A Delicate Heart: Red Beans Grow in the South

For some reason, she had arrived again in that desolate place far beyond the city, a stretch of waste ground so lonely it made the skin crawl. The hills hunched around it like the monstrous spirits from old books. Crows circled above. Dry leaves and earth crackled underfoot with a sound like skulls being crushed. Far ahead, two orange lanterns hung by the roadside, swaying in the wind like banners calling the dead home. Miyazaki Mio walked slowly toward them, her palm slick with sweat. Then she saw a body lying in the middle of the road. It was a girl about her own age, dressed in the dark blue wide-sleeved blouse and black pleated skirt typical of the White Lotus Girls' School, white socks drawn high over her slender calves, black leather shoes a little soiled. As Mio approached, the girl moved and rose. She lifted one hand and waved. On the inside of that right arm there were several coarse puncture marks. Though the light was dim and the distance not small, those marks stood out with terrible clarity, almost as if they were eager to show themselves to Mio. On the girl's chest was a badge: a white lotus. And beneath it, her name. Amemiya Akiho. "Amemiya Akiho?" Mio called softly. "Why did you ask me to come?" The girl's mouth curved into a strange, drifting smile. In a voice that seemed to float from somewhere above the earth, she said, "Save me." Mio woke with a start. Another dream.

It was the thirty-ninth such dream since Miyazaki Mio's strange power of foresight had awakened. The people who came to her for help in those dreams existed perfectly safely in the waking world. They had no idea that disaster was coming for them. Mio's task was to save them before the hand of death could close. This time it was Amemiya Akiho of White Lotus Girls' School. Judging by the puncture marks on Akiho's arm, Mio guessed that whatever killed her would probably involve an injection of some kind, some medicine or poison forced into her blood. But that was all she had. As always, her first step was to get close to the person in the dream, understand who they were, and uncover the danger hidden behind them. So she went to White Lotus Girls' School. It did not take long to find Akiho's class. Mio waited for her at the exit of the school building.

When the bell rang, the girls poured out laughing in twos and threes, all in blue jackets and black skirts. Mio had always envied them. If her family had not collapsed, perhaps she too might have been one of these girls, studying at a famous school in Kobe, taking in both Japanese and Western learning instead of hiding in the detective agency's library and wrestling half-blind with difficult texts. Then Amemiya Akiho appeared. Mio hugged the books in her arms tighter, stepped into the flow of students, and at just the right moment collided deliberately with the pile Akiho was carrying. Books spilled everywhere. "I'm so sorry." They both apologized at the same time and crouched to gather the scattered volumes. It was summer, and the girl's sleeve rode up enough to expose the lower half of her arm. Mio looked carefully. The skin there was smooth and pale. None of the puncture marks from the dream had appeared yet. Keeping her face calm, she asked for the principal's office and pretended she was new and lost. Akiho smiled, eyes curving gently, dimples faint in her cheeks. "These are all classrooms. The principal's office is in the administrative building." Mio made her voice awkward and earnest. "I don't know where that is. Could you show me?" Akiho hesitated only briefly before agreeing.

The walk was short, Mio careful and serious, trying to make conversation just enough to soften the strangeness between them. Then the atmosphere broke all at once. A man came down the stairwell of the administrative building with the easy grace of someone stepping into a scene already his. Mio looked up. He looked back. Their eyes met with all the old twists and detours between them laid bare in a single instant. "So it's you," he said. Todo Teisei. Proprietor of the Moonview Club. Benefactor of this girls' school. Mio still remembered too clearly what had passed between them months before: his quiet confession, her tactful refusal, the parting afterward. She had never expected to run into him again here. Panic brushed her. Todo Teisei knew her background. If he exposed it, all her carefully arranged approach to Akiho would be ruined. So she lowered her head quickly in acknowledgment and hurried Akiho into the building. Behind them, Todo remained where he was for a long moment before smiling faintly and shaking his head.

That evening Kobe was slowly putting on all its nighttime seductions. Music, perfume, powder, wine, pearls, all of it drifted along the bright streets. Pairs of lovers passed, making Miyazaki Mio feel thinner and lonelier than ever. A black motorcar stopped a little ahead of her. Todo leaned out, smiling with lazy elegance and a hint of mockery. "Miss Miyazaki, what role are you playing this time?" Since he already knew enough about her to ruin her plans if he wished, she had no choice but to explain, though only halfway, and not with the truth of her prophetic dreams. No one would believe that. She agreed to go with him to Moonview Club. There, beneath the endless glow of lanterns and music, she did not explain much at all. She only asked him, "Do you think I mean anyone harm?" When he smiled and shook his head, she cut off the subject cleanly. "Then leave my affairs alone." He said nothing after that, though when she rose to leave he caught her wrist and said he would send her home. She refused with a firmness so sharp it was almost cruel.

The second time Mio met Akiho "by chance" was, of course, no chance at all. She had already memorized the girl's timetable. Seeing her, Mio greeted her warmly and asked where she was headed. "To the library," Akiho said. Mio immediately offered to come along. There was a flicker of reluctance on Akiho's face, something Mio tucked away in her mind. Then Akiho smiled again, bright as a flower. Mio followed her gaze and turned to see a tall, thin foreign man approaching with a long stride, his blue eyes set deep, his nose high, his light brown hair curling naturally. "This is Mr. Steven," Akiho said. "He teaches English." Mio bowed at once. "Good afternoon, Mr. History." The hand Steven had started to extend froze in midair. Akiho tugged at Mio's sleeve, trying not to laugh. "His name is Steven. Steven is his surname." Mio wanted the ground to swallow her. Steven burst out laughing and replied in fluent Chinese that it was all right, he was pleased to meet her. Later she learned that Steven was not a full member of the faculty. He only came twice a week to teach English to girls enrolled in the special class. The rest of his time he spent working at a foreign trading company. When he invited her to dinner, claiming it was only the ordinary politeness one friend or teacher offers another, she did not refuse. In the warm dimness of a Western restaurant, Steven's openness, his excellent Chinese, and the breadth of what he knew made him seem effortlessly charming. Mio liked him well enough until the waiter arrived carrying a great bouquet of roses and said they had been ordered by the gentleman for the lady. Only then did she realize how dull she had been. Steven looked at her full of expectancy. Mio was struggling for a response when Todo Teisei appeared in the doorway. She trembled slightly and, almost defensively, gathered the roses in front of her chest like a screen. She suddenly felt as though she were holding up a wall against everyone. Especially when Todo discovered her, and she caught the brief flash of confusion and hurt in his eyes, guilt rose in her like frost driven straight through the bone.

There was already someone in Miyazaki Mio's heart. That person was dead, gone, no more than an absence, yet still occupying the same undefeated territory. Mio knew it. Todo Teisei knew it too. He could not cross into that ground, and she could not draw nearer either.

On the weekend Mio arranged to tutor Akiho. The Amemiya residence was large, high-walled, and rich in the way only old houses can be. A maid led Mio through courtyard after courtyard until they reached Akiho's room. Akiho had fallen asleep with her chin on her hand. Mio motioned for the maid not to wake her and let the woman withdraw smiling. In truth Mio was already planning to search the room for anything suspicious. But before she could begin, Akiho let out a low cry. She was speaking in her sleep. Her brow was tightly furrowed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, broken words like help me and get away spilling from her mouth. Mio was startled just as Akiho woke. "When did you come?" Akiho asked awkwardly. "Why didn't you wake me?" Mio hesitated, then said she had heard her speaking in her sleep. Akiho looked unconcerned. Mio pressed further and asked what she had been dreaming. For a moment the air sharpened between them. At last Akiho sighed. "Something unpleasant. I don't remember it clearly." Then, strangely, she added, "Do you believe that right before death, important moments in your life come back one by one like a film? Even things that have gone vague or been forgotten can suddenly be shown with complete clarity." Mio was baffled. Akiho drew her down into a chair and poured tea. "I don't know why," she said, "but you feel soft and familiar to me. I can't help liking you. It's almost as if we've met in a dream before." Mio's hand trembled so badly she almost spilled the tea.

As Mio was leaving, Steven came around the corner near the Amemiya gate. She greeted him casually and asked where he was headed. He hesitated, then said he was only passing by. The answer was so unlike the question that it marked him more than anything else. Still Mio did not dwell on it. But when she reached her own house, a dark outline waited under the eaves. It was Todo. She tried to evade him, but he stepped forward and said quietly, "There's something you need to know. Be careful of Steven." When she asked why, he said Steven's background was not simple and that he had a habit of entangling himself with girls from the school, including Amemiya Akiho. There was something between them. At first Mio thought seriously about it, but then anger shot through her. "You've been investigating him behind my back?" she demanded. "Todo Teisei, are you targeting him, or are you watching me?" He tried to laugh it off and said only that he wanted to keep her safe. That made her angrier still. "Please remember that whoever I see is none of your business." She shoved him aside, ran into the house, and slammed the door. He stood outside for a long time, unable to count how many times she had turned that cold back on him, yet still unable to stop following her as if possessed.

Mio began secretly following Akiho every day. It was the sort of behavior more suited to a petty thief than a young woman, but she did not know exactly when Akiho would die, and the only way to keep the girl safe was not to let her leave Mio's sight. Days passed with nothing unusual. Then Mio noticed a fixed habit. Every afternoon after lessons, Akiho went to a small building by the library. At first Mio thought nothing of it. The place was an old former Qing structure overgrown with vines, all rusted iron gates and arched windows. Then she learned that aside from a storage room, the building also held laboratories. At once the puncture marks in the dream returned to her mind. So she followed Akiho into the gloom. The corridors were long and narrow. The lights were dim. Once or twice a solemn teacher passed by. Mio lost sight of Akiho and ended up creeping from the first floor to the third, peering through each little window into each room, until she reached the very last room at the end of the top corridor. There she stopped cold. Akiho lay on a bed, flat on her back. By the bed a machine flashed red and green. Wires ran from it in a tangle, two of them wound around Akiho's arm and went straight into her flesh. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, almost asleep. On the machine's front a line danced: rising, falling, steady. Then little by little the waves disappeared and were replaced by a single straight line. The numbers beside it began dropping. They fell and fell until they reached zero. Terror hit Mio so hard that she shoved the door open. Someone sprang out at once to stop her. It was Steven.

"Don't interfere," he shouted. "It's time to bring her back." He seized two metal paddles, pressed them to Akiho's chest, and jolted her body like a fish flung onto a board. Again. Again. Mio stared in horror. At last Akiho's eyes opened. She saw Mio and sat up in fright. "What are you doing here?" "That's exactly what I want to ask you," Mio answered. Akiho smoothed her blouse and smiled faintly. "I told you. In the instant before death, many things become clear." Mio shivered. So that flat line had not been metaphor. Akiho's heart had truly stopped. She was using death itself to look through her life. Steven, proud as ever, explained from the side that he had succeeded five times already. The machine could stop a heart and then revive it. As long as the timing was calculated precisely, a person could die for several dozen seconds and still return. Mio retorted that if it failed even once, Akiho would never come back. Steven could not answer, though the pride remained on his face. Akiho only lowered her eyes and said in a dark, quiet voice, "There won't be a next time. I've already found the answer." Mio froze. If the experiment was no longer to continue, then the puncture marks and the machine were not going to be the cause of Akiho's death after all. Then what was?

By the time Mio came back to herself, Akiho had already left the laboratory. She ran after her, refusing to let the chance go. Weariness had settled over Akiho's face. "I don't know why you're watching me like this," she said, "but I'll tell you this much. I had no choice. I tried every method I could think of and still couldn't recover the memory I needed. Steven said he could help me. Fortunately, we succeeded. Didn't we?" Mio pressed her. What kind of memory could be so important that it was worth risking her life? Akiho looked straight at her and answered at last. Sometimes, she said, when a person goes through something too terrifying or too brutal, the mind seals the memory away to protect itself. It is not truly gone, only driven into some corner too deep to reach. You know it happened. Fragments float back from time to time. They torment you until even your own existence begins to feel unreal. "You can see only the bright and polished shell of me," Akiho said. "You don't know how ruined the inside is." Then she sat down on a bench by the road and tipped up her face. "Half a year ago, on a midnight just here, I lost the most important thing a woman can lose. I have tried again and again to remember that man's face. I know I saw it. I know I did. I was only too afraid, so I buried it myself. Other people call it shock-induced amnesia. But I've read Western psychology. I know I didn't really forget. If I worked hard enough, I should have been able to recover his face." Mio could say nothing but stare. The quiet, gentle girl before her had gone through such devastation. Her own eyes were already shining with pity. "And did you remember him?" she asked. "Yes," Akiho said. "Then who was it?" But Akiho only smiled and said nothing. Mio asked why she had to remember such a thing at all if it hurt so much. Akiho simply kept silent.

Later, when Steven appeared with theater tickets and insisted she come with him, Mio was reluctant but finally gave in. She asked him directly whether Akiho liked him. His surprise looked too quick and too rehearsed. So she told him she had seen the way Akiho looked at him, the kind of brightness a woman only shows before the man she loves. She even asked whether the day she met him at the Amemiya gate he had in fact been going there to see Akiho. Steven denied all of it. The car passed Moonview Club and suddenly he braked, saying he had just remembered the tickets were for tomorrow, so why not stop there for a while instead. Mio had the distinct sense that he had brought her there deliberately, but curiosity and unease made her step out beside him anyway. Inside, the club bloomed in its usual clouds of smoke and color. She had barely begun looking around when Todo Teisei came toward them. Tonight he wore an old-fashioned long robe, unexpectedly grave and elegant. He greeted her, and Steven at once extended a hand and said with a pleasant sting, "So this is Manager Todo. People say you're a genius for business. Lately, I've also heard you have a taste for investigating other people's private affairs." So Steven had noticed Todo digging into his background. Mio cut in quickly and asked for a private room, claiming she disliked the noise of the main hall. Todo agreed at once. The room was a half-round balcony hanging from the second floor, the kind from which every glance up or down could find another in return. Todo kept looking at Mio. Mio kept trying not to look back. Steven, meanwhile, made the discomfort worse by leaning close, pouring tea for her, fanning her, surrounding her with a false intimacy that made her want to disappear. Then an attendant came with an antique carved box. Inside lay a necklace made of red beans. "A new custom at Moonview Club," the attendant explained. "Every female guest receives one." At that same moment, the singer on the stage below lifted her voice: Red beans grow in the south. How many branches bloom in spring? Gather them if you will. Nothing in this world bears longing so well.

Steven would not stop needling her about Todo's investigation. Was Todo an old acquaintance? Was he perhaps behaving like that because of her? The way he pressed and prodded felt less like curiosity and more like deliberate display, as though he wanted Todo to see how close they were. At last Mio could bear it no more and rose, saying she felt unwell and wanted to leave. They had barely stepped out of the club when gunshots cracked behind them. Screams followed. Men and women flooded out with their heads down, some already crying. Someone shouted, "Manager Todo has been shot." Mio's mind went blank. Steven caught her hand and urged her to get farther away, but she threw him off and pushed against the fleeing crowd, back into the hall. The room that had moments ago been drenched in luxury was now a wreck of overturned tables and chaos. At the center, beneath the round stage lights, she saw Todo Teisei lying in blood. His eyes bulged. He dragged huge breaths into himself as guards and servants fumbled around him uselessly. Mio broke through them all and knelt. "Manager Todo..." His eyes moved. With tremendous effort he turned them toward her, then seized both her hands as if he were using up all that remained of his life. Later, before the doors of the operating theater swung closed behind him, his last lucid words to her were these: "If I survive this, will you promise that next time, the one sitting in that balcony room with you will be me?" She hesitated then. She gave him no sure answer. Now she no longer knew whether he had heard any answer at all.

By the time she left the hospital it was three in the morning. Steven drove her home. She was exhausted enough to sway when she walked, and he kept telling her to rest. Only after she had let herself into the house and turned on the yellow light did she realize her handbag was missing. She had left it in Steven's car. She ran back out. Steven lived only two streets away. Her heels rang against the pavement like her own anxious heartbeat. At the corner she saw the black car already. Beside it stood two figures. One was Steven. The other was Akiho. At once Mio stepped into the shadow of a wall and crept closer until she could hear clearly. Akiho was crying, clutching Steven's sleeve. He shook her off. She grabbed again. He shook her off again. Finally, with open disgust, he said, "Why bring this to me?" Akiho pleaded, "You're the person I trust most. There's no one else." Steven's answer was colder than ice. "You've killed someone. Todo Teisei is in the hospital now, and no one knows whether he'll wake. What exactly do you expect me to do?" Mio froze. Then Akiho said the words that made everything tilt. "If you hadn't helped me recover that memory, how would I have known the man who violated me was Todo Teisei? I only wanted him to pay for what he did. Steven, you know I love you." Her voice was full of helpless appeal. Steven did not soften at all. "That's only your own wishful thinking." There was more struggling, more crying, more pleading. Mio only heard half of it. The clearest part of her mind had already seized on the thing she could not believe: Todo Teisei, with his helpless eyes and his helpless body and his child's raw sadness, could not be the man who had hurt Akiho. Tears blurred her vision. Then she saw Steven shove Akiho violently. The girl fell like a doll, landing with her arms and legs flung wide, and did not get up again. In that instant Mio understood the true meaning of the dream. This was how Akiho was really going to die. Blood began to spread beneath her. Mio ran forward in terror.

Steven was arrested for the death of Amemiya Akiho. When he gave his statement in the interrogation room, Miyazaki Mio happened to be leaving the detective inspector's office. Through the one-way glass she saw his withered face and fingers knotted together with strain. She heard him confess, almost proudly, that he had tampered with the experiments and altered Akiho's memory, making her believe that the man who had assaulted her was Todo Teisei. He had approached her from the start because he was afraid she would one day remember the truth. The man who had actually violated her had been himself. The room felt full of cold grief. Mio could hardly breathe. She thought of Akiho's quiet obsession, her fragile beauty, her desperate trust. She wanted to burst into the room and tear Steven apart. Yet all she felt in that corridor was a terrible helplessness. Even while confessing, he carried himself with a warped pride. His experiment, he said, was perfect. Minds as dull as theirs would never understand what he had done. Then the interrogator asked the final question: if all that was true, why frame Todo Teisei? Why destroy him too? Steven lifted his head slowly and smiled toward the glass, as if he knew exactly that Mio was standing behind it. "Because she had already placed her feelings on him. Yet she still used me to provoke him. I treated her sincerely, and she treated me like a tool. That was an insult to my dignity. I hated her, and I hated Todo Teisei more."

Mio stumbled back until the corridor wall hit her spine. Steven's cold smile went on burning in her mind. She covered her face and cried without restraint. She had wronged Todo Teisei. She had believed that distance and refusal would keep him farther away, when in truth her clumsy methods had pushed him toward a fate from which he might never return. Red beans grow in the south. Nothing in this world bears longing so well. Only now did she understand. The reason she had run after her handbag at three in the morning had nothing to do with the bag itself. It was because of the red bean necklace. Because something in her had already known.

When she dragged herself home, the carved box lay quietly on the tea table. She picked it up and opened it. The beads were plump and bright, each one like a drop of red lacquered with longing. Under the yellow lamplight she could just make out tiny engraved characters on them. Her heart drew tight. She bent closer, and one by one the characters sharpened in her sight. They were her name. Miyazaki Mio. Then at last she understood. That necklace had never been some ordinary souvenir given to any female guest of Moonview Club. Todo Teisei had made it for her. His love weighed more than a thousand things she had misread. And finally she thought that if he woke, she would be willing to cast aside those ashes of the past and begin again with him. But would he wake?