The Mystery of the Haunted Boarding School Bathroom
Tang-Kue-Tê / Winter Melon Tea by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King
“Lí-ya!”
A slur for Islanders, used by Mainlanders.
Half a year into my time on the Island, Chi-chan and I found ourselves trailing behind F-sensei, a woman teacher and dormitory supervisor at the Tainan County First High School for Girls, who was giving us a tour of the campus founded in the sixth year of Taishō. [1]
The school gates opened to a passage lined with flower patches on both sides. The first row of buildings along the path were administrative offices, followed by a row of educational facilities— including a newly completed building equipped with an art classroom and an exhibition space for scientific specimens. The remaining three rows were student quarters. There were two dormitories and a third building that held the bathhouse, cafeteria, kitchens, and other communal spaces. The area was bookended by a swimming pool to the east and four tennis courts to the west.
According to F-sensei, those who seek to provide an education for the modern woman must nurture students into well-mannered, well-informed, multitalented persons of excellence first and foremost, and only women of excellence second—
“Furthermore,” she concluded in a voice that rang with authority, “any one of our students or faculty members can say with their heads held high: our school’s hopes for our students are thoroughly reflected in our architecture.”
Hm. The “First” Girls’ School certainly lived up to its name.
I said, “Seeing as there is a First Girls’ School, there must also be a second?”
“Indeed. The Second High School for Girls is but two streets away.”
“I see. And how are the two different?”
“The Second Girls’ School mostly takes Islander students, and the campus is roughly half the size of ours. Indeed, some local residents have objected to this division, but you see, all of Tainan’s female students who excel in their studies name our school as their top choice. There is no Islander student who does not take pride in herself for testing into our school—and that, in the end, is the proof of our excellence!”
Excellence, excellence, excellence.
I glanced at Chi-chan, who stood next to me wearing a smile as immaculate as white jade.
“F-sensei,” I said, “would you say that even within this community of all-around excellence, there are still Mainlander students who would call Islanders ‘lí-ya’? I only learned about the word very recently, you see.”
F-sensei stopped walking. She turned to first look at me, and then at Chi-chan.
“I would very much like to say that such ill-mannered words are not uttered within our school, but—Aoyama-sensei, if you intend to write on this subject, please do make it clear that the school dealt with the matter fairly!”
“I have no intention of targeting the school. It was just something I happened to hear about on my travels.”
“Hm. What a coincidence.” F-sensei evidently found my explanation unconvincing. Nevertheless, she took it upon herself to elaborate. “Recently, an incident took place between two fourth-year students in the same class, Ōzawa Reiko of Mainland citizenship and Tân Tshiok-bi of Island citizenship. Both are very popular students who, over time, unwittingly attracted something like two opposing camps among their classmates. That said, the two used to be very close friends! I suppose a bit of friction is inevitable when young women are at the peak of adolescence. They have since reconciled, however.”
“Really? The opposing camps disbanded so easily?”
“Well, dividing into cliques is common for students their age, no? Some Islander students protested that Ōzawa-san had addressed Tân-san as lí-ya. The school took the complaint very seriously and was able to resolve the conflict very quickly. In fact, it is only because the school has no tolerance for such poor behavior that this small affair was ever regarded as an ‘incident’ at all. I only say this because, after the uproar died down, some of the students came to us privately to say that it had all been something of an inside joke.”
Inside joke.
A Noh mask took extraordinary skill to maintain. I couldn’t emulate Chi-chan, and instead stared directly into F-sensei’s eyes.
F-sensei gave a small chuckle.
“Of course, whether or not it was in jest, the school addressed the issue with an appropriate response. In fact, we hoped to reconcile the two students through a suitable educational approach, and therefore arranged for them to share the responsibility of receiving Aoyama-sensei on your visit. Ah, there they are.”
She gestured toward the path between the classrooms and the dormitories. At the dormitory doors, a bougainvillea tree teemed with plum-red and violet-purple flowers.
Two students stood shoulder to shoulder under the tree, both gazing up at the resplendent bloom.
It was like a scene out of a shōjo novel. [2]
A slow breeze rose, brushing some of the blossoms off their branches.s
One of the girls, who had the build of a star athlete, raised a hand to brush the fallen petals off the shoulder of the shorter, slighter girl.
I could not wrap my head around it: one of these two shōjo novel characters had called the other a lí-ya.
Allow me to start again, this time from the beginning.
I first heard someone use the term lí-ya the day we arrived in Tainan.
While the Taihoku Railway Hotel was the premier Western-style hotel on the Island, I was much more interested in the newer Tainan Railway Hotel in the south. In the former, the attractions are pretty much limited to: one, good Western food, and two, guest elevators that save you the effort of stairs. Although its Tainan counterpart was also Western, fully equipped with a restaurant, bar, entertainment center, and telephone room, it boasted an additional distinction of being located within the train station itself. The hotel had just nine guest rooms total, and its lobby was right past the ticket gate on the second floor of the station. I looked forward to what I thought would be a delightful experience of drinking my fill, falling into a boozy sleep, then waking up to the noise of an engine and wheels hurtling across the tracks as the first train pulled into the sunlit station.
With this in mind, I’d asked Chi-chan to arrange a trip to Tainan. Our itinerary would be much like the one in Takao: arrive on day one, give a lecture on day two, return to Taichū on day three.
Despite its being October, there wasn’t one trace of autumnal cool in Tainan’s air. By the time we got past the ticket gate, I was much more invested in getting my hands on an ice-cold soda than in seeing the hotel.
“But Aoyama-san, you can get a soda anywhere—would you not be interested in Tainan’s winter melon tea instead?”
“Oh! What’s that?”
“There are a few traditional Islander beverages for combating the heat: tshenn-tsháu-à tea, plum tea, lotus tea, and tang-kue-tê—winter melon tea. This is made by stewing winter melon with sugar until it boils down to concentrated blocks, which are then dissolved in cold water. For those of us living in the tropics, winter melon not only cools us down but also replenishes our energy. Mainlanders have a hard time getting used to tshenn-tsháu-à tea, but they tend to be very fond of the sweet winter melon tea.”
“By winter melon, you mean the green gourds with the white spots? You make that into sweet tea?”
“Precisely. You should definitely have a taste.”
“But of course!”
I was ready to head straight out of the station in search of this wonderful drink, luggage and all. But Chi-chan touched my arm and began steering me toward the staircase that led to the hotel’s check-in.
Alas.
I suppose I should give an accurate account of the hotel. In keeping with its low room count, Tainan Railway Hotel had but a petite staircase. Only the lofty arched window that flooded everything with sunlight possessed the grandeur of a high-end hotel. Heading up the stairs, one is faced directly with the front desk. To the right is a long hallway, whose main source of light is a row of smaller arched windows along the western wall rather than the glass chandeliers overhead.
I walked over to the main window and looked down at the train terminal. Countless heads crisscrossed below: panama hats, floppy straw hats, fedoras, as well as baseball caps, military caps, and student caps. There were women with intricate updos and boys with clean-shaven, monk-like skulls. I could not tear my eyes away, thinking that this was perhaps the most entrancing view of Tainan Station one could find.
It happened then.
“Lí-ya!” A deep, gruff voice.
I turned and saw Chi-chan standing not far from the reception desk. Her profile was backlit and therefore obscured from me. Her silhouette was stiff and straight-backed—her shoulders rose and fell ever so slightly with each breath.
She walked toward the desk.
I hurried after her in time to see the receptionist’s disgruntled face.
“We’re full. Now get out of here.”
It was impossible to believe that such spiteful words could come from the staff of a luxury hotel. Chi-chan, however, was calm.
“Would you kindly confirm the reservation for Aoyama Chizuko-sensei under the Nisshinkai Organization?” She presented her business card to the glowering man. “I am her Islander interpreter. Aoyama-sensei is a writer visiting from the Mainland at the invitation of the Taiwanese Government-General itself. If you have any questions, you may direct them to Mr. Mishima Aizō at Taichū City Hall.”
I did not possess her patience. “Enough! There’s no reason why we should take this boorish treatment. So this is the best that the Tainan Railway Hotel has to offer!”
I began pulling Chi-chan away, but the receptionist darted out from behind the desk and gave a deep bow.
“Please accept my deepest apologies. It is my fault entirely. We have heard from City Hall earlier—you may access your rooms immediately if you wish.” When he raised his face again, it had transformed from the scowl of a Niō warrior to the jolly grin of Ebisu.
The sudden transformation stunned me into silence. Was this part of some avant-garde play?
While I had my guard down, several of Ebisu’s servant boys materialized to take our luggage away. The goddess Benzaiten— who, until moments ago, had simply been a woman attendant blatantly ignoring our presence—greeted us with a broad smile, as though we were honored patrons who had just donated a large fortune to her temple. [3]
“Did Aoyama-sensei arrive on the last train? The journey must have been exhausting in this heat! Ah, here is Aoyama-sensei’s suite, and Interpreter-san’s room is just across the hall—very convenient. We will arrange for you to dine at the railway restaurant tonight. Dinner is at six, but please just say the word if you would like to have it earlier or later. We will bring you cold beverages in a moment—would you prefer fresh juice, soda, or milk? Shall we bring the beverages to your rooms separately?”
Her enthusiasm was so over the top that it was almost comedic.
“Dinner at six is fine. And please bring two glasses of juice to my room.”
The chilled drinks soon appeared on an ornate tray.
Inside the suite was a Western mattress with springs, curtains with elaborately woven patterns, and chairs with curved armrests. Chi-chan and I sat at opposite ends of the room and finished our juices in silence. The farce and chaos that had pummeled us since we set foot in the hotel only now began to recede.
A leftover ice cube gave a small crackle from the bottom of a glass.
Chi-chan sighed quietly. “I am so sorry to have caused Aoyama-san alarm.”
“It wasn’t your fault at all.”
“But it was. Wearing a chōsan was negligent on my part.”
It was then that Chi-chan explained it to me.
Lí-ya!
The word meant “You there!” in Taiwanese. While at first it was simply a crude way of addressing Islanders—implying that they could be ordered around at will—somewhere along the way it had become a derogatory slur in itself.
Chi-chan and I had checked out of Tainan Railroad Hotel before traveling to the campus. At my request, Chi-chan had made prior arrangements with the school for us to spend the night in their dormitories following my lecture, hence F-sensei assigning students to serve as our hosts. Under the bougainvillea tree, F-sensei transferred us into the care of Ōzawa Reiko and Tân Tshiok-bi, two young women who lived up to their respective names. Ōzawa, like the kanji characters for “vast waters” and “beauty” in her name, was broad-shouldered and full-bosomed, with a comely face and a grounded carriage. Tân Tshiok-bi, like her kanji characters for “sparrow” and “slight,” was as delicate and spindly as a prepubescent boy.
“Does Aoyama-sensei stay in dormitories when lecturing at other schools as well?” Ōzawa asked.
“To be honest, yours is the first school where I’m staying overnight.”
“Oh! But that must mean Aoyama-sensei is interested in our dormitories specifically. Why is that, may I ask? Are our housing facilities particularly well known?”
I grinned. “Well, before I came to the Island, I read a book written in the Taishō era by an English traveler who visited a girls’ school in Tainan—which I think must be this one—and noted that the dormitories housed three students per room. Why an odd number? Generally speaking, even numbers are much easier to manage from an administrative standpoint. You see, mine is the type of idle mind that fixates on such trivial details, so I wanted to witness the mystery for myself.”
You see, mine is the type of idle mind that fixates on such trivial details, so I wanted to witness the mystery for myself.
“I see! Did they have three people to a room during Taishō? But the dormitories we use now were only completed recently, and there are eight people to a room—an even number! Has Aoyama-sensei heard of the Second Girls’ School? Their housing is also eight to a room, and seeing as we are both prefecture-run schools, it makes more sense for us to share the same system, I think. Oh, but that means Aoyama-sensei’s mystery will remain unsolved. What a shame!”
Ōzawa had a manner of speaking that radiated openness and candor. Sparrow, next to her, nodded and smiled, affirming everything that came out of Ōzawa’s mouth. It was impossible to detect any sign of friction between the two.
No, that wasn’t all. Let me put it this way: as we made our way across campus and the South Country sun climbed higher overhead, I saw Ōzawa reposition herself multiple times in order to shade Sparrow from the harsh sunlight with her own body.
Could this same Ōzawa Reiko really have called this Tân Tshiok-bi a lí-ya?
The two of them gave Chi-chan and me a thorough tour of the living quarters. Ōzawa explained, “The boarders have free time after dinner, then study hall from eight to ten. Lights out is at ten, after which there is no talking allowed until six in the morning. Oh, but since Aoyama-sensei and Ō-san are not familiar with the buildings, please feel free to come to me if you have any concerns after lights out. My room is directly next to yours.”
It was Chi-chan who responded first to this curious afterthought. “Ōzawa-san, are there any specific concerns that we should be aware of?”
A tactful yet incisive question. Chi-chan never disappointed.
Sparrow chuckled before Ōzawa could reply. “We would advise against going to the lavatory outside Building One after curfew, if possible.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“No real reason,” Ōzawa cut in, but I gestured for Sparrow to continue.
An intriguing smile danced on Sparrow’s lips. “There are tales about a mythical dimension in that lavatory.”
“Mythical dimension? Do you mean to say that a student was spirited away or something like that?”
“Yes, something like that. At least that is the rumor among the boarders. After curfew, an unknowable space opens up there, and people disappear into—”
“Tân-san,” Ōzawa said firmly.
Sparrow shrugged, her expression as cheery as ever. Huh. Huh!
A shōjo romance? Or a supernatural thriller?
My lecture concluded at the end of second period, but the students did not have lunch until after third period, so Chi-chan and I politely declined the administrators’ invitation to a luncheon and hailed a taxi to the famous West Market.
Lóo-bah over glutinous rice, ricefield eel and vermicelli noodles thickened with corn starch, soup with hand-molded fishcakes and oysters—we filled our stomachs with an exquisite feast. Dessert was fresh fruit: plates and plates of sliced watermelon, mango, tomato, papaya. Standing by a vendor’s cart on a street corner, we downed winter melon tea and star fruit juice from coffee cups—sweet, unrivaled nectar. Ah, the flavors of the South!
Seeing as we were in Tainan, Taiwan’s historic capital and cultural center, there was a sense of obligation to visit some famous tourist attraction like Senkan Tower, but this felt too much like being told what to do. [4] Instead, we ambled over to the nearby bustling neighborhood known as the Ginza of Tainan, which included both the Tainan Shrine and the Tainan Confucius Temple. We concluded our stroll at a department store, where I bought a new fountain pen and some pencils while Chi-chan picked out two novels.s
On our way back to the First Girls’ School, I sneaked glances at Chi-chan’s profile. The Noh mask seemed to have relaxed a little after she’d found the books that she wanted. I instantly felt more relaxed as well.
“I didn’t expect to find such different ways of eating braised pork over rice between Tainan and Taichū! We’ve had lóo-bah with hōrai short-grained and zairai long-grained rice before, but the sticky rice!”
“Aoyama-san seems to have enjoyed all three.”
“Because all three were delicious! If I had to be critical, I’d say that long-grained rice is rather too dry and loose for this dish. Most of the broth ends up pooling at the bottom of the bowl, so you’d have to add more rice to soak it all up—but once you add more rice, you’d have to add more lóo-bah, too. In which case, don’t you fall into an endless spiral of pork and rice and pork and rice?”
Chi-chan chuckled. “I’ve heard of a local dish called bah-kué, where they grind the rice down to a pulp and steam it into a palm-sized savory cake, which is then fried and drizzled with lóo-bah. I’d hoped that we would come across it today, but no such luck.”
“My goodness, Chi-chan, where on earth do you get all this information? I’ve never found such detailed accounts of the Island in any newspaper or magazine!”
“An interpreter never reveals her secrets.”
“Ah! I do beg your pardon,” I said, laughing.
Chi-chan, too, laughed—the kind of laughter that made her shed her Noh mask altogether. “Aoyama-san.” “Yes, miss?”
“I’ve heard people say that Mainlanders think lóo-bah has a displeasing stench. I have also been warned that Mainlanders only eat sashimi. But Aoyama-san seems to regard lóo-bah and sashimi with equal esteem.”
“Bah! Anyone who can discriminate against lóo-bah must be completely incapable of appreciating good food.”
“The demarcation between the Islanders’ lóo-bah and the Mainlanders’ sashimi is the distinction between the dirty and the pure,” Chi-chan said, her voice low. “The same applies to the Islanders’ chōsan and the Mainlanders’ kimono.”
“I . . . have never felt that way.”
“That is because Aoyama-san is a good person.”
“No—I don’t know why or what or how. This is much too difficult for a simpleton like me.” The train of thought twisted into my mind knots that took a few more silent steps to straighten out. “Perhaps I should put it this way, Chi-chan: lóo-bah and sashimi are both delicious, chōsan and kimono are both beautiful. To me, the essence of a thing is by far the most important. I’m sure there are plenty of people who choose not to understand the beauty of lóo-bah and chōsan, but there are also plenty of people who do.”
Without replying, Chi-chan raised her purse to cover her own face.
“Why are you doing that?” I asked.
“Because it isn’t fair—how Aoyama-san always manages to say the exact thing that people want to hear . . .”
“Is it what you want to hear, Chi-chan?”
She said nothing. I took the purse from her hands. Behind it, Chi-chan’s dimpled cheeks had a subtle flush. I saw neither the sweet yet impenetrable Noh mask nor the coy grin she sometimes wore when she was chastising me. It was, instead, the expression she once bared to me in the kitchen at the Yana River cottage: a softening as gradual as the thawing of frost in early spring. It was also the smile that she once gave me when our train crossed the Katansui River Bridge—with true warmth shining out from the depths of her eyes.
I laughed and laughed, hooking my arm around hers.
“What a tease you are!” she cried, nudging me with her shoulder. I dug my elbow into her side, still laughing with a bounteous mirth that seemed to overflow from the core of my chest. Ha! Ha! Ha!
As we walked arm in arm in this merry mood, wind brushed against our cheeks—a wind strong enough to lift bougainvillea blossoms off their branches. Did that mean we, too, were characters in a shōjo romance?
If we’d been standing under that same tree, I, too, would have brushed the vivid petals off of Chi-chan’s shoulders.
No—that wasn’t all. Let me put it this way: had arrows showered down on us instead of flowers, I would have shielded Chi-chan’s body with my own.
We had dinner that night at the dormitory cafeteria along with the faculty and students. We also washed ourselves in the dormitory bathhouse, soaking in the same public tub as the young girls. Ōzawa and Sparrow stayed by our side for most of these evening activities, all the way until the nighttime roll call at lights out.
Chi-chan and I slept in the same room on traditional futon bedspreads laid out on the tatami floor. Lying there in silence, I suddenly thought of the “myth” Sparrow had mentioned. I said, in a small voice, “Chi-chan.”
She laughed. “Can it be that you need to visit the lavatory?”
“Hahaha.”
“And, specifically, the one outside Building One?”
“Do you plan on stopping me?”
“There’s no need to stop you from doing something that isn’t dangerous.”
“Can it be that you actually want to go with me?”
She said nothing. But when I climbed out from under my blanket, she did too.
Moonlight permeated the room, lighting up her grin.
Ha.
The dormitories were two-story buildings; we were staying on the first floor of Building Two. The lavatories were housed in two freestanding structures to the northwest of Buildings One and Two.
The dormitories were silent. I lowered my voice. “Isn’t the northwest the direction of the so-called demon gate?”
“Is Aoyama-san a believer in fēngshǔi?”
“No, but the students must know about this, too.” “Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re a novelist or a scientist.”
“I am Sherlock Holmes, the great detective.”
“Does that make me Doctor Watson?”
We were fast approaching the Building One lavatory.
The lavatories were the only sources of light in the dark mass of the dormitory buildings. Their solitary brightness on the pitch-black campus gave them an otherworldly air. The buildings were all made of wood, and the floor beneath us creaked softly with every step. Everything about the place screamed It’s scary in there! I was surprised that there was only one supernatural rumor rather than a whole host. Chi-chan, however, seemed completely unaffected.
We went around the staircase and stepped onto the path to the lavatories.
Lí-ya. A small yet bright voice coming from inside.
“Lí-ya, why didn’t you come sooner?”
Chi-chan and I stopped in our tracks and exchanged a quick look. “Who’s in there?” I asked at the top of my voice.
Silence.
I began to walk farther toward the lavatory, but Chi-chan held on to my arm. “I can’t let you go where there’s danger.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
She nodded, then walked in before me.
I hurried after her. Inside, there were multiple stalls, and all of the doors stood open. Spotless sinks stood to the other side of the stalls. There was no door on the opposite wall—the one through which we’d come was the only means of entrance and egress. Yet the room was empty.
The only thing that stood out from the ordinary was a piece of paper on the floor under the sink counter. I picked it up and immediately felt from the texture that it was a photograph. The image had been taken indoors, against a backdrop of a tea table with a vase of blooming lilies. A young woman stood in the photograph’s center, as lean as a young boy. She looked masculine and strapping in a double-breasted suit jacket, riding pants, and long boots as well as a beret angled to cover one of her eyebrows, which together with her crooked grin made her look rather mischievous.
It was Sparrow—Tân Tshiok-bi.
Neither shōjo nor horror, but a mystery.
“What are your thoughts now, Holmes-san?”
As always, Chi-chan’s mind was on the same page as mine.
I put on an aristocratic voice. “Jolly good question, Watson.” I had no clue. Where would a detective start investigating? The answer came to me immediately: examine every inch of the lavatory.
Unfortunately, that was when F-sensei, who was on her rounds as the dormitory supervisor, appeared. She was instantly suspicious. “Aoyama-sensei, Ō-san, why are you here? The Building Two lavatory is much closer to your room . . .” But then she seemed to cotton on. “Ah, there must have been a line! You see, there is a strange rumor about this lavatory, so many of the students now opt to line up at at the one near Building One . . . it’s been quite the headache.”
Chi-chan and I both kept quiet about the “mystery” we’d just witnessed. Chi-chan, her eyes wide and brimming with innocence and concern, asked, “Sensei, what do you mean by ‘strange rumor’? Is it something frightening?”
“No, nothing frightening. Please do not worry.”
“I see . . . but I suppose it’s human weakness that makes us more afraid of the unknown than of the things we know for certain. The students probably misinterpret the facts all the more because they have few facts to go on.” Chi-chan then added in an appeasing voice, “Oh, but I apologize. We would not wish to hold up F-sensei’s rounds. We will return to our room and ask Ōzawa-san about the tale tomorrow.”
F-sensei sighed. “It really isn’t anything horrific at all. To tell you the truth, it’s something of a heartwarming story.” She seemed to let down whatever guard she had up and grew more talkative. “There were once two students who each told their respective roommates that they were going to the lavatory at lights out, but neither returned for a long time. Their roommates each felt uneasy and went searching for them separately, which led them to run into each other at the bottom of the stairs. That was when one of the two missing students came out of the lavatory. The roommates asked her if she’d seen the other missing student, and she said no. They all went inside to search, but there was nobody there. In fact, there was no need for them to search—the two so-called missing students did not get along, and would no doubt have argued had they been in the same place.”
I couldn’t help but interrupt. “What can possibly be heartwarming about this?”
F-sensei smiled ever so slightly. “The rumor that spread among the students was that the second missing student had been hidden by the gods. As in, the gods hid the two students from each other in order to foster peace and harmony in the dormitories.”
“That would be quite an outrageous thing for the gods to do just for maintaining peace in the dormitories.”
That would be quite an outrageous thing for the gods to do just for maintaining peace in the dormitories.
“Yes . . . well, that is the gist of the story. Do you remember the way back to your room?”
I’d already scanned the whole lavatory as we were speaking, and since F-sensei now looked ready to usher us all the way back to our rooms, we had no choice but to follow her.
But what had happened in there? In the bedroom, Chi-chan and I sat cross-legged facing each other. A moonbeam struck the photograph that lay on the floor between us.
“It couldn’t have been supernatural.”
“Does Aoyama-san have any theories?”
“It was Ōzawa Reiko who spoke.”
“Oh? And what is the reasoning behind that answer?”
“When we got near the lavatory, the person inside said ‘lí-ya,’ correct? ‘Lí-ya, why didn’t you come sooner?’ They were waiting for somebody. But when they heard that it was us, they rushed out of the bathroom and dropped the photograph. As for the other party involved in this lí-ya incident—that would be Tân Tshiok-bi, the subject of the photograph.”
“Hm—indeed, out of the hundreds of students here, Ōzawa-san might not be the only one who would refer to an Islander student by that word, but it seems too great a coincidence that the photograph is of Tân-san.”
“Yes, and it seems to be quite a personal photograph. So, the photograph somehow came to be in Ōzawa’s possession, and she made a secret arrangement to meet with Tân-san in the lavatory tonight. As an upperclassman who is familiar with campus legends, she cleverly used everybody’s fear of the ‘mythical dimension’ to give them privacy. But how did Ōzawa exit the lavatory?”
“To leave that aside for a moment. If Aoyama-san is correct and the person inside was Ōzawa-san, then what was her intention in asking Tân-san to meet her tonight? Was it blackmail?”
“Hm—”
Our gazes met, and we fell silent at the same time. I couldn’t get the earlier image out of my head: the falling bougainvillea blossoms, and Ōzawa gently brushing the petals off of Sparrow’s shoulder.
Plum-red and violet-purple petals swirled in the wind. Slowly, slowly, they drifted to the earth . . .
“Aoyama-san.”
At Chi-chan’s voice, I woke from the reverie.
When had I drifted off? I sat up and rubbed my eyes at the gentle light in the room. What time was it?
“Aoyama-san, let’s go to the lavatory again.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. But Chi-chan tapped my shoulder playfully and said, “I’m not asking because I’m scared to go alone.”
“All right, all right.”
We retraced the now familiar path. Once we got there, Chi-chan placed the photograph on top of the sink counter and pulled me toward the stairs. She sat down at the staircase’s landing.
“Chi-chan?”
“Shh . . . Aoyama-san, I believe that she will come back for the photograph.”
“Huh?”
Her whisper was so low that I had to lean my ear toward her lips. She said, “The wake-up time in the dormitory is six o’clock. Since there was a nighttime roll call, there must also be a morning roll call. The student in charge of taking roll would rise before six. It is now 5:30 a.m., and recently sunrise has been around 5:50 a.m. Whoever she is, she would definitely come retrieve the photograph before it gets bright outside.”
I looked at her and saw that she was watching me with serene eyes. There was no trace of sleepiness in her face, though the skin under her eyes was darker than usual; she must have spent the whole night dwelling on the mystery while I slept.
Who said that she was Watson?
Birds were beginning to trill and chirp. The gray sky grew whiter by the minute. Chi-chan’s dark-circled eyes were brighter than both the birdcall and the sunrise.
It happened then.
Creak, creak. Steps on the wooden floor in the midst of birdsong. Creak, creak. Nearer and nearer to the staircase. Creak, creak. Past the staircase. Creak, creak.
Chi-chan and I stood up at the same time and peeked through the gap between the staircase and the building. A young woman was walking into the lavatory.
“But that’s—”
I almost cried out with shock, but Chi-chan looked unfazed— as though she’d predicted everything. She counted from one to five under her breath, then strode purposefully down the stairs, her footsteps loud against the wood. I hurried to keep up with Holmes-san.
We entered the lavatory just as we did earlier in the night. The lights were still on, the stall doors ajar, the sinks spotless, the opposite doorless.
It was empty.
And yet, and yet, the photograph on top of the sink counter had disappeared. Chi-chan put a finger to her lips, took my hand, and slipped back out of the door.
We returned to our room. No long after, the six o’clock bell rang. The whole dormitory sprang to life, drowning us in the buzz and hum of chatter and movement. The din blended together with the calls of the birds. After listening for a moment, Chi-chan smiled at me. “You can speak now.”
“It was Tân Tshiok-bi! How could it have been Tân Tshiok-bi?”
Per our itinerary, we left on the 11:40 a.m. train back to Taichū. On our way, we bought two bags of black water caltrops from a street vendor. After the train departed from Tainan Station, we unfolded the newspapers that contained our water chestnuts and spread them on our knees.
The water caltrops looked like bats with their sharp, pointed ends—and seemed entirely impenetrable to me. Thankfully, Chi-chan came to the rescue with her ever-nimble fingers.
Nimble fingers, nimble mind.
How could it have been Tân Tshiok-bi?
Back in the bedroom, Chi-chan had grinned. “I guessed it. An incredibly lucky guess, don’t you think?”
Naturally, I wasn’t about to let her off with such a cursory explanation. When I pressed, she asked, “When we first met Tân-san and Ōzawa-san, did you notice how Ōzawa-san used her own arm to protect Tân-san from the falling bougainvillea flowers?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The two of them were walking in front of us as our guides. Once, when turning a corner, I noticed a magenta blossom adorning Ōzawa-san’s hair, just behind her ear. That same flower was originally tucked inside Tân-san’s uniform collar, where it had been barely visible. But I am roughly the same height as Tân-san and saw the flower early on. From what I saw, I believe that between the two of them, Ōzawa-san is the protector, and that Tân-san as the protectee sometimes commits small acts of rebellion.”
“Huh . . . rebelling against her defender, eh?”
“Indeed. Therefore, the slur of lí-ya has also been reversed between them, becoming an endearment that Tân-san uses on Ōzawa-san. In this sense, ‘the lí-ya incident’ between them may have been a total misunderstanding.”
“That Tân? Calling that Ōzawa lí-ya?”
“I cannot guess at what passed between them, but Tân-san asking Ōzawa-san to meet her in the ‘mythical dimension’ on a night that outsiders like us are staying on campus was likely also a form of mischief. But I don’t believe that it was blackmail. Both of them will be graduating this coming spring, and it’s common for students to exchange personal photographs in girls’ schools. For those two particular students to exchange photographs, however . . . well, let’s just say that the minds of young women are the most unsolvable mysteries in the world.”
“But that’s hardly enough information to deduce that it was Tân!”
“You’re right. The first clue was that Ōzawa-san lives in the room next to ours. She was responsible for the nighttime roll call, which meant that she returned to her room late, and perhaps did not have time to step out again before we left for the lavatory. She would have heard us leaving, and would have waited to avoid running into us. With eight roommates to one room, there are bound to be one or two people visiting the lavatory at night. If it had been Ōzawa in the lavatory on our first visit, she would have returned to the bedroom after us. But I listened for movements next door the whole night, and there was always the sound of someone leaving before the sound of someone returning. Which meant that my hypothesis was right: Ōzawa must have been in her room at the time of the first incident.”
“But isn’t there also the possibility that Ōzawa—after vanishing from the lavatory through unknown means—managed to return to her room before we got back to ours?”
“It would be extremely difficult not to make any detectable noises in a silent dormitory, and even more so for someone of Ōzawa-san’s stature. We would have definitely heard her steps on that wooden floor had she been rushing back to the room.”
“That’s true—she’s got quite the athlete’s build! Then why was there nobody inside the lavatory?”
“Well, this is another clue. None of the stall doors were closed, which made it look like they were empty. But this was a blind spot. I agree with Aoyama-san that there is no mythical dimension, which makes the answer simple: the person did not vanish; she was simply hiding in the stalls. Back in public school, some of the bolder students used to hide right behind the lavatory stall doors during hide-and-seek. Ōzawa-san couldn’t have, not with her stature—but Tân-san, who is as petite as a child . . . I made a lucky guess.”
“Chi-chan, Chi-chan, Chi-chan—”
“Yes?”
“You are neither Watson nor Holmes.” I announced in my most serious voice: “You are Chi-chan, the Great Detective!”
The room was flooded with golden sunlight. Chi-chan sat cross-legged on top of her futon; her face was radiant—even more so than usual. I felt dizzy.
“Aoyama-san,” came her voice. “Please have some.”
I snapped out of my daze, my mind returning to the first-class car of the northbound express train. Chi-chan had, I saw, stacked a small pile of cream-white water caltrops—freshly extracted from their sharp-ended black shells—into my palm.
When had this happened?
“You struggle with peeling these kinds of things, do you not?” she explained cheerfully. “Water caltrops have to be cracked between the teeth, and extracting the flesh also takes some skill. It’s no easy task for a novice.”
“Huh. I feel that we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Ah, indeed. When we first met. It was kue-tsí that time.” “Ah, kue-tsí! I still struggle with those.”
“And that is why Aoyama-san needs me.”
Her smile reached her eyes.
I pinched a water caltrop between my fingers and offered it to her. She put it in her mouth, still smiling.
I could not say why, but in that moment I thought of the emptied glasses in my suite at Tainan Railway Hotel. The leftover ice cubes. Their gentle crackle.
The drinks they brought us had been winter melon tea, but its sweetness seemed to have eluded me until that train ride.
About the Translator: Lin King’s writing and translations have appeared in Boston Review, Joyland, Asymptote, and Columbia Journal. She is the translator of the Taiwanese historical graphic novel series The Boy from Clearwater by Yu Pei-Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin.
