The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

by Jeff Vandermeer; Ann Vandermeer

  Some say that the idea of having the scene from Hell painted on the screen originated in the girl’s refusal to comply with the Lord’s wishes. No. It was only gossip. I am sure of it.

  In our opinion, the Lord did not dismiss the girl because he took pity on her and preferred to let her live in ease and comfort rather than send her back to that misanthropic father of hers. It was certain that the Lord felt affection for such a sweet-tempered girl, but to think His Lordship had amorous motives was a farfetched distortion of truth. No, I dare say it was a perfectly unfounded lie.

  Because of the painter’s insistence on having his daughter back, His Lordship had come to look upon Yoshihide with considerable disfavour. Despite the Lord’s feelings about the painter, one day he summoned him to the palace and commanded him to paint a scene from Hell on a screen.

  VI

  As I evoke the screen, I have the impression of seeing that terrifying scene before my eyes. The scene painted by Yoshihide was quite different from those of other artists, first of all because of its composition. The Ten Kings of Hell and their households were confined to a corner, while all the rest consisted of wild flames roiling around the Mountain of Swords and the Forest of Spears, which seemed ready to take fire as well. Save for the blue and yellow of the Chinese-styled costumes worn by the governors of Hell, which stood out here and there, everything else was ablaze, tongues of fires occupying all the space, hooked wheels dancing in fury, black smoke drawn with splattered ink and sparks shooting up, done in gold smeared and mingled with soot.

  These scene would have sufficed to scare the human eye, but one could also see other personages writhing in agony among the flames. None of these characters ever appeared in the representations of Hell painted by other artists. Yoshihide had depicted every social class, from the noble and the dignitary to the beggar and the outcast: mandarins in formal costume, charming young ladies-in-waiting in elaborate five-pleat dresses, bonzes with rosaries hanging from their necks, vagrant clerics wearing high-wedged clogs, very young handmaids in long, clinging kimonos, fortune-tellers in the robes of Shinto priests, holding a holy stick…I would never have the time to describe each of them. These people, tormented by the Gozumezu5, fled in all directions among fire and smoke, like so many leaves scattered by the tempest. The woman who curled up like a spider, her hair caught in a fork, had probably been a shrine medium or a priestess. The man with the halberd sticking out of his heart, upside down like a vampire bat, must have been a young province governor, or something like it. And the uncountable others, flogged with iron whips, crushed under a rock a thousand men could barely move, pecked by weird birds or slashed open by the maws of a poisonous dragon. The punishments were as numerous as the sinners.

  One of these horrors, however, stood out in its own horrifying right, surpassing all the rest.

  A carriage pulled by oxen descended from above, grazing the tops of the sword trees, which had branches like animal fangs spitting bodies of dead souls. In the carriage, with its bamboo blinds blown upward by the blast of Hell, a court lady was visible, as splendidly dressed as an empress or an imperial concubine, long black hair streaming and white neck bent backward. Among the flames, the lady writhed in agony. This rendering of a court lady writhing in a flame-wreathed carriage conveyed all the terror of Hell. The frightening intensity of the scene was concentrated on this single personage. It was such an excellent masterpiece the spectator had the impression of hearing desperate screams.

  To paint that horrible scene, something terrible must have befallen the artist. Otherwise, how could even a painter as great as Yoshihide depict the horror of Hell in such a vivid manner? He must have traded his life to be able to paint that screen. Indeed, the Hell Yoshihide painted was the very Hell to which he had condemned himself.

  I am afraid that in my hurry to describe this strange screen, I have lost the thread of my story. So I will return to the moment when Yoshihide received the order to paint the picture of Hell by the Lord.

  VII

  For five or six months, Yoshihide absorbed himself in the painting of the screen, without making the briefest courtesy call at the palace. It was strange that, despite his love for his daughter, not once had he the thought of seeing her. According to an apprentice, each time he started painting he became like a man possessed by a fox. In fact, the rumour had it that Yoshihide had gained fame and reputation because he had sworn himself to the vulpine god of Good Fortune.

  ‘For proof,’ some said, ‘snatch a peek at him while he is painting and you will see the spirits of foxes thronging around him.’

  Once he had picked up his brush, he forgot everything but his work. He confined himself to his study and never came out to see the sun. Now that he was painting the screen, his level of inspiration soared.

  Shut up in his study with the blinds always drawn, he would mix his secret mélanges of colours, and had his apprentices dress up in gala costumes or in poor clothes before painting them with great care in the lamp’s light.

  These oddities were usual with him. It would not have taken that special Hell scene to drive him to such extreme eccentricities. For instance, when he painted that scene from the Goshushoji, the Five Phases of the Transmigration of Souls, he once came across rotting corpses in the street; he sat down in front of them and copied faces and hands, down to the single hairs, while normal people averted their eyes.

  Concerning the state of inspiration in which he painted that scene from Hell, no one was ever able to imagine it. I do not have the time to give you all the particulars and I will tell you only the notable moments.

  While one of his disciples was mixing colours, Yoshihide said abruptly. ‘I wish to rest for a while. I’ve had some bad dreams lately.’

  ‘You have, master?’ the apprentice said, without interrupting his work, for Yoshihide’s wish for rest was nothing unusual.

  But then the master asked in humble tones, ‘Could you sit at my bedside while I’m resting?’

  Even though the apprentice did not understand why the master was so worried about his dreams, the request was reasonable, and he said, ‘Very well, sir.’ To which the master, sounding troubled, added with some hesitation, ‘Come into my inner room. Don’t let anyone come inside while I’m sleeping.’

  The apprentice remarked that the room in which his master was working – for the ‘inner room’ meant his study – had the shutters drawn as if it were night, and the screen with the scene sketched in charcoal stood open in the dim light, taking up all the space.

  The artist went to sleep with his arm under his head, as if a great fatigue had descended on him, but after half an hour a terrifying noise came to the apprentice’s ear.

  VIII

  At first it was a voice that spoke in an incomprehensible way, but little by little the words broke up to resemble the moans of a drowning man trying to speak underwater.

  ‘How “Come to me”? Where am I supposed to go?…What are you saying?…Where to? To Hell?…Come to the burning Hell? Whoever is this? Who could it be…? Ah!’

  The apprentice forgot all about mixing colours to observe the fear on his master’s face. He saw him gasping for breath, mouth open and sparse teeth visible; he noticed the dry lips, the sweating face, pale and wrinkled. Something was moving inside the mouth as if pulled by a string. It was the master’s tongue. Words came out disconnected.

  ‘I thought…It’s really you…I thought you’d come…What? You come to take me away? Yes. Come. Come to Hell. There your daughter is waiting for you.’

  The scared apprentice glimpsed a dark figure looming from above and brushing against the open screen. He shook Yoshihide with all his strength, but the master continued speaking in his dream, refusing to awake. The apprentice found the courage to take the water set aside to wash the brushes, and he splashed it all onto the master’s face.

  The words Yoshihide was saying, ‘I’ll be waiting. Come with this carriage…with this carriage. Come to Hell…’ became groans. Yoshihide spru
ng up as though he had been stung with a needle, although he seemed to be seeing someone, as if the evil spirits from his nightmares were still hanging upon his eyelids. For a moment he stared at nothing, eyes full of dread and mouth gaping. Then, returning to his senses, he ordered curtly, ‘It’s all right. Off with you now.’

  Knowing very well he would be scolded if he tried to object, the apprentice ran out of his master’s room and, when he saw the sunshine, he felt relieved as if he had awakened from his own nightmare.

  That was not the worst of it. A month later, another apprentice was called into Yoshihide’s study. The master, who was moistening a brush in his mouth, turned to him and said, ‘Strip down, please.’

  As the painter used to give that order from time to time, the boy immediately took off his clothes.

  When the boy was completely naked, Yoshihide said with a strange scowl on his face and no compassion in his eyes, ‘I’d like to see a man in chains. I’m sorry but you should let me do what I want to do for a while.’

  This apprentice was a burly young man who could have wielded a sword better than a brush. Nevertheless, he must have been scared to death if even after years he kept repeating, ‘I believed the master had gone mad and wanted to kill me.’

  Yoshihide, seeing the apprentice hesitate, lost patience. He produced a thin iron chain out of nowhere, sprang onto the boy’s back, and wrenched the chain around his body and finally he yanked at the chain with such merciless force that the apprentice fell, his body hitting the floor with a mighty noise.

  IX

  The apprentice’s figure resembled a wine keg rolled over on its side because the boy’s limbs were so cruelly bent and twisted he could move nothing but his neck. Because of the arrested blood circulation, his thick body, face, chest and limbs had become red and then livid in no time. Yoshihide did not heed the boy’s pain and, walking around that keg-shaped body, sketched him from various angles in a realistic fashion. No need to tell what torture the apprentice suffered while his master worked.

  If nothing had happened, the apprentice would have had to bear the pain for a long time. Fortunately – or unfortunately – from an upturned jar flowed an undulating thin ribbon that elongated like black oil. At first, the liquid came out slowly, like a very thick, sticky fluid, but little by little the glistening thing glided up to the nose of the frightened boy, who stopped breathing for a second and then screamed, ‘A snake! A snake!’

  The boy told me that his blood had frozen, but this sensation was natural as the snake was about to touch his chained neck with the tip of its ice-cold tongue. Seeing his apprentice in such a plight, even the cruel Yoshihide became frightened. Upset, he cast away his brush and with a swift gesture, picked up the snake by the tail, letting its head dangle. The snake tried to coil around itself but could not reach Yoshihide’s hand.

  ‘My sketch is ruined and it’s your fault, damned beast,’ he said to the snake, and threw it back into its jar. Mumbling, he undid the chain and freed his apprentice, who got not a single word of sympathy or consolation from his master. A ruined sketch saddened Yoshihide more than having one of his apprentices bitten by a snake.

  Later I was told that he kept the snake for the purpose of making sketches of it.

  After what you have heard so far, you must have a fair idea of Yoshihide’s madness when inspiration possessed him. But let me recount one more episode. This time, an apprentice of thirteen or fourteen almost lost his life because of the screen. One night, Yoshihide called this boy, who had the white complexion of a girl, to his study. In the light of the oil lamp, the apprentice saw the master feeding an exotic bird something that, placed on his palm, resembled raw meat. The bird, as big as a cat, had feathers sticking out of its ears and large round amber-coloured eyes that made it look like a cat indeed.

  X

  Yoshihide by nature hated people prying in his business. He had told nothing to his apprentices about the snake because he never said anything about the material he kept in his study. Once the boys glimpsed a human skull on the master’s desk. Another time they saw silver bowls and lacquered platters or other unusual items, depending on what he was painting, but no one knew where he kept these things. Whence originated the rumour of a benevolent deity bestowing favours on Yoshihide.

  The apprentice who entered thought the strange bird was in the study to provide a model for the screen. He bowed and respectfully addressed the master. ‘What do you wish, sir?’

  Instead of answering, the master licked his red-stained lips and thrust his chin in the bird’s direction. ‘Look how tame it is.’

  ‘What’s this creature, sir? I’ve never seen anything like it.’ The apprentice, curious and diffident, ogled the strange bird that had cat-like ears of feathers.

  Yoshihide, in his customary disparaging tones, said, ‘You’ve never seen it before? That’s the problem with you town-bred folks. This bird is a horned owl a hunter from Kurama gave me yesterday. Mind you, not many owls are as tame as this one.’ He slowly raised his hand and ruffled the owl’s feathers. The bird, which had just finished eating, flew up from the desk with a threatening screech and threw itself into the boy’s face, talons first. If the apprentice had not raised both arms to protect his face with the kimono sleeves, he would have collected a cut or two.

  ‘Ah!’ The apprentice screamed and waved his sleeves to drive the owl away but the bird swooped down on him and clicked its beak, taking advantage of the slightest unguarded movement to peck at him. The boy forgot all about being in his master’s presence. He ran to and fro in the study, jumping up and throwing himself to the floor to escape the talons. The bird followed him and darted at his eyes. Each time the owl spread its wings, the boy smelt odours of rotting leaves, waterfalls, soured fruit or monkey-wine. Remembering the event, the apprentice said the oil lamp shone like moonlight and the master’s study had become a narrow valley lost in the mystery of a ghastly mountain.

  Although he was terrified by the owl, the master’s conduct frightened him even more. Yoshihide, impassive, watched the smooth-faced boy being disfigured by the bird, and calmly sketched the scene on a leaf of paper he had unrolled for the occasion. When the apprentice saw Yoshihide in the process of painting, horror thickened his blood. The master had called him to see him die.

  XI

  The apprentice might have been right in thinking the master had wanted to kill him. In truth, Yoshihide had planned to infuriate the owl and then set it on the boy to paint him running about in terror.

  When the boy realised what his master had in mind, he collapsed by the door, hiding his face behind his kimono sleeves and screaming incoherent words. He heard his master rising. Right then, something fell with a loud noise and broke. The bird’s wings flapped faster. The apprentice raised his head and saw that the room had turned pitch black. The master’s irritated voice called the disciples. One of them replied from a distance and came running with some fire.

  In the pale, sooty light of the torch, they saw the light-stand had been knocked down and the oil of the broken lamp formed a pool on the mats. The horned owl tossed about on the floor, flapping only one of its wings. Yoshihide, frightened despite what we know about him, mumbled from behind his desk.

  A black snake had coiled itself around the owl, from the neck to the wing. It turned out the apprentice had upturned the jar, freeing the snake. The owl had pounced on it. For a while, the two apprentices watched the battle with gaping mouths, exchanging bemused glances, but soon they bowed to their master and left without a word. Nobody knows what became of the owl and the snake.

  I could recount several episodes of this kind. The High Lord had ordered the screen decorated with a picture from Hell at the beginning of autumn. During all winter, the disciples worried about their master. Toward the end of winter, Yoshihide seemed unable to continue his work and became gloomier than ever, while his language turned more aggressive. The sketch, complete at eighty percent, displayed no further progress. The master appeared so dissat
isfied everyone thought he was about to erase what he had already sketched.

  No one knew what prevented Yoshihide from working, and no one tried to find out. The apprentices, wary after so many incidents, gave Yoshihide a wide berth, as anyone would do if forced to live in the same cage with a tiger or a wolf.

  XII

  As a consequence, I do not have much to say about that period. If I had to add anything, I would say that the stubborn old man had become so maudlin he would sometimes be found weeping alone in his room.

  Once, an apprentice went out into the garden and stumbled across his master. All teary, Yoshihide gazed at the sky, which brought the promise of spring. Embarrassed, the disciple slipped away. It was such a strange spectacle, this man so merciless he could paint corpses in the street for the Goshuyoji scene, but now weeping like a child because he was unable to work on the screen.

  While Yoshihide was absorbed in his work with the intensity of a madman, his daughter became more cheerless by the day and it was clear to us she was trying to hold back her tears. Her face, white and melancholic by nature, now displaying black circles under eyes shadowed by heavy eyelashes, gave her a tragic composure. Sad and lonesome, she appeared to have retreated into her inner self. Various guesses were made, such as ‘She misses her father and her home,’ or ‘She’s in love.’ As soon as a rumour spread that the Lord wanted to submit her to his desire, the good people stopped talking about the painter’s daughter, as if they had forgotten all about her.

  Just about this time, as I happened to pass by the corridor in the dead of night, the monkey Yoshihide bounded toward me and persistently pulled at the hem of my hakama. It was a mild night bathed in moonlight and charged with the sweet scent of plum blossoms. In the dim light of the moon, I could see the monkey baring its teeth under a wrinkled nose. The beast screamed wildly. Feeling three parts of fear and seven of anger, as I was afraid the monkey would ruin my new hakama, I was tempted to kick the beast and go my way when I remembered the samurai who had mistreated the monkey and had received a reprimand from the Prince. Moreover, the monkey’s behaviour indicated that something unusual might have happened. I let myself be pulled by the monkey for five ken or so.