Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (20 page)

"Surely you must be mistaken," I quickly replied. "As far as I know, I didn't even go near your room last night, much less engage you in any debate."

"Oh, stop pulling my leg," the other answered. "You know perfectly well that you came to my room last night to argue, even quoting freely from the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. In any event, I didn't come here to complain of your conduct, but to tell you that your argument impressed me deeply. In fact, after you left, some of the statements you made lingered so long in my mind that I couldn't go back to sleep. As a result, I sat up reading and then wrote this postcard." My fellow-lodger waved a written postcard in my face, asking if he could possibly have written it unless someone had awakened him after he had gone to sleep.

I agreed that he couldn't, but after he left I felt confused and unhappy. This was indeed a disturbing turn of events if ever there was one, for as sure as I sit here now, sane and human, I had not the slightest recollection of having made any oration the night before. A few minutes later I went to the university, still deeply perplexed.

In the lecture hall, we were waiting for the professor to arrive, when somebody suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. Wheeling around, I saw my fellow-lodger.

"Do you happen to have the habit of talking in your sleep? he asked casually. This remark of his startled me, because during my grade-school days I had indeed had such a habit.

"I—I did once," I quickly replied, "but not any more. People have told me that I sometimes acted queerly as a child, often seeming to be in a trance. And my parents say I used to talk in my sleep, and that when someone playfully engaged me in conversation while I was deep in slumber, I would reply—clearly and sensibly—but would not remember anything the following morning. No one, however, seemed worried about this; even the doctor who was consulted stated definitely that it was not a cause for any alarm.
'Just
a slight case of sleep-talking, a slight touch of somnambulism' was his diagnosis. Naturally, I was much talked about in the neighborhood, because sleepwalking is a little unusual, but gradually, as I grew up, these nocturnal conversations grew less frequent, until finally it seemed that I was cured."

After listening to my story, my companion observed that possibly I had started again. "Now that you mention somnambulism," he said, "I do recall that you seemed a little odd last night. For example, your face was a complete blank, and your eyes were staring. The pupils of your eyes were dilated, but when I brought the lamp close to you they contracted quickly. Also, sometimes, your eyes were partly or entirely shut, flickering open only briefly as if you were registering your surroundings in your mind with photographic clarity,"

When I heard these words I began to feel even more uneasy. I didn't quite know what to make of the term "somnambulism"—nor exactly what tragic implications it held. From what I had heard about sleepwalking in the past, I understood that it was a state in which the body came under the control of the subconscious. As I began to think about what this might mean to me, I began to shudder. Supposing, I told myself, I were to commit some crime during one of my trances?

Two days later I was a complete mental wreck. Unable to eat, and naturally unable to sleep for fear I would commit some violence while in die mysterious realm of the subconscious, I realized that I would never have another moment of peace unless I had medical help. So I went to see a doctor I knew.

After examining me, the doctor told me frankly that I was a somnambulist. "But you need have no undue fears," he added, with what I considered unwarranted optimism. "Actually, yours is not a very serious case—provided you do not aggravate your condition by overstraining your mental energies. Calm yourself as much as you can; try to live a regular, normal, healthy life; and I am sure yon will be cured."

With these words he dismissed me, but I was far from relieved. Quite to the contrary, now that I definitely
knew
myself to be a somnambulist, I began to worry even more. Losing complete interest in my studies, I wasted away the hours of each day doing nothing but fretting over my fate—often wishing that I had never been born.

The days dragged on, every daylight hour like a century of agony; yet they were nothing compared to the tortures that awaited me at night. Fearing the unknown, I dared not sleep except in snatches. At last, however, a whole month had passed without a single untoward incident, and I began to feel somewhat reassured. "Maybe the doctor was right after all," I told myself. "If I can just stop worrying, I'll be fine."

I was on the point of believing that I had been making a mountain out of a molehill, and that if anything, I was just a victim of badly shattered nerves—when something dreadful happened, again casting me into the deepest abyss of despair.

One morning, shortly after getting up, I found an unfamiliar object—somebody's watch—ticking loudly a few inches away from my pillow. With all my previous fears again surging into my breast like mad ocean waves, I picked the watch up with a shaking hand and tried to figure out to whom it could possibly belong. Suddenly, as if in answer to my fears, I heard a shout from an adjoining room.

"I can't find my watch! I can't find my watch!" someone yelled, and I immediately recognized the voice as that of another lodger in the same house, a clerk employed by a trading company.

"So it's happened at last!" I told myself. "Just as I feared, I've committed a crime—without knowing it." Perspiring profusely and my heart beating wildly, I rushed to the room of my schoolmate and asked for his assistance in returning the watch, which I had evidently stolen from the clerk. My friend agreed and took the watch back to the clerk. Once he had explained that I was a somnambulist, the clerk was very understanding and agreed to consider the incident closed and forgotten.

After that shocking incident, however, word quickly got around that I was an incurable sleepwalker. Even in my classroom, I knew that the other students were talking about me behind my back.

With all my heart I yearned to be cured of my horrible affliction. There had to be a way out—some way out— and I was determined to find it, regardless of whatever sacrifice this might entail. Every day I bought and read books by the armful, tried various types of calisthenics to improve my health, and consulted several doctors. Far from improving, however, my condition went from bad to worse.

At first, the fits came over me only once or twice a month, fits in which my subconscious mind completely dominated my actions. And every time I learned what had happened only by seeing what I had taken or what I had left behind in some unfamiliar place. If only I hadn't left these evidences of my nocturnal wanderings, I told myself, it wouldn't be so bad. And yet, if I did not leave any evidence, then how was I ever to know what type of felony I had unconsciously committed?

One night I strayed out of my lodging house at about midnight and began to wander about the graveyard of a temple in the neighborhood. It happened that one of the office clerks who lived in the same house with me was returning from a late party, and as he came along the street beside the graveyard, he caught sight of my quietly moving figure beyond the low hedge. He quickly spread the report that a ghost was haunting the temple grounds. Later, when it was discovered that
I
had been the "ghost," I became the laughingstock of the whole neighborhood.

But, as you can well imagine, it was no laughing matter for me. Instead, it was a horrible tragedy from which I now seemed to have no escape. As for the nights—those quiet moments of darkness and calm which spell restful-ness to all ordinary human beings—they meant but one thing so far as I was concerned—
fear.
My state of mind finally became such that I grew to fear the very word "night"—and everything connected with the ritual of sleep.

Meanwhile, I continued to delve deeper and deeper into the workings of the human mind. What strange mechanism makes one act so abnormally, I asked myself over and over again. I was thankful that, despite all my anguish, I had not so far committed a serious crime. But what would happen, I asked myself, if I were to become responsible for some fatal tragedy? According to the many books on sleepwalking which I had accumulated and read with deepest absorption, ghastly crimes had been committed by somnambulists. Was it then not possible that I too might commit some such bloody act as murder?

Once caught in this web of thought, I could contain myself no longer. Deciding that the best course was to abandon my studies and return home, I wrote a long letter to my parents, explaining all the circumstances and asking their advice. And it was while I waited impatiently for a reply that the very catastrophe which I most feared actually came to pass. . . .

All this while Saito had been sitting motionless on his square cushion, taking in every word as if hypnotized. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, and as the New Year bustle of this popular hot-spring resort was now over, the absolute stillness seemed ominous.

During the brief pause which he allowed himself, Ihara eyed Saito intently, trying to fathom the others reaction to his story, while simultaneously trying to place the strange resemblance of his listener to another face which he had once known. . . somewhere. . . . Still unable to remember where, he again picked up the thread of his narrative:

To return to my story, the most shocking moment of my life came in the fall of 1907. . .a long time ago, to be sure. However, I remember every detail as if it had all taken place yesterday.

One morning I was suddenly awakened from a restless sleep by a loud noise in the house. Quickly I got out of bed, deeply alarmed. "Did I have another fit during the night?" was the first question I asked myself. If so, what had I done? Secretly praying that it was nothing serious, I glanced quickly around the room, and suddenly I saw a mysterious bundle, in a cloth wrapper, placed just inside the door of my room.

Under normal circumstances I would have examined the contents of the unknown parcel, but in this particular case I was too gripped with fear and foreboding to act rationally. So instead of even attempting to satisfy my curiosity, I snatched up the bundle and threw it into the closet. This done, I looked around furtively, like a thief, and only after I had made absolutely certain that I had been unobserved did I emit a sigh of relief. Just then someone knocked on my door, and when I opened it I found a fellow-lodger standing outside in the narrow corridor, his face pale as a sheet.

"Say, Ihara," the man said with a shiver, "something terrible's happened! Old man Murata, our landlord, has been murdered. Everybody suspects a burglar, but you'd better come along and join the rest of us. Someone has already telephoned the police, and they'll soon be here!"

You can well imagine how I felt when I heard this tragic news. My heart stopped beating, my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth, and I could not utter a sound. As in a nightmare, I followed the other to the scene of the tragedy.

The ghastly sight which met my eyes there made me all but faint. Even now, twenty long years later, I can still see the eyes of the dead old keeper of the lodging house staring madly and boring right into my own—as if in silent accusation.

[Ihara paused again and with the sleeve of his kimono wiped away the beads of perspiration that dotted his brow.]

Yes [he continued with a shudder], I can remember every detail vividly. From the excited chatter of the others in the room, I managed to learn the details of what had evidently taken place. It seemed that on the particular night of the tragedy the old lodging-house keeper had slept alone in his room. The next morning one of the maids had thought it strange that he was not yet awake since he had always been the first to rise, and she had gone to awaken him and made her gruesome discovery. When he was found, old man Murata was lying flat on his back, strangled in his sleep with the flannel muffler he had always worn, even to bed.

Soon the police arrived on the scene. In looking for evidence, they discovered that several items belonging to the dead man were missing, namely, the keys which he had always kept in his purse, plus a large fortune in securities which had disappeared together with the small portable cash-box in which they had been kept. Also, further examination showed that the main door had not been locked on the preceding night because he had expected his wife and son to return late. So it had been quite a simple matter for the murder or murderers to gain admission to the house. As for on-the-spot clues, there was but one item—a soiled handkerchief—and this the police officers took with them for minute laboratory inspection.

Meanwhile, after I had seen enough of the murder scene to want to linger any longer, I stealthily withdrew to my own room. After I had locked the door, my first thought flew to the closet where I had hidden the mysterious bundle. "What's in it?" I asked myself with horror. "Is this to be a real case of a skeleton in a closet?" Even before I took out the bundle and examined the contents, I knew what I would find. Inside the package, I found the victim's missing securities.

Not long after, the police took me into custody. Even without the damaging evidence of the stolen securities, which the police found in my possession, the case against me seemed conclusive, for the handkerchief which had been found at the scene of the crime was mine.

The days that followed were like a nightmare. Cast into a cell, I was questioned incessantly for hours on end. Finally, they brought along a mental specialist—a psychiatrist I believe he was—and after asking his expert opinion as to my case, the police also called various tenants of the lodging house to give testimony. Many who knew me well testified that, so far as they knew, I came from a respectable family and that they could not imagine me turning into a ruthless killer just for the sake of money. Others swore that I was a sleepwalker, and promptly cited several instances where, they claimed, I had acted abnormally, but without seeming to be conscious of my own conduct.