The Village of Eight Graves

Seishi Yokomizo, Bryan Karetnyk

• Editorial: Pushkin Vertigo
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781782277408
• Categoría: Littérature
• Categoría: Littérature policière et sur le mystère

'With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie's, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers' Guardian

The third title in Japan's most popular murder mystery series -- after The Honjin Murders and The Inugami Curse -- fiendish classics featuring investigator Kosuke Kindaichi

Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend: in the Sixteenth Century eight samurais, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure, were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a terrible curse down upon their village.

Centuries later a mysterious young man named Tatsuya arrives in town, bringing a spate of deadly poisonings in his wake. The inimitably scruffy and brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi investigates.

CHAPTER 1

“MISSING PERSONS”

It must have been around eight months after I returned from the village of Eight Graves that I finally managed to regain a sense of composure.

Right now I am sitting in my study, atop a hill in a western suburb of Kobe, looking out at a picturesque view of the island of Awaji. Quietly drawing on a cigarette, once again living a peaceful life, I find myself struck by a curious feeling. As avid readers will know, the experience of terrifying events can turn the hair white, but at this very moment, even as I pick up the mirror lying on my desk, I cannot see all that many new white hairs. All the same, that strange feeling won’t leave me: so dreadful were the events that I lived through, so numerous were the life-or-death moments… Thinking back on it all now, the cards seem to have been so completely stacked against me.

Not only is my life peaceful, but I also find myself now in a very fortunate position, even better than the one that I had before. Truly, I could never have imagined it, even in my wildest dreams. And it is all thanks to a man called Kosuke Kindaichi. Had it not been for that shaggy-headed, undistinguished-looking, mildly stuttering, strange little detective, my life would have met a swift end.

When at last the case was solved and Kosuke Kindaichi was preparing to leave Eight Graves, he said to me: “It’s rare for someone to go through something as terrifying as you did. If I were you, I’d put it all down in writing—everything you’ve been 24 through these past three months—so that you’ll remember it your whole life.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” I replied. “Perhaps it would be a good thing to record it for posterity while all the details are still fresh in my memory. That way, I’ll even be able to give you your due. I can’t see any other way of returning the great favour you’ve done me.”

I decided to do as I promised as soon as possible. But the ordeal had been so overwhelming that my mind and body were exhausted. Added to that, I’m no writer, and I kept wavering, hesitant to put pen to paper. So it’s only now that I’m finally making good on that promise.

Fortunately, my health did return to me in the end. Lately, I haven’t been so troubled by those terrifying nightmares, and my physical health has improved greatly. As for my lack of faith in my writerly abilities, that still hasn’t changed, but then this isn’t a novel that I am writing. You see, I am merely trying to set down the unadorned truth of what I experienced. A report of the facts, as it were—a true story. Then again, perhaps the strangeness, the sheer horror of the story will compensate for any literary shortcomings.

The village of Eight Graves… Even the memory of it makes me shudder: what a horrible name, what a horrible place. And what a horrible, terrifying business it all was.

The village of Eight Graves… Until last year, my twenty-eighth year on this earth, I had never dreamt that there could be a village with such an abominable name, let alone that I could have had such a deep connection with it. I had some vague idea that I had been born in the prefecture of Okayama, but as for the county or the name of the village, I hadn’t the foggiest. Nor did I want to know. For as long as I could remember, Kobe had been my home: that is where I was raised. I didn’t have the 25 least interest in the countryside, and, as far as she could, my mother avoided talking about her home town, claiming not to have a single relative left there.

Ah, my mother! Even now, I need only close my eyes to see every feature of her face with perfect clarity, just as it was before she died. As with any boy who loses his mother at the age of seven, I believed that no woman in the whole world was more beautiful than she. She was of short stature and petite in every way. If her face was small, then her eyes, her mouth and her nose were so little as to be almost doll-like. Her hands were as small as my own child’s hands, and they were forever busy sewing whatever I had given her that needed mending. Always with a look of dejection about her, she rarely spoke or went out. But whenever she did open her mouth, that soft, gentle Okayama lilt of hers would be like sweet music to my ears. But even then, my youthful heart knew trouble: in the middle of the night, my ordinarily quiet mother was plagued by paroxysms of anguish. Sleeping peacefully one moment, she would suddenly leap out of bed and, with a tongue that seemed to spasm in terror, mutter rapidly and incoherently, until in the end she fell back onto the pillow, weeping bitterly. Such night terrors were a frequent occurrence. Awoken by her cries, my adoptive father and I would call out her name and shake her, but she would not always return to her senses. Then she would cry and cry, howling wretchedly, and only after she had exhausted herself with that would she at last cry herself to sleep like a child, in the arms of her husband. Throughout the night, my adoptive father would hold her like that, gently stroking her back…

Ah, but now I know the cause of all those terrors. My poor mother! Had I lived through a past as tragic as hers, I dare say that I, too, would have suffered those terrible afflictions. Thinking about it now, I cannot but feel a sense of gratitude 26 towards my adoptive father. We clashed in later years, as a result of which I left home. Even now, I still regret that we never did have the chance to reconcile with one another.

My adoptive father was a man called Torazo Terada. He was the foreman of a shipyard in Kobe. Tall with a ruddy complexion, he was a whole fifteen years older than my mother. He cut a very imposing figure, but thinking back on him now, he was a fine and generous man. I have no idea how he met my mother, but he always took good care of her, and he doted on me. I learnt that he was not my real father only much later in life. He had even listed me as his son in his family register. That is why even now I still call myself Tatsuya Terada. Yet it always struck my younger self as odd that the family register recorded the year of my birth as 1923, whereas an amulet given to me by my mother was clearly inscribed with a different year: 1922. Hence, my real age is in fact twenty-nine, although I still consider myself to be twenty-eight.

As I have already mentioned, my mother died when I was seven. Her death marked a sudden end to my happiness, but that is by no means to imply that the years that followed were entirely miserable or unhappy. My father remarried the year after she died. My stepmother could not have been more different: she was a large, cheerful, talkative woman, and, like all such women, she had a pure and forthright nature. Moreover, since my father was a decent and generous man, he saw to it that my future was provided for, sending me first to school and then to a commercial college.

Yet, as so often happens with parents and children who are not of the same blood, there was something missing: to draw a culinary parallel, it was like a meal that looks delicious but, upon tasting, turns out to lack an all-important seasoning. Besides, my new mother had given birth to several children already, and so, while it cannot be said that I stood in her way, I suppose it was 27 only natural that she was rather distant where I was concerned. It was for an entirely different reason, though, that I clashed with my adoptive father just after graduating from college. Still, I did leave home, and for a while I stayed with friends.

Not much changed after that. As with any able-bodied youth, I received my call-up papers when I turned twenty-one. Shortly after, I was sent to the islands in the south, where I spent many a difficult day. I was demobbed in 1946, and when I returned to Kobe, I was devastated to find that the whole city had been burned to the ground. I was all alone: I found that my step-father’s house had been destroyed completely, and I had no idea where to find my stepfamily. I also heard that my stepfather had been killed by shrapnel during a bombing raid on the shipyard. To make matters worse, the commercial company where I had been employed before the war had gone bankrupt, and it was not at all clear when it would get back up and running.

I was at a total loss, but fortunately a kind friend from our schooldays came to my rescue. He had set up a new cosmetics company after the war and, although the prospects that it offered were not great, I had very little alternative, and so for almost two years, I was able to maintain a basic standard of living.

Were it not for the events that I am about to relate, doubtless my life would have continued in that impoverished, humdrum vein. But one day a spot of red was suddenly spilt on the grey of my life: I embarked on an adventure of dazzling mystery and stepped into a world of blood-chilling terror.

Here is how it all began.

It was on 25th May, in that unforgettable year. I arrived at work at nine o’clock and was immediately summoned by the manager.

“You weren’t listening to the radio this morning by any chance, were you, Terada?” he asked, staring me right in the eye. 28

I shook my head.

“Well, your name is Tatsuya, isn’t it? And your father’s was Torazo, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” I said, wondering what on earth my name and that of my adoptive father could have to do with this morning’s radio broadcast.

“Well then, it must be you,” he said. “There was somebody on the radio looking for you.”

I was taken aback. In that morning’s slot for missing persons, somebody had been seeking the whereabouts of one Tatsuya Terada, the eldest son of Torazo Terada, and asked anybody who knew him to send in his address, or, if Tatsuya himself were listening, to contact them in person.

“I took down the address. Here it is. Did you have any idea that somebody might be looking for you?”

He showed me his pocket diary, in which was written: Suwa Legal Practice, 4th floor, Nitto Building, Kitanagasa-dori (District 3).

A truly strange feeling struck me as I looked at the address. To all intents and purposes, I was an orphan. It was possible that my stepmother and her children could be alive somewhere, displaced by the war, but they were hardly likely to have engaged the services of the lawyer who was now searching for me on the wireless. Of course, had my adoptive father still been alive, he would no doubt have been moved by pity to try to find me, but he was long since dead. I had no idea, then, who this person could be. It was a strange and bewildering feeling.

“You should go, at any rate. If somebody’s looking for you, you mustn’t delay,” said my manager on a note of encouragement.

He gave me the morning off, advising me to go there right away. I imagine that he, too, must have been curious, having had an unexpected hand in my fate. 29

Was I being deceived? Had I just become a character in some novel? Either way, just as my manager suggested, I headed straight for the address that he had given me. I arrived at Mr Suwa’s office not without a feeling of apprehension in my chest. I must have spent at least half an hour with him.

“Well, well, there’s no denying it. The radio really is a most effective device, is it not? I never imagined I would get a response so quickly.”

Mr Suwa was a stout and agreeable old gentleman, which immediately set me at ease. I had often read in novels about unscrupulous lawyers, and so I was on my guard, uncertain that I wasn’t being used as an instrument of some fraud.

After some questions about my adoptive father and my past, Mr Suwa asked me:

“But this Terada-san, was he your real father?”

“No. I was a child from my mother’s previous marriage, you see. She died when I was seven years old.”

“I see. And that has always been your understanding?”

“No. When I was young, I was under the impression that he was my real father. I learnt the truth only later, probably around the time that my mother died. I can’t recall exactly when it was.”

“And you don’t happen to know the name of your real father?”

“I’m afraid not.”

It was only then that I realized: the man looking for me could be my real father. All of a sudden, I could feel my chest pounding.

“Neither your late mother nor your adoptive father ever told you his name?”

“No, they never spoke of him.”

“Your mother, of course, died when you were very young, but your adoptive father lived well into your adulthood. You don’t find it strange that he said nothing about this? After all, he must have known the truth of the matter.” 30

My adoptive father loved my mother deeply, and, thinking back on it now, I know that he cannot have been ignorant of the facts. I believe it was only the lack of opportunity that caused his silence. Had I not left home, had I not received my call-up, had he himself not perished, might he not have intended to tell me sooner or later?

When I said as much, Mr Suwa nodded.

“Yes, I dare say that is so… Returning to the present matter, and, please, do forgive me for seeming mistrustful, but you wouldn’t happen to be carrying any documentation that might verify your identity, would you?”

After thinking for a moment, I extracted the little bag in which I always carried the amulet that my mother had given me and showed it to Mr Suwa.

“Tatsuya. Born 6 September 1922,” he read aloud. “I see… But no family name given. You’ve been in the dark all this time. Ah, but what’s this piece of paper here?”

Mr Suwa unfolded a sheet of washi paper on which a sort of map had been drawn with an ink brush. To tell the truth, I myself did not know what this map showed or why it was in my possession. The map was drawn in the shape of an irregular labyrinth and was marked with mysterious place names such as “Dragon’s Jaw” and “Fox’s Den”. Some verses had been appended at the side of the map. They reminded me of pilgrim’s songs, and it was clear that there had to be some connection between them and the map, for they contained the same words, ”Dragon’s Jaw” and “Fox’s Den”. There was a good reason that I had taken such great care of this puzzling sheet of paper, keeping it together with the amulet. Back when my mother was still alive, she would sometimes ask me to fetch it for her, and she would study it intently. Then her face, usually so subdued, would suddenly flush and the pupils of her 31 eyes would glisten. It would inevitably end with her sighing deeply and saying:

“You see this map,...