iBook Lake of Heaven 1 - BIRD LEAVING

1- BIRD LEAVING

Ohina wiped on the front of her kimono the early season persimmon she had just picked up, and bit into it. It was still bitter, as she’d suspected. Some of her teeth were still strong. A hint of sweetness trickled down the back of her throat as she munched on the unripe fruit and swallowed. Probably it would have been ripe in another few days. For a moment she hesitated. If she went ahead and ate the whole thing it might give her indigestion. And so, remembering that she still had one more left, she tossed the persimmon into the thicket of grass. As she bent over, the other persimmon rolled out of the fold in her kimono. She reached for the fruit and placed it within her sleeve so it wouldn’t slip out this time. From what she’d seen, it looked like there wouldn’t be many fallen persimmons this year. She tilted her hat back and looked up at the treetops. Since she had to squint, it was hard to tell how much fruit was up there. Three days ago a typhoon had blown through. Judging from all the broken branches that lay scattered about in the bushes, she could imagine how strong the winds must have been. So, she thought, it looks like a lot of persimmons must have rolled 1 BIRDS LEAVING 1 down to the bottom of Utazaka Hill. Ohina gazed for a while at the surface of the lake and then muttered to herself. “Where that red dragonfly just disappeared is where the old straw sandal shop used to be.” After typhoons, persimmons used to be set out in front of that sandal shop, ripening on trays. Some would still be green, while others showed some color of ripening. “They get those Utazaka persimmons for free, you know,” the villagers would note. It was said that the Utazaka persimmon tree had stood there for six hundred years. At the time of the O-bon festival the fruit sweetened up. It was such a huge tree that not many people were able to climb it. When the season came Ohina’s eldest son, Yukihito, would be called by the children. No one could blame them for taking the fruit since it came from the village’s common ground. But people warned that if you fell from the tree you could lose your life. Even though its limbs were big, their connections to the trunk were brittle, and even if you hooked a leg over a branch and hung on, the branch could snap and break. Yukihito would cling to the trunk holding on with one hand and with the other hand using a pole he’d pry off the persimmons. He managed to drop the fruit into the thicket of grass in such a way that few were bruised and he never injured himself, even once. On mornings after a typhoon the early comers could easily pick up twenty or more fallen persimmons from the broken branches strewn about. The area where they fell was so wide that some might roll all the way down the hill as far as the front of the Kannon statue. But now the statue too lies submerged beneath the water. Utazaka Hill could easily be seen from everywhere in the village. And since everything that entered the town—whether for good or for bad—came by way of Utazaka, the villagers CHAPTER 1 2 BIRDS LEAVING were in the habit of looking up to it from time to time during the day from their fields and mountain huts. When traveling entertainers came into town their arrival was soon known to all. The performers too were aware of this, and so when they reached this hill they would start dancing and playing on their samisens and hand drums as they came down into the village. And at times when the villagers sent off soldiers, people would walk along, plucking at a samisen as they went. When Ohina’s husband Tetsutaro had sent her a letter from the battlefront she had asked the postman to read it for her: This world is so incredibly huge. Unless you see it for yourself you can never imagine it. For a short while he had looked around at this world he had written about. Yet this man who had crossed over the mountain pass was never to make it home again. And Yukihito too had crossed the mountain path, never to return. For Ohina, Utazaka had become the passageway to the lost village. When she had come here three years ago, even though the mugwort and bamboo had grown up above the height of the old stone pillar of the travelers’ guardian deity, she’d still been able to see the place. But this year she was just barely able to locate it. The area had become so overgrown with kudzu vines that she couldn’t easily find the old stone figures. She was glad she’d brought along her sickle. She had bought the sickle a long time ago at the old straw sandal shop. After moving down to the outskirts of the town she hardly used it any more. There were no tools in the house her daughter Omomo had built and when Ohina had left the old village about the only thing she had taken with her was the sickle. Ohina knew better than to mention to her daughter that their house had only one window in it. “At least it doesn’t leak when it rains, and we’ve got three tatami mats, so even if Yukihito comes back we’ll still have one mat each to sleep on,” was the way Omomo spoke of it. 3 But even if it was just a cheap little plywood shack, as long as they weren’t chased away, it was theirs. Since it was on a riverbank, they didn’t have to pay rent for the land. The sickle was always hanging from the wall of the shack. Omomo, who had hardly even been able to attend school, had managed to build this little place above the river just outside of town. But there were times when Ohina would come back after trying to sell her hyakumeigan—the traditional “hundred lives tablet” medicine she made from poison snakes—and find that Omomo had locked the door from the inside and wouldn’t appear. Still sleeping, Ohina would think to herself, but she couldn’t really say much about it. “Would you bring me the sickle? The sickle. It’s hanging on the wall.” Saying this in a voice louder than usual, Ohina went around to the window that faced the river. She made tapping sounds beneath it. The shutter opened and with a thud the sickle dropped. “Some driftwood’s washed up. I’ll go and bundle it up.” With just the sickle she could go to the river and cut kindling and kudzu vines and make them into bundles. In barley and rice harvesting time she could go out and earn a living. And with her woman’s hands she could catch poison snakes. Ohina was said to be an expert at catching snakes, and yet she was still unable to earn enough to pay back the money Omomo had borrowed. Back when the old village was sunk to build the dam, the relocation settlement money had disappeared with Ohina’s eldest son Yukihito. “We’re so deep in debt we can’t even celebrate O-bon or the New Year’s festival. You can send my regards to Father at his grave.” It was these words from her daughter that had hurt Ohina the most. When Omomo saw the reaction on her mother’s face it must have made her think a bit, for this year she said to her CHAPTER 1 4 BIRDS LEAVING mother, “I can’t go myself, but since it’s been three years, I’ll buy some lanterns for the O-bon festival. If you hang them from a branch on Utazaka Hill they’ll be visible from the bottom of the lake.” In any case, she had bought three small red lanterns, of the sort children might have, to take to the graves. “The wind at the top of the hill is strong, but with this hat you should be all right.” And saying this, Omomo had given her mother a hat she’d picked up somewhere, along with the lanterns. “Well—it looks like you’ve bought me a dancer’s hat. The hat’s not bad, but with this red chin cord, won’t it make me look too young?” “It’ll be all right. Father was young when he died, wasn’t he?” Omomo had said this without cracking a smile. When Ohina realized she’d forgotten the sickle she went back to the house and found herself locked out again. She guessed there must be someone else in there with her and told herself this was probably because Omomo worked nights, but still it left her with a bad feeling. She opened the pack she’d carried on her back. Inside were some brown sugar O-bon cakes, some incense, and the paper lanterns with candles. When Omomo was a child, Ohina had always bought her one of these grave lanterns and let her take it with her when they went to visit the grave. One year Omomo had asked, “Where’s Father’s grave?” “Over there, at the bottom of the lake.” Omomo gazed into the water for a while and then looked up with a puzzled expression. Thinking back on this, she wondered if Omomo thought these children’s lanterns were the ones to be used for O-bon. In any case, they were the very cheapest of lanterns. Ohina wondered what branch to hang them from. It had to be one she could reach, but lanterns in mid-day without burning 5 candles just didn’t seem right and fretting about it left her tired out. Her waist and ankles felt strained and since they were starting to throb she lay down on the top of a bundle of grass she had cut. Soon she fell into a dream. At the bottom of the dammedup lake the petals of a weeping cherry tree were swirling about wildly—like in one of those miniature water-filled globes. And then night fell on the bottom of the lake. “You must have come from Oki no Miya, the Palace of the Sea. It must be a very long way from here.” When Ohina said this, the weeping cherry just stood there and shook its countless branches, setting loose a flurry of petals all around. “It must be painful, not being able to say anything.” Ohina started to speak again, but she too became sad and looked as if she was on the verge of tears. Then, distinctly she heard the voice of Omomo ask, “How can I get to Oki no Miya? I can’t find the way through the thick concrete of the dam. Come, show me.” At that point her breast heaved and she woke up. Her hands, legs, back, and all her muscles hurt. Beside her was a sarusuberi tree, its branches smooth and slippery. Still hazy from sleep, Ohina blinked her eyes open. Grabbing on to a branch and pulling herself up she muttered, “I wish this water would dry up. If it were gone I could see the original pathways.” At the bottom of the lake, the large rounded shape of a hill was dimly visible. Along it some big pagoda trees, chestnut trees, and hemlocks were standing in the water, all bared of their leaves. Why was it that in my dream I saw that weeping cherry tree with its petals swirling about in the water? It wasn’t one of those scene-in-a-bottle toys they used to sell to children at the nighttime stands in town. That ancient weeping cherry from Oki no Miya had become the tree whose petals were swirling about in the water. If possible, Ohina wished she could have CHAPTER 1 6 BIRDS LEAVING shown the townspeople the old cherry she had just seen—but she had just heard Omomo say that the road to Oki no Miya had become lost. No doubt even now that sacred old cherry tree still exists in the world of Amazoko Village, but it must have come on hard times since it was sunk to the bottom of the lake. Every year the villagers used to watch it blossom. But just now, I was the only one who saw it—alone, without a witness. It looks like the spirit of this cherry tree has come to depend on me, showing itself in the water like it’s squeezing its body and spirit together and trying to say something. The little sarusuberi tree shook when Ohina grabbed it to pull herself up. It looked as if thin petals were fluttering gently toward her from the tips of the branches, carried along by the river breeze blowing up from the base of the dam. She was overcome with a strange unfathomable sorrow mixed with anger. It left her feeling as if her hair was standing up and streaming wildly in the wind—if someone should see me now they’d probably run away in fright, taking me for an avenging ghost or some such creature. Her hands trembling, Ohina stroked her breast to calm herself. Then, clutching at a branch of the tree, she sat down and soon drifted off into sleep again. The next thing she knew, she was crawling along the shore of the lake and sniffing at the mirrored surface of the water. The water had a hard taste. You couldn’t call it the taste of fresh water. Neither the land of the mountains, nor the roots of the trees, nor the water, nor the sunken village had been properly mixed yet. But it was no use fretting about this now; she had come to visit the grave. Remembering this, her first thought was to pour some water on the gravestone. And so, with both hands she stroked the water of the lake and reached toward the bottom. Respectfully, she repeated this motion three times. 7 Gazing into the depths of the water, she saw a mound of earth from the mountains gathering up and spreading out, supporting a thicket of wild grapes. Visions of piles of rotting leaves with white fungus glared out at her like successive images cast upon a screen in the back of her eyelids. The smells of mushrooms filled her nose. Wild young monkeys pranced about on piles of decaying leaves and dirt. Without a sound, they danced nimbly about the saseppo and tabi trees and bit into the small fruit from the trees, staring into Ohina’s eyes from time to time. Their eyes looked innocent to Ohina, as if they were drunk on liquor. How lovely. She realized she was being revived, little by little. From deep in her heart a sinking voice called out. For the weeping cherry of Amazoko to return to life, these water jugs must dry up completely once, and the ground must become dry and smooth. And the birds must carry seeds and drop them there. And the gentle rains of the most ancient of times must fall like the rains of the Tanabata festival on even the people who cannot hear the voices of the rains. And the buds of grasses and trees must push their way out like the first sprouts that came into the world. As she listened to this inner voice, Ohina saw her own face sinking into the depths of the water along with the fallen leaves. How strange. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror in ages. Now, with the red cord tied on her hat, it seemed rather embarrassing. Years ago when I was young there was a night I danced with a hat like this covering my face. It was in a garden, after a funeral. I danced barefoot with all my heart to the voices of the men as they sang. After funerals families would put out five different kinds of liquor and, little by little, they’d serve it to the dancers. There was wild grape wine and chestnut sake, and kuma shochu, and the red peach wine that’s made in the rainy CHAPTER 1 8 BIRDS LEAVING season. And there was apricot wine too. “Those are wines for the deceased—so drink it little by little.” And so, drinking like that, it was as if the body had slipped away from itself and become spirit, and as if this world and the world beyond had become one. And the lanterns were so beautiful. Where has all of this gone now? Ohina tried waving her sleeve in the motion of the dance. A small leaf of bush clover fluttered down on her white O-bon yukata robe. In the water it looked as if a red newt were slowly waving its body about. An illusion of the eyes, it was actually her chinstrap, moving as she talked to herself. For a moment Ohina felt as if she were crawling toward the bottom of the water where Amazoko lay. The vision of the red newt was already leading Ohina on. At the back of the old Silk Estate there was a stream that flowed from a well. Ohina had been about sixteen years old when she was first employed in the service of that household. She had no mirror of her own. When she washed rice she would use the water as a mirror in combing her hair. A newt was always there, showing its red belly, crawling slowly along the wall and walking through the water. One afternoon while she was putting up her hair there had appeared, reflected from behind, the face of Masahito, the eldest son of the household. Startled, she turned around and when she saw his long legs there so close to her she had dropped the comb from her hand and it fell into the water. With his legs straddled over her, Masahito had picked up the comb floating in the stream and wiped it off on the knee of his pants. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Did I surprise you? Could I have some water?” he asked, and then handed the comb back. If he’d needed water, there was a dipper on the edge of the well right behind him. Anyone could drink from it at any time. And after all, it was the well at Masahito’s own home, wasn’t 9 it? Why then, just at that time, did he ask me to give him some water? He was four years older than I and was going to school off in Kumamoto, so he only got back at times such as when the peach trees were in blossom, or during the O-bon Festival. Probably that time they met had been during his spring vacation. His pants had been black. That was long, long ago. “Excuse me ma’am. Hello . . .” To Ohina’s surprise, a voice called out to her from behind. She had been so absorbed in her thoughts while gazing into the water that when she tried to rise she cried out “ouch!” from the pain in her knees and paused halfway, bent over. A young man was standing there holding some pinks and jorobana flowers. He was wearing a straw hat and carrying something on his back. “Sorry. I guess I surprised you.” It was a young voice. In the backlighting it was hard to make out the face. The young man took off his hat, lowered his head, and wiped off the sweat with a handkerchief. “Hey—you startled me.” Ohina cut her words short and scrutinized him carefully. Then, after a pause, she asked in a husky voice, “Could it possibly be? No, it couldn’t. And yet . . . Masahito? Why yes, it’s Masahito after all.” The young man’s face expressed surprise, yet he smiled with pleasure. “Excuse me ma’am, Masahito was my grandfather. I’m his grandson.” Ohina caught her breath. “Masahito—your grandfather? . . . But yes, your voice is similar too.” Ohina had been standing in the water when she said this, but then she got out, reached out a hand, and looked for a tree CHAPTER 1 1 0 BIRDS LEAVING to hold on to. The young man pointed toward the lake and asked, “Are you from this village? Did you know Masahito?” A strong smell of grasses filled the air. Perhaps stopping some train of thought, Ohina gave her head a shake. “When I saw you there it looked as if some pilgrim was drowning herself in the lake. I was worried. I’ve been watching you for a while.” Ohina now noticed the flowers for O-bon he was holding. “Did you, by chance, come to visit a grave yourself?” “Yes. Today is the sixteenth. I finally made it here.” When it had been decided that the village was to be flooded in order to make a dam, there had been three families who hadn’t been able to dig up their graves and move them. Ohina was a widow and she had known that her family had no savings. When they received the relocation compensation payment from the government, the money was swindled from her eldest son Yukihito by a certain merchant who often came to the village, and so she’d ended up without even a new address to move to. When the other villagers heard that she couldn’t even afford to move the graves they had sighed with regret, but they too had no money to spare. And there were a number of rumors about what had happened to the Silk Estate. One story had it that the relatives of Masahito’s stepmother had split up the settlement money amongst themselves. Another was that Masahito had sunk all of his fortune into investments in Osaka and when this had failed he had tried to break up the old estate of 300 years standing and sell it off to the people in town who had some money but had been unable to find buyers. “Masahito’s grandson! Yume no gotaru!—it’s like a dream!” exclaimed Ohina. Gotaru, gotaru, as Grandfather used to say too, he thought. Remembering, the young man rather endearingly laughed aloud. 1 1 “Ah—just like Masahito!” The young man could see Ohina’s mouth moving, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He felt as if he were looking at one of those women from the old days he’d seen in the illustrations in old novels—a woman wearing a hat, looking off into the distance—and yet she was just an old country woman. I thought she was about to drown herself, but I guess I was jumping to conclusions—he thought to himself. n A crimson column of dragonflies, looking as if it had been sucked out into the middle of the lake, floated back into sight and drifted between the two people like shimmering water. Kneeling, Ohina grabbed a thin branch of the sarusuberi tree, raised her heavy eyelids, and looked up at the young man. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up, she spoke. “So Masahito too has come back to Utazaka.” “Masahito’s my grandfather—my grandfather.” Since he was speaking to an older person, he repeated the same words slowly. “Ah, your grandfather . . . So you made it here on the sixteenth day of O-bon. Good things always come in by way of Utazaka Hill.” The young man had begun to think this old woman was somewhat strange, but he recalled having heard of Utazaka. His grandfather had spoken of it from time to time. “Now it’s at the bottom of the lake, but if you look down from the top of Utazaka Hill you can see the weeping cherry tree of Oki no Miya. You’ll never find a cherry like that in Tokyo. When it’s in full blossom, even if there’s no moon, its flowers are still bright. It’s the marker of the village. Poor wayfarers often used to come here as a place to die. Beneath that CHAPTER 1 1 2 BIRDS LEAVING cherry there’s a spring-fed stream that’s good for sending off dead souls. It was a village where beggars and down-and-out folks often came. You could say those folks were also guests of the village.” Fondly, Masahiko’s grandfather had told him stories of how the village children had gotten on with those poor visitors. Likely his grandfather too had hoped to return in his last years to this “village where beggars often come.” “So this is Utazaka Hill?” “Right. The slope of Utazaka runs from here down into the water. And from where you’re standing now, look, behind you there’s a big persimmon tree, isn’t there? The fruit is already ripening.” Saying this, Ohina rummaged about in the sleeve of her kimono. “Hmm, I picked one up and put it in here a while ago— where could it have gone? Did it roll down the hill? I bet it would have been a sweet one too.” Muttering pitifully to herself, she glanced at the young man. The bottom of her yukata sleeve was wet. A while back when she had been reaching into the water and gotten her sleeves soaked he had mistaken her for someone trying to drown herself in the lake. Perhaps looking for the persimmon she had dropped, Ohina stared for a while at the bottom of the water. Then, perhaps remembering what she had been asked, she shook the branch of the sarusuberi tree covered with red flowers. Finally, she pointed with a finger of her free hand. “From below where you’re standing now the hill continues on down into the water. You see?—all the way down there. And can you see how, in the deep part, there’s a bent-over tree, and how the slope also bends there? That sunken roadway is where Utazaka begins. You haven’t forgotten, have you? Well, you 1 3 haven’t been back for a long while. It’s changed a lot, don’t you think? It’s been many years since it was flooded.” The young man didn’t quite know what to think, being asked if he had forgotten the road to the village. He’d come here looking for the place called Utazaka and had met this old woman who seemed to be from the old village. So as not to be mistaken for his grandfather, he said his name. “Ah, excuse me ma’am.” “Yes?” “My name is Masahiko.” “What?—Masahiko? You mean to tell me you’re not Masahito?” “No, I’m not Masahito. I’m his grandson, Masahiko.” “Masahiko, is it? Well, you shouldn’t try to deceive people about names. That guy who ran off with the compensation money, he used a fake name.” Masahiko guessed that this settlement money probably referred to money given out when the town was flooded. He had heard that his grandfather had also had a long, difficult time about it. But that was long before he was born. “Since the old times they’ve always said you have to be careful about Utazaka. All sorts of creatures are there to bewitch you. And where did you say you come from?” “I’m from Tokyo. Tokyo.” “Hmm. You look just like Masahito. Maybe you’re one of those black badgers from Jogahara—taking me for a lone woman up here.” “Please ma’am.” “Ah, that’s right, Jogahara is also on the bottom of the lake now. You must have been lonely and wanted to see some humans again. Up from the bottom of the lake.” “Up from the bottom of the lake? Me—a black badger?” The two stared at each other for a while. Then, his eyes expressing delight, Masahiko looked up and tossed the pinks and CHAPTER 1 1 4 BIRDS LEAVING jorobana flowers into the air. The wildflowers, like golden grains of millet, scattered their pollen in the air, painting an arc across the surface of the water as they fell. “Well all right then—let’s suppose I am a badger from Jogahara, then what’re you going to do?” Quietly, Ohina drew the paper bag of O-bon sweets toward her and groped about with her hand, searching for the sickle. A while ago, after she had cut and cleared the bramble thicket she had hung the sickle on the toge tree—but just where it was she’d put it, she couldn’t quite recall. Her face took on a puzzled expression—like that of a monkey separated from its band. “You know, I’ve heard of Jogahara. My grandfather told me that in summer it used to be filled with day lilies in bloom. If you don’t mind, could I ask how you know Masahito?” “How? Well, I used to be in service at the old estate. And Masahiko, is he getting along well?” “My grandfather . . . well, actually, he died. It was last year, after the O-bon festival.” Ohina raised her hand that had been searching through the grass. She reached for the sky as if trying to grasp for a time that had vanished. “So then, it’s as I thought. I suspected I’d never get to see him again. It’s just as I expected.” The hat tipped forward, hiding her face. Behind her the leaves of a dense thicket of kudzu vines were trembling along with the motion of her hat. Masahiko stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, watching the old woman, a stranger, who had dropped down overcome in the thicket of grass. He’d met her at the top of the mountain by the lake and while they had barely exchanged names, all of a sudden she had confounded him by calling him a badger. After all this was the real countryside—in the midst of a living folk tale. But to think that the old woman would suddenly begin to weep. He found himself at a loss. 1 5 When Masahiko had finally reached the old roadway along Utazaka that formed the entrance to Amazoko—the village his grandfather had so often spoken of—he found a lake spread out about a dam, just as it had been described. Someone had already arrived. It had appeared to be a woman. Wearing a white robe and a hat, she was standing at the water’s edge, staring downward. At first, seen from a distance, it had looked as if she might be a water bird, a part of the landscape, with the pale green lake silently reflecting the shadows of the surrounding mountains. Masahiko had heard that the villages of Amazoko and Tsukikage had both been flooded. He had noticed some small schools of fish swimming about. “Look—the fish out there,” he’d called out. When he thought about it, he realized it shouldn’t be so unusual to see fish. He wondered if the yamame and other fish ever swam down to the lower currents around the base of the dam. On the bottom, where shadows of fish were moving about, he could still see the land’s surface all covered with stillstanding trees, and the stone walls of the terraced hillside farm plots, and the faint traces of their pathways. It looked like the remains of a village. “So the sunken village has become the home of the fish,” Masahiko muttered to himself again. A strange sort of image had filled his mind: If I were to look upward from the pathways along the edges of the fields that now lie at the bottom of the lake, the fish would be swimming up in the sky along with the dragonflies. I’d be like a sea ray, swimming along the mountainside. The feeling was as if he had been suddenly upended from his normal position of standing on the ground and left hanging upside down with his thoughts all reeling about. He wondered if the spirits—the spirits of those who had been unwillingly taken from this village—weren’t also in such a state. CHAPTER 1 1 6 BIRDS LEAVING A heaviness filled his heart, leaving him somewhat ill at ease. And then—just when he had started wishing someone else were there—a woman wearing a hat of the sort seen only in historical dramas had appeared, bent over and advancing into the water. Without thinking, he had called out. After a closer look, he had realized that she wasn’t a young girl. And it had seemed just as well, for it would have been a bit too much if, on his way to see the village at the bottom of the lake, he had just happened to chance upon a young girl. Instead, it had turned out to be an old woman, the likes of which he’d never seen in Tokyo. Nonetheless, it had left him with a certain sense of premonition. “I really don’t know anything at all about my grandfather’s village, or about the, er, old estate. You say you were employed in the service of my family. Well . . . thank you.” Masahiko felt he wasn’t coming up with quite the right words, but seeing Ohina in such a state he thought he should try to say something to console her. “After all, that was before I was born. Before I was either shadow or shape.” The words “either shadow or shape” seemed to soothe Ohina a bit, and her heaving began to subside. Masahiko continued, “But these days, isn’t it a bit too formal to say in service? May I ask how old you were then?” “From sixteen to twenty-one.” “I see. And your name is—?” “Ohina.” “Ohina-san . . . The village of Amazoko must be near here, isn’t it?” While he was pointing with his finger in questioning her, Ohina pressed her reddening eyes, and nodded. “I’ve heard there’s a graveyard. Do you know in which direction?” 1 7 He couldn’t bring himself to ask her where the old household had been. He was afraid that he would be assaulted by an unexpected wave of emotion. Her finger trembling, she pointed in the direction of the opposite bank. Masahiko rubbed his eyes—it looked as if the trees along the bottom were swaying. There couldn’t have been any wind blowing them at the bottom of the lake. It seemed it must have been he himself who was shaking. It was as if the time that had been stolen away was now rising up from the bottom of the lake and entwining itself around these two people. Leaves of pampas grass not yet come into seed were faintly rubbing against each other. “There. Over there. There’s no bridge, so we can’t get there.” “A bridge? . . . Wouldn’t it be hard to have a bridge with such a large dam?” “No, no, I don’t mean a bridge like that.” Ohina lifted her hat and shook her head firmly. She held back her running nose with her sleeve and fretted. “In the r—river. There was a bridge over the river. But since the bridge was taken out there’s been no way to get there.” “So you’re saying there used to be a bridge over a river? Whereabouts was it—that river? Do you remember?” With her back bent over and looking infirm, Ohina grabbed on to the sarusuberi tree and pulled herself upright. “There’s a ginkgo tree. Over there. It was the tree of the gods. The ginkgo tree is still there, watching over the graves. Can you see the graves of your family beneath it? I haven’t been able to see them since they were flooded by the lake. All I can see is the ginkgo. I always leave some incense for them up here. That’s no ordinary tree. It’s so big that even six adults with their hands joined couldn’t reach around it. Now it’s all bent over. That sacred tree has grown old in the depths of the water. And I’ve grown old as well.” CHAPTER 1 1 8 BIRDS LEAVING And in saying this, Ohina bent over too. “In the spring it was the weeping cherry of Oki no Miya. In autumn it was the great ginkgo of Kodenbara. These were the trees of the gods, and the trees that were the markers of Amazoko village. It won’t be long now before the leaves change colors. When that tree in the middle of the valley changed color, people realized how special the village was. You won’t find a ginkgo like that anywhere else. From here on Utazaka Hill you could get a good view of it, all lit up in yellow. And when it turned completely yellow and its leaves swirled around through the center of the valley it was the most wonderful sight in the entire world. When the sun went down and the world darkened all around, all that remained was the silent dancing of the great ginkgo of Kodenbara. There was one time I happened to meet Masahito by the graves beneath that ginkgo tree . . .” Ohina bit her lip, stared into the bottom of the lake, and then fell into a silence. Her disheveled hair was sticking out from beneath her hat. Her hair was black. Omomo had spoken to her about this before Ohina set out to climb up here. “If you’re going to visit the graves for O-bon, why don’t you dye your hair? You never know who you’re going to run into from the old village.” If you look too old you get depressed, so you better make yourself a little younger, Omomo always said. No doubt that was why Omomo had gone to the trouble of buying her a hat with a red cord. Back when she had been drinking the water at the lake, her chin had gotten wet and the red cord had tightened up on her and begun to itch. She had tied the cord tightly to keep the hat from blowing off, but now the tightness made it uncomfortable to speak. Realizing that her fingers were trembling, she untied the cord and wiped the sweat from her hair. It made the 1 9 top of her head refreshingly cooler. And for some reason, when she took off the hat, suddenly she felt closer to this young man who had called himself the grandson of Masahito. It seemed the sky had grown wider. Ohina looked to Masahiko with deep modesty and bowed formally. The young man’s eyes expressed affection as he looked at her. And as if breathing a sigh of relief he took off the cloth bag he had been carrying on his back and placed it on the grass. My goodness, that must be a biwa lute—thought Ohina when she saw the bag. Stretched along the bottom of the lake was a village roadway that appeared like a long scratch. No doubt even now the river was still flowing alongside that roadway. Ohina had said you couldn’t get to the graveyard unless you crossed over the river. But he thought that if he were to go down the cliff on the opposite bank the graveyard might be nearby. He imagined there would be a steep cliff. It looked as if the dam was surrounded by mountains. The lake was much larger than he had imagined. All the places his grandfather had told him about—the Hall of Kannon, the monkey seat rock, and Oki no Miya shrine—he wondered where they were now, submerged in the lake. Only the trees were still visible at the bottom, indicating the remains of the village. Masahiko was overcome with sadness. He had never expected such emotion. His grandfather had said to him, “We can’t get to the graves of our ancestors any more. They’re at the bottom of the lake now. When I die, I want you to scatter the ashes of my bones on the water around the dam.” That would mean for him to scatter the ashes on this lake, which had now become the sky above the village. The ashes would then settle and land on the ground of the village, or on the graveyard, and they would look up at the sky of the water’s surface. Could ashes become spirit? Facing the ashes of the bones he’d carried on his back, he called out— CHAPTER 1 2 0 BIRDS LEAVING “Grandfather, I have a feeling some strange things are going to happen.” On his back he had also carried the biwa that had been his grandfather’s favorite. At his grandfather’s old home there had been a number of very old mulberry trees. The mulberries had led to its being named the Silk Estate. Before the village was flooded, his grandfather had ordered a craftsman from Fukuoka to make him a biwa using the wood from one of those mulberry trees. “You can’t find top quality mulberry wood like this any more,” the maker had said, “It’ll give you a superb tone.” A biwa player himself, he had been very pleased about it. Masahiko had made a stop in Fukuoka to get new strings and had put them in his rucksack along with the container that held the bone ashes. Cutting through a valley of rice, its ears starting to form, he then climbed the mountain path toward Utazaka, passing through bush clover just coming into bud and through countless day lilies in full bloom. The thought of scattering the ashes on the lake hadn’t been disagreeable. The old household, with all its traditions and its tales of the countryside, had sunk beneath the water. Masahiko, who shared that family blood too, although he was a young man from Tokyo, had come to make his farewell. As a parting ceremony he had planned to scatter his grandfather’s ashes on the deserted lake at the beginning of autumn, with the sun going down. The idea of playing something on the biwa to remember his grandfather had pleased him. His grandfather had often played a selection he’d learned somewhere from the Tale of the Heike. Though it was a rather ordinary sort of piece, now that his grandfather was gone it remained in his ears as the most treasured of sounds. He had been entertaining a thought for a while—why don’t I play something for him? I have an idea for a piece I’d like to 2 1 work up for a concert. Before I go back I’ll try to finish this one piece for him, here on the banks of the lake around Yukari Dam; the dam that was so fateful for his life—but although this was the sort of trip he had imagined, all kinds of unanticipated thoughts were starting to well up inside him. n As he watched, thinking there was a stirring half way up the mountainside, all at once the trees started to bare the undersides of their leaves—the winds are at play! This was his first time to see mountains sway in such a manner. From time to time the surface of the water heaved and rose up like a living being as the feet of the wind buffeted the wide expanse of the lake. Along the shore with the waving of reeds and grasses a fragrance rose, whether from the smell of the water or of the mountains. Masahiko took a fresh look around, wondering at the kind of place where his grandfather had grown up. All the frenzied noises of the city had ceased in him—all the frantic grating sounds of automobiles, the screeching of brakes and the jarring noises of the opening and slamming of shutters that had been so deeply imbedded in the marrow of his bones. The ceaseless digging and filling and the tearing down of things had gone. What sort of world was that? Could it be I’ve somehow been carried away like a rocket, using the energy from the clamor of the giant city, and given a soft landing here? All about his body lingering reverberations of air currents were still whispering faintly. Perhaps, he thought, my grandfather Masahito’s strange words and ways have given me the thrust to get here. In his later years Masahito was said to have become a rather reserved and strange old man. One afternoon the woman at CHAPTER 1 2 2 BIRDS LEAVING the public bath had mentioned to Masahiko casually, “Don’t you think your grandfather has gotten a bit weak up here?” The elderly woman had pointed to her head with a sympathetic smile. “Since he’s old it’s understandable but, you know, he doesn’t wear his kimono properly, and he whispers in my ear. He rambles on about how we have to disband the Imperial Guards. Once he asked me, glaring at me as he stood in front of the mirror, ‘What d’you think of the Imperial Guards?’” His family too had begun to wonder if he might not be getting a bit senile, but this behavior at the bath house had been a sign that from then on there could be no telling what sort of problems he might cause for those around him. But in spite of the fact that they had a Western style bathtub in their house— where Masahiko’s mother could bathe in soap bubbles as she liked—Grandfather and the men in the family still liked to go to the public bath. Finally, when it had come to having Masahito put into a mental institution in the suburbs, in the car as they were taking him there Masahiko had clearly seen the extent of his grandfather’s condition. As soon as they got onto the Route 7 Expressway, Masahito had obviously begun to get frightened. “Masahiko—the tanks! You hear them, don’t you—the ground’s rumbling? It’s a whole corps of tanks. The enemy fleet’s filling the bay off beyond Kanagawa. The capital will be completely surrounded! You hear it don’t you Masahiko?” His eyes filled with despair, Masahito had pointed ahead and thrust his body forward on the car seat. But after a moment he sealed his lips and just looked sadly at Masahiko. “Grandfather, I know it’s an awful noise, but it’s just the normal sound of cars. I can imagine it’s like the sound of tanks though.” “It must be the old days he’s thinking of. He keeps going on about an enemy fleet.”