Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (23 page)

Raising the binoculars again, this time in the proper way, I began to adjust the lenses, and gradually there came into focus an amazingly large image of the girl on the tablet—her white skin glistening with an utterly natural lustre, and her entire body seeming to move.

Within the confines of the antique nineteenth-century binoculars which I held in my trembling hands, there vividly existed another world, entirely alien from my own. And, within this realm, there lived and breathed the gorgeous young girl, incongruously enjoying a téte-à-tète with the white-haired old man who was surely old enough to be her grandfather.

"This must be witchcraft!" I unconsciously warned myself. But like a person caught in a hypnotic trance, I found it impossible to avert my eyes.

Although I could see that the girl was quite immobile, her whole appearance seemed to have undergone a complete transformation. She now seemed to be a totally different creature from the one I had scrutinized with my naked eye. But whatever the changes which had been wrought, they were all to the good. Now her whole body seemed to quiver with life. Her pale face had turned a rosy pink. And as for her breasts—they now seemed to be actually pulsing beneath her thin, silken kimono.

After I had feasted my delighted eyes on every inch of her luscious, delicately moulded body, I turned the glasses on the happy, white-haired old man against whom the girl was leaning. He too seemed to live and breathe in the realm of the binoculars. As I watched, speechless with wonder, it seemed that he was trying to embrace this girl who was but a mere child compared to his venerable old age. But quickly I also caught another expression on his wrinkled face—a terrifying mixture of grief and agony.

At this point I began to imagine that I was caught up in the terrors of a nightmare, and, by sheer force of will, I pulled the binoculars down and looked around. But nothing had changed. There I was, still standing in the dimly lit railway coach, with the pasted rag picture on the tablet and the old man, plus the darkness outside, filling my gaze, with the same monotonous rumbling of the train's wheels vibrating in my ears.

"You look deadly pale," my strange companion remarked, eyeing me intently.

"Can I help it. . . after what I've seen?" I replied nervously. "For a moment I thought I'd gone insane."

He ignored my words and continued to stare, so I tried to conceal my embarrassment with a commonplace remark.

"It's quite close in here, don't you think?" I muttered.

But this pleasantry too went unheeded. Bending forward, he brought his face up close to mine and, rubbing his long bony fingers vigorously, spoke in a low whisper.

"They
were
alive, weren't they?"

Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself nodding in agreement. This admission seemed to please him greatly.

"Would you like to hear the story of their past?" he asked suddenly.

"Their—their past—did you say?" I blurted out, unable to interpret the meaning of his query.

"Yes, their past. That's what I said," he repeated in the same low tone. "Especially that of the old man with the white hair."

"But—but I don't understand," I began, pinching myself to make sure that I was awake, and feeling the pain. "Do —do you mean—the story of his past—since his youth?"

"Exactly," he replied emphatically with an odd smile. "Since the day he was only twenty-five years old." And with these words I suddenly found myself yearning desperately to hear the whole tale.

"By all means tell me the story," I urged impatiently, sitting on the edge of my seat. "Tell it to me in full detail."

Thereupon, the old man smiled again and launched into the following story:

"I remember it all very vividly," he began, "even to the precise day my elder brother turned into
that!'
Ile nodded toward the tablet. "It was on the evening of April 27, in 1895____ But let me start from the beginning.

"My brother and I were born the sons of a draper, living in the Nihonbashi district of downtown Tokyo. The time of which I speak was not long after they had built in Asakusa Park that twelve-story tower known as the Junikai which, until its destruction in the Great Earthquake, was a marvel of architecture for all provincial visitors to the capital. Almost every day my brother used to go and visit the tower, for he was of a very curious disposition and loved all things of foreign origin. These binoculars—yes, the ones you used—were but one example of this peculiar craze of his. He bought the binoculars at a small curio shop located in Yokohama's Chinatown. I remember my brother telling me that they had once belonged to the master of some foreign ship, and that he had paid a tidy sum for them."

Every time he said "my brother," the old man either looked or pointed at the other old man in the pasted rag picture, as if to emphasize his presence there. I soon realized that he identified the memories of his real brother with the white-haired old man in the picture, and hence talked as if the picture also were alive and listening to his story. Strangely enough, the fact did not strike me as being at all unusual. During those moments both of us must have been living in some strange domain far beyond the operations of the laws of nature.

"Did you ever go up the Junikai?" the old man's voice droned on. "No? What a pity. It was quite a strange building, I must say. I often used to wonder what sort of a wizard had built it. It was said to have been designed by an Italian architect.

"I must explain that in those days Asakusa Park was even more of a show place than it is now. At nearly every turn there was one attraction after another. To cite but a few, there was the Spider Man, a sword-dance show by a group of young girls, a noted circus entertainer with his favorite feat of dancing atop a ball, and peep shows galore. Then there was also the Puzzle Labyrinth, where you could easily get lost in a maze of paths partitioned by knitted bamboo screens.

"And finally, of course, there was the Tower, built of brick, rising abruptly from the center of the district. It was a dizzy two hundred and sixteen feet high—almost half a city block—and its octagonal top was shaped like a Chinese cap. Wherever you happened to be in Tokyo you could almost always see the Junikai.

"In the spring of 1895, not long after my brother had bought the binoculars, a strange thing happened to him. My father even thought that my brother was going mad, and worried about him constantly. As for myself, because I loved my brother deeply, I too could not help being sorely puzzled over his strange behavior. For days on end my brother took little food, hardly spoke a word to his family, and shut himself up in his room most of the time when he was at home.

"Before long he became thinner and thinner, while his face turned deadly pale, with only the eyes glaring brightly. Nevertheless, he was out from noon till evening each day, as regularly as if he was employed in some office. And whenever he was asked where he went, he would close his lips tightly and refuse to reply.

"My mother too worried over his strange habits and tried in every possible way to make him tell her the reason for his low spirits, but all to no avail. This state of affairs lasted for about a month.

"At last, I became so anxious to know where he went that one day I followed him secretly. On this particular day, too, it was cloudy and muggy, just like today. As had become his custom, it was a little past noon when my brother went out, clad in his smart black velvet suit, with his prized binoculars dangling from his shoulder.

"Following him at a safe distance, I saw him hurrying down the road leading to the horse-tramway stop at Nihonbashi. A moment later he got on an Asakusa-bound horsecar. As the cars ran rather infrequently, it was impossible for me to follow him in the next car. So I quickly hailed a rickshaw.

"'Quick! Follow that horsecar!' I ordered.

"The rickshawman proved fleet of foot and was able to keep the horsecar within sight with ease. Arriving at Asakusa Park, I saw my brother get off. I dismissed the rickshaw and continued to follow him on foot. And where do you think he finally arrived? At the Kwannon Temple in Asakusa Park.

"Unaware that he was being followed, my brother threaded his way through the crowds along the red-fronted shopping street, passed the main building of the temple, and then proceeded, through an even thicker throng converged around the show-booths at the rear, to the Junikai.

"He walked purposefully up to the stone gate, paid his admission fee, and disappeared into the tower. I, of course, was completely astonished, for I had never dreamed that my brother had been coming to this familiar landmark day after day. Young as I was—I was still in my teens then—I even thought that my brother might have been possessed by some evil spirit inhabiting the tower.

"For myself, I had climbed it only once, with my father, and never after that, so I felt rather uneasy about going in again. But, since my brother had gone in, I had no choice but to enter and go up the dark, stone stairs after him, keeping a safe distance behind. The windows were small and the brick wall was thick, so it was cool inside, just like a cave. On one wall hung several macabre war paintings done in oils—it was the time of the Sino-Japanese War.

"Higher and higher rose the gloomy stairway, just like the spiralling grooves in the shell of a snail. At the top of the tower there was a balcony, with a railing running around the edge. When I finally reached the balcony my eyes were dazzled by the sudden brightness, because the narrow, winding passage from the ground had been long and dark. Above me, the clouds were hanging low—so low, in fact, that I felt I could almost reach up with my hands and touch them.

"When I looked around, I saw all the roofs of Tokyo in a weird jumble, while on the distant horizon I could clearly make out the Bay of Tokyo. Directly below me I saw the Kwannon Temple, looking like a doll's house, and the many show-booths. As for the people, they all looked as if they had only heads and feet.

"Close beside me, I saw about ten other spectators huddled close together admiring the view. My brother stood apart from them, gazing eagerly at the compound of Asakusa Park through his binoculars. As I watched him from behind, I noted that his black velvet clothes stood out in sharp relief against the gray clouds. He looked so much like a figure in a Western oil-painting—austere and saintly—that for a moment I even hesitated to call out to him, although I well knew that he was really my brother.

"Remembering my mission, however, I couldn't remain silent. Going up to him, I asked abruptly: 'What are you looking at, brother?'

"He started, then wheeled around with a look of extreme annoyance.

"'Your recent strange behavior is causing Father and Mother untold anxiety,' I continued. We've all been wondering where you go every day. But now I know. You come here. But why, Brother, why? For God's sake, you've got to tell me. You can trust me, can't you?' On and on I pleaded with him.

"At first he refused to discuss the matter, but I kept pestering him for an explanation so insistently that he finally gave in. But even after he explained I found myself more mystified than ever, for what he said was altogether incomprehensible.

"According to him, one day about a month before, he happened to be gazing down through his binoculars from the top of the Junikai into the compound of the Kwannon Temple, when he had suddenly caught a glimpse of a girl's face amidst the crowds of people. She had been so beautiful, he explained—so uncannily beautiful—that he had been swept completely off his feet. For him, this sudden infatuation was a new sensation, for normally he was quite indifferent to feminine charms.

"But in his surprise and excitement, he had moved the binoculars too sharply. Frantically, he had brought the lenses back into focus, but by this time the face had vanished, and look as he might, he could not find it again.

"Ever since that moment my brother had not known a moment's peace—for the beautiful face of the girl kept haunting him, even in his dreams. And of course, it was the sad, forlorn hope of trying to find the girl in the temple compound that had caused my brother to waste away with complete disregard for any thought of food— and to keep climbing the Junikai day after day with his binoculars to scan the sea of faces below him.

"After finishing his confession, my brother went back to his binoculars in a frenzy of undying hope. Watching him, my heart bled with sympathy. He was indeed like the man looking for a needle in a haystack.

"To my way of thinking, his search was utterly futile, but I did not have the heart to disillusion him. Tears welling in my eyes, I continued to gaze at his pathetic figure.

"A few moments drifted by, and then gradually I became keenly aware of the beauty of the scene spread before my eyes. With my brothers slim figure outlined sharply against the sailing clouds, it appeared as if his body were floating in the air.

"Suddenly, a large number of colored balls, some dyed a deep blue, others in green, red, purple, and other gay hues, floated up into the sky, fashioning a fantastic design. I quickly leaned over the railings, and looking down saw that the strange phenomenon had not been the product of my imagination. It had so happened that a vendor of colored toy balloons had accidentally tipped over his stand, releasing all his stock in trade.

"Just at this moment, my brother broke into my reverie with a voice trembling with excitement.

"'Come—we've got to hurry, or we'll be too late!' he fairly screamed, pulling me roughly by the hand.