The Devil's Disciple (6 page)

Michiko was the daughter of a well-known university professor named Kawakami who passed away some years ago. She was wise even as a child and a real beauty to boot. Some of you may even have had the pleasure of meeting her. From the moment she took up residence in ‘K' she was said to be the queen of the place. For a barrister like me it's hard to find words to describe her, but let's just say she was extremely beautiful and liberally endowed with what these days goes by the name of ‘sexual appeal'. She was known for her beauty since her days as a student at a girls' school and it was said that one look at her would make a devotee out of anyone. As a result she attracted a crowd of young admirers. Since the death of her father had left her quite to her own devices, these young admirers, particularly the male ones, had only increased in number. Among them was a young count, a bachelor with a taste for music, with whom she was often to be seen strolling through the Ginza. There was also an important politician's son with literary ambitions in whose company she often went to the theatre. This aroused the envy of many and gave rise to widespread speculation as to who would be lucky enough to marry her. As the lovely daughter of a distinguished professor whose sensibilities were refined by music and literature, who ran in such rarefied circles and whose elegant comportment was beyond reproach, it was generally assumed that she had but to choose whether she would become a countess, marry into a powerful political family or perhaps become the fashionable wife of a captain of industry.

Thus it was no small surprise to many people when three years ago she suddenly married Oda Seizō. Of course there was no reason to think it was not a proper match given that the gentleman was extremely wealthy and the lady a great beauty and the daughter of an influential family. But these were not the points that made the match so puzzling.

The puzzling fact was that the two barely knew each other before they were married. In other words, theirs was an arranged marriage in the traditional Japanese style. For those who knew Michiko well this was understandably unfathomable. Why on earth would a modern woman like her agree to such a marriage? The news of her engagement came as a great disappointment to all those who prided themselves on knowing Michiko.

But despite all the astonishment it occasioned, the negotiations between the two families proceeded apace and soon the couple was joined in matrimony.

Among those who knew Michiko there were some who assumed that the marriage was not of her own choosing – that despite the prosperous appearance of her family they must have fallen on hard times and Michiko had been sacrificed and married off to the man for his money. And indeed this was not a baseless speculation. Wise women in particular are apt to think this way.

The first year of their marriage left little grist for gossip. The young couple seemed to be leading a perfectly placid and peaceful domestic life. And yet the fact that Mrs Oda had continued to socialise with her young male friends did raise a few eyebrows.

After a year Seizō suffered from a serious bout of pleurisy and was confined to his bed for six months. After this the couple stopped going out in the town of ‘K' and led a quiet domestic life enlivened only by the company of their servants.

It was just at that time that strange rumours began to circulate to the effect that Michiko was leading a pitiable existence. For one thing it was rumoured that her husband Seizō not only did not love her, but failed to understand her as well. And for another it appeared that, having the kind of temper that often comes with chronic illness, he often abused her verbally and sometimes even struck her. On a number of occasions the servants were said to have witnessed the master of the house in the act of beating his wife.

Michiko was said to suffer her husband's violent behaviour and to be getting along as well as she could. Many began to pity Michiko as a result of these rumours – all the more so because it made her habitual cheerfulness seem like an attempt to put a brave face on her situation. Of course she did confess to a few close friends how perfectly horrid her married life had become and when this information did eventually become more widely known it came as no surprise to most people. Everyone simply reconfirmed their belief that nothing good could come from an arranged marriage, and much less so one motivated by money. As people's sympathy for Michiko increased, her husband and her mother, who had sacrificed her for financial gain, suffered a corresponding decline in the public's estimation.

But before another six months had passed Michiko herself became the subject of unsavoury rumours.

For despite the fact that Seizō was said to be abusing his wife, it was also clear from Michiko's manner that he was in no way restricting her movements. Perhaps it was the fact that her husband was completely ignoring her that enabled her to have such an attitude. But however indifferent her husband might be to her free ways, they were of a nature that the rest of society could hardly fail to notice.

Michiko thought of her home as a cold prison and there were many who felt pity for her and wondered how she could stand it. But on the other hand her behaviour had a negative effect on her reputation. People began to criticise her for associating with young students. And there were even some who said quite openly that there was one among them to whom she was especially close. But Michiko acted as if she were completely unaware of what was being said about her. Her husband Seizō, for his part, was even less concerned than Michiko, or at least he appeared so.

The exact nature of Michiko's misbehaviour was to be exposed unexpectedly as a result of the tragedy.

In this way the young ill-matched couple made their home in ‘K' amidst a cloud of rumour and innuendo. Such was their life until the incident occurred.

It was on 16th August of last year, in the afternoon, that two men came to call at the Oda home in ‘K'. They had both known the Odas for two or three years at that point. One was a twenty-five year old student of ‘K' University called Tomoda Takeshi. The other was Ōtera Ichirō, a student of another university who was twenty-four at the time. Tomoda had attended the same school as Oda Seizō and was himself the scion of an important family. He happened to be renting a villa on the outskirts of ‘K' at the time. But he felt lonely there by himself and had come to the Odas' that afternoon in search of company. Ōtera was a student at the university where Michiko's late father had taught. But this Ōtera lived in circumstances very different from Tomoda. It would only come to light later, but it seems that (Ōtera's father had benefited from the generosity of Michiko's father. The former was stubborn by nature and had what might be called a mania for suing people. He was always getting himself involved in legal disputes and soon exhausted what small property he had and died while Ichirō was still in secondary school. His mother died soon thereafter leaving relatives to scramble to help him go to university at least. Eventually they appealed to Michiko's family and arranged for him to go to Tokyo to study. At the time of the incident he was three years out of secondary school and, with the help of all kinds of people, was studying at a university in Tokyo and living in a boarding house in the suburbs. He was in the middle of his summer vacation on the day in question and, having been acquainted with the Odas for some time, had come to ‘K' for the day to go swimming. I should mention here that both Tomoda and Ōtera happened to be quite close – perhaps too close it was said-to Michiko.

On that afternoon Tomoda and Ōtera had gone swimming in the ocean with Michiko but, as I mentioned earlier, the evening brought a violent storm. The sky began to look quite ominous and the two young men quickly heeded Michiko's warning to get out of the water.

It seems that Seizō was having one of his rare good days. When the two guests returned from the ocean he said, ‘Since there are four of us why don't we have a game of mahjong?' Being regulars at the Oda home in ‘K', the two guests were enthusiastic mahjong players and needed no persuading.

The game began after dinner – as all of those who were questioned later confirmed – at five-thirty in the evening and ended after about half an hour. Right after dinner the four gathered around the table and started clacking and banging away at the tiles. Meanwhile the weather was worsening outside into a proper storm.

I'm not too familiar with mahjong, but people say it takes some time to get through a game even for accomplished players. Apparently they started out agreeing that they would play two matches (comprising eight ‘rounds') back to back. But when those two matches were over the weather wasn't letting up and Michiko was winning. Seizō was dead last and uncharacteristically caught up in the game. He hated to lose and proposed another four rounds, which they played, bringing the total to twelve.

By the time all the rounds were over it was almost midnight. The wind had stopped but the rain was still falling and the husband and wife urged their guests to stay the night. Tomoda had a house in ‘K' so begged off and went home by car. Ōtera, on the other hand, decided to take them up on their offer of hospitality since the trains had stopped running and the weather was so bad. According to the maids it was just after midnight when the master of the house said he was going to bed and told them to do likewise. So the two girls, whose names were Otane and Oharu, readily retired to their rooms. As I mentioned before, by that time it was raining cats and dogs.

Allow me to pause for a moment here to tell you how the Oda house is laid out. It is entirely in the Japanese style, with the master bedroom and a study on the first floor, beneath which there are two open
tatami
rooms. Ōtera was given the room just below the study on that night. A little way down the passageway outside this room stood the maids' quarters and on the outside near the kitchen was another building where the houseboy slept, an ex-sailor named Jinbei.

Now the two sleepy maids had been rubbing their eyes for some time by then and having obtained their master's permission, they went straight to their room, pulled out their futons and immediately fell into the type of sound sleep that is enjoyed by most people in service.

Before long Otane, the elder of the two, woke up. Feeling that she had been asleep for quite some time and also that she had woken up naturally she looked, as she always did, at the alarm clock next to her pillow which had been put there by her employer. It was still only one-thirty. The rain had not let up. Just as the relieved Otane was about to go back to sleep she heard what she thought was someone screaming. And then she heard what sounded like a sliding partition falling over on the first floor.

Otane almost let out a scream herself, but instead she pulled her nightgown tight around herself and huddled under the covers holding her breath. After a few moments she timidly raised her head and once again heard the sound of someone groaning. Overcome with fear, Otane began to pummel Oharu awake, who was sprawled out sleeping next to her. When Oharu heard what had happened she began to tremble and the two of them resolved to wake the houseboy.

In order to accomplish this, however, as you will have gathered from my explanation a moment ago, it was necessary to go outdoors and into the other building – far too daunting a feat for two girls to undertake at such a late hour and in the midst of such a frightful downpour. So they decided instead to go and wake the guest who was staying in the room just down the hall.

The two crept down the hall shivering with fright and stood outside the door to the room where they called out Ōtera's name two or three times. But there was no answer. When they gathered up the courage to slide open the door where they believed Ōtera was sleeping, his bed was as empty as a cast-off snake skin. As they stood dumbfounded in the room they heard the sound of someone falling in the room directly overhead. Shrieking with fear they ran out of the room and went straight to wake the houseboy. A strapping ex-sailor in his forties, the houseboy grabbed a large walking stick, told the maids to sit tight, and stormed up the stairs.

It was then that the scene of the tragedy was witnessed for the first time by an outsider. As Jinbei came upstairs followed by the two frightened maids they were confronted with a horrifying scene.

The Odas' bedroom was at the top of the stairs and the
shōji
screen was open in the middle – actually one whole screen had been ripped out – so that the room's interior was clearly visible. A lamp on a rosewood table in one corner lit the room with a dim light of about five candlepower. The mosquito netting had been ripped off its hooks at two points and stuffed in a corner with the rest of it dangling loosely. Two futons were laid out with their pillows towards the desk. Michiko lay on the futon to the left. She was naked from chest up with a cord like a kimono lashed tightly around her breasts all the way up to her neck. With each groan, bright red blood spilled out from a gash in the vicinity of her full white breasts.

Seizō was half-way out of the other futon, face-down on the table. Michiko seemed almost dead already but Seizō was in the last agonising throes.

It has taken me some time to describe all of this but of course in reality it only took a second for Jinbei and the maids to take all of it in. In fact very little time had passed since Otane first woke up. Seeing what had happened to his master, Jinbei ran to him and held him from behind. His kimono was covered in blood that came flowing out of his mouth and from a wound on his right breast. As Jinbei lifted him up Seizō looked him straight in the eye and said, with all the strength he had left in his body, ‘Ōtera… Ōtera…'

Michiko was in a grave condition but her husband's scream seemed to revive her and suddenly she said a single word, ‘Ichirō…'

Jinbei and the two maids all heard this quite clearly. It caused them all to catch their breath at once.

As soon as Jinbei heard his master say ‘Ōtera' his first thought was to find the man. He looked around him and there, in the adjoining study, he saw a man standing as rigid as a statue. Of course you will have guessed that this was Ōtera. We are told that his pyjamas were covered in blood and all dishevelled as if he had just been in a fight. He held something shiny in his right hand as he stood there silently in the dark, looking like a man deep in meditation.