The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by Неизвестный

—Well, for her, she did what she could . . .

  When the onlookers had finished exchanging views, they seemed to have decided that there was nothing more to do but to let matters take their course. Some went over and sat down on benches; some headed toward the pond. They moved away in groups of three and four in the most casual of manners. For a few moments I, too, began to feel at ease, as if a great burden had been removed from my shoulders, but when I glanced toward the new earthen hill that the woman had left behind, my thoughts turned to the alteration that would take place in the corpse beneath the ground, and I felt ill. Perhaps if this were a place I didn’t frequent I wouldn’t have felt so concerned about it. But unfortunately this park is very close to where I live, and I look up at this grove of trees almost every day, and sometimes I even have to walk through here. I was sure that each time I passed by I would think about the corpse’s transformation, and I would continue to worry about when the body would be discovered, just as if I had buried the corpse there myself. The longer it lay undiscovered, the less conspicuous the mound of earth would become, soon becoming indistinguishable from any other location, and it’s not unimaginable that I might thoughtlessly plant my foot right into the center of the spot. The feeling of that decomposed corpse beneath the earth being crushed!

  I felt suddenly nauseated, and I had to ask a person beside me:

  —But, doesn’t someone have to report this to the police? We know right where this spot is . . .

  The woman turned to me with a vacant expression as though she had not understood what I was asking.

  —There’ll be problems if we don’t notify the police right away. Since we all saw what happened, surely we can’t just do nothing!

  —Why not? She gaped at me and asked in a soft voice.

  —Well, for starters, there’s a dead person over there. . . .

  —It’s all right. We can leave things as they are. We all saw it, didn’t we? That’s enough. We’re not the ones who will discover the body. Someone else will do that. Listen, somebody is sure to find it and notify the police, and the police will do all sorts of investigating. We don’t have to go out of our way to do anything. Time no longer has any meaning for the dead, for one thing. See? That’s how it is.

  She flashed a smile and walked away.

  So that’s how it is. Recalling the scene I had witnessed, I felt as though I could now accept what had happened.

  One night I took my two children to see flying squirrels in the forest. It had been a hot day in midsummer. Someone had told me that if you went to that forest at night, you’d have no trouble seeing the squirrels flying from tree to tree in search of food. The location was about two hours from where we lived in Tokyo. We decided to set out right away. That was the summer four years ago, the last summer my younger child spent in this world.

  For a long while I had wanted to see in person, with my own eyes, the wild squirrels darting through the skies in a nighttime forest. I had watched them in a zoo, but you really can’t say you’ve seen a flying squirrel if all you’ve seen is some of them curled up asleep. Since I knew only life in the city, the thought of squirrels gliding through the air seemed almost mystical to me. But I wonder whether I would have actually felt like going to see them had it not been for my son, the younger of my two children. From the time he first became aware of the world around him, his fascination with unusual living things—loaches and goldfish of every type, green caterpillars, spiders, earthworms, water beetles, water scorpions, and other aquatic creatures, along with frogs and newts, lizards, and snakes— merely intensified with the passage of time. His curiosity wasn’t limited to insects and animals: he was mesmerized by plants with peculiar ecologies such as cacti, spherical lake-jewels, and carnivorous plants. He became engrossed in learning about the universe, about human and animal anatomy, about the atom—about, ultimately, anything and everything that was strange and mysterious.

  Once I realized his inclination toward such things, it was natural for me as his mother to notice and point out to him things that would delight him, whether I saw them on television or as I walked along the street. If the item wasn’t particularly expensive, I’d end up buying it for him. And his reaction never disappointed me: he would always come flying, eyes flashing, to see what I had gotten him. I was certain he’d be thrilled by seeing the flying squirrels glide through the trees. My heart leaped when I heard about them, and I knew I had to let my son see them.

  He was eight years old. As he grew he showed some real promise, and I wanted to provide him with a variety of useful experiences. We went camping and set off on a ten-day vacation—all in all a very active summer. When I told him about the flying squirrels, without a moment’s hesitation he made up his mind that he wanted to go see them. My daughter, four years older than her brother, announced she would go with us (“If he’s going, I’m going too!”), less out of interest in the squirrels than driven by a sense of competition with him.

  If we left Tokyo on an express bus around three in the afternoon, we would arrive at our destination no later than six. As we ate dinner there, we would wait for darkness to envelop the forest. Evidently the squirrels emerge from their nests and do their most vigorous flying for about an hour, starting around 7:30. I was surprised to learn that the squirrels do not build their dwellings hidden away deep in the heart of the forest. With the trees in the forests today being used as a source of wood, virtually all the hundred-year-old trees have disappeared. But flying squirrels live only in the hollows of older trees. Several trees of at least one hundred or two hundred years in age can always be found within the precincts of a Shinto shrine located in an inhabited area. Realizing that, the squirrels had settled into the groves of trees surrounding the shrines, and at night they set out for the mountain forests that were their native domain. Because their gliding operates on the same principle as that of a parachute, they are limited in the distance they can fly. They leap from a high point on one tree to a lower point on the next tree; then they climb that tree and leap from its highest point toward another tree. The goal of these squirrels is to continue this process until they reach the mountains, but since the distance between the shrines and the mountains is covered with both fields and highways, at certain points they are forced to scramble across the unfamiliar ground just like moles. In the process, some are attacked by dogs; others run over by automobiles. That’s the situation into which the flying squirrels have been driven in modern times, we were told.

  In the local villages, primarily at the schools, action was taken to protect the squirrels. They even set up an organization to encourage as many people as possible to come and observe the squirrels, during which time they could explain their present plight and solicit funds. It was a local person involved in such activities who helped us pick the day and time and gave us directions to the shrine in the grove where the flying squirrels could be seen.

  As the express bus finally approached our destination, the mountain forests visible through the window had caught the light of the setting sun and had begun to divide into segments that glittered almost blindingly and segments that were sinking into dark shadows. My emotions seemed to be pulled deeply into those shadows, and when I realized that I was not starting home with my children, but in fact had not even arrived at our destination, I was struck by the irrational fear that I had thoughtlessly dragged my children into a frightening situation. The mountains—really, just gently rolling hills—could no longer be seen. The bus continued through the flat country landscape, which was rimmed with a succession of meager farm plots at the base of the hills and nothing at all worth seeing. Fortunately my son, who always suffered from motion sickness, slept through the entire ride thanks to the medicine I had given him.

  After we climbed off the bus, we got into a taxi and proceeded to a school near the shrine. Already more than a dozen people like us had gathered to see the squirrels. Boxed dinners were handed out to each of us who had ordered them, since we were told there were no restaurants or
inns nearby. After we ate, we looked at the school’s exhibits of the moles and field mice that inhabit the area. Then, in a tiered classroom we listened to a lecture about the flying squirrels, complete with maps and slides. The group of spectators was made up mostly of children who had come with their middle-school class, families, and elderly people with plenty of time on their hands. They all listened with unexpected composure to the school-like lecture, and a few of them even took notes. My children, perhaps fascinated to be in a classroom after dark, sat rigidly and paid close attention to what was said.

  After the lecture, T-shirts, books, postcards, and bookmarks were sold to support efforts to protect the squirrels. My children, believing that one was expected to buy such things, hounded me until I bought something for them: for my daughter, a T-shirt, and for my son, a book on frogs—which had nothing to do with squirrels!

  A little after 7:30, we finally set out for the forest. They told us we were free to use flashlights along the way, but that they absolutely had to be turned off when they gave the signal. Flying squirrels are very cautious, and if they have even the slightest indication that humans are lurking nearby, they refuse to come out of the tree hollows. The squirrels did not, however, respond to red light, and so a couple of them were brought along with us. We were asked not to make loud noises and to be very quiet when speaking.

  All it took was the walk along the path to the shrine for me to be terrified by the intensity of the darkness. My sixth-grade daughter walked casually ahead of me, so I didn’t worry about her, but I clutched the hand of my second-grade son more tightly than necessary and kept whispering insistently to him: “Don’t let go! If you run off by yourself, it’s so dark here that once you’ve wandered away you’ll never find your way back!” “If you aren’t careful, you’ll fall in the river!”

  I am continually haunted by the fear of becoming separated from my children and never seeing them again for as long as I live. Having lost sight of my husband around the time my son was born, I had to get a job, and often I had to leave my children with others. Perhaps that was the source of some of my fears. What if I were involved in some kind of accident right at the time I was supposed to pick up my children and didn’t show up on time? What if something unexpected happened to their sitter and she disappeared somewhere with them? Suppose we were headed for the busy downtown area of the city, or off to some friend’s house, or starting on a trip—what if we were separated from one another in an eddy of strangers in some unfamiliar place? I could never free myself from the fear that my children might wander endlessly inside a maze with no exit.

  It will happen someday. There’s no way you can avoid such a calamity. That murmuring voice has echoed without ceasing somewhere inside my body from the moment I became a mother. It has now been four years since my son, on the eve of his graduation from second grade, was suddenly snatched away from me by an unexplained death. My immediate thought was There— what you’ve always dreaded has finally happened! But I couldn’t link that thought to the unfathomable phenomenon called “death,” and I am never for a moment free from suffering over the sensation that he is simply “missing.” Even now, four years after it happened, I’m fine in the light of day, but after I fall asleep at night, I remain in constant dread of the possibility that I might someday, somewhere, be separated from my two children.

  The sign was given, and in unison we turned off our flashlights. In their place, the red lights were switched on. Whispering voices passed along the reminder that we needed to avoid making any noises.

  Shrinking back from the deepening blackness, I abruptly hugged my son to me and whispered, “Where’s your sister? When she’s not right here next to me, I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Shhhhh! We can’t talk! She’s right over there, so don’t worry!” he answered in a subdued voice.

  The group silently collected at a spot behind the shrine where we had been told we would have a clear view of the tree hollows where the squirrels live. Two small spotting scopes and some binoculars were provided for us.

  Our guide directed the red lights toward the grove of trees within the shrine precincts. Evidently the squirrels’ nests were in more than one location. He shined the two lights back and forth and then quickly waved the onlookers over and whispered: “Look, you can see the eyes of the squirrels shining red. If you look closely you’ll see. You can see two red points of light right next to each other.” His words were passed along to those standing in a spot a little separated from us.

  “Where?” “That tree right in the middle, apparently.” “There’s two of them!” “Two? Ah, I see them!” “You can see some over there, too!” “Oh, they’ve gone back into their nests!” The time we had waited for with anticipation had finally arrived, and every member of the group was excited. Jostling against one another, we tried to pick out the red points of light in the darkness.

  I was equally anxious, and I asked a person who happened to be standing next to me, “Where do you see them? Which tree?” She indicated with her finger. When I finally located the glittering lights, I quickly pointed them out to my son. Wondering where my daughter was, I glanced around. Someone beside her had shown them to her.

  “Wow! They’re really flashing!” In his excitement, my son spoke at normal volume. Immediately he gave me a look that said he had realized his blunder, and he shrugged his shoulders. Then, in a deliberate whisper he asked, “So, why are their eyes like that?”

  “Probably because they’re reflecting the light that’s shining at them. Their eyes seem to shine with the same intensity as the light that’s directed toward them.”

  “Why do they look like they’re shining?”

  “I wonder. . . . Maybe it’s because they’re creatures of the night. But it really is strange, isn’t it? I wonder why they glimmer like that.”

  They were tiny red dots of light, literally no larger than a pinhole. If you didn’t use binoculars, you couldn’t even tell that there were two of those dots side by side. Because of the darkness it was difficult to determine how far we were standing from the squirrels, but I imagine it must have been a considerable distance. The points of light were so tiny you normally couldn’t even see them, but once you did catch sight of them, it was surprising how intense the light really was. Even knowing that they merely reflected the light shone on them from without, a person couldn’t help but be captivated by the almost dazzling glimmer of those tiny red lights. That tiny, red, unapproachable, all-too-brilliant glimmer.

  When they informed us that the squirrels had started to emerge from their nests, everyone pushed and shoved and peered into the scopes and binoculars to help one another identify the creatures scrambling from their nests and climbing up the tree trunks. Initially we were able to pick them out as well. We were told that nearly thirty of them were living in this forest. So long as the winds and rain were not severe, every day about half the squirrels would watch for the darkness of night to settle in and then set out together for the mountains.

  Once all the squirrels had emerged from their nests, we hurriedly shifted to a location on the opposite side of the shrine. We were told that the squirrels, who had climbed to the very top of the old hollow trees, would at last begin to fly. The bank of a stream flowing along the opposite side of the grove was the best place to observe the gliding of the squirrels. The guide made his way around the group, excitedly whispering to the onlookers, “They’ll start flying from right up around there. Yes, right up there. It happens very quickly, so watch carefully!” A young man who appeared to be his assistant directed the red lights toward the upper branches of the old trees, which seemed to be the starting point for the gliding.

  I passed the guide’s words along to my son: “He says it’s right up there. And that they move very quickly, so you’ve got to watch carefully!” Eagerly we waited for the squirrels to start flying. At some time along the way, my daughter had come back beside me. We were now farther from the grove than we had been earlier. The clu
mp of old trees created a black wall up into the heights of the sky. I couldn’t determine just where or how the bodies of those tiny creatures would glide across those dark shadows. I stared at the spot where the red lights were shining until I was seized by a light-headed, drowsy feeling and an infantile sense of loneliness mounted within me.

  “Look! They’re flying! They’re flying!” someone called, and even though every subsequent cry came in suppressed tones, the entire group was in a frenzied state. “There went one! I saw it!” the voices kept repeating, and cries of wonder and even laughter sprang up here and there. And the excitement continued: “There’s another one! Now one over there!” Apparently any number of them were launching into flight, one after another. But I still hadn’t seen a single one gliding through the sky. Each time a cry sounded, I would quickly shift my eyes toward the indicated spot, but whether I couldn’t make out the figures or whether I had looked too late, I couldn’t locate any movement whatsoever. I had no idea what sort of movement I should be watching for. If there were just something tangible to rely on, no matter how tiny, it would be easier to get a glimpse of the gliding shadows, but I couldn’t even imagine what to look for, so I just let my eyes float aimlessly around the blackness of the forest.

  “Wow! That one was huge. Huge!”

  Yet another cry. Just as the voice erupted, I had the feeling that something had glided past my eyes, but when I strained to see if that might have been it, I could no longer see anything.

  Excited voices were exchanged just to my side: “That one really flew really far!” “I saw it. Very clearly.”

  “Did you see that one?” I asked my son, whose hand I still clutched.

  “I did. I saw it! It went whooshing by. Did you see it, Mom?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But there’s so many of them. How could you not see them? I’ve seen a whole lot of them!”

  “Really?”