Summer，Fireworks，and My Corpse Read online

  Contents

  Introduction by Christopher Barzak

  Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse

  Yuko

  Glossary

  About the Author

  About the Cover Artist

  Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse

  Otsuichi

  TRANSLATED BY NATHAN COLLINS

  Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse

  by Otsuichi

  Published by Shueisha, Inc.

  Shueisha, Inc.

  2-5-10 Hitotsubashi

  Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

  101-8050, Japan

  http://www.shueisha.co.jp/english/

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or places is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 1996, 2000 by Otsuichi

  Translated by Nathan Collins

  English Translation Copyright 2013 by VIZ Media, LLC

  Introduction by Christopher Barzak

  Cover Art and Design by Norio Kozima

  Originally published in Japan in 1996 in Japanese by Shueisha Inc., Tokyo

  First printed English edition published in 2010 by Haikasoru/VIZ Media, LLC.

  First e-book English edition published in May, 2013 by Shueisha, Inc.

  EBook ISBN: 978-4-08-960003-0

  Otsuich (1978-)

  Fiction (Young Adult)/ Fiction (Ghost Story)/ Fiction (Japanese)

  Visit the author’s website: http://www.otsuichi.com

  Introduction by Christopher Barzak

  Rural Japan is a place where the strange, mysterious, and wondrous seem to permeate the atmosphere. Like fog, this odd magic of the Japanese countryside can appear dazzling and beautiful when the light of day reflects off the droplets of water hovering in the air. But at night, under the moonlight, it becomes eerie and foreboding. In Otsuichi’s Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, this vision of the writer’s homeland as a place where the impossible can happen — and often does — is laid bare.

  Otsuichi’s perspective on the Japanese countryside resonates for me in more than one way. Because I grew up in the American rural Midwest, the foliage and rice fields of rural Japan do not feel entirely unfamiliar. The children appear innocent, removed from the social anxieties and disturbances of urbanity; the adults are hardworking husbands and wives, fathers and mothers; elders live with their grown children during old age; and the small community binds everyone tightly together: you are known in these kinds of places, because there are so few people to know. There is both the feeling of comfort from being recognized, but also the terrible restrictions that come with it, the inability to step outside of who you are in the small world that envelops you.

  But Otsuichi’s rural Japan resonates, too, because I lived there for two years, teaching English in Japanese primary and middle schools. And though I haven’t returned in several years, when I read Otsuichi’s stories — especially Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse — I am returned to that place where I experienced living abroad for the first time. The happy cries of the children as they play games in the school courtyards; the remains of what was once a castle, decaying in the midst of a village; the rice fields flooded with water; the incessant sawing of the cicadas in the summer. The heat, the sweat that envelops you as you try to sleep at night in your futon, the feel of straw tatami mat beneath your feet, the reverberations of a gong struck in the early hours of morning from a temple hidden away in a nearby forest. It is a place where the wonder and terror of existence is tangible: you cannot forget your body in the extreme heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter, and you cannot but fall under the sway of the natural rhythms of life there either. You become enamored with the golden globes of the persimmons in autumn, after the leaves have fallen and the fruits hang like bright ornaments from their bare branches.

  These are some of the images and sounds and feelings I carry with me from the days and nights I spent in an isolated small town in Japan, a town not unlike the one in Otsuichi’s first masterpiece, a story published when he was only seventeen years old, which won him a wide audience in Japan. It is one of those small, isolated towns where everyone is polite to one another, helpful, and self-effacing. But beneath the placid veneer of daily life in such places, a dark current flows.

  In the case of Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, that dark current takes the form of a nine-year-old girl, Satsuki, who is unintentionally murdered by her best friend, Yayoi, who attempts to cover up the accident with the help of her twelve-year-old brother, Ken. This tale of unintended murder among schoolchildren revolves around the axis of innocence and guilt, naivety and experience. The unintended murderer, Yayoi, and her older brother, Ken, spend the majority of the story moving Satsuki’s corpse to various hiding places in an attempt to cover up what Yayoi has already convinced her brother was an accident instead of the push out of the tree that leads to Satsuki’s death. Some readers may wonder why the children would attempt to cover up what Yayoi has already established as an accident, regardless of the truth, but it makes sense to me entirely. They are children, unsophisticated in the ways of lying. The story is really about how they come to be experienced and savvy in the way of lying and covering up their misdeeds. In Otsuichi’s perspective, the story seems to underscore the idea that in order to become adults, people must become adept at lying and hiding their dirty laundry or bad behavior. Without giving away any surprises (and there are many in this spare yet rich story), the children’s lack of experience in covering up Yayoi’s misdeed becomes a part of the story’s amazing line of narrative tension: despite the injustice of Satsuki’s death, the reader actually becomes somewhat sympathetic to the children, hoping that they might get away with hiding Satsuki’s corpse, that they might preserve their innocence by erasing the event that has unrelentingly hurled them into adulthood and all of the guilt and shame that defines being an adult in Otsuichi’s vision.

  Despite all of the darkness in this story, though, Otsuichi brings many of the bright charms of Japan alive as well. Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse is softened by the voice of its own narrator, Satsuki, the murdered child. The narrative effect for Western readers might be reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, although Otsuichi created his murdered child narrator at least five years prior to Sebold. Satsuki’s voice haunts this short novel, observing her friends’ attempts to hide her corpse with both insight into human nature (after she’s passed away from it) and humorous childlike delight. The children’s fireworks festival is held amid the search for the missing child; and in the end, Satsuki ironically receives her wish (from the beginning of the novel) to play the game kagome, kagome, a game in Japan that asks an implied question: “Who is behind my backstabbing or defeat?” The answer to this question in the novel itself is ambiguous and complex.

  Along with Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse, this edition includes the gothic short story “Yuko,” which will raise the hairs on the necks of readers as they encounter a post-war Japan in which a young woman is brought to the mansion of a Japanese writer to be his servant. A formidable mystery unfolds soon after she begins work for the writer, and continues to perplex and entice the reader’s imagination even after the story’s close.

  Though Otsuichi has many talents as a writer, his most evident skill is in bracing suspense and investigating the nature of unexpected yet daily horrors. Readers who have yet to encounter his bright yet disturbing stories are in for an unforgettable experience. And those readers who have already read some of his other popular titles will be engrossed with these early and rem
arkable fireworks in a dark, remote sky.

  — Christopher Barzak, author of One for Sorrow which is being made into the feature film “Jamie Markes is Dead”

  Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse

  Kagome, Kagome,

  Bird in a cage,

  When will you come out?

  Just before dawn

  The crane and turtle fell.

  Who is behind you now?

  —from “Kagome, Kagome,”

  a Japanese children’s rhyme

  DAY ONE

  I was nine years old, and it was summer.

  Vibrant green trees grew thickly around the shrine and shaded its gravel grounds. The cries of cicadas drifted down from branches reaching upward as if to grasp the summer sun.

  “I wonder if my brother and the rest of the boys are done talking yet,” Yayoi said to me. “You think they are, Satsuki?”

  She was twirling her hair with her fingers, and her eyebrows were scrunched down, making wrinkles above her nose. She sounded annoyed.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Yayoi Tachibana and I were in the same grade. We were best friends, and we—along with her brother Ken—played together every day.

  We were sitting alone on the shaded wooden steps of the shrine, waiting for Ken, who was helping with the preparations for the town’s small fireworks show only a few days away.

  “He’s taking forever,” said Yayoi as she looked over at the old stone foundation across the shrine’s spacious grounds. “Why can’t they just let us girls climb up there too? This is so boring.”

  The old foundation, a flat, rectangular mound of rocks piled about as large as a warehouse, looked like a small castle built of nothing but dry stone. It stood about as tall as the roof of a house, and I heard that recently, a kid from one of the neighboring villages had fallen while climbing it and gotten hurt.

  I was sure some important building had once stood upon that foundation, but that day all that was on top of it were the seated figures of several of the older boys from the village, who were meeting up there to discuss plans for the fireworks show.

  I looked jealously over at the dry-stone foundation and muttered, “Boys are lucky, getting to climb up there.”

  Tall trees grew all around it, providing cool shade from the summer heat. It must have felt nice up there. I bet you could see far away. But girls weren’t allowed to climb up. If we tried to, the boys would get mad. Even if we asked first, they wouldn’t let us.

  But Ken had told me all kinds of things about it. That from up there he could see my house. That the stone felt nice and cool. That there was a hole among the rocks the boys threw candy wrappers into. That the hole was so big they had to warn the younger kids away from it. I knew all this because Ken had told me so.

  “Yeah, real lucky,” Yayoi said. “I wish I was born a boy. If I were a boy, I’d be able to climb the foundation, and I could play with my brother.”

  The boys around here didn’t let girls join their games.

  As we waited, watching for the meeting to end, we grew more and more bored. The shrine had a small playground—a horizontal bar, a swing set, and a slide—but I didn’t feel like playing on them. They’d be too hot under the summer sun, and besides, they were all rusted anyway. So I preferred sitting in the cool shade.

  But Yayoi apparently felt differently, and she jumped to her feet, stretched in an attempt to shake loose the tedium, and said, “Come on, let’s go do something. I’m so bored I could die!”

  “But it’s hot out of the shade. I like being cool.”

  “Okay, fine. What do you want to do then?”

  I thought about it a moment and replied, “I want to play ‘Kagome, Kagome.’”

  “But you can’t play that with only two people . . .” Yayoi slumped back down onto the wooden steps of the shrine.

  The staircase was old, about five or six steps tall. During the summer fireworks show or the New Year’s bonfire, a box for offerings was placed on the steps. The shrine, also old, was built from dried timber. Although located in the center of the village, it only took on significance when it was decorated for the seasonal holidays.

  The buzzing song of an Arabian cicada perched on a nearby tree made the heat feel that much hotter. Even sitting there, idly tracing pictures in the gravel with my finger, I was sweating. A mountainous thunderhead formed animal shapes as it floated in the blue sky.

  “Hey, that’s pretty good!” Yayoi said, impressed. She looked back and forth between the gravel and the sky. “It’s a dog, right? Just like the shape of that cloud.”

  “Yep. Too bad Six-Six isn’t this cute, right?”

  We both laughed. Six-Six was a dog that lived in the village. He was a mutt, white and aggressive, with a habit of stealing shoes. And just then, as if he’d heard our laughter and was not at all happy about it, he growled.

  We screamed in unison. “Aaaah! Six-Six!”

  The white dog stood right in front of us. Up close, he looked terribly large. His extended claws and hateful gaze sent chills down my spine.

  “Yayoi,” I said, keeping my eyes on the beast, “we’d better run.”

  That was what the kids around here usually did when faced with Six-Six’s stare. But Yayoi didn’t move. She couldn’t. I too, despite the advice I’d given only moments before, was frozen like a frog caught under a snake’s gaze. I had the feeling that he’d leap for us the instant we made the slightest move.

  Six-Six advanced toward us step by step. I half expected him to order us to move out of his way.

  The story of an older kid being bitten on the face by Six-Six flashed through my mind, and the vividness of it filled me with dread.

  But just then, Six-Six yelped as he was struck by a rock right on the butt.

  “Brother!” Yayoi cried out.

  Ken was standing farther down the concrete path. With a look of sympathy for the creature, he threw another rock at the mutt. The dog howled at Ken in a voice that could have been heard from beyond the grave and then left, repeatedly looking back over his shoulder in frustration as he went. Six-Six didn’t usually give up so easily.

  “Are the two of you all right?” Ken asked, smiling to console us two younger girls. Behind his kind demeanor lay the courage to stand up to—and subdue—Six-Six. He was two years older than us and deserved every bit of the pride his sister had in him.

  “Yeah, we’re fine!” Yayoi said as she flung herself at her brother. “Is the fireworks meeting over? Let’s go home. Maybe Midori brought us ice cream today!”

  Having been rescued from the terror of Six-Six, I felt my energy drain away. I slumped down upon the wooden staircase and watched Yayoi with envy.

  “Yeah, I sure hope so,” Ken said. He looked over at me. “But first—are you all right, Satsuki?”

  I looked up at his smiling face and nodded.

  *

  Under the hot sunlight, we walked the winding gravel roads along paddy fields carpeted green with growing rice all the way to their house, which was quite far from the shrine. The fields lay dry, drained of their water. The process was called “field drying.” The rice plants were deprived of water, and in their thirst they reached their roots deeper into the soil in desperate search of nourishment. The fields were only dried for a few days each summer, but still, I always felt sorry for the rice whenever I saw the cracked, dry earth. But it was necessary to strengthen their roots.

  Just as we’d hoped, Midori was waiting for us at Ken and Yayoi’s home.

  “Awesome!” Yayoi cheered. “Ice cream! Thanks, Midori!”

  “You’re welcome,” she replied with a grin. “Well, go ahead, you’d better eat up before it melts.”

  Everyone had finished their work for the day, and Ken, Yayoi, their mother, Midori, and I all sat on the floor around the living room kotatsu. (Well, since it was summer, the blanket was no longer draped over it, and the heater beneath it was switched off, so it was less of a kotatsu and more of a low table.) A mountain of
vanilla ice cream cups were piled on top of the kotatsu.

  “Thanks again, Midori,” said Mrs. Tachibana. “Look at all this ice cream!”

  “It’s nothing. After all, it hardly costs me anything. But when you do buy ice cream, I hope you’ll pick ours.”

  Midori was the daughter of Mrs. Tachibana’s sister, or something like that. Even in the somewhat dim light inside the house, her snow-white clothes and pale skin shone as if she’d brought the brightness of the outside in with her. She had an air of elegance rare for village women. Midori had graduated from high school that spring and found a job working in an ice cream factory. She lived in the same village as us, and sometimes, on her days off, she brought ice cream over to the Tachibanas’ home.

  We lapped up ice cream until our tongues felt funny from the cold. I liked coming over to their house because they treated me like a member of their family.

  “Hey, turn on the TV—my anime is almost on,” Yayoi said to her mother, who turned the TV on without reply. At my house, asking to turn the TV on at dinner would just start a fight. I was jealous of Yayoi for having a nice mother.

  The TV buzzed to life, and after a short while, the picture came up. A picture of a boy filled the screen.

  “Not again . . .” Midori said softly, her voice filled with pity and sadness. “How horrible.”

  The child, an elementary school student, had disappeared a week before. He was the fifth boy to go missing this summer. The adults all thought they had been kidnapped.

  “It’s awful,” Mrs. Tachibana said. “Look, that town he’s from isn’t too far from here.”

  And not just that one. All the supposedly kidnapped boys had been from neighboring prefectures.

  “Ken, you’d better be careful,” Midori teased, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re such an adorable boy, you might get kidnapped too.” Her hair, waist-length and silky smooth, flowed in the air as she faked a lunge at him.

  Ken nodded and blushed—a common sight when Midori was around.