The Collector

The Collector

  By

  Kassandra Alvarado

  Copyright 2013

  The story I am about to relate to you, happened to a friend of a friend. Morris, a terribly old friend of mine from college days, thought the story might interest me as a collector of Asian supernatural tales. *M-- Okuda, *indicates an instance where the name has been changed to protect privacy; is, or was the past tense must be used, a collector of a different sort. She was a collector of fine Japanese antiquities.

  I present to you now, the first portion of the story: Skype Transcript of M-- Okuda, June 5 2009

  “It was in the fuyu season of last year, that I moved into a house located in the Ōta ward of southern Tokyo. I lived alone having failed to convince my aunt of elder age to leave the small town on the coast she had spent her years in. Such are the ways of old people; I wasn’t surprised at her refusal. The house was considerably larger than my needs, but I had hoped at the time to use the space to display my sizable collection.

  There was the handsome set of drawers I’d purchased from an antiques dealer, this was placed in my bedroom for personal use. A folding screen of graceful cranes, emblems of a forgotten clan, in the front parlor. In the hall, a glass case held an incomplete set of red-lacquered armor reposing in sight of the front door. On the shelves of the small den and my private study, books on Nippon folklore, a few novels and several history books about the Momoyama and Edo periods were scattered around on low tables.

  I wanted to be surrounded by my collection...you have felt the same, Will. You have stayed in my house, felt the quality of a museum. Yes...I suppose it were true, that not all of my friends agreed with the placement of my objects. Kakera-san complained of the painted eyes of a 19th century Noh mask following her around the downstairs guest facility. I shared in the chuckles at her expense, my friends and I were of the newer generation. Disbelievers of centuries’ worth of strange happenings in a country imbued with spiritualism.

  They say, you don’t rest after a meal, because you believe you’ll change shapes into an animal form. Superstitious foolery, we say. I accepted a pair of potted bonsai trees from my aunt and a pot of white daisies from another friend. The bonsai are considered harbingers of good luck while the daises are auspicious in my culture. Cups of warm sake were poured, cartons of food opened. Many of my close colleagues from the university had come by to wish me well.

  The kitchen of spacious western styling that night, was full of talk and laughter, spilling out into the formal dining room. I’d stepped out momentarily to retrieve something or other from upstairs when something moved in the shadows of the hall. A little startled, I caught my breath as a diminutive woman with a flat face and lank black hair walked around the Ii armor. It was *Kiwako-san, a woman whom shared little in common with me. We were passing acquaintances, knowing each other through contact with *Yumemakura-san of whom I was in a relationship with at the time. I was slightly uneasy for he had told me of her advances during our relationship’s infancy. I didn’t remember inviting her yet a smile came to my face in greeting. Perhaps, I had forgotten inviting her.

  “Kiwako-san, how nice of you to come.” I extended my hands to her; she wore a strange almost affected grin, holding a long white box out between us. “For you.” Kiwako-san said softly, her dull black eyes glinting with some amusement that eluded me.

  “Ah...how thoughtful.” Awkwardly, I took hold of the proffered object, noting its weight to be less than a sack of peaches. “Would you, ah...like a refreshment? There’s food and drink in the dining room.” I motioned with my chin, hesitantly.

  The box was unwieldy in my arms; Kiwako-san’s eyes darted down to it then to me, a disturbing eagerness in their gleam. “No,” she said faintly, “no, thank you. I just stopped by to...would you open it, please?” There was a strange sort of urgency to her voice, a fervency that left me on edge.

  The whole situation was vaguely unsettling yet I couldn’t put my finger on why something was off. “Sure...step over here?” I indicated the small den tucked away in the alcove behind the stairs. That room had steadily become my place to unwind after the stress of the move. I led her to it now. The room was on the tiny side, perfect square angles yet large enough for a comfortable two-seat sofa, a low glass-topped table and an ornamental fireplace, above which I had hung a tasteful print of Basho’s haiku.

  Kiwako-san hovered to the left of the small sofa, her bird-like hands nervously picking at themselves. I set the box down on the back of the sofa, unconsciously the desire presented itself to rub the palms of my hands briskly against my thighs. “Well...,” I mumbled, aware of her look intensifying as I laid my hands on the fitted lid. “Guess I’ll never know what it is until I open it.” Lifting the lid upward, white tissue paper lay folded neatly inside. Setting the lid to the left of me, I parted the fragile paper for a glimpse of what was cradled within.

  Black met my gaze, followed by dirtied strips of...bandages...? No, paper wrapped around the slim saya body. “Oh, it’s...,” the words remained stuck for lack of a better word, in my throat. It was a katana of normal length. The Tsuba was the same black color of circular design as many I’d seen online yet had a particular pattern...I couldn’t quite make out in the lamp light.

  “Yes,” Kiwako-san said, smiling queerly. “When I found it, I thought of you. You have one, but another makes two.” A slight emphasis was there. I tried to smile, “The one I have is...” I wanted to explain with collector’s pride, it was a shōto-blade from the beginning of the Edo era. A recent acquisition for me, provenance record had said it had come from an old family whom had been forced to sell it at auction. But something about her manner put me off and I just smiled. Without further inspection, I thought it might be on the old side, perhaps older than the short blade residing incomplete on the mantel, was. Naturally, my mind worked toward costs. How much could she have paid for such an item?

  Curiosity sparked; I knew it was impolite to query the price she’d paid. Her enthusiasm for my pleasure had seemed genuine therefore I decided to take it as it had been offered: a gift. “How’d you know? It was just what I was looking for to complete my set.” I commented, reaching inside to take it out. The moment my hand touched the scabbard, something odd happened. My fingertips smarted as though I’d been burned. Beneath her watchful eye, I recoiled slightly, pulling my hand away.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked, her eyes innocently wide.

  Before, I could answer, Yumemakura-san called from the hallway. “M--, Yuri-san wants to know if you have extra ice? Or do you want her to run to the store?”

  I fumbled with speech, self-conscious of the woman hovering near. I know I shouldn’t have, but it was instinctual. What must she be feeling? I wondered anxiously, turning to her after delivering an affirmative. But, Kiwako-san had moved further into the room. She stood before the fireplace, her hands clutched at the small of her back. I couldn’t see her face when she spoke.

  “Fitting...for a collector.”

  I thought I imagined her hands tighten, the sharp nails digging into the flesh. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?” I felt a little awkward just standing there. But, when she turned around again, her smile was back in place, sharper. A shade happier. In my naiveté, I assumed she was pleased with my acceptance. My doubts eased, I thought that maybe I’d been too harsh in my first appraisal of her.

  “No, that’s alright. I was just leaving.”

  I meant to walk her out but Kakera-san started calling loudly. I excused myself quickly, ducking out into the hallway, from thereon to the kitchen where my tipsy friend was making a go of slicing castela cake while the rest looked on amusedly. Yumemakura pulled me over to his side asking what I’d been doing.

 
When I mentioned Kiwako-san, his expression changed. He asked if she’d been bothering me? If I’d seen her around the campus before or around the neighborhood? I answered truthfully a negative if not slightly defensive of the woman. “She said she’d thought of me immediately wherever she found the gift.” I explained nonchalantly.

  “Huh, that’s odd.” He leaned against the counter, his shirt collar unbuttoned. Everything about him moments before had spoken of ease, relaxation. It was gone then, my confusion deepened. “How so?” I hadn’t thought much about it, a kind of collector’s greed that’s much easier to admit to now after everything; in my mind. The piece had history behind it. It had aged, perhaps not well wherever it had been kept. My head full of fantasies about its history, barely wondered about his next words.

  “How did she know where you lived?”

  That was in the winter as I mentioned before. I had kept watch as he had suggested, but hadn’t seen Kiwako-san at all. Jiro-san’s concerns I filed away as concerns over my decision to live alone. Per custom, a few days later, I purchased bottles of Sake, including handwritten notes of introduction. These, I delivered to each of my new neighbors, spending a few minutes chatting about the weather we were having.

  Harada Yukiko-san whom lived directly across from me, presented a green painted bird bell through the fence. She was a lovely elderly woman whom had moved in with her son-in-law’s family after a recent bout of health problems had made it unsafe for her to continue living alone. She leaned heavily on her cane, “so you’re living with a fellow over there, huh? In my day, women were betrothed through family contract to get their husbands.” She rambled on a few minutes more while I stood there, processing what she had said.

  “No, you’re mistaken, Mrs. Harada. I live alone.” I corrected gently, assuming she’d seen Jiro-san around. The old woman was startled. “Alone...? Why, I could’ve sworn I’d seen...,” here, she trailed off, thin lips quavering. “Never you mind, dear. I’m sure my eyesight saw wrong.” She then sent one of her grandsons, an impish boy of ten, back to the house to retrieve the bird bell I mentioned before.

  “Here, you take this and hang it up where it can be heard.” She urged, passing the knotted cord to me through the slats of the front gate. The bell chinked merrily in my grasp, my skepticism resurfaced, though to her I would say nothing. “You believe you saw someone...what did they look like?” I probed carefully, thinking it might have something to do with a man I’d dated the year before. His refusal to accept the end of our relationship had led to problems at my place of work and residence, prompting my move into the exclusive Den-en-chōfu neighborhood.

  Mrs. Harada hesitated, her withered hands clutched the gate post. “I...I saw a man...very dark, very tall, pacing just inside the gate.”

  That could hardly describe the man I thought of, for he was neither exceptionally tall of stature nor dark of face. When I asked the redoubtable little lady for a description of features, she frowned to herself and said she did not know. She had been unable to form an opinion on any other physical characteristics the intruder might’ve possessed. The strange thing that struck me at the time was Mrs. Harada’s intimation that I had been home at the time of her sighting.

  Perplexed, I thanked her for the bell and returned home. An intruder? A mistake of eyesight? It was possible she had seen me watering outside and had mistaken me for another. The whole event was so ambiguous, I hesitated on mentioning it to Yumemakura-san later on in the evening.

  There were other things, of course. I’d wake up in the morning and find the lights burning downstairs. Abe-san, another friend, came by to pick up a book she wanted to lend. I wasn’t home at the time, having an errand to run. She said she’d parked at the curb and gotten off. All the lights in the house were on and as she walked up the gate, they switched off one right after the other. Naturally, she thought an intruder and would’ve called the police had she not realized the impossibility of the lights going off every second. Abe-san never visited me again.

  Abe-san did mention one detail to me over coffee, in the safety of bright lights. She said that one light hadn’t gone off and from there, she had heard the sound of a bell ringing. She suggested somewhat laughingly, that maybe whatever it was couldn’t abide the sound of a bell tolling. Out of curiosity, I moved the bell; easily forgetting those few incidents.

  Then, one late afternoon as the shadows were creeping across the floor, I was sitting in the study, grading a few papers. I had the long stretch of the weekend to look forward to, remembering the indolent ease in which I stretched my arms up over my head. You’ve been in my study before, Will. How there’s a long window overlooking the western side of the house?

  I chanced to look out through it and saw a swift dark shape walk past. I bolted upright in my seat, my heart pounding. An intruder! I instantly thought, my hand closing over my cell phone. I started from the chair, intending on...what? My fingers ceased their futile dialing of the police department’s number. How could anyone walk past that window? I mean there were ways...

  I locked the doors, going out the back. Retrieving a rake from the garden shed out back, I circled around the house checking the windows, looking for any sign of the intruder. You may as well guess that I found nothing. Go ahead, laugh, Will. Laugh at the picture, silly old me made.

  No...you won’t. I’m sorry, Will. I’m just at my rope’s end! But...yes, yes, I’ll continue.

  I tossed and turned night after night, coming awake at the smallest noise. Within me had grown a cancerous fear, a noisome oppression that I couldn’t rid myself of nor know from when it had came. I was afraid...for the first time in my life. I was afraid of something I could give no name to. Days passed, I called a monk in from a local temple under the advice of my aunt. He was a quaint sort of fellow, clad in the heavy robes and prayer beads twined around his wrist. He introduced himself as ‘Hosokawa’ a devotee of the Amitabha Buddha. I gave him a tour of the house, noting his interest in the Ii armor.

  Hosokawa claimed to feel a slight malevolent force lingering on the centuries’ old breastplate. Under his guidance, a prayer service was held in the main hall. He also advised me to purchase bells for the front and back doors and gave me a set of prayers to recite whenever I felt afraid.

  Things seemed to calm down after the priest’s blessing. I slept well that night and the next day, wondering still if it was power of suggestion that had elicited the change. I was naive to think it was over. On the fifth night after the monk’s visit, the sharp piercing ring of a bell awakened me from the deepest slumber. Struggling with the sheets, I had gotten my outer robe on before I realized every bell in the house rang in incessant clangor on a windless night.

  On and on...I clapped my hands to my ears, my lips stumbling over the holy sutra, Ubô-Darani-Kyô, of which the monk had told me to recite. When the silence came it was even more terrifying than the racket of before. In the darkness of my upstairs bedroom, I waited. For what, I did not know. It felt to me a prelude, the beginning of something that I had little control of and was powerless to end.

  Then, in the midst of the silence, I heard a footfall outside my bedroom door. With all my might, I prayed to the Gods of my childhood that I had scorned. I begged to be delivered from this waking nightmare, my body rigidly held in place by the starkest of emotions I had never dared feel.

  The footsteps continued on, past my door. Had I been spared? Many conflicting thoughts went through my mind. I started to rise, reaching blindly for a weapon - anything I could lay my hands on. Farther away, past the walls of the house and block wall fencing, I heard the blaring of a police siren.”

  - End of Transcript

  M-- Okuda was unaware at the time that it was her neighbors whom had been roused by the commotion and called the police. Morris tells me that their correspondence had wavered during this time, possibly at Jiro Yumemakura’s insistence. Okuda-san had photocopied a portion of the police blotter from the next day’s newspaper. It is presented h
ere: