The motorcycle noises returned, and it sounded as if the front yard’s iron lattice gate had been opened (the latch could be removed from the outside as well). I suddenly got nervous and turned out the lights. I didn’t want these people to know anyone was here.
I saw several sharp beams of light peeking through the shutters and began hearing strange sounds. I was terrified. When I cautiously peeked through the front door window, I caught the words Demon Coalition written on the closest man’s helmet. There were seven to eight motorcycles and bikers all crowded around the yard, cheering and revving their engines until they finally left.
I searched for the padlock, locked the iron gate, then lay down in the bedroom. I wasn’t used to such frightening experiences, so I was kind of in shock. The bikers had strong accents, something I was normally fond of, but in that moment, I felt nothing but fear.
The next morning, I figured maybe they weren’t such bad guys, after all. They were probably just really into motorcycles. Maybe reading The Notebook of Black Magic made my imagination run wild.
However, the yard had tire marks in it, and some of the tiles were cracked. It looked like they’d been riding in circles all over the lawn; even one of the wooden chairs was knocked over.
I called Ren’s place. He was living alone in a midtown apartment near his office. I caught him right before he left for work.
“Geez, you poor thing. That does sound terrifying,” he agreed. If he really felt that way, he would’ve said he’d come right over, which he didn’t.
“I’m going home. Back to Tokyo,” I told him.
“Hold on. Why are you leaving already? Wait for me. I’ll be there soon,” he pleaded.
“No way. I’m scared.”
“All right, then how about I send Shimon over to protect you? He can be your bodyguard. Just stay put, okay?”
I thought he was teasing me.
The weather was nice that day, so I decided to tend to the garden, clean the house, take a nap, and do some window shopping at Uomasa. They were selling sea bream today. I went with sardines again since I wasn’t planning on waiting up for Ren. There was no telling when he’d be here. The sardines were freshly caught, with glittering silver scales, so I bought a whole bunch. I also ended up baking some simple muffins just in case Shimon really did come tomorrow. I figured muffins would be perfect for a hungry young man who was still growing. The sun was beginning to set, so I decided to go take a dip in the hotel pool after that.
Being alone in such a luxurious vacation home made me feel out of sorts, as if I were aimlessly floating through the air. I didn’t own the place, nor was it my husband’s… Ren and I weren’t going to get married, and what we had was too bland to call ourselves lovers… Even if he did show up, he’d just be relieved to see me, and that would be it.
Ren badmouthed his ex-wife a lot, but maybe any woman would grow resentful being with a man like him.
The hotel was completely booked. I didn’t see anyone I knew at the pool, so I was able to relax and swim to my heart’s content. It was crowded; there seemed to be a lot of girls staying at the nearby guesthouse.
I was wearing a blue terrycloth robe over my swimsuit as I walked back to the house from the pool. My hair was still dripping wet, but the hotel showers were packed, so I didn’t have much of a choice. I had a straw hat pushed down the back of my head as well as dark-tinted sunglasses. When I finally stepped into the yard, I found a young man standing in front of the pink marble nymph statue. It was Shimon.
It looked like he’d been strolling through the yard for a bit until he spotted me.
“Hey,” he said with a smile.
He was so much tanner and taller that I almost didn’t recognize him. Shimon was becoming more of a man every time I saw him. He said he took a bus straight from the bullet train and had just arrived here a few moments ago. Shimon was very friendly and talkative like Ren, and he said whatever what was on his mind, which seemed to be a family quirk.
He grinned despite himself. “I’m so glad to be here. I was really looking forward to seeing you, Ms. Mimi. I’ll be leaving when my uncle arrives, though. Said he’d be here tomorrow.”
“I doubt that. He’ll probably call tomorrow and tell me that something suddenly came up.”
I then took Shimon to the backyard.
“The breeze is much nicer back here,” I boasted as if I owned this vacation house.
I took a shower after that. I wasn’t as much of an open book as Shimon, so although I didn’t look happy, I was honestly really glad to see him. Chatting with someone who said he’d been looking forward to seeing me was way more fun than talking with my boyfriend, who probably wasn’t even going to show up.
My pure-white dress fluttered in the wind as I put on my white sandals and stepped outside, two Camparis with soda in hand. The evening sun had begun painting the sky. I wouldn’t call it beautiful, though—more like grim. After taking a seat in the lawn chairs out back, we watched the ocean until the shadows of the islands in the distance got noticeably darker. The sky, however, was rather bright, and I could still see clearly in front of me. Clamorous crows gathered in the thickets in the woods to my right, where there was a shrine at the cape.
Gazing at the ocean from the shrine gate felt kind of like I was observing an archipelago from some ancient Greek ruins. Ren and I enjoyed the view, so we often went on walks there.
“When did you get here?” Shimon asked before taking a sip of the drink I’d made him.
“Three days ago.”
“That long already?”
He probably hadn’t put much thought into that comment, but I was worried he might think I was waiting here longingly for Ren, desperately yearning for his arrival. It almost sounded like Shimon was making fun of me.
“I haven’t been waiting for him. Do I look like a woman who would just wait around helplessly without her man?”
“No, I just wished I’d known sooner. Then I could’ve been here three days ago.” Shimon’s gaze shifted. “Plus, I heard something about a biker gang?”
“They called themselves the Demon Coalition. How stupid is that? But it was really scary, since I was alone. It didn’t help that I was reading this book. I thought the bikers were holding a Black Mass or something.”
I showed him the book by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, took a hit of my bitter drink, and read one of the poems aloud.
“‘My gray gloves permanently soak in life’s divine liquid. With my furnace, I surrendered myself to alchemy like Hermes at the break of dawn in severe winters.
“‘In the evenings of summer, I concealed demons into my daggers like the alchemist Paracelsus, angering the scholars in the streets.’
“…There actually was an alchemist named Paracelsus, by the way.”
Shimon quietly watched me the entire time I recited the passage. I flipped to this page and read the part about Paracelsus so often that the book would naturally open to this passage whenever I picked it up. I wondered why he was staring at me, when all of a sudden…
“Found a gray hair,” he said while he reached out to touch my bangs.
Maybe I was going gray early, but my short hair made it stick out like a sore thumb. I knocked his hand away.
“I like finding my gray hairs on my own. I don’t like it when other people stare at them.”
“I just thought I could pluck it out for you.”
“Don’t.”
“Can I touch your hair?”
“It’s still wet.”
“It’s half-dry.”
I kind of felt like Shimon—this kid—was patronizing me, but he didn’t appear to mean any harm. He combed his fingers through my hair.
“Now go hop in the shower,” I told him. “I’ll make some food.”
I ended up making minced sardines on rice, even though that was what Ren wanted to eat. At first, Shimon said he didn’t like fish and had never eaten sardines before—just like a kid his age would—but he cleaned his huge bowl, not leaving a single grain of rice.