Setsuko was there when he arrived at their rendezvous point. From the way she acted, he guessed she’d already figured out his plan. She told him she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, but he told her that as a mother, protecting her daughter had to be the right thing.
He gave her the painting in exchange for the knife, and asked her to keep it for him until the day came when they might meet again. As he was about to leave, Setsuko told him to look at the café across the street. He did so and saw a slender girl with long black hair sitting at the table by the window. To his astonishment, she looked almost identical to the sister he’d lost to illness when she was young.
He thanked Setsuko. Seeing his daughter was the one thing he felt he needed to do. Now he would have no regrets.
Senba pulled out a small bag containing several photographs from beneath his pillow. He took out one, the photo of the baby, and compared it to the girl in the photo the physicist had given him. He could still see the baby there in her grown features. He wondered what kind of woman she was. He wondered what her voice sounded like. He would have liked to meet her once again before he died, but he knew that would never happen. He couldn’t allow it to. If he did, then all he had endured would be for nothing.
His mind traveled back again to sixteen years earlier, to himself, standing in his old apartment in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward. The police would be arriving any moment. Once they had identified Nobuko’s body, it would only be a matter of time before they tracked him down as the man who’d shared a drink with her the night before.
The detective came, a tough-looking man. Senba refused to let him inside, hoping to draw his suspicion. The detective left, but Senba knew he would be lingering in the area, keeping an eye on the apartment. Senba waited a while and then headed out, carrying a bag with the knife he’d taken from Setsuko.
He walked to a nearby river, and began to look around suspiciously—an act for the benefit of the detective following him. It worked. The detective came running down the bank toward him.
Senba ran, going as fast as he could, making an honest attempt at escape. For a moment, he feared he might actually succeed, but the detective’s stamina had him beat. He was grabbed from behind and thrown on the ground.
Senba was arrested, put on trial, and declared guilty. And no point did anyone doubt his testimony—save one man, Tsukahara, the arresting detective. Tsukahara wanted to know why he hadn’t thrown the bag into the river when he had a chance. He’d run along the waterway and could’ve tossed the bag in at any time. They might’ve found the bag later, of course, but it would’ve bought him some time. As it was, with the knife in his possession, he’d been arrested for suspicion of murder on the spot.
Senba claimed that tossing the knife hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been so intent on escape that he’d forgotten the knife was in the bag. Tsukahara never seem satisfied with his answer, but Senba didn’t change his story.
Life in prison wasn’t easy. But it gave him strength to know that, because he was here, his daughter could live normally. It gave his own life meaning. When he got out, he called on a friend he’d made while serving his sentence. The man got him a job as a waste collector. The salary was pitifully low, and he was forced to live in a tiny, dirty room, but he was happy enough just to be alive.
Yet even this meager happiness didn’t last long. The man who had gotten him his job ran off with the company’s money. The waste collection service shut down, leaving Senba without a job or even a room to call his own. After that, he was forced to live on the streets. He knew where some homeless people lived, so he turned to them for help. They were kind to him, teaching him everything he needed to know to live outside the framework of society.
He was just getting used to his new life when a new challenge arose. He started finding it difficult to move his arms and legs the way he wanted them to move, and he was afflicted with terrible headaches that kept him from sleeping. Some days, he found it impossible to talk. He stopped being able to go to the soup kitchens he had come to rely on for food. He knew he was sick, very sick. His homeless friends took care of him, but he showed no sign of improvement.
That was when the last person he expected to see in the world found him: Tsukahara. He told Senba he had been searching for him for years. And when he learned that Senba was sick, he pulled some strings and got him into the hospice.
Senba wasn’t sad when he learned about the tumor. In a way, it was a relief. He much preferred to die here, in a well-appointed facility. It was all thanks to Tsukahara—which was why he felt so guilty whenever the detective would beg him to tell him the truth about what had happened.
“I know you’re protecting someone,” Tsukahara told him. “Someone very important to you. Which is why I gotta know, are you okay with it ending like this? Don’t you want them to know what’s happened to you? Don’t you want to see them one last time?”
Every time he came to visit, the detective would sit down on his bed and say the same thing. The secret became harder and harder for Senba to keep, especially when Tsukahara swore to him he would never tell a soul. By the time he relented, it was already difficult for him to speak, and it took a very long time for him to tell the whole story. Tsukahara listened patiently, barely saying a word.
When he was done, the former detective thanked him, and told him his secret was safe.
Nor did Tsukahara ever tell anyone else the truth. He even went so far as to do some sleuthing to find out where Setsuko and her family was living now. Senba felt a stirring of warmth in his chest when he heard they had returned to Kawahata’s hometown of Hari Cove.
Tsukahara found something on the Internet, too: mention of a Narumi Kawahata in an article about ongoing efforts to protect Hari Cove’s natural environment. Tsukahara learned there would be a hearing in August about the undersea development in Hari Cove she’d been fighting against. He wanted Senba to come to the hearing with him.
“You don’t have to meet her. You could just see her from a distance. Don’t you want to see the girl you protected for so long? Don’t worry, I’ll go with you. Hell, I’ll push the wheelchair.”
Tsukahara’s invitation tore at Senba’s heart. He wanted to see her more than anything else in the world, yet in the end, it wasn’t to be. A man in his condition at the hearing would draw attention. Someone might figure out who he was, causing trouble for Setsuko and Narumi.
Tsukahara went ahead and applied for the hearing without his permission anyway. He came to the hospice one day to show him the letter. He had applied for two tickets, but only received one in the lottery.
“Let’s go anyway,” he said. “I could wait for you outside,” Tsukahara had said.
Senba shook his head. He was grateful for everything the detective had done, but he would not go. Nor could he, physically. His condition had worsened to the degree that a long trip was entirely out of the question.
“It’s a shame,” Tsukahara had said. It was the last time he’d visited the hospice.
But Tsukahara hadn’t given up. He’d gone to Hari Cove by himself, probably to try to meet Setsuko and Narumi. Senba was sure he’d met them. He didn’t want to think about what happened to him there, though he had a pretty good idea.
He deeply regretted not stopping Tsukahara from going. He wished he could’ve reached out and taken that ticket from his hand and ripped it into pieces.
Senba looked down at the photograph of the baby in his hand and whispered, “I’m so sorry.” It’s my fault this happened. It’s my fault you’ve had to bear the burden of yet another sin. But don’t worry. I’ll die before I ever say a word. I only hope that you can forgive your father for being the fool that I am.