A Dark Night's Passing

by Naoya Shiga

  Here he discovered that wagtails were little birds that literally ran when on the ground. They were not like crows, say, that would alternately walk and hop.

  Everything he saw here fascinated him. There was a little shrub growing in the woods by the chapel. In the middle of each leaf was a tiny fruit like a red bean. The leaf was like the upturned palm of a man’s hand, gently proffering the precious fruit. It was, Kensaku thought, a gesture full of reverence.

  As he looked back at his own past, so much of which seemed to have been wasted on worthless dealings with this person and that, he felt that a whole new world had now opened up for him.

  Far above him a kite flew with proud audacity under the blue sky. How ugly was man’s creation, the airplane, compared to it. Three or four years ago, when he was so absorbed in his own work, he had praised man’s tenacity of purpose, man’s conquest of the sky and of the sea. But since then, his attitude had changed completely. Now he wondered if nature had ever intended that man should fly like birds or go down into the sea like fish. Would not such limitless ambition lead man to some kind of misfortune? Would he not in time be severely punished for his overweening confidence in his own intelligence?

  He had praised man’s limitless ambition in the belief that it was an expression of his unconscious desire to save his own species somehow from the certain destruction that awaited his planet. And in those days, he had no alternative but to interpret all that he saw and heard around him—all the struggling and the scrambling—as manifestations of this unconscious will. After all, that was the only way he could understand his own dissatisfied, desperate attitude toward his work.

  He felt very differently now. True, he was still tied to his work; it still was capable of upsetting him. But his present state of mind was such that if he were told that man would be destroyed together with his planet, he would gladly have accepted that fate. Though he knew nothing about Buddhism, such realms believed in by Buddhists as “nirvana” and “the realm of bliss” seemed irresistibly attractive to him.

  He read a little at a time passages from Sayings of Lin-chi, which Nobuyuki had given him. He did not understand very well what he read, but it gave him solace all the same. Lives of Eminent Priests, which he had picked up in Tottori, was a rather conventional, popular work, but he could not help crying as he read the account of Eshin’s visit to Kūya and the dialogue between them.

  “If we reject this mundane world, and desire with all our hearts the Pure Land, then surely rebirth cannot be denied us.” They were simple words, but when Kensaku read them he wanted to join Eshin in prayer.

  So long as the weather was good he would spend two or three hours of the day on the steps of Amida’s Chapel. In the evening he often went down to the riverbed. He would pick up a stone the size of an orange and throw it as hard as he could at a large stone some distance away. It would make a hard, clean sound as it hit the target, and if thrown just right, it would ricochet and hit another stone, and then another. When the throw was thus successful he would promptly return to the temple, unreasonably pleased. There were days, however, when success eluded him no matter how many stones he threw, and he would leave the riverbed in a state of acute exasperation.

  He was generally satisfied with the living conditions in Daisen. But one thing almost defeated him, and this was the food he was given at the temple. Though he had come prepared to eat frugally—had he not rejected Naoko’s offer to send him food parcels?—he had not imagined that rice could be quite so bad anywhere. He had never been fussy about rice, but what he got at the temple even he found unbearable. Grimly and uncomplainingly he tried to eat it, which meant that he did not eat enough; and he began to suspect that he was growing weaker as a result.

  The priest’s wife was a nice person, and tried to take good care of Kensaku. One thing she made which Kensaku did like, and this was pickled wild asparagus. It was just as well, for she was rather proud of it.

  Their married daughter, now living in Tottori, was staying there with her baby. She was a pretty girl, no more than seventeen or eighteen. She didn’t make a habit of coming to his apartment, but she would often stand outside the window and talk to him. “I’m hardly more than a baby myself,” she once said, laughing, “and here I am, with another baby.” Kensaku guessed that she was merely repeating what someone had said to her. She seemed to do little but wander about with the baby, while her mother single-handedly did all the chores. Kensaku had no opinion of her one way or the other. It did strike him as interesting, however, that she should so often come to his window to talk. No doubt, he concluded, marriage had freed her from all fear of men. And this supposition led him to wonder if Naoko would have made that mistake if she had not been a married woman, if she had still been a virgin.

  One day the priest’s wife came to him with a letter she had just received. It was from a group of forty or so tourists who wanted to spend a night at the temple. “What am I to do?” she asked.

  Not knowing what would be entailed in putting up such a group, the best he could do was to ask, “Can you feed them?”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  “Why don’t you say yes, then? Not that I could be of any help, of course.”

  The woman pondered uncertainly for a while, then decided she would take on the group. “I wish Oyoshi was more helpful,” she muttered as though to herself.

  “But she has the baby to take care of,” Kensaku said. “Why don’t you get Také to help you instead?”

  Také was a young roofer from one of the villages below, now engaged in replacing the shingles on the roof over the purification fountain in Daisen Shrine. It was a formidable task for one man, for not only was the roof heavily shingled, but he himself had to make the shingles from the trees that had been cut down in the nearby woods. He was given food and lodging at the temple, and that was all he would accept in return for his labors. Kensaku took a liking to this man, and he would often go to where he was working and talk to him.

  Kensaku was made to write a reply to the group of tourists on the woman’s behalf.

  One afternoon a couple of days later, as he was sitting at his desk doing nothing in particular, the woman came running up the stone steps from the path below, crying, “They’re here! They’re here!”

  What a momentous occasion she’s making of it, he thought amusedly; surely she must have received many such groups before. But of course her husband, who would presumably have helped her, was absent, and to have to take care of so many people by herself was indeed an immense responsibility. After lunch she had gone out several times to the top of the path to see if the group was approaching. And now she had seen these tourists, all forty of them, crossing the riverbed one after the other. It must have been an extremely anxious moment for her.

  With the arrival of the group the temple suddenly became noisy. Kensaku would have liked to help, but seeing that there was little he could do, he went out for a walk.

  He returned to the temple at dusk. When at last dinner was ready, it was the daughter, carrying her baby, who brought it in.

  “Don’t bother to stay,” Kensaku said. “I can serve myself.”

  “Oh, no, I’ll serve. I have nothing better to do.” She then laughed and said, “You’ll have to let me sleep beside you tonight, by the way.”

  Kensaku was at a loss for an answer. She presumably didn’t mean “beside” literally, he told himself; she must be intending to sleep in the front hall. But supposing there was a shortage of mosquito nets—which was not unlikely, considering the number of people staying at the temple that night—would she not perhaps want to come under his?

  He went to bed as usual, as though he expected no intrusion. And sure enough, the daughter never appeared. This, of course, was not surprising. But he did wonder why she was inspired to make such an odd suggestion.

  15

  That night Kensaku had a dream.

  The grounds of the shrine were packed with people. Pushed by the crowd behind him he was
going up a long flight of shallow stone steps. Far away, at the top of the steps, stood the main shrine, built on a grand scale and very new. There, some kind of ceremony was taking place. He wanted to get near so that he could see it properly, but was prevented from doing so by the crowd in front of him.

  A separate walk, waist-high and made of wooden planks laid over logs tied together, stretched from the top to the bottom of the steps. When the ceremony was over, the divine medium was to come down this walk.

  There was sudden excitement around him. The ceremony was over. A young woman in a white ceremonial dress—she was the divine medium—appeared at the top of the walk, then quickly began her descent, followed by five or six attendants. Kensaku, who was still being pushed helplessly and slowly up the steps by the crowd, felt at that moment an overwhelming desire to break free and rush up to her.

  Hurriedly yet nonchalantly, as though the murmuring crowd were not there, she came down the walk. She was Oyoshi, just returned from Tottori. Kensaku was not sure whether he had or had not known the identity of the divine medium; at any rate, her face was as always expressionless and not very intelligent, but as always beautiful. What he particularly approved of was that the adulation now being showered on her seemed not to affect her vanity. And it never occurred to him to think that there was anything untoward in her being a divine medium. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, no one could have excelled her in that role.

  Oyoshi almost ran past him; as she did so, the long sleeve of her dress caressed the top of his head, and at that moment, he experienced a strange ecstasy. Yet in the midst of his ecstasy he was still able to make the detached comment: “This is why everyone in the crowd imagines she’s divine.”

  He awakened from his dream. What an odd dream, he thought. Obviously, the crowd he dreamed about had been occasioned by the arrival that day of the group of tourists. But what was the nature of that strange ecstasy? It must have had an element of sexuality in it, he decided, though as far as he could tell, he had not been aware of its presence while dreaming. The realization made him slightly uncomfortable; for he had imagined that in his present state of mind, such things had lost their immediacy.

  He went back to sleep. When he awakened the next morning he could hear the sound of raindrops coming down on the eaves. He got up and opened the storm windows. There was a thick mist outside, the color of grey. Only a little of the large cedar in front was visible, and that merely a vague, inky outline. He could smell the mist as it poured into the room. It felt cold against the skin, and pleasantly refreshing. What he had imagined to be rain was in fact the mist turned into water trickling down the thatched roof. It was very still, this misty morning in the mountains. A cock was crowing somewhere in the distance. And over in the rectory people seemed to be already up. He picked up a hand towel and a toothbrush and went outside. As he strolled about brushing his teeth, Oyoshi came out of the rectory, carrying a shovel piled high with burning charcoal. “I slept in the temple last night,” she said. “It was miserable. They were all so noisy, the baby couldn’t go to sleep.”

  “I could hear a little of the commotion, but it didn’t bother me particularly.”

  “I came over to your apartment thinking I might spend the night there, but you were sound asleep, and I didn’t want to disturb you.” This was not the Oyoshi he had dreamed about. “I dreamed about you last night,” he said. “You were a divine medium.”

  “What in the world is that? Are there really such people?”

  “Have you ever heard of that old woman—I forget her name—who started the Tenri sect? Well, you were something like her. Of course, you were much younger. It would seem that I was one of your devout followers.”

  “Really?” she said, drawing her neck in and giving a giggle. She was silent for a while, not quite sure what she should say next. “Také’s father was a Tenri believer, you know,” she said finally. “He was ruined because of that.”

  “I see. Is Také the only one in his family that comes here to worship, then?”

  “His family were always members of the congregation here until his father’s time. And when his father went bankrupt, I suppose Také got fed up with the new religion and came back to the temple.”

  “Mind you,” Kensaku said, “he has a touch of the Tenri zealot, doing all that work on the roof for nothing.”

  “But he’s a really admirable person, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, he seems so. He does work hard.”

  “Even in his village, he’s regarded as someone special.”

  “He seems rather mature for his age, I must say. Not exactly frivolous, is he?”

  “He’s suffered a lot.”

  “Suffered?”

  “His father was ruined when he was still a child. That was bad enough, but more recently he has had troubles of the sort he can’t talk about.”

  “Is that so? By the way, has he been helping your mother since yesterday?”

  “No. Apparently mother didn’t ask him.”

  Later, while serving Kensaku breakfast, Oyoshi told him about Také’s “troubles.” Také had a wife three years older than himself, who had not yet given him a child. She was a slut, and had always had lovers—not only before but after her marriage to Také. He was her husband only in name. He was merely one of many men whom she favored with her graces. He had known what she was like when he married her; but this did not make his pain any more bearable. Others told him to leave her; and though there were times when he thought he would, he never did in the end. He was a weakling, he would tell himself. No doubt he was, but his dilemma was simply that he could not bring himself to hate her.

  Unpleasant incidents occurred continually. They arose out of so-called triangles, but, alas, they were not even “triangles” that included him. What he could not bear was not so much his wife’s loose ways as having to watch the endless, mean complications that she caused between her rival lovers. Yet he made no attempt to leave her.

  “You won’t believe the sort of things that go on in that household,” Oyoshi said. “She would be entertaining one of her men in the living room, while Také would be in the kitchen, either cooking or doing the laundry. I hear that sometimes she sends him out to get saké for herself and her guest. He’s been seen, you know, rushing back to the house with a bottle of saké.”

  “Well, he’s different, I’ll say that for him. If such treatment doesn’t make him angry, he’s either very saintly or a pervert of some kind. The latter, I should think.”

  He pictured in his mind the man he knew, vainly searching for some aspect of his visage or personality that suggested such abnormality. But as he thought more about it, Také’s condition seemed not so appallingly strange after all. He asked Oyoshi, “What does Také himself say about the whole business?”

  “He does occasionally grumble to my mother, I gather.”

  “I see.”

  “I suppose he has pretty well decided to accept his lot.”

  “But can he really?”

  “Well, his wife has always been like that. But however resigned he may be, they live in a small place, and there’s a lot of gossip. He’s come away to the mountains partly to escape that, apparently.”

  “I can see now that he has the look of a man who’s had a hard time, but I would never have imagined that his life was as you described it to me. You’ve seen him at work, haven’t you? He’s always singing, I’ve noticed. He looks so carefree, I’ve often felt quite envious.”

  “Oh, but there are times when he looks rather downcast.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But who would have guessed by looking at him that his home life was like that?”

  Oyoshi burst out laughing. “Are you saying that you should be able to recognize a cuckold by just looking at his face?”

  Kensaku laughed too. “You’re absolutely right. But tell me, what would you say about me by just looking at my face? Would you say that something of the kind had happened to me?”

  Oyoshi
dismissed the question with another burst of laughter. Just then a fearful thought crossed Kensaku’s mind: would Kaname, learning of Kensaku’s absence, again visit his house in Kinugasamura? No, he hastily and firmly told himself, Naoko would never make the same mistake again. Yet in that act of reassuring himself, there was an element of wishful thinking; in his determination to trust her, there was still a vestige of doubt left somewhere in his heart.

  That she would never steal—this he could believe wholeheartedly. He thought he believed too that she would never be unfaithful; but here, his belief was not firm enough to eliminate all doubt. Was it because he thought that women, being passive, were ultimately defenseless? Or was it because of his own particular circumstances that he could not rid himself of doubt? He did not know. At any rate, he tried very hard to believe in her, to convince himself that Naoko could never do such a thing again.

  But what of Kaname? Perhaps he regretted what he had done. But he was a young bachelor, an easy prey to temptation. Supposing he discovered that Kensaku had gone away, might he not find the opportunity irresistible, however good his earlier intentions were, and wander back to the house for another attempt at seduction? If only Oei were more reliable in such matters, if only she had a little more sense and were more watchful by nature, if only she were less gullible. No question about it, she could be quite trying sometimes.

  16

  He had told Naoko not to expect any letters from him, and to assume that if he did not write, it was because he was all right. So far, then, there had been no communication between them. Naoko for her part could not have written to him, for she did not know his address. But now, after having heard Také’s story from Oyoshi, he found himself suddenly wanting to write to her. The desire came from his realization that it would be cruel to let her go on remembering him as he was when he left, and that not to reassure her would only do them both harm.