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Chapter 42
Once the two of them were alone, Miss Saeki offered Nakata a chair. He thought about it for a moment before sitting down. They sat there for a time without speaking, eyeing each other across the desk. Nakata placed his hiking hat on his lap and gave his short hair a good rub with his hand. Miss Saeki rested both hands on the desktop, quietly watching him go through his routine.
"Unless I'm mistaken, I think I've been waiting for you to come," she said.
"I believe that's true," Nakata replied. "But it took some time for Nakata to get here. I hope I didn't make you wait too long. I did my best to get here as quickly as I could."
Miss Saeki shook her head. "No, it's perfectly all right. If you'd come any earlier, or any later, I would've been even more at a loss, I suppose. For me, right now is the perfect time."
"Mr. Hoshino was very kind to me and helped me out a lot. If I had to do it alone it would've taken even longer. Nakata can't read, after all."
"Mr. Hoshino is your friend, isn't he?"
"Yes," Nakata replied, and nodded. "I think he is. But to tell the truth, I'm not all too sure about that. Besides cats, I've never had what you would call a friend in my life."
"I haven't had any friends either, for quite some time," Miss Saeki said. "Other than in memories."
"Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?" she replied.
"Actually, I don't have any memories either. I'm dumb, you see, so could you tell me what memories are like?"
Miss Saeki stared at her hands on the desk, then looked up at Nakata again. "Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."
Nakata shook his head. "That's a tough one. Nakata still doesn't understand. The only thing I understand is the present."
"I'm the exact opposite," Miss Saeki said.
A deep silence settled over the room.
Nakata was the one who broke it, lightly clearing his throat. "Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?"
"You know about the entrance stone, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," she said. She brushed the Mont Blanc pen on the desk with her fingers. "I happened to come across it a long time ago. Perhaps it would've been better if I'd never known about it. But I had no choice in the matter."
"Nakata opened it again a few days ago. The afternoon when there was lightning. Lots of lightning falling all over town. Mr. Hoshino helped me. I couldn't have done it myself. Do you know the day I'm talking about?"
Miss Saeki nodded. "Yes, I remember."
"I opened it because I had to."
"I know. You did that so things would be restored to the way they should be."
It was Nakata's turn to nod. "Exactly."
"And you had the right to do it."
"Nakata doesn't know about that. In any case, it wasn't something I chose. I have to tell you this-I murdered someone in Nakano. I didn't want to kill anybody, but Joh
Miss Saeki closed her eyes, then opened them and looked him in the face. "Did all that happen because I opened the entrance stone a long time ago? Does that still have an effect even now, distorting things?"
Nakata shook his head. "Miss Saeki?"
"Yes?" she said.
"Nakata doesn't know about that. My role is to restore what's here now to the way it should be. That's why I left Nakano, went across a huge bridge, and came to Shikoku. And as I'm sure you're aware, you can't stay here anymore."
Miss Saeki smiled. "I know," she said. "It's what I've been hoping for, Mr. Nakata, for a long time. Something I longed for in the past, what I'm longing for right now. No matter how I tried, though, I couldn't grasp it. I simply had to sit and wait for that time-now, in other words-to come. It wasn't always easy, but suffering is something I've had to accept."
"Miss Saeki," Nakata said, "I only have half a shadow. The same as you."
"I know."
"Nakata lost it during that war. I don't know why that had to happen, and why it had to be me… At any rate, a long time has passed since then, and it's nearly time for us to leave here."
"I understand."
"Nakata's lived a long time, but as I said, I don't have any memories. So this 'suffering' you talked about I don't rightly understand. But what I think is-no matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."
"That's true," Miss Saeki said. "It hurt more and more to hold on to them, but I never wanted to let them go, as long as I was alive. It was the only reason I had to go on living, the only thing that proved I was alive."
Nakata nodded silently.
"Living longer than I should have has only ruined many people and many things," she went on. "Just recently I had a sexual relationship with that fifteen-year-old boy you mentioned. In that room I became a fifteen-year-old girl again, and made love to him. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not, but I couldn't help it. But those actions must surely have caused something else to be ruined. That's my only regret."
"Nakata doesn't know about sexual desire. Just like I don't have memories, I don't have any desire. So I don't understand the difference between right or wrong sexual desire. But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong, I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now."
"Mr. Nakata?"
"Yes?"
"I have a favor to ask." Miss Saeki picked up the bag at her feet, took out a small key and unlocked a desk drawer, then pulled out some thick file folders and laid them on top of the desk.
"Ever since I came back to this town," she said, "I've been writing this. A record of my life. I was born nearby and fell deeply in love with a boy who lived in this house. I couldn't have loved him more, and he was deeply in love with me. We lived in a perfect circle, where everything inside was complete. Of course that couldn't go on forever. We grew up, and times changed. Parts of the circle fell apart, the outside world came rushing into our private paradise, and things inside tried to get out. All quite natural, I suppose, yet at the time I couldn't accept it. And that's why I opened up the entrance stone-to prevent our perfect, private world from collapsing. I can't remember now how I managed to do it, but I decided I had to open the stone no matter what-so I wouldn't lose him, so things from the outside wouldn't destroy our world. I didn't understand at the time what it would mean. And of course I received my punishment."
She stopped speaking here, picked up the fountain pen, and closed her eyes. "My life ended at age twenty. Since then it's been merely a series of endless reminiscences, a dark, winding corridor leading nowhere. Nevertheless, I had to live it, surviving each empty day, seeing each day off still empty. During those days I made a lot of mistakes. No, that's not correct-sometimes I feel that all I did was make mistakes. I felt like I was living at the bottom of a deep well, completely shut up inside myself, cursing my fate, hating everything outside. Occasionally I ventured outside myself, putting on a good show of being alive. Accepting whatever came along, numbly slipping through life. I slept around a lot, at one point even living in a sort of marriage, but it was all pointless. Everything passed away in an instant, with nothing left behind except the scars of things I injured and despised."
She laid her hands on top of the three files on her desk. "All the details are in here. I wrote this to put it all in order, to make sure one more time about the life I lived. I have only myself to blame, but it's a gut-wrenching process. And I've finally finished it. I've written everything I need to write. I don't need this anymore, and I don't want anybody else to read it. If someone else happened to see it, it might cause harm all over again. So I want it all burned up, every last page, so nothing's left. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to take care of it. You're the only person I can depend on, Mr. Nakata. I'm sorry to bother you with this, but could you do it for me?"