On a summer night in 1990 in his muggy apartment, the stranger opened and read a telegram of unknown origin. Then he sank into deep reverie. The telegram consisted of just two words-return quickly-and indicated neither the name nor the address of the sender. The stranger, filing through the mists of several decades of memory, saw an intricate network of roads begin to unfold before him. And in this intricate network, only one road could bring the slightest of smiles to the stranger's lips. Early the next morning, the lacquer-black shadow of the stranger began to glide down that serpentine road like an earthworm.
Clearly, in the intricacy of the network that constituted the stranger's past, one memory, as fine as a strand of hair, had remained extraordinarily clear. March 5, 1965. A simple string of digits, arrayed in a specific and suggestive order, had determined the direction in which the stranger had begun to move. But in reality, at the same time that the stranger had decided upon his course, he had also failed to discover that his forward motion was blocked by yet another group of recollections. And because he had been standing at a remove from the bright mirror on his wall, he had been unaware of the ambiguity that had plagued his faint smile in the moments after he had deciphered the telegram. Instead, he had felt only stubborn self-confidence. It was precisely because of this excessive faith in himself that the procedural error that was to occur later on became unavoidable.
Several days later, the stranger arrived at a small town called Mist. It was here that the procedural error became apparent. The rror was revealed to him by the punishment expert.
Imagine for a moment the stranger's face and posture as he walked through Mist. Besieged by several different strata of memory, he had been left virtually incapable of perceiving his immediate surroundings with any sort of clarity or accuracy. When the punishment specialist caught sight of the stranger for the first time, his heart cried out like a trumpet. The stranger entered the punishment specialist's field of vision like a lost child.
When the stranger walked past a gray, two-story building, the punishment specialist blocked his forward movement with an exaggerated grin. "You've come."
The punishment expert's tone sent a shock through the stranger's body. Although the stranger could hardly credit his own suspicions, it certainly seemed as if this man were hinting at the existence of a certain memory as he stood before him, his white hair gleaming.
The punishment expert continued, "I've waited for a long time."
This statement did nothing to help the stranger determine what role the man might have played in his past, if any at all. Perhaps he was simply a mote of dust floating across the vast expanse of his memory. The stranger sidestepped past the old man and continued on his way toward March 5, 1965.
Just as the punishment expert had hoped, however, the stranger failed to continue on toward March 5, 1965. Instead, a short and simple dialogue took place between the two men. And because of the punishment expert's warning-which was issued casually and without premeditation-the stranger began to understand his predicament. He discovered that his present course* would not lead him to the desired destination. And thus he turned in the opposite direction. But the fact of the matter was that March 5, 1965, was receding farther and farther from him.
This was also the first time the stranger had thought back to the humid night when he had received the mysterious telegram.
For days, his mind had circled around the moment in which March 5, 1965, had emerged in his mind. Now his focus shifted. He began to ponder several other dates, other memories that had continued to disturb him even as they lay abandoned at the back of his mind. These memories were January 9,1958, December 1,1967, August 7, i960, and September 20, 1971, respectively. And with this realization, the stranger began to understand why he was unable to move toward March 5, 1965. The telegram's message might have been just as relevant to these four dates as to March 5, 1965. Indeed, it was precisely these memories that had blocked his way to March 5, 1965. And each of these four events represented roads that ran in entirely different directions without ever intersecting with the other. So even if the stranger abandoned his search for March 5, 1965, he would be unable to find either January 9, 1958, or any one of the other three remaining dates.
This realization took place at dusk, when the stranger, thrown into a quandary by his procedural error, began to ponder how to escape his predicament. That was also when he began to devote his attention to the enigma represented by the punishment expert. He began to sense that the old man was a kind of elusive link to his past. This is why he had come to feel that their meeting had been arranged in advance.
As the sky darkened, the punishment specialist's intense excitement did not detract from a sense that he was in control of himself and of the flow of events around him. The stranger unsuspectingly yielded to some kind of preordination and followed the punishment specialist into the gray apartment building.
The living room walls were painted black. Here the stranger sat down without a word. The punishment expert switched on a little white electric lamp. The stranger began to search his mind for a link between the mysterious telegram and the room that surrounded him. He found something entirely different. He found that the path he had followed on his way to Mist had been crooked.
Almost as soon as the stranger and the punishment expert had sat down to talk, a remarkable affinity grew up between them. It was as if they had spent their lives huddled together in deep conversation, as if they were as familiar to each other as they were to the palms of their own hands.
The first topic of conversation, unsurprisingly, was broached by the stranger's host. He said, "Actually, we always live in the past. The past is forever. The present and the future are just little tricks the past plays on us."
The stranger acknowledged the force of the punishment expert's argument, but it was his own present that remained uppermost in his mind. "But sometimes you can be cut off from the past. Right now, something is tearing me away from my past." The stranger, rethinking his failure to approach March 5, 1965, was beginning to wonder if perhaps some other force besides that of the other four dates might be responsible.
But the punishment expert said, "You're not cut off from your past. Quite the contrary."
It wasn't simply that the stranger had failed to move in the direction of March 5, 1965. Instead, March 5,1965, and the other four dates were receding farther and farther into the distance.
The punishment expert continued, "The fact is that you've always been deeply immersed in your past; You may feel cut off from the past from time to time, but that's merely an illusion, a superficial phenomenon, a phenomenon that at a deeper level indicates that you're really that much closer."
"I still can't help thinking that there's some force cutting me off from my past."
The punishment expert smiled helplessly, for he had sensed the difficulty of trying to overcome the stranger with language.
The stranger continued to move along his train of thought-at the very moment that he had left his past far behind him, the punishment expert had appeared before him with a strange smile and the cryptic assurance that "I've been waiting for you for a long time."
The stranger concluded, "You are that force."
The punishment expert was unwilling to accept the substance of the stranger's accusation. Although he obviously found it tiresome, he patiently attempted to explain the situation to the stranger once again: "I haven't cut you off from your past. On the contrary, I have brought you into intimate conjunction with it. In other words I am your past."
As the punishment expert spat out this last sentence, the tone of his voice made the stranger feel that the conversation might not continue very much longer. He nonetheless continued, "I find it hard to explain the fact that you were waiting for me."
"It would help if you could set aside the notion of necessity," the punishment expert continued, "and realize that I was waiting for a coincidence."
"That makes more sense," the stranger agreed.
The punishment expert, content, continued, "I'm very happy we are of one mind concerning this question. I'm sure we both understand just how very dull necessity really is. Necessity plods blindly and inexorably ahead on its accustomed track. But chance is altogether different. Chance is powerful. Wherever coincidences occur, brand-new histories are born."
The stranger, while concurring with the thrust of the punishment expert's theory, was preoccupied with an entirely different sort of question: "Why were you waiting for me?"
The punishment expert smiled. "I knew that question would come up sooner or later. I may as well explain now. I need someone to help me, someone endowed with the necessary spirit of self-sacrifice. I believe that you are just that sort of person."
"What kind of help?"
"You'll learn everything tomorrow. For now, I'll be happy to discuss my work with you. My calling is to compile a summation of all human wisdom. And the essence of human wisdom is the art of punishment. This is what I'd like to discuss with you."
The punishment expert clearly had an excellent grasp of his field. He was well versed in each and every one of the various punishments employed by mankind throughout its history. He provided the stranger with a simple and straightforward explanation of each punishment. His accounts of the bodily consequences of ach punishment, once it had been carried out, were, however, stirring narratives in and of themselves.
Upon the conclusion of the punishment expert's lengthy and vivid discourse, the stranger realized with a shock that the punishment expert had neglected to touch on one rather important punishment: death by hanging. A dark, complex, and mercurial reverie had descended upon him just as the punishment expert had begun his lecture. He had somehow been anticipating the appearance of that particular punishment all along. As the punishment expert spoke, the blurred contours of March 5, 1965, had once again begun to clear. Given the circumstances, the hypothesis that someone intimately connected with the stranger's past had died by hanging on March 5, 1965, began to seem not entirely far-fetched.
The stranger, in an effort to escape from the dark grip of these memories, decided to point out the punishment expert's mistake. In doing so, he hoped to elicit another stirring discourse on this particular punishment and thus escape its grip.
His question served only to throw the punishment expert into a rage. It was not that he had overlooked a punishment, he shouted. He had just been ashamed to mention it at all. The dignity of that particular punishment, he proclaimed, had been trampled on by its indiscriminate and vulgar use by suicidal miscreants. He bellowed, "They were unworthy of such a punishment."
The punishment expert's unexpected rage released the stranger from the memories by which he had been besieged a moment before. After a taking a long breath, he directed another question to the punishment expert, who sat livid across the room: "Have you tried performing any of the punishments yourself?"
The punishment expert's rage was immediately extinguished by the query. Instead of replying, the punishment expert sank into a deep and boundlessly pleasurable reverie. Crows of memory flew across his features. He counted his inventory of punishments like a stack of bills. He told the stranger that of all the experiments he had carried out, the most moving had involved January 9, 1958, December 11, 1967, August 7, i960, and September 20, 1971. It was clear that these dates hinted at things that went far beyond the numbers themselves. There was something of the aroma of blood about them. The punishment expert told the stranger how…
He had drawn and quartered January 9, 1958, tearing it into so many pieces that it had drifted through the air like a flurry of snowflakes. He had castrated December 1, 1967, cutting off its ponderous testicles so that there hadn't been a drop of sunshine on December 1, 1967, and the moonlight that evening had been as dense as overgrown weeds. Nor had August 7, 1960, been able to escape its fate, for he had used a rust-dappled saw blade to cut through its waist. But the most unforgettable was September 20, 1971. He had dug a trench in the ground, in which he had buried September 20, 1971, so that only the head was still exposed. Owing to the pressure exerted on the body by the surrounding earth, the blood of September 20, 1971, had surged up into the head. The punishment expert had proceeded to crack open its skull, from which a column of blood had immediately spurted forth. The fountain of September 20, 1971, had been incomparably brilliant.
The stranger fell into a silent, boundless despair. Each of the dates of which the punishment expert had spoken concealed a deep well of memory: January 9, 1958, December 1, 1967, August 7, 1960, and September 20, 1971. These were precisely the four events, isolated from the enormity of the stranger's past, that had been pursuing him all along.
The stranger, of course, had long been unaware of their pursuit. The four dates had become four musty breezes wafting toward him. The content that the dates concealed had hollowed, crumbled to dust and nothingness. But their aroma lingered on, and the stranger had the vague impression that if it weren't for these four dates, his strange encounter with the punishment expert would never have transpired.
The punishment expert rose from his chair and walked into his bedroom. As he moved past the white glare of the lamp, he resembled a recollection. The stranger sat motionless in his chair, tortured by a sense that March 5, 1965, was the only memory that he had left. Even March 5, 1965, was far away. It was only later, after he had already fallen asleep, that his features took on the serenity of a memory anchored firmly in the slipstream of the past.
When they resumed their conversation the next morning, there vvas no doubt that their affinity had grown even stronger. As soon as they began to talk, they arrived at the heart of the matter.
The punishment expert had suggested that he needed the stranger's help the night before. Now, he began to explain why: "Of all my punishments, only two have yet to be tested. One of them is reserved for you."
The stranger, in need of further explanation, was led into another black room. The room was empty save for a table in front of a window. A plate of glass covered the tabletop. The glass glittered in the sunlight pouring in through the window. Leaning against the wall was a sharpened butcher's knife.
Pointing at the glass by the window, the punishment expert said, "Look how very excited and happy it is."
The stranger walked over to the table, looking at the chaos of light playing through the glass.
Pointing at the butcher's knife leaning against the wall, the punishment expert told the stranger that he would use this knife to slice through his waist and cut him in half. Immediately thereafter, he would place the stranger's torso on the glass. His blood would continue to flow until he slowly died.
The punishment expert informed the stranger of just what it was that he would see before he bled to death on the glass. His description of the scene was compelling: "At that moment, you will feel a tranquillity you have never known before. All sounds will fade, will slowly become colors that will hover in front of your eyes. You will feel how your blood begins to flow more and more sluggishly, how it pools on the glass, and how it cascades into the dust below you like millions of strands of hair. And then finally, you will catch sight of the first dewdrop of the morning of January 9, 1958. You will see this dewdrop gazing at you from the dimness of a green leaf. You will see a bank of brilliant-colored clouds glowing in the noonday sun of December 1, 1967. You will see a mountain road. The road will wait patiently for you as the evening mist gathers overhead and night falls on August 7, 1960. You will see two fireflies dancing in the moonlight on the night of September 20 1971, shining like a pair of distant tears."
Upon the conclusion of the punishment expert's serene narrative, the stranger sank once again into reverie. The dewdrops of January 9, 1958, the brilliant-colored clouds of December 1, 1967, the warm dusk on a mountain road on August 7, 1960, the fireflies like dancing tears in the moonlight of September 20, 1971-all these memories arrayed themselves like empty canvases before the stranger's roving eyes. He understood the punishment expert's narrative as a promise of things to come. The stranger sensed that the punishment expert had offered him the possibility of reunion with his past. A tranquil smile lit his face, one that indisputably signaled his submission to the punishment expert's wondrous designs.
The punishment expert was boundlessly excited by the stranger's expression of content. His joy, however, was contained- rather than leaping into the air like a grasshopper, the punishment expert merely nodded his head in agreement. Then he asked the stranger to take off his clothes. "It's not for me. It's just that the punishment demands that you leave the world in the same state that you entered it."
The stranger happily complied-it seemed appropriate. He began to imagine what it would be like to encounter his memories naked. His memories, he mused, were sure to be surprised.
The punishment expert stood by the wall to the left, watching as the stranger stripped off his clothes like a layer of leather, revealing skin battered and scored by the blade of time. He stood next to the glittering plate of glass, his body glowing in the sun's rays. The punishment expert emerged from the shadows by the wall, walked over to the stranger's side, and grasped the glittering butcher's knife in his hand. The sunlight danced furiously across the blade. He asked the stranger, "Are you ready?"
The stranger nodded. His eyes were incomparably tranquil. He had the look of a man awaiting the inexorable arrival of unparalled happiness.
The stranger's tranquillity filled the punishment expert with a sense of confidence and certainty. He reached out a hand to stroke the stranger's waist, only to discover that his hand was trembling. This discovery opened up new and unwelcome possibilities. He didn't know if the trembling in his hands was due to excessive excitement or whether his strength had finally deserted him. The punishment expert's strength had begun to ebb long before. And now as he held the blade, his hands began to shake uncontrollably.
The stranger had already turned to gaze out the window in silent expectation of his reunion with the past. He tried to imagine the knife slicing his body in two: a pair of wondrous, icy hands miraculously tearing a blank sheet of paper neatly in half. But the punishment expert's gasps forced their way into his consciousness. When the stranger turned to look, the punishment expert, sighing at his own humiliation, directed the stranger's attention to his trembling fingers. At the same time, he explained that it would be impossible for him to sever his body in two with one stroke of the blade.
The stranger reassured him, "I don't mind if it takes two."
"But," the punishment expert said, "the punishment allows for only a single stroke."
The stranger told the punishment expert he didn't understand why he insisted on being so fussy.
"Because it would defile the integrity of the punishment," he explained.
"On the contrary," the stranger asserted; "you might actually contribute to the development of the punishment."
"But," the punishment expert quiedy explained to the stranger, "if we proceed with the experiment, your own experience would be ruined. I would hack your waist to mincemeat. Your stomach, your intestines, and your liver would just tumble to the ground like overripe apples. I wouldn't be able to put you on the glass. You would fall over instead. And all you would see as you approached the end would be a mess of wriggling earthworms and lumpy toad skin. And worse."
The punishment expert delivered his judgment with incontestable authority. There was no longer any doubt that events would begin to move in an entirely different direction. The stranger began to put his clothes back on. He had thought he would never need them again. His pants felt like oil paint as they smeared up his legs. His eyes were hooded and dark with disappointment. Through them, he could see the dark figure of the punishment expert standing by him like a distant memory.
The stranger could no longer avoid the realization: the punishment expert was powerless; the punishment expert could not reunite him with his past. And though the stranger was baffled and angered by the way in which the punishment expert had so beautifully laid waste his four dates, he was not without compassion for the punishment expert's predicament. The punishment expert suffered because he could no longer muster the strength to carry out his marvelous experiment. His own pain came as a result of being unable to reunite with his past. But they were bound together by their common suffering.
The silence that ensued was as heavy as night. It was only after they returned to the living room that they were finally able to dispel the oppressive silence that had enveloped them following the failure of the experiment. They had moved to the living room after standing motionless, enveloped by the glitter of the glass that suffused the little room. Having arrived in the living room, however, they were able once more to take up something resembling a conversation.
Soon after they had begun, the punishment expert's voice began to grow hoarse with passion. As they spoke, the punishment expert rapidly recovered his composure, despite the gravity of his defeat. For his final punishment was the best of all. His final punishment was his life's work, his masterpiece, his crowning glory. He told the stranger, "It is my own creation."
The punishment expert began to tell the stranger another story: "There is a man, strictly speaking, a scholar-a true scholar, the kind of scholar that simply doesn't exist anymore in the twentieth century. He wakes up one morning and finds several men in gray suits standing around his bed. These men lead him out of his house and push him into a car. The scholar, mystified, repeatedly asks the men where they are going. His questions are met with stony silence. He begins to grow uneasy. He stares out the car window, trying desperately to determine what is going to happen next. He watches as they pass through familiar streets, drive by a familiar stream, and finally move into uncharted territory. Soon they arrive at a grand public square. The square is big enough for twenty thousand people. In fact, there are already twenty thousand people gathered in the square. From afar, they look like so many ants. When they pull up to the edge of the square, he's pushed through the crowd and onto a platform set up at one end of the square. He gazes down at the crowd. The square looks as if it's choked with weeds. A few soldiers with rifles stand with him on the platform. They aim the muzzles of their rifles directly at his head. The scholar is terrified. But a moment later, they lower their guns. They had forgotten to load them. The scholar watches bullets glinting in the sunlight. One by one, the bullets are stuffed into the rifles' magazines. Then the rifles are leveled once more at his head. At this point, a man who looks like some kind of judge climbs up onto the platform. This man tells the scholar that he has been sentenced to death. The scholar, unaware of having committed any offense, is dumbfounded. The judge, seeing the shock ripple across his face, adds, 'Just look at the blood dripping from your hands.'
"The scholar looks down at his hands but can't find the slightest trace of blood. He extends his hands toward the judge to protest his innocence. But the judge simply moves to the side of the platform without even noticing the gesture. The scholar watches as people in the crowd stream up to the edge of the platform to give their testimony. One by one, they relate how he bequeathed his punishments to their loved ones and relatives. At first, the scholar argues passionately with those who have come forward to condemn him. He tries to make them understand that one must sacrifice everything in the name of science. He tells them that their relatives have been sacrificed in the name of science. As the procession of plaintiffs continues to stream toward the platform, however, he finally begins to realize the gravity of his predicament. His predicament is this: in a few moments, a hail of bullets will fly in the direction of his head. His head will shatter like a piece of tile. He sinks into a despair as vast as the crowd that unceasingly streams toward the platform to air its grievances. The denunciations continue for ten hours. And for ten hours, the soldiers keep their rifles trained on the scholar's head."
The punishment expert paused at this point in his narrative and commented with an enigmatic air, "The scholar, of course, is me."
He proceeded to tell the stranger that it had taken him a whole year to perfect each and every detail of the ten hours on the platform. "In the ten hours immediately following the scholar's realization that he has been sentenced to death, he falls victim to terrible psychological torment. In those ten hours, his mind becomes a whirlwind of emotion, careening from one spiritual state to another, passing through lifetimes of feeling in mere moments. One moment, he is awash in terror and abject cowardice. The next moment floods him with bravery, resolve, and indomitable courage. Seconds later, he feels a stream of urine trickling down his legs. Just as soon as he has begun to welcome the prospect of death, he starts to realize just how beautiful it is to be alive. And through the turbulent hours, each of these moments is felt just as sharply as a knife piercing his flesh."
It was clear to the stranger that this punishment was almost perfect. When the punishment expert brought his narrative to a conclusion, he clearly and unmistakably proclaimed to the stranger that "this punishment is reserved for myself."
He told the stranger that this punishment represented ten years of blood, sweat, and tears. He told the stranger that he couldn't possibly give the product of such laborious years of toil to someone else. By someone else, he was clearly indicating the stranger himself.
The stranger smiled. It was a noble smile. It was a smile that successfully hid from the punishment expert's view the doubts he harbored concerning the punishment. For he sensed that the punishment was not nearly as perfect, or as complete, as the punishment expert would have liked to think. There seemed to be a flaw that the punishment expert had overlooked.
The punishment expert rose from his seat and told the stranger that he would carry out the experiment that very evening. He hoped that the stranger would appear by his bedside in twelve hours, because by then "you'll still be able to see me, but I won't be able to see you anymore."
After the punishment expert retired to his bedroom, the stranger sat for a long time in the living room, mulling over the fact that he himself was far less confident as to the outcome of the experiment than the punishment expert himself. And later, when he got up to go to his own bedroom, he was certain that when he stood by the punishment expert's bedside the following morning, the old man would still be able to see him. He had discovered the flaw that lay beneath the polished surface of the punishment, a flaw so crucial as to virtually ensure the failure of the punishment expert's experiment.
The scene the next morning confirmed the stranger's suspicions. The punishment expert lay atop his bed, face pallid with fatigue, and told the stranger that everything had gone smoothly the night before. But just as he had approached the end, he had awoken. With a tragic sweep of his hand, he threw aside his quilt to show the stranger what had happened: "I was so scared I wet the bed."
The bed was sopping wet. The stranger estimated that the punishment expert must have urinated at least ten times over the course of the night. He gazed at the punishment expert panting on the bed. He was satisfied. He didn't want the punishment expert to succeed. For his four dates, his memories, were in this frail old man's hands. The old man's death would spell eternal separation from his own past. And this was precisely why the stranger was unwilling to point out the nature and position of the flaw in the punishment that had led to his failure the night before. Thus when the punishment expert invited him to come again at the same time the following day, he merely smiled and carefully made his way out of the bedroom.
The scene on the second morning was much the way it had been on the first. The punishment expert lay prone upon his bed staring anxiously toward the stranger as he pushed open the door to the bedroom. In order to hide his sense of shame and humiliation, the punishment expert once again pushed aside his quilt to reveal that he had not only wet the bed but had also soiled it with a pile of his own shit. But the experiment had progressed in much the same manner as the night before-he had woken up at the last moment. In a voice tinged with sorrow, he said, "Come back tomorrow. I promise that I'll be dead by tomorrow."
The stranger failed to give these parting words his full attention. He gazed with pity upon the punishment expert, feeling as if he should tell him about the flaw. The flaw was simply this: after ten hours, a bullet should appear, a bullet that would shatter the punishment expert's head. The punishment expert had spent ten years perfecting the ten-hour process that would lead to his own death but had neglected to include the bullet with which the episode must inevitably culminate. At the same time, however, the stranger was all too aware of the danger of such a revelation. His past would die along with the punishment expert. And he sensed that as long as he was with the punishment expert, his past was never far away. He left the room without having revealed his secret, secure in the knowledge that the flaw would ensure that his past was not lost.
On the third morning, however, the stranger found an entirely different scene when he pushed open the door to the punishment expert's bedroom. The old man had fulfilled his promise of the day before: the punishment expert was dead. He hadn't died on the bed. Instead, his body hung from a rope about a yard away from the bed.
Confronted by this reality, the stranger felt a withered clump of weeds begin to entangle his heart. The punishment expert's death forever precluded the possibility of any kind of connection with the four memories he had once sought. To gaze upon the punishment expert now was to see the lynching of his own past. He distantly recalled March 5, 1965. And at that very same moment, he remembered the punishment expert's fury when he had spoken of death by hanging. The punishment expert had finally chosen to take his own life by means of a degraded punishment.
It wasn't until he left the room much later that he discovered a note written on the back of the door:
I HAVE REDEEMED THIS PUNISHMENT.
The punishment expert had clearly been lucid and sober as he wrote this message, for he had concluded by carefully noting the date: "March 5, 1965."
Translated by Andrew F. Jones