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see.”
    I couldn’t cry. Even now, I still haven’t had a good cry.
    I’ve regretted what I did so many times. I still do. But I keep telling myself not to. We couldn’t have gone on any longer anyway, I know that. And we had fun, right to the end. Again and again, like an incantation, I repeat these words.
    “Oh, that’s nice—I wish things were like that for me. What did I do wrong?” the woman said, looking rather put out. I hadn’t told her what I was remembering, but she seemed to have read my mind. She looked as if she were truly annoyed, from the very bottom of her heart.
    “It’s not too late, is it?” I said. “Why don’t you go back to your room, maybe talk a bit more seriously about breaking up or carrying on or whatever seems best? And put on some clothes. Aren’t you cold?”
    “It may be too late,” said the woman. Her hair was covering her face. “We’re thinking of committing suicide together...”
    She didn’t say anything after that. She seemed oddly fidgety.
    “Oh my god,” I said, “you haven’t...”
    “And what if I did? What if I killed him first, then left the room and came... Of course, I’d prefer to think I wouldn’t do something like that. Or maybe it was a failed suicide, maybe I woke up, just me, and he was dead... Which one do you suppose it is?” she asked.
    “Which one! What are you talking about?” I shouted, because I had the feeling that unless I shouted, I was about to get very, very frightened. “Forget it, what’s the use in talking? I’m going to get the key from the woman!”
    I grabbed the key to my room and leapt to my feet. It crossed my mind that if I didn’t take my key, I’d fall into the same trap she had. I don’t know why. She would still be in my room, after all.
    When I looked back, she was sitting on my bed, her feet dangling over the edge, looking lonely.
    She kept staring at the ground, without looking up. I noticed how pretty her thighs were, and the V of her collarbone.
    I took the elevator down to the front desk and vehemently rang the bell.
    No one came out, so I kept ringing it. The only sound was the hum of the air conditioner, which echoed through the dark lobby; the faded colors of the couch seemed to levitate in space.
    After an extremely long time, the woman emerged from the back. It was clear that she had just gotten out of bed and she was in a terrible mood.
    “A woman staying in a room near mine has a problem—she’s been shut out of her room, and she’s naked. Do you think I could borrow the key to her room?”
    “Huh?” I doubt the human organism can create a voice more foul-tempered than hers was then.
    “If you don’t believe me, come and see!” I said.
    I thought it would be best to have her come, just in case the man happened to be dead or something.
    “I’m sorry to say that you’re the only guest today!” said the woman.
    “What? But, just now, really...”
    “Oh boy,” said the woman. “Which side should I take?”
    “What do you mean, which side?”
    “Should I think of the hotel’s profits or set the customer’s mind at ease?”
    Her expression was completely serious.
    “If you’ve said that much, you might as well tell me the rest,” I said. “What’s going on?”
    “Listen, I understand what you’re saying. This is a strange day. The sort of day when people in the old days talked about seeing sneaky creatures like mujina . Somehow the air feels heavy, and the night is darker than usual. But you know what? It will pass. Even nights like this come to an end. Anyway, that woman you’re talking about—she was wearing a bathrobe, wasn’t she?”
    “That’s right.”
    “She appears sometimes. Here in the hotel. A while back, she and her lover planned to commit suicide together here, but she was the only one who died. The man, who was a teacher at the school, survived. There weren’t enough sleeping pills. So he took his wife and kids and moved out of town.”
    “How awful.”
    I