DIARY OF A VOID AUTHOR OF
Emi Yagi
WHEN THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
WHEN THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
Also by Emi Yagi
Diary of a Void
WHEN THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
Emi Yagi
translated from the japanese by yuki tejima
Harvill, an imprint of Vintage, is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
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First published by Harvill in 2025
Copyright © Emi Yagi 2023
English translation copyright © Yuki Tejima 2025
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in Japan with the title 休館日の彼女たち (Kyukanbi no kanojotachi ) in 2023 by Chikumashobo Ltd., Tokyo. This English edition arranged with Chikumashobo Ltd. through The English Agency (Japan) Ltd. and New River Literary Ltd.
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WHEN THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
There she stood. A goddess. In the octagonal room, nimbly curving her full figure.
‘Um, hello.’
‘You’re here. Welcome.’
Her voice was surprisingly husky. Somewhere between a mezzo-soprano and an alto, though leaning more towards alto if I had to choose. If she were singing in a choir, that is.
I started to give her my invitation, but the curator swiped it from my hand and held it up for her to see. I froze. What was I thinking? That I could simply pass it to her? But the goddess didn’t appear to be bothered. After a pause, she opened her mouth.
‘Rika Horauchi. May I call you Hora?’
I nodded. Her declaration of a new nickname caught me off guard, but I also didn’t have anything I would rather be called. The goddess squinted her pupil-less eyes.
‘And I want you to call me Venus, not Aphrodite.
I know I’m very “ancient Greek goddess”, but I was born in Rome, see. Though Venus is actually my English name.’
I nodded for the second time. Her eyes twinkled, her engraved smile stretching as wide as it could go.
‘Terrific. Now tell me, do I speak too fast? I don’t sound too different from what you learned in school, do I? I hope you’ll tell me if I do.’
‘No . . . I can understand you very well,’ I replied gingerly as I rubbed my palms against my raincoat. I was sweating profusely.
‘I’m glad. I come from a time when nobody could have imagined the Roman Empire ever dividing, before Latin splintered into Italian and French and what have you.’
Venus cackled. Her bare white shoulders and smooth torso, wrapped in a layer of soft flesh, didn’t budge. Perhaps there was a rule about bodies made of marble not moving from the neck down. *
The conditions of the part-time job weren’t bad. They just weren’t the sort of conditions you came across every day.
The person who’d recommended me for the position was a professor with whom I’d taken a class at university. I hadn’t been back in years. I arrived at the train station by the university, scurried past the roundabout, which could only be described as forest-fire-level chaos, ambled through the gates and up the hill past girls dressed in matching outfits – pyjamas? – into a north-wing laboratory where a tattered light green carpet jumped out at me. I was gazing at the expressionless pile carpet as it absorbed the new-student cheers from the courtyard, when an invitation was thrust in my face. An envelope emblazoned with the university name. I glanced up and locked eyes with a face I recognised.
I accepted the envelope with both hands but kept them hovering.
‘I’m sorry. I’m just not sure I have what it takes.’
‘I can’t think of anyone more qualified than you. No one alive, at least.’
The professor looked as though he were addressing somebody behind me.
‘Think of it as a tutoring job. Except that it’s easier. All you need to do is talk.’
‘But she is something of a heritage speaker, and—’
And when you say talk . . . But my next words slipped soundlessly to the ground before the yellow
vinyl material, like the final sprays of a park fountain at closing time. As I breathed in and out, puckering my lips in search of an excuse, the professor started to hop on one foot as if he’d got water in his ear. He turned to the mirror to straighten his jacket, and I took that as a sign that our discussion was over. Time to show myself out. I headed towards the exit and spotted the pyjama girls again, this time perched on a bench by the main gates nibbling on matching sandwiches.
The museum was some distance away by bus. Walking from the bus stop towards my destination, all I could see were magnolia flowers and the houses and shops buried under their bone-white petals. Checking and double-checking the professor’s map, I arrived at last at the building I’d been searching for. The bronze doors and concrete walls with remarkably few windows looked ancient, and the building more closely resembled a student dormitory awaiting demolition than an institution where precious cultural assets from around the world were collected and stored. Passing a sign that read Museum Closed Today, I found the back door and took out my phone to call the number I’d been given. The door swung open on the second ring, and I was quickly ushered inside. Like a membersonly party.
Except this party didn’t seem to be welcoming
visitors. Especially those who were alive. It was as frigid as a morgue inside – perhaps to protect the art – and the floors and walls reeked of seeped-in chemicals. The chandelier fixed squarely in the vaulted ceiling and the elegant milk glass lamps that lined the hallway cast their soft gazes downward. Strolling past glass display cases of fossils and earthenware artifacts, my eyes landed on a rack by the main entrance with flyers advertising children’s events and local flea markets. Were these events real? Did the dates and times printed on these sleepy flyers arrive at some juncture somewhere in the world, and did children really congregate to do science experiments? Did people lay out their used sweaters and second-hand audio equipment, hoping someone would claim them?
In my line of vision, where everything appeared faded and frozen in time like a page out of an old calendar, the only evidence of life was the curator walking in front of me.
‘Watch your step.’ He turned to me, as though he knew I would catch my hem on the stairs. The curator’s name was Hashibami, and he was astonishingly good-looking. I couldn’t tell his age, but he looked stylish and youthful in a white shirt and slim-fitting trousers, and his beauty struck me as that not of a human being, but of a piece of craftwork – perhaps
a vase, or lacquerware. I gripped the invitation inside my pocket. Handsome men made me uncomfortable. Particularly handsome men who were kind – or appeared so, anyway.
The doors opened at the top of the stairs, and I was drawn instinctively to the arched windows. If there was an argument for light having a gravitational pull, I would have to agree wholeheartedly. Though not visible from the outside, the centre of the building had been hollowed out to make room for trees and a small pond, with a curved corridor above – awash with translucent light – that provided a full view of the quaint courtyard. Pointing out the bouquet reliefs on the pillars, Hashibami explained, ‘We’re standing in the former mansion of a wealthy man who lived in the area and donated this building to the museum. The upper floor houses the collections he amassed over the years, though the doors are closed to the public today.’
A symphonic melody floated out of one of the galleries. I recognised the smooth, uplifting swell of an oboe, and timpani rolls that made me think of excavating old memories with a wooden mallet. Strolling past a door embellished with seashell carvings, I could almost smell the balmy salt air, hear the lapping of the sea. This was a side to the museum I’d not known
before; a day of private celebration behind closed doors.
We were headed for a room at the end of the hall. Hashibami chose a key from a heavy bundle and inserted it into the door, unlocking it with a click. I peeked through the crack, ignoring the faint reflection of a yellow raincoat in the hallway window.
‘Right this way.’
This was to be my new workplace, apparently. My shift was once a week, and no experience was required aside from conversation-level Latin. I had been hired to talk to the ancient Roman statue of Venus.
I glanced around the room once more, moving only my eyes so as not to seem obvious.
The room was a snapshot of ancient mythology. Light streamed in from the domed skylight, illuminating the goddesses positioned around the room like constellations. Hera was glaring in my direction, Diana stood tall with her hunting dog, and there was Minerva, adorned in armour. Eight goddesses from Greek and Roman myths. From their bloodless white lips I could make out the sounds of ancient Greek – or perhaps it was a different language – weaving lace
designs in the air to pass the time. At the far end of the octagon, beyond the shadows created by the overlapping banter, stood Venus.
‘Oh, hello,’ she spoke up. In contrast to her frozen shoulders, her jaw moved in one fluid motion. ‘Hashibami, bring Hora a chair, will you? We mustn’t keep her standing like this.’
The curator walked to the corner of the gallery to retrieve a chair likely reserved for the security guard during open hours. He brought it over and was about to resume his position next to the goddess when she continued in her smooth alto tone, ‘Thank you. You can go now.’
‘But—’ His Latin betrayed a touch of urgency.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll call you if I need you,’ the goddess reassured him. ‘And close the door, will you? All the way.’
Hashibami gave me a once-over and headed towards the exit, where he bowed slightly and shut the door. As the clacking of his shoes grew distant, the goddess said, ‘Have a seat.’ I sat down and raised my eyes, only to avert them just as quickly. I was staring right into her downward gaze.
She was the goddess of love and beauty indeed. Her voluptuous figure arched into a magnificent S-shape, and her smile was both exquisite and meticulously
spared of all characteristics that make a face unique. She had neither laugh lines nor crow’s feet, and the touch of resignation on her joyous, symmetrical face only accentuated her heavenliness. Her gown, cascading in gentle folds designed not to sway, had no intention of veiling her physique as a garment is wont to do, covering neither her full breasts nor her round bottom. Feeling self-conscious, I fidgeted in my own body – with no curves or undulations to speak of – and the goddess asked, ‘Is your chair comfortable?’
‘Yes, it’s great,’ I replied without thinking, putting on my best first-impression smile. My answer didn’t seem to satisfy her. She asked again in a tone one might use when checking the pockets of a child who’s been caught stealing. ‘Hora, is the chair comfortable?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Honey, did you attend a school that taught you to speak using the minimum number of words possible? Tell me now, is that chair really comfortable? For you.’
I considered the depth of the seat for the first time. I then focused on the position of my spine and the distance of my heels in relation to the floor, one by one, as though I were tracing an X-ray with my finger.
‘The seat might be a little high.’ Worrying that my answer was still too brief, I added, ‘Because I have short legs.’