by Ben Stevens
The lad was left in the care of a magistrate, so to decide what should be done with him; and with the merchant’s grateful wife insisting that my master accept his ‘standard’ fee, we then travelled through the cold to the inn we were at now.
We were enjoying a pleasant luncheon, accompanied by a little sake, when there came a light knock at the door of the room.
‘Yes?’ said my master lazily, and with that the door slid open and a young man who was clearly a servant of some description humbly entered upon his knees.
‘Please forgive my intrusion, Ennin-sensei, but my master would be most grateful for your company,’ said the young man.
‘Indeed?’ said my master, those eyes above the curiously high cheekbones now shining with interest. ‘And who, exactly, might this master of yours be?’
‘Masao Fujisawa, Ennin-sensei,’ returned the servant, again inclining his head slightly as he spoke.
I saw, from my master’s momentarily raised eyebrows, that he was familiar with this name.
‘I forgot… I forgot he lived so close to here,’ said my master then, shaking his head with a slight, reminiscent smile. ‘Yes – it would be good to see him again. It must be… fifteen years or more…’
With another shake of his head, my master abruptly stopped his reminiscing.
‘Yes – please tell your master I would be delighted to meet up with him again, accompanied of course by my own servant, Kukai,’ declared my master. ‘I need only to know when such a meeting would be convenient for Fujisawa-san.’
‘If it pleases you, Ennin-sensei, I came by a horse-drawn cart that could easily accommodate both of you, plus any luggage you may have. This cart is of course covered – and is also heated by a stove.’
My master emitted a burst of laughter.
‘That’s the Fujisawa I remember – always impatient for the next moment, and always fond of his creature-comforts, for all his strength and bravery.’
In the next moment my master’s air of jollity abruptly fell away, and he stared a little keenly at the servant.
‘But something has happened, these past couple of days or so,’ declared my master, his voice now grave. ‘Is your master in trouble – he requires my help?’
‘It would… it would not really be for me to say, Ennin-sensei,’ replied the servant uneasily, as (due to my master’s training) I suddenly saw what had prompted this last question.
There were slight lines of stress at either side of the servant’s mouth, while his eyes showed traces of exhaustion. It was obvious he had just come from an environment where a great shock had recently been received.
‘Of course, of course,’ said my master. ‘My servant and I will come with you now. But give us a few minutes, please, to first gather our luggage and pay our bill at this inn.’
‘Of course,’ returned the servant.
2
We arrived a short while later at a sprawling house located on the other side of the town. Huddled against the cold (it had been most unwelcome, having to leave the wonderfully warm interior of that covered, horse-drawn cart – and I was still recovering from a recent cold), we entered inside the building. A large entrance hall, with spacious tatami rooms stretching away on either side. And yet I detected a certain tenseness in the atmosphere – some recognition of tragedy. Really, I do not know how else to describe it; and yet I knew, instinctively and immediately, that this was one of the saddest households I’d ever entered.
And then Masao Fujisawa presented himself. During our short journey to this place, my master had informed me that Fujisawa was a well-known samurai, since grown old and prosperous. My master was a little vague about how exactly they knew each other; but then, of course, my master was always reluctant to present any information, until he considered it to be absolutely necessary.
The man who warmly greeted my master was somewhere in his mid-sixties, still sturdy in built and obviously incredibly strong, yet with a haggard expression which betrayed a deeply disturbed mind.
So much so that after the initial pleasantries had been exchanged, my master basically repeated the question he’d asked the servant just before coming here –
‘What is it, Fujisawa-san? What has happened?’
The aging samurai shook his head, his eyes at once wild and despairing.
‘I shall go mad, Ennin – I swear I shall go mad!’ (The samurai did not attach the honorific to my master’s name, I noticed, which suggested both his seniority in years, along with the fact that he and my master had obviously once had something of a close friendship.)
‘Why – what makes you say such a thing?’ demanded my master, his gaze in a moment deep and searching.
‘My most loyal servant; more than that, my friend of so many years… He is dead…’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday… just yesterday…’ gasped the samurai, his eyes rapidly growing wet. ‘Miura – he saw it… It was addressed to him; I know not why… He was most foully tricked, deceived; it remains in his room where he innocently opened it; he warned me and all my other staff, lest we should also catch even so much as a glimpse of it by accident…’
‘Of what?’ asked my master tonelessly, his eyes continuing to observe the burly, yet aging samurai closely.
‘A painting,’ returned Fujiwara, suddenly meeting my master’s eyes with a curious expression composed half of tragedy, and half of defiance. As though he dared my master to disbelieve what he was about to say.
‘Yes, a painting,’ continued Fujiwara. ‘The one completed by the great artist Tajima, before he went mad and died a short time later. Seven days later, to be exact – which is why anyone else who sees this painting is supposed to die exactly a week later also.
‘I would not have believed it – only seven days after Miura unwrapped this strange parcel he was given, he…’
The samurai could not finish. His voice choked and his great head hung low, in grief and shame.
‘This painting – it is the one entitled ‘Hell’, is it not?’ said my master softly.
Fujiwara merely nodded, still unable to speak.
‘I have heard of this so-called curse attached to it, and the fact that Tajima took his own life just a week or so after completing it. And yet this painting has been missing for at least half a century, presumed lost forever…’
‘I tell you it is in Miura’s room – no one dare go in there to remove it. I don’t know what to do, Ennin; I don’t…’
My master put one hand on the samurai’s heavy shoulder.
‘I understand, Fujiwara-san. I will go in there, and take care of this for you.’
‘For pity’s sake, Ennin!’ cried Fujiwara, his expression agonized. ‘Are you insane? I tell you that the curse belonging to this painting has killed my most valued and trusted member of staff, and you intend just to walk in and – ’
‘Oh, come now,’ returned my master – and I noticed that his voice had a little more iron in it than before. ‘Surely the great samurai Fujiwara does not believe in this nonsense of curses and such? You have had an awful shock, and suffered a bereavement – and yet now is surely the time to exercise a little commonsense, and deal with this matter in a straightforward matter.’
‘You do as you see fit, Ennin; but I caution you as strongly as I have ever cautioned anyone not to look at that painting.’
‘Come, Kukai,’ said my master to me. ‘We will show that this legend of a cursed painting is utter nonsense.’
Looking at the servant who’d first fetched us from the inn, and had then stood in silence this entire time, my master continued –
‘Would you mind showing us where the late Miura-san’s room is located?’
The young servant glanced uneasily at his master, who in turn nodded.
‘This way, if you please,’ returned the servant, motioning ahead of him along the corridor.
3
‘You have heard of this painting entitled Jigoku – ‘Hell’, Kukai?’ inquired my master alm
ost idly, as we followed the servant along the corridor.
‘Actually I haven’t, master,’ I returned, a little more tightly than I’d intended. But I have to confess, all this talk of curses – and of someone actually dying just days after they’d set eyes on this picture – had set my nerves on edge.
‘You may remain outside the room, Kukai, while I go in,’ said my master then, as though he could read my mind.
For one moment, I almost accepted this offer. But shaking my head, I replied –
‘I would also like to see this painting for myself, master, if you permit.’
‘But of course,’ said my master, glancing sideways at me, his eyes shining with what appeared to be faint amusement. ‘It’s good to know that you are not taken in by this foolish talk of a painting being somehow cursed.’
‘Not at all, master,’ I declared, hoping that my words somehow conveyed a conviction which – I have said already – I did not entirely feel.
‘This is… this is Miura-san’s room,’ the young servant said then, his voice quiet and uneasy as he indicated a closed door.
‘You will remain here, of course,’ my master told him; and then first opening the sliding door (as my master did so, I noticed, the servant quickly turned to face in the opposite direction), he entered inside the room where a large painting was propped against one wall.
One glance at it was sufficient to make me catch my breath, and have to try and repress a shudder of fear. My master made a clucking noise with his tongue – his own exclamation of sudden nervousness.
For the painting was hideous. A true depiction of hell. Imps, demons and other nightmarish creatures gibbering and capering around the damned, as those wretched, nude creatures suffered all manner of tortures down there in the fiery depths.
‘The… colors, master…’ I said, my voice sounding strained and distant even to my own ears. As though I was being hypnotized; or just drowning in a fast-flowing river of terror…
For the colors were so fresh – so vibrant. This truly abominable picture might have been painted yesterday, so startling and bright were its colors. Not a hint of any fading, far less patches of mold or other blemishes that you might expect to find on an old piece of artwork. And from what my master had said just a few minutes earlier, this painting was at least half a century old.
‘Master…’ I said then – as my master drew closer to this foul painting, stretching the fingers of his right hand out towards it, as though seeking to merge with this insane portrayal of hell...
My single word appeared to snap my master out of his trance-like state. Picking up a rug that was at the bottom of the futon upon which the servant named Miura had surely slept, my master then draped this over the painting. I couldn’t help but emit a slight sigh of relief, no longer having to gaze upon the monstrosity created by that lunatic artist named Tajima.
‘Come, Kukai,’ said my master, his voice sounding strangely subdued. Even he, I realized, had been severely shocked by what he’d seen. And suddenly, I found myself fervently wishing that I had remained outside of this room, with the servant, never once looking upon that accursed painting –
Accursed.
Merely a figure of speech, or…?
My master slid shut the door of the room, and we followed the servant back along the corridor. I noticed that the young man flashed us a look almost of pity, as though he considered us to be in some way doomed…
This look was repeated by Fujiwara, as we were shown into a room where three cups of green tea were waiting on a low table. A stove was burning in the centre, the bamboo shutters of the room of course drawn shut. I understood that in the summer they would be opened to reveal a scene of natural beauty – a pond full of koi, perhaps, or a perfectly-tended garden. But now, outside, all was snow and ice, this entire region in the grip of a brutal winter.
The room was not bare of ornamentation, however. A number of scrolls hanging from the walls depicted great dragons, armies and epic cities. The sort of artwork that would appeal to an aging samurai; and not –
‘Why, Ennin?’ sighed Fujiwara, his rheumy eyes full of grief and confusion. ‘I have just lost my most faithful servant – and now an old friend deliberately goes to see this wretched picture for himself?’
‘After this servant, Miura, saw this painting – what happened then?’ returned my master, as we both sat down around the low table.
Fujiwara averted his gaze, appearing almost shamed.
‘He… he stayed mainly in his room. He grew steadily sicker, in both body and mind. He refused a doctor; he stopped eating. We could only see him on those few occasions he emerged outside, because of that painting that was just beside his bed…’
‘It could have been covered,’ declared my master. ‘I have just done this now, with a blanket.’
‘Yes – yes, maybe…’ nodded the wretched, aging samurai, his distracted tone of voice indicating that he’d barely heard this point raised by my master.
My master picked up his cup of green tea, and looked thoughtfully at it for several moments. Then, bizarrely, I thought that I saw a shadow of a smile play upon his lips. Not a smile in any way of pleasure – most certainly not that. Rather one of deep regret; of some sort of profound resignation.
Then my master drank the tea, encouraging me to do the same.
‘It will do you good, Kukai, for that cold that’s still troubling you,’ he declared.
‘Yes, master,’ I replied, considering that something a little stronger than tea would have been most welcome. My nerves were still troubled by the memory of that foul painting – its colors (I will say again) so fresh, so lifelike – and of this curse it supposedly carried.
My master might well dismiss it as being nonsense – and yet, just yesterday, a man had allegedly died because of it…
The samurai’s expression, as he stared at my master and also me, was as terrible as any expression I’ve ever seen.
‘I’m sorry, Ennin… So sorry,’ he suddenly stammered. ‘I have brought you here… I should have known you’d demand to see the painting. Nothing scares you, and yet…’
‘Plenty of things scare me,’ said my master firmly. ‘No man can live without fear, unless he is insane.’
‘You will stay here – for seven days?’ asked Fujiwara hesitantly.
My master looked curiously at him.
‘You feel that it might offer some sort of protection, to me and my servant, if we are to remain here until such time as this curse is reputed to strike?’
‘I don’t know, Ennin – I don’t know,’ the samurai almost cried, his eyes so wild that I thought he might suddenly be driven mad. ‘But, please –’
‘We will stay here,’ nodded my master, his own voice calm. ‘We will stay.’
This declaration did not seem to comfort Fujiwara in the slightest. He again looked away from us, his mouth twitching from all the terrible emotions raging within him.
4
‘You are not pleased with my decision to stay here for at least seven days, Kukai,’ declared my master, once we had been shown to the (admittedly comfortable) room in which we would be residing.
It was pointless to pretend otherwise; it was not hard for my master to guess my thoughts on this matter.
I was about to give some general reply, concerning me being merely under my master’s authority and such, when I was consumed by a coughing fit.
‘Really, Kukai, you’re not very well,’ said my master. ‘But I happen to know that the bark of a certain tree, when ground into a powder which can be mixed with water and drunk, makes an extremely effective remedy against a cold. I should have suggested this sooner.
‘In any case, I saw such a tree near this house – I shan’t be long.’
‘Master, I don’t wish for you to go outside in the ice and snow,’ I protested, but my master had already opened the sliding door to our room and stepped out into the corridor.
When he returned, he was carrying a cup of warm water, whi
ch he gave to me.
‘The bark is already ground up and in the water,’ he declared. ‘It would be a good idea for you to take this draft once a day, for the next few days.’
‘Yes, master,’ I replied, before swallowing the drink. It was rather unpleasant, it tasted very bitter – and yet it did seem to quickly ease the vague headache I’d been suffering from, and I did not feel the need to cough again.
Still, a simple head-cold was the least of my current concerns. Far more troubling to me was our intended stay here in this opulent, yet troubled and grief-stricken home of an aging samurai, who clearly believed in this story concerning the cursed painting so greatly it was threatening to drive him mad…
And when I later closed my eyes, preparing for sleep, I again saw that terrible painting as vividly as I had in the room of the dead servant…
I awoke having had the most disturbing of dreams. So disturbing, in fact, that I will not even attempt to describe it here – but it concerned the painting I had seen yesterday.
‘You did not sleep well, Kukai,’ declared my master, seeing through my attempts at maintaining an impassive expression.
‘I am fine, master,’ I returned, although I could not prevent my voice from sounding tired and just a little irritable.
We were then summoned to breakfast, eating with Fujiwara who appeared as troubled as he had the previous day.
‘You are… well?’ he asked my master, almost cautiously.
To my great surprise, my master hesitated, before answering –
‘I… I had such dreams last night… About that painting… My servant too…’
The aging samurai looked wide-eyed at us both.
‘Miura…’ Fujiwara finally managed to croak. ‘Miura… he said the same thing…’
‘Now, now,’ returned my master. ‘Just coincidence, surely.’
And yet he did not sound sure himself. My master did appear a little troubled, slightly uneasy, his eyes almost nervously darting about, as though searching the corners of the room for –
Yes – yes! He had the same vague, nameless yet dread-inspiring suspicions as me… Of the horrors that might lurk just – just – out of range… Flitting away with their black, bat-like wings and long forked tongues whenever one actually attempted to see them…