The Plum Rains and Other Stories (17 page)

The widow looked up from feeding the flames heating her wax pot.

It was the shape of him blocking the doorway that terrified her; and in a gesture of reassurance, Jirobei sank down into a squat, his fat red thighs spreading apart as he levered up his
immense
badger-belly and rolled it forward.

You have perhaps misunderstood the nature of mourning, Jirobei said. Forty-seven days are required. Nothing more.

It's not for you to decide…

Jirobei said nothing; his eyes narrowed to slits then he said: Please. Dip your candles. Add the next layer.

The widow's hands trembled as she lowered her candles into the bubbling wax pot, holding them there then lifting them straight up to form the fresh layer evenly.

Well. Then. A woman's husband dies. She feels lost,
abandoned.
Some men might try to take advantage of such a
situation
.
To neglect to do so might even seem like an anomaly to them. Jirobei savoured the elegant word on his mutilated lips, and he pronounced it again with exaggerated care: An anomaly.

You're no man.

Jirobei smiled at her crookedly. That layer is now dry.

A foul creature like you is not allowed…

That layer is dry. Dip your candles.

The widow did as she was told. But she also began to
describe
aspects of her husband's character she thought
exculpatory.
Good deeds. Thoughtful remarks. Simple observations
others
had found useful. Poignant moments shared. Gifts. Alms. Insights on the true nature of things…

He was a criminal.

The widow defended the conventions of the connubial quilts. She described the pleasure of snuggling close together during the frigid dawns of winter and that of sprawling naked and exposed in the hot darkness of a summer night…

A criminal, Jirobei said again, his voice like that of a man calling into a room he's not sure is really empty; and he rose to his feet, the monstrous shape of him blocking the entryway even as he held himself scrupulously outside the shed. And you aren't. But can that mean you believe you won't also suffer?

N
O RAIN FELL
.

Dung from dogs and dray beasts dried in the sun and rose in billowing clouds of faecal dust that settled over the city in a foul yellow miasma. It was an awful season, a time for recriminations and regrets. Residents ventured outdoors with dampened cloths wound around their faces, leaving only narrow slits for their eyes. People coughed continuously; skin lesions wouldn't heal. Duties were neglected, punishments cancelled, celebrations
allowed
to wither into insignificance. Drought led to contagion;
the ill groaned in their quilts; and at the height of the worst of it, the arsonist's widow abandoned her home and fled west.

Jirobei went after her. He wore only a cuirass of his own manufacture, an imbrication of pink and purple leather strips studded with steel rivets and laced together with scarlet cords, the monstrous expanse of it curving out over the swollen bag of his badger-belly. As he walked, the pair of skirt flaps attached to the groin band of his cuirass swung apart, revealing flashes of his loincloth with the pucker of his small penis tucked inside, for
Jirobei
enjoyed the reluctance felt by those whom he encountered to acknowledge in any way the diminutive size of this organ.

The carry-sack slung over Jirobei's shoulder held bladed tools. Extra rice-straw sandals were attached to the groin-band of his cuirass. A water gourd also hung there, as did a slash knife removed from the hand of a man about to die. You won't need it, he'd told him. Others do the cutting in hell. Inside Jirobei's carry-sack was a large flask of camellia oil for his hair, the
excessive
potency of which he alone seemed not to find cloying. A leather pouch contained various small items for personal use: an ear spoon and a cosmetic tweezers, pinch-scissors and a face razor and a needle. He had a focusing lens, a few sea-urchin spines still tipped with sufficient toxins, a claw-hook useful for working in tight spaces or doing impromptu dentistry, a shard of obsidian glass sharper than any knife, and a flint and steel for starting cloudy-day pyres.

Jirobei had also developed an appreciation of beauty, and he carried a collection of pretty seashells, a few loose amber beads and bits of orange coral drilled for stringing, and a selection of cloisonné trinkets. Kept separately were a pair of lead bullets that he'd dug out of his own flesh himself and retained in
commemoration
of the accomplishment. He had a double-handful of keepsake teeth, strips of dried skin he'd configured into
ornamental
knots, and the lacquered skull of a shrew-mole that had
been decorated with archaic and mysterious glyphs for which he hoped one day to find a reader.

The under-constable at Shinjuku New Station watched
Jirobei's
approach. He knew what he was, and he hated seeing him. He hated the massive belly shamelessly flaunted, hated the naked arms and shoulders and buttocks and thighs, hated the flat red face with its awful scarring; but most loathsome was the pariah's flamboyant hairstyle, the great folded excrescence of night-berry blackness grossly oiled and configured into an exaggerated display never seen before.

You're not permitted to stop here. The under-constable
carried
a stabbing spear, and he held it at a provocative angle. Not to eat nor to rest. And certainly not to sleep overnight.

Jirobei halted in front of him. Each of the choppers and slicers in his carry-sack had been seated in a hemp-cloth pouch to muffle the rattle of metal against metal.

I seldom sleep much, Jirobei said, forming his words with care. But I always sleep well.

Journeys to the western mountain circuit started at
Shinjuku
New Station. Cheap inns and noodle stalls lined the road, as did the dray stables and brothels intended for the convenience of those heading out of the shogun's city. Carters and palanquin bearers sprawled at their ease on roadside benches, or squatted near the metal-smith's forge, drawn by the male fondness for watching others work; while from the windows of wineshops, pleasure girls with loose sashes and blackened teeth offered
salacious
observations, claimed improbable kinships, and called out promises and prices, not all of which were credible.

I respect the law, Jirobei said. And I acknowledge the
requirements
of those who administer it.

There had been a carp pond at Shinjuku New Station once. Hopeful persons had stocked it with fry in expectation of an effortless profit; but the pond had become choked with
water-weeds
,
the young fish had died, and now all that remained was a mud puddle clotted with reeds, home to frogs and the snakes that hunted them.

A woman passed through here two days ago, Jirobei said. Travelling alone. Did she hire a palanquin for her journey?

What woman?

Jirobei shifted his carry-sack to the other shoulder. A widow who is travelling alone.

The dried reeds could have been collected and woven into the tough sheets used to surface tatami mats. But the
disappointed
fish-farmers didn't harvest them, and the reeds grew to the edge of the roadway and collapsed under the accumulation of their own weight.

No woman fit for you came this way.

Insects rose out of the tangled reeds and danced in the slanting orange afternoon light.

You don't understand, Jirobei said. He crossed over to the smith's furnace. The men lounging there came to their feet and backed away with the awkward uncertainty of disturbed sheep.

Jirobei stood looking at the fire. Because you don't know me, he said. Then he thrust one hand into the tossing flames at the forge mouth, and he held it there and held it there then removed it.

The smith recoiled as if he himself had been burned, and the carters and draymen adopted the worried solemnity of men who may have to defend suppositions they no longer trusted.

You can live three ways, Jirobei said.

He held up his thick red hand, as if to confirm the linkage between what he did and what he experienced as being done.

You can be told of a thing like a flame and recognise what the words mean, how they fit together, and so use your
understanding
as a guide. This is called the way of the learner of easy
lessons. Such a person knows how to describe fire, but nothing more.

Or you can stand close to a flame and observe it with your own eyes. Study its colour, its urgency, the heat it provides, the shapeless shape of its wavering. This is the way of the satisfied seeker. He can use flames but will never himself become part of any fire.

But then there's the third way. My way. To reach out and be burned by it. And only if you accept this third way can you understand the true soul of a flame. My way is the way of the traveller who always arrives. Always.

Arrives? Arrives? The under-constable's voice cracked like a duck pelted by gravel. You aren't even allowed to be here!

Jirobei came back into the road. He stopped in front of him, and the under-constable adopted a defensive crouch, his jaw working like that of a masticator struggling with a tough bit of gristle.

You're afraid, Jirobei said. But you should understand that if I'd decided to harm you, it would have happened already.

The under-constable opened his mouth to speak but no sound emerged.

You could be lying here dead on this dirt right now, Jirobei said. Your throat crushed. Your neck broken. Your head twisted off like a chrysanthemum bud. But perhaps I've said enough. Perhaps I don't need to say more.

The under-constable's shoulders were beginning to sag. She was on foot, he said.

Which road did she take?

The mountain road.

Jirobei lifted the stabbing spear out of his hands. He
examined
the shaft, the socket collar, the shiny steel blade, then gave it back to him. Do you have a wife? Compliment her when you get home. Touch her cheek. Praise her hair. Are you the father of
a child? If so, then cuddle it tonight. Sing to it. And if your aged parents are still with you, ask them about their lives and listen to what they say, really listen. And be satisfied.

Jirobei stood with the under-constable for a moment longer then continued on through the hamlet and out onto the road west.

L
OW CLOUDS CROWDED DOWN
over Little Grebe Lake,
erasing
the tops of the surrounding mountains. The few passengers huddled in the ferry shelter stared glumly at the falling rain. We don't cross in bad weather, said the senior ferryman, but an oar boy who had not yet made a trip that day agreed to take the arsonist's widow in a small skiff.

Faster because lighter, the boy declared. He pushed them out through the weedy shallows then applied himself to the stern oar, the thrust and pull action weaving a foam trail on the surface of the water. Some people are afraid to go out on lakes during storms, he said. Particularly if they are unable to swim.

The widow sat huddled within an oiled-paper rain cape, gripping the gunwales with both hands. I'm unable to swim, she said.

As am I, said the oar boy. All the more reason to get across quickly.

But the wind rose up on its hind legs, and a pelting rain soon came striding down on them in sweeping grey sheets.

Probably it's not as bad as it could be, said the oar boy.

The skiff lifted and plunged and slapped against tossing waves, and the widow had the taste on her lips of both lake water and rain.

No standing up! The boy was struggling to maintain a steady rhythm with his stern oar. No sudden moves!

The widow had no intention of moving at all. She peered ahead through the murky wash of lake rain but could no longer
see the far shore; and when she turned to look behind her, the shore they had left was also obscured by low clouds.

Rain at sea is said to be much worse than lake rain, said the oar boy. So I guess there's some comfort in that.

All around them the lake reared up into hills of water that dropped away, departing waves re-arriving, collapsing troughs splashing onto heaving surges as the sky's rain pounded down onto the lake's discontent, stirring up the wrath of water dragons that had begun coursing just beneath the surface in a braided frenzy of undulation.

The boy clung to his stern oar with both arms, the blade breaking free in wave troughs and flailing uselessly. Probably it will blow over soon, he shouted to his passenger. Probably we've endured the worst of it. But he was less propelling the skiff
forward
than trying to avoid falling out of it.

The lake shuddered again and threw them sideways, and the skiff yawed to the point of capsizing. The sky burst open in a rage of silver needles splintering downwards, and the slashing rain took on the scent of the bellies of the dragons that went roaring in the sky too so that the widow could only stare in wonder at the world tearing itself apart all around them.

Water crashed over the gunwales with each wave crest now. The widow took up the woven palm-leaf water scoop and began bailing. Is this right? She looked back to discover the boy
squatting
on his haunches and fearfully gripping the gunwales, the stern oar torn from its mounting cleat and washed away.

The skiff lurched and wallowed. Bright teeth ripped open the low sky, and the heaving slopes of lake water blazed and crashed together like immense knuckles and elbows. Can't you help? the widow cried. Waves splashed in faster than she could manage. The binding edge of her water scoop failed, and the thing unravelled in her hands. She flung the useless wad of palm strips over the side only to have the next wave hurl it back in
on her again. The widow looked around to find something else to bail with then tore off her travel hat and began scooping out water, her face lashed with blinding rain, her hair soaked; and she was still digging like a madwoman emptying water out of a fresh grave when the skiff shuddered against a mud bank and lolled off to one side.