The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [114]
And that was just using the spots on the wall. Who cared if he wasn’t allowed to leave his room? As long as he had paper and something to write with, he could work on his math problems. Even if the authorities were to bind his hands and feet, he could explore new proofs in his head. They could take away his sight, or his hearing, but they could not touch his brain. Confinement was like a limitless garden of paradise for him. How short is a lifetime, he thought, compared to the time it will take humankind to find all the rich veins of mathematical ore where they lie sleeping and tease them forth into the world.
Nor, he reflected, did he need anyone to acknowledge his work. Certainly he would have liked to publish his theories, to be recognized and reviewed; but that was not the true essence of mathematics. In academia it was always a race to see who would reach the summit of which particular mountain first, but as long as he knew which peaks he had discovered, that would be enough.
It had taken Ishigami some time to reach this place. Not very long ago, he had been reduced to the terrible conclusion that his life had lost its meaning. If his only talent was for mathematics, he had reasoned, and yet he could make no progress along that path, what was the value of his existence? Every day, he’d contemplated death, feeling that if he died, no one would be sad, or really much inconvenienced. He doubted anyone would even notice.
He remembered a certain day, only a year ago …
He was standing in his apartment with a short length of thick rope in his hand. He was looking for a place on the ceiling to attach it. But he soon found that apartments lack any appropriate fixtures for hanging oneself. Finally, unable to find a better alternative, he resorted to pounding a large nail into a support post in the wall. He fixed his noose to it carefully and tested his weight on it. The post creaked alarmingly, but the nail did not bend and the rope did not break.
He had no regrets. There would be no particular meaning to his death. Just like there had been no particular meaning to his life.
He was standing on a stool, trying to fit his head through the noose, when the doorbell rang.
It had to be fate.
He only answered it because he didn’t want there to be any interruptions once he got started. Not knowing who was at the door, he had to consider that it might be an emergency. He couldn’t count on them just leaving him alone.
He opened his door to find two women standing there—a mother and daughter, by the looks of them.
The mother introduced herself, saying that they would be his neighbors. Her daughter bowed curtly beside her. When he laid his eyes upon them, a single realization pierced Ishigami’s entire being.
How beautiful their eyes are, he thought. Until that moment, he had never been carried away by beauty of any kind. He didn’t even understand art. But in that moment, he understood everything. The very same beauty he found in unraveling a mathematics problem was standing right there before him.
Ishigami didn’t remember clearly what the women had said. But the way their eyes had shifted as they looked at him, every blink of their eyelids, was burned into his memory.
Ishigami’s life changed after he met the Hanaokas; in that moment he was renewed. All thought of suicide faded. Joy returned to his daily rituals. It made him happy just imagining where the two of them might be, what they might be doing. He had added the coordinates of Yasuko and Misato to the matrix of his life, and to him, it seemed like a miracle had occurred.
Sunday was his happiest day. If he opened his window, he could hear the two of them talking. He couldn’t make out what they said, but the faint voices that drifted to him along the wind were like the sweetest music to Ishigami’s ears.
He held no aspirations of ever being anything to them. He knew he should never even attempt to make contact. It was