The Love of a Silver Fox: Folk Tales from Seki CIty

by Darvin Babiuk

  ***THE END***

  SAYO'S YARN

  By Masuko Ozeki

  Long ago, a young girl named Sayo lived in a small town at the foot of Hazama Mountain. Only twelve, she had to work day after day helping her father in the fields. Today, they were taking a short break under the shade of a tree and gazing up at the big, fluffy clouds scudding across the ink-blue sky.

  "That cloud looks like Mom, doesn't it?" Sayo said, looking up through the sunlight at a cloud that looked like her mother, who had died when she was a child.

  "Mom!" she said, watching the soft, fluffy cloud as she took a towel and wiped the sweat off her head. She could barely remember her at all. She'd died when Sayo was just a child.

  Seeing Sayo like that, her father cast his eyes down sadly.

  "Dad, did Mom look like me?" she asked her father.

  "Hmm. I think you're getting to look more and more like her every day," he answered, his cheeks stuffed full with the rice balls Sayo's Grandma had made for them. "Your Mom was very good at weaving. Just about everyone in the village had something beautiful that she'd woven for them."

  "Did she weave my favourite kimono, too, Dad?" Sayo asked. The kimono was the best clothes Sayo had, deep blue with a big white butterfly dancing on the back.

  "I really like that kimono," Sayo said. "I wear it and I start to think of Mom."

  "That's enough, Sayo!" her father said sharply, staring sadly at Hazama Mountain in the distance. "Forget about your Mother already! And the kimono, too!"

  Sayo thought it was strange that her father hated that kimono so much, but when she saw the sad way her father sat staring at Hazama Mountain, she couldn't say anything more. Her mother had been buried there.

  The next morning, they were in the fields bright and early. Just as the sun was peeking its face up from behind the mountain, Sayo's childhood friend, Shinsuke, came trudging down the footpath between the rice paddies.

  "Shinsuke!" Sayo called out, almost in spite of herself. She'd always liked Shinsuke and was happy to see him.

  "Ah, little Sayo. And her father," Shinsuke said, walking along beside a person he was doing his best to ignore.

  "Where are you going?"

  "My new job," answered Shinsuke dispiritedly. "I'm going to be an apprentice."

  "What! Really?" Sayo said. She couldn't believe it. It was always hard to believe something that came so suddenly.

  "Where, Shinsuke?" asked her father, surprised, and coming closer.

  "A clothing store in town."

  "Really? You're going to be working in town?" Sayo and her father asked one after the other.

  "That was sudden, wasn't it? When will you be able to come home?"

  "Hmm. Maybe New Year's. Take care of yourself, Sayo. You, too, Sir."

  "I'll miss you," Sayo said.

  "Come on, boy. Let's get going," said the craftsman at Shinsuke's side, hurrying him along. Shinsuke would be apprenticing with him.

  "Shinsuke's a good boy," Sayo's father said admiringly.

  "Yes. The same as his mother and father."

  His head dragging along by his feet, Shinsuke slowly walked to town. Sayo watched his dejected form get smaller and smaller on the other side of the field, and suddenly became sad.

  "Father? Why did Shinsuke have to go?"

  "When his father was sick, they had to borrow a lot of money. Now, it's time to pay it back." Shinsuke's father had died after a serious illness some ten days before.

  "Come on, Sayo. Our rest's over. There's still lots of work to do. Let's get busy."

  But Sayo's heart wasn't in it. Losing Shinsuke so suddenly like that was like losing a big brother. She kept glancing up from her work, hoping to see Shinsuke coming back from the distance.

  Two years later, on the third day of the New Year, Sayo and her father had an unexpected visitor.

  "Is anyone home?"

  "Could it be?" said Sayo's grandmother excitedly, coming to the door. "It is! Sayo! Sayo! Come quick! It's Shinsuke!"

  Quickly, Sayo came running.

  "Ah, Shinsuke." Seeing Shinsuke standing in the dim entrance like that flooded her heart with memories. She was so happy she thought she might die.

  "Shinsuke! When did you get home?" said her father, coming to the door, too.

  "Last night. They finally gave me a holiday."

  "Look how big you've become," Sayo's grandmother said, tears coming to her eyes.

  Standing there with his small suitcase and fresh, clean kimono, Shinsuke looked like he had become a city merchant himself.

  "I bought this for you," he said, handing a small package wrapped carefully in a fresh handkerchief to Sayo.

  "Huh?"

  "Sayo, Shinsuke's brought you a gift. From the city. Say something," her father prompted her.

  "Oh, thank you. I'm so happy. I wonder what it is. Can I open it?"

  "Of course."

  Hurriedly, Sayo fumbled to untie the handkerchief's knot.

  "Oh, it's beautiful!" She was so happy, she couldn't help herself from clutching the light blue cloth tightly to her chest. Her heart and eyes were so full of happiness she thought they might overfill and spill out. Seeing Sayo happy like that, Shinsuke thought it was all worthwhile, too.

  The next day, Shinsuke had to go back to town. But he never left completely. Whenever she got lonely, Sayo could take out that cloth, put it next to her heart and remember him.

  "I'll bet my Mom made beautiful cloth like this," Sayo thought. "I'd like to give it a try, too. I'll bet if I try, I can do it. If someone would just teach me how."

  The thought got stronger and stronger, and wouldn't leave her entirely, even when she was working in the fields. Finally, one day, she told her father she wanted to try, but her father refused her permission. Not only that, his head hung deeply while he said no. He looked so sad. After her mother died, he'd thrown her loom away on the mountain somewhere. Well, that was that. It couldn't be helped. Sayo would have to give up the idea of weaving.

  Spring passed and summer arrived. But Sayo's feeling wouldn't go away. Then, one day, the most beautiful of the summer, Sayo heard a cool-sounding voice come from behind her as she stood weeding the grass in the green fields.

  "Sayo. Long time no see. You're certainly working hard aren't you?"

  It was O-haru, from the next village.

  "Oh, O-haru," Sayo said suspiciously, wiping the sweat from her brow. "It's you. It's hot, isn't it?"

  She was used to seeing O-haru rolling in the mud, making mud-pies. Now she was standing here fresh and clean and looking beautiful.

  "Where are you off to, O-haru-chan?"

  "To make a cloth for Shinsuke."

  "A cloth? You're going to weave a cloth for Shinsuke? O-haru?"

  "I'm going to give it to him when he comes home."

  "Shinsuke's coming home?"

  "Yes. It'll be o-bon soon and he'll be coming home." ”O-bon was a holiday in August for honouring your ancestors. Almost everyone came home then. "Well, see you. Enjoy the weeding."

  "Ah, I forgot. Shinsuke'll be coming home soon. I want to make him something, too. I want to weave him a nice cloth," Sayo thought, pulling the weeds and watching O-haru's bounce away. She felt very sad. It was almost like everyone was doing something or going somewhere but her. Only she was being left behind.

  She felt dizzy pulling out the weeds in the heat. Sweat was dripping from her body and it was all she could do to reach over again and again and pull the weeds one by one.

  "Mom," she said, praying to the spirit of to her dead mother. "I want to weave. Like O-haru. I want to weave something even more beautiful than her."

  That night, Sayo dreamed. She dreamed of her mother sitting in a cave on the mountain and weaving cloth on her loom. She dreamed of her mother teaching her how to weave on the loom.

  "Mother!" Sayo called her from deep inside her heart, and her mother smiled up at her sadly.

  "Mother!" she was still calling out loudly, when her eyes op
ened and she woke up.

  One by one, the days passed. Until one day, Sayo and her father were weeding in the fields. There wasn't a single cloud in the blue sky and the hot sun had been beating down on them since morning. Exhausted from weeding in the fields, Sayo and her father stopped to rest in the shade of a tree. Staring absently at the mountain in the heat, a strange feeling suddenly came over her.

  "Mother!" she cried to herself. Rising slowly over the mountain in the heat was the face of her mother. Silently, she sat watching the face of her mother.

  "What is it, Sayo?" her father asked, thinking it strange that his daughter would stare silently at a single point on the mountain for so long. "Are you thinking about your mother again?"

  But Sayo didn't answer.

  "Sayo?"

  It was like she couldn't hear her father's voice, so absorbed was she in the face of her mother rising above the mountain. After that, Sayo dreamed about her mother every night. And, where she used to be talkative, now it was like there was always something in the back of her mind, and she was constantly brooding. Finally, it was o-bon and Shinsuke had returned home from town.

  Her long wait was over. Dressing in the best clothes that her mother had made for her, the blue kimono with the big white butterfly, Sayo impulsively set out to visit him.

  "Hello! Is anyone home? It's Sayo!" she called out, entering his house.

  "Ah, Sayo," said Shinsuke, unable to keep his eyes off her. She was so beautiful wrapped up in the pretty blue cloth.

  "Shinsuke," Sayo said, smiling from ear to ear. "I've got something I want to talk about."

  "What is it?"

  "Shinsuke! I want to weave beautiful cloth. Like the one you gave me." Unable to keep her secret inside anymore, she told him about her dream, the one where her mother was waiting in the cave on the mountain to teach her how to weave.

  Patiently, Shinsuke listened. "Sayo," he said quietly when she was done. "The place where your mother will teach you? Do you know where it is?"

  "I think I do," Sayo said. "It's just a feeling, though. I want to go there and find out."

  "I'll go with you," Shinsuke said.

  "It might be a little scary," Sayo warned. "That's okay. It's your mother. She's waiting to teach you something there. We'll set off early tomorrow morning."

  "Okay."

  Early the next morning, Sayo quietly slipped out of her house while her father and grandmother were still sleeping. It looked like it was going to be hot today, too, with the sun shining fiercely in the silver sky.

  "Sayo," said Shinsuke, waiting for her. "Come on, let's go. To the place you think you know."

  So Sayo led them to the place on the mountain she'd seen in her dreams. They passed Sayo's fields and Shinsuke's, until they got close to the mountain where Sayo's Mom was buried. Suddenly, a strange feeling came over her. She turned around to look back to see Shinsuke following her and smiled. Shinsuke gave her courage. It was going to be alright. Shinsuke was there.

  Cheerfully, Sayo began to climb the mountain. The path was grown over with grass and rocks jutted out everywhere. She was sure they would fall off any minute, but somehow they were guided up the hill.

  When they got in front of big rock near a cave, Sayo stopped and looked back at Shinsuke again. This was it. She knew her mother would be waiting inside.

  "It's inside the cave by this big rock," she said.

  "I see," Shinsuke said, and started to clamber into the cave. A little way in, he stopped. It was dark and brooding. But Sayo didn't seem to mind. Fascinated, she climbed in behind him, waiting to let her eyes get used to the dark. Slowly, the image of her mother's broken loom appeared before her eyes.

  "Mom? Where are you? Mom?" Groping her way forward in the dark, Sayo called out her mother's name.

  Just then . . . CLUNK . . . the loom started to move.

  "Ah, Mom," Sayo said running up to it. She was sure in her heart that it was her Mom running the loom. When she got there, Sayo gulped. Huge bundles of blue threads were running in and out of the loom, mixing in with some that were all white and weaving a pattern before her very eyes.

  WHIZZ. WHIZZ. The threads mixed together in a dizzying whirl of activity and rush. The thread was flying right and left as the pattern of a big white butterfly on a field of blue appeared before her eyes.

  Sayo could only stop and stare in amazement. When the last thread was incorporated into the cloth, the loom quieted down and . . . CLUNK . . . stopped.

  "Aahh," Sayo gasped. It was an exact copy of the kimono she was wearing on her back. The one her mother had made her before she died.

  Her mother beckoned to her, inviting her to come forward to where she sat in front of the loom. The loom was slowly moving, the warmth from Sayo's mother being transmitted through it.

  Completely forgetting about the passing of the time, Sayo lost herself in the movements of the loom. When she came to, her mother's form had disappeared and Sayo sat dumbly in front of the loom alone.

  "Ohh," she moaned

  She could hear Shinsuke's voice coming from a small cave next to hers.

  "Sayo," he called. "It's me. Sorry. I got sleepy and before I knew it, I fell asleep."

  "Shinsuke," Sayo said. "My mom was just here." She told him about the strange way the loom had weaved all by itself in front of her.

  "Really?" said Shinsuke. "Then you were right. It had to be your mother. She was here."

  The two of them went home and told Sayo's father about what happened. He listened to what Sayo said and was very surprised.

  "Sayo," he said. "You did this all by yourself? Then I guess I have to give you permission." He faced the mountain and bowed very deeply.

  After that, Sayo received her father's permission and began to weave. When the people saw the perfect way she wove the white birds and flowers into the clear blue background, it was like she had painted a living picture and their breaths were taken away. Sayo had learned to weave like her mother by watching the strange way the loom moved up on the mountain. After that, the cave where Sayo's mother taught her to weave was called Oh-hata-go, which means "big loom child," and the cave where Shinsuke fell asleep, Ko-hata-go, which means "small loom child." Even now, if you climb Hazama Mountain today, you can see them there.