Birthday

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Book: Birthday by Kôji Suzuki Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kôji Suzuki
usual today. He sighed and continued. "Yes, an altar. A little one, about this big," he said, tracing its size in the air.
    "I have never set foot inside yon sound booth."
    "So you heard about it from someone else?"
    "Well, I pray to the altar at stage left every day,"
    Okubo replied, clapping his hands again.
    "Okay, okay. So, you didn't tell Sadako about the altar."
    "Not only didn't I tell her about it, I had no idea it was there myself."
    So how did Sadako know it was there! She had claimed Okubo told her, but Okubo was saying he didn't know about it. S—one of them was lying? Okubo, at least, sounded like he was telling the truth.
    Toyama pondered for a while.
    When Okubo said there was a woman's voice on the sound effects tape, he was just trying to frighten Sadako. Well, that's the kind of scary story you hear in any playhouse—nothing to get seriously angry about. Okubo told Sadako that he'd heard a woman moaning in pleasure—a woman engaged in sex. But for some reason she told me that it was the sound of a woman suffering in childbirth. Was it just a misunderstanding! But what about the umbilical cord! It fits too well.
    Toyama thought of what he'd heard in the headphones, that faint cry of an infant—he couldn't get it out of his head. He had to get back to the booth in time for the second act, but he was reluctant to go. He didn't want to be alone in there. He'd rather be here, under bright lights in the big room.
    His gaze was hollow as he asked, "By the way, where's Sadako now?"
    Suddenly Okubo was all informality. "Whaddya mean? Weren't you paying attention to the play? The Great Director kept her behind to give her direction.
    She's probably still onstage now, being put through the wringer."
    Toyama had already forgotten. At the end of the first act he'd watched from the sound booth window as the director had instructed a few actors to line up on stage for feedback. He'd noticed Sadako among them. That's where she'd be now, listening to Shigemori tell her what was wrong with her performance and how she could have done it better.
    From where he stood, it looked to Toyama like Shigemori paid Sadako an abnormal amount of attention. He'd been shocked sometimes during rehearsals to see the way Shigemori looked at her—on the verge of tears, with an expression made up of equal parts love and hatred and a gaze so intense that no one acquainted with Shigemori would have believed it. Shigemori held absolute power within the troupe, so if he had his eye on someone it was a foregone conclusion that he'd be making physical advances. And of course that was something Toyama, given his love for Sadako, would do anything to avert.
    Just then Shigemori's voice came over the intercom.
    "The second act will be starting soon. Places, everyone."
    Toyama started to run, knowing how much distance separated the big room from his sound booth. So when Okubo spoke, it was to his back.
    "Hey, Toyama, don't leave the intercom on in the sound booth anymore. We can hear everything you say in here."
    Toyama turned around in time to catch Okubo winking at him.
    He thought about Okubo's words as he made his way down the narrow hallway toward the sound booth.
    ...They can hear me in the ready room? I always keep the intercom in there switched off when I'm not using it—I doubt I could've left it on.
    Still, Okubo's remark bothered him. Had someone in the green room overheard him saying something he shouldn't have?

6
    The feel of the floor under his feet abruptly changed as he went from the green room to the lobby. The hallway to the green room was concrete covered with linoleum: hard and cold. The lobby floor, meanwhile, was covered with a lush carpet.
    Tomorrow, opening night, this lobby would be full of audience members. Toyama crossed it and started to climb the spiral staircase to the sound booth. As he did so he heard hushed voices in conversation somewhere. A man's voice, and a woman's—both lowered, as if afraid of being

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