†
✦ ✦ ✦
“Right from the start, I didn’t believe in the rumors. The ghost didn’t even remotely look like the victim reported seven years ago, or her clothes. I knew that. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I saw that girl Morino.” Right until I hung up, I denied having committed the act.
“If that’s true, then I must apologize for keeping you so long on the phone with me.” The voice betrayed no information.
“I’m more annoyed by everyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they hadn’t all believed in these ghost stories, you wouldn’t be suspecting me right now.”
Seven years earlier, the body of a high school girl had been discovered on the mountain pass. Now, a ghost appears in that spot. The ghost wears a black sailor-style uniform and has long hair.
“All of them neglected to check the facts. The people of the world, the person who started the rumor. It’s so obvious that someone who doesn’t want that waste disposal facility to go up planted the rumor.” They had no doubt been trying to tap human emotion—which logic can’t touch—to stoke the desire to fight the government.
“Oh no, that’s not it.” The boy curtly rejected my suppositions.
“How would you know?”
“I’m the one who started the rumor. I started posting it online, regularly, about six months ago. I made up all the stories about seeing a ghost. I was preparing for when Morino and I went to the place where the body was discovered. I was supposed to go too. I thought I might get lucky and see the person who did it, maybe.”
I needed time to digest what I had just heard. Did this mean that the boy had circulated false information and set a trap to find the murderer? Even the fact that the rumored ghost looked exactly like the girl Morino was part of the boy’s plan?
“I don’t know about lucky. But why would you want to see the murderer?”
“The same mentality that makes us go to the zoo to see the lions.”
“How much did that Morino girl know about this? Did she know that you were the one who started the rumors about the ghost?”
“She knows nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She probably thinks you just happened by and were trying to pick her up.”
“So she knew nothing, but still called you and ran away when you told her to?”
“Exactly. Because we’re friends.”
Friends. The instant I heard the word, a shiver went up my spine, and I broke out in goose bumps. Because the boy’s voice held no emotion at all. He spoke as though he didn’t recognize the existence of even the concept of friendship. So why try to protect that girl then? Maybe he had romantic feelings for her?
“And, for the sake of argument, had I been the murderer and had I killed Morino and taken her picture, what would you do?”
“I would find you.”
“You’d get revenge?”
“No, I’d probably ask you to show me the photos.”
“And after that?”
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t see a shred of this thing human beings define as love in this boy. I remembered the look I saw on Morino’s face in the car. That sad air—there was something quite human about it—in contrast with the way this boy talked.
I hung up the phone and didn’t talk to the boy again.
✦ ✦ ✦
†
✦ ✦ ✦
Giving up on the girl Morino broke my heart. But if I went to look for her, I would end up meeting the boy somewhere along the way. I got the impression that nothing good would come of tangling with him. The more time passed from the moment I hung up the phone, the more this vague feeling turned into a certainty. I would have to give up on that mysterious girl, reminiscent of a wood at night just as the characters that made up her name suggested. But the longing for her face in death was as strong in me as it had been before, perhaps stronger now, seeking the ineffable feeling that Rosalia Lombardo provoked in me. The deal with the boy was that he and the girl would not concern themselves with me as long as I didn’t get involved with them. In other words, the boy had been telling me to find some subject other than Morino if I wanted to take my pictures.
That night, I didn’t go back to my apartment. I drove to a shopping district, started talking to a bored girl in the lobby of a bowling alley, and invited her out. We played a claw crane game, I treated her to a juice from the vending machine, and I got her into my car. The photo shoot was finished that night. The fact that this girl had black hair was not unrelated to my meeting Morino.
A week went by, and the police still hadn’t forced their way into my apartment. For my part, I had also not attempted to look into the identities of Morino or the boy. I turned the power off on the cell phone and kept it, together with the bandage.
Moreover, when I photographed the other girl, I came full circle to being glad I hadn’t been able to make Morino my subject that day. If I had photographed her face in death, my oeuvre would have, at that moment, been complete, and I would have spent the rest of my life simply admiring those photos. I chose to be more positive, taking the attitude that this sense of loss, my dissatisfaction no matter how many photos I took, could be transformed into my passion.
That said, I did wonder if Morino had made it home safely that day. When I had free time, I would remember her as I looked through my album of dead faces.
✦ ✦ ✦
When you run, go in the direction of the setting sun. I checked a map. There should be houses that way.
✦ ✦ ✦
That’s what the boy’s email said, but the sun was already starting to set then, wasn’t it? The temperature had also dropped significantly. But it would have been on the news if she had gotten lost and frozen to death in the mountains. The fact that it hadn’t meant that she’d managed to get out safely.
Although even if she had managed to make it to the nearby houses without incident, she could have been mistaken for a ghost because of the rumor the boy had started; she might have had a fair bit of trouble getting help. Had she tried to hail a passing car, the driver might have screamed and driven right past her. I suddenly saw her clucking her tongue at ending up in such an absurd situation.
She knew nothing.
Not that she might have died that day.
Not that the person walking with her on that path in the woods was a murderer.