Kensuke couldnt find out if the story was true by asking Aso. Even if Aso said, I was lying, the story wouldnt just go away. The possibility that Asos confessing it was a lie was the real lie would remain forever.
Kensuke tried dialling the number on the calling card that Yukari had given him, and got neither her parents home nor her apartment, but rather, a sort of dormitory where the members of her religious cult lived. Kensuke told the feeble voiced woman who took the phone that he wanted to speak to Yukari.
Shes not here, the woman said, and that was all she said.
Kensuke had expected Yukari to come to the phone without much of a to-do, so this stole his tongue. After a pause, he managed to ask, Where may I find her?
The woman replied simply, I dont know.
How long has Yukari been away?
I havent seen her face the last couple of weeks.
When Kensuke asked her for Yukaris parents number, she merely responded with a question of her own: Ms Nakazawa has a home? The way she said it made Yukari seem like a vagabond with no family.
So she doesnt have one? Kensuke pressed.
I wouldnt know, the woman responded unceremoniously.
Kensuke couldnt tell whether Yukari did in fact have no home or whether the commune had simply been given no information. He put the phone down. All he had been able to confirm was that Yukari had not been back to the dormitory for about two weeks now. The awful thing was that Asos story was beginning to show signs of plausibility.
It did occur to him to visit Battery No. 6 and check for himself, but the Tokyo authorities had declared the place off limits. Kensuke was due to take the public employment exam in order to become a teacher, and could not afford to get in trouble with the metropolitan government. Besides, he didnt have the courage to make a clandestine landing on Battery No. 6 under cover of darkness.
He felt he needed to see Aso again to get to the bottom of the matter. If Aso hadnt been lying, Kensuke needed to do something before it was too late. He didnt know what sort of criminal charges accrued from stripping a woman naked and leaving her on Battery No. 6. He figured that if she died of starvation, prosecution was inevitable.
He was thus on the verge of contacting Aso when news came that he had been hospitalized in his alma maters affiliate. A chest X-ray had apparently shown a patch on Asos lungs. A bronchoscope, and tests, revealed that a particularly virulent form of cancer had claimed most of his body already. His brain was blighted too, and surgery was impossible. Even with some desperate chemotherapy, Aso had only two months or so left to live.
Strangely enough, Kensuke was left unfazed by the news. He closed his eyes and calmly let the fact sink in that the time had come. The happy days that theyd shared sped all in a jumble across his minds eye, but the idea that it was unbelievable simply didnt occur to him only the terrible pity of dying at twenty-three, Kensukes own age.
Aso had probably sensed, even before he took the tests, that he didnt have much time left. And so hed come that day to say goodbye. Given death as a premise, Asos recent behaviour made sense. Just as Aso had seen his own death looming, Kensuke had intuited that his friends days were numbered, and had no doubt been bracing for this.
Ten minutes or so after hed digested the news, Kensuke suddenly began to sob. It wasnt that he was sad; rather, it was because confusing emotions besieged him deep inside. After crying for some time, he felt an irrepressible desire to go and see Aso. It was Kensukes turn to say goodbye.
Kensuke thought hed chosen a slow time for his visit but, in addition to Asos mother, there were a few others gathered there in the private room. Aso lay on the bed, in no condition to carry on a normal conversation. The man whod come to see Kensuke in a car just a month ago now lay before him hardly able to breathe and wreathed in tubes. The cancer cells that riddled Asos body had wrought so dramatic a change in so short a time. His left lung had completely ceased to function; apparently, the end would come when the phlegm accumulated in his windpipe.
Right before he left, Kensuke approached Asos pillow, bent low, and asked in a gentle whisper: Was that true, about Battery No. 6?
Kensuke felt certain Aso wouldnt tell a lie on his deathbed. If hed only shaken his head then, Kensukes suspicion would have been allayed.
Instead, Aso smiled and nodded.
In disbelief, Kensuke tried again: Are you sure?
Aso nodded twice in succession. Kensuke thought he saw a look of satisfaction on Asos face, but it could have been his imagination.
Placing his hand on Asos, Kensuke told him, Hang in there, and left the hospital room. No doubt, it would have been more appropriate just to say Goodbye. Two days later, Aso was dead at the young age of twenty-three.
5
The assembly point was the lounge of the Dream Island Marina. Sasaki looked quite busy lapping his ice cream. Aside from him and Kensuke, the only one there was a metropolitan official named Naito; the councillors representing Minato Ward had yet to turn up. It was ten minutes past the appointed time of 10:00 a.m. Summer vacation had just begun, and on this weekday morning, many young men and women came to the marina. Whenever a young woman passed by, Sasakis face would lift from his ice cream and follow the woman as she walked off. Kensuke poked him in the ribs with his elbow.
Leader, its disgraceful. At your age.
Dont leader me, okay? replied Sasaki wryly.
You told me this was going to be a serious expedition.
Leave me alone, will you?
Kensukes sarcastic barbs were having their effect, and Sasaki waved his hand as though to chase away an annoying fly.
Making a mountain out of a molehill was a saying that existed to describe Sasaki. His trademark impulse to blow things up tenfold had been applied to the Battery No. 6 inspection crew, which in Sasakis telling was to consist of the best scientific minds the city could muster. But Kensuke had arrived to find only Sasaki and a city official.
Where are the other members? the baffled Kensuke had asked, blinking.
Sasaki had given this excuse cringingly: Theyre all busy and called in one after another to cancel.
Naito, the city official, revealed a different story when Kensuke questioned him about the matter. Apparently, just one ward councillor and one city official were required for the inspections, but Sasaki had nagged them persistently to be taken with them. All Sasakis talk about having been commissioned by the ward council and having organized a survey team had been barefaced lies. The truth was that Sasaki had tapped Kensuke so he wouldnt look too bad just tagging along by himself.
Here comes Mr Kano. Were ready to go. Spotting the representative of Minato Ward, Naito rose to his feet. Reflexively, Sasaki and Kensuke also stood up.
Waiting aboard the small cruiser tied up at the wharf were the captain and a single deck hand, also government employees. The team, now six members in all, motored out of Dream Island Marina under the bright summer sun at half past ten and headed for Battery No. 6, which was but a stones throw away.
On their way they passed under four bridges. The girders of one of them, so low as to be almost within touching distance, blocked out the rays of the sun for a moment, and the whole weight of the thing seemed to bear down on them. As they passed under the fourth bridge, the Rainbow Bridge came into view and beyond it Battery No. 6. Kensuke recalled how hed looked down at the island from the Rainbow Bridges pedestrian walkway shortly after the bridges completion. At the observatory, using the binoculars, hed peered into the depths of the woods that overgrew the battery. Now, for the first time, he was seeing the island from approximately sea level.
As the profile of the island loomed larger, Kensuke was getting his hopes up. He was finally gaining access to the setting of a nine-year-old fantasy that had burgeoned and morphed with a will of its own. Battery No. 6, an irregular pentagon with a surface area of about twelve acres and a perimeter of about a third of a mile guarded by a stone wall sixteen feet high, apparently had a freshwater well on it despite its being a manmade island in the middle of the bay. Thinking that with water you could survive, for nine years Kensuke had kept Yukari alive on that walled island. He understood it was a ridiculous notion. Yet he couldnt discount that bizarre smile of satisfaction Aso had displayed on the threshold of death. Had Aso, his brain invaded by cancer, succumbed to his own lie? Or had he perhaps, hoping for a place to live after death, conflated the image of heaven with the uninhabited island?
Likely expecting to be fed, a large flock of seagulls circled the cruiser. Flying just above the surface, the birds skimmed Battery No. 6 and swept up high over it. As if shaking the gulls loose, the cruiser pulled alongside the landing on Battery No. 6.
6
While Sasaki, meticulously prepared, was armed with camera, video, and sketchbook, Kensuke had brought hardly anything at all except a pair of waterproof boots, which he put on instead of his sneakers prior to landing.
Sasaki hopped onto the wharf and cried, Hasnt changed a bit!
Kensuke, surprised, asked him, You mean youve been here before?
Only once. Ten years ago, on a survey like this one.
Ten years ago mused Kensuke. That was a year before Asos death.
Look at that.
Sasaki pointed to a narrow gap in the embankment. Behind it spread a dim space overshadowed by the trees, while in front, where it was practically still the shoreline, what looked like a variety of parsley grew in profusion.
Would that be parsley?
Its angelica. Angelica keiskei. Common on the Izu peninsula and Oshima island. Must have drifted no small distance! It was there ten years ago, too.
Sasaki expressed admiration for the vitality of the angelica plant, whose seeds had washed ashore from who knew where and taken root and grown with such vigor. Sasaki repeated several times that the most amazing thing about Battery No. 6 was the variety and vitality of the seeds that found their way to it, and that the place was a natural treasure chest well worth investigating precisely because it was off limits to the public.
While Naito and Kano proposed that they first conduct a summary survey by circling the island once along the embankment, Sasaki clearly wanted to head straight into the center. In the end, it was decided that the team should split up into two, and Kensuke chose to accompany Sasaki. The captain and the crewmember were to remain on the wharf. It was also decided that each pair, Kano and Naito touring the perimeter and Sasaki and Kensuke venturing inland, would carry a portable receiver. It wasnt a large island, with edges only a hundred yards or so long; theyd be heard if they shouted. But they had the receivers and there was no reason not to use them.