It was true that the Ministry of Justice was precise in its communications. Their caller had asked for my grandfather and so she should have spoken only to him. For a moment I thought of phoning him myself, but then, as I pictured him at the onsen sitting with his friends in the heated rock pools, white flannels resting on their heads as they retold storeys and jokes, I realised that I could not ask him. He had never mentioned anything like this to me; he had never implied, even for a second, that there was a connection between my mother and a man in prison.
Slowly, I walked towards our bookcases, looking at the bound ledgers of Grandpa’s favourite legal cases placed next to my own small white textbooks. I ran my hands over the shelves of novels, poetry and plays, before finally stopping at a row of box files. These contained our family birth certificates, health insurance, bank accounts: a paper trail of our lives running straight from my grandfather to my mother to me. Everything we were was in that room, yet I had never seen a trace of Kaitarō Nakamura there.
Kneeling on the floor, I located the file for my mother. There was only one. Through all these years it has remained on the shelf, still there, beneath the layers of current life: ‘Rina 1965–1994.’ The leather veneer was slippery to the touch as I rested the box on my lap. Inside were my mother’s certificates from school and her acceptance letter from Tōdai, formatted in exactly the same way as mine. This was followed by her marriage certificate and a copy of the deed to the apartment in Ebisu where she had lived with me and my father. Next was a rental agreement for a two-bedroom flat in Shinagawa; it had my mother’s seal and my grandfather’s at the base of the lease. He had helped her secure the new apartment. Even after the divorce. He helped her, as he has always helped me.
That apartment in Shinagawa was meant to be my home yet I never saw it – it contains the last hidden chapter of my mother’s life. I cannot even remember the sound of her voice, but I do remember the last time I heard it. I believe she was standing in that apartment when she called to tell me she was coming to fetch me, when she said we would go to Shimoda.
For hours after speaking to my mother I waited and waited. Later that night, Grandpa went out to look for her while I remained on the stairs, holding my stuffed white tiger. He was gone for so long that I feared he too had been swallowed by the darkness. When he returned, Hannae told him that I had refused to eat my dinner or go to bed; he could see from my face that I had been crying with fear. Grandpa sat next to me and drew his arm around me to hold me tight. His touch was warm and familiar; the amber and ginger of his cologne prickled in my nose as I leaned into the heat of his skin. Grandpa rested his chin on my head. He told me that Mama had tried to keep her promise, that she had been driving home to us from Shinagawa when her car had gone off the road. Driving home, to me.
At the bottom of the file was her death certificate. I paused before reaching out to touch it. To this day it reads:
Place of Death: Shinagawa Ward.
Cause of Death: Cerebral hypoxia.
Everything was consistent with what I’d been told of how she died in the car crash. Nothing has changed. Those facts have not altered in twenty years. That afternoon, alone on the floor of my grandfather’s study, looking at those words, I realised that of all the lies we are told, the very best ones are close to the truth.
Forgotten Parties
A few hours later I walked through Shinagawa, the road twisting ahead of me in the fading light. The neighbourhood was quiet; only the leaves stirred. A detached cobweb floated in the breeze as I walked past the low condominiums and an abandoned soccer field, bare of sand. I had read once that hundreds of years ago there was a site of public execution near here and that even when the site moved on, kegare remained in the earth – the soil foul with spiritual corruption, polluted by blood and crime. Now, of course, the very knowledge of this is buried. There is only the steady influx of everyday life: new people, new homes, new families. And no one to give a thought for what lies beneath the dust. I wondered if my mother had known about this when she moved to Shinagawa. I wondered if she had walked here in the early evening as I did, if she had ever come here in search of help.
The police station had retained its cream walls and brown glass windows, but at only five storeys high, it looked squat in comparison to the towering modern architecture by the bay. Through the glass doors I could see the model of Peepo, though he too looked smaller.
I walked towards the main counter, noting the officers sitting behind their desks in their loose blue jackets and face masks to keep out summer allergens and pollution. These are the faithful omawari-san, ‘Honourable Mr Go Around’, the keepers of our peace. As I walked across the hard grey tiles, several officers noticed me. Was I all right? Could they help? They were anxious, but also surprised that anything requiring their attention should have happened.
I handed over my birth certificate and the document confirming my surname change from Satō to Sarashima. I needed to speak with someone regarding a closed case, I said. The man behind the main counter hesitated and bit down on a yawn. It was difficult, he said. Perhaps I could come back on Monday?
I looked beyond him, to the very back of the room and the metal grille and velvet curtain that shielded the inner corridors and departments. I had visited several police stations in the service of learning about the law, but I had entered this one only once before, when I was a very small child.
I believe that a crime against my mother occurred in this neighbourhood, I explained. I would like to see any records you have relating to Rina Satō. The man behind the desk was reluctant. If I could come back, he suggested, there might be someone on duty next week who could help.
I thought of the aborted phone call, of how the prison service had asked for my grandfather, how they had mentioned my mother as though she were still alive. I could feel anger rising inside me. I looked at the police officer, an administrator with his bored Friday-afternoon face, and said a word rarely used in daily conversation.
‘No.’
He looked at me as though he had not heard. ‘Ms Sarashima, if this is an old case the files will have been transferred to the new archives off-site.’
‘No,’ I repeated. He smiled as though I had said something amusing. I leaned towards him over the desk.
‘You will find someone,’ I said. ‘Anyone who is aware of a case involving Rina Satō – you will find them now.’
‘Miss—’
‘I received a phone call from the Ministry of Justice about my family. A crime against my mother occurred in this ward,’ I persisted. ‘A record of it will be here.’
To my slight gratification, my voice filled the sad little hall. People were staring at me as I stood next to Peepo. I thought of the photographs Grandpa had shown me of my mother at university, of her laughing over her shoulder, fierce and young with dyed ochre hair in downtown Tokyo. I think she would have smiled.
The man hurried away, brushing aside the velvet curtain and disappearing deep into the station. He left me standing by the desk for an age. The other officers would not look at me. I was sitting alone, cold in my anger, when an older woman appeared before me. ‘Ms Sarashima,’ she said, ‘please follow me.’ She held the curtain for me and then walked up the staircase ahead. ‘You would not have had any luck with the archives,’ she said as we climbed. ‘The files you need have not been transferred. Everything before 1995 is no longer considered necessary.’