Japanese Gothic Tales (10 page)

27

"Well, there is someone, and we can't be together. But I stay awake nights thinking of him. I'm distracted because of him. I even wonder if I'm not losing my mind. And if I can't be with him, then what about someone who looks like him?
Suppose I heard that such a per
son had come from Tokyo, but that I hadn't had the chance to meet him yet. And then—how many years has it been? how many months?—I get a glimpse of someone who looks just like him. What would you think?"

She tried to pluck the tall horsetail that was casting a shadow near her hand. "That was a distressing moment for me. Afterward I had to lie down. I really don't know how to describe how I felt. But it was a bad feeling, as I told you. I don't know any other way to say it."

For a while, he said nothing. "So there is someone." He searched for a way to avoid the conversation.

"As if you didn
't know."

Now she had him!

"What?"

"I said, 'As if you didn't know.
’”

"Now look. You and I met just a minute ago. I don't even know your name. Why should I know anything about this man you're in love with?"

But from the poem—"In a nap at midday I met my beloved . . .
”
he did know the name Mio. And, yes, he did want to know more about "those things called dreams."

"How did you know I wasn't feeling well?" she asked.

"That farmer mentioned it. He said you were upstairs when he went to catch the snake, and that you weren't feeling well. But he didn't say anything about your getting sick after seeing me. Why should I know anything? He did say you wanted to thank me, and then I really didn't know what to do. You see, my problem is that I can't get home without passing through here. If I had known it was going to be like this I would have crawled into a hole somewhere so I wouldn't have to meet you. How was I supposed to know you saw me from your window?"

"There you go again. If you doubt me that much, then I'll have to spell it out for you. See this glorious grass? These trees? They have blood and passion. They're hot beneath the sun's red light, and the earth is warm like skin. The light penetrates the bamboo grove, and the blossoms a
re without shadows. They bloom
like fire, and when they flutter down onto the water, the stream becomes a red lacquered cup that slowly floats away. The ocean is blue wine, and the sky. . ."

She turned the white palm of her hand so it was facing upward.

"The sky is like a green oil. Viscous. No clouds, but still murky and full of dreams. The mountains are stuffed like velvet pillows. Here and there, the heat waves shimme
r like thick coils of smoke ris
ing fragrantly into the sleeves of a kimono. The larks are singing. In some faraway vale, the nightingale is calling, 'Isn't life a pleasure?' It has all it needs, and not a complaint to make. On a bright sunny afternoon like this, you close your eyes and right away you're drowsily dreaming. What do you think?"

"I don't know what I think." He looked away from the brightness of the spring day that her words had conjured. He focused on her. "What are you feeling?"

He didn't answer.

"Are you having fun?"

"Fun?"

"Are you filled with joy?"

"Joy?"

"Do you feel alive?"

"Do you?" he countered.

"No, I feel sick, just the way I did when I saw you for the first time."

The wanderer sighed and took back his walking stick. Grabbing it with both hands, he held it near his knees, as if punting in the sea of love. Then he folded his arms and found himself staring at her.

28

"It's almost impossible to tell you how this sunny spring day makes me feel. It's like talking about a dream. This quiet sadness. Can't you feel it? It's like seeing the most vivid part of a dream, don't you think? It reminds me of when I was two or three, riding on my nurse's back, looking at a festival swirling around me.

"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 expres
sion for times like this. I feel like I've turned into water, as though what's been melted of me will soon disappea
r, 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 th
ey're sad. Yet there are differ
ent 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 h
is 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 cotto
n and blows away. It's the feel
ing 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 sa
ndy plain, like a previous existe
nce, like what's before your eyes, like wanting to say what's in your heart but not being able to, somethin
g frustrating, regrettable, dis
turbing, 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.

2
9

"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 cu
t off on one edge where it abut
ted 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 mounta
in. Toward the far end of Kashi
wabara, 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! Natt
o
!” 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 war
m, sticky rain seemed to be fol
lowing 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 arrogance.'

"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?'