There was nothing in the envelope to indicate anything about his father’s life before he joined NHK. It was as if his father’s life began the moment he became an NHK fee collector.

He opened the final envelope, a thin one, and found a single black-and-white photograph. That was all. It was an old photo, and though the contrast hadn’t faded, there was a thin membrane over the whole picture, as if water had seeped into it. It was a photo of a family—a father, a mother, and a tiny baby. The baby looked less than a year old. The mother, dressed in a kimono, was lovingly cradling the baby. Behind them was a torii gate at a shrine. From the clothes they had on, it looked like winter. Since they were visiting a shrine, it was most likely New Year’s. The mother was squinting, as if the light were too bright, and smiling. The father, dressed in a dark coat, slightly too big for him, had frown lines between his eyes, as if to say he didn’t take anything at face value. The baby looked confused by how big and cold the world could be.

The young father in the photo had to be Tengo’s father. He looked much younger, though he already had a sort of surprising maturity about him, and he was thin, his eyes sunken. It was the face of a poor farmer from some out-of-the-way hamlet, stubborn, skeptical. His hair was cut short, his shoulders a bit stooped. That could only be his father. This meant that the baby must be Tengo, and the mother holding the baby must be Tengo’s mother. His mother was slightly taller than his father, and had good posture. His father was in his late thirties, while his mother looked to be in her mid-twenties.

Tengo had never seen the photograph before. He had never seen anything that could be called a family photo. And he had never seen a picture of himself when he was little. They couldn’t afford a camera, his father had once explained, and never had the opportunity to take any family photos. And Tengo had accepted this. But now he knew it was a lie. They had taken a photo together. And though their clothes weren’t exactly luxurious, they were at least presentable. They didn’t look as if they were so poor they couldn’t afford a camera. The photo was taken not long after Tengo was born, sometime between 1954 and 1955. He turned the photo over, but there was no date or indication of where it had been taken.

Tengo studied the woman. In the photo her face was small, and slightly out of focus. If only he had a magnifying glass! Then he could have made out more details. Still, he could see most of her features. She had an oval-shaped face, a small nose, and plump lips. By no means a beauty, though sort of cute—the type of face that left a good impression. At least compared with his father’s rustic face she looked far more refined and intelligent. Tengo was happy about this. Her hair was nicely styled, but since she had on a kimono, he couldn’t tell much about her figure.

At least as far as they looked in this photo, no one could call them a well-matched couple. There was a great age difference between them. Tengo tried to imagine his parents meeting each other, falling in love, having him—but he just couldn’t see it. You didn’t get that sense at all from the photo. So if there wasn’t an emotional attachment that brought them together, there must have been some other circumstances that did. No, maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as the term circumstances made it sound. Life might just be an absurd, even crude, chain of events and nothing more.

Tengo tried to figure out if the mother in this photo was the mysterious woman who appeared in his daydreams, or in his fog of childhood memories. But he realized he didn’t have any memories of the woman’s face whatsoever. The woman in his memory took off her blouse, let down the straps of her slip, and let some unknown man suck her breasts. And her breathing became deeper, like she was moaning. That’s all he remembered—some man sucking his mother’s breasts. The breasts that should have been his alone were stolen away by somebody else. A baby would no doubt see this as a grave threat. His eyes never went to the man’s face.

Tengo returned the photo to the envelope, and thought about what it meant. His father had cherished this one photograph until he died, which might mean he still cherished Tengo’s mother. Tengo couldn’t remember his mother, for she had died from illness when he was too young to have any memories of her. According to the lawyer’s investigation, Tengo was the only child of his mother and his father, the NHK fee collector, a fact recorded in his family register. But official documents didn’t guarantee that that man was Tengo’s biological father.

“I don’t have a son,” his father had declared to Tengo before he fell into a coma.

“So, what am I?” Tengo had asked.

“You’re nothing,” was his father’s concise and peremptory reply.

His father’s tone of voice had convinced Tengo that there was no blood connection between him and this man. And he had felt freed from heavy shackles. As time went on, however, he wasn’t completely convinced that what his father had said was true.

I’m nothing, Tengo repeated.

Suddenly he realized that his young mother in the photo from long ago reminded him of his older girlfriend. Kyoko Yasuda was her name. In order to calm his mind, he pressed his fingers hard against the middle of his forehead. He took the photo out again and stared at it. A small nose, plump lips, a somewhat pointed chin. Her hairstyle was so different he hadn’t noticed at first, but her features did somewhat resemble Kyoko’s. But what could that possibly mean?

And why did his father think to give this photo to Tengo after his death? While he was alive he had never provided Tengo with a single piece of information about his mother. He had even hidden the existence of this family photo. One thing Tengo did know was that his father never intended to explain the situation to him. Not while he was alive, and not even now after his death. Look, here’s a photo, his father must be saying. I’ll just hand it to you. It’s up to you to figure it out.

Tengo lay faceup on the bare mattress and stared at the ceiling. It was a painted white plywood ceiling, flat with no wood grain or knots, just several straight joints where the boards came together—the same scene his father’s sunken eyes must have viewed during the last few months of life. Or maybe those eyes didn’t see anything. At any rate his gaze had been directed there, at the ceiling, whether he had been seeing it or not.

Tengo closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself slowly moving toward death. But for a thirty-year-old in good health, death was something far off, beyond the imagination. Instead, breathing softly, he watched the twilight shadows as they moved across the wall. He tried to not think about anything. Not thinking about anything was not too hard for Tengo. He was too tired to keep any one particular thought in his head. He wanted to catch some sleep if he could, but he was overtired, and sleep wouldn’t come.

Just before six p.m. Nurse Omura came and told him dinner was ready in the cafeteria. Tengo had no appetite, but the tall, busty nurse wouldn’t leave him alone. You need to get something, even a little bit, into your stomach, she told him. This was close to a direct order. When it came to telling people how to maintain their health, she was a pro. And Tengo wasn’t the type—especially when the other person was an older woman—who could resist.

They took the stairs down to the cafeteria and found Kumi Adachi waiting for them. Nurse Tamura was nowhere to be seen. Tengo ate dinner at the same table as Kumi and Nurse Omura. Tengo had a salad, cooked vegetables, and miso soup with asari clams and scallions, washed down with hot hojicha tea.

“When is the cremation?” Kumi asked him.