The ocean glittered even brighter when we got down to the beach, blindingly so.
“You should see your face right now, Katagishi.”
Miyaki had taken off her pumps, turning them upside down and shaking out the sand.
“I’m not good in strong sunlight.”
“It is pretty bright out, isn’t it? My eyes are starting to turn over easy. I can hear them sizzling.”
“You’d better flip them, then. Getting workers’ comp as a civil servant is a pain.”
I turned my gaze back to the sea.
“Miyaki, what did you do with your amazake?”
“I tossed it, obviously.”
“Those were fish scales, weren’t they?”
“The store sold dried fish as well. Maybe the scales just made their way inside while she was preparing the stuff…”
Here in the village, they apparently referred to the view from this spot as the mermaid’s stomach, because of how the white sand supposedly looked like pale skin and the waves like fish scales. I recalled the sparkling fish scales mixed in among the amazake as it trickled across the bumpy surface of the asphalt, the half-dissolved, pale, contorted lumps of rice looking like maggots. I shook my head reflexively.
“Dad, don’t get so close to the water,” I heard a woman say, her voice superimposed over the crash of approaching waves.
The woman was a bit past middle-aged and holding a black parasol. For a moment, as I watched her leisurely stroll along the beach, tracing the line where the water lapped the shore, I was filled with the delusion that it was the middle of summer. The woman smiled and nodded at us, her eyes scrunching up against the brightness. Another one of the interminably cheerful and unabashedly friendly villagers, it seemed.
Following her gaze, I spotted an elderly man on the beach. His white hair and beard had been allowed to grow free, and he was standing so close to the water’s edge that it looked as if the spray might hit him. Water seeped into his cloth shoes, causing the brown material to turn almost black. The old man stared down at his shoes, and he bent his knee slightly as if preparing to step forward. The movement was timid and unpleasant. He didn’t step so much as shift his entire body like a pawn moving ahead a square in chess.
The old man repeated that motion as the water soaked his feet. It was as if someone had taken a remote control and rewound the video a single second. As I watched, transfixed, the wrinkled and sunburned liver spots on the old man’s face contorted into a smile of radiance. Drool spilled from his cracked lips, dripping onto the front of his sweater.
“Dad, you’re going to catch a cold. Let’s head back.”
The woman with the parasol caught the old man by the elbow. He turned to face her, the smile still on his face, and nodded. She took his hand and began walking our way. Miyaki and I remained where we were, watching the two as they steadily approached. As they moved past us, I heard the woman whisper to the old man.
“Were you dreaming of the mermaid again?” she said.
I glanced toward Miyaki to see if she had heard. Miyaki nodded warily. Seagulls flew through the sky overhead. I lifted my head at the sound of their scream-like cries. A woman in a down jacket was standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach. Her hair, like tangled yarn, fluttered in the wind as she stared at me.
The eyes of the locals seemed to bore holes into our backs as the woman led us farther along the coast. They watched us from behind the counters of the convenience stores, from the benches and standing ashtrays, their gazes following us from beneath the hood of their brows, tight smiles plastered on their faces.
“About earlier…”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“If you’re going to thank me, don’t. They’ll hear.”
The woman’s voice sounded hoarse, as if from too much drinking.
“Umm, was there something you wanted to talk to us about?” Miyaki asked with a polite smile on her face. The woman glanced at her out of the corners of her eyes and thrust her hands into her pockets.
“Not here.”
“Maybe a café, then? Or your home, if that would be all right with you?”
The woman came to a stop. The fake fur of her hood quivered around her shoulders. I could see an aging motel behind her. The building was flat. It looked more like an apartment building than a proper hotel, only with everything but the first floor shaved off.
“Pretend you’re a customer. It’ll be less trouble that way,” the young woman said.
I glanced at Miyaki.
“All in the line of duty, Katagishi. Go on, hear what she has to say.” Miyaki flashed me a reckless thumbs-up. Then she added, “Oops, but don’t forget. You’re just there to listen!”
I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I followed behind the woman in the down jacket like a dog, entering the motel.
I made my way down the dark hallway under the watchful glare of the bespectacled old man at the reception desk before opening the room that bore the same number as the key the woman had handed me.
The room was dark and dim, decorated in a cheap-looking blue and white wallpaper covered with images of seashells and starfish. There was a painting hanging in the room. Another mermaid, lying on her side on a muddy beach. There was something lascivious about the way the strokes of oil paint had scooped out the hollow of her belly, the dip of her clavicle. The woman sat down on the bed and introduced herself as Susaki. She claimed she was a transient worker from the neighboring village.
I pulled out the chair that was tucked underneath the desk and sat down, leaving a fair amount of space between us.
“You’re from Tokyo, right? I can tell. I can also tell that you don’t actually work in the travel industry,” she said. Susaki took the ashtray from the table, set it on the mattress, and lit a cigarette. “Did you get my letter?”
I thought for a moment. Yes, this village was strange, but how did I know this woman wasn’t one of them? She dangled her legs, which were covered with fresh cuts and scratches, off the bed as I remained silent. Unsure of what to think, I eventually just nodded.
“The letter? You sent it?”
“Yes, I sent it. That means you came to this village because you heard that there was something wrong, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it.”
I scratched my head. Susaki smiled a little mockingly.
“Is there some sort of connection, ma’am, between what’s going on here and the legend of the mermaid?”
Susaki pressed the cigarette filter to her lips and breathed out a puff of smoke.
“‘Ma’am’? Anyway, yeah. I don’t know how to explain it; this place has always been a shit show. But it got really bad after the mermaid stuff.”
“What do you mean by ‘shit show’?”
“You don’t see it? Don’t you think it’s weird how everyone here goes on and on about what a great place it is and how no one’s got problems?”
I didn’t say anything, but Susaki must have taken my lack of disagreement as an answer in and of itself.