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Ryuji advanced the film frame by frame until the screen went black. It stayed black for three or four frames. If you calculated one frame at a thirtieth of a second, then the darkness lasted for about a tenth of a second.
“Why does this happen in the real scenes and not the imagined ones? Look more closely at the screen. It’s not completely black.”
Asakawa brought his face closer to the screen. Indeed, it wasn’t totally dark. Something like a faint white haze hung suspended within the darkness.
“A blurred shadow. What we have here is the persistence of vision. And as you watch, don’t you get an incredible sense of immediacy, as if you’re actually a participant in the scene?”
Ryuji looked Asakawa full in the face and blinked once, slowly. The black curtain.
“Eh?” murmured Asakawa, “Is this … the blink of an eye?”
“Exactly. Am I wrong? If you think about it, it’s consistent. There are things we see with our eyes, but there are also scenes we conjure up in our minds. And since these don’t pass through the retina, there’s no blinking involved. But when we actually look with our eyes, the images are formed according to the strength of the light that hits the retina. And to keep the retina from drying out, we blink, unconsciously. The black curtain is the instant when the eyes shut.”
Once again, Asakawa was filled with nausea. The first time he’d finished watching the video he’d run to the toilet, but this time the evil chill was even worse. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had climbed into his body. This video hadn’t been recorded by a machine. A human being’s eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin—all five senses had been used to make this video. These chills, this shivering, were from somebody’s shadow sneaking into him through his sense organs. Asakawa had been watching the video from the same perspective as this thing within him.
He mopped his brow again and again, but still it was damp with cold sweat.
“Did you know—hey, are you listening? Individual differences aside, the average man blinks twenty times a minute, and the average woman fifteen times. That means that it might have been a woman who recorded these images.”
Asakawa couldn’t hear him.
“Heh, heh, heh. What’s the matter? You look like you’re dead already, you’re so pale,” Ryuji laughed. “Look on the bright side. We’re one step closer to a solution now. If these images were collected by the sense organs of a particular person, then the charm must have something to do with that person’s will. In other words: maybe she wants us do something.”
Asakawa had temporarily lost his faculty of reason. Ryuji’s words vibrated in his ears, but their meaning didn’t make it to his brain.
“At any rate, we now know what we have to do. We have to find out who this person is. Or was. I think he or she is probably no longer with us. And then we have to find out what this person desired while he or she was still alive. And that’ll be the charm that will allow us to go on living.”
Ryuji winked at Asakawa, as if to say, how’mI doin’?
Asakawa had left the No. 3 Tokyo–Yokohama Freeway and was now heading south on the Yokohama–Yokosuka road. Ryuji had reclined the passenger seat and was sleeping a perfect, stressless sleep. It was almost two in the afternoon, but Asakawa wasn’t the least bit hungry.
Asakawa reached out a hand to wake Ryuji, but then pulled it back. They weren’t at their destination yet. Asakawa didn’t even really know what their destination was. All Ryuji had done was tell him to drive to Kamakura. He didn’t know where they were going or why they were going there. It made him a nervous, irritable driver. Ryuji had packed in a hurry, saying he’d explain where they were going once they were in the car. But once underway, he’d said, “I didn’t sleep last night—don’t wake me till Kamakura,” and then he’d promptly gone to sleep.
He exited the Yokohama–Yokosuka road at Asahina and then took the Kanazawa road five kilometers until they reached Kamakura Station. Ryuji had been asleep for a good two hours.
“Hey, we’re here,” said Asakawa, shaking him. Ryuji stretched his body like a cat, rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, and shook his head rapidly from side to side, lips flapping.
“Ahh, I was having such a pleasant dream …”
“What do we do now?”
Ryuji sat up and looked out the window to see where he was. “Just go straight on this road, and then when you reach the Outer Gate to the Hachiman Shrine turn left and stop.” Then Ryuji went to lie down again, saying, “Maybe I can still catch the tail-end of that dream, if you don’t mind.”
“Look, we’ll be there in five minutes. If you’ve got time to sleep, you’ve got time to explain to me what we’re doing here.”
“You’ll see once we get there,” said Ryuji, jamming his knees up against the dashboard and going back to sleep.
Asakawa made the left and stopped. Dead ahead was an old two-story house with a small sign reading “Tetsuzo Miura Memorial Hall.”
“Pull into that parking lot.” Ryuji had apparently opened his eyes slightly. He wore a satisfied look and his nostrils were flared like he was sniffing perfume. “Thanks to you I was able to finish my dream.”
“What was it about?” asked Asakawa, as he turned the steering wheel.
“What do you think? I was flying. I love dreams where I’m flying.” Ryuji snorted happily and licked his lips.
The Tetsuzo Miura Memorial Hall looked deserted. A large open space on the ground floor featured photographs and documents in frames on the wall or in cases under glass, and an outline of this Miura fellow’s achievements was plastered onto the center wall. Reading it, Asakawa finally figured out who the man was.
“Excuse me. Is there anyone here?” called Ryuji into the depths of the building. There was no reply.
Tetsuzo Miura had died two years ago at the age of 72, after retiring from a professorship at Yokodai University. He’d specialized in theoretical physics, concentrating on theories of matter and statistical dynamics. But the Memorial Hall, modest as it was, didn’t result from his achievements as a physicist, but from his scientific investigations of paranormal phenomena. The resumé on the wall claimed that the Professor’s theories had attracted worldwide interest, although undoubtedly only a limited number of people had actually paid any attention. After all, Asakawa had never even heard of the guy. And what exactly were this man’s theories? To find the answer, Asakawa began to examine the items on the walls and in the display cases. Thoughts have energy, and that energy … Asakawa had read this far when he heard, echoing from another room, the sound of someone hurrying down stairs. A door opened and a fortyish man with a mustache poked his head in. Ryuji approached the man, holding out one of his business cards. Asakawa decided to follow his example and took his own card-holder from his breast pocket.
“My name is Takayama. I’m at Fukuzawa University.” He spoke smoothly and affably; Asakawa was amused at how different he sounded. Asakawa held out his own card. Faced with the credentials of an academic and a reporter, the man looked rather dismayed. It was Asakawa’s card he was frowning at.
“If it’s alright, there’s something we’d like to consult with you about.”
“What would that be?” The man eyed them cautiously.
“As a matter of fact, I once had the pleasure of meeting the late Professor Miura.”
For some reason the man seemed relieved to hear this, and relaxed his expression. He brought out three folding chairs and arranged them to face each other.
“Is that so? Please, have a seat.”
“It must have been about three years ago … yes, that’s right, it was the year before he died. My alma mater was sounding me out about possibly giving a lecture on the scientific method, and I thought I might take the opportunity to hear what the Professor had to say …”
“Was it here, in this house?”
“Yes. Professor Takatsuka introduced us.”
Hearing this name, the man at last smiled. He realized he had something in common with his visitors. These two must be on our side. They’re not here to attack us after all.
“I see. I’m sorry about all that. My name is Tetsuaki Miura. Sorry, I’m fresh out of business cards.”
“So you must be the Professor’s …?”
“Yes, I’m his only son. Hardly worthy of the name, though.”
“Is that right? Well, I had no idea the Professor had such an outstanding son.”
It was all Asakawa could do to keep from laughing at the sight of Ryuji addressing a man ten years older than himself and calling him an “outstanding son”.
Tetsuaki Miura showed them around briefly. Some of his late father’s students had got together after his death to open the house to the public, and to put in order the materials he’d collected over the years. As for Tetsuaki himself, he said, somewhat self-deprecatingly, that he hadn’t been able to become a researcher like his father had wanted, but instead had built an inn on the same lot as the Hall, and devoted himself to managing it.
“So here I am exploiting both his land and his reputation. Like I say, I’m hardly a worthy son.” Tetsuaki gave a chagrined laugh. His inn was used largely for high-school excursions—mostly physics and biology clubs, but he also mentioned a group devoted to parapsychological research. High-school clubs needed to have a reason to go on trips. Basically, the Memorial Hall was bait to bring in student groups.
“By the way …” Ryuji sat up straight and tried to guide the conversation to the heart of the matter.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve been boring you, babbling on like this. So tell me, what brings you here?”
It was apparent that Tetsuaki didn’t have much in the way of talent for science. He was nothing but a merchant who adjusted his attitude to suit the situation—Asakawa could tell that Ryuji thought little of the man.
“To tell you the truth, we’re looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“Actually, we don’t know the name. That’s why we’re here.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.” Tetsuaki looked troubled, as if to urge his visitors to make a little more sense.
“We can’t even say for sure if this person is still alive, or has already died. What’s clear is that this person had powers that ordinary people don’t.”
Ryuji paused to watch Tetsuaki, who seemed to understand immediately what he meant.
“Your father was probably Japan’s greatest collector of this sort of information. He told me that, using a network of connections he himself had forged, he had assembled a list of people all over the country with paranormal powers. He said he was storing the information.”
Tetsuaki’s face clouded over. Surely they weren’t going to ask him to search through all those records for a single name. “Yes, of course the files have been preserved. But there are so many of them. And many of those people are frauds anyway.” Tetsuaki blanched at the thought of looking through all those files again. It had taken a dozen of his father’s students several months to organize them. Following the wishes of the deceased, they’d included even uncertain cases, swelling the number of files even further.
“We certainly don’t intend to put you to any trouble. With your permission, we’ll search through them ourselves, just the two of us.”
“They’re in the archives upstairs. Perhaps you’d like to take a look at them first?” Tetsuaki stood up. They could only talk like that because they had no idea how much there was. Once they had a look at all those shelves, he had a feeling they wouldn’t feel like tackling them. He led them to the second floor.
The archives were in a high-ceilinged room at the head of the stairs. They entered the room to find themselves facing two bookcases of seven shelves each. Each file-book contained materials relating to forty cases, and at first glance there seemed to be thousands of file-books. Asakawa didn’t notice Ryuji’s reaction, he was too busy turning pale himself. If we spend time on this, we could well die here in this gloomy room. There’s got to be another way!
Ryuji, unfazed, asked, “Do you mind if we have a look?”
“Go right ahead.” Tetsuaki stayed and watched them for a little while, half out of astonishment and half out of curiosity to see just what they thought they’d find. But eventually he seemed to have given up on them. “I’ve got work to do,” he said, leaving.
When they were alone, Asakawa turned to Ryuji and spoke. “So, want to tell me what’s going on?” His voice was a bit thick, because he was still craning his neck looking at all the files. These were the first words he’d spoken since entering the Hall. The files were arranged in chronological order, beginning with 1956 and ending in 1988. 1988—that was the year Miura had died. Only death had brought down the curtain on his thirty-two-year quest.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll tell you while we look. I’ll start with 1956. You start with 1960.”
Asakawa tentatively pulled out a file and flipped through it. Each page contained at least one photo and a piece of paper on which was written a short description as well as a name and an address.
“What am I looking for?”
“Pay attention to names and addresses. We’re trying to find a woman from Izu Oshima Island.”
“A woman?” asked Asakawa, cocking his head questioningly.
“Remember that old woman on the video? She told somebody they were going to give birth to a daughter. Think she was talking to a man?”
Ryuji was right. Men could not bear children.
So they started searching. It was a simple, repetitive task, and since Asakawa asked why these files existed in the first place, Ryuji explained.
Professor Miura had always been interested in supernatural phenomena. In the ’50s, he’d begun experiments with paranormal powers, but he hadn’t got any results reliable enough to allow him to formulate a scientific theory. Clairvoyants would find themselves unable to do in front of an audience what they had done easily before. It took a lot of concentration to be able to display these powers. What Professor Miura was searching for was the kind of person who could exert his or her power at any time, under any circumstances. He could see that if the person failed in front of witnesses, then Miura himself would be called a fraud. He was convinced that there must be more people out there with paranormal powers than he knew about, so he set about finding them. But how was he to do this? He couldn’t interview everybody to check for clairvoyance, second sight, telekinesis. So he came up with a method. To anybody who might possibly have such powers, he sent a piece of film in a securely sealed envelope and asked them to imprint upon it with their minds a certain pattern or image, and then send it back to him, still sealed. In this way he could test the powers of people even at great distances. And since such psychic photography seemed to be a fairly basic power, people who possessed it often seemed to be clairvoyant as well. In 1956, he’d begun to recruit paranormals from all over the country, with the help of former students of his who had gone to work for publishers and newspapers. These former students helped set up a network which would report any rumor of supernatural powers straight back to Professor Miura. However, an examination of the film returned to him suggested that no more than a tenth of claimants actually had any power. The rest had skillfully broken the seal and replaced the film. Obvious cases of deception were weeded out at this point, but cases where it wasn’t clear one way or the other were kept, ultimately resulting in the unmanageable collection Asakawa saw before him. In the years since Miura had started, the network had been perfected through the development of the mass media and an increase in the number of participating former students; the data had piled up year after year until the man died.
“I see,” murmured Asakawa. “So that’s the meaning of this collection. But how do you know that the name of the person we’re looking for is in here?”
“I’m not saying it definitely is. But there’s a strong possibility it’s here. I mean, look at what she did. You know yourself that there are a few people who can actually produce psychic photos. But there can’t be too many paranormals who can actually project images onto a television tube without any equipment whatsoever. That’s power of the very highest order. Someone with that kind of power would stand out, even if they didn’t try to. I don’t think Miura’s network would have let someone like that slip through.”
Asakawa had to admit that the possibility was genuine. He redoubled his efforts.
“By the way, why am I looking at 1960?” Asakawa suddenly looked up.
“Remember the scene on the video that shows a television? It was a rather old model. One of the early sets, from the ’50s or early ’60s.”
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean …”
“Shut up. We’re talking probabilities here, right?”
Asakawa chided himself for being so irritated this last little while. But he had good reason to be. Given the limited time-frame, the number of files was huge. It would have been more unnatural to be calm about it.
At that moment, Asakawa saw the words “Izu Oshima” in the file he was holding.
“Hey! Got one,” he yelled, triumphantly. Ryuji turned around, surprised, and peered at the file.
Motomachi, Izu Oshima. Teruko Tsuchida, age 37. Postmarked February 14, 1960. A black-and-white photograph showing a white lightning-like slash against a black background. The description read: Subject sent this with a note predicting a cross-shaped image. No traces of substitution.
“How about that?” Asakawa trembled with excitement as he waited for Ryuji’s response.
“It’s a possibility. Take down the name and address, just in case.” Ryuji turned back to his own search. Asakawa felt better for having found a likely candidate so soon, but at the same time he was a bit dissatisfied with Ryuji’s brusque reaction.
Two hours passed. They didn’t find another woman from Izu Oshima. Most of the submissions were either from Tokyo itself or the surrounding Kanto region. Tetsuaki appeared, offering them tea and two or three possibly sarcastic comments before leaving. Their hands on the files were getting slower and slower; they’d been at it for two hours and hadn’t even polished off a year’s worth.
Finally, somehow, Asakawa got through 1960. As he went to start on 1961 he happened to glance at Ryuji. Ryuji was sitting cross-legged on the floor, motionless, face buried in an open file. Is he asleep, the idiot? Asakawa reached out his hand, but then Ryuji emitted a stifled groan.
“I’m so hungry I could die. How about you go buy us some takeout and oolong tea? Oh, and make reservations for this evening at Le Petit Pension Soleil.”
“What the hell?”
“That’s the inn the guy runs.”
“I know that. But why would I want to stay there with you?”
“You’d rather not?”
“For starters, we haven’t got time to lounge around at an inn.”
“Even if we find her now, there’s no way to get to Izu Oshima right now. We can’t go anywhere today. Don’t you think it’d be better to get a good night’s sleep and marshal our energies for tomorrow?”
Asakawa felt an indescribable aversion to spending the night with Ryuji at an inn. But there was no alternative, so he gave up and went out to buy food and tell Tetsuaki Miura they’d be staying the night. Then he and Ryuji ate their takeout and drank their oolong tea. It was seven in the evening. A brief respite.
His arms were tired and his shoulders stiff. His eyes swam, he took off his glasses. Instead, he held the files close enough to his face that he could lick them if he wanted. He had to use all his concentration or he was afraid he’d miss something, which tired him even more.
Nine o’clock. The silence of the archives was broken by Ryuji’s mad screech. “I’ve found it, finally! So that’s where she was hiding.”
Asakawa felt himself drawn to the file. He sat down next to Ryuji and put his glasses back on to look at it. It said:
