The Boy in the Earth Read online

  Also by Fuminori Nakamura

  The Thief

  Evil and the Mask

  Last Winter, We Parted

  The Gun

  The Kingdom

  Copyright © 2005 by Fuminori Nakamura

  English translation copyright © 2017 by Allison Markin Powell

  English translation rights arranged with Shinchosa Publishing Co., Ltd., through the English Agency Japan, Ltd.

  First published in Japanese by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd, under the title Tsuchi no naka no kodomo.

  First published in English by Soho Press, Inc.

  Soho Press

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nakamura, Fuminori, 1977– author.

  Powell, Allison Markin, translator.

  The boy in the earth / Fuminori Nakamura

  translated by Allison Markin Powell.

  Other titles: Tsuchi no naka no kodomo

  ISBN 978-1-61695-594-6

  eISBN 978-1-61695-595-3

  1. Fathers and sons—Japan—Tokyo—Fiction.

  2. Adult child abuse victims—Japan—Tokyo—Fiction.

  I. Title

  PL873.5.A339 T7813 2017 895.63’6—dc23 2016044296

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The Boy in the Earth

  1

  In the flood of headlights surrounding me, I saw that there was no escape. The motorcycles were just gunning their engines and watching me as I stood there, helpless to do anything. But I doubted that this standoff would go on for much longer. I figured soon these guys would get off their bikes and beat me with the iron pipes they were holding until they were satisfied.

  Fear had made my legs go unpleasantly weak, but for some time now, I had been distracted by the thought that I must have been expecting all of this to happen. Until just a little while ago, I had been aimlessly wandering around the late night streets. With no destination, smoking as I walked, it was as if I had been searching for the city’s darkest places, bidden by the poorly lit streets. I had encountered these guys in front of a vending machine beside a park. They had stopped their bikes and were still sitting astride them, drinking juice, munching away and smoking cigarettes like they were drunk. At first, they hadn’t paid attention to me. They had been cheerfully howling with laughter—that is, until I threw my cigarette butt toward them.

  I did what I did on purpose—with clear intention. It was not unconscious, nor was it for no reason at all—I was completely cognizant and aware of my actions. It was something I had to do, show these dregs of society what I thought of them, hanging out in a place like this. Those were my thoughts at the time. But now, awash in the light of their motorcycles, I could not fathom why I had felt that way.

  There was no question, though, that here I found myself in a predicament. I had done something stupid without thinking of the consequences—that was all there was to it—but this kind of thing happened to me with some regularity. Just the day before yesterday, a car was making a right-hand turn against the light and, for no reason other than to demonstrate how dangerous it was, instead of trying to avoid it I deliberately stopped in the middle the crosswalk, right in front of the car so that the driver had no choice but to slam on the brakes. What both these instances had in common was that the direct result of my own actions put me in danger—it was my own behavior that thrust me into unfavorable conditions.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” A guy with a shaved head who was most likely the leader got off his bike, his eyes unfocused. The others were still revving their engines, like in a kind of ritual. When the leader raised the iron pipe, his expression was hollow, as if he had no interest in what might happen to my body when he brought the pipe down. The blow landed on my side with an unexpectedly intense pain that knocked the wind out of me, and a moment later an unbearable jolt of searing heat coursed through my entire body. I found it difficult to breathe—I barely managed to inhale through my constricted throat. A frail, inside-out voice leaked from my lips. The shivers of pain and fear that wracked my body would not stop. I tried to stand up, but my ankle and knee joints were so stiff they didn’t seem to work.

  “Your money, all of it. And then, right . . . t-ten more of those and we’ll let you go!” he said and, as if waiting to see what I would do, he lit a cigarette. All I had on me at the time were a few coins, all of them probably didn’t even add up to a thousand yen. Still, I shook my head. I tried to speak, but my face felt like it was on fire, and the next thing I knew, I was lying facedown on the ground. It felt cool against my cheeks, and the blood flowing from my gums had leaked out of my mouth in a trickle. I thought they might have lost interest by now, but the situation remained unchanged. I passed out, but just briefly—there was only a momentary gap in my consciousness.

  “I guess it’s too much trouble to kill him.”

  “We can’t let him get away with this.”

  “Well, there’s no one here to see, and nobody knows us here either.”

  At some point the sound of the engines had stopped. I could tell that several of the bikers were looking down at me. As I caught the scent of earth, I was seized by a strange sensation. My chest was buzzing with an unfamiliar feeling—it was deep within, though I was definitely aware of it—a feeling stirred by an anxiety that I never could have anticipated. This fear seemed to overwhelm my entire body. A faint smile cracked across my lips. If they kept kicking me, if they beat me to a pulp, I might vanish into nothing, I might be absorbed by the earth, deep underground. It was terrifying. I felt robbed of my strength, and my heart raced painfully, although the twitching that ran up and down my spine was not unpleasant. Little by little, this fearful trembling was transforming into something else entirely, like a feeling of anticipation. Despite my terror, there was the definite sensation that I was patiently standing by. I experienced a moment of skepticism, but then it no longer mattered. I worried about when these guys, all of them together, would start swinging their iron pipes at me again. I had the illusion of my body falling down, down, from a very high place. I worried about the impact when I hit bottom . . .

  “Hey, wait a sec. What if while we had this guy, what if we called up a girl he knows on his cell phone and got her to come out here?”

  “Sounds good, since we missed our chance before, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Cool. Yeah, let’s do it.”

  I felt a crushing sense of disappointment. “What’s wrong with me?” I cried out nonsensically. They were quiet for a moment but soon they all erupted in laughter. I felt a pain in my side, and as my head was pushed down, my mouth filled with earth. They felt around in the pockets of my pants. A quiet disappointment spread through me. All they took was the coin wallet I was carrying, my cigarettes, and a lighter.

  “Loser. Hey, this guy’s a loser.”

  “We should kill him.”

  “Wait, no, there’s no point in killing him.”

  “Shut up, what do you care?”

  “Hey, hang on a minute. If you kill him, then we’re really fucked.”

  As they kicked me all over, I drifted out of awareness. Illuminated by the headlights of their motorcycles, I was a mere worm as I let them beat me mercilessly. I was in a state of excitement. I knew that was not an appropriate way to feel in this situation. I don’t mean that I experienced a masochistic pleasure from the pain of being kicked. Their attack was relentless; I felt only intense pain. Neither
was there any intoxication from feeling worthless. How can I put it?—I was definitely waiting for something yet to come. I felt certain that the thing I was waiting for—whatever it was—was there. It was still unclear to me. But what loomed in my mind was that I may have been expecting it all along.

  “There’s something strange about the noises this guy’s making,”

  “He’s so funny, look at him.”

  Their voices sounded far away, yet they didn’t let up. I felt an especially hard blow, and my mind began to sway to a strange rhythm. I felt as though my being was about to fracture—my vision blurred, and as an unbearable nausea came over me, I sputtered out vomit. But I did not want to lose consciousness yet. If I blacked out, that would be the end. Whatever it was would never arrive. This was my thought as I opened my eyes to feel the pain. If I could go on like this, maybe I could transform myself. But into what, I had no idea. I let out a scream. Even though it was my own voice, the cry that echoed in my head sounded unfamiliar.

  2

  Sayuko opened the door and looked dubiously at me when I came out to greet her. I couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was worried about the brutal attack that I had suffered, or if it was just unpleasant to see a guy with a face all swollen up like mine. I thought about asking where she had been but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. Her body gave off a strong odor of alcohol.

  “Did you get in a fight or something?”

  “Yeah. It happened before I knew what was going on.”

  “With just one guy?”

  “No, I think there were about ten of them . . .” I said, and she frowned, her gaze still focused on me.

  Last night I had eventually blacked out, then managed to drag myself back to my apartment. My body was in less pain than I’d have thought it would be. Once I’d lost consciousness, the bikers probably thought I was dead and took off. On the way home, I realized that I didn’t want to get myself into this kind of situation anymore. I had lost all interest in whatever it was I had been expecting to find. All that was left was melancholy and an indistinct exhaustion. I didn’t feel any particular sexual desire at that moment, but I didn’t want to be questioned, either, so I brought Sayuko to the bed right after she got home. She lay there with her eyes open, watching my every move without any emotion. Impervious to sex, she did not make a sound during the act itself.

  Six months ago, when I had quit my job in sales at a company that produced educational materials, Sayuko had also lost her part-time job there as a clerk because of a personnel reduction. It had been difficult for her to work there and still keep her night job, so I think she would have quit anyway, but she had resented the company for letting her go first. I had run into her again at a bar where she was having a shouting match with some guy. She had no money and no place to stay. She had lost her apartment when she broke up with the guy at the bar.

  So I took Sayuko home with me and we had sex, but the whole time, she just stared vacantly at the ceiling. If was as if she had resigned herself to sleeping with a guy if she were going to live with him. I made every effort to diminish her frigidity, but the result was always the same. She had gotten pregnant and dropped out of university, the guy had found another girlfriend and run off somewhere. Nevertheless, she had resolved to have the baby, but when the child was stillborn, she stopped feeling anything, she told me.

  “A long time ago, someone said that the stillborn baby must be the reason why. That I started to hate sex itself from the shock of what happened—that must be why I was rejecting it. What do you think? Are people that uncomplicated? Does that really happen?” she had once asked me.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I’d responded noncommittally.

  She had muttered, as if to herself, “Then people are just so boring.”

  After I finished having sex, she lit a cigarette. She stared up at the ceiling as she exhaled the smoke, and it seemed as though she were going to say something to me, but she was silent. My flushed cheeks hurt and, thinking I would cool them off, I wet a towel in the kitchen. Still, I had the feeling I was doing this to try to gloss over the silence, which only made me feel worse. The echo of the water from the faucet was unnecessarily loud in the hushed apartment.

  Deliberately, as if to break the silence, she said, “I was drinking with a friend until late.” She went on, “I know I just called him a friend, but I meant someone I used to work with at the cabaret club. He offered to treat me . . . You know, the club we went to together.”

  “I see.” I had meant to respond more firmly, but I couldn’t help it—I felt drowsy and lethargic.

  “Hey, have you really been going to work? Lately you always get home at a slightly different time, you know.”

  As usual, she had changed the subject quickly.

  “They gave me time off for some reason. But I’m going back next week.”

  “Driving a taxi doesn’t pay much, does it? Are you sure it’s okay to take time off? If you don’t have any money, I’ll have to find someone else to pick me up, won’t I?” she said, laughing softly and placing the towel on my cheek. She got dimples when she laughed. It was as if they were the only part of her that remained unaffected by her life—her dimples seemed childlike and incongruous on her. After sex, she became more and more talkative, as if she could pursue her own goals starting now.

  “I used to know a guy who was a regular salaryman—he suddenly quit his job, and he just stayed in his apartment, doing nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Then he turned into a molester.”

  “A molester?”

  “Yeah. On the Saikyo Line in the mornings and evenings, almost every day. But he got arrested, and even though he managed to settle out of court, afterward he started getting high on drugs.”

  “Then what?”

  “He ran out of money, he started working as a male escort, but he still didn’t have enough cash, so he sold one of his kidneys.”

  “I wonder how much he got for it.”

  “I don’t know. Then his body gave out and he went to the hospital, where they found out he was a drug addict, so he went to jail. I don’t know where he is now.”

  “I’d like to know what came after.”

  “Why?”

  “What happened to the guy after that? I don’t know—I guess it’s like, I wonder where a person’s lowest point is. I mean, how far are they willing to go?” I said, and she laughed.

  “There are plenty of strange people, and they don’t need anything to make them act that way—people who seem like they’re just trying to be bad. The last time I saw him, this guy was smiling like an idiot, pleased as punch. Was there something that made him be like that, was it his childhood or something? Or maybe it was just that he wanted to be that way, plain and simple.”

  “He wanted to be that way?”

  “Yeah. As in, he wanted to become bad—you know what I mean? Look, don’t lemmings commit mass suicide? It’s like there are humans who are programmed with that kind of instinct, too.”

  Somehow this conversation gave me the impression that she had specifically prepared these things to say to me.

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know.”

  “But don’t you think that would be kind of great? If young people all over Japan were to turn bad, like those lemmings. One after another, all of them would end up on the bad side. That would be really interesting,” she said and laughed to herself again, but maybe my response had been too vague, because then she got quiet. I lay on my back and started rereading Kafka’s The Castle for the umpteenth time. In the distance I heard the sound of sudden brakes, followed by the blare of a car horn. Sayuko narrowed her eyes as if she were nearsighted, and following her gaze, I could see the moon from the window. Not quite full, but it was shining big, bright, and magnificent, as if flaunting its presence. She often narrowed her eyes like that when she looked at the moon. She said
that, on the first night after being abandoned when she was pregnant, the beauty of the full moon hovering in the sky had made her feel miserable.

  “Close the curtain, will you?”

  I closed it and pressed my body next to hers. She was absently smoking a cigarette; her entire body seemed drained of energy. With her left hand, probably unconsciously, she was touching her own body like a caress, as if just testing it out. I thought to myself that we shouldn’t have had sex after all.

  “When I look at you, sometimes it gives me the creeps,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight. I mean, you’ve been doing all this weird stuff. But . . . I guess that makes you feel better. I’d probably freak out if you ever actually showed signs of life. Strange to say, but . . .”

  It was too early to go to sleep, but I closed my eyes. The next day, she would tell me about the terrible nightmare she’d had.

  3

  I hadn’t been in my taxi for a while, and the smell inside was nauseating. Every time I get into it, I think to myself that this is the wrong job for me, since I don’t like cars in the first place. Then again, what does it matter anyway? I’ve never come across a job I’ve been suited for, and even if I managed to figure out what that was, I’d never be able to earn a living.

  At the rotary in front of Ikebukuro Station’s West Exit, there were already more than thirty taxis queued up. I should have found another spot, but I had already stopped the car so I just stayed put. I lit a cigarette, turning off the air conditioner, which was blowing that unpleasant smell, and opening the window. The other drivers—middle-aged men—were outside drinking coffee and looking in my direction. Before I could think of what to do, one of them had called out to me, “What happened to your face?” I didn’t say anything, but he still wore an anxious expression. “I hope it wasn’t a taxi robbery. There’ve been a lot of those lately. Guys with no money steal from the ones who don’t have any money either. But you look pretty banged up. Did you get into a fight or something?”