Pathway to Japanese Literature

Crimson Pool

According to the new psychology of behaviorism, it is said that the course of a human life is determined far more by the environment during the first several months after birth than by heredity or education.
Thus, the demonic life of the femme fatale Ranko Egawa must undoubtedly have been due to the extraordinarily peculiar environment she experienced during her infancy.

Mr. Watson states that for infants, "there are apparently only two stimuli that evoke what we call the fear response pattern. One of these is loud sounds, and the other is loss of support."

This refers to instances when a baby becomes frightened by sharp noises, starts crying when the futon they're sleeping on is suddenly pulled away, or when abruptly placed in hot water.

In technical terms, the reactions easily observable at such times are sudden cessation of breathing, palpitations and marked changes in respiratory rhythm, wailing, and throwing up both hands.

Parents in general (or at least mothers), driven by their child-rearing instincts, strive to avoid exposing their babies to these two types of fear as much as possible.
When walking beside a peacefully sleeping baby, they would tread softly; when putting the baby in hot water, they would wrap its body in a towel and hold it tightly.

However, in the case of baby Ranko Egawa, the exact opposite occurred.
That said, it wasn't entirely her young mother's fault alone, but the first misfortune was that their family's residence stood excessively high.
In other words, Ranko was born in a room on the seventh floor of a renowned high-rise apartment building.
As a prime example of "sound-induced fear," three times a day, the siren from the confectionery company adjacent to the apartment building would blare forth.
Ranko was laid to sleep by the window, no more than two ken (approximately 3.6 meters) away from that strange sound.

The representative example of "loss of support" was the high-speed apartment elevator that her mother would board while holding her during multiple outings each day.
Each time, Ranko's heart would plummet along with the elevator floor into a hundred-shaku abyss in an instant.

The second misfortune was that her parents were extremely young (her father being twenty-three and her mother eighteen), full of vitality, and unskilled at suppressing their emotions, resulting in ceaseless innocent conflicts.
Her father and mother were always either bellowing at each other or singing songs.
If it had been just singing, that would have been tolerable, but it came accompanied by her young mother’s violin playing.
How utterly terrifying those sounds must have been for baby Ranko.

Even so, the singing was still bearable.
For that pitiful baby, those sounds—no matter how violent—must have been nothing less than the most soothing lullaby in this world.
This meant that the vigor of her parents' conflicts could in no way be as mild as those terrifying sounds produced by the violin.

When those conflicts intensified, the baby became nothing more than an object.
To put it in Western terms, she was nothing more than a baguette.
In other words, she would lose her very existence as a living being.
To put it concretely, in extreme instances, her parents would toss Ranko's soft fleshy mass back and forth like a rubber ball across a distance of half a ken to one ken (approximately 0.9 to 1.8 meters).
It was at those moments that Ranko Egawa could savor to her heart's content the "loss of support."

Now, had these been the only circumstances, Ranko Egawa would likely have grown up to become a great diving athlete. However, among the impressions from her early childhood lay something slightly venomous that would prevent this story from concluding as a success novel.

This was because, first (this author enjoys counting things on his fingers), her twenty-three-year-old father was an American-style debonair villain, and her mother, though exceptionally beautiful, was a modern-era woman blind to chastity.

Her father would habitually say as his catchphrase, "Either become Douglas Fairbanks and live like royalty, or else I want to be Shitateya Ginji II." In other words, he made his living through pickpocketing, thefts, and other similar petty crimes.

Her young mother had of course admired and revered the vigorous ideology of this youth who was her husband. She naturally served as an accomplice in his crimes, and possessed a beautiful sacrificial spirit that would have sold her very chastity at her husband's command. As for why conflicts arose between them, the young wife would not tolerate the slightest misconduct from her husband. To put it plainly, she was many times more infatuated with him than he was with her.

Being the child of such a mother, Ranko could not help but revere the ideology of her villainous father. This was what psychoanalysts term a father complex. The child treated her own mother as a rival, vying for her father's favor. And from her earliest infancy, Ranko had already been implanted with the creed: "Either become Douglas Fairbanks or else be Shitateya Ginji."

The second (the second of these poisonous impressions) was that at age two, her parents—mere teenagers themselves—had met an unnatural death.

One night, a man called 'uncle' (though he was actually a young man in his twenties) entered Ranko's family bedroom.
Ranko remembered seeing this man several times before, but for a baby who had only just been born, there was no way to discern what manner of youth he was or what name he bore.
Thus both the motive behind that night's sudden violence and even the violent act itself meant absolutely nothing to her.

Be that as it may, she saw something glinting like lightning across the bed.
Next, she heard a strange groan.
Though she was only two years old, and though she had grown accustomed to daily shouts and the terrifying sounds of the violin, the groans of death throes that issued from her parents' bodies at that moment left such a profound impression that she could never forget it for the rest of her life.

In the very next instant, she tumbled down from the bed to the floor along with her parents' large bodies.
But the fall itself was an unparalleled pleasure for her.
Crushed beneath her mother's corpse and struggling, she cackled with laughter at the pleasure of the fall.

The reason was that through the aforementioned environment, she had already by that time become an abnormal child who regarded that "loss of support" as an everyday occurrence—nay, who reveled in it as the ultimate pleasure.
However, there would be opportunities to discuss that in more detail later.

As she rolled off the bed, immediately a flower-like crimson color assaulted her eyes, and a slimy liquid tickled her sense of touch.
From her mother's white flesh, a magnificent crimson spring—different from milk—gushed forth in torrents.
She gazed at her father's amber-colored flesh.
Then, from there too flowed the same crimson spring.
What that meant, though she naturally had no understanding of it.

In the blink of an eye, a bright red viscous puddle had formed on the bare concrete floor devoid of carpet or any covering.
Ranko emitted incomprehensible shrieks as she slapped at the pool of blood with her maple-leaf-like hands, splashing about just like when mischievously playing with water.

Then while pressing squelching blood handprints onto her young mother's corpse's chest, she noisily sucked at the dry breast.
But no matter how much she sucked and sucked, no milk would come out, so she pressed her mouth to the wound and drank about five shaku (approximately 90 milliliters) of red liquid instead of milk.

Since it wasn't very tasty and her stomach had become somewhat queasy, she soon left the wound and began her indoor exercises.

She rolled in the pool of blood, crawled over her parents' corpses, kicked at gaping open wounds, scrambled about the entire room, and tried time and again to use the chalk-white walls to pull herself upright—only to fail each attempt.

The following morning, the resident living one floor below in the apartment grew suspicious of Ranko's fiery screaming cries and went up to the room, leading to this murder case's first discovery.
Ranko's father, due to the shadowy nature of his business dealings, had chosen to live on the unoccupied seventh floor—so that floor housed their family alone, with all other rooms remaining empty.
This is what reassured the culprit and delayed the crime's discovery.

The people saw the corpses of a young, beautiful man and woman; a blood-drenched little monster—particularly around her mouth appearing monstrously cat-like—stomping her feet and screeching; and throughout the room, strangely charming blood handprints dotted every surface, walls and floor alike.

The orphan was adopted as a foster daughter by the elderly apartment manager couple who had long wanted a child.

The culprit was never discovered.
According to accounts from the deceased's friends and others—as people speculated—Ranko's father had frequently used his beautiful wife as bait in honeytrap schemes, making it likely this perpetrator too had been intoxicated by her mother's sweet empty promises.
It was said that perhaps because he had fallen too desperately in love, even after realizing it was a honeytrap he couldn't relinquish his feelings, until finally resolving to kill both the lover and her husband.

In this murder case, as there was no sympathy for the victims, the public outcry did not grow particularly large, and even though the perpetrator was never discovered, no one denounced the police's incompetence.
Consequently, this case was effectively given silent treatment even by police authorities.

In later years, it appeared the culprit would have permanently escaped execution—as long as Ranko Egawa, outraged by society's indifference, did not undertake her own investigation into the circumstances of that time to avenge her parents.

Acrobat

The apartment manager Mr. Sakuhei Egawa and his elderly wife Okoma were said to be ruthless landlords who strictly collected rent, but in truth both possessed considerable Buddha-like compassion; they took even greater pity on orphan Ranko for being a villain's child and lovingly raised her as if she were their real daughter.
It was from this time that Ranko began using the surname Egawa; since this became her lifelong surname, the author has for convenience referred to her as Egawa Ranko from the very beginning.

Soon after taking her in, Granny Okoma was astonished by the two-year-old Ranko's peculiar traits.

“She was throwing such a tantrum,”
“I ended up slapping her cheek.”
“Then right when she’d been crying moments before, she suddenly brightened up and started giggling away!”
“She’s such a strange child—truly frightening in a way.”

Strange as it was, it was a fact. Okoma had mastered the technique of soothing Ranko. Rocking her on the lap, giving piggyback rides, singing lullabies—all these ordinary methods proved utterly ineffective. Not only that—they even displeased this little monster. Instead of lullabies, startling noises were effective; instead of affectionate strokes, blows proved successful. As for noises, the clattering of dishes in the kitchen—and particularly the sound of them falling to the floor and shattering—delighted Ranko. One time before the apartment, when a car tire burst with a gunshot-like noise, upon hearing it Ranko suddenly burst into laughter—but this wasn't out of good humor.

Another time, while crawling around near the apartment's back entrance, she tumbled down about three stone steps.
Naturally expecting her to burst into tears, Okoma—who had rushed over in alarm—was left dumbfounded upon seeing Ranko's face.

She lay sprawled on her back at the base of the stone steps, her newly sprouted adorable front teeth exposed, her long-lashed beautiful eyes entranced, smiling with genuine delight.

The innocence of that smile.

“Mama could just eat you up!”

Granny Okoma could no longer contain herself—she suddenly scooped Ranko up and pressed her cheek against the child’s.

But setting aside these abnormal traits, her intellect grew robustly, her body developed healthily, and she continued to grow rapidly.
Her beauty in particular inherited only the finest aspects of her parents’ features, growing ever more captivating with each passing year. Those who caught even a glimpse of her couldn’t help but exclaim, “My, how adorable!”

“How far will this child’s beauty and charm grow?”
“It’s almost frightening.”

The Egawa couple spoke of nothing beyond this.
Foolishly, they were deluding themselves with fantasies of eighteen-year-old Ranko adorned in bridal finery.

In elementary school, she was the top honor student in the entire school.
In particular, in mathematics, singing, dance, and gymnastics, the teachers found themselves compelled to award her scores exceeding one hundred points.

In apparatus gymnastics, she was more skilled than any male student, and her diving in the pool was so magnificent that teachers and students from the entire school would gather just to marvel at it.

Her beauty was of course unrivaled in the school. Both teachers and students—every man was in love with her. And Ranko alone was endowed with the talent to lavish charm uniformly upon hundreds of lovers.

At age fourteen, just before graduation, two strange incidents occurred. Once, on the way back from chrysanthemum-viewing at Kokugikan with a teacher and four or five classmates, she jumped into the Sumida River from Ryogoku Bridge still wearing her kimono; another time, when attempting to leap from a department store rooftop, a detective who happened to be present grabbed her obi and prevented it.

Of course, she had not contemplated suicide.
It stemmed from that same strange, irresistible impulse—just as she had laughed when tumbling down stone steps as a baby, so too did she love diving to extremes.

In other words, she instinctively loved danger—those death-defying feats that brushed against mortality.
For her—a mere fourteen-year-old girl—there existed no pleasure in this world beyond this "danger".
When she climbed high buildings or peered into deep rivers, she would feel an uncanny, dreamlike thrill—a shiver making every hair stand on end—and an irresistible urge to leap.

After graduating from elementary school, the Egawa couple attempted to enroll her in a private girls' school renowned for its strict discipline.
But Ranko was thoroughly bored with her monotonous school life.
That said, even if she were to apply to become a female aviator, there was no chance of it being permitted, and complications arose regarding admission qualifications and expenses.
Therefore, without such complications, she chose the profession most desirable to her.
One day, she ran away from home without permission and threw herself into a girls' circus troupe stationed in the suburbs.
For there, neither entrance qualifications, tuition, nor even parental consent were required.

The circus troupe master, upon seeing Ranko's beauty, immediately agreed to take her in.
He didn't particularly care about acrobatics, but since Ranko herself insisted on being allowed to perform, he had her climb onto the aerial trapeze after the audience had left.

Though she first somersaulted through the air two or three times before crashing onto the safety net, within a single day she had mastered the aerial feat of leaping between trapezes suspended several yards apart.

From the next town's performance onward, Ranko appeared before audiences as a lead acrobatic performer.
And in the blink of an eye, she became the undisputed favorite within the troupe.
Mid-air, she moved with more audacious fearlessness than any veteran performer.
She eventually went so far as to demand they remove the safety net beneath her.

Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Egawa were desperately searching for their daughter, but for some reason her whereabouts remained unknown indefinitely.

Ranko reached her sixteenth spring while traveling from town to town with the troupe.
Precocious though she was, her body remained as supple as a boy's, yet her long-lashed, double-lidded eyes already bore the allure and gloss of adulthood.

For her, aerial feats had become such an everyday occurrence that they no longer held any danger—and consequently, any charm.

One day, there was an incident where a fellow performer's daughter fell to her death from a tall bamboo pole.

The eleven-year-old girl lay flattened against the ground like a thrown rice cake, motionless.
With their faces deathly pale and thick sweat beading on their skin, the troupe members surrounded her.
Screams and curses erupted from the audience.

When they lifted the girl's head, a crimson thread stretched between her face and the ground.
She had been vomiting blood violently.
A red pool had formed on the ground.

Ranko felt a shudder upon seeing that blood—one strikingly similar to what she had experienced two years prior when peering down from Ryogoku Bridge and department store rooftops. It terrified her. Yet simultaneously, she found herself thrilling to a hair-raising allure emanating from the girl's corpse and its flowing gore. No—this went deeper still. That bizarre impression from her infancy—when she had giggled while slapping at a blood pool between her parents' corpses—might have lingered in her unconscious depths; now encountering this mirroring spectacle, she felt an uncanny disquiet stirring in her breast.

But though called an adult, sixteen-year-old Ranko had not yet matured enough to grasp the allure of crime and murder. She hadn't even clearly realized how much of a poisonous yet pleasant stimulus it was. She merely thought "Why is human blood so beautiful?" while gazing enraptured at the pale corpse of the girl who had died instantly.

Moreover, regarding the unnatural deaths of her parents during her infancy—as the Egawa couple had kept them strictly hidden—even when tormented by nightmares where she would inevitably hear those horrific death throes groans, she remained largely unaware of what they signified. Thus, no matter how frightened her unconscious may have been upon seeing the blood of the girl who died instantly, her conscious mind remained almost indifferent.

Not long after that, during a performance tour in a major Kansai metropolis, what was destined to arrive finally came.
Ranko had acquired a patron.
It was not difficult to imagine what sudden changes the caresses of that pig-like bloated elderly capitalist wrought upon her mind and body.
This old man was, so to speak, a kind of point man in Ranko Egawa's demonic life.

Sleeping drug

Until being led by old man Sadasuke Toyama into the Western-style villa along the Hanshin line, Ranko had convinced herself that all she needed to do was perform her signature acrobatics before this pig-like old man.

"Would you care for me to show you something?"

When she stepped out onto the balcony, Ranko gazed at the tall trees in the garden and said innocently.
She still retained some desire to climb those wild trees like a monkey.

“Hmm, acrobatics?”
“That’s fine too,”
“The sun’s already setting.”
“Why don’t we go inside and have something to eat?”

The old man twisted his unyielding smile further askew as he ushered her into the room.

The aged cook brought a lavish meal and wine.
Ranko drank copiously when urged, until her face flushed crimson with intoxication.
She already knew alcohol’s taste, and harbored no dislike for it.

The room spun wildly while festival clamor clanged beside her ears—something insistent clung to her neck.
When she recognized it as a hairy arm resembling congealed fat, unbearable curiosity surged through Ranko.
What she’d both dreaded and longed for had finally arrived.
That this partner proved an utterly grotesque pig-like elder delighted her all the more.
A furtive, viscous pleasure—the savoring of depravity.

“Old man, I’ve gone all giddy now.”

Ranko leaned against the old patron, wrapped her hands around from behind, slapped his bald head with sharp smacks, and showed a melting smile.

The lecherous pig, overexcited, stiffened his deathly pale face unnaturally and pressed against her with slimy lips in silence.

Soon, Ranko felt thick lips between her teeth. That eeriness became a shudder-inducing pleasure. She involuntarily ground her teeth from the chill.

Startled by a scream, she leapt back as the brown pig let blood trickle from his lips while laughing.

“Shall we dance? Won’t you sing for me, old man?”

Ranko tore off her jacket and darted to the center of the room. Then she abruptly began dancing Josephine Baker’s routine—but it wasn’t a Black woman performing. Rather, a peach-hued Japanese girl of noble beauty moved there instead. This dissonance drove the pig to madness. He slackly opened his blood-dripping lips and began bellowing a popular song from over thirty years prior.

The circus troupe leader had deliberately abandoned Ranko, leaving her no choice but to continue living with the patron old man for the time being.

Gradually it became clear that this old man was an extremely wealthy individual—likely a millionaire retiree—and though retired, he himself possessed vast assets; moreover, his son headed a renowned patent medicine manufacturer in Osaka.
The old man bought her kimonos and accessories exactly as she desired.
Ranko came to enjoy strolling through Kobe's Motomachi Street, fluttering her brand-new kimono about.

Before long, at a tea shop on Motomachi Street, she became acquainted with a twenty-three-year-old Anglo-Japanese mixed-race man named Shiro Adams.
Shiro's high, translucent nose, his deep unfathomable blue eyes, and the freckles on his nose pleased Ranko.

Shiro began visiting the Western-style villa where Ranko lived under the patron old man's care as well.

“You that old man’s daughter?”

One time, in the Western-style villa's parlor when the old man had gone to the washroom, Shiro asked while drinking soda water.
He spoke using Japanese delinquent slang.

“Not exactly.”
“I’m the old man’s kept woman.”
“Now that you know, will you stop seeing me?”

“I’ll keep seeing you, but do you really like that pig of an old man?”

“I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him as much as you.”

“Smooth talker.”
“Well, I don’t have any money.”

“Well then, shall I show you some proof?”
“I’m saying I like you more.”

“Yeah.”

Shiro made a dubious face and gave a noncommittal reply.

Ranko arranged three glasses on the table and poured soda water into them.
Then, she took out a small paper packet from the breast of her Western clothes and handed it to Shiro.

“Put the drug into one of these glasses and stir it.”

Shiro opened the paper packet, tentatively tasted the white powder, and grimaced.

“It’s bitter.”

“Yeah, it is bitter.”

“Who’s going to drink it?”

“Old man!”

“Oh…”

Shiro put on an exaggerated look of surprise—a comical mask—but in truth seemed terrified to his core, the paper packet trembling violently in his grasp.

“Hurry up, or he’ll be here any minute now.”

“Let’s stop this.”
“Such mischief...”

“You scared?”

Ranko seized the hesitating youth’s hand, forced it over a glass, and shook.
The powder fell into soda water with a soft hiss, sinking straight to the bottom.

“Hey, Ranko, what’re you stirring there?”

The old man who returned said cheerfully.

“It’s your soda water, old man.
I’m stirring it to make it sweeter for you.
Now then, let’s all drink.”

The old man, the young man, and Ranko each took a glass.

"Old man, I must warn you."
"There's poison in that."
"I put it in just now."
"Right, Shiro?"

Young Mr. Adams was frantically stiffening his facial muscles, struggling not to let his terror show.

“Oh? You’re the one who put poison in it, eh? Kill me off and become husband and wife with Shiro here, is that it? HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The old man despised the sixteen-year-old girl and the childish mixed-race youth.

“Well now, Shiro, what ever should we do? Should I drink this, I wonder?”

He wrapped his lumpy, fat-encased arms around young Mr. Adams’ slender shoulders and shook him with a caressing motion.

In the end, the old man gulped down the soda water like a pig, throat gurgling noisily as he drained every last drop.

“Now then, Ranko – one dance.”

Still clinging to the young man’s shoulder, the old man leaned back against the sofa and demanded she perform that particular dance of hers.

“Sure, I’ll dance.”

She stood up with feigned innocence, started the phonograph, boldly flung off her kimono, and began dancing a frenzied dance to the jazz music.

The old man began bellowing a nonsensical song in his booming voice.
Ranko's body revolved lewdly like a wild beast yet nimbly as an acrobat, whirling in ceaseless circles.

The young Adams found himself wedged between lingering pleasure and immediate terror, tasting torment beyond description.
Moreover, he endured the grotesque sensation of that mass of fat embracing him with ever-tightening force.

He never tried to shake off those hands, ceaselessly staring fixedly at the old man's contorted profile with breathless intensity.

As Ranko’s dance grew increasingly frenzied, however, the old man’s voice lost its vigor, and the arm around the young man’s shoulder slackened limply.

Shiro stared at the old man with bulging eyes, poking at his bloated drum-like belly as he called out, “Old man! Old man!”

The old man answered with snores and drool trickling down his thick lips.
The large, round face had turned pale and was drenched in beads of sweat like a morning windowpane.

The young man flew at Ranko’s frenzied dance and stopped it.
With trembling fingers, he pointed at the collapsed form of the pig-like old man.

“Oh, he’s gone and died, hasn’t he?”

Ranko ran to the door and locked it from the inside.
Adams was startled and looked at Ranko’s unperturbed face.

“Oi, Miss Ranko, is this okay?
Is this okay?”

“It’s fine.
Now then, the nuisance is gone.
Now you can play to your heart’s content.”

Ranko replaced the record, grabbed the young man Shiro, and suddenly began stepping in wild, erratic strides.
Bwaa, bwaa—the record’s saxophone wailed.
Adams too was drawn in, went mad, and their four legs began dancing wildly, frenziedly.

“Something wonderful is about to happen.”

Ranko shoved away the young man, ran to the sofa, then laid out the piggish old man's body—like a premium cushion—lengthwise across the floor.
She sat down on the bloated drum-like belly, bouncing her bottom up and down as she beckoned Adams.

The young man, staggering in an indescribable excitement where terror and elation blurred beyond distinction, likewise sank onto the human cushion.

As the aligned pair swung their legs to the record's rhythm, the drum-like belly swayed like a water pillow with liquid sloshes.

"You think he's dead?"

Ranko poked Young Mr.adams’ elbow and said with a giggle.

“Sleeping drug.”
“I only gave him a tiny bit more of the Jal he usually takes.”
“Look, see for yourself.”
“He’s already starting to wake up.”

As the two remained seated with their cheeks nearly touching, peering into the face of their human cushion, the old man—though the sleeping drug's effect hadn't yet worn off—opened his bleary eyes slightly through hazy consciousness, forcibly roused by movements atop his belly, and stared fixedly at their figures.

“Oh, he’s laughing.”
“He must be delighted to be treated like this.”

It was no joke.
The old man narrowed his eyes dreamily, his slack cheeks twitching in a creepy grin.

When they saw that, both of them grew slightly frightened and stood up.

“That’s not it. He must be having some pleasant dream or something. It’s fine. It’s fine.”

Though Ranko tried to stop him, the young Adams insisted on leaving before the old man truly awoke.

“Well then, farewell.”
Ranko, who had walked him to the entrance, said curtly.
“After all, I do like the old man a bit more than you.”
“Even though you're a mixed-blood through and through, you're utterly spineless!”

After this incident, another stage of transformation arose within Ranko’s mind.

She awoke in spring.
At the same time, she awakened to evil.
However exaggerated "the loss of support" might be, no matter how high a place she leapt from, through repetition it ceased to be stimulation.
She had grown utterly bored with even the most dangerously unparalleled acrobatics, and just as she began to despair that life held no more purpose, the elderly patron appeared.
And she realized that human affairs, too—just like acrobatics—were a kind of pleasure that set her heart racing.

But more than that, the murder game and secret liaison game had wrought a profound transformation within her mind.
The inexpressible guilty pleasure of slipping powdered medicine into a glass of soda water.
The moment the old man gulped it down brought a hair-raising joy.
Secret pleasure before the slumbering pig.
These things possessed a far greater power to excite her than any aerial feat.
Ah, so there were such amusing things in the world—Ranko was already in raptures.

But she was still a sixteen-year-old girl with a long life yet ahead.
How venomously beautiful would be the flowers of evil destined to bloom riotously in her breast with each passing year?

What manner of enchantress would she become in maturity? What manner of hag would she be in old age? What would constitute the first great crime she would commit? And who might rise to oppose this female demon in battle? Or would she experience sudden repentance to become Japan's answer to Madame Vidocq? Or might Ranko Egawa vanish without trace, leaving the stage to be occupied by an entirely different persona?

All in all, this author knows nothing at all.