Jen Dou


                                  All those moments
                                  will be lost, in time,
                                  like tears, in rain...



    The apartment was quite small, a single room with a bed, a
sink, and a tiny bathroom. A few books were neatly stacked on a
shelf underneath a lonely window. The reddish glow of a pleasant
afternoon sun flooded the air.

A young man stood near the window, glancing over the books on the
shelf, skimming through the titles printed on the spines. Two
volumes caught his attention.

    "Za... pis... ki iz pod... polya", he muttered. Although he
didn't know Russian, he had learned a bit of Greek at the
seminary, enough to decipher the Cyrillics. It was the only non
Japanese text he saw. The other book he had noticed was a worn
translation of Moby Dick. He pulled it out, and proceeded to
carefully leaf through it. Many paragraphs had been hastily
underlined with a blue pen. As he flipped the pages he suddenly
stopped at a passage underscored in red:

    "Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that
almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness
against the whale, all the more fell for in his frantic
morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all
his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual
exasperations."

    "Hello Father..."

The priest quickly turned around, abruptly closing the book. The
man coming into the apartment was a rather sturdy fellow, much
taller than himself, and perhaps a little older too. He almost
had to stoop to get under the door's frame.

    "I didn't mean to startle you", the man said, as he finally
cleared the entrance. "I thought you had heard my footsteps from
down the hall."

    "Sorry detective, I was a bit distracted, browsing through
these books..." answered the priest, somewhat embarrassed.

The detective stood in the middle of the room, momentarily
glancing around his humble surroundings.

    "I hope this stuff can be of some use to you. There's not
much, I'm afraid," he said, almost sighing.

    "The charity is always grateful regarding anything which
comes its way," the priest answered, re-shelving the book. "It
was very kind of you to come all the way over here. I really do
appreciate it."

    "Always glad to help, Father," the detective said, reaching
for his breast pocket "after all, it's for a good cause."

    "Yes, indeed it is," he simply answered, taking the papers
the detective offered him.

The priest paused for a moment, holding the crumpled sheets in
his hands. The sound of a siren could be faintly heard, muffled
by distance and the window's glass. The detective kept his gaze
fixed on him, a somewhat bored expression on his face.

    "Well Father, I guess I'll be seeing you then."

    "Actually, there's something more..."

The detective gave him a wry smile. Second-guessing people came
naturally, he had been in the force long enough.

    "I was hoping you could help me a bit with the report you
sent me. I know I could've gone to the station, but..."

    "No problem at all," the detective interrupted, "the office
is sometimes rather, um, hectic. How may I help you?"

    "I was wondering about those reports you sent me? They seemed
to be somewhat incomplete."

    "I'm afraid not, Father. That's the whole story. A lifetime
on a page. Funny how things turn out, no?"

The detective paused for a moment, his gaze momentarily shifting
towards a dead plant on the windowsill.

    "The old lady, she lived alone," he explained, "the
neighbours don't recall any visitors. Hardly even knew her,
actually. Landlord says she moved in four years ago and paid the
rent on time. No one seems to know where she came from. She was
like a ghost in that sense."

The detective sighed. "We got the call from a neighbour about the
smell. Apparently she had slipped in the bathroom after taking a
shower. She was quite old, this sort of thing happens all the
time."

The priest slowly nodded. He too had seen such things. And yet...

    "You wrote that she called herself Jen Dou? Chinese?" he
suddenly asked.

    "No, we're quite sure she was Japanese, but that's about it,"
answered the detective. "That's the name she wrote on her tax
return. False, it turns out: 'Jane Doe', get it? Some people have
a strange sense of humour."

    "You don't know her real name then?"

    "No, we haven't got the slightest idea."

    "I thought there were records, fingerprints, DNA..."

    "DNA signatures weren't mandatory sixty years ago, Father. No
match on the fingerprints either. Revenue never bothered looking
too carefully into a senior's modest return, this isn't the
US. She just seems to have slipped through the cracks. I really
wish I knew who she was, but the truth is I haven't got a
clue. We published an obituary hoping someone would show up.
Unfortunately, nobody came to the cremation."

    "I see. Such an ethereal existence..." the priest said, to
himself, mostly.

    "Actually Father, it may not have been all that 'ethereal'.
Forensics did find a couple of strange things. Her body had a few
nasty scars, although they were quite old. They couldn't tell us
what caused them exactly. A couple of her bones had broken at one
point or another. Maybe she was hiding from someone? Who knows?
Frankly, it makes little difference now, doesn't it?"

The priest simply nodded.

    "Excuse me a second?"

The detective went into the bathroom. He closed the door behind
him, but the splashing sound of a stream readily filled the room.
The priest turned again towards the bookcase.

    "The landlord was rather relieved, actually," said the
detective, in an attempt to drown the noise, "the old lady had a
ten year lease on this place. If Genom builds that new tower the
real estate around here should skyrocket."

The priest didn't hear the toilet flushing. He was kneeling now,
studying a contents of the bottom shelf.

    "Large CD collection, no?" said the detective, looking over
the priest's shoulder, "I must say, I do prefer the discs to
those ROM chips. They sound better somehow. You'll probably get
good money if you auction them off..."

    "Mozart's 'Requiem'. She had mostly taste for the classical,"
the priest said, shuffling through the boxes. "Some of these seem
quite old..."

    "'Revolver'?" exclaimed the detective, bending over, "I
hadn't noticed it before. Great album! Always loved The
Beatles..."

    "Really?" asked the priest, somewhat rhetorically, glancing
over Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'.

The detective glimpsed at his watch.

    "Sorry father, I have to run. If we find anything else I'll
make sure to let you know," he said, heading for the door.

    "Ah, yes, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you again for
coming," the priest replied, giving him an energetic nod.

The disc under the 'Seasons' suddenly caught his attention. He
quickly turned around, towards the detective who was half way
through the door frame.

    "Detective, sorry, you seem to know more about popular music
than I do..." he said, holding up the jewel box.

    "'Priss and the Replicants'?" read the detective, squinting
from the door. "Sorry, never heard of them," he shrugged.

The priest looked thoughtfully at the CD as the detective left
the room. Moments later footsteps echoed down the hall, and he
could hear the detective whistling a tune.

    "All the lonely people,
     where do they all come from?
     All the lonely people,
     where do they all belong?"


_________________________________
marco@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca
Gunnm: Broken Angel
http://128.100.80.13/marco/alita.html