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

by J. Thomas Rimer

  III

  A pretty girl of about sixteen, with attractive eyes and a butterfly hairdo that was beginning to unravel, faced the window where the afternoon sun streamed in as she bent over a loom tying up a thread that had broken. She picked up the shuttle, but as she stared at the shadows of the trees on the shōji, which rattled in the wind that roared down off Mount Hikosan, a deep sigh escaped from her diminutive frame.

  “Okiku. Okiku,” a voice called, and she answered, “Yes?”

  She dismounted from the loom, undid the cloth holding up her sleeves, and went into the next room. There a woman of about forty with graying hair sat peeling boiled chestnuts.

  “I’ve poured you some tea.”

  “Mother, what about Matchan?”

  “He’s not back yet. Ever since Saigō, even the neighborhood children all want to play soldier. War is terrible, isn’t it?”

  They looked at each other and sighed. For a while they peeled chestnuts and drank their tea in silence. Then the mother glanced at her daughter’s face.

  “Okiku, were you listening? Jinbei was here again a little while ago.”

  “. . .”

  “He came to press their case again. I put him off, saying Father was not home. He said Takeru is impatient for an answer. According to Jinbei, Takeru is supposed to have the official succession ceremony of the family in two or three days, and the Ueda house is a whirlwind of activity preparing for the big banquet.

  “Takeru? I can’t . . .”

  “There’s nothing we can do. Since the oldest brother Satoru is feebleminded and Shigeru is away, of course they are saying they want to settle things with us before the ceremony. Jinbei will come again tomorrow, you can be sure. We’ll have to give an answer—they are not like other families, you know. And you . . .”

  “Marry Takeru? I’d rather . . .”

  “That’s why Father is so worried. Truth be told, our family is obligated to the Uedas, and Father would like to see you go there. But he is so kindhearted that he can’t bring himself to force such a situation on even a stepdaughter, so he struggles with this dilemma. And as for me—I’m always taking your side, but it’s more painful to be the object of people’s pity than to be called cruel for sending you there to be married.” When she had finished, she sighed.

  “I am truly sorry, Mother, but I really don’t want to go to Takeru. Surely even Mrs. Ueda would sympathize with my situation a little.”

  “In fact, her husband has steadily weakened since his illness and is not the head of the house he once was. What’s more, Takeru is that kind of man, so even if she wanted to, she couldn’t speak up. Oh, if only Shigeru were here!”

  “I know. What happened to Shigeru, anyway?”

  Unable to conceal them any longer, the tears fell onto her lap.

  “Well, according to Jinbei, Kagoshima Castle fell on the twenty-fourth of last month, and both Saigō and our own Masuda were killed. Not one of the people from our area who went has returned, so Shigeru probably either died there or surrendered and was put in prison. He was such a strong-willed person that he probably was one of the first to be killed. The Uedas are already treating him as if he was a casualty.”

  “But if that’s true, we should hear about it from somewhere. I just can’t believe Shigeru is dead. Why just last night I dreamed that he came home, looking very thin.”

  “That’s because you think of him all the time. Ah, how much better it would have been if Takeru had gone off to fight and Shigeru had stayed home. But then, things don’t work out the way we wish, do they?”

  IV

  About a mile away from where Okiku and her mother were having this conversation, an old man with a hoe slung over his shoulder wearily picked his way along the path of a rice field. His shadow from the evening sun stretched out in front of him, and as he walked he plucked rice ears and rubbed them between his hands, putting the rice in his mouth and dropping the chaff. He was muttering something to himself when another man came up behind him dressed in a lined kimono of homespun cotton with a slightly worn silk halfcoat. He looked to be about fifty, and his hair was in the fashionable topknot. He was scratching his forehead as he called out, “Manbei. Hey, Manbei.”

  The old man slowly turned around at the sound of his name.

  “Oh, Jinbei. Where are you headed?”

  “I’ve just come back from Takemura village.”

  “Takemura? Ahh, must be the Sonobe family. Acting as go-between in that one must be a tough assignment, eh Jinbei.”

  “A lot of work and then some! But if it works out, it’ll be worth it. I’ve had it up to here with both war and matchmaking.”

  “Speaking of war, Saigō made a big fuss for a while, but now that he’s six feet under, he can’t do that any more.”

  “You’re right. Just look at how difficult it has been for everyone, thanks to that troublemaker. Even just around here in Nakatsu, there are forty or fifty households in tears. To begin with, there are the people in the big house . . .”

  “I suppose there’s no hope for your Shigeru.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Hmm. If Shigeru doesn’t return, his father and mother will grieve terribly. And yet, Jinbei . . .”

  “. . . ?”

  “That means Saigō did a great favor for Takeru.”

  “No question.”

  “If it weren’t for Saigō, there would be no fighting. If there were no fighting, Shigeru would be here. And if Shigeru were here . . . right? You see how it goes. From here on, Takeru’s in charge. His only rival is gone, his older brother is feebleminded, so the entire estate belongs to him. And on top of that he gets the beautiful girl. What a lucky guy he is, Jinbei.”

  “No doubt. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Just think how it would be if Shigeru had stayed here and not gone off to fight. He’s so liked that no matter how much Takeru objected, the Ueda fortune would have been divided equally between them. Just by running off to fight, he forfeited all that huge inheritance, and in the end all he got was an empty grave. Even his beloved Okiku is taken (although obviously she’s not going that easily, either). It’s such a shame that even she is being taken away. And look at Takeru. People call him mean and dangerous behind his back, but to his face they bow and scrape. Look at me—even though I say these things, I still run his errands, don’t I? Takeru is . . .”

  Suddenly from behind them came the sound of pounding hooves. When they turned around, the horse was already within a few feet of them. The rider was a man of twenty-two or twenty-three with bushy eyebrows, wearing white cotton riding breeches, holding a bamboo whip, and riding a chestnut-color horse with a Japanese saddle.

  The man with the topknot hurried to bow. “Sir, you seem to be returning from a long ride.”

  The rider only nodded broadly and started to ride on, but stopped and turned around.

  “Jinbei.”

  “Yes,” he said as he hurried to catch up with the horse and rider.

  “What’s happening?”

  Continuing to chase after him, he said, “In fact I am just now on my way back from there. Unfortunately, the head of the house was not there today.”

  “Not there? What are you talking about? Do you know how many days this has dragged on?”

  Jinbei scratched his head in embarrassment as he came up beside the horse. “Please don’t think I have been neglecting the matter, sir. Things are nearly completed. Please be kind enough to grant me two or three more days.”

  “If you can’t get it done, I’ll have someone else do it. Understand?” His bushy eyebrows bristled and his deep-set eyes flashed as he looked directly at Jinbei’s face. Then with a flash of the whip he was off.

  When the old man caught up to Jinbei, they looked at each other and sighed. “Jinbei, are you OK?”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “He’s the next village headman. It’s going to be tough on everyone.”

  As they talked, the young man on the horse rode on. With a
frown he galloped along, whipping off branches of the innocent willow trees one after another.

  “There’s no reason to hurry,” he told himself, and he eased up on the horse.

  The rice fields were beautiful in the evening sun. The endless rows of ripened plants greeted the new owner by bowing their heads, and the men and women here and there singing songs while they harvested the rice—at the sound of the horse’s hooves they, too, removed the towels from their heads and bowed. All of this he observed from on top of his horse, and soon he saw up ahead a half mile or so beyond the paddies, through a stand of large camphor trees at the foot of a hill, blue smoke rising from a house with white walls and black roof tiles. At this the rider smiled a smile of recognition.

  The horse pricked up its ears as it caught the breeze and, stepping lightly through the evening shadows, reached the end of the rice field road, turned near a neglected Jizō statue that stood under a nettle tree, and crossed a bridge made of a slab of stone placed over a stream. As he approached the main house, he saw a big man like the guardian god Niō come out to the gate, raise his hand, and look this way. When the young rider got closer, he came bounding down the stone steps excitedly three or four at a time, beckoning.

  “Takeru. Takeru. Takeru.”

  The rider calmly held the reins. “What is it, Satoru?”

  “He’s back! Shigeru! He’s back!”

  “Shigeru?” Without thinking he leaped off his horse. “How? When?”

  “A little bit ago a man looking like a farmworker with a bandana on his face came down out of the hills behind the house and into the back garden. We wondered who it could be, and it was that idiot Shigeru.” Takeru laughed nervously. “He said he got separated from the others on Mount Kawaigatake, and he thought about killing himself but couldn’t do that either and then spent a long time recovering at some farmhouse. He finally made it back through the mountains disguising himself as a worker. He hadn’t eaten for two days and was as skinny as a rail. Mother cried and gave him some food, so now he is sound asleep in one of the back rooms.” Again he laughed. “But Takeru, don’t tell anyone.”

  Takeru, listening in silence, clutched his whip that had almost slipped from his fingers. “Hmm. Shigeru, is it?”

  V

  About five miles southwest of the castle town of Nakatsu, in the province of Buzen, there is a residence situated on a hill in a certain mountain village overlooking a narrow stream. The occupant of this grand edifice is one Ueda Kyūgo, the wealthiest resident in the area. On the grounds are large camphor trees said to have been planted by his ancestors—still green and luxuriant after more than three hundred years. Although only country samurai, the family is so old that it is said even the venerable Okudaira, the clan chief of this domain, gives them very special treatment.

  Their annual yield always exceeds a thousand bags of rice; they have many chests overflowing with land title and deed documents as well as all manner of ancient gold and silver pieces; and their treasuries are vast, containing many antiques and curios, especially rare and valuable art and written documents such that a certain government official who was an art enthusiast took one look and was left speechless. Along with “The River Willow Kannon” by Wu Daozi, Emperor Hui Zong’s “One Hundred Flowers and One Hundred Birds with Full-Color Drawings,” and Su Shi’s “Self-Portrait as Eulogy,” there are several hundred items that even in their native China would be very rare and hard to come by. A renowned antique dealer who had journeyed all the way from Tokyo just to see this could only sigh and marvel at what a valuable estate this is. And that house, with its stone walls covered by a hundred years of moss, many storehouses with doves nesting in them peacefully, and uneven roof tiles of black and walls of white reflected in the green of the aged camphor trees, was known among the townspeople as “the mansion,” and they often intoned, “We might not equal Lord Ueda, but wouldn’t it be nice to be a feudal lord?”

  The current head of the household is Kyūgo, who this year turned forty-seven. In his youth he was schooled in the Chinese classics and trained to handle two swords. He once had a fiery disposition, but since last year when he lost the use of both legs because of a stroke, he has become noticeably withdrawn, forgoing any thought of fishing and hunting which he always loved. Now he hardly gets out of bed except for spring and fall excursions to a hot spring about twenty miles away, and for that he has them transport him in a palanquin. His wife, Oyoshi, turned forty-two this year and is thin and pale. At first glance she looks stern but in fact is a gentle soul who would not hurt a fly.

  Between them they have no daughters, but Satoru, Takeru, and Shigeru are their three sons, and they are twenty-five, twenty-three, and eighteen years old, respectively. Physically, the eldest son, Satoru, is a big man—bigger than the two younger brothers combined and yet lacking an essential element. In a word, he is not all there, making him unfit to be the leader. He is made fun of by the servants and is ordered around by his younger brothers, which is quite unlike the normal treatment of an eldest son, so that in time it was understood that he would not be the heir.

  By contrast, the second son, Takeru, has a prominent forehead and deep-set eyes and a firm mouth that, once set, even a crowbar would have difficulty opening. He is sharp as a tack, stubborn as the devil with a glare that goes right through you, and when he smiles, it is cold as ice. He thinks carefully and says little. His interests follow those of his father, and he was raised on the Four Books and Five Classics of China, with the result that he shuns Western riding gear and until just recently kept his hair in the traditional topknot.

  The youngest son, Shigeru, is yet another contrast. He was influenced early on by the reformist teachings of Fukuzawa Yukichi and principles of freedom. Reading newspapers from Tokyo, he spoke passionately about freedom and the rights of the people. Even before he was out of short pants, his advocacy of the doctrines of military expansion into Korea and a popularly elected parliament, and his opposition to the Okubo government and its more moderate policies alarmed the elders around Nakatsu. Eventually he became an ardent follower of a man called Masuda Sōtarō, whom he idolized as teacher and friend, and before the year was out, he was consumed with patriotic fervor. Finally, last April he ran off, leaving behind a letter to explain that he had gone with a bunch of equally devoted comrades led by Masuda to join the Satsuma rebels. Three brothers: the one who eats the most is Satoru, the one who schemes the most is Takeru, and the one who is the most hot-blooded is Shigeru. Thus, air, water, and fire showed up in the Ueda household under the names Satoru, Takeru, and Shigeru.

  Not only the mother but even the father lived in fear of coldhearted Takeru, whereas they loved their youngest, Shigeru, who was infatuated with the notion of people’s rights, uninterested in the family estate, and thoroughly irresponsible. They once had had a request from a certain distinguished family in Nakatsu to be allowed to adopt Shigeru for the purpose of making him the heir, but they rejected it out of hand. Since that time, most people assumed that even if the entire inheritance did not go to Shigeru, he at least would receive half, since his parents favored him. Takeru deeply hated Shigeru.

  A couple of miles from the Ueda homestead lived Sonobe, who had once served as the village headman. He was related to the Uedas but died some years back, leaving behind a son and a daughter. The wife remarried and had another child. The eldest son, dear friends with Shigeru, died two years ago, and the daughter, Okiku, turned sixteen this year. Once when Okiku was still eight, the three Ueda brothers were invited to the Sonobe house in late autumn when the acorns were falling everywhere. They went out to the mountain in back to see how many acorns they could gather. When they had finished their game, Okiku noticed that Shigeru’s bag contained the least of all, so, feeling sorry for him, she secretly transferred hers into his bag. Satoru saw them and shouted, “Hey, Shigeru, you idiot. What are you doing getting help from a girl? Idiot!”

  Shigeru’s face turned bright red, and he leaped at his brother, but Satoru wa
s seven years older and very strong and so was able to grab Shigeru and hold him down with ease. Okiku was furious at this and called her brother to help her mount their own assault. Takeru, who had been watching all this, suddenly moved in and kicked Shigeru in the head while he was down. After all the fighting and screaming had subsided, they separated, but Satoru cried, “Hey, guess what? Shigeru and Okiku are going to get married!” In the excitement Okiku bravely retorted, “Sure, I’ll marry Shigeru. I certainly don’t want an idiot like you!”

  Her pigtails have since given way to the butterfly hairdo of a young woman, and all three Ueda brothers have fallen in love with this lovely fragrant white blossom whose name means “chrysanthemum.” Among them, Shigeru is the closest, due to his friendship with her older brother, and in fact now that her brother is gone and Shigeru is far away, she thinks all the more of her dead brother’s friend. Takeru hated Shigeru all the more.

  Despite his hatred and his jealousy, Takeru was also very patient and did not readily show his true feelings. That spring when he discovered that Shigeru had abandoned everything and run off to join Saigō’s forces, a faint smile crossed his face. Opportunities come to those who wait. Shigeru foolishly went and jumped into the fire. Oh, he said some nice things, but look at him. Mother! Father! He cast away his parents and his home and became a traitor—a scoundrel of the most outrageous stripe. Chances are ten to one that if he doesn’t die on the battlefield, he will rot in jail. How long will you pine for him? These are your sons—Shigeru already is lost, a disinherited ne’er-do-well, the oldest is clearly a dimwit; and here am I—the fact that I am like this is the good fortune of the Ueda family, so consider me from now on the pillar, the staff, the lord and master.

  Takeru did not actually say all this, but with increasing directness he began showing it in his actions, and with an iron hand he took hold of family matters. At first there were one or two letters from their boy at the front, but then they stopped coming. When they heard that the Satsuma forces were under siege, they knew the hope of Shigeru’s making it back safely was very slight. Then last month the news of the fall of Kagoshima Castle forced Ueda, and even his wife, to become resigned to the inevitable, and at that point Takeru relaxed just a bit. He began to bring his grieving parents around to his way of thinking. Now that the war was over and the world safe again, he pushed for the official succession ceremony, which had been delayed, and also initiated negotiations for his marriage to Okiku. Here it is October 10; the ceremony is set for the day after tomorrow; the engagement, too, is moving forward; and suddenly Shigeru—hated, envied, and given up for dead—reappears.