The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop

11

In a lane in front of Kinomiya Station was a small, one-story house with a shingle by the door that read Nagao Clinic: Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. Asakawa and Ryuji stood in front of the door for some time. If they couldn’t pull any information out of Nagao, it’d be sorry, time’s up! There was no more time to scare up new leads. But just what was there to find out from him? It was probably hoping for too much to think that he’d even remember much of anything about Sadako Yamamura from thirty years ago. They didn’t even have any hard evidence that Sadako had any connection at all with the sanatorium in South Hakone. All of Nagao’s colleagues at the sanatorium, except for Yozo Tanaka, had died of old age. They probably could have tracked down the names of some nurses if they’d tried, but it was too late for that now.

Asakawa looked at his watch. 11:30. Only a little over ten hours left until the deadline, and here he was, hesitating to open the door.

“What are you waiting for? Go on in.” Ryuji gave him a shove. Of course, he could understand why Asakawa was hesitating, even though he’d been in such a hurry to get here. He was scared. No doubt he was afraid of seeing his last hope dashed, his last chance to survive eliminated. Ryuji stepped in front of him and opened the door.

A couch big enough for three people stood along one wall of the small waiting room. Conveniently, there were no patients waiting. Ryuji bent over at the little receptionist’s window and spoke to the fat middle-aged nurse behind it. “Excuse me. We’d like to see the doctor.”

Without lifting her eyes from her magazine, the nurse lazily replied, “Would you like to make an appointment?”

“No, that’s not it. There’s something we’d like to ask him about.”

She closed her magazine, looked up, and put on her glasses. “May I ask what this is in regards to?”

“Like I say, we’d just like to ask him a few questions.”

Irritated, Asakawa peeked out from behind Ryuji’s back and asked, “Is the doctor in?”

The nurse touched the rims of her glasses with both hands and studied the two men. “What is this about?” she asked overbearingly.

Both Ryuji and Asakawa stood up straight. Ryuji said, loudly enough to be heard, “With a receptionist like her it’s no wonder there are no patients.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

Asakawa hung his head; it wouldn’t do to get her angry. But just then the door to the examination room opened and Nagao appeared, dressed in a white lab coat.

Although he was completely bald, Nagao looked rather younger than his 57 years. He frowned and fixed a suspicious gaze on the two men in his entryway.

Asakawa and Ryuji both turned at the sound of Nagao’s voice, and the instant they saw his face, they gasped simultaneously.

And we thought this guy might be able to tell us something about Sadako? No kidding. As if it were an electric current coursing through his brain, Asakawa found himself replaying the final scene of the video in his head. The sweating, panting face of a man seen from close up, eyes bloodshot. A gaping wound in his exposed shoulder, from which blood ran, dripping into the viewer’s eyes, clouding them over. A tremendous pressure on the viewer’s chest, murderous intent in the man’s face … And that face was exactly what they saw now: Dr Nagao. He was older now, but there was no way of mistaking him.

Asakawa and Ryuji exchanged glances. Then Ryuji pointed at the doctor and began to laugh. “Heh, heh, heh. Now this is why games are interesting. Ah, who would have thought it? Imagine running into you here.”

Nagao was obviously displeased at the way these two strange men had reacted to seeing him. He raised his voice. “Who are you?” Unfazed, Ryuji walked right up to him and grabbed him by the lapels. Nagao was several centimeters taller than Ryuji. Ryuji flexed his powerful arms and pulled the doctor’s ear to his mouth, then spoke in a gentle voice that belied his strength.

“So tell me, pal, what was it you did to Sadako Yamamura thirty years ago at the South Hakone Sanatorium?”

It took a few seconds for the words to sink into the doctor’s brain. Nagao’s eyes darted around nervously as he searched his memories. Then they came to him, scenes of a time he’d never been able to forget. His knees sagged; all the strength seemed to go out of his body. Just as he was about to faint, Ryuji steadied him and leaned him back against the wall. Nagao wasn’t shocked by the memories themselves. Rather, it was the fact that the man before him, who may or may not have even been thirty years old, knew about what had happened. Indescribable dread pierced his soul.

“Doctor!” exclaimed the nurse, Ms Fujimura.

“I think it’s about time this place closed for lunch,” Ryuji said, signaling to Asakawa with his eyes. Asakawa closed the curtain over the entryway so that no patients would come in.

“Doctor!” Nurse Fujimura didn’t know how to handle the situation. She just waited, dumbly, for Nagao to instruct her. Nagao somehow pulled himself together a little and thought about what to do next. Thinking that above all, he couldn’t let this nosy woman find out about what had happened, he assumed a calm expression.

“Nurse Fujimura, you can take your break now. Run along now and get something to eat.”

“But, doctor …”

“Just do as I say. There’s no need to worry about me.”

First two strange men come in and whisper something in the doctor’s ear, and the next thing she knows the doctor is collapsing. She didn’t know what to make of all this, and so she just stood there for a few moments. Finally, the doctor shouted, “Go, now!” She practically flew out the front door.

“Now, then. Let’s hear what you have to say for yourself.” Ryuji went into the examination room. Nagao followed after, looking like a patient who’s just been informed he has cancer.

“I’ll warn you before we start, you mustn’t lie to us. I and this gentleman here know everything—we’ve seen it with our very eyes.” Ryuji pointed first to Asakawa and then to his own eyes.

“What the …?” Seen it? Impossible. The bushes were too thick. There was nobody else around. Not to mention, these two are too young. They would have only been …

“I understand why you might be reluctant to believe me. But we both know your face—all too well.” Suddenly Ryuji’s tone changed. “Why don’t I tell you one of your distinguishing features? You’ve still got a scar on your right shoulder, haven’t you?”

Nagao’s eyes grew wide with astonishment, and his jaw started to quiver. After a pregnant pause, Ryuji said, “Now, shall I tell you why you have that scar on your shoulder?” Ryuji leaned over and stretched his neck until his lips were almost touching Nagao’s shoulder. “Sadako Yamamura bit you, didn’t she? Just like this.” Ryuji opened his mouth and pretended to bite through the white cloth. Nagao’s trembling grew worse, and he desperately tried to say something, but his mouth wouldn’t work. He couldn’t form words.

“I think you get my point. Now, we’re not going to repeat anything you tell us. We promise. All we want to know is everything that happened to Sadako.”

Not that he was in any condition to think at all, but Nagao didn’t think Ryuji’s words quite added up. If they’d already seen everything, why did they need to hear anything from the doctor’s mouth? But wait, the whole idea that they saw anything is silly. They couldn’t have seen anything. They probably weren’t even born yet. So what’s going on here? What do they think they’ve seen? The more he thought about it the less sense it made, until his head felt like it was ready to burst.

“Heh, heh, heh.” Ryuji chuckled and looked at Asakawa. The man’s eyes said it all. Frighten him like this and he’ll come clean. He’ll tell us anything.

And indeed, Nagao began to talk. He himself was puzzled as to why he remembered everything so clearly. And as he spoke, every sensory organ in his body began to recall the excitement of that day. The passion, the heat, the touch, the glossy shine of her skin, the song of the locusts, the mingled smells of sweat and grass, and the old well …

“I don’t even know what caused it. Maybe the fever and headache robbed me of my ordinary good judgment. Those were the early symptoms of smallpox—which meant I had already passed through the incubation period. But I didn’t dream that I had caught the disease myself. Fortunately, I managed not to infect anyone else in the sanatorium. To this day I’m haunted by the thought of what would have happened if the tuberculosis patients had been attacked by smallpox as well.

“The day was a hot one. I’d been examining the tomograms of a newly-admitted patient, and I had found a hole the size of a one-yen coin in one of his lungs. I’d told him to resign himself to spending a year with us, and then I’d given him a copy of the diagnosis to give his company. Then I couldn’t take it anymore—I just had to get outside. But even breathing the fresh mountain air didn’t make the pain in my head go away. So I went down the stone steps beside the ward, thinking to take shelter in the shade of the garden. There I noticed a young woman leaning against a tree trunk, gazing at the world down below. She wasn’t one of our patients. She was the daughter of a patient who’d been there long before I arrived, a man named Heihachiro Ikuma, a former assistant professor at Taido University. Her name was Sadako Yamamura. I remember the name well: her family name was different from her father’s. For about a month she had been making frequent visits to the sanatorium, but she didn’t spend much time with her father. Nor would she ask the doctors much about his condition. All I could assume was that she was there to enjoy the alpine scenery. I sat down next to her and smiled at her, asking her how her father was doing. But she didn’t look like she even wanted to know much about his illness. On the other hand, it was clear that she knew he didn’t have much longer. I could tell by the way she spoke. She knew the day her father was going to die, with more certainty than any doctor’s educated guess.

“Sitting there beside her like that, talking to her about her life and her family, I suddenly became aware that my headache, so unbearable a little while ago, had retreated. In its place appeared a fever accompanied by an odd feeling of excitement. I felt vitality well up within me, as if the temperature of my blood had been raised. I gazed at her face. I felt what I always felt, a sense of wonder that a woman with such perfect features should exist in the world. I’m not exactly sure what defines beauty, but I know that Dr Tanaka, who was twenty years older than me, used to say the same thing. That he’d never seen anyone more beautiful than Sadako Yamamura. My breathing was choked with fever, but somehow I controlled it enough to softly put a hand on her shoulder and say to her, ‘Let’s go somewhere cooler to talk, in the shade.’

“She suspected nothing. She nodded once and started to get to her feet. And as she stood up, and bent over, I saw—down the front of her white blouse—her perfectly-formed little breasts. They were so white that my whole mind was suddenly dyed milky white, and it was as if my reason was taken from me in the shock.

“She paid no attention to my agitation, but just brushed the dust from her long skirt. Her gestures seemed so innocent and adorable.

“We strolled on and on through the lush forest, surrounded by the droning of the cicadas. I hadn’t decided on any particular destination, but my feet kept heading in a certain direction. Sweat ran down my back. I took off my shirt, leaving only my undershirt. We followed an animal track until it opened up onto the side of a valley where there stood a dilapidated old house. It had probably been at least ten years since anyone had lived there. The walls were rotting and the roof looked like it could collapse at any moment. There was a well on the other side of the house, and when she saw it she ran toward it, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so thirsty.’ She bent over to look in. Even from the outside it was obvious that the well wasn’t used anymore. I ran to the well, too. But not to look inside. What I wanted to see was Sadako’s chest as she bent over again. I placed both hands on the lip of the well and got a close look. I could feel cool, damp air rising from the dark depths of the earth to caress my face, but it couldn’t take away the burning urge I felt. I didn’t know where the urge came from. I think now that the smallpox fever had taken away my mechanism of control. I swear to you, I had never experienced such sensual temptation before in my life.

“I found myself reaching out to touch that gentle swelling. She looked up in shock. Something snapped inside me. My memories of what happened next are hazy. All I can recall are fragmentary scenes. I found myself pressing Sadako to the ground. I pulled her blouse up over her breasts, and then … My memory skips to her resisting, violently, and then biting my shoulder; it was the intense pain that brought me to my senses. I saw the blood flowing from my shoulder drip onto her face. Blood dripped into her eyes, and she shook her head in revulsion. I adjusted my body to that rhythmic movement. What did my face look like then? What did she see when she looked at me? The face of a beast, I’m sure. That’s what I was thinking as I finished.

“When it was over, she fixed me with an implacable gaze. Still lying on her back, she raised her knees and skillfully used her elbows to scoot backwards. I looked at her body again. I thought my eyes had deceived me. Her wrinkled gray skirt had bunched up around her waist, and she made no move to cover her breasts as she backed up. A ray of sunlight fell on the point where her thighs converged, clearly illuminating a small, blackish lump. I raised my eyes to her chest—beautifully-shaped breasts. Then I looked down again. Within her pubic mound, covered with hair, was a pair of perfectly developed testicles.

“Had I not been a doctor, I probably would have been shocked senseless. But I knew of cases such as this from photos in medical texts. Testicular feminization syndrome. It’s an extremely rare syndrome. I never thought I’d see one outside of a textbook—much less in a situation such as that. Testicular feminization is a type of male pseudohermaphroditism. Externally the person seems completely female, having breasts and a vagina, but usually not a uterus. Chromosomally the person is XY, however—male. And for some reason people with this condition are all beautiful.

“Sadako was still staring at me. I was probably the first person outside her family to discover the secret of her body. Needless to say, she had been a virgin up until a few minutes previously. It had been a necessary trial if she were to go on living as a woman. I was trying to rationalize my actions. Then, suddenly, words flew into my head.

“I’ll kill you.

“As I reeled from the strength of will behind the words, I instantaneously intuited that her telepathic message was no lie. There was no room within it for even a sliver of doubt; my body accepted it as a certainty. She’d kill me, if I didn’t kill her first. My body’s instinct for self-preservation gave me an order. I climbed back on top of her, placed both hands on her slender neck, and pressed with my full weight. To my surprise, there was less resistance this time. She narrowed her eyes with pleasure and relaxed her body, almost as if she wanted to die.

“I didn’t wait to see if she’d stopped breathing. I picked her body up and went to the well. I think my actions were still beyond my will at this point. In other words, I didn’t pick her up intending to drop her into the well, but rather, the moment I picked her up, the round black mouth of the well caught my eye, and put it in my mind to do it. Everything felt as if it was working out perfectly for me. Or, rather, I felt as if I was being moved by a will beyond my own. I had a general idea of what was going to happen next. I could hear a voice in the back of my head saying this was all a dream.

“The well was dark, and from where I stood at the top I couldn’t see the bottom very clearly. From the smell of soil wafting up, it seemed that there was a shallow accumulation of water at the bottom. I let go. Sadako’s body slid down the side of the well into the earth, hitting the bottom with a splash. I stared into the well until my eyes got used to the dark, but I still couldn’t see her curled up down there. Even so, I couldn’t shake my uneasiness. I flung rocks and dirt into the well, trying to hide her body forever. I threw in armfuls of dirt and five or six fist-sized rocks before I just couldn’t do any more. The rocks hit her body, making a dull thud at the bottom of the well and stimulating my imagination. When I thought of that sickly beautiful body being broken by those stones, I couldn’t go through with it. I know that doesn’t make any sense. On the one hand I desired the destruction of her body, but on the other hand I didn’t want her body to be marred.”

When Nagao had finished speaking, Asakawa handed him the map of South Hakone Pacific Land.

“Where on this map would that well be?” Asakawa asked, urgently. It took Nagao a few moments to understand what he was being shown, but after he was told that what had once been the sanatorium was now a restaurant, he seemed to regain his orientation.

“I think it was right about here,” he said, pointing to a place on the map.

“No doubt about it. That’s where Villa Log Cabin is,” Asakawa said, rising. “Let’s go!”

But Ryuji was calm. “Don’t go rushing off just yet. We still have some things we need to ask this old fart. Now, this syndrome you mention …”

“Testicular feminization syndrome.”

“Can a woman with this bear children?” Nagao shook his head. “No, she can’t.”

“One other thing. When you raped Sadako Yamamura, you had already contracted smallpox, right?”

Nagao nodded.

“In which case, the last person in Japan to be infected with smallpox was Sadako Yamamura, no?”

It was certain that just before her death, Sadako Yamamura’s body had been invaded by the smallpox virus. But she had died immediately afterward. If its host perishes, a virus can’t go on living. Nagao didn’t know how to answer and looked down, avoiding Ryuji’s gaze. He gave only a vague reply.

“Hey! What are you doing? We’ve got to get going!” Asakawa was in the doorway, urging Ryuji to hurry.

“Shit. Hope you’re happy,” said Ryuji, flicking the tip of the doctor’s nose with his index finger before following Asakawa.

12

He couldn’t explain it logically, but from his experience reading novels and watching trashy TV shows, he felt like he had a good idea of the kind of plot device called for now, based on the way the story had unfolded. There was a certain tempo to the unfolding. They hadn’t been searching for Sadako’s hiding place, but in the blink of an eye they’d stumbled upon the tragedy that had befallen her and the spot where she was buried. So when Ryuji told him to “stop in front of a large hardware store,” Asakawa was relieved: he’s thinking the same thing I am. Asakawa still couldn’t imagine what a horrible task this would be. Unless it had been completely buried, finding the old well in the vicinity of Villa Log Cabin shouldn’t be too difficult. And once they found it, it should be easy to bring up Sadako’s remains. It all sounded pretty simple—and he wanted to think it would be. It was one in the afternoon; the midday sun reflected brilliantly from the hilly streets in this hot-spring resort town. The brightness, and the neighborhood’s laid-back weekday mood, clouded his imagination. It didn’t occur to him that even if it were only four or five meters deep, the bottom of a well was bound to be an entirely different world from the well-lit ground above.

Nishizaki Hardware. Asakawa saw the sign and braked. There were stepladders and lawn mowers lined up in front of the store. They should be able to get everything they needed here.

“I’ll let you do the shopping,” Asakawa said, running to a nearby phone booth. He paused before entering it to take a phone card from his wallet.

“Hey, we don’t have time to waste on phone calls.” But Asakawa wasn’t listening. Grumbling, Ryuji went into the store and grabbed rope, a bucket, a shovel, a pulley block, and a high-powered flashlight.

Asakawa was desperate. This might be his last chance to hear their voices. He knew full well how little time he had to waste. He only had nine hours left until his deadline. He slipped his card into the phone and dialed the number of his wife’s parents’ house in Ashikaga. His father-in-law answered.

“Hello, it’s Asakawa. Could you call Shizu and Yoko to the phone?” He knew he was being rude, skipping the customary exchange of pleasantries. But he didn’t have time to worry about his father-in-law’s feelings. The man started to say something, but then seemed to sense the urgency of the situation, and immediately summoned his daughter and granddaughter. Asakawa was extremely glad his mother-in-law hadn’t been the one to answer. He’d never have got a word in edgewise then.

“Hello?”

“Shizu, is that you?” Hearing her voice, he missed her already.

“Where are you?”

“Atami. How’s everything there?”

“Oh, about the same. Yoko’s having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Is she there?” He could hear her voice. No words, just sounds as she struggled to climb up on her mother’s lap to get to her father.

“Yoko, it’s Daddy.” Shizu put the receiver to Yoko’s ear.

“Dada, Dada …” He could barely hear the words, if words they were. They were all but drowned out by the sounds of her breathing into the phone, or rubbing the mouthpiece against her cheek. But these noises only made him feel that much closer to her. He was overcome with the desire to leave all this behind him and hug her.

“Yoko, you wait there, okay? Daddy’s coming soon to get you in the vroom-vroom.”

“Really? When are you getting here?” Shizu had taken the phone without him realizing it.

“On Sunday. Right, I’ll be renting a car and driving up, so let’s all take a drive into the mountains, to Nikko or something.”

“Really? Yoko, isn’t that great? Daddy’s going to take us for a drive in a car on Sunday!”

He felt his ears burning. Was he really in a position to make that kind of promise? A doctor was never supposed to say anything to give his patient false hope; he was supposed to do things to minimize the eventual shock as much as possible.

“It sounds like you’ve got this thing you’re working on straightened out.”

“Well, it’s coming along.”

“You promised me that when all this is over you’d tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”

He had promised that. In exchange for her not asking any questions right now, he’d said he’d tell her all about it once it was taken care of. His wife had kept her end of the bargain.

“Hey, how long are you going to keep talking?” Ryuji said from behind him. Asakawa turned around. Ryuji had the trunk open and was loading his purchases into the car.

“I’ll call again. I might not be able to tonight, though.” Asakawa placed his hand on the hook. If he pushed, the connection would be broken. He didn’t even know why he’d called. Was it just to hear their voices, or did he have something more important to tell them? But he knew that even if he’d been able to talk to her for an hour, when it came time to hang up he’d still feel constrained, as if he’d only said half of what he wanted to say. It’d just be the same thing. He pressed down on the hook, and then let go. In any case, everything would be clear tonight at ten. Tonight at ten …

Driving up in the daytime like this, South Hakone Pacific Land felt like a typical mountain resort. The creepy mood he’d felt last time he came was hidden by the sunlight. Even the sound of bouncing tennis balls was normal, not sluggish and sonorous like before, but crisp and light. They could see Mt Fuji, hazy and white, and below them in the distance scattered flashes of sun from greenhouse roofs.