Word: kawamura
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...fortuneteller studied Kawamura's palm, said gravely: "You are indeed accursed. But I can tell you how to end all your troubles. Go to the little field that lies outside your home. There you will find a neglected grave, the burial place of an ancient samurai. His spirit is angry and is taking revenge on the nearest living person, and that happens to be you. It is necessary that you appease...
Nervously, Kawamura suggested it might be simpler to move away...
...intoned the fortuneteller. "Now that the samurai's spirit has identified you with the neglect of his grave, you would be followed all over the world." He told Kawamura to clear away the earth and brambles from the tombstone, "then burn incense before it and pray. This will console the samurai...
...Foot Pit. Hurrying home to his tiny, rented straw-mat room in an overcrowded shack on the city's outskirts, Kawamura eagerly told his fellow tenants what he had learned. Sure enough, they remembered that there was an old tombstone in the field, so deeply buried that only its top showed above the earth. Nobody knew whose grave it was. It had always been there...
...dawn, dressed in his usual rags and with his long, uncut hair bound by a kerchief, Kawamura borrowed a spade and rushed into the field. Passersby paused to watch and to jeer and cheer him as he dug all morning long. It was a much bigger job than he-had expected. By noon Kawamura had dug down 6 ft. of earth and uncovered one face of the tombstone-a massive slab 1 ft. thick and 4 ft. wide. Apparently bent on a rest, he started to clamber out of the 6-ft. pit. But. at just that moment, the huge...