Mr. KITO'S DISAPPEARANCE LIKE SMOKE

Mr. Kito’s Disappearance Like Smoke

 

Tuesday, October 20, 2004   The first day of disappearance

 

   Around 8:30 p.m. Akihiko Tsushima of Kitagawa Senior High School, a new chemistry teacher, was studying several books in the Science Study Room. He had failed to answer his student’s question that day and had to get the answer by the next day, otherwise the students would make light of him. He compared several charts, read the same pages and examined chemical formulae repeatedly. He thought and thought until finally he solved the problem.

   “All right, now I can answer him tomorrow,” he thought and returned the reference books to the shelves, turned off the light, and went out of the room. The corridor was dark. He locked the door and turned on the light of the corridor. The whole span became bright. There was no one in the school. Nothing was heard except for the distant dim traffic noise.

He began to walk to the teachers’ room. The sounds of his steps echoed in the corridor. He felt as if someone was following just behind him imitating his steps. The teachers’ room was at the west end of the corridor. When he came near, he suddenly heard the telephone ringing in the room.

“Who is calling so late at night?” he wondered and hurried. He opened the door. It was dark. Nobody was there. The telephone was on the vice principal’s desk, which was at the farthest corner from the door. Akihiko, switched on the light, walked fast and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, this is Kitagawa High School,” he said.

No one answered.

“Hello, hello.”

No answer.

Damn it, he thought. Someone must have called the wrong number, he thought and walked to his desk, when again the telephone rang. He returned to the telephone irritated.

“Hello, this is Kitagawa High School.”

“Hello, is this Kitagawa High School?” a feeble woman’s voice answered.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry to call you so late at night, but is Kito still at school?”

Akihiko, not accustomed to answering telephone calls from students’ parents or teachers’ family members, thought she was rude because she said, “Kito” instead of “Mr. Kito,” but a moment later he realized that she was Mr. Kito’s wife.

“Mr. Kito has already gone home, I think. Yes? Oh, I am Akihiko Tsushima, a new teacher. Yes, he usually leaves school around seven. Ah, please hold on. He may be in the Mathematics Study Room.”

Akihiko put the receiver on the desk and went out of the teachers’ room to the corridor. He looked at the direction of the study room, but it was dark. He returned to the teachers’ room, and called the same room using another telephone. Nobody answered. So he went to Kito’s desk to see if his bag was there. Nothing was on the desk except a bookcase. He went to the phone and said,

“Hello, he is not in the math study room. His bag is not on his desk. So, I’m sure he has left school. That’s right. Yes, not at all. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

Takahiro Kito was a 52-year-old, medium-built math teacher. His hair was always parted on the left with the proportion of exactly 3 to 7. Every morning when he left home, he looked at the sideburns on either side in the mirror to see if they were the same length. Before he left school, he always cleared his desk and wiped it. The bookcase on his desk was lacquer-coated and custom-built. It had a lid that covered the whole bookcase. When the lid was closed, the bookcase looked like an Edo era’s precious wooden box which contained family treasure. The order of the books, textbooks, files, notebooks in the bookcase was fixed; the fifth from the left was always the monthly magazine of “Mathematics Today.” When he received an envelope from a school clerk, he took out a knife and a ruler from his drawer, put the ruler at five millimeters away from the edge of the envelope, and cut it open carefully before he read the letter. Once Akihiko tried to imitate the Kito’s method of opening an envelope, but failed. He was not so patient and exact as Kito. He usually tore the envelope with his fingers impatiently, sometimes tearing a part of the letter.

Putting down the receiver on the hook, Akihiko thought it strange that Kito was so late in coming back home. He should have at least called his wife, but on second thought, Akihiko realized that since Kito was the head of the student discipline department, he might have ran into a student’s problem or accident on his way home and visited the student or the police. “But why hasn’t he called his wife?” he wondered. When Akihiko left school around 9:00 p.m., he looked at Kito’s shoe locker among the teachers’ at the school entrance and found no shoes.

Kito’s wife, Sanae, was worried. She knew her husband was sometimes late because he was in charge of the students’ behavior and manners in and out of school and sometimes had to interrogate students or hold students punishment committee meetings. But he had never failed to tell her on the phone that he would be late. That night, however, he did not. She telephoned the school, but a young teacher had said that he had already left the school. She waited for the telephone ring till 9:00, but no phone calls came. She waited another hour but in vain. If she had children at home, she could get distracted by them, but her only child, a daughter, was a university student living in Tokyo. She was getting more and more irritated and worried as the night progressed.

The telephone rang at 10:09. She breathed a sigh of relief. Intending to make a complaint against her husband, she picked up the receiver and said,

“What’s the matter with you?”

“… Is this Mr. Matsui?”

“Matsui? No. You have the wrong number.”

“I’m sorry.”

She heard the sound of the phone being put down. She couldn’t stand it any more. She wanted to talk to someone about her missing husband. Otherwise, she would go mad. She hesitated to call the police. Her husband might come back any moment. So, she decided to call the vice-principal.

“Hello, I am sorry to call you so late at night, but is this Mr. Kotani?”

“Yes, but may I ask your name?” said a woman’s voice. She sounded like Kotani’s wife.

“Ah, yes. My name is Sanae Kito. I am Kito’s wife. He works for Kitagawa High School. Is Mr. Kotani there?”

“Yes, please wait a moment.”

Sanae heard Kotani's wife calling her husband. He took the receiver from his wife and spoke into the phone. 

“This is Kotani.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but this is Kito’s wife. I have called you because my husband has not come home yet. I called the school, but he was not there. So, I thought you probably knew where he was. Don’t you know his whereabouts? Didn’t he go somewhere on school business?”

“I’m sorry but I don’t know. He has no school business trip today. I haven’t heard anything about his plans for today after school,” he said, and after a moment pause, he continued,   

“Well, I don’t want to meddle in your business, but I recommend you call the police if he is so late.”

Mrs. Kito thanked him. She had been actually hesitating to call the police. She waited till 11:00 p.m. and reported the police.

 

Wednesday, October 21  The second day of disappearance

 

   The telephone in the teachers’ room rang at 8:00 a.m. The vice-principal, Kotani, picked up the phone.

   “Hello, this is Kitagawa High School.”

   “I am Kito’s wife. I would like to talk to Mr. Kotani.”

   “This is Kotani.”

   “Oh, thank you for everything yesterday, but my husband has not come home yet.”

   “Not yet? What has happened to him? So, have you called the police?”

   “Yes, around eleven o’clock.”

   “I see, I understand how worried you are. The school will cooperate with you by all means. I’ll call you if I get any information about his whereabouts.”  

   “Yes, thank you.”

   Kotani looked at that day’s curriculum timetable. It was just after the third term examinations and almost all teachers were going to return the examination papers to the students. There were four of Kito’s classes for the second year students that day. Kotani talked with Tomida, the second-year-head teacher and Kawamoto, the curriculum department chief, about what to do with Kito’s classes. They decided that the students should study by themselves without Kito. Akihiko was assigned to supervise the students. Kawamoto went to the curriculum department room, took out a bunch of printed papers of mathematics problems which Kito had prepared in case he would be absent, and handed it to Akihiko.

   At 8:20 in the morning a teachers’ meeting was held. On the blackboard behind the vice-principal’s desk was written: Absent Mr. Kito. The meeting began with the announcement by the curriculum chief about the input of the examination results on the computer, followed by the extracurricular activity chief about the extension of the club activity time. And at the end of the meeting Kotani said:

   “Today Mr. Kotani is absent, but to tell you the truth, he has been missing since last night. His wife reported the police, and he hasn’t come back home yet. Ah, does anyone know about his whereabouts?”

   The teachers were surprised. They looked at each other, but no one knew his location. Kito had been awarded with the citation for his 30-year work for the school on the school foundation day last November. He had never been late for or absent from school for the past 30 years. Therefore, his missing aroused a great sensation. Kotani added,

　　“For the meantime, please do not tell this incident to students.”

At 8:30, the chime for the short homeroom meeting rang. The homeroom teachers went to their homeroom classrooms with attendance books and the classroom journals. Soon the prayer was broadcast all over the school: our father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will…. All the teachers, students, and office workers stood and prayed.

At 8:35, noisy steps were heard coming towards the teachers’ room. The door opened wildly and Mr. Morimoto, shouting, “Sorry I am late,” took the attendance book from the rack, and rushed to the first-year A classroom.

When the first-period chime rang, Akihiko went to the second-year A classroom with the chemistry examination papers which he had been marking. He opened the door and was surprised to see all the students were quiet at their desks. That would not take place in his class, Akihiko thought. They were always noisy when he entered his classroom, but now they had been waiting for Mr. Kito, a scary teacher, under tension. Admiring Kito’s influence on the students, Akihiko entered the classroom. Yuichi Kondo, a student in the front row said, “This is not your class. Our first period is Mr. Kito’s math class.” “I know,” Akihiko said stepping onto the platform. He looked over the students and said,

“Mr. Kito is absent today. So you should study by yourselves. I have brought his assignment for you. Solve the math problems within this period and turn in the papers at the end of the class.”

Relaxing, the students became playful and said as if celebrating, “Self-study, self-study!” Kito was the severest teacher. He was referred to as Jito, an iron-hearted tax collector in the 11^th century Kamakura era. His voice was also the loudest. You could hear his class from the field. When he scolded students in the teachers’ room, all the window panes vibrated. A women clerk was seen one day to stand frozen as if struck by thunder when she happened to be in the teachers’ room where he was scolding a student. When the student went out of the teachers’ room, Kito’s roar instantaneously abated and he began talking with his neighboring teacher in a mild tone. Furthermore, when he cracked a joke which the students did not think was funny, they had to laugh to please him. However, if they continued to laugh, he scolded them, “What’s so funny? Be quiet!” Therefore, the students did not know when to laugh and when not to laugh, always trying to gauge Kito’s feelings. When Kito’s class finished, the students thought as if all the classes for the day had finished and so the rest of the classes were relaxing time for them. Yet, they liked Kito intuitively for he was a man of deep humanity.

Akihiko wanted to scold the students by saying that it was not the time for cheerfulness because Mr. Kito had disappeared. Some students were still noisy after several minutes, so Akihiko played his trump card saying, “I’ll report the names of the noisy students to Mr. Kito later.”

To this, they retorted that he was using a dirty trick, but soon all the students became quiet and began to solve the problems.

When Akihiko looked over the students, he found an empty desk.

“Whose desk is that?” he asked.

“Yamada’s. He has gone to the rest room,” Yukio Ishibashi who sat next to the empty desk said.

Akihiko opened the attendance book, wrote, “Self-study, Tsushima” in the first period space. Several minutes later, he stepped down from the platform, walked along the aisle looking around the students. Every student was engaged in solving the problems, some asking questions of their neighboring students in small voices. When Akihiko came by the side of Ikuyo Saito, who sat at the last row on the corridor side, she said in a small voice,

   “Mr. Tsushima, I hear queer noise from the rest room. I think someone is groaning out there. I feel unpleasant to hear that. There it goes again! Can you hear that?”

   Akihiko tried to hear the noise but he couldn’t.

   “I can’t hear any…. Yes. I hear the noise,” he said and thought that probably Yamada was in trouble and making the noise in the rest room.

   “You see,” Ikuyo said.

   “Yes. I’ll go and see,” Akihiko said looking over the students. He opened the door in the back of the classroom quietly, and slipped out of it.

   The second-year A classroom was situated at the east end of the school building. The restroom was next to A classroom to the east. When he approached the restroom, he heard someone hitting something hard and shouting. He opened the door and said,   

“Anybody here?”

No answer.

“Is anybody here?” he repeated.

“Help me, help me!” he heard a student’s desperate voice.

“Who’s here? Is it Yamada?”

“Yes, I am Yamada. The door won’t open.”

“All right,” Akihiko said and opened the doors of the booths one by one. When he tried to open the fourth one, the door would not open. He knocked on the door and said,

“Yamada, are you in here?”

“Yes, please open,” he was still crying. What a chicken he was, Akihiko thought. He tried to turn the knob to the left, but it wouldn’t turn. He tried to turn it to the right, but it did not move at all. He pulled and pushed, but in vain. Yamada was crying. Irritated, Akihiko said, “Be quiet. Calm down, Yamada.” This time Akihiko turned the knob slowly to the left pushing it hard at the same time. Click, and it opened. Yamada came out exhausted, still sobbing.

   “All right, all right, don’t cry. Now go back to the classroom.”

   Yamada left the restroom.

   Akihiko washed his hands and walked to the door of the rest room, when he heard a hollow metallic clank. Where did the noise come, he wondered, and looked around the restroom. Nothing unusual. He looked up at the ceiling. Water pipes ran on the walls just below the ceiling. They were connected to the main water tank. Suddenly he heard the toilets flush. After the flush, the whole tank and the pipes began to make strange noises, clank, clang, clank, clang with an intermittent wailing sound. Akihiko felt uneasy. He opened the cleaning tool cupboard, grabbed a mop, and held it upside down. He intended to strike one of the pipes with the handle. The noise had ceased for a moment. He held the handle upward near the pipes, when they began to make clanking noise. He struck the pipe hard two times. The noise stopped. Akihiko waited for a few seconds. No more sound. He returned the mop into the cupboard, went out of the restroom to the corridor. Then he again heard the queer dim noise from the toilet. He thought he had to tell the office to renew the pipes and the tank.

  In the corridor he happened to see litter scattered in front of the garbage

 chute on the wall next to the rest room to the east. The school building had three floors with the chute door on each floor. When the students threw litter into the chute, it dropped through it onto the basement incinerator. Sometimes lazy students did not clean the litter which overflowed from the garbage chute door. They did not sweep the floor using the broom and the dustpan hung near the chute door. Since Akihiko was in charge of the school cleaning, he could not ignore the litter. He cleaned it, opened the door, and threw it. All the while he heard some queer dim noise from the rest room.

   He returned to A classroom. The students were quiet except for a few who were talking with each other in small voices. He went to Ikuyo and said, “Thank you, Yamada was stuck in the toilet.”

   “Yes, I saw him return, but I still hear queer noise from the restroom,” she said.

   “I know. The sound comes from the water pipes. They are old and make strange noises. Don’t worry.”

   Akihiko walked quietly along the aisle to the platform and sat at the teacher’s desk. He began to mark the chemistry examination papers. Koichi Kawase, a student in the front row peeped at the papers and said, “Oh, that’s B class papers and not ours.”

   Thirty minutes later the chime rang. He collected all the assignment papers and returned to the teachers’ room.

   When he went to his desk, he saw two second-year students, Ryota Matsuda and Hoshito Suzuki, talking with Mr. Ando, whose desk was next to his. Ryota said his new notebook-computer was missing.

   “Are you sure you put it in your locker?” Mr. Ando said.

   “Yes, I put it there after the morning homeroom meeting. Hoshito happened to be standing next to me and saw me put it there,” Ryota said.

   “Did you see it?” Ando said to Hoshito.

   “Yes, I did,” Hoshito said.

   “And you noticed it missing just now? We’ve told you not to bring precious things to school. The lockers are not safe. As you know, they are open and have no keys,” Ando said.

   “I am sorry,” Ryota said.

   “OK. I’ll check all the lockers during the next class. Go back to the classroom,” Ando said and noticed Hideo Yukawa standing beside him.

   “Hideo, why are you here?”

   “I have a question,” Hideo said.

   “The class will start soon. Come again,” Ando said.

   The chime for the second class rang. Ando grabbed his physics textbook and chalk box and stood up.

   Akihiko headed for second-year B classroom. He opened the door, stood on the platform. With the “Stand up” command by the head student, all the students stood up, and bowed following the word “Bow.” Akihiko bowed, looked around the students and said, “Who is absent today? No one?”

   Then Hideo Yukawa approached him and said,

   “May I go to the rest room?”

   “The rest room? Why didn’t you go during the recess? You have spoilt my class,” Akihiko said with frown.

   “I’m sorry, but I went to Mr. Ando to ask a question.”

   “No excuse, be careful next time. OK. You may go,” Akihiko said.

   Hideo hurriedly went out of the classroom. Akihiko told the students to solve Mr. Kito’s math assignment problems. For the first 5 or 6 minutes they were noisy but soon they began to do the assignment. Soon Hideo came back and he also began to do the work.

   Ten minutes later, Akihiko heard the opening and closing sound of the lockers’ doors from the corridor. He thought Mr. Ando was looking for the computer.

   Lunch time came, but no news about Mr. Kito was heard.

   When Akihiko finished lunch at his desk, he went to the resting corner of the teachers’ room. Five teachers were talking about Mr. Kito while drinking tea. Akihiko joined them.

   “What’s happened to Mr. Kito?” a middle-aged teacher, Mr. Sakai, said.

   “This may sound rude, but I am afraid he has been in a traffic accident or he has had a heart attack and has been carried to a hospital. He was always complaining about his high blood pressure,” a young teacher, Mr. Asagiri said.

   “That’s probable, but he must have had his ID card and the hospital would have called the school by this time,” Mr. Ito, the first-year head teacher, said.

   “He has been in charge of the students’ behavior and manners department, so he may have been involved in a problem related to students or graduates,” Mr. Asagiri said.

   “Yes, that reminds me of an old incident,” Mr. Matsushita, the oldest teacher said. “The incident had happened before I came to this school. I heard that the then teacher in charge of the students’ discipline department had been thrown into Nekogaike Pond near the school on gradation day. Some of the graduated students returned and entered the teachers’ room to take revenge.”

   “I have heard about it, too. But nobody knows whether it was a fact or not,” Mr. Ito said.

   “But since that incident, I heard, the successive teachers in charge of the students’ discipline department hide themselves in the counseling room after the graduation ceremony,” Mr. Matsushita said.

   “But even if it is true, I don’t think graduates have taken revenge on Mr. Kito. Nobody has a grudge against him, I think,” Mr. Ito said.

   “It maybe so, but the hoodlums around the school might have taken revenge on him,” Mr. Sakai said.

   “Yes, I remember Mr. Kito was surrounded by hoodlums and was almost beaten up,” Akihiko said.

   “Ah, I hear you were at the scene, Mr. Tsushima,” Mr. Ito said.

   “Yes, it was awful. About a week ago around 5 o’clock, two senior high school boys rushed into the teachers’ room and told that their classmates were being blackmailed at the back of S. Bookstore near the school. Mr. Kito said, ‘All right,’ and pedaled to the place at full speed. Four or five teachers including me ran after him. When we reached the place, three students of our school were surrounded by six or seven hooligans. Mr. Kito shouted at them, ‘What do you want with our students?’ A tall fellow of the gang, probably the head, retorted, ‘Nothing, old man. We are just talking. Are you their chalkie?’ Mr. Kito emulated, ‘Yes, I am Kito, their teacher. If you blackmai our students, I will send you to the police station.’”

   Several teachers had gathered around Akihiko and were listening to his drama, With increasing excitement, Akihiko continued to play both roles as a gangster and Mr. Kito.

   “The leader said, ‘Hey, coot, none of your business. You are Kito of that school. Do you want me to burn down your house? I’ll burn you to cinders. Old man, take off your glasses.’ The leader walked to Mr. Kito. But Mr. Kito stood perfectly calm without blinking an eye and said, ‘Which gang do you belong to? You are a soldier of the Endo gang, aren’t you?’ Then you know Katagiri, don’t you?’ When the leader heard the name, he was taken off guard. He said, “So what?’ Mr. Kito said to his face, ‘He is my ex-student.’ I thought it would become very exciting, when I heard a police car siren approaching. They ran away leaving with the words, ‘Just you wait.’”

   “How exciting! Then Mr. Kito may have been retaliated against by them,” Mr. Asagiri said.

   “Yes, he may have been beaten up, carried in a car, and thrown in a deep mountain,” Mr. Sakai said.

   “I know Katagiri. He is now around 50. He was the worst boy in school. I heard he was working for the Endo gang as a muscleman. His job is to collect debt from other gangs,” Mr. Matsushita said.

   “That’s awesome. Then they won’t take revenge on him,” Mr. Ito said.

   “But you can’t tell what will happen. After all, they are gangsters,” Mr. Asagiri said.

   “I agree,” Mr. Sakai said.

   The 5^th class chime rang and all the teachers that were talking about Mr. Kito stood up and returned to their desks.

   At around 1:30 p.m. two policemen came to the school. One was a stout man around 50 years old, and the other a young tall man. An office clerk took them to the principal’s room. The clerk knocked the door and they entered the room. The vice-principal and the chief clerk stood up, bowed, and said, “Thank you for your trouble.” When they all sat down, the vice-principal told them that the principal was absent because of the board of trustees meeting. The stout policeman said, “I hear Mr. Kito is the head of the students’ behavior and manners department. Isn’t there any problems concerning his job? Hasn’t he had some kind of grudge from the students or parents?”

   “I don’t think so,” the vice-principal said. “Mr. Kito is a very strict teacher but he is not the type of teacher who would incur their hatred.”

   “Hasn’t he been involved in some kind of trouble with the parents?” the stout policeman said.

   “Not that I’m aware of. Frankly speaking, he is well thought of by students and parents.”

   “I see.”

An office lady knocked the door and entered with four tea bowls on a tray. She put them on the table, and left the room. The vice-principal suggested that the policemen drink the tea. They took the bowls and began to drink.

“By the way, does he drink?” the stout policeman resumed.

   “No. He is like an ascetic monk. He does not drink, nor smoke, nor gamble. He goes home directly after school.”

   The young policeman was busily scribbling in the notebook.

   “Then, he doesn’t have any extramarital problem, does he?”

   “Never.”

   “How strange it is that he has disappeared suddenly? Isn’t there any clue, any problem about him? Anything is helpful.”

   “No. nothing, I am sorry.”

   “Excuse me, but weren’t any people taken by ambulance to a hospital last night?” the chief clerk said.

   “Yes, there were three, but they were not Mr. Kito,” the stout policeman said.

   “And no more people after that?” the clerk said.

   “No. if there had been some, they will inform us. Well, we’ve come to a deadlock,” the stout policeman said sipping tea.

   “By the way, how does he come to school, do you know?”

   “Just a moment, please,” the clerk said and picked up the file he had put on the table. In the front page of each document paper were written the addresses, family members, telephone numbers, birthdays, emergency contact numbers and other information about all the teachers. On the back was pasted a photograph of each teacher and on it was drawn the commuting route from their houses to school. He showed the document to the stout policeman.

   Looking at it, the policeman said, “Ok, then. Could you copy the route and his photograph, if possible in color?” and he returned the file to the clerk. The clerk took it and left the principal’s room.

   “Well then, could I look at Mr. Kito’s desk?” the stout policeman said and stood up.

   The vice-principal and the two policemen entered the teachers’ room.   Looking at Mr. Kito’s desk, the young policeman said, “Well, well, what an amazingly clean desk! I have never seen such a clean and neat desk.”

   “Me, neither,” the stout policeman said.

   There was nothing left on the desk except for a dark brown wooden bookcase covered with a lid.

   “I have been a teacher for the past 35 years, but have never met such a thorough and clean teacher,” the vice-principal said.

   “May I open the drawers? There might be some clue,” the stout policeman said.

   “Of course,” the vice-principal said and opened the drawers one by one. Each drawer was neatly organized. Each of the stationery items was put in a fixed place. No clue was found.

   The chief clerk came and handed the route paper and a colored copy of Mr. Kito’s photograph to the stout policeman.

   Ten minutes later, the policemen left the school, made an inquiry at various places on the route showing his photograph, such as subway stations, bookstores, supermarkets, coffee shops, convenience stores, electric appliance retailors and other spots Mr. Kito might have dropped in at. They opened all the booths of the restrooms they found on the route, but they found no clue.

   Next, they called on Mrs. Kito, but could not get any useful information from her except that he did not have a cell phone.

　　 After school, an extraordinary teachers’ meeting was held. The vice-principal gave the subsequent progress about Mr. Kito’s disappearance: Mr. Kito had not been hospitalized; the police had not found any clues as to his whereabouts. In the end, the principal told that he was thinking of announcing the incident to all the students during the next day’s morning homeroom meeting.

   When the principal’s talk was over, Mr. Matsushita, the oldest teacher in the school, raised his hand and said,

   “I am against your idea. We should not upset the students unnecessarily. The term examinations were just over and so they are relieved and not concentrating on studying. If you tell them that Mr. Kito is missing, they will fall into chaos. They will tell to their parents, and then the mass media will learn about it and then, news reporters and TV cameras will swarm into our school. They will stop the students on their way to and from school and flood them with every conceivable question. If things go wrong, they will make up groundless stories about Mr. Kito and our school. It isn’t educational at all. It will not do our school any good but do harm. We should behave prudently.”

   Immediately after Mr. Matsushita’s talk, Mr. Asagiri raised his hand.

   “We should announce his disappearance as soon as possible. We haven’t got any clues so far. The students look uninterested in us teachers, but actually they are always watching us closely. In some cases, some of them know a surprising amount of things about us. They may have seen Mr. Kito acting strangely recently, or seen him walking in an irrelevant place or taking a different route to go home. Even a slight piece of information may help us.”

   Mr. Sakai said,

   “I agree with Mr. Asagiri. If you are afraid of the mass media, you can’t do anything. Mr. Kito may be, if you pardon my words, alive now, but he may have seriously injured himself at some out-of-sight place. He may be lying there at this moment. What if he can’t contact us because of his injury? We can’t depend on the police too much. We ourselves should act. We have 600 students. If we include their parents and family members, we have thousands of people who might give us useful information. This is not the time for discussion. There may be no time to lose.”

   Mr. Ito came up with a compromise.

   “I think it’s better to let them know about the incident, but tomorrow morning is too early. I suggest that the principal announce it after the fourth period tomorrow.”

   Mr. Nakayama, whose class was in the fifth period the next day, opposed his plan.

   “I don’t think it’s a good idea. If you announce it after the fourth period, the students will make a fuss, and I am afraid you won’t be able to teach in the fifth period.”

   The discussion continued for some 20 minutes and finally the principal made a final decision.

   “I understand all of your opinions. Every opinion has truth in it, but sooner or later news reporters will somehow learn about the incident through the police even though I have asked the police not to make it public. But keeping things secret has limitation. I think this case needs prompt action. Therefore, I am going to announce the incident tomorrow morning. As for the mass media, let them have contact only with the vice-principal and the office chief.

Thursday, October 22  The Third Day of Disappearance

   Mr. Kito was again absent. At 8:20, the teachers’ morning meeting was held and some department chiefs made announcements. In the end, the General Affairs chief said:

   “One of the emergency flashlights set in the teachers’ room is missing. If someone has it, please let me know.”

   No teacher responded.

   When the chime rang and the short homeroom meeting began, the principal announced on the school broadcasting system:

   “Good morning, everyone. This morning I have an important announcement to make, so please be quiet and listen to me. You all know Mr. Kito, a math teacher and the head of the students’ discipline department. To tell you the truth, he has been missing for the last three days including today. We have contacted the police and they have been investigating the matter, but haven’t yet found any clue as to his whereabouts. Therefore, I would like to ask you to cooperate with us. If you happen to have any information about his whereabouts, please report it to your homeroom teacher. Or if you have recently noticed his unusual conducts or remarks, please let us know. Even a trivial piece of information can be helpful. Next, the mass media may soon sniff out the incident, but I hope you will behave prudently. They may try to gather information about Mr. Kito from you outside school premises, but please refuse their interviews.”

   While Akihiko was listening to the principal’s broadcasting, his attention was arrested by the words, “his unusual conducts or remarks.” He remembered an incident which had taken place two days before.

   About 6 o’clock on the evening of October 20, when Akihiko had been studying chemistry in the Science Study Room, Mr. Kito had come to the room and said:

   “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but aren’t there any plastic gloves here? If you have some, please let me use them.”

   Akihiko had replied, “Yes, there are some,” and had stood up and entered the science experiment preparatory room, for such gloves were equipped for chemistry experiments. He had left the room with a pair of gloves in his hand and handed them to Mr. Kito, saying:

   “These are disposable, so you don’t have to return them to me, but Mr. Kito, why do you need them?”

   “Ah, the sink in the second floor corridor is clogged. I think the drain cover is stuck. So I’m going to clean it and drain the dirty water.”

   “Oh, is that so? You are a hard worker. I admire you.” Akihiko had said.

   Akihiko had wondered, “Why is Mr. Kito going to clean the sink himself? The cleaning of the sink is allotted to the second-year A classroom. So they are responsible for it.” However, Akihiko had concluded that since Mr. Kito was a man of cleanliness, he couldn’t leave the sink dirty even a single day.

  When the principal’s announcement was over, all the students went mad and their bursting noise reached even the teachers’ room.

   “How awesome! It’s just like a TV detective drama, isn’t it?”

   “Mr. Kito is probably dead now.”

   “Don’t be foolish.”

   “I want to hear his thundering voice once again, but oh, I’m afraid I can’t, any longer.”

   “You must be joking. You have always trembled when you hear his voice.”

   “Clear off!”

   Since Akihiko’s first class happened to be the second period that day, he thought he was lucky because the students’ excitement would have been abated by that time. His plan for the class was to return the examination papers, give the correct answers, and if time allowed, he would proceed to the new section of the textbook.

   The second class chime rang. Akihiko went to the second-year A classroom with his chemistry textbook, notebook, the examination papers, and grade book.

   When he entered the classroom, the students were not so excited as he had expected. As he unlaced the string that bound the bunch of the examination papers, he told the average score of each classroom:

   “The average of the whole second year students is 41.3. This class average is 38.7. I thought the problems were easy, but I am afraid you didn’t study hard this time.”

   Saying so, he began to return the paper to each student one by one:

“Aoki…Aoyama…Ando…Ito…Inagaki….”

After he returned all the papers, he explained all the problems spending about 30 minutes, and at the end he said:

“If you find a mistake in my marks, come to me with your paper now.”

Five students came to him. The first was Kayo Sugiyama. She complained:

“Mr. Tsushima, the total marks are wrong. This is ten marks short.”

“Oh, sorry,” Akihiko said, calculated the total carefully, and corrected the marks on her paper.

“OK. Stay here, Kayo. I’ll correct the grade book,” he said and opened the page for the A classroom. Suddenly he froze. No marks were written on the page. He had returned all the papers without writing the marks in his grade book. Upset, he stood up and said loudly:

“Everyone, I am sorry to say this, but return your paper to me, all of you, now. I’ve forgotten to write your marks in my grade book. So, fold your paper into two and the last student of each row, collect the papers. If you have found any mistakes in my marking, write ‘MISTAKE’ on top of your paper and return it to me.”

A boy said, “What a blockhead! That’s why I don’t like new teachers.” A girl said, “I can’t believe it. What a careless teacher!”

Complaining and making a commotion, all the students returned their papers.

   Akihiko opened each of the papers, bundled them, and counted them. There should have been 40 because none of the students were absent that day, he thought. He counted twice and there were exactly 40. He had several more minutes before the class ended.

   He said, “Thank you for your cooperation. Soon the class will finish. You may use the rest of the time freely, but don’t make too much noise.”

   Then he began to write each student’s marks in his grade book in the bustling classroom, feeling ashamed of himself to have made such a careless mistake. He was obsessed with self-hatred.

   “Mr. Tsushima, Mr. Kito made the same mistake the other day,” said Naomi Hayashi, who sat in the front row.

   “Is it true? I can’t believe it,” Akihiko said, thinking that Mr. Kito would be the last person to make such a mistake.

   “Yes, it’s true. He called every student in this classroom around seven o’clock in the evening and said they must return their papers to him the next day because he had made a big mistake in scoring them.”

   Naoto Yamamoto, who sat next to Naomi said, “In my case, he called me around 10 o’clock because my mother had replied I had gone to cram school.”

   Akihiko was relieved to hear that. He was not the only one, he thought.   The chime rang. Akihiko stood up and said:

   “I’ll ask your homeroom teacher to return your papers during the after-school homeroom meeting. If you find any more mistakes, come to the teachers’ room.”  

   He left the classroom exhausted. Feeling thirsty, he went to the sink in front of A classroom. He turned on the faucet and drank water from his hands. It was lukewarm. At that moment, he remembered Mr. Kito had come to him to borrow plastic gloves. Akihiko looked at the drain cover. It looked dirty under the shallow filthy water. He thrust his hand into the water and pulled out the cover. The water gushed down the drain. Hair, gum, and other sticky things were stuck on the cover. It did not look like it had been cleaned for a few days. Akihito thought Mr. Kito had not cleaned the sink, but used the gloves for other purposes. He wondered why he had to make up such a fake story.

   After school that day, Akihiko went to the tennis court; he was the vice-coach of the tennis team. Since he belonged to the tennis team in his university days, he was able to play tennis with the first-year students in a virtual tie, but he often lost the matches with the second- or third-year students. When he was watching the students sitting on a bench, Ryoichi Sato, who had just finished playing tennis, came to him and sat beside him. Akihiko said:

   “Your serve has improved much, Ryoichi.”

   “Thank you, but mine is not good enough.”

   “Did you learn how to serve from Kawai?” Akihiko said.

   “Yes, I admire his serve.”

   “You know, he participated in the prefectural tournament.”

   “Yes, he is great.”

   Both of them were silent for a few minutes. They were watching the students who were playing tennis. Akihiko said remembering his mistake.

   “You are an A classroom student, aren’t you? Naomi told me that Mr. Kito had collected all his exam papers. Was it really true?”

   “Yes. In your case, you noticed your mistake during the class period, but Mr. Kito noticed it after the students went home. That must have been disastrous for him. I can’t believe such a careful man like him made a mistake.”

   He then paused for a few seconds and continued.

   “By the way, I don’t know how to put it into words, but something has been bothering me since the principal made the announcement. This may be a trifle thing, but….”

   “Is that about Mr. Kito?” Akihiko asked.

   “Yes, you see, Mr. Kito goes back home through the main gate, but on October 20, around 6 o’clock, I saw him walking toward the east side of the school building passing right here by the tennis court. I saw him when I was changing my clothes in the tennis club room. I thought it was unusual for him to walk in that direction.”

   “Oh, is that so? Let me see, probably Mr. Kito went there to check whether there were enough cleaning tools—brooms and buckets--in the storehouse there. You know the autumn school cleaning day is near at hand,” Akihiko said.

   “But it was around 6 o’clock and dark, why didn’t he check them during the daytime?”

   “Because he is in charge of the students’ manner and behavior department. He is very busy during the day.”

   “I see,” Roichi replied in an unconvinced way.

   On the way home, Akihiko thought of Mr. Kito’s recent behavior: he wanted to use plastic gloves to clean the sink but he didn’t clean it; he walked to the east side of the school building; why? Did he go there to check the cleaning tools as he had explained to Ryoichi?

   The 7 o’clock NHK news was reported:

   “Mr. Takahiro Kito, a teacher at Kitagawa High School in Showa-ku, Nagoya, has been missing since October 20. Mr. Kito teaches mathematics and is in charge of the students’ behavior department. The police have been investigating the case, but no clues have been found yet. The principal said he may have been involved in an accident. His wife said she had noticed nothing strange about him during the past week. The police will continue the investigation in cooperation with the school and his family.”

   Akihiko’s mother, who was watching the news, was surprised. She said to Akihiko:

   “Oh, my! It’s your school, isn’t it? Why haven’t you tell me about the incident? Who is Mr. Kito? Was he really involved in an accident? He may have been involved in a crime. I am afraid he is already dead. What do you think, Akihiko? Say something.”

   Akihiko was fed up with her, and went into his room.

 

Saturday, October 23   Fourth day of disappearance

   Although it was a school holiday, Akihiko went to school to coach the tennis team from 9 o’clock in the morning to noon. There was no updated information about Mr. Kito’s whereabouts.

 

Sunday, October 24   Fifth day of disappearance

                         

  The Aichi Prefectural Police had not found any new clues about Mr. Kito’s disappearance.

 

Monday, October 25   Sixth day of disappearance

 

   At around 8:15 a.m. before school started, the teachers were disappointed to see Mr. Kito’s name in the day’s absentee list on the blackboard behind the vice-principal’s desk. They all wondered, “Mr. Kito is still missing. What on earth has happened to him?” Mr. Kito’s wife had called Mr. Kotani at school that morning and told him that he had not returned home yet and that she was very worried about him. Mr. Kotani replied that the school would do their best to find him although he did not know what to do about the problem.

   During the morning teachers’ meeting, the curriculum department chief told the teachers to type the results of the examinations into the computer in the curriculum department room by 4 o’clock that day. Next, the general affairs department chief said, “Due to Nagoya City’s request concerning the school garbage, we will have to stop using the garbage chute from November. Therefore, the chute door on each floor will be closed, and the garbage collection room at the bottom of the chute will be shut, too. From November all the garbage must be put into disposal bags and be carried to the dump at the west gate. And, in connection with this, three kinds of garbage boxes will be set in each classroom. They are a burnable and a non-burnable boxes and a box for cans and bottles.”

   Akihiko thought that the students, especially the ones in the third floor classrooms, would have to have a laborious time carrying garbage bags to the dump after cleaning the classrooms, and that they would hate the work.  

   Akihiko did not have classes on Monday. Instead, he had the science teachers’ meeting in the third period and the students’ guidance meeting in the fifth period. Soon after the chime of the first period rang, the curriculum chief, Mr. Kawamoto, came to Akihiko and said:

   “Mr. Tsushima, you don’t have classes during the first and second periods. So, I would like to ask a favor of you. Could you type Mr. Kito’s mathematics marks into the computer? I think his grade book is in his desk.”

   Akihiko consented and followed Mr. Kawamoto, who, upon coming to Mr. Kito’s desk, said in a small voice as if addressing Mr. Kito, “Mr. Kito, please allow me to open your drawer.” Saying so, he opened the rightmost drawer. His grade book was in it. Akihiko was surprised that he correctly guessed which drawer the grade book was in.

   “Did you know his grade book was in this drawer?” Akihiko said.

   “No, but my long years of experience told me it was here.”

   “That’s great,” Akihiko said.

   Mr. Kawamoto flipped through the grade book.

   “Here, this page is for the second-year students, right?” he said showing the page to Akihiko. “So, please tap them into the computer.”      

They both went to the curriculum department room. Akihiko sat before the computer and opened “The Third Terminal Examinations” page of the computer screen and clicked the second-year A classroom. He began to tap each student’s mark in the Japanese a-i-u-e-o order.

   Aoki 45; Aoyama 67; Ando 49, Ito 32; Usami 90….

   When Akihiko reached Yanagi’s mark, he noticed it had not been written. Why was this blank? Was he absent on the examination day? He remembered that the chemistry and the mathematics examinations had taken place on the second day of the examination term. He stood up and went to the bulletin board in the curriculum room to confirm the examination schedule. His memory was correct. The chemistry exam was held in the first period and the math exam in the second. There were exactly 40 chemistry exam papers when he returned them. That meant Yanagi was present on that day. Therefore, Yanagi must have taken the math exam. Why then had Mr. Kito failed to record his score? He was such an exact man; he couldn’t have missed it. Usually when teachers had finished writing all the students’ marks in the grade book page, they would look through the page and if there were any blank, they would immediately notice it. Thinking about this, Akihiko typed all the other marks. After that, he said to Mr. Kawamoto:

   “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but Mr. Kito failed to write Yanagi’s mark in his grade book.”

   Akihiko showed the page to Mr. Kawamoto, who looked at it and said:

   “I can’t believe this. Mr. Kito couldn’t have been so careless. Well, well, we’ll have to ask Yanagi what his mark was. That is the only solution. Could you go to A class and ask him?”

   “All right,” Akihiko said and walked to the teachers’ room and sat at his desk. He wondered whether Yanagi still remembered his math mark. Yanagi’s face crossed his mind: a pale, thin, feeble-looking boy. He remembered seeing Yanagi’s mother during the parent-teacher meeting. She had been talkative, round-faced, and sanguine in flashy clothes. She had bowed to every teacher she had met, and said in a phony smile, “I am Yanagi’s mother.” Akihiko thought she shouldn’t debase herself so much because her son’s grade was poor. He guessed that Yanagi was always under her pressure and was driven to study harder. He had once heard that a high school mother opened her son’s bag when he returned from school and checked all the things in the bag: textbooks, notebooks, the pencil case, the lunch box, the gym suit, printed materials, and examination papers. Akihiko thought Yanagi’s mother could be one of those mothers. He sympathized with him.

   When the chime rang the end of the first peirod, Akihiko hurried to A classroom, stood at the doorway of the classroom, and said in a loud voice amid noisy students:

   “Is Yanagi here?”

   “Hey, Yana, Mr. Tsushima wants you,” one of the boys said loudly looking back. Yanagi’s seat was at the back of the classroom. He was reading a book. He walked to Akihiko and said:

   “Yes. I am Yanagi”

   “I know. Please come this way. I have something to ask you,” Akihiko said walking to a corner of the corridor.

   “Why? Yana, what crime have you committed?” Jyunpei Yamaguchi ridiculed Yanagi in such a loud voice that all the other students could hear.

“Jyunpei, go away! Don’t interrupt us,” Akihiko said in a frowning face.

“Yanagi, I am now tapping the students’ marks of mathematics into the computer for Mr. Kito, but I can’t find your marks in his grade book. He seems to have forgotten to write yours. So, I want to know what marks you got.”

   “Oh, do I have to tell it to you?” Yanagi said.

   “If you don’t, you will be treated as absent on the examination day.”

   “That’s OK with me.”

   “You don’t understand. Listen. An absence during an examination term is different from one during the ordinary school days, you know. You may have a bigger possibility to flunk because of the absence.”

   “Mr. Kito said the same the other day,” Yanagi said.

   Akihiko was taken aback. It meant that Yanagi had not turned in his math test paper when Mr. Kito had collected students’ papers.

   “Oh, I’m sure Mr. Kito was worried about you, too, because you may not be able to advance to the third year due to the absence. Is it really OK with you?”

   “Well, no.”

   “So, what mark did you get?”

   “Ah, it was ten.”

   “Ten?”

   “Yes.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “Yes.”

   “Do you have the test paper?”

   “No, I don’t, but why are you asking me the same questions Mr. Kito asked? You don’t believe me, do you?”

   “I don’t mean to say you are cheating. I just wanted to confirm what you’ve just said.”

   Junpei standing two meters away from them in the corridor said:

   “Yana, why don’t you confess what you’ve done? Confess, Yana, confess.”

   Hearing the ridicule, Akihiko turned to Junpei and shouted at him, “Hey, Junpei, Go away! Don’t bother us.”

   Junpei went back into the classroom. Akihiko continued to talk to Yanagi.

   “So, you don’t have the paper. What did you do with it?”

   “I threw it away.” 

   “Threw it away? Where?”

   “Into the litter box.”

   “At home or at school?”

   After a moment hesitation, Yanagi said:

   “At home.”

   “I see,” Akihiko said disappointed at not being able to confirm the marks.

 “Then I will type ten into the computer. All right?”

   “No problem. Mr. Kito said so, too.”

   The chime for the beginning of the second class rang. Akihiko remembered Yanagi’s mother’s face. He said putting his hand on Yanagi’s shoulder:

   “OK, then, you may go. Thank you for cooperating with me.”

   Looking at Yanagi’s back, Akihiko thought he might be a victim of his education-oriented mother.

   Akihiko went to the curriculum room and wrote ten in Yanagi’s blank frame in Mr. Kito’s grade book. He said to Mr. Kawamoto:

   “Mr. Kawamoto, Yanagi said his marks were ten.”

   “OK, then. Type ten in the computer, please,” Mr. Kawamoto said.

   Akihiko typed ten and breathed a sigh of relief.

   He remembered Yanagi’s timid attitude and his mother’s loud laughs. He went to the resting corner of the teachers’ room, sat at the table, and drank some coffee. Soon he was relieved. While he was sipping coffee reviewing the conversation with Yanagi, Akihiko suspected that he might have told a lie. He couldn’t have thrown his math test paper in his home litter box. His mother would check it. So, it was probable that he had thrown it away at school, he thought.

   The chief of the office, Mr. Shibata, came to the teachers’ room with a bunch of mail articles. He put seven or eight envelopes on the correspondent teachers’ desks. Then, he saw Akihiko at the table.  He came to him and said, “This is for you, Mr. Tsushima,” handing an envelope to him. Akihiko glanced at its backside. It was from The Science Teachers’ Association in Aichi Prefecture. When he was about to open the envelope, he remembered the strange noise he had heard in the rest room on the second floor.

“Mr. Shibata, you have come here at the right moment,” Akihiko said. “I was thinking of telling you about the noise in the toilet in the second floor. I think the toilet pipes were making a strange resonant noise. It sounded eerie.”

“A resonant noise? I don’t understand,” Mr. Shibata said.

“Yes, that was a resonant noise, because when I hit one of the pipes with a mop, the noise stopped,” Akihiko said.

“I have never heard about such a thing. I can’t believe pipes make noise.”

 “I know, but the condominium I live in makes a similar noise at night. The noise sounds like when you hit a piece of wooden board with a fist. I told to the manager about it. He said that since every apartment was made with concrete, the noise of an apartment away from yours would travel through the water pipes embedded in the concrete to every corner of the condominium. So, when you open or close the faucet in your apartment kitchen, the noise travels all over. Especially this phenomenon happens to old condominiums, he said.”

“Oh, is that so? I didn’t know about that. Our school building is old and it must be replaced with a new one. I will check the pipes, thank you,” Mr. Shibata said, and left the teachers’ room.

Akihiko attended the science teachers’ meeting in the third period and the student guidance meeting in the afternoon. It was decided in the guidance meeting that Mr. Motoyama, the oldest teacher in the department, would act as the head of the department during Mr. Kito’s absence. The meeting first centered around Mr. Kito for some time, and then problems were presented from the teacher in charge of each grade. The first grade teacher told about the ambiguity of the cleaning division, especially around the staircase that led from the first floor to the second. Akihiko, in charge of the second grade, told about Ryota Matsuda’s missing notebook computer. He said he was investigating the matter. No particular problems were presented from the third year teacher. In the end of the meeting, they drew up the duty roster for patrolling the school neighborhood area.

After school Akihiko played tennis with students after a long absence and left school around seven o’clock in the evening. It would take about 30 minutes by bicycle to his house. Peddling the bike, he thought of Mr. Kito.

What had become of Mr. Kito? It had been already six days since he had disappeared.

　　If he had been involved in an accident, the police would have informed us by then, but they hadn’t found any clue. That meant he might have been critically injured and would be lying down in a hidden place. Out-of-sight place? Nagoya was not a forest, nor a jungle; it’s a big city overcrowded with people. How could a man have disappeared for as many as six days? That his bag and shoes were gone meant that he had left the school. Last week, the school authorities had organized a team to investigate the whole school in case he should be in the school. Teachers in the general affairs department and the office staff had searched all the storage places: the ones for keeping tools for school festival; for new desks and chairs; for the tools and signs for the graduation or entrance ceremony; for sports day, but all had been in vain.

Akihiko also reviewed what the police had done about the matter. They had investigated all the conceivable places on his way home: the bookstores, supermarkets, convenience stores, hospitals, subway station, restrooms, and emergency stairs of the office buildings. There had been no trace of him. He had just vanished like smoke…. Like smoke? “Oh, Gosh! I know where he is,” Akihiko thought.

Akihiko called Kitagawa High school. Only Mr. Kotani was in the teachers’ room. He picked up the phone and looked at the clock on the wall. It was around 7:30. The police might have found Mr. Kito, he thought.

“This is Kitagawa High School,” he said.

“Oh, is this Mr. Kotani? This is Tsushima. I think I’ve found Mr. Kito. He is in the garbage collection room.”

“What? The garbage collection room? Why? You mean the room at the bottom of the garbage chute?” Mr. Konani said.

“Yes. Mr. Kito is in there. Please hurry. He is in a critical condition.”

“OK, if you say so.”

Mr. Kotani ran across the dark school field, wondering why Mr. Kito was in such a place. The thick trees surrounding the school field looked black, forming weird silhouettes against the moonless sky. The lamps on the poles standing at the edge of the field cast a dim light.

While Mr. Kotani was running past the tennis courts, he was out of breath. He stopped for a few seconds puffing and blowing, then he resumed running. He passed the garbage incinerator and reached the garbage collection room. It was pitch dark because of the thick tall trees surrounding it. The street lights did not reach there. He carefully walked toward the door of the garbage room on the grassy rocky ground.

Standing in front of it, he thought Mr. Kito couldn’t be in that room. The iron door was bolted. He slid it with a creaking sound and opened the door feeling fearful. It was dark. He smelled the filthy smell. He gazed into the pitch darkness. He recognized the black outlines of garbage heaps. He regretted he had not brought a flashlight. He gazed into the darkness again. Nothing was moving. No human body. It was eerily silent.

“Mr. Kito,” he shouted.

No response. He only heard the noisy chirp of insects.

“Mr. Kito, are you here?”

His voice resonated in the hollow room.

No response. He felt chilly and scared.

“Mr. Tsushima must have made a mistake. Mr. Kito can’t be here,” he said to himself. He felt sick. He decided he would call Mr. Kito’s name one last time, and if there was no response, he would give up. He leaned into the darkness.

“MR. KITO!” he shouted in the loudest voice he could muster.

Silence.

A distant dog were heard howling, followed by other dogs.

Mr. Kotani stood up, bolted the door, and took a deep breath. The air was cold. He walked disappointed past the dimly lit tennis court. He thought of making a complaint against Akihiko.

When he was walking along the corridor towards the teachers’ room, he heard someone rushing up to him. The person shouted “Mr. Kotani.”

He turned around and found Akihiko hurrying toward him.

“Didn’t you find Mr. Kotani?” Akihiko said.

“No. He was not there.”

“No? I can’t believe it. He should be in the garbage room. He is lying almost dead.”

“I called his name three times in a loud voice, but there was no response.”

“Called his name? Didn’t you enter?”

“No. I saw only heaps of garbage in the dark.”

“You didn’t enter?”

Akihiko rushed out of the teachers’ room. He ran and ran. Mr. Kotani thought he would soon come back with his head down. New teachers lacked prudence.

Reaching the garbage room, Akihiko unbolted the door and shouted, “Mr. Kito!” but he heard nothing. He entered into the darkness smelling a bad smell. He carefully advanced crawling among the heaps of garbage about 1.5 meters. He again shouted, “Mr. Kito.” Suddenly his head bumped against something hard—a wall. He fell sideways, when his hand coincidentally touched the pocket containing his cell phone. That’s it. Why hadn’t he noticed it? He pulled out the cell phone and opened the lid. A bright screen appeared. He held it in his hand with the screen outward, and moved it around the room. Heaps of garbage were dimly illuminated. Then the light caught Mr. Kito, his body leaning against a wall.

“Mr. Kito!” Akihiko said in a loud voice rushing toward him, pushing away garbage.

Mr. Kito did not response. Suddenly the cell phone light went out. It became pitch dark. He pushed a key to resume the light, and went to Mr. Kito. He lighted Mr. Kito’s face. His eyes were closed and his hair untidy. He was a ghost. Akihiko pushed his ear against his chest. He felt his heart beating. He called the police.

“Hello, this is Kitagawa High School in Showa Ward. Please call an ambulance. A teacher has fallen unconscious. Please send the ambulance to the school’s main gate. The vice-principal, Mr. Kotani, will be waiting for you there. Yes, oh, my name is Akihiko Tsushima.”

Next, he called Mr. Kotani.

“Mr. Kotani. I’ve found Mr. Kito. He is alive.”

“Thank God! In the garbage collection room?”

“Yes. I’ve just called an ambulance. Please stay in the teachers’ room. They may contact you.”

“OK. You’ve done a great job!”

“Not at all. And please call the Showa Police Station.”

“Oh, that’s important. I will.”

Akihiko looked at Mr. Kito’s face. Lit by the dim light of his cell phone, he looked like a ghost. His cracked white lips, black sunken eyes, thin pale cheeks, untidy hair, and a streak of blood on his forehead.

Mr. Kotani called the police and told them that Mr. Kito had been found. The police told him that they would immediately send policemen to school. When he hanged up the receiver, he breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time he felt shame for not daring to enter the garbage room. He had avoided doing something weird, dangerous, and unfamiliar, and yet he was the vice-principal, while a new teacher, Mr. Tsushima, committed himself to rescuing Mr. Kito. Mr. Tsushima could deal with things calmly, he thought. No one had noticed that Mr. Kito was in the garbage room. He admired his deductive powers and ability to get things done without hesitation. He would be an indispensable teacher for our school. Since it was private, we needed such a teacher with calmness, brain, and ability to act. He would be a dependable teacher in the future. How nice such a good teacher had become one of our teachers. Mr. Kotani was glad that he had made a right judgment in the employment interview.

Akihiko went to Mr. Kito and dragged him out of the garbage room. Putting his hand above his nostrils, Akihiko felt Mr. Kito’s breathing.

He heard an ambulance. Not just one siren but a few. A police car was approaching the school, too, he thought. Relieved, Akihiko sat down on the grass. He heard a lot of insects chirping noisily in the dark.

He said into Mr. Kito’s ear, “Mr. Kito, Mr. Kito.”

Mr. Kito slightly opened his eyes. They were out of focus.

“Oh, you are conscious,” Akihiko said.

Mr. Kito closed his eyes.

Four paramedics came running to them carrying a stretcher. Mr. Kotani was running behind them.

“Over here, over here!” Akihiko waved his hands.

The crew put Mr. Kito on the stretcher, carried it to the main gate, and slid it into the ambulance. The basketball team students had come to the main gate when they had heard the sirens. The ambulance rushed to the Yagoto Red Cross Hospital with its lights flashing and sirens blaring. Akihiko rode in the ambulance while Mr. Kotani remained at school to deal with the policemen.

“That’s Mr. Kito, wasn’t it?” the basketball team captain, Shoji Asano, said to Mr. Kotani.

“Yes, it was. He’s been just found,” Mr. Kotani said.

“Oh, boy, I can’t believe it. Was he in the school? Where was he discovered? Was he alive? How did you find him?”

Mr. Kotani felt irritated.

“Why are you still loitering at school?”

“We have a permission to practice basketball till seven o’clock.”

“But it’s almost eight o’clock. What have you been doing in the basketball team room? Go home right now.”

The students left school grumbling, “Why can’t he tell us where Mr. Kito was found?”

 

Monday, October 25

   Mr. Kotani announced at the morning teachers’ meeting:

   “I am happy to inform you that Mr. Kito was discovered around eight o’clock last night. He was in the garbage collection room. Mr. Tsushima found him. At present, Mr. Kito is in Yagoto Red Cross Hospital. Since he is very ill, please refrain from visiting the hospital to see him. The principal is going to announce the news over the broadcasting system during the morning homeroom meeting.”

   The chime rang and all the teachers left for their homeroom classes. After the morning meditation, the principal made the announcement. Immediately after it, all the students went wild. Some of them gave a glad cry, while others hit the desktops with the palms of their hands.

   “How awesome! It’s just like a TV drama.”

   “I thought he had already died.”

   “He is immortal. Don’t you know?”

   “Yes, he is an ogre. An ogre never dies.”

   “So, he will resume his classes soon.”

   “Yes, with his large voice.”   

   “That’s his specialty. I like it.”

   “Are you mad? His voice is too large.”

   “But you said you missed his voice.”

   “Oh, did I?”

 

Ten days later. Sunday, October 31

   Akihiko went to the hospital to see Mr. Kito. His room was on the seventh floor. He knocked on the door and entered the room to find Mr. Kito sitting upright reading a book.

   “Mr. Kito, I heard you are going to leave hospital tomorrow,” Akihiko said.

   “Yes, thank you. I am glad I can leave the hospital. Without your rescue, I would have died in the garbage. You are my lifesaver,” Mr. Kito said.

   “I am glad I could help to you.”

   “Well, how did you know that I was in the garbage collection room?”

   “It’s a long story. I was entering your math marks of A class students into the computer. Then, I found Yanagi’s marks had not been written in your grade book. When I asked him about the math examination, he said he had thrown the paper away into a litter basket at home. As you know, his mother is very education-oriented. So I thought he had thrown it into a litter box in his classroom. You see, after cleaning the classroom, the duty students throw the garbage into the garbage chute. So I guessed his paper was down in the garbage collection room.”

“But how did you know I had gone to the garbage room?” Mr. Kito said.

  “An ordinary teacher would not go to the garbage collection room,” Akihiko answered. “If Yanagi said he had thrown his test paper away and that his marks had been 10, the teacher would believe him and wrote 10 in the grade book. But you are different. You are an experienced teacher and know about his mother. So I deduced that you had not believed him. Instead, you thought Yanagi had thrown the test paper at school. Therefore, I thought you had gone to the garbage room to find his paper and confirm his marks.”

“That’s right. As you say, I wanted to confirm his marks.”

“So, did you find his paper?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“That’s too bad. You’ve got nothing from your labor,” Akihiko said.

“Yes, but if I investigate the garbage carefully again, I am sure I will find his paper.”

“You mean you checked every piece of garbage?”

“Yes. I checked every piece. That day around six o’clock in the evening I borrowed the flashlight in the teachers’ room and headed for the garbage collection room. I thought I could find his paper easily, but that was a big mistake. It was hard labor. The room was dark and smelled bad. The flashlight was so dim that it illuminated only a small spot in front of me. I entered the room for the first time in my life, and found all kinds of garbage: cup noodle leftover in polystyrene containers, tissue and handkerchiefs into which your nose was blown, worn-out shoes and dirty shirts, juice cans and pet bottles, torn notebooks and frame-broken umbrellas, old indoor shoes, and even porno magazines. And oh, I remember there were mathematics textbooks, too. They threw them intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know which, but they report to me that they have lost their math textbooks. I must punish them for not handling the textbooks carefully.”

   “So you checked each item?” Akihiko said.

   “Yes, I checked them twice. I sat before the mountain of the garbage, and picked up an item after another with my hand from the foot of the mountain. Ah, thank you for the gloves. I said I would use them for cleaning the sink, but to tell you the truth, I used it for checking the garbage.”

   “Yes, that’s what I guessed,” Akihiko said.

   “So, I picked up a piece of garbage, checked it, and put it at the right side of my body. I repeated the same action. Gradually, the right-side mountain became higher and higher as the one in front of me became lower. But as a result, I failed to find Yanagi’s paper. Good grief! Maybe, the flashlight was not bright enough, I thought, and I resumed the labor again. This time, I carefully unpiled the right-side mountain by checking piece by piece as I formed a new mountain in front of me. But my labor resulted in vain. Exhausted, I gave up and went back to the exit of the garbage room, but it was bolted. I pulled and pushed the door, and hit it hard with my fist but it wouldn’t open.”

   “You must have been frustrated. I think Mr. Yamachi, the janitor, bolted the door, because it was his duty to lock all the school windows on the first floor and the main gate at around 6:30.”

   “Yes, I think so, too. Once he said to me he had been frightened to see a cat jumping out of the garbage room when he opened it. The door had not been bolted, so the cat had been in it. After that incident, he became nervous and bolted the garbage room door without fail.”

   “But you kept the door open, didn’t you?”

   “Yes, of course I kept it open, but not all the way. If I had kept it open fully, Mr. Yamachi would have noticed me, but I kept it open only about five centimeters, because I did not want anyone to see me working in the garbage. As you know, the door is made of iron, so it must have made a noise when it was bolted, but I didn’t notice it. Maybe I was utterly involved in the work.”

   “So, what did you do? Did you stay there overnight?” Akihiko asked unbelievably.

   “I had no choice, you know. The flashlight became dimmer and dimmer. Do you understand how miserable you would feel? I was plagued by the rotten smell, hunger, darkness, and loneliness. But I thought I would be rescued the next morning if I shouted or made a noise by hitting the door with an umbrella or something hard. You know the garbage chute door is near A classroom on the first floor.”

“So you fell asleep?” Akihiko said.

“No. I was worried and couldn’t go to sleep, but after some time, I think I fell into a doze. And when I woke, it was dark. I wondered where I was. I looked at my watch with the light which came through the gap of the door and the door frame. It was around 8 o’clock. So, I thought, there should be some students playing in the corridor. I repeatedly screamed, “Help me!” I banged the garbage door with the umbrella as hard as possible. I did so again and again, but they did not seem to have noticed me. I stopped making a noise and pushed my ear on the wall and tried to hear. I heard them playing noisily. They seemed to be running around and laughing. Their noise drowned out my noise.”

“That’s too bad,” Akihiko said.

“Yes, I was disappointed. But soon I recovered because I thought If I waited till the morning meditation time, the whole class would be silent and they would hear me. So I waited till 8:30 when the short morning meeting was held. But, they were still noisy at 8:30.”

“They are making noise until their homeroom teacher comes,” Akihiko said.

“Yes. But at 8:33 when the meditation took place, I screamed and hit the door with all my might again and again. Since the A classroom on the third floor is situated away from the garbage room, I thought the noise would not reach it, but I expected my noise would reach at least the A classrooms on the first and second floos. But alas, there was no response. I was greatly disappointed, but I continued making a desperate noise, but in vain. That’s strange, isn’t it? Why couldn’t they hear me?”

“That’s strange. Well, let me see. Oh, yes, I remember. Mr. Mori, The A classroom homeroom teacher was about 5 minutes late for school that day. So probably he reached the classroom at the end the morning meeting,” Akihiko said.

“Is that so? Then the A class students were noisy all during the meeting, and so they couldn’t hear my noise, but, well, when the first period starts, the classroom normally becomes quiet.”

“Yes, but the first period for the A classroom was physical education. So after the noisy morning meeting, they went to the lockers in the corridor and began to change clothes. They wore sports jackets and ran to the gym. So A classroom was empty all during the first period,” Akihiko said.

“Oh, I see. That’s why they did not hear me,” Mr. Kito said. “But I think A classroom on the second floor must have heard my noise.”

   “Yes, they heard you. Actually, I was assigned to supervise A class students during your mathematics period. They studied by themselves doing your assignment. While I was watching them, Ikuyo Saito in the last row raised her hand and said that she frequently heard a strange noise near the rest room. When I went there, Yamada was screaming in one of the booths, “Help me, help me,” hitting the door of the booth, which would not open. I managed to open it and “rescued” him. Yamada was crying all the time.”

   “So, Yamada’s cry drowned my noise,” Mr. Kito said. “Actually, I vaguely heard something like a boy’s cry above my head, but after the cry ceased, I continued making noise and screaming, ‘Help me!’”

   “I am sorry, that was my mistake. Ikuyo again said to me she still heard some strange noise in the toilet. So I again went there only to hear a water pipe in the toilet making a strange noise. I thought it was resonating. So I struck the pipe and the noise stopped. I went back and told her not to worry about the noise, because the pipe was making the noise.”

   Akihiko repented of his careless deed. If only he had listened to the noise carefully!

  “But if you had continued banging the garbage room door during the second period, I think your noise must have reached somebody,” Akihiko said.

  “Yes, I think so, but an accident happened. Here, look at my forehead,” Mr. Kito said poking his head toward Akihiko. There was a scab on his forehead.

   “What happened? did you injure yourself in the garbage room?” Akihiko said.

   “Yes, just after the second period started, something like a rock struck my head hard and I fainted. I do not remember anything after that.”

   “You mean something hard struck your head?” Akihiko said.

   “Yes, it seemed as if it had dropped on me.”

   Akihiko remembered that Ryota Matsuda had lost his notebook computer and reported it to Mr. Ando. The computer must have fallen on Mr. Kito. But who had dropped it into the garbage chute? The students should enter the classrooms when the second-period chime rang. So, once the classes started, there shouldn’t be anyone who had a chance to throw the computer in the garbage chute. Wait a minute…I remember Yukawa wanted to go to the restroom immediately after my class began. He was beside Mr. Ando after the first period. He must have heard that Mr. Ando would check the lockers during the second period. So, immediately after the second period began, he told a lie to me that he wanted to go to the restroom, but actually he went to his locker, took out the computer, and threw it down the garbage chute. I think I must ask him about it. Most probably he had left his fingerprints.

“Probably, it was a notebook computer,” Akihiko said. “A student threw it into the garbage chute,” Akihiko said.

“I can’t believe it. Why did a student throw such an expensive thing?” Mr. Kito said.

“I think I know the student. I will ask him later. By the way, what happened after you fainted?”

“Oh, yes. I don’t know how many hours or days passed after I fainted, but when I became conscious, it was dark and filthy. I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered I had been in the garbage collection room. I was very thirsty and groggy. I tried to shout for help, but my voice was too feeble. I had difficulty in breathing. I had no energy to strike the wall with the umbrella. All I could do was just lying down in the garbage, waiting, waiting for death. I felt sad and lonely. I was horrified to realize that I might die in such a garbage-filled place alone. I felt I had been doomed to die because of one single test paper. I had grudge against God although I worked for a Catholic school. But then I collected myself. I remembered that the janitor would open the door to collect the combustible garbage on Tuesdays. So, I thought I should gather strength and wait until Tuesday, although I did not know what day that day was.”

“But how did you stay alive without anything to eat?”

“That’s right. But this is between you and me. I took in anything I could find in the garbage. I ate the leftover of the cup noodles, drank the soup that was left at the bottom of the cups. I drank the last drop of juice in the juice cans and suck the water in the plastic bottles. I ate the leftover of the convenience store lunch.”

“Didn’t you have a stomach ache?”

“No, I didn’t. I ate only the ‘new’ food which was thrown into the chute, but I was exhausted and felt sleepy. I slept and woke up and slept and woke up. One night, I heard Mr. Kontani’s voice calling my name. I thought I was dreaming. I tried to reply but I was too tired to utter a word. I remember the clank of the closing door and I again fell asleep….until, thank God, you came to me.”

“I am sorry I should have come to you earlier,” Akihiko said.

“No, no. Don’t apologize to me. You are my savior. I am grateful to you. I was nearly dying.”

“I am not a savior. I just did what I should do,” Akihiko said.

“I really think you are my savior,” Mr. Kito said. Then after a pause, he added, “I have reflected myself in the hospital. I realized that too much is as bad as too little. I was too exact about things. To be exact was my specialty and I was proud of my perfectionistic attitude. I was making light of those who were lazy and careless. But this time I’ve learned a lesson. I should have written 10 in my grade book if Yanagi had said his score had been 10. I had been foolish. To be exact can kill you.”

“That depends. Sometimes it will save you,” Akihiko said.

“That may also be true, but anyway I knew I was too strict. I don’t think I can change my character at this age, but if I can, I want to change it. So, as a starter, I am going to get rid of the bookcase on my desk. That is, I think, an embodiment of exactness. Oh, I hit a good idea, Mr. Tsushima. Could you use the bookcase?”

“Thank you, but I can’t use such a gorgeous bookcase. Besides, I have my own bookcase.” Akihiko said.

“Then, let’s exchange your bookcase and mine. That’ll settle the problem. OK?”

“Well . . . yes. But may I get rid of the lid of the bookcase?”

“That’s perfectly all right with me. You can do anything you want with it,” Mr. Kito said.

Akihiko bid farewell to Mr. Kito and went home. He thought on his way back he shouldn’t have accepted Mr. Kito’s proposal.

 

Tuesday, November 2

It was about 9 ‘clock. Akihiko was working alone in the teachers’ room. On his desk was Mr. Kito’s bookcase without the lid. Suddenly the telephone rang. He lifted the receiver and heard a woman say in a feeble voice, “Is this Kitagawa High School. I am sorry to call you so late, but is Kito still at school?”

  

                 The End