by Kurt Caswell
Mama-san brought kim-chee, collecting all the tender ends of the cabbage leaves in one bowl for Kazuko. Then she brought a plate of vegetables, and two plates of raw meat, one of various cuts of beef, the other of beef tongue, because tongue was my favorite, thinly sliced, and lightly grilled, with a piece of kim-chee and bathed in the strong yaki nikku sauce.
The meat tasted very good against that cold night. Kazuko and I ate and drank until we were too tired to eat anymore. Then Kazuko ordered a spicy Korean soup. Even with such a bellyful of meat, I could not refuse the delicious soup.
Like most hot springs in Japan, this one has a small shop with a restaurant, and you pay about five dollars for a bath. You can rent towels and purchase toothbrushes and toothpaste, razors, shampoo, conditioner. There is a room for undressing, a room for washing, and a room for bathing in the several indoor pools, one of which will likely contain some curative tea, ginseng for example. And then an outdoor bath, the natural spring water collected in a simple stone enclosure.
As Noguchi and I entered through the sliding doors, I noticed chrysanthemums growing along the steps. The smell of sulfur surrounded us like a warm blanket. The contrast was distinct, an invisible line between flower and sulfur. I knew then that I would hold on to the difference in that moment for many years to come.
This time of year, the Chitose River swells with meltwater from the deep snow in the mountains surrounding Shikotsuko. It comes down from the mountains fast and cold and clean, raising the lake level and the river. As mountain snows melt—the snows from up high, where the Hokkaido brown bear lives—the river rises, and the little rapids we paddle become pushy, testy. If the water level continues to rise, the eddies where we slide out of the current to rest in our boats vanish. The whole river from one side to the other becomes a moving highway. The banks rise into the trees, and the river, like a wolf, rips trees from their roots and topples them along the banks. They create dangerous strainers, which can pull in a canoe and trap it in the branches. It’s easy to drown in a river like that.
I am at ease here in this hot-spring pool, my two hundred bones and nine orifices. The men’s side is empty except for Noguchi and me. I sit on a stone, the water completing the circle around my shoulders. I wet my vanity towel and fold it into a long rectangle, place it on top of my head. The soft murmur of women’s voices comes through the gap in the wall. A bird passes, flying fast upriver. Pied kingfisher. A birch leaf breaks loose and settles on the surface of the pool, a water ring moving out around it. If no one disturbs this leaf, it will sink to the bottom and become part of that thin layer of organic matter settled there. I move my hand across the bottom of the pool, stirring up a cloud of detritus. It mixes and rises to the surface, then settles again, falling like soft rain over my bare legs.
The Ainu believe that every river in Hokkaido is home to nature spirits called kamui, and the chief nature spirit resides in the upper reaches of the river near its headwaters, usually somewhere in the mountains. These mountains are also home to the chief bear spirit, who makes a journey each spring into a nearby village to give himself to the people, his flesh and hide and skull. Likewise, the dog salmon is not just a fish, but food sent by the kamui of the sea. The Ainu call this fish kamui chep, which means “divine fish,” or they call it shiipe kamui chep, which means “grand food divine fish.” It is through the sacred window of the Ainu house that the fire god, who cooks the food for the people, communicates with the kamui. If the people treat bear and salmon with respect, they will be happy, and the kamui will send them into the villages again the next year.
Sometimes Kazuko’s husband, Shigeru Watanabe, would join us at Aridan: a big man with a round happy belly, thick black hair combed just so, and dark, heavy eyebrows. He owned many businesses, and it was said that he was the wealthiest man in Hokkaido. Kazuko and Watanabe did not live together. He lived on the family estate, and Kazuko lived alone in an apartment, not far downriver from me. They were not legally married, and their relationship was something of a secret, the kind of secret everyone knows about and talks about, but only in whispers. The problem was, as I understood it, one of inheritance: who would get the family fortune when Watanabe died? To complicate matters, Kazuko was born in China during the Japanese occupation. Her father was an officer in the army, and her mother may have been her father’s Chinese mistress. Watanabe had many mistresses too, so the story went, and was publicly known as Chitose’s rich bachelor. So Kazuko was born of a mistress, and became a mistress herself. When Kazuko and Watanabe were together, they were happy, and they had been together now for more than twenty years.
Sometimes at Aridan, Watanabe would sing for us in German, or in English, or even in Japanese. Kazuko would sing with him. He kept a worn slip of paper in his breast pocket with the lyrics of his favorite songs. His favorite of the favorites was “Green, Green Grass of Home.” He had sung these songs many times, and he didn’t need the paper to remember anymore, but he would take it out just the same, and cradle it in his thick hands like the petal of a flower.
At the onsen, a young woman came out from behind the counter to greet us. Her mouth was softened by her wet lips. Her hair, shoulder length, was perfectly straight. She wore black, thigh-high socks over her thin, shapeless legs, and a denim apron, the strings tied tight at the small of her back. She smiled unexpectedly when Noguchi said: “Two for a bath, please.” She held out her small, white hand. I put a thousand-yen note in her open palm, while Noguchi pulled two cans of cold Kirin beer from the vending machine. I stood there dumbly in her presence, my heels hanging painfully over the back of the little onsen slippers, a noticeable imbalance in my sway. Caught in her gaze, a moment passed, and her mouth opened softly to speak. “This way, please,” she said, motioning toward the blue curtain with her hand.
That morning Noguchi and I paddled together, the speeding water humming against the bambooed banks, as we worked our canoes at Big Eddy, practicing rolls and pivot turns. We played that way in the water for an hour before our knees went sore and our arms grew heavy. We stopped to rest on the fishing dock. When we collected ourselves, we poured hot tea into our cups.
Here was a moment of certainty. Drinking hot oolong tea at the Chitose River. I sat cross-legged on the dock, the tea steam rising up around my nose. I could feel some anticipation in Noguchi’s manner, as if he wanted to say something. The giant fuki already covered the easy hills along the roads, up through the shrinking snow, short, early bulbous flowers that glowed nuclear yellow. If you put your nose into the fuki blossom, you could smell spring coming on. It’s a fine flower in miso soup. For a taste of spring, crush just a little over the surface of your bowl, and take in the flower and the soup in a breath.
One evening as we were laughing and drinking at Aridan, Watanabe noticed a waitress who worked for one of his restaurants dining with her boyfriend. He greeted them at their table. He ordered another bottle of Kirin beer and poured their glasses full. I saw in his face then a kindness and humility that comes only with a surety of knowing yourself, as in the face of the Roman-nosed sumo, Musashimaru. Watanabe talked with the young couple briefly, and then he bowed low, his nose all the way down to the tatami. When the young couple got up to leave, they found that Watanabe had paid their bill.
A long time ago, so this story goes, an Ainu man went to sea to fish. A great wind came up, and he was lost for many days. He nearly died. The island he found was full of people, who took him in and cared for him until his strength returned. One day, the chief of the people told him they were traveling to his land for trade and that he could at last go home. He was also told not to look at the people during the voyage. If he did look at them, the people would be very angry. The man was surprised by the hundreds and hundreds of ships traveling to his land. When they arrived, the chief revealed his true identity: “I am not a man, but the chief of all salmon. In return for saving your life and returning you to your home, you must worship me and honor me with offerings. Don’t forget.” This is why t
he salmon is such a revered fish among the native people of Hokkaido.
At the onsen, Noguchi and I left our slippers on the wood floor and stepped up onto the tatami in our socks. The clothes lockers were wide, flat wicker baskets arranged on an open wood rack. We undressed, side by side, leaving our coats and clothes and everything, our wallets, his car keys, my favorite Italian walking boots, right there in the open. Walking naked into a hot springs with your clothes and boots and wallet unattended in a public place releases feelings of a special vulnerability. What if someone came along and took our stuff? What if someone found my favorite boots appealing? He might simply put them on and walk away. Noguchi must have noticed something in my face, because he said, “Don’t worry, Kato. No Japanese want it. Boots too big.”
When I was sick in bed, Kazuko took a taxi to Aridan and asked Mama-san to prepare a soup for me. She came to my apartment and knocked on my door. I answered. It was snowing out, and the snow fell white on her beautiful black hair. She looked like an angel, or maybe a witch. She thrust the pan through the opening and said, “Spicy Korean soup. You know this type? Good for health. Drink all.” Then she hurried away into the waiting taxi.
Clouds sifted over the hot-spring pool, closing off the sun. The air temperature dropped. The sun returned and played over the water again. Noguchi sat near the outside wall, the creek moving fast behind him. He looked half asleep, perfectly at home.
“How’s your wife?” I asked.
“OK.”
“Really?”
“No. No good,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“I have to decide.”
He looked defeated then, like there wasn’t anything after deciding. “Well,” I said, unsure how to comfort him, “there are many fish in the sea.”
“What’s that? Fish in the sea?” he said. “Like a tuna-something?”
“No,” I said. “It just means there are other women in the world. You will be OK.”
“Oh. I see, Kato.” Then he said, “I don’t like divorce.”
“No. Of course not.”
“And I don’t like alone.”
“Well,” I said. “You can catch a new fish.”
“Ah, Kato,” Noguchi said happily. “I see. Many fish in the sea. So I must fishing!”
“Yes, right. But you shouldn’t say that to anyone,” I said. “It’s not very good to say. People will be angry if you call a woman a fish.”
“Oh, really,” he said. “Not good in English. OK. Thank you, Kato.” He paused. “But I have my son. And she is crazy. She is Jehovah’s something. Really bad. And her parents too. They hate me.”
“That’s bad.”
“Yeah, really bad. And I have a son, too. She will take him.”
I was quiet while he drank from his beer again and then set the can in the rocks behind his head. He looked out into the creek, and everything reminded him of divorce. He couldn’t think of anything else. And trying not to think of it, he thought of it, and it came back to him again and again until he decided to think of something else.
“Let’s go fishing,” he said. “Let’s enjoy our life.”
“OK,” I said, and that’s how I knew he had decided.
“OK,” Noguchi said. “Only one problem, Kato. Japanese parent. Really strange. If I am single, maybe they think I am gay.”
Long ago in an Ainu village, the people ran out of food. They were starving. Everyone died except a brother and sister. The sister sent her brother out with their father’s inheritance to buy food. In the wilds, he met a man and a woman. They were both very beautiful, divine even. They fed him all the whale meat he could eat. When the boy tried to pay for the food, the divine man said: “The food is yours. But I want your father’s inheritance. I will go and get my own treasures to trade with you.” When he was gone, the divine woman said: “I am the bear goddess. My husband is a dragon, and a bad man. When he returns, tell him you want me, not his treasures. He will be angry and go away. Then we can be together.” When the dragon husband returned, the boy did as the bear wife had said. Just as the words left his mouth, lightning flashed, and a thunderclap boomed in the distance. The dragon husband vanished. The boy married the bear goddess, and that is why bears are half human.
People say the ghost of an old woman haunts this onsen. You can feel her presence when you are relaxed. She starts low on your back, just above the pelvis, a cold freeze in your muscles, and moves up like a draft to the shoulders and back of the neck.
The story goes that long ago, an old woman died in one of the pools. All day people entered the pool where she was dead. It is amazing she did not float up or turn over face down in the pool. Some children finally became suspicious. Hadn’t they better wake her? It isn’t healthy to fall asleep in the hot springs. A young girl shook her gently, saying, “Obasan. Obasan.” That’s when the young girl felt the chill of death. She froze, unable to take her hand away. She screamed. Her mother rushed to her side. The girl was weeping, her fingers still wrapped around the dead arm. Then, to their amazement, the old woman opened her eyes and looked right at them. In the heat of the onsen pool, her eyes had swelled up like huge boiled eggs.
On New Year’s Eve, Kazuko and I took adjacent rooms in the Noboribetsu Grand Hotel. A porter met us in the lobby, and carried our bags upstairs. Kazuko planned to have a bath before she did anything else, so we collected our toiletries and changed into our yukatas and walked together down the hallway on our way to the bath. Kazuko put her hand in my arm. People looked at us, as they passed. Kazuko giggled and said, “Tee-hee. They are wondering about us.”
Noboribetsu is the most famous hot springs in Hokkaido. It is a small village built on a hill where the tourist shops, restaurants, and hotels have grown up around it. The water rises from the earth at Jigokudani, which means “Valley of Hell.” Steam and sulfur cloud the air. For some years, Jigokudani has been a popular site for suicides. Whole families have taken their lives here, plunging together into the bubbling pools. But mostly people come to Noboribetsu to bathe in its curative waters. From Chitose, it’s three hours by car. Naturally, Kazuko hired a taxi.
We reached the entrance to the bath. Kazuko passed through the red curtain, and I passed through the blue curtain. Mixed bathing used to be common in Japan, as the bath has long been a family affair. Men and women used to bathe together unmolested, even wash each other, daughter washing father washing mother who sits in front of the mirror washing her face. No problem. These days, except in a few traditional onsens, men bathe with men, and women bathe with women. This new modesty might be blamed on the influence of the Puritan West. I don’t think it’s an improvement.
Dai-ichi Takimoto Hotel, not far from our hotel, has the largest bath in Hokkaido. Inside are dozens of hot-spring pools, each with different curative properties. The men’s bath is downstairs, and the women are upstairs. From the women’s bath, a balcony looks over onto the men’s bath, like the mezzanine in a theater. If they wanted, the women could stand at the balcony and watch a hundred naked men who have no place to hide. But they don’t. When the hotel first opened, the men’s bath was upstairs, and the women’s bath was downstairs. If they wanted, the men could stand at the balcony and watch a hundred naked women who had no place to hide. And they did.
After the bath, Kazuko was warm and red, tired from her long stay in the hot water. I went to her room for supper. We ordered in. We asked for a traditional New Year’s meal, osechi-ryori, various dishes presented in lacquer boxes. Each dish represents a good wish for the next year: happiness, long life, good health. Like that. We drank cold sake and then cold beer, and ate the dishes to our good futures. And we laughed a lot. We were very tired then, and very happy.
Early spring mornings in Hokkaido are cold. I am out of milk and bread again, so I walk to the Seven-Eleven, through the dirt alleyway and across the highway, which draws west into the higher, still snowed-in country around Shikotsuko.
When I step out of my door, the feral cats scat
ter like leaves. They huddle against the sun-hardened snow on the roof of the tin shed outside my apartment. I have been feeding two of them all winter, and on warmer days, the female tiger stripe comes through the open window into my tatami room while I work at my desk. She explores the apartment, as long as I remain seated. If I move, or try to coax her to my hand, she turns and hurries out. Later, in the spring, she brings her five kittens inside. They are dark and wear the marks of the Manx that howls from under the cars in the late afternoons. The kittens wrestle and roll in the sun on the tatami, while mother waits, a silhouette in the windowsill. They are not so shy, and I can sit on the floor with them and they will bat at my wiggling toes.
On my way for milk, I walk around the corner and down the alleyway, my wet hair stiffening in the cold against the back of my neck. I pass the empty lot where, two days ago, a backhoe leveled the house to the ground. Today not even the great pile of twisted pipe and splintered lumber remains. It is a smooth, graded lot.
I walk by the small city hospital. Most mornings a car is parking or unparking, and the people inside stare at me with amazement and fear. They stare, and sometimes I stare back, until they realize they are staring, and look away.
At breakfast on New Year’s Day, Kazuko and I drank sake from square bamboo cups, and made a walk through the maze of tourist gift shops to Jigokudani, the Valley of Hell, where the hot-spring water boils, and steam and sulfur vents from the center of the earth. Looking onto those pits, Kazuko said, “Beautiful. Ugly. I think I stay here until I die.”
