without a sound. I know resistance is pointless so I sit up and bite into a squeaky pickle. Anju slides under my futon and dunks an omochi into a saucer of soy. ‘I had my flying dream again. Only I had to keep flapping really hard to stay above the ground. I could see lots of people moving about, and there was this big stripy circus tent where Mum lived. I was about to swoop down on it when the mosquito woke me up.’
‘Be careful about falling.’
Anju chews. ‘What?’
‘If you dream about falling and hit the ground you really die in your bed.’
Anju chews some more. ‘Who says so?’
‘Scientists say so.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Scientists proved it!’
‘If you dreamed of falling, hit the ground, and died, how could anyone know that you were dreaming of falling in the first place?’ I think this through. Anju enjoys her victory in silence. Frogs start up and die down, a million marimbas. In the distance the sea is asleep. We chomp one omochi after another. Suddenly Anju speaks in a voice I don’t remember her using. ‘I never see her face any more, Eiji.’
‘Whose face?’
‘Mum’s. Can you?’
‘She’s ill. She’s in a special hospital.’
Anju’s voice wavers. ‘What if that isn’t true?’
Huh? ‘Sure it’s true!’ I feel as if I’ve swallowed a knife. ‘She looks like how she looks in the photographs.’
‘The photographs are old.’ Why now? Anju wipes her eyes on her nightshirt and looks away. I hear her jaw and throat sort of clench. ‘Wheatie sent me to buy a box of washing powder at Mrs Tanaka’s while you were at soccer practice this afternoon. Mrs Oki and her sister from Kagoshima were there. They were at the back of the shop and they didn’t notice me at first, so I heard everything.’
The knife reaches my gut. ‘Heard what?’
‘Mrs Oki said, “Of course the Miyake girl hasn’t shown her face here.” Mrs Tanaka said, “Of course, she has no right to.” Mrs Oki said, “She wouldn’t dare. Dumping her two kiddies on their grandmother and uncles while she lives it up in Tokyo with her fancy men and fancy apartments and fancy cars.” Then she saw me.’ The knife turns itself. Anju gasps between tight chains of snivels.
‘What happened?’
‘She dropped her eggs, and hurried out.’
A moth drowns in the moonlight.
I wipe Anju’s tears. They are so warm. Then she brushes me away and hunches up in a stubborn crouch. ‘Look,’ I say, wondering what to say. ‘Mrs Oki and her sister from Kagoshima and Mrs Tanaka are all witches who drink their own piss.’
Anju shakes her head at the daikon pickle I offer her. She just mumbles. ‘Broken eggs. Everywhere.’
Fujifilm says 02:34. Sleep. Sleep. You are feeling sleepy. Your eyelids are veeeeeerrry heavy. I don’t think so. Let me sleep. Please. I have to work tomorrow. Today. I close my eyes but see a body falling through space. Cartwheeling. Cockroach is still fighting the glue. Cockroaches have sensors that start the legs running even before the brain registers the danger. How do scientists find these things out? Cockroaches even eat books if nothing juicier comes along. Cat would have kicked Cockroach’s butt. Cat. Cat knows the secret of life and death. Wednesday evening, I get home from work. ‘Good day at the office, dear?’ asks Buntaro, drinking iced coffee from a can. ‘Not bad,’ I say. Buntaro drains the last drops. ‘What are your co-workers like?’ ‘I haven’t met many. Suga, the guy I’m replacing, believes he is a sort of arch cybercriminal. Mrs Sasaki, my boss, doesn’t seem to like me much but I sort of like her anyway. Mr Aoyama, her boss, is so uptight I’m surprised he can walk without squeaking.’ Buntaro lobs his can into a bin, and a customer comes in with a stack of videos to return. I climb up to my capsule, slump on my futon and read Akiko Kato’s letter for the hundredth time. I practise my guitar as the room fills with suburban dusk. I can’t afford any light fittings yet, so all I have is a knackered lamp that the previous tenant stowed in the back of the closet. I suddenly decide to admit to myself that the vague hope I have entertained all my life, that by coming to Tokyo I would bump into my father sooner or later, is laughable. Lamentable. Instead of setting me free, the truth makes me too depressed to play the guitar, so I fold my futon into a chair and