The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories

by Rebecca Otowa

  And then, a miracle happened. Both the boom-ba-boom and the mindless chatter suddenly ceased at exactly the same moment, leaving only the susurration of the water gently boiling in the kettle, a sound the classical poets described as “wind in the pines.” As the student poured the cold water into the kettle, the water’s hiss was stilled and a huge, broad, grateful silence spread through the room like a living thing, touching the ears of all within it in a benediction of nothingness. The universal spirit of everything flashed out like a diamond. Time stood still. Dazzled, Sensei caught her breath.

  Too soon, much too soon, everyday life reasserted itself. The karaoke resumed in a different rhythm, sweeping away all thoughts of universal oneness; the ladies took up their conversation where they had left off; Mrs. Miyazaki bumbled out of the room. Sensei resumed her meticulous examination of the slightly reddened knuckles neatly folded in her lap. She found herself remembering a Zen aphorism learned in her student days: “Before enlightenment—drawing water and carrying wood. After enlightenment—drawing water and carrying wood.” Was it enough? It would have to be. Sensei looked up to acknowledge the bow of the next student and set herself to do it all over again.

  2. Revenge

  I hate my dad.

  Every day of my life when I was a kid, he used to beat me. Some days it was just a tap across the face or a box on the ear. Other days it was a real drubbing around the shoulders and back, with his fists or anything handy—a piece of wood, a rake handle. My dad used to be really strong. He was a builder. Carried heavy ceramic roof tiles and installed them all over the village. He had huge muscles in his arms. I used to go around with big bruises all over me.

  His voice is really loud, too, and he never shuts up. All the time he was hitting me in my boyhood, he was yelling. I think kids’ hearing must be more sensitive than adults’. His yelling made my head hurt. Some days I didn’t know which hurt most—my head or my body.

  I’m big now, I’m a grown man, so he doesn’t beat me—that’s changed, at least—but he still yells, and I can’t stand it. Sometimes my head hurts so bad it feels like it’s going to explode. That’s how it feels tonight. He just got through yelling at me because I forgot to bring the sake back from town. So what? He drinks too much anyway.

  Tonight’s the night. I’m going to pay him back.

  I think it’s dark enough now. He’s watching TV with my mother. I hate her too, for letting him do those things to me. But it’s him I really hate. Wait till he sees what I did!

  Sneak out the back door with the kerosene can. Boy, it’s heavy. Don’t forget the matches. Don’t turn on the light in case they notice. Sneak down the lane in the dark, all the way to the shed where he parks his precious truck. He won’t let me drive it. I have to go everywhere by bike. I hate him.

  Squeeze past the piles of roof tiles. Open the truck door in the dark. It smells like him—his revolting breath, his clothes. My head is throbbing. Lift the can and slosh the kerosene all over the seat. Now the match. Whooo! Look at those flames. I feel the heat on my face. Shut the door and sneak into Mr. Sato’s yard next door, hide behind the fence.

  The fire gets bigger and bigger. The light shines through the chinks of the shed. I hear the fire roaring. What’s that? Another sound. Someone has seen the fire and called the volunteers. It’s the siren on the big red fire engine they keep down by the school. It’s coming this way.

  Hey—what are you doing? Let me go! Hey, Sato-san, let me go!

  Two Years Later

  It didn’t work. All the planning, all the guts it took to set dad’s truck on fire, and what it got me was a jail sentence for arson. It’s not fair. No one ever asked me why I did it. No one ever thought that dad might be to blame. That dumb Mr. Sato caught me and they figured out I did it, I don’t know how. The truck didn’t even burn much. Just the seats. The firefighters got there before the fire reached the gas tank. I was hoping for a big explosion. Oh, how I was hoping the whole shed would go up—dad’s livelihood gone. But it didn’t work. My head hurts worse than ever. It never stops now.

  They sent me home—but I won’t live here anymore. They can’t make me.

  Only, where can I go?

  Actually … why should I leave? This is a perfectly good house.

  Dad’s out shopping with Mom in his new truck. Fire insurance. Holy hell. He gets everything and I get nothing. Well, that changes now.

  The official seals and bankbooks with his name—out the front door with them. They land on the path. I don’t want to leave him with nothing. I want him to live and think about what he did and be miserable every day.

  Lock the doors on the inside. Move the furniture—the big wooden kitchen cabinet, the chests, the bureaus—up against the doors and windows. Barricade the place. I’m strong now, myself—as strong as he used to be. He’s an old man now, he can’t do anything.

  Let him live in the shed, him and mom. They won’t ever get into this house again. This is my home now. The son takes over from the father, that’s the rule, and it starts now.

  Oh, my head.

  3. The Outsider

  Old Tatsuki trudged home, hefting his weed whacker, his work clothes sticking to him in itchy, sweaty patches. His shoulders bowed under the relentless summer sun. He was tired and depressed.

  The argument in the graveyard still rang in his ears. The audacity of Mrs. Nakamura! He had done more work than anyone else, but instead of adulation, angry faces had been turned toward him. Instead of receiving gratitude, he had been accused of unfairness.

  It was just by chance that Tatsuki had heard of Mr. Kimura’s decision to come early to the yearly grave cleaning. Mr. Kimura, a fellow member of the temple, had another obligation later in the day, so he wanted to get the cleaning finished before that. Tatsuki idolized Mr. Kimura and his mother, Akiko. Her husband, now deceased, had always cleaned the graveyard before anyone else arrived. This, to Tatsuki, was the essence of belonging to the village—to go above and beyond the call of duty. The more work one did, the more prestige one could accumulate. Eager to appear as if he belonged as well, he had rushed through his breakfast and joined Mr. Kimura.

  Arriving at the graveyard at six o’clock instead of the seven o’clock agreed upon by the temple members, he and Mr. Kimura revved up their weed whackers and set to work. The shoulder-high grass fell in swathes before their roaring machines. Step by step, they cut their way down the forest path, and gradually the old stone graves came into view. Once they had cleared the central space, they turned off the machines and gathered armloads of grass and dwarf bamboo, slinging them aside into the undergrowth. It took half an hour, but the whole public area was finished. Their work done, Tatsuki and Mr. Kimura exchanged glances of self-congratulation, and wiping their faces, slogged up the now-spotless path toward the road.

  Tatsuki was an old man. He had a lot in common with the other old men of the village—their aches and pains, their home lives. But he was an outsider, and he knew it. He had not been born here, had not even lived here as a child, but had come about fifteen years before to take over his ancestral house from his ailing mother. His own children had never lived here either, and his wife was from a completely different area of Japan. Since his mother’s passing, he had fought a constant uphill battle not to be regarded as a yoso-mono (person from elsewhere). He took on the village duties as they came around, and did them to the best of his ability. He presented himself at the temple for the various ceremonies and cleaning sessions. He attended the drinking sessions and dinners, listening carefully for every scrap of local information, gauging the relative importance of each man in the local hierarchy. He tried with all his might to fit in. But somehow, inside his head at least, nothing was ever enough. He was always bumping up against some situation where he was reminded, wordlessly but forcibly, that he was an outsider and always would be.

  Tatsuki had decided that fitting in was pretty much a matter of finding the strongest man and doing whatever he did. This seemed to be the quickest
way to be accepted, on the coattails of a stronger person. He himself was not strong. He had never even attracted the attention of the bullies at school, but had always just blended in. He wanted to blend in here, to settle down in a niche in the corner, out of everyone’s way but indisputably accepted as one of them. So, when an opportunity like this graveyard cleaning presented itself, he eagerly followed Mr. Kimura, who had a local reputation for strength that he had inherited from his father and grandfather.

  Arriving at the road, Tatsuki saw that Mr. Uemura, the temple officer, had just arrived with Mrs. Nakamura to begin work. What a surprise they would have when they discovered everything already done! Especially Mrs. Nakamura! Now that woman was a true outsider, who was not only from elsewhere in Japan but from a real foreign country, Australia, and who had married into the village thirty years before. She was an outsider that actually looked and acted like an outsider—not a hardworking chameleon like him. Tatsuki had often been startled at her arrogance and don’t-care attitude. Though she did the work and participated in everything, she didn’t seem to feel in her heart the need to belong. Well, this time he would show her the reality—the kind of effort that was necessary to really fit in here.

  Tatsuki had been seen by other temple members leaving in Mr. Kimura’s company, both of them tired and sweaty from work. There was no doubt that they had worked shoulder to shoulder. Whatever prestige Mr. Kimura gained from doing all the work would be his as well. He was satisfied.

  Some minutes later, Tatsuki returned to the graveyard, ostensibly to explain to Mr. Uemura that he had joined Mr. Kimura in going to work early, but actually to soak up some of the gratitude he was sure would come his way. Mr. Uemura and Mrs. Nakamura were standing in the center of the public area, deep in conversation. A couple of other members were in the background. “I just thought I’d come early and do a bit extra today,” Tatsuki said modestly, coming up to them.

  “Mrs. Nakamura doesn’t like it,” responded Mr. Uemura.

  Flabbergasted, Tatsuki turned toward Mrs. Nakamura, who was wearing her usual expression of harsh disagreement. “I expected a little more gratitude, after working so hard,” he said.

  What followed he was unable to understand. After protesting that she was indeed grateful—an obvious lie—she proceeded to tell Tatsuki that she thought it was unfair for him to take all the work when the others had arrived on time, in good faith, ready to do their share. Unfair? What did that have to do with it? She seemed actually angry that she had been cheated out of the opportunity to work.

  “You have been here longer than I have. You have been here for thirty years. You ought to know how things work around here,” Tatsuki pronounced. He looked around at the others for acknowledgment, but they were expressionless, evidently hoping for an end to this uncomfortable argument. Did no one agree with him? Was no one going to show gratitude? He swung around and left.

  Tatsuki arrived home and stripped off his sweaty clothes. He couldn’t understand it. Everyone knew that prestige, climbing up the ladder of the hierarchy in the village, was the most important thing in life. This new social business of “equality” and “consideration” and “sharing” was a bunch of poppycock. It was all about who was strongest, who was at the top of the heap.

  And yet Mrs. Nakamura, the foreigner, didn’t seem to think so. Instead of smiling politely and thanking him for doing so much work, her eyes lowered, as a proper woman would, she had looked him in the face and told him exactly what she thought. She was in a weak position—she was someone who would never belong, no matter how hard she tried. But this didn’t seem to bother her. Was it a Western thing? She had an air of not caring whether she belonged or not. Yet somehow, without any machinations at all, she seemed to have managed to put into words exactly what the other temple members were thinking. Otherwise they surely would have shouted her down.

  Well, she would do whatever she wanted—she always had. He wondered why she bothered to show up for these village activities at all. Did she have some other motive, unrelated to the pursuit of power? No, he couldn’t understand it. But his morning was spoiled, and the prestige he had imagined flowing toward him had somehow melted away. Once again he had to start climbing that mountain of belonging. He went to the outside sink and ran some water to wash his face and hands.

  Rachel and Leah

  My name is Rachel.

  I’m trudging over beige winter grass under a tumultuous sky. Wool from my hat tickles my eyebrows, wool from my scarf is damp and cold on my cheek. Wind pushes at my back. Cold arms, cold legs, eyes tearing up, nose running. I prospect in my pocket for the wad of tissues I always carry on winter walks. A mountain dusted with snow looms in the distance across the rice fields. The houses cramped between the mountain and the fields are like the insignificant buildings in old Chinese paintings.

  My mind wanders. I am thinking about making over a vest I created about ten years ago from a Guatemalan skirt. The vest turned out too big and barrel-shaped, even for my pudgy figure. I remember wearing the skirt to a historical theme park many years ago. People stared, as they always do. I suppose the vibrant multicolored stripes were a bit loud, but still it was me, the foreigner, they were staring at—the clothes were secondary.

  Those houses barely visible through stinging snow: they look small, but the people in them are life-size. That’s my village, the one I have lived in for thirty years. Once I was mysterious, unpredictable. Now, though, the people who live in those houses think they have my number. Whatever mystery I possess is no longer worth the trouble of figuring out, if it ever was.

  Beneath the white metal bridge, the stream above the weir ripples in the wind so it seems to be flowing backwards. Black rags of crows sail past overhead. I pass under eerily whistling power lines strung across the sky; I turn the corner and the wind hits a different part of my body. I’m almost home. Should I start work on that vest today?

  Later the same evening, I walk the aisles of the neon-lit hardware store in search of something to deter moles in the vegetable patch. Not poison, I don’t want poison. The place is almost deserted. A couple of heavily bundled elderly men, one clutching a bag of dog food and the other a length of pipe, wait at the cash register. I can’t find what I want. They only have poison. I step outside. Snow is falling from a dishwater sky, and the day is closing down as I drive up the road toward home. The wind roughhouses across the fields and buffets my little truck. Snow slants across my headlight beams, falling and falling, always more and more.

  I park the truck in the garage and lug my groceries down the lane and up the stone steps to my front door. I hear the complaints of cats kept waiting too long for their dinner. I negotiate the pitch-dark hallway (familiar as my own throat), scuff off my shoes, and enter the kitchen, flipping on lights and shedding outerwear. The house is quiet and cold as a tomb.

  Later I sit at my heated table, blanket over my knees, kerosene stove hissing softly at my back. The room smells like peanut butter cookies—I have just made a batch to send to my son and his wife. My solitary dinner, vegetarian cutlets and a stir-fry with asparagus, is over. I’ve washed the dishes. There aren’t very many dishes when I’m alone.

  I feel the house around me, centuries old, its bones ache. Yet it is also like a child. It misses me and is glad when I get home and turn on the heater. It depends on me. This dependence weighs a ton; it is as heavy as the antiquated roof, thousands of tiles poised above my head. If there was an earthquake right now I wouldn’t have a chance. Everything would just slide to the ground with a rattle and a roar, right on top of me. I’d be buried.

  I pack the box for my son, the cookies and a few other items. I wonder what his wife will think of the things I’ve packed. She doesn’t know me. Even my son doesn’t know me. They all think they know me, they think they have me pinned down, just another slightly troublesome older woman. They think it’s all right to stop thinking about me.

  They don’t know, because I haven’t told them. I am someone else now. />
  Rachel had a lot of free time, especially at this season when the garden mostly slept. She led a solitary life, with her husband frequently away on business trips (his company was squeezing the last drops of use out of him before retirement). City life was remote, her few close friends separated from her by both space and money.

  It was a bad time of year to be alone. Jackets, bedsocks, and woollen hats were her constant companions. She breathed the inside-the-airplane fug of burning kerosene, planning her day around the heaters which would have to be turned on in advance to take the chill off whatever room she wanted to sit in next. Everything she did felt like busywork: sorting cupboards, little bits of handcraft, even her beloved painting. She paced the dark rooms of her big old house like a tiger in a cage. The world outside was beautiful—big skies, powdery snow, glinting diamond dust in the air—but it was all cold.

  Rachel knew that winter was her worst time. She hated cold and darkness. The sunlit scenes of her childhood in another, warmer country seemed far away. How had she ended up in this house, whose cave-like interior meant she had to burn lights all day long, whose high ceilings commandeered all the heat leaving the human beings shivering below, whose ancient wooden floors had actual daylight shining up from between the boards?

  She was dying for spring, for a riot of bright flowers to wake up her eyes after all this monochrome. She would be busy in spring. She would have her garden, although it increasingly seemed like unremitting work disguised as a worthwhile pastime. Recently the garden had been disappointing. Most of the vegetables she had planted back in autumn had not yet yielded anything edible, even now in early March. They just sat there, tiny round bobbles of Brussels sprouts, cold hard broccoli two inches across. What had she done wrong this time? Gardens are forgiving places, there is always another chance next year, but forgiveness is the final step. Before that you have to endure the sins of omission, the mistakes, the despair, the wasted hours of work. She sometimes wondered if the forgiveness, the next chance, was really worth it. Spring and autumn were beautiful, but she seldom got a chance between chores to take a breath and notice the beauty of cherry blossoms or red leaves. And summer was one long hothouse of raging sunshine, storms that knocked over the garden plants, and bugs, bugs, bugs. Days of standing in the kitchen with a fan blowing on her legs, cooking up yet another batch of tomato sauce. A freezer stuffed to the gills with chopped beans and carrots and peppers—and who would eat it all?