“It sounds like someone underneath the stones is ringing a bell,” Menshiki said.
I nodded. I felt relieved to know I wasn’t crazy, but I had to admit that the unreality of the situation had now, through Menshiki, taken on a reality, creating a slight gap in the seam of the world.
“What should we do?” I asked Menshiki.
He shone his flashlight on where the sound was coming from, his lips tight as he considered the situation. In the still of the night I could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind.
“Someone might be seeking help,” Menshiki said quietly, as if to himself.
“But who could have possibly gotten under these heavy stones?”
Menshiki shook his head. He had no idea either.
“Anyway, let’s go back to the house,” he said. He lightly touched my shoulders from behind. “At least we’ve pinpointed the source of the sound. Let’s go home and talk it over.”
We cut through the woods and came out onto the empty space in front of the house. Menshiki opened the door of his Jaguar and returned the flashlight. In its place he took out a small paper bag. We went back inside the house.
* * *
—
“If you have any whiskey, could I have a glass?” Menshiki asked.
“Regular Scotch okay?”
“Of course. Straight, please. With a separate glass of water, no ice.”
I went into the kitchen and took a bottle of White Label from the shelf, poured some into two glasses, and took them and some mineral water out to the living room. We sat across from each other without speaking, and drank our straight whiskey. I went back to the kitchen to get the bottle of White Label and poured him a refill. He picked up the glass but didn’t drink any. In the silence of the middle of the night, the bell continued to ring out intermittently. A small sound, but with a delicate weight one couldn’t fail to hear.
“I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my time, but something this strange is a first,” Menshiki said. “Pardon me for saying this, but when you first told me about this I only half believed you. It’s hard to believe something like this could actually happen.”
Something in that expression caught my attention. “What do you mean, could actually happen?”
Menshiki raised his head and looked me in the eyes.
“I read about this sort of thing in a book once,” he said.
“You mean hearing a bell from somewhere in the middle of the night?”
“No, what they heard was a gong, not a bell. The kind of gong they would ring along with a drum when searching for a lost child. In the old days it was a small Buddhist altar fitting that you would hit with a wooden bell hammer. You’d strike it rhythmically as you chanted sutras. In the story someone heard that kind of gong ringing out from underground in the middle of the night.”
“Was this a ghost story?”
“Closer to what’s called a tale of the mysterious. Have you ever read Ueda Akinari’s book Tales of the Spring Rain?” Menshiki asked.
I shook my head. “I read his Tales of Moonlight and Rain a long time ago. But I haven’t read that one.”
“Tales of the Spring Rain is a collection of stories Akinari wrote in his later years. Some forty years after he finished Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Compared with that book, which emphasized narrative, Tales of the Spring Rain was more an expression of Akinari’s philosophy as a man of letters. One strange story in the collection is titled ‘Fate over Two Generations.’ The main character experiences something like what you’re going through. He’s the son of a wealthy farmer. He enjoys studying, and one night he’s reading late when he hears a sound like a gong coming from underneath a rock in the corner of the garden. Thinking it odd, the next day he has people dig it up, and they find a large stone underneath. When they move that stone they find a kind of coffin with a stone lid. Inside that they discover a fleshless emaciated person, like a dried fish. With hair down to his knees. Only his hands are still moving, striking a gong with a wooden hammer. It was a Buddhist priest who long ago chose his own death in order to achieve enlightenment, and had himself buried alive in the coffin. This act was called zenjo. The mummified dead body was unearthed and enshrined in a temple. Another term for zenjo is nyujo, meaning a deep meditative practice. The man must have originally been quite a highly revered priest. As he had hoped, his soul reached nirvana, and the soul-less physical body alone continued to live on. The main character’s family had lived on this plot of land for ten generations, and this burial must have taken place before that. In other words, several centuries before.”
Menshiki ended there.
“So you’re saying the same sort of thing took place around this house?” I asked.
Menshiki shook his head. “If you think about it, it’s not possible. This was just a take on the supernatural written in the Edo period. Akinari knew that this tale had become part of folk legend and he adapted it and created the story ‘Fate over Two Generations.’ What I’m saying is, the story does have strange parallels with what we’re experiencing now.”
He lightly shook his glass of whiskey, the amber liquid quietly oscillating in his hand.
“So after he was unearthed, what happened?” I asked.
“The story took off in strange directions,” Menshiki replied, sounding hesitant to go into it. “Ueda Akinari’s worldview late in his life is deeply reflected in that story. A quite cynical view of the world, really. Akinari had a complicated background, a man who went through a lot of troubles in his life. But rather than hearing me summarize, I suggest you read the story yourself.”
Menshiki took an old book out of the paper bag he’d brought inside from the car, and handed it to me. A volume from a collection of classical Japanese literature. The book contained the entire text of Akinari’s two most famous books, Tales of Moonlight and Rain and Tales of the Spring Rain.
“When you told me what was going on here, right away I recalled this story. Just to be sure, I reread the copy I had on my shelves. I’ll give you the book. If you’d like, please take a look. It’s a short tale and doesn’t take long to read.”
I thanked him and accepted the book. “It’s all pretty strange,” I said. “Kind of unbelievable. Of course I’ll read it. But apart from all that, what am I actually supposed to do? I don’t think I can just leave things the way they are. If somebody really is buried beneath those rocks, ringing a bell or gong or whatever, sending out a call for help every night, we have to help get him out.”
Menshiki frowned. “But the two of us would never be able to move that pile of stones.”
“Should we report it to the police?”
Menshiki shook his head a few times. “The police won’t be any help. Once you report that you’re hearing a bell ringing from under stones in a woods in the middle of the night, they’re not going to take you seriously. They’ll just think you’re crazy. It could make things worse. Better not go there.”
“But if that bell keeps ringing every night, I don’t think my nerves can take it. I can’t get much sleep. All I can do is move out of this house. That sound is definitely trying to tell us something.”
Menshiki considered this. “We’ll need a professional’s help to move those rocks,” he said. “There’s a man I know pretty well who’s a local landscape designer. He’s used to moving heavy rocks in landscaping. If need be, he could arrange for a small backhoe. Then it’d be easy to move the rocks and dig a hole.”