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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
'With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie's, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers' Guardian The third title in Japan's most popular murder mystery series -- after The Honjin Murders and The Inugami Curse -- fiendish classics featuring investigator Kosuke Kindaichi Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend: in the Sixteenth Century eight samurais, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure, were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a terrible curse down upon their village. Centuries later a mysterious young man named Tatsuya arrives in town, bringing a spate of deadly poisonings in his wake. The inimitably scruffy and brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi investigates.
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PRAISE FOR SEISHI YOKOMIZO’S MYSTERIES
‘Readers will delight in the blind turns, red herrings and dubious alibis… Ingenious and compelling’
ECONOMIST
‘At once familiar and tantalisingly strange… It’s an absolute pleasure to see his work translated at last in these beautifully produced English editions’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘The perfect read for this time of year. Short and compelling, it will appeal to fans of Agatha Christie looking for a new case to break’
IRISH TIMES
‘This is Golden Age crime at its best, complete with red herrings, blind alleys and twists and turns galore… A testament to the power of the simple murder mystery and its enduring appeal’
SPECTATOR
‘A stellar whodunit set in 1940s Japan… The solution is a perfect match for the baffling puzzle. Fair-play fans will hope for more translations of this master storyteller’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW
‘With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie’s, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers’
GUARDIAN
‘A delightfully entertaining locked room murder mystery… An ideal book to curl up with on a winter’s night’
NB MAGAZINE
‘Never anything less than fun from beginning to end… Truly engrossing’
BOOKS AND BAO
‘A classic murder mystery… Comparisons with Holmes are justified, both in the character of Kindaichi and Yokomizo’s approach to storytelling—mixing clues, red herrings and fascinating social insight before drawing back the curtain to reveal the truth’
JAPAN TIMES
‘The perfect gift for any fan of classic crime fiction or locked room mysteries’
MRS PEABODY INVESTIGATES
CONTENTS
THE INHABITANTS OF EIGHT GRAVES
THE TAJIMI FAMILY (“THE HOUSE OF THE EAST”)
THE NARRATOR’S MATERNAL FAMILY
THE SATOMURA FAMILY
THE NOMURA FAMILY (“THE HOUSE OF THE WEST”)
CLERGY
DOCTORS
PROLOGUE
The village of Eight Graves is perched amid the desolate mountains on the border of Tottori and Okayama prefectures. Naturally, arable land is scarce in these parts, and of what little there is, most is given over to a small handful of rice paddies dotted around, each measuring only ten or, at most, twenty tsubo, or about seven hundred square feet. The inhospitable climate makes for a meagre harvest, and no matter the calls to increase production, the rice paddies yield barely enough to feed the villagers. Nevertheless, owing to a wealth of other resources, the inhabitants there live in relative comfort.
Charcoal-making and cattle-rearing are the main industries in Eight Graves. The latter is a recent phenomenon, but the former has been the villagers’ chief livelihood for generations. The mountains that envelop the village stretch all the way to Tottori and are blanketed in various species of oak—blue, sawtooth and jolcham. They grow in such abundance that the region has long been famed for its charcoal throughout the whole of Kansai.
In more recent times, however, it is cattle-rearing that has become the village’s main source of revenue: the local breed, the chiya-ushi, serves just as well for working as it does for eating, and the cattle market at neighbouring Niimi attracts traders from far and wide.
Each household in the village is charged with raising five or six head of cattle: they aren’t the property of the village farmers, 10 but that of the landowners, who give the farmers the calves and sell them on when they are fully grown. The proceeds of the sale are then shared between the farmer and the landowner at a fixed rate. Thus, as in any agricultural village, the owners and the sharefarmers are pitted against one another: in such a modest settlement as this, there are stark differences in fortune.
In Eight Graves, there are two wealthy houses: the Tajimis and the Nomuras. Since the Tajimi family is situated in the east of the village, they are known as “The House of the East”, while, by the same stroke of reasoning, the Nomura family is known as “The House of the West”.
But a mystery remains: the origin of the village’s name…
Inured to it across generations, those who have been born and laid their bones to rest there will scarcely have given a second thought to this bizarre name. But outsiders will wonder at hearing it for the first time. There must be a story there, they’ll think. And indeed, a story there is—and a strange one. To tell it, we must go back some 380 years, all the way to the Age of Warring States…
On 6th July, in the year 1566, when the great daimyo Yoshihisa Amago capitulated to his enemy Motonari Mori and surrendered the Tsukiyama Castle, one of his young samurai refused to give himself up and fled the castle with seven faithful retainers. Legend has it that, in the hope of continuing their struggle another day, they saddled three horses with 3,000 tael of gold and, after enduring many hardships, fording rivers and crossing mountains, finally arrived at this very village.
To begin with, the villagers received the eight warriors hospitably enough. Put at ease by this reception and the villagers’ simple ways, the warriors decided to stay in the village for a time, donning peasant clothes and even taking up charcoal-making.
11 Fortunately, the deep mountain terrain offered plenty of spots in which to take refuge, should the need ever arise. Because of limestone deposits throughout the area, there were caves, which also provided convenient hiding places. There were a great number of these caves and grottoes down in the valley, some so deep and labyrinthine that no one had dared to explore their furthest reaches. If ever you were pursued, you could easily hide yourself away there. Doubtless it was precisely this geography that led the eight warriors to decide to make the village their temporary abode.
Six months passed in peace and harmony, without any trouble between the villagers and the eight samurai. Meanwhile, however, Mori’s men had redoubled their efforts, for the leader of the fugitives was famous even in the Amago clan, and who knew what terrible calamity might yet come to pass if he were left alive to fight another day. At last, their search for the eight men led them to these very mountains.
The villagers sheltering the fugitives gradually began to fear for their own lives. Not only that, but the glittering reward offered by Mori’s men was also enough to make them rethink their hospitality. What tempted the villagers most, however, was the 3,000 tael of gold that had supposedly been carried on horseback. If only they could kill the fugitives, every last one of them, then no one else would ever know about the gold. Even if Mori’s men did happen to know about it, even if they were looking for it, all the villagers had to do was insist that they hadn’t ever heard about it, let alone seen anything of the kind.
There were many discussions about this, but eventually the day came when, having reached a consensus, the villagers took the eight samurai by surprise. It happened when the men were in a hut, burning wood to make charcoal. The villagers surrounded it and, in order to block the men’s escape, set fire 12 to dried grass on three sides. The youngest and strongest then burst into the hut, brandishing bamboo spears and hatchets ordinarily used for tree-cutting. The era had been plagued by conflict, you see, and had instilled the art of warfare even in the peasantry.
The samurai were caught off guard. They had trusted the villagers absolutely and this unprovoked attack came like a bolt from the blue. There were no weapons in that little hut, of course, so they had to defend themselves as best they could with billhooks and axes, but the odds were stacked against them and it was a losing battle. One fell, then another, and another… until at last the tragic moment came when all eight of them lay slain.
The villagers decapitated every one of the bodies and, with cries of triumph, set fire to the hut: but according to legend, those eight severed heads wore an expression of such tremendous reproach that it made anyone who saw them shudder in fear. The leader of the eight samurai above all retained the terrifying look he had worn as he lay there dying, hacked to pieces by the villagers and drowning in his own blood; with his last breath, he had cursed the village, vowing to visit his vengeance upon it for seven generations to come.
Although the heads secured for the villagers the promised bounty from the Mori clan, they were never able to find where the all-important 3,000 tael of gold had been hidden. They hunted for it high and low, in a frenzy, uprooting grass, boring through sheer rock, tearing up the valley, but never did they find so much as a speck of gold. Worse still, during their searches, a series of ominous events occurred: one man met his tragic end, trapped by a cave-in in the depths of a grotto; another, while drilling the rock face, caused a landslide and lost his footing, falling to the bottom of a ravine, leaving him lame for the rest of his days; and a third man, who was digging the earth at the 13 roots of a tree, was horribly crushed under the weight of the trunk that suddenly collapsed on top of him.
Mysterious happenings such as these followed one after another, but what came next plunged the villagers into an abyss of terror.
Six months had passed since the massacre of the eight samurai. Who can say why, but that year there were a great many thunderstorms in the region, bringing with them terrible bolts of lightning: frightened, the villagers saw in this a sign of the eight warriors’ curse. One day, the lightning struck a cedar in the garden of Shozaemon Tajimi, splitting the great tree in two with tremendous force, right down to its very roots. Now, the curious thing was that this Shozaemon Tajimi had been the ringleader of the attack on the warriors, and, since that day, he had been plagued by remorse and had begun to act strangely, tyrannizing his family and doing things that nobody in his right mind would do. Then the lightning struck the tree… He seized a sword lying nearby and struck dead several members of his own household. Then, running out into the street, one by one he felled every villager he came across, before finally taking refuge in the mountains, where he ended his life by self-decapitation.
All in all, there were more than a dozen wounded, but exactly seven had died by Shozaemon’s hand. Counting Shozaemon himself, that made a grand total of eight deaths, which, rightly or wrongly, the villagers fearfully interpreted as another act of retribution from those eight warriors who had been murdered in cold blood.
In order to appease their fury, the villagers decided to disinter the bodies of the eight samurai, whom they had buried like dogs, and to reinter them with all due ceremony, erecting eight graves where they were venerated as divinities. Of course, 14 it was this shrine in the hills behind the village that lent the place its current name.
Such is the legend of the village of Eight Graves, as it has been handed down since ancient times.
But people do say that history repeats itself—and not without reason. In more recent times, there was a terrible event that was reported widely in all newspapers and brought the name of this desolate mountain village to the attention of the entire country. That incident in particular serves as the prelude to the strange series of events that are about to unfold.
The incident in question took place in the 1920s, more than a quarter of a century ago…
At the time, the head of the House of the East—that is, the Tajimi family—was a thirty-six-year-old man called Yozo. Ever since Shozaemon, a hereditary madness had been passed down through the generations of the family, and Yozo had been afflicted with it from childhood. Examples of his cruel and violent temperament were plentiful. At the age of twenty he married a young girl by the name of Okisa, and together they had two children.
Having lost his parents at a young age, Yozo had been raised by his two aunts. When the incident took place, the Tajimi family comprised six members: in addition to Yozo and his wife, there was his fifteen-year-old son Hisaya, his eight-year-old daughter Haruyo, plus the two aforementioned aunts. The two aunts, twins and both old maids, had spent their lives, since the death of Yozo’s parents, seeing to the affairs of the Tajimi family. While it is true that Yozo did have a younger sibling, this brother left the family early on in life to continue the line of succession in his mother’s family, adopting the surname Satomura. 15
Two or three years before the incident took place, despite having a wife and children, Yozo suddenly developed an infatuation for the daughter of a local cattle-trader. The nineteen-year-old girl had just left school and was working at the village post office. Her name was Tsuruko. Yozo being, as I have already mentioned, a man of violent inclinations, the passion that he conceived for the girl was intense. One day, as she was heading home from work, he blocked her way and abducted her, taking her to his storehouse, where he violated her and held her captive, subjecting her to the unremitting torments of his crazed desires.
Of course, Tsuruko called for help with much crying and wailing. Astonished by what was happening, the two aunts and Yozo’s wife tried to stop him, but their admonitions were stubbornly ignored. Tsuruko’s parents were horrified when they eventually learnt what had happened. Hastening to their daughter’s aid with tears in their eyes, they begged Yozo to let her go, but he refused out of hand. No matter how much they implored him, his only reply was a defiant glare, which seemed to threaten further violence.
In the end, the frightened individuals had no choice but to persuade Tsuruko to consent to being Yozo’s mistress. Tsuruko was reluctant, but where might her refusal lead? After all, the key to the storehouse was in Yozo’s possession, and he could come to satisfy his violent desires whenever he pleased.
Tsuruko mulled the situation over. If those were her options, wouldn’t it be better to consent and become Yozo’s mistress? That way, she would be allowed out of the storehouse. And if she was allowed out, then surely she could find another way to escape. She resigned herself to this course of action and asked her parents to inform Yozo of her decision.
Naturally, Yozo was overjoyed at the news. Tsuruko was immediately released from captivity and was provided with 16 accommodation. Kimonos, hair ornaments, furniture and every magnificent object imaginable were bestowed on her. But that was not all: these luxuries had their price, and so, day and night, Yozo would steal into her house, lavishing caresses on her flesh.
These visits struck terror in Tsuruko. Rumour had it that there was such a crazed ferocity to Yozo’s passion that no ordinary woman could have endured it. Unable to go on, Tsuruko tried to run away several times, but on each occasion Yozo would fly into a crazed fury. Terrified by his behaviour, the villagers would beg Tsuruko to go back, and in the end, with little alternative, she would return to Yozo grudgingly.
It was in this state of affairs that Tsuruko fell pregnant and gave birth to a boy. Delighted by this, Yozo named the boy Tatsuya. For a time, it was hoped that having a child would calm Tsuruko down, but it only intensified her attempts to escape, now with a baby in her arms. Not only had the birth failed to have the least effect on Yozo’s unrelenting lust, but on the contrary: Yozo now fully believed that the birth gave him unreserved rights to the woman. He grew more and more arrogant, and his behaviour transgressed every boundary.
It was around then that Tsuruko’s parents and the villagers began to realize that there was more to these events than met the eye, that her repeated attempts to escape were not just because she could no longer bear her life with Yozo. The fact was that she had long since promised herself to another. He was a young man by the name of Yoichi Kamei, and he taught at the village school. His respected position meant that the young couple could not meet openly, so they were forced to hide their love for one another. It was said that the couple would meet clandestinely in the secluded depths of grottoes. (Hailing from other parts, Kamei had developed a passion for the local geology, and he would often go on expeditions to explore the 17 limestone caves.) The villagers were given to gossiping, and so, naturally, once a thing like this became known, there were those who began to speculate about Tatsuya’s birth. “That child isn’t Tajimi-san’s, you know. He’s the son of the teacher, Kamei…”
In such a small village, it was only a matter of time before the rumours reached Yozo’s ears. His fury was like a raging fire. He was as mad in jealousy as he was cruel in love. He dragged Tsuruko by the hair, struck her, kicked her, beat her and, after stripping her naked, drenched her with iced water. Then he took Tatsuya, whom only moments ago he had cherished as the apple of his eye, and, seizing a pair of fire tongs from the brazier, branded his thighs, back and buttocks.
“He’ll kill us both at this rate,” thought Tsuruko. She was at breaking point. She grabbed the child and rushed out of the house.
For several days, she hid at her parents’ house, during which time she learnt that Yozo’s rage had only intensified. Terrified, she fled the village and hid with relatives in Himeji.
While he waited for Tsuruko to return, Yozo spent his days drinking. On previous occasions when Tsuruko had run away, her parents or representatives from the village had always brought her back with their apologies two or three days later. But this time, five days, then ten days passed without any sign of her reappearance. Gradually, his fury took on ever more diabolical dimensions. His two aunts and his wife were too frightened to go near him, and, for once, none of the villagers dared to act as a go-between. It was then that Yozo’s madness finally exploded.
It happened one evening towards the end of April. Spring arrives late in the mountains, so the charcoal braziers were still in use. The villagers were suddenly roused from their slumber by a gunshot and screaming. A few moments later there came a 18 second shot, then a third. Cries, shouts, calls for help grew and grew. Those who rushed out to see what on earth was going on were met with a most peculiar sight.
They beheld a man dressed in an officer’s tunic, with gaiters and straw sandals on his feet. He had tied a white bandana around his forehead, under which he had affixed two flashlights to look like horns. On his chest he wore a lamp—the sort that looks like a mirror and is used by those who visit a shrine in the middle of the night, at the hour of the Ox, to lay their curses. Over his tunic he wore a soldier’s belt, which held a sword, and in his hands he was holding a hunting rifle. The villagers were stunned. They had still to recover their senses when the rifle went off again, shooting one of them dead where he stood.
The man with the gun was Yozo.
Dressed in this bizarre costume, he had, only a few moments before, killed his own wife with a single slash of his sword and, abandoning the body, rushed out into the street in his madness. He had not laid a finger on either of the aunts or his children, but now he was going about the village, slashing and shooting at random.
Details of the investigation later revealed that the owner of one house, having heard a knock at the door, was shot as soon as he opened it. In another house, where a sleeping newlywed couple lay, Yozo had prised open the rain shutters, slipped the rifle through the gap and shot the husband dead. Startled by the noise, the wife had run to the far wall and clasped her hands together, pleading for mercy: the rifle then discharged with another deafening bang. The sight of the young bride, her lifeless hands still clasped, brought tears to the eyes of the young policeman who rushed to the scene. It seemed all the more tragic that she had arrived in the village only a fortnight previously, after the wedding, and had no connection at all to Yozo.
19 Yozo terrorized the village like this throughout the night, and at dawn he fled into the mountains. The villagers had never known such a night of horror.
The next day, when hordes of policemen and journalists descended on the village after receiving urgent reports, they found the village bathed in blood, bloody corpses strewn everywhere. The groans of those at death’s door issued from every other house. Some were crying out for help. It is impossible to say now how many were injured by Yozo, but as for the dead, there were thirty-two in all. It was a horror unmatched in the annals of crime in Japan.
In the end, it proved impossible to find the killer after he absconded, although it was not for want of trying. The police, together with firemen and a team of youths from the village, who had formed a sort of militia, combed every mountain peak and every valley, right down to the limestone caves. Their search carried on for several months, but ultimately they had to admit defeat, having failed to uncover Yozo’s hideout. They did find evidence to suggest that he was still alive, however. There was the carcass of a cow that had been shot and from which the meat had been stripped in several places. (In this region, the cattle are kept in stables throughout the winter, but come spring, they are let out to pasture, where they roam free for days at a time, sometimes even venturing as far as the neighbouring prefecture. But once or twice a month, when they need salt, they come down from the mountains and return to their keepers.) Beside the carcass, traces of fire indicated that Yozo had lit gunpowder to cook the meat: it was obvious that in taking refuge in the mountains, far from having the slightest intention of ending his life, he had instead decided to go on living, come what may—a fact that plunged the villagers back into a state of terror. 20
Nobody ever did find out where Yozo had hidden himself. Common sense would suggest that he could not possibly have gone on living in the mountains for more than twenty years, but there were many in the village who nevertheless clung to the belief that he was still alive. There was something almost comical about such a notion, but then Yozo had sent thirty-two innocent victims to their death. Thirty-two… Each of the eight gods had demanded a sacrifice of four. It followed, therefore, that Yozo’s death would be one too many. And that was not all: proponents of this theory would always be sure to add, “What has happened twice will come to pass a third time. It happened once with the Tajimis’ ancestor Shozaemon; now it’s happened a second time with Yozo. Sooner or later there will be another horrible and bloody affair just like this one.”
In the village of Eight Graves, whenever children misbehave, their parents frighten them by telling them that a monster with flashlights for horns will come for them. Before their very eyes, there will appear an image that they have imagined so often before: a monster with a white bandana and two horns, a lamp on his chest, a sword in his belt and a hunting rifle in one hand. Instantly the tears dry. The nightmare has left its mark on each inhabitant.
But what about those villagers who were touched directly by Yozo’s frenzy? What became of them? The curious thing about it was that those whom Yozo had killed and maimed had nothing to do with him or Tsuruko, whereas the people actually involved in the affair escaped, for the most part, unscathed.
For one thing, Kamei, the teacher so detested by Yozo, had that evening gone to play go with a monk in a neighbouring village, thus escaping the massacre. All the same, it was reported that, fearing perhaps what the villagers might think, 21 he transferred to a school far away soon after the events of that night. Then there were Tsuruko’s parents. As soon as they heard the commotion, they guessed at once how things would end and hid themselves under the straw in one of the cattle sheds, escaping without so much as a scratch. As for Tsuruko herself, she had, as we know, taken refuge with relatives in Himeji, and was thus spared the drama. Later, she was summoned by the police and had to return to the village, where she remained for some time, facing the deep resentment of the villagers.
“None of this would have happened if she had been obedient and submitted to Yozo,” the families of the victims would say, brimming with hatred.
Hounded by these whispers and the fear of seeing Yozo alive again, Tsuruko wasted no time in leaving the village with her young child.
After that, she was never heard from again.
Twenty-six years went by, bringing us now to the post-war period.
The old legend proved right: the village was indeed to become the setting for yet another series of mysterious crimes. But unlike those first ones, these murders were not impulsive, but carried out with a strange and insidious logic and plunged the village back into a state of terrible fear.
These preliminaries have taken a long while to lay out, but the time has come to raise the curtain on this new drama. First, however, I should like to point out that what you, ladies and gentlemen, are about to read was written by a person directly involved in this affair, someone who played a most important role in it. How I happened to come by his manuscript has little bearing on this tale, though, so I shall dispense with any explanation…
CHAPTER 1
“MISSING PERSONS”
It must have been around eight months after I returned from the village of Eight Graves that I finally managed to regain a sense of composure.
Right now I am sitting in my study, atop a hill in a western suburb of Kobe, looking out at a picturesque view of the island of Awaji. Quietly drawing on a cigarette, once again living a peaceful life, I find myself struck by a curious feeling. As avid readers will know, the experience of terrifying events can turn the hair white, but at this very moment, even as I pick up the mirror lying on my desk, I cannot see all that many new white hairs. All the same, that strange feeling won’t leave me: so dreadful were the events that I lived through, so numerous were the life-or-death moments… Thinking back on it all now, the cards seem to have been so completely stacked against me.
Not only is my life peaceful, but I also find myself now in a very fortunate position, even better than the one that I had before. Truly, I could never have imagined it, even in my wildest dreams. And it is all thanks to a man called Kosuke Kindaichi. Had it not been for that shaggy-headed, undistinguished-looking, mildly stuttering, strange little detective, my life would have met a swift end.
When at last the case was solved and Kosuke Kindaichi was preparing to leave Eight Graves, he said to me: “It’s rare for someone to go through something as terrifying as you did. If I were you, I’d put it all down in writing—everything you’ve been 24 through these past three months—so that you’ll remember it your whole life.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” I replied. “Perhaps it would be a good thing to record it for posterity while all the details are still fresh in my memory. That way, I’ll even be able to give you your due. I can’t see any other way of returning the great favour you’ve done me.”
I decided to do as I promised as soon as possible. But the ordeal had been so overwhelming that my mind and body were exhausted. Added to that, I’m no writer, and I kept wavering, hesitant to put pen to paper. So it’s only now that I’m finally making good on that promise.
Fortunately, my health did return to me in the end. Lately, I haven’t been so troubled by those terrifying nightmares, and my physical health has improved greatly. As for my lack of faith in my writerly abilities, that still hasn’t changed, but then this isn’t a novel that I am writing. You see, I am merely trying to set down the unadorned truth of what I experienced. A report of the facts, as it were—a true story. Then again, perhaps the strangeness, the sheer horror of the story will compensate for any literary shortcomings.
The village of Eight Graves… Even the memory of it makes me shudder: what a horrible name, what a horrible place. And what a horrible, terrifying business it all was.
The village of Eight Graves… Until last year, my twenty-eighth year on this earth, I had never dreamt that there could be a village with such an abominable name, let alone that I could have had such a deep connection with it. I had some vague idea that I had been born in the prefecture of Okayama, but as for the county or the name of the village, I hadn’t the foggiest. Nor did I want to know. For as long as I could remember, Kobe had been my home: that is where I was raised. I didn’t have the 25 least interest in the countryside, and, as far as she could, my mother avoided talking about her home town, claiming not to have a single relative left there.
Ah, my mother! Even now, I need only close my eyes to see every feature of her face with perfect clarity, just as it was before she died. As with any boy who loses his mother at the age of seven, I believed that no woman in the whole world was more beautiful than she. She was of short stature and petite in every way. If her face was small, then her eyes, her mouth and her nose were so little as to be almost doll-like. Her hands were as small as my own child’s hands, and they were forever busy sewing whatever I had given her that needed mending. Always with a look of dejection about her, she rarely spoke or went out. But whenever she did open her mouth, that soft, gentle Okayama lilt of hers would be like sweet music to my ears. But even then, my youthful heart knew trouble: in the middle of the night, my ordinarily quiet mother was plagued by paroxysms of anguish. Sleeping peacefully one moment, she would suddenly leap out of bed and, with a tongue that seemed to spasm in terror, mutter rapidly and incoherently, until in the end she fell back onto the pillow, weeping bitterly. Such night terrors were a frequent occurrence. Awoken by her cries, my adoptive father and I would call out her name and shake her, but she would not always return to her senses. Then she would cry and cry, howling wretchedly, and only after she had exhausted herself with that would she at last cry herself to sleep like a child, in the arms of her husband. Throughout the night, my adoptive father would hold her like that, gently stroking her back…
Ah, but now I know the cause of all those terrors. My poor mother! Had I lived through a past as tragic as hers, I dare say that I, too, would have suffered those terrible afflictions. Thinking about it now, I cannot but feel a sense of gratitude 26 towards my adoptive father. We clashed in later years, as a result of which I left home. Even now, I still regret that we never did have the chance to reconcile with one another.
My adoptive father was a man called Torazo Terada. He was the foreman of a shipyard in Kobe. Tall with a ruddy complexion, he was a whole fifteen years older than my mother. He cut a very imposing figure, but thinking back on him now, he was a fine and generous man. I have no idea how he met my mother, but he always took good care of her, and he doted on me. I learnt that he was not my real father only much later in life. He had even listed me as his son in his family register. That is why even now I still call myself Tatsuya Terada. Yet it always struck my younger self as odd that the family register recorded the year of my birth as 1923, whereas an amulet given to me by my mother was clearly inscribed with a different year: 1922. Hence, my real age is in fact twenty-nine, although I still consider myself to be twenty-eight.
As I have already mentioned, my mother died when I was seven. Her death marked a sudden end to my happiness, but that is by no means to imply that the years that followed were entirely miserable or unhappy. My father remarried the year after she died. My stepmother could not have been more different: she was a large, cheerful, talkative woman, and, like all such women, she had a pure and forthright nature. Moreover, since my father was a decent and generous man, he saw to it that my future was provided for, sending me first to school and then to a commercial college.
Yet, as so often happens with parents and children who are not of the same blood, there was something missing: to draw a culinary parallel, it was like a meal that looks delicious but, upon tasting, turns out to lack an all-important seasoning. Besides, my new mother had given birth to several children already, and so, while it cannot be said that I stood in her way, I suppose it was 27 only natural that she was rather distant where I was concerned. It was for an entirely different reason, though, that I clashed with my adoptive father just after graduating from college. Still, I did leave home, and for a while I stayed with friends.
Not much changed after that. As with any able-bodied youth, I received my call-up papers when I turned twenty-one. Shortly after, I was sent to the islands in the south, where I spent many a difficult day. I was demobbed in 1946, and when I returned to Kobe, I was devastated to find that the whole city had been burned to the ground. I was all alone: I found that my step-father’s house had been destroyed completely, and I had no idea where to find my stepfamily. I also heard that my stepfather had been killed by shrapnel during a bombing raid on the shipyard. To make matters worse, the commercial company where I had been employed before the war had gone bankrupt, and it was not at all clear when it would get back up and running.
I was at a total loss, but fortunately a kind friend from our schooldays came to my rescue. He had set up a new cosmetics company after the war and, although the prospects that it offered were not great, I had very little alternative, and so for almost two years, I was able to maintain a basic standard of living.
Were it not for the events that I am about to relate, doubtless my life would have continued in that impoverished, humdrum vein. But one day a spot of red was suddenly spilt on the grey of my life: I embarked on an adventure of dazzling mystery and stepped into a world of blood-chilling terror.
Here is how it all began.
It was on 25th May, in that unforgettable year. I arrived at work at nine o’clock and was immediately summoned by the manager.
“You weren’t listening to the radio this morning by any chance, were you, Terada?” he asked, staring me right in the eye. 28
I shook my head.
“Well, your name is Tatsuya, isn’t it? And your father’s was Torazo, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right,” I said, wondering what on earth my name and that of my adoptive father could have to do with this morning’s radio broadcast.
“Well then, it must be you,” he said. “There was somebody on the radio looking for you.”
I was taken aback. In that morning’s slot for missing persons, somebody had been seeking the whereabouts of one Tatsuya Terada, the eldest son of Torazo Terada, and asked anybody who knew him to send in his address, or, if Tatsuya himself were listening, to contact them in person.
“I took down the address. Here it is. Did you have any idea that somebody might be looking for you?”
He showed me his pocket diary, in which was written: Suwa Legal Practice, 4th floor, Nitto Building, Kitanagasa-dori (District 3).
A truly strange feeling struck me as I looked at the address. To all intents and purposes, I was an orphan. It was possible that my stepmother and her children could be alive somewhere, displaced by the war, but they were hardly likely to have engaged the services of the lawyer who was now searching for me on the wireless. Of course, had my adoptive father still been alive, he would no doubt have been moved by pity to try to find me, but he was long since dead. I had no idea, then, who this person could be. It was a strange and bewildering feeling.
“You should go, at any rate. If somebody’s looking for you, you mustn’t delay,” said my manager on a note of encouragement.
He gave me the morning off, advising me to go there right away. I imagine that he, too, must have been curious, having had an unexpected hand in my fate. 29
Was I being deceived? Had I just become a character in some novel? Either way, just as my manager suggested, I headed straight for the address that he had given me. I arrived at Mr Suwa’s office not without a feeling of apprehension in my chest. I must have spent at least half an hour with him.
“Well, well, there’s no denying it. The radio really is a most effective device, is it not? I never imagined I would get a response so quickly.”
Mr Suwa was a stout and agreeable old gentleman, which immediately set me at ease. I had often read in novels about unscrupulous lawyers, and so I was on my guard, uncertain that I wasn’t being used as an instrument of some fraud.
After some questions about my adoptive father and my past, Mr Suwa asked me:
“But this Terada-san, was he your real father?”
“No. I was a child from my mother’s previous marriage, you see. She died when I was seven years old.”
“I see. And that has always been your understanding?”
“No. When I was young, I was under the impression that he was my real father. I learnt the truth only later, probably around the time that my mother died. I can’t recall exactly when it was.”
“And you don’t happen to know the name of your real father?”
“I’m afraid not.”
It was only then that I realized: the man looking for me could be my real father. All of a sudden, I could feel my chest pounding.
“Neither your late mother nor your adoptive father ever told you his name?”
“No, they never spoke of him.”
“Your mother, of course, died when you were very young, but your adoptive father lived well into your adulthood. You don’t find it strange that he said nothing about this? After all, he must have known the truth of the matter.” 30
My adoptive father loved my mother deeply, and, thinking back on it now, I know that he cannot have been ignorant of the facts. I believe it was only the lack of opportunity that caused his silence. Had I not left home, had I not received my call-up, had he himself not perished, might he not have intended to tell me sooner or later?
When I said as much, Mr Suwa nodded.
“Yes, I dare say that is so… Returning to the present matter, and, please, do forgive me for seeming mistrustful, but you wouldn’t happen to be carrying any documentation that might verify your identity, would you?”
After thinking for a moment, I extracted the little bag in which I always carried the amulet that my mother had given me and showed it to Mr Suwa.
“Tatsuya. Born 6 September 1922,” he read aloud. “I see… But no family name given. You’ve been in the dark all this time. Ah, but what’s this piece of paper here?”
Mr Suwa unfolded a sheet of washi paper on which a sort of map had been drawn with an ink brush. To tell the truth, I myself did not know what this map showed or why it was in my possession. The map was drawn in the shape of an irregular labyrinth and was marked with mysterious place names such as “Dragon’s Jaw” and “Fox’s Den”. Some verses had been appended at the side of the map. They reminded me of pilgrim’s songs, and it was clear that there had to be some connection between them and the map, for they contained the same words, ”Dragon’s Jaw” and “Fox’s Den”. There was a good reason that I had taken such great care of this puzzling sheet of paper, keeping it together with the amulet. Back when my mother was still alive, she would sometimes ask me to fetch it for her, and she would study it intently. Then her face, usually so subdued, would suddenly flush and the pupils of her 31 eyes would glisten. It would inevitably end with her sighing deeply and saying:
“You see this map, darling? You must always keep it safe. Don’t ever lose it. One day it may make you a very lucky person. So don’t tear it up, don’t throw it away. Most importantly, though, don’t ever tell anyone about it…”
I had respected my mother’s wishes and never let myself be parted from the map, but I was different then from the child that I had once been. In truth, after I reached adulthood, I had gradually stopped believing in the supposedly miraculous powers of this scrap of paper, but still, I hung on to it, since carrying it around was no real inconvenience. It was sooner from sheer inertia that I hadn’t torn it up.
How wrong I was. That map would have such a tremendous influence on my fate. But I shall have occasion to reveal all that in due course.
Mr Suwa, however, showed no especial interest in the map and, since I offered nothing more on the subject, he carefully folded up the map and replaced it in the amulet.
“Well, there can hardly be any doubt, but just to make doubly sure, I do have one final request to make of you…”
I stared at him in perplexity.
“I wonder whether you wouldn’t mind undressing. I would like to examine you…”
I blushed scarlet on hearing those words. That was the one thing I didn’t want anybody to know. Ever since I was a child, there was nothing I loathed more than having to bare my body at the public baths, at school medical examinations, at the beach… This is because my back, buttocks and thighs are covered in scars—the cruel vestiges of having been burnt by fire tongs. I am not one to boast, but aside from these scars, my skin is pale and delicate, with an almost feminine beauty. 32 Against its purity, these purple marks stand out all the more hatefully, provoking a feeling of horror in all those who set eyes on them. Moreover, I didn’t have the slightest idea how I came to have them. When I was young, I would occasionally ask my mother about them, but every time she would suddenly burst into to tears, sobbing violently, or, as I have already mentioned, succumb to the grip of terror. In the end, I stopped asking about them.
“Examine me? What can that possibly have to do with all this?…”
“You see, if you truly are the person I am looking for, there will be certain distinguishing marks on your body that cannot be falsified.”
I steeled myself and took off my jacket. Then I removed my shirt, my vest and finally my trousers. Left standing only in my underpants, I felt embarrassed showing Mr Suwa my naked body. He made a thorough examination of me and at last heaved a sigh of relief:
“Thank you. I’m sorry to have put you through that. You may dress yourself again. I am satisfied that there is no reason to doubt your identity.”
This is what he then told me:
“Somebody is indeed looking for you. I cannot yet reveal to you the name of this person, but it is someone who is a relation of yours. This individual wishes to know your whereabouts in order to adopt and provide for you. My client is extremely wealthy, and so you stand only to benefit. I’ll make the necessary further arrangements and shall be in touch again in due course.”
With that, the lawyer took down my address and place of employment. Thus ended my first interview with Mr Suwa.
Despite everything, I was left with the feeling that I had somehow been taken in. But when I returned to my office and 33 gave my manager a summary of everything that had gone on, he stared back at me in amazement.
“Oh-ho! That’s quite something,” he exclaimed. “So you’re the illegitimate son of some rich old man!”
He liked to talk, and so word quickly spread throughout the office. For a time, whenever I encountered my colleagues, I would have to endure their teasing on account of my presumed high birth.
That night I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t from any sense of excitement at what awaited me, however. There may have been a measure of anticipation, but I was more unnerved than anything else. My poor mother, her dreadful terrors and those hateful scars on my body; none of this was the stuff of sweet slumber.
Somehow I just couldn’t shake the premonition that something awful was about to happen…
A WARNING
Back then I knew nothing of Eight Graves, let alone the extraordinary legend associated with it. How then could I have ever suspected that I was bound to that place by fate?
And yet… I cannot deny that the sudden appearance of this stranger in my life filled me with a curious sense of apprehension. You, ladies and gentlemen, will no doubt think that this is just some literary turn of phrase, but that is not so.
As a rule, people do not care for extreme changes in circumstance. They sooner fear them than relish them. In a case such as mine where one cannot even imagine what the future holds, it is only to be expected. After all, is it too much to ask to be left in peace? And yet, far from fearing news from the lawyer, I looked forward to it, feeling dejected when the next day brought 34 no word from him. Truly, it was a peculiar feeling, that combination of dread and anticipation. Like a caged animal, I paced back and forth for five days, ten days, but still no word came. With time, I realized, however, that Mr Suwa had not given up.
One day, when I returned from the office, the young wife of the friend with whom I was lodging said to me:
“Tatsuya, something odd happened today…”
“Odd, you say?”
“Yes, a strange man was here, asking all sorts of questions about you.”
“About me?… All sorts of questions?… Ah, it must have been one of Mr Suwa’s clerks.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought at first, but now I’m not so sure about that. He seemed like a country-type.”
“Someone from the country…”
“Yes. He must have been… Oh, I can never really tell how old country people are. But he had on an Inverness coat with an upturned collar and a hat pulled down over his eyes. He was wearing dark glasses, too. I couldn’t really see his face. He made such an uncanny impression…”
“What did he ask you?”
“Mainly about your character, your conduct… Do you drink? Do you ever have outbursts of violence, like a madman?…”
“Violence?… Like a madman?… What odd things to ask.”
“Yes, I thought it was strange too.”
“So what did you tell him?”
“Naturally, I vouched that you were nothing of the sort, that you’re a very calm and considerate person. And so you are.”
Her kind words notwithstanding, I still couldn’t shake off that unpleasant feeling. I appreciated that the lawyer had to take all the necessary precautions, scrutinizing not only my identity but also my character and circumstances. It was only natural 35 that he should enquire whether I drank or smoked, but these questions about whether I sometimes had violent outbursts like a madman just seemed bizarre. What on earth could he be trying to find out about me?
Two or three days later, the personnel manager at my office informed me that he had been subjected to a similar interrogation. His description of the man who had visited the office corresponded to that of the one who had showed up at the house. His questions had been the same too.
“Perhaps your father was an alcoholic, given to bouts of violence when he drank? He could be worried that he’s passed the trait on to you. At any rate, I told him that you weren’t at all like that, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”
The personnel manager, who had already heard about my alleged illegitimacy, gave a little chuckle as he related all this, but I was in no mood to laugh. Dark clouds seemed to be gathering over me, leaving me with a profound sense of unease.
Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, that you had been told at the age of twenty-eight that the blood of a madman ran through your veins. What a shock it would be. Of course, nobody had told me this in so many words, but I couldn’t help but think that the man making these enquiries was trying to make me aware of it. Not only that, but he seemed to want the whole world to know it too.
Growing ever more impatient and agitated, I almost had decided to pay Mr Suwa a visit and ask him to address any questions he might have directly to me. Perhaps, though, that would be too rash a course of action. In any case, it was just when I had managed to talk myself out of going to his office that I received that strange letter.
Sixteen days had passed since my visit to the Suwa Legal Practice. I had gulped down my breakfast and was getting 36 dressed for work as usual, when suddenly I heard my friend’s wife calling to me from the front door.
“Tatsuya! There’s a letter for you.”
The very mention of a letter set my pulse racing. I immediately thought of Mr Suwa. Every day I had been waiting for news, and I had no friends or relations who might have written to me.
When I took the letter, I had a horrible premonition. The envelope was made of blotting paper, coarse and of very poor quality—hardly the sort of stationery used by a lawyer with an office on the fourth floor of the Nitto Building. What was more, the recipient’s name and address had been scrawled in such a childish hand and so slowly that the ink had dripped all over the paper. When I turned the envelope over, I saw that the sender’s name was missing. With heart pounding, I tore open the envelope and found a letter written in the same blotchy scrawl on cheap paper:
You must never set foot in the village of Eight Graves again. Nothing good will come of it. The gods here are angry. If ever you come back, there will be blood! Blood! The carnage that took place twenty-six years ago will repeat itself, and the village will once again become a sea of blood.
I must have fallen into a momentary daze. The voice of my friend’s young wife seemed distant somehow, but eventually it brought me back to the real world. In a panic, I stuffed the letter back into its envelope and thrust it into my pocket.
“What’s the matter, Tatsuya? It wasn’t bad news, was it?”
“No, it’s nothing… Only, why do you ask?”
“It’s your face,” she said, her eyes trained on me. “You’re as white as a sheet.”
That may well have been true. In fact, it must have been so: anyone in the world would have been shocked to receive such 37 a peculiar letter. Trying desperately to maintain my sense of composure, I decided that my only option was to escape the woman’s quizzical gaze, and so I left the house in a hurry.
