"Again. Those eight bars should be thunderous. Fortissimo means very loud, not half-hearted," Nomura-sensei said.
Craving my mentor's approval, I tried the middle section of the Bach piece again, his Toccata and Fugue. I longed to play it on an organ one day as Bach had intended, rather than a piano, but no matter what, I still loved the composition. Okasan didn't enjoy the darker music I sometimes channelled, but she'd taken Hisashi out to sit on the terrace, so I had free rein to play as I chose.
"Better. Now, once more from the beginning."
Sensei drilled me through the music three more times before we switched to Mozart and then finished up with something by The Beatles, played by ear. By the time I lifted my hands from the keys, he was shaking his head.
"Your talent is wasted in here, Akari-san. You should allow others to hear your gift."
"I'm not good enough for that."
I'd taken six months of piano lessons as a five-year-old, enough to understand the basics of reading music, but apart from that, I was self-taught. When I was growing up, there simply wasn't the money for regular lessons. Instead, I'd listened to the radio then copied each song on the old upright piano my father had worked overtime every week for three months to buy. Okasan would listen to me play and bring me tea afterwards. See what I mean when I said nothing changed?
As a child, I'd dreamed of attending the Tokyo University of Music to learn the craft properly, and I'd practised every day in the hope of winning a scholarship. Then in my second year of junior high, that dream was snatched away, and I didn't play a note for fifteen years. No, I still had a lot to learn.
"Then have you considered my suggestion?"
A month ago, after I'd played "Bohemian Rhapsody" in four different keys, Sensei asked whether I'd thought about going to college.
"I've been away for too long. I missed out on five years of schooling, and you know how important that is in this country."
Children competed from kindergarten for places at the best universities, and not only had I missed nearly all of high school, but I'd also forgotten most of what I'd learned at elementary as well. In South America, I'd discovered how to survive, but beyond speaking Spanish fluently, little of my knowledge would benefit me in the cutthroat education system.
"What about going to a different country?"
My jaw dropped. "I've only just got home. I can't leave again."
"Why not? I'm an old man, and I won't be able to teach you forever. Besides, your natural ability far surpasses mine. You need the right teacher to help coax it out of you."
I shook my head. "My parents would never leave Tokyo."
"You could go by yourself."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
How did I explain that I'd never done anything alone? My whole life, I'd been surrounded by people, from my parents to my abductors. Yes, I'd hated being treated as a slave, but over the years, I'd grown numb to it. The rapes, the beatings, the way men treated me as an object to be passed around—it became life. I stopped waking up every morning and wishing for things to be different because I didn't believe they ever would. Then when I'd given up hope, Hisashi's father helped me to see the silver lining in a world of black clouds.
And in all that time, I'd never been on my own. I'd never needed to make decisions or hold any responsibility or set my own schedule. Nothing scared me more.
"I just can't."
Sensei took my hands, so pale because they rarely saw the sun, in his wizened fingers. Even now, when he was in his mid-seventies, few could play the piano better than him. The idea that he thought I would one day be able to was almost as far-fetched as me leaving Japan.
"Promise me, Akari, promise me you'll think about it. Don't give up on your dreams. Otherwise, there will come a time when you'll look back and regret what might have been."
His plea was so honest, so heartfelt that I couldn't turn him down. "I promise."
After all, thinking couldn't hurt, could it?
Two months later, the first sakura trees began to blossom. As I stood in the cemetery, Hisashi in my arms and my family by my side, I marvelled at the delicate pink flowers that swayed in a gentle breeze. In the rainforest where I'd spent so much time, the trees had been a wall of green, impenetrable and foreboding. Here, the foliage turned from green to red to golden to brown in the autumn, offering a world of possibilities, and the new buds in spring symbolised life. And now, to me, death.
Nomura-sensei's last wish had been that he should be laid to rest in the Aoyama cemetery beside his wife of fifty-four years, and despite the tears I couldn't stop, I needed to be there to see it happen. Hiro handed me another tissue as a sombre man slid the urn containing Sensei's ashes into a chamber beneath the freshly engraved stone monument.
My teacher's death had come as a shock to me, but not to him. I'd noticed him looking a little more tired over the months he'd been visiting, but with no reason to suspect anything sinister, I'd put it down to late nights and the changing seasons. Then one Thursday, he didn't arrive for my lesson. My phone calls went unanswered, and the next day his son came to see me instead.
"I wanted to be the one to tell you," he started, and straight away I knew my mentor had left us. It wasn't Takuma's black suit or the handkerchief he clutched in his hands, but his eyes. The playful glint that once danced beneath his lashes was gone.
"It's... It's..." he said.
I took his cold hands in mine, offering what little strength I possessed. "I'm so sorry."
"I've had some time to prepare, but still I can't believe he's gone."
"How did he...?"
"Cancer. He fought it for years, and when it came back last May, he refused further treatment. My father wished to die with dignity rather than prolonging the inevitable."
Last May. Just a month after I first met him. "I wish he'd told me. I could have done things differently."
"That was exactly why he didn't say a word. When he was with you, it allowed him to escape from his body into his mind. He always said you played like an angel."
"I'm not sure we heard the same notes."
"You need to have more confidence in yourself." Takuma freed one of his hands to fish around in his jacket pocket. "My father asked me to give you this."
As I reached out for the envelope, the tears I'd been fighting escaped, cascading down my cheeks and splashing onto the wooden floor Okasan lovingly polished every other morning. I wiped them away with my sleeve, but it was a hopeless task. The river would never stop.
After Takuma left with a stiff bow, I ran to Hisashi's nursery and snatched him up into my arms. The tears kept coming, not only for my teacher but for a father who'd never see his son grow up.
An hour passed, then two. At first, I cradled my son in the rocking chair by the window, but as he fidgeted more, I laid his Under the Sea play set out on the floor and sat with him as he threw the cuddly sea creatures around. Try as I might, I couldn't giggle with him. The whole time, the envelope I'd placed on the small table that held Hisashi's toy box haunted me. Finally, I could bear it no longer. I needed to know what the letter said.
My name was written on the envelope in Sensei's flowing script, still neat despite the disease that had ravaged his body: Akari Takeda. Hands trembling, I pulled out a single sheet of paper and paced as I began to read.
Akari-San,
By the time you see this, I'll have left you, and I need to apologise for keeping you in the dark over my condition. I did not want to be defined by an event beyond my control—I know this is something you will understand.
He was right. My continual refusal to tell the police or the media what happened to me during their fifteen-year hunt had incurred the wrath of the former and the curiosity of the latter. While my bodyguards frustrated me at times, the thought of going out in Tokyo unprotected and leaving myself at the mercy of reporters wasn't something I could consider. My abduction would forever be a weight around my neck.
Not so long ago, you promised to consider the possibility of continuing your musical education at college, but as the words left your mouth, your eyes spoke differently. Without encouragement, I know you'll spend the rest of your life locked up in Tokyo.
So I took it upon myself to give you that push. Two weeks after our conversation, I sent a video of you playing to the dean of the Holborn Conservatory. After extensive research, I firmly believe this to be the best place in the world for a budding pianist to learn her craft.
Sensei had done what? The recordings he'd made in my lessons were supposed to be for our ears only, so I could remind myself where I needed to make improvements. How dare he send something so private to a person I'd never met? Teeth clenched, I read on.
If the dean looks upon you favourably and offers you a place, I urge you to take it. If you can open your mind to new possibilities, I believe—no, I am certain—that nobody will be able to touch you when it comes to creating magic with a piano. No one dances with the keys as you do.
I wish you all the luck in the world.
Kosuke Nomura.
I wanted to be angry with Sensei for interfering in my life, but the part of me I hated to listen to admitted he was right. Left to my own devices, I'd never get beyond the city limits. But the Holborn Conservatory? I didn't even know where that was.
Hisashi let out a cry, unhappy that my attention was focused elsewhere, and I rocked him in my arms until he settled again. Careful not to disturb him, I sat back down and pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was time for some research.