he next hearing was a month later. It was to begin at two o’clock, so I asked my boss if I could leave the office early that day. I was a part-timer, and the boss was none too happy about my arriving late and leaving early. But when I told him I was asking because I wanted to go to the trial, he completely changed his tune. “Fine, fine. Go on then,” he said, and waved me off. Zhang’s trial was becoming a convenient excuse for getting out of work. But I really did not look forward to attending the hearings. I did not enjoy seeing the prisoner’s gloomy face, for a start, and trying to dodge the media was getting to be annoying. Still, Mitsuru had made me promise to give Kijima’s letters back to her at the next trial, so I couldn’t very well avoid going. I’m a stickler for following through on responsibilities. And I was eager to see what kind of weird outfit Mitsuru would show up in. Curiosity on a number of fronts drew me to the courthouse.

When I reached the courtroom early, a woman with a short haircut waved me over. She had on a yellow turtleneck sweater, a brown skirt, and a stylish scarf wrapped smartly across her shoulders. I cocked my neck to the side, pretty certain that I didn’t know anyone that well dressed.

“It’s me! Mitsuru.”

That’s when I saw the big front teeth and the bright eyes. What had happened to that strangely outfitted middle-aged woman?

“You’ve changed,” I said.

I threw my belongings roughly down on the seat behind me. When I did, I knocked Mitsuru’s purse to the floor and she bent over to pick it up, a frown on her face. Gone was the frumpy canvas bag. This was a black Gucci shoulder bag.

“What’s with the bag?”

“I bought it.”

Didn’t she tell me the last time we met that she had no money? And there I’d stupidly split the bill with her like I had to dole out charity. With the money she spent on her Gucci bag, I could have bought at least ten of the bags I was carrying. I wanted to chew her out but I just nodded.

“That’s nice. You look well.”

“Thank you. I’ve been feeling a bit more settled.” Mitsuru smiled slightly. “The last time I saw you I was a nervous wreck. I think I’ve grown more accustomed to being back in society, but for a while there I felt like Rip Van Winkle. Everything was so different. The neighborhood had changed, prices had gone up. Every part of me was aware of how different things had become in the six years I’d been away. Actually, I went to visit Professor Kijima at his dormitory last week. We talked about all kinds of things, and I felt better after that. I’m going to start over.”

“You saw Professor Kijima?”

Why, I wondered, did Mitsuru’s cheeks suddenly redden?

“That’s right. I thought about the letters I lent you and began to feel so nostalgic that I decided to go see him. He was delighted. We walked together through the woods of Karuizawa. It was freezing, but I was overwhelmed to realize there really are such warm people in the world.”

I was shocked. I stared at Mitsuru, as she sat there blushing, and pressed the packet with Professor Kijima’s letters into her hand.

“Professor Kijima’s letters,” she said. “Did you read them?”

“I read them. But I can’t make much sense of them. Are you sure he’s not senile?”

“Why? Because he couldn’t remember your name?”

Mitsuru was perfectly serious—which made me even more annoyed.

“That’s not why.”

“I told Professor that I showed you his letters, and he seemed to grow concerned for you. He was afraid you’d think badly of him for writing the things he did. He’s worried that you’re depressed over what happened to Yuriko.”

“Well, I’m not! Even if I am just Yuriko’s older sister.”

Mitsuru released a long sigh. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but you’ve been warped for as long as I can remember. I feel sorry for you, I really do. I wish you could pull yourself out from under whatever spell Yuriko cast over you. Professor Kijima said what you were suffering was nothing short of mind control.”

“Professor, Professor…you sound just like a broken record. Did something happen with the two of you?”

“Nothing happened. But his words touched a chord in my heart.”

It sounded like Mitsuru was in love with Professor Kijima, just like she had been in high school. There are people who make the same mistakes over and over without ever learning. I couldn’t take any more of Mitsuru, so I turned around and faced the front of the courtroom. Zhang was being led into the room, sandwiched between two guards, his hands in manacles connected to a cord around his waist. He looked over at me timidly and quickly glanced away. I could feel all the others in the courtroom staring over at me. They didn’t want to miss the showdown between the victim’s family and the assailant, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I glowered at Zhang for all I was worth. But Mitsuru interrupted me. “Look over there,” she said as she grabbed my arm. “Look at that man.”

Annoyed, I turned to look. Two men had just claimed empty seats in the spectators’ gallery. One was fat, the other a handsome youth.

“I wonder if that’s Takashi Kijima.”

Takashi Kijima had the same perversely precocious look that I had despised. But what was mortifying was that he was still so attractive and youthful. His body was long and slender: snakelike. And his head was small, compact and nicely shaped. His face had delicate lines, and his nose was high and thin, reminding me of the blade of a finely honed knife. His lips were fleshy, the kind girls would surely find sexy and swoon over. Right, girls like Kazue Sat. But surely he was too young. Besides, Kijima was never quite as attractive as this boy. I could hardly take my eyes off him. When the judge entered the courtroom, I looked back at the men again and stared at them.

The man I took for Kijima held a duffle coat that he had folded neatly. When we had to rise for the judge, he got to his feet clumsily. After everyone else had taken their seats again, he still stood there, staring into space. The fat man had to grab him by the arm and pull him down. The bones in his shoulders and the muscles of his chest that I could detect through the simple black sweater he wore were perfectly balanced. He was at that age caught between childhood and youth where he was growing like a young tree. His face was lovely—the features as becoming for a woman as they were for a man. The shape of his dark eyebrows was beautiful, a perfect arch as if formed by hand. No, this wasn’t Kijima. I was certain.

“No, now that I look at him carefully, it’s not Takashi Kijima.”

“It is. It’s Kijima. It has to be,” Mitsuru whispered in my ear after the courtroom had quieted down.

“There’s no way Kijima would be that young. Besides Kijima always looked much more disagreeable.”

“No, not him, the fat one!”

Startled, I almost fell out of my chair. The man had to be close to 220 pounds. If I carved some of the fat off his face, I might be able to find a likeness to Kijima in there somewhere. The trial had begun but I was too busy trying to look at the men behind me to pay attention. Besides, the focus of the hearing today was Zhang’s upbringing and background, and the deliberations were so boring I thought I would die.

“I was an excellent student in elementary school. I was born intelligent.”

How could he sit there in front of everybody and brag about himself like that without the slightest embarrassment? I couldn’t take much more of this. While trying to stifle a yawn, I thought about Takashi Kijima sitting behind me. How had he gotten so ugly? He looked like a completely different person. He’d changed so much, I wanted to call up Professor Kijima and let him know what had become of his son since he saw him last. That’s what I’d do! I’d take a picture of him and send it to his father with a letter.

When the hearing ended for the day and Zhang left the courtroom, Mitsuru let out a shallow sigh, her shoulders dipping slightly.

“Sitting through these procedures is more difficult than I thought. It makes me remember my own trial. I never felt more naked, more exposed, in all my life. Listening to the questions that the defendant was asked today brings it all back. My entire life history was spread out for all to see. I felt I was hearing about someone else, someone entirely different from me. It was strange. Once I realized that people were dying during those initiations, I was too afraid to do anything to help them in their final moments. Let karma have its way, I thought. Yet when my own time came, I was so terrified and trembled so badly I couldn’t even stand up. I was a doctor, trained to save human life. How was I able to do something so cruel? My trial continued amid great confusion. The only thing that got me through was my mother, who came with a group of other believers. When she entered the courtroom, we exchanged glances. Very subtle. But in her glance I understood that she was telling me to be strong, that I did nothing wrong. I was judged there in that courtroom, before the whole world, but I scarcely saw anyone but my mother.”

“So are you saying you feel no remorse?”

“Not that. What I’m saying is, everything was confused. It was like a TV drama.”

I held up my hand in an effort to put an end to Mitsuru’s convoluted tale of tangled emotions. If I wasn’t careful, Takashi Kijima was going to get away. I wasn’t interested in him so much as I was in the youth with him. I had to speak to him. Why are you with Takashi Kijima? You rarely find such handsome boys. Was he Takashi Kijima’s son? If not, who on earth was he? I was consumed with curiosity. If he was Kijima’s son, no matter how hateful Kijima might be or how ugly he’d become, his worth in my eyes had just skyrocketed. And Mitsuru looked like she still had more to say.

“Let’s have a class reunion,” I suggested.

“What are you talking about?”

The courtroom was now nearly empty and Mitsuru’s voice reverberated against the walls. I could hardly believe it when Takashi Kijima turned and headed toward us. He was wearing a gaudy sweater with jeans, trying to look youthful. Under his arm he clutched a small brand-name men’s purse, making him look like an out-of-date gangster. I imagined he had an overstuffed wallet, a cell phone, and a case of name cards stuffed inside, along with an assortment of other little things. Unfortunately, his young companion did not seem to be interested in coming along with him. He stayed seated, his eyes straight ahead, as he had been all through the trial.

“You’re Mitsuru, aren’t you?”

His voice was thick, in keeping with his body. It had a nasal sound, unpleasant to listen to. Proof of too many cigarettes, too much booze, and too many late nights. The skin on his face was grayish, the pores conspicuously large. I imagined if I put my finger on his cheek, it would feel slick with grease.

“And you’re Kijima-kun, right? It’s been a long time,” Mitsuru said.

“Mitsuru, you had a rough time of it. I read what happened in the paper and couldn’t believe it. But you look fine now. You’ve worked that out, right?”

Kijima pointed toward the judge’s bench with an air of comfortable familiarity. Not just his physique but the way he spoke was round and soft. Like a woman. Mitsuru’s face clouded over.

“Thank you very much for your kind concern. I am very sorry to have caused my associates from Q School system such hardship, but it is all behind me now.”

“Congratulations.”

Kijima gave a deep bow. Mitsuru bit back her tears. It looked just like a scene from some gangster movie. I was not at all interested, however, and turned to look at the boy. Mitsuru’s tear-choked voice had caught his attention, and he was now looking this way. His face was exquisite. Why did he look so familiar?

“You recognized me right away, didn’t you, Mitsuru? Most people have no idea who I am, now that I’ve put on some weight. The other day I ran into a former Q classmate down in the Ginza, but he walked right past me. He was the same guy who was so smitten with Yuriko he’d throw himself on the ground in front of me, begging me to fix them up. And now for Yuriko to wind up getting murdered by a stranger! But when you come right down to it, that was probably her long-cherished dream.”

“Long-cherished dream?” Mitsuru burst out.

“Yuriko always told me she knew she’d be killed by one of her customers someday. It frightened her, but she seemed to be waiting for it to happen. She was a smart, complicated woman.”

Mitsuru started tapping her front teeth with a troubled look: tap, tap, tap. I suppose she felt she couldn’t go along with what he’d said. Thanks to Takashi Kijima’s father, Mitsuru had finally returned to society. I pursed my lips and said, “Well, I can’t say I don’t agree that it was a long-cherished dream, but there’s no reason why you should stand here talking about it.”

Takashi Kijima smiled bitterly. I despise people who smile when they mean to be sneaky. That’s just like my supervisor at the ward office.

“You’re Yuriko’s older sister, aren’t you? You have my deepest condolences.” Kijima greeted me politely, just as he had done with Mitsuru. “I understand what you must be going through. Still, am I wrong to assume that you also believed Yuriko would wind up like this someday, once she went down the road she selected for herself? I think you and I are the only ones who truly understood her.”

What impertinence. As if he might have actually understood my sister.

“It was your fault. You’re the one who chased her down that wretched road in the first place. You’re the one who taught Yuriko all about the business. If she hadn’t met you, she’d probably still be alive. And that’s not all. There was Kazue too. You bullied her.”

I went after him. I didn’t mean a word of it. I just wanted to harass him.

Kijima hesitated. “I did not bully Kazue or anything of the sort. I just didn’t know what to do about all those letters she sent me. She was so pathetic. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. I wasn’t that insensitive.”

When she saw Kijima wipe away the globules of sweat that had beaded along his forehead with his thick hand, Mitsuru tried to change the topic.

“Never mind that. What are you doing these days? Your father disinherited you, didn’t he?”

“Well, like they say, As the boy, so the man. I’m still in the business, though we refer to it now as an escort service. I introduce women to men.”

Kijima rifled through his wallet and pulled out two cards, handing one to both Mitsuru and me. Mitsuru read hers out loud.

“Mona Lisa Women’s Club. High-class ladies are waiting for you. But Kijima-kun, you’ve used the wrong character to write high-class. And the card’s design—it seems so outdated.”

“There are customers who prefer it that way—old-fashioned, I mean. It’s not a mistake, it’s intentional. By the way, Mitsuru, how is the old man?”

“He’s great. He’s working on his insect study and supervising the dormitory in Karuizawa. You knew your mother passed away, didn’t you?”

Mitsuru gave the news as delicately as possible.

“When was that?”

“I think it was three years ago. She had cancer.”

“Cancer? That’s awful.”

Kijima shrugged his shoulders dispiritedly, but because his neck was swathed so thickly in flesh it was hard to notice the movement.

“I gave my mother no end of grief. I’m going to be forty next year, and I’m still doing the kind of work a mother can’t be proud of. There was no way I could face her.”

“Professor Kijima worries about you, you know.”

“Well, he didn’t write that in his letters, did he?” I snapped. “He says he wants time to reconsider his son’s conduct. What an asshole!”

At my outburst, a nervous look washed over Mitsuru’s face.

“Are there letters?” Kijima asked. “If he wrote about me I’d like to see them.”

Mitsuru began to open her handbag, but I stopped her.

“Make copies. Those are important letters. You don’t want to lose them. And you don’t know when you two will see each other again. Everyone in the office where I work makes copies of everything. Mitsuru, you trust people too much.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Takashi Kijima pressed his hands together in mock prayer. “I just want to look at them. I’ll give them right back.”

Mitsuru grudgingly handed the packet of letters to Kijima, and he sat down in the courtroom and started to read through them. I asked about the youth.

“Kijima, who’s the kid? Is he yours?”

Kijima raised his eyes from the letters. A jeering light shot through them. I felt uneasy.

“You mean you can’t recognize him?”

“No. Who is it?”

“That’s Yuriko’s son.”

Horrified, I turned back to look. Yuriko had mentioned in her journal that she had had a son with Johnson. So this was the child of those two beautiful people. He would be a high school student by now.

Mitsuru smiled faintly. “Hey, he’s your nephew!”

“That’s right.”

Confused, I combed my fingers busily through my hair. I wanted to lure Yuriko’s son away from the ugly Kijima. But the boy—the focus of our discussion—did not look our way. He sat quietly, waiting for Kijima to complete his business.

“Kijima, what’s the boy’s name?”

“It’s Yurio. I think Johnson gave him the name.”

“What is Yurio doing here?”

“Yuriko’s death was such a shock that Johnson went back to the United States. He wanted to take Yurio with him, but he was still in the middle of high school, so I agreed to take care of him.”

I started toward Yurio. I was delirious with the happiness that was coursing

through me, the happiness once again to have before my eyes a beautiful person.

“Yurio-chan? Hello.”

Yurio raised his head and stared at me. “Oh. Hello.”

His voice had already changed. It was thick and deep but also strong and youthful. His eyes were beautiful. They seemed to look right through me. I felt my heart racing in my chest as I said, “I’m Yuriko’s older sister. That means I’m your aunt. I don’t know anything about you, but we’re related. Why don’t we put this horrible event behind us and get on with our life, shall we?”

“Um—okay.”

Yurio searched the room around him, looking perplexed. “Excuse me, but where did Uncle Kijima go?”

“He’s standing right over there, isn’t he?”

“Oh? Uncle Kijima? Where are you?”

I noticed something very strange just then. Yurio did not seem to see Kijima, even though he was sitting only a few feet away. Kijima raised his eyes. They were full of tears, no doubt from reading his father’s letters.

“I’m over here, Yurio. Relax.” And then he said to me, “Yurio’s been blind since birth.”

How does the world exist for a person who is so exceptionally beautiful but who cannot see to acknowledge his own beauty? Even if he hears the way people sing his praises, he cannot affirm the concept of beauty, can he? Or, does he pursue a beauty that has nothing to do with the beauty one perceives with one’s eyes? I was dying to know what shape the world took for Yurio.

I wanted to have my nephew live with me so badly I could hardly stand it. If Yurio was with me I could live freely; I could live happily, I thought. You could say I was selfish. I don’t care. I felt I had to have him. He was completely free of the bias that is implicit in the eyes of others. That’s right. Even if I was reflected in Yurio’s beautiful eyes, the image would never be transmitted to his brain. So the meaning of who I was would also change. Because for Yurio, I would exist only as voice or as flesh. He would never see my thick squat body or my ugly face.

I don’t accept my own self? Is that what you think? I recognize that I am homely enough to have harbored an inferiority complex toward my younger sister, Yuriko. What about my theory that she was born of a different father? You say that’s a deception? You’re wrong. It’s a game I play in my head. I tell myself that I want to become a woman who was born beautiful, who is brilliant and a much better student than Yuriko, and yet who hates men. Gradually my imaginary self closes the distance—if only slightly—between reality and my make-believe. The malice with which I arm myself is simply the spice of my game. Am I wrong? Are you saying the body that contains the imaginary me is a fool? If that’s the case, you ought to try to live with a younger sister who is monstrously beautiful. Can you possibly imagine what it is like, I wonder, to have your own individual nature denied before you are even born? From the moment of your infancy the way people react to you is so clearly different from the way they react to others. How would you feel if you had to experience that, day in, day out?

We moved to the coffee shop in the basement and sat around a table. But the only one I paid attention to was Yurio. He sat in a chair some distance from us, his posture straight and erect. Yuriko’s beautiful son. No matter how adoringly I gazed at his face, he had no idea that my eyes were on him. I could stare to my heart’s content. The waitresses, the waiters, even the middle-aged man who looked like the manager shot self-conscious glances at Yurio from time to time. Did he make them restless too? The coffeehouse—such a shabby little place—suddenly seemed to sparkle. To see all these people admiring Yurio only increased my pleasure. I took delight in feeling so much more superior than they.

Seating Yurio at some remove from our table was Mitsuru’s idea. She had some things related to Takashi Kijima and Yuriko she wanted to talk about and she didn’t want Yurio to hear.

“What did you and Yuriko-san do after you left high school?” she asked Takashi.

Takashi Kijima looked at me as I gazed over at Yurio.

“Do you know?” Mitsuru asked me.

“No. Once Yuriko left the Johnsons and started living on her own, we never communicated. I didn’t know what to do. My father would call from Switzerland all the time, worrying about her. And then my grandfather went crazy over your mother; keeping up with Yuriko was the last thing on my mind.”

“There was talk among the other students,” Mitsuru said. “They said Yuriko became a model for the magazine an-an. I was amazed. I went to the bookstore and thumbed through the copy they had on the shelf. I can remember it even now. She was modeling the latest surfer fashion, so the lines of her body were exposed but they were absolutely perfect. And the makeup she had on was so stunning it just took my breath away. But I didn’t see any more pictures of her after that.”

Mitsuru tried to draw me in but the smile soon vanished from her face. Yes, it was unlikely that I would have followed her career.

“Yuriko-san appeared in all kinds of magazines,” she said. “So why did she disappear so suddenly? She didn’t specialize in a particular look, and she never appeared in the same magazine twice.”

She was known as the phantom model. I can imagine what happened. More than likely Yuriko, with her lust for men, had affairs with either the photographer or the art director or one of the men around her. She got a reputation for being an easy lay, the people at the magazine lost respect for her, and then she didn’t get any more work there.

Kijima’s fat ugly face broke into a smile; it was clear he was recalling those days from the past. “That’s right. Yuriko was just too gorgeous, her face too perfect to appeal to the needs of the magazines of the time. And she exuded too much sexuality. If she’d still been a junior high student they might have been able to use her. But once she turned eighteen, she became such a stunning beauty she even outdid Farrah Fawcett. At the time there just wasn’t much one could do with a woman like that. It’s different, now that we have models like Norika Fujiwara.”

Kijima spoke like a true professional. He took a cigarette out of his purse and lit it.

“She was only about five feet seven inches tall, which doesn’t quite cut it as a runway model, and she was too Western-looking to make a good actress. There weren’t any other opportunities. Nothing else but to go after men who were rolling in dough. It was during the height of the Bubble Economy. I had men who were making a killing in real estate come up to me—since I was her agent—and fan a whole handful of ten-thousand-yen notes under my nose. All that for one or two hours with Yuriko. They’d pay three hundred thousand yen.”

Mitsuru glanced in my direction. “Kijima, do you have to talk like that? It’s not appropriate.”

“Oh, sorry.” Kijima apologized.

“You made a killing too, didn’t you?” I asked.

Kijima, lost in dreams of his days of wine and roses, avoided looking at me. He scratched his saggy jowls with a fat finger.

“Well, yes. I did make some mistakes in my youth. But after all, I was thrown out of school very suddenly—thanks to your betrayal.”

“It wasn’t a betrayal. Professor Kijima wrote in his letters that she came seeking advice,” I said.

Kijima shrugged it off.

“It was a betrayal. Your friend here had long nurtured a violent jealousy of Yuriko. It was her nature.”

“You’re wrong. She was worried about Yuriko,” Mitsuru said.

“Is that what you think? Well, I suppose we should just let bygones be bygones, but I have a whole host of things I’d like to get off my chest.” Takashi Kijima spoke sarcastically. “I was going into my senior year of high school, you know. I was eighteen. When I got home my old lady was crying and my little brother just stared at me angrily and refused to speak. As soon as my old man got home, he started smacking me on the side of the face. Ever since then, I’ve had trouble hearing out of my right ear. My old man was a southpaw, and when he struck you he packed a bigger wallop than expected. I didn’t cry, but it stung like hell. My dad yelled, ‘I don’t want to have to look at you. Don’t ever show your face to me again!’ My mother tried her best to smooth things over, but it was hopeless. My old man was stubborn. So I told him, ‘You wanted to do her too. Yuriko told me. You threw us out of school because you couldn’t have her!’ As soon as I said that he popped me again in the ear, right in the same place, with even more force. Then I yelled, ‘You idiot! I’ll see you at my hearing!’ He said, ‘I’ve tolerated quite enough. Just put yourself in Yuriko’s place.’ But the truth was, Yuriko enjoyed doing what she did. When I think of it now, I realize I should have just agreed with whatever he said. I guess that’s why I cried when I read the old man’s letters. He’s getting along in years. And I suppose I’m still haunted by the past.”

“Come on, get to the point,” I said. “What became of you and Yuriko?”

“Oh, once we both got thrown out of our homes we decided to live together, so we went out to find a condominium. We needed about three million yen, but between the two of us we had a lot of money stashed away. We rented a high-class apartment in Aoyama. We wanted a place in Azabu, but it was too close to the school, so we let it go. The place we got was a two-bedroom apartment; we each had our own room. The next day, I took Yuriko out with me and got to work. I took her first to modeling agencies and got her set up with jobs there. But the modeling work never lasted long; I already told you why that was. Sooner or later Yuriko started picking up her own customers, dragging them back to her room in our apartment. No, it’s not a lie. Yuriko was a natural slut.”

I nodded with an exaggerated gesture. That’s it. Yuriko was the kind of woman who couldn’t live without “water.” She needed water to promote her decay.

“Around that time a man turned up asking to be her patron. He’d made an instant killing in real estate. I thought I would have to find another apartment, but I ended up not having to move out because he took Yuriko off with him to Daikanyama. He put out the capital and kept Yuriko for a mistress. Soon, Yuriko had no use for a manager. I was left with the apartment in Aoyama; after a while the rent got too much for me, so I had to move out. Thus began my fall. Quite a story, huh?”

Mitsuru, who had been listening silently, pursed her lips and said, “What I don’t understand is, if you and Yuriko were living together, why’d you let her go into prostitution? What was it between you two?”

“What was it, I wonder?” Kijima gazed up at the ceiling. “To be perfectly blunt, the two of us had a business arrangement, and our only concern was making a profit.”

“You weren’t romantically involved, even with Yuriko as beautiful as she was?”

“Not a chance. I’m homosexual.”

I gasped. How reprehensible! How could Yurio have been left in the hands of such a monster? I looked instinctively toward the boy. At some point Yurio had put on a set of headphones and was nodding lightly in time to the music, his eyes closed. Mitsuru started tapping her front teeth with her fingernail: tap, tap, tap.

“Have you been that way since high school?”

“I don’t know. I have to admit it’s strange myself—for a homosexual to have tailed after Yuriko that way. I guess there was something about her that excited men, but I never felt it myself. After we started living together, I found myself attracted to a man who occasionally came to visit her. He was a middle-aged yakuza. And I noticed I was feeling jealous of Yuriko. That’s when I knew.” Kijima closed his eyes slightly, clearly taking delight in his self-revelations. “After Yuriko and I split, I began managing others, men as well as women. I had the know-how, so business was good. Yuriko and I would meet up again once in a while and I’d pass her some business. But for a number of years we went out of our way to avoid each other.”

“Why?” Mitsuru asked.

“We’d both changed. I got fat and Yuriko got old. We both knew all about the other’s glory days. There had been a time when all Yuriko had to do was walk down the street and she’d have men tripping over themselves to get to her. They were like putty in her hands. But in later years she couldn’t get a decent customer if she tried. I knew she’d lost her selling power. And I couldn’t lie about it. So Yuriko grew distant. I was relieved when she stopped contacting me. That’s when it happened, you know. When I learned about her murder. And not much later, news of Kazue’s murder made the rounds. I started to realize how dangerous my line of work had become. That’s why, when Johnson asked me to look after Yurio, I was eager to accept. It was like some kind of penance for me.”

“You shouldn’t keep Yurio at your place,” I said.

“Why not?”

Mitsuru looked up in surprise. And so I said with perfect clarity, “Well, I’m his family. And besides, you can’t say that Kijima’s line of work or that Kijima himself offers a good environment for a young man. I’ll take care of Yurio. He can go to school from my place. I’ll contact my father in Switzerland. I’m sure he’d send a little money to support Yurio.”

To tell the truth, ever since Yuriko’s death I hadn’t had any contact with my father in Switzerland. What a cold man. But if he knew about Yurio, I was sure he’d send money.

“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, but…” Kijima gave my face and body the once over and smirked. I suppose he didn’t think it appropriate for a spooky-looking woman like me to be taking care of such a handsome boy. I stood up angrily.

“Fine. Let’s just ask Yurio himself.”

I went over to where Yurio was sitting. He had his eyes closed and was swaying to the music. I don’t know if he sensed my presence or not. But he opened his blind eyes. His eyelashes were long, the irises brown, and the whites of his eyes translucent. He was so beautiful. Dark eyebrows hemmed his eyes dramatically.

“Yurio-chan,” I began, “won’t you come to your aunt’s house? I’ll be happy to look after you. You’ve been living with your father for such a long time, I think you should live with a Japanese woman for a bit. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Yurio smiled, flashing brilliant white teeth.

“I’m the only family you have to look out for you now. Come to my house. Let’s live together, shall we?”

I could feel my heart pound as I tried to persuade Yurio. To have had this sprung on him so suddenly…he could easily say no, and that would be the end of it.

“Will you buy me a computer?” Yurio asked, as he gazed off into space.

“Are you able to use a computer?”

“Sure. I learned in school. All I need is the right software. If I have a sound-based system I can use all kinds of technology. I create music on the computer, so I really need to have one.”

“Well, then, I’ll buy one for you.”

“Great. Then I guess I’ll go live with you.”

I was lost in my fantasy. All I could do was repeat over and over to myself, “I’ll buy one for you. I’ll buy one for you.”