Japanese Gothic Tales

by Kyoka Izumi

  As if leaping from a mattress of needles, Sokichi jumped up and slid the paper-covered shutter to the side. Quickly, the blizzard of ash was sucked out the bay window and into the blue sky, disappearing over the ocean of Shinagawa. Standing at the window, Sokichi could see the chimneys of the Kuramae district and Asakusa's twelve-story Ryoun Pavilion to the north. Directly below was the avalanche of a cliff, and slightly beyond the clutter of rooftops were the oiled paper doors of the place where he had bought the crackers. The small shop was clearly visible in a patch of sunlight.

  He could also see, running off into a deep, dark hollow, the flight of stone steps he had taken. It twisted sharply up Myojin Hill like a huge centipede. It gnashed its teeth at the dead end, crawled out of the gutter, ran along the black spike-topped fence, and squirmed in an ugly, filthy line, its tongue licking a morsel of bread. Sokichi felt the blood drain from his face. He knew at that moment that he had been seen eating the crackers! Small Plate, who was wiping drool from his knee, had seen him from the window! Small Plate let out a loud sigh, and the last rumblings of his laughter echoed in Sokichi's ear.

  "Sokichi, " Osen asked, "aren't you going to have a cracker?"

  Had the cliff been more jagged, Sokichi would have jumped out the window at that very moment, with the sound of Osen's voice still ringing in his ears. It was because of her that his shame was so unbearable, and he wanted to dash himself into pieces. Wasn't she the one who had protected his eyebrows? Wasn't she the one who had made him yearn for the woman who had given him life?

  "I've got something to do at home," he managed to say.

  By "home" he meant the row house in the alley. But Sokichi walked right past it and on to the Myojin Shrine, where he wandered the grounds and hid from the stares of others, forgetting even his hunger, crying until the stars appeared in the cloudy sky.

  That night he said to Matsuda's woman, "I'll take the razor to the barbershop if you like. I'm going that way anyway."

  Sokichi purposely avoided the front door. He sneaked into the mistress' quarters by way of the kitchen and got the razor from Matsuda. He felt Osen's presence in the next room and even smelled the fragrance of her perfume. But she made no attempt to come to him.

  Out in the alley he could see the silhouettes of Kumazawa, the priest, even Small Plate, outlined beneath the row house's red lights. He could hear their voices, too. Luckily, no one heard or saw him leave.

  7

  "What are you doing? What do you think you're doing?"

  She seemed like a wondrous bird with a beautiful woman's face, sweeping down from the trees to grab his sleeve. He was leaning back against the trunk of a ginkgo tree that was being used as a corner post for one of the empty stalls behind the main temple. Just as he was about to slash his throat, Osen came. She wrested the razor from his hand. Everything seemed like a dream.

  "Thank goodness I got here in time!" Osen turned and prayed to the shrine while still holding Sokichi in one arm. "I had a premonition about this. I heard you. . . say in the kitchen that. . . you were going to take the razor. My heart nearly stopped! `Hata-san! Hata¬san!' I called for you. But you had already gone. I couldn't help thinking you might try something like this, so I came looking. I didn't know where to look. I stopped at the barbershop near the main gate, but they said they hadn't seen you. 'Too late,' I thought. I was in a daze, but thank the gods who led me here. Hata-san, it wasn't me who saved you. Your parents are looking after you. Do you understand?"

  Like a child, Sokichi buried himself in the softness of her bosom. He wrapped his arms tightly around her sash and girdle.

  "Look, the moon," she said. "The Buddha."

  He never forgot that moment. The half-moon seemed to be descending from a black cloud, its light shining upon the treetops of the ginkgo towering above, like the gentle contour of his dead mother's breast.

  "The future's yours," said Osen. "Even if you were a woman, this would be the springtime of your life. So why would you want to kill yourself? Unless it's . . because of me." Sokichi could feel her chest tremble against his. "Why end your life just because they say you ate those crackers? It doesn't matter. You know that I'll always . . ." She paused, then continued. "Anyway, come to my house. No one's there tonight."

  Urging him on, she searched for her wooden sandals, the crimson of her undergarment showing against her white legs. Osen seemed beside herself. Without thinking to get Sokichi's shoes, she grabbed his hand and breathlessly hurried him away, escaping from the horror.

  When they passed the temple, she scooped water from the holy laver and sprinkled a few drops on Sokichi's head. Was she trying to ward off evil spirits? Was it the god of death she feared?

  "Health. Longevity. Learning. May our wish be granted." Her eyes were filled with tears as she pressed her wet hands together and bowed toward the shrine. The white of her neck showed in the moonlight.

  "Now drink. Calm yourself. I'll drink, too." She slowly lifted the dipper to his mouth. "Look how I'm shaking."

  Sokichi had already noticed.

  "Hata-san, we're not going back to that place. You'll never have to go back there again. I'll risk my life to save you. Anyway, I just asked the shrine to forgive us. You know why? That water on your head, I sprinkled it on you so when we got home. . . I could give you a priest's haircut with this razor and then we could sleep together. That priest from Kishu was going to make love to me tonight anyway. It was all Kumazawa's and Amaya's idea. They were going to walk in on us so they could blackmail the priest. They made me go along with their plan.

  "You see, the priest had brought some treasures from Mount Koya and was going to sell them here in Tokyo. But Kumazawa duped him. He said he'd sell them to some rich businessman for him. But what he really did was to pawn everything then spend all the money. When he was asked to pay it back, he thought of this scheme because he had noticed the priest looking at me. "Sokichi, I'm not a strong person. I got mixed up with those people because I depended on Kumazawa's strength. But after hearing their plans . . . and seeing your eyebrows." Osen gently patted Sokichi's shoulder. "I hate Kumazawa. Imagine him barging in on me and the priest! I decided I was going to sleep with you instead. Then when he came in, I'd sit up and tell him exactly what I thought. We'd give him the satisfaction of seeing us run off together in the middle of the night. But I thought those men might do something to hurt you, and then it would be too late. So I'm not going through with my plan. No. Come on, Sokichi. Let's run away now. Leave everything to me. You can't go back there.”

  As they descended the stone steps that led down the far slope of the hill, Sokichi felt as if he had passed over a wolf-haunted pass and could now see a valley of promise before him.

  "This is the place, isn't it?" Osen smiled. She pulled a purse from her sash. The sash was a cheap-looking thing, but her purse was the color of spring.

  "Let's walk while we eat," she said. "You're such a weakling."

  In the dark alley leading to the main street, she fed him the rice crackers from her mouth sweet, fragrant, broken up by her teeth.

  8

  Returning home from night school, Sokichi walked the back streets of Okachimachi to a cheap tenement building that stood between a used-bottle store on one side and a rag shop on the other. He nearly collided with a man emerging from the front door.

  Osen suddenly slid open the door and welcomed him into their one-room apartment. Her futon was already spread on the floor. Osen added charcoal to the brazier that was placed next to her pillow and fanned the coals with tissue paper. She grilled rice cakes for Sokichi on a battered wire rack lowered at an angle over the heat. When the cakes were done, she cooled them off by blowing on them while she told Sokichi the story of the lovely Urazato. Osen was even more beautiful than her heroine. And even though the snow wasn't falling as in the story, the cherry blossoms accumulating on the damp cinders of their small back garden were even more heartrending.

  And there, behind the back fence! Was it Tokijiro, Urazato's
lover, coming to rescue her with a bandanna tied over his head? Osen jumped to her feet and tried to close the back doors. But the man hurdled the fence and rushed to the veranda. The end of a snakelike tether was showing at his sleeve. "You're under arrest."

  Osen fell back on her knees, pushing Sokichi behind her. "What about him?"

  "The boy's none of my business."

  "So-chan, for your breakfast tomorrow . . . I bought some beans. They're in the covered bowl. You can eat them with pickled ginger."

  Carrying his sandals in one hand, the policeman opened the door to the front entry. Osen searched for her sandals while he unlocked the front door. As soon as they were out in the street he quickly tied her hands. Her slender waist suddenly disappeared beneath his rope, and her drooping shoulders floated before the dark willow trees. Osen had long since pawned her jacket and undergarments, and her skin showed whitely beneath a single layer of silk.

  Walking barefoot, Sokichi followed. Through his tears he saw only darkness, a piercing gust of wind scattering cherry blossoms through the dim light of a street lamp.

  "Please, sir." Osen suddenly stopped. "So-chan" Osen hung her head without looking back. But then she turned, and Sokichi, looking into her face, saw her eyebrows.

  The young man was speechless.

  "So-chan. I'll give you my spirit."

  She folded it as the policeman pulled her along. Soon it was there, nestled in the palm of her hand, a crane of white tissue paper.

  "Follow this to wherever it takes you." She blew her warm breath into the bird and it came to life. With the marks of her lips showing faintly red against the crane's bluish-white body, the bird flew among the floating blossoms, dancing in the air as it led Sokichi to the gate where he was taken in.

  The inbound and outbound trains came at almost the same moment. Sokichi remained, transfixed.

  As he looked on, the woman who resembled his cousin's wife quickly approached the crimson lady and began straightening the coat that had fallen from her shoulders.

  "It's here."

  "My taxi?" asked the crimson lady, still staring off in the distance.

  9

  Three or four trains, all of them washed clean of mud, came and left in quick succession, making the young platform attendant wonder why Sokichi and the others had still not left the waiting room. "Are you getting on or not?"

  "This woman's not well," said Sokichi, offering his arm to the crimson woman, who looked up at him blankly.

  After the station attendant left, Sokichi looked tenderly at the woman's face and exchanged glances with the two who were accompanying her. "Let me call a cab. But could we not go to Sugamo? I'd like to take care of her myself. My name is Hata."

  When the third woman saw the name "Hata Sokichi, M.D." written on his name card, she straightened like the letter P then bowed like the letter Z. She had come along to help. Sokichi, seeing that he could trust the one who looked so much like his cousin, learned that the crimson lady had been a prostitute at a brothel in Shinagawa. She had lost her mind and was now being taken to Sugamo. She insisted on going by taxi and refused to cooperate when the trains came. The woman with the marumage hairdo was apparently the brothel owner's daughter. Her helper, the one with shorter hair, glared sourly at the madwoman, whose name was Osen.

  Surprised by his unexpected visit, the attendants and white-clad nurses gathered quickly and quietly. Dr. Hata Sokichi calmly declined their offers of assistance. "This is a personal visit. Please, everyone go back to what you were doing."

  Alone, he entered the special room where Osen was lying with her clothes in disarray. Kneeling beside the bed, he placed a razor in her hands and buried his forehead in her bosom. He embraced her, oblivious to the world around them, and drenched his beard with his tears.