Fuminori Nakamura - Last Winter We Parted

The doll creator looks down for a moment, then back at me.

“Then, he killed two women. I bear some of the responsibility for that … Because of a conversation we had.”

“… A conversation?”

“A conversation about another doll maker I admire. Today, I will tell you everything I know.”

The rain is falling outside.

“Are you familiar with the conflict known as the Onin War, which occurred during the last years of the Muromachi shogunate? It was a terrible period, a time when the shogunate lost its ability to function, causing samurai throughout the various regions to form their own armies, and the entire country devolved into an internecine war. No one knew who they were battling against or even for what purpose, different conflicts broke out simultaneously — it was an era of unprecedented madness in Japan’s history. Afterward we entered into what’s known as the Warring States Period, but what I want to talk about now is a gifted creator of wind-up dolls who lived during the era of that Onin War. That is to say … This is a story about how, in a time of great confusion, one man transcended death.”

He smiles.

“This doll maker was known — even more than for his art — for the skill with which he used the color red. Every wind-up doll that he had made up to that point had worn a magnificent vermilion kimono. The doll maker’s wife was in poor health. She was bedridden practically all the time, and the doll maker had always taken care of her. He loved his wife very much. But his love for her was intense. And in his passion for her, well, their sex practically destroyed his frail wife. The doll maker had an idea. Could he make a doll of his wife? But if he made a doll of a living person, that person would die. That’s what he believed. However, one day, his wife asked him to make a doll of herself. I’m going to die soon, she said. I will only become frailer. I want you to make a doll of me while I’m still pretty. Hearing her words, the doll maker started to produce a wife doll.”

It is still raining outside. I am listening closely to his story, to his soft voice.

“That alone makes this a sad and touching story. Most people can only tolerate it up to this point … You probably already know what happens. Before long, as the doll maker immersed himself in the production of his wife doll, he started to lose his mind. The doll’s beauty began to exceed that of his wife. As the doll neared completion, his wife’s physical condition deteriorated. It was like the doll was extracting her life force. What’s more, his chisel had slipped several times during the frequent earthquakes, or the edge of the plane had happened to shave marks into the wood, but these mistakes had, on the contrary, brought out the doll’s unexpected beauty. Rather, through a series of unintended coincidences, the doll had exceeded the doll creator’s abilities, as if it were using a divine power — no, the power of the earth, the earth that was soaked with the blood of so many killed in the war — and had become something that transcended human understanding … The wife was jealous. That is, the wife was jealous of herself — she experienced jealousy of her own more beautiful self. The doll maker devoted himself to the production of the doll and stopped paying attention to his wife. Early in the morning, all day long, and into the night, the sound of his chisel carving away at the doll echoed from his house … Later, the doll maker was discovered to be living with both the red wife doll and the skeletal corpse of his actual wife, months after her death.”

Little by little, the temperature in the room was growing chilly.

“But there was one thing that the wife managed to do before she died. Abandoning the effort to tear her husband away from the doll, the wife could only pray for his future destruction, now that he had become the object of her inevitable enmity. On the verge of death, she suddenly found the strength to stand up. She pulled herself up behind her husband, who would no longer have anything to do with her, immersed as he was in the creation of the doll. And she put a curse on her husband: ‘You will never again be able to live with anyone except this doll.’ The wife coughed up blood on the doll. This cough was fatal, her last. The doll maker stared at the blood-stained doll. At its overwhelming beauty. This was exactly the shade of red that he had been seeking — the red that a person spews out as they are dying. The doll, her skin stained blood red, had taken on a maddening beauty. From that day forward, the doll maker became oblivious to all other women. Even if he attempted to demonstrate some kind of interest, he was simply unable to. As for flesh-and-blood humans, no one existed in this world beside the doll. And that was not all. The doll maker was no longer able to produce any other work, either. Because he could never attain that same shade of red. He would never again have access to the blood coughed up by his beloved wife. The doll maker had been drawn in by the totality of the doll’s beauty, born of a series of coincidences and further enhanced by his wife’s crimson blood. The doll maker finally died of madness. These were his last words, and herein lies the problem: ‘Once my wife died the doll grew even more beautiful.’ ”

Suzuki suddenly stands up and approaches his own doll creations. He strokes their hair impassively.

“The doll was kept at a temple for a while, but ultimately it was disposed of. Because it should never have existed in the first place. Not only the doll’s creator, but any man who took one look at the doll was rendered impotent. Whenever they tried to make love to a woman, that red doll would appear before them as a vision. And the doll’s expression … she seemed to be faintly smiling. But none of them could tell just what kind of smile it was — or what kind of smile it wasn’t. Just like the Mona Lisa’s smile. Except where the Mona Lisa’s smile conveys the beauty of art to those who view it, this doll’s smile gave rise to nothing but madness. Forever bewildered by what was behind her smile, these men were filled with agony and vertigo. In both cases, the painting and the doll, the smile appears to be that of a real person. It’s a kind of artifice; nevertheless, human perception recognizes it as a ‘smile.’ Why does that happen, when it comes to perception? In any case, unable to determine just what kind of smile it was, the men’s confusion deepened until it seemed to drive them crazy … Does this sort of thing happen to other creatures? If you were to show a dog a painting of a dog, I wonder by just which qualities in the painting would the dog recognize another dog?”

Suzuki looks at me pensively.

“Well, I … I wanted to make a doll like the one that doll creator had made. Something that shouldn’t be made. Something that shouldn’t exist … You must think I’m mad. It doesn’t matter. My life is already over, to a certain extent. But I told Kiharazaka about all of this. I can’t help thinking that the two murders were the results of that conversation.”

“But … he also talked to Saito.”

“Saito? You mean that stalker guy?”

“Yes. So …”

“That’s interesting. So I wasn’t the only one who talked to him about things they shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t two conversations be enough to have an impact on him? And also, I’m the one who made Saito’s doll in the first place. That makes me the root of all his evils.”

“Do you really think so?”

“What?”

“I mean …”

I hold my tongue. I want to say something, but I can’t find the words.

It is raining heavily now. The doll maker parts the curtain slightly and is facing outside but his eyes don’t seem focused on anything. I reach for my cup only to realize that it is empty. The doll maker looks at me again pensively.