The Ginza Ghost Page 14

  ‘Now I get it.’ I scratched my head and asked:

  ‘But what do you make of the tracks of just one snow pole?’

  ‘That’s easy. It was just as you thought from the beginning. Santa Claus was carrying something in his arms. Not a child, but that big cardboard toy box that was wet from the snow. It was a present from Santa....’

  Tabei then said seriously: ‘So now most of the case is clear to you, too. The tracks outside the window were made when entering the house, and there are no tracks leaving the house from there. As there are no signs of either Santa Claus or the child inside the house, the two of them must have left through the front door... by the way, when you first arrived here, were there tracks like that at the front? … They should have left here before you arrived.’

  ‘That’s a difficult one… don’t forget, I was in a panic then.…’

  ‘It can’t be helped. It might take a while, but let’s search for tracks with one snow pole amongst all these here.’

  Tabei crouched down and started to look for such tracks. I did the same, of course, and started the hunt in the pale snow light. The onlookers on the road looked puzzled, not sure what was going on.

  The snow had become messy because of all the different tracks, including ours and those of the police, and we couldn’t find any ski tracks with just one ski pole. The policemen who had gone to the end point of the disappearing ski tracks had returned, and it had become crowded inside the house.

  It was then that Tabei suddenly asked:

  ‘Miki of class A arrived before you, didn’t she? Was she wearing adult skis?’

  I nodded.

  ‘That means it must’ve been the child’s skis,’ Tabei mumbled mysteriously and he led me to where the hedge followed the road, and pointed to two sets of tracks that were still visible there.

  ‘Of course we couldn’t find a set of tracks with one ski pole. Santa Claus wasn’t carrying the child. The child was wearing his own skis as he was being led away by Santa.’

  Indeed, there in the snow were the tracks of narrow skis, next to an adult’s skis, going towards the main road.

  ‘Let’s hurry and follow these tracks before the police call us in for questioning.’

  We set out immediately.

  A lot of time had passed since the incident, so we had no idea how far the owners of those tracks could have gone. Or so I thought at first, but after having gone about fifty metres parallel to the hedge, the two tracks, as if to evade something coming from the opposite side, suddenly made a sharp turn to the right. I felt a shiver. It was the empty house in the nearby block. The two tracks went through the front side of the small hedge, turning away from the entrance, and going round the side to the back of the dark building. I held my breath.

  ‘That was unexpectedly close by,’ said Tabei with a pale face, as he followed the tracks. ‘It seems likely there’s a bad ending ahead… By the way, who do you think Santa Claus is? You probably already know, don’t you?’

  I shook my head vigorously as I scratched my head. As Tabei reached the rear of the empty house, he said: ‘It’s difficult to say it, even if you do know, isn’t it? … Who’s the person who dressed like Santa Claus and came through the window with presents? … And the child followed him on his skis, without any resistance… I believe there’s a train which arrives at half past seven every day here in H Town… I think that Sanshirō Asami arrived by that train, one day earlier than expected.’

  ‘What? Sanshirō!?’ I cried. ‘That’s ridiculous… even if Sanshirō had come back, why would he have done such a dreadful thing? … No, someone who loved his family so much would never do something like that!’

  But then Tabei discovered a large and a small set of skis beneath an open window, through which he too entered a pitch-dark room. I started to follow suit and it was then that I heard Tabei’s quavering, painful cry.

  ‘We’re too late….’

  When my eyes got used to the darkness, I could see the cold, dead figure of Sanshirō hanging from a curtain cord attached to the ceiling. At his feet was his child, strangled with a belt, lying there as if he were asleep. Some chocolate candies lay on the ground. A neatly folded piece of paper lay beside them. Tabei picked it up, looked briefly at it and then handed it to me. There were Sanshirō’s last words, addressed to me. It seemed to have been written in a rush with nothing but the snow light, but as I stood trembling near the window, I could just make out the words.

  Dear Hatano,

  I have finally fallen down to hell. But I want you to be the only one to know the truth. Because of a snowslide, the agricultural school started vacation one day early. I arrived back in town by the seven-thirty train, when I remembered it was Christmas Eve and I bought some presents for Haruo and headed home. I think you know I am just a simple man, and how much I loved my wife, my child, my family. Thinking of how happy my wife and child would be with me coming back one day earlier, made me even happier and that’s why I thought of Santa Claus. Bursting with joy, I went all the way to the back of the house, and silently sneaked up to the window. I removed my skis there and imagined the surprised look of my family as I went to the glass window and opened it.

  But then I saw something I should never have witnessed. I entered the room to find Oikawa and my wife locked in an intimate embrace on the sofa. I threw the toy box, together with my happiness, at them.

  But Hatano, do you think that would be enough to quell my overflowing rage? You probably know what I did with the poker I grabbed as I was crying with grief. Haruo, who had been sleeping in the room next door had woken up, so, making sure he wouldn’t know what had happened, I lied to him and fled with him through the front door. But I have nowhere left to flee now. Even if I did, nothing can save my broken heart any more.

  Hatano. I go with the joy that my beloved Haruo will be beside me as I leave on this dark voyage.

  Farewell.

  Sanshirō

  Outside, snow blown by the night wind, which had just started, seemed like a funeral wreath. The church bells stopped ringing then, but their lingering sounds weighed heavily on my trembling heart.

  First published in Shinseinen, December Issue, Shōwa 11 (1936).

  THE THREE MADMEN

  1

  The private mental institution run by Doctor Akazawa stood on top of Akatsuchiyama, a small hill near the outskirts of M Town, amidst a thicket overlooking the road which led to the crematorium. It was an old fashioned one-storey building, resembling a large spider crawling on the ground.

  Ill fortune never comes alone, they say, and indeed, even before the unbelievably atrocious incident occurred, a sinister miasma had already spread within the wooden walls of the Akazawa Mental Hospital. As the foundations of the institution were, by then, infested to the core, destruction was inevitable.

  According to Doctor Akazawa, the care of the mentally ill was an incredibly complex problem. Many of the patients would—either with the most trivial of reasons or even completely unknown motives—resort to horrible deeds, like violence or setting fire to things. Others would run away, attempt suicide without any cause, refuse to eat because they did not feel like it, or decline to take their medicine. Understandably, patients like these frequently proved to be not only a danger to the nurses, but to society in general. In order to provide them with care and custody, as well as with mental peace, removed from the life of free society, it was necessary to confine such patients in a medical institution. But contrary to the ordinary sick and injured, most of these mental patients were not aware of their own illness. They did not fear the actions their bodies might take, and would remain extremely calm even in the face of any danger, so taking care of these people asked for caution and kindness. Studies showed that, as opposed to a large institution like a hospital, it was better to have a small number of patients at a homely place, where they could enjoy home nursing, with the first rule of nursing being that each patient would be attended to by their own personal nurse.


  It was the grandfather on director Akazawa’s father’s side of the family who had first realised this. This was no wonder, as he came from Iwakura-mura in Kyōto, the first place in Japan to have home nursing. He managed to combine these two contradictory nursing styles, and opened what could be called the first small, homely hospital. But, since each patient had their own nurse, the expenses of this kind of hospital were very high. The first director had somehow managed to succeed with this concept. Financial problems only started to arise during the second director’s tenure. And now the third and current director even had to put in his own private funds.

  The hospital always had few patients, but with the arrival of a new era, and the opening of a new, municipal mental hospital, the number of patients started to dwindle even more. The decorated generals and great inventors who walked up and down the ward left one by one. The singing, which at one time had sounded cheerful to listening ears, had now turned into a strangely lonely tune, and it became especially eerie on nights when the wind howled. Two, three nurses basically fled as they quit their jobs. Only one nurse past his fifties remained, taking care of the last remaining three patients, who had no guardians. Besides the nurse, there was also a medical student there—who also worked as a maid—as well as the director’s wife, so there were seven men and women in total residing in the hospital. But the small group was not enough to win against the silence of the desolate hill.

  As this aura—which reminded Doctor Akazawa of closed windows covered by spiders’ webs and stuffy tatami mats with mould—became stronger, the doctor no longer tried to hide the fact he that he’d already reached his limits. For example, he’d accidently pull out too many young shoots while taking care of his bonsai tree—a hobby he had started at some point. One day, during his rounds, the distressed doctor cried out irresponsibly to his patients: ‘You’re just imbeciles! There’s no hope for you unless you get a new set of brains!’ It was lucky the patients were having one of their moments at the time. The nurse and maid who were witnesses to the scene were more disturbed by the director than the patients, and both grimaced as they shot glances at each other. But the patients suddenly shut their mouths, shrank visibly as they looked up at the doctor, and retreated, as if they’d understood what the doctor had said after all.

  All three patients were middle-aged men. They of course had names of their own, but in the hospital they were called by nicknames. The man in room 1 was “Knock Knock.” He would spend every day standing near the window of his room. He had a tic where he would constantly kick the wainscoting with the toes on his right foot as he looked outside at the row of cars heading for the crematorium and the ravens sitting on the utility pole. This tic was very persistent, so the tatami mat beneath the window where Knock Knock always stood had been worn out completely as the sole of his foot was always rubbing there. The hairs of the mat were all standing up, resembling the insides of a pharmacist’s mortar.

  With the dwindling number of patients, these three had all been moved to rooms 1, 2 and 3, closest to the main building, for nursing convenience. The man in room 2 was called “Diva.” He was a man with a bearded face, but day and night, he would sing outdated popular songs—which he probably remembered from the time his condition first started—dressed in a woman’s kimono. He would then applaud himself and ask for an encore, but instead of giving one, he’d laugh without any reason.

  The person in room 3 was called the “Injured.” He was not actually injured, but he claimed he had great injuries. His whole face was wrapped in bandages and he lay the whole day on his back, saying he needed total rest. Whenever the nurse tried to approach him, he’d scream, and vehemently refuse to have other people lay their hand on his wounds. He was only obedient to the director, who would replace the bandages from time to time, to maintain hygiene.

  The three patients were all mild-tempered, cheerful men and each of them went about his business each day within the cramped, walled space of the Akazawa Mental Hospital, without any worries about the future. But as time went by, their care would sometimes get neglected, and the quality of the meals also dropped, so a dark cloud started casting a shadow on both the spirits and the faces of even this cheerful bunch. With these patients clashing with the increasing business worries of the director, the atmosphere in the hospital became darker, curling around like the wind, reflecting precisely the mood of everyone inside. This wind became stronger and stronger, more violent until it finally rose up like a whirlwind, cruelly blowing the Akazawa Mental Hospital towards its end.

  It happened on a stuffy, hot morning. For some reason, there had been a constant flow of cars heading towards the crematorium, kicking up an endless screen of dust on the hill.

  The old nurse Ukichi Toriyama got up at six as he did every morning. He walked down the hallway towards the ward with a toothpick in his mouth, but he stopped in shock when he noticed that the back door of the wooden fence in the corner of the exercise yard was wide open.

  Allow me to explain further. The grounds of the Akazawa Mental Hospital are spread over five hundred and fifty tsubo, and are enclosed by a high wooden fence. Within these grounds, there was a hundred and fifty tsubo wide exercise yard, which was flanked on three sides. On one side stood the main building, which housed a consultation room, a pharmacy, and the rooms for the director and his wife and the other employees. The V-shaped ward stood at another side of the yard. The last remaining side of the yard was flanked directly by the wooden fence. The wooden back door in the fence stood near the ward and led to the surrounding thicket. As it led directly to a playground of mental patients, this exit was of course not treated like one of the main building’s back doors, or the main entrance, and was always kept locked tightly. The director would go out through that door to take a stroll in the thicket from time to time, so, as Nurse Ukichi Toriyama hurried to the door, he thought that the director might perhaps have gone out. But it was definitely unforgivable that the director had left that important door open during his stroll, even if he was out for only a moment, thought Ukichi Toriyama as he arrived at the door and looked anxiously outside the fence.

  Not a soul.

  The birds hiding in the treetops were singing their morning song. But Ukichi then realised something very curious, which made him remove the toothpick from his mouth.

  He hadn’t heard the soprano singing voice of Diva this morning yet, even though he’d always start early in the morning. No, it wasn’t just the Diva’s soprano voice. He also hadn’t heard that persistent, loud Knock Knock either. The lonesome ward was completely silent. It appeared to be an eerie, lonely place now, as if the place had died beneath the morning sun. It was completely silent. From within this silence, the only noise you could hear was the low and slow, but gradually hastening, beating of Ukichi’s heart.

  ‘… This is… a disaster!’ Ukichi Toriyama whispered. He became visibly pale. He hunched forward as he ran back to the ward.

  Rattle rattle. Bam bam. For a while, the noise of doors being opened and closed continued, followed by a trembling voice. ‘… Do-doctor… this is terrible….’ Ukichi started with room 4 and made his way to room 1, ran out to the hallway and loudly made his way to the main building, where everybody was still asleep.

  ‘… We’ve got a problem. It’s terrible. All the patients are gone….’

  The people inside the main building were shocked by the news and commotion suddenly started there.

  ‘Where is the doctor, where is he?’

  ‘In his bedroom. Wake him up now.’

  ‘He wasn’t in his bedroom.’

  ‘He wasn’t there?’

  ‘Anyway, all the patients ran away.’

  ‘And the empty rooms?’

  ‘They weren’t in any of them.’

  ‘Wake the doctor….’

  ‘But I can’t find the doctor.’

  Eventually, Nurse Ukichi Toriyama, Mrs. Akazawa and the maid ran out to the exercise yard, the women carelessly dressed.

  They
had a situation at hand now. They couldn’t do nothing.

  Ukichi immediately led the group outside, inside the thicket, and with bloodshot eyes, they split up and started searching for the patients. But they found no mental patients. Not long afterwards, the group reassembled again in front of the back wooden door, all almost in tears.

  ‘…But where is the doctor?’ the maid asked anxiously.

  Surprised by the noise, ravens started to raise their ill-omened cries from among the treetops. Ukichi’s knees were trembling, and he had no idea of what to do next. But then he crouched down.

  ‘Oh. What’s that…?’ he exclaimed, and he leant forward. On the hospital side of the door in the fence, something like a beer bottle had been smashed into pieces. A closer look revealed that it was one of the glass bottles with deodoriser for the toilets in the ward. Dried-up spots of dark red fluid were spread here and there around the location of the bottle fragments. The maid shrieked.

  ‘Toriyama. Aren’t those marks made by something being dragged along the ground?’