by Otsuichi
Shizue laughed. “He’s in the fields.”
“Why did you laugh?”
“Because he’s funny, that man. ‘You stay at home,’ he says.”
Kiyone tilted her head, unsure what was funny about that.
“Because I’m pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Kiyone looked at Shizue’s stomach, but it hadn’t yet begun to swell. All she saw was the kitten rolling around on her friend’s knees.
Kiyone was delighted. “That’s great!”
“Well, thank you. But how are things with you? How’s your work? I hope you’re not finding it too difficult.”
“No, it’s going well. My father and I are very grateful to Masayoshi. It’s just—” Kiyone hesitated, but Shizue kept drinking her tea, patiently waiting for her to continue.
In front of the porch was a small field with several thin poles wrapped in green vines blooming with tiny flowers. Off in the distance, a slouching figure of a man was slowly walking by.
“Ummm . . .” Kiyone hesitantly asked, “Have you ever seen his wife?”
“His wife? Yes, I have.”
“What?”
“She was beautiful.”
Kiyone looked at Shizue with a surprised expression. When she hadn’t seen Yuko through the opening of the door the day before, Kiyone had questioned whether or not Yuko actually existed. She had gone all the way to Shizue’s house just to talk about it, and now she felt silly.
Shizue gently brushed the cat from her knee, got to her feet, and walked over to a tree that was growing in front of them. Its trunk was thin, but it was almost twice as tall as Kiyone. Small, shiny red fruit grew on the tree, and Shizue picked one of them and put it in her mouth.
She picked a few more and offered them to Kiyone. “Would you like to try one of the goumi fruit?”
Kiyone put one into her mouth and bit down on it. Tart, sweet juice spread over her tongue.
“What do you think? It’s good, right? This is the time of year they’re ripe. But some of the trees have bitter fruit, which can taste especially nasty if you’re expecting it to be sweet.”
Following Shizue’s lead, Kiyone spit out the seed, then said, “That happened to me the other day. I only took one bite, and I spit it out immediately, but the terrible taste stayed in my mouth forever. I rinsed out my mouth with water, but it didn’t help. That night, I felt nauseous and dizzy, and I couldn’t sleep. It was so awful, I thought I’d die.”
Kiyone put one more goumi fruit into her mouth and bit down on it.
With Shizue smiling in front of her, Kiyone felt enveloped by a serene happiness. She was without fear or doubt.
Kiyone rolled the remaining fruit around in the palm of her hand and whispered to herself, “Thank goodness.”
Master Masayoshi wasn’t seeing hallucinations or anything like that. Of course he wasn’t. I’ve just been caught up in some foolish notion.
Kiyone asked, “Could you tell me more about his wife?”
Shizue tilted her head slightly, taking a moment to search her memory. “She had white skin.”
“You mean she was white, like Caucasian?”
Shizue narrowed her eyes and laughed. “No, don’t be silly. She was fair-skinned and slender. She and her husband always sat side by side on the veranda. I always wished I could have a marriage like they had.”
Kiyone felt slightly jealous of her reminiscing friend.
“I was such a fool,” Kiyone said.
Startled by the statement, Shizue asked, “Why?”
“Because I had been thinking she wasn’t even there in Torigoe Manor. I haven’t seen her this whole time. But really, what a foolish thought.”
Now Shizue looked even more startled. “What are you talking about? His wife died two years ago. I’ve never seen anyone take the loss as hard as he did. It was frightening, the way he was crying and raving.”
It took a moment for Kiyone to understand the meaning of the words she was hearing. As they sunk in, one by one, Kiyone set her teacup down on the porch.
She rose to her feet and found them shaky. She felt dizzy, and she turned around to see Shizue’s puzzled expression.
“What’s wrong, Kiyone?”
What should I do? Should I tell her everything? Should I tell her about Masayoshi’s behavior, about the doll I saw through the opening of the doorway, about Yuko, the woman I haven’t seen? What would happen if I did tell her? If the rest of the village found out, how would they treat Masayoshi? The thought was unbearable. The clop clop of his shoes echoed in her mind, and she could see his figure bent over the hydrangeas as he talked of flowers. She had no idea what to do.
“Kiyone?” Shizue repeated.
The cat meowed.
But Kiyone didn’t hear either of them.
The tart, sweet fruit dropped from her hand and fell noiselessly to the ground.
*
“I’m going out for a while, Kiyone.”
When Kiyone saw Masayoshi off she made up her mind. Masayoshi was out of the house. Her emotions raged. It was the resolve borne of a terrible uncertainty.
With a creak creak she passed through the constant gloom of the hallway and stood before Masayoshi’s room. Inside should be only Yuko. Kiyone knelt before the sliding door and sat in the formal seiza position with her legs folded beneath her thighs. Drawing strength to still her trembling shoulders, she said, “Par—” Her voice cracked. How relieved would I be to find that Yuko really is there on the other side of the sliding door before me.
“Pardon me, it’s Kiyone. Ma’am, ma’am, it’s Kiyone, please answer. Please, could you answer . . .”
She waited a long time, but Kiyone never heard the slightest response.
“Ma’am! Please answer me! Ma’am!”
After a short pause, Kiyone, summoning all of her courage, put the fingers of her right hand upon the sliding door. As she tentatively slid the door open, the opening grew ever wider, and at last she could see the entire room.
From where she still sat seiza, Kiyone slowly scanned the room from corner to corner. Faint yellow sunlight bleeding in through the paper door leading outside lit the room only dimly and created pools of darkness within. Girl dolls were there, half melted into the shadows, and when she tried to count them one by one, she realized the total would be more than fifty. Their blank bloodless faces seemed to be crying or laughing. Stranger still was the white futon spread out in front of the dolls. There Kiyone saw a white doll with long hair, like the one she had seen the day before, lying peacefully in the futon. Indeed, that doll had a strange and mysterious aura compared to the rest, and when she looked into its slender white face, she felt she was being drawn into a dreadful yet somehow dreamlike illusion.
In a panic, Kiyone drew her eyes away from the doll and turned her head to look at the opposite side of the room.
She saw nothing that could be called Yuko.
On the opposite side of the room was the sliding door of a closet with Mount Fuji painted on it in blue and a legless chair that Masayoshi probably sat in to write. Before the chair was a glossy wooden desk, on top of which quite a number of fountain pens were lined up waiting for their master’s return. The sight made Kiyone feel somehow sad and lonely.
In one corner of the room, she saw an odd three-panel dressing mirror. Both side doors were closed, and for some reason a red string was fastened clockwise around their handles. But what made it odd was that compared to the rest of the objects in the room, it was old. Nothing was carved upon it, and the wood had no luster. But why, despite its age, hadn’t it been replaced, remaining instead inside Torigoe Manor?
Kiyone removed the string and quietly opened the doors. The mirrors inside had splintered into a weblike network of cracks. Only in the corners of the panels were there small patches of uncracked mirror she could look into and see her face thrown straight back at her.
Just then, in one of those minute corners of uncracked mirror, Kiyone thought she saw the pale face of a wom
an. Kiyone let out a tiny scream and spun around, and at that moment, her right elbow bumped against the three-panel mirror, and several fragments of the glass shook loose and fell to the floor. But no matter how hard she strained her eyes to look, she could see no pale woman—or anyone else, for that matter—in the room. Terror welled up within her like a cold snake crawling along her spine.
She hurriedly gathered up the shards of broken glass and closed the doors of the mirror. She wound the red string around the knobs on the doors, and without stopping to look over her shoulder, she fled into the dark hallway.
Crying from fear, she went to her room and cowered small in the corner, clutching the doll her father had made her.
4. THE MIRROR
“Yuko, I’m home,” said Masayoshi as he opened the sliding door to his room. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen while I was gone?”
No, nothing out of the ordinary happened.
“I see, that’s good. Nobody came in here, right? That’s a good thing.”
But when Masayoshi happened to glance at the mirror in the corner of the room, he noticed something curious. He walked up to the mirror, and when he drew close to it, he let out a cry.
“What happened here? It’s not good to lie, Yuko. Somebody came in here today, didn’t they? And they opened this mirror, right? You can’t lie to me like that, Yuko.”
Why? Why don’t you believe me? Nothing happened.
“That’s not so, Yuko. Look at the string on this mirror. Since the mirror’s old, it sometimes falls open. I keep a red string looped around the two knobs to keep it from opening.”
What’s the matter, then? Isn’t it like that now?
“No, Yuko, you’re wrong. I always wrap the string around clockwise, and here, look, today it’s wrapped around counterclockwise.
Why would that be?”
Oh, that’s because I opened it, dear. I opened the mirror.
Masayoshi opened the mirror and let out an even more surprised cry.
“Yuko, the mirror is broken. The shards should have fallen to the floor.”
Dear, wasn’t the mirror already broken?
“No, Yuko, you’re wrong. The mirror was cracked, but none of the pieces were missing. But look, there are pieces missing here, and here. They should have fallen somewhere, but I don’t see them anywhere, Yuko.”
Masayoshi approached one of the many white-faced dolls, smoothly brushed its hair, and spoke gently. “Come, tell me the truth, Yuko. Kiyone came in here today, didn’t she? You’ve been lying to cover up for her.”
Yes, you’re right. Kiyone was here.
“I see. But what were you doing then? Didn’t you tell her that she couldn’t come in? Didn’t you caution her not to touch that mirror?”
Oh, I’m sorry. When she came in here, I was in something of a daze. But luckily I awakened, and I told Kiyone to leave the room right away. I told her that. But please, dear, don’t scold her.
“All right, Yuko, I won’t. I’d just like her to return the pieces of the mirror.”
The sliding door to the outside glowed red from the sunset. Only at that time did the faces of the dolls warm to a rosy color, almost as though they were flesh and blood babies.
5. YUKO
Kiyone couldn’t take it anymore.
The night before, when she had gone to retrieve the dishes from outside Masayoshi’s room, she had noticed something strange.
The many bowls on the wooden tray had been emptied as usual. The two pairs of chopsticks and two teacups had also been used. But why was there one dish that neither of them had touched, both their portions uneaten? Kiyone, unable to contain her curiosity, spoke to Masayoshi through the closed door.
“Master Masayoshi, may I ask you something?”
His reply came from inside the room. “What is it, Kiyone?”
His voice was as gentle as ever, and hearing it made Kiyone feel like her heart was being squeezed.
“Master Masayoshi, was there something wrong with the boiled horse mackerel I served tonight? Please be frank with me.”
“No, there was absolutely nothing wrong with your dinner. It’s just that Yuko and I cannot stand to eat horse mackerel. I never told you. I know it was incredibly rude of us, but neither Yuko nor I could eat any of it.”
“But, but, both you and the lady dislike horse mackerel? Both of you hate it so much that you can’t stand to eat a bite of it?”
“Yes, Kiyone, that’s how it is.”
Now that she thought about it, Kiyone remembered another time they both had left their food uneaten. At that time, she was inexperienced and hadn’t known up from down. Unaware that they both had small appetites, she had made them a large meal.
Kiyone was struck by a sudden thought. They had each left half their meals. Then, the master told me to cut both his and his wife’s meals in half. What on earth did that mean? According to him, they both only ate half of what a typical person eats. Didn’t that mean that both of their meals added up to precisely the amount for one person to eat? What did that mean? If what he said had all been a lie, then . . .
No, it couldn’t be. I don’t want it to be. But if the woman called Yuko has already passed from this world . . .
Kiyone pictured Masayoshi posing as Yuko and eating both their meals.
First, Masayoshi, as himself, took a bite of his food with his chopsticks. Then, Masayoshi ate in Yuko’s place. Next he whispered something to Yuko, who wasn’t there, and mimicking her voice, he replied to himself.
Dinner continued like that until, unable to eat any more, he left half of each meal.
Of course the horse mackerel that Masayoshi couldn’t eat remained on Yuko’s plate as well.
Yuko was Masayoshi.
The doll that had been in the futon must have been sitting in front of Yuko’s dinner tray. But Masayoshi believed that Yuko lived in that room with him. What a nightmare. Kiyone felt dizzy.
Master Masayoshi, didn’t your wife Yuko pass away two years ago, and isn’t she buried in the bamboo grove?
As Kiyone was walking back to her room, she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Her tears fell into the bowls on the tray she carried, and the fl oor of the hallway creak creaked away.
*
The next day, Kiyone came to a decision, triggered by Masayoshi’s sudden departure.
“Kiyone, I have to make a bit of a trip after lunch. I probably won’t be back until late.”
Masayoshi was dressed in his finery, and he carried a large black briefcase he almost never took with him.
“Kiyone.” He gazed straight into her eyes and said, “You are not to enter Yuko’s room. Do you understand?” Kiyone was startled.
“All right? You are not to enter that room. Promise me.”
“Yes, I understand.” Her voice had the slightest quaver. “I won’t enter your room.”
After hearing her answer, Masayoshi left the mansion. He hadn’t been wearing his sandals, and Kiyone, watching him leave from the front gate, was soon alone without even their familiar clop clop.
I will end this today, Master Masayoshi, Kiyone vowed in her heart. When you come home today, the woman who lives inside your head will truly be gone from this world. Oh, you will probably hate me for it. You’ll probably resent me for it. But I cannot bear it any longer. It’s time for me and for you to stop dreaming. I believe that when you wake up, a magnificent, clear morning will await you.
*
“Ma’am, ma’am. I’ve brought your dinner.”
Kiyone called into the room, but of course there came no reply. Just in case, she set Yuko’s meal down in the hallway in front of the door. If the food was gone when she came back for the tray, she would know that Yuko had eaten it, and that Yuko really did exist.
*
I’m betraying the master, Kiyone thought as she used a funnel to transfer the kerosene that had been left in the stove into a two-liter bottle. A bare lightbulb dangled from the storage room ceiling, swinging its weak o
range glow back and forth, and the kerosene glimmered darkly as it fl owed into the deep green bottle. When Kiyone glanced up, she could see on the shelf above her the row of wooden crates that had held the dolls, and each time her eyes came upon the word DOLLS she hastened her work.
When she had finished transferring the kerosene into the bottle, she brought it and a match to the center of Torigoe Manor’s large garden.
From there, she wouldn’t have to worry about the fire spreading, no matter what she burned.
The sun had already hidden itself, and as the world settled into darkness, Kiyone could no longer see the line dividing the bamboo grove and the sky. The moon and the stars would not show themselves that cloudy night.
I will remember this darkness for the rest of my life. This bottomless pit of darkness, this darkness blocking out the bamboo and the stone lanterns that are right over there—the dark of this night will torment me for the rest of my life.
*
Kiyone carried a lit candle as she went to get Yuko. The flickering light danced across her face.
She creak creaked down the hallway to Masayoshi’s room. He was away, and no one would be inside. If what he had said was true, then Yuko would be in there alone. But when Kiyone inspected the tray in front of the door, she felt dejected.
The meal was exactly as it had been when she left it there. There was no sign that anybody had even laid a finger on it.
Master Masayoshi, if a woman named Yuko really lived in this room, shouldn’t even a small portion of this meal have been eaten? Yuko died two years ago. Aren’t you just seeing an illusion of your departed wife inside that doll?
Feeling like she was about to cry, Kiyone said, “I’m coming in,” and slid open the door. But even after she turned on the light, she didn’t see anyone there—only the rows of white dolls. When the warm light of the lightbulb fell upon the dolls, their puffy white cheeks and softly flowing black hair floated in the darkness, and Kiyone gasped.
How many years has it been since I was surrounded like this by white-faced dolls? Kiyone thought back to the time she spent the night in her father’s doll workshop.
