Fifty Words for Rain(84)

* * *





Noriko.

There, I have it. I am not sure how many days it took me to figure this out. Someone has covered the window with paper, so I have to rely on my ears to tell me what o’clock it is.

Someone came today—or was it yesterday?—that I thought I recognized, but then I lost it. It slipped away from me like rain off a wing.

They rub an ointment on my chest that smells like sulfur. It stings and I cry out, but I can’t hear that either.

I can do nothing but cry.



* * *





They let me out of the room.

If I walk between two of them and lean a little, I can move around the hallway.

I think now that I know this place. It is not a strange prison, as I first thought.

This is . . . familiar to me. I feel a tiny spark of affection, of hope, but I cannot remember why.

I take hold of one woman’s sleeve and look into her pale, tearstained face.

“Something’s wrong,” I tell her.

It is the first time I have tried to speak, and my voice is feeble and useless. But I think she understands. I still can’t hear, but I can read her lips.

“Nori . . .”

The other woman cuts her off. “Don’t tell her. She won’t remember. You’re just torturing her.”

“She has a right—”

“Remember last time? It’s pointless. And it’s cruel.”

I feel a deep pang in my chest, like someone is ripping me in two from the inside out.

I wake up many hours later. The pain is gone.

But I still cannot stop crying.



* * *





There is someone I must find.

I am Noriko, Noriko Kamiza, and I have a mother who is gone, and a father who I have never known, and a friend with silver hair who is across the sea.

And I have something else.

I have the warmth of the sun and the weight of it too.

Why can’t I remember?



* * *





It all descended on her in one moment of startling clarity. It was powerful enough to jolt her from her sleep.

Nori stood up. Every limb in her body was screaming, and she was half naked, stripped from the waist up, but she did not care. She wrapped the blanket around herself and walked.

She had the most surreal feeling, like none of this was really happening at all.

She made her way down the hall, stopped at the third door to the right. Knocked.

There was no reply.

She opened the door.

Akira’s room was just as he left it. The bed was made; the binders and binders of sheet music were stacked neatly on the desk. The many scarves she’d knitted him were hanging on a hook next to the mirror.

And there, sitting on the bed, was a figure half cloaked in darkness.

She crept forward, ignoring the fact that it felt like walking through flames.

The figure looked up.

“Ayame,” Nori whispered.

Ayame said nothing. Her pallor was deathly; her hair was greasy. Her blue dress looked dirty.

And she was crying.

Nori felt a deep wave move through her. Something told her to leave, to go back to her room and go back to sleep. To sink back into the delirium.

Because this was unspeakable. Impossible.

Nori shut her eyes. “Where is he?”

Ayame let out a broken sob. “I’m not . . . I’m not supposed to . . .”

For a brief moment, Nori allowed herself blind, stupid hope.

“Is he in Vienna?” she asked, in a squeaky little voice that sounded pathetic even to her.

Ayame stared at her, wide-eyed and white-faced, saying nothing.

“I know he was going to Vienna,” Nori pressed on. “But then he was going to come back.”

Her voice broke and she tried to take a breath, but the pain in her chest was so great that it nearly knocked her over.

“He was going to come back,” she breathed. “He promised he’d come back.”

Ayame rose from the bed. “He did come back,” she said softly. “For your concert. Don’t you remember?”

“I . . .”

The world turning upside down. Broken glass.

Fire.

“I . . .”

Ayame took another step towards her, and Nori found herself holding out her hands as if she could keep the truth at bay.

“Don’t,” she raged weakly. “Don’t say it.”

But Ayame did not stop. “He did come back. You were on the way home. But it was dark and . . . it was snowing. The car—”

“I said DON’T!”

“The car went off the road.”

Nori tried to run away, but she tripped over the hem of her blanket and fell to the floor. She bowed her head and put her hands up, pleading.

“Please don’t,” she whispered. “Please.”

“It slid down the embankment, into the woods. You hit the trees.”

Finally, Nori looked up. Her eyes were dry. And though she was kneeling, her shoulders were squared.

She took in this moment, this room, down to the last speck of dust floating in the air. She let it all absorb into her very bones. She forced herself to remember, with exacting clarity, the moment before. She held it tightly in her hands, like a wriggling little bird.