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By Root 662 0

I handed in my written resignation. If by chance Tashiro had left any evidence, any place, that I was the one who had spoken to him last over the telephone, I should not be able to escape being found by the police, and my position would be all the more disadvantageous for not having reported at once to them. It was an extremely touchy situation, which the chief wanted to avoid at all costs. The chief had not particularly urged my resignation, but neither did he refuse it when I handed it in. He repressed any expression, and only his eyes were more than usually kind when he suggested that I might indeed work independently but that fellows like me would run wild if not held in by somebody like him, and that judging from past experience independent men ended in failure. “You seem rather well controlled,” he had said, “but imagine committing such a blunder. In this business the future’s full of pitfalls. Don’t take it amiss, but you might have the courage to change professions now. The world’s a big place; there are all kinds of livelihoods. Next time you’ll come here as a first-rate paying client. Out of our long friendship I’ll do you a big favor and assign you a top-flight man.”

I waited in the apartment a half day. Good news or bad news, it would be worst of all for me to be suspected of running away. The police hadn’t appeared after all. Apparently, I had escaped the worst. The danger was not entirely gone, but the only ones who knew of my discussions with Tashiro were my client, the chief, and, of course, Tashiro himself.

Waiting was a bore. With work one understands one’s own effort is everything, but in waiting one can’t use one’s own strength. Furthermore, my hangover had got worse and my stomach was in knots. But perhaps beyond the window she too was waiting. Evidently the striped curtains were not necessarily a sign that the husband had come back. If he had, she would have called the office and I would have had a report from the chief. They must have some other, some different meaning. I suppose she was waiting, too. Yet I did not have the courage to ring her bell. Like the transformation of the curtains, some change had definitely taken place inside, even if not the husband’s return. A big change had occurred for me too. I had already resigned from the office where she had filed her request for the investigation. I was no longer an investigator working there; and she too had stopped being a client. As my last job, I had been ordered by the chief to check directly with the client herself as to whether she had the intention of proceeding further with the investigation, even though the investigator was changed. That too, if possible, I wanted to do after exploring the Camellia tomorrow morning. Perhaps I was reluctant to give up the case, but there was nothing left for me to do, there was no goal to walk toward.

The husband had disappeared, the wife’s brother had been killed, the clerk Tashiro had committed suicide, and I had not even had a call from my wife. The only thing left before me was my waiting client. Everyone had vanished. From the standpoint of my colleagues at work, I too was one of those who had disappeared. But I was not the only one; what really proved the existence of my client, talking to herself, living on her beer, was that she was on the government tax lists. A comical game of hide-and-seek where nonexistent players hunted and searched for each other.

Despite the glare of the street lights I could see nothing but the darkness. Now and then a bus would pull up, and there would be the thin sound of someone walking, but not a soul was visible. The black, vacant perspective in which I wearily waited was all there was. But I kept waiting, walking slowly in one direction, stopping, turning round, and walking back again. I would wait forever. As long as she went on waiting I too would wait with her. In the distance an iron grill was violently slammed shut, sounding through ramifications of pipes, finally striking my ears as a sigh from the earth. The faint howling of a dog came rushing through space.