by Kōji Suzuki
But what he heard from the other end of the line was a sigh.
"It's different."
"You mean…"
"The face is different."
Ando didn't know what to say.
"I don't know how to put it. The Sadako Yamamura in the photos is not the one I pictured. She's beautiful, no question, but… How can I put it?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Hell, I'm just confused. But I did remember something. I had a friend who was good at drawing people's portraits, and I asked him once what type of face was the hardest to draw for him. And he told me there wasn't any particular type of face he couldn't draw. He said all faces had peculiarities that made them easy to capture in convincing portraits. But if he had to pick one, he said, the hardest type to draw, for him, was his own face. Especially when the self-portraitist is a very self-conscious sort, it's next to impossible to make the picture match the reality. It always comes out looking like someone else."
"So?" What did that have to do with the question at hand?
"Nothing, I guess. I was just reminded of him, that's all. But take the videotape. It wasn't shot with a camera, right? Those images came from Sadako's eyes and mind. And in spite of that…"
"What?"
"It captured places and people accurately."
"We didn't actually see the video, you know."
"But we read Ring."
Ando was getting annoyed. Miyashita seemed to be dancing around the subject. He was like a child who wanted to go somewhere but was afraid to take the first step.
"Look, Miyashita, why don't you just tell me what's on your mind?"
Ando could hear Miyashita take a deep breath.
"Did Kazuyuki Asakawa really write Ring?"
Who else could have? Ando started to say, but heard a beep signaling that Miyashita's phone card was about to run out.
"Crap, my card's almost used up. Can your fax machine handle photos?" Miyashita spoke fast.
"That's what the guy said when he sold it to me."
"Great, I'll fax them to you. I want you to check right away to see if she's different from what you imagined, or if I'm just-"
And with that they were cut off.
Ando sat there for a minute with the receiver still on his shoulder, in a daze. The noise of the shower stopped, and the apartment was wrapped in stillness. Feeling a chill breeze, he looked over to see that the window was open a crack, admitting the wintry night air. In the distance, a car horn sounded. The dry, harsh noise testified to how desiccated the outside air was. In contrast, the air inside his apartment was almost wringing with moisture as steam seeped out from the bathroom. Masako was taking a long time.
Ando thought over what Miyashita had said. He could understand his friend's state of mind. Probably he'd spent the whole day on pins and needles, and rather than just sit around and wonder whether the ring virus had entered his body because he'd read Ring, he'd decided to act.
When he'd remembered that the acting troupe had kept photos of Sadako, he'd gone over to check. Surprisingly, the photos hadn't matched his mental image. Unable to judge whether this was simply due to some blockage on his part, he'd copied the photos, so he could get Ando's opinion. And now he was going to fax them over.
Ando glanced at the fax machine. No movement yet.
He looked away from it. His eyes came to rest on the publisher's pamphlet. He picked it up and started to flip through it while he waited. Upcoming publications were listed in the back. Under the heading "New in February" fifteen or so titles were listed, each one followed by the name of the author and a dozen or so words describing the contents. About halfway down Ando saw Ryuji's name. The title was still The Structure of Knowledge, and the summary said it represented "the cutting edge of contemporary thought". On the list it was sandwiched between a romance novel and a collection of behind-the-scenes essays about the television industry, making it seem even more eggheaded. But this was his friend's last work being published posthumously. Ando would give it a read no matter how difficult it was. He circled the entry.
He felt something click in his mind. He couldn't figure out what. Still holding the pen, he thought hard. It seemed to him that he'd seen a familiar word on that page of the pamphlet. He looked again. The bottom half of the page was taken up with a list, in smaller type, of books coming out in March. He looked at the third title from the end.
And then his eyes grew wide with shock. At first he wondered if it was just a coincidence, but then he saw the name of the author.
New in March:
. . .
. . .
RING by Junichiro Asakawa. Bloodcurdling cult horror.
Ando let the pamphlet slip out of his hand. He was going to publish that?
Now he understood why Junichiro had been so standoff-ish that day when Ando had run into him in the Shotoku lounge. He'd decided to tweak his brother's reportage and publish it as a novel. And since Ando was the one person who knew Junichiro was using his brother's work without consent, it was no wonder he'd been so cold that day, fleeing after hardly the most perfunctory of greetings. Had they talked for long, the subject of the report would have come up, and his editors might have found out. Junichiro obviously wanted to claim the book as being entirely his own.
"It mustn't go to press!" Ando cried out loud. At the very least, he had to get Junichiro to delay publication until it could be established that Ring was physically harmless. It was his duty as a medical professional. Tomorrow, he and Miyashita would have their blood tested. It would take several days for the results to come back. If they were positive, if he and Miyashita turned out to be carriers of the ring virus, then publication of that book could have catastrophic consequences. The original videotape could only spread at the rate of one copy at a time. Publication involved numbers of an entirely different scale, ten thousand copies at least. In a worst-case scenario, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of copies would be disseminated throughout the country.
Ando's teeth chattered as he imagined a huge tsunami. A vast, dark wall of ocean bearing down silently, driving before it a wind that he thought he could feel on him even now. He went to the window and shut it tightly. Standing by the window, he looked back toward the hall. Masako stood there, wrapped in a towel; he saw her face in profile. She was rummaging through her bag, probably for underwear.
The phone rang. Ando picked up the receiver, and when he confirmed that it was an incoming fax, he pushed the start button on the fax machine. Miyashita was sending him the photos.
A few seconds later, the fax machine whirred to life and began printing. Ando stood motionless over the black machine, staring at the sheet slowly emerging from it. He felt someone sneak up behind him and turned to look. It was Masako, wearing only panties. She'd draped the towel over her shoulders and was standing directly behind him. Her face was flushed, and her eyes had a new gleam, so lustrous as to make him want to hold her and kiss her eyelids then and there. She wore a strangely resolute expression.
The fax machine beeped to say it was done printing. Ando tore off the fax, sat down on the bed, and had a look. The transmission consisted of two photos, side by side. The printout wasn't quite photo quality, but it was clear enough for him to make out Sadako Yamamura's face and body.
He screamed. The woman in the photos was indeed different from what he'd imagined. But that wasn't why he'd screamed. The photos on the fax were of the woman standing in front of him now.
She took the fax out of his hands and looked at the photos. Ando stared up at her weakly, like a boy getting a scolding from his mother. Finally he managed to wring words from his throat.
"You're… Sadako Yamamura." Not Masako, not Mai's sister-those were lies.
Her expression relaxed. Perhaps she found Ando's consternation funny, for she seemed to be smiling.
Ando's mind went blank. It was the first time he ever fainted in his almost thirty-five years.
6
Ando was unconsc
ious for less than a minute, but that was enough. With no way to process the facts thrust into his face, he'd had no other option but to stop thinking altogether. Perhaps his consciousness would have been able to deal with it if he'd had a little more time, or more composure to begin with. If he'd even remotely entertained the possibility beforehand, maybe he wouldn't have had to faint.
But as it was, it came all too suddenly. To find out that a woman who had died twenty-five years ago was standing right in front of him, and remembering making love to her several times the night before… In that instant he'd gone to the brink of insanity, and his brain circuitry had been forced to shut down momentarily. Most people would faint if they got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and turned around to find a dead person standing there. That's how people escape from horrors presented to them; once you faint, you no longer have to endure the unendurable. Only with that cushion of unconsciousness are we able to prepare ourselves to accept reality.
When consciousness returned to him, Ando thought he could smell burning flesh somewhere. He should have been lying face down on the bed, but somehow he was on his back looking up instead. Had he rolled over himself, or had someone turned him over? Only his upper body was actually on the bed; his legs, though neatly arranged, were hanging out onto the floor. Without otherwise moving a muscle, Ando sniffed the air and listened for sounds. He opened his eyes a slit. He had no intention of reawakening all his senses at once. He meant to ease himself into acceptance. Otherwise he'd probably suffer the same reaction all over again.
He could hear water spurting from a faucet. The sound probably came from the bathroom, but it sounded like the distant burbling of a brook. The noise of the water hid the night sounds of the city. Normally he should have been able to hear the cars rushing by on the Metropolitan Expressway. He eased his eyes open. In the middle of the ceiling two twenty-watt fluorescent bulbs glowed, casting a bright light over the whole room.
Moving only his eyes, Ando looked around the room. Then, gingerly, he sat up. He couldn't see anybody around. Just as he was starting to wonder if his imagination was playing tricks on him, the water stopped. He held his breath without meaning to.
The woman emerged from behind a corner in the hallway. Just as before, she wore nothing but panties and held a wrung-out towel.
Ando tried to scream, but no sound came out. He brushed away the hand offering him a wet towel and got unsteadily to his feet. Then he backed up until he was flat against the wall. He tried to scream her name, but he still couldn't find his voice.
Sadako Yamamura!
He tried to recall everything he knew about her. Twenty-five years ago she'd been murdered, thrown into an old well. She had created that awful videotape by means of thought projection. She possessed paranormal powers. She had testic-ular feminization syndrome; she was a hermaphrodite. Ando turned his stare on her lower body. There was no visible bulge under the white panties that covered her crotch. Of course, her testicles were not supposed to be readily visible. But Ando had touched her down there last night, caressed her over and over. Nothing had struck him as odd; she was in every way perfectly female as far as he could tell. But he hadn't been able to see. Everything they'd done the night before had been done in darkness. Ando suddenly wondered what her obsession with darkness was meant to prevent him from seeing.
The otherworldliness he'd felt on first meeting her hadn't been off the mark after all. That time in the elevator in Mai's building, he'd been desperate to distance himself from her-just like now. The way she'd just appeared like that from Mai's apartment, he'd had no idea where she'd come from and still didn't.
He had so many questions, but he could hardly breathe much less ask her anything.
He felt that if he wasn't careful he'd collapse onto the floor, and if he did, he'd be in Sadako's clutches. The only way to maintain any dignity at all was to stay where he could look down on her from above.
He didn't take his eyes off her.
Her naked skin gleamed whitely under the fluorescent lights, as if to impress him with the reality of her flesh, as if to assert to him that she was no ghost. This body of hers overwhelmed him, this body whose arms and legs had been so entangled with his last night. What did he need to do to escape from her spell? There was only one answer: flee. Get away from this place. It was all he could think of. What he saw before him was a monster. A woman come back after being dead for twenty-five years.
With his back against the wall, Ando began to move sideways toward the vestibule. Sadako made no move to block him, following him only with her eyes. Ando looked toward the door. Had he locked it when they came in? He didn't remember doing that. The door should swing open when he turned the knob. Warily, Ando moved in that direction. He was in no shape to think about taking a coat.
When he'd put several good feet between himself and the woman, he bolted for the door and stumbled outside. In slacks and a sweater he was dressed much too lightly for the cold, but he spared not a thought for that as he ran down the stairs. It was only after he'd run through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk that he was able to turn around to look behind him. There was no sign of pursuit. He looked up at his windows, still brightly lit. He wanted to go someplace crowded. He ran toward the station.
7
The wind chilled him to the bone. He had no particular destination in mind, but he found himself naturally gravitating toward bright places. He turned his back on the shadowy groves of Yoyogi Park. The skyscrapers of Shinjuku loomed ahead like so many black hulks. Between him and them lay the modest bustle of Sangubashi Station, surrounded by narrow shop-lined streets leading into residential areas. He guessed that even on a holiday there might be one or two places open. Ando's steps took him in that direction. Anywhere there might be people was good enough for him.
It was only when he came to the ticket vending machines at the station that he realized he'd left his wallet behind. He couldn't go back and get it now. He searched his other pockets. He found the little case he kept his driver's license in. He remembered shoving it in his pocket the other day when he'd gone on that excursion with Miyashita, thinking he might have to take the wheel at some point. He'd forgotten to take it out of his pocket when he got home. Luckily he'd tucked some money behind the license for emergencies.
A five-thousand-yen bill. That was all the money he had now. At the thought he felt more lonely than cold. Where was he supposed to sleep tonight? Five thousand yen wouldn't even buy him a night in a capsule hotel.
His only hope was Miyashita. He bought a train ticket, and then stepped into a phone booth. He dialed his friend's number, doubting he'd have gotten home yet. And, indeed, he hadn't. No wonder, he'd only just called Ando from Yotsuya, across town from where he lived. He was probably still on his way home to Tsurumi. Ando decided to head in that direction himself.
It was past nine o'clock when Ando sank into a seat on the train. When he closed his eyes Sadako's face appeared before him as if by conditioned reflex. He'd never had his feelings about a woman change so drastically over such a short period of time. The cold air of mystery he'd sensed on their first meeting had dissipated somewhat on their second, to be replaced by a growing desire for her. When they met a third time, that desire was realized, and the faint beginnings of infatuation had stirred his heart. And then, the fall. She'd lured him up to a high place, had her way with him, and then pushed him off the edge into the abyss. It was unendurable to think that he'd copulated with a woman who should have been dead for twenty-five years. The word "necrophilia" came to mind. Where had this woman come from? Was the part about her being dead a mistake? Or had she really come back from beyond the grave?
It being a holiday, the train was comparatively empty. Only a few passengers had to stand. Across the aisle from Ando, a laborer-type was sprawled across the bench, occupying enough space for three people. His eyes were shut tight, but he wasn't asleep. Proof of this came every time somebody walking the length of the car passed by him and he
opened his eyes a crack to fathom his surroundings. His eyes, however, were so heavy and dull that they almost looked dead. Ando averted his eyes from the man. But the laborer wasn't the only one. Every one of the passengers was as pale as a corpse.
Ando hugged himself to keep from trembling. If he didn't hug himself, he was afraid he'd start screaming, right there in the public space of a train carriage.
He accepted a glass of brandy from Miyashita. First he sent a trickle of it down his throat, savoring the sensation, then he drained the glass.
He was starting to feel human again, but was still shivering slightly.
"How do you feel now?" Miyashita asked.
"More or less alive."
"You must've been freezing."
Miyashita didn't know yet why Ando had come without a coat.
"It's not the cold."
Miyashita had shown Ando into the room he used as a study. Ando was sitting on the spare bed in the corner. It was where he was going to sleep tonight, but for the moment, he was just rattling its metal bars. Only after downing his second glass of brandy was he able to stop shaking.
"What happened?" Miyashita's voice was gentle.
Ando told him everything that had happened since the previous night. When he finished, he fell backwards onto the bed and let out a whine like a mosquito's.
"I give up! Explain it to me! I'm lost," he moaned.
"Good Lord," muttered Miyashita, utterly thrown for a loop. It was one of those moments when people can't help laughing, albeit bitterly, and that's what Miyashita did, weakly. When his laughter had subsided, he poured brandy into some hot coffee and started sipping it. He seemed to be deep in thought, trying to find a reply that was logical, that made at least some sense.
"The basic question is, where did Sadako come from?" The rhetorical tone suggested that Miyashita had already come up with an answer.
