Read Online Nagasaki by Emily Boyce Éric Faye - Free Book Online

rooted to the pavement, she read the sorry sign once more. Then she stepped closer. She rang the doorbell, but there was no reply. A glance inside: the furniture was gone. There was a phone number on the sign which she noted down on the palm of her hand: an estate agent. A little later, the same hand pushed a coin into the slot of a pay phone. Still unbelieving, she asked if the house really was for sale and, if so, since when. Two weeks, she was told. We’re holding an open house in an hour if you’re interested? Caught off guard, she agreed.
    What can have happened to the man? she worried to herself, sitting with the beer she had ordered. Then she remembered something. On the day of the trial, hadn’t he said, rather dramatically, something along the lines of: I don’t feel at home in my own house any more? So it was true … So true that he had decided to move out? Looking in the mirror in the toilets, she composed her face in a suitable expression. Soon the hour would be up: it was time to go.

    *
    So, after several months, here she was again inside the house, with nothing to fear this time. Just being there. It was incredible. She could have simply stayed outside and put her questions to the estate agent on the doorstep, could have said the house meant nothing to her in itself; but she crossed the threshold with the others. There were five of them, buzzing to and fro like flies on shit and asking damned stupid questions. The estate agent waited, answered. The woman lingered a while in the kitchen, then in the living room. Seeing the rooms now empty unsettled her and she feigned interest in the sale in order to hide her unease. For in its empty state, the house took her a long way back. Not a few months back, to the Shimura period, but much further into the depths of time. A thought that struck her as almost biblical crossed her mind: happy are the amnesiacs, for the past is suffering. Our creditors devoted most of their energy to snatching the possession that was our only source of riches.
    Still, she was determined to complete the tour; she walked along the little corridor and went in. The others hadn’t spent long in this room – rather poky and cut-off, when all was said and done – and had returned to the main part of the property. Same old tatami smell, same late-afternoon light. Her hand hesitated before sliding the cupboard door across. Same scraping of the rollers. Same shadows inside. She remained standing in front of it. Didn’t hear at first when someone called her a few minutes later. It was the estate agent, standing in the doorway.
    ‘Excuse me, madam? The visit’s over now, if you wouldn’t mind … Madam?’
    She caught the words ‘visit’ and ‘over’, and it made her think of the prison visiting room. She must have slipped into a trance, so he repeated himself, expressing concern at how pale she had gone.
    ‘Is everything all right, madam?’
    She shuddered and turned to face him. ‘I’m coming, sorry. I was miles away.’
    Then she plucked up the courage to ask herquestion. The owner. Was it possible to contact him directly?
    ‘The sale has to go via us, I’m afraid.’
    ‘No, you misunderstand me, it’s not so that I can buy it. That’s not it. It’s difficult to explain. I need to contact him for personal reasons. What address can I use to write to him? That’s all I want to know.’
    ‘In that case …’ The agent thought about it, and then smiled. ‘In that case, send us a letter and we’ll forward it, no problem.’

 
    There is no ideal way to begin a letter to a stranger. It’s true we are not total strangers, though we have only seen one another once ‘in real life’, and in the strangest of circumstances. I’ll waste no more time on the preliminaries, Shimura-san. Above all, I wanted to express my gratitude for your restraint at the trial. That’s the only word I can find for it, restraint.
    She put her pen down at the end of this sentence, laying it across