Sea of Trees

by James Russell, Robert

  “Do you see that?” she asks, silencing me with a finger, staring ahead in our intended destination toward the lake.

  I step forward so I’m in line with her and strain my eyes to look ahead, between the trees, to find anything that may seem out of place that would’ve stolen her attention. “See what?”

  “I . . . see something, up ahead.”

  “See what?”

  “A hand, I think.”

  I still can’t tell where she’s looking, but stand up straight, not wanting a repeat viewing of the man in blue from earlier. “Are you sure?”

  “I think so, yes. Do you see it?”

  She takes my hand and extends my finger in the direction she’s looking. I struggle still and then, finally, I see it too: a white glove peeking out from the back of a tree, jutting out awkwardly, not naturally. “What the hell is that?”

  “A person?”

  “Wearing a glove?”

  “Should we go see?”

  “You want to?”

  “This is not like last time, when I just . . . when I found it on accident. Besides, this is the way we are going, so we do not have a choice, right?”

  “I guess, but we could go around, if you wanted.”

  “Maybe it is not a person. Maybe it is another clue.”

  “Maybe,” I say, wary.

  Junko grabs my hand before I can say anything else and we start moving again. As we grow closer, still approaching the tree in question from behind, we can make out more details and the glove itself looks comically large and I wonder if it’s maybe just another shrine, a totem to someone’s fallen lover or brother or friend. When we get to the tree, which is massive compared to most of the others around it, we circle it slowly, cautiously, until we see it: a child-sized doll nailed upside down to the trunk of a tree, one each through the legs and hands, arms outstretched like it’s waiting for a hug, stuffed with straw that’s leaking out through tears in its clothes, its porcelain face cracked in places, equal parts menacing and comical.

  “Creepy,” I say. Junko nods in agreement and we step back, processing everything. “What does it mean?”

  I look at her and she seems as puzzled as I am, but still stays very calm, and perhaps sensing my unease takes me by the hand around the tree, looking for more clues. We find a small wooden sign nailed to the tree, a handwritten note painted on it. Junko reads it for me: “This is my suicide note. My name is Mikage Hidaka and I came here because there is nothing good in my life. Nothing good ever happened to me. If you find this, do not look for me. I am cursed.” Junko touches the sign and looks up at me.

  “A suicide note.”

  I go back around and look at the doll again, touching its face, wanting to understand the reason behind it. Junko looks along the ground near the tree, kicking some leaves away, probably hoping to find something else.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, poking at the doll’s face.

  “What?”

  “I guess I don’t understand how someone could do this.”

  “With the doll?” She joins me now, looking at it, touching the hairclip every few seconds, making sure it’s still there.

  “Killing yourself. I mean, I know, you told me, and I get it, Japanese are very proud, but you have to have a certain mindset to come to these woods, all alone, and do something like that. I just . . . don’t get it.”

  “Which is why people like you can never understand their pain.”

  “You mean us?”

  “What?”

  “Why people like us, right? Unless you’re planning on offing yourself without telling me.” I smile.

  “That is not funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  Junko steps forward and touches the doll, sighing. “I know.”

  We stand like that for a few more minutes, the awkwardness settling back between us, the moment of passion from earlier gone, until she suggests we start moving again. As we walk, side-by-side now, nothing but the sound of the leaves crunching under our steps, I get the nerve to ask her what I’ve been meaning to since she first told me about Izumi. “Why did she kill herself?”

  Junko ignores me, not saying anything at first, then, quietly: “The ghosts that are out here, the yurei, we believe that, if you die suddenly or violently, like a suicide, that you become trapped.”

  “Sure, I think a lot of cultures believe something similar to that, with ghosts.”

  She touches a nearby tree, looks up at the leaves, runs her fingers over the bark as I stop to watch her. “They continue to exist as yurei because they have . . . conflict.” She looks at me. “It is . . . not finished? I cannot think of the word.”

  “Unresolved?”

  “Yes, unresolved,” she says looking back to the tree, touching it again. “So those who come to Aokigahara stay here with their secrets.”

  “What secrets?”

  “Of life. Of what . . . makes them want to kill themselves. Secrets maybe only they know. And they can never rest because they have never told anyone.” She looks at me again and touches my hand. “And this is what keeps them here, lost to the world. The reason no one can help them.”

  “So what’s keeping Izumi here?”

  Junko drops my hand and I see there are tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t wipe them away. Instead she removes the hairclip and fumbles it in her hands, between her fingers, playing with it, like a child. “I . . . can’t, Bill.”

  “Can’t what? Tell me?”

  “I can’t tell you her secret. I . . . made a promise, and that is all I have of her now.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t tell her secret? Why she came here?” I say, then, not even waiting for an answer, add: “So you never told your parents?”

  She looks confused and overwhelmed, her thoughts entangled, unsure how to respond. Then: “No one. We . . . made a pact together. And I promised her. It is the reason I am here. Why I needed to come, to help keep it.” She buries herself in my chest. “But I am scared. These woods, everything, it is why I needed you here with me. To help me see it through.”

  “That’s fine,” I say pulling her close, my mind spinning, wondering what it all means. “I understand. You don’t have to tell me anything, okay?”

  “Okay,” she says. I stop trying to think about everything, instead focusing on Junko, my beautiful Junko, crying and upset, losing it before my eyes, realizing just how strong she really is. She eventually peels herself from me sniffling, her eyes red and puffy, no smile this time. She takes the hairclip and slides it into her hair, pulling a few strands away from her face.

  “It looks nice,” I say.

  “Thank you,” she says looking at me, then almost through me, to the forest, distracted by all the possibilities of what it holds. All its secrets.

  “Are you okay?” I try to hold her hand, to comfort her some more, but she pushes me off and takes a few steps back. She looks back into the trees, up our makeshift path, then crosses her arms.

  “Let’s go,” she says slowly, biting her lip and moving away from me. “I bet the lake is just up ahead.”

  Shinji Yamada had only been to a sarakin once, as a child, the dirty neon signs and stained floors like something out of a movie forever etched in his mind. But, through an increasingly ugly series of circumstances—involving and not limited to his job, family, and less-than-ideal gambling debts—he found himself back again thirty years later. Shinji, a salaryman, had not yet told his wife that the promotion he was sure to get was awarded to another, and had been, for the past six months, staying in the city longer, sleeping in capsule hotels or even the train station so she would entertain the notion of his importance by this increasing absence. He also found himself drawn back to the tracks, feverishly betting at first a small sum on a horse of his choosing, then a week’s salary, and finally, nearly a month’s. At times he might pull ahead, or buy his wife and son nice things to appease any possible concerns, but soon things—as they often do—got worse. He could not pass by a pachinko mac
hine without putting something in, and between that and the horses and even the illegal bets on baseball teams (his was the Tokyo Yakult Swallows), Shinji was now hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

  So he found himself at the entrance to a sarakin one evening after work, a place he had promised himself he would never go, and, once inside, discovered it was not nearly as seedy as he had recalled from his childhood. There was a beautiful girl working behind the counter, and a well-meaning, handsome manager watching her every move, smiling at the customers as they made their requests. Once Shinji had made his, he was taken into a back room and was told, politely, that his request had been rejected—“The economy is not what it once was,” was the reason given. He pleaded with them, and perhaps feeling sympathy for the man, the manager gave Shinji a phone number to call, an off-license lender that could, at least short-term, provide him with at least half of the sum he sought.

  For two weeks he considered calling the number, ignoring the impulse to gamble. For a while it was fine, suppressed, but soon he found himself missing the smell of the track, the sounds of the pachinko, the roar of the baseball stadium when a player had made a hit. It had become too much to bear, and his wife—his beautiful wife—had begun to ask questions about his job, about the money coming in and why one of their credit cards had been declined. Shinji made the call and a man called Renzo answered, told him where to meet him to discuss further—a café in Kabukich?.

  A day later Shinji and Renzo were discussing politics over coffee—as well as beautiful women that passed them by—and finally the loan itself.

  “How much do you need?” Renzo said as he drank.

  “Well, ideally . . . eight million Yen.”

  “Not possible,” Renzo replied coldly, watching a pretty young girl enter the café. “I can give you two-point-five million today. Right now.”

  “But I need—”

  “I do not care what you need. That is what I can offer at a rate of thirty percent to be paid back within ten days. Do you accept?”

  Shinji drank, thought of his family. It wasn’t enough to pay off his debts, but with one well-placed bet, he might be able to double—or even triple—the money in no time. “Yes, I accept.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Renzo took Shinji to a nearby apartment, a cramped and dingy-looking place used for his shady dealings. Renzo told Shinji to stay in the living room—where a child blissfully ignorant of his surroundings, Renzo’s son, perhaps, watched cartoons.

  “Wait here. I have to get a few things in the back.”

  Shinji joined the boy on the couch—oblivious to the stranger—and watched cartoons for nearly ten minutes. Renzo returned carrying a Daiei shopping bag and, not wanting to do business in front of the boy, took Shinji into the main hall.

  “Take a look inside, if you want,” Renzo said. “But first, give me your license.”

  Shinji did, and studied the money in the bag. “It is a lot of money.”

  “I know.”

  “Is there anything to sign?”

  Renzo laughed. “No, nothing to sign. But—” He held up the license. “—I know you now. And if you do not pay this back in full in ten days, I will come after you. Believe me,” Renzo leaned in for effect, “you do not want me coming after you. You or your family.”

  “I understand.”

  Later, in a more moderately-priced hotel—a splurge, he had told himself—Shinji sat on the bed, television and most of the lights turned off, violently flipping through a newspaper, stopping finally when he saw information about the races at the Tokyo Racecourse. He checked his watch and, determined to make the last race, bolted from the room, to a taxi, and emerged almost thirty minutes later at the towering structure.

  Inside Shinji felt different—more powerful. He picked up the nearest racing form and scoured it for information, watching others like him and feeling, for the first time, superior. With the brick of money in his coat pocket he selected what he thought were sure bets. As he approached the teller—an automated machine could not be trusted with this sum—he had planned on making a few small bets, at least today, a few trifectas, perhaps even an exacta, but as he stood there, the young girl on the other side waiting for him to place his bet, the words slipped out on their own: “Pick six. Two-point-five million.”

  The girl processed the money with little regard for this man, and when she handed over the ticket, Shinji took it and held it like an infant—careful not to crumple or crease it on his trek to the stands. He didn’t have to wait long—only another fifteen minutes for the race to start—but it felt like an eternity, and as every minute dragged on, he thought more and more of his wife, his family, and what would happen if he lost it. What would happen to them all. And then, it was a blur, the events of the next hour: the announcer coming on, greeting the crowd, the cheers and laughing from the happy people. The horses lining up for the first race, the sound of the gates opening. The sound of the horses’ feet on the dirt. The excitement. His horse coming in last . . . dead last. And this repeated itself for five more races, his horse, the horse he picked, coming in either last itself or almost-last, never further up than that, the jeering from those who likewise lost, the people filing out, Shinji leaving and finding himself back in the hotel, alone, no money to even pay the room’s fee for another night. Nothing.

  The loss—the six losses—did not fully sink in until the next day, when he was at work. He vomited at his desk and was told to go home. His mind spun, his body had become numb, floating him everywhere, his feet inches off the ground, in a daze, completely oblivious to everything. Every idea he could think of, every scheme and notion that popped into his head in order to get the money back, was greeted ultimately with failure. He had no extended family he could ask for help—neither he nor his wife came from money—and he had no real friends he could confide in, not for something like this, anyway. So he watched the days tick away, unable to do anything, spending the time with his family while he could, watching them and crying when they were not looking, so as not to give away his predicament.

  On the tenth day, still in a daze and unable to process the horrible truth, Renzo intercepted him after work near a restaurant he particularly liked.

  “It is time, Shinji,” Renzo said pulling him under the awning of the restaurant. “Should we go inside, get some food, and discuss?”

  “I would prefer to stay out here,” Shinji replied.

  “Ah, yes, with all these people. Relax. I just want to know where we stand.”

  Shinji shifted in place, tightened the grip on his briefcase. “I . . . I do not have it.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “You did?”

  “When I saw you coming. The way you carried yourself. Not hard to detect, really. But I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Please,” Shinji grabbed his shoulders, pleading, “Can I just have a few more days? I think there is a way that I may be able to—”

  “Stop, stop,” Renzo said. “Just stop. What would a few days buy you? Not much, I think.”

  “But my family . . . are you going to hurt them? Kill them? They have done nothing!”

  Renzo pulled out a cigarette and lit it, smiled at a girl that walked by. “I could do that, yes, after I hurt you first, but there is an alternative, Shinji.”

  “There is?” he said wiping his face clean.

  “Yes, there is. Do you have life insurance?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And your wife and child—they are covered?”

  “Yes.”

  “And one final question: Does your life insurance cover suicide?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “That is good, Shinji. Very good. So here is what I propose to you: You will kill yourself. I do not care how, and I do not care where, so as long as you do it.”

  “Kill myself?”

  “I am not finished. You will kill yourself, and you will leave explicit instructions for your wife, once the money clears, t
o give me a sum of it, what is owed to me plus an additional ten percent inconvenience fee.”

  “Inconvenience?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you, now I will have to wait for all this to blow over before I get my money back. At any rate, that will cover your debts, and if you do this, I promise you no harm will come to your family. If you do not, though, that same promise no longer applies. Do you understand?”

  Shinji stood there in shock until Renzo snapped his fingers, getting his attention. “Y-yes, I understand. I know what I have to do.”

  It was surprisingly easy for Shinji two days later to say goodbye to his family, leaving a note in his wife’s jewelry box—where she would be sure to find it. He was sad, yes, but the notion that they would be taken care of and safe after his death got him through it. In deciding what to do and where to go he decided first to get as far away from his home as possible—he did not want his family to find him, ever, so he chose Aokigahara, and the method came simply to him then: pills and rope.

  By the time he stepped in the woods he had taken his first two pills—his wife’s prescriptions—and not even fifteen minutes later he took three more. An hour after arriving he began to see the faces of those he knew in the trunks of the trees, dancing along the branches and leaves, mocking him as they ought to. He wasn’t sure how much time passed after that, when the last pill had been swallowed, but he managed to find a secluded area bordered by large stones, trees taking root atop, and thought, for the briefest of moments, that it was beautiful. With his senses dulled—an act of cowardice, he understood, but a necessary one to get him through it—he struggled to place the rope around a branch, tied tight around his neck. He then stood, prepared as he could be, looking at his arms, the neon blue of his parka, none of it seeming to belong to him, and without much else, no words spoken, only a hazy, veiled image of his family circling in his mind, he took a step forward and dropped sharply, wiggling and kicking in place until the life left him completely.

  Sacrifice