Excerpt from Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

At the end of the afternoon, a little earlier than usual, Kobayashi told me I could go, that we'd finished for the day. I took off without a moment's hesitation. My daughter leaped with joy when her mother showed up before the appointed time, and we did some shopping on the way back to the apartment. We had barely set foot on the stairs when the man I'd seen that morning emerged from his third-floor office, my daughter's shrill voice having no doubt announced our presence. The realtor who managed the building was visible behind him.

It was not hard to guess from their expressions how impatiently they'd been awaiting my return. Barely restraining the desire to turn on my heel and flee the building, I climbed slowly, one step at a time, letting my daughter go ahead. She clambered up the steep stairs on all fours, like a dog.When we reached the third-floor landing, the realtor stepped forward as if to shield his glowering companion with his own slight frame. 'I'm sorry to bother you. Actually, we've been waiting over an hour. This gentleman wanted me to unlock the upstairs apartment, but I suggested it would be better to wait, as you were sure to be home anytime now, and I took the liberty of waiting with him ...'

'Wait, he says,' the man fumed. 'There's not a moment to lose.'

The realtor smiled reassuringly at me. 'There does seem to be a serious leak. There's water dripping down to the second storey now, and since it isn't raining, I'd have to say it's coming from the top floor. I'm very sorry to inconvenience you, but would you allow me to make a quick check?'The realtor was a thin, white-haired man. The sixtyish businesswoman who owned the building had been sitting on his office sofa when I went to pay the rent, and together they had something of the air of a chatelaine and her elderly butler. He was a quiet, rather distinguished old man.

I led the way upstairs. What had been a small puddle that morning was now wetting the whole of the fourth-floor landing. The stain on the ceiling had spread as well. A droplet grew there lazily, reached a certain size, then fell, and the process started over, I first asked the two men to wait in the entrance while I took a look around inside. Nothing had changed since the morning. In the intense late-afternoon sun, the interior was dazzlingly bright, shimmering around me as if the rooms held a heat haze. My daughter never left my side, singing at the top of her voice a song she'd just learned at daycare.

I finished by sticking my head into the bedroom. Confident there was no problem there, I did so merely to rest my case with the man downstairs, but for the first time I discovered traces of water on one of the walls. Where the previous day I hadn't noticed anything, a large stain had appeared. On the other side of that wall was the stairwell.

I reported the discovery. The man was raring to go in. 'No, ex cuse me, would you mind not going in there? Let's have a look on the roof. I didn't check the terrace this morning.I led them hastily to the inside stairs. The thought of anyone seeing my unmade futon left out on the tatami made me tense.

There was nothing out of place in the bathroom. I opened the door that led onto the rooftop and was the first to cross the threshold. I let out a cry of astonishment at the sight that met my eyes. Where there should have been a perfectly dry roof, water rippled and sparkled. A great expanse of clear water.

'The sea! Mommy, it's the sea! Wow! Look how big it is!'

My daughter plunged in, barefoot. Laughing to herself in merry peals, she paddled, splashed with her feet, scooped with her hands, dipped her face. On her, the pool was ankle deep.

The three of us traced the flow to the building's water tower. Water was spurting from it in a mesmerizing jet.

'It arrives at the drain over there, and the overflow has been seeping downstairs,' said the realtor. 'It must be getting through a little crack somewhere. But ... what a view.'

Copyright © 1979, 1993 by Yūko Tsushima
English translation copyright © 2018 by Geraldine Harcourt