Japanese Gothic Tales

by Kyoka Izumi

  "I feel more vulnerable in the spring than in the fall. That's why I'm so damp. This isn't sweat. It's something the sun has wrung from my heart. Not pain, not distress. More like blood being squeezed from the tips of a tree's tender leaves, as though my bones are being extracted and my skin is being melted. Yes, that's the perfect expression for times like this. I feel like I've turned into water, as though what's been melted of me will soon disappear, and that there will be tears - though neither of sadness nor of joy.

  "Sometimes you cry when someone scolds you. Other times you cry when someone comforts you. But on a spring day like today, your tears are of this latter kind. I suppose they're sad. Yet there are different types of sadness. If fall is the sorrow of nature, then spring is the anguish of human life.

  "Those people you see out there working in their fields—when fall comes they brace themselves, each doing his best not to be overwhelmed by melancholy. There's still strength in those dispirited legs. But in spring the strength is stolen away. They float up, as if they've been turned into butterflies or birds. They seem anxious, don't they?

  "Invited by a warm, gentle wind, the soul becomes a dandelion blossom that suddenly turns into cotton and blows away. It's the feeling of fading into death after seeing paradise with your own eyes. Knowing its pleasure, you also understand that heaven is heartless, vulnerable, unreliable, sad.

  "And when you cry out, is it because of sadness? Or is it just another indulgence?

  "I feel as though I'm being sliced into pieces, as if my chest is being torn to shreds. It's neither painful nor prickling, more like a peach blossom in the sunlight, scattered to pieces, placid, serene, beautiful, and at the same time sad, as unreliable as a sky with no clouds or a green field turned into a sandy plain, like a previous existence, like what's before your eyes, like wanting to say what's in your heart but not being able to, something frustrating, regrettable, disturbing, irritating, more like being pulled into the earth than being lifted into the air. And that's why I had to lie down."

  A serene look suddenly came to her face, like the sun shining brightly after a rainstorm.

  "It bothers you when I talk this way, doesn't it? You still hold it against me because I said I felt ill after I saw you. Oh! Is something wrong?"

  Staring vacantly into the air, listening without moving an inch of his body, the wanderer saw a violent rush of red and white swirling in the dazzling light of spring.

  "I'm not feeling so well myself." He put one of his palms to his eyes.

  "Why don't you lie down?"

  "Maybe I will."

  "Were you dreaming about something?" She spoke without thinking, then wondered if she had been too forward.

  "If you took a nap feeling like this," he said. "I wonder what kind of a dream you'd have?"

  "I'd see you."

  "You'd what?"

  "Like this. I'd see us just as we are."

  "No. You'd dream of that man you love, the one you wanted to meet but couldn't."

  "Yes, the one who looks like you."

  "No, no."

  They looked at each other, then threw down the freshly plucked grass they discovered in their hands.

  "It's very quiet here. I suppose you're fond of this tranquility." They could hear small birds constantly chirping in the pines on the mountainside.

  29

  "You know this place, Kashiwabara," the wanderer said. "It reminds me of a monster looking toward the sea. These foothills stretching down toward the water are like a mouth trying to gulp down heaven and earth, with rice paddies and wheat fields stuck in its molars. Look, out there in the valley, there's not a shadow anywhere. Those cloudlike shapes are nothing but wisps of mist. A serene landscape, all in all, but I think there's something disagreeable about it."

  The woman trembled and said happily, "So you're feeling ill, too. I guess you didn't mind my story."

  "Why should I?" He laughed.

  Seeming a bit more relaxed, he looked back at the two-story house and the road that ran in front of it. The thatched roofs of the village and the leaves of the trees mixed with the crimson camellia blossoms. The rape field barely showed. It was cut off on one edge where it abutted the rice-seedling paddies. It stretched along the green of the foothills, turned a turgid ashen color, and continued until suddenly clipped on both sides by the mountain. Toward the far end of Kashiwabara, at a place where a low bank of mist seemed to be welling from the ground, was the station with its eerie echoes of flutes and drums. The wanderer stared vacantly in that direction.

  "Over there," she said. "I heard the voice coming from that direction."

  "What voice?"

  "I was lying in bed, tossing and turning. I was feeling impatient, irritated, vexed, wretched. My whole body was tingling, and my bon were melting. And then the rain began to fall. It seemed to start over there, pounding on the eaves as it passed. I heard it in my sleep.

  "I was listening to the festival music coming from the station, and maybe that's why. Look, even now it's still raining on the crowd over there. That's the only spot, where that mist is.

  "The storyteller's voice came from that direction, with the rain, falling through the air. 'Yes, yes, yes. Listen up, everyone. Once again, your favorite "Life in Tokyo, Scenes of the City Vendors." The place is Kanda. Yes. In front of a wealthy merchant's shop. At the first light of dawn, the shop clerk is sweeping the street as a vendor passes by. “Natto! Natto!” he calls.'

  "He had a thick, low, rattly voice. It was awful.

  " 'Someone gave me a drink, and my voice is no good today,' he said. 'Please, help me out.'

  "It was a disgusting sound, lingering like the tail of a falling star. "I shuddered as I lay in bed, drawing my knees to my chest. And then I heard it again. 'Yes, yes.' This time a little closer.

  "Eventually the man came right to our neighborhood, flitting like a plover from house to house, always saying the same thing, always begging for money. The warm, sticky rain seemed to be following him, going over there, coming over here, gradually walking this way.

  "Tokyo, natto, the merchant's shop, the clerk sweeping in front of the gate, all those things made me think of my past, of my parents and the place where I grew up. My body started to boil. Unable to bear any more, I bit the collar of my gown. I held myself in my own arms and fell into a trance. Finally, just as the rain started, the voice stopped in front of our house.

  " 'Yes, yes, yes,' he repeated. 'Listen up, everyone. Once again, your favorite "Life in Tokyo, Scenes of the City Vendors." The place is Kanda. Yes. In front of a wealthy merchant's shop. At the first light of dawn, the shop clerk is sweeping the street as a vendor passes by. "Natto, natto!" Yes. Someone gave me a drink, and my voice is no good today. Please, help me out.'

  "He said exactly the same thing, in exactly the same way. By the time he reached my gate, I had heard him say his lines thirteen times, no more and no less."

  30

  "The maid didn't go out right away.

  " 'Yes. Someone gave me a drink, and my voice is no good today. Please, help me out.'

  "He coughed. It was disgusting.

  " 'Help me. Someone gave me too much to drink, and I can't get my wind back. Help me. Please.'

  "It was as though he were talking directly to me.

  "When he said 'Please help me out,' he sounded so shameless. I could imagine him spitting all over everything.

  "I heard the jingling of coins and the maid getting ready to go out.

  " `Mitsu? Mitsu?' I called to her. I had her come upstairs, where I was still in bed. 'What are you doing?' I asked. Even to me my voice sounded sharp.

  " 'It's a minstrel.'

  " 'A traveling performer?'

  "'Yes.'

  "I could tell she was surprised. 'Don't give him any money. If he's a performer, let him perform. Tell him that. Jibe can't tell his stories, then he should call himself the beggar that he really is. Why should he drink until he can't do his job? He has no right provoking us with such arr
ogance.'

  "I was filled with anger. My blood was boiling.

  "I heard Mitsu's feet quietly descending the stairs.

  "It turned out that he heard every word I said. I have a high voice, and he was standing right outside.

  "'What?' I heard him say in a challenging tone.

  "I sat up in bed. I could hear the maid explaining to him that I was sick. And then I heard him ridiculing me. 'If she's sick, why doesn't she just drop dead? If she wants to get better, why doesn't she get better? What's all this whining?'

  "I could just see his red face. I could see him snarling. Yes, that's just how it made me feel. 'All right, then. I will die. I'm not afraid of dying.' I stood up and walked feebly away from my bed. I fell to the floor and crawled toward the stairs. Just as I grabbed the balustrade, the rain started falling dark and heavy. I cried. The voice disappeared. Did he go off somewhere? The rain stopped, and the bright sunlight showed again. Then I saw him standing barefooted, with a child strapped to his back. He was about forty, stoutly built, reminding me of the red ogres you see in paintings. That's the image that came to me just now as I was telling you about him.

  "I thought of falling back into bed. But then I thought that if I went to sleep I might lose my mind, and so I came wandering out into the sunshine. Maybe I'm crazy, telling all these things to a stranger." She stared at the wanderer as if she had feelings for him. She had lovely eyes.

  "Tell me. Do you really think there's such a thing as life after death?"

  He didn't answer.

  "It wouldn't matter if it were heaven or hell. If the person you love is there, you'd go as quickly as you could." She plucked at the horsetail grass, one section at a time, entranced. "There's no way to know for sure. But it's too horrible to think that everything just ends when you die. If that's the way it is, it's probably better to live in agony, to be troubled and to waste away, never forgetting until the very end." She bit on the horsetails in her hand.

  Amid the green of the embankment, both her skirt, thrown over the man's knees, and her sash became darker in hue. She spoke suddenly, now in a brash, flirtatious tone. "Stop that! What are you doing?"

  She caught the wanderer, unable to answer her question about the afterlife, in the act of retrieving her notebook. It had an olive cover and a pink-ribbon binding, and was lying where it had fallen on the grass.

  31

  "Don't look at that! Give it back!"

  She grabbed the edge of the notebook, but then drew her hand back. She turned straight ahead and faced the wheat field.

  Sitting beneath the blue sky, he assumed a defiant posture, deter-mined to change the subject. "You write poetry?"

  She only laughed.

  "You draw?" She laughed again.

  "I'd really like to take a look."

  She had let go of the notebook, but her shoulder was still pressed against his. "Should I show you?"

  He laughed innocently as the notebook fluttered open in his lap. The pages were like butterfly wings in his fingers. And there, written in pencil, was—

  His face suddenly went pale.

  They were written large and small, dark and light, all in confusion. Some were half-drawn, others misshapen, others trembling, some abandoned. He saw nothing but triangles, squares, and circles.

  "What do you think? The people around here think I'm quite an artist. I come out to this embankment and this is what I do. Better than just sitting here, pretending I'm guarding the valley. My sketches are well regarded, you know. I was even thinking of bringing some brushes and art supplies out and setting up shop right here in the grass. Don't you think they're good?

  "This triangle is a mountain, this square a rice paddy, and this circle the ocean. You can think of them that way. Or maybe the triangle is a doll of a young woman or a samurai dressed in a kimono, the square a body, and the circle a face.

  "Or maybe it's something beneath the surface of the waves. If you ask the artist what she thinks these figures are, she'll say she doesn't know. And then you can make an arrogant face. Or else you can worship them as the posthumous name of the deceased."

  The wanderer finally spoke up. "Posthumous name? What is it? Tell me the name!"

  "Master Triangle, Round Round, Lord of the Square.

  As she said this, she turned over and pressed her chest to the embankment, spreading her dyed sleeves over the grass, the skirts of her silk kimono trailing down to her calves. One leg was smoothly swimming as she raked the notebook toward her and started writing the three shapes one after another, as if jotting down a secret.

  But then came the sound of drums to let them know they were in longer alone. Showing here and there in rich flashes of color, like a camellia blossom ablaze as it falls, spilling from behind the thatched roofs, hiding within the leaves along the rape field road, emerging lightning-quick above the pure yellow of blossoms, two dancers appeared like cocks flying and dancing about the eaves of a thatched hut—two red heads, two dragon heads, one high and another low; one leading, another following, entangled, mad, scraping the flowers, brushing the trees, there by the rape field, then gradually coming to the edge of the green wheat that stretched out from where Tamawaki Mio and the wanderer sat, finally passing in front of the gate of the two-story house. Dragon dancers!

  They wore dirty yellow-green knickers. The dust kicked up by their muddy straw sandals seemed to float over the wheat field as they proceeded toward their destination. The drumming stopped as they quickly approached. They were itinerant dancers, the youngest about eight and the oldest about thirteen or fourteen. They cut across to the road leading to Kunoya, the red and white of peony blossoms showing brightly before the wanderer's eyes as the two quickly ran past.

  "Wait. Just a minute." The woman called out and pushed herself up. The lion dancers kicked her clogs and sent them flying as she sat over on her side in the grass.

  Both lions stopped and turned their heads toward her, their red hoods parted.

  "You boys. Wait there, just a minute."

  Ten, ten, ten. Again the small drum sounded. And then the big drum, ton. Coming alive to the sound, the lions began to shiver and dance. The small lion arched and bridged backward over the road. When he looked skyward, they could see his pale face—a round jaw, a well-shaped mouth, his double eyelids splashed with red.

  32

  "Oh, how marvelous! But don't get so twisted up on my account." She tried to settle them down, and eventually they came to a stop, their lions' heads towering in a heap. From beneath the red headpiece, a boy stood staring at her with round, pleasant eyes.

  The other lion trembled until the drums fell silent.

  The woman slid her knees over and pulled up her sash. She looked for her purse but found nothing.

  "Wait. I want to give you a little something."

  She quickly wrote a note in her book, ripped out the page, then handed it to the older boy. "Here. Take this over to that house on the corner. The one with two stories."

  It looked as though she were writing a check.

  The wanderer reached into the bosom of his kimono. "I have some change here," he said, but he was much too late.

  "No. That's all right. Young man, go on. Go and get your money." He held the stick for his drum in one hand. With the other he slowly reached out, then quickly grabbed the piece of paper. He gave her a bow and started off.

  "And you. Come here."

  The smaller of the two boys stepped forward.

  He had a blank expression on his face, like a doll that had swallowed a stick. He only stared at her.

  "How old are you?"

  "Eight."

  "Don't you have a mother?"

  "Lion dancers don't have mothers."

  "Even if you don't know about her, she may know about you." Her white hand pulled him toward her. He fell back into her arms, his sandals rising toward the sky

  "See." She seemed calm as she looked back at the wanderer. "This boy could be my own child."

  Suddenly
the lion slipped out of her arms, twisting upside down, shaking its body, and then standing tall as if nothing had happened.

  "Look at this!" The bigger lion rushed back. "Look! We're rich!" He bowed twice, hit his partner on the back, and struck his drum again. Ten.

  "You don't have to do that."

  The tail of the smaller lion settled to the ground as the boy inside the costume stared face to face with the other, who was still clutching the large piece of silver in his hand. Both of them were dumbfounded, their mouths agape like red lacquered trays, their eyes flashing.

  "But I do have a message I want you to take for me. Wait just a second."

  She immediately took up her pencil and wrote something in the margin of one of the pages of the triangles, squares, and circles. Her writing was like undulating water in the springtime. The wanderer saw what she wrote.

  Should I have the chance

  to see you again,

  I'd search the four seas

  diving deep as the sea tangle.

  He stared out at the ocean and its calm waves. Rising above the horizon, layered above the green wheat and the deep blue of the sea, was a mountain of snow. The reflection of Mount Fuji broke apart in the waves that lapped and thinly covered the sandy beach. The gables of a Western-style villa towered high in the sky. Two or three doves spread their wings and took to the air, loosely fluttering like a handkerchief.

  She folded the message tightly and handed it to the younger dancer who, nodding his round face, seemed to understand. But suddenly he started off toward the two-story house, seeming to think he was supposed to deliver the message there.

  "No. Not that way." She called to him. She smiled. "I just want you to take it with you. I'm not really sending it anywhere. If you drop it, that's fine. And if you lose it, that's all right too. It's a matter of emotion."

  "You mean you just want him to take it?" the older lion asked. Receiving her nod, he showed a knowing face and plucked off the lion's mask from the younger boy, who looked up warily with surprise. "Put it in there so you don't lose it."