Koji Suzuki - Birthday

They'd taken the crowd noise for that scene from a movie. The voices were just supposed to be submerged in the background; no one voice was supposed to be heard above the others. But it might be possible for someone to have the auditory illusion that he or she was hearing one of them in particular, in an aural close-up, as it were.

"No, that's not it." Her denial was forceful enough to bother Toyama.

"Well, then, do you know what scene it was?"

If he could figure out where it was on the tape, he could check it now on the headphones. If there was a strange woman's voice on there, he had to deal with it now, or it would be trouble later.

But the chances of that were next to nil. He couldn't count the number of times he'd listened to the tape during rehearsals. Not to mention the repeated scrutiny he'd given it on his headphones when he'd edited it together. There was no way a stray sound could have gotten on there at this point.

"Okubo's been saying strange things. You know that little Shinto altar backstage?"

"Most playhouses have 'em."

Toyama was beginning to guess what Okubo must have been telling Sadako. Just as theaters all had Shinto altars, they all had scary stories whispered about them.

Handling the set pieces and props allowed for lots of accidents and injuries, and wherever actors gathered there were bound to be vortices of ill feeling—as a result there probably wasn't a theater around without one or two spook tales. Okubo had probably been scaring Sadako with some nonsense like that. In which case, her insistence on there being a woman's voice on the tape was probably groundless.

"No, there's another one."

"Another what?"

"Altar."

Toyama had seen the altar himself any number of times, set into the concrete wall stage left, at the back.

But that was the only one he knew of.

"Where?"

Still standing in front of the door, Sadako raised her left hand and pointed. The spot she indicated was behind the table. Toyama couldn't see it from where he was. But all of a sudden a chill ran down his spine. This room was his castle: he liked to think he knew what was where.

There couldn't be an altar here.

He started to get up.

She giggled. "Startled?"

"Don't scare me like that!" He sat back down. The chair felt cold somehow.

"Come on, it's over here." Sadako took Toyama's hand and pulled him out of his chair, seating herself in front of a cabinet built into the wall. A pair of doors were set into the wall about ten centimeters from the floor; they opened outward. Sadako looked from Toyama to the doors, as if suggesting he open them.

A storage space. He hadn't expected one. The doors were about fifty centimeters square. There were no handles, so they blended in with the rest of the wall, and he hadn't noticed them.

He placed a finger in the center of the doors, pressed, and released. The doors opened without a sound. He'd expected to find old tape reels and cords piled randomly inside, but what he found was something rather different. Two metal shelves, on the upper of which sat two rows of tapes in carefully labeled boxes. No doubt left-overs from previous productions. The bottom shelf contained a little wooden box that looked, just as Sadako had said, like an altar.

All he'd done was open those two little doors, but the atmosphere in the sound booth was utterly changed.

A foreign space had suddenly opened up right next to the table he was so accustomed to working at. He wasn't sure whether there was actually a smell or not, but Toyama at least had the illusion that his nose detected the scent of rotting meat.

Toyama sat down next to Sadako, in front of the altar, hugging his knees. There was an offering in front of the altar, right in front of his nose now. It was a desic-cated and wrinkled thing no bigger than the tip of his little finger, and at first he thought it was a shriveled piece of burdock.

Without a hint of hesitation, Sadako picked up the piece of whatever-it-was and placed it in Toyama's hand, as if giving him a piece of candy.

Toyama allowed himself to be led along. He accepted the offering on the palm of his hand and studied He only realized what it was when Sadako brought her nose close to his palm and sniffed it. Suddenly a thought wedged its way into his brain. Not just a thought—a woman's voice, whispering.

The baby's coming.

In a flash, Toyama understood.

It's an umbilical cord. A baby's umbilical cord.

There was no mistaking it now: it was indeed an umbilical cord, severed long ago.

The instant he realized it, Toyama jumped back from the altar, flinging the thing in his hand at Sadako.

She caught it and said, calmly, as if to herself, "Looks like Okubo was right."

Toyama slowly brought his breathing under control, trying not to appear too foolish in front of a younger woman. Feigning calm, he asked, "What do you mean?"

"About the woman's voice on the tape. He said he'd heard it before, moaning, like she was in pain. He said if he had to describe it, he'd say it sounded like she was suffering the pains of childbirth. That's what he said.

And it looks like that woman had her baby."

Toyama didn't know how to respond to this. What Okubo had said was strange enough, but the way Sadako just coolly accepted it was way beyond eerie.

Just then the director's voice came over the intercom.

"Everybody, we're about to start dress rehearsal.

Cast, staff, to your places, please."

The order was salvation to Toyama: he normally didn't look forward to hearing Shigemori's voice, but now it sounded like a god's. It had power enough to drag him immediately back to reality, certainly.

Sadako had to report to her position onstage. She couldn't stay here talking nonsense.

"Hey, you're on. Break a leg," he managed to say, though his throat was dry and his voice scratchy. He placed a hand on her back and urged her toward the stage. Sadako squirmed as if reluctant and made a show of refusing to budge.

But then she said, "Okay, well, later, then."

There was something thrillingly suggestive about the way she said it, and the way she looked when she said it. Toyama thought he could see her maturing as an actress right before his eyes. Five years younger than him, in Toyama's eyes she was the very incarnation of cute. Instead of the sensuality of a grown woman, she still had the innocence of a girl: that was what attracted him, what he was madly in love with. But now she seemed so sensuous...

Toyama forgot himself as he watched Sadako descend the spiral staircase.

Since the dress rehearsal would proceed exactly like a real performance, he'd be playing the tapes from start to finish. If there was a foreign noise on there, this would be a good chance to locate it.

Toyama put on his headphones and tried to concentrate on his cues. But he was distracted by the proximity of the cabinet with the altar in it. The director hadn't yet given the sign to start. The house was dark; the sound booth was illuminated only by the work light on the table.

He stole a glance sideways. The cabinet doors were half open. Evidently he hadn't shut them tightly enough.

The voice of a woman in childbirth? Of all the stupid things.

Without taking off his headphones, Toyama moved over and pushed the cabinet door with his foot. He did it with his foot in order to show that he wasn't scared.

He heard a distinct click as the doors shut. But at that very moment, in his headphones, he heard a faint voice. It was weak, a baby's voice. He couldn't tell if it was crying or laughing...or maybe it had just been born...

Toyama stared at the tape. It wasn't moving.

The director gave the sign, and the curtain rose. He was supposed to provide the opening theme now, but his trembling hand slipped on the play button more than once, and he was late with it. He'd get a chewing-out later, not that he cared about that now.