The patient took in the sight of my face after he
roused from sleep following his surgery. His right limb
The Fingers
By Edogawa Ranpo
Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was Japan’s first modern master of
detective fiction. His pen name is an adaptation of ‘Edgar Allen
Poe’. Born in Mie prefecture and raised in Nagoya, he moved to
Tokyo for tertiary studies and worked several jobs before breaking
out with his debut work in 1923—‘The Two-sen Copper Coin’,
which is credited with being the first story that combined logic-
based mystery with a Japanese setting. That particular mystery tale
also featured cryptography, which was a recurring theme of his.
Edogawa’s impact on Japanese genre literature and culture can’t
be understated. His detective fiction, especially his boy’s detective
series, had a massive influence on Japanese mystery fiction by
fusing Japanese culture with Sherlock-type crime procedural drama
tropes. He was also prolific and popular in the horror genre and as a
literary critic. His work has been adapted into many films, TV
dramas, anime, etc. The main character Edogawa Conan in Detective
Conan is named after him.
Edogawa was also one of three writers who pioneered modern
gay literature in Japan (along with others including his lover Iwata
Junichi, and friend Murayama Kaita) and many of his works have
homosexual undertones. He and Iwata competed to find the most
fiction works featuring homosexuality (Iwata searched Japanese
literature, Edogawa searched literature from everywhere else). After
Iwata’s death, Edogawa finished and published two volumes of a
comprehensive history on homosexuality in Japan. In later years,
Edogawa suffered from Parkinson’s disease before dying of a stroke
at his home in Ikebukuro.
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was bound in a thick bandage, but he hadn’t the
slightest awareness his hand had been amputated at the
wrist.
As a renowned pianist, the loss of his hand was a
truly cataclysmic injury. Perhaps the culprit responsible
for wounding him was a pianist too, one who’d been
envious of his success. A passer-by had set upon my
patient on a street in the darkness of night and, with a
sharp blade, sliced off his limb above the joint of his
wrist, at which point the pianist fainted. The tragedy
took place close to my hospital, so he was brought here
unconscious where I treated him as best I could.
“Oh, are you the one taking care of me? I was a bit
drunk on a dark street, and I crossed paths with some
guy I didn’t know… Ah, my right hand. I wonder, are
my fingers okay?”
“Don’t worry. Your arm is a little roughed up but, er,
it’ll heal soon enough.” I couldn’t bear to devastate my
new friend, so until he was slightly better I wanted to
conceal the fact that his life as a pianist was over.
“My fingers, though? Will my fingers be able to
move like they did before?”
“They’ll be fine.” I left his bedside and fled the room
as if I were running away.
The nurse tending to him stoically refrained from
telling him about the loss of his hand for the time being,
as if she herself didn’t know.
 I returned to his room about two hours later. He had As I passed the door to the operating room, I noticed
regained some of his verve, becoming rather cheerful. a solitary nurse standing rigidly inside it, staring at a
He had yet to examine his own wrist, and still didn’t shelf affixed to one of the walls. She didn’t look at all
know his hand was gone. normal. Her face was pale, her eyes strangely very wide
“Does it hurt?” I looked up at him, searching his open, and her gaze was fixed intently on something set
face. on the shelf.
“No, it feels quite a bit better,” he replied, steadfastly Without thinking, I entered the room and looked at
returning my gaze. He placed his left hand upon the the shelf myself. On it was the pianist’s right hand,
bedsheet and began to move his fingers, as if he were suspended in alcohol inside a large, glass specimen jar.
playing a piano. The moment I saw it I froze, unable to move.
“Are the fingers on my right hand really okay, Inside the solution in the jar, his wrist, no, his five
though? Even when I move them a little bit… I fingers were moving like the legs of a white crab. They
composed a new song which I must watch myself play were rhythmically striking the keys of an imaginary
every day, and my hand doesn’t feel quite right.” piano, but their tapping movements were much smaller
I was taken aback by his intuition and pressed my than ones a pianist would use normally, like those of an
finger against his ulna bone where it met his elbow, to infant; as if there were still a connection between the
keep up my pretense. By pressing there like so, a hand and its owner,  the fingers kept moving, playing.
sensation is transmitted to the brain that makes patients
feel as if their fingers are still attached even if they in
fact aren’t.
The fingers on his left hand were tapping away on
the sheet as if they too felt the same sensation. “Oh, my
right fingers are fine, aren’t they? I can feel them
moving a lot.” He appeared dizzy, as if falling into a
daze while continuing to play a piece on an imaginary
piano.
I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. I signaled the
nurse with a look so that she’d keep her finger pressed
on his right ulna nerve, and slunk away from the room.
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