Dark Water (22 page)

The highlight of the piece was the performance of Kamiya, who fought a lone battle to bring under control a leak from the ceiling. In what amounted to a one-man show, his performance contained some very eerie moments. Still, one wonders why it had to be presented in the horror style. In this regard, the scene was rather puzzling
…

From the October issue of
Stage Gallery:

It is not a particularly new contrivance for actors to venture off the stage into the audience. Indeed, there are few, if any, independent companies that have not availed themselves of this device. Yet the device employed in this production by Kenzo Kiyohara is more complex. The disco known as
Mephisto
used to operate on three floors, each catering to clientele with different tastes. Each floor had its own turnstile for customers to gain admission through. Kiyohara has followed this system, staging different plays on each of the three floors - the third, fourth, and fifth. What serves to link each of these stages is the medium of water. Water will always fall downwards under the pull of gravity. Even in a concrete structure, water will find a way to leak down through the slightest crack. The effective use of water on its downward journey binds the three stages by a vertical link.

What makes Kiyohara the consummate businessman as well as showman is that he has priced the
performance per floor.

Those who watch the third-floor performance whet their appetites for the fourth floor performance, which in turn spurs them to attend the fifth-floor performance. Thus, to grasp the significance of the man emerging from the flooded restroom, one must watch the play on the fifth floor. In this manner, members of the audience are enticed to visit the playhouse three nights in a row.

From the winter issue of the quarterly Performing Arts:

One stage was almost turned into a swimming pool, with water spurting and gushing in all directions. Draining it all away afterwards must have presented the company with great difficulties. Yet the whole experience was well worth the effort. I found the scene with the multicoloured hair undulating in the water quite overwhelming. Effective lighting techniques made the flesh tingle with the beauty and eeriness of it all.

The multicoloured hair symbolizes the girls who once danced there. Although the hair does indicate a transition to the group dancing scene, there can be no denying that the audience is provided with an insufficient explanation as to what is going on. The fourth floor performance alone is not enough to enlighten them. However, the splendid contrast between the quiet of water and the massive blasts of the dancing scene denies the very need for an explanation. If the intent of this staging is beauty
tout court,
this critic accepts that he has succumbed to the plan. All theorizing aside, I did find beauty in the morbidity of that world.

The soft soil underfoot had become hard bedrock before he knew it. Once out of the woods, he suddenly found himself atop a crag. With the rugged hardness of rock to reassure the soles of his feet, he made his way to the edge and peered over to find a sheer ledge dropping off no more than his own height. Here the woods abruptly ended, and below the drop extended a sloping strip of land covered by fallen leaves. Although there should have been something like a small stream winding its way down the eastern slopes of the mountain, no marsh was visible from this point onwards, nor was the sound of running water to be heard.

It felt like but a short while ago that the noonday sun, reflecting off the water, repeatedly caught the eye. Yet the stream vanished as if swallowed up by the earth.

There was little need to check the map. The underground water that welled up from this stretch of mountains fed a tributary of the River Tama, and upon swelling to much greater proportions, flowed into Tokyo Bay. Beneath the rock that felt so rugged to the soles of his feet ran the groundwater in streams formed of rainwater that had percolated through the hard rock. As Fumihiko Sugiyama thought of that crystal-clear water, something struck him as strangely incongruous. He lived in a high-rise condominium with a magnificent view of Tokyo Bay. He gazed upon the River Tama every day and could clearly remember the colour of the water. The water was quite filthy and could only be described as a dirty blackish gray. He wondered how the unsullied, crystal-clear water flowing from the source could be transformed into such an unsightly mess by the time it reached Tokyo Bay. As he stood atop the tiny crag, Sugiyama wondered how fascinating it would be to observe every subtle and detailed change in the colour of the water as it flowed from the source to Tokyo Bay.

Sugiyama was about to jump down from the low crag when he found himself faltering. It was not that great a drop and could have been jumped easily. Yet he felt a surge of unease. The ground at the bottom of the small cliff was covered with leaves, which made for a strangely uncertain footing. Fallen leaves had frequently caused him to slip in the past while traversing mountainous terrain. Wet leaves stuck to the surface of rocks were a particular hazard because a hiker could easily slip and fall. Although the layers of leaf mould that lay under the leaves posed little problem, the leaves could also conceal a hollow in the rock or a tree root, which were often the cause of sprained ankles. Sugiyama was not concerned about spraining his ankle, however. He had visions of something like a bottomless dark pit lurking beneath the leaves. As he thought of the terrible consequences of jumping into something of that nature, he stepped back from the edge. Behind him could be heard the rustling of bushes being pushed aside. Suspecting that it wouldn't take Sakakibara much more than a minute to catch up, Sugiyama decided to wait for him on top of the ledge. Sakakibara was out of breath when he arrived where Sugiyama stood. Sugiyama thrust his chin in the direction of the ledge to call Sakakibara's attention to what lay below. Sugiyama thought his expression would have sufficiently conveyed to Sakakibara his dilemma as to whether they should jump down. However, with a display of characteristic obtuseness, Sakakibara sprang off the edge without so much as checking his footing. He landed with a thud on the fallen leaves below. Due to the slight downward slope of the ground below, Sakakibara had landed on his rump. Sitting there with both arms extended behind to support himself, he pointed his jaw upwards and grinned at Sugiyama as if challenging him to stop wasting time and join him on the double. A man of hefty build and the antithesis of agility, Sakakibara was also a reckless character who had not infrequently provided Sugiyama with hair-raising moments in the past.

'Are you all right down there?' asked Sugiyama.

As if prompted by the question, Sakakibara started to rise to his feet, the sardonic smile still visible on his face. At that moment, however, his foot slipped on the leaves, dropping him down heavily again on his rump. Sugiyama laughed out loud. Preoccupied by something all of a sudden, Sakakibara crawled face up to directly under the ledge and started to investigate the surroundings with a look of grave concern on this face.

'Say, look at this!'

He raised his hand aloft and signaled to Sugiyama to hurry and jump down. Gauging the steepness of the incline below, Sugiyama jumped and landed on his feet; he had managed to keep his balance and only needed one hand on the ground to steady himself. He turned to find Sakakibara now lying on his stomach, his face close to the bottom of the ledge. Right next to Sakakibara's rotund face gaped a dark hole similar in proportion to his friend's face. Crawling up to Sakakibara, Sugiyama peered into the hole.

'Could it be the entrance to a cave?'

Sugiyama's tone suggested that he was not so much asking Sakakibara as himself. He didn't want to get his hopes up, only for them to be dashed, so he suppressed the excitement he was beginning to feel. They had hiked the mountainside for half a day now and the only openings had been fissures in the rock, cracks hardly wide enough to insert his arm, let alone his body. Thus, trying not to get his hopes up, Sugiyama found himself believing that this aperture, too, was probably nothing more than the den of some animal.

With an earnest air, Sakakibara began brushing aside the leaves with his hands. At length, a soft, damp patch of earth was revealed, but Sakakibara continued working with his hands. There were signs of the air outside being drawn into the opening. Apparently, a current of air flowed through the inside of the cave. The opening was not small. Sugiyama's hopes began to rise slightly.

Impatiently lowering his backpack to the ground, he removed a collapsible shovel and began scooping away the dirt from the lower part of the opening. After digging away for less than ten minutes, he managed to sufficiently widen the opening for one man to crawl through. Both of them then took turns crawling halfway inside to examine the interior with a flashlight.

'We've done it! No doubt about it this time!' Sakakibara almost shrieked with excitement.

Sugiyama finally allowed himself to be convinced. Opposite the opening was an expanse of immeasurable proportions. Air rising up the mountainside was being drawn into the opening. If they listened carefully, they could hear the faint echo of water dripping somewhere in the depths of the darkness.

'Could be.'

Although convinced that they had finally found what they were after, Sugiyama expressed a kind of reserved ambiguity; it was no simple matter to discover an underground cavern into which no man had ever set foot before.

Ever since his son had been born two and a half years ago, and especially now that his wife was expecting their second child, Sugiyama felt his appetite for adventure ebbing. He didn't find such a development totally unnatural; with two children to support, he was no longer able to throw caution to the wind in pursuit of adventure. He was almost resigned to never experiencing that ultimate adventure.

A young man just over thirty, Sugiyama was already seeing his youth slipping into shades of maturity, and this fact rankled him from time to time. Of late, he increasingly found himself releasing his grip on the accelerator on his motorbike, conscious of the risk of an accident, when he could go a lot faster and still remain within the speed limit. He'd only begun behaving this way after he'd gotten married and become a father. Such caution would have been unthinkable before. Intoxicated by the thrill, he would intuitively seek out danger and push his luck to the limits. During his teens and early twenties he'd lived for the thrill of living on the edge between life and death.

However, his hunger for adventure had waned once he realized how little he would leave his wife and children if anything were to happen to him, given his meager savings and such. At thirty-one, there was no way he could be described as having had his fill of adventure -there were so many things left to do. It hadn't helped being stuck in the same old job at a newspaper-affiliated research firm for most of the past decade. Had he avoided getting mired in that kind of rut and been constantly alert and on the lookout for a better position, his footwork would no doubt have been more nimble now. At best, he had learned self-restraint; at worst, he'd become overcautious. The challenge he now faced was whether to let the sight of the cave gaping in front of him be governed by an emotion of self-restraint or by daring initiative.

Sugiyama took the copy of the map from his backpack and entered a rough estimate of their current position. He also took a photograph of the surrounding landscape so they would be able to locate this place again in the future.

Not surprisingly unaware of Sugiyama's dilemma, Sakakibara was attempting to squeeze his hefty frame through the opening.

It was clear that he fully intended to enter the limestone grotto. They were wearing cotton overalls and had some caving equipment in their backpacks, although not the gear they would need on a serious spelunking mission.

Sugiyama tugged at Sakakibara's overalls and tried to pull him back.

'Don't you think we'd better leave that until later?'

Their journey around the mountainside on that particular day had been meant simply for discovering underground caves, not actual exploration. Sugiyama tried to convey his concern that they had been lucky enough even to find a suitable cave, and that they should now be returning. Yet he did not have the physical strength to pull Sakakibara back. Neither could there be any denying that he was also very intrigued as to what might be inside.

'There's no going back now!'

Sakakibara's tone was aggressive as he wriggled about to shake off Sugiyama's hand. Sugiyama angrily called to him and stood there tut-tutting in consternation. Yet he also felt something snap inside and found that he was reasoning with himself:
As long as we don't get trapped anywhere deep. As long as we just take a quick look inside. As long as we content ourselves with just that
-
nothing could possibly happen then.

For ten meters or so into the cave, there was only enough room to crawl forward in single file. In the light of his headlamp, Sugiyama could see Sakakibara's rump ahead dancing side to side as he crawled forward after him. In fact, Sakakibara's rump blocked the whole tunnel, making it impossible to see ahead. Sugiyama couldn't imagine how a man of Sakakibara's build could ever have become a spelunker. Nor could he imagine whether it had been a good idea to invite Sakakibara on this mountain hike. There was something reckless about him, and recklessness could cost lives.

Sugiyama had known Sakakibara for no more than three years. He had met Sakakibara after joining the Pilot Caving Club in Hachioji. As a member of the Explorers' Club at college, Sugiyama had taken an active interest in both mountain climbing and marine sports, devoting his youthful energies to rock climbing and scuba diving. With increasingly less time and money to spend on adventure sports once he started working, he had focused on caving as a pursuit endowed with the dual aspects of both land and sea. Rock-climbing techniques were needed to traverse up and down shafts a hundred feet or more in length. Moreover, water was inevitably encountered in caves, given the nature of limestone caves, grottos carved out of limestone by the solvent action of running water. Hence, diving techniques were also required whenever a caving enthusiast wished to explore a current of crystal-clear water that was otherwise impassable. Sugiyama had no sooner taken up caving before he found himself hooked. There was no lack of spelunking sites in Japan, where numerous limestone plateaus could be found. Not only that, but in the mountains not too distant from central Tokyo lay virgin stalactite grottos that could only be described as halls of wonder. Not only was caving an inexpensive hobby, it was also one that fully sated his appetite for adventure.