March 10

March 10 marks the opening of Hiromi Asai’s play at Meijiza Theater, the first performance in a fifty-day run unusually long for the theater. In Kyoichiro Kaga’s reconstruction, the date is more than a calendar marker: the opening night may have brought Hiromi’s hidden father, Tadao Asai, and her former friend Michiko Oshitani into the same theater, turning a public performance into a point of convergence in the investigation.

The Opening and Its Setting

Kaga identifies March 10 as the play’s first performance and notes that the production continues through the day of his explanation, its fiftieth and final performance. Meijiza matters particularly because Hiromi performed there for the first time; Kaga believes the theater holds special significance for both her and her father. The long run gives the opening night a distinct place in the play’s chronology: it began a sustained success that Tadao may have wanted to witness for himself.

Kaga’s Reconstruction

Kaga connects the opening to Tadao’s visits to Nihonbashi. Information from Yasuyo Miyamoto established that Shunichi Watabe had traveled from Shiga to Tokyo, particularly to Nihonbashi; Kaga theorizes that the twelve bridges in the district served as changing meeting places for father and daughter. He cannot establish whether they met every month, but proposes that they varied the location monthly to keep their meetings from being discovered.

Within this theory, the theater offers a reason for choosing the district beyond its bridges. Kaga believes Tadao had generally stayed away from his daughter’s performances because smaller theaters risked exposing him to people who knew them both. The opening of this particular play was different: he may have wished to see Hiromi’s dreams fulfilled. Kaga therefore deduces that Tadao attended the March 10 performance, while making clear that this is an investigative theory rather than a confirmed sighting.

Oshitani’s Possible Encounter

Kaga places Michiko Oshitani at the same performance. She spent the night before the opening in a business hotel in Kayabacho instead of returning to Shiga. Although she apparently had no ticket the previous day, Kaga found that a limited number were sold on the day of the performance and believes Oshitani bought one and attended.

The precise timing of any encounter remains unknown: it could have happened before the play, during the intermission, or afterward. Kaga’s proposed identification is that Oshitani saw Tadao. Because Oshitani had once been close friends with Hiromi, he reasons, she could recognize her friend’s father. The possibility raises an immediate question in the investigation: whether Oshitani knew that Hiromi’s father was believed to be dead.

Significance in the Investigation

March 10 concentrates the novel’s intersecting uncertainties in one event: a daughter’s theatrical achievement, a father’s possible concealed attendance, and a former friend’s possible recognition of him. The event is reconstructed retrospectively through Kaga’s reasoning, not narrated as a witnessed meeting. Its significance lies in the gap between a public performance and the private identities that may have occupied the audience, a gap that could explain how Oshitani encountered information connecting her to the Asai family.