I Hear Them Cry

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Shiho Kishimoto

  English translation copyright © 2013 by Raj Mahtani

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  I Hear Them Cry was first published in 2003 by 東洋出版 (Orient Publishing) as 東洋出版. Translated from Japanese by Raj Mahtani. Published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2013.

  Published by AmazonCrossing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781477848074

  ISBN-10: 147784807X

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910363

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: IN FRANCE

  JEAN: ONE

  JEAN: TWO

  JEAN: THREE

  JEAN: FOUR

  JEAN: FIVE

  SHIGEKI: ONE

  SHIGEKI: TWO

  SHIGEKI: THREE

  ANNA: ONE

  ANNA: TWO

  ANNA: THREE

  ANNA: FOUR

  ANNA: FIVE

  ALAN: ONE

  PART TWO: IN JAPAN

  REIKA: ONE

  REIKA: TWO

  REIKA: THREE

  REIKA: FOUR

  REIKA: FIVE

  GRANDMOTHER: ONE

  GRANDMOTHER: TWO

  RAIKI: ONE

  RAIKI: TWO

  RAIKI: THREE

  RAIKI: FOUR

  RAIKI: FIVE

  RAIKI: SIX

  RAIKI: SEVEN

  KANAKO: ONE

  KANAKO: TWO

  KANAKO: THREE

  KANAKO: FOUR

  SOPHIE: ONE

  SOPHIE: TWO

  SOPHIE: THREE

  SOPHIE: FOUR

  TAICHI: ONE

  SATO: ONE

  SATO: TWO

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  PROLOGUE

  Anna’s glassy blue eyes shot a desperate, piercing gaze at me. There was no time to lose. It was now or never. I led her to the bedroom and removed her T-shirt, crumpling the large white Chihuahua printed on the blue cotton. Going down on one knee, I gently pulled down her frilly blue skirt.

  I hesitated at her pink panties, but then dragged them down. Her skin was soft, pale, and pure. For a fleeting moment I saw the body of a defenseless little girl floating into view under the light of the lamp. When I gently patted her, I felt as if her skin would get sucked into the palm of my hand. I wanted to hold her so badly—to comfort her—but I shook off the urge and made her lie on the bed, facedown. With trembling hands, I slowly undid the belt looped around my jeans.

  “Be strong, Anna. I’m sorry, my dear.”

  The leather belt cut through the air, whistling past my ear. The next moment, a red trace of the lashing blazed across Anna’s pristine white skin.

  She made a noise but immediately buried her face into the pillow and endured the pain. I lashed her again. Red welts formed, testifying to her pain.

  (God… forgive me.)

  I was desperate. With every swing of my belt, I begged for mercy as my vision blurred with tears. I stopped. She turned her face toward me: she had not cried a single tear. She had dealt with the ordeal admirably. She was only seven.

  PART ONE: IN FRANCE

  JEAN: ONE

  After I graduated from art school, I took a trip with the money I had saved from working part-time jobs. If you aspire to be a painter, visiting France at least once in your lifetime is a must.

  The weight of history overwhelmed me as soon as I arrived in Paris. I saw a stain that stood out on the surface of a dingy stone. It seemed like blood, the trace of someone’s long-forgotten existence. My heart skipped a beat, sending shivers down my spine. I was wrapped in excitement nonetheless, walking about here and there as I sketched madly. It was as if I had slipped into an antique world lost in the mists of centuries past.

  I rented a small flat in the suburbs and found a job as a waitress at a nearby café. The interior of the brick-walled café was dim and the soft sunlight beamed through the swirling haze of cigarette smoke, infusing the atmosphere with a pale pinkish-violet color. Exhilaration sent my thoughts reeling, and I was convinced that I had somehow entered Toulouse-Lautrec’s world.

  There was a small, old-fashioned church near the flat. It stood under the protective branches of a large elm tree. I began spending my days drawing the church. I would start early in the morning, when there was little pedestrian traffic, and in the afternoons I’d work at the café. I was beginning to live my dream.

  Sometimes I entered the church to gaze at the light streaming through the stained glass. I never got bored admiring the beauty in that peaceful atmosphere, seemingly unchanged since centuries ago.

  That’s also where I came to know Jean.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Japan. My name is Mayu Asaka. Pleased to meet you,” I said.

  “Nice sketch.”

  We slowly moved beyond the nodding-acquaintance phase and began to wave hands and exchange pleasantries.

  At first he just seemed like an ordinary man in his fifties who had a thing for cotton shirts and blue jeans. He used to turn up at the café sometimes, accompanied by a wayward boy with too much time on his hands.

  I found out later that he was a priest who was devoted to mentoring the town’s juvenile delinquents. This became clear to me one day when a police car and ambulance responded to a bloody incident caused by some of the young ruffians. My friend Catherine and I were working in the restaurant when we heard the sirens. We plowed our way through the crowd and saw Jean there, all bloodied and lying on a stretcher. When Catherine breathlessly said, “Oh my god, it’s the Father!” I came to recognize Jean for the first time as the blue jeans–clad man of the cloth. Catherine told me that Jean’s mentoring was frowned upon by most of the townsfolk, who didn’t want to have anything to do with the adolescent troublemakers.

  I felt close to Jean. He had given me a bit of company in the early mornings when no one else was around, so I went to the hospital to pay him a visit.

  Trying to stop a fight, he had leaned into a knife. The wound in his right shoulder would require a ten-day stay.

  Jean was very pleased to see me. From that point on, his “way of life” began to largely influence mine.

  JEAN: TWO

  After Jean left the hospital, the very first thing he did was post Pierre’s bail. Pierre was the boy who had stabbed him.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Pierre has a mother and a younger sister named Anna,” Jean said. “They both depend on him. What he needs is a job. It’s important to help him find one. He needs to make a living.”

  But it was difficult, even for someone like Jean, to find a job for Pierre. So Jean appealed to his congregation, the residents of the town who had gathered for Mass. But most of them were more interested in discussing how they could drive the young ruffians like Pierre away from town.

  “In this world, there is not a single person who is born in vain. Please understand this. Now, is there not one person in here who will lend a helping hand?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, Father,” a voice rang out. “Surely, you of all people must know just how much strife they’ve caused, how many times they’ve driven us to tears.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, that’s rig
ht,” another voice added. “Say, Father, how about taking some responsibility around here, eh?”

  “Think you’re better than the rest of us?” a third voice ranted.

  But at that moment Pierre appeared at the entrance and the church fell silent. The one to break this silence was a young boy, no older than five. He made his way across the aisle and took Pierre’s hand, saying to his father, “Papa, it’s him. I fell into the river and this man helped me.”

  The words ricocheted off the ceiling, sounding as if the dancing angels in the stained glass had voiced them. The child’s father slowly stood up and said to Pierre, “We’re looking for an assistant. The job’s repairing recycled parts. Interested?”

  “You know,” Pierre began, “I came here today just to thank Jean. Didn’t even imagine I’d get a job. If it’s something I can get a handle on, yeah, I’ll do anything.”

  A spatter of applause started, and before long it caught fire and spread throughout the congregation.

  After that incident I became very interested in Jean’s activities. He used the back room of the church as a base for carrying out various charity programs.

  I had been living as I pleased until then, never giving that much thought to what I could do for the welfare of others. Then Jean’s words, “In this world, there is not a single person who is born in vain,” had become indelibly etched in my mind before I knew it. I began to wonder: What was my life’s mission?

  “Mayu, relax,” Jean advised. “You have all the time in the world to answer that question. Your parents love you. Your friends love you. They all need you. This fact alone is reason enough for you having been born. It gives your life value.”

  I understood. But what about the people who arrived at the back room of the church every day seeking refuge from abuse and violence? Were they loved? Were they needed? “God loves everyone and needs everyone” was Jean’s response, but that didn’t sit well with me. It just sounded like sweet talk.

  I really wasn’t very religious to begin with, but there was no denying that I was seized by a compulsion to do some good. I decided to earn more by working part-time as a sightseeing guide for Japanese tourists, allocating some of that money for charitable donations. Like all philanthropic work, Jean’s mission was constantly short of funds.

  Then one day I landed a position as an interpreter for a Japanese wine manufacturer. The job paid much better than the tour-guide gig, so for the first time in my life I ended up buying a suit.

  Working this job, I met Shigeki Tachibana.

  I had been living in France for one year.

  JEAN: THREE

  Shigeki Tachibana was in his early thirties, a typical “hotshot” businessman with his showy, well-tailored suit and attaché case in hand. His eyes had long tapering slits that punctuated his good looks, but they never seemed to fix their focus on me. How shall I put it? To him I was a part of his work environment, just like the rental car he used. Actually, no, I take that back. To him I think I was even less than that; his car was the latest model Renault, you see, the classy car everyone wanted to drive at least once.

  When we first met, his disgusted reaction to my cheap thrift-shop suit made me feel miserable. But I was able to pull myself together when he held out his card.

  “I am Tachibana of Tachibana Shoji,” he said. “We deal in wines mainly.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have a business card,” I reluctantly replied. “My name is Mayu Asaka. Nice to meet you.”

  “How long have you been residing in France, Ms. Asaka?” he asked in a friendly manner, wearing a businesslike smile.

  “One year, but I don’t run into much trouble with my French now. My understanding is that the level of fluency you require today is for ordinary everyday conversations?” I became slightly nervous, since I thought he was testing my language skills.

  “There’s nothing to it, really. We’ll just be making the rounds, visiting two to three wine suppliers to hear their stories and negotiate prices. Trust me, you can handle it easily—sound good?”

  Apparently the company used to import through an agency in Hong Kong, but their business saw an uptick with the wine boom, which is why they were now sending reps to Europe to source the wines directly. The firm was mainly importing Italian wines, but had plans to expand to France and Germany as well.

  “Wine is quite en vogue with young women these days, you know,” he said with a fixed smile. “Brand goods and wine. The working woman buys her own condo. She’s strong. Seems to have no need for a man in her life.”

  I was aware back then that young Japanese female tourists were into luxury brands, buying up Chanel and Gucci goods. But if I put on any airs or graces, it was about looking poor. It was my homage to the artists of a bygone era. I couldn’t care less whether Shigeki’s rental car was classy, or that his suit was an Armani that cost hundreds of thousands of yen, or that his watch was a Bulgari. Aesthetically, he and I were worlds apart.

  The suburban countryside unfolded with vineyards stretching all the way to the horizon, and the blue sky went on forever. The earth was large and had been swallowing up everything over time, including the bloody history that had come to pass in this country.

  “There’s nothing more beautiful than a woman in the nude,” an art-school professor of mine had once said while lecturing about sketching. The comment elicited a laugh from all of us in the class, but its significance is much clearer to me now: worldly desires arise when people put on clothes. There’s something about clothing that makes people materialistic, driving them to obsess over things, resulting in crimes brought about by jewelry and property, alcohol and narcotics, and the gap between the rich and poor.

  Lost in contemplation, I blurted out, “You know, if we all lived in the nude out here in the great outdoors, our lives could be so much richer. I truly believe that.”

  I could feel myself blushing. I had been thinking out loud. But Shigeki, who had been silent all the while agreed.

  “Yes! I couldn’t agree with you more. Excellent! The nude is such a marvelous thing.”

  “Hey,” I said, laughing, partly to hide my embarrassment, “that just slipped from my mind because I’m accustomed to the sight of nude women, okay? I mean I’ve been drawing them for some time now.”

  “Really? Was it that funny?” he snapped back. “I was being serious. You seem to be misunderstanding something here, possibly because of your, shall I say, naughty little mind?”

  He was holding back his laughter as well, which proved to be the icebreaker. Any inhibition or tension between us was swept clean and from that point on our conversation began to flow smoothly.

  “I suppose you have a passion for natural vistas. That’s just great. I was worried you’d get bored, what with this drive being such a long one through a countryside.”

  “Not at all. I couldn’t be more pleased with a job like this.”

  After opening up to me, Shigeki turned downright witty, I suppose to make sure that I didn’t get bored. But I certainly didn’t, and I fluttered the moment I found out that he was still single. At the winery he let me sample wines, help out in preparing some home-cooked dishes—and he basically showed me a fabulous time, allowing me to forget that I was working.

  Gradually I found myself gravitating toward this man whose world was alien to me. There he was, tirelessly applying himself to his work as the sinking sun cast his profile as a lonely shadow. Seeing this, some powerful force seized my heart with an eagle’s grip. Here was a man who had everything—brains, status, wealth—but that shadow revealed something dark inside him, something that wasn’t happy at all. I wondered whether our paths would ever cross again, whether each of us would just end up returning to our own separate worlds.

  “I’d really like to say thank you, so how about dinner?” he said, breaking my train of thought. Naturally I had no objections, feeling suddenly ecstatic, like the setting sun springing right back up instead of disappearing down beyond the horizon.

 
“If the restaurant is a starless one, then yes, gladly,” I said. “I much prefer places that don’t appear in guidebooks.”

  “Wow! Why?”

  “Because I don’t own a dress that’s appropriate for the kind of three-star restaurant you frequent, Mr. Tachibana.”

  “In that case, would it be all right if I let you decide?”

  I took him to the place where I hung out with my painter friends: a lively beer hall with music and dancing galore. It was my territory and I was free to behave in any way I pleased.

  “I love this atmosphere,” he said. “It smells like the daily lives of the locals.”

  When a cancan dance began on the small stage at the front, spotlighting all those dancers clad in colorful costumes, Shigeki seemed to be having a genuinely good time.

  “You know, I really must thank you again, this time for showing me such a wonderful evening!”

  “Well, if you need more help in the future, you know who to call,” I said rather hysterically thanks to the beer I’d been drinking. But in my heart I was sad to say good-bye to Shigeki. I had already begun to think about meeting him again.

  JEAN: FOUR

  The next time I met Shigeki, it was at the police station. Pierre had been caught stealing. Quite unexpectedly, Jean called me—and when I arrived I was told that the victim was a Japanese woman whose male companion had caught and seized Pierre. To my surprise, that companion turned out to be Shigeki.

  When I spotted Shigeki and his young date in the dim corridor of the police station, I panicked. But I couldn’t run away and hide. The officer in charge led me into a small room with Shigeki and the woman. We were seated right across a desk from each other.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, surprised, “I certainly never imagined I’d be under your care again, and in a place like this. Sure is reassuring, though.”

  “Someone you know?” his companion asked in a low-pitched sweet-talk voice.