The Ginza Ghost Read online

  ‘First of all, whether it was a monster or a human being, our violent being pushed one end of the thick piece of rope through the small air vent below the glass panes of the lantern room, thus suspending it above the rocks outside. Then they descended from the lighthouse, went outside and tied the thick rope to the rock we later found in the lantern room. Returning to the top of the lighthouse, they took the other end of the rope, which they had left in the lantern room, and opened the cover of the rotation machinery. They tied the rope to the handle of the weight—which had been hanging near the top of the closed-off shaft—with a slip knot, which can be untied by simply pulling on one end. They then tied one end of the thin cord to the end of the slip knot, making sure to keep the other end of the cord in the lantern room. When all the preparation was complete, they used the hatchet to cut the rope which attached the weight to the winch on the rotation device. And….’

  ‘Oh, it’d be like a well bucket, with a pulley!’ I cried out. ‘The rock would be pulled up from outside the lighthouse into the lantern room by the terrible force of a weight of eighty kan falling down the shaft. But if it had happened like that, the quake made by the weight hitting the ground should have happened at practically the same time as the sound of the glass pane and machinery breaking.’

  ‘I have, naturally, considered that point,’ the director continued. ‘But, you see, by accident or by design, while the shaft is thirty metres deep, the rope is only twenty-six metres long. We’re supposed to believe that a monster from the sea threw a large rock into the lantern room, destroying the rotation device, after which the rope holding the weight eventually broke, allowing the weight to drop down and cause a quake, but that’s not what happened at all. In fact, our “monster” first killed the lighthouse keeper Tomida, then tied a thick rope to the handle of the weight, and then a cord to the end of the knot. So, after the “monster” destroyed the machinery, it pulled on the end of the cord, which loosened the knot tied to the handle, dropping the weight completely down to the bottom of the shaft. That’s why our two witnesses first heard the glass pane and machinery being broken, and only felt the quake later, after a short pause.’

  ‘I see.’ I nodded.

  ‘As for our “monster” or fiendish human being, they pulled the rope up from inside the shaft—it was no longer tied to the weight—and also loosened the end of the rope tied around the rock now lying on top of Tomida. They couldn’t go down the staircase, as people startled by all the noise had started climbing up, so they tied the rope to the railing on the platform outside the lantern room—again with a slip knot with cord attached—and climbed down the rope to one of the higher boulders, one lying five or six metres higher than the base of the lighthouse. There they undid the knot again in the same way, by pulling on one end, and threw the rope and the cord into the sea….’

  ‘Marvellous!’ I cried out, greatly impressed. ‘Even the feeblest of men could have pulled that feat off with a little effort. But was this the work of a ghost or a human being?’

  ‘That is the question,’ said Director Azumaya, getting up. ‘Now we have identified the trick behind the rock, it does appear as though it could only have been the work of a human being. However, that reliable, earnest Mr. Kazama insists he saw a monster, and we still have that liquid smeared all over the floor of the lantern room, and that strange groan and the cry…. Anyway, let’s go up to the top of the lighthouse once again.’

  And so we made our way up to the dark lantern room once more. Mitamura was there already, together with some of his equipment. As soon as he saw us, he said he was going to repair the antenna and would appreciate it if we could assist him. So I went out onto the dangerous-looking platform on the other side of one of the other windows, holding a bunch of wires and playing the local electrician.

  The wind had become quite a bit stronger, which had dispersed the fog slightly but made the waves rougher, with the result that ferocious waves were crashing into the rocks precisely thirty metres below the platform we were standing on.

  ‘We’re quite high up,’ said the director. ‘It’d be quite difficult for anyone to climb down a rope here.’ He suddenly brightened and posed a peculiar question to Mitamura, who was working next to him.

  ‘Could you please show me your palms for a second?’

  Aha, he was planning to find the monster by looking for calluses on the palms. What a brilliant idea!

  There were no calluses on Mitamura’s palms, however. The director suddenly looked embarrassed and, not without some shame, decided to leave us. He hurried down the lighthouse stairs.

  While I was assisting with the antenna repairs, I was able to peer down and see him appear at the base of the lighthouse, and also just make out what he said to old Kazama, who had just come out of his living quarters.

  ‘Haven’t you prepared the back-up light yet?’ he shouted.

  ‘I was about to work on that. I have to clean the mess up first.’ For some reason, the voice of old Kazama seemed to have lost all spirit. ‘Excuse me, but could you show me your palms for a second?’ There it was, the same question, as expected. I thought things were about to get interesting, but my excitement was short-lived. There were no calluses on old Kazama’s palms either. Then the old lighthouse keeper went into the storage cabin, while the director headed for the living quarters and disappeared from sight.

  Repairing the antenna turned out to be quite a difficult job. Both my hands hurt so much I thought they’d break. It was also terribly cold up there, and high enough to make anyone feel dizzy. Eventually, we managed to finish the troublesome chore but, just at that moment, Director Azumaya burst into the lantern room with a distressed expression on his face.

  He was visibly upset and could only speak in intervals between gasps.

  ‘…The victim’s wife… she overcame the attendant… said she needed to see her husband’s body… I think it might be better if we show her as soon as possible….’

  ‘And her palms?’ I couldn’t contain my curiosity.

  ‘Her palms? Oh, neither she nor the attendant had any calluses on their palms.’

  ‘That means it was indeed the work of something supernatural….’

  ‘No, just a second. After talking with the victim’s wife, I paid a quick visit next door, to Mr. Kazama’s living quarters, to meet his daughter…. And there I made a great discovery!’

  ‘A great discovery? You mean you found calluses on the palms of his sleeping daughter Midori?’

  ‘No, not that. Nothing at all like that.’

  ‘No? Was there something wrong with her then?’

  ‘I wish I could say that. But I didn’t meet the daughter at all. She wasn’t to be found in any of the rooms.’

  ‘You say Midori’s gone?’ Mitamura pounced on the director’s words as the dim flame of the candle cast his shadow on the wall.

  ‘She wasn’t there. But instead, I saw what the old man had seen… the red, slimy ghost!’

  5

  After a moment, Director Azumaya regained his composure, glanced quickly at me and turned to Mitamura.

  ‘By the way, Mr. Mitamura, you said you met Mr. Kazama halfway down the staircase when you came up here, right after it all happened. Was Mr. Kazama holding anything in his hands at the time?’

  ‘…Well, now you mention it, he had taken off his jacket and was holding it in his right arm like this.’

  ‘I see. Thank you. Allow me to ask you one more thing. How old is his daughter?’

  ‘Errr, probably about twenty-eight.’

  ‘And how does she behave?’

  ‘How she behaves? Errr… she appears to be a very sensible, good person….’

  ‘Whatever you say will remain between the three of us, so please speak freely.’

  ‘Very well… she was really nice at first… but then….’ Mitamura seemed reluctant to speak. ‘…I think it happened a year ago, around the same time of year. She became really friendly with the engineer of a freight ship who was
staying in Mr. Kazama’s home at the time, and they… Well, they really shouldn’t have eloped. I heard they went somewhere near Yokohama or thereabouts, but her man was an untrustworthy sailor, and as you might expect, he dumped her after he got her pregnant. She returned here about six months ago, her heart broken.’

  ‘I see. And then…?’

  ‘…She was once a really cheerful girl, but the experience changed her completely. And so, after a while, even Mr. Kazama started to look at his own daughter with cold eyes. The poor thing….’

  A conflicted look appeared on Mitamura’s face, and he started rubbing his hands, as if he now regretted speaking out of line. The director, however, had been listening to him intently. He raised his head and muttered gloomily:

  ‘…I think I have an idea who might have performed that trick with the rampaging boulder.’

  ‘Who was it?! Was it the daughter, or perhaps…’

  ‘It was the daughter Midori, of course.’

  He sat down silently on a nearby chair, placed his elbows on his knees and clasped his fingers together. Turning his head a few times, as if still hesitating, he started slowly with his explanation.

  ‘…I’m afraid it’s only conjecture at this point, and I’m no expert on romance, but my imagination can’t help but lead me down this path. … Anyway, please imagine a pure-hearted daughter of a lighthouse keeper. One day, she falls in love with a sailor who’s been saved from a ship in distress. Her father, however, is a terribly strict person, and does not approve of his daughter’s feelings. The two young lovers leave in search of a sweet dream together. But when the girl starts to bear the fruit of their love, the man goes aboard a ship to sail for faraway lands. The girl, deceived, returns home, harbouring unbearable hate in her heart. Her father’s cold behaviour towards her only pushes her further into madness, and the sight of ships passing by like a dream, every single night and day, nurtures the hatred in her heart. Her hatred for that one man turns into hatred for all sailors and her hatred for sailors turns into hatred for ships. Wishing to sink all the ships out there, she decides to break the one absolute rule. On foggy nights, she’d wait for the lighthouse keeper to doze off, and interfere in the most deadly way with the lighthouse, the lifeline for sailors. One night, however, she was interrupted by the lighthouse keeper, and in her shock she picked up a hatchet and brought it down on the man’s head. Frightened by the horrendous crime she had committed, she played that trick with the rock to bury the evidence of her crime. She’d probably dreamt up the trick earlier as part of a plan to destroy the lighthouse….’

  ‘But what about that horrible monster?’ I had to ask.

  ‘There was no monster.’

  ‘But you say you saw it yourself.’

  ‘Now wait a second. Please don’t interrupt my story. Her old father is an incredibly strict and earnest man, with a great sense of responsibility. His attitude to his daughter has been cold and there is no way he would forgive her for committing such terrible sins. Despite that, however, the old man’s feelings changed completely the moment he arrived in the lantern room after hearing all the chaos. It was at that moment that, for the first time in his life, he made up a completely false story—one about a monster—to hide his daughter’s crime.’

  ‘But if it was all a lie, what about those things done by the monster? That eerie slimy liquid, and the groan Mr. Mitamura here also heard, and that unusual cry?’

  ‘Please allow me to finish. The old lighthouse keeper had lit a candle and made his way up the lighthouse stairs, shaking in fear. What do you think he saw when he reached the lantern room? Not the broken glass panes. Not the destroyed machinery. Not the body of the victim Tomida. Listen carefully. He saw two living persons! His unfortunate daughter, half-mad now she had committed a terrible crime and been discovered by her strict father, was standing on the other side of the window glass and he could not prevent her from jumping down into the sea. But there was another person…. A red, soft, slimy being, like an octopus. Yes. The psychological shock, and the excitement caused by all her exertions had led to a premature birth: it was his healthy first grandchild!’

  I could not stop myself from crying out.

  So that was it! I was surprised at myself for not realising until this moment. That bizarre groan was caused by the agonizing, convulsive pains of birth; that peculiar cry like that of a balloon flute was the first cry of a newborn baby; and the strange, slimy fluid was the amniotic water that had now fulfilled its task of protecting the fetus. I started to understand how old Kazama must have felt at the moment he saw the cute face of his first grandchild, appealing to the soft spot in his heart.

  At that moment, my pleasant mental image was interrupted by the slight creaking of the door. The disheartened old lighthouse keeper, Jōroku Kazama, appeared in the entrance, the dim light reflecting on his swollen eyelids.

  First published in Shinseinen, December Issue, Shōwa 10 (1935).

  THE PHANTOM WIFE

  　　Well then, allow me to tell you the story right from the beginning. You know, by the time you reach my age, you’ll be aware that a lot of curious things happen in this world, but I swear to heaven it was the first time in my life I’d experienced anything so horrendous.

  By the way, you already know the name of my master, who met with that tragic fate, don’t you? Yes, yes, it was all over the newspapers. Shōjirō Hirata was my master’s name, and he was forty-six at the time. The papers got everything else wrong of course, but at least they got those two facts right. He was the headmaster of N Technical School and an outstanding, disciplined teacher. His only shortcoming was perhaps that he was too earnest. Anyway, some time before the incident happened, the master and the mistress divorced, and it’s a terrible thing she died like that. His wife—her name was Natsue—she was thirty-four, twelve years younger than the master. The mistress was—just like the papers said—a splendid person: very attractive and kindhearted as well. Maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but two years earlier, this old man you’re talking to lost his job as janitor at the school, but then got hired as a servant at the residence. I later heard this from the maid, but it was the mistress who arranged all of that for me. How should I say this, the master can be a bit fussy in his ways, but the mistress was precisely what you’d expect from a daughter of a distinguished family: generous and graceful. Because of that, the master and the mistress had never once got into a fight.

  I forgot to mention this to you, but unlike the master, the mistress was a pure-bred daughter of the town of Edo[xiv]. Her family home was in the kimono business in Ningyōchō, and they had a very successful shop there. They had no children, and lived a very peaceful life. Then suddenly their marriage took a turn for the worse, and eventually the master brought up the dreaded topic of divorce.

  Now, we of course had no idea why he suddenly began talking about divorce after all that time. The mistress’ father also came by two or three times to talk it over with him, but the master obstinately refused to listen and the mistress was taken back to her parents.

  And that, yes, that was how the tragedy started. The mistress was weeping terribly as her father took her back—her eyes were all red from crying. And the master himself appeared very upset, and hardly uttered a word through the whole ordeal. We were, of course, very worried about it all, but what could we do? We were just hired staff. And, most important of all, we had no idea of why in heaven’s name he had decided on a divorce, so there was nothing we could say. Sumi, the maid, claimed the mistress might’ve committed an indiscretion, which would’ve been a good reason for divorce, but I’ve always known perfectly well for a fact that the mistress was not someone to conduct herself badly. Yes, the mistress was very attractive and, as she was raised in the old downtown shitamachi neighbourhood, her interests lay with traditional Japanese culture. She’d often wear a traditional nihongami hairstyle—with the hair pulled to the back like geisha apprentices—but I can’t begin to describe how elegant she looked. I might be spea
king out of turn here, but she was without any doubt attractive enough to be the wife of a school principal. And yes, they had no children, so the mistress did often leave the house on her own, but I swear she never once went out alone after sunset. I’ve come across many different kinds of women in my lifetime, but there are few women like the mistress, who knew precisely how to conduct herself.

  Oh, sorry, I’ve wandered off the story completely, but now I’ll talk about the horrible incident. It happened, yes, on the fourth day after they had left each other. The mistress’ belongings hadn’t been unpacked yet, but the divorce had weighed so heavily on her that she took poison in her family home and passed away. It was a very terrible thing. I heard of this later, but the mistress had left a simple note for the master, where she’d lamented how she’d failed to disperse the clouds of suspicion even though she was innocent. A servant had been sent from Ningyōchō to inform the master of the mistress’ sudden death and to bring him the note, and the master’s face visibly changed colour.

  But listen: it was at that moment that I witnessed first-hand how obstinate scholars can be. The mistress had given up her own life to defend her innocence, and, even supposing she had sinned, one shouldn’t be so harsh towards her now she’d gone to heaven, should one? But the master, he said with a pale face that, since they were now divorced, she wasn’t family any more, and I don’t know whether it was out of pride, or whether he was simply being stubborn, but he didn’t even make the effort to attend the funeral. We were of course all anxious about it, but in the end only her own family went to the funeral. And all that tragedy was followed by an indescribably desolate period.

  Anyway, if things had just continued like that, nothing would have happened, but to tell you the truth, the tale I told you just now was nothing more than a prologue. Now I’ll get to the heart of the subject and, as you all know, a truly terrifying incident happened.