Last Winter We Parted Page 8

  I was arrested. The second incident, with Yuriko Kobayashi, was clearly murder, so their argument was that Akiko Yoshimoto must also have been murdered. How could the first incident be an accident if the second incident was arson, they said. But I’m not an ordinary person. I’m a genius. All kinds of things happen to geniuses. Isn’t that right? And then, there was the thing they got the most upset about. That all this time I had been photographing these women—and now that I had those photographs, that must be why I didn’t care whether the women themselves died.

  I don’t want to be executed. It’s all I ever think about, but now I’m afraid of dying. Some nights I scare myself thinking about it. Most of the time, I think, I might as well die the way that I am, and I feel like I’m finally ready to die, but then suddenly, just like that, I’ll be terrified. I didn’t do anything, and I’m going to be put to death for a crime I did not commit. Let the media know all about this! Please. Save me from death! I know, I know, I can still file an appeal. I can file an appeal! I can appeal, and be found innocent, and then I can take the best photograph of my life. I’ve got talent. Next time I won’t fail. Next time for sure, I won’t fail. Next time, I’ll show you—I’ll take the best photo ever taken, a photo of a burning woman. Next time, you’ll see. It will be the best photo ever taken. Don’t you want to see my photo? I bet you can’t wait to see it. I botched the photos last time—it was a ridiculous idea. I freaked out when they were right in front of me, burning! And even though I had set them on fire, the photos were no different from any others I’d taken! You can’t be giving up on your book about me. You were joking, right? It’s a joke, right? It can’t be true. You can’t leave me alone! My sister said I should just die. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she insinuated. Why would she say that? There’s something obscene about the insinuations in her letters. No—I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. I won’t let you get away. There’s no way I’ll let you escape. You’re going to save me. Come and see me. I’m begging you. You’re going to save me before they attack me. Come see me. Come see me. Come see me. Come see me. Come see me …

  But … what do you think? An ordinary woman dies—just what does that mean?

  Archive 9

  Yuriko Kobayashi’s Twitter account, February 11 to February 18.

  Yuyuko, yuyurin1121.

  I like reading, movies, and shopping. I do a little modeling.

  February 11, 2:12pm

  Going shopping today (^_^) Maybe I’ll buy a bag!!

  February 11, 7:02pm

  About to eat eel over rice, my favorite (^_^)

  February 11, 7:51pm

  Yummmy!!!

  February 12, 1:46am

  Can’t sleep … and I have to get up early tomorrow. I’m screwed (T_T)

  February 12, 4:01pm

  Got a job (O.O) With a famous photographer (O.O)

  February 12, 11:08pm

  Thanks everyone!!

  February 12, 11:59pm

  I’ll do my best (>.<)

  February 13, 2:12pm

  I feel like I have so much support in my life (-_-:) Having a late lunch with a friend (^_^)

  February 17, 3:13pm

  Actually, might not be exactly what I thought (-_-:)

  February 17, 3:51pm

  I’m not upset about it

  February 17, 4:03pm

  I’ll be fine (^_^)

  February 17, 4:23pm

  Matsuko, you’re so funny

  February 18, 2:12pm

  Shopping!!

  (Posts end here abruptly. No further updates.)

  Notes from Yuriko Kobayashi

  (Personal diary, daily entries from New Year’s Day to February 17, blank from February 18, starts again from February 25)

  February 25

  Just smile. As long as I smile, I’ll be fine.

  February 26

  Don’t get upset. Don’t even think about it.

  February 27

  Toshiyuki, I’m sorry. I may already be dead. But I’ll never forget you, Toshiyuki. I’m afraid. Help me, I’m scared.

  February 28

  I had no choice but to sleep with him. It’s probably my fault. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was frightened. Most of all, I didn’t want him to hit me. It hurt really bad. It’s probably my fault. I’m the one who’s to blame. I’m so mad at myself. Help me. Help me, help me.

  February 29

  Help me

  March 1

  Help me Help me Help me

  March 2

  Help me I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.

  March 5

  I don’t want to die in a place like this. I don’t want to die in a place like this. What are photos about anyway? What do you think life is about? What do you think it is to be a woman? I don’t want to die in a place like this. I don’t want to die in a place like this. I want to see my friends. I want to go places. I want to live. I want to live. I want to live. However this turns out, I want to live. Toshiyuki, you probably never want to see me again, but I want to live. Toshiyuki, I love you.

  March 6

  My body feels heavy. It hurts. It hurts. Help me.

  March 7

  (Handwriting illegible)

  March 9

  (Handwriting illegible)

  Folded note (found with diary)

  March 18

  If you’re reading this, please notify the police. My name is Yuriko Kobayashi, and I’m being held captive in this house. My captor is a photographer named Yudai Kiharazaka. Please help me. He’s going to kill me soon.

  Folded note (found with diary)

  March 29

  If you’re reading this, please notify the police.

  My name is Yuriko Kobayashi, and I live in apartment 408 of the Alude Mansion, my address is 2-2-19 Kamogawa-cho, Nerima-ku. I’m being held captive by a photographer named Yudai Kiharazaka. My legs are tied to a pillar and I can’t move. I haven’t eaten anything for days.

  I’m in a small blue building like a shed. If you happened to find this note somewhere away from where I am, you may not see this building anywhere nearby. He drives a blue car. His name is Yudai Kiharazaka. He’s thin, he has long hair, and a mole on his cheek.

  Please help me. Please notify the police. I’m enclosing a button from my clothing and a lock of my hair. The button is from a favorite shirt, and one of my friends will recognize it. As for my hair, most of it has been burned, and I hardly have any left. He’s going to kill me soon. But I want to live. I want to live. Please help me. Please help me. Please help me.

  (Her death occurred the day after this last note was dated. Twelve notes like this were found beneath the window. Some were wet, others were burned.)

  Archive 10

  Yuriko Kobayashi is sitting on a diagonal sofa.

  She is in Yudai Kiharazaka’s studio. With a frightened look, Kobayashi touches the hem of her skirt. There is a camera in front of her, a stationary camera mounted on a stand. Behind her there is a huge light reflector. On screen, she and the camera she is facing are seen from the right.

  Looking even more frightened, she starts to touch the ends of her hair. She isn’t wearing any makeup, even though in a corner of the room there is a makeup vanity for her. It is gothic in style, likely expensive, and looks to be quite old. Kobayashi stands up, then, seeming at her wit’s end, she sits back down on the sofa. She looks at what is around her. Her eyes still look frightened.

  Suddenly, the door behind the camera in front of her opens. A man enters. He is dragging a trunk. Seeing him with the trunk, her face contorts with even more fear. The man stands in front of the stationary camera, peering through the viewfinder as if he is checking the composition. He smiles cruelly. She says something, over and over again. Her mouth grows wider as she speaks, as if she is raising her voice. She looks like she is venting her anger. There is no sound on this picture.

  The man crouches down and opens t
he trunk. It is massive. There is a woman inside. It is Kiharazaka’s sister.

  When Yuriko Kobayashi sees her, she starts to say something to the man. She looks relieved. She and the man take Akari out of the trunk. Akari seems to be in a very deep sleep.

  Yuriko Kobayashi takes off her clothes, removing even her underwear, and then she dresses the naked Akari in her underwear and clothes. She takes another set of clothes from the man and puts them on. Kobayashi puts her own ring on Akari’s finger. The diagonal sofa is long enough for someone to sleep on. The two of them cover Akari’s face with a towel and lay her down on the sofa, placing a cloth over her body. They leave only her arms hanging limply outside of the cloth. They douse her with kerosene, much more than one would have thought necessary, and with some other kind of chemical. They also douse the sofa, as well as the rug under the sofa.

  Yuriko Kobayashi looks like she isn’t entirely over her fear. Both she and the man turn toward the door at the same time. Using the chair beside her, Yuriko Kobayashi exits the room by climbing through a window that opens easily. The man strikes a match and tosses it in Akari’s direction. The cloth laid on top of Akari catches fire, little by little by little. The man stands there for a moment, then steps up onto the chair and climbs through the window. As he goes, he kicks over the chair, then hurriedly closes the window from the outside. Akari is left alone in the room, slowly burning, her right arm hanging limply off the sofa.

  The door opens. A different man enters. Stunned, he looks at the fire burning before him. The flames grow steadily more intense. The man keeps standing there. He begins to sweat profusely. He starts to tremble, as if he is having convulsions. Smoke gushes forth, and the sofa is engulfed as the fire rages. Suddenly, the man lunges at the stationary camera. He clicks the shutter, over and over again. From the way his mouth is moving, one can see he is crying out Yuriko Kobayashi’s name. Yet even as he calls her name, he continues to squeeze the shutter as if he were obsessed. But there is no one else there besides him and his sister.

  The screen shifts to the window frame covered by the curtains in the room. The building that houses the studio recedes slowly, farther and farther away. It becomes clear that this picture is being filmed with a small camera, through a gap in the curtain no more than two centimeters wide. But then, as if remembering something, the scene closes back in on the studio. Someone’s right hand comes into the picture—a man’s hand. In it he holds a bundle of notes of some kind. The hand isn’t trembling at all. He scatters the notes under the window of the studio, and then the building again recedes from view.

  The camera approaches a car. Inside it are Yuriko Kobayashi and the first man. He hands her Yudai Kiharazaka’s sister’s apartment key, her insurance card, and her pension account book. Also doctored photographs and her diary, for practicing her handwriting. Yuriko Kobayashi has regained her composure and is smiling at the man. From here it is impossible to see his expression. The camera gets into the car. The door closes and the car slowly begins to drive away. The picture abruptly ends there.

  Archive 11-1

  I wonder how long I’ve been wrong.

  But, when I look back on my life like this, I always get confused. Just when exactly did I screw up? Sometimes I get depressed and can’t help but feel that, ultimately, it goes all the way back, and I should have just been born differently. Maybe life is just like that. Even if my life has been wrong, I’m going to wait and see what happens at the very end. Whatever I am, I’ll be until the end. I guess …

  Let’s talk about us. Because there’s little else in my life that has any meaning. Do you remember the first time we met? It was at the library. At a small symposium on Braille. I had never seen anyone experience someone’s words so beautifully.

  You accessed the words written in books through the tips of your fingers. Now and then, as your fingers slid forward, you smiled. You never believed it, but you were a very beautiful woman. At the time, you were reading Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. It’s one of my favorite books. Back then, when I asked you what you were reading, you smiled as you replied to my question.

  After that I quickly apologized. For disturbing you while you were reading, for disrupting the world of the book and rudely calling you back to this world. You gave me a puzzled look as I apologized. At that moment you … you were so lovely.

  “I’ve read many books,” you said to me. “I think something happens when you read—it’s like the passage of your own life becomes immersed within something else. I’ve spent my life amidst the words of so many writers. Among well-chosen words, the various life stories, the frustrations and sorrows experienced by other people, as well as their hopes … I consider myself very fortunate.”

  I wonder if you remember the first time we kissed. It was on a bench in front of a fountain that was lit up. But it wasn’t romantic at all. They were trying to conserve water so the fountain was turned off, and the bench was in disrepair. I was a little worried about people around us seeing, but you said, “It’s all right, no one is looking.” It was so strange. You, the blind one, seemed to know exactly what was going on around us.

  “I love your book.”

  That’s what you said to me. You meant a book that I edited, a biography of Michel Petrucciani. You told me that it was as though the letters you touched on the page were flooded with the unearthly melodies he played on the piano. I was so happy. But I had been pathologically obsessed with making the author rewrite that very passage, over and over again. It must have been tough on the author. Yet in return for all his hard work, he had been able to impress a woman as beautiful as you.

  Making love with you was like a miracle to me. You had been worried about your own body, but you were really, truly beautiful. I was wild with excitement, and you were wild for me too.

  “One’s bigger than the other.”

  You said this to me sheepishly, while cupping your own breasts with your hands.

  “Don’t worry, everyone’s are.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, take your hands away.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Ha ha, take them away.”

  I was so excited, I couldn’t wait. I touched my lips to your breasts over and over again. Looking at your body, I thought to myself: What a gorgeous creature. What a gorgeous creature, right here before my very eyes. And someone this gorgeous wants to be with me. The body of the person you love is the most wonderful. And I was in love with you. From the bottom of my heart. So much that I didn’t care what happened to me.

  It seems like people who can’t see are generally thought to be quiet and meek. But you were quite the opposite. You went everywhere. You told me you had been to Nepal, to Jamaica, to Singapore. When we went to Kyoto together and stood before the temples, you explained everything about them to me. The quality of the materials they were built with. Their shape and appearance. The expressions on the faces of the tourists who had come to see them. You even explained my own impressions to me. Listening and breathing it all in, you seemed to be comparing the knowledge you learned from books with everything around you, seeing it all recreated in the back of your mind. At the time, you wore a faint smile. I think it’s possible that the temples you imagined in your mind may have been more beautiful than the real things.

  You went everywhere. To concerts to hear the jazz you loved, to author readings and amusement parks, on walks to nature parks and to restaurants you had discovered in magazines. In places that aren’t public institutions, there isn’t any yellow tactile paving on the walkways. There you were with your walking stick, and I was right beside you, when a car rushed recklessly past us. Worried about you, I followed you wherever you went. You seemed so amused by my concern. You even made me stop when I tried to insist on walking on the street side to protect you. You laughed and said, “I’m worried about you.”

  One time we were having dinner at the apartment when there was a report on television about a murder. As you heard this on the news, you suddenly
put down the chopsticks in your hand and touched my arm. Then you said, “I don’t know what I would do if you were murdered,” as if whispering to yourself.

  “Here I am with you now, in this cozy apartment,” you went on softly. “But if this reality were shattered by an event like that, I don’t think I could go on.”

  I had been staring vacantly at the television. A young man had been stabbed numerous times in a robbery homicide. The amount stolen was only ¥12,000. The perpetrator had been arrested and was expressing his remorseful plea.

  “If you were murdered, I would want revenge. Of course, that’s not right, and if anything, I’m against the death penalty. But … if someone I cared about were murdered, I don’t think I’d have a choice but to consider revenge first. I mean, it’s not really to say whether it’s right or wrong. To lose someone I loved would destroy my life, and in that state, I don’t think I’d listen to anyone.”

  You were clasping my arm tightly, as if to assure yourself that I was still there with you. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I was thinking the same thing as you.