“Hold me. Hard. This is the last time you’ll embrace a woman. Sear this feeling into me, as proof that I lived. Hurt me if you like. You can bite me if you want to. My body will be your grave, Kita.” Tears trickled from the corners of Shinobu’s eyes. Kita licked them gently with his tongue, took her two arms inside his and squeezed. He sucked at her neck, her nipples, then slipped into her. Shinobu was half sobbing, half moaning with pleasure, and shaking her head as if desperately resisting something.
The face Kita saw before him was one he’d never seen before, not on television or in photographs, nor in the four days they’d been together. She might be in pain, or trying to dispel her fear, or about to burst out laughing. Her eyebrows were drawn down either side, her brow was wrinkled, and her lips curled.
“Let’s die together.” The heat of sex was over and the sweat-soaked bed was beginning to grow chilly when Shinobu suddenly spoke. Her tone was casual.
“No,” Kita said flatly.
“Why not? You’re going to die, aren’t you? Why should you care whether I want to die too? I’ve got a pistol right here, after all.”
“Don’t you dare. Your parents would be devastated.”
“And what about yours?”
“My father died four years ago. My mother’s gone senile.”
“Well I’ll be sad if you die, Kita. I’ll be so sad I’ll die too. So come on, let’s die together.
“You’d regret it.”
“There’s no such thing as regret once you’re dead.”
“I’m saying this for your own good, so please just live a bit longer. Another ten years or so. If you do that, you’ll find you’ve changed your mind.”
“Don’t you understand, Kita? I love you. How can I just stand by and watch the man I love die?”
“It’s sheer fancy. Just watch this man go, and you’ll be sure to find another fine guy out there in the crowd. Once you’ve fallen in love with him, you’ll forget me in no time.”
“I’ll never forget you,” she muttered. Then she crawled out of bed, and pulled the Makarov out of the carrier bag.
Kita leapt to his feet. “Give me that,” he said, his hand extended, but Shinobu placed the butt between her breasts and glared at him. Maybe he should just get Shinobu to shoot him right now, Kita thought. It would save him a lot of trouble. And Shinobu’s sudden urge to die was really just because she didn’t want to face going out into the crowd again.
“You can kill me, but don’t kill yourself,” he told her. “If you die too, who’s going to remember me? Who can I visit in dreams?”
“Well stay alive, if that’s what worries you.”
“OK, say we die together. How do we do it? What’s your plan?”
“You lie on top of me, then I shoot you through the back. That way the bullet will get us both.”
“You’re the heroine of a tragedy right now, but this is going to be a joke later, you know. Come on, get dressed. I’m going out to bring this thing to an end.”
But for all his urging, Shinobu stayed put on the bed clutching the pistol, her finger poised over the trigger. Kita put out his hand and attempted to lift it from her grasp as if seizing a butterfly, but she continued to glare at him, and pointed the gun at her jaw. Her finger was still on the trigger.
“If you’re going to die, do it next Friday. You’ve still got lots more things you’ve got to do in this world. It won’t matter if you give yourself an extra week to do them. There must be things you’d love to do before you die. I’m into my seventh day here, and I’ve satisfied all my desires. But you haven’t yet.”
Shinobu heaved a deep sigh, took the barrel of the gun, and held it out to Kita. Then the corners of her mouth turned down and she fled weeping to the bathroom to take a shower.
Shinobu emerged in a better mood, with a smile ready for Kita, but he was no longer there. She searched under the bed, in the toilet, and out in the pool, but there was no sign of him. She stamped with vexation. Here she’d just decided to live a bit longer, and look what he’d gone and done! Fancy running off while she was in the shower! “I hate you Yoshio Kita!” she yelled, and began to throw whatever was to hand – pillow, towel, coffee cup. She came to her senses abruptly when the glass table shattered. Perhaps she would still be in time catch him, she thought. She flung on her clothes and rushed out of the room, her hair still wet. The moment the elevator doors opened onto street level, she dashed out into a street teeming with businessmen and office girls sauntering back from lunch.
People turned to watch, tittering as Shinobu flew along the street, drops flying from her hair and breasts flopping. Hadn’t they seen that face somewhere? Then a cry went up: “It’s her!”
Shinobu ran on. Kita had disappeared into the anonymous crowd. Still she ran. Her nipples rubbed painfully against her blouse. Her throat was so dry she felt it would split. She paused to buy a grapefruit juice from a drinks machine, tossed it down, then wiped her sweat with her sleeve and plumped herself down on a bench in front of a convenience store.
Three young men stood around her, eyeing her from a distance. They’d been on the lookout for a woman to chat up when they spotted her sitting there. A discussion followed. Now they stared blatantly, whispering her name among themselves, and to escape them Shinobu set off at a run once more. The men followed. As she ran, Shinobu remembered that she’d left her Bible in the hotel room. How could she have forgotten her protective talisman? She had to go back and get it! But she’d turned right and left and run up and down so many slopes in pursuit of Kita that she no longer had any idea where she was.
She dashed into a department store. The eyes of the girls at the cosmetics counter bored into her. Gasping for breath, she went up in the elevator. Now at last the effects of the vodka were beginning to hit her.
“Where do you sell Bibles?” she asked a lady shop assistant in the uniforms section.
“Bibles? You’ll find them in the bookstore on the fifth floor. Excuse me, er, are you the one who was kidna—”
“No. I’m free again.” Shinobu pushed the middle-aged woman out of the way and raced to the fifth floor. The sales floor heaved like a ship in a high sea. They were all looking. Gazes pierced her from everywhere, and she felt pursued by the whisper of her name. That’s Shinobu Yoimachi running past! She’s alive! What’s she doing in Shibuya? Is the kidnapper somewhere nearby? She should go straight to the police – was she raped by the kidnapper? Was she really abducted? Let’s save Shinobu Yoimachi! Chase her! What fun… Inaudible words echoed around her head. Help me, Kita! They’re trying to kidnap me!
“A Bible, please,” she said to the shop assistant.
“You want the New Testament? The Old Testament?”
“The one that has Jesus’ words in it,” Shinobu retorted irritably.
“They’re both on the Religion shelf,” the shop assistant said in a stupid voice.
Maybe, just maybe, she’d find Kita there browsing the Bible, she thought. But instead she found a close-cropped young man, turning the pages of a book with the ridiculous title Ten Steps to Happiness. Shinobu picked up a Bible with a yellow cover, and hurried back to the counter. Once more, everyone was looking at her. She had the urge to vomit. Bible clutched to her side, she fled to the toilet, rushed into the large Disabled Toilet, turned the lock, and vomited up a bitter black fluid.
If Kita were here he’d rub her back for her, he’d read the Bible to her, she thought. But here she was, alone once more. And all she had was a Bible. She idly opened it, and voicelessly spoke the words that met her eyes. These were the words from The Revelation of John that she read: