About the Author
Born in 1948 in Hiroshima prefecture, Soji Shimada has been dubbed the 'God of Mystery' by international audiences. A novelist, essayist and short-story writer, he made his literary debut in 1981 with The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which was shortlisted for the Edogawa Rampo Prize. Blending classical detective fiction with grisly violence and elements of the occult, he has gone on to publish several highly acclaimed series of mystery fiction. He is the author of 100+ works in total, including Murder in the Crooked House. In 2009 Shimada received the prestigious Japan Mystery Literature Award in recognition of his life's work.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Last Will and Testament
I have been possessed by a devil, an evil spirit with thoughts of its own. It plays vicious tricks on me. I am in agony. Under the devil’s control, my body is a mere puppet. One night, a huge clam, as big as a calf, appeared under my desk. It extended its foot, slid across my room, and left a trail of mucus on the wooden floor. Another evening, I noticed geckos hiding in my room, their bodies in the shadow of a lattice. I tried to kill them, but found that I was powerless.
One early spring morning, I awoke chilled to the bone. The devil was trying to freeze me to death! In time, my youth left me, and so did my physical strength, allowing the devil to possess me even more easily. Celsus said: “To exorcize the demon from a person possessed, you should starve him. Feed him but bread and water, and then beat him senseless with a club.” In the Gospel of St Mark there is corroboration of this method: “Master,” a parent says to Jesus, “I bring my child possessed by a demon to you. My child occasionally frothed at the mouth and clenched his teeth, and now he is emaciated.”
During my own childhood, I realized I was possessed. In order to exorcize the devil in me, I tried everything I could think of. I found this bit of information in another book: “In the Middle Ages, people burned strong incense in front of someone possessed. When the patient fainted, they yanked out some of his hair, put it into a bottle, and capped it. It was believed that the demon could thus be trapped and the patient allowed to recover his senses.” I begged my friends to try this on me, but they scoffed and called me deranged. I tried to pull out my hair myself, but I fainted from the pain. My friends, watching, thought me either crazy or epileptic.
You cannot imagine what I have been through. I have lost all sense of pride; I have been so overwhelmed that I feel a mere transient in this world. With my person, the devil took the shape of a ball, which must have been akin to the “hys- teric ball” of the Middle Ages. Usually it stayed in my lower abdomen. Sometimes it crawled up through the stomach and oesophagus, and then into my throat. This always happened on a Friday. Just as St Cyril described it, my tongue is taut with tension, my lips tremble, and my mouth produces foam. The demon explodes with laughter, and nails are driven into my body. Maggots, snakes and toads emerge before me, one after another; dead men and animals strut around my room; wet reptiles gnaw at my nose, ears and lips. The odour is so incredible it sizzles! Now I understand why reptiles are used in the ceremonies of witchcraft.
Recently, it is rare if they attack; but the thought of them never leaves me. My scars, which are sacred, bleed each Friday. I have begun to indulge in religious exaltations as if I were Catharine Cialina in the seventeenth century or Amelia Bicchieri of Vercelli in the thirteenth century.
The devil is relentless, urging me constantly to obey him. To achieve this end, he has created an almighty woman, a god- dess, a Helen of Troy—or perhaps a witch. She appears nightly in my dreams, where all manner of black magic can reside. I ingest medicinal plants, as Plinius prescribed; before I go to bed I take the ashes of lizards, mix them with a fine wine, and apply the concoction to my nipples and over my heart… but to no avail.
While being manipulated like a puppet, I dream of the perfect woman. I am mesmerized by her beauty, her psychic power, her vigour. I know I would be incapable of painting her on a canvas. Would I be able to bear seeing her with my own eyes? My desire is so overwhelming, it is slowly killing me. I would gladly give up my wretched life if this perfect woman were to become a reality.
Following the terminology of alchemy, I shall call her Azoth, which means “from A to Z”—the ultimate creation, the universal life force. She fulfils my dreams completely.
According to my understanding of the human body, there are six different major body parts: the head, the chest, the abdomen, the hips, the thighs and the legs. In astrology, the human body—a bag-shaped object—is a reflection of the universe in miniature. Each part of the body has its own planet that rules, protects and empowers it:
The head is protected and dominated by Mars, the ruling planet for Aries, which Mars also empowers.
The chest is the territory of Gemini and Leo, pro- tected by Mercury and also the sun. If I were to substitute the breasts of women for the chest, then they would come under the control of Cancer. The moon rules Cancer.
The abdomen is for Virgo, ruled by Mercury.
The hips are designated to Libra, ruled by Venus. However, I could substitute the womb for the hips. Scorpio, ruled by Pluto, controls the sexual organs.
The thighs are in the territory of Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter.
The legs are Aquarius, ruled by Uranus.
As I have said, each of us has a part of our body that is given strength by our ruling planet. Those born under Aries, for example, find strength in their head, and Librans have theirs in their hips. A person’s astrological identity is determined by the alignment of the sun and the planets at the exact moment of birth. One’s sign and correlating part of the body determines who he or she is. No one can be perfect, because everyone has a gift from the ruling planet in only one part of their body. So I thought to myself: if I were to take the perfect head, the perfect breasts, the perfect hips and the perfect legs, and then combine them into a female body, I would have the perfect woman! She would be a goddess. And if I were to put six virgin parts of the body together, their combined beauty would be supreme.
Thereafter, my only focus in life was this goddess, and, as fate would have it, what one concentrates on usually manifests itself. One day, I realized that six virgins of different zodiacal signs were living near me—my daughters and nieces! I chuck- led to myself at life’s so-called “coincidences”, grateful for my knowledge of astrology. My knees grew weak as my fantasies assumed a reality.
People may be surprised to hear that I am the father of five daughters. The eldest one is Kazue, followed by Tomoko, Akiko,nTokiko and Yukiko. The three eldest ones are stepdaughters from my second marriage, to Masako. Tokiko is from my first wife, Tae, and Yukiko is my daughter with Masako. Tokiko and Yukiko were born in the same year. My wife Masako, who used to be a ballet dancer, teaches ballet and piano to our daughters, and Reiko and Nobuyo have joined them. These two girls, who moved out of their small house to live with us, are the daughters of my younger brother Yoshio.
Kazue (Capricorn, born 1904) has lived alone in her own house since her divorce. So there are now these six young women in my house: Tomoko (Aquarius, born 1910); Akiko (Scorpio, born 1911); Yukiko (Cancer, born 1913); Tokiko (Aries, also born 1913); Reiko, one of the nieces (Virgo, also born 1913); and Nobuyo, Reiko’s sister (Sagittarius, born 1915).
Thus, I found my fate sealed. The devil was telling me to sacrifice these young women. Kazue (thirty-one) is much older than the others, so I excluded her from the group. I would take the head from Tokiko, the chest from Yukiko, and the abdomen from Reiko. The hips would come from Akiko, the thighs from Nobuyo and the legs from Tomoko. Then I would fashion these parts together to make one woman. It would be desirable if the hips were from a Libra and the chest from a Gemini virgin, but one cannot be so greedy. Since Azoth is female, her chest can be represented by breasts and her hips by a womb. Because the devil is generous, I know my plan will work!
I shall follow the rules of alchemy strictly, however, in order to create eternal life. The six virgins will serve as metallic ele- ments, and I will refine these base metals into gold. When my work is accomplished, blue sky will appear through dark clouds, setting me free from agony and torture.
Ah, how my body trembles! I want to see what Azoth will look like! I want to see my thirty years of devotion bear the fruit of my diligence. This shall be my art from the devil’s workshop. Throughout history, no one has ever had the same idea as mine—a Black Magic Mass, a philosopher’s stone and all the sculptures ever made in an attempt to capture the beauty of women would all pale before Azoth.
Of course, the six young women will have to die. Their bodies will be cut into three pieces (into two in the cases of Tokiko and Tomoko). Azoth will be constituted of the selected pieces, and the rest of the bodies properly disposed of. The young women will die, but their body parts will live on for ever in Azoth. If only they could know why they must die, I am sure they would be satisfied with their fate.
