Chapter 32Seven Signatures

At six o’clock exactly, her hand let go.

As the bottle left her hand, it was cool. The coolness went a little way first, from the pads of her fingers to her palm, and then her palm was empty. When the bottle came down into his hand it rocked slightly, the water ran once round the inside of it, then settled flat again. His thumb pressed on the side of the bottle, over the fifth line. She did not look at the bottle. She looked at the hand that caught it. The fingers were black, there was dust under the nails, and the back of the hand was white in patches, left by cement drying and getting wet, getting wet and drying again. His fingers did not touch her hand. Between the two hands was the width of one bottle. That was all she saw.

There was a streak of white dust on his chin that had not been scraped off cleanly. The cuffs of his overalls were bound tight, and there was no watch on his wrist. He held his hard hat in his other hand, back of the brim facing out. The four figures had been traced over again, the strokes a little brighter than the rest, and from where she stood she could not make out what they said.

The lines on the bottle were still below the water. Five of them in all, and he had drawn them himself. She had looked at those lines while she sat on the steps. He had drawn them stroke by stroke, one after another. She had not wiped them off. That was his count.

Inside the fence, the night shift were all in place. The pump truck had not come in yet. Someone moved a hard hat to the other hand. He did not look up. His neck was straight.

She turned and walked back under the shade cloth. On the way over, she had counted her steps: twelve. On the way back, she did not count. The ground was packed earth with a layer of dust over it, soft under her soles, and there was no sound at all. The straight blade hung from her right hand, point down, a finger’s width off the ground. The wind came from the fence and blew on both her shoulders. She did not hunch. The small cherry-pink knot on her wrist pressed against the bone, and the knot was hard. She did not untie it.

※

At ten to six, she had stood up from the steps and gone to the cooler drum.

In the afternoon, sitting on the steps, she had counted three things: the squares of the shade cloth, the cars going past the junction, the number of steps. When all three were counted, she stood up. She had sat there for more than an hour. The shadow of the shade cloth had moved past the edge of her shoe and on to the concrete beyond the steps. When she stood up, her legs were numb. The numbness went down from her knees, a little at a time, as far as her toes. She waited for her legs to wake up before she walked over.

In the afternoon at the sign-in booth, the form had a column marked company. She thought for a moment, did not know which one to write, and left it blank.

The cooler drum was an iron drum painted white, standing at the edge of the shade canopy. A patch of the white paint had come off, and the iron showing through was dark. Along the rim of the lid was a row of small dents, knocked into it one after another by something. The ice in the drum had been added at half past five. A crew pickup had stopped beside the drum, and someone had lifted a bag of ice down from the back and tipped it in with a crash. She had heard it from the steps and had not looked up. Now the plastic bag was gone and half the ice was left, floating on the water, the pieces knocking against the side of the drum, a knock, a pause, another knock. When the ice cracked there was a very small sound, coming up from the bottom of the drum. The water was cloudy, with a little white in it. On the ground beside the drum was a ring of damp, ring over ring, left by everyone who had come for water that day.

She did not fish out the ice. The ice was on top, and what she wanted was the water underneath. At the bottom of the drum was a tap, brass, its handle worn bright by hands. She put her hand on it and turned it. The first rush that came out was lukewarm, with a slight taste of rust. She did not catch it, and waited for it to pass. The second was cool, cool enough to make her fingers flinch. She held the bottle under the tap and filled it. The water climbed the inside of the bottle, up to the mouth, spilled a little, ran down her wrist and dripped on to the ground beside the drum.

There was still a ring of glue on the bottle that had not been peeled off cleanly, where a label had once been. Her thumb slid over it. It would not rub off, and she did not try to rub it.

In the afternoon she had drunk one mouthful, and it had been lukewarm. That mouthful was gone. What she was giving back was full. She screwed the cap tight, loosened it a turn, and screwed it tight again. The bottle was full, and it sat heavy in her palm, a different kind of heavy. Then she caught a little water in her wet palm and wiped it on her lips. Her lips were dry. It was cool going on, and soon dry again. She did not drink. The water on her wrist dried and left a very faint ring, and she did not wipe it.

※

She stopped at the edge of the shade cloth and raised her head.

The sky was lead-grey, with a cold white showing through beneath the grey, and it pressed very low. The shadow of the shade cloth was gone, and the dust on the steps had turned the same colour.

To the north-east there hung a disc. Its rim was pale violet, very thin, so thin it was only a ring. Inside the rim it was bright, the bright side about seventy-nine per cent of it, with just a very narrow strip of dark at the edge, close against that pale violet ring. There were clouds over the bright side, white, in clumps, moving very slowly. She watched for a while before she could tell they were moving. When the clouds reached the rim of the disc they passed over the pale violet, and the pale violet did not change colour. When the clouds had gone, it was still that colour. Between the lower edge of the disc and the tower was a stretch of grey, and nothing hung in the grey.

In the sky over Tokyo, to the north, a disc like this had hung too. She had looked at it there, for a long time.

Above the disc, on the side towards the tower, was a black mouth. It was much smaller than the disc, black, with no bottom to be seen. Round its edge was a fine white ring, so fine it could hardly be seen, and only with her eyes narrowed could she see it. In a band outside the mouth the colour was a little deeper than the sky, with a streak in it that had been twisted. The mouth stood a stretch higher than the disc, about eight degrees higher. She held her arm out straight, four fingers pressed together, the base of the fingers on the very centre of the disc, the fingertips pointing up, and they reached exactly to the height of the mouth. She lowered her hand. The four fingers were still pressed together, and the base of them ached a little.

The very faint mark under her left eye caught the light from the sky and held a little shadow. She did not touch it.

Her gaze moved from the disc to the tower, and from the tower back to the disc. The tower was right there. The windows on the tower were set square by square, the lit squares white, the unlit squares grey. The lights at the foot of the tower had already come on and climbed, before she walked over with the bottle. At that time the lit floor went upwards, and every square it passed changed colour. The first row lit very fast, the second row a little slower. At the third row she waited a moment before it lit. She had counted to the fourth band when the lights went into the haze, and they had stayed there until now. Above the haze there was nothing. The hoarding was white, with a row of words on it, half hidden by the haze. She did not look at them. The hoarding hid the ground, the haze hid the body of the tower, and she could not see the top. She did not look for the top either.

There was a smell in the haze, dry, the smell of cement and rust mixed together. The edge of the haze was very thin, and the lights showed through it from inside, slowly.

The wind came from the north-east and moved close along her shoulders. There was dust in the wind. It landed on her eyelashes. She blinked once, and the dust was still there. The wind reached her left shoulder sooner than her right. A plain-white wide sleeve had hung there once, and the wind had turned the cloud pattern at its cuff over, so that it covered half her face. That sleeve had stayed behind on a woman who was asleep. Now both her shoulders were bare, and the wind pressed straight on her skin.

Over by the fence, he did not look up. He was looking at the hat. She did not call to him. The bottle was tucked under his arm, mouth up, and the water inside caught the lights of the site in one small bright patch.

※

She walked back to the fence. His shoulders moved once, on the point of turning, and did not turn.

Under the threshold of the fence gate was a white line, brushed on in paint. Inside the line was the site, outside it was the road. She stepped over that line.

Beside the fence stood a sign with large letters: Hard hat on to come in. Sign out to leave. She had no hard hat on, and she had not signed. A small white light on the turnstile came on once, there was a beep, and the gate opened a crack. She turned sideways and went through the gap. When the gate had closed, the sounds on the other side of the fence were suddenly far off. She heard water in the pipes on the site, a rush, a rush, one after another.

The window of the sign-in booth was open. The clerk sat inside, the sign-out sheet already folded and held down beside his hand. Beneath the last line of the register he drew a line across, very straight, drawn with a ruler pressed down. He did not look up. The sign-in pen was still tied to the table leg, the cord slack, the nib pointing out of the window. The flask on the windowsill had its lid on, and no steam came from the spout any more.

Beside the sign-out sheet there was now a length of line.

Steel-grey webbing, a D-ring at one end, a wide chest harness sewn to the other. There was no dust on the webbing, no creases. It was clean. The clerk’s pencil did not touch it, and his eyes did not fall on it. She had not seen when it was put on the counter. The cord of the sign-in pen swung slightly, then stopped.

She reached out and picked it up. The webbing was dry, cool, a little cooler than her palm. She held the chest harness against herself. The length was right, neither loose nor tight. Coming here, she had had only the blade in her hands. Now her left hand held the line, and her right hand still gripped the blade.

The clerk glanced at her. The glance was very short, just long enough to check a number. His pencil was still behind his ear, and he did not take it down. As she walked past the window, he picked up a stamp and pressed it once on the next line of the register. The ink was black, and the stamp came down with a very small sound, so small it was almost nothing.

The person meeting her did not come.

She did not wait, and walked along the road towards the foot of the tower. Trees were planted on both sides of the road, not yet rooted, their trunks tied to braces. She counted them once. Eleven. Every brace leaned the same way, and each was tied just as tight.

From the fence to the main door was a flagstone path. A little grass grew in the gaps between the flags, grey grass, held down by the stones, only the tips showing. One flag had not been laid flat and its edge stuck up. She went round it. At the side of the path stood an empty dump truck, a length of rebar in its bed, the broken end bright.

The big glass doors at the foot of the tower were straight ahead, the floor inside laid with stone flags all the way to where she could not see. Beside the doors was a steel door with no words on it, and a card reader at the edge of its frame. She hung the line over her left arm to free her hand and held the card to the reader. One corner of the card had been folded. She pressed it flat with her thumb, then held it up again. The reader beeped, and the steel door opened inwards. The card was printed V-06. Which one 06 was, she did not know. The back of the card was white, with nothing on it.

Inside the door was a small hall. The walls were concrete, unpainted, grey, rough to the touch. The hall was very empty, with a row of tube lights overhead, two of them flickering, a flicker, a pause, another flicker. At the foot of the walls the bare concrete showed marks in sections, left when the formwork was taken down. In a corner stood a tin bin, with a sheet of paper stuck on its side: No eating or drinking in the lift. The service lift was at the far end, its door steel, and above the door was a row of numbers, from one to seven, all grey.

She did not press a button. The door closed by itself.

The car had no window. The four walls were steel plate, and they reflected her as an upright shadow. She did not look at it. The handrail was a steel tube running from the door all the way to the back wall, cold under the palm. She did not hold it. The seams of the steel plate ran one after another from the bottom up, and she counted four. On the panel the numbers lit one by one, up to five, and stopped. There was a smell of new paint in the car, mixed with cement dust. She drew a breath, down to her chest, held it a moment, then let it out.

The floor under her feet lifted gently once, and stopped.

※

The doorway on the fifth floor opened on a landing, concrete walls all round it, unpainted, without windows. Overhead was a row of lights, square by square, and one square was not lit, its fitting empty. The tubes hummed slightly. The landing was a step lower than the floor of the lift, and she had to step down. The wind on the landing was colder than in the car, coming from the stairwell and blowing on her ankles. It came in gusts, passing, a pause, then blowing again.

The door opened. She put one foot out, and the other foot stayed on the floor of the car. That foot came down half a beat later than the count in her head. She did not make it up.

On the floor was a yellow line, one step from the door. The line was brushed on in paint, very straight, so straight there was no telling it had been brushed by hand. Beside the line was a row of words, the paint already old. The first three characters had been scuffed away, and only the three in the middle could be read clearly: not accepted. The characters after them had been scuffed off by soles, leaving only a few strokes.

There was no one inside the line.

Mitsuki’s feet were only one step from the line. She did not step over, and she did not step back.

The floor inside the line was new, pale grey concrete, the joints straight, not one footprint on it. Outside the line, by her feet, lay a little dust, carried up from the site on the soles of shoes. The dust stopped at the edge of the line.

The wind stopped for a moment. The hum of the tubes stopped for a moment too. That moment was very short, so short only the count in her head could measure it.

Someone spoke. The voice came from the stairwell.

Just one sentence, impossible to tell how near or far, as near as if it were against her ear.

“Article One: no safety line clipped, no going up.”

The voice was flat, every word set at the same height, not drawn out, not lowered. Not one word in that sentence was heavy. When it was done there was no pause, no breath, and nothing else followed.

Article One. That meant there were other articles after it.

Mitsuki’s sole made a sound on the floor slab. The sound struck the wall opposite and came back, a little longer than her footstep. That sentence had struck nothing. It did not come back.

There was no other sound on the landing, only the tube overhead, a flicker, a pause, another flicker. Mitsuki’s lips were dry. She did not lick them.

Mitsuki looked down at her chest. The webbing was in her hand, not yet clipped on. Her left hand closed tight at her side, round the hard edge of the webbing, then opened. There was a shallow mark left in her palm.

She put on the chest harness, brought it round over her shoulders, and pulled it tight under her chest. The buckle of the harness was metal and had to be pressed twice before it bit. She pressed it twice. The D-ring clipped to the very centre of her chest. The clasp closed with a very small sound, smaller than her footstep.

No Article Two came down from the stairwell.

To the left of the doorway was the stairwell, its door half open. On the door frame was a handle with a strip of white cloth wound round it, and the cloth was already dirty. Up the stairs, the side of every step had a square on it, and in each square there should have been a signature. Every square above this floor was empty. Below the squares was a line of small print: Steps on unaccepted floors do not count. She counted. From the doorway to the turn of the stairs there were fourteen squares, and every one was empty.

She looked at the stairs. The treads were new, one after another, their edges and corners straight. She did not step on them. She went back into the car and stood inside it. Until she clipped in, the door had stayed open and had not closed. Now the door closed.

The car went up. As it passed the sixth floor, a thin white light swept across the wall of the lift, coming through the gap in the door on that floor. The door on that floor did not open.

The number seven lit and stopped. The door opened.

※

She walked out of the lift and took three steps. The seventh floor was a large hall. Three corridors came from three directions and met in the middle. The corridors were all very long, the doors on both sides all closed, and on every door was stuck a sheet, the same as the ones on the wall. She did not go close to look at the sheets. At the end of every corridor there were lights, white, square by square, very far off. In each corridor she counted the lights to the eleventh and stopped counting.

The ceiling of the hall was white, the lights set in it in a grid, every square lit, not one square dark. The floor was stone flags, one after another, the joints straight, not one of them crooked. There was no wind in the hall. The air was still, with a faint smell of water, the smell of stone after it has been wiped.

The wall in the middle was solid, with no door and no window. The face of it was grey.

Her sole made a sound on the flags. The sound came back from all three corridors at once, very slowly, and very evenly. Her breathing came back off the flags as well, once, then again.

In the very centre of the hall was a desk, and behind the desk stood a person. Mitsuki’s feet stopped, half a beat later than her eyes. The blade in her right hand did not rise, its point still down. The top of the desk was dark, with nothing on it, not one scratch. It was new, or it had been wiped a great many times. Only in the very centre was a card sleeve, its mouth upward, with a pen standing in it, cap facing out. A thin cord was tied to the pen, the other end tied to the bottom of the card sleeve, the cord slack. On the edge of the card sleeve was a very shallow worn mark, made by the tip of the pen knocking against it again and again. The chair had been pushed in under the desk, its back to the wall, and the person stood in front of the chair, both hands resting on the edge of the desk, fingers together, the middle fingers against the rim. The person’s chest did not rise or fall. Every corner of the desk was square, and the edges were straight. The desk’s shadow fell on the flags, very short, cast by the lights overhead, its outline square as well.

Pinned to the person’s chest was a card, and printed on the card was the word Signer. There was no name on the card. In the very centre of the chest hung a D-ring, matt steel, not catching the light. A length of steel-grey webbing ran down from the ring, round under the right armpit to the back, and at its other end was a hook, hooked under the rim of the desk. A ring was welded to one leg of the desk, steel, and the hook was clipped into the ring. The inside of the ring had been worn bright all the way round, the bright band paler than the steel outside it, its edges rounded, as though something had passed round it and worn against it for years. Mitsuki crouched and looked for a while. She did not touch it. She did not look at the person’s face.

When she stood up, there was a little dust on her knees. She did not brush it off. The mark in her palm was still there. She walked to the wall.

A row of sheets was pinned to the wall. Every one had the same heading. Only the numbers were different. The pins were steel, their heads all facing out. The sheet on the far left was the oldest, its edges curled into a tube, the paper round the pinhole pressed white. The one to its right was 0002, the next one 0003, all the way to the end of the wall. She counted the row. Twenty-three sheets. She counted again. Still twenty-three. All the other spaces were empty. In the bottom right corner of every sheet was a black stamp, and the stamps were dry. She looked at that row for a long time. The headings were all the same, the numbers going on one by one, not one sheet skipped.

The sheet on the far left was numbered 0001. The printed words read: Open item 0001: weld on the fifth floor, 0.4 millimetres, not closed. After it a blank space had been left.

The date box said the twenty-second of October. The figures of the year had been rubbed faint by fingers, and only one stroke was left.

The fifth floor. She had just come up from the doorway on that floor.

She put out her thumb and forefinger and measured against the edge of the paper. She could not measure it. Between her two fingers, nothing was held.

She measured again. She lifted the bottom corner of the paper a little. The back was white, with nothing written on it.

She looked at the punctuation in that line. One colon, two commas, one full stop. The full stop was very small, printed very solidly.

She turned her head and looked at the desk. The webbing still ran round under the person’s right armpit, hooked to the ring on the table leg, pulled very straight. The person did not move, and did not speak. She did not take her hand back.

The words “not closed” were printed, the strokes pressed in very deep.