'House physiognomy'? I don't know anything about that
stuff. You couldn't tell by me. But I've lived in the place, and my impression is that it's OK,
it doesn't have any problems. Miyawaki's place is another matter, of course, but you're pretty
far away from there."
"What kind of people lived here after you moved out?" I asked.
"Let's see: after me a high school teacher and his family lived there for three years, and
then a young couple for five years. He ran some kind of business, but I don't remember what
it was. I can't swear that everybody lived a happy life in that house: I had a real estate agent
managing the place for me. I never met the people, and I don't know why they moved out, but
I never heard about anything bad that happened to any of them. I just assumed the place got a
little small for them and they wanted to build their own houses, that kind of thing."
"Somebody once told me that the flow of this place has been obstructed. Does that ring a
bell?"
"The flow has been obstructed?"
"I don't know what it means, either," I said. "It's just what they told me."
My uncle thought it over for a while. "No, nothing comes to mind. But it might have been
a bad idea to fence off both ends of the alley. A road without an entrance or exit is a strange
thing, when you stop to think about it. The fundamental principle of things like roads and
rivers is for them to flow. Block them and they stagnate."
"I see what you mean," I said. "Now, there's one more thing I need to ask you. Did you
ever hear the cry of the wind-up bird in this neighborhood?"
"The wind-up bird," said my uncle. "What's that?"
I explained simply about the wind-up bird, how it came to the tree out back once a day
and made that spring-winding cry.
"That's news to me," he said. "I've never seen or heard one. I like birds, and I've always


made a point of listening to their cries, but this is the first time I've ever heard of such a thing.
You mean it has something to do with the house?"
"No, not really. I was just wondering if you'd ever heard of it."
"You know, if you really want the lowdown on things like this- the people who lived there
after me and that kind of stuff-you ought to talk to old Mr. Ichikawa, the real estate agent
across from the station. That's Setagaya Dai-ichi Realtors. Tell him I sent you. He handled
that house for me for years. He's been living in the neighborhood forever, and he just might
tell you everything you'd ever want to know. He's the one who told me about the Miyawaki
house. He's one of those old guys that love to talk. You ought to go see him."
"Thanks. I will," I said.
"So anyway, how's the job hunt going?"
"Nothing yet. To tell you the truth, I haven't been looking very hard. Kumiko's working,
and I'm taking care of the house, and we're managing for now."
My uncle seemed to be thinking about something for a few moments. Then he said, "Let
me know if it ever gets to the point where you just can't make it. I might be able to give you a
hand."
"Thanks," I said. "I will." And so our conversation ended.
I thought about calling the old real estate broker and asking him about the background of
this house and about the people who had lived here before me, but it seemed ridiculous even
to be thinking about such nonsense. I decided to forget it.
The rain kept falling at the same gentle rate into the afternoon, wetting the roofs of the
houses, wetting the trees in the yards, wetting the earth. I had toast and soup for lunch and
spent the rest of the afternoon on the sofa. I wanted to do some shopping, but the thought of
the mark on my face made me hesitate. I was sorry I hadn't let my beard grow. I still had
some vegetables in the refrigerator, and there was canned stuff in the cupboard. I had rice and
I had eggs. I could feed myself for another two or three days if I kept my expectations low.
Lying on the sofa, I did no thinking at all. I read a book, I listened to a classical music
tape, I stared out at the rain falling in the garden. My cogitative powers seemed to have
reached an all-time low, thanks perhaps to that long period of all-too-concentrated thinking in
the dark well bottom. If I tried to think seriously about anything, I felt a dull ache in my head,
as if it were being squeezed in the jaws of a padded vise. If I tried to recall anything, every
muscle and nerve in my body seemed to creak with the effort. I felt I had turned into the tin
man from The Wizard of Oz, my joints rusted and in need of oil.
Every now and then I would go to the lavatory and examine the condition of the mark on
my face, but it remained unchanged. It neither spread nor shrank. The intensity of its color
neither increased nor decreased. At one point, I noticed that I had left some hair unshaved on
my upper lip. In my confusion at discovering the mark on my right cheek, I had forgotten to
finish shaving. I washed my face again, spread on shaving cream, and took off what was left.
In the course of my occasional trips to the mirror, I thought of what Malta Kano had said
on the phone: that I should be careful; that through experience, we come to believe that the
image in the mirror is correct. To make certain, I went to the bedroom and looked at my face
in the full-length mirror that Kumiko used whenever she got dressed. But the mark was still
there. It was not just something in the other mirror.
I felt no physical abnormality aside from the mark. I took my temperature, but it was the
same as always. Other than the fact that I felt little hunger, for someone who had not eaten in
almost three days, and that I experienced a slight nausea every now and then (which was
probably a continuation of what I had felt in the bottom of the well), my body was entirely
normal.
The afternoon was a quiet one. The phone never rang. No letters arrived. No one came
down the alley. No voices of neighbors disturbed the stillness. No cats crossed the garden, no
birds came and called. Now and then a cicada would cry, but not with the usual intensity.


I began to feel some hunger just before seven o'clock, so I fixed myself a dinner of
canned food and vegetables. I listened to the evening news on the radio for the first time in
ages, but nothing special had been happening in the world. Some teenagers had been killed in
an accident on the expressway when the driver of their car had failed in his attempt to pass
another car and crashed into a wall. The branch manager and staff of a major bank were under
police investigation in connection with an illegal loan they had made. A thirty-six-year-old
housewife from Machida had been beaten to death with a hammer by a young man on the
street. But these were all events from some other, distant world. The only thing happening in
my world was the rain falling in the yard. Soundlessly. Gently. When the clock showed nine, I
moved from the sofa to bed, and after finishing a chapter of the book I had started, I turned
out the light and went to sleep.
I awoke with a start in the middle of some kind of dream. I could not recall what had been
happening in the dream, but it had obviously been one filled with tension, because my heart
was pounding. The room was still pitch dark. For a time after I awoke, I could not remember
where I was. A good deal of time had to go by before I realized that I was in my own house,
in my own bed. The hands of the alarm clock showed it to be just after two in the morning.
My irregular sleeping habits in the well were probably responsible for these unpredictable
cycles of sleep and wakefulness. Once my confusion died down, I felt the need to urinate. It
was probably the beer I'd drunk. I would have preferred to go back to sleep, but I had no
choice in the matter. When I resigned myself to the fact and sat up in bed, my hand brushed
against the skin of the person sleeping next to me. This came as no surprise. That was where
Kumiko always slept. I was used to having someone sleeping by my side. But then I realized
that Kumiko wasn't with me anymore. She had left the house. Some other person was
sleeping next to me.
I held my breath and turned on the light by the bed. It was Creta Kano.