Then, somehow, the fantasy of burying someone alive had taken over. Before he knew it, that was all Saeki could think about.
He liked watering his garden, often doing so on sunny days—a hose in hand, his thumb over the mouth. The pressure built up, and the water sprayed quite a distance. A fan of water aimed at the trees, glittering in the light. When Saeki saw that, or when his grandmother smiled, he was so happy that it was as though the world grew brighter.
But at the same time, there was a dark place inside him where that light could never reach. He thought about putting his grandmother in a box and burying her in the ground. Every time the thought crossed his mind, he was instantly horrified.
How could he imagine such devilish things? There were times when he couldn’t even bring himself to look at his grandmother, terrified that she would guess what he’d been thinking.
Was there some fatal scar inside his heart that had made him like this? He could think of nothing, but perhaps he had simply forgotten. Or—and this was his greatest fear—perhaps he’d simply been born that way.
A few years after Saeki had come of age, his parents and grandmother had died in an accident. Saeki had been informed of it at work.
Until then, his family had always been around at home, and his contact with them had been a constant reminder of his position in society. But after that, he’d been alone in the house, and there was nothing to keep his fantasies in check. Every day, he left work and came home; with no one to talk to there, he found himself thinking about the same thing, those same ideas that had been in his head since childhood. He tried to shake them off, though, telling himself that even thinking such things was unforgivable, and this served to increase his interest in gardening.
When his family had been there, he’d grown a few plants in pots and weeded the garden. But now he brought in better dirt, improving the quality of the earth in the garden, and the number of plants along the wall began to increase in number.
Saeki spent the whole year digging holes to plant trees. That was all he did outside of work. He showed no interest in anything other people his age did, instead spending all his time making holes in his garden and planting trees in them.
At last, there were trees all around the house: inside the garden walls, every inch was covered. If you poked your head over the wall, you were barely able to see the house through the forest. Only one part of the garden was left unforested, the area he could see from the porch. There was nothing blocking the line of sight from there to the wall. That ground was filled with flowers, and it was in bloom all year long.
At first, Saeki believed he was digging holes to plant trees. But along the way, he realized he was planting trees to justify the holes he dug. Eventually, he starred digging holes only to fill them in again. The garden was covered with trees, so close together they could barely grow branches, and there was no more room to plant, yet Saeki kept on digging, because that was the only thing that seemed to clear away the fog of his fantasies, his desire to bury someone—in the ground. When he was digging, Saeki forgot everything else—but only for that brief moment when the tip of his trowel bit into the earth.
Digging holes only to fill them in again had begun to feel empty and meaningless. Digging the hole cleared away the fog—but when he was done, the fog came back, stronger than ever. Saeki had to keep digging anyway, though; that was why there had been a hole ready for Kousuke the night before.
His neighbors didn’t seem to find his activities sinister, even when they heard him digging late at night. Everyone bowed when they saw him, and they asked him for advice on their own gardens. Everyone knew he liked to garden, and no one thought it was odd. They all sympathized with him; he had lost his family, and only his hobbies remained.
He had grown friendly with Kousuke two years after his family had died, a year ago now. The boy had gotten lost in Saeki’s garden, and they had soon become very friendly. Saeki had even gone on picnics with Kousuke’s family.
When he’d known Kousuke for nine or ten months, Saeki had run across some wood just about Kousuke’s height in his garage. He instantly thought it would be ideal for coffin making.
Saeki had shaken off the thought, even becoming furious with himself—but the next day, he’d started making the coffin, all the while grimacing at how stupid he was being. He would never actually use it, he told himself. Yet his hands hammered nails into the wood without his conscious guidance, working almost automatically, turning the wood into a box.
“l want to go home! Let me out!” Kousuke was crying now. Saeki could hear the boy’s sobs from the bamboo pole. The inside of the hole was dark. The childish voice echoed inside it, the sound muffled.
Saeki didn’t know what else to say to Kousuke. He felt so sorry for the boy, so very sorry. Although he pitied him, there was nothing else he could say.
Saeki’s hands were holding a hose now. It was attached to the faucet on the side of the house.
The summer heat was getting stronger, and the sound of cicadas came from all around him. The heat spread from his back down, until it embraced his whole body.
A trickle of water lapped against the tip of Saeki’s sandals; it was coming from the place where Kousuke was buried. Water was gushing out of one of the bamboo poles, dripping down the morning glories and forming a puddle on the ground. It was coming from the pole that had been an air hole.
The hose was sticking in the other pole. When Saeki’s gaze rested there, only then did he clearly understand what he had done. However, that did not mean he had been acting unconsciously.
He had knowingly turned the valve on the end of the hose, filling the box in the ground with water. He had just felt like he was dreaming the whole while. The conscience that would have bothered anyone else didn’t seem to function in him.
Water had filled the coffin—and with no other place to go, it had come back up the ocher bamboo pole. The summer sun glittered on the water pouring out of the pole. Saeki thought it was beautiful. The cicadas’ song was joined by the sound of the children returning from their exercises. They came from the opposite direction this time, passing along the length of his wall. He couldn’t hear Kousuke’s voice anymore. And the morning glories were wrinkling, starting to fade.