Why Ghosts Appear - Todd Shimoda

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could get out from under the maintenance headaches of their ramshackle homes and avoid winter drafts by purchasing new, hermetically-sealed condominiums with low-interest, seventy-five-year mortgages. The secure condominium buildings would have elevators to whisk them up to their units, each with central heating and air conditioning. Not to mention the one-and-a-half dedicated parking spaces. How could the neighborhood residents turn down such progress?

      The car rolled closer to the store. The elderly pedestrian’s hair was shaved to a salt-and-pepper stubble. He wore a gray overcoat wrapped around him like a quilt—an odd choice of garment given the August heat and thick humidity. Then he turned his head and revealed that he was not a man but a woman of some eighty years in age. Perhaps she was ill enough to cause her hair to fall out. Or she might be a retired Buddhist nun. Do nuns retire? Surely they must, although without much retirement savings.

      When the car and woman were even, I rolled down the window and poked my head out. “Hello, excuse me. Could you please direct me to the Mizuno house?”

      “Mizuno?” she said. “Which Mizuno?”

      “Mizuno Rie,” I answered, then gave her the address.

      “Ah, the fortuneteller.” She shuffled over to the car and peered at me. “You look like a man needing his fortune told. Trouble with women, no doubt. Eh?”

      “No doubt.”

      She cackled then gave me surprisingly elaborate directions: turn right past the store, left at the first alley, park there, walk past a little shrine, and go up a path of stone steps. At the top of the hill, I was to look for a house on the left side. “You will see her fortuneteller’s sign.”

      I thanked her and proceeded to follow her described route; however, finding a place to park in the alley proved impossible. Cars, trucks, and motorbikes occupied all slivers of space, some squeezed in so tightly that they must have been parked by a supernatural valet. I continued past the tiny neighborhood shrine, which was not much more than a rickety gate leading to an open-air altar under a simple peaked roof. A trio of women—I was sure this time of their gender as they were wearing housedresses with aprons and scarves holding back their long hair—cleaned the altar with pink feather dusters and white rags. They gave me, or my car, deep formal bows as I drove past. I returned the greeting with an apologetic nod because sitting in my car I could do no more than that.

      Rolling past the shrine, I next came to the workshop of a gravestone carver. Slender yet substantial slabs of cut rock were piled outside the workshop. A few finished stones with names etched in sharp precision were lined up, ready for delivery. I wondered if the gravestone carver ever experienced a pique of interest in the lives represented by the names. Perhaps the first one or two that he carved, but after that? Not a thought, I guessed.

      Next to the gravestone supplier was a five-stool, three-table ramen noodle stand not yet open for the day. The narrow stoop leading into the stand was still damp from a recent washing. The interior was in shadow but I could make out the silhouettes of a man and woman going about the mundane duties of chopping onions and stacking bowls.

      At the end of the alley was a gas station and auto repair shop. Minor repairs only, said the sign. I turned into the station and a young attendant, maybe nineteen, walked up to the car and gave me an expectant look. A smudge of grease above his lip and one on his left ear gave him the impression of a working mechanic.

      “Yes, good morning. I have some business back there and thought I might leave my car for fueling and a check of all the fluids. I’ll probably be an hour.”

      The mechanic clucked and took a step back and looked the car over from front to back. “Suppose so.”

      “Fine,” I said. It was unclear what he discovered during his brief inspection. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I stepped out of the car. The mechanic gave me a nod as if assuring me the world would be all right. At least with the car, I hoped.

      Walking past the noodle stand, I heard a bang of pots and smelled the salty, meaty simmering broth. The stools lined up at the bar were clean but cracked and worn to a point that the white foam padding was exposed along the seams. A man and woman, probably the owners, were getting the stand ready to open. In another five or six steps I came to the gravestone carver. A layer of fine, glittering dust coated the alley. From inside the workshop came the whirring of a rock polisher. Past the carver’s shop, I came to the three shrine cleaners who gave me another formal bow. This time I was able to execute one of my own. Whatever I did made them titter. With my briefcase and suit-and-tie apparel, I must have looked like a salesman. Perhaps they had a private joke about salesmen.

      Viewed from this plane, that is, walking rather than driving, the neighborhood developed only a little more significance. The mechanic revealed himself as an apprentice given responsibility before his time and experience should have allowed. The noodle stand owners were no doubt barely surviving financially. The gravestone carver would likely develop silicosis from inhaling dust particles. These stories of the residents added confirmation to the claim that the neighborhood lacked significance.

      But then such significance can only be contextual, a relative comparison. For example, comparing Neighborhood A to Neighborhood B with facts and figures such as population density and socioeconomic status gives us measures that can be analyzed side-by-side. If, however, we are able to observe the internal significance of the neighborhood to the people who live there we can find a different measure, a more subjective degree of significance. Now we have entered the realm of human motivation and desires. The ability to make such observations should be part of being a skilled investigator. Unfortunately, I am not so skilled, and I’m entirely satisfied to make enough to pay my rent and eat.

      The path leading up the hill was exactly where the retired nun—I decided to anoint her with that title—said it would be. The path’s stones were placed too close for my stride and my steps were mincing. At the top of the hill, really not much more than a rise, were three houses. The one on the left bore the address of the woman whose son was missing. A string of red lanterns signifying the beginning of the ancestor’s festival was hung from the door to a pole stuck in the ground a short distance away from the home. The lanterns invited and guided spirits to the home; however, as the festival was now over, they should have been taken down. This indicated a certain state of mind—most likely the woman’s concern for her missing son.

      The front door was open so I stepped inside the cool entryway. Shoes and slippers were placed haphazardly on the stone floor. A large lantern decorated with the image of a hand, palm-side out, leaned against the opposite wall. “Hello?” I said.

      After a moment there was a rustling, like someone putting papers in a box. A woman of some fifty years of age appeared and bowed deeply while apologizing for not meeting me at the door of her messy home—her description not mine. Her hair was white, shockingly so since she was not that much older than me. It was styled to frame her face elegantly, giving her an aura of great intelligence and knowing. That image would be good for her line of work.

      “There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “I didn’t realize I had arrived so early.” I presented her one of my business cards.

      She studied it for precisely three seconds before she said, “No, you’re not early. Come in.” She selected a pair of house slippers for me to wear. I slipped out of my shoes and wriggled my feet into the slippers at least one size too small. When I looked up, she was studying me, no doubt sizing me up as she would a new client, searching for clues as to personality, profession, and troubles which she could exploit in her vocation.

      The fortuneteller hurried ahead into the house. I followed with less speed and passed by the door to a side room containing a table and two chairs. Two lamps cast a dull yellowish glow through their paper shades. Most likely, the room was where she told her clients’ fortunes. The room exuded a coldness. I turned away.

      The woman stopped in the main room of the small, dimly-lit house. She whacked a couple of cushions and set them on the floor in front of a low table. After gesturing for me to sit, which I did after putting

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