The Hundred-Faced Actor

1

This is a story from my school days, so it’s a fairly old one. I can’t pinpoint an exact date, but I believe it happened shortly after the Russo-Japanese War. I’d just graduated from junior high and, though I’d wanted to continue studying, there wasn’t a high school in my district and my family didn’t have the money to send me to Tokyo. I won’t bore you with all the details, but eventually I began working as an elementary school teacher with the hope of saving enough money to pay my own way through school in the city. What? Oh, it wasn’t an unusual thing to do back then. This was a time when prices tended to be a lot lower than salaries, you see.

As for the story I want to tell you, it was something that occurred while I was working at the elementary school. Though, to be honest, using the word “occurred” is probably exaggerating the gravity of the thing.

One day—I remember that it was a Sunday, a foggy, suffocating kind of day at the start of spring—I went to visit a man whom we’ll call R. He was my senior back in junior high and was by that time working on the editorial board of the town newspaper (by town, I mean XX City). In those days, visiting R on Sundays was one of my favorite pastimes. He was an extraordinarily knowledgeable person who would do a remarkable amount of research on obscure, eccentric things. This was his approach to everything. For instance, if we were talking about literature, he’d bring up all these bizarre names, like—oh, I remember: if the topic was Japanese literature, he’d talk about people like Hirata Atsutane or Ueda Akinari, and if it was foreign authors, he’d talk about Swedenborg or William Blake. He was also very fond of that writer you’re always talking about—Poe. Sure, it’s the job of a newspaper reporter to find out about events around town, but R always went above and beyond, methodically and indiscriminately investigating every single detail about strange and surprising things that others didn’t know.

I won’t go into too much more detail about R, since the point of this story isn’t to explain his character. But to understand his personality, you’d only have to ask him about what specifically he liked in—just to give an example—Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Ugetsu. And since he had a strong influence on me, I suppose you’d understand my feelings through his answer too.

He loved each and every story in Tales of Ugetsu. The dreamlike prose poems, the peculiar connotations that writhed between the lines—he found it all almost unbearably enthralling. Of these, he would often read “The Serpent’s Lust” and “The Blue Hood” aloud to me:

Once upon a time, a Buddhist priest from so-and-so village of Shimotsuke Province fell in love with a boy of twelve or thirteen. When the child died from an illness, “The priest was overwhelmed with grief and would not relinquish the body to the crematorium’s flames or the cemetery’s earth. Instead, he pressed his face to the child’s face and warmed the lifeless hands in his palms, until he eventually lost his mind and began treating the body as though it were still alive. And, not wishing to let it simply rot away, he began to suck on the flesh and lick the bones until he consumed the body entirely.”

I remember these stories well even now, all these years later. In modern terminology, we’d probably call something like this “sexually perverse.” R was extremely taken with subjects like this. Looking back, he himself was perhaps afflicted with what we now call sexual perversion.

But I digress. Like I was saying, one Sunday, I went to visit R at noon. As usual, he was lounging at his desk with some book or another, and when I entered, he said happily, “Ah, so you’ve finally come to the good place. I’ve got something I want to show you today. It’s truly fascinating stuff.”

Thinking that it would be another rare book he had found for a bargain, I replied, “I would love to see it.”

I was surprised to see him get to his feet and hurry around the room, apparently getting ready to go out. He said, “Come with me to the XX Kannon Pavilion. I want to show you something there.”

I tried to ask him what on earth was taking place at the XX Kannon Pavilion, but he brushed me off in his usual you’ll-see-once-we-get-there manner. I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut and follow him out the door.

Like I mentioned earlier, it was a dismal day that seemed on the brink of thundering. There was no metro at the time, so I was soon drenched in sweat from walking for over half a li. Every so often, R would turn around and say something to me, but I felt like I was hearing his voice from far away. I remember thinking that maybe this was the day I’d officially go insane.

The XX Kannon was to that town as the Asakusa Temple is to Tokyo, with all kinds of booths and stalls on the temple grounds. There were even theaters. They were all in varying states of decay—the kind of grotesque places you could only find in the true countryside.

Rules like this don’t exist anymore, but back then, at the school where I worked, teachers were forbidden from going to the theater. This put me, a theater lover, in quite a tough spot. Since I was scared of getting fired, I kept to the rule and almost never went in the direction of the XX Kannon at all. Because of this, I hadn’t the faintest idea what kinds of plays or performances they put on there (at the time, plays were rarely advertised in the newspapers). So it was a fairly surreal moment for me when R pointed to a billboard and said, “That’s the one.” The billboard itself, I saw, was very strange:


One of Ruiko Shoshi’s stories, adapted from some foreign work, is called “Mysterious Beauty”—but it didn’t look to be the same thing. No, this was something much more absurd and bizarre. Although, in some ways, it was somewhat reminiscent of Ruiko Shoshi. Before Ruiko’s version, there was another cheap, octavo-style version, which I think you can still find in rental bookstores and places like that. Anyway, have you seen the illustrations in that book? In hindsight, they’ve really got an indescribable kind of flavor. And the play starring this Mr. XX evoked for me the same feelings that those drawings did—a sensation of life and movement.

It was truly a filthy theater. Half the walls—which looked more like the earthen walls of a dozo storehouse than those of a theater—were peeling, and the lidless, muddy gutters filled the air with a strange stench. A throng of grubby, snotty-nosed kids stood looking up at the billboard with longing. You get the picture. But the billboard alone was brand new, and what’s more, it was quite exquisitely crafted. Theater billboards back then were usually drawn in a Western imitation style—gentlemen with reddish hair, blue eyes, and bowed legs, alongside beautiful women in Western-style dresses composed entirely of pleats and ruffles and with those absurdly puffed-up buttocks, assuming poses common in Japanese theater. If any of these billboards have survived, they no doubt qualify as magnificent historical artwork today.

We both bought our tickets at a roofless booth that looked more like the entrance to a public bathhouse. (I ended up violating the school rule after all.) The inside of the theater was just as filthy as the outside. The seating area had no partitions, only a thin, stained straw mat spread out on the ground. Even that was scattered with mikan rinds and peanut shells, and if you were careless while walking, the nasty things would stick to the soles of your shoes. It was quite a disgusting setup. But come to think of it, this was actually considered the second- or third-best theater in town, so these conditions were probably just the norm at the time.

The play had already begun by the time we went in. Like the billboard, the set was done in a foreign style and the actors were all dressed like Westerners. I thought, “Trust R to show me the good stuff—this is really spectacular.” Why did I think that, you ask? Because it was the exact sort of thing that suited our tastes at the time . . . so, at first, that was the only thing on my mind. It wasn’t until later that I realized R had a more profound reason for taking me there. What he really intended me to see was not the play in general, but one person specifically—the Hundred-Faced Actor from the billboard.

I remember finding the plot of the play pretty intriguing, but since I don’t remember the details and it really has no bearing on the story I’m telling you, I’ll just say that it was a detective drama full of twists and turns, with a phantomlike “mysterious beauty” as its protagonist. Nowadays, detective plays don’t sell well, but they really aren’t all that bad. The eponymous mysterious beauty was played by the troupe leader, also known as the Hundred-Faced Actor. Whenever the mysterious beauty was being tailed by the police and other pursuers, the Hundred-Faced Actor would quickly swap disguises: man, woman, old person, young person, aristocrat, peasant—any identity was possible. The Hundred-Faced Actor lived up to his name: he pulled off each disguise with perfect mastery, and the audience, not to mention the police characters and such, were completely fooled. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a superhuman feat.

I’d told R ahead of time that I preferred to watch from the back of the room, but for some reason he sat down in the very front row instead. When the actors came close to the edge of the stage, their faces were only about one ken apart from ours, and we could see every minute detail. But even as close as we were, we still couldn’t make out the smallest flaw in the Hundred-Faced Actor’s disguises. If he was playing a woman, he was a woman; if he was playing an old man, he was an old man—the transformation was absolute. For instance, the wrinkles: an average actor would use makeup to draw on the wrinkles; if you were to look from the side, you’d see through the illusion straight away. The sight of black ink smeared haphazardly on soft, plump cheeks is enough to make anyone chuckle. But the Hundred-Faced Actor—how did he do it?—had actual wrinkles etched into his flesh. And that wasn’t all. Every time he changed disguise, the shape of his face would also change completely. “Miraculous” didn’t cut it: depending on the situation, his face would become round or long, his eyes and mouth would grow big or small, and the very shape of his nose and ears would change dramatically. Was I hallucinating? Was there some sort of secret technique that made something like this possible? To this day, my questions remain unanswered.

Because of the perfect disguises, when the Hundred-Faced Actor appeared on stage, it wouldn’t even have occurred to you that it was the same person. You’d just vaguely perceive that, ah—there’s an actor. It was all too inconceivable, and I asked R under my breath, “Is that really the same person? What if the person they call the Hundred-Faced Actor is really a group of actors using the same name?”

I really believed that this was the case.

“No, that’s not it,” R said. “If you pay close attention, you can hear it in the voice. The voices are changed very skillfully to go with the disguises, but they’ve all got the same timbre. It’s too improbable that so many different people can speak with such a similar timbre.”

True. If you listened for it, they did all sound like the same person.

“If I’d seen this without knowing anything, I’d definitely suspect the same thing as you,” R explained, “but to be honest with you, I had some background information coming in. The thing is, before the play opened, XX, the Hundred-Faced Actor, came to visit our newsroom. He actually changed disguises right in front of us. The other guys didn’t seem too interested in this sort of thing, but I was truly in awe. I thought, does sorcery like this really exist? XX was in high spirits, and his big talk was fascinating. First, he talked about the history of disguises in Europe and America. Then he described the degree to which perfect transformations have been achieved so far, but noted that, for us Japanese, things like skin color and hair color remain major obstacles. He even told us about the measures taken to maneuver around these problems. He was quite the enthusiastic orator. He spoke with the kind of arrogance that said, I don’t care if you’re Danjuro or Kikugoro. No kabuki actor in Japan can hold a candle to me. He told us that, no matter what, he would make his debut in this town, join the big leagues in Tokyo, and eventually introduce his amazing skill to the world. (It seemed like he was born in this town, you see.) You couldn’t help but admire his spirit but, alas, the poor thing has completely misunderstood what goes into the art of acting. He thoroughly believes that masterfully transforming one’s physical appearance is the most important quality of an actor. According to his own logic, then, it goes without saying that he, as someone who excels at transformation, would be the best actor in the world. The countryside often produces this type of self-important artistry, you know. Just look at the towns near us: Atsuta’s Kagura Lion Dance, for example. That said, their mere existence has some value in itself . . .”

After hearing R’s detailed commentary, the performance gained yet another layer of significance for me. The more I watched, the more my admiration for the Hundred-Faced Actor’s technique grew. I even thought about how, if this man became an actual thief like his character in the play, he would most definitely be able to elude the police for eternity.

At last, the play reached its climax; catastrophe struck and was followed by a disappointing denouement. I was so absorbed that I’d completely forgotten the passage of time. When the curtain lowered, I involuntarily let out a deep, deep sigh.

 

2

It was already ten in the evening by the time we left the theater. The sky was as murky as before, without even the whisper of a breeze. It seemed like the whole area was cloaked in a strange mist. R and I were both silent on the way home. I didn’t know his reasons for not speaking, but as for myself, it was the knowledge that I’d just seen something truly miraculous that put me in a total daze and drained me of the energy it took to talk. That was how deep an impression the performance had made on me. When we came to the crossroads that separated our respective homes, I said, “This has been an exceptionally pleasant Sunday. Thank you so much.”

I turned to leave, but R called out: “Actually, I’d like just a little bit more of your time. There’s something else I wanted to show you.”

It was already eleven o’clock by this point. What on earth did R want to show me? What could compel him to go through all this trouble at this hour? I couldn’t help but feel wary, but R had used such an abnormally solemn tone. Also, at the time I was in the habit of going along with his every whim, so once again I found myself trudging over to R’s place.

I went into R’s room as I was told. There, when I saw his face under the hanging lamp, I almost jumped with shock. He was white as a sheet and visibly trembling. I could tell at a glance that he was extremely excited.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” I asked.

Without replying, R pulled out a pile of old newspapers from a closet and began turning the pages frantically. When he found the article he was looking for, he pointed at it with a quivering hand and said, “Read this.”

It was from the newspaper where he worked, dated almost exactly one year ago. Completely bewildered and now beginning to doubt everything, I nevertheless began to read. The headline, “The Head Robber Strikes Again” took up two lines at the top of page three. The article had been preserved as a clipping:


At the bottom of the article, under the heading “See Also,” there was a list of the five or six incidents of stolen heads that had occurred up to that date.

I was already feeling dazed and somewhat jumpy due to the weather and the bizarre performance that day, and after reading this article, I felt oddly moved despite having no clue as to why R wanted me to read such a thing. It was weirdly gratifying to know that something so abject and gruesome could happen in the world.

“That is truly horrendous. I wonder if he really is making a business out of kuroyaki medicine, stealing all those heads by himself.”

While I was reading, R had pulled out a large box of papers from the closet and was rummaging through its contents. He said, “Maybe. But here. Take a look at this picture. This old woman was one of the victims—her head was stolen from her grave. She was a distant relative of mine. See the name XXXX under the ‘See Also’ list? This is her, XXXX.”

He showed me an aged, wallet-sized photograph. On the reverse side, the name from the newspaper was written in very poor handwriting. I thought, Oh, that’s why he wanted me to read the article. At last, I could vaguely begin to understand. However, when I thought about it a little more, I still couldn’t comprehend why he would insist on telling me right now, today, in the dead of night, about something that happened more than a year ago. Besides, there was something off about R’s extreme restlessness in that moment. I must have been looking at him incredulously, because soon enough he said, “It seems like you haven’t noticed it yet. Look at the photograph again. Pay close attention . . . does this picture not ring any bells?”

I did as he said and, again, examined the head of snowy hair and the wrinkled, rustic face. Then I almost cried out loud. The old woman’s face was identical to one of the Hundred-Faced Actor’s disguises from earlier. The patterns of the wrinkles, the shape of the nose and mouth—the more I looked, the more every single feature seemed like an exact copy. I will never again experience a feeling as strange as what I felt in that moment. Think about it! An old woman died one year ago. She was buried and then she was decapitated—and now, somebody who was her exact spitting image was strolling about in a theater at the XX Kannon Pavilion! Could something so uncanny be possible?

“No matter how good that actor is at disguises, could he really become an identical copy of a real person he’s never met?” R asked insinuatingly, watching my face. “When I saw this in the papers, I thought that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. I didn’t think much of it. But, as the days passed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. So, since I knew you were coming today, I thought I’d get you to see the same things I’ve seen and clear my doubts. But rather than dispelling my suspicions, seeing your reaction has only made me more and more certain of my theory. Now, I can’t even think of any other explanation for this incredible fact.”

Here, R lowered his voice. His expression grew anxious.

“It’s a very outrageous theory, though, isn’t it? But it’s not altogether impossible. This is what I think: that this head-stealing thief and the Hundred-Faced Actor we saw today are one and the same. The culprit was never captured, so this is certainly possible. Maybe, initially, his goal was to use the brains for selling medicine, but it’s also possible that after collecting many of them, he began to think of ways to utilize the other parts of the heads. It’s common for criminals to have an abnormal desire for fame. Besides, like I said earlier, this man is of the belief that an actor’s top priority should be to master the art of disguise, and that if he can achieve the perfect transformation, he would be able to make a name for himself as the best actor in Japan. Given all this, if the Head Thief happens to like theater, then the theory would be even more credible. I mean, do you think I’m out of my mind here? The idea that he’s making human flesh masks out of the heads he stole . . . ”

Human flesh masks! The criminal’s unique invention!

Like he said, it wasn’t entirely impossible. I mean the idea of creating “human flesh masks” by skillfully stripping the skin from the faces, preserving them from rot, and applying makeup. Could it really be that the Hundred-Faced Actor’s celebrated disguises were all fashioned from real human beings who once walked among us?

I was beginning to question my own judgment. At that moment, I couldn’t tell whether R's and my reasoning had some serious flaw that we were missing. Could anybody really be so sadistic, so demonic? Putting on “human flesh masks” and performing in a play as though nothing was wrong? Could something like this really happen in our society? But the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was the only conceivable explanation. I had seen the disguises with my own eyes just one hour ago, and the photograph before me showed a human face that looked identical to one of those disguises. Moreover, R was someone who took great pride in his own composure and soundness of mind. Surely he wouldn’t make a mistake about something of this magnitude.

R said, “Assuming that the theory is correct—I’m adding a qualifier here, though in reality I can’t think of any other explanation—we’ve got to do something about it. But if we report this to the police without further evidence, they’ll have their hands tied. We need something more definitive—like actually finding a human flesh mask among the Hundred-Faced Actor’s things, for example. Well, conveniently, I’m a newspaper reporter who’s met the actor in person, so that’s definitely one way we can go about this: by playing detective and exposing his secret . . . You know what? That’s it. That’s what I’ll do. Starting tomorrow. If all goes well, I can honor the memory of my relative and break a huge story for the newspaper at the same time.”

I expressed my approval for his resolve. That night, the two of us discussed the plan excitedly until two in the morning.

In the days that ensued, my head was filled with the enigma of the human flesh masks. I caught myself thinking about it while teaching at school and while reading at home. I kept wondering: What’s R doing right now? Has he made contact with the actor? Are things going smoothly? I grew so agitated that I paid R another visit just two days after we saw the play.

When I arrived, R was reading intently under a lamp. It was one of his usual books—Atsutane’s Discourse on Ghosts and Spirits or Demons of Ancient and Modern Times or some such thing.

When I greeted him, he said, calmly, “Oh, hey—sorry about the other day.”

Too flustered to think about how I should structure my questions, I blurted out: “So what happened? Did you find any clues at all?”

R looked puzzled. “What happened with what?”

“You know, the thing we were talking about—the human flesh masks. And the Hundred-Faced Actor.”

I’d lowered my voice and assumed a serious tone. But, to my surprise, R’s face twisted in a curious way. Then, in a voice that seemed strained with the effort of suppressing raucous laughter, he said, “The ‘human flesh mask,’ eh? That was really quite amusing, wasn’t it?”

I could see that he was behaving strangely, but, not quite catching on just yet, I could only gape at him. My expression must have seemed very stupid to R, who looked as though he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He exploded with laughter.

“Hahahaha! That was all just make-believe! You know me—you know how I’d be thrilled if something like that turned out to be true. But, you see, the Hundred-Faced Actor really is just a master of his craft. Of course he’s not using something like ‘human flesh masks.’ As for the Head Thief—I knew a lot about that case because I was reporting on it, but what I didn’t mention is that they’ve actually caught the culprit already. So, you see, there’s no connection between these two things at all. I was just fantasizing about what it would have been like if they were linked. Hahahaha! Oh, and the photograph of the old woman—she’s not really related to me. That was just a photograph that the newspaper took of the Hundred-Faced Actor in full disguise, tempered to look like an old photograph. It’s all something like a magic trick, you know. It’s captivating while the illusion lasts, but once you explain the trick, there’s nothing to it at all. But to build an amusing narrative out of our boring little lives is a fun way to pass the time, don’t you think? Hahahaha!”

Well. There you have it. That’s the end of my story.

I never caught wind of what the Hundred-Faced Actor went on to do after that. In all likelihood, he went from taking one journey to another and, when the time came, died in obscurity somewhere in the countryside.