Koji Suzuki - The Complete Ring Trilogy - Ring, Spiral, Loop

“What’s so funny?” He started to advance on them, but Ryuji grabbed his arm, with more force than before, and pulled him back.

“Knock it off. You’re wasting your energy.”

Seeing Asakawa’s irritation, the kind-hearted Hayatsu had begun to feel almost responsible for transportation being disrupted on account of the typhoon. Or perhaps he was just sympathetic at the sight of people suffering so because of the storm. He prayed for the success of Asakawa’s project. A fax was due to arrive from Tokyo, but waiting seemed only to ratchet up Asakawa’s annoyance. Hayatsu tried to defuse the situation.

“How is your investigation coming?” Hayatsu asked gently, seeking to calm Asakawa.

“Well …”

“One of Shizuko Yamamura’s childhood friends lives right nearby. If you’d like, I can call him over and you can hear what he has to say. Old Gen won’t be out fishing on a day like this. I’m sure he’s bored—he’d be happy to come over.”

Hayatsu figured that if he gave Asakawa something else to investigate it would be bound to distract him. “He’s nearing seventy, so I don’t know how well he’ll be able to answer your questions, but it has to be better than just waiting.”

“Alright …”

Without even waiting for the answer, Hayatsu turned around and called to his wife in the kitchen: “Hey, call Gen’s place and have him get over here right away.”

Just as Hayatsu had said, Genji was happy to talk to them. He seemed to like nothing better than talking about Shizuko Yamamura. He was sixty-eight, three years older than Shizuko would have been. She’d been his childhood playmate, and also his first love. Whether it was because the memories became clearer as he talked about them or just because he was stimulated by having an audience, the recollections came pouring out of him. For Genji, talking about Shizuko was talking about his own youth.

Asakawa and Ryuji learned a certain amount from his rambling, occasionally tearful stories about Shizuko. But they were aware that they could only trust Old Gen so far. Memories were always liable to being prettified, and all of this had happened over forty years ago. He might even be getting her confused with another woman. Well, maybe not—a man’s first love was special, not someone he’d mix up with someone else.

Genji wasn’t exactly eloquent. He used a lot of roundabout expressions, and Asakawa soon got tired of listening. But then he said something that had Asakawa and Ryuji listening intently. “I think that what made Shizu change was that stone statue of the Ascetic we pulled up out of the sea. There was a full moon that night …” According to the old man, Shizuko’s mysterious powers were somehow connected to the sea and the full moon. And on the night it happened, Genji himself had been beside her, rowing the boat. It was 1946, on a night toward the end of summer; Shizuko was twenty-one and Genji was twenty-four.

It was hot for so late in the season, and even nightfall brought no relief. Genji spoke of these events of forty-four years ago as though they had happened last night.

That sweltering evening, Genji was sitting on his front porch lazily fanning himself, gazing at the night sky calmly reflected on the moonlit sea. The silence was broken when Shizu came running up the hill to his house. She stood in front of him, tugging at his sleeve, and cried, “Gen, get your boat! We’re going fishing.” He asked her why, but all she would say was, “We’ll never have another moonlit night like this.” Genji just sat there as if in a daze, looking at the most beautiful girl on the island. “Wipe that stupid look off your face and hurry up!” She pulled at his collar until he got to his feet. Genji was used to having her push him around and tell him what to do, but he asked her anyway, “What in the world are we going fishing for?” Staring at the ocean, she gave a brisk reply: “For the statue of the Ascetic.”

“Of the Ascetic?”

With raised eyebrows and a note of regret in her voice, Shizuko explained that earlier in the day, some Occupation soldiers had hurled the stone statue of the Ascetic into the sea.

In the middle of the island’s eastern shore there was a beach called the Ascetic’s Beach, with a small cave called the Ascetic’s Grotto. It contained a stone statue of En no Ozunu, the famed Buddhist ascetic, who had been banished here in the year 699. Ozunu had been born with great wisdom, and long years of discipline had given him command of occult and mystic arts. It was said that he could summon gods and demons at will. But Ozunu’s power to foretell the future had made him powerful enemies in the world of books and weapons, and he’d been judged a criminal, a menace to society, and exiled here to Izu Oshima. That had been almost thirteen hundred years ago. Ozunu holed himself up in a small cave on the beach and devoted himself to even more strenuous disciplines. He also taught farming and fishing to the people of the island, earning respect for his virtue. Finally he was pardoned and allowed to return to the mainland, where he founded the Shugendo monastic tradition. He was thought to have spent three years on the island, but stories of his time there abounded, including the legend that he had once shod himself with iron clogs and flown off to Mt Fuji. The islanders still retained a great deal of affection for En no Ozunu, and the Ascetic’s Grotto was considered the holiest place on the island. A festival, known as the Festival of the Ascetic, was held every year on June 15th.

Right after the end of World War II, however, as part of their policy toward Shintoism and Buddhism, the Occupation forces had taken En no Ozunu’s statue from where it was enshrined in the cave and tossed it into the ocean. Shizuko, who had deep faith in Ozunu, had evidently been watching. She had hid herself in the shadow of the rocks at Worm’s Nose Point and watched carefully as the statue was cast from the American patrol boat. She memorized the exact spot.

Genji couldn’t believe his ears when he heard that they were going fishing for the statue of the Ascetic. He was a good fisherman with strong arms, but he’d never tried to catch a stone statue. But there was no way he could just turn Shizuko down, given the secret feelings he nursed for her. He launched his boat into the night, thinking to take this opportunity to put her in his debt. And truth be told, being out on the sea under a beautiful moon like this, just the two of them, promised to be a wonderful thing.

They’d built fires on Ascetic’s Beach and at Worm’s Nose as landmarks, and now they rowed farther and farther out to sea. Both of them were quite familiar with the ocean here—the lie of the seafloor, the depth, and the schools of fish that swam here. But now it was nighttime, and no matter how bright the moon was, it illuminated nothing beneath the surface. Genji didn’t know how Shizuko intended to find the statue. He asked her, while working the oars, but she didn’t answer. She just checked their position again by the bonfires on the beach. One might have been able to get a pretty good idea of where they were by gazing over the waves at the fires on the beach, and estimating the distance between them. After they’d rowed several hundred meters, Shizuko cried, “Stop here!”

She went to the stern of the boat, leaned down close to the surface of the water, and peered into the dark sea. “Look the other way,” she commanded Genji. Genji guessed what Shizuko was about to do, and his heart leapt. Shizuko stood up and took off her splash-patterned kimono. His imagination aroused by the sound of the robe slipping across her skin, Genji found it hard to breathe. Behind him he heard the sound of her jumping into the sea. As the spray hit his shoulders he turned around and looked. Shizuko was treading water, her long black hair tied back with a rag and one end of a slender rope clenched between her teeth. She thrust her upper body out of the water, took two deep breaths, then dived to the bottom of the sea.