Japanese Gothic Tales (8 page)

20

"The music told him that if he could get past just one more clump of grass or one more stand of trees, he would be able to tell where the sounds were coming from. Two steps became three, five became ten. He advanced deeper and deeper into the woods, feeling that, having come this far, it would be a shame to go back. And somehow he also felt that the path ah
ead of him was brighter than the
one behind. He started to hurry, and the trail began getting steeper and steeper until he found himself climbing into the darkness, tugging at the grass, pulling himself up to a flat area on top of a hill. It seemed as though the place had been leveled for constr
uction; or maybe it was a grave
yard. It was too dark to tell. Where was the moon? Hidden behind the clouds? Fallen into the sea? In one direction was the path that had brought him here and in the other, a cliff, or maybe a valley. He couldn't tell. The entire area was co
vered with haze. Far in the dis
tance he saw color, as if someone had started a bonfire below. There was a spot of red deep in the valley; but from somewhere much closer came the sounds of pounding drums, whistling flutes, and shouting voices.

"What a lively procession! And yet it was impossible to say exactly where it was. Standing on the peak, the gentleman felt as
though he had reached the Mino-O
mi line, where the houses on either side are so close together that you can lie in bed and talk to someone across the border. He was prepared to witness a festival of some illusive kingdom where all emotions and customs and tales bore no resemblan
ce to anything he knew. It was f
ar too lively to be the evening before the main festival, so he thought that this must be the final night, even though the crowds had already peaked.

"As he stared into the darkness, his mind began to wander. There was something lonely about it all. He had come a long way. He was tired. But as soon as he thought of going back, the fire-brightened
haze seemed to move as if coaxed by a wind, rising from the bottom of the valley, its color gradually gaining strength along the foothills until the mist-hidden mountain across the way flared before his eyes.

"It was then that he made up his mind. Walking straight ahead over the leveled area, he looked down the side of the mountain.

"Goodness! There it was, stretching all the way back toward the village at the bottom of the valley, the lights gradually brighter down the hill, where they reached a vivid glow. The entire procession was headed straight toward the spot where he was standing!

"Between him on one side and the mountain on the other was another flat place, shaped like a winnowing basket. Without losing his step, he quietly descended the hill until he was standing on level ground. One side of the area led to
the road along which the proces
sion was fast approaching. Closer to the valley, eight tatami mats had been laid out on a spot that had been worn bare of grass and was stained dark with oil."

The priest paused and pushed the porcelain hibachi toward the veranda. Looking down, he put the edge of his hand to the tatami.

"Standing on that bare ground, the gentleman thought he could make out the shape of someone sitting there."

The priest shifted his legs and put his hand on his knee. Glancing outside, his visitor noticed that th
e clouds had rolled up the moun
tain
a
nd were almost touching the eaves of the hut.

"The dark figure reached out and waved a hand, inviting him to come closer. The gentleman slowly stepped forward and stopped when he was five or six yards away.
He observed the man, who, with
out looking up at him, reached over, took up the wooden clappers that were resting on the ground beside his knee,
and knocked them together.
Kachi, kac
hi
. The sound echoed loudly, making him clench his teeth. And then—"

"What?"

"A curtain opened. It was nothing but a dirty, torn piece of cotton sail."

"A curtain?"

"That's right. He could see it through the haze, stretched out on the hillside across the way. The man sitting on the ground pulled the rope that opened it. Or so it seemed.

"There was a tomb carved into the hillside, quite a large one apparently, the opening about two yards across. That's not unusual around here. Tombs are all over in these mountains. The farmers use them for storing pickles or for growing vegetables. Anyway, when the curtain opened, he could see a stage."

21

"That made sense, as he had noticed what looked like coins scattered among the leaves on the ground. With the curtain open, he could see the shallow cavity carved straight back into the hill. No decorations. No props. And then there was something about the stage that made him want to look away. He felt a chill run through his body. No one else was there except the other man. Still, he couldn't just turn and walk away, so he nestled his hand inside the bosom of his kimono and watched.

"
Kotsu, kotsu.
Again came the gloomy, wet sound of the clappers knocking against each other. As he
suspected, there was a rope run
ning from the man's hand to the cave. Against the hillside, to the left and right of the stage, were more curtains, two strands of white mist that drifted toward the opening, then disappeared like smoke curling up in a whirlwind.

"Next there appeared a number of crudely carved caves, like blackened windows or boxes, forty or fifty in number, all in a row, and each one containing the figure of a woman. Some were sitting, some were upright, others were posed informally with one knee to the ground. Some were wearing only crimson underslips. Some had blood on their faces. Still others looked as if they had been bound. He glanced at them once, and suddenl
y they disappeared into the dis
tance, becoming smaller and smaller until their faces were lilies blossoming in the valley.

"He shuddered. But before he
could run away, the wooden clap
pers sounded again—
kon, kon
.

"It was then, sir, that someone emerged from one of the compartments that trailed off into the valley. It was a tiny figure of a woman who walked toward him without making a sound. By the time she finally reached the stage, she had grown to regular height.
Actually quite tall, she looked back over her sloping shoulders and stared seductively at the gentleman
. What an exquisite sight! Tama
waki Mio."

22

"She wore a robe and a sash that was wrapped several times around her waist. Her bare feet were as white as frost, and she, still facing away, bent her knees, as if collapsing to the stage.

"Again the wooden clappers sounded.
Kan
.

"The gentleman stood transfixed. Then someone quickly stepped forward, brushing his back as he passed. It was a black shadow.

"'Is someone else here?' he thought. But how could it be? And yet the shadow staggered onto the stage and sat down, back to back, with the woman. When it looked his way, the wanderer saw his own face. It was he."

"It was who?"

"The gentleman himself. Later he told me, 'If that had really been me on that stage, I should have died there.' I remember how he sighed and turned pale.

"He couldn't stop looking. His flesh was leaping and his blood on fire. He saw himself twisting around and looking rapturously at Tamawaki Mio's back. He saw himself use the tip of his finger to trace a peak and then a line, making a triangle on her pale robe.

"The gentleman's heart was filled with ice, his body soaked with cold sweat. The woman, Tamawaki, kept her head bowed.

"Next, he drew a square. I mean, he watched himself draw a square. His finger touched her knee and began to tremble.

"Then he drew a circle, a round line on her back; and just as he was completing the figure, the wind gusted, sweeping the earth and gouging the sky. The torch light
down in the valley vanished com
pletely, leaving a bright, delicate pink. Was that the beach? Or the color of the ocean? As he stood looking, he heard the rustle of leaves and scattered coins swirling in the wind. He realized that four or five people were huddled together, sitting close behind him, and that they, too, had been watching.

"The color of the woman's face shone through her bangs, making her look all the more attractive. A smile formed on her lips as she leaned back, resting against his leg, using his knee for a pillow. Her black hair flowed down as she looked up, and the white of her bosom appeared. Under her weight, the man fell back, and the stage slipped down and down into the earth.

"When the gentleman came to, he was still standing in the same place. He heard a voice that sounded all the way from the tops of the mountains to the valley. Losing his senses, he started running back to the temple. When he finally returne
d, I was sleeping inside my mos
quito net. He embraced me and called out, 'Water, please!'

"His body was covered with cuts and drenched with dew. From that moment until daybreak, he confessed everything to me. The next day he slept straight through. In the afternoon, when Tamawaki's wife came to the temple with two of her young women, I did what I could to keep the gentleman from finding out she was here. Believe me, sir, it was hot, but I kept these doors shut tight.

"And that was when the poem appeared.

"For the next two or three days, the gentleman secluded himself, bound by his own terror, shut away from the world of delusion. I, of course, cared for him constantly. But when I took my eyes off him for one brief moment, he disappeared. A woodcutter came by just as it was getting dark. 'I just passed your visitor,' he said. 'Over there. By the Snake Cavern.'

"The Snake Cavern is on the other side of this mountain, two hills over. It's an ancient cave, filled with water. If you shout into the hole, it echoes back with a bottomless sound, stretching for twenty-five miles into the heart of the range. They say the water is connected with the ocean. But who really knows? The gentleman probably wanted to see a performance like the one he had seen a few nights before. We found his body in the ocean."

A storm came from the directio
n of the two-story house. It ap
proached only as sound, dressed in robes and traveling up the path, not even dampening the grass. It had obviously been lured out by the woman's ghost. With cloud-black hair and peach-colored robes, the storm came to the garden, accompanied by the butterflies that had been fluttering above the field of rape blossoms. Standing alongside the shimmering waves of heat, it peered in softly through the window.

Part Two

The rain soon stopped and left a misty brocade of butterflies and flowers on the velvet moss of the garden and mountainside. The fragrance of rape blossoms lingered ev
erywhere—in the hut, in the sit
ting room, on the sleeves of the priest and his visitor.

When the first rays of sunshine broke through, the priest offered to show the wanderer to the Snake Cavern on the other side of the mountain. But having heard the gentleman's story, the wanderer wasn't in the mood for walking the hills behind the temple. He'd pay his respects some other day, he thought, and finally took his leave.

He had no particular thoughts about the priest's story, neither judgments to make nor opinions to give. He had simply taken in all that had been said, filling his mind until his heart, too, had become full. Walking quietly alone, he felt the need to run the story through his mind again in an attempt to understand it. There was probably nothing to be suspicious about, as the story came from a priest; and he had no reason to doubt the man, even though the priest's parting words had seemed a bit abrupt: "See you."

He put the long flight of stone steps behind him and, seeing the two-story house ahead, let out a sigh. "In a nap at midday. . . ." He tried to mumble the lines of the poem, turning his head slightly to the side as he approached the house. His walking st
ick was getting in the way, so h
e tucked it under his arm, looking like a young kabuki actor who, after the curtain falls, makes an unhurried exit down the raised walkway. Though the sky had cleared and the sun was shining brightly, he walked very deliberately alongside the rape blossoms, not wanting to slip and fall.

"In a nap at midday, I met my beloved." He returned to the poem. "Then did I begin to believe in the things called dreams."

He raised his head slightly. An oak tree was growing horizontally from the cliff to his left. Looking at it from a distance, he saw that the leaves of the tree blotted out the bottom of the stone stairway. The hut would be just behind it and to the right.

He had just seen a dream, but then
-

What about dreams? he thought
. He felt as though he were see
ing one now. If you wake up and realize you were asleep, then you know you were dreaming. But if you never wake up, how could it be a dream? Didn't someone say that the only difference between the mad and the sane is the length of one's periods of insanity? Like waves that grow
wi
ld in a blowing
wind, everyone has times of mad
ness. But the wind soon calms, and the waves end in a soothing dance. If not, then we begin to lose our minds, we who ply the seas of this floating world. And on the day that we pray for repose yet find no reprieve from the winds, we become seasick. Becoming seasick, we quickly go mad.

How perilous!

We find ourselves in the same situation when our dreams don't stop. If we can wake up, it's a dream. If we can't, then it's our reality. And yet, if it is in our dreams that we meet the people we love, why wouldn't we dream as much as we could? If the world asks, `What's gotten into him?' The dreamer answers, `Here I am,' fluttering in tandem with another butterfly, enjoying his enlightenment. Judging from what the priest had said, the gentleman who had been living in the hut must have had complete faith in his dreams.

The wanderer was consumed by these thoughts as he continued yielding to the butterfly's enticements. As the thread of his life stretched out along the quiet field of rape, suddenly from the side came a snow-white arm, a crimson collar, a figure with toes bent back and arms stretched out, riding upon a black horse, flying through the blue sky, shooting past the brim of his cap aboard a great wave, da
nc
ing over the rainbow in one stride.

When his flight of fancy ended, he realized he had just passed the spot where he had earlier encountered the snake in the rape field, and also the small house where the two women were working at their looms. This time he didn't hear the welcome sound of their shuttles at work, but rather the beating of drums coming from the distant train station. Like the second hand of
a giant clock, the din reverber
ated in his chest.

It looked as though someone was waiting there beside the lattice fence just up ahead. Ah, it was the kind old man, slowly standing his hoe up, and smiling at him.

"On your way home?" the farmer greeted him.

"Oh, hello. Sorry about a while ago."