He couldnt imagine what the bitch had to complain about. Him, stupid? Look at who was talking, daft bitch! How she went on in that superior whine about having made the top ten of her class! It made him sick. A fisherman didnt need to be an Einstein. He only earned such good wages because he had the strength and instincts of a man. And what was all that about genes? Who was passing on what to whom? Both the kids? So what? Oh, now he saw what the bitch was getting at, it was all his fault that their girl had aphasia. His high-handedness was to blame? How the bitch went on and on with her gibberish!
It wasnt the first time hed heard it. It was the same old quarrel repeated night after night, the same tired old taunts and complaints every time. Not only would she complain about having to look after her senile father-in-law and aphasic daughter, she would also accuse him of physical abuse and not caring for his family in the least. She claimed that she felt she was locked up in a prison cell. She bitterly lamented how deeply she hated her existence, how she couldnt take it anymore. He had but a single reply to all her complaints: month after month, he never brought home less than a million yen.
She had declared that she intended to leave him. He reacted with derision. Did she have anywhere to go? Who would have her? Had she forgotten how hed taken her in and fed her? More than anything, how did she think she could make a living? She was incompetent and shed end up dying in a ditch somewhere.
Im leaving was just another tired old line paraded out again and again until it had completely lost any value it may once have had as a threat. She kept saying she would leave him, but she never even tried. She didnt have parents she could depend on, and she worried about her kids future and her own job prospects.
But then Nanako said something she had never, ever said before. Exhausted from unleashing her torrent of grievances, she seemed almost to have shrunk. Her strength drained from her shoulders, she muttered as if to herself, Itd be awful if he turned out like you.
This last remark pierced Hiroyukis heart like a barbed fishing hook. What she meant was clear enough in light of her previous taunts. If she did leave him and desert the children, their motherless son would grow up and turn out like Hiroyuki. That was what Nanako saw as awful.
It had been twenty years now since Hiroyukis father had almost drowned at sea. Hiroyukis mother had disappeared around the same time. Hed lost his mother when he was about Katsumis age. His mother had deserted her family, running off with a younger man At least, that was the account given him by his father. At the time, however, his fathers senility had already been kicking in, making it difficult to gauge how much of what he said was true. For all that, there was no reason to believe that his mother had left for any other reason. As far as Hiroyuki could remember, his mother and father had done nothing but fight. It certainly seemed quite plausible that his mother, unable to endure his fathers violence any longer, just left him and disappeared.
Hiroyuki had taken the news of having been abandoned by his mother without displaying any emotion, or so he believed. He could not remember having received much, if any, affection from his mother, and his only value had seemed to lie in deflecting his fathers violence from her. As he grew older, however, the fact that his mother deserted him began to turn increasingly into a feeling that he was an unwanted presence in the world. Hiroyuki grew up feeling constantly resentful, and his self-confidence was always so fragile that it could be shattered with a single blow.
Perhaps that was why hed gone to pieces that evening. Without understanding the cause of the blaze raging in him, Hiroyuki got to his feet, hit his head on a chest of drawers, and tottered across the room, coming down on top of his wife. It was as though flames erupted from every pore of his body. He was never one to waste time on words, but this assault was unlike previous ones, and his wife probably sensed what was coming. She did not attempt to cry out, but simply closed her eyes as if in resignation, and placed her hands on her husbands, which gripped her neck. It almost seemed as though she wanted him to squeeze harder, and Hiroyuki straddled her as she lay there, bringing the full weight of his body on his hands. When he gently removed them, Nanako was dead.
Hiroyuki got to his feet and for some reason switched off the fluorescent light. He turned on the small bedside lamp instead, shining it on his wifes face. She looked to be asleep. She was now released from her prison cell. She even looked content.
He strained his ears. There was not a sound to be heard. His father, his son, and his daughter were all asleep. The silence was so complete that he almost felt he could hear their breathing as they slept.
He already knew how to dispose of his wifes body. He would throw it into the sea. If he sank the body in the sea south of Breakwater No. 2, it would never be found.
He wrapped his wifes body in a fine nylon net and carried her over his shoulder onto his boat. He then dumped the body in the boats well, there to stay until he could permanently dispose of it. That was all he could do then. The rest could wait until the day after next, when hed sink the body while out fishing. Persuading himself thus, he put the planks back on the hold and went home.
He drank a glass or two of sake and went to sleep, and something happened in his mind that was very much like throwing his wifes body down a well and putting a lid on it. His brain cells confined the memory of his deed to its deepest recesses and capped it with a lid one that was destined to be reopened soon enough.
5
What a thing to have gone and done.
Two planks of wood formed the cover of the well. Hiroyuki removed one and stood it on the deck. He looked up at the sky, then sank down exhausted on the deck. The pit of his stomach began to heave. He deeply regretted what hed done. Yet, his deed had been exposed to the light of day and there was no more escaping into oblivion.
So! Why dont you get going? his wifes still corpse seemed to provoke him with the reality. It seemed to be suppressing a smirk as it swayed back and forth.
What to do? First, he had to get down into the well with some rope, tie it to his wifes corpse, and haul her out of the well. He would then attach weights to the body and sink it. Having lain in seawater for a day and a half in the early summer heat, the corpse emitted an unearthly stench. The smell had smouldered in the confined space of the tank, shooting up like a flame through the opening of the removed plank. It occurred to Hiroyuki that leaping into a fire to retrieve a body would have been easier.
Having to get rid of the body was his wifes punishment for him. Hiroyuki cursed his own deed. But the task could not be avoided.
He tied a towel over his mouth and nose, knotting it firmly behind his head. He tied the end of some rope to the winch, while taking the other end in his hand. He peered into the well, as if he hadnt done enough of that already, and caught sight of his wifes blanched foot. The skin was puffed up and had begun to peel.
The boat rocked violently. Hiroyuki put his hands on the edge of the well for support. He had almost fallen in.
The current was getting faster. As he scanned the sea around him, he noticed that there was not a single fishing boat in sight; they must have all scuttled back to harbour.
Everyone agreed that the waves in Tokyo Bay were terrifying. Waves came in two types, rollers and choppers, and the complex indentations of Tokyo Bays coastline were perfectly configured to generate choppers. Waves were even now rushing in at random angles and breaking into white spray. If Hiroyuki wasnt careful, a chopper could smash into the deck from an unexpected angle and flood the boat with water.
Leaving the rope for the time being, Hiroyuki dropped anchor to set the boat against the wind. The boat could capsize if the waves came at its hull.
It was then that it hit him that he hadnt a second to waste. He was in for serious trouble if he didnt dump the body and get out of there soon.
A chopper breaking hard by spurred him to action.
With his hands on either side of the well, he lowered himself down to the bottom. Trying to avoid looking at the body as much as possible, he felt around for his wifes ankles. The best way to do the job seemed to be to bind the legs together with rope and haul it out upside down. Perhaps he could get it over with without having to look at her face.
Every time the boat pitched unexpectedly, Hiroyuki staggered and his wifes legs would slip from his grasp. He cursed aloud and clamped the end of the rope between his teeth. In that split second, his entire body was jarred by an awful premonition. An uncanny shudder ran through the length and breadth of the boat, and it pitched once like never before and started to list. From that point on, everything unfolded in slow motion. Slowly, ever so slowly, the opening of the well, which until then had been above him, rolled down to his side, throwing the other plank off with a thud. Soon his only source of daylight, the opening, was completely submerged in the sea and Hiroyukis world went pitch dark.
The seawater flooded in at his feet, reached his waist and then his chest in no time, and forced his body up, up.
Shes capsized.
Before the word capsized could come to his mind, his body had grasped the situation and braced for death. He was too panicked even to breathe. In that state, he struggled up to reach air and rammed his head against the bottom of the boat. The water began to stop flowing in, leaving a single heads breadth of air. Thrusting his face up into that pitch-dark sliver, Hiroyuki coughed violently. He must have swallowed a large amount of seawater.
His heart literally shrank in his chest. He was dead for sure unless he managed to control his panic. His brain raced in a frantic search for some way to save himself Yes. That was it. Hed fill his lungs to capacity, dive down to find the opening of the well, and swim out.