In the end, I couldn’t decide. As I said earlier, I’d already come to the conclusion that her object was to have the book published.
Sorry, what was that?
Did she suspect that the real criminal was someone else? Are you referring to back then, or something she said recently?
Not clear?
Hmm, that surprises me. Perhaps she thought that all along. It could explain why she was so keen.
If that’s the case, then that might have been significant too. By that I mean of course the title, The Forgotten Festival.
X
There was another reason I didn’t want my name printed in the book as a collaborator. I kept it to myself, but it was in fact the real reason.
After hearing what you just told me, however, I’m inclined to think that Saiga may also have had her reasons. I had a feeling there was something she intended.
Well no, they were merely small things.
I don’t think they were crucial.
But who knows?
I was with Saiga during almost all the interviews, and I transcribed them into writing. I remembered most of what had been said them.
Which is why when I read the proofs of The Forgotten Festival, I was surprised to find a number of perplexing discrepancies. Details that were different to the testimony we had heard.
Small things, not relevant to the main thread of speech. But unmistakably different to what had been said. To rephrase, I’d say they weren’t the kind of mistakes you would expect as the result of oversight or carelessness.
When I began reading, I felt there was something strange about the text. At first I thought they were misprints, but there were too many for that.
Saiga had tremendous powers of concentration and was meticulous about double-checking, therefore I don’t believe she overlooked these errors in the process of reviewing and correcting. I couldn’t fathom how she had made such mistakes. But since they didn’t affect the main narrative directly, I didn’t dwell on it too much.
Is it conceivable she did it on purpose? Did she perhaps deliberately change the testimony when she wrote the manuscript? She did say it was neither fiction nor non-fiction, didn’t she?
When the book came out, that’s the position she took. It was neither, and she didn’t mind which way it was taken. Which of course only exasperated the mass media even more. The media like to paint everything as black or white. Make a comment such as “I don’t know”, “either way” or “it’s a grey area”, and they come down on a person like they’ve committed a crime.
It’s common to deliberately change identifying factors such as setting or appearance when actual people are the subject of a novel, but that theory didn’t fit either. The persons involved could still be identified, and if the altered details were removed it wouldn’t have changed anything. Besides, the only parts that were altered were details that didn’t matter in the least.
But they must have meant something to her.
In that case, however, it must follow that those words have some other significance.
She did ask me what one could do if one wanted to send a particular message when everyone was looking, if you recall.
I took it for granted she was referring to the letter left on the table at the crime scene. Up until this moment that’s what I’ve always thought.
But what if? What if at the time she was doing her research, she already anticipated it becoming the book The Forgotten Festival?
Do you think that’s a possibility? It’s something that everybody sees, and through it she could send a message to one specific person while everyone was looking.
That bestselling book would be a way to do it. A message to a specific person… Someone connected with the crime who would be likely to pick up that book…
Someone she couldn’t consult in advance or share a code with.
All she could do was write something which only that person would recognize.
Do you think it’s relevant that she thought over what I said to her for a long time?
The parts she deliberately changed could be a message to a particular person, written so that only that person would understand, don’t you think?
But if that’s the case, there’s one thing I don’t understand.
Her attitude after the book came out. After it was published, she appeared to lose all interest in it. If that book really were a message for someone, wouldn’t she care about their reaction? It’s incomprehensible that she could lose interest in it entirely, just like that.
Or was she simply satisfied that she had made her charge and sent out her message? Was it all up to the other party, then, the one receiving the message, to interpret it and take action?
XI
It’s getting dark.
I’ve got a train to catch, so I should be going soon.
Yes, I took over the family business back in my home town. We have an old traditional inn serving speciality high-quality cuisine. It’s important for a place like that to have a reliable mistress for the front-of-house business, which is why I was able to come out today.
Yes, it’s my wife – I’m not equal to her, I’m afraid.
Today was a journey in search of memories.
I never thought I’d come back here again, but it hasn’t done me any good coming here today.
This journey has brought me face to face with something else in my memory, which wasn’t part of the plan. Something I shouldn’t have seen, and which I didn’t want to see. I understand now that the temptation to see things you shouldn’t see is much greater than the temptation to travel to see something you want to see.
Yes indeed, that’s today’s lesson from this city with its male and female rivers flowing through the centre. Its protectors.
What do you suppose those two rivers protect? Do you think they’re conspiring? I’m starting to get that feeling.
Saiga didn’t need me or anyone else to help her with the interviews. The Walkman and gifts for the interviewees that I carried for her weren’t so heavy that she couldn’t have managed alone.
But she had me accompany her on purpose.
She had me go with her to the interviews, do the transcriptions with her at night, and she made sure I remembered it all.
Was one river not enough? Was another river necessary for protection?
What was I doing there? What was it she had me help her with?
Is it possible I was there as her witness? Did she require an observer for some reason? Did I satisfactorily fulfil the role she expected of me, I wonder? Or did her calculations miss the mark?
I can see myself in future taking a leisurely stroll along this river bank. Coming here often to visit after I retire and hand the business over to my son. Coming in search of something in my memory, something I ought not to have seen, and dragging my old bones down to the river to stroll along here in the evening with a gentle breeze blowing off the water.
Ah… I just realized something else important.
The changes she made intentionally… the message to a specific person.
Could it be, by any chance, that the message was meant for me?
I was the person most likely to read the book and notice any irregularities. After spending every night with her working on the testimonies, I was the only one qualified to find all the discrepancies in the finished manuscript. Apart from her, the only other person in the world who would know is me.
It would follow then, of course, that she would lose interest in the book once it was published.