CHAPTER SIXTEEN
当たり
Atari
"The fever's broken," said Dr Ninomiya, pulling the thermometer out of my mouth. "I give it another week."
My fever felt very intact. My substance had been sucked out of me, leaving a withered husk. I had tympanitis in my left ear. Beginning to end, I had lost a little under a stone. When I caught a glimpse of myself in the standing mirror, I looked like a child again. My wrist bones stuck out like Nadeshiko's, and my head looked too big for my body.
I was ugly, but bitterly glad to be alive.
"Same as with the other three cases," the doctor said, scribbling on a pad. "Rice gruel for the next two weeks, monitor for infection. Pneumonia, influenza, bronchitis are all common complications. Continue the school-wide quarantine, along with boiling all your water and disinfectant solution. I'll be back at the start of next week to inoculate against further outbreak. If there are no new cases…" He shrugged. "You can expect to answer the door for your deliverymen in a fortnight."
Fujisaki-sensei inclined her head, gratefully.
"You were very lucky," Dr Ninomiya added, dryly. "Young ladies of this age are robust. If she's up and walking in a few days, all the better. She's lost considerable muscle mass."
I was cautioned against reading too vigorously during my convalescence, in case it should "excite me." I didn't know how else they expected me to entertain myself. My embroidery teacher dropped off my fabric basket beatifically, as though I would actually sew with all my free time. I was urged to eat more than I had ever had in my life, now that I was unattractive and skinny.
Once my complications became clear – bronchitis, plus my ear infection – Nagihiko moved back into the room. He insisted that my coughing didn't bother him, I wasn't infectious, and that he couldn't smell the stench of death anywhere.
I wondered what his rush was, until he shut the door behind him.
"A boy my age," he said with a grimace, "Should not have to share a room with his mother."
His eyes fell on the tangle of bedcovers at the foot of my bed.
"Aren't those mine?"
I tried for a feeble smile when Yaya and Amu came in, carrying a bowl of persimmons. I was propped up on pillows, reading quietly.
"Sanjō-sensei said you could have visitors, if you were awake and we were very, very quiet," Yaya whispered loudly. "Rima-tan, we could hear you yelling from your room last week, and we thought you were getting attacked!"
"Huh?" I said, left ear ringing.
Yaya raised her voice. "WE COULD HEAR YOU YELLING FROM YOUR ROOM LAST WEEK, AND WE THOUGHT YOU WERE GE-"
"Yuiki!" Sanjo hissed, grabbing Amu and Yaya by the backs of their sailor collars. "Out! Out!"
If only Yaya's big mouth hadn't gotten them deported. I did not realise how much of my days had been spent listening to the news, the conversations, the problems of my friends. Without Amu's every crisis and Yaya's every passing thought, the waking world was deafening silence punctuated only by my own self-loathing.
I anticipated Nagihiko's returns more than I would have otherwise. Talk to me! I silently begged him, trying to transmit my thoughts without speaking. Tell me what happened today! The weather! Your stupid poems! Anything!
I couldn't initiate without my ego smarting. First, he had snubbed me. Then, he insulted himself. Finally, I, in my stupid typhoid delusions, had begged him to stay by my bedside, and he did. It was more than my pride could stand. He must think me weak. Or — worse — in love with him.
The day after Sanjō thwarted Amu and Yaya's attempted visit, Nadeshiko finally spoke to me.
"It's quite cold," Nadeshiko said, clutching her folded uniform to her neck.
"Pardon?" I asked, even though I heard her clearly.
"Cold," she repeated, quieter this time.
"It is," I agreed, hopefully. "And to think that December will only get colder."
Nadeshiko looked up from her obi knot. I swallowed, excitedly.
"It is December," he said.
"What?" Time dropped out from under me. "How long…?"
"You were abed for sixteen days," he said immediately, as though waiting for me to ask. "Today is December the second. We go home in four weeks."
Nagihiko reached around his neck to rub his shoulder, wincing. It was such a strangely human gesture that I stopped to watch, transfixed. Did Nagihiko feel pain?
"I'm going to use the bath," he said. He avoided my eyes. I was dying.
"Go, then," I snapped, pitifully lonely. "Why bother even talking to me?"
I shoved my head under the covers, pretending to be asleep. I wasn't sure if the dull ache inside me was lingering typhoid malaise or something like a broken heart.
I had enough. I made up my mind to get out of bed the next day, gripping the painted iron headboard for help. Standing shakily on my feet, I took a triumphant step towards the bathroom.
My knees folded and turned to jelly. I collapsed.
I lay face-down on the floor, staring hollowly at the underside of Nadeshiko's bed. After wallowing in my own self-pity, I bravely got onto my hands and knees. I felt grimy. I hadn't taken a bath in sixteen days, my clothes last changed half then. I was sticky with typhoid germs.
I crawled on my hands and knees towards the sink basin. Between rests, I splashed water on my face and arms, before triumphantly crawling back to the floor next to my bed. I remained on the floor for another hour, failing to muster the motivation to get up onto my bed. I worked on the thread ball with my legs splayed out, unladylike.
I was still feeling accomplished that afternoon when Nadeshiko came back, wrapped in a muffler. I enjoyed seeing what the notoriously dry December weather had done to her face; her lips were looking cracked, and her eyes unnaturally red. In other circumstances, she would have probably asked me what I was doing out of bed, but she doubtlessly remembered what I had said yesterday.
I tried not to regret it, but I did.
"You're early," I said, chilly.
"No dance today," she replied, looking over her shoulder. Amu's red face appeared over her shoulder, followed by Yaya's, like a pair of gophers.
"Rima-tan!" Yaya said, gleefully. "It's us! You look hideous!"
"Sensei said that we could come in and see you, as long as Nadeshiko was with us," Amu supplied. Yaya unwrapped her scarf and leaned forward right into my face, looking very preoccupied indeed.
"It's horrible," Yaya exclaimed, devastated. "Rima-tan's face was so round and cute before!"
I dragged my little hands down my dry face. I could feel my swollen under-eyes.
"I don't care how cute I look," I said.
"That's right," Amu said, high-pitched. "Rima doesn't care about that when she could have died."
A horrified, mortal silence settled among our little party. I basked in the attention.
"Not really," I said finally. "The Dra- Fujisaki-sensei said that it's only babies that die from typhoid fever. Could you help me back in bed?"
I held out both my arms. Yaya took my legs, and Amu took my arms. Together, they heaved me easily onto the mattress. This launched them into a whole other discussion about how skinny I was.
"Eat a persimmon," Yaya said, forcing one into my hand. I took a bite, only because she was pouting at me. I wished I was Tsubasa so that Yaya could be my big sister.
"We'll tell you what you missed," Amu cut in. "Do you… do you remember much?"
Nadeshiko was at the point farthest from the bed, sitting prettily on the chair I usually stacked clothes on. She had two boxes on her lap and looked particularly tight-lipped.
I shook my head, slowly.
"I was tired," I said. "But Yaya said I shouted."
"You screamed," Yaya corrected. "Like you were getting stabbed."
I scratched my legs and shuddered at the memory of spider legs.
"I dreamt of falling and drowning a lot," I said. "But I don't remember much."
Amu looked between Nadeshiko and I, wincing.
"You were there when Rima screamed, weren't you? What happened? Was she okay?"
Nagihiko's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
"Dr Ninomiya said she was running a fever of forty-one degrees at its worst," she said carefully. "The laudanum didn't help. Opium does odd things to the mind."
I exhaled. Nagihiko caught my eye and looked away.
Amu smiled at me. "You weren't so bad when I was sitting with you," she said. "But you twitched sometimes, which was scary."
"Sorry," I said, smiling back.
"And you infected three others," Yaya informed me. Amu and Nadeshiko both gave her a warning look.
"Really?" I said, impressed.
Yaya listed them off on her fingers: Hatoba, Mizutani, and Hatanaka. They were moved to the infirmary ward, but prompt inoculation capped their illness at a week and half. I didn't ask why I hadn't joined them.
Hatanaka, I thought. I wonder if Nadeshiko had visited her, as well.
Seiyo had been in quarantine for a month. Delivery boys dropped all necessities – produce boxes, milk, rice, paraffin, ice – on the veranda upon seeing the typhoid notice nailed to the front door. Water was boiled, and potassium crystals dissolved into it, which explained its pink tinge and funny taste. Life went on, but it walked with a funny gait.
Amu wanted to know how I caught typhoid fever to begin with. The same question eluded me. I shrugged.
"This is one of the heaviest rainy seasons on record," Yaya pointed out.
I looked around the room, expecting it to come from Nadeshiko. I wasn't typhoid hallucinating: Yaya had really said it.
"All the rain leached germs into Kouen's well system, so I bet that's what happened to ours, too." Yaya mockingly pushing a pair of invisible glasses up her nose. We all stared at her.
"The rains have been heavy this season," Nadeshiko spoke up. She played with one of the buckles on the case. "Do you think we– angered anyone?"
"We did," I said emphatically. "Sanjō is ready to stab someone."
"No, I mean…" Nadeshiko looked up. "Have we angered…"
She self-consciously touched the red cord that held her hair up. Her hand pressed against the windowpane, where I knew she could hear the distant roar of the Ichi River.
"You- you think a god punished Rima?" Amu blurted out.
I looked offended.
"Not Rima," he said.
"Then who?"
Nadeshiko exhaled, watching her own foggy reflection in the glass.
"Who knows?" she finally said with a smile. "I'm just being superstitious."
I glanced at Amu, only to realise she was studying me. I pulled my legs into a criss-cross.
"What's in the case?" I suggested, if only to distract.
"Oh!" Amu said, excitedly. "Show her, Nadeshiko!"
Flipping the brass fastens up, Nadeshiko proudly opened it. It was a board with a series of crisscrossing lines across it, and two pouches within it.
"What am I being shown?" I said.
"Go," said Nadeshiko.
"What, for asking a question?" I said, annoyed.
"Ew," Yaya said loudly. "Don't bring out the Go board, Nade, she meant the case under it, obviously–"
Amu and Yaya hauled out what looked like a large suitcase, proudly unfolding it on the bed next to my legs.
"A portable phonograph," said Amu, excitedly. "Yua said we could borrow it. She has a bunch of disc records, too, look-"
Inside the little pocket at the top of the suitcase were a series of large paper squares, containing discs roughly the size and weight of dinner plates.
"I've never seen one this small," I said, taking another bite of the persimmon. "At home, we just listen to the radio."
"Papa loves this stuff," Amu said excitedly, putting the top record on. "He wants to get a radio-phonograph for home."
"When you do, let me visit you," I suggested wistfully, even though my mother would never let me go. I fantasized about visiting Amu on the streetcar and listening to records in her parlour while her little sister tried to sing along. We could try to follow the silly dancing instructions on the back of the record-covers, and Nadeshiko wouldn't be there to correct us.
If I was engaged, maybe… I began but couldn't finish the thought without feeling sick.
We all watched in silent awe as Amu wound the crank on the side of the machine with a never-before-seen vigour. Nothing happened.
"Ugh," Amu said, fiddling with the needle. It popped into one of the grooves on the shellac, and a soft fuzzy static crackled from the disc. A dim, jazzy trumpet began to play.
Below her skirt, Nadeshiko's right leg jogged, and her fingers twitched to herself as though imagining the choreography. I looked down, flustered. Nadeshiko had no business being cute.
"Amu," Nadeshiko's voice chided me over the sound of the big band. "At least play with me!"
"I'm terrible at Go!" Amu protested. "I lose to you every time!"
"I know." Her eyes glinted mischievously. "That's why it's so fun."
I leaned against Yaya's shoulder. We watched them line up the little stones over my legs, balancing the phonograph between my footboard and feet. I desperately committed every detail of the picture to my memory before it slipped through my fingers. My exhausted body, still reeling from fever. My full heart. The dark December sky, full of promise. The warm light within. The Go pieces, clink-clink-clinking onto the wood. The crackling of the phonograph mingling with the sound of Yaya masticating a persimmon.
"Where's Utau?" I murmured, realizing the picture was missing someone.
"Sick," said Amu, with a grimace. "From the shot."
"From a vaccine?" I was surprised.
"Its side-effects are nasty," said Yaya, spewing juice everywhere. "Now I know why they only give it to men in the army."
It must be truly awful if Utau was staying in bed, without her huffing and puffing that she was fine and perfectly capable of getting up. Knowing what typhoid felt like, I made up my mind to bring her something. The last of the persimmons were long-picked, but maybe Nadeshiko would take pity and make chestnut sweets on my behalf.
"Your move," Nadeshiko reminded Amu, leaning on her hand dreamily.
"Uhhh…" Amu muttered. The record player petered out, and Amu jumped up quickly. "Oops! Let me put another one on."
Each side could only hold about three minutes, meaning that a record was finished in six. It was a good time-stall.
Yaya and I stopped our game of insulting men on the record-covers and turned our eyes to the game. I couldn't tell if Amu was losing or not. Nadeshiko put down a white stone, the last in a zigzagging row of stones on the board's points. In places, she had surrounded the black dots on all sides.
With long fingers, she plucked Amu's black stone out from the middle of the board and put it back into her bag with a clink.
"What?" Amu barked, looking from the board to the bag. "H–"
"You've been in atari for three rounds," Nadeshiko said, sympathetically. "How could I not? Please forgive my impertinence."
"Don't forgive her," I said with sangfroid befitting a Hoshina. "Get even."
"How can I?" said Amu, frazzled. "She's ten points ahead, easy!"
"Eleven," Nadeshiko corrected with a beam.
If I go away to the sea,
I shall be a drowned corpse.
If I go away to the mountain…
The ghostly male chorus warbled from the phonograph. Amu put down another black stone, jaw set. Nagihiko hummed along, as though he knew the tune, and placed a white stone down on the other end of the board. Amu's body language relaxed, thinking him far away from her black troops.
… I shall be an overgrown corpse.
But if I die for the Emperor,
I will never regret.
"Wait."
I reached out a hand and stopped Amu's wrist.
"Cut her off," I said.
Nadeshiko said, "I didn't know Rima-chan played Go."
Oh, so it was Rima-chan now, was it?
"I don't."
But it was too late for her. Amu's attention turned to the bottom of the board. Nadeshiko had dotted little white groups of stones in no recognisable pattern. To Amu, they weren't immediately menacing. But Nadeshiko was now slowly weaving them together, stitching together a united front that would soon control the board.
Amu began to place down a black stone between them, halting her hand.
"I can't!" she whispered. "She'll capture it. You saw her."
"Let her," I said. I raised my eyes to Nadeshiko's.
"I don't understand," Amu grumbled, putting her stone there anyway.
As expected, Nadeshiko ignored this, chalking it up to a ploy. Good. I silently directed Amu to dive for the centre of the board. Amu was weak and passive as a player, and Nadeshiko was scheming and preferred to skirt conflict. As a result, Amu had been ceding territory from sheer low self-esteem.
"You've honestly never played this game before?" Amu asked nervously as I directed her to start piling her stones menacingly up against Nadeshiko's.
"No." I tossed my hair over my shoulder.
Sakurai Yua came back in to get her phonograph but got distracted, sitting down next to Yaya. When Sakurai wasn't back within five minutes, Yamamoto was sent to fetch her, where she lurked in the doorway, watching the scene.
"Fighting spirit, Amu-chan!" Sakurai called out bracingly, jostling Manami and Wakana. Once those two showed up smelling entertainment like blood in the water, it was over. At least ten girls encircled our room, watching closely to see if anyone would defeat Nadeshiko.
My dominating sentiment was "I'll kill you," for reasons I knew not. What did I think would happen if I beat Nadeshiko at a strategy game? That she'd drop everything and fall in love with me? That my thirst for revenge would be sated? That I would regain what my ego had lost? Yes. To all of those.
I reached over and, plucking Nadeshiko's captured stone from the board, placed it in my lap. Amu gasped with delight. A few of the girls oohed and applauded. Even though capturing meant nothing without the advantages it brought, it didn't matter. I glowed.
Four turns later, Nadeshiko captured one of Amu's stones.
We exchanged a look of horror. I checked my defences for cracks, mind racing.
"Mashiro-san plays aggressively," Wakana whispered to Manami. "Nothing like Amu-chan."
Manami grunted in agreement. "Fujisaki-sama seems like she's floundering."
I re-adjusted the frills on the sleeves of my nightgown and moved over so I was blocking Amu's access to the board. Someone made an "oooh" noise again, and someone else shouted something of encouragement to Nadeshiko.
She placed a black stone dangerously close to my territorial line.
"I'll crush you," I muttered under my breath.
"An admirable effort," said Nagihiko absentmindedly, fist under his chin. He captured another.
"Rima, be careful," Amu whispered.
"I am," I said, coolly, but I was shaken. Why was he taking so many? Unless—
The game was nearing its close, and he was on a last-minute campaign to take all my attacking power off the board in a bid for points. A cornered enemy will fight desperately, and inflict more damage to your side than they otherwise would. Sun Tzu.
I played thick and heavy, trying to emphasize what Amu had put down on the board, but Nadeshiko was tailing me, fast as a shadow. White blocked out all the intersections. I was going to lose.
I looked up at her, outraged. Nadeshiko's thumb caressed her latest capture, rubbing her thumb over its polished ebony surface in circles. She raised her eyes to meet mine, black as pitch.
I was losing.
Nadeshiko was touching each intersection quietly, counting under her breath, and I suddenly understood. Unless I played like a prodigy, there was no way I would catch up.
"Good for a first game," she said, kindly. "But I'm afraid Amu made too many mistakes in early game for you to rectify."
"Hey!" Amu protested.
The tension was gone in a heartbeat. Everyone laughed, and Nadeshiko smiled.
Our jubilations were cut short by whispered warnings. A hum began near the door, getting louder and louder.
"Teacher's outside!" a girl tried to say, but it was too late: Sanjo-sensei's face was in the doorway, twisted and livid.
"I cannot," she began like an ice-cold knife, "Believe this. Lights-out was a half-hour ago! Have you all completely forgotten yourselves?"
Nadeshiko's smile faded.
Sanjo's face was pale, and her fists were clenched, shaking. We began to shift uncomfortably. Wakana and Manami exchange furrowed brows.
"Back to your beds!" she shouted, when we didn't respond. "Before I make you!"
The only sound was the thudding of feet on the floor as everyone returned to their rooms. Nadeshiko quietly tipped all the stones onto the bed and folded the board with a loud snap.
Sanjo held out a hand, stopping Amu and Yaya from leaving.
"One moment," she said, low, menacing. "You two."
Nadeshiko and I exchanged a look. She began to stand up. I placed a hand on her knee, pinning her to my bed.
"You've been in here visiting Mashiro-san all evening?" Sanjo asked.
Amu looked back at us. Yaya nodded.
"Fujisaki-san?" said Sanjo, without looking at her.
"We've all been in here since classes ended, Sensei," said Nadeshiko softly.
"Very well," she said, curtly. "Bed."
She extinguished the light, leaving Nadeshiko and I curled up on my bed in darkness. I saw the pale circle of Nadeshiko's face follow me to the window, where I prised it open.
A deep male voice, too muffled to hear, came in over the wind. Various bright lantern-lights roved the surface of Seiyo Hill. The stationmaster whistled and slammed a gate. Instinctively, I knew the last train of the night had been stopped, and its compartments were being searched.
"Hoshina Utau has run away!" Manami shouted down the hallway at six-thirteen that morning, as the sun was rising. It echoed over the sound of running water, of the slamming of shoe-cabinets. All bets were off. Decorum was lost. Hoshina Utau has run away.
Run away. Escaped. Cut it, made off. Gave Seiyo the slip. Eloped, stole, smuggled herself out, rolled in a rug. Bribed the gatemaster, stowed away in the luggage compartment. The tales grew taller, the embellishments longer.
How had she done it?
The plan was not brilliant, but it was simple. After Hatoba came down with fever, Utau must have sensed an opportunity. When the school went into quarantine, she alerted her brother. When Fujisaki-sensei was watching us sick girls, Utau had stolen her key. One of the police dogs sniffed it out in the dirt by the train station. But she hadn't gotten on the train. They searched every compartment, to no avail. Was she in an overhead luggage rack? Had she taken a rickshaw straight to Kobe and gotten the train there? The police in the city were now involved. In a few more days, news was going to reach Tokyo newspapers.
Everybody wanted to talk to Amu and Nadeshiko, as her closest friend and the accessories in her previous attempt. Is that why they had been playing Go in Nadeshiko's room, they wanted to know. To provide a distraction?
Amu couldn't eat her rice. She stabbed it miserably, taking this far harder than the rest of us.
"I don't know," she kept whispering in response to questions. "I don't know."
Nadeshiko and I exchanged a grim look.
I bit my lip and took Amu by the arm. Nadeshiko took her other one. Together, we hauled her to her feet.
"There, there," Nadeshiko told her softly, rubbing her shoulders. "She's going to be alright. Her brother is with her. It's not your fault."
"Hoshina-san would tell you to pull yourself together," I said, taking her arm in a vicelike grip. "She would tell you to stop embarrassing yourself."
"Mashiro-san!" I got scolded.
Amu whispered something in Nadeshiko's ear. Nadeshiko turned to me, eyes wide.
"Hoshina-san asked you to come with her?"
Amu didn't answer. We flanked her silently. It was a foolish offer, and one I couldn't see Utau making. She operated alone. Amu was in a precarious position. Why would she throw everything away to follow a pair of siblings to Manchukuo?
"But you said no," I said.
"How could I?" she whispered, but she wasn't talking to me. "How could I… my parents… my little sister…"
"That's right," said Nadeshiko, pale. I pulled the door open to the classroom for them. "You have your family's face to consider. Hoshina-san…"
"Made a choice," I finished, lowering my voice.
"Yes," Nadeshiko said faintly. "Who could possibly ask you to go to a strange country, leaving your loved ones behind? It's madness."
Who, indeed? I knew their names. Someday, I thought. I will ask them the same.
