That was the first Shimamura had heard of the "one man" in Komako's life. She had known him since she was sixteen, she said. Shimamura thought he understood now the lack of caution that had at first so puzzled him.
She had never liked the man, Komako continued, and had never felt near him, perhaps because the affair had begun when she was down on the coast just after the death of the man who had paid her debts.
"But it's certainly better than average if it's lasted five years."
"I've had two chances to leave him. When I went to work as a geisha here, and when I moved after the music teacher died. But I've never had the will power to do it. I don't have much will power."
The man was still down on the coast. It had not been convenient to keep her there, and when the music teacher came back to these mountains he had left Komako with her. He had been very kind, Komako said, and it made her sad to think that she could not give her whole self to him. He was considerably older than she, and he but rarely came to see her.
"I sometimes think it would be easiest to break away from him if I were to be really bad. I honestly think so sometimes."
"That would never do."
"But I wouldn't be up to it. It's not in my nature. I'm fond of this body I live in. If I tried, I could cut my four years down to two, but I don't strain myself. I take care of myself. Think of all the money I could make if I really tried. But it's enough if the man I have my contract with hasn't lost money at the end of four years. I know about how much it takes each month for an installment on the loan, and interest, and taxes, and my own keep, and I don't strain myself to make more. If it's a party that doesn't seem worth the trouble, I slip off and go home, and they don't call me late at night even from the inn unless an old guest has asked especially for me. If I wanted to be extravagant, I could go on and on, but I work as the mood takes me. That's enough. I've already paid back more than half the money, and it's not a year yet. But even so I manage to spend thirty yen or so on myself every month."
It was enough if she made a hundred yen a month, she said. The month before, the least busy of the year, she had made sixty yen. She had had some ninety parties, more that any other geisha. She received a fixed amount for herself from each party, and the larger number of parties therefore meant relatively more for her and less for the man to whom she was indentured. But she moved busily from one to another as the spirit took her. There was not a single geisha at this hot spring who lost money and had to extend her contract.
Komako was up early the next morning. "I dreamed I was cleaning house for the woman who teaches flower-arranging, and I woke up."
She had moved the little dresser over to the window. In the mirror the mountains were red with autumn leaves, and the autumn sun was bright.
This time it was not Yoko he heard, Yoko calling through the door in that voice so clear he found it a little sad. Komako's clothes were brought rather by the little daughter of the man with whom she had her contract.
"What happened to the girl?" Shimamura asked.
Komako darted a quick glance at him. "She spends all her time at the cemetery. Over there at the foot of the ski course. See the buckwheat field—the white flowers? And the cemetery to the left of it?"
Shimamura went for a walk in the village when Komako had left.
Before a white wall, shaded by eaves, a little girl in "mountain trousers" and and orange-red flannel kimono, clearly brand-new, was bouncing a rubber ball. For Shimamura, there was autumn in the little scene.
The houses were built in the style of the old regime. No doubt they were there when provincial lords passed down this north-country road. The eaves and the verandas were deep, while the latticed, paper-covered windows on the second floor were long and low, no more than a foot or so high. There were reed blinds hanging from the eaves.
Slender autumn grasses grew along the top of an earthen wall. The pale-yellow plumes were at their most graceful, and below each plume narrow leaves spread out in a delicate fountain.
Yoko knelt on a straw mat beside the road, flailing at beans spread out before her in the sunlight.
The beans jumped from their dry pods like little drops of light.
Perhaps she could not see him because of the scarf around her head. She knelt, flailing away at the beans, her knees spread apart in their "montain trousers," and she sang in that voice so clear it was almost sad, the voice that seemed to be echoing back from somewhere.
"The butterfly, the dragonfly, the cricket.
The pine cricket, bell cricket, horse cricket
Are singing in the hills."
How large the crow is, starting up from the cedar in the evening breeze—so says the poet. Again there were swarms of dragonflies by the cedar grove Shimamura could see from his window. As the evening approached, they seemed to swim about faster, more restlessly.
Shimamura had bought a new guide to these mountains while he was waiting for his train in Tokyo. Thumbing through it, he learned that near the top of one of the Border Range peaks a path threaded its way through beautiful lakes and marshes, and in this watery belt Alpine plants grew in the wildest profusion. In the summer red dragonflies flew calmly about, lighting on a hat or a hand, or the rim of a pair of spectacles, as different from the persecuted city dragonfly as a cloud from a mud puddle.
But the dragonflies here before him seemed to be driven by something. It was as though they wanted desperately to avoid being pulled in with the cedar grove as it darkened before the sunset.
The western sun fell on distant mountains, and in the evening light he could see how the red leaves were working their way down from the summits.
"People are delicate, aren't they?" Komako had said that morning. "Broken into a pulp, they say, skull and bones and all. And a bear could fall from a higher ledge and not be hurt in the least." There had been another accident up among the rocks, and she had pointed out the mountain on which it had happened.
If a man had a tough, hairy hide like a bear, his world would be different indeed, Shimamura thought. It was through a thin, smooth skin that man loved. Looking out at the evening mountains, Shimamura felt a sentimental longing for the human skin.
"The butterfly, the dragonfly, the cricket." A geisha had been singing the song to a clumsy samisen accompaniment as he sat down to an early dinner.
The guidebook gave only the most essential information on routes, schedules, lodgings, costs, and left the rest to the imagination. Shimamura had come down from these mountains, as the new green was making its way through the last of the snow, to meet Komako for the first time; and now, in the autumn climbing season, he found himself drawn again to the mountains he had left his tracks in. Though he was an idler who might as well spend his time in the mountains as anywhere, he looked upon mountain climbing as almost a model of wasted effort. For that very reason it pulled at him with the attraction of the unreal.
When he was far away, he thought incessantly of Komako; but now that he was near her, this sighing for the human skin took on a dreamy quality like the spell of the mountains. Perhaps he felt a certain security, perhaps he was at the moment too intimate, too familiar with her body. She had stayed with him the night before. Sitting alone in the quiet, he could only wait for her. He was sure she would come without his calling. As he listened to the noisy chatter of a group of schoolgirls out on the hiking trip, however, he began to feel a little sleepy. He went to bed early.
Rain fell during the night, one of those quick showers that come in the autumn.
When he awoke the next morning, Komako was sitting primly beside the table, a book open before her. She wore an everyday kimono and cloak.
"Are you awake?" Her voice was soft as she turned to him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Are you awake?"
Shimamura glanced around the room, wondering if she had come in the night without his knowing it. He picked up the watch beside his pillow. It was only six-thirty.
"You're early."
"But the maid has already brought charcoal."
A morninglike steam was rising from the tea-kettle.
"It's time to get up." She sat beside his pillow, the picture of the proper housewife. Shimamura stretched and yawned. He took the hand on her knee and caressed the small fingers, callused from playing the samisen.
"But it's barely sunrise."
"Did you sleep well by yourself?"
"Very well."
"You didn't grow a mustache after all."
"You did tell me to grow a mustache, didn't you?"
"It's all right. I knew you wouldn't. You always shave yourself nice and blue."
"And you always look as if you'd just shaved when you wash away that powder."
"Isn't your face a little fatter, though? You were very funny asleep, all round and plump with your white skin and no mustache."
"Sweet and gentle?"
"But unreliable."
"You were staring at me, then? I'm not sure I like having people stare at me when I'm asleep."
Komako smiled and nodded. Then, like a glow that breaks into a flame, the smile became a laugh. There was strength in the fingers that took his.
"I hid in the closed. The maid didn't suspect a thing."
"When? How long were you hidden?"
"Just now, of course. When the maid came to bring charcoal." She laughed happily at the prank, and suddenly she was red to the ears. As if to hide her confusion, she began fanning herself with the edge of his quilt. "Get up. Get up, please."
"It's cold." Shimamura pulled the quilt away from her. "Are the inn people up yet?"
"I have no idea. I came in from the back."
"The back?"
"I fought my way up from the cedar grove."
"Is there a path in back?"
"No. But it's shorter."
Shimamura looked at her in surprise.
"No one knows I'm here. I heard someone in the kitchen, but the front door must still be locked."
"You seem to be an early riser."
"I couldn't sleep."
"Did you hear the rain?"
"It rained? That's why the underbrush was wet, then. I'm going home. Go on back to sleep."
But Shimamura jumped vigorously out of bed, the woman's hand still in his. He went over to the window and looked down at the hill she said she had come up. Below the shrubbery, halfway down toward the cedar grove, dwarf bamboo was growing in a wild tangle. Directly below the window were rows of taro and sweet potatoes, onions and radishes. It was a most ordinary garden patch, and yet the varied colors of the leaves in the morning sun made him feel that he was seeing them for the first time.
The porter was throwing feed to the carp from the corridor that led to the bath.
"It's colder, and they aren't eating well," he said as Shimamura passed. Shimamura stood for a moment looking at the feed on the water, dried and crumbled silkworms.
Komako was waiting for him, clean and prim as before, when he came back from the bath.
"It would be good to work on my sewing in a quiet place like this," she said.
The room had evidently been cleaned, and the sun poured in on the deepest corners of the slightly worn matting.
"You sew, do you?"
"What an insulting question. I had to work harder that anyone else in the family. I see now, looking back, that the years when I was growing up were the worst ones of all." She spoke almost to herself, but her voice was tense as she continued: "The maid saw me. She gave me a strange look and asked when I had come. It was very embarrassing—but I couldn't go on hiding in the closet forever. I'm going home. I'm very busy. I couldn't sleep, and I thought I'd wash my hair. I have to wait for it to dry, and then go to the hairdresser's, and if I don't wash it early in the morning I'm never ready for an afternoon party. There's a party here too, but they only told me about it last night. I won't come. I've made other promises. And I won't be able to see you tonight—it's Saturday and I'll be very busy."
She showed no sign of leaving, however.
She decided not to wash her hair after all. She took Shimamura down to the back garden. Her damp sandals and stockings were hidden under the veranda where she had come in.
The dwarf bamboo she said she had fought her way through seemed impassible. Starting down along the garden path toward the sound of the water, they came out on the high river bank. There were children's voices in the chestnut trees. A number of burrs lay in the grass at their feet. Komako stamped them open and took out the fruit. The kernels were small.
Kaya plumes waved on the steep slope of the mountain opposite, a dazzling silver in the morning sun. Dazzling, and yet rather like the fleeting translucence that moved across the autumn sky.
"Shall we cross over? We can see you fiancé's grave."
Komako brought herself to her full height and glared at him. A handful of chestnuts came at his face.
"You're making fun of me."
Shimamura had no time to dodge. The chestnuts lashed at his forehead.
"What possible reason could you have for going to the cemetery?"
"But there's no need to lose your temper."
"I was completely in earnest. I'm not like people who can do exactly as they want and think of no one else.
"And who can do that?" Shimamura muttered weakly.
"Why do you have to call him my fiancé? Didn't I tell you very carefully he wasn't? But you've forgotten, of course."
Shimamura had not forgotten. Indeed, the memory gave the man Yukio a certain weight in his thoughts.
Komako seemed to dislike talking about Yukio. She was not his fiancée, perhaps, but she had become a geisha to help pay doctors' bills. There was no doubt that she had been "completely in earnest."
Shimamura showed no anger even under the barrage of chestnuts. Komako looked curiously at him, and her resistance seemed to collapse. She took his arm. "You're a simple, honest person at heart, aren't you? Something must be making you sad."
"They're watching us from the trees."
"What of it? Tokyo people are complicated. They live in such noise and confusion that their feelings are broken to little bits."
"Everything is broken to little bits."
"Even life, before long... Shall we go to the cemetery?"
"Well..."
"See? You don't really want to go at all."
"But you made such an issue of it."
"Because I've never once gone to the cemetery. I really haven't gone once. I feel guilty sometimes, now that the teacher's buried there too. But I can't very well start going now. I'd only be pretending."
"You're more complicated than I am."
"Why? I'm never able to be completely open with living people, and I want at least to be honest with him now that he's dead."
They came out of the cedar grove, where the quiet seemed to fall in chilly drops. Following the railway along the foot of the ski grounds, they were soon at the cemetery. Some ten weathered old tombstones and a forlorn statue of Jizo, guardian of children, stood on a tiny island of high ground among the paddies. There were no flowers.
Quite without warning, Yoko's head and shoulders rose from the bushes behind the Jizo. Her face wore the usual solemn, masklike expression. She darted a burning glance at the two of them, and nodded a quick greeting to Shimamura. She said nothing.
"Aren't you early, though, Yoko? I thought of going to the hairdresser's..." As Komako spoke, a black squall came upon them and threatened to sweep them from their feet.
A freight train roared past.
"Yoko, Yoko..." A boy was waving his hat in the door of a black freight car.
"Saichiro, Saichiro," Yoko called back.
It was the voice that had called to the station master at the snowy signal stop, a voice so beautiful it was almost lonely, calling out as if to someone who could not hear, on a ship far away.
The train passed, and the buckwheat across the tracks emerged fresh and clean as the blind was lifted. The field of white flowers on red s
tems was quietness itself.
The two of them had been so startled at seeing Yoko that they had not noticed the approach of the freight train; but the first shock was dispelled by the train.
They seemed still to heat Yoko's voice, and not the dying rumble of the freight train. It seemed to come back like an echo of distilled love.
"My brother," said Yoko, looking after the train. "I wonder if I should go to the station."
"But the train won't wait for you at the station," Komako laughed.
"I suppose not."
"I didn't come to see Yukio's grave."
Yoko nodded. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then knelt down before the grave.
Komako watched stiffly.
Shimamura looked away, toward the Jizo. It had three long faces, and, besides the hands clasped at its breast, a pair each to the left and the right.
"I'm going to wash my hair," Komako said to Yoko. She turned and started back along a ridge between the paddies.
It was the practice in the snow country to string wooden bamboo poles on a number of levels from tree trunk to tree trunk, and to hang rice sheaves head down from them to dry. At the height of the harvest the frames presented a solid screen of rice. Farmers were hanging out rice along the path Shimamura and Komako took back to the village.
A farm girl threw up a sheaf of rice with a twist of her trousered hips, and a man high above her caught it expertly and in one deft sweep of his hand spread it to hang from the frame. The unconscious, practiced motions were repeated over and over.
Komako took one of the dangling sheaves in her hand and shook it gently up and down, as though she were feeling the weight of a jewel.
"See how it's headed. And how nice it is to the touch. Entirely different from last year's rice." She half-closed her eyes from the pleasure. A disorderly flock of sparrows flew low over her head.
An old notice was pasted to a wall beside the road: "Pay for field hands. Ninety sen a day, meals included. Women forty percent less."
There are rice frames in front on Yoko's house too, beyond the slightly depressed field that separated the house from the road. One set of frames was strung up high in a row of persimmon trees, along the white wall between the garden and the house next door, while another, at right angles to it, followed the line between the field and the garden. With an opening for a doorway at one end, the frames suggested a makeshift little theater covered not with the usual straw mats but with unthreshed rice. The taro in the field still sent out powerful stems and leaves, but the dahlias and roses beyond were withered. The lotus pond with its red carp was hidden behind the screen of rice, as was the window of the silkworm room, where Komako had lived.
Snow Country Page 8
