The sound of quiet footsteps came down the corridor and stopped outside the door.
“Did you call, sir?” came a voice.
“Hanae,” said the old man, “open the door, and then open the outside ones, too. All the way.”
The inner door slid open. “But, sir,” said the girl, her eyes wide, “it’s really gotten rather cold.”
“It doesn’t matter. Open them.”
The girl slid open the glass outer doors with a slight scraping noise. The chill of the autumn night in Hakone rushed into the room, which had no warmth of its own save that from the foot-warmers. There was a ghostly murmur of insects. Branches rustled in the pitch-black darkness of the grove of cryptomeria trees.
One could look beyond the garden and through the tree trunks down to where Lake Ashi lay. The moon of the seventeenth day of the month hung in the sky. The awesome, chill brilliance of its beams shattered itself upon the rippled surface of the water. The ring of peaks surrounding Hakone loomed up, linked together like a huge black screen touched by the light of the moon.
“Professor Tadokoro,” said the old man in a voice of surprising strength, sounding behind them as they gazed out transfixed by the beauty of the scene. “Do you see? Take a good look. Take a good look at the mountains and lakes of Japan. As you know, Japan is large. From southwest to northeast it ex tends nearly 1,700 miles. It has islands large and small. It has ranges of mountains with peaks over 9,000 feet. The extent of its land is 142,000 square miles. And here live 110 million people whose gross national product ranks third in the world. This Japan, this massive group of islands—do you still think, really, even now, that it will sink? Do you really believe, even now, that such a thing could occur in the very near future—the swift submersion of all this?”
“I . . .” Tadokoro spoke as though heaving a deep sigh. “Yes . . . I do believe it. And our next survey will deepen that belief still more.”
Onodera felt his chest tremble as he gazed at the mountains bathed in the light of a moon just short of being full, and at the dark, brimming surface of the lake, over which that same brilliance was scattered in a thousand silver waves. The sensation was uncanny.
“Very well,” said the old man’s voice. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Hanae, that’s enough. Shut the doors.”
Looking up at the moon, whose brightness in that cloudless sky was almost painful, Onodera suddenly frowned. For the ring of brilliance that surrounded the moon sailing through a clear sky suddenly wavered as though a wave of heat had covered it. And then he realized that the chirping of insects had stopped. Even the rustle of the wind in the trees had grown quiet, as though every breeze had died.
Suddenly there came the shrill cry of night birds from the midst of the dark forest, a distressed chorus that sounded on every side. Nearer at hand, on the shore of the lake, dogs began to howl and roosters to crow.
“It’s coming, you see,” whispered Tadokoro.
Before he pronounced his last word, the mountains and forests spread before them began to rumble. Tiles trembled. The posts and lintels began to creak and moan, till finally the whole house began to vibrate loudly and the lights went out. The furniture rattled, sand’fell from the wall with a dry rustling noise, and there was the light sound of something spilling over the tatami. The girl gave a frightened cry.
“Don’t worry. It’s just an aftershock. Hakone and Tanazawa, after sinking a bit, are now coming up somewhat to restore the balance. It’s nothing of significance.” Tadokoro’s composed voice spoke in the darkness. “This isn’t what we have to worry about.”
Before they realized it, the quake was over. The whole group sat in silence within the darkened room, looking out upon the night scene of the bright moon shining down upon the shimmering, tranquil surface of Lake Ashi as though nothing had happened. The moon was rising higher and higher, and its pale brilliance covered an ever larger portion of the tatami floor.
“Nakata . . . that was the name, wasn’t it? The young fellow who said something a moment ago,” came the old man’s voice from the darkness behind them.
“Yes, sir,” Nakata answered.
“Do you have a fair idea of what has to be done with regard to this next stage?”
“I have a plan in mind, sir,” said Nakata, altogether com posed. “It’s not yet complete in all respects, but I have the general scheme laid out.”
“Good. Get it in final order as quickly as possible. Tomorrow I’m going to phone the Prime Minister. I want to meet with him. And furthermore, tomorrow I want somebody to go to Kyoto. Two of you go. In Kyoto there’s a scholar named Fukuhara. He’s still very young, but I know from reading his writings that he’s genuine, a true scholar. Take him a letter from me. I’ll explain the circumstances and ask for his cooperation. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what to say. It’s essential that we get the benefit of his thinking on this matter. The scholars of Tokyo, if you’ll pardon me, have from long past shown a propensity for fads and an incapacity to think their way through complex problems.”
“Fukuhara. . .” said Yukinaga in a low voice. “He’s in comparative civilization, isn’t he? Have you known him for some time, sir?”
“I’ve never met him,” said the old man, coughing slightly. “But we’ve exchanged one or two letters. I’m sure he’ll be receptive to us.”
A light shone from the crack in the doorway at the rear of the room. The door slid open, and the girl came in holding an old-fashioned lamp.
“Oh, my!” she said frowning. “The camellia . . .”
In the pale yellow circle of light cast by the old lamp, the tiny flower, fallen from the alcove post, lay like a spot of vivid color on the tatami, red as blood.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next morning Onodera left for Kyoto with Kunieda, carrying Watari’s letter. The Super Express was in operation west of Shizuoka, but because of the precautions that had to be ob served, it took more than three hours to get from there to the express terminal in Osaka.
As he stood swaying back and forth in the jammed aisle, a sensation hard to define suddenly took hold of Onodera when he noticed that the train was crossing the Tenryu River. It was just a year ago that he had run into Goh at that water fountain near the rear entrance of Tokyo Station.
Now, as he thought back, he realized that that was when everything had started. He had not had the least idea at that moment what the future held in store for Japan or that he himself would become caught up in this kind of mission. A sense of secrecy and peril weighed upon him with oppressive force.
✦ ✦ ✦
Osaka had almost entirely recovered from the effects of the great earthquake of the year before, but in Kyoto there was no way of missing the devastation evident in Gion, Ponto-cho, and the other districts making up the old Gay Quarters, which were the heart of the city, and in the close-packed downtown areas wracked by quake and fire.
When they arrived at the professor’s house in the northern part of the city, they learned that he had become somewhat ill the day before and had not gone out since. When he appeared in the parlor, wearing a pongee haori jacket, he seemed so youthful, with his boyish face and with no trace of gray in his hair, that Onodera, who knew that he was over fifty, would have had a difficult time guessing his age.
Professor Fukuhara read the old man’s letter again and again, his head tipped to one side, and Onodera and Kunieda, in turn, explained the situation to him. All the while he pursed his lips and finally uttered but a single phrase: “My, what an awful thing . . .”
And with that he got up at once and walked out of the parlor. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour, and still there was no sign of the professor. Their legs aching from being bent so long beneath them on the tatami floor, Onodera and Kunieda called the maid to find out what happened.
“The master is lying down upstairs,” was the answer she gave them.
“What the devil! This is what you call a Kyoto scholar? Making fools of us like this?” said the furious Kunieda. “We come all the way from Tokyo to tell him this, and all he can do is say ‘My, what an awful thing!’ and go up to take a nap.”