The bulb in the lone lamp was covered in dust, and the pale light made the scene in the cellar look like a watercolor. My mother’s discarded possessions lay quietly in the shadows—a half-finished stone carving, yellowed sketchbooks, a dry whetstone, a broken camera, a set of pastels, twenty-four colors in all. The smallest movement made the chairs creak on the floor. The sky outside the window was pitch-black, with no sign of a moon.
The little boy, perhaps finding it odd that no one was speaking, peered into our faces one by one. There was a white ring around his mouth. “This is delicious,” he said.
“It is,” someone murmured, and we nodded at one another. I couldn’t imagine the sort of life that might be waiting for them, but at least now, right at this moment, they had good, warm milk to drink.
“Where will you be?” I asked, voicing the question that most concerned me. “Perhaps I could help in some way, bring you things you need or let you know what’s going on outside.” The Inuis glanced at one another and then their eyes fell back toward their mugs. After a moment, the professor spoke up.
“It’s terribly kind of you to be concerned, but I think it would be best not to tell you anything about the safe house. It’s not that we’re worried you might let something slip—if that were the case, we would never have brought the sculptures here in the first place. But we can’t allow ourselves to cause you any more trouble than we already have. The more deeply you become involved, the more danger you’ll be in. You can’t be forced to reveal what you don’t know, but if you do know something, there’s no telling what they might do to get it out of you. So I beg of you, please don’t ask about the safe house.”
“I understand. I’ll leave it at that. I may not know where you are, but I’ll be praying for your safety. Before you go, is there anything else I can do?” I clutched my empty mug and looked at them.
“Could I trouble you for a nail clipper?” Mrs. Inui murmured. “His fingernails have gotten so long.” She took the boy’s hand in hers.
“Of course,” I said, searching for a clipper in the back of a drawer. When I had found it, I helped the boy remove his gloves. “Hold still now. We’ll be done in one second.” His fingers were slender and smooth, and spotless, without a single freckle or mole. I crouched down in front of him and gently took hold of his hand. As our eyes met, he gave me a bashful smile. His legs, dangling from the chair, swayed back and forth.
I carefully clipped his nails, starting from the little finger of his left hand. The nails were soft and transparent, and came away with the least effort, fluttering to the floor like flower petals. We listened to the quiet clicking of the clippers, their echoes sealing this moment in the depth of the night.
When I finished, the sky-blue gloves were waiting on the table.
And that is how the Inui family vanished.
Chapter 6
I climbed the staircase, so narrow I wondered how I’d get past should I meet someone coming down. It was no more than rough boards cobbled together, with no carpet or handrail.
When I find myself here, I always feel as though I’m in a lighthouse. Only once or twice, in my childhood, have I had occasion to visit one, but I have a feeling the smell and the echo of footsteps were quite similar. The dull sound of shoes on board after board, the odor of machine oil.
The lighthouse of my childhood had long ago ceased to give off light, and no adult ventured to visit it. The spit of land on which it stood was overgrown with sharp reeds, and walking to it meant risking scratches on your legs.
I went with an older cousin who licked my cuts one by one.
Next to the staircase was a small room that had once served as a place for the lighthouse keeper to rest. Two chairs and a folding table were left in the room, and, neatly arranged on the table, were a teapot, a sugar bowl, napkins, two teacups, forks, and a cake plate.
Everything was so perfect—the spacing of the dishes, the direction of the cup handles, the shine on the forks—that I felt a shiver of fear, even as I found myself wondering what sort of delicious cake must have been served on such beautiful plates.
The lighthouse keeper had been gone for many years and the light atop the tower was cold and covered with dust, but here in this room it felt as though someone had been taking tea just a few minutes ago. I felt I’d see steam rising from the cups if I stood staring long enough.
Our hearts still racing despite our quick detour into the room, we began to climb the lighthouse steps. I went ahead and my cousin followed. The light was dim and the staircase constantly curved away above, so there was no way to tell how much progress we were making.
I would have been about seven or eight years old, dressed in a pink lace skirt my mother had made for me. It was by then much too short, even when I pulled on the lace, and I remember being terribly worried that my cousin, coming up behind me on the stairs, would be able to see my underwear.
But why were we there in the first place? I can’t recall, no matter how hard I try.
Just as I was beginning to feel out of breath, the sound of waves suddenly grew louder and the smell of oil grew stronger—though at the time I was not sure what I was smelling. At first, I thought it might be something poisonous that was floating up through the tower. I pressed my hand over my mouth and held my breath, but that only made matters worse, and soon I was quite dizzy.
There was a sound from below, and it occurred to me that the people who had been eating cake in the little room were climbing the stairs after us. Having skewered the last morsel with a sparkling fork, the lighthouse keeper had let it dissolve on his tongue and was now following me up the tower, crumbs of sponge cake still clinging to his lips.
I wanted to look back at my cousin, hoping he would reassure me, but I was frozen by the fear that I would find the lighthouse keeper instead. In the end, I stopped and crouched down on the stairs, equally unable to face what I might find at the top.
I don’t know how long I cowered there. At some point the lighthouse had fallen quiet, above and below, and I could no longer hear the waves.
I listened, but there was no sound. Just an oppressive silence. Working up my courage, I turned at last to look behind me.
But I saw neither my cousin nor the lighthouse keeper…
Still, it’s strange that this staircase invariably brings to mind that lighthouse. I come here to meet my lover, so you might imagine I would fly up the stairs, nearly tripping with excitement, but for some reason I climb slowly, listening carefully to each step.
I am in the clock tower of a church. The bell rings twice a day, at eleven o’clock in the morning and again at five in the afternoon. The tools for regulating the clock are kept in a small room at the bottom of the tower—exactly the same size as the room at the base of the lighthouse. The clockworks themselves are in a space at the top of the bell tower, but I have never tried climbing up to see them. My lover waits for me in a room halfway up, where they teach typing.
After a certain point in my ascent, the sound of typewriters comes to me, some being pecked hesitantly, others click-clacking away at great speed. I suppose the class has both beginners and more advanced students who will soon be graduating.
Is he standing near one of the beginners, watching carefully as her trembling fingers tap at the keys? When she makes a mistake, does he gently move her finger to the correct spot—as he used to do for me?…