The Snow Kimono Read online

  Omura fell silent again. He leaned forward, flicked the end of his cigarette into the small bowl on the table in front of him. He raised the cigarette to his lips, inhaled.

  Where was I, he said.

  Standing on the doorstep outside your apartment, Jovert replied.

  Yes, yes, he said. You see, I was still not used to going out with Fumiko on my own. A three-year-old child. What if something happened? I wasn’t even sure if she was properly dressed. I remember looking down at my watch. It was already almost two. It was so still. I knew it was going to snow again. Not heavily. There was no danger. Nothing like that. It’s just that I didn’t know whether to take Fumiko or not. Usually there was Mrs Muramoto with us when we went out, or someone else.

  I knelt down to look at Fumiko.

  So, Fumiko, I said, shall we go?

  Why not? she said, shrugging her shoulders and smiling.

  I stayed there, half-kneeling, looking at her. I remember how sweet she looked in her coat and hat.

  Are you warm enough?

  She nodded.

  Sure?

  Sure, she said.

  She had never been on a train before. It was all new to her. We sat in the warmth of the station waiting room. Fumiko sat next to me, her stockinged legs dangling over the edge of the seat. I had never realised how curious children are. It’s odd, I think it was only then that I began to realise how being the head of a law firm had cut me off from…well, from everything, from the world around me. From life. Here I was, I must have been forty or forty-one at the time and, all at once, it seemed to me that I knew nothing about the world, nothing.

  Suddenly, I was glad Mrs Muramoto had phoned to say she could not come. For the first time since Fumiko had come to stay with me, I began to feel what it might have been like to really have a child of my own.

  Is she your daughter? an old woman on the train asked. She was carrying a wicker basket full of frozen fish.

  Yes, I said.

  She didn’t appear at all surprised. I had always assumed it was obvious that Fumiko was not my child. I was old enough to be her grandfather.

  Yes, I repeated, she’s my daughter.

  Such a beautiful child, the old woman said.

  But all of this is not what I set out to tell you. It is so difficult not to get sidetracked. And I am sure there are many other things I have forgotten. What I remember happening, happened later.

  At Togetsu, we got out. At the time, Togetsu was the end of the line. A series of small, lightly cultivated fields separated it from the surrounding woods. It is mainly tenant farmers who live there. Anyone who gets off at Togetsu is either a farm worker or on their way to the cemetery.

  Only half a dozen people stepped down from the train when we pulled into the station. Almost instantly, they were gone.

  I don’t know how to explain this, he said. How to explain what I felt as we walked through the snow-covered fields and into the woods. It was so still, you see. So absolutely still. There was no one else about. It was as if the whole world consisted of just Fumiko and me.

  Because of the snow, Fumiko’s shoes were soon wet. As we entered the path through the woods to the cemetery, I hoisted her up onto my shoulders. I was holding her ankles with my gloved hands. I could feel her fingertips on my head. Far off, we could hear the dull thud of a woodsman’s axe. All about us stood the wet-dark trunks of trees, stark against the surrounding whiteness.

  As we walked, I was thinking of Fumiko’s weight on my shoulders, what a new experience this was for me, how alive her legs felt. I had already begun to plan what I would do, that I would take the opportunity I had been offered to move to Tokyo after all. I know that for some minutes I must have become completely absorbed in my thoughts.

  Then, all at once, Fumiko said: It’s snowing! And I felt her change position. I looked up to see her outstretched hand trying to catch the large scattered snowflakes that had begun floating down towards us. I thought briefly of turning back. I knew, however, that it would be some time before it began to snow in earnest.

  Are you all right, Fumiko? I asked.

  Yes, she said.

  Shall we turn back?

  No, she said emphatically.

  It was only when a loud crack rang out close by that I realised that the sound of the chopping we had heard as we entered the path had ceased. Now it had resumed. We stood and listened for a moment. I could tell that it must be coming from near the stone bridge ahead of us, the one that crossed the stream at the foot of the stairs that led up to the cemetery.

  We walked on. The sound came louder now. Every two or three seconds, a loud crack followed by an echo up the mountainside. And now that we were close, I could tell it was not the clean, sharp sound of an axe on wood. There was something different, something muffled about it. A different after-tone. With each step, this sound—regular, thick, solid—filled the air around us. I thought I could feel it through the earth. After one particularly loud crack, I felt Fumiko’s body stiffen.

  What is it, Father? she asked.

  Father. You know, it caught me almost completely unawares. I had been concentrating so much on the sound echoing around us that I nearly missed it. But she had said it at last. The word I had been waiting for.

  What is it, Father? I repeated to myself. You cannot imagine how I felt.

  I don’t know, I said. But I’m sure it’s nothing we have to worry about. Shall we go and have a look?

  Maybe I’m wrong, he said. Maybe I didn’t say that. I was so surprised by Fumiko saying Father that I’m not sure that I said anything at all.

  Omura got up out of his chair and went to stand by the window. The room had fallen into semi-darkness. Jovert sat looking across at him. He could no longer see Omura’s features, just his silhouette against the cool blue evening light. A lamp came on in the window of one of the apartments opposite. Jovert saw the figure of a woman appear briefly, raise her arms, then pull the curtains closed.

  The evening light was beginning to fade. Jovert felt them both drawing into themselves as the light ebbed from the sky.

  When Omura began speaking again, Jovert looked up to find that he had shifted away from the window, so that he could no longer see him. Now, Omura’s voice came to him from out of the darkness. Disconnected, invisible, incorporeal. He was speaking slowly now, as if he were back there, back in a place Jovert had never been. And yet, at the same time, he felt Omura’s voice drawing him closer to a place within himself that he had never left.

  Jovert tried to place him in the shadows, but could not. Maybe it was a trick of light, the square of fading sky beside which Omura must have been standing, and his oddly melancholy voice, hanging suspended in the darkness, slow, still, concentrated.

  I do not know if you can imagine what it was like, Omura was saying. It must be difficult for you. You have never been there. So how could I expect you to understand?

  He sounded disappointed.

  It’s strange, he continued. When I recall this moment, I do not remember it as if it was actually me. Of course, I can still feel Fumiko’s weight on my shoulders. I can feel the co
llar of my coat against my neck. I must have taken my gloves off because, even now, I can feel the texture of Fumiko’s stockinged legs, and her shoes. They were new, and black, with silver clasps.

  I must have put Fumiko down because I can see myself kneeling beside her, adjusting her jacket, looking into her face. She has the darkest, darkest eyes. There is some snow caught on my cap. Fumiko wants to dislodge it. She tells me to bend my head down. I feel her brushing it away. I look up to see her assessing how good a job she has done. For some reason she laughs, her head to one side. As I stand, I can see, as my hand reaches down, her hand reaches up. I watch as the two of us, me, a tiny—I can’t believe how small I am—concentrated little man, already in middle age, and this little girl…as the two of us set off again up the snow-covered path.

  You see, Inspector, this is what is so extraordinary. I remember this moment as though I was a spectator, looking on. I see these two figures, a man and his tiny daughter. I see the snow drifting down through the bare, wooded canopy. I can see it settling on my back. I can see our breaths. And even now, inexplicably, I can feel the tension building. Then, without warning, a mighty crash fractures the stillness around us. It is a frightening, terrifying sound.

  And yet we press on.

  We can hear their voices long before we see them. The sound reverberating off the mountains has led us astray. Gradually, however, muffled voices betray them. Dwarfed by the trees, a group of huddle-dark figures is gathered at the edge of the frozen pond. One figure, larger than the rest, someone whom I can tell is powerfully built, stands on the frozen surface. He is a little apart from the others, almost facing them.

  He has an axe in his hands. Its blade rests on the ice. He seems to be catching his breath. He leans the handle of the axe against his thigh. He says something to the others, shakes his head. He raises his hands to his face, blows on them. I can see his fogged breath. He rubs his palms against his trouser legs and picks up the axe again. He is wearing heavy, studded boots.

  I remember watching as he scored the surface of the ice. He steadied himself. For a moment the axe is high above his head, its giant, polished curve hovering. And then the cracking blade is in the ice. Then again. Four or five crashing blows in quick succession. The sound echoes away from us up through the hills.

  With each powerful blow, the axeman grunted as he brought the blade down. And each time, a small spray of ice leapt up from the surface of the pond.

  It was difficult to tell what he was doing. He appeared to be making a line in the ice. I remember him stopping again for a moment.

  We were quite close to them by this stage. But no one seemed to have noticed us, or to care that we were there.

  We halted a few metres short of this semicircle of dark figures. For some irrational reason, I felt a surge of panic pass through me, as though I should just turn around and go, that what was happening here did not concern me.

  One of the figures, a man of about my own age, at the edge of the semicircle and half-facing me, glanced up and caught my eye. One or two of the others turned to look at me. There was a moment of absolute silence.

  I cannot describe the look on their faces, not hostile, barely curious, immobile. You see, it was as if, all along, they had been waiting there for me.

  Omura broke off again, and as he did so, Jovert felt a similar wave of panic pass through his own body, as though what Omura was saying presaged a moment of catastrophic revelation not only for Omura, but for him as well.

  It was as if, now that I had arrived, they could finish what they had begun. I was aware of Fumiko tugging at my hand, trying to pull me away. And yet I could not leave. My eyes kept passing from one face to another.

  In that strange, hallucinatory state, I bent down to pick Fumiko up. When I looked around again, I saw that they had all turned away from me. I was about to turn away myself—the axeman had picked up his axe once again and was repositioning himself on the ice—when I heard a single cry, a cry so desperate, so lost, that it reached into me and closed around my heart.

  I saw the axe blade rise once more, watched it come crashing down. Now, however, between each blow, inescapably, I could hear the low, primitive sound of a woman crying. The group of figures too had come to life. I stood transfixed by the falling of the axe blade.

  As the last blow fell, a sudden movement convulsed the group. From their midst one of them, the woman I assumed had been crying, broke free and fell upon the ice. With wild, almost demented sweeps of her arms, she began frantically trying to clear the shards of broken ice from the frozen surface of the pond. I could not see her face, and it took me a moment to realise that for some reason her hands were bound. As a consequence, each new sweep seemed to obscure what she had just uncovered. This in turn increased her desperation. After two or three sweeps she would pause and lower her head to the ice, as if she was trying to see into its molecular depths. All of a sudden, defeated by what she was doing, she collapsed onto the icy surface.

  Inevitably, her actions had drawn me closer, so that now I too stood on the periphery of this semicircle of dark figures looking down on her. No one seemed able to move. I have no idea how long she lay there, half a minute, a minute. I don’t know. Then, one of the group, the man who had earlier met my eye, stepped forward. He leaned down and grasped her under the arm. As he raised her to her feet I caught a glimpse of her face. She wasn’t a woman at all. She was just a girl.

  I was so taken aback that I hardly had time to register her features. Moreover, immediately my gaze fell upon her face, one of the onlookers, an old woman, uttered a loud cry and began clutching at her mouth. It was a moment before I realised that she was staring at something at her feet. Almost simultaneously, each of us turned to look at the spot where the young girl had lain. I did not, at first, see what the old woman had seen. It was the surface of the ice that struck me first. Where the girl had fallen the thin frosted layer of snow that covered the pond had melted, revealing the hard molten transparency beneath.

  I no longer remember, the effect was so overwhelming, the exact instant when the bleached and twisted tree root that I could see trapped just centimetres below this solid surface resolved itself into what it actually was: the foot and leg of a tiny, newborn child.

  In a moment of powerful revulsion, I felt myself turning away, and it is now only as an after-image that I can see beyond the perfection of this tiny foot, with its odd node-like arrangement of toes, perfectly ordered, so close to the surface, to see that the rest of the child’s body is also more or less visible. It was as though the child had been frozen at the instant it had hit the water. One arm was oddly turned back, as if to break its fall. I can still see part of the crown of a tiny head, with its constellations of fine, dark hair.

  What is more extraordinary, however, is that I can see its eyes. They are open. It’s as if the child had fallen in such a manner that it appeared to be looking back over its shoulder at the mother who had just flung it from her arms.

  By the time I realised this, I had already begun to move away from the group. I could hear the agonised wailing of the girl who by now must have seen what we all had seen.

  Fumiko was saying, What is it, Father? What is it?

  But I was too shaken to reply, and we set off back down the track in the direction from which we had come.<
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  Omura’s voice trailed off. The room was completely dark now. Outside, in the distance, Jovert could see the faint silhouette of the towers of Notre-Dame lit up momentarily by the floodlights of a passing bateau-mouche. Then they were gone.

  Chapter 2

  AT exactly 2.56 the next morning, as though some hinged reflex had been triggered in his sleep, Jovert found himself abruptly sitting up in his bed, staring into the darkness, the pale-green bloom from the clock on his bedside table the only thing that lit the room. He had been dreaming, although what it was he had been dreaming about now eluded him.

  Then he was up out of his bed, pulling on his coat, reaching for his crutches. Five minutes later, he was standing in the vitreous stillness of the street outside. A solitary figure moving through the sleeping sepia city.

  Even as he approached, he knew the bin would be empty. He peered in, trying to pry the inner gloom apart. Nothing. He looked around, at the deserted streets, at the silent stone façade of St Paul’s, the abandoned newsstand. The green neon sign of the pharmacy opposite was blinking fitfully on and off. He watched it come instantly to life. Then, like someone exhaling in their sleep, it began to flicker. Went off. Came on. Somewhere, a car alarm began to sound.

  He leaned down, touched the top of the bin with his hand. His shadow made to go. Then he saw it, hidden in the darkness at the base of the bin: a piece of crumpled paper, lying like a half-unfolded flower. He reached in, retrieved it. It was her photograph. The letter was gone. But he had her photograph. It was something.

  When Jovert awoke later that morning, his bedside light was on. He reached for his cigarettes, saw the crumpled photograph waiting for him beneath the lamp. He picked it up. Smoothed it out. Her face looked back at him now through a web of pale, thin creases.