Japanese Gothic Tales (2 page)
Read Japanese Gothic Tales Online
Authors: Kyoka Izumi
Part 2
Nine Years Earlier
The date is May fifth, and the azaleas are in full bloom. Takamine, a medical school student, and I are walking through the Koishikawa Botanical Garden. We wander arm in arm, in and among the fragrant grasses, viewing the wisteria that grows around the pond.
As we turn to climb a small hill covered with azaleas, a group of sightseers emerges from the opposite direction. In the lead is a man with a mustache, wearing a Western suit and a stovepipe hat. He is a coachman for a noble family. Three women follow, each carrying a parasol, and then comes a second coachman, dressed like the first. We can hear the smooth, crisp rustle of silk as they approach. Takamine's head turns and follows them as they pass by.
"Did you see that?" I ask.
"I did." Takamine nods.
We climb the hill to get a view of the azaleas. The flowers are beautiful and brilliant, but they are not so exquisite as the women we have just seen.
Two young men, probably merchants, are sitting on a nearby bench. We overhear their conversation.
"Kichi," one says to the other. "What a day we've had!"
"Every once in a while I'm glad I listen to you. We're lucky we didn't go to Asakusa."
"All three were so beautiful. Which was the plum blossom, and which the cherry?"
"The one has to be married, though, with her hair done like that." "Who cares how they wear their hair? They're beyond us anyway." "What about the young one? You'd think she'd wear something a little nicer."
"Maybe she doesn't want to attract attention. Did you see the one in the middle? She was the most beautiful of all."
"Do you remember what she was wearing?"
"Something lavender."
"That's all you can say? 'Something lavender'? You need to read more or something. It's unlike you not to notice."
"But I was dazed. I couldn't look up the entire time."
"So you just saw her from the waist down. Is that it?"
"Cleanse your filthy mind, you idiot! I had such a quick glance I couldn't see anything."
"Not even the way they moved? It was as if their feet didn't touch the ground. They drifted along in a mist. Now I know what's so special about the way a woman walks in a kimono. Those three were a breed apart. They were completely at home in elegant society. How could common trash ever try to imitate them?"
"Harsh words."
"Harsh but true. Remember how I made that pledge at the Konpira Shrine? I said I wasn't going to see any prostitutes for three years. Well, I've broken my promise. I still keep the charm to protect me, but I slip over to the brothels at night. Luckily, I haven't been punished yet. But now I see the light. What's the point of hanging out with those whores? They tempt you with their pretty red colors, but what are they really? Just trash! Squirming maggots!"
"Oh, come on."
"No. I'm serious. Think about it! They have hands. They stand on two legs. They dress in fine silk. They even carry parasols. Judging from that, you'd think they'd be real women, maybe even ladies. But compared to those three we saw today, what are they really? They're dirty, unspeakably filthy! It makes me sick to think you can still call them women."
"That's an awful thing to say, but maybe you have a point. I'm a fool for a pretty face myself. But after today I'm purged. I'm starting over. Never mind about just any woman."
"You'll spend your whole life looking. You think one of them would ever be interested in you? 'Oh, Genkichi, please.'
"Cut it out."
"Suppose one of them called you 'Darling'? What would you do?" "Probably run away."
"You, too?"
"You mean you'd—"
"I'd run, definitely."
Takamine and I look at each other for a while, neither of us speaking. "Shall we walk some more?" I finally suggest.
We both get up. When we have left the two young men behind, Takamine can no longer contain his emotions. "Did you see how those two men were moved by true beauty? Now that's a subject for your art. That's what you ought to study!"
Because I'm a painter, I am indeed moved. I see, far across the park, gliding through the shade of a large camphor tree, a flutter of lavender silk. Outside the park gates stands a large carriage, fitted with frosted glass windows and being drawn by two fine horses. Three coachmen are resting beside it.
For the next nine years, until the incident at the hospital, Takamine never said a word about her, not even to me. Given his ago and position in society, he could have married well. Yet he never did. If anything, he became even more strict in matters of personal conduct than he had been in his student days. But I have already said enough. Although their graves are in different places—one in the hills of Aoyama, one downtown in Yanaka—the countess and Doctor Takamine died together, one after the other, on the same day.
Religious thinkers of the world, I pose this question to you. Should these two lovers be found guilty and denied entrance into heaven?
One Day in Spring
(
Shunch
u
and
Shunchu
gokoku
, 1906)
Part One
"Who, me?"
The still of the spring day, no doubt, had made it possible for the reply to come so quickly, like an echo to the wanderer's "Excuse me, sir." How else could it be? The old man, wearing a loosely fitting headband on his wrinkled forehead, had a sleepy, almost drunken expression as he calmly worked the soft ground warmed by the sun. The damp and sweaty plum blossoms nearby, a flame ready to flutter away into the crimson sunset, swayed brilliantly with the chatter of small birds. Their voices sounded like conversation, but the old man, even in his rapturous trance, must have known that the sound of a human voice could only be calling for him.
Had he known the farmer would answer so promptly, the passerby might have thought twice about saying anything. After all, he was just out for a walk and could have decided the matter by dropping his stick on the road: if it fell north, toward Kamakura, he would tell the old man; and if it toppled south he would continue his walk without saying a word. Chances are the old man wouldn't hear him anyway,
and then he'd soon be on his way again. But he had to say something, even if it was none of his business.
"Who, me?"
Surprised by the prompt response, the wanderer stepped over to a low lattice fence and slowly stretched his back as he glanced behind him. There wasn't a blade of grass between him and the man. The three rows of earth the farmer had so industriously spaded gave forth a pleasing, joyful smell. And yet there was something lonely about the field, the clumps of milk vetch showing here and there, a
nd the green, dust-covered fava-
bean sprouts, severed from their roots and returned to the soil.
The wanderer put a hand to his tweed hunting cap. "Is that yours, the house on the corner?"
The old man turned slowly, his wizened face catching a full measure of sunlight. Against the shadowed plum blossoms, the roof tiles of the house across the way rose high into a midday sky that was baking the wheat fields with its brightness. "Which house?"
"The one with two stories."
"That's not mine." The answer seemed a little abrupt, but the farmer didn't seem as though he meant to cut him off The old man moved his shoulders, turned his hoe upside down, and set it down on the ground. Then he looked over at the passerby.
"Well, then, sorry to have bothered you," the wanderer said, ready to move on.
The old man pulled off his headband. "No trouble at all. Are you looking for something? The front gate's shut, but they're not renting if that's what you're asking." The old man hiked up the skirt of his kimono and tucked it and his neckerchief under his sash. He kept his fingers stuck there, making it look as though he didn't intend to let the wanderer get away easily.
"It's nothing so important."
"What's that?"
"I said, if that
was
your house, I was going to tell you something, and not because I'm looking for a place to rent either. I know it's not empty. I heard voices coming from inside."
"Two young ladies live there." The farmer nodded.
"Well, it's about those two. As I was walking past their house, by that stone wad along the gutter, I saw it crawling there—a long one."
1
The sun shone brightly on the old man's forehead as he knit his eye-brows. Without looking down, tie produced a tobacco pouch from his sleeve.
"You don't say."
"I've never been one for snakes, really." The wanderer laughed and tried to smile. "That's why I stopped and watched. It crawled halfway through the fence and flopped its tail right into the gutter. Then I'll be damned if it didn't stick its head right into the clapboards. I thought it might be headed for the bathing area, or maybe the kitchen. Anyway, I could hear voices, and I was afraid somebody might be in for a scare. A snake like that could easily squirm its way into a sitting room or pantry. No terrible thing, maybe. But what if it curled up on the floor somewhere and someone stumbled over it? I know, it's really none of my business. But then I saw you, and the house was right there. So I thought, well, if that's your place, I should say something. On the other hand, maybe you people don't think anything of a snake or two."
"Garden snake most likely." The old man opened his mouth to laugh, and the gentle rays of sunlight poured onto his tongue. "Wouldn't say it's nothing to worry about, though. Those people are from Tokyo and had quite a little scare just a while back. I'll go take a look. Most likely the snake's long gone by now, but I'm good friends with the girls who work in the kitchen."
"By all means. Sorry for the trouble, then."
"Not at all. The day's long. Not much else happening anyway."
By the time the two men parted, the snake seemed to have vanished like a dragon, beyond the limits of the common imagination. When the wanderer turned around he heard the noise of weavers at work, their shuttles sounding like the beating of chicken's wings. He followed the road along the fence, passing beneath some plum trees and by a few farmhouses where two women were working at their looms. One was eighteen or nineteen, and the other was about thirty.
He glimpsed the younger woman's profile through the half- opened shoji of her workroom. She wore a scarf on her head, and the whiteness of her arm flashed as she threw her shuttle. The older woman had spread a reed mat on the dry ground in front of the house and was sitting with her back to the road. She quickly lifted her feet from the pedal and her loom sang its gentle song—kin, kin,
That was all he saw as he passed by. It was a nostalgic sight, the kind one rarely sees anymore except in illustrations of nineteenth- century romances such as "The Women of Imagawa." He wanted to stop and look, but there was no one else around, not even children. They were probably out in the fields with everyone else. Thinking the women might be embarrassed by the sight of a stranger, especially a man, he decided to keep walking. He let the road take him back to where he had seen the snake and turned at the corner where the two- story house stood. To his left was a wheat field. It sloped down and opened toward the beach, where white: waves fluttered delicately upon the pale-green wheat, and a large, Western-style villa stood vividly against a cloudless sky. Considering how the people here branded foreigners "Blue Goblins" and "Red Goblins" because of the bright paint they put on their houses, a man like himself, though lacking the required beard, would also be considered one of the hat- wearing bourgeoisie.
If the villagers thought of Europeans as blue and red monsters, they no doubt thought of boat sails whenever a butterfly passed by. The area had long since opened its beaches to the modern pursuit of recreational swimming, but the mountains to the right were the same as before—pure black, like the wings of huge hawks piled on top of each other, the foothills stretching down from the peaks, one here and another there, encroaching on the fields of rice seedlings, squeezing the narrow valleys between them. Far up one of these valleys, where it dead-ended in darkness, he saw a simple thatched roof and a window that looked like the mountain's open eye, as if a giant toad had crawled up from the dawning sea and had made that his hiding place for the sunlit hours.