Kafka on the Shore (10 page)

So what we were left with were psychological problems, or problems dealing with brain function. In a case like that, standard medical methodology wouldn't help at all in isolating the cause. The effects would be invisible, something you couldn't quantify. We finally understood why we had been called here by the military to consult.

We interviewed every child involved in the incident, as well as the homeroom teacher and attending physician. Major Toyama also participated. But these interviews yielded almost nothing new—we merely confirmed what the major had already told us.

The children had no memory whatsoever of the event. They saw what looked like a plane glinting high up in the sky, climbed up Owan yama, and began hunting mushrooms. Then there's a gap in time and the next thing they recall is lying on the ground, surrounded by a group of worried-looking teachers and policemen. They felt fine, without any pain, discomfort, or nausea. Their minds just felt a bit blank, as you do when you first wake up in the morning. That was all. Each child gave the same exact response.

After conducting these interviews we concluded that this was a case of mass hypnosis. From the symptoms the homeroom teacher and school doctor observed at the scene, this hypothesis made the most sense. The regular movement of the eyes, the slight lowering of respiration, heartbeat, and temperature, the lack of memory—it all fit.

The teacher alone didn't lose consciousness because for whatever reason what produced this mass hypnosis didn't affect adults.

We weren't able to pinpoint the cause, however. Generally speaking, though, mass hypnotism requires two elements. First, the group must be close-knit and homogeneous, and placed in restricted circumstances. Secondly, something has to trigger the reaction, something that acts simultaneously on everyone. In this case it might have been the glint of that airplane they saw. This is just a hypothesis, mind you—we weren't able to find any other candidates—and there may very well have been some other trigger that set it off. I broached the idea of it being a case of mass hypnosis with Major Toyama, making it clear this was merely a conjecture. My two colleagues generally concurred. Coincidentally, this also happened to be indirectly related to a research topic we were investigating ourselves.

"That does seem to fit the evidence," Major Toyama said after giving it some thought. "This is not my field, but it would appear to be the likeliest explanation. But there's one thing I don't understand—what made them snap out of this mass hypnosis? There'd have to be some sort of reverse triggering mechanism."

I really don't know, I admitted. All I could do was speculate. My hypothesis was this: There is a system in place which, after a certain amount of time passes, automatically breaks the spell. Our bodies have strong defense mechanisms in place, and if an outside system takes over momentarily, once a certain amount of time has passed it's like an alarm bell goes off, activating an emergency system that deprograms this foreign object that blocks our built-in defenses—in this case the effects of mass hypnosis—and eliminates it.

Unfortunately, I don't have the materials in front of me, so I can't quote the exact figures, but as I told Major Toyama, there have been reports of similar incidents occurring abroad. All of them are considered mysteries with no logical explanation. A large number of children lose consciousness at the same time, and several hours later wake up without any memory of what happened.

This incident is quite unusual, in other words, but not without precedent. One strange instance took place around 1930, in the outskirts of a small village in Devonshire, England. For no apparent reason, a group of thirty junior high students walking down a country path fell to the ground, one after the other, and lost consciousness. Several hours later, as if nothing had happened, they regained consciousness and walked back to school under their own steam. A physician examined them right away but could find nothing medically wrong. Not one of them could recall what had taken place.

At the end of the last century, a similar incident occurred in Australia. Outside of Adelaide fifteen teenage girls from a private girls school were on an outing when all of them lost consciousness, and then regained it. Again there were no injuries, no aftereffects. It ended up classified as a case of heatstroke, but all of them had lost consciousness and recovered it at nearly the same time, and nobody showed symptoms of heatstroke, so the real cause remains a mystery. Besides, it wasn't a particularly hot day when it occurred. Probably there was no other accounting for what had taken place, so they decided this was the best explanation.

These cases share several things in common: they took place among a group of either young boys or girls, somewhat distant from their school, all of whom lost consciousness essentially simultaneously and then regained it about the same time, with no one displaying any aftereffects. It's reported that some of the adults who happened to be with the children also lost consciousness, and some did not. Each case was different in that regard.

There are other similar incidents, but these two are the best documented, and thus are representative cases in the literature of this phenomenon. This recent instance in Yamanashi Prefecture, however, contains one element that differentiates it from the rest: namely that one boy did not regain consciousness. This child is the key to unlocking the truth to this whole event. We returned to Tokyo after our interviews in Yamanashi and went straight to the army hospital where the boy was being cared for.

—The army, then, was only interested in this incident because they suspected it may have been caused by poison gas?

That's my understanding. But Major Toyama would know more about this, and I suggest you ask him directly.

—Major Toyama was killed in Tokyo in March 1945, in the line of duty, during an air raid.

I'm very sorry to hear that. We lost so many promising people in the war.

—Eventually, though, the army concluded that this was not caused by any chemical weapons. They couldn't determine the cause, but they decided, didn't they, that it was unrelated to the war?

Yes, I believe that's true. At this point they'd concluded their investigation into the matter. But the boy, Nakata, was allowed to remain in the military hospital, since Major Toyama was personally interested in the case and had some connections there.

Thus we were able to go to the military hospital every day, and take turns staying overnight to investigate this unconscious boy's case further, from a number of angles.

Though unconscious, the boy's bodily functions nevertheless continued normally.

He was given nutrients intravenously and discharged urine at regular intervals. He shut his eyes at night and went to sleep when we turned out the lights, then opened them again in the morning. Other than being unconscious, he appeared completely healthy.

He was in a coma, but didn't dream, apparently. When people dream they exhibit characteristic eye movements and facial expressions. Your heart rate goes up as you react to experiences in your dreams. But with the Nakata boy we couldn't detect any of these indicators. His heart rate, breathing, and temperature were still slightly on the low side, but surprisingly stable.

It might sound strange to put it this way, but it seemed like the real Nakata had gone off somewhere, leaving behind for a time the fleshly container, which in his absence kept all his bodily functions going at the minimum level needed to preserve itself. The term "spirit projection" sprang to mind. Are you familiar with it? Japanese folk tales are full of this sort of thing, where the soul temporarily leaves the body and goes off a great distance to take care of some vital task and then returns to reunite with the body. The sort of vengeful spirits that populate The Tale of Genji may be something similar. The notion of the soul not just leaving the body at death but—assuming the will is strong enough—also being able to separate from the body of the living is probably an idea that took root in Japan in ancient times. Of course there's no scientific proof of this, and I hesitate to even raise the idea.

The practical problem that faced us was how to wake this boy from his coma, and restore him to consciousness. Struggling to find a reverse trigger to undo the hypnosis, we tried everything. We brought his parents there, had them shout out his name. We tried that for several days, but there was no reaction. We tried every trick in the book as far as hypnosis goes—clapping our hands in different ways right in front of his face. We played music he knew, read his schoolbooks aloud to him, let him catch a whiff of his favorite foods. We even brought in his cat from home, one he was particularly fond of.

We used every method we could think of to bring him back to reality, but nothing worked.

About two weeks into this, when we'd run out of ideas and were exhausted and discouraged, the boy woke up on his own. Not because of anything we'd done. Without warning, as if the time for this had been decided in advance, he came to.

—Did anything out of the ordinary take place that day?

Nothing worth mentioning. It was a day like any other. At ten a. m. the nurse came to draw a blood sample. Right after that he choked a bit, and some of the blood spilled on the sheets. Not much, and they changed the sheets right away. That was about the only thing different that day. The boy woke up about a half hour after that. Out of the blue he sat up in bed, stretched, and looked around the room. He had regained consciousness, and medically he was perfectly fine. Soon, though, we realized he'd lost his entire memory. He couldn't even remember his own name. The place he lived in, his school, his parents' faces—it was all gone. He couldn't read, and wasn't even aware this was Japan or the Earth. He couldn't even fathom the concept of Japan or the Earth. He'd returned to this world with his mind wiped clean. The proverbial blank slate.

When I come to I'm in thick brush, lying there on the damp ground like some log. I can't see a thing, it's so dark.

My head propped up by prickly brambles, I take a deep breath and smell plants, and dirt, and, mixed in, a faint whiff of dog crap. I can see the night sky through the tree branches. There's no moon or stars, but the sky is strangely bright. The clouds act as a screen, reflecting all the light from below. An ambulance wails off in the distance, grows closer, then fades away. By listening closely, I can barely catch the rumble of tires from traffic. I figure I must be in some corner of the city.

I try to pull myself together and pick up the scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces of me lying all around. This is a first, I think. Or is it? I had this feeling somewhere before. But when? I search my memory, but that fragile thread snaps. I close my eyes and let time pass by.

With a jolt of panic I remember my backpack. Where could I have left it? No way can I lose it—everything I own's inside. But how am I going to find it in the dark? I try to get to my feet, but my fingers have lost all their strength.

I struggle to raise my left hand—why is it so heavy all of a sudden?—and bring my watch close to my face, fixing my eyes on it. The digital numbers read 11:26. May 28. I think of my diary. May 28... good—so I haven't lost a day. I haven't been lying here, out cold, for days. At most my consciousness and I parted company for a few hours. Maybe four hours, I figure.

May 28... a day like any other, the same exact routine. Nothing out of the ordinary. I went to the gym, then to the Komura Library. Did my usual workout on the machines, read Soseki on the same sofa. Had dinner near the station. The fish dinner, as I recall. Salmon, with a second helping of rice, some miso soup, and salad. After that... after that I don't know what happened.

My left shoulder aches a little. As my senses return, so does the pain. I must have bumped into something pretty hard. I rub that part with my right hand. There's no wound, or swelling. Did I get hit by a car, maybe? But my clothes aren't ripped, and the only place that hurts is that spot in my left shoulder. Probably just a bruise.

I fumble around in the bushes, but all I touch are branches, hard and twisted like the hearts of bullied little animals. No backpack. I go through my pant pockets. My wallet's there, thank God. Some cash is in it, the hotel key card, a phone card. Besides this I've got a coin purse, a handkerchief, a ballpoint pen. As far as I can tell in the dark, nothing's missing. I'm wearing cream-colored chinos, a white V-neck T-shirt under a long-sleeved dungaree shirt. Plus my navy blue Topsiders. My cap's vanished, my New York Yankees baseball cap. I know I had it on when I left the hotel, but not now. I must have dropped it, or left it someplace. No big deal. Those are a dime a dozen.

Finally I locate my backpack, leaning up against the trunk of a pine tree. Why in the world would I leave it there and then scramble into this thicket, only to collapse?

Where the hell am I, anyway? My memory's frozen shut. Anyway, the important thing is that I found it. I take out my mini flashlight from a side pocket and check out the contents. Nothing seems to be missing. Thank God the sack with all my cash's there.

I shoulder the backpack and step over bushes, brushing branches out of the way, until I reach a small clearing. There's a narrow path there, and I follow the beam of my flashlight into a place where there're some lights. It appears to be the grounds of a Shinto shrine. I'd lost consciousness in a small woods behind the main shrine building.

A mercury lamp on a high pole illuminates the extensive grounds, casting a kind of cold light on the inner shrine, the offering box, the votive tablets. My shadow looks weirdly long on the gravel. I find the shrine's name on the bulletin board and commit it to memory. Nobody else is around. I see a restroom nearby and go inside and it turns out to be fairly clean. I take off my backpack and wash my face, then check out my reflection in the blurry mirror over the sink. I prepare myself for the worst, and I'm not disappointed—I look like hell. A pale face with sunken cheeks stares back at me, my neck all muddy, hair sticking out in all directions.

I notice something dark on the front of my white T-shirt, shaped sort of like a huge butterfly with wings spread. I try brushing it away, but it won't come off. I touch it and my hands come away all sticky. I need to calm down, so consciously taking my time I slowly take off both my shirts. Under the flickering fluorescent light I realize what this is—darkish blood that's seeped into the fabric. The blood's still fresh, wet, and there's lots of it. I bring it close for a sniff, but there's no smell. Some blood's been spattered on the dungaree shirt as well, but only a little, and it doesn't stand out on the dark blue material.