by Kansuke Naka
One day, I was looking at the river, clutching the wooden fence while my aunt held my sash from behind. White birds were going back and forth, fishing. The way they flew silently about, gracefully fluttering their long, soft-looking wings, seemed a sight specially arranged for a weak child so susceptible to pain. I was uncommonly elated. But, unfortunately, a woman peddler carrying eggs and wheat cookies on her back came by for a rest, so, as always, I at once clung to my aunt’s back. The woman put down her burden, took off the towel from her head, and, as she wiped her neck with it, chatted pleasantries so cleverly that she managed to charm even a coward like me. By the time I had made the timid decision to get down again from my aunt’s back, she was opening a box filled with alluring wheat cookies. Picking up a particularly fragrant one shaped like an elongated gold coin and, twirling it at the tips of her fingers, she placed it on my palm, cooing, “Good boy, good boy.”
My aunt could do nothing but pay for it. Even today, when I see a woman peddler wearily take down from her shoulders a basket pasted over with tanned paper and begin to show me white, reddish eggs half buried in husks and wheat cookies whose fragrance pleasantly assails my nose, I feel the urge to buy all that the poor woman has. The fox shrine has been renovated into a more presentable state and draws many more people today, yet the same willow that was there then still streams in the cool wind.
6
On days when she did not take me to the fox shrine, my aunt would take me to the Field of the Jail, putting enough money for offerings and admissions in her grubby wallet. This was where the famous Tenma-chō Jail11 used to be—but now there were various sideshows. Also, small merchants would set up rows of booths selling horned turbans cooked in their own shells, popped beans, orange water,12 and, in season, corn, roast chestnuts, and pasania nuts. At the entrance to a makeshift playhouse with a red-and-white striped curtain around it, a man sitting cross-legged holding wooden clappers and tabs for wooden clogs would occasionally cup his hands around his mouth and call out, “Hōban! Hōban!” Another man would hold a chicken right under the snout of a chained wild dog from time to time just to make it squawk. A suspicious-looking kappa13 with a plate on his head splashed about in a pool of water. Deroren sermon-givers14 just blew on the conch and jangled metal sticks, at times reciting, “Deroren! Deroren!” These were utterly uninteresting to me, but my aunt liked them and took me to see them often.
Once, a rare thing, a puppet theater was playing, with the billboard picture showing someone looking like the princess I’d seen in picture books dancing with a drum on a grass hill covered with cherry blossoms in full bloom. Elated, I got to go inside, but immediately there was a horrible clanking noise and a creature, face and limbs all red, with his sleeves tucked up with a twisted sash, jumped out, shocking me into tears. Later I was told it was meant to be Tadanobu the Fox of The Thousand Cherry Trees.15
One of my favorite shows was a wrestling match between ostrich and man. A man with a twisted headband and in body armor of the kind used in fencing would prance out like a challenging bird, and the ostrich, annoyed, would kick at him. Sometimes the ostrich would be wrestled to the ground, his neck held down; sometimes the man, kicked about, would run away, crying, “You got me! You got me!” Once, when the latter had just happened, the man whose turn was next was eating from his lunchbox in a corner when the ostrich, now lingering nearby with his human opponent gone, sneaked up and suddenly lunged out to snatch the whole lunchbox. The way the man jumped away in consternation was funny and the spectators burst out laughing. But my aunt shed tears.
“The ostrich is starving but can’t even get his own meal,” she said. “I’m so sorry for him.”
7
For me to be born in the midst of Kanda was as inappropriate as for a kappa to be hatched in a desert. All the children in the neighborhood were brats training up to be Kandaites. Not only would they not play with a wimp like me, but they never missed a chance to torment me. In particular, the son of the tabi16 dealer across the street would, if my aunt wasn’t very careful, suddenly materialize from behind me, slap me on the cheek, and run away. I was so frightened, I grew afraid of going outside.
When I stayed inside, my aunt would put me up to the high window facing the street, make me clutch the grille, and holding me in that position from behind, tell me the names of the things that came into view—the horse, the cart, and so forth. One of the chickens belonging to the rice dealer across the street was crippled, having once been run over by a cart. Whenever she saw it out on the street, with one leg always tucked up, wing and tail feathers tattered and dusty, my aunt never failed to say, “Poor chicken!” so that I gradually came to dislike seeing it.
Usually I played in a very gloomy three-mat room where the Buddhist altar was. At night it became my bedroom, but sometimes my older sisters worked in it. My two sisters, twelve or thirteen at the time, were grammar school pupils, and I still remember how they used to produce black books from their Western-style envelope-shaped bags, spread them out on the old wooden desks, and practice writing. One of the desks was about three feet wide with two drawers that had brush handles, coiled in paper, stuck into the holes of its two missing knobs. The other one, with shallow drawers, was so small that it could barely accommodate a child’s folded legs underneath. These desks, handed down from my brother to these sisters, went on to be handed down from them to me, and then from me to my younger sister, for decades.
If my aunt stood me on the smaller desk to look out the window facing the garden, I could see big azalea bushes growing close to the black fence. On summer days, they swelled with fabulous red flowers and, though in the midst of the town, they enjoyed the occasional visit of butterflies who came to have a meal of honey. The way the butterflies fluttered their wings as if in a great hurry was entrancing to watch. At such times, my aunt would pop her head round from behind my shoulder and say that the black butterfly was the grandpa of the mountain house and the white ones and yellow ones were all princesses. In fact, the princesses were lovely, but the Old Man of the Mountain House looked scary as he flew about, flapping his big coal-black wings.17
Also, my aunt would take out for me various toys from a basket with a lid that was meticulously covered with pages from children’s books. Of the many toys I had, I loved most a clay dog painted black that we had picked up from the ditch in front of the house. His face had a suggestion of gentleness that I liked. Aunt called him Divine Dog, made a shrine from an empty box and other things, installed him in it, and offered prayers. I also treasured the clumsy Rouge Ox.18 In fact, these two were the only good friends I had in the whole world.
8
Besides these toys, we had all sorts of weapons such as swords, halberds, bows, and guns. My aunt would turn me into a perfect warrior by equipping me with things like a lacquered helmet and an armor-piercing dagger. Then she’d put on a headband tied at the back and pick up a halberd herself. We’d then each deploy ourselves to either end of the long corridor to engage in mock battle. Now ready, we approached each other slowly, warily. The moment we came face to face at the center of the corridor, I’d call out,
“Are you Shiōten?”
To which the enemy would respond:
“Are you Kiyomasa?”
Then the two in unison:
“Splendid we now meet!”
Then simultaneously we made clattering sound effects with our voices, “Yā, takatakatakataka!” jabbing and slashing at each other, the outcome of the fight undecided for a while. This was a scene in the Yamazaki Battle, and I was Katō Kiyomasa, my aunt Shiōten, Governor of Tajima. In time, we’d throw away our weapons and grapple. After some spectacular fighting, Shiōten would see that Kiyomasa was tired, mutter an indignant “Darn!” and fall. I would then proudly sit astride her back, pressing her down. Profusely perspiring, she played Shiōten to the hilt.
“Don’t take me prisoner!” she begged. “Cut off my head!”
So Kiyomasa would draw his short-sword and try to sa
w through her wrinkled neck, Shiōten grimacing as she bore it. The fight would end when she closed her eyes, pretending to expire, her body, all strength gone, turning into a rubbery mass. But on rainy days I would insist on repeating the same thing seven or eight times until Shiōten could hardly stand from exhaustion.19 My aunt nonetheless kept it up, even while whimpering, “Can’t do anything about it! Can’t do anything about it!” until I became bored with the game and offered to quit. At times, too exhausted, my aunt couldn’t get up for a while after she was beheaded. When that happened, I’d fear she might have really died and would gently shake her.
9
During the Myōjin Festival,20 our neighborhood, because of what it was, would become awfully boisterous, the young men of the town making the rounds of houses, decorating the eaves with red and white paper flowers and hanging lanterns marked with tomoe21 or the circle of the sun. I was happy that the eaves of my house were also decorated with flowers, with lanterns hanging. On days such as these some stores would cover the floor with a carpet and set up the Shijinken.22 Two gaudy heads were reverently placed on a platform along with a large divine sake bottle offered to them in which forlornly stood a rolled dedicatory sheet23 shaped like a sharply cut bamboo. The golden lion had glaring silver eyes and was crowned with a jewel ball,24 while the scarlet komainu25 had glittering golden eyes with a wild mane. My aunt, exercising the same skill that she used in making the Divine Dog and the Rouge Ox my friends, made the lion and the komainu friendly to me too, and I didn’t burst into tears despite their scary faces.
KANDA MATSURI: KANDA FESTIVAL
Young males of the town, from youths to children who could barely walk, all in yukata uniform, headbands stylishly tied around their heads, sleeves tucked up smartly with a saffron-colored hemp cord—I love those hemp cords adorned with bells and tumblers—wearing no footwear except white tabi and showing off their bulging calves, strutted about, each waving the largest mandō26 he could manage. Candle flames flickered both in the lanterns under the eaves and in the mandō lights that flew about through the town. From the tips of the top-heavy mandō, dyed red and white, hung ample clusters of votive paper. It was pleasing to see them sharply twirled about in the air. At each strategic point of the town a group of adults and children gathered around their barrel mikoshi27 to work out fighting tactics.
LANTERN WITH TOMOE DESIGN
My aunt, who was fond of all such things, once took me out as well, after tucking my sleeves up and fitting me with a headband to look like everyone else. With my red flannel pants showing under the tucked up hems of my kimono and my long sleeves tied up with a cord, I was carried on her back, holding a small mandō. Unfortunately, one of the brats who had clustered around their Barrel King spotted me and suddenly threw a couple of stones at me.
“Damn!” he shouted. “He’s on a woman’s back and holding a mandō!”
My aunt was struck with fear.
“Please be nice to him, he’s a sickly child!” she cried out, and tried to hurry away. But a couple of kids scrambled up to us, grabbed my legs, and tried to pull me down. At once I, clinging to my aunt’s neck, burst out crying as if torched. Almost strangled, trying to remove my hands that were tightening around her throat, my aunt eventually managed to get back home. When she regained her breath, she noticed that I had lost the mandō she’d gotten me, as well as my wooden clogs—the clogs that I’d treasured, for I could tie them to my feet with pale-blue cords.
10
I was so sickly, I seldom stayed away from a doctor for long. Happily, though, Mr. Tōkei of the powdered rhinoceros horn soon died and I began to be cared for by Mr. Takasaka, the “Western doctor.” The rash Mr. Tōkei had tried so hard to reduce was beautifully washed away with a Western medicine and I was cured in no time. Despite his fearful face, Mr. Takasaka was very good at charming a child. I had developed an acute distaste for Mr. Tōkei’s electuary, but it was with joy that I took to the sweetened liquid medicine the new doctor offered. In time, Mr. Takasaka suggested that, for my mother’s health and mine, we move to some place in the Yamanote where there was fresh air. Luckily, because my father had finished most of his work with his lord and had time on his hands, he transferred his duties to someone else and decided to move to the Koishikawa heights.
When at last the day for moving arrived, everyone kept telling me again and again that we would never return to that house. But I was fascinated by all the hubbub made by the people we’d known who came to help. Also, I was happy to share a cart with my aunt in the procession, and I cheerfully prattled on. After a while, the road gradually became less crowded and eventually, after climbing a long clay slope—until then I didn’t know what a slope was—we arrived at an old house surrounded by a cedar hedge, which was to be our new residence.
11
In the new neighborhood everyone lived quietly in old houses with cedar hedges encircling them. Most of them were gentry who had lived there for generations, since the former shogunate period. These were people whose status had declined as society changed but who had escaped the misery of falling to a hand-to-mouth existence and led modest but peaceful lives. In this rural district where there weren’t many houses, neighbors not only recognized one another, but knew as well how someone’s house looked inside. They were that friendly.
Inside the cedar hedges, which were left ragged and untended, there were always vacant lots where fruit trees grew, and the spaces between houses were cultivated either for vegetables or tea, making good playgrounds for children and birds. The vegetable gardens, hedges, and tea plants were all new and delightful to me. The house we moved into was to be only temporary, until a new one was built in a spacious adjacent lot. By the dark, gloomy foyer there grew a “yielding-leaf” tree,28 whose leaves and red leafstalks I very much liked. Sometimes I would take a slippery leaf from the tree and place it on my lips or cheek. The day after we moved in, someone caught a cicada and gave it to me in a bird cage that happened to be lying around. I had never seen or heard a cicada before and was curious, but whenever I drew near it, it turned violent and made such a jarring noise that I caught a fright.
Every morning I was awakened very early and made to walk barefoot in the grassy lot. For me it was a big job just to memorize the names of the plants growing there, such as shepherd’s purse and galingales. My grandmother, then nearly eighty, walked in the dew with me, leaning on her cane, wearing a satin cowl on her hairless head. One morning she buried three choice chestnut seeds in the mound along the backyard fence and said that by the time her grandchildren grew up, they would be able to enjoy the chestnuts. After she died, we called them Grandmother’s Chestnut Trees and took very good care of them. They have now grown into magnificent trees, and in autumn we shake down several basketfuls of chestnuts and peel them for our own children.
Soon the construction began. On my aunt’s back I went, though somewhat scared, to see the horses and bulls that had brought the lumber and were now tied to the fence. The horses breathed rods of steam out of their large nostrils as they bit off leaves from the cedar, while the bulls vomited up something with a belch and munched and munched on it. I preferred the placid round-faced bulls that kept licking their slimy muzzles to the restive, long-faced horses. In the workplace, chisels, adzes, and broad axes made all kinds of noises, exciting even a depressed, sickly child. Among the artisans, Sada-san was a gentle-hearted soul. Whenever I stood beside him, mesmerized by the shavings that smoothly rolled out of his plane before falling to the ground, he would pick up the beautiful ones for me. If you put the shavings of cedar and cypress, as red as blood, into your mouth and sucked on them, you got a taste that made you feel as if your tongue and cheeks were being squeezed. Also, it was delightful to scoop up a puffy mass of sawdust with both hands and spill it, letting it tickle the fingers.
Sada-san always stayed on after the others left. Then he would clap his hands to offer prayers to the moon. I liked hanging around the work site to watch him do this, but his co-work
ers nicknamed him “Oddball” and used to swear that he would die young.
Then I would look around the worksite after it had been neatly cleaned up, with broom marks, and where now, in contrast to the bustle and din of the day, the evening mist was quietly beginning to settle. Reluctantly I allowed myself to be called back in, to wait for the morrow. I was intoxicated with the fragrance of the wood and felt refreshed as I watched with wonder the new residence growing more complete day by day.
12
Neighboring us to the south, separated by a patch of tea shrubs, was a Zen temple called Shōrin-ji.29 Because it had large precincts, and perhaps because my devout aunt felt more at home in a temple, she took me there from time to time. Along both sides of the path from the gate to the entrance of the main hall, which was about forty yards long and paved with two rows of stones, there grew tea shrubs that were untended, with cedar and other trees rising up here and there. I often asked my aunt to pick me a tea blossom. The blossoms, not being well attached to the branch, would fall to the ground, many of them all at once, when one was picked. After rain, every tea shrub contained a great many raindrops, sparkling. There is nothing remarkable about a tea blossom itself, yet it has a suggestion of loneliness that is appropriate for childhood memories. The roundish white petals generously enclose yellow stamens, and it blooms in the shade of roundish dark-green leaves. I made a habit of covering my nose with one and smelling it.
To the left, by a well, there was a magnolia tree that, when it bloomed, filled the air with a sweet scent. The squeak of the well’s pulley carried over the quiet tea shrubs to my house. On the huge screen placed in the foyer of the main hall there were peacocks painted in brilliant colors. Next to the male bird who was perched up on something, with his tail drooping like a straw raincoat, the somewhat smaller female bird stooped in a pecking position. Around the various wildly blooming peonies surrounding them frolicked several butterflies.
