“Why did you bring the music box?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. It was under me when I was pinned by the cabinet, but I have no idea how I managed to get it here. Clutched in my hand, I suppose, or shoved in a pocket…”
“I’m glad you were able to save something. The only thing I brought with me was Don.”
“But Don is most important of all. An old man like me doesn’t need much. I don’t mind that everything was washed away. And besides, the ferry itself had disappeared a long time ago.”
He gazed out at the sea. The shoreline was buried in splintered wood and debris. Cars floated here and there. Farther out, the boat was knifing into the waves, sinking, bow down.
“And I’m afraid we’ve lost R’s pancake,” I said.
“I suppose so,” he answered, nodding.
Some neighborhoods in the town were damaged as well. Walls had caved in and cracks had opened in the streets. Fires were burning. Emergency vehicles and the trucks of the Memory Police raced around us. And now, to make matters worse, it had started to snow.
From the outside, my house seemed to have escaped with only minor damage; a few roof tiles had fallen and Don’s doghouse had toppled over. But things inside were far worse. Everything had been tossed from its place and lay strewn about at random—the pots and dishes, the telephone, the television, vases, newspapers, boxes of tissue…
As soon as we’d tied Don in the yard, we hurried through the mess to the hidden room. Our greatest concern was to see how this little space, suspended between floors, had fared in the earthquake. I turned up the rug and tried to raise the trapdoor, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Hello! Can you hear us?” the old man called. After a moment, we heard a knock coming from the other side. And then R’s voice.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Are you all right?” I got down on the floor and called through the gap. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. But how are you? I’ve been worried about both of you, but I can’t tell what’s going on out there. I’d just started to wonder what would happen to me if no one came back.”
“We were on the boat when it struck. We were able to get away, but I’m afraid the boat sank.”
“I’m glad you’re safe. I tried opening the door to get some idea of what happened, but it wouldn’t move.”
“I’m going to try pulling on it again,” said the old man, coming over to examine the door. “Could you push from your side?” But the results were the same.
“The earthquake must have warped the floor.” Though we were separated from R by no more than the thickness of a single board, his voice sounded distant and weak.
“I’m sure that’s it. The door is jammed into the floorboards.” The old man put his hand to his chin to ponder the problem.
“What if we can’t get it open? He’ll starve to death, or suffocate.” The words came rushing out.
“Is the ventilation fan working?” asked the old man.
“No, I think the electricity has been cut off.” Since it was midday, I hadn’t noticed until now, but the power was, indeed, off.
“Then it’s pitch-black in there?” the old man called down to R.
“Yes.” R’s voice seemed to be slowly retreating from us.
“We have to hurry,” I said, getting up from the floor. “We’ll get it open—I’ll go find a chisel or a saw.”
The old man worked quietly and precisely, as he always did, and in no time at all the trapdoor had been opened. I stood by, feeling useless, my one contribution being that I’d gone to the neighbors across the street to borrow the tools. There were chisels among the sculpting tools in the basement studio, but it would have been impossible to find them with everything in such a mess, and the old man’s tools had been washed away with the boat, so there was no other choice but to ask. The ex-hatmaker agreed readily, but he insisted that he should come along to help.
“How terrible! Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
“Thank you, but I’m fine. I can manage.”
“A young woman, all by herself?”
“No, the old man is there as well.”
“You can never have too many hands in an emergency,” he said. Smiling, I wracked my brain for an excuse that would avoid hurting his feelings but also keep from arousing suspicion.
“To tell the truth, the old man’s face is broken out in a rash—eczema of some sort. He looks terrible and says he doesn’t want anyone to see him. He must feel embarrassed, even at his age, and he can be quite stubborn at times.”
So it was that I managed to put off the hatmaker.
The trapdoor gave way in a shower of splinters, accompanied by cries of joy from all three of us. The old man and I immediately got down on our bellies and peered into the opening. R, crouching at the bottom of the ladder, was looking up at us with an expression of exhaustion and relief. His hair was flecked with chips of wood from the shattered door.
We made our way down the ladder, uttering meaningless grunts in greeting as we patted and embraced one another. Though it was difficult to see in the dim light, it was clear that the hidden room had been battered by the earthquake. The slightest movement meant treading on the scattered contents of R’s shelves. But we did not need to move, content to hold hands and stare at one another for a long time. There seemed to be no other way to reassure ourselves that we had all come safely through the ordeal.
Chapter 22
The town never did completely recover. People made attempts to repair their homes, but the cold and shortages of materials slowed the work. Mud, sand, and the ruins of collapsed houses remained piled along the streets, and dirty snow covered all, making for a pitiful sight.
Debris that had been floating near the shore was gradually washed out to sea and carried away on the current. The only thing left visible was the stern of the boat, still protruding above the waves. Its appearance, like an animal that had suffocated by plunging its head into the ground, bore no resemblance to the ship that had once been the old man’s home.
On the afternoon of the third day after the quake, I was out walking near my office along the street where the tramway ran when I spotted the Inuis. Or, to be more precise, I saw only a pair of gloves, but I was sure—though I wished I hadn’t been—that they belonged to the Inui family.
My boss had sent me to run errands, and I was about to enter the stationery store when one of the dark green covered trucks passed me. The back seemed to be tightly packed with people, and the vehicle rolled from side to side as it lumbered along. Nearby cars and pedestrians moved away and waited for it to pass.
I stood with my hand on the doorknob at the stationer’s, trying not to stare at the truck. Still, I caught sight of the gloves, peeking out from the one corner of the canvas cover that had been turned up. Startled, I stared at those gloves—the small sky-blue hand-knit pair with a strand of chain stitching to hold them together.
They belonged to the Inuis’ boy. I remembered that I had cut his fingernails for him in my basement. The soft, transparent clippings had fluttered to the floor, and I recalled again the softness of his hands and the gloves that had lain nearby.
The cover over the back of the truck made it impossible to see bodies or faces, but the gloves seemed terribly sad, barely protruding into the outside world. I wanted to follow them, but I knew that it was pointless. A moment later, the truck was gone.
I’d heard rumors that people who had been in hiding were forced to wander the streets when their homes were destroyed by the earthquake or the fires that followed it. And that the Memory Police had been rounding them up and taking them into custody one after the other. But I had no way to know whether the Inui family had actually been in that truck or not. All I could do was pray that someone had continued to cut the little boy’s fingernails and that the blue gloves were still protecting him.