Evil and the Mask (8 page)

The boards of the hatch had no soundproofing, so even if I closed it and covered it with furniture, if he kept pounding on it from underneath someone might hear. No one came here usually, but it wasn’t completely beyond the bounds of possibility. I held my breath and strained to listen, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat. From the bottom of the stairs came the faint sound of the door opening and then closing. My hands were growing numb, but I forced them to move and took a few deep breaths.

Now I had to go down the stairs myself, take the case containing the death caps out of my bag, open the door for an instant, throw them in and slam it shut again. Then fasten the handle with the bar I’d brought with me to lock him inside. After that I’d replace the bar with the broken air conditioner, sliding it tightly under the lever to block the door. The unit was exactly the right height, as if it had been made for that purpose, and fit with curious precision in the gap between the handle and the stairs. Finally I’d race back up the steps, close the hatch, move some heavy furniture on top of it and it would all be over. All I had to do now was do it. It wasn’t murder, I told myself over and over. I was just stopping his access to me and Kaori. For the first time in my life, there was something that I absolutely had to do. He was like a massive stone blocking my way, and if I
didn’t remove it my future would be ruined. I took the fungi from my backpack and crept quietly down the steps. My legs were shaking, but that couldn’t be helped. My throat was dry and sore, and for some reason I knew I’d remember that pain. Deep cracks ran along the concrete wall beside the stairs, and I knew I’d remember how deep they were as well. I could dimly make out the door handle. Just as I was about to jerk it open, however, it opened by itself and my eyes were struck by a blinding light. Father was standing there, his back to the light. Heart racing painfully, I cried out and shoved him with both hands.

I don’t know why I was able to push him then, why I was able to knock him back into the room. Two steps led down from the door, so the floor was slightly lower. Stunned, I wondered foolishly how long it had been since I touched him. Perhaps not since my earliest memory, when he had brushed me aside with his foot just after I’d learned to walk. Probably I’d been able to lay hands on him, to push him, because with the light behind him he was merely a shadow and I couldn’t see him clearly. He lay sprawled on the floor, looking up at me standing in the doorway. I was frozen in place.

He was holding his foot in his hands as though he’d hurt it. I continued to stand there, with the two steps between us. The white bed in the center of the room seemed to bulge slightly. I could faintly see something that looked like a body, but I couldn’t worry about that now. I knew I had to toss in the death caps and shut the door, but I felt like I was going to pass out. My brain couldn’t communicate with my limbs, my arms had no strength, I couldn’t even move my fingertips.
I just stood there, staring at him, unsure how to handle this new situation.

“So that’s how it is,” he said softly.

When I heard his voice, a sharp pain shot through my heart. His eyes fastened on the bag over my shoulders.

“So you’re going to kill me. Then you did remember. I see.”

He kept rubbing his foot, expressionless. His left ear, half of which was missing, stood out clearly.

“You remembered what I said about your education. Not just as a scary event, but as a definite plan that I was actually going to carry out. It looks like calling the girl to my room had an effect on you too.”

I still couldn’t move.

“You’ve really got what it takes to be a cancer. You’ve got the makings of a real monster, because you can think of something like this. You’re not passive like a sheep. You can think of killing your own father.”

Even now his face showed no emotion.

“Remember this. Happiness is a fortress.”

My attention was drawn to the mound in the bed. The white light from the ceiling had grown slightly weaker. I realized that my mind was drifting, and forced myself to look straight ahead once more. Father was still there, of course.

“Naturally the main reason you’ve got what it takes to be a cancer is that you’ve got my blood in your veins. Some day you should ask your brothers what kind of life I’ve led up till now. I won’t be able to show you hell, but it’s all the same in the long run. Because you’re going to kill me. Because you’re going to murder another human being.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

I wonder why I suddenly found my voice?

“It’s not murder. I’m just blocking your …”

Father ignored my words as though they weren’t worth listening to, kept on talking.

“Killing a person is crossing a critical line in this world. Why? Because that’s our nature as living creatures. All creatures are fundamentally designed not to kill their own kind. Their instincts stop them. Try reading some biology. Cannibalism only occurs in extremely rare, unusual circumstances. Since prehistoric times all living things have operated on the principle that you don’t kill your own species, instinctively—as humans would say, subconsciously. This has been the basic rule for all creatures since time immemorial. When someone overcomes that with human rationality or will and commits a murder, of course he will start to fall apart. I’m not talking about guilt. From that time forward he will suffer from the distortion of his nature as a living creature, unable to reconcile the instinctive rejection. On the intellectual level, the guilt associated with murder is the pain that comes from the stress of hiding a secret, from the loss of the belief that one is a good person. On a human level, though, as a living creature, it is simply the conscious, outward manifestation of the perversion of killing one of your own. Since long, long, ago, conventional wisdom and morality are simply the products of that perversion, codified and made universal. That’s why it’s stupid to preen oneself for having transcended morality. Wrapping yourself in rational justifications for murder is a fraud. It’s just brainwashing, trying to persuade yourself.

“Of course, people sometimes kill others involuntarily, in the heat of the moment. What was originally an impulse to attack a different species, or a powerful sexual impulse, is transformed on the way to the surface as it passes through the layers which have been eroded by humans’ reason and will and dark passions, and the aggression is diverted towards another human. These moments of madness burst forth unexpectedly, but they are short-lived. At the stable, long-dormant level that could be called the deepest root of the subconscious, a realm that is closer to animal than human, the sense of distortion this causes continues to fester for a long time as an unpleasant shadow. Animals are hard-wired to kill other species but not their own kind, even if they do attack them violently. When human consciousness stops fooling itself and looks at the situation straight on, it can’t cope. You’re definitely going to become warped. Just like me.”

I couldn’t help getting the feeling that Father was sitting in his chair in his study, the light behind him, his figure just a silhouette, and I was standing in front of him listening to his monologue. But of course that was impossible, crouched on the floor in this windowless room.

“Nothing will change. You will become a cancer. You will act as a negative force in the world. By killing me, you will take me inside you. That’s what taking another person’s life means. And in a sense, that’s the most tempting part of murder. Absorbing another person, in exchange for warping your nature.”

He paused. I still felt like I was in his study.

“You will suffer from pangs of guilt caused by awareness of that deformation. As a murderer, you won’t be able to stand yourself. Someone who has killed another person is unable to accept any warmth or beauty with a pure heart. Whenever something good happens, at that instant you’ll be confronted with the fact that you’re a killer. When you feel joy in your life, you’ll be troubled by the fact that you destroyed someone else’s. Especially a weak spirit like yours, you won’t be able to bear it. What’s more, you’ve inherited my genes. The DNA of the man you killed, who you denied the chance of life, is embedded inside you. From now on, whenever you feel happy, I’m going to appear inside your head. The image of me, locked in this room, cursing you, starving, writhing in agony. Through my blood, which runs in your veins, as though my blood is boiling inside you, through all your brain cells which you inherited from me, through your whole body. Because you will have taken me inside you. I’m going to be acting inside you. Forever. You’ll never be happy again.”

I stood there dazed.

“From now on, you won’t be able to look at the world’s happiness calmly. Why are other people happy, you’ll always wonder, when I’m in so much pain? And why will that happen to you? Is it my fault? No. It’s just human nature. Because that’s how humans have been since the very beginning, creatures with the potential for evil. Because even though they are fundamentally designed not to kill their own kind, they are also able to contemplate entering that forbidden territory, to enter it for real, to possess passions of
all kinds. What you should resent is the way of the world, humans’ imperfect and contradictory nature. It’s this nature that gives rise to injustice. Happiness is a fortress. Because happiness is an enclosed space only a lucky few can enjoy, the lucky few who can turn a blind eye to people like you, people with pain and sorrow, who can turn a blind eye to poverty and hunger. You must resent all happiness. People who have killed cannot attain one hundred percent virtue, but they can attain one hundred percent evil. That is your life path. You have power and money. Destroy everything. By sublimating yourself to the fires of hell, to the mighty, evil energy that destroys all people and all joy, you can obtain a piece of an incredible pleasure. Pathetic individuals like serial killers or terrorist bombers will never obtain it. It’s an even greater evil. Even greater.”

The room went quiet. Though I had been watching my father as he stared at me blankly, I couldn’t tell if the words I had just heard were really his. I grabbed the doorframe to keep my balance.

“But if I don’t do it,” I pleaded, “Kaori—”

“That’s right.”

Father stood up slowly.

“I will bring many men and they will defile the girl in front of you. If you don’t lock me up, I absolutely will do it. Even if you run away or go to the police, nothing will change. You can’t stop me. I couldn’t even stop myself.”

For the first time I realized that he was drunk again.

“If I live I will definitely do it. My mind may be going, but that is my sole remaining desire. I couldn’t even stop it
myself. More than taking you to hell, more than pleasure, my whole body is burning for the sight of that girl being completely corrupted, while I sway in my alcoholic haze.”

He was putting his weight on his good leg.

“Listen. I sired you on purpose to raise you as a cancer. You have no intrinsic rights. You will be a cancer. Even in trying to avoid it, you will become one. That cannot be changed.”

At that moment the case holding the death caps slipped from my hand. There was a loud noise and the rough fungi scattered from the container. Father looked at them impassively. Then he took a small vial from his breast pocket.

“I don’t need those,” he said. “I’ve got this drug which will kill me quickly. You won’t triumph over your powerful father. Starve a revolting, whiskey-soaked old man. If I’m going to starve to death in this room, wide-eyed and suffering, cursing your name, I’ll take this and die in agony. At that moment, I’ll invade you. Invade the cancer who starved a poor old man to death.”

“But if I don’t …”

“That’s right, I’ll hurt you both by whatever means necessary. And if you do kill me, you’ll definitely be damaged anyway.”

“I won’t be killing you,” I shouted, but my voice came out as a whisper. “I’m just blocking your way. It’ll be your own decision to commit suicide.”

“I’m a corpse already. Since a long time ago.”

I slammed the door with all my might as though something was propelling me forward, locking my father firmly in the room. He had turned into this weird creature, this stringy,
incomprehensible old man who I couldn’t understand even to the very end. I thought of him starving painfully to death, ugly, shriveled, insane. At that instant, when there was no turning back, I heard a harsh, metallic clang. Whether it was the sound of the door or inside my own head, I couldn’t tell.

WHILE I FASTENED the door handle, while I closed the hatch at the top of the stairs, while I replaced the cloth and the furniture on top of it, not a sound came from inside the room.

Father, that gigantic, malevolent thing that had been suffocating Kaori and me, had transformed into this strange substance that clung to us like glue. As I weaved my way between the old junk and building materials I thought to myself that I was surprisingly calm. I had wiped my fingerprints off the case with the poisonous mushrooms beforehand, and had worn gloves whenever I handled it. One day, I thought, maybe I’d find out why my father had turned out
like that, what had happened in his life. At the time, though, I still didn’t have the leisure to consider it deeply.