“There are no lights on the road up there,” said Dad. “It was pitch black.”
“Must have been scary,” said Keiji.
“Not really—there were five of us in the car—we were enjoying ourselves.”
“But wasn’t that part of the problem?”
“Yes,” said Dad, glancing at Mom. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“And when you came out of the tunnel…”
“Yes. It was just after the tunnel. I saw a kind of flash in front of us.”
“Their eyes?”
“Yes. There were deer on the road.”
“I wish I could have seen them. I’ve never seen any in real life, never seen a monkey, never seen a boar. How many deer were there?”
“Three, I think. One of them was small.”
“Did the big ones have antlers?”
“No.”
“So, they were does, then. One of them must have been the little one’s mother.” Keiji was proud of his knowledge. “And that’s when it happened?”
“Yeah. It was stupid. The other guys in the car all shouted when they saw the deer. ‘Hit one, shenshei! Deer! Hit one!’”
“Mr. Hashimoto said he’d hit one before, right?”
“Yeah, I think so. He hit it, kept the meat, and ate it. But just then—in the car—we’d been talking about a boar.”
Keiji looked astonished.
“Somebody hit a boar? Who?”
“Didn’t I tell you? It was Ken, the guy who runs the Bungo Strait guesthouse—you know him, he sometimes brings us fish. He saw a boar on the road one day and thought to himself, ‘A bit of stew would be good,’ and drove straight at it. The car hit it hard, and the boar flew up into the air and landed in a heap on the road. But it wasn’t dead. It was only pretending. It lay there, waiting for Ken to get out of the car and walk over. Then it jumped up, ran straight at him, knocked him over, and pinned him to the ground. The boar’s front trotters were on his chest and he couldn’t move. It was so heavy he could hardly breathe. The boar was snorting angrily through its nostrils and Ken thought he was going to be eaten, but he was saved at the last moment. Just as he’d given up all hope, a car came by. When the boar saw the car, it calmly walked off toward the hills. As it was leaving the road, it turned around, looked Ken straight in the eye, and gave a scornful smile. Then it disappeared. When Ken got back to the car, he saw there was a terrible dent in the front. And he was covered in fleas from the boar. He was scratching himself for days!”
“Boars aren’t carnivores, Dad,” Keiji corrected him with a momentary frown. “And I wonder if they really smile.” His eyes were now sparkling with curiosity.
“Well…” said Dad, with a shrug. “But anyway, they coaxed me into it with their shouting: ‘Hit it! Hit it!’ I shouldn’t have listened. I suppose I must have been thinking: It’s not a boar; it’s a deer. It won’t cause any damage… And there were no other vehicles around. ‘Hit it! Hit it!’ they kept shouting and before I knew what I was doing I had the accelerator flat to the floor. Then there was a terrible noise and I slammed on the break. As soon as we stopped, everyone jumped out of the car and there was something lying on the road.
“But it wasn’t dead, was it?”
“No. When we got close it hopped up and ran off.”
“After being hit by a car…amazing!”
It was the second time Keiji had heard the story, but he looked just as surprised as he had the first time.
“Yeah,” said Dad. “Then we went back to the car. It was in a hell of a state. The bumper was bent, the left headlight was broken, and there was a dent in the hood. The other four were laughing their heads off. ‘The deer was tougher than the car,’ they said. Well, all I could do was laugh along with them, though really there was nothing to laugh about.” He smiled sadly.
“Nothing at all,” said Mom sternly from the kitchen.
“Deer must be really strong!” said Keiji, trying not to snicker.
But they’re not. At least, they’re no match for a car.
As usual, Mitsugu Azamui was already drunk when he arrived at the house that day. What was different this time was that Dad was pretty drunk too. He and Mom had been arguing a lot about the car, and of course he always came off worst, so his confidence was at a low ebb. Mom was away for the night, on a trip to the Dogo Onsen hot spring, organized by the women’s association.
The trip had been proposed by Hatsue, the deputy chair. The election had gone very well as far as Hatsue was concerned. Her husband, Hachi-nī, was now a member of the district assembly, and although her brother, Yoshi-nī, had retained his seat, his ranking had fallen. Until then he had always gotten the most votes of any candidate in the whole district, but Hachi-nī had successfully eaten into his support in the village. Hachi-nī’s own share of the vote was not huge—the second lowest of the successful candidates—but he’d gotten his seat. Mr. Kawano had done better than expected this time around, attracting the most votes of any of the defeated candidates. But, of course, defeat was still defeat.
Hatsue was delighted by her husband’s success.
“We couldn’t have done it without shenshei and you,” she told Mom, urging her to come on the trip. Hatsue (or rather Abe Construction) paid for Mom’s expenses, as well as those of several other women who had contributed to the Hachi-nī cause.
Because Mom was away, I had to serve drinks for Dad and Mitsugu Azamui. Well, I didn’t have to, exactly, but Dad was very down because of the car and it seemed like a nice thing to do. We had the curry that Mom had left us, and then I quietly took him a glass. It seemed to cheer him up.
“Would you like some fries?” I said.
“Sure!” he said, nodding happily.
I’d bought some frozen fries that afternoon and I put them in the microwave. Keiji stood next to me, drooling.
“Aren’t they ready yet?” he demanded impatiently, peering through the glass.
It wasn’t long before the microwave went ping, but at that very same moment we heard a voice from the veranda.
“Evening!”
It was Mitsugu Azamui. Keiji’s face fell.
“Save some for me!” he said, almost in tears. “I’ll be in my room. Bring me some up there!”
Dad was drinking more quickly than usual. He and Mitsugu were in the living room as always, and I was watching from the kitchen. It wasn’t that easy to tell who was who. Dad was slouching forward just like Mitsugu. It looked as if only the table was keeping him from sinking away altogether. Mitsugu Azamui was even thinner than he had been on his previous visit. His drooping head looked oddly large on his small body. His face, tarnished by sun and alcohol, was almost the same color as his dull, close-shaved hair. His eyes looked like wounds gouged into his flat face. They oozed a yellow discharge. His whole head was like a rotten fruit that might at any moment topple onto the table.
“You had some bad luck, shenshei,” said Mitsugu, staring straight at Dad. His voice was strangely harsh and dry, as though the alcohol had burned his throat. Normally Mitsugu would have to make an effort to lift his eyes when looking at Dad, as though turning heavy stones. But today Dad’s face was so low that Mitsugu didn’t have to move a muscle.
“Damaged your new car?”
“Yeah. I’m