Rain… like the tears of your bereaved mother…
Plainly, the child described in the poem was George, who had been kidnapped from his mother Keiko Kawauchi. Yoneko was certain of this. There was nothing else written in the book. She read the poem once again and tried to learn it by heart, and this time it just seemed like any other poem to her, but she was sure her first impression was right. She wrote down the title in her notepad and got up to go. There was nothing else for her to see.
She switched off the electric torch and closed her eyes. The dull thuds of the work going on outside echoed in her ears—it was time to be gone. She would have plenty of time for thought later.
She turned on the torch again, and looked at the notebook. The beam rested on the title—Elegies. She turned to go, and the torch beam, moving with her body, suddenly picked out something bright on the window pane—it was as if a light was being shone inwards at her. She really did not have any more time to spare, but nonetheless she went over to examine this new discovery. It turned out to be the sort of mirror that small boys use to dazzle people in the rays of the sun. What could it all mean?
She slipped out of the room; she heard someone coming up the stairways jabbering away to someone else. She quickly locked Chikako’s door and walked briskly to the stairwell. She turned around and looked behind her. She thought she saw a door close quickly further down the corridor; she thought she saw a glimmer of white hair; but she couldn’t be sure.
However, it did seem to her rather likely that it was Haru Santo she had seen, and the faint glimpse she had caught of her stayed in her mind for a long time to come.
It was clear from what she had seen that Chikako was still expecting some man to come back to her. But the real possibility of such an event had long since vanished, and only the memory of it now remained, just as fairy tale figures remain in the back of an adult’s mind. The preparations for his return had become a daily ritual for Chikako, a reminder of his past presence as real and yet as remote as the sloughed-off skin of a snake one finds by the side of a road. There was no possible interpretation other than absolute fantasy or madness.
Yoneko thought of the white linen cloth and the masculine place setting. What a way to pass one’s life! In all her days, despite her occasional hopes, Yoneko had never associated in such a way with a man, and so found it hard to imagine Chikako’s feelings.
She wrote to Keiko Kawauchi. Having explained all that had gone on and what she had seen and how she was positive from the size and colouring of the place setting that a man was involved, she went on as follows:
So you see why I am convinced that sometime in the past Miss Chikako Ueda prepared supper for some man who never turned up. I wonder what happened to prevent his coming? Did not this event change her whole life? Since then, she gave up her job as a school teacher and has remained closeted in her room. There is no record of any man having ever visited her.
And so it seems she has waited for six or seven years, laying supper for him every night. Anyone else would surely have given up hope long ago. Why does she refuse to accept the reality of the situation? It can only be because to face facts would be too painful for her. I have heard of other such cases where human beings shut their eyes to the truth in this way.
We have to believe that there was something special about her relationship with this man. We can’t be certain, but he may have been involved in George’s kidnapping, but if Chikako Ueda was, then it is a fair assumption that he was her accomplice. This bears looking into further.
She put down her pen at this point. The most significant thing she had discovered on her visit to Chikako Ueda’s room had been the poem, To a child buried on 29 March. But she still could not bring herself to inform George’s mother of this evidence which pointed to the certainty of her child’s death. Even if the evidence was even more complete, she cringed at the task. Perhaps it was better for Keiko never to know, for she had based her life on the hope of seeing her child again someday. Could she destroy Keiko’s illusions? Even if the man was the kidnapper, had Chikako been directly involved? Certainly she had loved the man, for, even though he had let her down, she had continued to wait for him all these years. Waiting for him had become the purpose of her life, just as it was with Keiko—could she, Yoneko, at one blow destroy the dreams of these two people on evidence which was still only circumstantial? Yoneko began to feel that she had meddled enough in other people’s lives already. What had begun as her curiosity about Chikako Ueda’s involvement in the kidnapping had reached a stage where Yoneko felt frightened by what she might yet discover.
And so she said no more about what she had found in Chikako’s room.
During the next few days, Yoneko could not take her mind off the vision of Chikako Ueda, plying her embroidery needle in her room as she waited for a man who did not come. People lived in a world of fantasy, she reasoned. Chikako Ueda and Keiko Kawauchi shared a similar fantasy. Yoneko felt isolated and empty at the thought that she herself had no such fantasy to give hope and point to her life. This was why her life since retirement had been so blank and meaningless as she felt it was.
Thereafter, Tomiko Iyoda called on her several times to invite her to attend meetings of the Three Spirit Faith, but Yoneko always refused. She did hear that Chikako had joined the group, but she was no longer interested in further spying on her. Perhaps, to the contrary, she was afraid that if she went to the same seance as Chikako she might find out even more about her.
It was not for another few weeks, by which time mid-April had brought clear skies and mild weather, that Yoneko changed her mind and decided to attend a seance.
After getting Yoneko’s letter, Keiko had written back urging her to pursue her researches further, particularly regarding the man who had been part of Chikako’s life. Yoneko had just put the letters to one side. What made her change her mind about attending a Three Spirit Faith seance was the so-called ‘Suwa Yatabe miracle’, which occurred during a seance at the end of March. According to Tomiko Iyoda, halfway through her trance, the medium had announced that André Dore, a famous violinist dead for some fifteen years had come in spirit form to announce that he had given his famous Guarnerius violin to Suwa Yatabe. And at this point the priest had opened the charred case to reveal within the Guarnerius restored to its former glory.
‘It was indeed a miracle. His Reverence merely touched that burned old violin, and there it was as good as new again! But as if that wasn’t enough—yes, there’s even more to come—at the same instant Miss Yatabe’s finger was mended! You know, she had visited dozens of doctors and none of them could do anything! What powers His Reverence possesses!’
Yoneko, hearing this, was inclined to think that there had been some trickery involved in the miraculous restoration of the violin, but she could not but be impressed by the story of Suwa’s finger.
The story spread, so that it was featured in an article in a monthly magazine, and soon hardly a day passed without someone in the apartment block discovering something they had lost, or some prophecy of a relative being involved in a motor accident turning out to be true, all as the result of the Three Spirit Faith seances. And then Tomiko Iyoda told Yoneko that Chikako Ueda was to have a seance to try and locate a missing friend. Yoneko could not repress her curiosity any longer.
‘Could I perhaps attend too?’
This time it was she who asked, for Tomiko had let it be known that the growing popularity of the cult had led to capacity audiences and people were having to be turned away of late. However, on this occasion, Tomiko agreed to squeeze Yoneko in as a special concession. The new rule was that to be sure of admittance you had to have attended at least four previous sessions and to make an offering on each occasion of at least one thousand yen.
Yoneko went down to Tomiko’s room a full thirty minutes early on this occasion, but there were already some six or seven people in the room when she arrived. The priest and the medium had not yet appeared, and neither had Chikako, on whos
e behalf the seance was being held. She sat on a cushion in the second row, next to a superior-looking woman in her mid forties who obviously came from outside. Tomiko went around the group and without showing any sign of boredom repeated the same things time and again—how the seances had proved to be of such value, how prophecies had been fulfilled, and how people’s lives had been changed thereby and so forth. Her audience were all quite prepared to agree with her, and sat nodding their heads and murmuring assent. It seemed as if this was part of the process of getting people into the right frame of mind for the seance.
At just before eight, the priest appeared, dressed as before in a black double-breasted suit and accompanied by the medium in her red ceremonial priestess’ skirt. The audience bowed deeply, sucking in their breath as a sign of respect. There was even one old lady who prostrated herself, touching her forehead to the floor, as the priest passed by.
The priest took his seat, and, addressing a woman in the front row, asked her how her relations with her husband were recently. This made everyone laugh, but Yoneko felt it was a contrived informality and did not join in. This sort of banter and discussion continued for a few more minutes, whereupon the priest broke off and said:
‘Leave the door open. The person on whose behalf we are met together tonight is on her way here.’
And the medium lit the candles, as before, and the electric lights were switched off. When the room became thus dark, Chikako Ueda made her entry, accompanied by the white-haired Haru Santo. It was some time since Yoneko had seen Haru, and she tried to catch sight of her face, but somehow there always seemed to be someone else’s head in the way. Yoneko reflected that Haru had only come into the room once it was dark on the last occasion, too. Meanwhile, Chikako took up her seat in the very front, facing the medium.
It was the first time that Yoneko had got so close to Chikako. As it was so dark, she could stare at her without embarrassment. In the flickering candlelight, she examined Chikako’s profile and saw a woman who, although in her forties, still had the dimples and fringe of a young girl. There was something very attractively feminine about Chikako, and it looked as if she was a woman who had ceased to age some years back.
As before, the priest adopted a commanding tone of voice and ordered all present to link their hands. Yoneko, thinking that the whole thing was like a staged performance, nonetheless obeyed, although it was with some reservations that she took the hand of the woman from outside who was her neighbour. Chikako then spoke in a clear and firm voice, giving the date of birth and name of the man she sought.
Yoneko tried to work out the age of the man, and found herself confused by the Japanese era system of dates, but at last calculated that he must be in his mid-thirties, and so must have been in his late twenties seven years ago. So he must have been a good ten years younger than Chikako. Could Chikako have had a love affair with a man so much younger than herself? And then Yoneko could not help but think of Keiko, who had married a man more than ten years her senior. In each case, it seemed that the hoped-for bliss had ended in sorrow. Why was it that so many people had such unhappy experiences in love?
While she was thinking over these things, the medium had entered her trance and now once again her whole body was shuddering in the throes of demonic possession.
What happened in the next ten minutes remained engraved in Yoneko’s mind for the rest of her life. The medium fell, as before, flat on her face and rolled around on the floor repeating meaningless and garbled words, with an occasional real word mixed amongst them. As these words emerged one by one from the jumbled mass of sound, they stuck in the mind of the hearers, until gradually they could piece together in their minds what was being said. It went like this:
‘Ow! It hurts… I can’t see anything… I’m in a suitcase, it’s hard… A man is putting me into a hole… There’s another grown-up with him… A lady! She has opened the bag… She’s looking at me… At my face… Now I can hear someone mixing concrete… I see a shovel… Oh, they’re shovelling concrete into my suitcase… It’s awful… I can’t see anything any more… They’re burying me in the dark… Mother! Mother!’
This was what Yoneko pieced together, word by word, from amongst the medium’s gibberish.
At this point, the priest laid his hands on the medium’s head, and cried out, ‘Stop! It’s the wrong spirit!’
And then, in ringing tones: ‘Spirit, I command you to be gone!—Get thee hence!’
Someone in front of Yoneko spoke in a quavering voice.
‘Saints protect us! It’s an evil spirit in our midst.’
In obedience to the priest’s command, the medium became silent and lay motionless, only the whites showing in her open eyes. The priest called for the lights to be put on, and the tension was lowered and everyone stretched themselves in their seats and waited expectantly. The priest called out Chikako Ueda’s name.
Chikako did not reply. Yoneko looked at her, and observed that the healthy and youthful appearance she had observed a few minutes earlier had vanished. Now Chikako’s whole complexion seemed to have turned grey, and she was staring vacantly into the middle distance, her mouth hanging open, her jaw slack. Tomiko lay her hand on her shoulder and called out.
‘Miss Ueda! Miss Ueda!’
Chikako just brushed Tomiko’s hand away with an unnatural force. She rolled her eyes up into her lids, and gave every appearance of having entered a catatonic state.
Yoneko left shortly after this, but subsequently heard that Chikako had remained in this condition until the next morning, sitting in the same position staring fixedly ahead. If anyone touched her, she struck the offending hand away.
Haru Santu had slipped out of the room even before Yoneko, and she appeared to have gone at the same time that the lights were turned on.
Making her way back to her room, Yoneko wondered what it was that the medium had said which had had such an effect on Chikako. Could it have been the voice of her lover crying out that he was being buried? Yoneko did not think so. There was clearly some connection between the burial the medium had described and the poem in Chikako’s room. This had been the voice of another spirit, and Chikako’s reaction and the priest’s announcement made the fact doubly clear. The voice had been that of a child being buried, and Yoneko was ninety-nine per cent sure that the child had been George. The medium had been describing the burial of a child in concrete, in terms which rended the heart of Heaven, had used the language of a child describing in terror what was going on before his very eyes.
She realised that she must now tell Keiko Kawauchi the whole truth. She sat down there and then and wrote her a long letter describing in detail all that she had seen and heard, including the poem in Chikako’s room. She asked Keiko to think about it all and apply her own judgment as to what should be done next. She added that it might now be advisable to report the matter to the police.
As she addressed the envelope, Yoneko reflected that she still had some doubts as to whether the dead could really communicate with the living in this way. But there could be no doubting the effect of the words, purporting to come from the dead by way of the medium, upon Chikako Ueda.
It was the last Sunday in April. Yoneko was writing letters in her room when Keiko Kawauchi suddenly appeared at her door. Greeting her after a lapse of some twelve years, Yoneko could not help feeling that Keiko had become rather gaunt, although this may have been the effect of her wearing a Japanese kimono. It was too late to cry over spilt milk, but nonetheless Yoneko wished she had not written to tell Keiko so clearly that George was dead.
Keiko explained that she had been visiting Hiroshima when Yoneko’s last letters reached her home.
‘As George died at the end of March, it was exactly seven years since his murder. I went to Hiroshima because I heard of a mixed-blooded child of his age there, but of course it was a fruitless trip. And when I got home the day before yesterday, I found your letter waiting for me.’
Keiko wiped the tears from her eyes.
>
Yoneko did her best to console her, but could do so with little conviction.
There was no positive proof that Chikako Ueda had been involved in the kidnapping. It was by no means certain that the words which had issued from the medium’s mouth were George’s. What was undoubted fact was Chikako’s extraordinary reaction to them. And there was also nothing to suggest that the words did not relate to George. Regardless of whether or not the medium had supernatural powers, or had learned of the facts by other means, it remained obvious that a child had been buried and that Chikako was somehow involved.
And the evidence for this went further than Chikako’s behaviour at the seance, for there was also the evidence of the poem Yoneko had found in her room… To a child buried on 29 March… it was too much of a mere coincidence.
Of course, there was no year mentioned. It might have referred to 29 March last year, or ten years before for that matter. George had been kidnapped on 27 March, so there was a difference of two days in the dates. But if any evidence could be found that he had been buried on 29 March, then the poem would be conclusive proof of Chikako’s complicity.
‘If I could be positive that George was dead, then I could at least begin my life all over again.’
Keiko bent low, covering her face with her slim white hands. Looking at her, Yoneko for the first time saw her former pupil revealing her natural maternal instincts.
That night, Keiko stayed in Yoneko’s room. They talked until the small hours. Occasionally they spoke about the past, and what had become of Keiko’s schoolmates, but for most of the time George was the main topic of discussion. Yoneko felt keenly how Keiko had, for the seven years since the kidnapping, lived only in the hope of seeing her son again, and her heart bled for her. She could not but blame the father who had turned his back on the problem and on his wife and had gone home to America alone, but she could also sense how difficult it must have become to continue living with a wife whose only thoughts were for her vanished child.
The Master Key Page 13
