A Dark Night's Passing

by Naoya Shiga

  In the narrow street a crowd of children were noisily playing a game that might have been “prisoner’s base.” They were so absorbed in it that they would not move aside for the rickshaw. Picking up a thin piece of bamboo which happened to be lying on the ground, the old rickshaw man began tapping lightly the heads of those children nearest to him. “Doddery old fool!” shouted the children as they grudgingly stepped aside. “Idiot!” Ignoring their insults and still grinning, he continued to tap whatever child’s head came within reach.

  They came out into a street that was about fifty yards wide. The houses that lined either side had low eaves, and this made the street seem even wider and lighter. In front of half the houses on one side of it were bamboo poles laid across three-legged stands; hanging from these poles were countless numbers of long strips of some white stuff. They were gourd shavings, the rickshaw man told Kensaku.

  “But aren’t they very broad for gourd shavings?”

  “That’s because they aren’t dry yet.”

  “Are they a local specialty?”

  “Not really.”

  Conversing with Kensaku in this pleasant, easy fashion, the old man pulled the rickshaw at a varied pace, sometimes jogging, sometimes walking. There was a farmhouse at the end of the road, seven miles out of town. Here the old man left his rickshaw; then strapping Kensaku’s suitcase to his back, he proceeded to go up a steep, narrow path that led off the road. Kensaku tucked up the skirt of his hemp kimono, and went up after him.

  Spread out before them at the top was a large, open field, skirting the foot of the mountain. Kensaku stood there for a time appreciating the view. Until recently, the rickshaw man said, the army used it as a grazing ground for their horses; did Kensaku know that Daisen was famous for its horses?

  Unhurriedly, the two made their way up the narrow path across the gently sloping field.

  13

  Wild flowers bloomed in abundance all around them. There were gentian, wild pinks, agueweed, yarrow, mountain iris, scabious, burnet, and various members of the chrysanthemum family whose names Kensaku did not know. Cows and horses grazing in the field would look up and stare at them as they went past. There were large pine trees here and there, and on their upper branches the cicadas were crying with all their might. The air was clear, and already they could feel the mountain coolness; yet because of the effort of climbing, they were warm. And when the distant sea behind them became visible, they would occasionally stop to rest.

  “Just one more lap to go,” the rickshaw man said.

  “The suitcase is heavier than you expected, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. Very heavy, in fact. What did you say you had in here—books?”

  “If it’s too much for you, we’ll take a few of them out at the tea-shop, and you can bring them up to me the next time you come this way.”

  “Don’t worry. Give me a good meal at the teashop at the fork, and I’ll be as good as new.”

  “Do you drink?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Have a drink there. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “All right, you can buy me a cup of sweet saké. How about you?”

  “No, I won’t have any. I haven’t much resistance to drink.”

  “But I’m sure you drink a little. Have a cup with me, and we’ll both have a nap for an hour or so afterward.”

  “I don’t know about a nap, but let’s have a good rest there anyway.”

  “It’s no more than a quarter of a mile from here. It used to be called ‘the lone house at the fork,’ and there isn’t another house for miles around. A notorious old man lived there years ago, and he used to rob travelers.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, when I was a young man. He broke into a temple in Daisen—Renjōin, it was—armed with a bamboo spear. He was caught, and I saw him being tortured outside the teashop. They gave him ‘the shrimp treatment,’ you know. That’s when you make a fellow sit on the ground on his knees, tie his legs up, then push his head down forward as far as it’ll go. I happened to pass the place—I was carrying ice down the mountain—when they were giving the old man this treatment. It was a terrible sight. Screaming and writhing he was, tossing his long, white hair about like a madman, and they kept screwing him down lower and lower. He really was like a shrimp, all bent up. It’s a terrible torture, don’t you think?”

  The rickshaw man then described in some detail the attempted burglary of the temple. As the masked burglar was threatening the rector with his spear, an acolyte who had a lot of sense rushed to the big temple bell and began striking it wildly. Only in cases of fire or some such mishap was the bell to be struck that way; and in response all the other temples nearby began sounding their bells similarly. This was in the middle of the night, and the sound of the bells echoed through the forests and the valleys, shattering the stillness. The moon was out, bright and low in the sky. A priest coming out of one of the temples saw in the distance an old man with dishevelled white hair running through the woods.

  “There are no bamboos on the mountain,” the rickshaw man said, “except for the bamboo grove in front of the ‘lone house.’ And when they searched it, they found a stump that fitted exactly the bamboo spear the burglar left behind. When they showed him that, even the obstinate old fellow didn’t have much to say. They found out later that he had committed many other crimes too. He was eventually executed in Yonago.”

  The teashop was a spacious bungalow with a low roof. There was a large rain tub under the eaves, filled to the brim with water. In front of it stood a woman of about sixty, washing a salted salmon.

  “What a hot day,” the rickshaw man said, unstrapping the suitcase and putting it down on the bench by the entrance.

  The large bungalow was divided in the middle by an unfloored passageway; to the left were the proprietor’s living quarters, and to the right was the room used to serve customers. In the middle of this room sat a white-haired old man of nearly eighty, with his knees drawn up and his arms hugging them. Before him in the distance lay the field at the foot of the mountain, and beyond, the inlet, then Yomigahama Point and Mihonoseki. Even the outer sea was within view. He sat still, gazing at this scene, apparently unaware of the arrival of the two customers.

  “A meal and a cup of saké for the rickshaw man,” said Kensaku to the old woman. “And I think I shall have some cider and cookies.”

  “Grandpa, grandpa,” called the old woman, keeping her wet hands away from her clothes. “My hands smell, so please serve this gentleman some cider and cookies.”

  Silently the old man stood up. He was tall, and reminded Kensaku of an old mountain tree shorn of its leaves by a storm. “Cookies and what?” he said.

  “It’s all right, grandpa,” said the rickshaw man, going toward the kitchen at the end of the passageway. “You get the cookies and I’ll get the cider.” He then called out from the back, “The bottles on this side are the cool ones, right?”

  The old man fetched a glass plate from the cupboard, then put on it a handful of coarse cookies which he extracted from an old petrol can. He walked up to Kensaku, and put the plate down in front of him. “Welcome,” he said with a quick bob of the head, then went back to his place in the middle of the room.

  “Will you eat this?” asked the old woman of the rickshaw man as she cut up the salmon.

  “I’d like that very much,” the rickshaw man replied, wiping the sweat off his chest.

  Kensaku, fanning himself and sipping the cider, gazed at the distant scene from behind the old man. He then looked at the back of the still head covered with a two-inch growth of white hair, and was much intrigued by the contrast between this serene old man and the other, lawless old man who had also lived in the house. He must have gazed at the same scene countless times before; yet here he was, still gazing at it without apparent boredom. What could he be thinking about? Surely not about the future; and in all probability not about the present either. Might he then be recalling the vari
ous incidents of his long life, incidents that took place long, long ago? No, Kensaku thought, he’s probably forgotten them. Rather, he was like an ancient tree in the mountains, he was like a moss-covered rock that had been placed there in front of the view. If he was thinking at all, he was thinking as an old tree or a rock would think. He seemed so tranquil, Kensaku envied him.

  Piled up in several layers against the wall to the left of the old man were straw sacks filled with rice. For some time Kensaku had been hearing scuffling sounds behind these sacks; and now suddenly a kitten appeared on top of them. Its ears pointing forward, the kitten was looking intently into the gap that it had just emerged from. Its body was still, but its tail moved busily, as though it had a life of its own. Then a fat paw reached out from the gap, and tapped at the kitten playfully.

  The rickshaw man approached Kensaku holding a cup of sweet saké that the old woman had just poured for him. “Why don’t you have a cup too?” he said.

  “I’ve never tasted sweet saké, and I don’t think I should try it now.”

  “I haven’t touched this cup, so why don’t you take a sip from it?”

  “Thanks, but I really don’t think I shall.”

  “All right. It’s the best thing to drink in the summer, I think.” The rickshaw man took a few sips of the coarse sake as he walked back to his table.

  “Were the kittens born here?” Kensaku asked.

  Acting as intermediary the rickshaw man repeated the question for the old woman’s benefit. “Were those kittens born here?”

  “That’s right. We were given the mother last year, and she had those two kittens.”

  “That was pretty quick, wasn’t it? Do you have a male cat too?”

  “No, we don’t, but she must have found a mate somewhere.”

  “Where would she have found a mate around here? There isn’t another house for miles around.”

  “She disappeared for over two days, so she could have gone quite a long way.”

  The old proprietor still sat quietly with his back turned toward them. He was like a piece of furniture that had been put there. The two kittens were playing with each other on top of the sacks. One missed its footing and fell to the floor. It got up quickly, looking stunned, then meowed pitifully. From somewhere the mother cat made her appearance, and began licking the kitten.

  A man in his thirties, wearing riding breeches and gaiters, came in. “Hullo,” he said, and sat down heavily and tiredly on the wooden border of the room, his legs spread apart, his hands resting on his thighs. “I went right up into the mountains looking for Yamada, but couldn’t find him. Has he passed by here today, granny?”

  “Who?”

  “Yamada.”

  “No, I haven’t seen him.”

  “I wonder if he’s gone to Mikuriya.”

  “What’s happened to the horse that broke his leg yesterday?”

  “It’s because of that horse that I’m looking for Yamada. Ah well, I’ll just have to shoot the horse and bury him.”

  “He’s Yamada’s horse, is he?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a terrible loss.”

  “By the way, what’s the fish today?”

  “Salted salmon. Would you like some?”

  “Salted salmon … I think I’ll have dried squid instead. Will you grill me some?”

  The old woman poured him some sake, then started grilling the squid. “I hear there were mosquitoes even up in the mountains this year.”

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Around here, we had to start putting up mosquito nets at the beginning of the month.”

  The mother cat, attracted by the smell of the dried squid, hovered about, making a nuisance of herself. Each time she brought her nose close to the squid slices which were on a plate beside the old woman, she would have her head smacked. With eyes narrowed, ears pulled back, she would withdraw, but only temporarily.

  Kensaku and the rickshaw man left the teashop soon afterward. They had not walked for more than half an hour when Kensaku was already thirsty again. Only a few yards more, the rickshaw man said, and they would come to a very nice stream. But all that they found when they got there was a dry, sandy bed, cracked by the sun. “There was heavy rain last night in Tottori,” said Kensaku ill-temperedly. “Didn’t it rain here at all?”

  The rickshaw man looked at him consolingly. Less than a mile away, he said, there was the gateway to a shrine, and there they would get cold water. “Where will you be staying?” he then asked. “Renjōin, the temple I mentioned earlier, has a separate apartment. You won’t have a view, but if it’s vacant, you might want it. You could do a lot of studying there, I think.”

  “I’ll make up my mind when I’ve seen it.”

  “Are you staying for long?”

  “I intend to, if I like it here.”

  “You wouldn’t want to stay after the summer was over, of course. When it gets to be autumn, you might as well go down to the hot springs below. There are lots of good spas around. There’ll be no sense in staying up here. The food’s so bad, you wouldn’t want to stay up here for very long anyway.”

  “Do they stick to a vegetarian diet at the temple?”

  “Oh, no, they’ll give you meat. They eat anything, those folks. The priest has a wife too. Worldly, that’s what he is. He spends most of his time buying and selling horses.”

  It was disillusioning for Kensaku to hear such things about Daisen, which was after all supposed to be second only to Mt. Hiei among the sacred places of the Tendai sect.

  Beside the large gateway with its paint peeling stood an inn; and here they were given cold water at last. The temple was yet another half mile, the rickshaw man said. Then in a whisper he asked, “How would you like to stay at this inn?” Kensaku shook his head in silence. Clearly the rickshaw man was beginning to succumb under the weight of the suitcase. He would pay him more than he had promised, Kensaku decided.

  He bought some cigarettes and postcards, then followed the rickshaw man out of the inn.

  They left the road that led up to Daisen Shrine and went down a path to the right. At the bottom they crossed a dry riverbed full of stones. The bed continued down between forests toward the foot of the mountain at a fairly sharp incline. Upstream it came into view between sheer cliffs. No wonder the cliffs were called “Jizō’s Cut,” Kensaku thought, for they did look as though some deity with superhuman power had split apart a huge rock.

  The two men went up a steep path on the other side of the riverbed through a dark forest. To the right stood Kongōin, and above it to the left stood Renjōin.

  They went into the unfloored entryway of the rectory. “Hullo!” the rickshaw man called out. An angular-faced woman, fortyish, came out. Eyeing Kensaku and the suitcase, she said, “Do you intend to stay a while?”

  Kensaku could see two men sitting by the fireplace inside. One was a youngish priest, dressed in a white summer kimono, and the other looked like a horse trader. They were talking loudly and drinking. “Yes, I should like to,” said Kensaku.

  Dubiously the woman turned around and said to the priest, “What do you think?”

  The priest came out to the front hall. His face was flushed with drink. “Welcome,” he said, giving a bow that somehow seemed to lack all spontaneity.

  “Will you be able to put me up?” asked Kensaku.

  “I won’t say I can’t, but my predecessor, who lives in Sakamoto in Gosha, has unfortunately fallen ill, and I’ve got to go there tomorrow. Besides, we’re rather shorthanded at the moment. But come in anyway. If we decide we can’t take care of you, we’ll introduce you to another temple.”

  Kensaku was shown to the annex. The living room with a study bay, the anteroom, and the front hall at right angles to it were all about four and a half mats in size. The annex had been built, the priest told Kensaku, by his predecessor’s predecessor as a retreat in his old age. Beneath the ceiling of the living room two long bamboo poles had been laid like rails
over the crossbeams; and resting on these poles were several plain paper screens. In the winter, when the drafts got severe, these would be brought down and put up around the room to form an inner enclosure. Kensaku found this small living room a little oppressive, but when he was told he could rent all three rooms he was well enough pleased.

  The rickshaw man spent the night at the temple, and departed the next morning.

  14

  For Kensaku, who had been thoroughly exhausted by the stress of his relationships with people in the last several years, his new life in the mountains was a sheer pleasure. In the woods a few hundred yards up from the temple was a little shrine called Amida’s Chapel. He went to it often. It was in a state of utter disrepair, though it had been declared a historic monument by the authorities. Vegetation grew wild around it, and the wooden porch was rotten. Yet its neglected condition made it all the more attractive to Kensaku. He would sit on the stone steps leading up to the porch and watch the scene around him. One day there was a large dragonfly that kept flying past, back and forth, about twenty yards in front of him. It flew in a straight line four or five feet above the ground, and when it reached a certain point it would turn around and fly back, again in a straight line. Everything about the creature was beautiful: its large eyes the color of green jade, its black and yellow stripes, the strong line of its body from the tight, thin waist to the end of its tail; and in particular its remarkably decisive movements. How much more dignified were this tiny creature’s movements, Kensaku thought, than those of some little men he had known—Mizutani, for example. He remembered how drawn he was to the double-scroll painting of the hawk and the golden pheasant in the Kyoto Museum two or three years ago, and thought that he had probably had the same feeling then.

  Once he saw two lizards playing. They would stand up on their hind legs, jump in the air, twine themselves around each other. As he watched their nimble, joyous play, he, too, became lighthearted.