South of the Border, West of the Sun Page 0,26
to tell. I’m not even completely sure it was her.”
He ordered another Wild Turkey on the rocks. I was drinking a vodka gimlet.
“I don’t care if there’s not much to tell. I want to know.”
“Well …” He hesitated. “What I mean is, sometimes I feel like it didn’t actually take place. It’s a spooky feeling, like I was dreaming but it was real, you know? It’s hard to explain.”
“But it really did happen, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then tell me.”
He gave a nod of resignation and took a sip of his Wild Turkey.
“I went to Toyohashi because my younger sister lives there. I was on a business trip to Nagoya, and it was a Friday, so I decided to go over to her place to spend the night. And that’s where I met Izumi. She was in the elevator of my sister’s apartment building. I was thinking: Wow, this woman’s the spitting image of that Ohara girl. But then I thought: No way, can’t be. No way I’d meet her in an elevator in my sister’s apartment building, in Toyohashi of all places. Her face looked different from before. I don’t understand, myself, why I soon realized it was her. Instinct I guess.”
“But it was Izumi, right?”
He nodded. “She happened to live on the same floor as my sister. We got off together and walked down the corridor in the same direction. She went into the apartment two doors before my sister’s. I was curious and checked out the nameplate on her door. Ohara, it said.”
“Did she notice you?”
He shook his head. “We were in the same class, but we never really talked. And besides, I’ve put on over forty pounds since then. She’d never recognize me.”
“But was it really Izumi? I wonder. Ohara’s a pretty common name. And there must be other people who look like her.”
“Yeah, I was wondering the same thing, so I asked my sister. About what kind of person this Ohara was. My sister showed me the list of tenants’ names. You know, those lists they make up when they’ve got to divide the cost of repainting or something. All the tenants’ names were on it And there it was—Izumi Ohara. With Izumi in katakana, not Chinese characters. There can’t be that many with the same combination, right?”
“Which means she’s still single.”
“My sister didn’t know anything about that,” he said. “Izumi Ohara is the apartment house’s mystery woman, I found out. No one had ever spoken with her. If you say hello to her as you pass in the corridor, she ignores you. She doesn’t answer the bell when you ring. Not exactly about to be voted Most Popular on the Block.”
“That can’t be her.” I laughed and shook my head. “Izumi isn’t that kind of person. She was always outgoing, always smiling.”
“Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was someone else,” he said. “Someone with exactly the same name. Let’s change the subject.”
“But the Izumi Ohara there was living alone?”
“I think so. Nobody’s ever seen any men go into her place. Nobody has a clue what she does for a living. It’s a complete riddle.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“‘Bout what?”
“About her. About this Izumi Ohara who may or may not be someone with the same name. You saw her face in the elevator. What did you think? Did she look all right?”
He pondered that. “All right, I suppose,” he answered.
“How do you mean, all right?”
He shook his whiskey glass; it made a clinking sound. “Naturally, she’s aged a bit. She’s thirty-six, after all. You and me too. Your metabolism slows down. You put on a few pounds. Can’t be a high school student forever.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“Why don’t we change the subject? It must have been somebody else.”
I sighed. Resting both arms on the counter, I looked him straight in the face. “Look, I want to know. I have to know. Just before we left high school, Izumi and I broke up. It was ugly. I screwed up and hurt her a lot. Since then, I’ve never had a way of finding out how she is. I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. So just tell me the unvarnished truth. It was Izumi, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “If you put it that way, yes, it was definitely her. I’m sorry to have to tell you, though.”
“So, honestly, how was she?”
He was silent for a while. “First of all, I want you to realize something, okay? I was in the same class as