‘Stop talking nonsense and go to bed already… It’s eight o’clock, the electricity’s about to get shut off.’
And sure enough, just as my sister said this, the already dim bulb went dark. In its wake, the moonlight lay in stripes across the tabletop.
‘Look, the moon’s so big and red,’ Asako pointed. ‘Look where it is.’
We sat together, sipping the last of our tea as we gazed out at the moon hanging low in the sky, its unsettling colour giving it a bloated, spongy look.
‘I wonder what Mum’s doing now.’
This was something we were never supposed to talk about. But my sister didn’t reprimand me. In fact, she tried to console me.
‘We’ll see her again next month.’
‘Yeah.’
But our monthly meetings only lasted for ten minutes or so. And there was always a guard present, so we could never say what we were actually thinking. Lately Mother had been getting weepy every time we had to say goodbye.
‘Why did they put her in a detention centre?’
‘Because she broke the law,’ Asako answered automatically. But the truth was, she didn’t know much about the circumstances of her arrest. One day some strangers showed up out of the blue and just took our mother away. Asako was four or five at the time, and she remembers it pretty well considering.
‘According to Grandma, she was harbouring a dangerous individual.’ Her tone started to falter.
‘What happened to that person?’
‘Arrested, of course, and most likely sent away someplace else. But it’s blessing enough that we get to see Mum face to face, since I’m pretty sure it was the secret police who took her away.’
‘Is there really such a thing?’
‘I think so… This is all just a guess, though, and you mustn’t tell anyone.’
‘I know that.’
‘I think they might be connected to the Information Bureau somehow, but keep that just between ourselves as well.’
‘Okay, I get it already.’
‘As far as anyone knows, our mother is dead. If this got out, it could upset the social order.’
‘Okay.’
I think my sister’s a little too high-strung. Maybe because Mum was taken away when she was so little.
‘I wouldn’t be able to go to work anymore, either.’
Asako’s such a nag. I lit a candle. It was a cheap, smelly thing, but it was better than what most of our neighbours used: wicks dipped in animal fat. They were smoky and smelled horrible. We decided not to be stingy when it comes to light.
‘I’m going to bed. I’ll do the dishes in the morning.’ I stood up to leave.
‘It’s fine, I’ll wash them tonight,’ my sister replied. ‘The stairs are dark, why don’t you take the candle with you.’
‘I’m used to it.’
I paused at the foot of the stairs. Here, too, moonlight was streaming in through the window. I had been up since early that morning and now I was exhausted.
I’d woken up around four a.m., unable to stand the sweltering heat. The little window in my bedroom was shut, so I went over and opened it up wide. That’s when I saw the boy, going by on the road below. No one should be out and about at that hour, so I studied him carefully.
In my room on the second floor, I opened my diary in the small patch of moonlight. The diary was a present from Grandma for my sixteenth birthday; I’d been writing in it for two years now.
I intended to write about what had happened that morning, but my sister’s words had shaken my confidence. My eyesight’s really good, but it’s not going to stay that way if I keep on writing by moonlight every night. Since I’d decided not to tell anyone else about the boy, I wouldn’t mention it in my diary either. I wrote the date, paused, and then thought for a minute.
Today our teacher took us to the theatre. They had the marquee lights on even during the daytime, and I was shocked at how bright it was. I’ve never been somewhere so lively, and so many things were new to me. Maki said, ‘I hear sometimes they put men on stage here. They do something called boxing.’ And Rei said, ‘Not here, they don’t. That happens at a gymnasium or something.’ Then the teacher walked by, so we all clammed up and went inside. The lighting on the inside was bright too, it was so pretty. On the way back we rode in a horse-drawn carriage.
Asako says that horse-drawn carriages are on the way out too. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen as many lately. Then again, it’s a real luxury just to ride in anything, whether it’s a horse-drawn carriage or the more common pollution-free automobiles. If it’s not going to take more than an hour or so, most people just walk. I was literally bursting with joy that I’d gotten to ride in a carriage, so I had to put it in my diary. Asako works at an energy research facility. She says they’re gradually implementing the use of uranium and plutonium. And solar technology is getting better and better all the time. But she also said something disturbing about how ‘the sun is sort of like a big cluster of hydrogen bombs’.
I opened the window and looked down at the road below, but of course there was no one there.
Had my eyes been playing tricks on me that morning after all?
I got into bed.
The zelkovas were rustling outside.
I heard the stairs creak.
‘Are you asleep?’ my sister asked from the other side of my door.
‘Uhh…’
My non-committal reply came out sounding like a moan. ‘You understand, right? Not to tell anyone what you told me.’ Asako lowered her voice even further.
‘Yeah, I understand,’ I answered in a drowsy voice.
‘You can’t go around telling people you saw a boy.’
Enough already.
‘Don’t worry about it.’
I could picture Asako standing at the head of the stairs holding the candle. She was silent for a while. I guess she must’ve been mulling something over. Or maybe it was supposed to be one of those demonstrative silences.
‘…Right. Okay, good night then.’
She finally went to her room.
‘Night,’ I muttered curtly (though I don’t think she heard me) and pulled the covers up to my chest. I always lie awake in bed for two or three hours before I fall asleep. But this time I felt like I could drift off right away.
When I awoke, it was still dark.
I couldn’t tell what time it was. The clock’s in the living room, and it was too much of a pain to go check, so I just lay there.
I tried to reconnect the fragments of my dreams but without much success. And I felt well-rested enough that there was no point trying to go back to sleep. I wasn’t the slightest bit tired.
I got up and put my clothes on in the dark.
Opening the desk drawer, I took out a cigarette I had filched from my sister’s room. She smokes herself, so I wasn’t worried about the smell giving me away. And Grandma almost never comes upstairs.
I lit the cigarette and took a drag, and within a few seconds I felt like all the blood was ebbing away from my body. It was as if all the air inside my head had been let out. I started to feel dizzy, so I sat down. My fingertips felt cold.
In that moment the music from the previous afternoon’s performance came back to me. It was a new musical, a love story about a heroine named Sappo or Sappho or something, and everyone had been crazy about the actor playing her. Most of the students raved about how gorgeous she was, and it was clear everyone had a huge crush on her. I felt the same way, but I kept my mouth shut. It rubbed me the wrong way – I was finally at the age to start dating, but the most excitement I’d had in that department was an anonymous love letter or two.
During the intermission we went to the lobby to buy some sweets. There were lots of steady couples standing around together. The teacher was there so no one was necking or anything, but it was still aggravating.