“Okay, but I see two problems with that,” I said. “First, I’d have to get permission to do that work from the son of the owner. I can’t decide anything on my own. And second, I don’t have the funds to hire someone to do that kind of job.”
Menshiki smiled. “Don’t worry about the money. I’ll take care of that. What I mean is, that designer owes me one, and I think he’ll do it at cost. Don’t worry about that. As for Mr. Amada, why don’t you get in touch with him? If you explain the situation, I think he’ll give permission. If somebody really is shut away underneath those rocks and we just leave him to his fate, Mr. Amada will be liable for it as the property owner.”
“But to ask you, an outsider, to go to all that trouble—”
Menshiki spread his hands wide on his lap, as if catching the rain. His voice was quiet.
“I mentioned this before, but I’m a very curious person. I’d like to find out how this odd story will play out. It’s not something you run across every day. So, like I said, don’t worry about how much it’ll cost. I understand you have your own position to consider, but let me arrange everything.”
I looked Menshiki in the eye. There was a keen light there I hadn’t seen before. Those eyes told me that no matter what happened he was going to pursue it to the very end. If you don’t understand something, then stick with it until you do—that seemed to be Menshiki’s basic approach to life.
“Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll get in touch with Masahiko.”
“And I’ll contact the landscape designer,” Menshiki said. He paused. “By the way, there’s one thing I wanted to ask you.”
“Yes?”
“Do you often have these kinds of—what should I say?—paranormal experiences?”
“No,” I said. “This is a first. I’m a very ordinary person who’s lived a very ordinary life. That’s why I find it all so confusing. What about you, Mr. Menshiki?”
A faint smile rose to his lips. “I’ve had many strange experiences. I’ve seen things common sense can’t explain. But something this strange is a first.”
After this we sat there in silence, listening to the ringing of the bell.
As always the bell stopped completely a little after 2:30. And the mountains were again blasted with the buzz of insects.
“I’d best be going,” Menshiki said. “Thank you for the whiskey. I’ll get in touch soon.”
Under the moonlight Menshiki got into his glossy silver Jaguar and drove off. He gave a short wave out the open window and I waved back. After the sound of his engine had faded away down the slope, I remembered that he’d had a glass of whiskey (the second glass he hadn’t touched), but his face hadn’t turned red at all, his speech and attitude no different than if he’d drunk water. He must be able to hold his liquor. And he wasn’t driving far. It was a road that only local residents used, and at this hour there wouldn’t be any cars coming the other direction, or any pedestrians.
I went back inside, rinsed out our glasses in the kitchen sink, and went to bed. I thought about people coming with heavy equipment to move the stones behind the little shrine, and digging a hole. It was hard to picture it as real. Before that happened, I needed to read the Ueda Akinari story he’d mentioned, “Fate over Two Generations.” But I’d leave everything for tomorrow. Things would look different in the light of day. I switched off the bedside light, and to the background noise of buzzing insects, I fell asleep.
* * *
—
At ten a.m. I called Masahiko Amada’s office and explained the situation. I didn’t bring up Ueda Akinari, but told him how I’d had an acquaintance over to make sure that bell ringing in the middle of the night wasn’t just an auditory illusion I was having.
“That is really creepy,” Masahiko said. “But do you really believe there’s someone underneath those stones ringing a bell?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t just ignore it. I hear it every single night.”
“What will you do if, when you dig it all up, something weird emerges?”
“What do you mean, something weird?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Some mysterious thing that’s best left alone.”
“You should come at night sometime and hear that sound. If you heard it yourself you’d understand why I can’t just let it be.”
Masahiko sighed deeply on the other end of the line. “No thanks,” he said, “I’ll pass. I’ve always been a bit of a coward. I hate scary stories, anything frightening. No thanks. I’ll leave it all up to you. It’s not going to bother anyone if you move those old stones and dig a hole. Do whatever you like. Just make sure not to unearth anything weird, okay?”
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but once I know, I’ll be in touch.”
“If it were me, I’d just wear earplugs,” Masahiko said.
* * *
—
After I hung up I sat in a chair in the living room and read the Ueda Akinari story. I read it first in the original classical Japanese, then in the contemporary-language version. A couple of details were different, but as Menshiki had said there was a strong resemblance between the story and what I was experiencing here. In the story the character heard the gong sounding at two o’clock in the morning, about the same time. But what I heard wasn’t a gong but a bell. In the story the buzz of insects didn’t stop. The protagonist hears the gong mixed in with the sound of the insects. But these small details aside, what I experienced was exactly the same as in the story. It left me dumbfounded, in fact, at how close the two were.
The unearthed mummy was completely dried up, just its hand doggedly moving, striking the gong. A terrifying vitality made the hand move almost mechanically. No doubt this priest gave up the ghost while reciting sutras and beating out a rhythm on the gong. The main character put clothes on the mummy and poured water on his lips. Before long he was able to eat some thin rice gruel and gradually put on flesh. Finally he recovered to the point where he looked like a normal human being. But you got no sense from him at all of a priest who had attained enlightenment. No intelligence or wisdom, and not a hint of dignity. And he had lost all memory of his former life. He couldn’t recall, even, why he’d gone underground like that for so very long. He ate meat now, and had a considerable sexual appetite. He got married, and managed to make a living doing menial work. People nicknamed him “Nyujo no Josuke”—Josuke, the meditation guy. His pathetic figure made the villagers lose all respect for Buddhism. Is this the kind of wreck you end up as, they wondered, after all the strict ascetic training he went through, risking his life in pursuit of Buddhism? They started to despise faith, and stopped going to temple. That was Ueda’s story. As Menshiki had said, the story reflected the author’s cynical worldview. It’s not merely some tale of the supernatural.
For all that, Buddhist teachings were in vain. That man must have been underground, ringing that gong, for well over a hundred years. Yet nothing miraculous came of it, and people were fed up that all that came from it were bones.
I reread the short story “Fate over Two Generations” several times and found myself utterly confused. Say we used heavy equipment to move the stones, dug up the soil, and what emerged was a bony, pathetic mummy, then how was I supposed to handle that? Would I be responsible for resuscitating him? Was it wiser, as Masahiko had advised, to not meddle, and simply plug up my ears and leave it all alone?
But even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t simply make it go away. I would never be able to escape that sound, no matter how tightly I plugged up my ears. And say I moved somewhere else; that sound might follow me. Plus, like Menshiki, I was curious. I had to find out what lay hidden beneath those stones.
* * *
—
In the afternoon Menshiki called me. “Did you get Mr. Amada’s permission?”