Ring (25 page)

"I didn't wait to see if she'd stopped breathing. I picked her body up and went to the well. I think my actions were still beyond my will at this point. In other words, I didn't pick her up intending to drop her into the well, but rather, the moment I picked her up, the round black mouth of the well caught my eye, and put it in my mind to do it. Everything felt as if it was working out perfectly for me. Or, rather, I felt as if I was being moved by a will beyond my own. I had a general idea of what was going to happen next. I could hear a voice in the back of my head saying this was all a dream.

"The well was dark, and from where I stood at the top I couldn't see the bottom very clearly. From the smell of soil wafting up, it seemed that there was a shallow accumulation of water at the bottom. I let go. Sadako's body slid down the side of the well into the earth, hitting the bottom with a splash. I stared into the well until my eyes got used to the dark, but I still couldn't see her curled up down there. Even so, I couldn't shake my uneasiness. I flung rocks and dirt into the well, trying to hide her body forever. I threw in arm-fuls of dirt and five or six fist-sized rocks before I just couldn't do any more. The rocks hit her body, making a dull thud at the bottom of the well and stimulating my imagination. When I thought of that sickly beautiful body being broken by those stones, I couldn't go through with it. I know that doesn't make any sense. On the one hand I desired the destruction of her body, but on the other hand I didn't want her body to be marred."

When Nagao had finished speaking, Asakawa handed him the map of South Hakone Pacific Land.

"Where on this map would that well be?" Asakawa asked, urgently. It took Nagao a few moments to understand what he was being shown, but after he was told that what had once been the sanatorium was now a restaurant, he seemed to regain his orientation.

"I think it was right about here," he said, pointing to a place on the map.

"No doubt about it. That's where Villa Log Cabin is," Asakawa said, rising. "Let's go!"

But Ryuji was calm. "Don't go rushing off just yet. We still have some things we need to ask this old fart. Now, this syndrome you mention…"

"Testicular feminization syndrome."

"Can a woman with this bear children?"

Nagao shook his head. "No, she can't."

"One other thing. When you raped Sadako Yamamura, you had already contracted smallpox, right?"

Nagao nodded.

"In which case, the last person in Japan to be infected with smallpox was Sadako Yamamura, no?"

It was certain that just before her death, Sadako Yamamura's body had been invaded by the smallpox virus. But she had died immediately afterward. If its host perishes, a virus can't go on living. Nagao didn't know how to answer and looked down, avoiding Ryuji's gaze. He gave only a vague reply.

"Hey! What are you doing? We've got to get going!" Asakawa was in the doorway, urging Ryuji to hurry.

"Shit. Hope you're happy," said Ryuji, flicking the tip of the doctor's nose with his index finger before following Asakawa.

He couldn't explain it logically, but from his experience reading novels and watching trashy TV shows, he felt like he had a good idea of the kind of plot device called for now, based on the way the story had unfolded. There was a certain tempo to the unfolding. They hadn't been searching for Sadako's hiding place, but in the blink of an eye they'd stumbled upon the tragedy that had befallen her and the spot where she was buried. So when Ryuji told him to "stop in front of a large hardware store," Asakawa was relieved:
he's thinking the same thing I am.
Asakawa still couldn't imagine what a horrible task this would be. Unless it had been completely buried, finding the old well in the vicinity of Villa Log Cabin shouldn't be too difficult. And once they found it, it should be easy to bring up Sadako's remains. It all sounded pretty simple-and he wanted to think it would be. It was one in the afternoon; the midday sun reflected brilliantly from the hilly streets in this hot-spring resort town. The brightness, and the neighbourhood’s laid-back weekday mood, clouded his imagination. It didn't occur to him that even if it were only four or five meters deep, the bottom of a well was bound to be an entirely different world from the well-lit ground above.

Nishizaki Hardware.
Asakawa saw the sign and braked. There were stepladders and lawn mowers lined up in front of the store. They should be able to get everything they needed here.

"I'll let you do the shopping," Asakawa said, running to a nearby phone booth. He paused before entering it to take a phone card from his wallet.

"Hey, we don't have time to waste on phone calls." But Asakawa wasn't listening. Grumbling, Ryuji went into the store and grabbed rope, a bucket, a shovel, a pulley block, and a high-powered flashlight.

Asakawa was desperate. This might be his last chance to hear their voices. He knew full well how little time he had to waste. He only had nine hours left until his deadline. He slipped his card into the phone and dialled the number of his wife's parents' house in Ashikaga. His father-in-law answered.

"Hello, it's Asakawa. Could you call Shizu and Yoko to the phone?" He knew he was being rude, skipping the customary exchange of pleasantries.

But he didn't have time to worry about his father-in-law's feelings. The man started to say something, but then seemed to sense the urgency of the situation, and immediately summoned his daughter and granddaughter. Asakawa was extremely glad his mother-in-law hadn't been the one to answer. He'd never have got a word in edgewise then.

"Hello?"

"Shizu, is that you?" Hearing her voice, he missed her already.

"Where are you?"

"Atami. How's everything there?"

"Oh, about the same. Yoko's having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa."

"Is she there?" He could hear her voice. No words, just sounds as she struggled to climb up on her mother's lap to get to her father.

"Yoko, it's Daddy." Shizu put the receiver to Yoko's ear.

"Dada, Dada…" He could barely hear the words, if words they were. They were all but drowned out by the sounds of her breathing into the phone, or rubbing the mouthpiece against her cheek. But these noises only made him feel that much closer to her. He was overcome with the desire to leave all this behind him and hug her.

"Yoko, you wait there, okay? Daddy's coming soon to get you in the vroom-vroom."

"Really? When are you getting here?" Shizu had taken the phone without him realizing it.

"On Sunday. Right, I'll be renting a car and driving up, so let's all take a drive into the mountains, to Nikko or something."

"Really? Yoko, isn't that great? Daddy's going to take us for a drive in a car on Sunday!"

He felt his ears burning. Was he really in a position to make that kind of promise? A doctor was never supposed to say anything to give his patient false hope; he was supposed to do things to minimize the eventual shock as much as possible.

"It sounds like you've got this thing you're working on straightened out."

"Well, it's coming along."

"You promised me that when all this is over you'd tell me the whole thing from the beginning."

He had promised that. In exchange for her not asking any questions right now, he'd said he'd tell her all about it once it was taken care of. His wife had kept her end of the bargain.

"Hey, how long are you going to keep talking?" Ryuji said from behind him. Asakawa turned around. Ryuji had the trunk open and was loading his purchases into the car.

"I'll call again. I might not be able to tonight, though." Asakawa placed his hand on the hook. If he pushed, the connection would be broken.

He didn't even know why he'd called. Was it just to hear their voices, or did he have something more important to tell them? But he knew that even if he'd been able to talk to her for an hour, when it came time to hang up he'd still feel constrained, as if he'd only said half of what he wanted to say. It'd just be the same thing. He pressed down on the hook, and then let go. In any case, everything would be clear tonight at ten. Tonight at ten…

Driving up in the daytime like this, South Hakone Pacific Land felt like a typical mountain resort. The creepy mood he'd felt last time he came was hidden by the sunlight. Even the sound of bouncing tennis balls was normal, not sluggish and sonorous like before, but crisp and light. They could see Mt Fuji, hazy and white, and below them in the distance scattered flashes of sun from greenhouse roofs.

It was a weekday afternoon and Villa Log Cabin appeared deserted. It seemed that the only time the rental units were fully occupied was weekends and the summer vacation season. B-4 was vacant today, too. Leaving Ryuji to check in, Asakawa unloaded the car and changed into lighter clothes.

He looked carefully around the room. A week ago this evening Asakawa had fled in fear from this haunted house. He remembered running into the bathroom to throw up, feeling that he was about to piss himself. He could even remember, quite vividly, the graffiti he'd seen on the bathroom wall when he'd knelt down in front of the toilet. Now he opened the bathroom door. The same graffiti in the same place.

It was just after two. They went out onto the balcony and ate the box lunches they'd bought on the way while gazing over the grassy meadow surrounding the cabins. The fretful mood that had shadowed them here from Nagao's clinic subsided a bit. Even amidst the worst panic, there are still scattered moments like this, when time flows leisurely by. Even when trying to finish a story by an impending deadline, Asakawa would sometimes find himself aimlessly watching coffee drop from the spout of the coffee maker, and later he'd reflect on how elegantly he'd wasted precious time.

"Eat up. We'll need our strength," said Ryuji. He'd bought two lunches just for himself. Asakawa meanwhile didn't seem to have much appetite; from time to time he'd rest his chopsticks and look back inside the cabin.

Suddenly, he spoke, as if it had just occurred to him. "Maybe we'd better get this straight. What exactly are we doing here?"

"We're going to look for Sadako, of course." "And what do we do once we've found her?" "Take her back to Sashikiji and lay her to rest."

"So that's the charm. You're saying that's what she wants."

Ryuji chewed loudly for a while on a big mouthful of rice, eyes staring straight ahead, unfocused. Asakawa could tell from the look on his face that Ryuji wasn't entirely convinced, either. Asakawa was scared. It was his last chance, and he wanted some sort of assurance that they were doing the right thing. There were to be no second chances.

"There's nothing else we can do now," said Ryuji, tossing away his empty lunch box.

"What about this possibility? Maybe she wants us to clear away her resentment toward the person who killed her."

"You mean Jotaro Nagao? You mean if we exposed him, Sadako would be appeased?"

Asakawa looked deep into Ryuji's eyes, trying to figure out what he really thought. If they dug up the remains and laid them to rest and it still didn't save Asakawa's life, maybe Ryuji was planning to kill Dr Nagao. Maybe he was using Asakawa as a test case, trying to save his own skin…

"Come on. Don't be stupid," said Ryuji with a laugh. "First of all, if Nagao had really incurred Sadako's resentment, he'd already be dead."

True. She definitely had that kind of power.

"So why did she let herself be killed by him?"

"I can't say. But look: she was surrounded by the deaths of people close to her. She knew nothing but frustration. Even disappearing from the theatre company like that was essentially a frustration of her goals, right? Then she visits her father at the sanatorium and finds out that he's near death."

"A person who's given up on the world harbours no resentment toward the person who takes her out of it, is that what you're saying?"

"Not exactly. Rather, I think it's possible that Sadako herself caused those impulses in Old Man Nagao. In other words, maybe she killed herself, but borrowed Nagao's hands to do it."

Her mother had thrown herself into a volcano, her father was dying of tuberculosis, her own dreams of becoming an actress had been shattered, and then there was her congenital handicap. She had any number of reasons to commit suicide. And there were things that just didn't add up unless one assumed she'd killed herself. Yoshino's report had mentioned Shigemori, founder of Theatre Group Soaring. He'd got drunk and dropped in on Sadako, and died the next day of cardiac paralysis. It was almost certain that Sadako had killed him using some abnormal ability of hers. She had that kind of power. She could easily kill a man or two without leaving any evidence. So why was Nagao still alive? It made no sense, unless one decided that she must have guided his will in order to kill herself.

"Well, okay, let's say it was suicide. But why did she have to be raped before she died? And don't tell me it's because she didn't want to die a virgin."

Asakawa had hit the nail on the head, and as a result Ryuji was at a loss for an answer. That was exactly what he was going to say.

"Is that really so stupid?"

"Huh?"

"Is it really so foolish to not want to die a virgin?" Ryuji pressed his point with a desperate earnestness. "If it were me… if by some chance it were me, that's how I'd feel. I wouldn't want to die a virgin."

This wasn't like Ryuji, Asakawa felt. Asakawa couldn't explain it logically, but neither the words nor the facial expression were like Ryuji at all.

"Are you serious? Men and women are different. Especially in the case of Sadako Yamamura."

"Heh, heh. Just kidding. Sadako didn't want to be raped. Of course she didn't. I mean, who'd want a thing like that to happen to oneself? Plus, she bit Nagao's shoulder down to the bone. It was only after it had happened that the thought of dying occurred to her, and without even considering it she guided Nagao in that direction. I think that's probably what happened."