薄井ゆうじの森
TOPプロフィール著書紹介舞台・映画アトリエリンク集森の掲示板メール



■the Boarding Gate <2> Back

by Yuji Usui  translated by Gavin Frew
This story first appeared in the April 1996 issue of WINDS,
the inflight magazine of Japan Airlines.
It reappears here by courtesy of the publisher, JAL Cultural Development Co.. Ltd.


 The brightly lit lobby of the airport terminal was crowded with people waiting for the flight to Tokyo. Yuko finally managed to find an empty seat and sat down, fixing her eyes on the boarding gate to make sure they would not stray in the direction of the phone booths. "This is my barrier station," she repeated to herself. "Once I get through here, I'll be home and free."
  She was going to leave here for Akio's sake. Once she was out of the way, he would be free to live with his new girlfriend, whoever she was. "It's all for the best," she told herself and bit her lip.
"Ms. Komori?" Somebody was calling her name. She turned and drew her breath in surprise. Standing next to her was the woman in the black dress. "You're Yuko, aren't you?" The woman in the dress asked once more.
"Err...yes," she replied rising cautiously to her feet. The woman pointed to one side of the lobby.
"There's a call for you."
"For me?" The woman nodded then disappeared into the crowd, moving with surprising speed. There was a row of phone booths in the direction she had indicated and one of them had the receiver placed on top of the box. Yuko approached it cautiously.
  Who could the call be from? Her family? Her friends? Nobody else knew she was here. She picked up the receiver, wondering if it was bad news. "Hello?" she said, finally finding her voice.
"Hello?" It was a man's voice.
"Komori speaking."
"What, Yuko? Is there anything wrong? Why did you call?"
It was his voice. It was Akio, the one person she did not want to speak to right now. And yet at the same time, it was the one voice she really needed to hear. "What are you talking about?" she said. "You're the one who called."
"Don't be ridiculous. You made the call. I picked up the receiver and a woman's voice asked me to hold the line. I waited then you came on. What's the matter? Where are you now?"
Yuko looked down at the telephone and saw that the display showing the remaining units on a telephone card was lit up. The numbers changed while she was watching. That could only mean that there was a card in the machine, which in turn meant that the call had been made from here. She looked around the lobby. Who on earth could the woman be?
"Hey, where are you?"
Yuko almost told him that she was in the airport, but managed to stop herself. At that moment, the Tokyo flight was called and the announcement echoed through the lobby. Akio obviously heard it too. "The airport? What are you doing there?"
"I came to see a friend off." This was her final barrier. It did not matter what lies she had to tell, it was the last hurdle for her to cross.
"Well, once you've seen them off, why don't we go out for something to eat? If you take a taxi, you should be able to make it here in about twenty minutes. Hey, what's wrong, why don't you say something?"
Yuko hung up. She did it as carefully and quiet as she could. She would never see him again. They would never have dinner together again. She felt tears welling in her eyes.
At that moment, the buzzer in the phone started to bleat and looking down she saw a plain white telephone card eject itself from the machine. There was a message written on it in ballpoint: "He means nothing to me. I hope you both will be happy."
Yuko looked wildly around the lobby and was just in time to see the woman in the black dress disappear through the boarding gate for the Tokyo flight. She searches through her bag, but her boarding pass was no longer there.
The telephone sat in front of her, impassively.

Novelist Yuji Usui was awarded the prize for best new writer by the literary magazine Shosetsu Gendai in 1988.

TOP
 
Copyright(c) USUI YUJI FOREST All Rights Reserved