Paprika

by Yasutaka Tsutsui

  Konakawa was similarly shocked, but Inui’s appearance didn’t mean enough to him. Not enough to wake him.

  Inui’s face did remind him of his father, nonetheless. But rather than his own father, it was his wife’s father who appeared next. They were in some kind of temple. Hollow laughter rang out, echoing around the vaulted ceiling. Konakawa’s father-in-law was sitting on a chair by the front entrance. Tourists were coming in and giving him money, which started to pile up in front of him.

  He looked at Konakawa. “I brought her up like that. I brought her up like that.” He seemed to be talking about his daughter. Brought her up like what? Konakawa felt an anger rise inside him.

  The scene shifted to a stock exchange, a hall full of echoing voices. Now it changed again, to the inside of a stockbroker’s office. Konakawa’s wife was buying some shares. Oh yes. Investing the money she got from her father. Oh no! She’s buying nothing but worthless stock. Throwing the money away. Why’s she doing that?

  “Wait! That’s my money!”

  Konakawa was often livid with anger in his dreams. The object of his anger was usually a person who, in reality, had done nothing to earn his wrath. This time, though, he really was angry with his wife. How sad that he could only express his anger in his dreams! Now he was lying in a field of scorched grass. A large dog slept next to him.

  “Does your wife invest in shares?” said the dog, in Paprika’s voice.

  “Yes, but please don’t appear as a dog!” Konakawa begged pitifully. “It’s too much to take!”

  Paprika’s face appeared on the dog’s head. The result was, needless to say, even more bizarre.

  “You called up this dog,” said Paprika.

  “I’ve never seen it before.” Konakawa felt pangs of guilt as he spoke.

  “I said don’t do it again, didn’t I?!” Someone was yelling at him. He was in a room in the Metropolitan Police Department. The person yelling at him from the other side of the desk was none other than his subordinate, Superintendent Morita. “You only have to ***** the storeroom once!”

  “Who does he think he is?!” Paprika shouted, standing next to Konakawa. “Go and sort him out!”

  But Konakawa couldn’t move. Paprika picked up a collapsible chair and went to attack Morita with it.

  “Hey! Stop that!” Still half aware that it was a dream, Konakawa tried to hold Paprika back. Before he knew it, he had joined her and the two were laying into poor Morita for all they were worth.

  “*****!!” Morita yelled with a look of astonishment. It was as though he’d never expected Konakawa to fight back.

  Konakawa felt exhilarated. But at the same time, he felt guilty about attacking his subordinate. Morita was actually a good man and a trusted friend. Why did he beat him like that?

  “I don’t think it was Morita,” said Paprika.

  Unusually for him, Konakawa had fallen asleep at around two in the morning. Paprika had observed his dreams from the start. As day broke, she had at last discovered the underlying thread that ran through all his dreams. It was then that she’d decided to access the dream in the public bath, posing as the woman in the poster.

  Unlike Tatsuo Noda, Konakawa had offered no hints to help her find that underlying meaning, nor made any attempt to analyze it with her. Paprika found that really annoying. On the other hand, merely identifying the cause through psychoanalysis would not in itself constitute treatment. And while a knowledge of phenomenological anthropology of course came in handy, seeking the transcendental structure behind empirical events wouldn’t be of much use to the treatment either.

  Konakawa was now standing in a cemetery. He was gazing at a gravestone. It was on fire. There’s nothing I can do about it, he thought.

  “Another fire?” Paprika said to nudge his memory. The image of fire had appeared in a number of his dreams that night already.

  “Ah! It’s the fire that *****!”

  Paprika had a feeling that it wasn’t just a residue of some police case. Her surmise was that, when Konakawa was a boy, he’d started a small fire in a storeroom. Just as when the dog had died, he was then severely scolded by his father. But Paprika couldn’t confirm these facts conclusively with Konakawa. It wasn’t enough just to rely on his own recognition of them. Her only option was to keep alluding to them subtly.

  Paprika also knew that Konakawa was beginning to understand the meaning of these “rejection” experiences. He’d clearly felt a sense of exhilaration when he was beating Morita, alongside his pangs of guilt. Morita had been scolding him in his father’s stead.

  Paprika felt sure the treatment was progressing, albeit gradually.

  Konakawa was kicking up a fuss in the lingerie section of a department store. He was ranting and raging, ripping skimpy underwear to shreds with his bare hands. Paprika went to stand in front of him.

  “Don’t be angry. Please don’t be angry! I’ll wear those.”

  In her half-sleeping, half-waking state, Paprika had every confidence that she was doing the right thing. In the dream, she was naked. But to Konakawa, her perfectly proportioned figure was overlapped with his mental image of his wife. No! My body doesn’t sag like that! Paprika insisted. She made him see the image of her own naked body, the one she always saw in the mirror. Then she chose the most erotic piece of lingerie and put it on. It was pink. Not just any old pink; this was shocking pink, a color she’d never worn in reality. One thing for sure was that Konakawa’s wife liked to use this color as a means of seduction.

  Konakawa showed an emotion resembling fear when he saw the shocking pink. At the same time, his eyes were mesmerized by the sight of Paprika’s half-naked body. Had his wife been standing there instead of Paprika, she would certainly have mocked his sexual inadequacy; his confidence would have been shot to pieces.

  “Paprika, is that really you?” Konakawa felt increasingly aroused by the sight of her body. He already had an erection.

  “Yes. It’s really me.”

  They were in a tiny space that looked like a maid’s room. A thin futon mattress lay spread out on a tatami floor, surrounded by rattan trunks, clothes baskets, and other objects lying around higgledy-piggledy. If anything, the squalor of the location seemed to stimulate Konakawa’s libido.

  Konakawa’s wife was taking revenge on him for the harsh education she’d received from her father, as well as the psychological cruelties he’d meted out to her mother. Her revenge took the form of affairs, in imitation of her father, and treating her husband like dirt. That was why Konakawa had lost his confidence, and Paprika knew it.

  “Can I do it now?” Konakawa said with little emotion, clumsily voicing his desire for Paprika.

  “Yes. You can.”

  Some male psychoanalysts had openly claimed that it was a good idea for them to have intercourse with a certain type of hysterical female patient. Some had even published scientific papers on the subject, citing successful cases of treatment. But they were still criticized on ethical grounds; their opponents claimed that they were simply abusing a position of trust.

  Never mind – this was just a dream. It would simply be one more secret to be shared between therapist and patient. Paprika had always explained it to herself like that, thereby convincing herself that it was all right. She had also felt, conversely, that this virtual sex act might be more immoral than a real sex act between a therapist and a patient who really loved each other; she could never be equanimous about it. She wondered if she was actually no better than a woman in a massage parlor, relieving sexual frustration and restoring confidence. Such misgivings were an integral part of her unique treatment.

  Nevertheless, Paprika could continue her treatment based on erotic experiences without feeling too guilty about it. That resulted from her affection toward her patients, an affection she called “reverse rapport.” She always felt irresistibly attracted to men of high social standing. Of course, some of them were clinically depressed and thoroughly repugnant. She certainly didn’t feel like giving her body
to all of them, even in their dreams. And yet the patients who missed out on this treatment were always the slowest to be cured.

  If Konakawa felt guilty about this method, she thought, she could always have sex with him properly after he was cured, with real passion. No. Perhaps the excitement of having sex with her in his dream would be so great as to wake him. Then she could make love to him there and then.

  In the end, like most other patients in this phase, Konakawa clung tightly to his sweet dream and did not wake up. He was about to make love to Paprika on the thin futon mattress spread out over the tatami floor. Yes, there was an awkwardness about him, and that would no doubt irritate a woman who felt no love for him. She would ridicule him for his clumsiness. His wife probably voiced her dissatisfaction with him even during intercourse, and this must have fueled his loss of confidence. But Paprika found his clumsiness charming. She even saw it as part of his attraction – even wondered if it wasn’t the true attraction of a man.

  Konakawa started to move more vigorously as his carnal desire became inflamed. Now Paprika’s self-awareness as a therapist disappeared from her half-waking consciousness, and her half-sleeping consciousness was transported by the throes of passion. There was no physical contact between them, but she was already moist.

  “Paprika? Is it really you?”

  Konakawa was worried that she would suddenly change into someone else, someone he found repulsive, as so often happened when he dreamt of having sex. Perhaps what worried him most was that she would turn into his wife.

  “It’s really me. You’re really doing it with me.”

  As she finished speaking, Paprika let out an involuntary moan. Konakawa reacted to her voice with a violent surge of passion. For the first time in another person’s dream, Paprika found herself washed in a baptism of orgasm.

  Konakawa ejaculated in reality, as in the dream, and thereby woke himself up.

  “Sorry.”

  “Why? It’s all right. It’s your treatment.”

  “I think I’ve messed up your sheets.”

  “It’s OK.”

  Overcome with embarrassment, Konakawa made for the bathroom. Paprika stood up in front of the collector and called to stop him.

  They kissed in the dim light of the room.

  26

  Osanai could enter any apartment he liked, having surreptitiously borrowed the master key about a week earlier to make a copy. But before visiting Atsuko’s apartment that night, he took the trouble to phone in advance. He would say he had something to discuss, knowing she couldn’t possibly refuse.

  At ten that evening, he called from his own apartment to find Atsuko already at home. She agreed to his visit without question; he imagined it was because she wasn’t expecting anyone else that night. He immediately went up the single flight to her floor.

  Three nights earlier, when he and Inui were using the DC Mini to share each other’s dreams and search for the true essence of sex, they’d suddenly realized that Atsuko was using PT devices to treat someone in her apartment. At the frantic command of the startled Inui, Osanai had woken up immediately. But he’d left the DC Mini on his head, and had secretly continued to observe the “dream detective” at work. Inui had also continued to access the patient’s dream, concealing his identity to ensure his presence went unnoticed.

  “You must rape her,” Inui had told Osanai at the Institute that day.

  An order from Seijiro Inui was absolute. His commands always gave Osanai a perverse moral justification for acts he himself sought to commit; they converted his desires into firm action.

  Osanai knew perfectly well that Atsuko and Paprika were one and the same. He also knew that the middle-aged man he’d seen in the elevator was the patient she was currently treating. Osanai and Inui felt threatened, as the man appeared to be a high-ranking police officer. Both they and Atsuko were engaged in an activity that violated social mores and could be deemed illegal. But if their rivalry with Atsuko were to be made public, she would obviously hold the upper hand if she had an ally in the police.

  Osanai had witnessed Atsuko having virtual sex with her patient in his dream, as part of his treatment. During the dream, the point of view kept shifting from the patient to Atsuko and back again. Both had been a big turn-on for Osanai, who so suffered with lust for Atsuko. Inui was aware of Osanai’s burgeoning passion, and had judged that the time was right to execute his plan. Osanai would have his way with Atsuko, and violently. Inui’s view, a product of empire mentality, was that a man only need rape a woman to put her under his dominion. This view was fully endorsed by Osanai, who had every confidence in his own desirability. His passion was now ignited and ready to burn. Its energy would lend force to the deed, give him unswerving resolve and help him to overpower Atsuko. In doing so, it would enslave her to him.

  He stood at the door to Atsuko’s apartment and rang the bell.

  Atsuko had just come home.

  “There’s something we really need to discuss,” Osanai had said on the phone. Atsuko hadn’t understood Osanai’s true intentions at the time. She’d been preoccupied with her concern for Tokita. He hadn’t been seen at the Institute for the past two days, and Atsuko was thinking of calling him in his apartment that evening. Instinct told her that Osanai’s call might have some connection with Tokita, and she therefore felt obliged to meet him.

  At the same time, she’d already anticipated that Osanai, as Inui’s mouthpiece, would have to contact her sooner or later. She had an inkling that Inui and Osanai had used the DC Mini while she was investigating Konakawa’s dreams. They surely wouldn’t want their theft of the DC Minis to be made public. Their ultimate objective, meanwhile, must have been to gain complete control of the Institute for Psychiatric Research. As such, Atsuko felt it conceivable that they would attempt to reach some kind of conciliation. She was still unaware that Himuro and Shima had suffered the same inhuman treatment as Tsumura and Kakimoto.

  “Sorry it’s so late,” Osanai said as he walked in, bowing with a duplicitous smile.

  He praised the interior of Atsuko’s living room, gushed at the furnishings, and swooned at the decor as she showed him through. Then he settled into an armchair with a swagger of supreme confidence. This was not the Osanai she knew at the Institute; this Osanai wore a loose sweater adorned with garish patterns. The atmosphere was mellow. It was enough to make Atsuko lower her guard.

  “You’ll have some coffee?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Osanai had been eyeing the drinks trolley, but Atsuko didn’t consider him worth the alcohol.

  “I’ve been thinking we need to talk,” she ventured.

  “Me too,” he agreed.

  They continued their pleasantries, she in the kitchen, he in the living room. For both of them, that was the best way of sounding the other out. The discussion would proceed more smoothly if they could agree on a subject before looking each other in the face.

  “You’re here at the Vice President’s bidding?”

  “Partly so.”

  While Atsuko wasn’t looking, Osanai checked that the DC Mini was still embedded in his hair and attached to his scalp. He and Inui had contrived to remain in some form of contact by using the device. Its range had expanded so much that they could access each other’s waking consciousness, albeit in fragmentary snatches. Inui lacked the physical strength to ravish Atsuko himself, but he could now enjoy Osanai’s experience effortlessly, by remote control.

  “And what,” Atsuko asked as she made the coffee, “is this ‘something’ you need to discuss?”

  “Well, it’s about Doctor Tokita, naturally …”

  Himuro’s disappearance was starting to raise eyebrows at the Institute, and that would have seemed the more pressing issue. But Osanai evidently had bigger fish to fry. Atsuko brought coffee cups into the living room and placed them on the glass table, then sat in the middle of the sofa opposite her visitor.

  “Are you saying all the Institute’s problems are rela
ted to Tokita?”

  “Cheers.” Osanai took his coffee and sipped a leisurely mouthful before fixing his eyes on Atsuko. “Doctor Tokita is a genius. There’s no doubt about that. But he’s a very dangerous genius.”

  “I’d say there are others who are more dangerous.”

  Osanai decided to ignore Atsuko’s irony. “The most dangerous thing about him is that he has no malice at all. He knows nothing of the world; he’s naive, like a child. Unfortunately, when someone like that also happens to be a genius – well, it may be precisely because he’s that kind of person – he keeps coming out with more and more crazy inventions. I’m sure you’ll understand just how dangerous that can be.”

  “Now that’s not quite true, is it. It’s not Tokita himself who’s dangerous, but the people around him who exploit his naivete and abuse his inventions.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Osanai said, feigning wholehearted endorsement. He pretended to interpret people around him as society in general. “Tokita has no understanding of the society around him. His inventions will make a contribution to society, sure, but the larger reality is that they’ll poison society. Anyone could abuse his inventions if they wanted to.”

  “There is that danger. It’s a very big danger. That’s why we need to protect him and his inventions.”

  “Good. So we’re in agreement on that, at least.” Osanai smiled in a way that he obviously thought terribly attractive. “But the thing that bothers me is that Doctor Shima doesn’t seem to share our view. Don’t you find it vexing that he, as Institute Administrator and President of the Foundation, is no less naive than our good friend Tokita?”

  “At least he doesn’t want to take advantage of Tokita. I find that quite reassuring.” Atsuko smiled. “But I agree, we do need to be wary of Shima’s naivete. That’s why I haven’t told him about the missing DC Minis. You know, the ones you stole from Tokita’s research lab.”

  “Is that what you call them? DC Minis?” Osanai nodded calmly, making no attempt to dodge the sudden barb that flew his way. “To be exact, it was Himuro who ‘stole’ them, as you call it. I’m merely looking after them, since we can’t trust Tokita with anything half so dangerous.”