The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  “Where’s your courage?” she asked. “It’s those clogs, isn’t it? Here, put these on. Do as I say.”

  By that time I had already developed a sound respect for her. For better or worse, I decided to obey, no matter what she wanted. I put on the sandals, just as she asked.

  And then, listen to this, as she was putting on my clogs, she took my hand.

  Suddenly I felt lighter. I had no trouble following her, and before I knew it we were back at the cottage.

  As soon as we arrived, the old man greeted us with a shout. “I thought it’d take a little time. But I see the Good Brother’s come back in his original form.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “Anything happen while we were gone?”

  “Guess I’ve done my time here. If it gets too dark, I’ll have trouble on the road. Better get the horse and be on my way.”

  “Sorry to make you wait.”

  “Not at all. Go take a look. Your husband’s fine. It’s going to take more than I’ve got to steal him away from you.” Pleased by his own nonsense, the old man burst into laughter and plodded off toward the horse stall.

  The idiot was sitting in the same place, just as before. It seems that even a jellyfish will keep its shape if kept out of the sun.

  18

  I could hear neighing, shouts, and the sound of the horse’s hooves stomping the ground as the man brought the animal around front. He stood with his legs apart, holding the animal by its halter. “Well, Miss, I’ll be off. Take good care of the monk.”

  The woman had set up a lantern near the hearth and was on her knees, trying to get a fire started. She glanced up and placed her hand on her leg while holding a pair of metal chopsticks. “Thank you for taking care of everything.”

  “It’s the least I could do. Hey!” The man jerked back on the animal’s rope.

  It was a dappled horse, gray with black spots. The muscular stallion with a straggly mane stood there with nothing on but a halter.

  I found nothing particularly interesting about the animal. Yet when the man tugged on the rope I quickly moved over to the veranda from where I was sitting behind the idiot and called out, “Where are you taking that horse?”

  “To an auction over by Suwa Lake. Tomorrow you’ll be taking the same road.”

  “Why do you ask?” the woman suddenly interrupted. “Are you planning to jump on and ride away?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “That would be a violation of my vows—to rest my legs and ride while on pilgrimage.”

  “I doubt you or anybody else could stay on this animal,” the old man said. “Besides, you’ve had your share of close calls already today. Why don’t you just rest easy and let the young lady take care of you tonight? Well, I’d better get going.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Giddyap.”

  The horse refused to move. It seemed to be nervously twitching its lips, pointing its muzzle in my direction, and looking at me.

  “Damned animal. Hey now!”

  The old man pulled the halter rope to the left and right, but the horse stood as firm as if its feet were rooted in the ground.

  Exasperated by the creature, the old man began to beat it. He closely circled around the horse two or three times, but the animal still refused to move forward. When the man put his shoulder against its belly and threw his weight against the horse, it finally lifted one of its front feet, but then planted all four again.

  “Miss! Miss!” The man wailed for help.

  The woman stood up and tiptoed over to a soot-blackened pillar where she hid herself from the horse’s eyes.

  The man pulled out a dirty, crumpled towel from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his deeply wrinkled brow. With new determination on his face, he placed himself in front of the horse and, maintaining his calm, grabbed the rope with both hands. He planted his feet, leaned back, and threw his whole weight into it. And guess what happened next?

  The horse let out a tremendous whinny and raised both its front hooves into the air. The old man stumbled and fell to the ground on his back; and the horse came down, sending a cloud of dust into the moonlit sky.

  Even the idiot saw the humor of this scene. For once, and only once, he held his head straight, opened his fat lips, bared his big teeth, and fluttered his hand as if fanning the air.

  “What now?” the woman said, giving up. She slipped on her sandals and stepped into the dirt-floored area of the cottage.

  “Don’t get it wrong,” the old man said to her. “It’s not you. It’s the monk. This horse has had its eye on him from the start. They probably knew each other in a former life, and now the beast wants the Holy Man to pray for its soul.”

  I was shocked to hear the fellow suggest I had any connections with the animal. It was then that the woman asked me, “Sir, did you happen to meet anyone on your way here?”

  19

  “Yes. Just before I reached Tsuji, I did meet a medicine peddler from Toyama.

  He started out on the same trail, a little ahead of me.”

  “I see.” She smiled as if she had guessed something right, then glanced over at the horse. She looked as if she couldn’t help but smirk.

  She seemed to be in a better mood, so I spoke up. “Perhaps he came by this way.”

  “No. I wouldn’t know anything about that.” She suddenly seemed to distance herself again, and so I held my tongue. She turned to the man, who was standing meekly before the horse, dusting himself off. “Then I guess I don’t have much of a choice,” she said in a resigned tone and hurriedly untied her sash. One end of it dangled in the dirt. She pulled it up and hesitated for a moment.

  “Ah, ah.” The idiot husband let out a vague cry. As he reached out with the long, skinny arm that was constantly fanning the air, the woman handed him her sash. Like a child, he placed it on his lap, then rolled it up and guarded it as it were a precious treasure.

  She pulled the lapels of her kimono together and held them with one hand just below her breasts. Leaving the house, she quietly walked over to the horse.

  I was struck with astonishment as she stood on tiptoe. She gracefully raised her hand in the air then stroked the horse’s mane two or three times.

  She moved around and stood directly in front of the horse’s huge muzzle, seeming to grow taller as I watched. She fixed her eyes on the animal, puckered her lips, and raised her eyebrows as if falling into a trance. Suddenly her familiar charm and coquettish air disappeared, and I found myself wondering if she were a god, or perhaps a demon.

  At that moment, it was as if the mountain behind the cottage and the peak directly across the valley—in fact, all the mountains that surrounded us and formed this world that was set apart from all others—suddenly looked our way and bent over to stare at this woman who stood facing the horse in the moonlight. Turning ever darker, the deep mountains grew more lonely and intense.

  I felt myself being engulfed in a warm, moist wind as the woman slipped her kimono off her left shoulder. Then she took her right hand out of its sleeve, brought it around to the fullness of her bosom, and lifted her thin undergarment. Suddenly she was naked, without even so much as the mountain mist to clothe her.

  The skin on the horse’s back and belly seemed to melt with ecstasy and drip with sweat. Even its strong legs became feeble and began to tremble. The animal lowered its head to the ground and, blowing froth from its mouth, bent its front legs as if paying obeisance to her beauty.

  At that moment, the woman reached under the horse’s jaw and nimbly tossed her undergarment over the animal’s eyes. She leaped like a doe rabbit and arched her back so she was looking up at the ghastly, hazy moon. Threading the undergarment between the horse’s front legs, she pulled it from its eyes as she passed beneath the belly of the horse and stepped off to the side.

  The old man, taking his cue from her, pulled on the halter. And the two started walking briskly down the mountain trail and soon disappeared into the darkness.

  The woma
n put on her kimono and came over to the veranda. She tried to take her sash from the idiot, who refused to give it back. He raised his hand and tried reaching for her breasts. When she finally brushed off his hand and gave him a scornful look, he shrank back and hung his head.

  All this I witnessed in the phantasmal flickering of the dimming lantern. In the hearth, the faggots were now aflame, and the woman, in order to tend to the fire, rushed back into the cottage. Coming to us from the far side of the moon, the faint echoes of the horseman’s song reverberated in the night.

  20

  It was time for dinner. Far from mere carrots and gourd shavings, the woman served pickled vegetables, marinated ginger, seaweed, and miso soup with dried wild mushrooms.

  The ingredients were simple but well prepared, and I was practically starving. As for the service, it couldn’t have been better. With her elbows resting on the tray in her lap, and her chin cupped in her hands, she watched me eat, apparently gaining great satisfaction from it.

  The idiot, tired of being left alone, started crawling limply toward us. He dragged his potbelly over to where the woman was seated and collapsed into a cross-legged position. He mumbled as he kept pointing and staring at my dinner.

  “What is it?” she asked him. “No. You can eat later. Don’t you see we have a guest tonight?”

  A melancholy look came over the idiot’s face. He twisted his mouth and tossed his head from side to side.

  “No? You’re hopeless. Go ahead, then. Eat with our guest.” She turned to me. “I beg your pardon.”

  I quickly set my chopsticks down. “Not at all. Please. I’ve put you through too much trouble already.”

  “Hardly. You’ve been no trouble at all.” She turned to the idiot. “You, my dear, are supposed to eat with me, after our guest finishes. What am I going to do with you?” Saying this to put me at ease, she quickly set up a tray identical to mine.

  Good wife that she was, she served the food quickly, without wasting a single movement. Yet there was also something refined and genteel about her.

  The idiot looked up with dull eyes at the tray set before him. “I want that.

  That,” he said while glancing goggle-eyed around the room.

  She looked at him gently, in the way a mother might look at her child. “You can have that any time you want,” she said. “But tonight we have a guest.”

  “No. I want it now.” The idiot shook his entire body. He sniveled and looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

  The woman didn’t know what to do, and I felt sorry for her. “Miss, I know next to nothing about your situation here,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be better just to give him what he wants? Personally, I’d feel better if you didn’t treat me like a guest.”

  “So you don’t want what I’ve fixed?” she asked the idiot. “You don’t want this?”

  She finally gave in to him, as he looked as if he was about to cry. She went over to her broken-down cupboard, took something from a crock, and put it on his tray, though not without giving him a reproachful look.

  “Here you go.” She pretended to be peeved and forced a smile.

  I watched from the corner of my eye, wondering what kind of food the idiot would be chewing in his huge mouth. A blue green snake stewed with vegetables in thick soy and sugar? A monkey fetus steam-baked in a casserole? Or something less grotesque, like pieces of dried frog meat? With one hand the idiot held his bowl. With the other he picked up a piece of overpickled radish. It wasn’t sliced into pieces either, just chopped into a big chunk so the idiot could munch on it as if eating a cob of corn.

  The woman must have been embarrassed. I caught her glancing over at me.

  She was blushing. Though she hardly seemed like an innocent-minded person, she nervously touched a corner of her towel to her mouth.

  I took a closer look at this young man. His body was yellow and plump, just like the pickled radish he had just devoured. By and by, satisfied with having vanquished his prey, he looked the other way, without even asking for a cup of tea, and panted heavily with boredom.

  “I guess I’ve lost my appetite,” the woman said. “Maybe I’ll have something later.”

  She cleared the dishes without eating dinner.

  21

  The mood was subdued for a while after that. “You must be tired,” she finally said. “Shall I make up your bed right away?”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “But I’m not the least bit sleepy. Washing in the river seems to have revived me completely.”

  “That stream is good for any illness you might have. Whenever I’m worn out and feel withered and dry, all I have to do is spend half a day in the water, and I become refreshed again. Even in the winter, when the mountains turn to ice and all the rivers and cliffs are covered with snow, the water never freezes in that spot where you were bathing. Monkeys with gunshot wounds, night herons with broken legs, so many animals come to bathe in the water that they’ve made that path down the cliff. It’s the water that has healed your wounds.

  “If you aren’t tired, maybe we could talk for a while. I get so lonely here. It’s strange, but being all alone in the mountains like this, I even forget how to talk. Sometimes I get so discouraged.

  “If you get sleepy, don’t stay up on my account. We don’t have anything like a real guest room, but on the other hand, you won’t find a single mosquito here. Down in the valley they tell a story about a man from Kaminohora who stayed the night there. They put up a mosquito net for him, but since he had never seen one before, he asked them for a ladder so he could get into bed.

  “Even if you sleep late you won’t hear any bells ringing, nor any roosters crowing at dawn. We don’t even have dogs here, so you can sleep in peace.”

  She looked over at the idiot. “That fellow was born and raised here in the mountains. He doesn’t know much about anything. Still, he’s a good person, so there’s no need to worry on his account. He actually knows how to bow politely when a stranger visits, though he hasn’t paid his respects to you yet, has he? These days he doesn’t have much strength. He’s gotten lazy. But he’s not stupid. He can understand everything you say.”

  She moved closer to the idiot, looked into his face, and said cheerfully, “Why don’t you bow to the monk? You haven’t forgotten how, have you?”

  The idiot managed to put his two hands together on the floor and bowed with a jerk, as if a wound-up spring had been released in his back. Struck by the woman’s love for the fellow, I bowed my head. “The pleasure’s mine.”

  Still facing down, he seemed to lose his equilibrium. He fell over on his side, and the woman helped him back up. “There. Good for you.”

  Looking as if she wanted to praise him for what he had done, she turned to me and said, “Sir, I’m pretty sure he could do anything you asked of him. But he has a disease that neither the doctors nor the river can heal. Both of his legs are crippled, so it doesn’t do much good to teach him new things. As you can see, just one bow is about as much as he can tolerate.

  “Learning things is hard work. It hurts him, I know, so I don’t ask him to do much. And because of that, he’s gradually forgotten how to use his hands or even how to talk. The one thing he still can do is sing. Even now he still knows two or three songs. Why don’t you sing one for our guest?”

  The idiot opened his eyes wide and looked at the woman, then at me. He seemed shy as he shook his head.

  22

  After she encouraged and cajoled him in various ways, he cocked his head to one side and, playing with his navel, began to sing.

  On Mount Ontake in Kiso.

  Let me give

  A double-lined kimono

  And tabi socks as well.

  The woman listened intently and smiled. “Doesn’t he know it well, though.”

  How strange it was! The idiot’s voice was nothing like you might expect, having heard his story. Even I couldn’t believe it. It was the difference between the moon and a turtle, clouds and mud, heaven an
d earth! The phrasing, the dynamics, the breathing—everything was perfect. You wouldn’t think that such a pure, clear voice could emerge from the throat of that young man. It sounded as though his former incarnation was piping a voice from the other world into the idiot’s bloated stomach.

  I had been listening with my head bowed. I sat with my hands folded in my lap, unable to look up at the couple. I was so moved that tears came to my eyes.

  The woman noticed I was crying and asked me if something was wrong. I couldn’t answer her right away, but finally I said, “I’m fine, thanks. I won’t ask any questions about you, so you mustn’t ask about me either.” I mentioned no details, but I spoke from my heart. I had come to see her as a veritable Yang Guifei, a voluptuous and alluring beauty who deserved to be adorned with silver and jade pins for her hair, gossamer gowns as sheer as butterfly wings, and pearl-sewn shoes. And yet she was so open and kind to her idiot husband. That was the reason I was moved to tears.

  She was the sort of person who could guess the unspoken feelings of another. She spoke up as if she immediately understood exactly what I was feeling. “You’re very kind.” She gazed at me with a look in her eyes that I cannot begin to describe. I bowed my head and looked away.

  The lantern dimmed again, and I wondered if this perhaps was the idiot’s doing; for just then, the conversation lagged and a tired silence overcame us. The master of song, apparently bored, yawned hugely, as if he were about to swallow the lantern before him.

  He started to fidget. “Want sleep. Sleep.” He moved his body clumsily.

  “Are you tired? Shall we go to bed?” The woman sat up and, as if she had suddenly come to her senses, looked around. The world outside the house was as bright as noon. The moonlight poured into the cottage through the open windows and doors. The hydrangeas were a vivid blue.