The Sound of the Mountain

by Yasunari Kawabata

‘I wonder. I was awake before the temple bell rang. It rings at six, summer and winter, the whole year round.’

  Shingo was up earlier than Shuichi, but later in starting for the office. Such was their way in the winter.

  He took Shuichi to lunch at a nearby Occidental restaurant.

  ‘You know about the scar on Kikuko’s forehead?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The mark of the forceps, I imagine. It was a difficult birth. You couldn’t exactly call it the remains of suffering at birth, I suppose, but it stands out when she’s in pain.’

  ‘You mean this morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was probably because of the nosebleed. It stands out when her color is bad.’

  Shingo felt somehow forestalled. When had Kikuko told Shuichi?

  ‘But she didn’t sleep last night.’

  Shuichi frowned. After a moment of silence he said: ‘You needn’t behave so properly with an outsider.’

  ‘An outsider? Isn’t she your own wife?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying. You needn’t behave yourself so properly with your son’s wife.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Shuichi did not answer.

  3

  When Shingo returned to his office, Eiko was seated in the reception room. Another woman was standing beside her.

  Eiko too stood up. She offered the usual sort of greetings about the weather and her remissness.

  ‘It’s been a long time. Two months.’

  Eiko seemed to have put on a little weight, and her face was more heavily made up. He remembered how, when he had gone dancing with her, her breasts had seemed just enough to fill his hands.

  ‘This is Mrs Ikeda. You will remember that I spoke of her.’ Eiko’s eyes were most appealing, as if she might be on the point of tears. So it was with her on solemn occasions.

  ‘How do you do.’ Shingo could not bring himself to thank the Ikeda woman, as ceremony required, for her ministrations to Shuichi.

  ‘I dragged Mrs Ikeda here. She said she didn’t want to come. She said there was no point in coming.’

  ‘Oh? Shall we talk here, or would you rather go out?’

  Eiko looked inquiringly at the other woman.

  ‘This will do nicely, as far as I am concerned,’ she said curtly.

  Shingo was confused. Eiko had said, he seemed to remember, that she would introduce him to the woman who was living with Shuichi’s woman. He had not pursued the matter.

  It seemed to him very odd indeed that two months after she had quit work Eiko should acquit herself of the undertaking.

  Had Shuichi and his woman at length agreed on a separation? Shingo waited for Eiko or the Ikeda woman to speak.

  ‘Eiko pestered me into coming. But it won’t do any good.’ Her manner was hostile. ‘I’ve been telling Kinu that she ought to leave Shuichi. I thought if I came I might get your help.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Eiko is in your debt, and she sympathizes with his wife.’

  ‘A very nice lady,’ put in Eiko.

  ‘Eiko has said that to Kinu too. But there aren’t many women these days who will withdraw just because a man has a nice wife. Kinu says if she is to give another man back, then let her have her own husband back. He was killed in the war. Just bring him back to me alive she says, and I’ll let him do exactly what he wants. He can have as many affairs with other women and as many mistresses as he wants. She asks if I don’t agree. Anyone who lost her husband in the war has to agree. Didn’t we send them off to war? And what are we to do now that they’re dead? He’s in no danger of getting killed when he comes to see me, she says. I send him back undamaged.’

  Shingo smiled wryly.

  ‘I don’t care how good a wife she is, she isn’t a war widow.’

  ‘That’s a blunt way to put it.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what she says when she’s in her cups. She and Shuichi are ugly drinkers. She says to tell his wife she’s never had to wait for someone to come home from a war. She waits for someone who’s sure to come back. All right, he shouts back. He will tell her. I’m a war widow, too. Doesn’t it always go bad when a war widow falls in love?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Shuichi too – he’s an ugly drinker. He’s been very rough with her. He told her to sing for him. She doesn’t like to sing, and there was nothing for me to do but sing in her place. I sang in a very small voice. If I hadn’t done something to quiet him down we’d have been the scandal of the neighborhood. I felt so insulted myself that I could hardly go on. But I wonder if it’s really because of drink. Mightn’t it be because of the war? Don’t you suppose he had women that way somewhere? When I saw him out of control, I thought I was seeing my own husband during the war. I went dizzy and I could hardly breathe, and it seemed to me that I was the woman he was having. I cried and I sang some songs that weren’t very proper. I said to Kinu that I wanted to think of my husband as the only exception; but I suppose it was that way with him too. Afterwards, when Shuichi made me sing, Kinu would be crying with me.’

  Shingo’s face clouded over. It was a morbid story.

  ‘The best thing would be to put an end to it as soon as possible.’

  ‘I agree. After he’s gone, she’s always saying that this sort of thing means complete ruin. If that’s how she feels, then of course she ought to leave him. But I suspect she’s afraid that what would come afterwards would really be ruin. A woman …’

  ‘She needn’t worry,’ put in Eiko.

  ‘You’re right I suppose. She has her work. You’ve seen how it is.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She did this for me.’ The Ikeda woman gestured toward her own suit. ‘I suppose she’s about the most important after the chief cutter. They think very highly of her. They took in Eiko on the spot because of her.’

  ‘You’re working in the same shop?’ Shingo looked at Eiko in surprise.

  ‘Yes.’ Eiko nodded, and flushed slightly.

  He found it hard to understand her. First she had Shuichi’s mistress get her a job in the same shop, and now she brought the Ikeda woman to see him.

  ‘And so I doubt if she costs Shuichi much money,’ said the latter.

  ‘It’s not a matter of money.’ Shingo was irritated, but he controlled himself.

  ‘There’s something I often say to her after he’s been bad to her.’ She sat with bowed head. Her hands were folded on her knees. ‘He goes home wounded, too, I say. He goes home a wounded soldier.’ She looked up. ‘Can’t he and his wife live away from you? I often think that if he and his wife were alone together, he would leave Kinu. I’ve thought about it a great deal.’

  ‘Possibly so. I’ll give it some thought myself.’

  He considered her forward, but he had to agree with her.

  4

  Shingo had had no intention of asking anything of the woman named Ikeda, and he had had nothing to say to her. He had just let her talk on.

  To the woman the visit must have seemed pointless. Without going so far as to seem a suppliant, Shingo should have discussed the matter candidly with her. She had done well to say as much as she had. It had been as if she were apologizing for Kinu, and doing yet something more.

  Shingo felt that he should be grateful to both Eiko and Ikeda.

  The visit had aroused neither doubts nor suspicions.

  But, perhaps because his self-respect was on trial, he answered irritably when, going into a business dinner, a geisha whispered something in his ear.

  ‘What? I’m deaf, damn it. I can’t hear you.’

  He clutched at her shoulder. He took his hand away immediately, but the geisha frowned with pain and rubbed at the shoulder.

  ‘Come out here for a minute,’ she said, reading the irritation on his face. She pressed her shoulder to his and led him to the veranda.

  He was back in Kamakura at about eleven. Shuichi was not yet home.

  In her room, next to the breakfast room, Fusako r
aised herself on an elbow and looked up at him. She was nursing her younger child.

  ‘Is Satoko asleep?’

  ‘She just now went to sleep. Mother, she said, which is bigger, a thousand yen or a million yen? Which is bigger? We laughed and laughed. Ask Grandfather when he comes home, I said. She went to sleep while she was waiting for you.’

  ‘If she was asking about a thousand yen before the war and a million yen since, it was a good question,’ laughed Shingo. ‘May I have a glass of water, please, Kikuko?’

  ‘Water? A glass of water?’ Kikuko got up, but she spoke as if it were an odd request.

  ‘From the well. I don’t want all those chemicals.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Satoko wasn’t born before the war,’ said Fusako, still in bed. ‘I wasn’t married yet.’

  ‘It would be better if you hadn’t married at all, before the war or after,’ said Yasuko. They heard water being drawn at the well. ‘The pump doesn’t sound cold anymore. In the winter when Kikuko goes out early to get water for your tea, that squeaking makes me shiver even when I’m warm in bed.’

  ‘I’m thinking of having them live away from us,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Away from us?’

  ‘Don’t you think that would be better?’

  ‘Maybe. If Fusako is going to stay on.’

  ‘I’ll leave, Mother, if it’s a question of living away from you.’ Fusako got out of bed. ‘I’ll move out. Isn’t that the thing to do?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with you,’ Shingo half snarled at her.

  ‘It does have something to do with me. A great deal, in fact. When Aihara said that you made me what I am by not liking me, I almost choked. I’ve never been so hurt in my life.’

  ‘Control yourself, control yourself. Here you are in your thirties.’

  ‘I can’t control myself because I have no place to control myself in.’

  Fusako brought together her night kimono over her rich breasts.

  Shingo got up wearily. ‘Let’s go to bed, Granny.’

  Kikuko brought his glass of water. In her other hand she had a large leaf.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, drinking the water down in one breath.

  ‘A loquat leaf. There’s a new moon, and there was a white blur by the well. I wondered what it might be. A new loquat leaf, already this big.’

  ‘Very school-girlish of you,’ said Fusako sardonically.

  The Voice in the Night

  1

  Shingo woke to a sound as of a man’s groaning.

  He was not sure whether it was a dog or a man. At first it sounded like the moaning of a dog. It would be Teru, in her death agonies. Had she been poisoned?

  His heart was racing.

  He held his hand to his chest. It was as though he had had a seizure.

  But when he was fully awake, he knew that it was not a dog but a man. He was being throttled; his voice was thick. Shingo was in a cold sweat. Someone was being attacked.

  ‘Kiko-o-oh. Kiko-o-oh,’ the voice seemed to say. ‘Tell me, tell me.’ There was pain in it, the words caught in the throat and refused to take shape.

  ‘Kiko-o-oh. Kiko-o-oh.’

  About to be killed, would he be asking his assailant’s reasons or demands?

  Shingo heard someone fall against the gate. He hunched his shoulders, preparing to get up.

  ‘Kikuko-o-oh. Kikuko-o-oh.’

  It was Shuichi calling Kikuko. His speech was muddled, and the second syllable was lost. He was dead drunk.

  Exhausted, Shingo sank back on the pillow. His heart was still racing. He rubbed his chest and breathed deeply and regularly.

  ‘Kikuko-o-oh, Kikuko-o-oh.’

  Shuichi seemed not to be knocking on the gate but falling against it.

  Shingo thought he would go out after he had rested a moment.

  But then he decided that that might not be the best thing to do. Shuichi seemed to be calling out in heart-broken love and in sorrow. It was the voice of one for whom there is nothing else. The groaning was like a child calling out for its mother in a moment of pain and sorrow, or of mortal fear. And it seemed to come from depths of guilt. Shuichi was calling out to Kikuko, seeking to endear himself to her, with a heart that lay cruelly naked. Perhaps, his drunkenness his excuse, he called out in a voice that begged for affection, thinking he would not be heard. And it was as if he were doing reverence to her.

  ‘Kikuko-o-oh, Kikuko-o-oh.’

  The sadness came across to Shingo.

  Had he ever himself, even once, called out to his wife in a voice filled with such hopeless love? Perhaps, unconsciously, it had in it the hopelessness of a certain moment on a foreign battlefield.

  He listened on, wishing that Kikuko would awaken. At the same time he felt a little embarrassed to have his daughter-in-law hear that misery-ridden voice. He thought he would rouse Yasuko if Kikuko did not get up soon; but it would be better for Kikuko to go.

  He pushed the hot-water bottle to the foot of the bed. Was it because he still had a hot-water bottle, even now in spring, that his heart raced so?

  Kikuko was in charge of the bottle. He would occasionally ask her for one. The water stayed warm longer when she heated it, and the lid was secure.

  Perhaps because Yasuko was stubborn, perhaps because she was healthy, she disliked hot-water bottles even at her age. She had warm feet. As late as his fifties, Shingo had still taken warmth from his wife, but now they slept apart.

  She never moved to touch his hot-water bottle.

  ‘Kikuko-o-oh, Kikuko-o-oh.’ Again the voice came from the gate.

  Shingo turned on the light by his pillow. It was almost two-thirty.

  The last train on the Yokosuka line got to Kamakura before one. Shuichi had evidently held out in one of the taverns by the station.

  Shingo thought, from the tone of the voice, that the end was in sight for Shuichi and the woman in Tokyo.

  Kikuko went out through the kitchen.

  Much relieved, Shingo turned off the light.

  ‘Forgive him,’ he muttered, addressing the words to Kikuko.

  She seemed to be holding Shuichi up.

  ‘Please. You’re hurting me.’ It was Kikuko. ‘You’re pulling my hair with your left hand.’

  ‘Am I?’

  The two of them fell down in the kitchen.

  ‘Steady, now. On my knees. Your legs swell when you’re drunk.’

  ‘My legs swell? You’re a liar.’

  Kikuko seemed to be taking off his socks, his legs on her knees.

  She had forgiven him. Perhaps he need not have worried. Perhaps, as his wife, she took pleasure in sometimes being able to forgive. And perhaps she had listened well to the voice.

  His legs on her knees, she pulled off the socks of a husband drunk and back from visiting another woman. Shingo felt the gentleness in her.

  When she had put Shuichi to bed, she went out to lock the back gate and the kitchen door.

  Shuichi’s snoring was so loud that even Shingo could hear it.

  Here was Shuichi, put to bed by his wife and promptly asleep; and what would be the position of the woman Kinu who, until just now, had been made his companion in ugly drunkenness? Had Shingo not heard that he drank and resorted to violence and made her weep?

  And Kikuko: she had sometimes been pale and drawn because of Kinu, but the flesh at her hips had grown richer.

  2

  The snoring soon stopped, but Shingo could not get back to sleep.

  He wondered if Yasuko’s snoring had been handed on to their son.

  Probably not. Probably he snored tonight because he had had so much to drink.

  Yasuko did not seem to snore these days. She seemed to sleep even better in cold weather.

  Shingo disliked mornings after he had slept badly because his memory was worse than usual, and he was overtaken by fits of sentimentality.

  It might have been sentimentality that had made him hear Shuichi’s voice as he had. Possibly
it had been a voice thick from drink, nothing more. Had Shuichi hidden his discomfiture behind his drunkenness?

  It also seemed to Shingo that the love and the sadness he had sensed in that fuddled voice had only been what he hoped for in his son.

  Because of that voice, Shingo himself had forgiven Shuichi. And he thought that Kikuko had forgiven him. The selfishness of blood ties bore itself in on Shingo.

  He thought himself good to his daughter-in-law, and yet he seemed in some respects to side with his son.

  It was an ugly picture. Shuichi had drunk too much at the house of the woman in Tokyo, and come home to fall against the gate.

  If Shingo himself had gone to open the gate, he probably would have glared at Shuichi, and Shuichi would have sobered up. It was better that Kikuko had gone. Shuichi had thus been able to come in hanging on her shoulder.

  Kikuko the injured party was Kikuko the absolver.

  How many times would Kikuko, now in her early twenties, have to forgive Shuichi before she had lived with him to the ages of Shingo and Yasuko? Would there be no limit to her forgiving?

  A marriage was like a dangerous marsh, sucking in endlessly the misdeeds of the partners. Kinu’s love for Shuichi, Shingo’s love for Kikuko – would they disappear without trace in the swamp that was Shuichi’s and Kikuko’s marriage?

  It seemed to Shingo quite proper that in postwar domestic law the basic unit had been changed from parent and child to husband and wife.

  ‘In other words, the husband–wife marsh,’ he muttered to himself. ‘They’ll have to have their own house.’

  It was because of his age that he had this way of muttering what came into his mind.

  The expression ‘husband–wife marsh’ meant only that a husband and wife alone, putting up with each other’s misdeeds, deepened the marsh with the years.

  That was probably because the wife awoke to herself in confrontation with the husband’s misdeeds.

  Shingo rubbed at an itching eyebrow.

  Spring was near.

  He did not dislike awakening in the night as he had during the winter.