Annoyed, Toyama pressed the point. "So you didn't really hear a woman's voice on the tape?"
"Au contraire!" Okubo shook his head and pursed his lips.
"One more thing. How did you know there was an altar in the sound booth?"
"An altar? In the sound booth?" Okubo pulled a long face and clapped his hands as one does when wor-shipping at a shrine. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and began mumbling as if reciting a sutra.
Toyama was finding Okubo even more grating than usual today. He sighed and continued. "Yes, an altar. A little one, about this big," he said, tracing its size in the air.
"I have never set foot inside yon sound booth."
"So you heard about it from someone else?"
"Well, I pray to the altar at stage left every day,"
Okubo replied, clapping his hands again.
"Okay, okay. So, you didn't tell Sadako about the altar."
"Not only didn't I tell her about it, I had no idea it was there myself."
So how did Sadako know it was there! She had claimed Okubo told her, but Okubo was saying he didn't know about it. S—one of them was lying? Okubo, at least, sounded like he was telling the truth.
Toyama pondered for a while.
When Okubo said there was a woman's voice on the sound effects tape, he was just trying to frighten Sadako. Well, that's the kind of scary story you hear in any playhouse—nothing to get seriously angry about. Okubo told Sadako that he'd heard a woman moaning in pleasure—a woman engaged in sex. But for some reason she told me that it was the sound of a woman suffering in childbirth. Was it just a misunderstanding! But what about the umbilical cord! It fits too well.
Toyama thought of what he'd heard in the headphones, that faint cry of an infant—he couldn't get it out of his head. He had to get back to the booth in time for the second act, but he was reluctant to go. He didn't want to be alone in there. He'd rather be here, under bright lights in the big room.
His gaze was hollow as he asked, "By the way, where's Sadako now?"
Suddenly Okubo was all informality. "Whaddya mean? Weren't you paying attention to the play? The Great Director kept her behind to give her direction.
She's probably still onstage now, being put through the wringer."
Toyama had already forgotten. At the end of the first act he'd watched from the sound booth window as the director had instructed a few actors to line up on stage for feedback. He'd noticed Sadako among them. That's where she'd be now, listening to Shigemori tell her what was wrong with her performance and how she could have done it better.
From where he stood, it looked to Toyama like Shigemori paid Sadako an abnormal amount of attention. He'd been shocked sometimes during rehearsals to see the way Shigemori looked at her—on the verge of tears, with an expression made up of equal parts love and hatred and a gaze so intense that no one acquainted with Shigemori would have believed it. Shigemori held absolute power within the troupe, so if he had his eye on someone it was a foregone conclusion that he'd be making physical advances. And of course that was something Toyama, given his love for Sadako, would do anything to avert.
Just then Shigemori's voice came over the intercom.
"The second act will be starting soon. Places, everyone."
Toyama started to run, knowing how much distance separated the big room from his sound booth. So when Okubo spoke, it was to his back.
"Hey, Toyama, don't leave the intercom on in the sound booth anymore. We can hear everything you say in here."
Toyama turned around in time to catch Okubo winking at him.
He thought about Okubo's words as he made his way down the narrow hallway toward the sound booth.
...They can hear me in the ready room? I always keep the intercom in there switched off when I'm not using it—I doubt I could've left it on.
Still, Okubo's remark bothered him. Had someone in the green room overheard him saying something he shouldn't have?
6
The feel of the floor under his feet abruptly changed as he went from the green room to the lobby. The hallway to the green room was concrete covered with linoleum: hard and cold. The lobby floor, meanwhile, was covered with a lush carpet.
Tomorrow, opening night, this lobby would be full of audience members. Toyama crossed it and started to climb the spiral staircase to the sound booth. As he did so he heard hushed voices in conversation somewhere. A man's voice, and a woman's—both lowered, as if afraid of being overheard. Toyama halted halfway up the stairs and turned around.
Toyama saw two people standing in a corner by the recessed doors leading into the seating area. A tall man and a slender woman, facing each other. Toyama peered closely at them, with the unmistakable sense that he was watching something he shouldn't. He moved into a position from which they couldn't see him and held his breath.
The man was facing in Toyama's direction but he was half hidden by the wall, so Toyama could only see his face intermittently; the woman's back was turned to him. Toyama saw at once that the man was Shigemori, the director. And though he couldn't see her face, from her clothing and the outlines of her body Toyama knew who the woman was, as well.
"Sadako..." Without realizing it he let slip the name of the woman he loved.
Shigemori had his hands on her shoulders, shaking her gently, and now and then he'd lean close and whisper something into her ear. He certainly didn't appear to be speaking to her as just another actress—the way he drew close to her suggested he wasn't simply giving her point-ers on her performance.
Toyama tried—the effort was great, but necessary—
to make sure that what he was seeing meant what he thought it did; he was seething. Shigemori was using his position as head of the troupe to hit on a young actress.
Toyama found this unforgivable. He could understand it, and he knew that in the theater world it was even toler-ated; inexperienced he may have been, but he comprehended that much.
The real question was how Sadako would react.
Given her position he knew she couldn't reject Shigemori too forcefully, but he hoped she had enough skill to evade him gently, without injuring his feelings. He knew how hard it would be, but he yearned for her to show him how adroitly she could act here. If she didn't, Toyama would have a hard time trusting the words of love they'd exchanged.
Their relationship was not a physical one, but Sadako had said, "I love you," and Toyama had never doubted it.
Toyama had declared his feelings first. It had been the previous year, during rehearsals for the fall production. The opportunity had presented itself unexpectedly.
The production was a musical involving several dance numbers, and the troupe had invited a pair of professional dancers, both women, to join them as guests.
The dancers' schedules were so tight that they often had to miss rehearsal, so Sadako had been drafted as a standin. Standin was as far as it went, though: she never got to appear onstage.
Toyama had never even imagined Sadako in a dance scene, so when he saw her dancing up close, he was amazed. From the day they'd both taken the troupe's entrance exam she'd stood out; she'd been the object of Toyama's longing attentions ever since then. Even so, he had no way of knowing that her talents included dancing. The first time he saw her move in that provocative way, it further inflamed his passion for her.
But Sadako didn't seem confident in her dancing.
Often he would see her hang her head in thought after carrying out some instruction of the choreographer's.