Why Ghosts Appear. Todd Shimoda
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for the ancestor’s festival was set up in the room. Next to the altar was a cucumber decorated to resemble a horse (giving the spirits a quick ride home) and an eggplant like a cow (to keep the spirits around once they arrived). Both decorated vegetables were splotched with mold. Clearly, her son’s failure to visit disrupted her celebration of this year’s festival.
A wave of depression flowed through me. The worn-out neighborhood, the residents going about their lives in slow motion, and the fortuneteller’s dark home with disintegrating decorations, created the negative energy. It was as if the locality were a black hole from which no signs of life could escape. I reached instinctively for my cigarettes but there were none. I was trying to quit.
I was about to get up to examine the framed pictures on the wall—one was of a man likely to be her missing son as there was a noticeable resemblance—when she returned with a pot of tea and two cups. While she served us, she apologized for living in a place so difficult to find. I said it was not so difficult, although I didn’t mention the nun’s help.
“Good,” she said.
I took a sip of tea and made an appropriate sound of satisfaction, though in fact the tea was too weak for my taste. “Your line of work is interesting,” I said, opening with small talk.
“Not too interesting,” she demurred. “People hear what they want to hear.”
I was surprised by her honesty. The fortunetellers I previously encountered, as few as they were, espoused the occupational line that they possessed mystical gifts allowing them to peer into people’s souls and predict their future.
I asked, “Is business good during this time of economic prosperity or do you find people needing your services less because of it?”
“Business is better than ever,” she said. “People are consumed by the future. They believe they can become wealthy if they only know which direction to take, or which family to marry into. No one, almost no one, cares about love or happiness.”
As she spoke, her gaze darted in seemingly random patterns. Following the path to determine what she might be looking at was impossible. But she was obviously taking in something. I glanced around the room. The walls were spotted with shadows and the longer I stared at a spot the darker and larger it became, increasing my dread of falling into a black hole. The more I stared, the more I was pulled toward the darkness. Well, actually, it was like half of me was being pulled; the other half remained securely in place on the cushion. My being was stretching and cleaving apart. Oddly, the phenomenon also generated a calm certitude, as if my own death were coming in a matter of hours and I had fully accepted it.
I looked away and gulped a swallow of tea. Clearing my throat, I opened my briefcase and took out the fortuneteller’s application for services, a notebook, and a pen. “How old is your son?”
“Twenty-nine,” she said.
To assure her of my professionalism, I made elaborate motions of writing down her answer. “When was the last time you saw or talked with him?
“Last year’s ancestor festival.”
She answered with a clipped response, implying that it should have been obvious. Of course, she had already given this information to my supervisor. “Mrs. Mizuno, I apologize if you’ve already answered these questions but I find it necessary to verify information obtained by others. Call it my style.”
The fortuneteller’s expression didn’t change as she focused her gaze fully on me. After a moment a tiny smirk arose at the corners of her mouth and she gave me a little nod. The actions might be patronizing but I couldn’t say for sure.
“Where does your son live?” I asked as if nothing had happened.
She recited his ward, block, and apartment number.
“Thank you. What have you done to find him?”
She blinked a couple of times. “Call your company.”
“You didn’t try to contact him?”
“Of course I tried. But I got nowhere.”
“How about the police?”
Her head twitched as if she suddenly remembered something vital. “No police. Besides, they wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
She was right about the lack of police interest in such a case—it was too soon, too common, for a son nearly thirty years of age to be out of contact with his mother. And she probably didn’t want authorities poking around her professional life. Fortunetellers operate on the fringe of legality. Instead I asked, “Who are his closest acquaintances?”
“None whom I know. He’s a bit of a loner. He had a few friends in school but they all drifted away. He hasn’t mentioned anyone lately.” She paused, then added, “Male or female.”
“How about enemies?”
“Heavens no. What are you thinking?”
The trouble was, I wasn’t thinking. Rather, my questions were routine. The case unfolding before me was premature, lacking substance. Only a few days had passed from when the son should have visited. Nothing yet indicated there was an alarming situation.
“Please forgive me,” I said. “I meant nothing. Again, it’s simply a matter of routine. How about his work? I understand he is a freelance illustrator of insects.”
She got up and pulled a book off a nearby shelf. “The book came in the mail more than two years ago.”
It was a book about butterflies and moths, the text in English and Japanese. There were photographs and intricate hand-drawn illustrations. “I assume your son drew these?” I asked her, pointing to one of the illustrations.
“Yes.”
“He does beautiful work. May I borrow the book and a picture of your son? I will be sure to get them back to you without damage.”
“Of course you will,” she said matter-of-factly.
Her statement gave me a start, as if she knew my future.
Not surprisingly, the car wasn’t finished when I returned to the service station. The budding mechanic was waiting for me to authorize replacing a part somewhere in the engine. I authorized the work, although I wasn’t sure it was necessary. My free parking spot was becoming expensive.
The noodle stand was open with no customers until I sat at one of the counter stools. The proprietress had dark puffy flesh under her eyes and her face was pocked with large pores. She wrote my order on a slip of paper and passed it into the kitchen through a small window, then served me a cup of tea. While I sipped it, I glanced through the butterfly book. On the title page of the book, I found the name of the fortuneteller’s son listed as the illustrator. In the preface of the book, the editor noted that the drawings and photographs were made in the field in many locations in Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Americas.
The noodle stand woman brought me a bowl of steaming broth filled with ramen, slices of meat and vegetables, topped with chopped green onion. Her fingernails were chipped and unevenly trimmed.
The son’s picture showed the young man holding a sketchbook in a tropical setting of lush greenery. His pose was stiff and his expression anticipatory, nearly grim, as if he were gamely awaiting his execution. A floppy hat shaded most of his face except for the lower part of his chin. Despite the dark mood of the photo, I could see no immediate cause for concern at this point. The son did not show up as was his custom but that could be for countless reasons, some the mother could have thought of but lacked the fortitude to admit because they might reflect poorly on her. Perhaps an argument with her about when he was going to get married and provide her with grandchildren, or his reluctance to visit her more than once a year.
When I settled the tab for the tea and noodles, I used their pay phone to call the publisher of the book—Shinshin Group. After I