‘Link hands with your neighbours!’ The priest’s voice was full of vibrant power. From Yoneko’s left, a clammy hand reached through the darkness and gripped hers. It was Haru Santo who had thus grasped her. Looking to her right, Yoneko could just make out the features of one of the people who had come at the same time as she had, but a sense of revulsion prevented her from reaching out and taking her hand.
‘Someone is not cooperating. The seance cannot begin until all hands are linked. Do as I say!’
The priest’s voice had become stern and authoritative. Yoneko could not but obey him, unpleasant as it made her feel.
On her left, Haru Santo was chanting the opening lines of a Buddhist Sutra. All around, the others present began to follow suit, until the room reverberated with their nasal tones.
Yoneko began to feel slightly nauseated by the whole proceeding. Someone had lit a bundle of incense sticks, and their powerful scent began to pervade the room.
The priest stood up and spoke.
‘Suwa Yatabe, forasmuch as thou hast besought this seance, come now and prostrate thyself before me so that thy spirit shall pass into my keeping.’
He reached down and placed his hands on Suwa’s head as he spoke.
She began to mumble disjointedly. From time to time, she seemed to be referring to a violin. At last she fell silent, at which point Thumbelina stood up and began to moan and sway and, eventually, raising her hands on high, to dance in a manner suggesting great exhaustion. In the flickering candlelight, there was something magical about the dance, with two white wrists flickering like butterflies in the gloom. Her long black hair swished from side to side, occasionally falling forward so as to totally obscure her face, then parting slightly to reveal a pale forehead.
Haru Santo began to tremble and shudder, and as she was clasping Yoneko’s hand tightly in her clammy grasp, the movement communicated itself to Yoneko’s body.
Suddenly, the medium raised her voice to a piercing scream and fell flat on her face. She lay still, but it seemed to Yoneko that she had begun to foam at the mouth, though it might have just been spittle. Her beautiful features, or what could be seen of them through the strands of black hair that lay across her face, seemed to be contorted with pain. Then her tiny body began to shudder and, grinding her teeth the while, she emitted a strange sound.
‘Hee, Hee, Hee! Hee, Hee, Hee!’
It sounded like an unpleasant laugh slowed down. Yoneko felt most disturbed. All around her, this strange performance was having the identical effect upon the audience, who sat very still and silent and watched dubiously.
‘The seance is now over. Release your hands.’ The voice of the priest echoed sonorously in the dark room.
Yoneko took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her hands. She felt relieved that it was over, and wished that someone would turn on the electric light, but it looked as if this sect preferred to conduct its business by candlelight. Suddenly she could not bear to stay for a second longer, and she rushed to the lobby and struggled into her shoes, expecting to be halted by a command from the priest, but no one paid her any attention. She opened the door and went out. As soon as she breathed the fresh cold air in the corridor, she felt better.
Within, the sect was continuing its meeting, but Yoneko made her way straight back to her room.
What had she in common with the people in that room, with all their talk of prophecies and revelations and the world of spirits?
She sat down by her desk and reached for the list of her former pupils. But all of a sudden she seemed to have lost the will to continue her series of ‘letters from your past’.
Yoneko spent the next two days doing nothing, and hardly daring to leave her room for fear of bumping into Tomiko Iyoda or other members of the Three Spirit Faith. From time to time she overcame her reluctance and went out to have a look at Chikako Ueda’s room on the fifth floor. But she had almost given up hope of making any progress in that direction.
On the third day, she was cooking herself a late breakfast when there was a knock on her door. She opened it to find Tomiko Iyoda outside, her face wreathed in smiles.
‘What a delicious smell. You’re toasting new bread, I suppose!’ And without more ado she kicked off her sandals and stepped into the room. Yoneko followed her, apologising as she went.
‘I do hope you’ll forgive me for leaving so suddenly the other night, after you’d gone to the trouble of asking me. I suddenly felt indisposed.’
There was nothing for it but to offer her unwelcome guest a seat.
‘Not at all, not at all. Don’t mention it. It quite often happens that way to beginners: the unaccustomed contact with the spirit world overcomes them at first.’
And without the slightest reserve she sat down, looking curiously around the room as she did so, and helped herself to a piece of Yoneko’s toast.
‘But I felt you’d like to hear the upshot of the seance—it’s most interesting, I can assure you. Of course, you realise that funny noise—“Hee Hee”—was a voice from the spirit world? It sounded sad to me, but after you’d gone His Reverence played it back over the tape recorder and explained that in the language of the spirit world that particular sound represents the crackling of flames.
‘His Reverence told us that this signified that the missing object had been burned. At which point, Miss Yatabe, the one who’d lost whatever it was—a violin, I suppose—suddenly came out of her trance. Well, that should be enough to convince anybody that our seances are genuine, I feel. But there’s more and better to come! Would you believe it! Today we had absolute proof of the truth of what His Reverence said. And it happened right before our very eyes—yes, I was there, and saw it, too! Look, I wouldn’t have told you this before, but I occasionally had my doubts too, you know. But not any more after this! O how lucky and happy I feel! That’s why I rushed straight here to share the good news with you!’
She paused for a sip of tea, and then straightening her fat body she went on:
‘Well, you know there’s an old brick-built incinerator in the inner courtyard? Yes, well, it’ll have to come down because of the moving of the building, so since this morning the labourers have been raking out the ashes and what do you think they found? A violin case! Who could have put such a thing there? Well, it was badly scorched because although it was deep in the ashes, the heat of the fire had reached it. And the poor violin inside was scorched and warped, and the varnish was blistered. There it was, a worldfamous instrument of which there are hardly any left, all ruined! Well, Miss Tojo from the front desk said that Miss Yatabe would be the one to know about it, and of course she was dead right, because that was the violin which Miss Yatabe had lost, or rather which had been stolen from her that time when someone broke into her room using the master key, do you remember?
‘Poor Miss Yatabe! When she saw the state that violin was in, her knees crumpled and she sat on the floor and cried. For not only was it a famous instrument, but she had received it from her teacher years and years ago. Well, I suppose she shouldn’t be blamed, but in her place my first sentiments would be to wonder at the powers of the spirit world and marvel at how His Reverence has penetrated its hermetic secrets! More than the violin itself, his knowing how it would turn out—that’s what would move me!
‘I mean, that little medium can speak with the tongues of spirits, and of the dead, but there are many who can do that. But His Reverence can understand the language of that world! That is the real miracle if you ask me! It takes the wisdom and experience of someone like him to do that!’
Miss Iyoda seemed to be overcome by her own eloquence. Gradually she calmed down and then took her leave, urging Yoneko to be sure and attend the next seance.