Last Winter We Parted by Fuminori Nakamura Read Free Book Online Page B

moving.
    “Aren’t you a member of K2? There’s no doll here.”
    “… I don’t know if I’d call myself a member, I just hung out a lot at the doll creator’s house.”
    “… That’s not the way I understood it.”
    He stands there with his coat on. Both his suit and his coat are new, and tasteful. His features are relatively refined. If I saw him on the train, I would probably take him for a respectable company man.
    “Just thinking about giving you an interview is enough to make me depressed. That’s why I figured, just hurry up and get this unpleasantness over with. Quickly. Before I change my mind.”
    “I appreciate your allowing me to interview you.”
    “The thing is … I’m also to blame.”
    “To blame?”
    “No … That’s enough about that.”
    I am just about to make some coffee for him when suddenly he moves.
    “… I just can’t. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
    “What?”
    “Excuse me. I can’t do the interview.”
    He makes as if to leave. I don’t understand what is going on. My cell phone rings—it is probably my editor calling. But I don’t have time to answer it now.
    “… Please wait. At least let me walk you to the station.”
    I run after the man as he leaves my apartment. I don’t even stop to lock the door. I soon manage to catch up with him.
    He wants to talk, I think. People like him sometimes turn out to be chatterboxes. As if they overflow when their isolation is suddenly broken. Drawing abreast of him, I make a suggestion.
    “Why don’t we go someplace else?… We can have a drink somewhere. It’ll be on me.”

8
    WE ARE SEATED at a table at the back of a dim bar. I asked for a beer, but Saito has ordered a whiskey. An oversized ceiling fan is spinning above us without a sound.
    “So you’re writing a book about Yudai Kiharazaka.”
    He speaks softly, almost muttering.
    “… You mean, you want to know about the psychology behind the crime. Like all those other nonfiction books … where you interview all kinds of people in order to expose his dark secrets … That kind of thing?”
    He is right in front of me, asking these questions, but for some reason he seems to be looking at something behind me.
    “… Yes.”
    “Would my name be in it? Would I be able to check the manuscript?”
    “You would, and I wouldn’t put your name in it. Whatever I would write about you, there’d be no way for anyone to know it was you.”
    A woman in a short skirt brings over the beer and whiskey. A black bra is visible through her white blouse.
    When the woman approaches our table, the man suddenly looks down. It’s as if he’s just trying to make it through the moment. First she places my beer on the table and then she sets down the glass of whiskey. While she does so, he doesn’t move. He seems to be waiting to confirm that she has left, disappeared again behind the counter. After a moment he brings the glass to his lips and takes in a quick breath.
    “… First let’s get something straight … I didn’t kill her.”
    “… Yes, I know that.”
    He is that woman’s stalker.
    “It was a traffic accident. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. It happened while she was on a trip with her bartender boyfriend. I don’t know. By that time, I no longer had any interest in her herself.”
    “… Because you had the doll?”
    “That’s right.”
    He drinks his whiskey. I am the one sitting across from him, I am the one interacting with him, yet he won’t look me in the eye—it is as if he is having a conversation with someone else.
    “… She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. But I was sure that was only because she didn’t really know me.”
    He brings the glass to his lips again. The tone of his voice quickens a little.
    “I thought that, in order for her to like me, I needed to know more about her. I was shocked when I heard the police use the word stalker.”
    Saito shifts his gaze somewhat to the left of me.
    “I