Tiny Crimes Read online

  “There’s a script on the chair,” said the man with the accent.

  His voice now reached me over speakers, each one to a corner above the glass pane.

  I unfolded the several-paged rectangle of it. “Where were you,” I said, “on December the ninth?”

  “Working for you,” said the body-bagged man to the one-sided window along the back wall.

  “Address the rhetorician, please.”

  “Excuse me,” I said to the man in the bag. “Where were you the night of December the ninth?”

  “At home with my wife and kids,” said the man.

  I searched the typescript for the answer he’d given: Subject claims he was home with his family that night.

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  I found the correlating question. “Would your family support that?”

  “Of course!” said the man. “How can you even ask that? They’re my family!”

  The script was curious indeed. Beneath all the questions were multiple answers—probable answers to each of the questions decided by the author of the script in advance—and each led the reader to some different question. These questions, in turn, led to more likely answers, like some punitive species of multiple choice.

  The script seemed to revolve around someone specific, a man it referred to as Mr. Van Brunt, a person of some upper management, surely, in the organization the man with the accent called Inline Education Partners.

  Mr. Van Brunt, who’d been recently murdered.

  Mr. Van Brunt, for whom those in the room with the coffee and candles were holding a vigil.

  A logic set appeared to me, like a line of dark stones underneath lucid water.

  “On the night Mr. Van Brunt was killed,” I began, tucking the script beneath my leg, “you say that you were with your family, a fact your family would support, which means you did not murder Mr. Van Brunt for no one can be in two places at once?”

  “Yes,” said the man as he gasped with relief. “That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

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  “Yet being your family,” I said, “could they really be said to be telling the truth? In other words, would asking them not be the same as asking you when your family, like you, hold your interests at heart?”

  The only sound for several moments was the men in the surgical masks breathing roughly.

  “Is this man’s premise valid,” said the man with the accent, “or is his premise questionable?”

  “Questionable?” I said.

  A pause. The man’s voice continued: “Is that your assessment?”

  I looked from the glass to the man in the bag. “Questionable, yes,” I said.

  The masked men converged on the man on the stool: the man on the right zipping up the black bag so his face disappeared and his cries became muffled, while the man on the left held the man in his seat. They drew hammers out of the waists of their pants and beat him about the head and neck in rapid, brutal bursts. He screamed. At the top of the bag where his head would’ve been, the heads of the hammers began to sound wet.

  “May I use the bathroom?” I asked of the mirror.

  The bag thrashed a moment. Then slumped to

  the side.

  “Gentlemen,” said the man with the accent, “escort him.”

  I rose and began to advance toward the door, but

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  the men in the masks turned me back toward the wall. The man on the left raised his hand to the mirror, mumbling under his surgical mask. The wall opened inward, revealing a cot and a small metal toilet that shone with blue slime.

  With utter composure, I hunched through the entry and vomited painfully into the hole.

  I wiped my mouth and climbed back out, the men in the masks backing out along with me.

  The man on the stool had been swapped for another, also in a body bag. His eyes looked at me through a cleft in the zipper.

  “Feeling better, I hope?” said the man with the accent.

  I nodded grimly at the mirror, but when I turned back to the room, it was gone. The wall was just a wall again.

  “That room back there,” I said, “whose is it?”

  “Why of course,” said the man with the accent, “it’s yours.”

  The man on the stool was as pale as the first, but he looked a bit younger. He had darker hair.

  “If you would,” said the man with the accent.

  I sat. A new script was waiting for me on the leather. I folded it out, browsed the question-set there, the variant columns of possible answers.

  I said: “Where were you on December the ninth?”

  “Excuse me,” I said, wiping bile from my mouth.

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  I never could remember that bit.

  “Let me start again,” I said. “Where were you the night of December the ninth?”

  The eyes between the zipper-track turned inward then, desperate and searching. I waited for the mouth to speak the words that could not save its life.

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  出口なし

  中村文則

  男が椅子に座っている。

  その椅子に、男は覚えがある。男の人生の中で、確かに一度、座ったことのある椅子だった。しかし、どこの店の椅子だったのか、もしくは自分の部屋の椅子だったのか、男は思い出すことができない。

  一畳ほどのスペースに、男はいる。男は狭いところが好きではない。そのことも、男は覚えている。目の前にドアがある。そのドアにも覚えがある。でもそれがどこで見たドアなのか、思い出すことができない。

  男は椅子に座り、目の前のドアを見続けてい

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  No Exit

  Fuminori Nakamura

  Translated by Allison Markin Powell

  The man was sitting in a chair.

  The chair was familiar to the man. He was certain that this was a chair he had sat in before, at some point in his life. But whether the chair had been in a restaurant somewhere, or in his apartment, the man could not recall.

  The room the man was in was about the size of one tatami mat. He did not like confined spaces. The man remembered as much as this. There was a door in front of him. This door was also familiar. But he could not recall where he had seen the door before.

  The man sat in the chair, staring at the door in front of him. For what might have been hours, for what

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  る。数時間かもしれないし、数十年かもしれなかった。時間の感覚が失われている。ただ、身体がだるかった。どうしようもないほど、身体がだるかった。男はうんざりしている。自分の人生を、常にそう過ごしてきたのと同じように。

  じっとしながら、また数年が経ったような気がする。この部屋は酷く狭い。音もなく、匂いもない。自分が瞬きをしたような気がした時、目の前のドアがゆっくり開く。男はそのドアの向こうを気だるく眺める。そこには男が座っている。自分と全く同じ人間が、こちらをうんざり眺めながら座っている。

  「……そうだと思ったんだよね。……このドアを開けても、どうせそんなことだろうと」

  目の前の男はそう言う。同じ一畳ほどのスペースの中で、開いたドアのすぐ向こうで、男と同じ姿勢で椅子に座っている。

  「……俺は待ってたんだよ。このドアが開くのを、ずっと」

  「……俺は迷ってたんだよ。……このドアを開けるか、ずっと」

  二人の男は、お互いを眺めながら黙る。彼らの距離は酷く近い。二人は同じ顔で、同じ服を着ている。

  「……あのさ、�
�アを開けるなら、引いてくれればよかったんだ。……こちらに押して開けただろう？ そうすると、こっちが狭くなる」

  「このドアは押して開けるしかないんでね」

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  may have been years. He had lost sense of time. All he knew was that he felt weary. His body felt impossibly tired. The man was sick of it all. He had spent his entire life feeling this same way.

  As he sat there, motionless, it seemed like more years passed. The room was terribly small. There was no noise, no smell. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the door before him slowly opened. The man gazed languidly at what was on the other side of the door. Another man was sitting there. A person exactly the same as him sat there, jadedly staring back.

  “. . . Just as I thought . . . If I opened the door, I knew that’s what would be there,” the man in front of him said. In a room that was the same one-mat size, just on the other side of the door, he was sitting in a chair in the same position as the man.

  “. . . I’ve been waiting. For the door to open, all this time.”

  “. . . I’ve been debating. Whether to open the door, all this time.”

  The two men stared at each other, without saying another word. The distance between them was terribly close. They both looked the same, they were wearing the same clothes.

  “. . . Well, so, since you opened the door, I’d appreciate if you would pull it back . . . You pushed it open, right? Now it’s even more cramped in here.”

  “The door only pushes open.”

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  二人はお互いを眺める。

  「……嘘だ。爪先に当たるんだよこのドアが。引けよ」

  「そういうところだよ。……細かいし、ひとをすぐ疑う」

  「何言ってるんだよ。……おまえの顔見てると苛々するんだよ。……目が暗いんだ。口元も……、どうにかできないか」

  二人はお互いを盗み見るように、視線を動かしている。

  「おまえもだよ。……嘘ばかりついてきた。どれだけの人間を傷つけた？ 覚えてるか、あの女のことを」

  「……おまえと同じくらいは。他人を幸福にすることからおまえは逃げてきたんだ。挙句の果てに、無理に会社を起こして、やばい金に手を出す始末だ。……ん？ おまえ、覚えてるか」

  「……おぼろげに。金を持ち逃げして、マフィアに囲まれて……」

  「……ああ」

  目の前の男が息を吐く。

  「……俺達は死んだんだ」

  男が苛立ちながら、こめかみをかく。

  「……なるほど、これが地獄か」

  二人の男は、お互いを眺める。うんざりしている。この部屋は酷く狭い。音もなく、匂いもない。

  「地獄っていえば、火の海とか、悪魔とか想

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  They both stared at each other.

  “. . . That’s crap. The door’s basically touching my toes. Pull it back.”

  “This is the point . . . You notice everything, you’re so quick to suspect.”

  “What are you talking about? . . . Looking at you pisses me off . . . Your creepy eyes, and your mouth . . . I can’t handle it.”

  Each of them cast furtive glances at the other.

  “You should talk . . . All you ever did was lie. How many people did you hurt? Remember what you did to that woman?”

  “. . . Like you’re any better. You ran away from making anyone happy. You’re the one who would have done anything to get your business going, even using stolen money in the end . . . Huh? Remember that?”

  “. . . Vaguely. I remember making off with the money, then being surrounded by gangsters.”

  “. . . Yeah.”

  The other man exhaled.

  “. . . We’re dead.”

  The man scratched his temple in irritation.

  “. . . You’re right. This must be hell.”

  The two men looked at each other. Jaded and exhausted. These rooms were terribly small. There were no sounds, no smells.

  “If this were hell, you’d think there’d be a sea of flames, or demons, or whatever . . . You were a loser

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  像してたけどな……。とにかく、おまえの人生は失敗だったんだよ。完全な失敗だ。多くの人間を利用し、傷つけた挙句、成功すらしなかった」

  「そうだ、おまえはやたらと傷つきやすい。度胸もない。でも野心だけがあった。……自分の存在の不安を、くだらない野心に変えて」

  二人はお互いを眺める。

  「……なあ、ドアを引いてくれないか。爪先にドアが当たるんだ」

  「だから、細かいんだよおまえ」

  「引けよ。というか、閉めてくれ」

  「……閉められない。俺も閉めたい。でも、一度開けたら、もう閉まらないんだ」

  二人の男はしばらく沈黙する。

  「……なら、お互いを見ないようにしないか？ 我慢ならない」

  二人はお互いから目を逸らす。しかし、やはり目の前の存在が気になって仕方ない。どちらともなく、また口を開く。どちらかがこめかみを激しくかき、どちらかが腰のあたりを酷くかく。

  「……覚えてるか。おまえが裏切った、あの男を。……え？ どう言い訳する？」

  「おまえが言い訳すればいいだろう。あの老人のことは覚えてるか？ おまえが金を騙し取った……」

  二人はお互いを眺める。うんざりしている。

  「……そうか。これが永遠に続くの

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  in life, anyway. A complete and total failure. You used everyone, you ended up hurting all those people, and you weren’t even successful.”

  “Right, but your ego’s too damn sensitive. You’ve got no guts. Nothing but ambition . . . You turned your existential anxiety into worthless ambition.”

  They both looked at each other.

  “. . . Hey, would you pull the door? It’s touching my toes.”

  “Like I said, you pay too much attention.”

  “Pull it! Or just close it.”

  “. . . I can’t close it. I wish I could. But now that I’ve opened it, it can’t be closed.”

  Neither of them said anything for a while.

  “. . . Then, why don’t we try not to look at each other? I can’t take it.”

  Both men averted their eyes. But there was nothing they could do—they knew the other was right there. Each of them opened their mouths again. One scratched his temple roughly, the other rubbed his back intently.

  “. . . Do you remember? The guy you betrayed . . . Yeah? What’d you do that for?”

  “It’s okay with you as long as there’s an excuse? Remember that old guy? The one you swindled out of his money . . .”

  They each looked at the other. They were disgusted.

  “. . . I see. This goes on forever?”

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  The Hall at the End

  of the Hall

  Ryan Bloom

  The hall in my dream is narrow, the ceiling so high it’s out of sight, as if, maybe, it’s not even there, the hall not a hall at all but a walled walkway winding toward the sky. My sister, Adèle, loved mazes. Of corn or paper or house or silk, like the one the city erected in Rock Creek Park, near where we lived when we were kids, some sort of art installation, twisting paths lined with orange drapes, as if the dirt trails weren’t difficult enough on their own, though the artists had lit
the length of the thing, so that from a distance, when the sky went dull and the crickets itched, the scene was like out of some Japanese fairy tale, the drapes like sliding

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  shōji screens, the doors of a hundred tightly packed houses blessing the night, the heat so hot it literally made tar melt.

  The house cleaners had a fiesta that summer with all the tar stains they were paid to remove: from the foyers of downtown restaurants and airless Metro cars, from the laundromat on 14th Street where somehow the stains ended up atop the machines, and that’s not to mention the residential work, the tar-crumb trails from back door to stairs to bedroom. The size-nine shoes. In the entirety of my life, then or since, I’ve never seen so many women go without bras, the heat too intense even for them. Or that’s what I heard Maman tell Papa when he asked why Adèle was “running around like that,” and why, for that matter, was she, our mother, “running around like that, too.”

  In that summer of tar and heat and mazes, my sister and I must have been, what, sixteen? Seventeen? Young enough, still.

  In my dream, the walls of the hall are hung with photographs, Adèle and I on our parents’ zebra-striped couch, her sucking my thumb; a photo of her at six, beating me in a sack race, head turned as if she were unsure if I were even still with her; at twelve, tongue between teeth, stomach flat against a sheet of paper bigger than her, literally bigger, sketching her first “jumbo maze.” That’s what she called them. “Are you going for Guinness?” I asked the day the photo was taken, but